Definition of Byzantine Empire

The title of Empire Byzantine has traditionally been applied to territory that arose after the fall of the Roman empire in the eastern sector of Europe and which included some territories in Asia and Africa. The Byzantine Empire (also known as Byzantium) was, then, the portion of territory that continued to maintain a Format imperial against the Romano-Germanic states that were erected independently in western Europe. The name of the Byzantine Empire would be applied to this space only in the 18th century, while throughout the entire Middle Ages such a place would be known as the Eastern Roman Empire.

Together with the Roman-Germanic states of the West and Islam (which would emerge only in the VII), the Byzantine Empire would be one of the three territorial and political axes of domain in the period medieval. Its beginning as a separate entity from the Roman Empire is established in the year 476 d. C., moment in which the western region of the Empire fell under the power of the barbarians. For its part, the year 1453 is considered as the year in which this empire would fall to the pressure of the Arabs and the taking of Constantinople, capital city of the Empire.

Byzantium can be understood as an intermediate space of connection between the Western world and the Arab world. This geographical location always allowed him to maintain fluid relations (although not always peaceful) with both parties, assimilate lifestyles and traditions and also enter competence by territories of great economic wealth. In this sense, the Byzantine territory would be the place in almost every opportunity of the famous Crusades established by the Western kings and whose objective was to reconquer territories considered sacred by Christianity from the hands of Muslim.

The Byzantine emperors, among whom Constantine was one of the most important and who would name the capital city, maintained the tradition Roman of a power centralized in the person of him, organizing the territories in provinces under the power of governors who always had to respond to the wishes of him. The maximum extension of the empire would arrive with the Emperor Justinian in the 6th century, reaching an impressive number of territories around the Sea. Mediterranean (much of present-day Turkey, the Syrian-Palestinian corridor, Jerusalem, Egypt, North Africa, the Balkans, Italy, and parts of southern Spain).