Crash Course World History #14

The Dark Ages

What is the period between 600 and 1450 AD often called and why?

The Middle Ages, because it came between the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Modern Age

What were the Middle Ages also called and why?

The Dark Ages, because it was a time where architecture, arts, and literature declined in Europe

Did anything positive happen during the Dark Ages?

Yes. Wars declined and life expectancy rose (until the plague in the 14th century) in Europe. Outside of Europe, the Dark Ages were an Age of Enlightenment.

What did Medieval Europe have less of when compared to the original Roman Empire?

Trade, cities, culture

What happened as a result of there being less powerful governments?

There was less organization and social services, but wars were significantly smaller

How did live expectancy during the Medieval Times compare to that of the Roman Empire?

People in Medieval Times lived slightly longer, with a life expectancy of 30 years old as opposed to 28 during the Roman Empire.

What is feudalism?

A political system based on reciprocal relationships between lords, who owned lots of land, and vassals, who acted as knights and protected the land for the lords.

Could lords also be vassals?

Yes. The lords were vassals for more important lords, with the most important being the king.

Who were below the vassals/knights, and what did they do?

Peasants, who worked the land in exchange for protection from bandits and other threats.

How was feudalism like sharecropping?

The peasants kept some of the production to feed themselves and gave the rest to the landowner, making feudalism also an economic system.

What about the threats of that era allowed feudalism to work?

The threats of the era were small-scale and local, just like feudalism

Did feudalism allow for social mobility?

Feudalism reinforced the status quo with little freedom and no social mobility.

What was theology like during the Medieval ages?

Europe was dominated by superstition and religious debates, but also saw theologians like Fr. Thomas Aquinas and literary geniuses like Hildegard of Bilgen.

What did the Umayyad Dynasty do?

Expanded the Islamic empire west to Spain and moved the capital to Damascus as it was more central but still in Arabia.

What social structure did the Umayyads establish?

The Umayyads established a hierarchy with Arabs at the top, and tried to prevent Arabs from hanging out with non-Arab muslims.

What happened to the Umayyad dynasty?

Non-Arab muslims soon made up the majority of the Islamic empire, so they overthrew the Umayyads in 750 AD. This paved the way for the Abbasids, who were Persian.

Who conquered the Abbasids?

Nobody could fully defeat them until they were conquered by the Mongols in 1258 AD.

How did the Abbasids differ from the Umayyads?

They had a hereditary monarchy, and moved the capital of the empire to Baghdad. In addition, they were much more welcoming of other non-Arab Muslims into positions of power.

What happened to the caliphate during the Abbasid dynasty?

The Dar al Islam took on a distinctly Persian identity that it never really lost - the caliph was a king of kings, and his rule became a lot more indirect.

By 1000 AD, the Islamic caliphate was really a series of smaller kingdoms.

Why did the Islamic Empire fragment during the Abbasid dynasty?

They relied more on soldiers from the frontier (Turks) and slaves for their army, which gave the caliph little control

Who were the Abbasids more open to, and what effect did that have?

The Abbasids were more open to foreigners and their ideas, fostering the golden age of Islamic learning centered in Baghdad

Baghdad became the world’s center of scholarship with the House of Wisdom and its immense library

How did the Arabic language become more significant?

Arabic replaced Greek as the language of commerce, religion, and culture

Philosophy, medicine, and poetry were all written in Arabic, although Persian was still important in literature

How did innovation occur in literature, medicine, and math during the Abbasid Empire?

Muslim scholars translated and preserved philosophical works, scientific works, Buddhist manuscripts, and Hindu manuscripts

There was also innovation in medicine, like the Canon of Medicine, which was the standard medical textbook in Europe and the Middle East for centuries

The Islamic empire adopted mathematical concepts from India such as the zero

Were science and religion compatible in the Abbasid Empire?

Yes. Religion helped push learning forward.

In fact, Muslim scholars invented algebra partly so they could simplify Islamic inheritance law and made strides in trig so people would understand where to turn when trying to turn towards Mecca.

Outside of Baghdad, where else in the Islamic Empire became a hub of innovation?

In Spain, Islamic Cordoba became a center for the arts and architecture

What happened in Cordoba that was notable?

The Great Mosque in Cordoba was built by Abd al-Rahman I in 785-786 AD

They built aqueducts that rivaled the Roman’s

Muslim scholars improved agricultural science, yielding more from new crops

What did the Tang Dynasty promote, and how many people and how much land did they rule?

The Tang Dynasty made China’s government more of a meritocracy, and ruled 80 million people across 4 million square miles

What was the significance of the Battle of the Talas River?

China could’ve conquered all of central Asia if not for the Abbasids, who they fought at the Battle of the Talas River

The Abbasids won, defining cultural influence with the Abbasids dominating to the west, and China to the east

What did the Tang Dynasty do for art?

They produced incredible art that was traded all throughout Asia, and the diversity of the empire was reflected in this art

Chinese poetry was encouraged by the government

Did the Song Dynasty continue the Tang Dynasty’s innovation?

Yes

What kinds of innovations occurred during the Song Dynasty?

Chinese metalworkers produced as much iron as Europe could produce in the 18th century, by the 11th century

They built new plows, increasing agriculture and population growth

Porcelain was so high quality that it was shipped throughout the world

There was so much trade that the Chinese ran out of metal for coins, leading to the invention of paper money

In the 11th century, the Chinese invented gunpowder