 There was a surprising amount of continuity in Byzantine tradition despite the upheavals of the Muslim conquests, the ensuing Iconoclast controversies and the serious decline in urban life in the West.Central in this process was the continuity of the huge Constantinopolitan bureaucracy itself – the same towering apparatus that kept the taxes flowing in during the 'Byzantine Dark Age' also powered the Byzantine army and its supply mechanism.There is also a surprising amount of late Antique terminology and titulature that survived