AP World History pg. 67-82

Turkish political and cultural influence increased in the Islamic heartland.

Turkish-speaking groups spread Islam in India, causing a conflict between Islam and Hinduism.

With the establishment of the Sultanate of Delhi in 1206, Turkic rule became more systematic.

Islam attracted some disillusioned Buddhists low-caste Hindus and the untouchables (people under the lowest caste).

Some people benefited by transferring to Islam by evading tax on non-Muslams (the jizya).

Muslim communities only took up 20-25% of the total Indian Population, concentrated in the Punjab and Sind regions of northwestern India and Bengal to the east.

Several Hindu states flourished such as the most powerful Vijayanagar Empire, which controlled nearly all of south India from a capital city of around half a million people.

Spain was called al-Andalus by Muslims, where Muslims, Christians, and Jews were mixed more freely than in India.

The most prosperous in Europe during its time was Muslim Spain. Its capital city was Córdoba.

Muslims, Christians, and Jews all contributed to a brilliant culture, and astronomy, medicine, the arts, architecture, and literature flourished.

By 1000, around 75% of the population converted to Islam. The remaining Christians learned Arabic, veiled the women, stopped eating pork, and appreciated Arabic literature, music, and poetry.

Córdoba fragmented into different rival states.

Christians were persecuted under the order of al-Mansur.

This ended in 1492, when Ferdinand and Isabella, Catholic monarchs of a unified Spain, took Granada, the last Muslim stronghold to worship.

This forced Muslims to choose between conversion or exile.

Muslims emigrated to North Africa or the Ottoman Empire with 200,000 Jews because they refused to convert.

Between 1200 and 1450 Spain turned from an Islamic country to a Christian one.

The Byzantine Empire or Byzantium, was the most Christian empire and civilization, but they started to reduce in 1200.

Even as it faded, its religious, political, and cultural traditions influenced the Rus, an emerging civilization in Eastern Europe.

The empire included Egypt, Greece, Syria, and Anatolia.

The capital city is called Constantinople.

Tied to the Byzantine state was the Eastern Orthodox church, a relationship called caesaropopism.

Orthodox: the ‘right-thinking’ Christians

Tensions between the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church grew until in 1054 representatives of both churches brutally excluded each other, declaring that the opposing traditions were not real genuine Christians.

The Crusades launched by the Catholic Pope against Islam made relations worse. During the Fourth Crusades in 1204, Western forces (Ottomans) seized Constantinopole and ruled Byzantium for the next half-century.

A significant region of expansion for Orthodox Christianity around 1200 was the Russ, Slavic people of what is now Ukraine and Western Russia.

In the Rus, including Finnic and Baltic people, Viking traders, lived in a state called Kievan Rus.

Rus was led by various princes, Rus was a society of slaves and freemen, privileged people and commoners, dominant men, and subordinate women.

Western Christendom was at the end of world history because it was separated from world trade, and it never achieved political unity, a highly fragmented and decentralized society, widely known as feudalism, emerged in some regions into the 15th century.

In the competition, lesser lords and knights swore allegiance to greater lords or kings and thus became their vassals, frequently receiving lands and plunder in return for military service.

The Roman-style property gave way to serfdom. Serfs were not the personal property of their masters, would not be thrown off their land, and were allowed to live in families. However, they were bound to their masters’ estates as peasant laborers and owed various payments and services to the lord of the manor. In return, the serf family received payments and protection as the lord could provide.

Europe’s multicentered political system shaped the emerging civilization of the West in many ways, and it gave rise to frequent wars that brought death, destruction, and disruption to many communities. The conflicts enhanced the role and status of military men, and so Europe an elite society and values were militarized far more than in China.

Chinese invented gunpowder, but Europeans used it first for cannons.

Roman Catholic Church: its influence stretched across the whole region.

Church authorities, rulers, and nobles often competed against each other but they also regularly reinforced each other.

Many cities, where wealthy merchants exercised local power, won the right to make and enforce their laws and appoint their officials. Some of the cities, such as Venice, Genon, Florence, and Milan became almost completely independent city-states.

High Middle Ages (1000-1300)

The population of Europe grew from 35 million in 1000 to about 80 million in 1340.

Serfs were able to loosen the shackles of serfdom. This accelerated after the Black Death.

Europeans brought new technology like a heavy-wheeled plow. They relied more on horses than oxen and used iron horseshoes and a more efficient collar.

Developed a three-field system of crop rotation.

Development took a big toll on the environment: deforestation, tilling of fields, overfishing, human waste, and the proliferation of new water mills and their associated ponds damaged freshwater ecosystems in many places.

After 1000, Europeans relied wholly on human or animal-made power. They created cranks, flywheels, camshafts, and complex gearing mechanisms.

In the early 1300s, London had around 40,000 people, Paris had around 80,000, and Venice had 150,000.

In 1000, Constantinople had 400,000 people, and Córdoba in Muslim Spain had about 500,000.

Women were active in several urban professions such as weaving, brewing/milling grain, midwifery, small-scale retailing, laundering, pinning, and prostitution.

Crusades were required to swear a vow and in return received an indulgence, which removed the penalties for any confessed sins and also granted things like immunity from lawsuits, and a moratorium on the repayment of debts.

Most famous crusades were aimed at Jerusalem and the holy places associated with the life of Jesus from Islamic control.