Disintegration of the ancient world c600-c750 Flashcards
How did Islam rise?
Arabia was becoming part of late antiquity by being exposed to the christian monotheist world.
Mohommed - unified Arab society and this tradition of late antiquity holy men who could exercise the significance of having social power.
Muslim, in principle, should not fight with fellow believers and so, and conflict emerging would travel outwards. But with his death in 632, this moral and political authority was confined to the Arab peninsula.
When was the Persian empire conquered?
644 AD
Is it Islam?
Perhaps, or it could be the
latent military potential of nomads
Roman and Persian empires were weakened by long/ mutually destructive wars (602-628)
Pirenne Thesis about charlemagne and Moho?
The barbarian invasion were not serious. and did not damage the economic integrity and prosperity of the Med 5thc.
The Med exchange system was broken up/ destroyed by Arab conquest 7thc.
This led to ‘closure’ of the Med.
Without Moho, Charlemagne would have been ‘inconceivable’.
Was Pirenne right?
Yes -The barbarians did not destroy the Med trade
Arab conquests did destroy political integrity of Med/ Arab conquests led to rapid disintegration of trade system of eastern Med.
No - to imagine the ‘closure’ of the Med/ any form of distinct seperation between Christian and Arab zones of influences in incorrect.
Archeology suggests it was a steady decline in terms of trade.
Moho didn’t cause Charlemagne, but Pirenne right to focus attention on decades around 700 as the period when antiquity ends (East Roman empire undergoes regionalisation).
The rise of Carolingians?
Core of Frankish power had always been in the north
Long distance trade was marginal to economic growth because it depends more on productivity of own land and regular exchanges.
When was the ex Roman world
8thc, changed dynamics as centre of politics, culture, economic growth etc was pulled away from Med.
The West started to develop.
- Frankish economy developed and expanded outwards
trade developed in North (links with fast development of Anglo Saxon kingdom) and Baltic (trigger vikings).
- growth in Carolingians
What had the Roman world been fragmented into?
Three spheres
- New Frankish Empire
- Residue Byzantine empire
- Arab controlled territory in the south
