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A Short History of Byzantium

John Julius Norwich

4.09 · Rating details · 1,949 ratings · 174 reviews

"Norwich is always on the lookout for the small but revealing details. . . . All of this he recounts in a style that consistently entertains."
--The New York Times Book Review

In this magisterial adaptation of his epic three-volume history of Byzantium, John Julius Norwich chronicles the world's longest-lived Christian empire. Beginning with Constantine the Great, who in ...more

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Paperback, 496 pages

Published December 29th 1998 by Vintage (first published 1997)

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Jul 05, 2012 Eric rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: massacres, decadence, history, lurid, turkey

If we view ourselves from a great height, it is frightening to realize how little we know about our species, our purpose and our end.

Sebald was talking about flying over densely settled areas, but to read the compressed chronicle of a thousand year empire is also to view our species from a great height, and the experience offers just as frightening a vantage. From the heights of historical survey, from the distance of many centuries, the professed, the “higher” motivations and justifications If we view ourselves from a great height, it is frightening to realize how little we know about our species, our purpose and our end.

Sebald was talking about flying over densely settled areas, but to read the compressed chronicle of a thousand year empire is also to view our species from a great height, and the experience offers just as frightening a vantage. From the heights of historical survey, from the distance of many centuries, the professed, the “higher” motivations and justifications barely reach our ears. “Christendom” as a united bloc of believers seems a fantasy; or a joke, an easy irony; as “democracy” will one day be; and all we can see are the compulsive collisions of states; the borders receding, the borders advancing; the cities built by some, and torn down by others; the usurpers and regicides ascending supposedly sacred thrones (each Byzantine emperor was acclaimed “equal to the Apostles”); the political entities in their periods of strength exploiting and devouring, in their periods of weakness exploited and devoured by others; the universal wolf. (Sir Philip Sidney said a great conqueror is but the momentary “cock of this world’s dunghill.”) Just as we fly over cities knowing that human beings are guiding those toy cars and emitting that industrial smoke, so also do we scan each war-filled page knowing that thousands of people, way, way down there – slightly clouded over by “battle was joined” or “the looting lasted three days” – are being raped and robbed and murdered; or are raping and robbing and murdering.

And that last ditch narrative, of “Decadence,” is story we Band-Aid over our confusion, a story that does not clarify our situation – does not point a direction or describe a momentum. Norwich’s remark that the pivotal catastrophe of Byzantium - defeat by the Seljuk Turks at Manzikert in 1071 - occurred three centuries before the Emperor became a vassal of a different Turkic state, the Ottomans (by which time the Seljuk order had been shattered in its turn by Tamburlaine’s Mongols), and four centuries before the Empire finally, cinematically “fell” (Constantine XI, last emperor and namesake of the millennium-distant founder, when he saw the Turks had breached Constantinople's land walls cast off his purple robes and led a last desperate charge, his body never to be identified or recovered*), made me pull down my copy of Richard Gilman’s Decadence: The Strange Life of a Epithet, in which I saw that I had once underlined this:

One begins to suspect that whatever “decadence” may be it plays a scapegoat role as a word, an ascription. And it serves, it seems, to cover up our ignorance of, or refusal to see, how the world operates in one of its deepest dimensions independently of what we call cause and effect…History is not a chronicle of discrete events or epochs, nor is it to be understood in categorical ways. Everything connects. The reason “decadence” will not do as a description of Rome is that it does injustice to both her past and her future; she did not wind down, she did not disappear, nor did she bring down upon herself her own fate. Fate was there, and fate is another word for change.

-----

* He was long thought to slumber in a cave, awaiting the hour when he would reconquer Constantinople/Istanbul for Christianity. What is it with Eastern Orthodoxy and agelessly slumbering heroes? The 18th century Russian field marshal and scourge of the Ottomans Aleksandr Suvuorov was also believed to sleep deeply within a mountain, to awake in the Motherland's hour of greatest peril. This belief was so durable and widespread that during WWII Red Army soldiers were propagandistically conflated with Suvorov's shade:

http://www.ganesha.org/hall/suvorov1.jpg ...more

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Dec 20, 2012 Warwick rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, turkey, rome, religion, byzantium, istanbul, bulgaria, balkans, crusades, ancient-rome

This is history the way you always wished it could be but never is. It is a scarcely-believable catalogue of violent deaths (try being pierced at close range by hundreds of arrows until you bleed slowly to death), sexual intrigues (one Empress had specially-trained geese to peck corn from her nether regions), and religious oddities (men who live their whole lives on top of a column, for instance).

With barbarian hordes, crusading knights, treasures and quests, the whole thing is like Tolkien got ...more

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Feb 03, 2018 GoldGato rated it it was amazing

Shelves: ancient-civilization, asia, history, spring

Hey now, this was one long "short" history. 431 pages of murder, usurption, blinding (lots of blinding), mutilation, and just plain history. I'm exhausted. I also couldn't stop reading.

Being thoroughly confused about the Eastern Roman Empire and wanting to learn more about the great Justinian, I added this volume to my collection with the view that I would just leaf through for a bit and then put it in the queue for a future reading. Wrong! I became enslaved to every new emperor and shook my ...more

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Jun 27, 2016 Max rated it really liked it

Shelves: european-history

Norwich compresses three volumes into one in his Short History covering the 1100 years and 88 emperors of Byzantium. As you turn the pages, the centuries roll by quickly. It soon becomes hard to remember exactly who did what to whom and when. Although some figures stand out such as Constantine I, Justinian I and Basil II. There is an upside to this compacted presentation. One gets a feel for the sweep of history. It is easier to see what changes and what stays the same over the centuries. Below Norwich compresses three volumes into one in his Short History covering the 1100 years and 88 emperors of Byzantium. As you turn the pages, the centuries roll by quickly. It soon becomes hard to remember exactly who did what to whom and when. Although some figures stand out such as Constantine I, Justinian I and Basil II. There is an upside to this compacted presentation. One gets a feel for the sweep of history. It is easier to see what changes and what stays the same over the centuries. Below are some notes on a few things that caught my attention.

First there was the extreme brutality practiced routinely by the Byzantines and every tribe or state they encountered. Poisoning, stabbing, hacking to death, raping, blinding, castrating, nose slitting, cutting out tongues and off ears, hands and feet were all just part of a day’s work. Such measures were imposed on foreign enemies and competing family members alike. Second was the constant war and infighting. Palace intrigues and coups were constant. There was always a war underway or in preparation be it with the Goths, Vandals, Huns, Persians, Franks, Bulgars, Normans, Turks, Arabs, whoever. Of course these groups were also constantly engaged in infighting and wars with their neighbors. In violence at all levels there seemed to be little difference between any century or people.

Third were the unbelievably arcane religious disputes within Christianity that had significant geopolitical consequences. Particularly intense were the disputes over the nature of Jesus which created deep divisions and tensions. The predominant Christian view was adopted by the Council of Ephesus in 431. It held that Jesus was of one substance with the father and was Devine and human united in one individual existence (one being with a dual nature). Arianism was adopted by some Roman emperors and Goths, Vandals and Lombards. It held that Jesus was created by the Father and subordinate to Him (in essence more human than God). Monophytism was popular in the early Christian Middle Eastern churches. It held that Jesus had one nature, Devine (more God than human). Also popular in early Eastern Christian churches was Nestorianism which held that Jesus had two loosely united natures, human and Devine (essentially occupying two separate existences, one God and one human).

If heresy over the dual nature of Christ didn’t make your blood boil (perhaps literally for those caught in the wrong place and time), then there was the equally unfathomable Filioque controversy which engendered intense animosity between Orthodox and Roman Christianity. The Latin Church believed as in the Nicene Creed that the Holy Spirit processes from the Father and the Son. The Orthodox Church believed that the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Father. This dispute had important consequences since the Popes used this controversy to portray the Orthodox “schismatics” as evil as the infidels. Thus Western European states were often encouraged to not only deny Byzantium support against the Turks but to attack it for its heresy. When Byzantine emperors desperate for Western support tried to compromise by saying the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father through the Son, they were ostracized by both churches.

The Byzantine Empire was founded by Constantine the Great in 330. This Eastern Roman Empire would survive a thousand years past the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century. The last truly Roman Emperor of Byzantium was Justinian I in the in the sixth century. It was during Justinian’s reign that the empire reached its greatest extent encompassing most of the Mediterranean coast, North Africa, Italy, the Balkans and the Arab Middle East. The last Emperor who ascribed to Roman traditions was Heraclius in the seventh century. Afterwards Greek titles would be used and the Greek language become official as it had been in the Eastern Church.

In the seventh century the rise of the Muslim world changed the usual mix of wars Byzantium fought with the Persians and the barbarian tribes (Goths, Vandals, Bulgars, Huns). The Muslims were soon laying siege to Constantinople. The author contends that “Had the Saracens captured Constantinople in the seventh century rather than the fifteenth, all Europe - and America - might be Muslim today.” The Byzantine Empire was one of ceaseless power battles and cruelty. While the Byzantines had a much higher literacy rate than the barbarians, the savagery was equally distributed.

The Empire diminished following Justinian. The 8th century found it caught up in a passionate internal religious dispute that would last 100 years. Iconoclasm held that sacred images should not be allowed, similar to Islamic beliefs. As the movement gathered steam, a vast amount of fine Byzantine art was destroyed. Byzantium regained its mojo in the late ninth, tenth early eleventh century under the Macedonian Dynasties with Constantinople becoming the wealthiest city in Europe. The Empire reached its apogee under Basil II in the early eleventh century. From that point on it would decline. In 1054 the Eastern Orthodox and Western Roman Catholic churches permanently split, something that had been a long time in coming.

In 1203 Byzantium was sacked by the crusaders of the Fourth Crusade. The Crusade had started out as a Western Christian effort to recapture Jerusalem which had earlier fallen to Saladin. However the Doge of Venice, the eighty year old blind Enrico Dandolo, wanted to take down Byzantium. With the promise of the plunder of the richest city in the world he got the crusaders to forget Jerusalem much to the consternation of the Pope. Instead the crusading Franks and Germans joined the Venetians to conquer and ravage Constantinople. The mass murder, rape, pillaging and destruction devastated Byzantium. Permanently weakened it would never again be able to adequately defend itself and would ultimately fall to the Ottomans. Ironically men fighting under the cross did what the Saracens never could. Without a viable Byzantium the rest of Christendom was left vulnerable to Muslim attack.

The Latins ruled Constantinople for 57 years. The Greek Orthodox tradition was carried on in small states in Anatolia and the Adriatic Coast. The Mongols occupied the attention of the Bulgars and Turks while the Franks and Venetians in Constantinople grew weaker. Finally a deal with Genoa returned Constantinople to Orthodox leadership. But the theological split between the Western and Eastern Church had turned to one of bitter hate for what the Latins did to Constantinople, now a ruined city never to regain its splendor. Byzantium lingered on for two more centuries despite constant threats from its numerous enemies and devastating bouts of plague. By the time it fell in 1453 to the Ottoman Turks, it was a shell of its former self consisting only of Constantinople and an impoverished small populace.

I have mixed feelings about this book. As a learning experience it was time well spent. Norwich delivers an authoritative overview of Byzantium and lets us see Western Europe and the Middle East through the eyes of the Byzantines. I appreciated this different perspective. However a huge amount of history was condensed into just 400 pages. Trying to save time by selecting Norwich’s abridged version I probably shortchanged myself. I suspect his full length history is much more enjoyable. For in the intervals where Norwich isn’t just reciting facts, I can see he is an engaging writer. When my interest again returns to the Middle Ages I’ll definitely check out the three volume set.
...more

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Jul 22, 2012 Tara rated it liked it

Wow they sure did a lot of gouging out of eyes and tongues and noses and throwing people off cliffs! Everyone is all, hey this new emperor will be great I bet we won't have to murder him with poisoned mulberries or whack him with a soap dish or behead him. Then the poor little lamb takes power, has some good ideas, but reverts to insanity as quickly as he can and someone races to get the perennially-useful soapdish and cheerfully start anew. What years of glee! And when they weren't having those ...more

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Dec 21, 2014 Suzannah rated it really liked it

This is an incredible, epic, history. I knew very little about the Eastern Roman Empire when I decided to read it, and consequently this book was rather like drinking from a firehose. 1100 years of some of the most staggering and implausible history you've ever read condensed into 383 pages, finishing off with a heroic last stand and the legends it inspired.

I don't mean this to be the end of my acquaintance with Byzantium, but it was an electrifying introduction.

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May 17, 2015 Hana marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: east-europe-russia, history-and-bio, levant-near-east, mediterranean, 10th-15th-century, ancient-prehistory

I ought to check my home library top shelves more often (or at least dust them from time to time). There, seated appropriately but shyly between From Pagan Rome to Byzantium and Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II was this treasure, bought several years ago in advance of a long trip to Turkey.

But then I was distracted by the more proximate history of the Ottomans. This time around, my interest in Byzantium, as well as its antecedents, neighbors and many descendents, ...more

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Jan 26, 2009 Tyler rated it liked it

Recommends it for: All; History Buffs; Christians

Recommended to Tyler by: Various Reviews

Shelves: history

This 384-page condensation of the original three-volume history gives readers a complete introduction to the direct descendent of the Roman Empire.

The book relates fascinating incidents about the main people, including an eyebrow-raising commentary on Empress Theodora’s early sex life, salaciously recounted by the contemporary historian Procopius. The book explains the famous differences over Church dogma, which characterize the Byzantines for us today, and which eventually drew even me into the ...more

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May 22, 2015 Ryan rated it really liked it

Shelves: 1000-1300ca

A Short History of Byzantium
John Julius Norwich
Read it in Hardcover at 431 pages including extensive Index, biblio, Maps, Lists, etc.

This is the third Norwich this year for me. While not a historian by trade he's managed to write some pretty fantastic history in both this and Kingdom of the Sun. A Short History of Byzantium is actually a trimmed up work from a previous publication. The original being a much more detailed account which I had a hard time finding (it was published in three ...more

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Feb 14, 2019 Becca rated it really liked it

Shelves: nonfiction, well-written, in-de-library-catalog, history, reviewed-by-me

What a great beginning! First comes a date I can easily remember: the Byzantine Empire was founded by Constantine the Great on Monday, May 11, 330. Then Norwich quotes Alice In Wonderland: "Begin at the beginning, and go on until you come to the end: then stop." Very promising indeed!

What a great ending! Norwich is a nonfiction author who can use prose and present his story as effectively as a great novelist. I expected that the end would be depressing (as I observed years ago, everyone dies at What a great beginning! First comes a date I can easily remember: the Byzantine Empire was founded by Constantine the Great on Monday, May 11, 330. Then Norwich quotes Alice In Wonderland: "Begin at the beginning, and go on until you come to the end: then stop." Very promising indeed!

What a great ending! Norwich is a nonfiction author who can use prose and present his story as effectively as a great novelist. I expected that the end would be depressing (as I observed years ago, everyone dies at the end when you're reading nonfiction) but I didn't expecting it to be beautiful and satisfying.

Everything in between was great too. In general, this is a great book, but I read it way too fast. I hope to read the three volume edition next year, just to be fair to the author and Byzantium. I also want to be fair to myself by giving myself a chance to learn a great deal about Byzantium --- I can't retain many details when they are coming at me as thick and fast as they do in this history (though the fact that they came too fast was my fault. . .).

Several interesting observations:

(1) The Byzantine Empire contained much fear of religion, but little fear of God.

(2) Considering the fact that people can't go around assassinating presidents and setting up new leaders with minimal difficulty and protestation from the people, I'd say we in the United States should be pretty thankful.

(3) According to Norwich, every last emperor died either too soon or too late.

(4) According to me, every last emperor was not the sort of person I'd like to meet in a dark alley. That may be a slight exaggeration, but it's certainly true of the majority of emperors.

In conclusion, I'm glad the bit we learned in school about Byzantium made me want to learn more, and that this book made itself available as a source that could teach me! I suggest reading it when you can take plenty of time and many, many notes (Guess who didn't do that. . .). It's very fast-paced book --- how else do you cover 1,123 years and 18 days of history in 383 pages? --- but should be read and savoured unless you're reading simply for entertainment. It does offer colorful entertainment, that's a fact! ...more

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Jun 28, 2007 Jared rated it it was amazing

norwich is like the batty old art history professor you had in college who seemed more interested in the scandalous stories behind the scenes of each moment in history than the traditional information that fills the usual history texts. he tells the history of byzantium in such a fun and lightning-paced way. its like a circus soap opera riding through history on a speeding roller coaster. its great fun reading about all the intrigue, scandal and destruction throughout the empire, and norwich ...more

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Jun 12, 2014 fourtriplezed rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: europe, history, asia

Knowing nothing of the Byzantium Empire this must be as good as it gets for a short history. My only complaint was that the authors opinions as to the individuals was a touch too prominent for me and the lack of footnotes is also a small complaint. I suspect I will never read another book that has so many eyes "put out" Brutal!

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Dec 06, 2014 Czarny Pies rated it did not like it

Recommends it for: No one. Try Norwich's complete three volume history instead.

Shelves: european-history

This is a truly ghastly book by an historian who has written several outstanding works. I wish now that I had stopped at the introduction in which the author explains that his "Short History" is an abridged version of his trilogy on the history of Byzantium. Abridgments of this sort are typically lifeless as indeed this one is. A bare bones narrative exists but the passages that provided narrative flow and spirit are gone. Norwich's 900 page narrative of the 200 year history of the Normans This is a truly ghastly book by an historian who has written several outstanding works. I wish now that I had stopped at the introduction in which the author explains that his "Short History" is an abridged version of his trilogy on the history of Byzantium. Abridgments of this sort are typically lifeless as indeed this one is. A bare bones narrative exists but the passages that provided narrative flow and spirit are gone. Norwich's 900 page narrative of the 200 year history of the Normans Kingdom in Italy zips along. The Short History of Byzantium which takes 380 pages to cover 1100 years gets bogged down in a meaningless string of names and events that seem to take forever to read. When Norwich writes at the length that he is comfortable with, he produces full fleshed characters and dynamic narratives. When he cut to make this book, the result was a senseless list of events.

What Norwich actually says about Byzantium actually makes sense. He argues that Byzantium (a.k.a.) in its very long existence enjoyed many great moments, and that its history should not be presented as a single long decline as Gibbon did. In Norwich's view Byzantium was very stable from the fourth to the eleventh centuries. Then three factors caused it to go into decline. First, the conquests by Islamic dynasties greatly undermined Byzantium's political power in the Eastern Mediterranean. Second, the Crusaders caused great damage whenever then crossed Byzantium on their way to the Holy Land. The sacking of Constantinople in 1204 by the Fourth Crusade had a particularly devastating impact of the fortunes of Byzantium. Finally, the rise of Venice caused Byzantium to lose its position as the dominant trading power in the region. In 1453, the Ottoman Turks finally conquered Byzantium which had many afflictions at the end but which had also had seven centuries of true glory.

In his introduction, Norwich being if nothing else honest, explains that he did not read any of the original histories in Greek as they were available in English translation. This of course begs the question: should the reader simply not read the same classical histories instead of Norwich's book. Most professors teaching undergraduate courses on Byzantium (a.k.a. the late Roman Empire)make their students read "The Secret History" by Procopius and tge Chronicles of the Crusades by Geoffrey Villehardouin and Jean de Joinville). My own feeling that both of these works would be more worthwhile for the general reader interested in Byzantium that Norwich's "Short History of Byzantium."
...more

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Mar 26, 2013 Matt rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history, 2016-reads

The fall of Constantinople in 1453 ended what the population always identified as the Roman Empire, but has become known as the Byzantine Empire that John Julius Norwich thought had been given a bad reputation in “the West”. In “A Short History of Byzantium” Norwich condensed his three-volume history of the Greek-flavored Roman Empire into a general history for those interested in history but do not have time for lengthy studies.

In covering almost 1200 years of history in about 400 pages, ...more

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Feb 02, 2015 Ashley Nef rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history

Constantinople fell today 563 years ago. Kind of poetic I finished the story of its 1000 year history today as well (this was totally unplanned). I just love Byzantium - its history is even crazier than Game of Thrones, and the setting is the stuff of dreams: gold mosaics, enamel pieces, rich silks, scintillating jewels, massive defensive walls designed by angels, nigh on mythic emperors and emperesses, and the Hagia Sophia rising above the city skyline above the Bosphorus. Gotta love John ...more

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Jul 10, 2015 Max Nova rated it liked it

Shelves: history

Greed? Check. Ambition? Check. Murder? Check. If “Game of Thrones” isn’t quite doing it for you, consider checking out John Julius Norwich’s “A Short History of Byzantium.”

Most of us (in America, at least) have a Byzantium-sized hole in our knowledge of the history of the Middle Ages. Which is a shame, because if ever there was a historical model for walking the line between East and West, it was Byzantium. This book is actually a distillation of a much larger 3 volume set. As such, it does ...more

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Aug 30, 2012 Tim Martin rated it really liked it

Shelves: reviewed, history, medieval-history, middle-east, ancient-history

_A Short History of Byzantium_ by John Julius Norwich was a well-written and comprehensive overview of largely the political history of the Byzantine Empire. At times the book felt a bit hurried as Emperor after Emperor rushed by, but then that is understandable given several facts. First, Norwich was covering the entire history of Byzantium, its 1,123 year lifespan from its founding as the Roman Empire of the East by Constantine the Great in 330 to its end when Constantine XI died fighting with _A Short History of Byzantium_ by John Julius Norwich was a well-written and comprehensive overview of largely the political history of the Byzantine Empire. At times the book felt a bit hurried as Emperor after Emperor rushed by, but then that is understandable given several facts. First, Norwich was covering the entire history of Byzantium, its 1,123 year lifespan from its founding as the Roman Empire of the East by Constantine the Great in 330 to its end when Constantine XI died fighting with his men the forces of the Turkish sultan Mehmet II in 1453. During that time 88 men and women occupied the imperial throne, some for very short periods of time. Second, this work is a condensed version of an earlier trilogy Norwich had written on the history of Byzantium, the three volumes titled _The Early Centuries_, _The Apogee_, and _The Decline and Fall_. At times one could feel that there was more to a particular story than the author was relating or that he could have gone into more detail but space in the 383 page book would not allow it. Still, it was a very useful and interesting introduction to an often popularly neglected period of world history.

The stars of the book are the rulers of the Byzantine Empire, the eighty-eight men and women as well as the seven rulers who usurped the throne during the Latin occupation as a result of the Fourth Crusade in 1204. They ranged across the spectrum of political rulers, from highly skilled diplomats to great generals to thugs and self-absorbed pleasure seekers and hedonists, from those dominated by bureaucrats to darlings of the military. Notable ones included Justinian I, who had restored much of the lost Roman Empire in the sixth century and was the "last truly Roman Emperor;" Heraclius (565-641), who defeated the Persian Empire forever and saved Byzantium, even besting one of its leaders in personal combat, and who made Greek, long the language of the people and the Church, the official language of the Empire, and John Palaeologus, who in 1366 was the first Emperor to leave his capital as a petitioner for much needed aid from the Christian West.

Also major players in the book were the succession of enemies that challenged Byzantium through the centuries, ranging from the final days of the Western Roman Empire to Byzantium's end in the 15th century. At various times the Goths, Huns, Vandals, Lombards, Persians, Arabs, Bulgars, Turks, Russians, Normans, Venetians, French, and Serbs threatened the Empire, each dealt with in their turn until the Turks proved in the end victorious. Norwich profiled some of the great adversaries of the Empire, including the great Gothic leader Alaric in the fourth century, fifth century Attila, the Great Bulgar Khan known as Krum from the ninth century, twelfth century Roger II King of Sicily, and the Doge Enrico Dandolo, the blind Venetian leader who in his eighties was instrumental in conquering Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade.

Norwich impressed upon the reader how deeply concerned with religion the rulers and common people of Byzantium were, commenting that it may be difficult for modern day readers to comprehend the involvement, indeed passion, of all classes of society in what would appear today to be "impossibly abstruse doctrinal niceties." Strangely, from the first Constantine the Great was tolerant of pagan faiths (and even one emperor, Julian the Apostate - 337-363 - sought to turn back the clock to paganism) but not of heretical Christian ones. Much of Byzantine history was concerned with struggles against various sects and schisms in Christendom, the Emperor and the religious leaders of Constantinople conflicting with the Donatists of North Africa and the Meletians of Egypt in the 4th century, the 5th century Arian heresy (its devotees, the Nestorians, preaching that Christ had two distinct persons, one human, one divine) and the monophysites (who believed in a single divine nature of Christ), the monophysites again in the 6th century, and on many occasions the Pope in Rome. The biggest and most culturally and political wrenching of the religious conflicts was arguably the iconoclasm conflict; starting in the 720s a group known as the iconoclasts felt that there was too much veneration of sacred objects and in particular sacred paintings, mosaics, and sculptures, with iconodules openly worshipping and praying to particular icons and statues.

The Byzantines had a big monastic movement, so large that some Emperors, such as Constantine Copronymus, sought to close monasteries and force monks and nuns to marry and worried about a dangerous depopulation trend and plummeting manpower for farming and military use.

Emperors personally were deeply involved in religion. Some Emperors sought an end to upstart sects or to heal the breach with Rome for political reasons; others due to intense theological interest, and some for both reasons. Many an Emperor or Empress abdicated and retired from public life to a monastery or a convent. Also quite a few were sent there against their will, sometimes several times, as the result of various courtly intrigues and power struggles.

Speaking of power struggles, for all their religion the Byzantines could be a cruel people. Though there were many benevolent Emperors, quite a few were not and even some of the good ones rose to power through murder, torture, and mutilation (though also several of them sincerely regretted that later in life). A number of Emperors dispatched the children, even young children, of past rulers as well as their adult supporters, the more benign ones exiling them to monasteries or convents, others imprisoning them, or sometimes personally strangling them with bowstrings, beheading them, or even slowly torturing them to death. Blinding was a very common fate for rivals, particularly rival claimants to the throne, sometimes done publicly. For a time something called rhinokopia, the removal of the nose, was performed, the idea being no Emperor could rule that had obvious physical defects, though Justinian II "Rhinotmetus" proved he could rule without a nose, pretty much ending the practice. ...more

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Jan 14, 2019 Alexis Grenier rated it it was amazing

Absolutely fantastic book. Very informative, well detailed, witty and humourous at times. But most of all, it is incredibly entertaining, never a dull moment. Everything I wanted and much more. Perfect for anyone interested in Byzantium or just history in general.

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Nov 08, 2014 Stephen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: medieval, history, middle-east, rome, christianity, survey, classical-world, eastern-rome-byzantine, eastern-europe

Rome fell in a.d. 474? Tell that to the Byzantines, who for centuries persisted in being an afterimage of the classical world, evolving through the medieval before their collapse a century after the west had fallen to barbarism. A Short History of Byzantium takes in over a thousand years of history, from Diocletian’s administrative division of the Roman Empire into two halves to the fall of the great city Constantinople to the Turks. There is great difficulty in a hurried survey like this, Rome fell in a.d. 474? Tell that to the Byzantines, who for centuries persisted in being an afterimage of the classical world, evolving through the medieval before their collapse a century after the west had fallen to barbarism. A Short History of Byzantium takes in over a thousand years of history, from Diocletian’s administrative division of the Roman Empire into two halves to the fall of the great city Constantinople to the Turks. There is great difficulty in a hurried survey like this, subjecting the reader to a tide of dates and names, but John Julius Norwich is a storyteller; under his pen, some events, and some people, are so outstanding that they serve as landmarks for the rest.

A Short History of Byzantium begins with a story more familiar, for the first chapters are a history of the Roman Empire as the west remembers it: Roman. Constantine the Great moved the center of the Roman Empire to the east, founding a new Rome on the site of an old trading-city, Byzantium, a city that would later assume his name: Constantinople. The move created a fresh start, but allowed the Emperor to focus on the nation’s rising threats: powers to the east, especially the Parthians. Rome vs. Persia; it’s a battle between titans of the classical era. The book’s scope is such, though, that the classical gives way to a world at its conclusion which is more like ours; we see here the birth of the Holy Roman Empire, the rise of Islam, the explosive expansion of the Ottoman Turks. Throughout all this tumultuous change was the Empire, warring against and making common cause with these changing powers through the ages. Byzantium was also witness and party to Christianity’s evolution. The effective founder of the Byzantine heritage, Constantine, was the man who legitimized Christianity within the Empire as a whole, and put it on the path to becoming the binding religion of the west as a whole. But that binding could not quite stand the stressors of the ages, the gulf of cultural differences between Rome proper and the east, and Christianity once unified eventually severed into two halves, Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. But the cut was never a clean one; instead, there were tiny fractures that opened and closed through the centuries, forever dynamic but trending in the end toward rupture.

The empire itself is the subject of considerable interest, somehow holding on through the centuries despite the staggering variety of challenges it faced. It defended itself from one invasion after another, from Bulgars, Goths, Vikings, and later on Arabs and Turks, and relied on the oddest allies. In resisting the Norman attack on southern Italy, for instance, it employed disgruntled Anglo-Saxons who had left England in disgusted after the Normans conquered it. A nation surviving a thousand years of history must have some institutional stability, but it is hard to see after this survey; only 88 people held the throne in that span, but they seem to go with great haste, and often bloodily. At times even western Rome appears sane by comparison, though that’s excepting monsters like Caligula and Nero. Not that Byzantium is without its characters, listing as emperor men like “Michael the Sot”. There are utter boors and monks, noble heroes and complete, degenerate cowards. There are women, too, some who reign through their husbands, and some who reign in their own right. They make for a colorful cast, and though I knew the general trend of the story (an image of the Turks besieging Constantinople has haunted my mind since seeing it in grade school), the turns it took were surprising indeed. The empire rose and fell through the centuries, contending against all manner of adversaries, but the fatal dagger came at the hands of those who ought to have been its defenders; the Crusaders, who in the Fourth Crusade, sacked the city. Even the fluke victory the Turks inflicted on it years prior did not break the empire so badly as that sacking.

This was in short quite a treat, exposing me to a world of information previously hidden away, but of utter interest. From the word go, Byzantine history was wrapped up in the west; how its memory became lost is a puzzle, considering how important western powers viewed it almost until the last, straining to wed into its line to unite the German 'Roman' empire and the empire of Old. Entertaining in many respects, it also delivers a history of Europe from another aspect, and is quite commendable.

Related:

Twelve Byzantine Rulers, Lars Brownsworth. Based heavily on the book, as it turns out. ...more

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Feb 08, 2014 Maitrey rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history

I've had a long fascination with Byzantine history and came into this book expecting a short overview of this enigmatic empire.

How can you compress over a thousand years of history? That too a history that is indelibly linked with almost all of Europe and West Asia for all nearly a millennium. I'll be honest that John Julius Norwich doesn't do a smashing job, but a credible job that'll only be a stepping stone for it's readers to go out and explore the Byzantines.

Norwich isn't a historian, and I've had a long fascination with Byzantine history and came into this book expecting a short overview of this enigmatic empire.

How can you compress over a thousand years of history? That too a history that is indelibly linked with almost all of Europe and West Asia for all nearly a millennium. I'll be honest that John Julius Norwich doesn't do a smashing job, but a credible job that'll only be a stepping stone for it's readers to go out and explore the Byzantines.

Norwich isn't a historian, and doesn't make any pretensions about it. He's a British ex-diplomat who decided to write about a people he must have read up a lot on (his other works are based on the Norman Sicilian dynasty and a history of Venice). His lack of training and prejudices show up in some places.

A Short of History of Byzantium is an abridged version of his three-part History of Byzantium. I'll be honest and say in no way I felt this book to be an abridgment. It was a dry history throughout.

The book is a list of one Emperor's (and Empress') short biography after another. I think he's covered every single one of them! An achievement I'd think considering there were dozens of them covering a millennium. For people who like this kind of stuff (like me, who like keeping handy lists and wouldn't mind knowing the chronology and genealogy of these Emperors) this book will be easy to read. For others, tough luck.

There is next to nothing about the Byzantine economy, their culture (just fleeting mentions are made of the Byzantine obsession over theology, and repercussions such as the 5th Century Iconoclasm) and their art though is somewhat better treated. You'll not come away knowing why the Byzantines never adopted feudalism in the Western European sense (a question I've always wondered about). It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say the book is completely centred around Constantinople. Even though so much of early Byzantium depended on Egypt, and later on: Anatolia and the Balkans, these regions are given very short shrift. You won't come away knowing anything about Byzantine war strategies (they were famed warriors for much of the Middle Ages and the cataphract, their armoured and mounted warriors might have inspired the European knight of the Later Middle Ages) even though much of the book is detailing the exploits, and defeats, of these Emperors, many of them army commanders.

So if you would like to know who Constantine's successor was, or who built the famous Constantinople Triple Walls, or just why the "Queen of Cities" ended up being captured in 1204 CE by Crusaders, this book is for you. If you cannot tolerate boring school-boyish history where names are repeated, stay away from it.

Also, I don't think you'll need to read the 3-part books at all, I certainly won't. This is a good enough introduction. Now to find a book written by a historian.

...more

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Jul 14, 2012 Greg Hoadley rated it really liked it

I still remember sitting in my high school history class, learning about the Roman Empire. Our history teacher mentioned in passing that in the 5th century, it was only the Western Roman Empire that ended; the Eastern half continued on for over 1,000 years--and oh, by the way, for a time they got back a large portion of what had been the full Roman Empire when it was at its peak. But after that little snippet, my teacher quickly moved on to something else.

Why should that be surprising? Because I still remember sitting in my high school history class, learning about the Roman Empire. Our history teacher mentioned in passing that in the 5th century, it was only the Western Roman Empire that ended; the Eastern half continued on for over 1,000 years--and oh, by the way, for a time they got back a large portion of what had been the full Roman Empire when it was at its peak. But after that little snippet, my teacher quickly moved on to something else.

Why should that be surprising? Because the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire lasted until just 39 years before Christopher Columbus sailed west; was a forced to be reckoned with for most of the Middle Ages; was notorious for its art and literature (and cutthroat politics); and had a profound impact upon how Christianity is observed by millions of people to this day. All this, and yet my teacher had so little to say about it. As a teenaged history buff, I could only wonder why.

A few years later, I came across John Julius Norwich's 3-volume history of the Byzantine Empire. But really, who has time to read it all, marvelous though it may be?

This is why Norwich's "Short History" is such an important work. Granted, he practically apologizes for the brevity of it, and having to skip over many lush historical details. One can only sympathize with Norwich for having to condense over 1,000 years of history into some 380 pages.

Having said that, he beautifully introduces his readers to this forgotten empire with readable, engaging, and occasionally witty prose. From Constantine the Great to Constantine XIV, Norwich shows how this Empire rose in prominence, narrowly escaped defeat in its early years, rebounded in the late 9th Century, then gradually declined under weak and short-sighted leadership.

Attention is also given to important events like the Great Schism, Byzantium's role in the Crusades, and the debacle of the Fourth Crusade (which incidentally is the greatest black eye that professing Christianity ever inflicted upon itself).

The only reason I give "Short History" 4 stars instead of 5 is due to its brevity. Many important historical events (like those in the previous paragraph) are skimmed over, and the reader is left wanting more. Even still, I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to begin learning about the Byzantine Empire (and that includes my former high school history professor). ...more

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Sep 18, 2013 Martin rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-comics, history, reviewed

John Julius Norwich's [apparently] famous 1200-page "History of Byzantium" trilogy gets condensed to just under 400 pages, in the hopes that by making it accessible - and not force readers to commit to 3 books, instead reading just one and getting the most important info. So yes - the pace is a bit break-neck, but Norwich still manages to explain things satisfactorily, yet never condescendingly.

Besides all the "history" being skimmed over (with 383 pages for about 1200 years of Byzantine Empire, John Julius Norwich's [apparently] famous 1200-page "History of Byzantium" trilogy gets condensed to just under 400 pages, in the hopes that by making it accessible - and not force readers to commit to 3 books, instead reading just one and getting the most important info. So yes - the pace is a bit break-neck, but Norwich still manages to explain things satisfactorily, yet never condescendingly.

Besides all the "history" being skimmed over (with 383 pages for about 1200 years of Byzantine Empire, there's no other way), what especially struck me is that a lot of them - the "main cast" if we can call it that - had a lot of the same names, so it got a bit hard to keep track of them all individually. And sometimes some of them had different names but then changed it to one that had been used oh so many times before. It got to the point that at times I just stopped trying to keep it all clear in my head, and just plowed on to the next section. It also led to some annoyance on my part, so much that I'm just glad I finished it. And I seriously doubt I'll be reading the original trilogy. It was informative, yes, but ultimately did not make me care. Byzantium couldn't stay on top forever. All empires must some day crumble, to be replaced by other empires. The wheel was turning and it was Byzantium's turn.

It's ridiculous how many plots and counter-plots they went through. One crisis after another! Assassinations, blinding people (thousands upon thousands of people!), cutting off noses, East/West religion schisms, excommunications, ever-shifting alliances, concubines, second/third/fourth wives, invasions, sieges, treaties signed (and broken at a whim), protection money payoffs, co-Emperors, patricides, fratricides, regicides, etc. Make it stop!

There are plenty of illustrations (photos and paintings), all in black & white. It would've been nice to have them printed in colour on glossy paper. It would be at least that. Norwich supplies lots of maps, family trees (which come in very handy in the later chapters of the book), and lists of Emperors, Sultans, and Popes. ...more

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Aug 04, 2011 Jacob Aitken added it · review of another edition

This is history writing of the highest order. Lord Norwich's work is truly awe-inspiring. I only regret that I have the condensed version and not the three volume work. Norwich gives a summary of each of the Emperors, their faults, and how they determined the history of Byzantium.

Norwich also dispels a lot of myths about Byzantium. Thanks to Gibbon and illiterate pundits today, most people think Byzantium was simply one long succession of inbred degenerates and sensual despots. Norwhich ...more

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Dec 25, 2015 Patricia rated it it was amazing

Shelves: mediterranean, classical-and-medieval-history, european-history, islamic-history-culture

Surprisingly, a history book one can read from beginning to finish that reads like a novel, while retaining enough factual information to be an evergreen reference book. Not that the one function doesn't intrude upon the other once in a while--there are pages where you will hunger for more details (and isn't this how we determine the next books we want to read?) and other pages where one's eyes begin to glaze over (all those Leo's, Matthew's, Constantine's and Nicholas' ... ARGH!). But a book in ...more

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Jul 31, 2009 Ross rated it it was ok

Ugh. I learned a lot of emperors' names and results of campaigns, and I guess I wanted that. Sometimes you need a basic general history, but there's almost no social or economic history in here at all and no explanation.

Norwich makes a lot of anachronistic moral commentary, such as one emperor being "shamelessly bisexual," some theological dogma being a triumph of "West over East, clarity over mysticism," and three or four emperors having saved Western civilization from barbarism or "the Islamic ...more

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Feb 12, 2009 Yiannis rated it it was amazing

This is a whirlwind tour of more than 1000 years of rich history, thick with world changing events, communication and clashes between civilizations, battles, strategies, ambitions, plots, and the rise and fall of one of the most glorious and least known civilizations: the Byzantine Empire.

John Julius Norwich has an incredible command of the subject, not only of the big events but also the little revealing details. In a few pages he manages to accurately describe the historical events, slowing ...more

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Nov 22, 2012 Chris Hall rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

If Goodreads rating system went to 10 instead of 5 then I would give this book 9.5. Not because it doesn't deserve 10 but because I'm convinced it cannot be better than the three volumes that this is a condensed version of. The author admits that much has been left out in the production of this single volume and if I knew what I know now then I would have tried to obtain the original three volumes.

Having said that, this is a fantastic book for anyone who has more than a passing interest in ...more

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Feb 04, 2018 James rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: anyone

Recommended to James by: GoldGato

Shelves: history, non-fiction

A layman's history of Byzantium, it covers over a thousand years in its 360 or so pages if text along with a hundred pages or so of notes, family trees and other graphics. Like most empires, it had endless problems with succession, though no worse than Tang China when looking at average reigning years per emperor. Early on, the chariot teams Blue and Green were politically important, very bizarre! Religion was a complicated matter, the endless Christian intolerance towards any variation from the ...more

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Oct 12, 2011 Demetra rated it it was amazing

I thought I left a comment on this and now can not find it.

Nevermind.

As I wrote before I first encountered this book in college while looking for something extra to read about the late Roman empire. I enjoyed it as a 20 year old I enjoy it now that I am much older.

It's a wonderful tour of history and it is - rather unexpectedly - hilarious. I kept on saying to myself "this is no way to run an empire," and it wasn't.

I feel that the history of Byzantium is often ignored, there are no movies ...more

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Aug 01, 2011 Brian added it

This one was a bit of a slog. Don't get me wrong, Norwich's writing style is very light and not remotely academic, but there's a sameness to both subject and treatment that lulls one into an occasional sense of confusion. The real trouble is that there's little emphasis on which events or people may be more relevant than others. Norwich skips from one battle or imperial intrigue to the next without ever drawing a breath. Further, there's the lack of much context about other contemporary empires. ...more

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About John Julius Norwich

John Julius Norwich

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Norwich is the only child of the Conservative politician and diplomat Duff Cooper and of Lady Diana Cooper, a celebrated beauty and society figure. Through his father, he is descended from King William IV and his mistress Dorothea Jordan.

He was educated at Upper Canada College, Toronto, Canada (as a wartime evacuee), at Eton College, and at the University of Strasbourg. He served in the Royal Navy
Norwich is the only child of the Conservative politician and diplomat Duff Cooper and of Lady Diana Cooper, a celebrated beauty and society figure. Through his father, he is descended from King William IV and his mistress Dorothea Jordan.

He was educated at Upper Canada College, Toronto, Canada (as a wartime evacuee), at Eton College, and at the University of Strasbourg. He served in the Royal Navy before taking a degree in French and Russian at New College, Oxford.

Joining the British Foreign Service after Oxford, John Julius Cooper served in Yugoslavia and Lebanon, and as a member of British delegation to the Disarmament Conference in Geneva. At his father's death in 1954, he inherited the title of Viscount Norwich, created for Duff Cooper in 1952, which made him a member of the British House of Lords.

In 1964, Norwich left the diplomatic service to become a writer. Apart from his many books (see list), he has also served as editor of series such as Great Architecture of the World, The Italian World, The New Shell Guides to Great Britain, The Oxford Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Art and the Duff Cooper Diaries. Norwich has often contributed to Cornucopia, a magazine devoted to the history and culture of Turkey.

Norwich has worked extensively in radio and television. He was host of the BBC radio panel game My Word! for four years (1978-1982) and also a regional contestant on Round Britain Quiz. He has written and presented some 30 television documentaries, including The Fall of Constantinople, Napoleon's Hundred Days, Cortés and Montezuma, The Antiquities of Turkey, The Gates of Asia, Maximilian of Mexico, Toussaint l'Ouverture of Haiti, The Knights of Malta and The Death of the Prince Imperial in the Zulu War.

Norwich has also worked for various charitable projects. He is Chairman of the Venice in Peril Fund, Honorary Chairman of the World Monuments Fund, and a Vice-President of the National Association of Decorative and Fine Arts Societies[2]. For many years he was a member of the Executive Committee of the National Trust, and also served on the Board of English National Opera.

Lord Norwich was appointed CVO in 1992 after acting as curator of a Victoria and Albert Museum exhibition entitled 'Sovereign', which marked the 40th anniversary of the accession of H. M. The Queen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Jul... ...more

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“The fourth century had been a fateful one indeed for the Roman Empire. It had seen the birth of a new capital, and the adoption of Christianity as the official religion of the Empire. It ended, however, on a note of bathos: in the West with silence and inertia in the face of the barbarian menace, in the East with a whimper – the only possible description for the reactions of a feckless Emperor as his vicious wife held him up to public ridicule as a fool, an incompetent and a cuckold. The new century, on the other hand, began with a bang. In the early summer of 401, Alaric the Goth invaded Italy.” — 0 likes

“for the Byzantine Empire, absolute monarchy though it might be, ran its economy on socialist lines. Private enterprise was rigidly controlled: production, labour, consumption, foreign trade, public welfare, even the movement of population were all in the hands of the State. The consequence was a vast horde of civil servants, imbued by the Emperor with one overriding principle: to curb if not actually to destroy the power of the army.” — 0 likes

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