The Holy Roman Empire by James Bryce

Author:James Bryce [Bryce, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Geschichte
Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
Published: 2017-09-20T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XVII: THE EAST ROMAN EMPIRE

Chap. XVIIDuring the Middle Ages, Western statesmen and churchmen, Western thinkers and writers, took little note of the Eastern Empire which stubbornly held its ground at Constantinople down to ad 1453. Its claim to represent the ancient dominion of Rome was practically ignored. Its splendid efforts in the defence of civilization against the fierce tribes of the North, and the still more formidable Musulmans of the East, received slight recognition, and scarcely any support. Even in later times the part played by the people and rulers of New Rome was inadequately appreciated, and it is only in our own days that history has begun to atone for this long neglect. Ref. 431

The two imperial lines, which the revolt of Italy and the coronation of Charles the Great in ad 800 substituted for the one Roman Emperor whom Christian doctrine had required and continued to require, were, after that fateful year, always rivals and usually unfriendly rivals. But their direct relations either of negotiation or of armed hostility were infrequent. Each went its own way. Each had foes of its own to confront. Each affected the other much less than might have been expected, when it is remembered that each maintained its claim to be the heir of Rome, and to perpetuate the political and religious traditions of the early Christian Emperors. Yet few as the points of contact were, the history of the East Roman is a necessary complement to that of the West Roman Empire, for the course of events in each throws an instructive light upon the course of events in the other. As the divergences are worth noting, so too are the resemblances. Both Empires rested upon the memories of Rome. Both stood in a peculiar relation to the Christian Church. Both had to deal with the instreaming races of the North. But these conditions of life told differently upon the one and upon the other, and gave a different direction to their respective fortunes.

To sketch, even in outline, the long and chequered and romantic history of the Eastern Empire would be altogether outside the scope of this book. But from among the salient features that mark its annals I may single out for comment a few which specially serve to illustrate the parallel or divergent history of the West.

Slight effect on the East Roman Empire of the coronation of Charles the Great. It has already been remarked (see p. 26 and p. 62, supra) that neither the extinction of the line of Emperors who reigned in the West down to ad 476, nor the establishment of a second imperial line at Old Rome by the coronation of Charles the Great in ad 800, was an event of critical significance in the history of the East Roman realm. By the event of ad 476 the Eastern monarch became the sole legal representative of Roman claims, claims still admitted in theory, to the lordship of the whole Western world. But the only practical

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