Byzantine Greeks - Terminology

Terminology

During most of the Middle Ages, the Byzantine Greeks identified themselves as Romaioi (Greek: Ρωμαίοι, "Romans", meaning citizens of the Roman Empire), a term which in the Greek language had become synonymous to a Christian Greek. They also identified themselves as Graikoi (Greek: Γραικοί, "Greeks") even though the ethnonym was never used in official Byzantine correspondence prior to 1204 AD. The ancient name Hellene was in popular use synonymous to a pagan and was revived as an ethnonym in the Middle Byzantine period (11th century).

While in the West the term "Roman" acquired a new meaning in connection with the Catholic Church and the Bishop of Rome, the Greek form "Romaioi" remained attached to the Greeks of the Eastern Roman Empire. These people called themselves Romaioi (Romans) in their language, and the term "Byzantines" or "Byzantine Greeks" is an exonym applied by later historians like Hieronymus Wolf. However, the use of the term "Byzantine Greeks" for the Romaioi is not entirely uncontroversial.

Most historians agree that the defining features of their civilization were: 1) Greek language, culture, literature, and science, 2) Roman law and tradition, 3) Christian faith. The term "Byzantine" has been adopted by Western scholarship on the assumption that anything Roman is essentially "western" and by modern Greek scholarship for nationalistic reasons of identification with ancient Greece. In modern times, the Greek people still use the ethnonym "Romaioi" or rather "Romioi" to refer to themselves. In addition, the Eastern Roman Empire was in language and civilization a Greek society.

Byzantinist August Heisenberg (1869–1930) defined the Byzantine Empire as "the Christianised Roman empire of the Greek nation". Byzantium was primarily known as the Empire of the Greeks by foreigners due to the predominance of Greek linguistic, cultural, and demographic elements.