In the 4th and 5th centuries, the Byzantine Empire continued to develop on the basis of the former Eastern Roman Empire, and its economy was stable. Christianity has always been under the control of kingship, which laid the foundation for the transition of Byzantine empire from classical Greek and Roman civilization to Byzantine civilization with its own characteristics. This is a process of multicultural conflict and integration. After Theodosius II, the status of Latin declined and was gradually replaced by Greek. Greek classical culture, Christian culture and eastern pagan culture gradually merged into a unique Byzantine culture.
Justinian era in the 6th century was the first golden age of Byzantine culture development. Justinian carried out a series of economic reform measures, which provided an excellent environment for the development of culture. At this time, he has made remarkable achievements in history, geography, architectural art and law. Prokopius, a historian, inherited the achievements of predecessors, especially Thucydides and Politi Biya's view of history, and wrote three history books: War, Secret History and Architecture, which provided valuable information for future generations to understand many aspects of society and court in Justinian era. Geographer Cosmas wrote Geography of the Christian World, which described the geography of the Christian world. The most famous architectural art is Hagia Sophia. The grandeur of its architecture certainly reflected the superb architectural level at that time. Many fairy tales from Hagia Sophia were introduced into Russian and other Slavic literature, and also into Arabic literature, which became one of the contents of international cultural exchanges, and its architectural style had an important impact on Europe and West Asia. In addition, the most outstanding cultural achievement in this period was the Justinian Code. Codecompilers examined the resolutions of the Roman emperors and the Senate for more than 400 years since Emperor Hadrian, and compiled the papers on legal interpretation by jurists in previous dynasties into the first systematic and complete legal document in European history, which had a far-reaching impact on subsequent legislation.
From the 7th century to the mid-9th century, with the social unrest and the rise of the icon destruction movement, there were relatively few artistic and cultural achievements, so some people called it the "dark age". However, the development of history and education at this time should not be underestimated, and the literature and works related to icon worship corresponding to the icon destruction movement were also reserved, which played a connecting role for the emergence of the second golden age of Macedon culture.
Historians recorded the history of the entire Byzantine Empire from its birth to the iconoclastic movement. The connection between years is the embodiment of historical coherence, which is helpful for later historians to fully understand the history of that stage. However, there are some overlapping dates in the four historical books, which provide different information for later historians in the same period and contribute to their in-depth and traceable research. These works not only reflect all aspects of Byzantine internal society, for example, the general chronicle of Dior finnis contains Arabic historical materials; Brother George's chronicle not only mentions the iconoclastic movement and the spread of the temple system, but also mentions the expansion of Islam and the life of eastern monarchs. , and had a far-reaching impact on Slavic historiography, especially Ross historiography.
In addition, John of Damascus, as an icon worshiper, left some poems to later generations. His most important work, The Origin of Knowledge, as a theological work, had a great influence on Thomas Aquinas, a scholastic philosopher and theologian in the13rd century, and his work, The Complete Book of Theology. In terms of education, in the Amauri dynasty, Caesar Baldass, uncle of Michael III, founded an institution of higher learning in the court of Constantinople, offering seven courses: grammar, rhetoric, debate, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music, which fully inherited the classical civilization of Greece and Rome and made many classic works spread.
The Macedonian dynasty after the icon destruction movement was the second golden age of Byzantine cultural development, and the subsequent Komuning and Ankiru dynasties also made great achievements, which echoed the cultural achievements of Justinian era and established that Byzantine culture played an important role in the history of world cultural development.
In art, the church established by Basil I has the style of Oriental Armenia. At this time, the architecture of Macedonian dynasty overcame the clumsy art form in the 6th century, and brought a solemn, elegant, rigorous and fluent new art style, which possessed the rigor that classical Greek culture did not have. This fully embodies the Byzantine culture's inheritance, development and even innovation to the classical culture. In literature, 1 1 The Frontier Warrior by Constantine Ju Lushi in the 20th century also had an influence on Arabian literary masterpiece Arabian Nights, which shows that Byzantine culture is inextricably linked with eastern pagan culture.
To sum up, it is precisely because of the geographical location and social environment that Byzantine culture has a series of characteristics: first, it preserves the essence of ancient Greek and Roman classical culture and develops further in the process of inheriting classical culture; Secondly, it is precisely because Byzantium preserved many classical cultures lost in Western Europe that these cultures returned to Western Europe in the process of dissemination, injecting new factors into Christian culture in Western Europe. Thirdly, due to the frequent contact between Byzantium and the Islamic world, she unconsciously absorbed pagan culture and played the role of a bridge between East and West. It is based on the above characteristics of Byzantine culture that Byzantine culture plays an important role in the development of world cultural history.