The Historical Geography of Europe, Vol. I, Text

by Edward A. Freeman

Speaking generally then, the Western Empire fell asunder from within; the Eastern Empire was broken in pieces from without. Of the many causes of this difference, perhaps only one concerns geography. At the time of the separation of the Empires, the Western Empire was really only another name for the dominions of the King of the Franks, whether within or without the elder Empire. ♦Closer connexion of the East with Roman political traditions.♦ The Eastern Empire, on the other hand, kept the political tradition of the elder Empire unbroken. ♦Disuse of the Roman name in the West.♦ No common geographical or national name took in the three Imperial kingdoms of the West and their inhabitants. ♦Its retention in the East.♦ But all the inhabitants of the Eastern Empire, down to the end, knew themselves by no national name but that of Romans, and the land gradually received the geographical name of Romania. But the Western Empire was not Romania, nor were its people Romans. The only Romania in the West, the Italian land so called, took its name from its long adhesion to the Eastern Empire.

♦Importance of distinctions of race in the East.♦

In the East again differences of race are far more important than they ever were in the West. In the West nations have been formed by a certain commingling of elements; in the East the elements remain apart. All the nations of the south-eastern peninsula, whether older than the Roman conquest or settlers of later times, are there still as distinct nations.

♦The original nations.♦

First among them come three nations whose settlement in the peninsula is older than the Roman conquest. One of these has kept its name and its language. One has kept its language, but has taken up its name afresh only in modern times. The third has for ages lost both its name and its language. ♦Albanians.♦ The most unchanged people in the peninsula must be the Albanians, called by themselves Skipetar, the representatives of the old Illyrians. ♦Greeks.♦ Next come the Greeks, who keep their language, but whose name of Hellênes went out of ordinary use till its revival in modern times. ♦Vlachs.♦ Lastly there are the Vlachs, representing those inhabitants of Thrace, Mœsia, and other parts of the peninsula, who, like the Western nations, exchanged their own speech for Latin. They must mainly represent the Thracian race in its widest sense. ♦Use of the Roman name.♦ Both Greeks and Vlachs kept on the Roman name in different forms, and the Vlachs, the Roumans of our own day, keep it still. Of the invading races, the Goths passed through the Empire without making any lasting settlements in it. ♦Slavonic settlers.♦ The last Aryan settlers, setting aside mere colonists in later times, were the Slaves. ♦Turanian settlers.♦ Then came the Turanian settlers, Finnish, Turkish, or any other. Of these the first wave, the Bulgarians, were presently assimilated by the Slaves, and the Bulgarian power must be looked at historically as Slavonic. ♦Turanian neighbours.♦ Then come Avars, Chazars, Magyars, Patzinaks, Cumans, all settling on or near the borders of the Empire. ♦The Magyars.♦ Of these the Magyars alone grew into a lasting European state, and alone established a lasting power over lands which had formed part of the Empire. All these invaders came by the way of the lands north of the Euxine. Lastly, there are the non-Aryan invaders who came by way of Asia Minor or of the Mediterranean sea. ♦The Saracens.♦ The Semitic Saracens, after their first conquests in Syria, Egypt, and Africa, made no lasting conquests. They occupied for a while several of the great islands; but on the mainland of the Empire, European and Asiatic, they were mere plunderers. ♦The Seljuk and Ottoman Turks.♦ In their wake came the most terrible enemies of all, the Turks, first the Seljuk, then the Ottoman. Ethnologically they must be grouped with the nations which came in by the north of the Euxine. Historically, as Mahometans, coming in by the southern route, they rank with the Saracens, and they did the work which the Saracens tried to do. Most of these invading races have passed away from history; three still remain in three different stages. ♦Comparison of Bulgarians, Magyars and Ottomans.♦ The Bulgarian is lost among the Aryan people who have taken his name. The Magyar abides, keeping his non-Aryan language, but adopted into the European commonwealth by his acceptance of Christianity. The Ottoman Turk still abides on European soil, unchanged because Mahometan, still an alien alike to the creed and to the tongues of Europe.

♦The Eastern Empire becomes Greek.♦

Among all these nations one holds a special place in the history of the Eastern Empire. The loss of the Oriental and Latin provinces of the Empire brought into practical working, though not into any formal notice, the fact that, as the Western Empire was fast becoming German, so the Eastern Empire was fast becoming Greek. ♦Loss of the Oriental provinces,♦ To a state which had both a Roman and a Greek side the loss of provinces which were neither Roman nor Greek was not a loss but a source of strength. ♦of the Latin provinces.♦ And if the loss of the Latin provinces was not a source of strength, it at least did much to bring the Greek element in the Empire into predominance. ♦Dying out of Roman ideas.♦ Meanwhile, within the lands which were left to the Empire, first the Latin language, and then Roman ideas and traditions generally, gradually died out. Before the end of the eleventh century, the Empire was far more Greek than anything else. Before the end of the twelfth century, it had become nearly conterminous with the Greek nation, as defined by the combined use of the Greek language and profession of the Orthodox faith. The name Roman, in its Greek form, was coming to mean Greek. And, about the same time, the other primitive nations of the peninsula, hitherto merged in the common mass of Roman subjects, began to show themselves more distinctly alongside of the Greeks. ♦Appearance of Albanians and Vlachs.♦ We now first hear of Albanians and Vlachs by those names, and the importance of the nations which have thus come again to light increases as we go on. ♦The Latin Conquest, 1204.♦ Then the Greek remnant of the Empire was broken in pieces by the great Latin invasion, and, instead of a single power, Roman or Greek, we see a crowd of separate states, Greek and Frank. ♦The revived Byzantine Empire.♦ The reunion of some of these fragments formed the revived Empire of the Palaiologoi. But at no moment since the twelfth century has the whole Greek nation been united under a single power, native or foreign. ♦1461-1821.♦ And from the Ottoman conquest of Trebizond to the beginning of the Greek War of Independence, the whole of the Greek nation was under foreign masters.[24]

We have now first to trace out the steps by which the Empire was broken in pieces, and then to trace out severally the geographical history of the states which rose out of its fragments. And with these last we may class certain powers which do not strictly come under that definition, but which come within the same geographical range and which absorbed parts of the Imperial territory. Beginning in the West, the territory which the Empire at the final separation still held west of the Hadriatic, was gradually lost through the attacks, first of the Saracens, then of the Normans. ♦Sicily.♦ These lands grew into the kingdom of Sicily, which has its proper place here as an offshoot from the Eastern Empire. ♦Venice.♦ At the other end of the Italian peninsula, Venice gradually detached itself from the Empire, to become foremost in its partition: here then comes the place of Venice as a maritime power. ♦Slavonic powers.
Bulgaria.♦ Then come the powers which arose on the north and north-west of the Empire, powers chiefly Slavonic, reckoning as Slavonic the great Bulgarian kingdom. ♦Hungary.♦ Here too will come the kingdom of Hungary, which, as a non-Aryan power in the heart of Europe, has much both of likeness and of contrast with Bulgaria. The kingdom of Hungary itself lay beyond the bounds of the Empire, but a large part of its dependent territory had been Imperial soil. ♦Albanians.
Roumans.♦ Here also we must speak of the states which arose out of the new developement of the Albanian and Rouman races, and of the states, Greek and Frank, which arose just before and at the time of the Latin Conquest. ♦Asiatic powers.♦ Then there are the powers, both Christian and Mahometan, which arose within the Imperial dominions in Asia. Here we have to speak alike of the states founded by the Crusaders and of the growth of the Ottoman Turks. Lastly, we come to the work of our own days, to the new European states which have been formed by the deliverance of old Imperial lands from Ottoman bondage.

♦800-1204.♦

We will therefore first trace the geographical changes in the frontier of the Empire itself down to the Latin Conquest. ♦1204-1453.♦ The Latin Empire of Romania, the Greek Empire of Nikaia, the revived Greek Empire of Constantinople, will follow, as continuing, at least geographically, the true Eastern Roman Empire. Then will come the powers which have fallen off from the Empire or grown up within the Empire, from Sicily to free Bulgaria. But it must be remembered that it is not always easy to mark, either chronologically or on the map, when this or that territory was finally lost to the Empire. This is true both on the Slavonic border and also in southern Italy. ♦Distinction between conquest and settlement.♦ On the former above all it is often hard to distinguish between conquest at the cost of the Empire and settlement within the Empire. In either case the frontier within which the Emperors exercised direct authority was always falling back and advancing again. Beyond this there was a zone which could not be said to be under the Emperor’s direct rule, but in which his overlordship was more or less fully acknowledged, according to the relative strength of the Empire and of its real or nominal vassals.