East Romans ended up teaching their students in Greek more than Latin, and the Byzantine Empire =/= usage of Latin by the Roman Catholic institutions of medieval Europe
Before the revival and spread of Universities and libraries the clergy were the ones recording information and passing it on to future generations, and they wrote in ecclesiastical latin. It also remained as a lingua franca after the WRE collapsed for some time, I've forgotten the name of him, but I do recall a hilarious anecdote of an England-born Prince who tried speaking to France-born peeps, but they couldn't understand his thick accent so they just spoke in Latin. German rulers and Irish rulers, who had never been ruled by Romans for example, both used Latin as well for these reasons. The Late Roman Empire was not a bastion of progress or innovation, just because "bastion" is much too strong a term to use - their progress was turbulent :
P.
Culturally they had theatres, new styles of architecture and warfare, mastery over Meditteranean trade, advanced sanitation comparable with
modern sanitation, and Constantinople was certainly a bastion of retaining knowledge with its imperial library housing the collective knowledge of the Roman and Greek civilizations. The Late Romans continually tried to innovate and nowhere is this more clearer than with the Hippodrome and their horse races (greens btfo) and the Hagia Sophia, which when it was built, was an architectural marvel only rivaled by the Pyramids and is still structurally sound to this day despite enduring so many earthquakes. One can only wonder what cuisine they had made, with their traditions and access to spices. Also holy shit, people don't give the Late Romans enough credit for managing to bring silk production to the West
Their wars with the Germanic tribes, the Persians, the rising Caliphate, the Arab Empire, the Bulgarians despite dealing vast territorial losses and causing the Roman Catholic Church to pop up were not crippling to the Late Romans. The Germanic tribes settled or were repelled, the Persians were destroyed by the Caliphate, the Arab Empire fractured and the Balkans sometimes at ease. That is until the Seljuk Turkobants begin
Before the Seljuks arrive the Byzantines (despite their losses of territory), were actually improving educational standards, new art made, ancient texts re-copied, churches built and politically the Empire was closer integrated - producing a stronger state than the much larger Empire it used to be. Then the Seljuks arrive and fuck their shit up in Asia Minor. With the Late Romans losing some of their richest provinces in Asia Minor, the Late Romans entered the next few centuries under almost constant warfare with increasingly dwindling funds, and the Seljuks were under no illusion that the Roman Empire was an unconquerable 1,000 year old Empire. From then onwards the Byzantines enter stagnancy, not for lack of innovative minds, but for lack of funds and lives to spare. By the time the Venetians redirected the 4th Crusade to Constantinople, the Byzantine Emperors had given away their military provisions as gifts and outsourced their maritime defence to Venice, leaving their defences in abysmal condition.
The Roman Empire being a dead man walking, it was fubar'd by a blind 90 year old man and efforts to retake asia minor were abandoned in favour of retaking Constantinople from the Latin Empire. Disaster after disaster, civil war and the unfortunate timing of the hiring of Turkish mercenaries ensures recovery is impossible. On the bright side even in death it shows that the Late Romans could've continued innovating if they had room to breathe, as Greek scholars fleeing to the West sparks the Western renaissance, as wealthy Italian and German princes put the knowledge of the Greeks to practical use
Also as an aside, London and Paris are a bit too anachronistic to be compared to Constantinople in its heyday, a lot of cities were better than them, Constantinople could be said to have been better than Rome, Florence, Venice, Bagdhad e.t.c.
I do wonder if the reason why the Late Romans get such a bad rep as synonymous with stagnancy because a lot of their scholars innovations get credited to the people working with the scholars who translated their works into Arabic or Latin
To quote John and Donald from EB:
Given the obstacles against which the masters of the Roman state struggled, it is altogether remarkable that Roman patriotism was ever more than an empty formula, that cultivated gentlemen from the Pillars of Hercules to the Black Sea were aware that they had “something” in common. That “something” might be defined as the Greco-Roman civic tradition in the widest sense of its institutional, intellectual, and emotional implications. Grateful for the conditions of peace that fostered it, men of wealth and culture dedicated their time and resources to glorifying that tradition through adornment of the cities that exemplified it and through education of the young who they hoped might perpetuate it.
rip in peas