The dark ages

Romanized south vs. north


western europe left fragmented linguistically and politically


clear differences between the south-spain, italy and southern francia and the north


interaction between the two as many traverlers pilgrims went between places like rome and the british isles


The rural north


yeavering (england)

  • first occupied and used as burial sites which then became the royal estate of the king of the northern kingdom of bernicia

  • normally constructed in clusters of four or five and formed a hamlet


paris:

  • mix of churches, 35 packed into abandoned city

  • in countryside peasants tended to plots of land owned by aristocrats


urbanish south:

  • closer to the mediteranean

  • diminished populations, still contained roman ampitheathers

  • peasants often were land holders themselves, not aristocrats


Merovingian Francia



Byzantine Empire:

  • regained territories from persions only to lose land to arab conquest

  • italy partitioned among the byzantine, lombards, papacy,

  • quinisext council

  • iconoclasm and growing distance between the papacy and the imperial court and church



Umarvard caliphate

  • ali, beginning of islam

  • umayyad caliphate moves capital to damascus

  • not very stable conquest


byzantine reform, renwal and expansion 750-900 CE

  • second council of nicea

    • empress irine who called this council to condem iconoclasm because she realizes most people under byzantine rule supported icons

  • Iconoclasm

    • in 730 CE Leo thought iconoclasm was the cause of why all of the bad stuff was having in byzantine and God judging them so he made it a policy of removing sacred images

    • becomes a total failure but also formed a cult: had to kissthe, , prostrate before icons and keep them

  • Reforming the army

    • rather than dividing the army among a few powerful generals they divided them into smaller regional units called “themes”

      • recruits were drawn from local neighborhoodsand rural communites paid for the equipment of any soldiers who couldn’t afford it

    • tagmata

      • military regiments of heavy cavalry


Bulgars

  • slavic and turkish speaking people

  • targeted to get converted to christianity

  • became close allies with byzantines by converting to byzantine christianity instead of roman catholicism

  • region fairly evenly divided between the two around the year 920 CE



Anatolia

byzantines resorted to skirmish warfare in anatolia in the 9th century


Cultural Developments

  • making new books’

    • arab conquest of egypt, paper was known only in the islamic world an papyrus was no longer easily available

    • new books were made out of parchment animal skins scraped and treated to create a good writing surface


Why does the byzantine empire enter into such huge reform after it was just conquested by the arabs

  • lost a lot lets try something new

  • hit rock bottom so they can kind of have there own mini renassance


Failure of the Umayyads

  • power base was in damascus and they expected other districts to send their taxes to their coffers in syria

  • marginalized shia followers in their caliphate

  • resistance came from two parts

  • both of these areas were part of the former persian empire and the rebels sought a convergence of old persian and newly persianized arab factions


abbasid revolution

  • 740’s revels supported the abbasid family to take over control of the caliphate

  • kin group


Baghdad

  • center of islamic power shifts furhter east as the abbasids construct their capital at bagdad

  • strategic site to build a city as the tigris and euphrates rivers came close together at this point and were connected by a canal

  • wealther neighborhoods in the city boasted sewers, courtyards, and pools lines with tiles

  • population at its height in the 9th century close to half a million which made it one of the two or three greates cities in the world


Abbasid politics and Administration

  • avvasid political ideology was based upon the spitiual and legal equality of all muslims

  • royal court became far mroe removed from its subjects than its predessors


mamluks

  • turkist warrior, young boys that caliphs captured from the steppes of central asia and trained them for military and political service

  • started in 870s and continued

  • mamluks become important later because then they overpower the caliphate itself


The silk roads- book


Abassid economics and Trade

  • islamic world become extremly wealthy under abbasids


abbasid religous texts

  • poetry greatest cultural expression of the arabs


why did the abbasids flourish

  • greater flexibilty for development

  • bagdad city with canal which promoted better trade



Byzantine Empire

  • second council of nicea and the end of iconoclasm

  • reforming the army: themata and tagmata

  • byzantine expansion

  • the macedonian renassaince


Abbasid Caliphate 750-900 CE

  • Failure of the Umayyads and the Abbasid Revolution

  • muslim caliphate rather than an arab caliphate

  • bagdad

  • wazir khurasani guard

  • mamluks

  • trade beyond the Mediterranean world

  • abbasid science and culture


byzantines rise again 900-10


Emperor Basil II 976-1025

  • brought byzatium back to its former glory

  • known for being a conquerer

  • only threat was from Rus - the vikings


dealing with the Dynatoi

  • powerful landholding families


expanison

  • basil launched attacks against syria to the south, georgia and armenia to the east, southwest to southern italy —→ conquered the entire bulgarains empire and reached the adriatic coast

    • led to large diversity

    • his troops included the vikings


Cairo Geniza

  • 400,000 pages of manuscript and printed material from the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo