Medieval History Nutters - it's all Ricky's fault

Well, depends where you are.

If you are in the Byzantine Empire, then you are still in the Roman Empire.

If you are anywhere else, it gets more complicated. Essentially the Roman Empire was held up as a wonderful idea, and people aspired to its greatness. But did not follow its practices much.

 

The Franks liked the idea of being descendants of the Roman Empire.The Germans where flirting with that idea too... The medieval Greek state was officially known as the Eastern Roman Empire till the fall of Constantinople...
In fact no one was Roman at all!--Even the Byzantine Empire in its earliest form was more Greek than Roman...

 

I think the question was more for non-Byzintine areas.

Although according to my textbook and teacher, the 'emperor' Diocletian divided the Roman Empire into East and West....the easterns half becoming Byzantium with Constantinople as it's capital.

A lot of the stuff we looked at had very little roman influence except the Hagia Sophia.

 

Actually the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire was initially Nicomedia. Constantine selected the Greek city of Byzantion for the job, and it was therefore informally renamed Constantinopolis (Constantine's City).

In the West, the most important remnant of the Roman Empire was Christianity and its organization of regions into bishoprics. This was the last remaining form of territorial organization in Western Europe once the bureaucracy of the Empire collapsed. As population numbers declined everywhere, though, the episcopal cities crumbled until they were little more than small villages with large churches.

 

Actually, Hagia Sophia is the first type of church architecture that became the standard by the Byzantines--and was founded at that time.On the contrary the aqueduct system was almost identical to that of the Romans.What other stuff did you see?

Also, it was the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Emperor Theodosius I that divided the Empire once and for all--One of his sons took the western part and the other the eastern.It was divided into "East" and "West" already by the time of Emperor Julian's death, but when Theodosius died the division was complete.
Docletian divided the Empire into 4 parts, each one lead by a Tetrarch.However, Docletian remained the supreme ruler.