What was the social structure in the Byzantine Empire?

[me]

Not in the Roman Empire....just specific for the Byzantine Empire. If you could, please include where you got the information. Thank you so much!!!!!

[Sweet Justice]

They spoke latin for the most part even though they were primarily hellenic (Greek) several centuries after the Western empire had dissolved.
They were led by an Emporer who was an autocrat.
They were very interested in art, jewelry, Precious metals & practiced Eastern Orthodoxy Catholicism
They considered them selves as Romans.
They built some huge churches in Constaninople (Byzantium/Istanbul).
They had for a long time a strong military & actually re-conquered the Italian peninsula under General Belisarius (known as the Last Roman).
They were quite devout religiously
They unsuccessfully in the end kept the Ottoman hordes out of Europe.
the last emporer Michael & his empress, left the country after the Ottomans defeated them & took over the entire peninsula & parts of south-eastern Europe.
allegedly Michael & his wife went to Russia & supposedly became the first Czars of Russia.
Czar is a form of the word Caesar as is Kaiser.

[Jeremy]

Sweet justice is wrong in many particulars. The Byzantines spoke Greek. They did not consider themselves Romans but they did consider themselves the true Roman Empire (which in a way was true, they were ll that was left). I have never heard of Belisarius being called 'The Last Roman.' He did conquer large parts of the Italian penn but these conquests were quickly lost. He did this under Justinian I (title was Basileus) who endeavored to reconquer everything that the Roman Empire had ever held. He had some success is Italy (as mentioned), Sicily, N. Africa and even Spain. These were all small gains and none of them lasted very long.
They were indeed religious. It might even be described as a cultural mania for them. EVERYONE from high churchmen to street sweepers loved to talk and argue religion. This led to enormous amounts of unrest, as you might imagine.
In the end they did fall to the Ottomans. When they did, their territory was reduced to basically the city and it's immediate environs. It fell in 1453 to Mehmet II (i admit i had to look up the name of the sultan). The last emperor was Constantine XI. I have no idea who this Michael Sweet Justice mentions. Of course, many did flee the city - even some 'of the blood,' but they were hunted down or simply ran far and fast to die peacefully. The idea that the last Byzantine Basileus fled to Russia to become Tsar is ridiculous. They shared a faith but that's it. The Russians had not even gotten around to their great rivalry with the Ottoman Turks yet as it was in this century that they were slowly getting out from under Mongol overlordship.

[ammianus]

Emperor at the top.

Then the nobles,who assisted in running the empire.

Peasant yeoman who provided the manpower for the military and agricultural production.

Merchants.

Slaves.

The Byzantines would have found the term unfamiliar - it wasn't popularized by historians and used widely until the 18th century.They referred to themselves as Romans throughout,and their state as the Roman empire - as did everybody else at the time.

[staisil]

Byzantine society had a strictly hierarchical structure and a centralized authority in accordance with absolutist concepts. The Emperor "by the grace of God" together with his family and court were at the tip of the social pinnacle.
The local aristocracy, state functionaries, senior military officers, and large landowners were all members of the upper class. The middle class comprised the urban population of merchants, industrialists, and owners of medium-sized landed properties, while the populace, that is, the lower class, was made up of wage-earners and paupers.

The clergy did not form a distinct class, despite the fact that they enjoyed special privileges; they were distributed throughout all the social levels. Slaves did exist, although the state preferred their redemption to their subjugation.