Abstract
The formation of Eastern Europe, the region we recognize today on account of its distinctive mix of characteristics, began after the year 330 when Constantine the Great, unifier of the Roman Empire and the first Emperor to embrace Christianity, inaugurated ‘New Rome’ (also called Byzantium and Constantinople) as the new imperial capital.
Every people has different customs, laws and institutions, and should consolidate those things which are proper to it … for the fusion of its life.
Constantine VII, tenth-century Emperor
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
See A.H.M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 2 vols (Oxford, 1964); G. Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, (Oxford, 1980); also S. Runciman, Byzantine Civilization (London, 1961). A useful introduction is P. Whitting, (ed.) Byzantium (Oxford, 1981).
On Pliska, R. Browning, Byzantium & Bulgaria (London, 1975); on the relevance of the Sarkel digs, A. Bartha, Hungarian Society in the 9th and 10th Centuries (Budapest, 1975) pp. 12–15 and n. 50, p. 33.
See M. Gimbutas, The Slavs (London, 1971) especially pp. 80–97 and 109–30.
M.W. Thompson, Novgorod the Great: Excavations at the Medieval City (New York, 1967); A. Mongait, Archaeology in the USSR (Gloucester, Massachusetts, 1970).
E.g., Bartha, op. cit., pp. 49–54; and infra, n. 14.
See R.W. Southern, Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages (Harmondsworth, 1972) pp. 91–3.
F. Dvornik, ‘Constantinople and Rome’ in J. Hussey (ed.), The Cambridge Medieval History [hereafter CME], vol. V, pt.1 (Cambridge, 1975), pp. 437–8.
Ostrogorsky, op. cit., pp. 127–8.
A. Kazhdan, People and Power in Byzantium (Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC, 1982) pp. 34–6.
A. Kazhdan and A. Epstein, Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Berkeley, California, 1990) pp. 6 and 79. Realism was revived to an extent in the later middle ages, however.
F. Teggart, Rome and China: a study of Correlations in Historical Events (Berkeley, California, 1939).
For convenient account of Slav pre-history, see Gimbutas, op. cit..
Procopius, Secret History, trans. R. Attwater (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1961), pp. 40–1.
Browning, op. cit., p. 126.
The notion of the genetic ‘purity’ of the Greeks was first challenged by J. Fallmerayer who went too far in the other direction. See A. Bon, Le Peloponeese byzantin jusqu’en 1204 (Paris, 1951) and J. Fine, The Early Medieval Balkans (Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1983) pp. 59–64.
See A. Buda et al, Problems of the Formation of the Albanian People, Their Language and Culture (Tirane, 1984).
T. Gartner, Darstellung der Rumanischer Sprache (Halle, 1904) pp. 121–35.
S. Cross, The Russian Primary Chronicle (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1953).
G. Ostrogorsky’s views on the theme (The Cambridge Economic History of Europe [hereafter CEHE], vol. I, Cambridge 1966, pp. 207ff.) has been challenged, see P. Lemerle, The Agrarian History of Byzantium (Galway, 1979) pp. 58–65.
See the treatments in the works mentioned in note 1 supra; also R. Jenkins, Byzantium: the Imperial Centuries 610–1071 (London, 1966) pp. 74–89.
For an early formulation of the notion, see Cosmas Indicopleustes, The Christian Topography, trans. J. McGrinde (London, 1897).
See Constantine VII ‘Porphyrogenitos’, Le Livre des Ceremonies, ed. A. Vogt, Paris 1935, 1939–40.
One speculates that this importance attached to appearance may have been related to the practice of mutilating rivals to the throne (particularly relatives) since, if an emperor, as the mirror of heavenly authority, had to be unblemished, mutilation would disqualify him from the throne — though this evidently did not apply in the case of the ‘noseless Emperor’ Justinian II (685–95 and 705–711). An emperor’s deportment and demeanour were certainly important. Perhaps this led to elite insistence on proper bearing and manners.
See A. Vlasto, The Entry of the Slavs into Christendom (Cambridge, 1970); D. Obolensky, The Byzantine Commonwealth (New York, 1971); also Browning, op. cit. and infra.
The origin of the Croats is a subject of contention, but they seem to have been a people of mixed, predominately Iranian-Alan origin: S. Guldescu, History of Medieval Croatia (The Hague, 1964) pp. 40ff..
Such is the inference to be drawn from Hadrian II’s letter of 868–9 to Rastislav and others, approving the use of Slavonic as a fourth liturgical language after Greek, Latin and Hebrew. See F. Dvornik, Byzantine Missions among the Slavs (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1970) pp. 102–3.
Ibid., pp. 53ff..
On Glagolitic, see inter alia, L. Leger in Grand Larousse, vol. 18, pp. 1057–9. Glagolitic was to remain popular in Dalmatia for many centuries though elsewhere it was superceded by Cyrillic or, in the case of the West Slavs, Latin script.
On the background and the circumstances of the attack, see G. Vernadsky, Ancient Russia (New Haven, Connecticutt, 1944).
The expression was coined by D. Obolensky, op. cit..
Cyril is said to have learned Hebrew for the mission, but the brothers may already have had some acquaintance of it coming, as they did, from Thessalonika which had a large Jewish community. In any case Hebrew was a canonical language.
Among many accounts see that of Browning, op. cit., who pays attention to the specific problems of state-formation.
Dvornik, Byzantine Missions, op. cit., pp. 230ff..
See I. Fodor, In Search of a New Homeland: the Prehistory of the Hungarian People and the Conquest (Budapest, 1982).
Dvornik, Byzantine-Missions, op. cit., pp. 194–229.
E.g. Theophlact of Ohrid, see D. Obolensky, Six Byzantine Portraits (Oxford, 1988) pp. 58–61.
Reference mislaid.
F. Dvornik, The Making of Central and Eastern Europe (London, 1949) pp. 25–30 and passim.
G. Vernadsky, Kievan Russia (New Haven, Connecticutt 1948) pp. 28–46.
Cross, op. cit., p. 86.
Ibid., p. 111.
Vernadsky, Kievan, op. cit., pp. 56–70.
On the Polish Church prior to 1000 see H. Lowmianski, ‘Baptism and the Early Church Organization’ in J. Kloczowski, The Christian Community of Medieval Poland (Wroclaw, 1981) pp. 27–56.
Dvornik, Making, op. cit., pp. 95–135 passim.
See Z. Kosztolnyik, Five Eleventh Century Hungarian Kings (Boulder, Colorado, 1981) pp. 74–8.
For the details see H. Gregoire in CME, vol. V, pt. 1, pp. 112–14 and passim; and Jenkins, op. cit., pp. 168ff.
Dvornik in CME, loc. cit., pp. 457–8; Jenkins, op. cit., pp. 287–8.
‘Liutprandi legatio ad imperatorem’ in A. Bauer et al. (eds.), Quellen zur Geschichte der Sachsischen Kaiserzeit (Darmstadt, 1977) pp. 524–89; see also Southern, op. cit., pp. 68–72.
Cerullarius’s epistle to Peter of Antioch, translation adapted from Kazhdan and Epstein, op. cit., Appendix, Ex.48, p. 260.
J. Szucs, ‘The Three Historical Regions of Europe’, Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 29(2–4) (Budapest, 1983) pp. 132–3.
Even the celebrated Russian mir, or village assembly, did not arise spontaneously, but in response to the state requiring communal responsibility for taxation — see R.E.F. Smith, Peasant Farming in Russia (Cambridge, 1977).
M. Postan in J. Barraclough (ed.), Eastern and Western Europe in the Middle Ages (London, 1970) p. 170.
M. Postan in CEHE, vol. II: Trade and Industry in the Middle Ages, (Cambridge, 1987) p. 228.
See A. Gieysztor, ‘Trade and Industry in Eastern Europe before 1200’, CEHE, vol. II, op. cit., pp. 474–524, especially pp. 474, 505 and 511.
Ostrogorsky, op. cit., p. 254.
Baedeker, Russia (Leipzig, 1914) p. xlii.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1992 Philip Longworth
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Longworth, P. (1992). Beginnings (324–1071). In: The Making of Eastern Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22202-5_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22202-5_11
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-22204-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-22202-5
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)