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Europe: 600-1200 CE
Quick Essay
• What happened in the Mediterranean between 200-600 CE?
Historical Interpretation
“The Dark Ages is a term applied in its widest sense to that period of intellectual depression in the history of Europe from the establishment of the barbarian supremacy in the fifth century (400 AD) to the revival of learning at about the beginning of the fifteenth (1400 AD), thus nearly corresponding in extent with the Middle Ages.”
- The American Cyclopaedia: A Popular Dictionary of
General Knowledge, 1883
Should we call the period 600-
1450 “The Dark
Ages”?
Rum/Eastern Roman Empire/Byzantine
• Continuities between pax Romana and Byzantine Empire?– Roads– Taxation system– Military structures– Centralized administration– Imperial court– Laws– Christian church
Eastern Orthodox Church vs. Western Catholicism
SIMILARITIES DIFFERENCES
Teachings of Jesus & the Bible
Local languages vs. Latin
Church hierarchy of patriarchs, bishops,
priests
Theological differences (i.e.
original sin; nature of Christ)
Missionary impulse Priests can marry vs. celibacy
Intolerance toward other religions
Caesaropapism vs. Pope
100 CE900 CE
0
200000
400000
600000
800000
1000000 1,000,000
10,000
Population of Rome
Population
1. Invasions2. Feudalism3. Power of Catholic Church
3 Major Developments, 500-1000CE
1. Invasions
Alcuin, English cleric in 793
“Never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race, nor was it thought that such an inroad from the sea could be made. Behold, the church of St. Cuthbert spattered with the blood of the priests of God…”
Ermentarius, a monk in the 860s
“The number of ships increases, the endless flood of Vikings never ceases to grow bigger. Everywhere Christ’s people are the victims of massacre, burning, and plunder…”
2. Feudalism
3. Power of the Catholic Church
• Modeled after Roman institutions– Hierarchy reporting
to Rome– Latin used in mass
(so who read the Bible?)
Constantinian Churches in and
around Rome
Church gained lots of wealth from donations (patrons) & owning land
Pope Gregory, Advice to the English Church, 601
The temples of the idols in that nation ought not to be destroyed; but let the idols that are in them be destroyed…For if those temples are well built, it is requisite that they be converted from the worship of devils to the service of the true God; that the nation, seeing that their temples are not destroyed, may remove error from their hearts, and knowing and adoring the true God, may the more familiarly resort to the places to which they have been accustomed.
Pope Gregory, Advice to the English Church, 601
…For there is no doubt that it is impossible to efface everything at once from their obdurate minds; because he who endeavors to ascend to the highest places, rises by degrees or steps, and not by leaps…
Viking Coin, St. Peter & Thor’s Hammer (10th century)
Charlemagne’s Capitulary
3. If any one shall have entered a church by violence and shall have carried off anything in it by force or theft…let him be punished by death.6. If any one deceived by the devil shall have believed, after the manner of the pagans, that any man or woman is a witch and eats men, and on this account shall have burned the person, or shall have given the person’s flesh to others to eat, or shall have eaten it himself, let him be punished by a capital sentence.
Charlemagne’s Capitulary
7. If any one, in accordance with pagan rites, shall have caused the body of a dead man to be burned…let him be punished capitally…17. Likewise, in accordance with the mandate of God, we command that all shall give a tithe of their property and labor to the churches and priests;19. …all infants shall be baptized within a year…
Competition: Religion vs. Political Power1077
Pope Gregory VII Excommunicating Henry IV
…And therefore I believe it to be through [St. Peter’s] grace and not through my own deeds that…that the Christian people…should obey me….for the honor and security of your church, in the name of Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I withdraw, through your power and authority, from Henry the king…who has risen against your church with unheard of insolence, the rule over the whole kingdom of the Germans and over Italy. And I absolve all Christians from the bonds of the oath which they have made or shall make to him; and I forbid any one to serve him as king…
Competition: Religion vs. Political Power
Significant change: 1000-1300
1000 CE1300 CE
0
20,000,000
40,000,000
60,000,000
80,000,000
35,000,000
80,000,000
Population of Europe
Population
Significant change: 1000-1300
• More land?• Rise of Italian cities of Florence,
Genoa, and Venice • Causes?
Crusades: Why Did They Happen?
Crusades
Primary Sources!
Crusades• Legacy of “Clash of Civilizations” (cf.
President Bush)• Spain, Sicily, and the Baltic Byzantine
Empire was very weakened• Pope’s authority • European contact with Islamic world,
picking up a taste for luxury and Asian goods– Sugar
• Absorption of Muslim scholarship
Sacred spaces: the Catholic Church
Santa Sabina Basilica (5th century CE)
Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris
Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris
Is “The Dark Ages” a Valid Term?