AP World HistoryChapter 9

Civilization in Eastern Europe:

Byzantium and Orthodox Europe

The Byzantine Empire

• Constantine built Constantinople as his capital in the 4th Century.

• When the Roman empire split Constantinople became the Eastern empires capital.

• Emperor Justinian built the Hagia Sophia and simplified the Roman legal code.

Church and State

• The Byzantine political system had remarkable similarities to China.

• The emperor was held to be ordained of God.• He was head of the church as well as state.• Women could and did serve as emperor.• They had an elaborate bureaucracy to administer the

government.

Eastern Orthodox Church

• In 1054 a longstanding disagreement came to a head, and the Christian church split into two groups.

• The Western or Roman Catholic, and Eastern or Orthodox Catholic.

• The Byzantine Empire goes into slow decline.

1071 Byzantine defeat in Asia1204 Constantinople sacked by Crusaders1453 Constantinople taken by Ottoman Turks

Missionaries

• Eastern Orthodox missionaries spread northward into Russia and the Balkans, and created a new alphabet, Cyrillic.

• Cyril and Methodius are the two most famous of the missionaries.

Kievan Rus’

• Kiev began as a city along the trade route between Scandinavia and Constantinople.

• One of the early leaders of the city Vladimir converted to Orthodox Christianity around 1000 A.D.

• The City State soon developed its own version of Russian Orthodox Christianity.

The Emergence of Kievan Rus'• Slavs from Asia• Iron working, extend

agriculture• Mix with earlier populations• Family tribes, villages• Kingdoms• Animistic• Scandinavian merchantsTrade with ByzantinesTrade with Northerners

c. 855, monarchy under RurikCenter at Kiev

Vladimir I (980-1015)Converts to OrthodoxyControls church

Yaroslav I

• Issued a unifying code of laws, while not as advanced as Constantinople it still had nobles called Boyars.

The Tartars

• The Russian name for the Mongols. The Invasion of Russia by the Mongols and the destruction of Constantinople by Muslims, isolated Russia.

• The region was cut off from western contacts, stifling economic, political, and cultural sophistication.