Not quite true. Byzantium was a bridge civilization or what in the literature is

Not quite true. Byzantium was a bridge civilization or what in the literature is called a “torn country” that was majority balkan and slavic instead of greco-anatolian or italo-celtic, or germanic european. The muslims are blamed for capturing (turks) byzantium and closing the ports to european trade. This is what forced the europeans to use their superior technology to create the age of sail, unite the world, make the silk road irrelevant and expose the backtwardness of the middle east politically, culturally, and certainly technologically. By the age of the Crusades, europeans had to teach levantines how to plow they were so far behind. The only reason europeans didn’t conquer the entire place is that they saw no value in it, compared to the benefits back home. (They were wrong). What we did get out of it was the Templars and banking that if Evil France had not hunted them down, would have been the bank of europe and advanced europe back even faster than it did after 1200.

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