Unit 1: The Global Tapestry
State: a territory that’s politically organized under a single government
Big question: how did the Song Dynasty maintain and justify its rule?
The Song Dynasty carried over a revival of Confucianism from the Tang Dynasty, which came right before the Song (called Neo-Confucianism)
Neo-Confucians sought to rid Confucian thought of the influence of Buddhism, which had influenced it significantly in the prior centuries
Confucianism: a philosophy that taught human society is hierarchical by nature, which is to say, there is a prescribed and proper order to everything
Filial piety: emphasized the necessity and virtue of children obeying and honoring their parents, grandparents, and deceased ancestors
Women were relegated to the subordinate position, stripped of legal rights, and forced to endure social restrictions, more so than in any previous dynasty
A woman’s property became her husband's, and she couldn’t remarry
Women only had access to limited education, and women in elite circles were made to endure the practice of foot binding
Status symbol among the elite, because a woman who couldn’t walk couldn’t work, and if you were rich enough, you wouldn’t need your wife to work anyway
Bureaucracy: a government entity arranged in a hierarchical fashion that carries out the will of the emperor
A civil service examination, which was heavily based on Confucian classes, was required in order to fill a position in the bureaucracy
By employing this system, bureaucratic jobs were earned based on merit
In theory, the civil service exam was open to men of all socio-economic statuses, but in reality, to study for this exam required a man to be rich enough to not work and devote himself to study
Center on the Four Noble Truths:
Life is suffering
We suffer because we crave
We cease suffering when we cease craving
The Eightfold Path leads to the cessation of suffering and craving
Both Hinduism and Buddhism include:
Cycle of birth and death, and reincarnation
Ultimate goal: dissolve into the oneness of the universe
The Buddhists called this Nirvana
In Sri-Lanka, Theravada Buddhism was practiced
This confined the practice of Buddhism to monks and monasteries
In East Asia, Mahayana Buddhism was practiced
This encouraged a broader participation of Buddhist practice
The Bodhisattvas, those who had attained enlightment, made it their goal to help others attain the same thing
Commercialization of economy:
Manufacturers and artisans began to produce more goods than they consumed
Sold excess goods in markets in China and across Eurasia
Porcelain and silk
Agricultural innovation:
Champa rice matured early, resisted drought, and could be harvested multiple times a year
Transportation innovations:
Expansion of the Grand Canal facilitated trade and communication among China’s various regions
Judaism
Ethnic religion of the Jews
Christianity
Established by the Jewish prophet Jesus Christ
Islam
Founded by the prophet Muhammad
Wherever those religions were practiced, believers used those religious principles to shape their societies
The Abbasid Caliphate, who, ruling from Baghdad, was poweful pre-1200, was ethnically Arab
When this empire started to break up, new ones rose in its place, but these were led by Turkics
Muslim empires were still around, but now the dominant empires weer led by ethnic Turks, not Arabs
While the Abbasids remained in power to a more limited degree claiming to be the religious figurehead for Islam, it was the Seljuks who were now in power
During the period 1200-1450, the dominance of Arab Muslim empires was fading, whilee Turkic Muslim empires rose up to replace them
Military administered their states
Established sharia law, which is a legal code based on the Qur’an
Nasir Al-Din Al-Tusi made significant advances in mathematics and invented trigonometry
Muslim scholars preserved the great works of Greek moral and natural philosophy by translating them into Arabic and making extensive commentary on them
Most of this happened in the House of Wisdom, a library in Baghdad
This time became known as the ‘Golden Age of Islam’
Dar al Islam + China = center of the world’s scholarship and wealth
Muslim empires expanded through:
Military expansion
Muslim merchants
Muslim missionaries
In South and Southeast Asia, there were three primary belief systems:
Hinduism
Buddhism
Islam
Buddhism was born in South Asia, but was declining. By 1200, Buddhists in South Asia were reduced to monastic communities, and the majority of South Asians were Hindu
Because many places were ruled by Muslims, Islam became the religion of the elite, and was the second most practiced religion after Hinduism
The Bhakti movement began in South Asia as an innovation on traditional polythesitic Hinduism
The movement emphasized the deveotion to just one of the Hindu gods
This was much more attractive to ordinary believers
The Bhakti movement also mounted challenges to social and gender hierarchies
The Delhi Sultanate tried to spread Islam to many places, but other empires were able to prevent this spread from occuring
Angkor Wat began as a Hindu temple, but as Buddhism grew in popularity, they added Buddhist elements to the temple, although without getting rid of the Hindu elements
It’s a monument to the kingdom’s religious continuity and its change over time
The Aztec Empire was founded in 1345 by the Meshika people
The capital was Tenochtitlan
The Aztecs created an elaborate system of tribute states
The people they conquered were required to provide labor for the Aztecs and regular contributions of goods like good, animals, building materials, etc.
Enslaved people played a large role in their religon, especially as candidates for human sacrafice, which was a major part of their belief system
The Inca Empire was born in the early 1400s, and incorperated the land and languages of older Indian societies
The Incas developed an elaborate bureaucracy with rigid hierarchy of officials spread throughout the empire to make sure that their conqueries remained firmly under their thumb
They adopted the Mit’a system, which required all people under their rule to provide labor on state projects like large state farms, mining, military service, state construction, projects, etc.
The Aztecs were moslty decentralized in how they ruled, while the Inca were highly centralized
The Mississipian Culture was the first large scale civilization in North America
In terms of state building among the Mississippians, large towns dominated smaller, satellite settlements politically
The Swahili civilization was a series of cities organized around commerce on the African course
They grew more influential over time as they became more involved in the Indian Ocean trade
They were politically indepent, but shared a common social hierarchy which put the merchant elite above commoners
They were deeply influenced by Muslim traders, some of whom settled in the various Swahili states
The new language that emerged, Swahili, descended from indigenous African Bantu languages but used Arabic alphabet and script
Demonstrates the intermingling of various cultures
As a result of Muslim influence, the Swahili states rapidly became Islamic, which only increased their integration into the larger Islamic world of trade
It was mostly the elite members and government officials in these empires that converted to Islam, while the majority of the population held on to their indigenous beliefs and traditions
The Hausa Kingdoms were not cetralized, but rather more like city-states
They spoke a common language and shared a common culture among themselves
They were also organized and grew powerful through trade, but not the sea trade, rather the trans-Saharan trade
The Great Zimbabwe’s capital was built sometime beetween 1250 and 1450
It contained massive structures and had a big population of about 18,000
They grew things to trade and focused on farming and cattle herding
With the increasing African and international trade being processed through the Great Zimbabwe, it grew exceedingly welathy and shifted to mainly gold exports
Rulers and people in Zimbabwe never converted to Islam but rather maintained their indigenous shamanistic religon
The Kingdom of Ethiopia also grew and flourished because of trade
Ethiopia was the only Christian state, though it resembled other hierarchical states across Africa
In Europe, there were two kinds of Christianity:
Eastern Orthodox (Byzantine Empire, later Kievan Rus)
Roman Catholicism
Western Europe had split into a bunch of smaller, decentralized states after the fall of the Roman Empire around the 5th century
They were culturally linked by Roman Catholicism
The church had significant influence over Western Europe
Muslims and Jews also excerted influence in Europe
Muslims conquered the Iberian Peninsula
There were no large empires in Europe
Most of Europe was organized by feudalism, a system of allegiances between powerful lords, monarchs, and knights
Vassals received land from their lords in exchange for military service
On a smaller scale, it was organized according to manorialism, in which a piece of land owned by a lord was then rented out to peasants who worked the land
Peasants were bound to the land and worked it in exchange for protection from the lord and his military forces
The working peasants were called ‘serfs’
The center of political and economic power was in the hands of landowning lords, aka the nobility