Postclassical Era Flashcards
Eurasia gave rise to one of the world’s most extensive & sustained networks of exchange:
Silk Roads
The Silk Roads linked _____ and _____ peoples
agricultural, pastoral
Relay trade
in Silk Roads, where goods were passed down the line, changing hands many times
Eurasia is often geographically divided into _____ and _____ zones
inner, outer
What countries compose the outer region of Eurasia?
China, India, Middle East, Mediterranean
What is the climate of Outer Eurasia?
warm, well-watered, suitable for agriculture
What countries compose the inner region of Eurasia?
Russia, Central Asia, pastoral people of Inner Eurasia
What is the climate of Inner Eurasia?
harsher, drier climate, not conducive to agriculture, north
Steppes
Northern grasslands
Pastoral peoples traded _____ for ______
products of the forest and steppes (furs, livestock), agricultural products & manufactured goods
Movement of pastoral peoples diffused _________, _______, and _____ across Eurasia
metallurgy, Indo-European languages, technologies
By the early centuries CE, indirect trading connections brokered by pastoral peoples linked ________
second wave Eurasian civilizations
The Silk Road trading network prospered when __________
powerful states provided security
_______ and ______ anchored long-distance commerce at the ends of Eurasia on the Silk Roads
China, Rome
______ products rather than __________ were transported on the Silk Roads
Luxiry products, staple goods
Why were luxury goods traded on the Silk Roads?
Only commodities of great value were worth the high costs of transportation
During the Tang dynasty (think: early postclassical), what was the role of women in rural areas?
They were the primary producers ot textiles/silk
Around 500s, the technology for creating raw silk __________
spread to Koreans, Japanese, Indians, and Persians
In Central Asia, silk was used as ______
currency
Name some contributions from China to the Silk Roads
silk, bamboo, mirrors, gunpowder, paper
Name some contributions from the pastoral peoples/steppes to the Silk Roads
furs, walrus tusks, amber, livestock
Name some contributions from India to the Silk Roads
cotton textiles, spices, herbal medicine
Name some contributions from the Middle East to the Silk Roads
dates, nuts, almonds, dried fruits (FRUITS & VEGETABLES), dyes, swords, lapis lazuli
Name some contributions from the Mediterranean basin to the Silk Roads
gold coins, glassware, grapevines, olive oil, artworks
Silk Roads served also as a conduit of culture, spreading ________ widely throughout East and Central Asia
Buddhism
Buddhism appealed to ________
merchants
Why did Buddhism appeal to merchants?
It had a universal message, as opposed to one dominated by a priestly class
Why was Buddhism blocked from fully penetrating the west?
Zoroastrianism
Merchant communities introduced ________ to northern China
Buddhism
Most importantly, conversion to Buddhism was a _______ process
voluntary
Buddhist merchants were able to earn religious merit by ______________
monasteries
For merchants, Buddhist monasteries became ________
familiar places of rest and resupply
Among pastoral peoples, conversion to Buddhism progressed ________ due to __________
slowly, an absence of written language/nomadic ways that made monasteries difficult
Buddhism became popular in China itself _______
only slowly
As Buddhism spread, it underwent _______
change
While the original Buddhism shunned materialism, Buddhist monasteries in oasis towns were ___________
very involved in secular affairs
Which variant of Buddhism flourished on the Silk Roads?
The Mahayana variant
Characteristic disease patterns were developed by ________
each major population center of the Afro-Eurasian world
Why was disease an issue, especially after the Silk Roads?
Contact among human communities exposed people to diseases for which they had little immunity or ability to cope
In addition to the Silk Roads, ________ trade routes likewise connected distant peoples all across the Eastern Hemisphere
sea-based
What represented the world’s largest sea-based communication & exchange system from southern China to eastern Africa?
Indian Ocean (Sea Roads)
Why were transportation costs lower on the Sea Roads than the Silk Roads?
Ships accommodated larger, heavier cargoes than camels
The Sea Roads were more suitable for ____________
bulk goods destined for mass market
What climactic feature enabled the Sea Roads?
Monsoons that blew in predictable patterns (Westward Winter, eastward summer)
The process of the building of an understand of monsoons and improvements in shipbuilding technology was built from _________
an archipelago of towns of different merchant peoples who had more in common with each other than the people of their hinterlands
What were two major processes during the postclassical era that contributed to the Indian Ocean World?
Tang and Song dynasties in which China reestablished a unified state encouraging maritime trade, Islam’s spread across Afro-Eurasia
Srivijaya
A Malay kingdom which dominated the Straits of Malacca from 670 to 1025
Borobudur
A massive Buddhist monument built in the Sailendra kingdom in Central Java that mounted a building program from 700 - 900, indicating Indian culture in Southeast Asia
Angkor Wat
The largest religious structure in the premodern world for Hinduism first and then Buddhism
No ___________ accompanied INdian cultural influence
imperial control
Sea trade also gave rise to ________ in East Africa
Swahili
Many Arab, Indian, and Persian merchants settled _____ in Swahili civilization
permanently
Swahili civilization became rapidly _____
Islamic
The earliest long-distance trade within the huge West Africa was not across the ______, but among the _______, or “land of the black people”
Sahara, Sudan
How did peoples of Sudanic West Africa engage in trade?
Used boats along Niger and donkeys for overland travel
What single thing made the trek across the Sahara possible by 300-400 CE?
Introduction of the camel
What did people seek above all else in Africa?
gold
Name some things that were not present in the Americas that made it more difficult for direct connections among civilizations and cultures
horses, donkeys, camels, wheeled vehicles, large oceangoing vessels
Why was the north/south orientation of the Americas more inhibitory than the east/west axis of Eurasia?
It required agricultural practices to move through distinct climactic/vegetation zones, slowing the spread of certain agricultural products
How did the emergence of Christianity and Islam contrast with most major religions and cultural traditions of the classical era?
While Confucianism, Daoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Zoroastrianism all arose from established civilizations, Christianity & Islam emerged from the margins of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern civilizations
The central region of the Arabian Peninsula was originally inhabited by the _______
Bedouins
The Bedouins were a _______ people
nomadic
In the northern and southern regions of Arabia, ____________
small kingdoms had flourished earlier
What gave rise to cosmopolitan cities in Arabia?
Its geographic proximity to increasingly important trade routes connecting the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea
What was the original Kaaba and where was it located?
It was a religious shrine housing representations of 360 deities and was the destination for many pilgrims in Mecca
Who controlled access to the Kaaba originally?
the Quraysh tribe
How did the Quraysh grow wealthy?
They taxed local trade that accompanied the annual pilgrimage season
Arabia was located on the periphery of which two established civilizations?
Byzantine Empire and Sassanid Empire
How did monotheistic ideas become introduced to Arabs?
Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians lived among the Arabs
By Muhammad, most settled Arabs already acknowledged _____
Allah
Arabs regarded themselves as _______ along with Jews
children of Abraham
Muhammad’s occupation was as a ______
merchant
The Quran represents the ________ to most Mulsims
very words of God
Why was the Quran revolutionary in its Arabian context?
It was radically monotheistic, it represented Muhammad as the last in the line of prophets, and it was a call to the old and pure religion of Abraham from which Jews/Christians had deviated
umma
Just & moral society
In the Quran, women were ______
spiritually equal
5 pillars of Islam
No god but Allah, Ritual prayer, almsgiving, month of fasting, pilgrimage to Mecca as hajj, jihad
Why did the Quraysh vociferously oppose Islam?
it called for social reform & condemned Mecca’s business practices
hijra
The emigration fo Muhammad and his followers to Yathrib (later called Medina, the city of the Prophet)
What did Muhammad declare when he arrived at Medina?
independence from Judaism
When Muhammad reentered Mecca peacefully, what did he do?
Purge the Kaaba and declare it a shrine to the one God, Allah
Muhammad was a ______ and _____ leader as well as religious
political, military
Notably, there was no ________ mediating between God and mankind
professional clergy
sharia
one law that regulated every aspect of life
After Mohammad’s death, Arab armies engaged the ______ and _______
Byzantine, Sassanid empires
Before the Arabs, Byzantium and Persia had already been ______
weakened by decades of war
What motivated expansion?
Merchant leaders wanted to capture profitable trade routes and wealthy agricultural regions
Fragile unity of ______ threatened to disintegrate after the Prophet’s death, and ________ provided a common task
umma, external expansion
While many Muslim conquerors viewed the mission as _____, it did not mean imposing ________
jihad, religion
Why was it easy for many to accept the new political order?
They were already monotheists and familiar with core ideas of prayer, fasting, and prophets
dhimmis
How Islam recognized Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians
dhimmis were protected but ________ as long as they paid _______
second class, jizya
Islam’s association with what called into question the power of old gods?
A powerful state
Merchants found in Islam ________
friendliness to commerce
Why was the Persian conversion unique? What stayed the same even after Arab conquest?
Persians did not Arabize; they kept their language Farsi and religious ideas of Zoroastrianism permeated into Islam
The idea of umma became ________ as the Arab Empire became gigantic
difficult to implement
The first 4 caliphs were known as
the Rightly Guided Caliphs from 632-661
The caliphs were selected by _______
Muslim elders of Medina
After caliphs were selected, ______ emerged almost instantly
division
The first two caliphs, Uthman and Ali, were both ______
assassinated
Sunni felt that ________
caliphs were rightful leaders
Shia felt that _______
leadership should derive from line of Ali and son Husayn, blood relatives of Muhammad
While the Sunni/Shia divide was originally ______, it evolved into a _____ conflict
political, religious
Sunni felt that religious authority emerged from _______
larger community, especially religious scholars known as the ulama
The caliph was Mohammad’s ________ successor
political
Shia thought that religious authority derived from _______
their leaders, imams
Shia did not accept that the caliphs had _______
religious authority
Shia thought of themselves as the
minority opposition
As the Arab Empire grew, the caliphs transformed from modest chiefs to _________
absolute monarchs with elaborate court rituals, complex bureaucracy, standing army, centralized taxation
Under the Umayyad dynasty, the capital moved from _____ to ______
Medina, Damascus
Umayyads were replaced by ________
Abbasids
The new capital under the Abbasids was _______
Baghdad
Why did political unity not last long in the Abbasid caliphate?
Many local governors asserted autonomy while giving formal allegiance to caliph in Baghdad
During the Abbasid caliphate, the Islamic world fractured into _________
series of sultanates, many ruled by Persian or Turkish military dynasties
sharia
body of Islamic law developed by the ulama from 700s-800s
sufi
Muslim mystic ascetic
How did sufis perceive worldly Islamic success?
as a deviation from the purer spirituality of Mohammad’s time
Why did sufis and ulama disagree?
Sufis were critical of scholarly practitioners of sharia, thinking that ulama were corrupted by governments. Ulama thought sufis verged on heresy
Although they disagreed, the ulama’s legalistic emphasis and Sufi spirituality were never ________
irreconciliable
Socially, women were _____ in the Quran
women
As Islam progressed, Muslim women were ________
increasingly restricted
hadiths
codified traditions about the sayings or actions of Muhammad
The hadiths notably codified _______
negative views of women
1258
Last Abbasid caliph was killed by Mongol forces
Northern India was brought Islam by _______
Turkic-speaking warriors
Turkic rule in northern India became more systematic with ________
the establishment of the Sultanate of Delhi
Differences between Hinduism and Islam
Islam was monotheistic, chaste, very equal (as opposed to caste)
The differences between Hinduism and Islam were so great that Hinduism could not _______
completely absorb aspects of Islam
Sikhism
founded in India that blended Islam with Hindu
Anatolia is geographically located _______
where Turkey is today
Anatolia, then held by ______, was invaded by the Turks
Byzantine
Why was Anatolia so thoroughly Islamized?
smaller, so Turkic-speaking peoples held more cultural weight
Native population was decreased by massacres
In West Africa, Islam was carried by ________
merchants (not armies)
Acceptance of Islam in West Africa was ________
voluntary
Islam provided an important link to _______
Muslim trading partners
Islam in West Africa remained as the urban culture of _____
elites
Islam was threatened twice by _____ and then the _______
Mongols, crusaders
The spread of ______ in the Middle East caused Christianity to contract in _____ and ______
Islam, Asia, Africa
Jerusalem was taken control of by the _______
Muslims
Why did Christianity contract in China further east?
In mid 800s, Chinese state turned against all religions of foreign origin
The majority religion of Egypt by 640 (before Islam)
Christianity
Even as dhimmis paying the jizya, ________ of Egyptians continued to practice ________
large quantities, Christianity
What motivated Muslim rulers to turn against the Christians and massacre Christians in Egypt?
The Christian crusaders raised supsicions of the political loyalty of Christian subjects
The exception to African contraction of Christianity was ______
Ethiopia
How was Ethiopian Christianity protected?
Geographically by mountains & distance from major centers of Islamic power
Why did Muslims generally have goodwill towards Ethiopia?
Christian Ethiopia had sheltered persecuted followers of Muhammad in Islam’s early years
Contraction elsewhere left ____ and ____ by default centers of Christendom
Europe, Anatolia
The government of the Byzantine Empire was ______
tightly centralized
After 1085, Byzantium shrank due to what three factors?
Catholic Crusaders, aggressive Western powers, and Turkic Muslim invaders
Caesaropapism
Emperor acted both as a political and religious leader
What brought the church to every corner of the Byzantine Empire?
The dense network of bishops/priests
Byzantine Eastern Orthodoxy prohibited the use of ______, widening the gulf between Orthodoxy & Catholicism
icons
The Crusades, launched in 1095 by the Catholic pope in order to _______, exacerbated the _____ between East & West Christianity
reclaim Jerusalem, schism
Western Crusaders passing through Byzantium frequently ________
engaged in conflict
Economically, Byzantium had links to _____, _____, _____, ______, ____
Western Europe, Russia, Central Asia, the Islamic world, and China
Byzantium transmitted culturally ______ to the Islamic world and Christian West
classical Greek heritage
____ was the “third Rome”
Moscow
Kievan Rus was first stimulated by trade between _____ and ________
Scandinavia, Byzantium
Seeking to unify his diverse peoples, the prince of Kiev decided on the religion of __________
Eastern Orthodoxy voluntarily
Who overthrew the last Roman emperor?
Odoacer
Charlemagne was the ruler of the _______
Carolingian Empire
Within Western Europe, a highly fragmented & decentralized society known as ____ emerged with great local variation
feudalism
In feudalism, power was wielded by the ________
warrior elite of landowning lords
Lesser lords and knights swore allegiance to greater lords and became ______
vassals
Evidence of Roman-style social hierarchy was shown in the presence of _____, which was at the bottom of the hierarchy
serfdom
The hierarchical organization of the Roman catholic Church took over ______ in Western Europe
political functions
Literacy in ___ and ___ was the sign of _______ in the West
Greek, Latin, educated people
Church authorities and nobles and warriors ________ each other in Western Europe
reinforced
How did church authorities and nobles/warriors reinforce each other?
Rulers provided protection for papacy, and Church offered religious legitimacy, but they also competed for power.
Western Europe was subject to invasions before 1000 CE from these three areas:
Muslim armies in Spain, Hungarian invasions from east, and Viking incursions from the north
Dates of the High Middle Ages
1000-1300
As Western Europe developed, the independence that abbesses and their nuns had enjoyed was ________
curtailed
The Crusades had very little consequence in _____
the Middle East
In Europe, Crusades had ________ consequences
large
The Crusades _____ the cultural barriers between peoples. It _____ anti-Semitism, the rift between Eastern Orthodoxy, and the notion that “God wills it”
hardened, increased
In Western Europe, Greek rationalism diffused into the world of ______
Christianity
Christian scholars sought to produce a ______ for faith in Western Europe
rational foundation
The pastoral nomadic lifestyle only took place in the Afro-Eurasian world because there were no ______ in the Americas
large animals
Nomadic peoples of inner Eurasia sought acces to ____, ____, and ____ from urban workshops and farming communities of nearby civilizations
food, manufactured goods, and luxury items
In order to satiate their desire for goods from civilizations, they created __________ in order to effectively deal with powerful agricultural societies
tribal confederations
Charismatic leaders like Chinggis Khan used the concept of _________ to weld tribal alliances to become powerful states
fictive kinship
What military advantages did pastoral states possess?
Every male had horseback riding/hunting skills that were easily transferred to the role of the warrior
What sustained nomadic states?
Their ability to extract wealth through raiding, trading, or extortion
Conversion to various religion was ________ by rulers for ______ purposes
top-down, political
What are some examples of world religions that found a home in Inner Eurasia?
Juadism, Islam, Christianity, Manichaeism
The _______ people created a model emulated by Mongol & Turkic empires
Xiongnu
Provoked by Chinese penetration, the Xiongnu __________
created a huge military confederacy
Turkic-speaking nomads were never _______
single people
Turks were the ____ major carrier of Islam
third
Turkic language/culture spread widely over ________
inner Asia
Turkic-speaking nomads served as _________ for the Abbasid caliphate and then took ___________ for themselves
slave soldiers, political/military power
Almoravid Empire
Started as a movement among the Sanhaja Berber pastoralists to purify the practice of Islam
The Almoravid people controlled West African ________
gold trade
The Mongols themselves produced a very modest ______ imprint
cultural
Why did Chinggis Khan decide to expand towards China?
He needed a common task to continue the unity of the Mongols
What about the circumstances in which the Mongol attacks began was particularly fortuitous?
China was divided at that time and the Abbasid caliphate had shrunk to a fraction of its earlier size
Why was the Mongol army so effective?
Extremely well disciplined and organized
What underlay the military capability of the Mongols?
The ability to mobilize human & material resources
How did the Mongols know exactly which resources were available to them?
Elaborate census
Which was the most difficult & extended of the Mongols’ conquests?
China
Mongols’ conquest of China resulted in the ________ of a divided China
unification
The main feature of Chinese civilization that the Mongols ignored was the _______
civil examination system
In the eyes of Muslims, Mongols were _________
infidels
Mongols in Persia converted to _______
Islam
Mongols in Persia made use of the governmental feature _________
the extensive bureaucracy
Princes in Russia failed to _______ in the face of Mongol onslaught
unite
When the Mongol dynasty collapsed in China, the Mongols were _________
driven out
When the Mongol dynasty collapsed in Persia, they were _________
assimilated into Persian society
Devastation in Russia ___________ experienced by Persians or CHinese
matched or exeeded
The Mongols did not ________ Russia because they thought it had _______
occupy, little to offer
How did Mongols profit from Russia?
They extracted tributes from princes
The ________ flourished under the Mongols in Russia
Orthodox Church
Russian princes adopted Mongol ___________
weapons, rituals, court practices, etc.
Why did Mongols promote international commerce?
So they could tax it
Why didn’t the Mongols march on Central and Western Europe?
The death of Great Khan Ogodei
Who benefited the most from Mongol trade?
Europe, since they were less technologically developed than Islamic and Chinese worlds
What flowed westward through Mongol trade?
Chinese technology & artistic conventions
Where did the black death most likely originate?
China
What carried the pestilence?
rodents, transmitted by fleas to humans
Why did the plague provoke conflict between workers and the rich in Europe?
Because now workers were able to demand higher wages
What was the primary reason for the demise of the Mongol network?
the Black Death
Why was one reason the Mongol Empire was in disarray?
The Central Asian trade route was largely closed due to the Black Death
Why did Europeans take to the sea?
The disruption of Mongol-based land routes to the east and a desire to avoid Muslim intermediaries
Firestick farming originated in _______
Australia
While Australian gatherer/hunters were called ______________, the society in North America was full of __________
Paleolithic peoples, sedentary affluent foragers
Agricultural village societies typically were without the __________, ______________, and ______________ so common in civilizations
oppressive political authority, class inequalities, seclusion of women
Title societies (Igbo people)
wealthy men received prestigious ranks
________ served as mediators among kinship groups among the Igbo people
hereditary ritual experts
The Igbo relied on other institutions to maintain ____________
social cohesion
Even though they did not have states and urban centers, the Igbo people still participated heavily in _________
trade
The Turkic warrior Timur tried to restore the ________
Mongol Empire
What prevented Timur’s empire’s lasting?
Conflict among successors
What were Timur’s descendants able to retain for the 15th century?
The area between Persia & Afghanistan
During the _____ dynasty, China recovered from Mongol rule
Ming
Emperor Yongle relocated the capital of China to _______
Beijing
What was reestablished politically during the Ming dynasty?
civil service examination system
Why did Emperor Yongle commission such an enormous fleet?
To enroll distant peoples and states in the Chinese tribute system
Why did maritime expeditions abruptly end in 1433?
Yongle had died
Why did many high-ranking officials see the maritime expeditions as a waste of resources?
China was a “self-sufficient” middle kingdom
The Chinese maritime expeditions were a project of the __________
eunuchs
State building in Western Europe was mostly driven by ________
needs of war
England and France for more than a century in the ___________
Hundred Years’ War
Where did the Renaissance begin?
Italy
The Renaissance celebrated a ______________ that earlier had been lost
classical Greco-Roman tradition
The Renaissance reflected belief of wealthy male elite that they were living in a ________
new era removed from feudal Europe
________ and secular elements signaled the dawning of a ________ economy with private entrepreneurs
individualism, capitalist
Which two expeditions marked the end of the 15th century?
Christopher Columbus & Vasco da Gama
What facilitated the European entry into the Indian Ocean?
Chinese withdrawal from the Indian Ocean
In the fifteenth century, the Islamic World fragmented in __________
four major states or empires
What were the four states that Islamic civilization fractured into?
Ottoman & Safavid Empire
Which was the most enduring of the Islamic states?
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire was created by one of many ________ groups
Turkic warrior
The Ottoman Empire represented the emergence of _____ as a dominant people of Islamic world
Turks
The Safavid Empire was also under _____ leadership
Turkic
What did the Safavid Empire decide to impose as the official religion of the state?
Shia
All of Persia’s neighbors practiced the ______ form of Islam
Sunni
The Mughal Empire was the creation of a _______ group
Turkic
Songhay was in the ___________
west African savannas
Why was Songhay culturally divided?
Islam was growing, but largely limited to elites
How did Songhay derive wealth?
It was in the middle of trade routes & taxed that trade
Songhay became a major center of ______
Islamic learning
Mughal Empire was in ______
India
Mughal & Songhay governed largely _______ populations
non-Muslim
Mughals established unified control by blending many ______ and _____ groups
Hindu, Muslim
Triple Alliance
between Mexica and two other city-states that would eventually form Aztec
Great Law of Peace
Iroquois alliance that was used to suppress blood feuds and tribal conflicts
Aztecs were situated in __________
Mesoamerica
Aztecs had a unified _______
religion
Aztecs engaged in both local and long-distance ______
trade
The Inca Empire had very complex ________
bureaucracy
In some places, the enormous empire encountered ________
bitter resistance
mita
labor service demanded by the Incas
What did Inca do in return for labor?
Huge feasts
For Eurasian trade, India was first famous for ______
cotton
What spice did India supply the Mediterranean with?
pepper
Who discovered how to crystallize sugar?
Indians
How did southern China become more prominent in the beginning of the postclassical era?
Rice!
How many Church sacraments are there?
7
Canon law
church law
Inquisition
Church courts to determine heresy
Interdict
Excommunicate an entire region
Early Middle Ages are also called ______
Dark Ages
During Early Middle Ages, Europe was largely _______
rural
High Middle Ages also called _______
Age of Faith
What did Fatimid do?
Sacked Church of Holy Sepulchre, shaped Western perception of Muslim cruelty
3 G’s for Crusading
Gold, Glory, God
1st Crusade is also called the _______
Peasant Crusade
4 Crusader “coastal” kingdoms
Edessa, Tripoli, Antioch, Jerusalem
Muslim conquest of which coastal kingdom sparked the second crusade?
Edessa
King’s Crusade
3rd Crusade
Which king actually made it to the Holy Land?
Richard
After the 3rd Crusade, Jerusalem was in ________
Muslim control
Trader’s Crusade
4th Crusade
What do the Venetian merchants do at Constantinople?
Sack it
Bubonic Plague was blamed on _____
Jews
Abigensions/Cathars
Rich minority in France/Italy, massacred by Church
The Crusades’ need to raise, transport, and supply large armies led to ….
a flourishing of trade
During High Middle Ages, cities were run by ________
merchant guilds
Simony
appointing church office for payment
