[muawiyah]

Northern and Western Europe was your basic old-timey Third World Hell Hole from about 535 AD to the end of the 100 Years War in the 1400s.

They didn't really need protection ~ they needed to be bathed!

Fortunately, and barely in time, Byzantine soapmakers arrived as refugees in Venice and other "hot spots" and civilization recovered ~ well, at least "chemistry" recovered. In the meantime French knights crushed the remaining Islamic outposts in Spain.

The rest is history.

[frithguild]

It bequeathed to the world an imperial system of government built upon a trained, civilian administration and tax system;

The birth of the modern administrative state - so complex it is "Byzantine."

[RobbyS]

Byzantium was still a magical place in Napoleon’s time. I understand he proposed to make the City the capital of his world empire.

[Alex Murphy]

Readers interested in the soundness of money — a problem that has been around as long as there has been money, it seems — will take note of the lasting value that the Byzantine gold coin, known as the “bezant” in the West, famously retained among traders for centuries. This reputation for value remained even after a devaluation in the 11th century. In the 6th century, a Byzantine merchant noted that “there is another mark of power among the Romans, which God has given them, I mean that every nation conducts its commerce with their nomisma [gold coin], which is acceptable in every place from one end of the earth to the other … In no other nations does such a thing exist.”

Byzantium / Hagia Sophia ping!

[Skooz]

Bump for later.

[Mike Fieschko]

12 Byzantine Rulers: The History of The Byzantine Empire, a series of podcasts, released between June, 2005, and February, 2008.

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

---

Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire by Judith Herrin Hardcover Hardcover Hardcover reviewed

---

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

Byz pingaroo!

[colorado tanker]

Thanks for the post. I've been fascinated with the Byzantine world for a long time. It's the classic lost world that at one time was so powerful and influential. I suspect that much of the learning moderns are so anxious to claim came from the Muslims actually came from the Byzantines.

I'm anxious to read this. Most of what I've read is a fairly dry political history of the major rulers. It sounds like the author brings that old world back to life and puts it in the context of its time.