Chapter 10: Chapter Outline
The following annotated chapter outline will help you review the major topics covered in this chapter.
Instructions: Review the outline to recall events and their relationships as presented in the chapter. Return to skim any sections that seem unfamiliar.
I. Opening Vignette | ||||
A. | In 1964, the Eastern Orthodox patriarch Athenagoras and Pope Paul VI met and rescinded the mutual excommunication decrees imposed by their respective churches in 1054. | |||
1. Christianity had provided common ground for postclassical societies in western Eurasia | ||||
2. but Christendom was deeply divided: Byzantine Empire and West | ||||
a. Byzantium continued Roman imperial traditions | ||||
b. West tried to maintain links to classical world | ||||
c. but Roman imperial order disintegrated in the West | ||||
3. Roman Catholic Church of the West established independence from political authorities; Eastern Orthodox Church did not | ||||
4. western church was much more rural than Byzantium | ||||
5. Western Europe emerged, at an increasing pace after 1000, as a dynamic third-wave civilization | ||||
6. Western Europe was a hybrid civilization: classical, Germanic, Celtic | ||||
7. in 500 c.e., only about one-third of all Christians lived in Europe | ||||
a. many distinctive forms of Christianity in other regions | ||||
b. many branches have survived throughout Afro-Eurasia; other branches were eliminated by spread of alternative religions | ||||
II. Eastern Christendom: Building on the Past | ||||
A. The Byzantine Empire has no clear starting point. | ||||
1. its own leaders saw it as a continuation of the Roman Empire | ||||
2. some scholars date its beginning to 330 c.e., with foundation of Constantinople | ||||
3. Roman Empire formally divided into eastern and western halves in late fourth century C.E. | ||||
4. western empire collapsed in fifth century; eastern half survived another 1,000 years | ||||
5. eastern empire contained ancient civilizations: Egypt , Greece , Syria , and Anatolia | ||||
6. Byzantine advantages over western empire | ||||
a. wealthier and more urbanized | ||||
b. more defensible capital ( Constantinople ) | ||||
c. shorter frontier | ||||
d. access to the Black Sea; command of eastern Mediterranean | ||||
e. stronger army, navy, and merchant marine | ||||
f. continuation of late Roman infrastructure | ||||
g. conscious effort to preserve Roman ways | ||||
B. The Byzantine State | ||||
1. the Byzantine Empire was much smaller than the Roman Empire | ||||
2. but it remained a major force in eastern Mediterranean until around 1200 | ||||
3. political authority was tightly centralized in Constantinople | ||||
a. emperor ruled as God’s representative on earth | ||||
b. awesome grandeur of court (based on ancient Persian style) | ||||
c. was mostly concerned with tax collection and keeping order | ||||
4. territory shrank after 1085, as western Europeans and Turks attacked | ||||
5. 1453: Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople , ended empire | ||||
C. The Byzantine Church and Christian Divergence | ||||
1. the Church was closely tied to the state: caesaropapism | ||||
a. Byzantine emperor was head of both the state and the Church | ||||
b. emperor appointed the patriarch, sometimes made doctrinal decisions, called church councils | ||||
2. Orthodox Christianity deeply influenced all of Byzantine life | ||||
a. legitimated imperial rule | ||||
b. provided cultural identity | ||||
c. pervasiveness of churches, icons | ||||
d. even common people engaged in theological disputes | ||||
3. Eastern Orthodoxy increasingly defined itself in opposition to Latin Christianity | ||||
a. Latin Christianity was centered on the pope, Rome | ||||
b. growing rift between the two parts of Christendom | ||||
c. sense of religious difference reflected East/West political difference | ||||
d. with rise of Islam, Constantinople and Rome remained as sole hubs of Christendom | ||||
e. important East/West cultural differences (language, philosophy, theology, church practice) | ||||
f. schism in 1054, with mutual excommunication | ||||
g. Crusades (from 1095 on) worsened the situation | ||||
h. during Fourth Crusade, Westerners sacked Constantinople (1204) and ruled Byzantium for next 50 years | ||||
D. Byzantium and the World | ||||
1. Byzantium had a foot in both Europe and Asia , interacted intensively with neighbors | ||||
2. continuation of long Roman fight with Persian Empire | ||||
a. weakened both states, left them open to Islamic conquests | ||||
b. Persia was conquered by Islam; Byzantium lost territory | ||||
3. Byzantium was a central player in long-distance Eurasian trade | ||||
a. Byzantine gold coins (bezants) were a major Mediterranean currency for over 500 years | ||||
b. Byzantine crafts (jewelry, textiles, purple dyes, silk) were in high demand | ||||
4. important cultural influence of Byzantium | ||||
a. transmitted ancient Greek learning to Islamic world and West | ||||
b. transmission of Orthodox Christianity to Balkans and Russia | ||||
E. The Conversion of Russia | ||||
1. most important conversion was that of Prince Vladimir of Kiev | ||||
2. Orthodoxy transformed state of Rus; became central to Russian identity | ||||
3. Moscow finally declared itself to be the “third Rome ,” assuming role of protector of Christianity after fall of Constantinople | ||||
III. Western Christendom: Constructing a Hybrid Civilization | ||||
A. Western Europe was on the margins of world history for most of the postclassical millennium. | ||||
1. it was far removed from the growing world trade routes | ||||
2. European geography made political unity difficult | ||||
3. coastlines and river systems facilitated internal exchange | ||||
4. moderate climate enabled population growth | ||||
B. Political Life in Western Europe , 500–1000 | ||||
1. traditional date for fall of western Roman Empire is 476 C.E. | ||||
2. with Roman collapse: | ||||
a. large-scale centralized rule vanished | ||||
b. Europe ’s population fell by 25 percent because of war and disease | ||||
c. contraction of land under cultivation | ||||
d. great diminution of urban life | ||||
e. long-distance trade outside of Italy shriveled up | ||||
f. great decline in literacy | ||||
g. Germanic peoples emerged as the dominant peoples in West | ||||
h. shift in center of gravity from Mediterranean to north and west | ||||
3. survival of much of classical and Roman heritage | ||||
a. Germanic peoples who established new kingdoms had been substantially Romanized already | ||||
b. high prestige of things Roman | ||||
c. Germanic rulers adopted Roman-style written law | ||||
4. several Germanic kingdoms tried to recreate Roman-style unity | ||||
a. Charlemagne (r. 768–814) acted “imperial” | ||||
b. revival of Roman Empire on Christmas Day 800 (coronation of Charlemagne); soon fragmented | ||||
c. another revival of Roman Empire with imperial coronation of Otto I of Saxony (r. 936–973) | ||||
C. Society and the Church, 500–1000 | ||||
1. within these new kingdoms: | ||||
a. highly fragmented, decentralized society | ||||
b. great local variation | ||||
c. landowning warrior elite exercised power | ||||
2. social hierarchies | ||||
a. lesser lords and knights became vassals of kings or great lords | ||||
b. serfdom displaced slavery | ||||
3. Catholic Church was a major element of stability | ||||
a. hierarchy modeled on that of the Roman Empire | ||||
b. became very rich | ||||
c. conversion of Europe ’s non-Christians | ||||
d. most of Europe was Christian (with pagan elements) by 1100 | ||||
4. Church and ruling class usually reinforced each other | ||||
a. also an element of competition as rival centers of power | ||||
b. right to appoint bishops and the pope was controversial (the Investiture conflict) | ||||
D. Accelerating Change in the West, 1000–1300 | ||||
1. a series of invasions in 700–1000 hindered European development | ||||
a. Muslims, Magyars, Vikings | ||||
b. largely ended by 1000 | ||||
2. weather improved with warming trend that started after 750 | ||||
3. High Middle Ages: time of clear growth and expansion | ||||
a. European population in 1000 was about 35 million; about 80 million in 1340 | ||||
b. opening of new land for cultivation | ||||
4. growth of long-distance trade, from two major centers | ||||
a. Northern Europe | ||||
b. northern Italian towns | ||||
c. great trading fairs (especially in Champagne area of France ) enabled exchange between northern and southern merchants | ||||
5. European town and city populations rose | ||||
a. Venice by 1400 had around 150,000 people | ||||
b. still smaller than great cities elsewhere in the world | ||||
c. new specializations, organized into guilds | ||||
6. new opportunities for women | ||||
a. a number of urban professions were open to women | ||||
b. widows of great merchants could continue husbands’ business | ||||
c. opportunities declined by the fifteenth century | ||||
d. religious life: nuns, Beguines, anchoresses (e.g., Hildegard of Bingen and Julian of Norwich) | ||||
7. growth of territorial states with better-organized governments | ||||
a. kings consolidated their authority in eleventh–thirteenth centuries | ||||
b. appearance of professional administrators | ||||
c. some areas did not develop territorial kingdoms (Italian city-states, small German principalities) | ||||
E. Europe Outward Bound: The Crusading Tradition | ||||
1. medieval expansion of Christendom after 1000 | ||||
a. occurred at the same time that Byzantium declined | ||||
b. clearance of land, especially on eastern fringe of Europe | ||||
c. Scandinavian colonies in Newfoundland , Greenland , Iceland | ||||
d. Europe had direct, though limited, contact with East and South Asia by thirteenth–fourteenth centuries | ||||
2. Crusade movement began in 1095 | ||||
a. | wars at God’s command, authorized by the pope, for which participants received an indulgence (release from penalty for confessed sins) | |||
b. amazingly popular; were religious wars at their core | ||||
3. most famous Crusades aimed to regain Jerusalem and holy places | ||||
a. many waves of Crusaders to the Near East | ||||
b. creation of four small Christian states (last fell in 1291) | ||||
c. showed Europe ’s growing organizational ability | ||||
4. Iberian Peninsula Crusade | ||||
5. Baltic Crusade | ||||
6. attacks on Byzantine Empire and Russia | ||||
7. Crusades had little lasting political or religious impact in the Middle East | ||||
8. Crusades had a significant impact on Europe | ||||
a. conquest of Spain , Sicily , Baltic region | ||||
b. Crusaders weakened Byzantium | ||||
c. popes strengthened their position for a time | ||||
d. tens of thousands of Europeans made contact with the Islamic world | ||||
e. hardened cultural barriers | ||||
IV. The West in Comparative Perspective | ||||
A. Catching Up | ||||
1. the hybrid civilization of Western Europe was less developed than Byzantium , China , India , or the Islamic world | ||||
a. Muslims regarded Europeans as barbarians | ||||
b. Europeans recognized their own backwardness | ||||
2. Europeans were happy to exchange with/borrow from more advanced civilizations to the east | ||||
a. European economies reconnected with the Eurasian trading system | ||||
b. Europeans welcomed scientific, philosophical, and mathematical concepts from Arabs, classical Greeks, and India | ||||
c. the most significant borrowing was from China | ||||
3. Europe was a developing civilization like others of the era | ||||
4. by 1500, Europe had caught up with China and the Islamic world; surpassed them in some areas | ||||
5. 500–1300 was a period of great innovation | ||||
a. agriculture | ||||
b. new reliance on nonanimal sources of energy | ||||
c. technological borrowing for warfare, with further development | ||||
d. Europe developed a passion for technology | ||||
B. Pluralism in Politics | ||||
1. Europe crystallized into a system of competing states | ||||
2. political pluralism shaped Western European civilization | ||||
a. led to frequent wars and militarization | ||||
b. stimulated technological development | ||||
3. states still were able to communicate economically and intellectually | ||||
4. rulers were generally weaker than those to the east | ||||
a. royal-noble-ecclesiastical power struggle allowed urban merchants to win great independence | ||||
b. perhaps paved the way for capitalism | ||||
c. development of representative institutions (parliaments) | ||||
C. Reason and Faith | ||||
1. distinctive intellectual tension between faith and reason developed | ||||
2. intellectual life flourished in the centuries after 1000 | ||||
a. creation of universities from earlier cathedral schools | ||||
b. scholars had some intellectual freedom at universities | ||||
3. in the universities, some scholars began to emphasize the ability of human reason to understand divine mysteries | ||||
a. also applied reason to law, medicine, and world of nature | ||||
b. development of “natural philosophy” (scientific study of nature) | ||||
4. search for classical Greek texts (especially Aristotle) | ||||
a. were found in Byzantium and the Arab world | ||||
b. twelfth–thirteenth centuries: access to ancient Greek and Arab scholarship | ||||
5. deep impact of Aristotle | ||||
a. his writings were the basis of university education | ||||
b. dominated Western European thought between 1200 and 1700 | ||||
6. no similar development occurred in the Byzantine Empire | ||||
a. focus of education was the humanities | ||||
b. suspicion of classical Greek thought | ||||
7. Islamic world had deep interaction with classical Greek thought | ||||
a. massive amount of translation in ninth–tenth centuries | ||||
b. encouraged a flowering of Arab scholarship between 800 and 1200 | ||||
c. caused a debate among Muslim thinkers on faith and reason | ||||
d. Islamic world eventually turned against natural philosophy | ||||
V. Reflections: Remembering and Forgetting: Continuity and Surprise in the Worlds of Christendom | ||||
A. Many features of medieval Christendom have extended into the modern era. | ||||
1. crusading motivated Spanish and Portuguese explorers | ||||
2. merchants’ freedom helped lead to capitalism and industrialization | ||||
3. endemic military conflict | ||||
4. ongoing “faith and reason” controversy | ||||
5. Eastern Orthodox/Roman Catholic division of Christianity remains | ||||
6. universities were a medieval creation | ||||
B. We need to beware of the notion that the course of medieval European civilization determined the future. | ||||
1. some historians have argued that Europe ’s global domination in the nineteenth century grew from its unique character after 1000 | ||||
2. in reality: Europe ’s recent development was a great surprise | ||||
3. such a view minimizes the way people at the time understood their world |