Decline of the Byzantine Empire

• The Byzantine Empire was in decline by the 14th century, with the state sector weak and fragmented and building continuing on a modest scale.
• The Palaiologoi operated an even more devolved version of the Komnenian dynastic system, encouraging the imperial nobility to enrich themselves at the state's expense.
• From the mid-fourteenth century, Constantinople was hit by the Black Death and gradually deprived of its agricultural hinterland, leading to a decline in profits in commerce.
• However, imperial Constantinople, like papal Rome after the Great Schism, was untypical of the wider Mediterranean urban scene, with which it was inextricably involved.
• In the final decades before the fall, the population numbered seventy thousand, and along the Golden Horn, on the hills above the busy markets, the new three-story houses of a prosperous aristocratic bourgeoisie turned their back on the urban decay behind them, creating a built environment that had much in common with the bustling Genoese business center across the water.

Explore the factors contributing to the decline of the Byzantine Empire in the 14th century, including economic challenges, the impact of the Black Death, and the evolving urban landscape of Constantinople.