1. For the above paragraph, see the classic study by Denys Hay (1957): Europe: The Emergence of an Idea (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press); and Pim den Boer (1995): "Europe to 1914: the making of an idea," Kevin Wilson and Jan van der Dussen, eds., The History of the Idea of Europe (London and New York: Routledge), pp. 13-82; as well as, Traian Stoianovich (1994): Balkan Worlds: The First and Last Europe (Armonk, NY and London: M. E. Sharpe).
2. St. Augustin, Concerning the City of God against the Pagans, trans. by Henry Bettenson (1984), (London: Penguin), esp. Book I, pp. 5 - 47.
3. Self-awareness in contrast to self-confidence, as stressed by Pim den Boer, "Europe to 1914," p. 29.
4. George Ostrogorsky (1969): History of the Byzantine State, rev. ed., trans. by Joan Hussey (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP ), p. 125.
5. I am here partial to Ostrogorsky's authoritative insistence that the Byzantine Empire did in fact develop over the course of its existence. However, I wish to distance myself from Ostrogorsky's metaphysical interpretation that the Empire ended because its "mission" of preserving "the heritage of the ancient world" was fulfilled; Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, p. 572.