Everything about The Early Middle Ages totally explained
The
Early Middle Ages is a period in the
history of Europe following the fall of the
Western Roman Empire spanning roughly five centuries from
AD 500 to
1000. Aspects of continuity with the earlier classical period are discussed in greater detail under the heading "
Late Antiquity". The Early Middle Ages were followed by the
High Middle Ages.
Collapse of Rome (372-410)
Starting in the second century, various indicators of Roman civilization began to decline, including urbanization, seaborne commerce, and population. Only 40 percent as many Mediterranean shipwrecks have been found for the third century as for the first. The population of the
Roman Empire shrank from 65 million in 150 to 50 million in 400, a decline of more than 20 percent. Some have connected this to the
Migration Period Pessimum (300-700), when there was a decline in temperature globally which reduced agricultural harvests.
Migrating south from Scandinavia, the Germanic peoples reached the Black Sea early in the third century. They created confederations which proved more formidable opponents than the
Sarmatians, whom the Romans had dealt with earlier. In Romania and the grassy steppes north of the Black Sea, the
Goths, a Germanic people, created at least two kingdoms, one
Therving, the other
Greuthung. The arrival of the
Huns in 372-375 ended the history of these kingdoms. The Huns were a confederation of central Asian tribes who founded an empire with a Turkic-speaking aristocracy. They had mastered the difficult art of shooting composite recurve
bows from horseback. The Gothic people were forced to seek refuge in Roman territory (376). The Goths agreed to enter the Empire as unarmed settlers, but many bribed the Danube border guards into allowing them to bring their weapons with them.
The discipline and organization of a Roman legion made it a superb fighting machine. The Romans preferred infantry to cavalry because infantry could be trained to retain formation in combat, while cavalry tended to flee when faced with danger. But unlike a barbarian army, the legions required constant training and salaries that made them a huge expense for the empire. As agriculture and economic activity declined, taxes grew harder to collect, and the system came under strain.
In the
Gothic War (376-382), the Goths revolted and confronted the main Roman army in the
Battle of Adrianople (378). Not wanting to share the glory, Eastern Emperor
Valens ordered an attack on the
Therving infantry under
Fritigern without waiting for Western Emperor
Gratian, who was on the way with reinforcements. While the Romans were fully engaged, the Greuthung cavalry arrived. Only one third of the Roman army managed to escape. It was the most shattering defeat that the Romans had suffered since
Cannae, according to Roman military writer
Ammianus Marcellinus. The core army of the eastern empire was destroyed, Valens killed, and the Goths freed to lay waste the Balkans, including the armories along the Danube. As
Edward Gibbon comments, "The Romans, who so coolly and so concisely mention the acts of
justice which were exercised by the legions, reserve their compassion and their eloquence for their own sufferings, when the provinces were invaded and desolated by the arms of the successful Barbarians."
The empire lacked the resources, and perhaps the will, to reconstruct the professional mobile army that had been destroyed at Adrianople, so it was forced to rely on barbarian armies to fight on its behalf. The
Eastern Roman Empire was able to buy off the Goths with tribute. The
Western Roman Empire was less fortunate.
Stilicho, the western empire's half-Vandal military commander, stripped the
Rhine frontier of troops to fend off invasions of Italy by the Visigoths in 402-03 and by other Goths in 406-07.
Fleeing before the terrifying advance of the
Huns, the
Vandals,
Suebi, and
Alans launched an attack across the frozen Rhine near
Mainz; on
December 31,
406, the frontier gave way and these tribes surged into
Gaul. They were soon followed by the
Burgundians and by bands of the
Alamanni. In the fit of anti-barbarian hysteria which followed, Emperor
Honorius had Stilicho summarily beheaded (408). Stilicho submitted his neck, "with a firmness not unworthy of the last of the Roman generals," wrote Gibbon. Honorius was left with only worthless courtiers to advise him. In 410, the Visigoths led by
Alaric I captured the city of Rome and for three days there was fire and slaughter as bodies filled the streets, palaces were stripped of their valuables, and those thought to have hidden wealth interrogated and tortured. As newly converted Christians, the Goths respected church property. But those who found sanctuary in the
Vatican and in other churches were the fortunate few.
Migrations (Dark Age) 400-700
The Goths and Vandals were only the first of many waves of invaders that flooded Western Europe. Some lived only for war and pillage and disdained Roman ways. Others admired Rome and wished to become its heirs. "A poor Roman plays the Goth, a rich Goth the Roman" said King
Theodoric of the Ostrogoths.
The Romans were trinitarian Christians, the disciplined subjects of a long-established bureaucratic empire. The Germanic peoples knew little of cities, money, or writing. They were recent converts to
Arian Christianity and were thus heretics to the churchmen of the empire.
The era of the migrations has historically been termed the "
Dark Ages" by some Western European historians, and as
Völkerwanderung, or "wandering of the peoples", by German historians. The term "Dark Ages" may have fallen from favour since the Second World War, partly to avoid the entrenched stereotypes associated with the phrase, but also because more recent research and archaeological findings from the period challenge old notions of backwardness in the arts, technology, political and social organizations.
The earlier settled population was left intact or only partially displaced. Whereas the peoples of France, Italy, and Spain continued to speak dialects of Latin, that today constitute the
Romance languages, the language of the smaller Roman-era population of what is now England disappeared with barely a trace in the territories conquered by the Anglo-Saxons, although the Brittanic kingdoms of the west remained
Brythonic speakers. The new peoples greatly altered established society, including law, culture, religion, and patterns of property ownership.
The
pax Romana had provided safe conditions for trade and manufacture, and a unified cultural and educational milieu of far-ranging connections. As this was lost, it was replaced by the rule of local potentates, sometimes members of the established Romanized ruling elite, sometimes new lords of alien culture. In
Aquitania,
Gallia Narbonensis, southern Italy and Sicily,
Baetica or southern Spain, and the Iberian Mediterranean coast, Roman culture lasted until the sixth or seventh centuries.
Everywhere, the gradual break-down of economic and social linkages and infrastructure resulted in increasingly localized outlooks. This breakdown was often fast and dramatic as it became unsafe to travel or carry goods over any distance; there was a consequent collapse in trade and manufacture for export. Major industries that depended on trade, such as large-scale pottery manufacture, vanished almost overnight in places like Britain.
Tintagel in
Cornwall, as well as several other centres, managed to obtain supplies of Mediterranean luxury goods well into the sixth century, but then lost their trading links. Administrative, educational and military infrastructure quickly vanished, and the loss of the established
cursus honorum led to the collapse of the schools and to a rise of illiteracy even among the leadership. The careers of
Cassiodorus (died c. 585) at the beginning of this period and of
Alcuin of York (died 804) at its close were founded alike on their valued literacy.
For the formerly Roman area, there was another 20 percent decline in population between 400 and 600, or a one third decline for 150-600. In the eighth century, the volume of trade reached its lowest level since the Bronze Age. The very small number of shipwrecks found that dated from the 8th century supports this (which represents less than 2% of the number of shipwrecks dated from the first century CE). There was also reforestation and a retreat of agriculture that centred around 500. This phenomenon coincided with a period of rapid cooling, according to tree ring data. The Romans had practised two-field agriculture, with a crop grown in one field and the other left fallow and ploughed under to eliminate weeds. With the gradual breakup of the institutions of the empire, owners were unable to stop their slaves from running away and the plantation system broke down. Systematic agriculture largely disappeared and yields declined to subsistence level.
Byzantine Empire
The death of
Theodosius I in 395 was followed by the division of the empire between his two sons. The
Western Roman Empire disintegrated into a mosaic of warring Germanic kingdoms in the fifth century, making the
Eastern Roman Empire in Constantinople the legal successor to the classical Roman Empire. After
Greek replaced
Latin as the official language of the Empire, historians refer to the empire as "Byzantine." Westerners would gradually begin to refer to it as "Greek" rather than "Roman." The inhabitants, however, always called themselves
Romaioi, or Romans.
The Eastern Roman Empire aimed at retaining control of the trade routes between Europe and the Orient, which made the Empire the richest polity in Europe. Making use of their sophisticated warfare and superior diplomacy, the Byzantines managed to fend off assaults by the migrating barbarians. Their dreams of subduing the Western potentates briefly materialized during the reign of
Justinian I in 527-565. Not only did Justinian restore some western territories to the Roman Empire, but he also codified
Roman law (with his codification remaining in force in many areas of Europe until the 19th century) and built the largest and the most technically advanced edifice of the Early Middle Ages, the
Hagia Sophia. A
pandemic, the
Plague of Justinian, however, marred Justinian's reign, infecting the Emperor, killing perhaps 40% of the people in Constantinople, and contributing to Europe's early medieval population decline.
Justinian's successors
Maurice and
Heraclius had to confront invasions of the
Avar,
Bulgar and
Slavic tribes. In
626 Constantinople, by far the largest city of early medieval Europe, withstood a combined siege by Avars and Persians. Within several decades, Heraclius completed a holy war against the Persians by taking their capital and having a
Sassanid monarch assassinated. Yet Heraclius lived to see his spectacular success undone by the Arab conquest of
Syria,
Palestine,
Egypt, and
North Africa which was considerably facilitated by religious disunity and the proliferation of heretical movements (notably
Monophysitism and
Nestorianism) in the areas converted to Islam.
Although Heraclius's successors managed to salvage
Constantinople from two Arab sieges (in 674-77 and 717), the empire of the 8th and early 9th century was rocked by the great
Iconoclastic Controversy, punctuated by dynastic struggles between various factions at court. The
Bulgar and
Slavic tribes profited from these disorders and invaded
Illyria,
Thrace and even
Greece (which they called
Morea).
To counter these threats, a new system of administration was introduced. The regional civil and military administration were combined in the hands of a general, or strategos. A
theme, which formerly denoted a subdivision of the Byzantine army, came to refer to a region governed by a strategos. The reform led to the emergence of great landed families which controlled the regional military and often pressed their claims to the throne (see
Bardas Phocas and
Bardas Sklerus for characteristic examples).
By the early eighth century, notwithstanding the shrinking territory of the empire, Constantinople remained the largest and the wealthiest city of the entire world, comparable only to Sassanid
Ctesiphon, and later
Abassid Baghdad. The population of the imperial capital fluctuated between 300,000 and 400,000 as the emperors undertook measures to restrain its growth. The only other large Christian cities were Rome (50,000) and
Salonika (30,000). Even before the eighth century was out, the Farmer's Law signalled the resurrection of agricultural technologies in the Greek Empire. As the 2006
Encyclopædia Britannica noted, "the technological base of Byzantine society was more advanced than that of contemporary western Europe: iron tools could be found in the villages; water mills dotted the landscape; and field-sown beans provided a diet rich in protein".
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The ascension of the
Macedonian dynasty in 867 marked the end of the period of political and religious turmoil and introduced a new golden age of the empire. While the talented generals such as
Nicephorus Phocas expanded the frontiers, the Macedonian emperors (such as
Leo the Wise and
Constantine VII) presided over the cultural flowering in Constantinople, known as the Macedonian Renaissance. The enlightened Macedonian rulers scorned the rulers of Western Europe as illiterate barbarians and maintained a nominal claim to rule over the West. Although this fiction had been exploded with the coronation of
Charlemagne in Rome (800), the Byzantine rulers didn't treat their Western counterparts as equals. Generally, they'd little interest in the political and economical developments in the barbarian (from their point of view) West.
Against this economic background, the culture and the imperial traditions of the Eastern Roman Empire attracted its northern neighbours — Slavs, Bulgars, and Khazars — to
Constantinople, in search of either pillage or enlightenment. The movement of the Germanic tribes to the south triggered the great migration of the
Slavs, who occupied the vacated territories. In the seventh century, they moved westward to the
Elbe, southward to the
Danube and eastward to the
Dnieper. By the
9th century, the Slavs had expanded into sparsely inhabited territories to the south and east from these natural frontiers, peacefully assimilating the indigenous
Illyrian and
Finno-Ugric populations.
Rise of Islam (632-750)
Following the death of the
Islamic prophet Muhammad,
Abū Bakr (r. 632-34) became the first
khalīfah or
caliph of a newly unified polity under the
Islamic faith in the
Arabian peninsula. The early
Rashidun caliphs were both head of state and supreme religious authority while the later caliphs came to be seen as the political leader of Muslims. The early caliphs were chosen by a
shūrā, or council, in the same way that the head of an Arabian tribe or clan would be chosen. Abū Bakr launched a campaign in the
ridda wars which brought central
Arabia under Muslim control. (633)
'
Umar I (r.634-44), the second caliph, proclaimed himself "commander of the faithful" (
amīr al-mu 'minīn). In the 630s, he brought Syria,
Jordan, Palestine, and
Iraq under Muslim control.
Egypt was taken from the Byzantines in 645 by '
Uthmān, the third caliph. Abū Bakr, 'Umar I, 'Uthmān, and his successor
Alī are remembered as the "rightly guided caliphs" who presided over a golden age of pure Islam.
Alī's caliphate started amid political controversy over the murder of Uthman and sparked a power struggle and the
First Islamic civil war led by
Mu'āwiyah, governor of Syria. When Alī, son-in-law of Muhammad, was killed while praying in
Kufah, Iraq, Mu'āwiyah established the
Ummayyad dynasty of caliphs (661–750) with
Damascus as its capital. Those who supported 'Alī, his son
Husayn(who led a revolt against the Ummayyads), and their descendants would eventually became the
Shī'ite sect. Under '
Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705), the Ummayyads reached their peak, conquering
Central Asia, coastal
North Africa, and Spain. Al-Malik also Arabized the state with
Arabs replacing the Greek and Persian civil servants.
The conquest of Iberia commenced when the
Moors (mostly
Berbers with some
Arabs) invaded the
Christian Visigothic Iberia in the year 711, under their Berber leader
Tariq ibn Ziyad. They landed at
Gibraltar on
April 30 and worked their way northward. Tariq's forces were joined the next year by those of his superior,
Musa ibn Nusair. During the eight-year campaign most of the
Iberian Peninsula was brought under
Muslim rule — save for small areas in the northwest (
Asturias) and largely
Basque regions in the
Pyrenees. This territory, under the Arab name
Al-Andalus, became part of the expanding
Umayyad empire.
The unsuccessful second siege of Constantinople (717) weakened the Umayyads and reduced their prestige. After their success in overrunning Iberia, the conquerors moved northeast across the Pyrenees, but were defeated by the
Frankish leader
Charles Martel at the
Battle of Tours in
732. The Umayyads were overthrown in 750 by the '
Abbāsids and most of the Umayyad clan massacred.
A surviving Umayyad prince,
Abd-ar-rahman I, escaped to Spain and founded a new Umayyad dynasty in the
Emirate of Cordoba, (756). Charles Martel's son,
Pippin the Short retook
Narbonne, and his grandson Charlemagne established the
Marca Hispanica across the Pyrenees in part of what today is
Catalonia, reconquering
Girona in 785 and
Barcelona in 801.
The unified Muslim caliphate disintegrated over the course of the ninth century as the
Idrisids and
Aghlabids of North Africa and the
Samanids of Persia gained independence. Eventually, the Shiite
Fatimids set up a rival caliphate in
Tunisia (920). The Umayyids in Spain soon proclaimed themselves caliphs as well (929). The
Buwayhids (Persian Shiites) gained control of Baghdad in 934. In 972, the Fatimids conquered Egypt.
Resurgence of the Latin West (700-850)
Conditions in Western Europe began to improve after 700 as Europe experienced an agricultural boom that would continue until at least 1100. A study of limestone deposited in the Mediterranean seabed concludes that there was a substantial increase in solar radiation received between 600 and 900. The first signs of Europe's recovery on the battlefield are the defense of
Constantinople in 717 and the victory of the Franks over the Arabs at the
Battle of Tours in 732.
Between the fifth and eighth centuries a political and social infrastructure developed across the lands of the former empire, based upon powerful regional noble families, and the newly established kingdoms of the
Ostrogoths in
Italy,
Visigoths in
Spain and
Portugal,
Franks and
Burgundians in
Gaul and western
Germany. These lands remained Christian, and their
Arian conquerors were converted (Visigoths and Lombards) or conquered (Ostrogoths and Vandals). The Franks converted directly from paganism to Catholic Christianity under
Clovis I. The interaction between the culture of the newcomers, their warband loyalties, the remnants of classical culture, and Christian influences, produced a new model for society, based in part on
feudal obligations. The centralized administrative systems of the Romans didn't withstand the changes, and the institutional support for chattel slavery largely disappeared. The
Anglo-Saxons in
England also started to convert from
heathenism with the arrival of Christian missionaries around the year
600. Unlike that of the France, two major forms of Christianity existed in England, Roman Catholicism in the south and Celtic Christianity in the north. This came to a head at the
Synod of Whitby in
664 after which Roman practices proved to be dominant.
Italy
The
Lombards, who first entered Italy in
568 under
Alboin, carved out a state in the north, with its capital at
Pavia. At first, they were unable to conquer the
Exarchate of Ravenna, the
Ducatus Romanus, and
Calabria and
Apulia. The next two hundred years were occupied in trying to conquer these territories from the Byzantine Empire.
The Lombard state was truly barbarian in custom compared with the earlier Germanic states of Western Europe. It was highly decentralized at first, with the territorial dukes having practical sovereignty in their duchies, especially in the southern duchies of
Spoleto and
Benevento. For a decade following the death of
Cleph in
575, the Lombards didn't elect a king and the period is called the
Rule of the Dukes. The first written legal code was composed in poor Latin in
643: the
Edictum Rothari. It was primarily the codification of the oral legal tradition of the people.
The Lombard state was well-organized and stabilized by the end of the long reign of
Liutprand (
717–
744), but its collapse was sudden. Unsupported by the dukes, King
Desiderius was defeated and forced to surrender his kingdom to Charlemagne in
774. The Lombard kingdom came to an end and a period of Frankish rule was initiated. The Frankish king
Pepin the Short had, by the
Donation of Pepin, given the pope the "
Papal States" and the territory north of that swath of papally-governed land was ruled primarily by Lombard and Frankish vassals of the
Holy Roman Emperor until the rise of the city-states in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
In the south, a period of anarchy began. The duchy of Benevento maintained its sovereignty in the face of the pretensions of both the Western and Eastern Empires. In the ninth century, the
Saracens conquered
Sicily and began settling in the peninsula. The coastal cities on the
Tyrrhenian Sea departed from Byzantine allegiance. Various states owing various nominal allegiances fought constantly over territory until events came to a head in the early eleventh century with the coming of the
Normans, who conquered the whole of the south by the end of the century.
England
5th century several tribes from modern Germany, Holland, and Denmark began sporadic and marginally successful invasions of Britain, at that point a neglected Roman province. Traditionally, two Jutish chieftains named
Hengest and
Horsa were promised land by the powerful British king
Vortigern in exchange for routing the warlike
Pict tribe. According to the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, after they defeated the Picts, "They sent to Angeln and called on them to send more forces, and to tell people about the worthlessness of the Britons and the merits of their land." This marked the beginning of decades of invasion and conquest of southern and central Britain, by such Germanic peoples as the
Jutes,
Angles, and
Saxons. At least 50 percent of England's original Celtic inhabitants were killed off in the process. The Anglo-Saxons eventually established several kingdoms of differing longevity and significance. King
Alfred the Great (871-899) of
Wessex led Anglo-Saxon resistance to the invading Danish forces. The unification of England was completed in 926 when
Northumbria was annexed by King
Athelstan, a grandson of Alfred.
Frankish Empire
The
Merovingians established themselves in the power vacuum of the former Roman provinces in Gaul, and
Chlodwig I following his victory over the
Alemanni at the
Battle of Tolbiac (496) converted to Christianity, laying the foundation of the
Frankish Empire, the dominant state of medieval Western Christendom.
Starting with the
Frankish realms at the beginning of the ninth century,
Charlemagne united much of modern day France, western Germany and northern Italy into the
Carolingian Empire. Scholarship and Classical learning flourished under Charlemagne leading to what twentieth-century historians called the "
Carolingian Renaissance".
The 840s saw renewed disorder, with the breakup of the Frankish Empire and the beginning of a new cycle of barbarian raids, at first by the
Vikings and later by the
Magyars.
Manoralism
»
Around 800, there was a return to systematic agriculture in the form of the
open field, or strip, system. A
manor would have several fields each subdivided into one-acre strips of land. This was considered to be the amount of land an ox could plough before taking a rest, according to one theory. Another possibility is that the holdings were originally rectangular and were split into strips because of the way land was inherited. In the idealized form of the system, each family got thirty such strips of land. The three-field system of
crop rotation was first developed in the ninth century: wheat or rye was planted in one field, the second field had a nitrogen-fixing crop (barley, oats, peas, or beans), and third was fallow. Compared to the earlier two-field system, a three-field system allows for significantly more land to be put under cultivation. Even more important, the system allows for two harvests a year, reducing the risk that a single crop failure will lead to famine. Three-field agriculture creates a surplus of oats that can be used to feed horses. Because the system required a major rearrangement of real estate and the social order, it took until the 11th century before it came into general use. The heavy wheeled plough was introduced in the late 10th century. It required greater animal power and promoted the use of teams of oxen. Illuminated manuscripts depict two-wheeled ploughs with both a mouldboard, or curved metal ploughshare, and a coulter, a vertical blade in front of the ploughshare. The Romans had used light, wheelless ploughs with flat iron shares that often proved unequal to the heavy soils of northern Europe.
The return to systemic agriculture coincided with the introduction of a new social system called
feudalism. This system featured a hierarchy of reciprocal obligations. Each man was bound to serve his superior in return for the latter's protection. This made for confusion of territorial sovereignty since allegiances were subject to change over time, and were sometimes mutually contradictory. Feudalism allowed the state to provide a degree of public safety despite the continued absence of bureaucracy and written records. Even land ownership disputes were decided based solely on oral testimony. Territoriality was reduced to a network of personal allegiances.
Viking Age (793-1066)
The Viking Age spans the period between AD
793 and
1066 in
Scandinavia and
Britain, following the
Germanic Iron Age (and the
Vendel Age in Sweden). During this period, the
Vikings, Scandinavian warriors and traders, raided and explored most parts of
Europe, south-western
Asia, northern
Africa and north-eastern
North America. Apart from exploring Europe by way of its oceans and rivers with the aid of their advanced navigational skills and extending their trading routes across vast parts of the continent, they also engaged in warfare and looted and enslaved numerous Christian communities of Medieval Europe for centuries, contributing to the development of feudal systems in Europe.
Eastern Europe 600-1000
Prior to the rise of the Kievan Rus, the eastern frontier of Europe had been dominated by the
Khazars, a Turkic people who had gained independence from the Turkic Empire by the seventh century. Khazaria was a multiethnic commercial state which derived its well-being from control of river trade between Europe and the Orient. They also exacted tribute from the
Alani,
Magyars, various Slavic tribes, the Goths and Greeks of
Crimea. Through a network of Jewish itinerant merchants, or
Radhanites, they were in contact with the trade emporiums of
India and
Spain.
Once they found themselves confronted by Arab expansionism, the Khazars pragmatically allied themselves with Constantinople and clashed with the
Califate. Despite initial setbacks, they managed to recover
Derbent and eventually penetrated as far south as
Caucasian Iberia,
Caucasian Albania and
Armenia. In doing so, they effectively blocked the northward expansion of
Islam into
Eastern Europe several decades before
Charles Martel achieved the same in Western Europe.
In the seventh century, the northern littoral of the
Black Sea was hit with a fresh wave of nomadic attacks, led by the
Bulgars, who established a powerful khanate of
Great Bulgaria under the leadership of
Kubrat. The Khazars managed to oust the Bulgars from Southern Ukraine into the middle reaches of the
Volga (
Volga Bulgaria) and into the lower reaches of the
Danube (Danube Bulgaria, or the
First Bulgarian Empire). The Danube Bulgars were quickly Slavicized and, despite constant campaigning against Constantinople, accepted the Greek form of Christianity. Through the efforts of two local missionaries,
Saint Cyril and
Saint Methodius, the first Slavic alphabet came into being and a vernacular dialect, now known as
Old Church Slavonic, was established as a language of books and liturgy.
To the north from the Byzantine periphery, the first attested Slavic polity was
Great Moravia, which emerged under the aegis of the Frankish Empire in the early 9th century. Until its defragmentation in consequence of the conflicts with the
East Franks a century later, Moravia was a stage for confrontation between the Christian missionaries from Constantinople and from Rome. Although the West Slavs eventually acknowledged the Roman ecclesiastical authority, the clergy of Constantinople succeeded in converting into the Greek faith the largest state of contemporary Europe,
Kievan Rus, towards 990. Led by a
Varangian dynasty, the Kievan Rus controlled the
routes connecting Northern Europe to Byzantium and the Orient.
Both before and after the Christianization, the Rus staged predatory raids against Constantinople, some of which resulted in the mutually beneficial trade treaties. The importance of Russo-Byzantine relations is highlighted by the fact that
Vladimir I of Kiev was the only foreigner who married a Byzantine princess of the Macedonian dynasty, a singular honour which many rulers of Western Europe sought in vain. The military campaigns of Vladimir's father,
Svyatoslav I, had crushed the statehood of two strongest powers of Eastern Europe, namely the Bulgars and the Khazars.
Bulgarian Empire
In
681 the
Bulgarians founded a powerful state which played a major role in
Europe and specifically in
South Eastern Europe until its fall under Turkish rule in
1396. In
718 the Bulgarians decisively defeated the Arabs near
Constantinople, and their ruler Khan
Tervel became known as "The Saviour of Europe". Bulgaria effectively stopped the barbarian tribes (
Pechenegs,
Khazars) from migrating further to the west and in
806 destroyed the
Avar Khanate. Under the first Emperor
Simeon I (893-927), the state was the largest in Europe, threatening the existence of
Byzantium.
After the adoption of
Christianity in
864,
Bulgaria became the cultural and spiritual centre of the
Eastern Orthodox Slavic world. The
Cyrillic alphabet was invented by the Bulgarian scholar
Clement of Ohrid in
885. Literature, art and architecture were thriving with the establishment of the
Preslav and
Ohrid Literary Schools,and the
Preslav Ceramics School. In
927 the
Bulgarian Orthodox Church was the first European national Church to gain independence with its own Patriarch.
Transmission of learning
With the end of the Western Roman Empire and urban centres in decline, literacy and learning decreased in the West. Education became the preserve of monasteries and cathedrals. A "Renaissance" of classical education would appear in Carolingian Empire in the 8th century. In the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium), learning (in the sense of formal education involving literature) was maintained at a higher level than in the West. Further to the east, Islam conquered many of the Eastern Patriarchates, and it outstripped Christian lands in science, philosophy, and other intellectual endeavors in a "golden age" of learning.
Classical education
The classical education system, which would persist for hundreds of years, emphasized grammar, Latin, Greek, and rhetoric. Pupils read and reread classic works and wrote essays imitating their style. By the fourth century, this education system was Christianized. In
De Doctrina Christiana (started 396, completed 426),
Augustine explained how classical education fits into the Christian worldview. Christianity was a religion of the book, so Christians must be literate. Preaching required learning the classical principles of
rhetoric.
Tertullian was more sceptical of the value of classical learning, asking "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" But even he didn't object to Christian enrollment in classical schools.
Decline in the West
De-urbanization reduced the scope of education and by the sixth century teaching and learning moved to monastic and cathedral schools, with the center of education being the study of the Bible. Education of the laity survived modestly in Italy, Spain, and the southern part of Gaul, where Roman influences were most long-lasting. However, in the seventh century, learning began to emerge in Ireland and the Celtic lands, where Latin was a foreign language and Latin texts were eagerly studied and taught.
Science
In the ancient world, Greek was the primary language of science. Advanced scientific research and teaching was mainly carried on in the
Hellenistic side of the Roman empire, in Greek. Late Roman attempts to translate Greek writings into Latin had limited success. As the knowledge of Greek declined, the Latin West found itself cut off from its Greek philosophical and scientific roots. Latin-speakers who wanted to learn about science had access to only a couple of books by
Boethius (c. 470-524) (that summarized Greek handbooks by
Nicomachus of Gerasa) and the works of other Latin
encyclopedists.
The leading scholars of the early centuries were
clergyman for whom the study of
nature was but a small part of their interest. The study of nature was pursued more for practical reasons than as an abstract inquiry: the need to care for the sick led to the study of medicine and of ancient texts on drugs, the need for monks to determine the proper time to pray led them to study the motion of the stars, the need to compute the date of Easter led them to study and teach rudimentary mathematics and the motions of the Sun and Moon. Modern readers may find it disconcerting that sometimes the same works discuss both the technical details of natural phenomena and their symbolic significance.
Even though not much progress occurred in the Early Middle Ages, the period laid the foundations for important scientific developments in the High Middle Ages and beyond.
The modern stereotype of this Age as a time of backwardness is reflected in popular misconceptions related to the
history of science. Notions such as: "the rise of Christianity killed off ancient science", "the medieval Christian Church suppressed the growth of the natural sciences", "the medieval Christians thought that the world was flat", and "the Church prohibited autopsies and dissections during the Middle Ages", are all reported by
Ronald Numbers and others as examples of widely popular myths that still pass as historical truth, even though they're not supported by historical research.
Carolingian Renaissance
Around 800, there was renewed interest in
Classical Antiquity as part of the
Carolingian Renaissance.
Charles the Great carried out a reform in
education. The
English monk
Alcuin of York elaborated a project of scholarly development aimed at resuscitating classical knowledge by establishing programmes of study based upon the seven
liberal arts: the
trivium, or literary education (
grammar,
rhetoric and
dialectic) and the
quadrivium, or scientific education (
arithmetic,
geometry,
astronomy and
music). From the year
787 on,
decrees began to circulate recommending, in the whole empire, the restoration of old schools and the founding of new ones. Institutionally, these new schools were either under the responsibility of a
monastery, a
cathedral or a
noble court. The real significance of these measures would only be felt centuries later. The teaching of dialectic (a discipline that corresponds to today's
logic) was responsible for the rebirth of the interest in speculative inquiry; from this interest would follow the rise of the
Scholastic tradition of
Christian philosophy. In the
12th and
13th century, many of those schools founded under the auspices of Charles the Great, especially
cathedral schools, would become
universities.
Byzantium and its golden age
Byzantium's great intellectual achievement was the
Corpus Juris Civilis ("Body of Civil Law"), a massive compilation of
Roman law made under
Justinian (r. 528-65). The work includes a section called the
Digesta which abstracts the principles of Roman law in such a way that they can be applied to any situation. The level of literacy was considerably higher in the Byzantine Empire than in the Latin West. Elementary education was much more widely available, sometimes even in the countryside. Secondary schools still taught the
Iliad and other classics. As for higher education, a Neoplatonic school in
Athens was closed in 526 for paganism. There was also a school in Alexandria which remained open until the Arab conquest (640). The
University of Constantinople, originally founded by Emperor
Theodosius II (425), may have dissolved around this time. It was refounded by Emperor
Michael III in 849. Higher education in this period focused on rhetoric, although
Aristotle's logic was covered in simple outline. Under the Macedonian dynasty (867–1025), Byzantium enjoyed a golden age and a revival of classical learning. There was little original research, but many lexicons, anthologies, encyclopaedias, and commentaries.
Contributions of Islam
Under the Umayyads (661–750), Islamic scholarship focused on Koranic matters. But the
‘Abbasid dynasty which followed promoted Hellenistic and humanistic learning in accordance with the doctrines of the officially favoured
Mu'tazili school of Islamic interpretation. This school was founded in Basra by
Wasil ibn Ata (700–748) and held that the Koran is a created work and that god desires only the best for man, views rejected by the
Ash'ariyyah and
Athariyyah ("Textualist") schools now considered orthodox.
Thus the "gates of
ijtihad" were opened, allowing discussion and debate within Islam, supposedly among 135 schools of thought. In 800,
Baghdad was the largest Muslim city in the world, the first to have a population of over 1 million. Its "House of Wisdom" (
Dār al-Ḥikma) was the intellectual hub of the Muslim world. Philosophers such as
al-Kindī (801–873) and
al-Fārābī (870–950) translated the works of
Aristotle and applied his thinking to Islam.
Al-Khwārizmī (790-840) wrote the
The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing, the first book on
algebra. (The word "algebra" come from the Arabic title of the book. The word "algorithm" comes from al-Khwārizmī's name.) He also wrote
The Image of the Earth, an updated version of Ptolemy's
Geography, and participated in a project to determine the circumference of the Earth by measuring the length of a degree of meridian on a plain in Iraq.
Opponents of ijtihad began proclaiming the "closing of the gates of ijtihad" in the tenth century. Discussion of humanism and other philosophical issues continued, but became increasingly restricted. Muslim learning depended on the whim and patronage of the ruler and Islam didn't develop a university system or other permanent institution to honour and promote non-Koranic scholarship.
In the course of the 11th century, Islam's scientific knowledge began to reach Western Europe. The
astrolabe, invented in classical times, was reintroduced to Europe and the works of
Euclid and
Archimedes, lost in the West, were translated from Arabic to Latin in Spain. The modern Hindu-
Arabic numerals, including a notation for zero, was developed by Hindu mathematicians in the fifth and sixth centuries. Muslim mathematicians learned of it in the seventh century and added a notation for decimal factions in the ninth and tenth centuries. Around 1000, Gerbert of Aurillac (later
Pope Sylvester II) made an abacus with counters engraved with Hindu-Arabic numbers. A treatise by Al-Khwārizmī on how to perform calculations with these numerals was translated into Latin in Spain in the 12th century.
Christianity West and East
From the
early Christians, early medieval Christians inherited a church united by major creeds, a stable Biblical canon, and a well-developed philosophical tradition.
During the early Middle Ages, the divide between Eastern and Western Christianity widened, paving the way for the
East-West Schism in the 11th century. In the West, the power of the
Bishop of Rome expanded. In 607,
Boniface III became the first Bishop of Rome to use the title
Pope. Pope
Gregory the Great used his office as a temporal power, expanded Rome's missionary efforts to the British Isles, and laid the foundations for the expansion of monastic orders.
In the East, the conquests of Islam reduced the power of the Greek-speaking
patriarchates.
Celtic Christianity comprised a separate Christian tradition in the British Isles.
Christianization of the West
The
Roman Catholic Church, the only centralized institution to survive the
fall of the Western Roman Empire intact, was the sole unifying cultural influence in the West, selectively preserving some Latin learning, maintaining the art of writing, and preserving a centralized administration through its network of
bishops ordained in succession. The Early Middle Ages are characterized by the urban control of bishops and the territorial control exercised by dukes and counts. The rise of
urban communes marked the beginning of the
High Middle Ages.
The
Christianization of Germanic tribes began in the fourth century with the Goths, and continued throughout the Early Middle Ages, in the sixth to seventh centuries led by the
Hiberno-Scottish mission, replaced in the eighth to ninth centuries by the
Anglo-Saxon mission, with Anglo-Saxons like
Alcuin playing an important role in the
Carolingian renaissance. By AD 1000, even
Iceland became Christian, leaving only more remote parts of Europe (
Scandinavia, the
Baltic and
Finno-Ugric lands) to be Christianized during the High Middle Ages.
Urbanization
» See also: Historical urban community sizes.
Urban planner
Tertius Chandler has made a survey of city sizes through history. For the period considered here, the largest cities in the world were: Constantinople (340-570),
Ctesiphon of the
Sassanids (570-637),
Changan in
China (637-775),
Baghdad (775-935), and
Cordoba (935-1013).
(External Link)
These are Chandler's estimates for the largest cities in the Europe and Middle East (in units of one thousand inhabitants):
- AD 361 Constantinople (300), Ctesiphon (250), Rome (150), Antioch (150), Alexandria (125).
- AD 500 Constantinople (400), Ctesiphon (400), Antioch (150), Carthage (100), Rome (100).
- AD 622 Ctesiphon (500), Constantinople (350), Alexandria (94), Aleppo (72), Rayy (68).
- AD 800 Baghdad (700), Constantinople (250), Cordoba (160), Basra (100), Fostat (100) — cf. Rome (50), Paris (25).
- AD 900 Baghdad (900), Constantinople (300), Cordoba (200), Alexandria (175), Fostat (150) — cf. Rome (40).
- AD 1000 Cordoba (450), Constantinople (300), Cairo (135), Baghdad (125), Nishapur (125) — cf. Rome (35), Paris (20).
Chandler’s default assumption is 10,000 inhabitants/km². Muslim cities are thought to have had higher population densities. A city is defined as a continuously inhabited area.
Foundation of the Holy Roman Empire (10th century)
Listless and often ill, Carolingian Emperor
Charles the Fat, provoked an uprising led by his nephew
Arnulf of Carinthia which resulted in the division of the empire into the kingdoms of France, Germany, and (northern) Italy (887). Taking advantage of the weakness of the German government, the Magyars had established themselves in the Alföld, or Hungarian grasslands, and began raiding across Germany, Italy, and even France. The German nobles elected
Henry the Fowler, duke of Saxony, their king at a Reichstag, or national assembly, in Fritzlar in 919. Henry's power was only marginally greater than that of the other leaders of the stem duchies, which were the feudal expression of the former German tribes. Henry's son King
Otto I (r. 936-973) was able to defeat a revolt of the dukes supported by French King
Louis IV (939). In 951, Otto marched into Italy and married the widowed Queen
Adelaide, named himself king of the Lombards, and received homage from
Berengar of Ivrea, king of Italy (r. 950-52). Otto named his relatives the new leaders of the stem duchies, but this approach didn't completely solve the problem of disloyalty. His son Liudolf, duke of Swabia, revolted and welcomed the Magyars into Germany (953). At
Lechfeld, near Augsburg in Bavaria, Otto caught up the Magyars while they were enjoying a razzia and achieved a signal victory (955). After this, the Magyars ceased to be a nation that lived on plunder and their leaders created a Christian kingdom called Hungary (1000). Otto, his prestige greatly enhanced, marched into Italy again and was crowned emperor (
imperator augustus) by
Pope John XII in Rome (962). Historians count this event as the founding of the
Holy Roman Empire, although the term wasn't used until much later. The Ottonian state is also considered the first
Reich, or German Empire. Otto used the imperial title without attaching it to any territory. He and later emperors thought of themselves as part of a continuous line of emperors that begins with
Charlemagne. (Several of these "emperors" were simply local Italian magnates who bullied the pope into coronating them.) Otto deposed John XII for conspiring with Berengar against him and named
Pope Leo VIII to replace him (963). Berengar was captured and taken to Germany. John was able to reverse the deposition after Otto left, but died in the arms of his mistress soon afterwards.
Aside from founding the German Empire, Otto's achievements include the creation "Ottonian church system," in which the clergy (the only literate section of the population) assumed the duties of an imperial civil service. He raised the papacy out of the muck of Rome's local gangster politics, assured that the position was competently filled, and gave it a dignity that allowed it to assume leadership of an international church.
Europe in AD 1000
Speculation that the world would end in the year 1000 was confined to a few uneasy French monks. Ordinary clerks used
regnal years, for example the 4th year of the reign of Robert II (the Pious) of France. The use of the modern "anno domini" system of dating was confined to the
Venerable Bede and other chroniclers of universal history.
Europe remained a backwater compared to Islam, with its vast network of caravan trade, or China, at this time the world's most populous empire under the
Song Dynasty. Constantinople had a population of about 300,000, but Rome had a mere 35,000 and Paris 20,000.
(External Link)(External Link) In contrast, Islam had over a dozen major cities stretching from
Córdoba, Spain, at this time the world's largest city with 450,000 inhabitants, to central Asia. The
Vikings had a trade network in northern Europe, including a
route connecting the Baltic to Constantinople through Russia. But it was modest affair compared to the caravan routes that connected the great Muslim cities of Cordoba, Alexandria,
Cairo, Baghdad,
Basra, and
Mecca.
With nearly the entire nation freshly ravaged by the Vikings, England was in a desperate state. The long-suffering English later responded with a massacre of Danish settlers in 1002, leading to a round of reprisals and finally to Danish rule (1013). But Christianization made rapid progress and proved itself the long-term solution to the problem of barbarian raiding. Scandinavia had been recently Christianized and the kingdoms of
Norway,
Sweden, and
Denmark established.
Kievan Rus, recently converted to Orthodox Christianity, flourished as the largest state in Europe.
Iceland and
Hungary were both declared Christian about AD 1000.
In Europe, a more formalised institution of marriage was established among the nobility. North of Italy, where masonry construction was never extinguished, stone construction was replacing timber in important structures. Deforestation of the densely wooded continent was under way. The tenth century marked a return of urban life, with the Italian cities doubling in population.
London, abandoned for many centuries, was by 1000 once again England's main economic centre. By 1000,
Bruges and
Ghent held regular trade fairs behind castle walls, a tentative return of economic life to western Europe.
This time also marks the disintegration of the Muslim Caliphate, an imposing and united rival only a century before. Muslim unity was hobbled by the divisions between
Shiite and
Sunni conflicts as well as
Arab Persian ones. At this time, there were three caliphs, an Umayyid caliph in Spain, an Abbasid caliph in Baghdad, and a Shiite (Fatimid) caliph in Egypt. The population of Baghdad, the Abbasid capital, had shrunk to 125,000 (compared to 900,000 in AD 900). The Umayyids were still strong and assertive in 1000, but declined rapidly after 1002 and disappeared entirely by 1031.
In the culture of Europe, several features surfaced soon after 1000 that mark the end of the Early Middle Ages: the rise of the
medieval communes, the reawakening of city life, and the appearance of the
burgher class, the founding of the first
universities, the rediscovery of
Roman law, and the beginnings of vernacular literature.
In 1000, the papacy was firmly under the control of German Emperor
Otto III, or "emperor of the world" as he styled himself. But later church reforms enhanced its independence and prestige: the
Cluniac movement, the building of the first great Transalpine stone cathedrals and the collation of the mass of accumulated
decretals into a formulated
canon law.
Timeline
496 — Battle of Tolbiac, Clovis converts to Catholicism
507 — Battle of Vouillé
527-565 — Justinian I
535-552 — Gothic Wars
547 — death of Benedict of Nursia
c. 570 — birth of Muhammad
590-604 Pope Gregory I
597 — death of Columba
602-629 — Last great Roman-Persian War
615 — death of Columbanus
626 — Joint Persian-Avar-Slav Seige of Constantinople
632 — death of Muhammad
634-644 — Caliph Umar
636 — death of Isidore of Seville
644-656 — Caliph Uthman Ibn Affan
656-661 — Caliph Ali
674-678 — First Arab seige of Constantinople
681 — First Bulgarian Empire established
7th century — Khazar empire established
711-718 — Umayyad conquest of Hispania
717 — Second Arab seige of Constantinople
721 — death of Ardo, last king of the Visigoths
730 — Byzantine Iconoclasm
732 — Battle of Tours
735 — death of Bede, British historian
746 — Blood court at Cannstatt
751 — Pepin the Short founds the Carolingian dynasty
754 — death of Saint Boniface
768-814 — Charlemagne
778 — Battle of Roncevaux Pass
782 — Bloody Verdict of Verden
793 — first Viking raids
796-804 — Alcuin initiates the Carolingian Renaissance
815 — Byzantine Iconoclasm
843 — Treaty of Verdun
871-899 — Alfred the Great
872-930 — Harald I of Norway
880 — Kievan Rus' established
911 — Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte (Normandy)
955 — Battle of Lechfeld
962 — Otto I crowned Holy Roman Emperor
969 — Kievan Rus' subjugates Khazars
987-996 — Hugh Capet
991 — Battle of Maldon
1003 — death of Pope Sylvester II
1027 — the Salian Conrad II succeeds the last Ottonian Henry II the Saint
1054 — East-West SchismFurther Information
Get more info on 'Early Middle Ages'.
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