In the middle ages,Byzantiumis the name given toEastern Roman Empire’s state and culture. It was said to be an ancient city before it was namedConstantinople. It then became the capital of the empire of Ottoman Turks following its conquest on May 29, 1453. After the advent of the modernTurkey,Byzantiumwas officially named asIstanbulin 1930.

The political culture of Byzantium slowly changed wherein classical secularism, which was so attractive to Renaissance and Enlightenment scholars, found to have no place in the city before its archaizing and pessimistic culture became subjected to centuries of abuse as a period of superstition and barbarism. The counterpart to the dismissal of the city’s culture came in when it was exalted by a substrate of Christian, especially Anglican intellectuals, and by the nineteenth century Romanticism. Some Orthodox Christian intellectuals also claimed the city which resulted to the acquisition of defenders who concentrated equally on the religious aspects.

Marxist contribution has been one of the important factors of Byzantine studies. Historians of Marxism are being mocked for fitting factual ideas to theory. Agricultural laws of the tenth century in Byzantiumwere presented at the time as addressing the conflict of the powerful people and the poor in which a prime example of the start of feudalism was seen by a number of Marxists. Philological and art historical concerns are still much more reigning the studies on Byzantiumthan Western medieval history. The civilization of the city has tended to be rejected by advocates of classism and refused by Western medievalists to be acknowledged due to its unequaled stand as the medieval continuation of the RomanState.

Roman ideas of an elective monarchy were continued byByzantiumin which emperors were subject to the laws of the empire. There was no full development of the notion of hereditary rule inByzantiumthough several citizens managed to decide the implementation of ruling dynasties. The idea that an emperor in the city was ultimately chosen by God also contributed to the success of rebels and usurpers. It was said that a person inByzantiumhad the approval of God if he was able to force the existing emperor to leave from the position.

Despite the indication of a patriarchal society inByzantium, there was a certain participation of women in some way in many of the aspects of Byzantine society. They operated businesses, involved in the church as nuns and even took an active role in political activities. Without the forbearance and involvement of women inByzantium, the military structure could have not acted to fulfill duties. Furthermore, there were elite women in the ancient city even acted as military commanders.

Constantinoplehad a high number of soldiers who were also depending on land holdings which they held in return for service in the military. A major feature of the society inConstantinoplebecame the provincial land-holding aristocracy in which there was a struggle between provincial aristocracy and the central government for the takeover of rural labor and the fruits of surplus agricultural production.

For more than one thousand years, the empire ofByzantiumstood at the cultural and geographical center of Middle-Eastern and European world. For much of that period, the ancient city played the role of a great political and cultural power.