Relations Between East and West in the Middle Ages

In the Roman Empire, relations between East and West meant connections between the eastern and western parts of a unified structure of empire. Romans sometimes complained about the corrupting influence on their city of Greeks and Orientals, but they employed Greek tutors to educate their sons. People did not think of the eastern and western parts of the empire as being separate entities whose relations with each other must be the object of careful study. Even at the moment of the empire's birth,