The Byzantine Empire is an empire that has not been getting much love in regular education. In the higher education, one can see that the Eastern Romans have more of a presence in education. However, when one looks at elementary education, middle school, and even High school, such courses or even information on the Eastern Romans is quite scarce. While some courses such as History will obviously focus on it, depending on the rigor of a particular school, it is quite rare to see any sort of emphasis on the Byzantines unless it is a more advanced course. The Byzantine Empire is an important part of Roman history and it is important that we continue to teaching it. However, I think that it is needs to get out of Academia and College education and into the grade school levels.
While most passionate lovers of Byzantine history tend to have taken it up by having gotten it by playing video games or reading books on the topic, it is important to remember that Byzantine history is just not that popular with the average public. While may have some knowledge about the Roman Empire, there is still much gaps in how people perceive the middle ages. I think that we need to have more than just a revival in classical education but also in understanding the Middle Ages in its own way. The emphasis on the classics has a tendency to emphasize Classical Roman history. Emperor Constantine is the only Emperor of the early Byzantine era that is really mentioned in history books that show up in curriculum for young students before college. Justinian, if he is even mentioned at all, is barely in any history books in American High schools.
American education in many ways is not in a great shape at all. Compare the high yearbooks when there were still many Kingdoms in the world(the 1910s) to now, it shows that our education system is no longer interested in trying to teach us important moral axioms. The seriousness of education has been taken over by treating school as some sort of extension of socializing with academics being more of a secondary responsibility. This is why our country seems to be graduating students who cannot approach basic math or even understand anything about their culture. History builds the mind probably more than any subject that humans learn in institutions. This isn’t an exaggeration. Mathematics, which was not a subject that I really enjoyed, is highly dependant on learning about the history of how we got to develop systems of ordering the world into ways that make sense to humans. We need to start treating history more seriously instead of just going into the other subjects without understanding the broader context.
Byzantine History is more than just about scheming and emperors.
Generally speaking, the reason why we should be studying Byzantine history is to learn about ourselves. I see way too many historical shows and movies that tend to have much projection in them.
Byzantine History needs to take center stage in our history curriculum. There is an important need to get the idea that an empire can change and not necessarily have to stagnate. We need to have more stories such as these to teach our children and anyone willing to learn history.
Byzantine-Empire.com 