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93-487: Some scholars traditionally regard Karamanlides as Turkish-speaking Greeks, though their exact ethnic origin is disputed; they could either be descendants of Byzantine Greeks who were linguistically Turkified , or of Christian Turkic soldiers who settled in the region after the Turkic conquests, or even both. The Karamanlides were forced to leave Anatolia during the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey . Today,

186-431: A 14th-century survey of the village of Aphetos, donated to the monastery of Chilandar , the average size of a landholding is only 3.5 modioi (0.08 ha). Taxes placed on rural populations included the kapnikon (Greek: καπνικόν) or hearth tax, the synone (Greek: συνονή) or cash payment frequently affiliated with the kapnikon , the ennomion (Greek: εννόμιον) or pasture tax, and the aerikon (Greek: αέρικον, meaning "of

279-537: A Byzantine Greek woman could be divided into three phases: girlhood , motherhood , and widowhood . Childhood was brief and perilous, even more so for girls than boys. Parents would celebrate the birth of a boy twice as much and there is some evidence of female infanticide (i.e. roadside abandonment and suffocation), though it was contrary to both civil and canon law. Educational opportunities for girls were few: they did not attend regular schools but were taught in groups at home by tutors. With few exceptions, education

372-664: A Greek society. Linguistically, Byzantine or medieval Greek is situated between the Hellenistic ( Koine ) and modern phases of the language. Since as early as the Hellenistic era, Greek had been the lingua franca of the educated elites of the Eastern Mediterranean , spoken natively in the southern Balkans , the Greek islands, Asia Minor, and the ancient and Hellenistic Greek colonies of Southern Italy ,

465-420: A constant supply of muscle power for the building projects and rural work. Their numbers apparently increased in the late fourth and early fifth centuries as barbarian raids and a desire to avoid taxation pushed rural populations into cities. Since Homeric times, there were several categories of poverty: the ptochos ( πτωχός , "passive poor") was lower than the penes ( πένης , "active poor"). They formed

558-638: A gradual process of assimilation by the Ottomans, or of Turkic soldiers who settled in the region after the Turkic conquests and converted to Christianity . Greek scholars incline to the view that the Karamanlides were of Greek descent and adopted Turkish as their vernacular, either by force or as a result of their isolation from the Greek-speaking Orthodox Christians of the coastal regions. Turkish scholars regard them as

651-758: A majority of the population live in Greece and have fully integrated into Greek society. Writers and speakers of Karamanli Turkish were expelled from Turkey as part of the Greek-Turkish population exchange of 1923. Some speakers preserved their language in the diaspora. A fragment of a manuscript written in Karamanli was also found in the Cairo Geniza . The origin of the Karamanlides is disputed; they are either descendants of Byzantine Greeks who were linguistically Turkified after being pressured through

744-487: A normal part of everyday life, much more so than in modern Western societies. While it is difficult to draw a distinction between Roman and Byzantine soldiers from an organizational aspect, it is easier to do so in terms of their social profile. The military handbooks known as the Taktika continued a Hellenistic and Roman tradition, and contain a wealth of information about the appearance, customs, habits, and life of

837-761: A patriarch in Constantinople who was considered the equivalent of the pope . This position of strength had built up over time, for at the beginning of the Byzantine Empire, under Emperor Constantine the Great ( r.  306–337 ), only a small part, about 10%, of the population was Christian . Use of the Greek language was already widespread in the eastern parts of the Roman Empire when Constantine moved its capital to Constantinople, although Latin

930-798: Is an indisputable fact, that the language of their oppressors has long since almost universally prevailed, and that in a great part of Anatolia even the public worship of the Greeks is now performed in the Turkish tongue. Similarly, the British scholar David George Hogarth (1862–1927) attributed the Turkification of the Karamanlides to oppression; in 1890 while visiting Lake Eğirdir , he wrote that "the Moslems were eating them up." British Archaeologist Richard MacGillivray Dawkins traveled between

1023-479: Is beginning to change for that of mobile, pro-active agents. The merchant class, particularly that of Constantinople , became a force of its own that could, at times, even threaten the Emperor as it did in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. This was achieved through efficient use of credit and other monetary innovations. Merchants invested surplus funds in financial products called chreokoinonia ( χρεοκοινωνία ),

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1116-444: Is still an open question. From then on, professional recruiting replaced conscription, and the increasing use of mercenaries in the army was ruinous for the treasury. From the 10th century onwards, there were laws connecting land ownership and military service. While the state never allotted land for obligatory service, soldiers could and did use their pay to buy landed estates, and taxes would be decreased or waived in some cases. What

1209-406: The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey . Early estimates placed the number of Turkish-speaking Orthodox Christians expelled from central and southern Anatolia at around 100,000. Stevan K. Pavlowitch says that the Karamanlides were numbered at around 400,000 at the time of the exchange. The Turkish government considered cutting a deal for Turkish-speaking Christians to be exempt from

1302-642: The April Uprising in Bulgaria . The letters aroused popular demonstrations in England led by William Ewart Gladstone . At the time, the reports of these atrocities were generally disbelieved and Pears' letters placed all the incontrovertible facts before the English people. In 1909, Pears was knighted , returning to London to receive the honour in person on 22 July 1909. In 1911, Pears wrote

1395-594: The Black Sea , Western Asia and North Africa . At the beginning of the Byzantine millennium, the koine (Greek: κοινή) remained the basis for spoken Greek and Christian writings, while Attic Greek was the language of the philosophers and orators. As Christianity became the dominant religion, Attic began to be used in Christian writings in addition to and often interspersed with koine Greek. Nonetheless, from

1488-563: The Greek islands , Cyprus , and portions of the southern Balkans , and formed large minorities, or pluralities, in the coastal urban centres of the Levant and northern Egypt . Throughout their history, the Byzantine Greeks self-identified as Romans ( Greek : Ῥωμαῖοι , romanized :  Rhōmaîoi ), but are referred to as "Byzantine Greeks" in modern historiography. Latin speakers identified them simply as Greeks or with

1581-500: The Pope in Rome . The ecclesiastical provinces were called eparchies and were headed by archbishops or metropolitans who supervised their subordinate bishops or episkopoi . For most people, however, it was their parish priest or papas (from the Greek word for "father") that was the most recognizable face of the clergy. The Eastern Roman Empire was in language and civilization

1674-531: The Roman Empire ), a term which in the Greek language had become synonymous with Christian Greeks. The Latinizing term Graikoí (Γραικοί, "Greeks") was also used, though its use was less common, and nonexistent in official Byzantine political correspondence, prior to the Fourth Crusade of 1204. While this Latin term for the ancient Hellenes could be used neutrally, its use by Westerners from

1767-640: The Varangian Guard like Greece runestones and the Piraeus Lion which we meet the terms Grikkland (Greece) and Grikkr referring to their ventures in Byzantine Empire and their interaction with the Byzantines. While social mobility was not unknown in Byzantium the order of society was thought of as more enduring, with the average man regarding the court of Heaven to be the archetype of

1860-501: The consular courts and became president of the European bar there. He rose to become one of the leaders of the British colony in Constantinople. Pears travelled much through Turkish dominions, and studied Turkish history from both the Turkish and foreign perspectives. In this way, Pears acquired an intimate knowledge of Turkey . In 1876, as correspondent of The Daily News , he sent letters home describing Ottoman atrocities and

1953-573: The laymen , the clergy of the Eastern Roman Empire remained in close contact with the rest of society. Readers and subdeacons were drawn from the laity and expected to be at least twenty years of age while priests and bishops had to be at least 30. Unlike the Latin church , the Byzantine church allowed married priests and deacons, as long as they were married before ordination . Bishops, however, were required to be unmarried. While

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2046-505: The lingua franca of commerce became Italian. In the areas of the Crusader kingdoms a classical education (Greek: παιδεία, paideia ) ceased to be a sine qua non of social status, leading to the rise of the vernacular. From this era many beautiful works in the vernacular, often written by people deeply steeped in classical education, are attested. A famous example is the four Ptochoprodromic poems attributed to Theodoros Prodromos. From

2139-574: The "masterpieces of Greek literature." Another Karamanlis author named Iosepos Moesiodax, wrote in his Paedagogy (1779) that "the need of our public demands good Turkish, because it is the dialect of our Rulers." The English writer William Martin Leake (1777–1860), who travelled in Konya in 1800, wrote: [...] the generality of the Cappadocian Greeks is ignorant of their own language and use

2232-552: The 13th to the 15th centuries, the last centuries of the Empire, there arose several works, including laments, fables, romances, and chronicles, written outside Constantinople, which until then had been the seat of most literature, in an idiom termed by scholars as "Byzantine Koine". However, the diglossia of the Greek-speaking world, which had already started in ancient Greece, continued under Ottoman rule and persisted in

2325-438: The 5th century BC. It comprised a tripartite system of education that, taking shape during the Hellenistic era, was maintained, with inevitable changes, up until the fall of Constantinople . The stages of education were the elementary school, where pupils ranged from six to ten years, secondary school, where pupils ranged from ten to sixteen, and higher education. Elementary education was widely available throughout most of

2418-453: The 6th at least until the 12th century, Attic remained entrenched in the educational system; while further changes to the spoken language can be postulated for the early and middle Byzantine periods. The population of the Byzantine Empire, at least in its early stages, had a variety of mother tongues including Greek. These included Latin, Aramaic , Coptic , and Caucasian languages , while Cyril Mango also cites evidence for bilingualism in

2511-559: The 9th century onwards in order to challenge Byzantine claims to ancient Roman heritage rendered it a derogatory exonym for the Byzantines who barely used it, mostly in contexts relating to the West, such as texts relating to the Council of Florence , to present the Western viewpoint. The ancient name Hellenes was synonymous to " pagan " in popular use, but was revived as an ethnonym in

2604-485: The Byzantine Empire's existence, in towns and occasionally in the countryside. This, in turn, ensured that literacy was much more widespread than in Western Europe, at least until the twelfth century. Secondary education was confined to the larger cities while higher education was the exclusive provenance of Constantinople . Though not a society of mass literacy like modern societies, Byzantine society

2697-405: The Christian society of Byzantium to create a large network of hospitals ( iatreia , ιατρεία ) and almshouses, and a religious and social model largely justified by the existence of the poor and born out of the Christian transformation of classical society. Byzantine state and society relied on the Hellenistic system of joint tax liability due to the easy handling, fast and simple revenue for

2790-486: The Empire rather than to this large popular base. Soldiers among the Byzantine Greeks were at first conscripted amongst the rural peasants and trained on an annual basis. As the Byzantine Empire entered the 11th century, more of the soldiers within the army were either professional men-at-arms or mercenaries . Until the thirteenth century, education within the Byzantine Greek population was more advanced than in

2883-519: The Greek and Armenian. The cruel persecution of their Mahomedan masters have been the cause of their present degraded state of ignorance, even in regard to their native tongue. For that there was a time when their Turkish masters strictly prohibited the Greeks in Asia Minor even from speaking the Greek language among themselves, and that they cut out the tongues of some, and punished others with death, who dared to disobey this their barbarous command. It

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2976-458: The Greek concepts of charity for the sake of the polis ; nevertheless it was the Christian concepts attested in the Bible that animated their giving habits, and specifically the examples of Basil of Caesarea (who is the Greek equivalent of Santa Claus ), Gregory of Nyssa , and John Chrysostom . The number of the poor fluctuated in the many centuries of Byzantium's existence, but they provided

3069-492: The Greek faith whom Selim I had transplanted from the emirate of Karamania." The Armenian historian Eremia Chelebi (1637–1695), also stated that Karamanlides lived around and within the city walls of Istanbul, and despite being Greek , they did not know Greek and spoke only Turkish. A Karamanlis author named Mauromates (1656–1740) wrote that the Greek language was replaced by Turkish in Anatolia, and were thus unable to read

3162-582: The Karamanlides and Bithynia between 1909–1911. Dawkins came to İzmit and Bursa regions after this trip and stated that there are Turkish-speaking Greek villages here. According to him, the Greek spoken here was very close to the language spoken by the Karamanlides. Even Dawkins stated that their language was Asiatic and showed different features from Greek. It is known that some Karamanlides lived in İznik as well as Bursa, İzmit and Yalova , and they left Turkish inscriptions written in Greek letters . Many Karamanlides were forced to leave their homes during

3255-405: The Karamanlides blended elements of Orthodox Christianity with a Turkish-Anatolian culture that characterized their willingness to accept and immerse themselves in foreign customs. From the 14th to the 19th centuries, they enjoyed an explosion in literary refinement. Karamanlides authors were especially productive in philosophy, religious writings, novels, and historical texts. Their lyrical poetry in

3348-633: The Middle Byzantine period (11th century). While in the West the term "Roman" acquired a new meaning in connection with the Catholic Church and the Bishop of Rome , the Greek form "Romaioi" remained attached to the Greeks of the Eastern Roman Empire. The term "Byzantine Greeks" is an exonym applied by later historians like Hieronymus Wolf ; "Byzantine" citizens continued to call themselves Romaioi (Romans) in their language. Despite

3441-487: The Roman Empire's population were Christians , with most of them being urban population and generally found in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. The majority of people still honoured the old gods in the public Roman way of religio . As Christianity became a complete philosophical system, whose theory and apologetics were heavily indebted to the Classic word, this changed. In addition, Constantine, as Pontifex Maximus ,

3534-584: The Slavs of the Balkans and east-central Europe. This involved Cyril and Methodius having to translate the Christian Bible into the Slavs' own language, for which they invented an alphabet that became known as Old Church Slavonic . In the process, this cemented the Greek brothers' status as the pioneers of Slavic literature and those who first introduced Byzantine civilization and Orthodox Christianity to

3627-470: The Turkish in the church service [...] at Konia we are comfortably accommodated in the house of a Christian belonging to the Greek church, but who is ignorant of the language, which is not even used in the church service: they have the four Gospels and the Prayers printed in Turkish. [...] it is an indisputable fact [...] that in a great part of Anatolia even the public worship of the Greeks is now performed in

3720-460: The Turkish oppression had made them adopt the Turkish language: […] The result of my inquiry shows that there still remains much to be done by Bible Societies for the poor, ignorant, and oppressed Christians of Lesser Asia, the majority of whom, in the language in the present day, have almost entirely lost the knowledge of their native language, and speak and understand nothing but Turkish. The two Christian nations which I have particularly in view are

3813-518: The Turkish tongue. The German orientalist Franz Taeschner (1888–1967) observed that the Karamanlides were completely Turkified, with the exception of their religion. The British historian Edwin Pears (1835–1919), who lived in Turkey for approximately 40 years, wrote that the Karamanlides were originally Greeks, who had lost their native language and spoke Turkish. Robert Pinkerton (1780–1859) stated that

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3906-466: The West, particularly at primary school level, resulting in comparatively high literacy rates. Success came easily to Byzantine Greek merchants, who enjoyed a very strong position in international trade. Despite the challenges posed by rival Italian merchants, they held their own throughout the latter half of the Byzantine Empire's existence. The clergy also held a special place, not only having more freedom than their Western counterparts, but also maintaining

3999-725: The West. Throughout the later centuries of the Byzantine Empire and particularly following the imperial coronation of the King of the Franks, Charlemagne ( r.  768–814 ), in Rome in 800, the Byzantines were not considered by Western Europeans as heirs of the Roman Empire, but rather as part of an Eastern Greek kingdom. As the Byzantine Empire declined , the Roman identity survived until its fall in 1453 and beyond. The Ottomans used

4092-438: The air") which depended on the village's population and ranged between 4 and 20 gold coins annually. Their diet consisted of mainly grains and beans and in fishing communities fish was usually substituted for meat . Bread , wine , and olives were important staples of Byzantine diet with soldiers on campaign eating double-baked and dried bread called paximadion (Greek: παξιμάδιον). As in antiquity and modern times,

4185-582: The bible, in Turkish language and chanted hymns in Karamanlidika, despite their neighborhoods also having Greek-speaking communities. The British historian Arnold J. Toynbee (1889–1975) emphasized that there was no definite answer to the question of their origins. The German traveler Hans Dernschwam (1494–1568/69) encountered the Karamanlides living in Istanbul during his travel throughout Anatolia in 1553–1555; he described them as "a Christian folk of

4278-466: The book Turkey and its People . It is regarded as his most distinguished book. In that book, he displayed his expert knowledge of Byzantine Constantinople. The book contains original material on the nationalities of the Ottoman empire . The book was an attempt to interpret Turkey to the western people. In 1916, Pears wrote Forty Years in Constantinople . This book is regarded as essential reading for

4371-621: The center of the Orthodox world, with subordinate metropolitan sees and archbishoprics in the territory of Asia Minor and the Balkans, now lost to Byzantium, as well as in Caucasus, Russia and Lithuania. The Church remained the most stable element in the Byzantine Empire." In terms of religion, Byzantine Greek Macedonia is also significant as being the home of Saints Cyril and Methodius , two Greek brothers from Thessaloniki (Salonika) who were sent on state-sponsored missions to proselytize among

4464-471: The church of Constantinople became, between the 6th and 11th centuries, the richest and most influential centre of Christendom . Even when the Byzantine Empire was reduced to only a shadow of its former self, the Church, as an institution, exercised so much influence both inside and outside the imperial frontiers as never before. As George Ostrogorsky points out: "The Patriarchate of Constantinople remained

4557-479: The descendants of Turks who had migrated to Byzantine territories before the conquest or had served as mercenaries in the Byzantine armies and who had adopted the religion but not the language of their new rulers. Another theory supports that the Karamanlides may have been a mixture of Anatolian Greeks and Christian Turks. There is not enough evidence to prove how the early Karamanlides identified themselves. Partial or full Turkification of Anatolian Greeks dates back to

4650-590: The designation " Rûm " ("Roman") distinctly for the Ottoman Greeks and the term " Rum millet " ("Roman nation") for all the Eastern Orthodox populations. It was kept by both Ottoman Greeks and their Ottoman overlords throughout the years of the Ottoman rule, increasingly transforming into an ethnic identity, marked by Greek language and adherence to Orthodox Christianity , a precursor that shaped

4743-471: The early 1100s, as a result of living together with neighboring Turks. Oriental and Latin sources indicate that Greek-Turkish bilingualism was common in Anatolia in the 13th and 14th centuries, and by the early 15th century it was very widespread. Furthermore, an anonymous Latin account from 1437 states that Greek bishops and metropolitans in Anatolia, were "dressed in the Muslim style and spoke Turkic"; "although

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4836-988: The early medieval era also used the terms Rimljani or Romei . At least one 11th-century Bulgarian source is attested which refers to "Ellini rimski" (Roman Hellenes). In most medieval Bulgarian sources the Byzantine Emperors were the "Tsars of the Greeks" and the Byzantine Empire was known as "Tsardom of the Greeks". Both rulers of the Despotate of Epirus and the Empire of Nicaea were also "Greek tsars ruling over Greek people". Equally, among Nordic people such as Icelanders , Varangians ( Vikings ) and other Scandinavian people, "Rhomaioi" were called "Grikkr" (Greeks). There are various runic inscriptions left in Norway, Sweden and even in Athens by travellers and members of

4929-635: The eastern shore of the Hellespont , which out of 173 households classifies 113 as peasant and 60 as urban , which indicate other kinds of ancillary activities. The Treatise on Taxation , preserved in the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice, distinguishes between three types of rural settlements, the chorion (Greek: χωρίον) or village, the agridion (Greek: αγρίδιον) or hamlet, and the proasteion (Greek: προάστειον) or estate. According to

5022-409: The emperor as a representative or messenger of Christ , responsible particularly for the propagation of Christianity among pagans, and for the "externals" of the religion, such as administration and finances. The imperial role in the affairs of the Church never developed into a fixed, legally defined system, however. With the decline of Rome, and internal dissension in the other Eastern patriarchates,

5115-545: The end of the eleventh century when political machinations allowed the landed aristocracy to secure the throne for a century and more. Following that phase, however, the enterprising merchants bounced back and wielded real clout during the time of the Third Crusade . The reason Byzantine Greek merchants have often been neglected in historiography is not that they were any less able than their ancient or modern Greek colleagues in matters of trade. It rather originated with

5208-455: The equivalent and perhaps ancestor of the later Italian commenda . Eventually, the purchasing power of Byzantine merchants became such that it could influence prices in markets as far afield as Cairo and Alexandria . In reflection of their success, emperors gave merchants the right to become members of the Senate , that is to integrate themselves with the ruling elite. This had an end by

5301-566: The government of Turkey to denote the Greek Orthodox natives ( Rumlar ) of Istanbul , as well as the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople ( Turkish : Rum Ortodoks Patrikhanesi , "Roman Orthodox Patriarchate" ). Among Slavic populations of southeast Europe, such as Bulgarians and Serbs the name "Rhomaioi" (Romans) in their languages was most commonly translated as "Greki" (Greeks). Some Slavonic texts during

5394-521: The heartland of the later empire: modern Cyprus , Greece , Turkey , and Sicily , and portions of southern Bulgaria , Crimea , and Albania . Over time, the relationship between them and the West, particularly with Latin Europe , deteriorated. Relations were further damaged by a schism between the Catholic West and Orthodox East that led to the Byzantine Greeks being labeled as heretics in

5487-563: The hitherto illiterate and pagan Slavs. In modern Byzantine scholarship , there are currently three main schools of thought on medieval eastern Roman identity. Edwin Pears Sir Edwin Pears (18 March 1835 – 27 November 1919) was a British barrister, author and historian. He lived in Constantinople (now Istanbul ) for about forty years and he is known for his 1911 book Turkey and its People . Pears

5580-425: The imperial court in Constantinople . This society included various classes of people that were neither exclusive nor immutable. The most characteristic were the poor, the peasants, the soldiers, the teachers, entrepreneurs, and clergy. According to a text dated to AD 533, a man was termed "poor" if he did not have 50 gold coins ( aurei ), which was a modest though not negligible sum. The Byzantines were heirs to

5673-483: The intimate connection between Church and State, a legacy of Roman cultus . Also, the creation of a Christian philosophy that guided Byzantine Greeks in their everyday lives. And finally, the dichotomy between the Christian ideals of the Bible and classical Greek paideia which could not be left out, however, since so much of Christian scholarship and philosophy depended on it. These shaped Byzantine Greek character and

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5766-419: The keeping of bees , was as highly developed in Byzantium as it had been in Ancient Greece . Aside from agriculture, the peasants also laboured in the crafts, fiscal inventories mentioning smiths (Greek: χαλκεύς, chalkeus ), tailors (Greek: ράπτης, rhaptes ), and cobblers (Greek: τζαγγάριος, tzangarios ). During the Byzantine millennium, hardly a year passed without a military campaign. Soldiers were

5859-488: The late 19th century describes their indifference to both Greek and Turkish governments , and the confusion which they felt as a Turkish-speaking people with a Greek Orthodox religion. Byzantine Greeks The Byzantine Greeks were the Greek-speaking Eastern Romans throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages . They were the main inhabitants of the lands of the Byzantine Empire ( Eastern Roman Empire ), of Constantinople and Asia Minor (modern Turkey),

5952-573: The liturgy was still read in Greek the sermons were pronounced in Turkic." Daniel Panzac elaborates that 'Karaman Greeks' became fully linguistically and culturally Turkified during the reign of Murad III ( r.  1574–1595 ), and some of them had also converted to Islam . Karamanlides could be descendants of those Turkified Greeks. The Ottoman explorer Evliya Çelebi , who visited the Karamanlides and experienced their lifestyle, wrote that they spoke with an authentic Turkish accent but used Greek and Latin words as well. They printed books, particularly

6045-400: The majority of the infamous Constantinopolitan mob whose function was similar to the mob of the First Rome . However, while there are instances of riots attributed to the poor, the majority of civil disturbances were specifically attributable to the various factions of the Hippodrome like the Greens and Blues. The poor made up a non-negligible percentage of the population, but they influenced

6138-411: The modern Greek ethnic identity . The self-identity as Roman among the Greeks only began to lose ground by the time of the Greek Revolution , when multiple factors saw the name 'Hellene' rise to replace it, given the prior revival as self-identification from the 13th century onward by the Nicaenean elite and in the intellectual circles by Georgios Gemistos Plethon and John Argyropoulos , that sowed

6231-409: The modern Greek state until 1976, although Koine Greek remains the official language of the Greek Orthodox Church . As shown in the poems of Ptochoprodromos, an early stage of modern Greek had already been shaped by the 12th century and possibly earlier. Vernacular Greek continued to be known as "Romaic" ("Roman") until the 20th century. At the time of Constantine the Great (r. 306–337), barely 10% of

6324-437: The most common cultivations in the choraphia (Greek: χωράφια) were olive groves and vineyards . While Liutprand of Cremona , a visitor from Italy , found Greek wine irritating as it was often flavoured with resin ( retsina ) most other Westerners admired Greek wines, Cretan in particular being famous. While both hunting and fishing were common, the peasants mostly hunted to protect their herds and crops. Apiculture ,

6417-519: The onset of puberty , which was followed shortly after by betrothal and marriage. Although marriage arranged by the family was the norm, romantic love was not unknown. Most women bore many children but few survived infancy, and grief for the loss of a loved one was an inalienable part of life. The main form of birth control was abstinence, and while there is evidence of contraception it seems to have been mainly used by prostitutes. Due to prevailing norms of modesty, women would wear clothing that covered

6510-449: The perceptions of themselves and others. Christians at the time of Constantine's conversion made up only 10% of the population. This would rise to 50% by the end of the fourth century and 90% by the end of the fifth century. Emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565) then brutally mopped up the rest of the pagans, highly literate academics on one end of the scale and illiterate peasants on the other. A conversion so rapid seems to have been rather

6603-483: The population exchange. At the end however, it was decided that religion would be the only criterion of the exchange. Greek political elites saw no harm in taking in more Greek Orthodox Christians, but Turkish political elites remained fearful that the Karamanlides' loyalty to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate would eventually undercut efforts to consolidate state control in the poor and underdeveloped region of Karaman . Only Papa Eftim (born Pávlos Karahisarídis ), who

6696-506: The religious hierarchy mirrored the Empire's administrative divisions, the clergy were more ubiquitous than the emperor's servants. The issue of caesaropapism , while usually associated with the Byzantine Empire, is now understood to be an oversimplification of actual conditions in the Empire. By the fifth century, the Patriarch of Constantinople was recognized as first among equals of the four eastern Patriarchs and as of equal status with

6789-523: The result of expediency than of conviction. The survival of the Empire in the East assured an active role of the emperor in the affairs of the Church. The Byzantine state inherited from pagan times the administrative and financial routine of organising religious affairs, and this routine was applied to the Christian Church . Following the pattern set by Eusebius of Caesarea , the Byzantines viewed

6882-670: The reverse was not unknown, as in Theodore Prodromos's description of a battered husband in the Ptochoprodromos poems. Although female life expectancy in Byzantium was lower than that of men, due to death in childbirth, wars and the fact that men married younger, female widowhood was still fairly common. Still, some women were able to circumvent societal strictures and work as traders, artisans, abbots, entertainers, and scholars. The traditional image of Byzantine Greek merchants as unenterprising benefactors of state aid

6975-473: The seed for it. Today, the modern Greek people still sometimes use, in addition to the terms "Greeks" and "Hellenes", the Byzantine term "Romaioi," or "Romioi," ("Romans") to refer to themselves, as well as the term "Romaic" ("Roman") to refer to their Modern Greek language. During most of the Middle Ages, the Byzantine Greeks self-identified as Rhōmaîoi ( Ῥωμαῖοι , "Romans", meaning citizens of

7068-571: The shift in terminology in the West, the Byzantines Empire's eastern neighbors, such as the Arabs, continued to refer to the Byzantines as "Romans", as for instance in the 30th Surah of the Quran ( Ar-Rum ). The signifier "Roman" ( Rum millet , "Roman nation") was also used by the Byzantines' later Ottoman rivals, and its Turkish equivalent Rûm , "Roman", continues to be used officially by

7161-438: The soldiers. As with the peasantry, many soldiers performed ancillary activities, like medics and technicians . Selection for military duty was annual with yearly call-ups and great stock was placed on military exercises, during the winter months, which formed a large part of a soldier's life. Until the 11th century, the majority of the conscripts were from rural areas, while the conscription of craftsmen and merchants

7254-474: The south and southeast. These influences, as well as an influx of people of Arabic, Celtic, Germanic, Turkic, and Slavic backgrounds, supplied medieval Greek with many loanwords that have survived in the modern Greek language. From the 11th century onward, there was also a steady rise in the literary use of the vernacular. Following the Fourth Crusade , there was increased contact with the West; and

7347-418: The state are the peasantry ( geōrgikē , γεωργική , "farmers") and the soldiers ( stratiōtikē , στρατιωτική ). Peasants lived mostly in villages, whose name changed slowly from the classical kome ( κώμη ) to the modern chorio ( χωριό ). While agriculture and herding were the dominant occupations of villagers they were not the only ones. There are records for the small town of Lampsakos , situated on

7440-413: The state did allocate to soldiers, however, from the 12th century onwards, were the tax revenues from some estates called pronoiai ( πρόνοιαι ). As in antiquity, the basic food of the soldier remained the dried biscuit bread, though its name had changed from boukelaton ( βουκελάτον ) to paximadion . Byzantine education was the product of an ancient Greek educational tradition that stretched back to

7533-450: The state from the different towns and villages chorio , komai mostly made up of peasants, who were the main income. There are no reliable figures as to the numbers of the peasantry, yet it is widely assumed that the vast majority of Byzantine Greeks lived in rural and agrarian areas. In the Taktika of Emperor Leo VI the Wise (r. 886–912), the two professions defined as the backbone of

7626-451: The term Romaei . The social structure of the Byzantine Greeks was primarily supported by a rural, agrarian base that consisted of the peasantry , and a small fraction of the poor. These peasants lived within three kinds of settlements: the chorion or village, the agridion or hamlet , and the proasteion or estate . Many civil disturbances that occurred during the time of the Byzantine Empire were attributed to political factions within

7719-498: The time and sometimes in villages. Nikolaos Oikonomides , focusing on 13th-century Byzantine literacy in Western Asia Minor, states that Byzantine society had "a completely literate church, an almost completely literate aristocracy, some literate horsemen, rare literate peasants and almost completely illiterate women." Ioannis Stouraitis estimates that the percentage of the Empire's population with some degree of literacy

7812-546: The way history was written in Byzantium, which was often under the patronage of their competitors, the court, and land aristocracy. The fact that they were eventually surpassed by their Italian rivals is attributable to the privileges sought and acquired by the Crusader States within the Levant and the dominant maritime violence of the Italians. Unlike in Western Europe where priests were clearly demarcated from

7905-439: The whole of their body except their hands. While women among the poor sometimes wore sleeveless tunics , most women were obliged to cover even their hair with the long maphorion ( μαφόριον ) veil. Women of means, however, spared no expense in adorning their clothes with exquisite jewelry and fine silk fabrics. Divorces were hard to obtain even though there were laws permitting them. Husbands would often beat their wives, though

7998-400: Was a profoundly literate one. Based on information from an extensive array of Byzantine documents from different periods (i.e. homilies, Ecloga , etc.), Robert Browning concluded that, while books were luxury items and functional literacy (reading and writing) was widespread, but largely confined to cities and monasteries, access to elementary education was provided in most cities for much of

8091-613: Was an ardent Turkish nationalist and the creator of the Turkish Orthodox Church was allowed to remain in Anatolia. Upon their arrival in Greece, Karamanlides faced many instances of discrimination by the local Greek population "because they spoke the language of the age-old enemy of Hellenism"; sometimes even taunted with the allegation that they were of Turkish background. By the 1980s, they were well integrated into Greek society. The distinct culture that developed among

8184-593: Was at most 15–20% based primarily on the mention of illiterate Byzantine tourmarchai in the Tactica of Emperor Leo VI the Wise (r. 886–912). In Byzantium, the elementary school teacher occupied a low social position and taught mainly from simple fairy tale books ( Aesop's Fables were often used). However, the grammarian and rhetorician , teachers responsible for the following two phases of education, were more respected. These used classical Greek texts like Homer's Iliad or Odyssey and much of their time

8277-709: Was born on 18 March 1835 in York , England . He was educated privately and at the University of London where he took first-class honours in Roman law and jurisprudence. Pears was called to the Bar at Middle Temple in 1870. He was also private secretary to Frederick Temple , then Bishop of Exeter , and later Archbishop of Canterbury . Pears was also secretary to various associations connected with social work in London . Pears settled in Constantinople in 1873. He practised in

8370-402: Was limited to literacy and the Bible ; a famous exception is the princess Anna Komnene (1083–1153), whose Alexiad displays a great depth of erudition, and the renowned 9th century Byzantine poet and composer Kassiani . The majority of a young girl's daily life would be spent in household and agrarian chores, preparing herself for marriage. For most girls, childhood came to an end with

8463-410: Was responsible for the correct cultus or veneratio of the deity which was in accordance with former Roman practice. The move from the old religion to the new entailed some elements of continuity as well as break with the past, though the artistic heritage of paganism was literally broken by Christian zeal. Christianity led to the development of a few phenomena characteristic of Byzantium. Namely,

8556-479: Was taken with detailed word-for-word explication. Books were rare and very expensive and likely only possessed by teachers who dictated passages to students. Women have tended to be overlooked in Byzantine studies as Byzantine society left few records about them. Women were disadvantaged in some aspects of their legal status and in their access to education, and limited in their freedom of movement. The life of

8649-433: Was the language of the imperial administration. From the reign of Emperor Heraclius ( r.  610–641 ), Greek was the predominant language amongst the populace and also replaced Latin in administration. At first, the Byzantine Empire had a multi-ethnic character, but following the loss of the non-Greek speaking provinces with the 7th century Muslim conquests it came to be dominated by the Byzantine Greeks, who inhabited

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