The History of Byzantium Episode 338 - Get Rid of Byzantium with Leonora Neville
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Jan 27, 2026 Leonora Neville, a historian of 9th–12th century Eastern Roman history and author on historiography and gender, argues we should abandon the term Byzantium. She traces the term's origins, exposes its ties to racialized and nationalistic narratives, and urges new, precise language like East Roman or long Roman Empire. She explains why words shape how we study continuity, identity, and global medieval connections.
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Byzantium Cuts The Roman Narrative
- The term Byzantium severs the Eastern Roman Empire from the long Roman story and reshapes historical thinking.
- Reuniting East Rome with Rome reframes Christianity as a phase, not the pivot of world history.
Gibbon Created The 'Zombie' East Roman
- Edward Gibbon's narrative framed the Roman Empire's 'fall' around barbarism and Christianity, creating the zombie-Empire idea for the East.
- That depiction justified separating Byzantium from the classical Roman legacy and the Renaissance story.
Renaissance Wasn't A Rescue Mission
- Viewing the Eastern Romans as part of a continuous Roman Empire undermines the narrative that the Renaissance 'rescued' ancient texts.
- Eastern Roman intellectual life continuously used and developed classical texts, so the Renaissance built on an existing tradition.
