Three Successor States from Old Roman Empire
(Byzantium, Islam, and the Latin West): Chapter 9
I. Byzantium: North east rump state of Roman Empire; Greece, Balkans [Yugo, Albania, Rumania, Bulgaria, Turkey - (Anatolia)].
A. Style of Civilization.
1. Ceasaropapism: Emperor and Pope (Patriarch) meaning? Religion as a department of government to bolster the state and monarchy.
2. Bureaucracy.
3. Economy: Long distance trade in luxury goods, cities, affluent urban class for the state to tax.
4. Citied civilization: Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandretta, Nicomedia, Smyrna, Trebizond, Thessalonica. Industry, trade and agriculture.
5. Agriculture: Transformation of free peasants into impoverished peasants by powerful aristocracy.
6. Iconoclasm. Impoverishment of peasant. and Iconoclasm as sources of weakness, division in social fabric of empire.
B. Significance of Byz. Alphabet to Civilization.
Contributions: Conversion of Slavs: Russia, Cyrillic, Alphabet, 1000 AD, dome 180 ft.
1. architecture: Hagia Sophia
2. cultivation of classics of Greeks: philosophy, science, drama (tragedy), history, Homer.
3. Classics preserved in Greek.
4. Women educated (Anna Comnena): Women doctors.
C. Decline:
1. Loss of land to Islam (635-750)
2. Impoverishment of peasants 1025 AD
3. Battle of Manzikert 1071 AD; Loss of 2/3 of Anatolia
4. Religious Dissension: Iconoclasm
5. 1024, Venice and Latin Crusaders take Constantinople and rule empire.
6. 1453 Ottoman Turks take Constaniople, ending Byzantine empire.
II. Islamic Civilization
A. Religious nature of civilization of Islam:
1. Muhammad: Jewish-Christian influence
2. Quran
3. Religious law
B. Conquests: Syria, Iraq, Egypt, North Africa, Spain, Iran, Central Asia, India. Conquests from 63S-750: Basis of affluence trade.
C. Sunni-Shi'ite Division
D. Islamic contributions to civilization: Science, medicine, horticulture, words.
E. Bridges across which Islamic civilization influenced European civilization: Spain and Sicily.
Loan Words From Arabic:
Cake, Macaber, Cherry, Orange, Lemon, Syrup, Sugar, Chemistry, Algebra, Tariff, Trigonometry, Average, cat, Julip, Sherbert, Apricot, Cotton, Cypher, Soda, Zenith, Azmuth, Zero, Arabic numerals, Decimal System, Decimal fractions, Satin, Velvet, HMohair, Giraffe, Alkali, Almanca, Antinomy, Zodiac, Nadir, Algorum, Ambergs, Alembek, Zebra, Niche, Cupula, Summit, Nadir, Amalgam, Alcohol, Coffee, Ghoul, Tea, Hashish, Opium, Muslim, Lute, Mascara, Alfalfa, Saffron, Musk, Camp or, Camel, Henna, Cinnamon, Admiral' traffic, Tobacco, Magazine, Alkali, Mattress, Astrolabe, Arsenal, and hundreds of star names.
III. Latin Christendom in WEST
A. Establishment of a viable state following demise of Roman Empire: A process of gradual development born of experience(slow and painful) and false starts.
1. Clovis and his Merovingians: a feeble attempt at state craft but at least a start: 500 AD in France. Division and weakness.
2. Pope Gregory, 600 Ad: continues heady work of Jerome, Ambrose Augustine (4th Great latin Father).
a. church autonomy (theology, language and liturgy).
b. Gregory builds church into important institution, independent as an aid to staffing state administrations with literate, competent people, monks, in Italy.
c. Gregory first puts forth doctrine of Papal Primacy. Meaning?
d. Beneditine order of Monks and conversion of Anglo Saxons. Benedictines as arm of church that will draw Latin Christendom under church influence and authority: Greg's aim.
3. Arab conquests of Spain and South Mediterranean cut NW Europe off from Byz. a. Muslim pirates and Navies and raiding into coastal France (Medit.) forces exploitation of agriculture to the north where land is fertile.
Establishment of Carolignian dynasty, 700 AD.
a. Pepin, Charles the Hammer (732), Pepin II 750.
b. Charlemagne crowned emperor of Latin Christendom, 700 by Pope, in Rome, Christmas Day. (From Charles come dynastic name Carolingian)
c. Italy, Germany, France, Netherlands, Belgium united.
d. Ruled with held of Benedictines.
e. Carolignian Renaissance. What is meant? Art and architecture, illuminated manuscripts, music, literature (not original or profound) Beowulf. Benedictine Alcuin and the new schools. Beginning of reading, writing in West, for purpose of state administration: to train accountants, clerks, to staff bureaucracy. Latin literature preserved. Classics copied, stored in Monastic libraries of Benadictines
f. Charlemagne's grandson divides the united empire among his three sons: disunity and decline, ending renaissance of learning, writing. Also invasions of Buns, Magyars, Vikings, Muslims wreak havoc.
5. Period of political unity in Germany under Otto,descendant of Charlemagne, (950 AD). Crowned emperor in Rome.
6. By 1050 western Latin Christendom has achieved a characteristic uniquely defined civilization all its own, the achievement of church and Carolingian state builders. Cities in Italy
Back to Syllabus