Medieval Europe: Byzantine Empire 527-800

Question 1

External threats

Answer 1

• Ummayad Caliphate taking over Palestine in 638 and Egypt in 639
• Persians took Palestine and Jerusalem in 614
• Under Heraclius the Empire lost 2/3 of its land and 3/4 of its wealth in the 610s

Question 2

Army/navy

Answer 2

• Heraclius reforms of the peasantry in the 620s creating a kind of military service
• the four thema called Antaolikon, Armeniakn, Trakension and Opsikion
• Greek fire used against the Arabs in 717

Question 3

Historians

Answer 3

-Ostrogorsky argues that the reorganisation of society into Themata was to do with the army

Question 4

Religion

Answer 4

• Heraclius comes up with monenergism as a synthesis between the monophysites and the nestorians
• By 680 however most of the monophysite land had been lost, Constantine IV called an ecumenical council condemning monenergism and monothelitsm

Question 5

Iconoclasm

Answer 5

• by 700 it was increasingly common to see portraits of saints used for prayer
• council of nicaea 787
• Leo III saw a volcanic eruption on island of Thera in 726
• 750 Constantine took up iconoclasm as imperial policy writing a tretise on the subject, his Peuseis, in 754
• Bishops Thomas of Klaudioupolis and Constantine of Nakoleia opposed images in 720s-730s