ch 7 Flashcards
SUCCESSOR KINGDOMS TO THE WESTERN ROMAN EMPIRE
-germanic people who invaded roman empire established their own kingdoms there
-Vandal, Visigoth, and Ostrogoth peoples all had cultures that had been heavily influenced over
decades or even centuries of contact with Rome. Most of them were Christians, but, crucially, they
were not Catholic Christians, who believed in the doctrine of the Trinity, that God is one God but
three distinct persons of the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit. They were rather
Arians, who believed that Jesus was lesser than God the Father (see Chapter Six). Most of their
subjects, however, were Catholics.
-The Catholic Church increasingly looked to the bishop of Rome for leadership. Over the fifth
century, the bishop of Rome had gradually come to take on an increasing level of prestige among
other bishops. Rome had been the city where Peter, whom tradition regarded as the chief of
Christ’s disciples, had ended his life as a martyr. Moreover, even though the power of the Western
Roman Empire crumbled over the course of the 400s, the city of Rome itself remained prestigious.
-In the region of Gaul, the Franks were a Germanic people who had fought as mercenaries in
the later Roman Empire and then, with the disintegration of the Western Empire, had established
their own kingdom. One key reason for the Frankish kingdom’s success was that its kings received
their legitimacy from the Church.
-In the same way that the Christian Church had endorsed the
Roman Emperors since Constantine and, in return, these emperors supported the Church, the
Frankish kings took up a similar relation with the Christian religion. King Clovis (r. 481 – 509)
united the Franks into a kingdom, and, in 496, converted to Christianity. More importantly, he
converted to the Catholic Christianity of his subjects in post-Roman Gaul. This would put the
Franks in sharp contrast with the Vandals, Visigoths, and Ostrogoths, all of whom were Arians.
-In none of these kingdoms, Visigothic, Ostrogothic, Frankish, or Vandal, did the Germanic
peoples who ruled them seek to destroy Roman society—far from it. Rather, they sought homelands
and to live as the elites of the Roman Empire had done before them.
-local elites shifted their alliances to the invaders who took up power over fallen rome
-the germanic kings wanted to just take over what the past emperors had done, but things drastically shrank. Not as uch education besides the church, due to the ruralization
BYZANTIUM: THE AGE OF JUSTINIAN
-their empire was a continuation of the roman state
-century, the
Byzantine Army was the most lethal army
to be found outside of China.
-The man who would destroy the Ostrogrothic as well as the Vandal kingdom was the emperor
Justinian
-He did so in the domain of art and architecture, sponsoring the construction of numerous
buildings both sacred and secular. The centerpiece of his building campaign was the church called
Hagia Sophia, Greek for “Divine Wisdom.” His architects placed this church in the central
position of the city of Constantinople, adjacent to the imperial palace. This placement was meant
to demonstrate the close relationship between the Byzantine state and the Church that legitimat-
ed that state.
-Under his
direction, the jurist Tribonian took the previous
900 years’ worth of Roman Law and systematized
it into a text known as the Body of Civil Law or
the Justinian Code. This law code, based on the
already-sophisticated system of Roman law, would
go on to serve as the foundation of European law,
and thus of much of the world’s law as well.
-since it was a christian empire, they didnt give jews as many rights
-took over vandal kingdom
-took much more effort to take Italy back to Roman rule, but it was in more ruins
The Aftermath of Justinian
-lombard kings took over some of italy afterwards
-long range trade networks across mediterranean sea gradually shrank, more in local markets though luxury still long distance
-they had external threats
-Under the influence of the Prophet Muhammad, the tribes of the Arabian deserts had been
united under first the guidance of the Prophet and then his successors,
-At the
Battle of Yarmouk in 636, although the Byzantines and Arabs were evenly matched, the Byzantine
field army was badly beaten. In the aftermath, first Syria and Palestine and then Egypt fell from
Christian Byzantine rule to the cultural and political influence of Islam.
-At the
Battle of Yarmouk in 636, although the Byzantines and Arabs were evenly matched, the Byzantine
field army was badly beaten. In the aftermath, first Syria and Palestine and then Egypt fell from
Christian Byzantine rule to the cultural and political influence of Islam.
At the
Battle of Yarmouk in 636, although the Byzantines and Arabs were evenly matched, the Byzantine
field army was badly beaten. In the aftermath, first Syria and Palestine and then Egypt fell from
Christian Byzantine rule to the cultural and political influence of Islam.
-The seventh century also saw invasions by various semi-nomadic peoples into the Balkans,
the region between the Greek Peloponnese and the Danube River. Among these peoples were the
Turkic Bulgars, the Avars (who historians think might have been Turkic), as well as various
peoples known as Slavs. The Avars remained nomads on the plains of central Europe, but both
Bulgars and Slavs settled in Balkan territories that no longer fell under the rule of the Byzantine
state. Within a generation, the Empire had lost control of the Balkans as well as Egypt, territory
comprising an immense source of wealth in both agriculture and trade. By the end of the seventh
century, the Empire was a shadow of its former self.
-byzantine empire also shrank, Under the
threat of invasion, many communities moved to smaller settlements on more easily defended
hilltops. The great metropolises of Constantinople and Thessalonica remained centers of urban
life and activity, but throughout much of the Empire, life became overwhelmingly rural.
-literacy and money declined
PERSPECTIVES: POST-ROMAN EAST AND WEST
-In many ways, the post-Roman Germanic kingdoms of Western Europe and the Byzantine
Empire shared a similar fate. Both saw a sharp ruralization, that is, a decline in the number of
inhabited cities and the size of those cities that were inhabited. Both saw plunges in literacy. And
both saw a state that was less competent—even at tax collection. Moreover, the entire Mediterranean
Sea and its environs showed a steady decline in high-volume trade across the ocean, a decline that
lasted for nearly two and a half centuries. By around the year 700, almost all trade was local.
-byzantun: In the first place, although its reach had shrunk dramatically from the days of
Augustus, the imperial state remained. Although the state collected less in taxes and issued less
money than in earlier years, even in the period of the empires’ greatest crisis, it continued to mint
some coins and the apparatus of the state continued to function.
-western: In Western Europe, by contrast,
the Germanic kingdoms gradually lost the ability to collect taxes (except for the Visigoths in
Spain). Likewise, they gradually ceased to mint gold coins. In Britain, cities had all but vanished,
-Although the imperial state
collapsed as it had in Rome, in China, literacy never declined as drastically as it had done in
the Roman Empire, and the apparatus of tax collection and other features of a functional state
remained in the Han successor states to an extent that they did not in either Rome or Byzantium.
THE BRITISH ISLES: EUROPE’S PERIPHERY
-In many of the lands that had been part of the
Roman Empire, the Germanic peoples who had taken
over western Europe built kingdoms. Although not as
sophisticated as the Roman state, they were still recog-
nizable as states.
-This situation stood in sharp contrast
to Britain.the Roman Army
had abandoned the island of Britain in 410. The urban
infrastructure brought about by the Roman state began
to decay almost immediately, with towns gradually
emptying out as people returned to rural lifeways that
had existed prior to Rome’s arrival.
-anglo saxons moving into the island from forest, Unlike the Franks, Visigoths,
and Ostrogoths, each of whom had kingdoms, the social
organization of the Anglo-Saxons was comparatively
unsophisticated. They were divided up among chiefs
and kings who might have only had a few hundred to a
few thousand subjects each.
-The island of Britain was
one that was completely rural. All that remained of
the state-building of the Romans was the ruins of
abandoned cities.
-england and island of ireland led to an increase of schools and literacy acrossWestern Europe.
-The English peoples adopted Christianity (usually under the initiative of their kings) over the course
of the next several decades, which in turn led to the founding of monasteries. These monasteries
would usually have attached schools so that those seeking to live as monks could have access to
the texts of the Bible, the liturgy, and the writings of other churchmen.
-church people had lots of books, very literary (copy old books, compose new ones, this was rare for the time and place)
In short: the
Anglo-Saxons had adopted Christianity. Within a few decades of the island’s peoples converting
to Christianity, English and Irish monks were traveling to Western Europe, either to establish
monasteries in lands already Christian or to serve as missionaries to those still-pagan peoples in
the forests of central Europe.
BYZANTIUM: CRISIS AND RECOVERY
-byzantin not doing so hot:The Avars, a nomadic people, in particular demanded that the Byzantine state pay them a
hefty tribute to avoid raids. At the very moment that the Empire was in greatest need of military
strength, it was a poorer empire than it had ever been.
-The solution was a reorganization of the military. Instead of having a military that was paid
out of a central treasury, the emperors divided the Empire up into regions called themes. Each
theme would then equip and pay soldiers, using its agricultural resources to do so. Themes in
coastal regions were responsible for the navy. In many ways, the theme was similar to the way
that other states would raise soldiers in the absence of a strong bureaucratic apparatus. One might
liken it to what we call feudalism in Zhou China, Heian Japan, and later Medieval Europe.
-iconoclast controversy over icons depicting Christ, Mary, such being graven images or not
-emperor leo III heard this and started having the icons removed
-iconophiles: argued that to use a
picture of Christ and the saints in worship
was in line with the Christian scriptures so
long as the worshiper worshiped God withthe icon as a guide,monks and civilian elites
-icolonoclasts: proclaimed that any use of imagesin Christian worship was forbidden, popular with the army, strongly rejected by popes
-ended with images being allowed
-exarch: governor
WESTERN EUROPE: THE RISE OF THE FRANKS
-the kingdom of the Franks
would become the dominant power of the Christian kingdoms. Justinian’s armies had destroyed
the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy in the sixth-century Gothic War. A century and a half later, in
711, Arab Muslim invaders from North Africa conquered the Visigoth kingdom in Spain and estab-
lished Muslim rule. From that time on, we refer to Muslim-ruled Spain of the early Middle Ages
as al-Andalus. The destruction of these two kingdoms left the Franks as the dominant power
of Western Europe. They were already the premier power in northern Gaul, but as the seventh
century went on, they established themselves in southern Gaul as well, gradually subordinating
other Germanic peoples to their rule.
-In the first place, the Frankish monarchy had fewer
civil wars than did that of the Visigoths. The Frankish kingdom did face the weakness that it was
sometimes divided among a king’s sons at his death
-But as the Frankish kingdom expanded, many elements of what had characterized the Roman
state continued to wither. (cause nature of warfare had changed western europe)
-Soldiers were no longer paid out of a government treasury; instead, they were
rewarded with lands whose surplus they would use to outfit themselves with military equipment. The
soldiers thus served as a warrior aristocracy.
-Frankish kings increasingly
made use of a pillage and gift system. In a pillage and gift system, a king or other war leader rewards
his loyal soldiers by granting them gifts that came from the plunder of defeated enemies. With armies
financed either by pillage and gift or by the wealth of an individual aristocrat’s lands, the Frankish
kingdom had little reason for maintaining taxation.
(the kingdom’s great land owners made sure that they were not taxed efficiently)
-The Mayor of the Palace was a noble who would
grant out lands and gifts on behalf of the king and who would, in many cases, command the army.
Gradually, one family of these Mayors of the Palace would rise to prominence above all other
noble families in the Frankish kingdom: the Carolingians.
-became hereditary, the Carolingian Mayors of the Palace had become the actual rulers of the Frankish realm, while
the Merovingian kings had little or no actual power.
-charles martel earliest to dominate the court, won battles, defended christianity
-eventually took the power away from the Merovingians, the Frankish kings, and making the Caorlignians in charge since they were doing what they believed to be their God-given duty and protecting the land and suchbecause a king ruled the earth
on behalf of God,
-The popes
would thus rule a set of territories in central Italy known as the Papal States from Pepin’s day
-The greatest of the Carolingians was the figure we refer to as Charlemagne, whose name
means Charles the Great. As king of the Franks, he spent nearly the entirety of his reign leading
his army in battle. Could get brutal, The only area in which he was less successful was in his invasion
of al-Andalus. Although his forces seized control of several cities and fortresses in northeastern
Spain (to include places like Barcelona), he was, on the whole, less successful against Spain’s
Umayyad emirs. One reason for this lack of success was that, compared to Charlemagne’s other
foes, al-Andalus was organized into a sophisticated
state, and so better able to resist him.
-Indeed, he ruled
more of Western Europe than anyone since the Roman
emperors of four centuries before. Also restored pope to place
-he was crowned roman emperor by pope. Though controversal whether crown was the popes to confer or not
-a document
known as the Donation of Constantine: it was a forgery that gave popes rule over all of western europe
-Charlemagne’s coronation by the pope marked the culmination of the creation of a new society
built on the wreck of the Western Roman Empire. This new society would be Christian and based
on close cooperation of Church and State—although each would regard the others’ sphere of
influence as separate.
GLOBAL CONTEXT
-compared to other people in europe, Charlemagne’s army was merely a very
large war band, financed not by a state with a working system of taxation and treasury, but rather
by the plunder of defeated enemies. His reality vs ambitions in things like making a canal=not good
The Carolingian Renaissance
-latin the language of literature became the romance languages of french, spanish, italian, portuguese
-Carolingian Renaissance:books had gradually dwindled with literacy.
The Carolingians were known not only for
their conquests and attempted revival of the
Roman Empire, but also for their efforts to
improve the state of learning in the Carolingian
Empire, particularly with respect to the Bible,
theology, and literature of Ancient Rome. They
also sought to increase the number of schools
The Macedonian Renaissance
-The Byzantine Empire had been that half of the Roman Empirewhere the language of life and culture was not Latin, but Greek. Ataround the same time as the Carolingians’ efforts, the ByzantineEmpire also saw close cooperation of Church and State to reviveew4gbthe study of ancient literature and improve learning. The Byzantine
Empire had suffered from a collapse of literacy, which, while not as severe as Western Europe’s, had still resulted in a much less literate population. As such, an effort similar to that of the Carolingians
was necessary in the Greek-speaking Eastern Mediterranean. We
–were not the only ones seeking to increase the availability
of ancient texts from the time of the Greeks and Romans.
DAILY LIFE IN WESTERN EUROPE AND THE
BYZANTINE EMPIRES
-In both Western Europe and Byzantium, the vast majority of the population was made up of
farmers.
-farmers. In Western Europe, some of these were what we call dependent farmers, living on the
lands of aristocrats and giving over much of their surplus to their landlords. But in many villages,
the majority of farmers might live on their own land and even enjoy a form of self-government.
-Six), the workers on
the estates of the Frankish aristocracy or those free and independent farmers enjoyed greater
freedom than had their Roman counterparts. But their life was precarious. Didnt get enough calories and had to give back a lot
-The nobles of Western Europe were generally part of a warrior aristocracy.
-patriaricle society. Women some rights
CAROLINGIAN COLLAPSE
-civil war, kingdom divided among brothers from charlemagne son
-they were three successor kingdoms
-division of kingdom not unusual for Franks
-Norse: germanic peoples but more war-like and different culture, had increased population
-were called vikings when raiding others
-had better constructed ships that allowed them to strike many different regions with barley any warning
-england small kingdoms were vulnerable to the raids which were increasing in size and scope
-norse eventually took lands to settle
-To the south and west, al-Andalus suffered fewer Norse attacks than did the rest of Europe.
A sophisticated, organized state with a regular army and a network of fortresses, it was able to
effectively deal with raiders.
-To the south and west, al-Andalus suffered fewer Norse attacks than did the rest of Europe.
-The Slavic peoples living there had a com-
paratively weak social organization, so in many instances they fell under Norse domination.
-The
Norsemen Rurik and Oleg were said to have established themselves as rulers of Slavic peoples as
well as the princedoms of Novgorod and Kiev, respectively, in the ninth century. These kingdoms
of Slavic subjects and Norse masters became known as the Rus.
-Although on occasion a
Norse raid would have great success against Byzantine forces, in general, a powerful and organized
state meant that, as with al-Andalus, the Norse encountered less success.
-Central Europe also faced attacks, these from the Magyars, a steppe people:although they made Hungary their primary location, they nevertheless
continued to raid East Francia
An Age of Invasions in Perspective
-Norse, Magyar, and Muslim attacks on Europe wrought incredible damage. Thousands died,
and tens of thousands more were captured and sold into slavery in the great slave markets of North
Africa and the Kievan Rus. These raids furthered the breakdown of public order in Western Europe.
But these raids had effects that also brought long-term benefits. Both Norse and Muslim
pirates traded just as much as they raided. Indeed, even the plunder of churches and selling of the
gold and silver helped create new trade networks in both the North Sea and Mediterranean. These
new trade networks, especially where the Norse had established settlements in places like Ireland,
gradually brought about an increase in economic activity.
New States in Response to Invasions
-In response to the invasions that Europe faced, newer, stronger states came into being in the
British Isles and in Central Europe.
-In England, Norse invasions had destroyed all but one of the
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The only remaining kingdom was Wessex. Its king, Alfred the Great was able to stop Norse incursions by raising an army and navy financed by a king-
dom-wide tax.
-This tax, known as the geld, was also used to finance the construction of a network
of fortresses along the frontier of those parts of England still controlled by the Norse. This new
system of tax collection would eventually mean that England, a small island on the periphery,
would eventually have the most sophisticated bureaucracy in Western Europe (seen as primitive compared to middle eastern or east asian
-the kings of East Francia, the region made up of those Saxon
territories the Carolingians had conquered in the eighth century as well as various peoples to the
south and east, gradually built a kingdom capable of dealing with Magyar invaders.
-henry the foweler, then otto the great whose creation of a state was partially the result
of luck: his territory contained large silver mines that allowed him to finance an army. This army
was able to decisively defeat the Magyar raiders and also allow these kings to expand their power
to the east, subjugating the Slavic peoples living in the forests of Eastern Europe.
THE TENTH-CENTURY CHURCH
-As a result of endemic chaos in Western Europe, the Church suffered as well. The moral and intel-
lectual quality of bishops and abbots declined sharply, as church establishments fell under the dom-
ination of warlords. Who would give leadership roles on the church based on ties of loyalty
