The Byzantine Empire played two important roles in the development of the European civilization. It served as a vast storehouse of knowledge accumulated by the ancient civilizations. Thus the Arabs, who swept out of the desert to conquer a great empire, found the Byzantine civilization to supply their avid thirst for knowledge. When the people of Western Europe reached the stage in their development that made them ready to use additional knowledge, the Arabs and the Byzantine empire were there to open to them the civilization of the Hellenistic world. The Byzantine Empire was more than a storehouse. It created a civilization that of its own continued to flourish in Eastern Europe. Byzantine civilization showed its greatest originality in art. This art found its expression in two ways: the mosaic and the illumination of manuscripts. The Byzantine Church, which is the Orthodox Church, was essentially built to house mosaics. The figures were not intended to look natural. They were essentially symbols that fitted into the design and spirit of the decoration. The impressive dignity of the symbolic figures and the rich beauty of the color achieved a result unequaled by any other art. The same characteristics appeared in the illumination of the manuscripts.
In purely intellectual activity, Byzantine civilization demonstrated originality in two directions: religious controversy and the practical application of learning. The scholars of the Orthodox Church were deeply interested in the theological questions. The outer learning was the foundation of all higher education, but the queen of sciences was theology, in the proper sense of the knowledge of God. Theology came naturally to the Byzantine. The Byzantine Empire developed a singularly and effective art that was an integral part of its civilization. Music, iconography, architecture, literature , clothing. Knowledge of it spread to Western Europe through articles and through manuscripts. Western artisans used Byzantine models in their work, as did the Western illuminators of the manuscripts. The painters and sculptors, who decorated the Churches of Western Europe, found their inspiration chiefly in the illuminated manuscripts. Thus Byzantine art combined with early Christian art are mold to form the artistic forms of the Western Europe.
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