LECTURE 2: THREE CULTURAL REALMS, 500-700
ISLAM
3 Heirs of the Roman empire: Islam, Byzantium, Germanic West.
Really, heirs. they bequeathed to inherators. East Rome will have some
kind of future: yes, Byzantium. Western half will transform into
germanic kingdoms.
What no one could have predicted, was the emergence of the Islamic
faith and the Arab peoples. Tribal groups. Arabs south of the
Byzantine and Persian Empires. Arabs had been subject to
Judeo-Christianity. But they were not
MOHAMMAD 570-632
From an old and wealthy Mecca family, entered caravan trade. earned
good reputation for being reliable. married a noble woman older than
him. retired to a cave near mecca and was visited by the angel
gabriel, who taught him about Allah. based on this, preached to his
family and friend about it, this monotheistic faith. Also in Mecca to
others. encountered trouble. contrary to traditional religions. arabs
had many polytheist cults that acknowledged a strange shrine in mecca,
containing a black stone, surrounded by a black kaaba. now inside the
great mosque.
people made pilgrimages to mecca to visit this. mecca's nobles thought
mohammad was 'bad for business' (people would no longer visit mecca).
IN 622 he left for Medina, the Hidera, the 'flight'. Medina had a
problem with religion, many sects. Mohammad was viewed as a unifier
with his religion.
Koran; scriptures, Hadith 'sayings' of the prophet, and the sunna
(good practice). becomes the practice of 'Sunni' muslims.
Koran is the work of Allah, through Mohammad, who did not author it.
Allah authored it. Like that... bible... but most of the biblical
authors are known. isiah, gospel of john etc. but in the koran,
allah's word is handed to mohammad straight.
BASIC REQUIREMENTS
People have to make Al-Islam, the surrender, to Allah. Completely. A
person who has made Islam, is a Muslim, a surrenderer. 5 Pillars.
Profession of Faith. In christianity, the Nicene creed is very long.
IN Islam, very short. Other 4 are practices. Like 10 Commandments. 2.
Fasting during Ramadan. 3. Prayer facing Mecca. 4. Alms, giving to the
poor, Mohammad is building responsibility to community. 5. Go to
Mecca. Hajj. Was it a concession to Mecca's elites. Yes. Stress laid
on conduct, not your intellectual ascent to a doctrinal teachings. No
popes in Islam, no clergy, etc. no rabbi types.
THE UMMA MUSLIMA
community of everyone who has made al-Islam. a community that
transcends all borders. There is no successor to Mohammad. He is the
last prophet.
ABU BAKR
successor to prophets political, miltiary leadership. over time,
caliphs would begin to be custodians of the faith. Apostates fell
away from Islam, and by 634 brought them all back by force. Then, over
the course of one century, the armies of Islam fought tremedously.
THE HOUSE OF WAR ATTACKED
Lightning campaigns compared to Rome which took 5 centuries to expand,
Islam did it in one. how? Their main enemies were worn out. Persia and
Byzantium fought each other and their armies were spent. There was an
opportunity.
Raiding and plundering had been a way of life for centuries. Now,
Islam taught to raid and pillage others, not Muslims. And finally,
Jihad. Dar al Islam, and the Dal ar Hab: House of War. It was
understood that Christians and Jews were "peoples of the Book" so they
were not forced to convert, though the Quaryza Massacre and others
were done. Usually they just had to pay taxes. Infadels were pagans
and non peoples of the book.
And it was extraordinary: Muslims ruled Arabia under Mohammad, Took
Mesopotamia, Levant, half of Anatolia, Caucasus, Persia and Egypt and
Libya by 661, and took the rest of North Africa, Iberia and Bactria,
and the Indus Valley by 750. Fought Persians, Byzantines, Egyptians,
Spaniards and the Franks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquests
In 661, Abu Bakr's family died out and a new family of caliphs took
over, from Damascus Syria, the Umyyads. They created tax collecting
procedures and roman style bureaucratic organization. Capital moved
from Mecca to Damascus. Ruled for a century. Many peoples along
frontiers, and a revolution. Abbasids then took over, and they built a
new city: Baghdad. Great houses of study were built, and like at
Alexandria, a scholarly center. Greek science and philosophy was
popular. Abbasids were the 'golden age' of Islam. By the 800s, a new
universal faith, a new chosen people, the Arabs, and a new holy book,
the Koran. One deeply rooted in the ideals of classical antiquity.
BYZANTINE EMPIRE (lecture 30)
If the arab islamic power growth was the most unpredictable, the
Byzantine Empire was the most predictable. that "Rome" goes on was
somehow. East Rome had less frontier problems, unlike west with the
long Rhine and Danube. Yet, serious ones did exist in the east, but
not contemporaneously. plus, east had good rulers, west did not. east
was more prosperous. the Romans chose to take their stand in the east!
and it did stand for a thousand years.
RELIGIOUS DIVISIONS
Orthodox (right believers) and Monophysites (the one nature of Christ) not 3.
In 5th C, no one believed they were anything but Roman. but east and
west christianity began to drift. contintinel drift, slow. but they
would split in 1054.
JUSTINIAN
He waged a series of wars, vs. vandals, ostrogoths visigoths of spain,
to recover the lost western provinces. we can see this was not fully
successful, but he tried, and to him it was desirable to do this.
recover lost imperial glory. separation between civilian and military
power is eroded, not on the side of civilian rule, but military.
THE CORPUS
IN 529 he issued 'Body of Civil Law'. Now, Theodosius revised Roman
law, and Justinian is the next reformer, but the last great ancient
collection and publisher of new law. This was the most influential
legal collection in human history. Wow, bold but true. Some ironies:
issued in Latin and had to be translated into Greek. So, Justinian
looked back to the wellsprings of Rome, and what is more roman than
law, his collection in Latin had to be translated into Greek in order
to be useful. So, if Rome means Latin, and now it's law is in Greek,
something is changed indeed.
Monophysite stressed divinity over humanity of Christ. He is just God.
Justinian and his advisors tried to find a theological formula to
reconcile monophysites with orthodox. Cohersion was out. He ignored
pope, who said "leave it alone." well. east is willing to make its own
way in matters of theology, to put it mildly. Division is begun.
HAGIA SOPHIA
Justinian's symbolic masterpiece was this. "Solomon, I have outdone
thee." Mathemeticians designed it. It's huge. It nods to traditional
roman architecture. Arch, dome, details were roman, decorative detail,
etc. All Roman. But, the sense of space, color, marble stone of green,
purple, beige, brown. It also speaks to the east. Armenia, Georgia.
This is something new.
HERACLIUS hera-k-leus
The other great emperor of byzantium, 610-641, faced the persians.
Then, faced the muslims. Terrible irony: fought a brilliant campaign
against the Sassanid Persians. defeated the empire, exhausted the
military and treasury, and was defenseless when the armies of islam,
by surprise, from the south, in the mid 600s. The war vs. persia and
islam taught byzanines something: it was the eastern frontier that was
critical.
The balkans were byzantine, and that frontier was threatened under
heraclius by south slavs and bulgars. less of a problem than east
problems, but little attention could be paid to western rome. it
couldn't. East Rome carved into military districts and soldiers were
paid with land to settle, in a new reworking of roman military
structure. "Themes" they were called, and they were headed by a
"strategos" (general), from which we get the word strategy. No more
paying pro soldiers with roman taxes, now its more basic: a more
military than civil establishment. Heraclius called himself 'Emperor
of the Romans'. big deal, except he did it in Greek.
LEO III AND SON
Byzantium was ruled by Leo III "Isaurian" and then his son Constantine
V "Isaurian" in 700s. Wars fought only in Anatolia and Balkans. Themes
went on. In 726 Leo issued a new law code, which abridged Justinian's
corpus.
RELIGIOUS
Neither Greek nor Latin Christians admited the other existed as
different from their own. But they slowly parted, first in liturgy.
Rupture still 200 years away, and no one wished for it. Byzantines:
Priests can marry. Bishops no. Latin's no marrying. Byzantines used
leavened bread, Latins unleavened. Monks's hair was cut in Latin from
the back, in Byzantium, from the front. and Icons. beautiful religious
pictures that in the east were not only beautiful pictures, but that
they were holy in themselves. they embodied the power the aura of the
holy person they 'were'.
So, Byzantines we call them, but they called themselves Romans.
BASIL I
In 800s, they rolled back the muslim advance in anatolia, they won
eastern europe's new barbarians slavs to christianity, and won the
russians to orthodoxy as well This threatened realm ushered in a
serious identifying characteristic of eastern europe by doing so.
THE MEDIEVAL WEST: THE BARBARIAN KINGDOMS
the heirs of the western empire.
There were some kingdoms in place, but they were short lived,
transitory. They failed.
The Vandal kingdom in north africa had a lot of strikes against it.
They were arian christian heretics, but these fanatical arian's lived
by piracy on the Mediterranean, as much as they farmed the rich lands
of north africa. Justianian wasted them in 532 and they vanished into
history.
The Ostragoths were also arians, and they were settled in Italy (like
when Odoacer took down the empire). Well, to parcel out Gaul or
Britannia or Iberia to Germanic tribes... was not nice but necessary.
Italy? Even in Constantinople this was troubling. Rome city had no
say, but Constantinople did. They sent Theodoric the Ostragoth
(492-526) to wrest it from Odoacer and submit it to the emperor.
Theodoric was gifted. Helped with peace in Italy during the early
500s. But, strikes against him and his Ostragoths: they were arian,
and they were in Italy. Also, after Theodoric died, things went bad
and Justinian sent armies to keep order, and by 555, there were twenty
years of brutal war and the Ostragoths disappear or go north.
The Visigoth Kingdom had a legacy of defeat vs. the Franks in 507 and
went over the Pyranees to Iberia. Then they were attacked by Justinian
in mid 6th. They were arians, and disunited. Yet, they persisted till
711, when the Berber warriors under Arab commanders took Iberia. They
had over 200 years, but not much of a chance.
The Lombard Kingdom began as Lombards entered Italy in 568. Lombards
fought Ostrogoths for the East Romans, and scouted the terrain at the
same time. The Byzantines didn't accept them in Italy... they were
arians too. Their legal culture was very high, and they wanted to
unify Italy. Popes were not happy cause Rome would be conquered or cut
off, so finally in the mid 8th C., Popes invited Pepin the Frank,
Charlemagne's dad, to come down and fight them- stalemate. Then
Charlemagne came in 773 and put the Lombards down, taking the throne
for himself.
The future was left to other tribes: the Anglo-Saxons and the Franks.
The Anglo-Saxon Kingdom in Britannia, originating in Denmark and
Germany, and Holland, built small kingdoms (heptarchy-7 kingdoms, inc.
King Arthur). Good ones were both capably led and had room for
expansion (so they had a common focus for energies). Kingdom of North
Umbria, Kent, Mercia, etc. These kings learned from the Roman past and
from the Franks: they built impressive wooden halls to rule from. Used
scepters, an abstract symbol, and coins. Laws, documents. These
documents had some native and some roman traditions. There was an
awareness of political unity of Britain though. A sense. Bretwalden.
Later in 8th C, Offa of Mercia, called himself King of the English.
Confusing. What did he mean by that? King of the people in Angleland?
Well, there was no cohesion like that.
A great find in 1939 was a ship which was buried with tons of stuff
from 6th century. It had scandinavian stuff, byzantine stuff, frankish
stuff and etc.
READING FOR THE NEXT LECTURE
