Features of the development of Byzantium.

It is about the period from AD 395 to 1453, although Byzantium has been in decline since 1204.

The following features can be distinguished:

-The Patriarch of Constantinople did not have such an influence on the rulers as the Pope.

-Great Schism with Rome in the middle of the 11th century.

-Control over trade routes, both over those that went from north to south (from the Baltic along the Dnieper to the Black Sea), and from west to east, from central Europe and the Balkans, for example, to Armenia.

-Contacts with many peoples: Armenians, Arabs, Parthians, Pechenegs, East and South Slavs, Normans, Turks, Europeans (from the end of the XI century – knights-crusaders).

-Roman heritage, which was noticeable in the culture of Byzantium, in the earlier Middle Ages it was noticeably better than Western Europe.