Chapter 11 - Byzantines, Russians, and Turks Interact

While his academics worked on the legal code, Justinian embarked on the most enormous public works program the Roman world had ever seen. * He reconstructed Constantinople's deteriorating defences as workers built a 14-mile stone wall along the city's coastline and renovated the city's huge fortifications on the western land frontier.
The main street was lined with merchant stalls, and the side lanes were crowded with them as well. * These stalls sold products from all around Asia, Africa, and Europe. * Prior to Justinian's death, the first crisis erupted. * It was a disease that resembled the bubonic plague as we know it now.
In the last years of Justinian's reign, this horrible sickness struck Constantinople. The disease most likely arrived from India on rats-infested ships.
Byzantium faced persistent threats from foreign opponents from the beginning of its rise to power. * In the west, the Lombards defeated Justinian's conquests.
The two Christian traditions fought for converts as the West and East grew apart. Orthodox Church missionaries * For example, brought their version of Christianity to the Slavs, who lived in the forests north of the Black Sea.

Princess Olga, a member of the Kievan nobility, visited Constantinople in 957 and officially converted to Christianity. * She ruled Kiev from 945 to 964, when her son was old enough to take over.
Vladimir paved the ground for Kiev's rise to prominence. He expanded his kingdom westward into Poland and northward nearly to the Baltic Sea. * He also fought off invading nomads from the southern steppes.
The death of Yaroslav in 1054 marked the beginning of the Kievan state's decline. * Yaroslav had committed what turned out to be a critical miscalculation throughout his reign. * Instead of giving the monarchy to the eldest son, he divided his kingdom among his sons.
The Russians were free to practice all of their traditional customs while under Mongol authority, as long as they did not seek to revolt.
Eventually, a dynasty of Russian princes appeared on the scene who would do just that. * Moscow's Prince Ivan I had earned the Mongols' appreciation by aiding in the suppression of a Russian insurrection against Mongol control in the late 1320s.

Map of the Khanate of the Golden Horde at its Greatest Extent

Chinese records from 1300 B.C. mention a people known as the Tu-Kiu who lived west of their borders. The Turks could have been the Tu-Kiu. * These nomads have been riding their horses across the huge plains for ages.
Seljuk rulers in Baghdad and its environs wisely courted the support of their newly conquered Persian subjects.
In 1095, Pope Urban II began the First Crusade. He urged Christians to expel the Turks from Anatolia and reclaim Jerusalem from Muslim control. * Western European armies surged into Constantinople and marched on to Palestine.
As you may recall, the Mongols were a nomadic people that lived on the Asian steppes. * They evolved into a united force under the emperor Genghis Khan in the early 1200s and quickly conquered China