1. Byzantines and Islam

2. A Quick Recap
In 330, Constantine moves the capital of the Roman Empire to Constantinople.
In 395 the Roman Empire splits into East and West.
In 476, the Western Roman Empire falls when Rome is conquered by Odoacer.

3. Birth of the Byzantine Empire
With the fall of the Roman Empire, Constantinople will attempt to fill in the power vacuum left by Rome.
The name comes from the former name of Constantinople, Byzantium.
The Byzantine Empire will preserve Roman Culture in the East.
Constantinople was Europe’s largest city.
Constantinople would also be a center for Christianity in the East.

4. Constantinople
Built by Constantine on the site of the former Greek city of Byzantium.
Will be Europe’s largest (up to 800,000) and wealthiest city up to, and during, the Italian Renaissance.
Sits at the edge of the Black Sea and controls all the trade going from Europe into Asia.
Protected by city walls made by Constantine and Theodosius and a chain across the Golden Horn.

5. Emperor Valens Eastern Roman Emperor from 364-378 AD.
Built aqueducts and cisterns to give Constantinople water.
Caught up in wars with the Sassanids (Persians) and made tribute payments to the Visigoths.
When the Huns invaded Europe, they pushed the Goths ahead of them.
Valens got cocky and refused to pay the Visigoths tribute unless they fought the Huns.
The Visigoths agreed, but were maltreated by the Romans.
A Goth named Fritigern, saw the abuses and rallied Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and Huns in an alliance against the Eastern Roman Empire.
Valens fell at the Battle of Adrianople in 378 when his bodyguard abandoned him during a stunning barbarian victory.
Adrianople is often seen as the beginning of the end of Western Rome’s power.

6. Emperor Justinian The greatest of all of the Byzantine Emperors.
He comes to the throne in 527 and will run it until 565.
He also had a great woman as his wife: Theodora.
Theodora was from a circus family. She was an actress and a dancer.
She was also very intelligent and brave.

7. Justinian and Theodora
Theodora and Justinian got married in 523. In 527, Justinian named her his co-ruler.
For 30 years, these two will shape the policies of the Byzantine Empire.
Justinian will use many ideas of Theodora in completing a new set of laws called the Justinian Code.

8. Justinian Code
List of 5,000 laws that Justinian adopted and updated from Rome to his empire. Preserved a lot of old Romans laws.
These laws touched on marriage, women’s rights, inheritance, crimes, slavery, property.
They will be the foundation for the empire for 900 years.
Women given a more elevated status than Roman women had.
Women could divorce and own property.

9. Justinian Justinian will embark on many military campaigns.
With his general, Belisarius, he will try to reconquer the Roman Empire.
The Byzantine armies will march across Northern Africa and retake the city of Rome.

11. Hagia Sophia Beautiful church (now a mosque/museum) in Constantinople.
In Greek, the name means “Holy Wisdom”.
It would be the tallest structure in Constantinople.

12. End of Justinian’s reign
Nika Riots—Riots break out in Constantinople in 532 over chariot race issues (but really because of taxes). Justinian considers fleeing but Theodora urges him to stay. He is able to restore power after a week.
Theodora dies in 548 of cancer.
After her death, Justinian falls apart. He passes fewer reforms. He doesn’t reign with the enthusiasm he had before.
He calls off all military expeditions and shrinks the army to only 150,000 men.
He dies in 565.

13. After Justinian
The Byzantine Empire will fall into a period of decline.
They will lose the territories gained by Justinian.
They will engage in wars with the Sassanid Empire (Persia) and then the Muslim Turks, losing pieces of their empire along the way.
Most rulers will be weak.
Greek fire.

14. Basil II
One of the few strong post-Justinian rulers. Nicknamed “The Bulgar Slayer”. Reigned from AD
Formed an alliance with Vladimir of Kiev.
Reconquered Jerusalem and Syria for the empire.
Sent his armies in 1014 to attack Bulgaria.
After the Battle of Kleidion, he had 99 of every 100 prisoners blinded. The 100th was left with one eye to lead the rest home. 8,000 men were blinded.
Upon seeing so many of his soldiers blinded, Bulgarian Emperor Samuel had a stroke two days after the battle and died.
After the conquest of Bulgaria, he continued to defend his lands and conquer others.

15. Question Time
1. How did Justinian try to rebuild the old Roman Empire?
2. What was so important about the Justinian Code?

16. Icons
Religious pictures that depict a saint or disciple or someone important in the Greek Orthodox Church.
According to the Roman Catholic Church, this is a form of idol worshipping.--Iconoclasts
This is one of the many things that will lead to the schism when Emperor Leo III, backed up by the pope, banned their use in 730.
Byzantine empress Theodora (a different one) brings them back in 843.

17. Orthodox Church
Constantinople will be a center of the Greek Orthodox Church.
The Patriarch is the head bishop of the church in Constantinople. He is like a pope, but he takes orders from the emperor, not vice versa.
Excommunication: When the pope kicks someone out of the church for being a heretic. They are now an outcast in the community in the eyes of the church.

18. The Schism
In 1054, the pope and the patriarch dispute over religious doctrine. They both excommunicate the other. From that time forward, there are two churches. The Roman Catholic Church will dominate Western Europe while the Orthodox Church will dominate the East including Greece and Russia. Constantinople will be the head of the Orthodox Church until it falls. Orthodox Christians do not recognize the leadership of the pope.

19. Why the Christian Church Split
Orthodox
Issues
Marriage
Power of Pope
Other Languages
Religious Symbols
Divorce
Political Power
Power Base
Roman Catholic
Priest could marry
Didn’t recognize power of pope
Local languages allowed
Icon allowed
Divorce was legal
Bishops appointed by emperor and church and took orders from emperor
Constantinople
Priest couldn’t marry
Pope had power
Only Latin allowed
Icons not allowed
Divorce is illegal
Bishops appointed by pope and pope had authority over kings
Rome

20. Byzantine Influence and Legacy
Saint Cyril invents a written language, based on Greek, that would become the alphabet for the Slavs so they could read the Bible in their own language. Russia is one of the many places that uses the Cyrillic Alphabet.
Pulls the people of Greece, Russia, and Eastern Europe to their side over Rome.
Tension between Greeks and Turks today.
Tensions between Orthodox and Catholic priests today.
Preserved Roman and Greek culture and heritage for us today.

21. Byzantine Influence and Legacy
Would give rise to the Russian Empire and inspire many Eastern European peoples.
Libraries of Constantinople held laws, books, poems, and scientific material from Greece and Rome that will be crucial to the Renaissance later on.
Constantinople (now Istanbul) is still a major trading port today in Europe.

22. Question Time
3. What caused the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church to split apart?
4. Why are the Byzantines still important?

23. The Slavs
The ethnic name for language family for the people in Eastern Europe.
Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, Serbs, Slovaks, Croats, Bulgarians, Czechs, and other groups are all Slavic peoples.
Slavs begin to settle Ukraine between AD.
Slavs then move from Ukraine into the Balkans and Eastern Europe.
Slavs adopt the Cyrillic alphabet for their languages.
They will adopt to Christianity because of St. Cyril and St. Methodius.

24. Russia
Meanwhile, in Russia a Viking clan called the Rus settles in Ukraine/Russia.
The name Rus becomes the Russians as they intermarry with the local Slavs.
They trade up and down the rivers that empty into the Baltic and Black Seas.
Their economy is based on trade and farming.

25. Kiev Early Russia is broken up into city states.
The most powerful city is Kiev.
Vladimir was the greatest king of Kiev.
Vladimir brings the major faiths together in Kiev for a conference so he can unify his people with one religion.
Upon seeing Constantinople, he will convert his kingdom Eastern Orthodox.
Kiev will become the religious and political center for Russia until the Mongol invasions

26. Asian Invasions
The Mongols, a fierce barbarian tribe from China that will conquer Asia, invades Russia in 1237.
Also called Tatars by the Russians, they will shape the future of Russia for next 250 years by ruling it with an iron fist.
The Mongols will crush all opposition and destroy the city of Kiev.

27. Alexander Nevsky
Alexander Nevsky, a prince of Novgorod, defies the Mongols and leads his men to victory.
He is also is a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church for preventing a Catholic army from marching into Russia and forcibly converting it.
He becomes a very powerful Russian prince.
His son is willed the land around Moscow after his death.

28. Moscow
As the Mongols crush Kiev, Moscow will become the center of the Orthodox religion for the Russians.
It is seated near where the Volga, Don, and Dnieper Rivers come together and becomes an important trade center.
After the fall of Constantinople, Moscow will become the Christian city of the East.
Ivan III will be the first czar, a Russian word for Caesar, declaring Moscow to be a third Rome. For now, it will become a strong vassal to the Mongols, always doing their bidding,…but not for long.

29. Question Time 5. Who are the Slavs?
6. Where do the Russians come from?
7. How did Kiev lose its power?

30. Arabs Many Arabs were nomads called Bedouins.
These nomads live a life of wandering the deserts of Arabia and North Africa.
They are traders as well as herders of animals like sheep and camels.
They will be instrumental in the founding of Islam.
The nomads of North Africa are called Berbers.

31. Islamic Golden Age
The center of this will be Baghdad, the capital of many Muslim empires and the center of religious and scientific study.
Built near the ruins of Babylon, Baghdad will have over one million people.
In Baghdad, Muslim scientists and thinkers will make discoveries at the House of Wisdom.

32. Islamic Golden Age
The Islamic House of Wisdom was a library/academy/translation center.
This is going to be the physical center of religious, scholarly, and scientific learning in Baghdad.
Opening in the 800’s, it will be where many medical advances are found as well as growing the sciences of astronomy and mathematics.

33. Islamic Golden Age
Muslims will build hospitals and study medicine on cadavers.
Muslims will reopen the texts of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and others and examine them.
Muslims invent al-jabr; an Islamic study of mathematics. It is the “art of bringing together unknowns to match a known quantity”….it is the foundation for what we call algebra.
Muslims also focus on astronomy, navigation, and geometry.
Many of their discoveries were based on the ancient Greeks.

34. Islamic Golden Age
Golden Age also is marked by great Muslim literature.
Muslims invent calligraphy; an artistic style of writing. In Islam, it is forbidden to paint people because only Allah can create life. Instead, intricate pictures using words is used to decorate.
The greatest of the Islamic stories is the Thousand and One Nights. It is a collection of stories that included stories, poems, songs.
The most famous of these stories include Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Aladdin, and Sinbad.

35. Rise of the Turks
An Asiatic group of people, the Turks move into the Middle East from Central Asia around 1000 AD.
As the years go on, the Arabs become superseded in power by the Turks.
First the Seljuks, and then the Ottomans, will take over the Muslims lands and create great empires.

36. Fall of the Islamic Golden Age
The Crusades will affect the Muslim advancements.
In 1258, the Mongols invade the Abbasid Empire.
They will occupy and destroy Baghdad.

37. Question Time 11. How did Islam spread?
12. Why did the Turks replace the Arabs as the leaders of the Islamic World?
13. What discoveries were made by Muslim scientists?
14. What ended the Muslim Golden Age?