summary
A Byzantine Empire that was constantly facing foreign invasions but was able to crush the invaders' intentions again and again, has tenaciously survived in the long river of history for more than a thousand years, which can be said to be a unique miracle in world history.
Byzantine culture and law still deeply influence all countries in the world.
But one night in 1453, an attack broke this miracle and made a glorious empire a thing of the past.
What caused the demise of this thousand-year-old country?
Is it its own decay or the strength of the external enemy? Go back in history and analyze the reasons for the decline and demise of Byzantium.
Keywords: Byzantine Decay
First, economic factors
The collapse and complete destruction of the small-scale peasant economy was the basic economic factor in the demise of the Byzantine Empire.
The development and rise of the small-scale peasant economy laid a firm and strong material foundation for the gradual strengthening of the Byzantine state, but with the outbreak of a series of wars and natural disasters (plague, volcanic eruption, drought), the population was small, and the small-scale peasant economy went into decline, causing the decline of the Byzantine state and sharply intensifying various social contradictions, thus accelerating the final demise of the Byzantine state.
The complete collapse of smallholder economies has had the following effects:
1. The decline of the small-scale peasant economy directly weakened the economic foundation on which the Byzantine armed forces depended, resulting in a decline in national strength and military strength, which became the fundamental reason for the military defeat of the Byzantine Empire.
2. The complete collapse of the small-scale peasant economy under the military region system was accompanied by the rise of large real estate. The military aristocracy, backed by a large estate economy, formed a counterweight to the central government, and they even interfered in the imperial government, abolished the monarchy, and influenced the political situation, representing separatist forces with different interests, which aggravated the internal strife of the Byzantine Empire.
At the same time, the negative impact of the collapse of the smallholder economy on industry and commerce remains reversible.
First, the weakening of the military strength with peasants and soldiers as the backbone has made it difficult to maintain a stable environment for industry and commerce, especially border trade, to maintain a prosperous condition
Second, the decline of the smallholder economy has dealt a severe blow to the development of industry and commerce, reducing the necessary domestic market. The peasants were bankrupt and unable to buy handicrafts, and their purchasing power declined, leading to the decline of large and small industries.
The destruction of industry and commerce deprived Byzantium of any economic self-reliance.
After the 11th century, with the abolition of the military region system and the bankruptcy of a large number of small peasants, the local nobles took the opportunity to annex the land and form a large real estate economy opposed to the small peasant economy.
The peasant households were the main contributors of imperial taxation, and the bankruptcy of the peasants dried up the country's tax revenues, the country's finances were in difficulty, and the local military aristocracy controlled local taxes, causing the central government to lose its economic pillars and paralyzing the country's financial system.
The most fatal blow to the country brought to the country by the collapse of the small-scale peasant economy under the military region system was the collapse of the military region military system, which combined soldiers and farmers, resulting in the collapse of the military system, and the country could not truly suppress rebellion within the country and ward off the enemy externally.
In short, a series of chain reactions caused by the collapse of the small-scale peasant economy under the military region made the economy of the Byzantine Empire stretched, and the political situation in the military became increasingly turbulent.
Finally, in 1453, the capital was captured by Erqi, and the Byzantine Empire collapsed.
Second, political environment factors
Domestic factors:
1. Rulers:
In order to unify the country and restore the former glory of the Roman Empire, Constantine and his subsequent Byzantine rulers constantly launched wars, exhausted their armed forces, and expanded everywhere, and a series of protracted wars caused the empire to run out of money and the people and seriously consumed the national strength.
The emperors did not argue, and most of them had no ambitions. And because the whole country is in a state of great difficulty, even if occasionally an emperor or government minister wants to revitalize, he is powerless.
The empire that continued the reign of 1058 and created a brilliant civilization could not escape the fate of extinction.
2. The relationship between rulers, nobles, and peasants:
In an environment of frequent wars and sudden changes in the natural environment, the smallholder economy has collapsed.
At this time, "large secular landowners took the opportunity to expand their land, relying on their abundant financial resources and privileges, and wantonly encroached on the land of small farmers in the name of protecting them."
The military aristocracy, backed by a large estate economy, formed a counterweight to the central government, and they even intervened in the imperial government, abolished the monarchy, and influenced the political situation, representing separatist forces with different interests, which aggravated the internal strife of the Byzantine Empire.
According to records, until the beginning of the 15th century, on the eve of the fall of the Byzantine Emperor, the great nobles in various places were still in their own hands, sitting idly by and watching the capital in danger.
After the fall of Constantinople, the great nobles fought fiercely in Moria and Trabizhonde, fighting each other, and even all became slaves of the Turks.
Because of their own selfish intentions, ignoring the calamity of the extermination of the clan and the country, those great nobles were still fighting, so that the people surrounded by 200,000 enemy troops, nuns and nobles, rice girls and priests, street urchins and courtiers, all repaired every new gap in the ruined wall.
They fought from the end of April until the third week of May, fighting for their world, for their way of life.
Hungry, exhausted, sick, they knew that no matter what they did, they could not save themselves. This has to lament the fate of the Byzantine Empire that was destroyed.
However, the rulers of the empire could not completely weaken the power of the great aristocracy, and could only increase the country's fiscal revenue through some policies (such as the implementation of the tax system).
Gradually, the state lost control of its taxes and allowed the great aristocracy to exploit taxpayers in its tax-covered areas. This caused popular resentment to boil over, accusations to be heard, and the folk proverb "It is better to have the fire of foreign slavery than the smoke of heavy taxes in the country".
As a result, the uprising swept across the country like a terrible and brutal epidemic, striking many people who had been moderate and moderate in the past. So, all the cities rose up against the nobility.
The entire empire was in the throes of the most brutal and fierce struggles. The people launched armed uprisings at every turn and acted violently because they hated the rich.
Foreign factors:
1. Geographical location:
Constantinople is bordered by the Sea of Marmara in the south, the Golden Horn Bay in the north, the Bosphorus Strait in the east, and the Thracian plain in the west, which is easy to defend and difficult to attack, and has a unique geographical location, connecting Europe and Asia with the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, becoming a golden bridge for trade between the East and the West.
Spices, silk and jewelry from the East, furs, beeswax and amber from the Slavs of the North, grain, licorice and paper from Egypt were scattered in Constantinople.
Surrounded by water on three sides and backed by mountains on one side, Constantinople has always been a battleground for soldiers, and the development of industry and commerce and economic prosperity are the main factors of foreign invasion.
2. Foreign invasion:
The Slavs, Arabs after the rise of Islam, Ottoman Turks, etc., with the construction of feudal states and the coveting of Constantinople, also constantly waged wars against Byzantium.
After that, Sassanid Persia expanded militarily, and Byzantium fought with Persia for many years, and then with the Bulgarians for many years. The Rabel Empire rose, and Byzantium fought Arabia for many more years.
After fighting against the Seljuk Turks, and then the establishment of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, Du prepared to besiege Constantinople, but in the face of the expansion of the Timurid Empire, the Ottoman Empire was attacked and had no time to attack Byzantium, allowing Byzantium to live for a few more years.
Timur violently killed his empire and collapsed, and the Ottoman Empire finally gave up the siege of Constantinople, which was breached on May 29, 1453, and Byzantium was destroyed.
In addition, in 1204, during the Fourth Crusade, through Byzantium, the original purpose of the crusaders was to recover Egypt, but the Venetians who were in power at the time of the Byzantine lords led the crusaders to capture Constantinople and establish a short-lived Latin Empire, and when the internal class contradictions of the Byzantine Empire tended to be sharp, it was dealt a heavy blow by the eastern invasion of the feudal lords of Western Europe.
Military factors:
Constantine VII said: "Peasants and soldiers are to the state what a head is to the body, and whoever neglects it neglects the security of the country." But, unfortunately, he got it right.
The military district system, based on the small-peasant economy, collapsed with the decline of the small-peasant economy, leading to the disappearance of Byzantine peasant soldiers. This left the Byzantine Empire facing an urgent crisis in its military resources, and foreign incursions forced the court to recruit mercenaries from abroad.
However, because recruiting mercenaries when needed to fight was more economical and effective than supporting their own standing army, the Byzantine emperors increasingly relied on mercenaries for war.
The rise of mercenaries played an important role in the decline of the Byzantine Empire.
First, it accelerated the economic collapse of the Byzantine state, because the salaries of mercenaries usually greatly exceeded the emperor's budget and became a large expenditure without limit, especially when the war dragged on for a long time, and the military expenditure of mercenaries became a bottomless pit, making the already stretched finances of the Byzantine Empire even more strained.
In addition, mercenaries played a very weak role in Byzantium's foreign wars, and in 1204, at the critical moment when the crusaders came to Constantinople, mercenaries hired to defend the city refused to fight because the demand for higher salaries was not met, making the capital of the Byzantine Empire vulnerable to thousands of crusaders.
In various civil wars in the late Byzantine Empire, such as the Battle of Andronicus and the Battle of Two Johns, mercenaries played a major role in military confrontation, in which Turkish mercenaries took the opportunity to expand their power, conquered Asia Minor and the Balkans, and eventually became gravediggers of the Byzantine Empire.
III. Religion:
The empire was also weakened by religious disputes.
In the Byzantine Empire, the government implemented a policy of forcibly converting to Christianity for the people, turning the contradictions between Christianity and paganism to the Christian church, and there were endless controversies and sectarian divisions, and the people everywhere also actively participated in such disputes, so that religious disputes appeared in very fierce forms of confrontation, and even led to popular riots or anti-government movements, causing social turmoil.
Hoping to secure Western aid to ward off the approaching Turks, the emperors had agreed on three separate occasions to submit the Orthodox Church to the Pope.
These agreements proved meaningless, as Western aid was negligible and Byzantium was further torn apart by the fierce opposition of the population to any concessions to the hateful Latins.
Orchidism is better than the Pope, and this is the-for-tat answer of the masses to the atrocities of the Fourth Crusade and the exploitation of Italian merchants.
The monarchs of the Byzantine Empire did not properly handle the relationship between religions in the country, resulting in contradictions and conflicts between different religions, resulting in the secular aristocracy in Constantinople preferring to let money rot in the ground rather than lend money to the emperor for war.
To sum up, economic, political, military and religious factors have an important impact on the stability of the country.
The failure of the Byzantine Empire to adjust its economy and production relations in a timely manner led to fundamental turmoil in the empire and numerous domestic contradictions.
In addition, the rulers clinged to the existing state system, resting on their laurels and not wanting to make progress, making it difficult for Byzantium to escape the fate of destruction.
The empire existed for more than a thousand years, and religious conflicts within the country occurred from time to time, such as Catholicism and paganism.
Revelation:
1. The economy is the foundation of a country's development and survival, and only by properly handling the productive forces and production relations can a country have a material foundation for prosperity. Otherwise, economic decay is likely to lead to the demise of a nation and a state.
2. Rich countries need stronger soldiers, and it is a mistake to redeem military weapons with poor soldiers, but not paying attention to military construction will also lead to national decline. Military construction must not be at the expense of the people, otherwise, it will accelerate the turmoil of the country.
3. The Byzantines apparently believed that their duty was only to preserve the heritage of their ancestors and not to innovate, and this closed and conservative mentality and practice lasted for several centuries, and Byzantine civilization was like a rabbit that raced with a turtle and stopped to sleep halfway, not only surpassed by the turtle, but also abandoned by the times.
In the years that followed, it appeared powerless not only against the attacks of the Western European Crusaders, whose Christian brothers represented a new civilizational expansion, but also helpless under the blows of the newly rising Islamic expansionists.
Finally eliminated in the Great Waves of history. A country cannot stick to it, and should reform according to the time and place, but reform must be based on its own conditions and seek truth from facts.
4. The issue of religion is also an important factor affecting national stability. In China, the government's policy of promoting freedom of ethnic belief has promoted harmonious coexistence among ethnic groups and provided a good environment for the country's stability and prosperity
5. You can't rest on your laurels and don't know how to forge ahead, otherwise you will be eliminated by the tide of history, just like the Qing Dynasty.
Today, we should not only not close ourselves off to the country, but also look at the world, learn from the excellent political systems and cultures of other countries, learn from Japan's imitation ability, absorb multiple excellent factors, and constantly improve ourselves, so as to make the country strong.