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Discuss Byzantine classicism and Byzantium's educational system and how both contribute to their distinct culture and society.

Education in Byzantium was some of the best in the world at the time. Literacy was about 30%, which sounds low to us today but was extraordinarily high by world standards well into the Renaissance and even the Industrial Age.

The reason the word "byzantine" in English today describes a complex bureaucracy is that Byzantium had one of the first full-scale government bureaucracies in the world. It was perceived as an overcomplicated nonsensical morass at the time---perhaps because bureaucracy in general was so new and unfamiliar---but actually it was remarkably efficient and well-coordinated given the technological limitations that prevented rapid communication across long distances.

Byzantium even had something close to modern universities, particularly the University of Constantinople. They were primarily focused on liberal arts and humanities, especially the study of Classical Latin and Greek. This attitude where the primary goal of education is to understand Latin and Greek literature and philosophy is what we refer to as "Byzantine Classicism". The educated classes were largely uninterested in learning more practical subjects like mathematics and engineering, which may have hurt their ability to develop and apply new technologies that emerged during the Middle Ages.

Byzantine culture combined these Classical influences with Christian theology, creating a unique hybrid of Christian and Greek ideas which set them apart from Europe which was much more dominated by Christianity. Unique varieties of theology and monasticism arose in Byzantium as a result of this complex interweaving of Greek philosophy and Christian religion, which would ultimately become the Eastern Orthodox Church that persists today.


In many ways the people of Byzantium saw themselves as the continuation of the Roman Empire, and sought desperately to preserve Roman traditions against the change and turmoil of the Middle Ages. Their insistence upon preserving ancient traditions may have been their downfall, as neighboring cultures eventually overtook them scientifically, technologically, and economically. They eventually became surrounded by more powerful Christian societies to the west and Muslim societies in the east, and were essentially caught in the crossfire of the Crusades.

Byzantium was also beset by plagues, most notably the Plague of Justinian in 541 and the Black Death in 1347, which we now believe were both spread by the bubonic plague bacterium. Death rates were enormous and in the absence of modern medicine the disease was impossible to contain. The really remarkable thing is that Byzantium survived at all. The Byzantine Empire lasted over a thousand years, and did not fall until they were finally conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1453.

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