The Centre d'histoire et civilisation de Byzance, founded by P. Lemerle in 1972, is a component of the UMR 8167 Orient et Méditerranée, part of the " PôleMondes méditerranéens et africains " of the Collège de France's Institut des civilisations, and brings together the vast majority of French Byzantinists.
Its field of study is, of course, the Eastern Roman Empire from 330 (the official founding of Constantinople) to 1453 (its capture by the Turks and the end of the Empire), but also everything that bore its imprint : the " Barbaricum " (the entire area of Central and Eastern Europe criss-crossed by the Empire's influences and products during Late Antiquity), the Christian Caucasus in permanent osmosis with Byzantium, the Slavic countries gradually Christianized by Byzantium, the cultural and religious links maintained with Eastern Christians after the Arab conquest, and the post-Byzantium period in Eastern and Central Europe.
The Centre is associated with the Bibliothèque des études byzantines, also housed at the IdC, the second largest Byzantinology collection in the world. It publishes one of the two major scientific journals of French Byzantinology, Travaux et mémoires, and many of its members are on the committee of the other, Revue des études byzantines ; it also houses several Byzantine collections : Monographies de Travaux et mémoires, Truchements, Bilans de recherche, Studia papyrologica and Aegyptiaca Parisina.
