Subject:
The Byzantine Empire, 600-1200 Social Urban elite class or middle class shrank, power of aristocrats increased and there was a much larger gap between them and the poor/lower class Earlier roman family life centered on legally powerful father, women had enjoyed comparative freedom in public After the seventh century, women increasingly found themselves confined to home When went out, concealed faces behind veils Paradoxically, in the early to mid 11th century, women ruled the Empire alongside their husbands These social changes resemble simultaneous developments in Islamic countries Women did not take refuge in nunneries Political Arabs armies destroyed the Sasanid Empire and captured Byzantine Egypt, Syria, and Tunisia and converted their people to Islam
