1+2 Flashcards
EUROPE
-The newly dominant Ottomans began disrupting trade, especially the lucrative spice routes to Asia. In response, Europeans increasingly turned to maritime exploration to find new routes to Asia.
-christopher columbus leading to an initiation of the columbian exchange which circulated people, diseases, plants, goods and ideas throughout the world
-Europe in 1500 was comprised of numerous highly competitive states, many of which still exist today (although their borders and compositions have altered 1with time).
-European political and religious leaders during this period sought not merely to expand their kingdoms but to solidify power within their borders.
-A hierarchical society for most European polities, the monarch was the most powerful person in the realm. T he monarch ruled over a class of nobles, people who acted as not only extensions of a monarch’s power but also a check upon it. Nobles and monarchs were special people who had their own rules, had the right to wear certain clothes, and owned most of the land and wealth. Most nobles were expected to serve the monarch, including providing military service when required.
-Below the nobility were a class of merchants, traders, artisans and craftsmen, some of which could be rather wealthy. Peasants who worked the land of nobles formed the lowest rung of the European social order. Regardless of whether they were sharecroppers who shared their produce with local nobles or serfs tied directly to the land, peasants had little to no freedom of movement
FEUDAL SOCIETY IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE
-with their chronic instability of their stratified and hierarchical social classes, they didn’t have much unity along with rebellion and violence
-One of the most successful in this regard would be the long-ruling self-proclaimed Sun King Louis XIV (r. 1643-1715) of France, who successfully controlled and managed his nobility.
- In contrast, in the 15th century, a bloody conflict between two houses of the Plantagenet dynasty (the Lancastrians and Yorks) turned into a civil war that tore England apart. The civil war would last until 1485 when Henry Tudor (r. 1485-1509), a scion of the House of Lancastrian, won the throne of England at the Battle of Bosworth Field.
-Early modern monarchs struggled to control not just the minds and bodies but also the souls of their subjects. For most Europeans, the “Church” referred to the Catholic Church seated in Rome. the Church’s wealth, power and influence often rivaled that of the monarchs and emperors.
-For centuries, monarchs attempted to gain religious autonomy from Rome and to find ways to divert religious taxes into their own coffers.
- Following a split from the Catholic Church in the fourth century, the Eastern Orthodox Church became the dominant religion, not merely in Central Europe but also parts of Africa and the Middle East.
-naval expansion from Intense competition on the continent inspired European monarchs to look outside their borders and the known world for ways to tap into the riches of Africa and Asia.
MUSLIM EMPIRES
-In the 14th century, new powerful states emerged in territories formerly controlled by the Mongol Empire. Many of these states adopted Islam
-By the early to mid1500s, the Ottomans (1299-1922) had already established themselves as a dominant power centered around Anatolia, the Persian Safavid Empire (1501-1736) was just beginning, and so too was the Mughal Empire (1526-1857) in India.
-During this period Egyptian Mamluks (manumitted slave soldiers) spread Islamic theology across North Africa. The Mamluks were great patrons of the arts, and the splendor of their architecture is still evident today. By the 1600s, Islam had become the dominant religion across much of Eurasia, India, the Middle East, and North Africa.
-With the decline of the Mongols, new regimes including the Ottomans, the Safavids and the Mughals would emerge. Because of their use of muzzle-loading firearms, the three empires are sometimes referred to as the (Islamic) Gunpower Empires.
-sunni and shia islam: Those later labeled as Sunni asserted that their “caliph” or leader should be selected based on leadership skills. At the same time, those who argued that caliphs ought to be a member of the Prophet’s family became the forebearers of Shiism
OSMAN I
-Ottomans got their name from a Turkic leader that had important victories over other warlords and eventually the declining Byzantine Empire.
-By 1352, the Ottomans were the chief power in the Balkans
- during the reign of Sultan Mehmed II (r. 1451-1481), Ottoman armies conquered the Byzantine capital of Constantinople. Renamed Istanbul, the city became the center of a sprawling and culturally dynamic Islamic empire that Asian, Middle Eastern, Northeastern and European leaders viewed with envy and fear.
AFRICA
-From 300-1450, a variety of complex political systems, social structures and cultural groups emerged on the African continent. As agricultural populations grew and trade in high-value commodities increased, new states rose to prominence.
-Over time the introduction of Islam to the region by Arab merchants became important for the development of madrasas, literacy and state bureaucracies. The opening of the transSaharan trade integrated Africa into the Mediterranean world, Europe and the Middle East.
- The emergence of the new trade-oriented Swahili city-states along the East African coast represented an important example of these changes.
-1640s, the coastal people of West Africa, previously on the margins of the trans-Saharan trade routes, became central players in the newly forming transatlantic trade. They founded powerful states, including the Oyo Empire during the 17th and 18th centuries, the Kingdom of Dahomey during the 17th through the 19th century, and the Asante Kingdom, 18th through the early 20th century.
-In Central Africa, local rulers rebuilt old trade roads and created new ones to meet the ever-increasing demands of European and Arab merchants for more slaves. This altered the political sphere as older polities, such as the Kingdom of Kongo (14th -18th centuries), struggled to adapt to changing circumstances. Although Kongolese rulers initially profited from contact with the Portuguese, soon Afro-Portuguese merchants found ways to circumvent the kingdom’s monopoly over coastal trade by relocating to remote areas (such as Luanda) beyond the reach of royal officials. Increasingly dependent on trade with the Portuguese, the Kingdom of Kongo declined as an independent state.
KINGDOM OF KONGO
-the Kingdom of Kongo represented one of the most influential monarchies in West Central Africa.
-the Kingdom profited African Empires 500BCE to 1500BCE from fertile soils, abundant rainfall, and the presence of valuable iron and copper deposits.
-Beginning in the late 1300s, the Bakongo people living south of the Congo River unified into a single kingdom with a capital at Mbanza Kongo, from which the Manikongo (king of the Kingdom of Kongo) ruled
-When the Portuguese arrived in 1483, the Manikongos of Kongo saw an immediate material advantage in establishing diplomatic and trade relations with the new arrivals. In the short term, participation in the Atlantic trade gave Kongo a competitive edge over Kongo’s landlocked neighbors such as the Tyo.
-T he religion of the Portuguese (Catholic Christianity) appealed to the kings of Kongo, who hoped that conversion to the new faith would give them the same power which Portuguese rulers held over their subjects. After all, Catholic Christianity justified the rule of kings over their subjects, helping to legitimize and centralize the power of such monarchs. Furthermore, Catholicism was readily compatible with traditional Kongo spiritual beliefs. For instance, the Creator God of Christianity appeared similar to the Creator God of ancient Bantu belief. Catholic Christianity also had a group of holy individuals, the saints, who had died and gone to heaven and could be prayed to for help in this life. This concept again mirrored Kongolese beliefs in a sky God whose spirits could likewise be invoked to intervene in the lives of mortals.
-KOngo rulers grasping more literacy and languages
-T he contact with the Portuguese provided a commercial basis and a new set of ideas supportive of royal legitimacy and authority, helping Kongo become the most powerful kingdom of the region.
-Such wealth encouraged Kongo to become increasingly involved in the slave trade. In the 16th century, Kongo began to export nominally free people as well as slaves to the Americas, specifically to Brazil.
-Kongo kingdom beginning to be cut off from trade more with the portuguese and dutch offering better things/trade routes than them
-Until the partition of Africa in the 19th century, most European involvement in African affairs remained confined to these coastal regions and relied heavily on African middlemen and collaborators. Even African nations such as Mali and Kongo that bore the brunt of European occupation prior to the 1800s were transformed rather than outright destroyed by the new power dynamics brought about by overseas trade. When European powers annexed these regions into their colonial empires during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many pre-1800 institutions continued to exist, albeit under a different jurisdiction and with a different kind of sovereignty
AMERICAS
-T he arrival of the Europeans in the New World led not only to the exchange of crops and commodities but also the imposition of European economics, habits and values on indigenous populations. Enslaved Africans were also imported to many regions of the Americas, which led to the creation of creole cultures.
-Whereas Spain created colonial societies on the ruins of the Aztec (1428–1521) and Maya Empires (1511–1697), Portuguese settlers moved into areas that comprise much of modern-day Brazil. Profiting from forced labor, both Portugal and Spain shipped large quantities of gold and silver back to Europe.
-Exposure to diseases brought from Europe, coupled with overwork in the encomienda system (the Spanish crown entrusted conquistadores and other officials with grants of land and Native American slaves known as encomiendas (from the Spanish word encomendar -“to entrust”). The recipients of such grants, the encomederos, would in turn, collect tribute in the form of gold, kind, or forced labor from the Native Americans who lived on the allotted land. With the negatives of coal mining, switched to Under the terms of the hacienda system, landowners kept peasants in debt so that they could neither leave the land they were working on nor the landowner who owned the hacienda.), caused massive population declines among indigenous peoples
SOUTHEAST ASIA
-Over the centuries, the term “Southeast Asia” has meant different things to different people
-However, unlike the Americas where Europeans quickly imposed their religious and cultural beliefs on native populations, in Southeast Asia Thais, Burmese, Vietnamese and other groups learned European economic techniques but continued to follow Theravada Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism and Islam.
-in sum, prior to 1500 Europeans wielded little influence over Southeast Asia and even afterward were forced to limit such influence to the relatively small coastal areas.
-Buddhism in Asia
EAST ASIA
-For nearly 300 years, the Ming dynasty provided China with a relatively stable government and economy
-Ming emperors promoted domestic agricultural production and tried to reduce dependency on foreign trade and merchants. Ming officials capitalized on Ming China around 1580 American crops such as corn, squash, peanuts and beans introduced to Asia by European merchants to greatly increase Chinese crop yields.
-The Ming dynasty also established regular commercial exchanges with Japan. In the 1400s, Ming fleets led by Admiral Zheng He used sophisticated seamanship and maritime technology to reach Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Arabia and East Africa.
-Negative encounters with Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch trading enterprises and missionaries led Chinese officials to expel foreigners en masse and prohibit the teaching of western religion
-Despite being heavily influenced by Chinese culture and politics, Japan developed its own political, cultural and economic traditions. Although nominally led by an emperor, Japan was actually ruled by daimyos (feudal lords) who competed to control the imperial government.
- Until the emergence of the Tokugawa dynasty (1603-1868), led by the former dynamo and eventual military dictator (shogun) Tokugawa Ieyasu (1603-1868), Japan had been a fractured and violent state. Borrowing from Chinese precedents, Tokugawa and his successors expelled Christian missionaries and reduced their exposure to European trade and ideas. T his isolation would last until the 19th century.
SOUTH ASIA
-When Europeans traders in the 1500s and 1600s first moved into the region, they faced opposition from the Mughal Empire that dominated Northern India. However, the decline of the Mughals in the 18th century provided an opening for the British Empire, which would eventually gain control over much of the region.
EUROPE
-The Portuguese were the first Europeans to circumnavigate the African continent and venture into the Indian Ocean. The silver they gained from the Americas, coupled with the application of new military and maritime technologies, allowed the Portuguese to become important participants in the Indian Ocean trade.
PROTESTENT REFORMATION
-Around 1500 most Europeans still practiced some form of Christianity. Western European nations clung to Roman Catholicism, while Orthodox Christianity dominated Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Russia. Smaller sects of Coptic, Syriac, Chaldean, Assyrian, Maronite and St. Thomas Christians dotted Africa, the Middle East and India.
-During the medieval period in Europe a succession of Popes authorized the selling of indulgences. Indulgences granted a full or partial remission for sins. In the catholic belief system, every sin must be purified either before death through confession and absolution or, after death, during time spent in purgatory.
-In the 14th century, reformers such as John Wycliffe and Jan Hus dismissed the practice and many other church doctrines as corrupt. Although church officials executed Wycliffe and Hus in 1509, Dutch theologian Erasmus of Rotterdam’s Praise of Folly raised the same issue of corruption in the church. Due to Gutenberg’s invention of the moveabletype printing press in 1453, Praise of Folly quickly became available across Europe.
-Doctrinal questions about the Catholic church’s ultimate authority, combined with the invention of the printing press, set the stage for the Protestant Reformation.
- German monk and scholar Martin Luther (1483-1546) challenged the Catholic church with his “NinetyFive-Theses.” Like many before, Luther was dissatisfied with several Catholic doctrines and practices, including the selling of indulgences. Luther stressed that salvation could only be gained by faith in God. Luther’s Justification by Faith spread rapidly throughout Europe.
-the Diet of Worms declared Luther a heretic and suggested his ex-communication from the Catholic church. Luther’s subsequent separation from the church sparked a new movement known as Protestantism. For many individuals, including John Calvin, Luther had not gone far enough in his reformative endeavors. As these dissonances grew, the Catholic church fought back, creating religious orders to win back believers. However, the rise of Protestantism led to the creation of many new Christian denominations.
EFFECTS OF THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION
- Luther argued that Christianity rested solely on the Bible’s authority and that salvation could only be achieved by faith alone.
-women did not necessarily profit from these new developments. The male Jesus figure moved to the center of Protestant faith, and the Virgin Mary and other female saints lost their iconic status within the church. Even as literacy and education flourished across Europe, women’s roles became more defined by domesticity, marriage and motherhood, roles more bound to the house than outside of it.
-Luther’s translation of the New Testament into German soon inspired the translation of the Bible into other languages across the globe. The rise of the printing press allowed these new volumes to be quickly produced and distributed
-As the Protestant movement spread, it fractured into a wide array of competing denominations, such as Calvinists, Anglicans, Anabaptists and Quakers. - French attorney and theologian John Calvin: Calvinists espoused “predestination,” the concept that from the moment of creation, an omniscient God had predetermined certain Christians for election to heaven. Calvinists thus had to be exemplary Christians, not to earn their way into heaven, but as members of the “divine elect,” there would naturally be observable signs of their holy status, appealed to those who didn’t fit neatly into European feudal society and wanted divine and secular approval for accomplishments
THE ENGLISH REFORMATION
-Henry eventually persuaded the English Parliament to pass the 1534 Act of Supremacy, which made the King of England rather than the Pope the head of the English (Anglican) Church. Henry then had his marriage to Catherine annulled so he could marry his long-time favorite Anne Boleyn (1501 or 1507-1536). When Henry and Anne proved unable to conceive a male heir, English officials executed her, in May of 1536, on charges of witchcraft, incest and adultery. Henry would go on to have another four wives.
-edward, mary, then elizabeth
-Throughout the 16th century, government-sponsored Anglicanism became the dominant faith among English subjects. However, several branches of reform Protestants also proved popular to the masses.
-Led by the reformer John Knox (c. 1514-1572), Scotland adopted Presbyterianism. Presbyterians emphasized local churches by rejecting the hierarchy and especially the power of appointed bishops, a feature of Anglicanism.
- Meanwhile, in England, a branch of strict Calvinists known as Puritans sought to “purify” the church from features associated with Catholicism, such as the hierarchy of bishops, Latin liturgies and the use of sacraments. From the 17th century onward, immigrants from the British Isles brought Calvinist ideas to the Americas.
OTHER EARLY PROTESTANT FAITHS
-Anabaptists likewise rejected infant baptism, arguing that only adults capable of freely agreeing to baptism could be cleansed of sin.
- In the German states, the Mennonites practiced traditional agrarian lifestyles and spoke a variant of Alemannic German.
-To this day, Old Order Mennonites and Amish continue to live conservative lifestyles and eschew automobiles in favor of horses and carriages.
