Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

The fall of Byzantium

Political and social conditions in the Empire

Page 9

The economic might of the west in Byzantium was ended by the victorious advance of the Ottoman Turks; gradually they took possession of Constantinople and the rest of the Empire, of Trebizond, and the northern shores of the Black Sea.

In view of the general deplorable position of the Empire, both external and internal, it is strange to read an anonymous treatise concerning court offices attributed to the fourteenth century and often, though wrongly, ascribed to Kodinus (Codinus). In this treatise are described in detail the gorgeous raiment of the court dignitaries, their various coverings for the head, their shoes, and their decorations; meticulous descriptions are given of the court ceremonial, coronations, and promotions to one or another rank. This treatise serves as a supplement to the well-known work of the tenth century which described ceremonies of the Byzantine court. In the tenth century, at the time of the greatest brilliance and power of the Empire, such a work was comprehensible and necessary. But the appearance of an analogous treatise in the fourteenth century, on the eve of the final collapse of the Empire, is puzzling and reveals the blindness that apparently reigned at the court of the Byzantine Emperors of the last dynasty. Krumbacher, also puzzled by the appearance of this treatise in the fourteenth century, remarked, not without irony: The answer is, perhaps, given by a medieval Greek proverb; the world was perishing and my wife was still buying new clothes (ὁ κόσμος ἐποντίζετο καὶ ἡ ἐμὴ γυνὴ ἐστολίζετο)  

         Elpenor's note : How could Byzantium have lasted so long if Byzantines were devoted to vain-glory, as Vasilief implies? Unless they lost all their wisdom in the 14th century! Something needs be explained here, and better say nothing, if we can’t understand the reasons of such a treatise in the 14th century.

In reality is revealed the contrary of what Vasilief thinks, an ascetic spirit, which we can understand if we recall what is said in the same treatise about the Ecumenical Patriarch, that he is ordained by the bishop of Heracleia, “because the city of Byzantium was a bishopric of Heracleia”. No matter how great a city Constantinople had become, her bishop having been recognised as Ecumenical, etc., it still followed the order and tradition of the Church. This treatise is not about vain decoration while the world was being lost, but precisely about the world as it was symbolised in the order of the ecclesiastical and the political spheres. Without this order, what could the meaning of a saved or even powerful Empire be? Thus the author of the treatise reveals a society gathered near tradition, order and faith, having their hope in God and keeping their duties until the time that God perhaps would decide the fall of the Empire.

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Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/vasilief/political-social-conditions.asp?pg=9