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The American University of Rome
HST 201 - Survey of Western Civilization
Session 15
Polities of the Early Middle Ages
A review
The High Middle Ages
Its features
I
R
O
M
E
Biz e
500
HRE X
I
800
1000
1400
OE
1918
The Middle Ages: the events
476/565
Early MA
> Constantine’s
division of
Empire
800
>
1000
High MA
Holy Roman
Empire
1300
>
1453/1492
Late MA
“The Renaissance of
Renaissance <
the 12thCentury”
Fall of <
Plagues
Constantinople
Universities
Monasteries
End of 100 <
> Fall of Rome
years war
>The building of
Americas <
> Justinian
Western Law
Schism >Intercontinental“Reconquista” <
commerce
of Spain
> Rise of Islam Romanic architecture
Battle of <
>Gothic architecture
Lepanto
age of cathedrals
>Rennaissance of
Greco-Roman art?
R
O
M
E
Biz e
500
HRE X
I
800
1000
1400
OE
1918
The Byzantine empire
> Its start? Technically, the division of the R empire…
Diocletian? Constantine?
> The Roman revival of Justinian, with a twist of
Latin in B
527-565
> Germanic Lombards conquer the Italy
568
> Ascension of emperor Heraclius, fully Greek rulers
Defeats the Persians, captures Jerusalem
610-641
> Arabs occupy Byzantine territory and attack C
650-717
> Anatolia under B rule
717-750
> Iconoclastic movement (in the same vein as Islam?
Against monasteries…political as well, against
pretensions of Charlemagne and Leo III)
700-850
> Palace intrigues and complots & strong, regulated
administration based on control over trade, new
industries & strategic position
> Stalemate between Arabs and Byzantium
750-950
> Russia converts to orthodoxy
911-989
> Successful campaigns against Abbasid rulers
& B reconquers most of Syria
950-1000
> Annexation of Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia 1015-1025
> Schism of the Christian Church (and definite distinction
E vs W… importance of B for the W overshadowed) 1054
> Seljuk Turks (Ottoman) overrun eastern Byzantine
provinces… start of the defensive state & decline 1071
> Reign of Alexius Comnenus (against Normans, treaty
with Turks, Crusade, takes Anatolia but independent
crusader states
1081-1118
> First Crusade, Jerusalem (>1187)
1095-1099
> Fourth Crusade, capture of C by Venice:
the Latin empire
1204-1261
> Fall of Constantinople
1453
> Trebizond, last capital of the minuscule Byzantine empire
Trebizond
Constantinople
> Sources of stability: administration of the territories, not
succession traditions. Strong trade, at least until 11th c.
Important agricultural base, and in the post-roman period
presence of a strong base of independent farmers, but then
they will be part of large estates (nobles & monasteries).
Trebizond
>Byzantine religion: doctrinal disputes
& the sense of
“mission” of Byzantines
monks. The loss of territories will
Constantinople
reinforce this need for a strong religious base. The contact
with Islam for example…Iconoclastic controversy
> Byzantine culture: no intellectual freedom in universities (in
contrast with Europe)
> Byzantium and the Western Christian world
R
O
M
E
Biz e
500
HRE X
I
800
1000
G
1400
OE
1918
Spread of Islam
> Expulsion of Muhammad from Mecca (Hijrah)
622
> Return of Muhammad to Mecca
630
> Death of Muhammad
632
> Abu-Bakr becomes caliph
632
> Umar becomes caliph
634
> Arabs occupy Antioch, Damascus and Jerusalem 636
> Arabs reach Persian capital
637
> Arabs invade Egypt and then North Africa
646-711
> Arabs conquer Persian empire
651
> Umayyad dynasty
661-750
> Sunni-Shiite schism
661
> Arabs invade Spain
711
> Arabs defeated at Poitiers by Charles Martel
732
> then stopped near Lyons
739
> Abbasid dynasty
750
> Arabs stopped at Ostia
800
Cordoba, Islam, and the cultural hub of
Europe
R
O
M
E
Biz e
500
HRE X
I
800
1000
G
1400
OE
1918
The Carolingian empire
> The Rise of the Carolingian Empire
717-814
> Charles Martel becomes mayor of the palace
717
> The Carolingians (Charles, Pepin and Carloman)
share power with the Merovingian
717-751
> Charlemagne succeeds Pepin
768
> Charlemagne is crowned Holy Roman emperor 800
> Louis the Pious becomes emperor
813
> Charlemagne dies
814
> Division of the empire
How do we interpret the phenomenon of the birth of the
HRE? Its formation and rapid division?
7th-9th c.
The Indian Ocean in Eurasian and African World-Systems before the Sixteenth
Century, Philippe Beaujard, Journal of World History, Vol. 16, No. 4, 2005
1st-3rd c.
The Indian Ocean in Eurasian and African World-Systems before the Sixteenth
Century, Philippe Beaujard, Journal of World History, Vol. 16, No. 4, 2005
MA
B
500
600
I
C
Gregory I
Short revival
with J
Birth and strong
growth
700
800
900
1000
1100
Muslim Spain
Cordoba
Creation of the
HRE
Legacy?
In Europe: political systems of the Middle Ages
> Society moved from a world of tribes and chiefdoms - in
which rights of property were mainly defined through
membership of a kin-group - to a society in which lordship
over all land and men was increasingly assumed by state
rulers.
> A situation typical in an “intermediate” period and normal
among the barbarian tribes that were settling the old lands
of the Roman empire.
> The so-called feudal state of the Middle Ages was an
institution that represented a limited territorialization of
power, wherein a king's ability to govern and rule his
kingdom depended to a large extent on the cooperation of
his vassals (p. 65, Elias 1982, 16-17).
> This is NOT the situation that Charlemagne (CtG) will
create, but the situation that will develop from one more
event of a partition of an empire and the evolution of the
MA.
> There is no more striking a demonstration of this
process than the dramatic collapse of the Frankish
kingdom in the early Middle Ages, when the extended
kingdom of Charlemagne disintegrated into a 'mosaic of
autonomous duchies and principalities‘. (p.66)
Feudalism
> Political system? Centralized?
Decentralized?
> Confrontation Monarchy vs. Nobility?
(their different aims and powers)
> Power relations? Allegiance
& contract
> Property system? Special land-tenure
system?
> European system