From whitney howarth 
Date:         Fri, 27 Apr 2001 14:44:02 -0400
Reply-To:     H-NET List for World History 
Sender:       H-NET List for World History 
From:         whitney howarth 
Subject:      The Year 1000 and Byzantium
To:           H-WORLD@H-NET.MSU.EDU

Date: April 27, 2001
From:   Stephen Morillo
        Wabash College
        morillos@wabash.edu

Jack Goldstone writes:

> On the other hand, if you want to ask which was the most "advanced"
> civilization c. 1000, it would be Song first, Abbasids 2nd, India tied for
> 2nd or possibly 3rd, Byzantium 4th, southeast Asia (Java) 5th, and Europe
> and Japan tied for 6th.  Arguably, some of the sub-Saharan African trading
> states (e.g. Timbuktu) were close to Europe in overall social and economic
> complexity at this time.  Of course, this parlour game also will provide
> diverse results depending on what factors are chosen to influence your
> rankings (e.g. economic well-being, political complexity, scientific
> achievement, literary/artistic culture), and you are likely to get many
> different rankings from world history "experts."

Indeed, you'll get different lists, and I think you'll get even more
argument about the very concept of "advancement" or "complexity"
than you will over "influence".  I for one just can't see how there is
much significant difference between Byzantium and China in 1000 in
these terms.  "Advanced", in particular, seems a term fraught with
teleological implications.  What are we advancing towards?

Perhaps it is this almost unconscious assumption that contributes to
Byzantium-neglect.  Jack also says he prefers to list the "contributions"
that each civilization made... to what?  It seems, from his list, that he is
thinking of contributions to our modern world.  That would certainly
tend to push Byzantium down on any list, as there is, perhaps,
remarkably little that Byzantium has contributed to modern, western
dominated world culture.  (Even the places where one could argue
influence, such as over aspects of Russian culture, reinforce the
negative assessment, since Russia is working so badly right now).

I'm not so concerned about why this is so, though I suspect it has
something to do with Byzantium being just different enough from the
Latin west to have become a hated (or at least deeply distrusted) rival --
see the 4th Crusade, which Al Andrea could tell us much more about --
 whose version of Christian civilization could be dismissed as deviant
or wrong in western Europe and by its intellectual heirs (never mind
the deep influence of Greek scholars on the Renaissance), but not so
different as to qualify as an Other needing to be recognized for its
"contributions".  (Whoa, sorry about that sentence complexity!)

I'm more concerned to pont out that in terms of what would have been
visible and evaluatable *in the year 1000* concerning "influence" (or
complexity or advancement, for that matter), Byzantium would have
to rank at or near the top of the list.  Byzantium's strengths,
complexities, and contributions perhaps didn't last (or didn't seem to),
but that doesn't mean they weren't real at the time.

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