Byzantine Greeks

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Byzantine Greeks
Ῥωμαῖοι

Scenes of agricultural life in a Byzantine Gospel of the 11th century.
Regions with significant populations
Byzantine Empire (esp. Asia Minor, Balkans)
Languages
Medieval Greek
Religion
Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Related ethnic groups
Ottoman Greeks, Greeks

Byzantine culture
Aristocracy and bureaucracy Army Art Architecture Calendar Cities Coinage Cuisine Dance Diplomacy Dress Economy Gardens Law Literature Medicine Music People Science
v t e

The Byzantine Greeks were the Greek-speaking Eastern Romans throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.^{[citation needed]} They were the main inhabitants of the lands of the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire), of Constantinople and Asia Minor (modern Turkey), 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, they self-identified as Romans (Greek: Ῥωμαῖοι, romanized: Rhōmaîoi). Latin speakers identified them simply as Greeks or with the term Romaei.

Use of Greek was already widespread in the eastern Roman Empire when Constantine I (r. 306–337) moved its capital to Constantinople, while Anatolia had also been hellenized by early Byzantine times.^[1] The empire lost its diversity following the loss of non-Greek speaking provinces with the 7th century Muslim conquests and its population was overwhelmingly Greek-speaking by the 8th century.^[2] Unlike the early medieval West, the Greek education of the East was more advanced, resulting in widespread basic literacy. Success came easily to Greek-speaking merchants, who enjoyed a strong position in international trade.

Social structure 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 were attributed to political factions within 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. By the 11th century, more of the soldiers within the army were either professional men-at-arms or mercenaries.

The clergy held a special place in the empire, having more freedom than their Western counterparts, and maintaining a patriarch in Constantinople who was considered the equivalent of the pope. Following the imperial coronation of 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. Their relations were further damaged by the East–West Schism of 1054.

After the fall of the empire, the Ottomans used the term "Rum millet" ("Roman nation") for their Greek and Eastern Orthodox populations.^[3] It increasingly transformed into an ethnic identity, marked by Greek language and Orthodoxy, shaping modern Greek identity.^[4][5] Although the term 'Hellen' was briefly revived by the Nicaenean elite and in intellectual circles by Gemistos Plethon and John Argyropoulos,^[6] the Roman self-identification persisted until the Greek Revolution, when 'Hellen' came to replace it. Greeks still sometimes use "Romioi" ("Romans") in addition to "Hellenes", and "Romaic" ("Roman") for the Modern Greek language.^[7][8]