T h e A m e r i c a n U n i v e r s i t y o f R o m e HST 201 - Survey of Western Civilization I

Session 15

Polities of the Early Middle Ages

A review

The High Middle Ages

Its features

800

500

1000

1400

Biz e

I

HRE X

OE

1918

R O M E

The Middle Ages: the events

> Constantine’s division of Empire

> Fall of Rome

> Justinian

> Rise of Islam

476/565 800 1300 1453/1492

Early MA > High MA > Late MA

Renaissance < Fall of <

ConstantinopleEnd of 100 <

years war Americas <

“Reconquista” < of Spain Battle of <

Lepanto

Holy Roman Empire

Monasteries

Plagues

Universities

Schism

Romanic architecture >Gothic architecture

age of cathedrals >Rennaissance of Greco-Roman art?

1000

“The Renaissance of the 12thCentury”

>The building of Western Law

>Intercontinental commerce

800

500

1000

1400

I

HRE X

OE

1918

Biz eR O M E

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

Constantinople

Trebizond

Constantinople

Trebizond

> 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).

>Byzantine religion: doctrinal disputes & the sense of “mission” of Byzantines monks. The loss of territories will 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

800

500

1000

1400

Biz e

I

HRE X

OE

1918

R O M E

G

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 Ostia800

Cordoba, Islam, and the cultural hub of Europe

800

500

1000

1400

Biz e

I

OE

1918

G

HRE X

R O M E

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 emperor813> Charlemagne dies 814> Division of the empire

How do we interpret the phenomenon of the birth of the HRE? Its formation and rapid division?

The Indian Ocean in Eurasian and African World-Systems before the Sixteenth Century, Philippe Beaujard, Journal of World History, Vol. 16, No. 4, 2005

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.

MA

B I C

Short revival with J

Gregory I

Birth and strong growth

Creation of the HRE

Muslim Spain

Cordoba

Legacy?

500

600

700

800

900

1000

1100

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