Rome’s Successors: Byzantium, Islam, and the Germanic West 123it had been transformed by the divine, convulsed the
empire for nearly four centuries. The Iconoclastic
Controversy over the use of religious images or icons
generated revolts and persecutions from 726 to 843.
Though the Greek and Latin churches did not di-
vide formally until 1054, they followed different lines
of development almost from the first. In the east,
church organization continued to parallel that of the
imperial bureaucracy. Its higher officials—patriarchs,
bishops, and metropolitans—were monks appointed by
the emperor. They were expected to be celibate, if not
eunuchs. Village priests, however, were normally mar-
ried, in part because popular wisdom held that this
would protect them from sexual temptation.
Like Byzantine society as a whole, eastern Chris-
tianity maintained a high degree of individualism
within its rigidly hierarchical framework. It emphasized
the inner transformation of the believer rather than sin
and redemption. Its icons, or religious paintings, por-
tray God as Pantocratoror ruler of the universe and vir-
tually ignore Christ the crucified redeemer until late in
the empire’s history (see illustration 7.2). The saints are
abstract figures whose holiness is indicated by the
golden aura of sanctity that surrounds them, not by in-
dividual features. Western legalism—the tendency to
enumerate sins and prescribe penances—was almost
wholly absent, and even monasteries encouraged indi-
vidual development at the expense of communal living.
Saintly hermits remained the most revered figures in
Byzantium, advising emperors from their caves or from
the top of pillars where they lived exposed to the ele-
ments, often for decades.
Before the death of Constantine, this faith had
transformed the Greek way of life beyond recognition.
The preoccupation with personal salvation, as well as
the vast weight of the imperial bureaucracy, rendered
the old idea of community meaningless. The ancient
preoccupation with the human body vanished. The
Byzantines wore long brocaded robes and heavy
makeup that disguised the body’s natural outlines and,
like westerners, gradually abandoned the practice of
bathing because the church thought of it as self-
indulgent. For medieval Christians, the “odor of sanc-
tity” was no mere figure of speech. In deportment,
solemnity became the ideal even for children, who, like
their elders, were supposed to mimic the icons that
gazed down serenely from the domes of churches.Byzantium and the Slavs
At the height of its power, the Byzantine Empire ex-
erted only a minor influence on the development of
western Europe. It maintained contact with the west
through the irregular correspondence of churchmen
and through the remaining Byzantine possessions in
southern Italy. Western poverty imposed severe limita-
tions on trade as a medium of cultural exchange. The
greatest impact of Byzantium on the west came later,
through the Crusades and through the cultural borrow-
ings transmitted by Slavs and Muslims. Byzantine influ-
ence on eastern Europe was, however, profound.
The Slavs came originally from central Asia and, by
2000 B.C., had settled a broad arc of territory from the
shores of the Black Sea northwestward into what is now
Poland. They appear to have weathered the passage of
Celts and Germans, but the collapse of the Hunnish
Empire after A.D. 455 started another cycle of popula-
tion movements in eastern Europe. Slavic peoples from
the valley of the Dnieper moved northward into Russia,
while those from the Vistula and Oder valleys moved
westward as far as the river Elbe in eastern GermanyIllustration 7.2
Mosaic of Christ Pancrator, Daphni, Greece.In Byzantine
art, Jesus is normally portrayed as Christ Almighty, who medi-
ates between God and humankind, and images such as this one
are placed in the central dome or the main apse of eastern
churches. In contrast, western church art tends to emphasize
the crucifixion.