3.1

It’s All About Gunpowder

• They were land-based, got their power from the land

• Each empire was expanding geographically

• Main cause of that expansion was the adoption of gunpowder weapons

• These Gunpowder Empires came out on top

Meet the Empires

• Ottoman Empire

  • Most significant Islamic Empire in this period

  • Founded in the 14th century after the Mongol Empire died

  • Started small but grew rapidly due to two reasons

    • Controlled the Dardanelles, which was a highly strategic chokepoint which they used to launch their expansions

    • Adopted and developed gunpowder weapons

  • Sacked Constantinople in 1453, the heart of the Christian Byzantine Empire

    • Mehmed II sent his giant military with their gunpowder weapons to blast the city’s famous wall to pieces

    • Renamed it Istanbul, became the crown jewel of the empire

• Safavid Empire

  • Established in the beginning of the 1500s

  • Grew under Shah Ismael, who declared the state as Shia Muslim

  • Made them an opponent to the neighboring Sunni Muslim empires, the Ottomans and the Mughals

  • Grew like mad under Shah Abbas and adopted gunpowder weapons

• Mughal Empire

  • Replaced the Delhi sultanate in the 16th century under the leadership of Babur

  • Babur made use of an expanding military with gunpowder cannons and guns to expand the empire

  • Expanded even further under Akbar

    • Religiously tolerant

    • Masterful administrator of the empire

    • Under his rule, the Mughal became the most prosperous empire of the 16th century

• Qing Dynasty

  • With the decline of Mongol rule in China, a new dynasty was established, namely the Ming dynasty, which was ethnically Han

  • By the 1500s, the Ming dynasty was falling apart, which allowed for the Manchus to invade and set up the Qing dynasty

  • Launched a 40-year campaign of conquest including all the former Ming dynasty including Taiwan and portion of Mongolia in Central Asia

  • The Manchu weren’t ethnically Han, like the majority of the Chinese population

Rivalries Between States

• Safavid Mughal Conflict

  • Series of wars fought in the 17th century between the two empires

  • Both empires wanted to expand into the Persian Gulf

  • The conflict erupted more because of the religious rivalry

  • Series of wars that lasted decades with no clear victor

• Songhai-Moroccan Conflict

  • Songhai Empire

    • Had expanded significantly by the 16th century and had grown rich due to their participation and partial control in the Trans-Saharan Trade route

    • Began to weaken because of significant internal problems

  • Moroccan Kingdom

    • Decided to take advantage of the instability to surprisingly invade the empire using their gunpowder weapons

    • The Moroccans easily won due to the advanced weaponry

3.2

Legitimizing and Consolidating Power

• Legitimize

  • Refers to the methods the ruler uses to communicate to all their subjects WHO is in charge

• Consolidate

  • Measures a ruler uses to take power from other groups to claim it for him/herself

Bureaucracies and Militaries

• Large imperial bureaucracies

  • Expanding empire = larger bureaucracy

  • Devshirme system

    • Ottomans staffed their imperial bureaucracy will highly trained individuals, most of whom were enslaved

    • Enslaved Christian boys who were then sent to live with Turkish families so that they could learn the language

    • They were then sent to Istanbul for proper Islamic education

    • Those boys either went into the military, or became part of the bureaucracy

• Military Expansion

  • Created elite military professionals

  • Devshirme system supplied elite soldiers known as the Janissaries 

Religion, Art, and Architecture

• Religion

  • European monarchs claimed to rule by divine right of kings

    • Ruled with the approval of Jesus himself

  • Human Sacrifice(Aztecs)

    • Usually performed grand rituals of sacrifices with captured prisoners

    • Let people know who had all the power

• Art

  • Emperor Kangxi displayed imperial portraits of himself in the Qing dynasty

    • Served to convince the people that Kangxi was in charge

    • Portrayed himself with traditional confucian values which appealed to his Chinese population

• Architecture

  • Palace of Versailles

    • Built for the French Monarch Louis XIV(the 14th)

    • When people saw the massive grandeur of the palace, it made them believe that Louis was in charge

    • Also used to consolidate power by forcing the French nobility to live there

      • Allowed him to move power under him, away from the nobility

  • Inca Sun Temple

    • Rulers were considered to be direct descendants of the gods

    • Builts this temple, whose walls were covered with gold and statues of gold

    • This building served to legitimize their power

Financing Imperial Expansion

• Zamindar System(Mughal Empire)

  • Employed local landowners known as zamindars to collect taxes throughout the empire on behalf of the emperor

  • Extended imperial authority and consolidated imperial power

• Tax farming(Ottoman Empire)

  • Right ot tax subjects of the Ottoman Empire went to the highest bidder

  • Whoever got that right was authorized to collect taxes from a particular group of people and they enriched themselves by collecting more taxes than were legally required, thus padding their own pockets

  • Helped Ottoman government by providing a steady source of income at the beginning of the year which came from the bidding for the right to tax

  • Ottomans didn’t have to pay the tax farmers to expand authority

3.3

Christianity in Europe

• Became a shared cultural glue among Europeans

• Church was present and active on most states

• Massive split occurred in 11th century

  • Eastern Orthodox Church

  • Roman Catholic Church(Dominant in West)

• Catholic church wielded enormous power by 1500 in Europe

  • Filthy rich and got busy building magnificent structures like St Peter’s Basilica

  • Church began the sale of indulgences to pay off all the structures

  • Also included other corrupt practices, including simony

    • Putting up high church positions up for sale

  • People’s confidence in the Church was waning

• Martin Luther

  • Didn’t see anything in the Bible that said sins could be exchanged for money or that Church offices could be bought

  • Wrote a series of complaints known as the 95 theses announcing all the corrupt practices and doctrines he saw in the church

  • The church branded Luther a heretic and excommunicated him

  • While he wasn’t the first person to challenge the church, it was Luther’s work that ultimately split the church in the Protestant Reformation

    • Used the printing press to spread his ideas throughout Europe

• Counter-Reformation

  • Gathered in the Council of Trent and tossed out many of the corrupt practices

  • The Catholics implemented reforms to attract some of the new Protestants back into Catholicism

  • Still kept the belief of salvation by faith and works and nature of biblical authority

  • Made the split of the Catholics and the Protestants permanent

• Various rulers across Europe either remained Catholic or imposed Protestantism upon the people they ruled

• Led to a series of religious wars in Europe up until 1648

Islam in the Middle East

• Both the Ottomans and the Safavids wanted to beat back the other and claim territory for their own

• Eventually the Ottomans got the upperhand in the conflict

• It was because of their political rivalry that the split between Sunni and Shia branches of Islam became intensified

Changes in South Asia

• Bhakti movement

  • Innovation on Hinduism

  • Had similar practices with the mystical movement in Islam, namely Sufism, leading to some exchange and bleeding of practices

• Sikhism

  • New religion that blended elements of Islam and Hinduism

  • Demonstrated continuity as it held onto significant doctrines in both beliefs like a belief in one god and the cycle of death & reincarnation

  • Also demonstrated change because as the new faith developed, many distinctions were discarded, such as the caste system and gender hierarchies