The
Middle ("medieval") Ages
500-1000AD:
- early middle ages ('Dark ages')
- Europe:
- Rise of the Byzantine empire (476-1453
AD)
- the eastern part of the Roman
Empire that survived the break up
of the Western Roman Empire
- based in Constantinople (now Istanbul in Turkey), which
became capital of the Roman
empire in 330AD after Constantine
the Great, the 1st Christian
emperor re-founded the city
Byzantium and named it after
himself
- at the time it was regarded as
being Roman and its subjects were
"Roman" but spoke Greek
- 863 - under a vigorous Macedonian dynasty, took
back from the Arabs several great Roman cities -
Antioch, Alexandria, Beirut & Caeserea
- Basil II:
- 976 - drives Muslims back to the gates of
Jerusalem
- defeats the Bulgarians, then the Georgians,
Armenians, & Normans
- encompassed SE Europe, SW Asia,
NE Africa including the Balkan
peninsula, Syria, Jordan, Israel,
Egypt
- Western Roman Empire (476AD)
- gothic tribes (Christian Aryan sects) had split into 2
tribes:
- Visigoths migrated west to Spain
- Ostrogoths migrated east to Austria then to Italy
- 460AD: the Burgonds (an old Germanic people) settle in
French city of Lyon
- Ostrogothic empire - Austria to Italy:
- 504AD Franks drive Visigoths (the Vandals) from France to Spain where
the settle esp. around Toledo to form a Visigothic kingdom
which would last for 2 centuries (Visigoths had been
forced to France from the Danube by the Huns)
- 556AD Franks conquer Bavaria
- 558-9 Huns invade Thrace, Macedonia & Greece
- 561 civil war breaks out amongst the Merovingians in
France
- 565 Christianity reaches the Fezzan
- 675 Bulgars settle south of Danube, founding their 1st
empire
- Britain:
- 535AD global climate change leads to failed crops,
which combined with the Britons on England's western
parts being weakened by bubonic plaque brought by
trade with Romans, leads to England becoming dominated
by the Anglo-Saxons from the east of England.
- 600AD, Britain dominated by a dozen warlords who
battled each other and also created the feudal system
which would dominate Europe for next 1000yrs.
- Vikings invade Britain, bringing their
carbonised "hard" iron swords
in 6thC AD perhaps fuelling the legend of
'magic swords' such as Excalibur
- 633 - the Mercians under Penda defeat the
Northumbrians
- 664 - King Oswy of Northumbria abandons Celtic
Christian Church, accepting Roman Christianity, thus
unifying dates of Easter and replacing John by Peter
as the main apostle.
- 719AD: Visigoths in Spain overtaken by the recently
converted Islamic people of Morocco resulting in an
Islamic Spain for the next 500 years.
- 725AD: Saracens rampage the Rhone Valley looting Lyons,
reaching Pointiers before stopped by Charles Martel.
- Charlemagne's empire:
- crowned emperor of the so-called Holy Roman
Empire by a grateful Pope, thereby strengthening
the alliance between the Franks & the Roman
Church & dividing further from the Byzantine
Empire
- in agreement with Arabian rulers
& traders, set a standard of
measurement based on Arabian
cubit:
- Arabian cubit = 25.56in =
649mm = 2 Frankish feet =
24 pouces or inches
- this lasted in France
until superseded by the
metric system in 1795
- Otto the Great
- 889 - Germany invaded by Hungarians
- 935 - Lyon attacked by Hungarians
- 950 - Lapps enter Norway
- Middle East:
- Arab empire:
- 530AD chess introduced into Persia from India
- 535AD global climate change leads to problems with
Yemen's dam, leading to fall of Yemen & the rise
of the cities of Medina & Mecca
- 551AD Beirut destroyed by earthquake killing 250,000
- 589AD Arabs, Khazars & Turks invade Persia but
they are defeated
- 610AD Mohammed (570-632) sees a vision and forms the
Islam religion
- 629 - 1st Islam mosque built
- 630-40 Arab pirates active in Red Sea
- 645 - Byzantine forces recapture Alexandria
- 649 - Arabs conquer Cyprus
- 655 - Arabs defeat Byzantine fleet near Alexandria
- 673 - Arabs start an unsuccessful 5yr siege of
Constantinople
- 674 - occupy Crete
- 700-750:
- paper becomes utilised; Baghdad the centre of
Islam & scientific centre; cataracts removed;
-
Arabic numerals (derived from Nagari
numerals in India)
- translate ancient books especially ancient Greek
texts such as Aristotle into Arabic
- 10thC: Sth Spanish city of Cordoba becomes 2nd
most important Muslim city which was lit by light
& running water & the biggest city in Europe;
Inspires the Gothic architecture in next few centuries
in Europe;
- 935 - found Algiers
- Asia:
- India:
- Foreign military reverses,
notably at the hands of the Turks
about 565, finally undermined the
Hunnish power in India.
- Among the contemporary
descendants of the Huns who
remained on the subcontinent are
certain tribal groups of modern
Rajasthan.
- Another powerful kingdom was
founded in northern India, in
606, by Harsha (590?-647), the
last Hindu monarch of consequence
in Indian national history.
- in early 7thC, the Gupta
numerals evolve into Nagari
numerals - an immediate precursor of out
Arabic numerals - these symbols continued to
evolve esp. in 11thC.
- After Harsha died, political
upheaval & anarchy resulted
which remained until 11th
century.
- China:
- 623AD - all China united under Tang dynasty
- 630AD - knowledge of arithmetic & medicine
reaches Tibet from China
- 634AD - oldest known observatory in East Asia built
- Chomsongdae in Sth Korea
- 639 - China conquers Turkestan & Korea
- 645AD - Buddhism reaches Tibet
- 661 - China at war with Korea & withdraw in 682
- Americas:
- 535AD global climate change leads to 30yrs drought
causing fall of the Teotichuan civilisation
- Toltec civilisation (900-1200)
1000-1500AD:
- high middle ages:
- Britain:
- England:
- Norman conquest of Britain 1066
- 1067 - begin to build Tower of London to impress
the defeated English
- Henry II (1154) - 1st of the Angeuin
kings
- 1170 - orders the murder of Thomas Becket,
Archbishop of Canterbury
- 1176 - work starts on London Bridge, completed
in 1209
- Richard I the Lionheart
- 1189-93 goes to 3rd Crusade & in 1191 takes
Cyprus
-
- 1195 - famine
- 1209 - treaty signed with Scotland
- 1215 - King John seals the Magna Carta then
approached Pope to have it annulled later that year
- Edward I:
- 1282 conquers Wales
- in 1305 declared standards for
measurements:
- 1 inch = 3 grains of
barley round and dry
- 12 inch = 1 foot
- 3 foot = 1 ulna (yard)
- 5.5 ulna = 1 rod
- 40 rods x 4 rods = 1 acre
- Scotland:
- Macbeth (1040-1057)
- 1297 - William Wallace leading the Scots rebel
against & defeat the English at Stirling
- Islamic regions:
- 1009: Egyptian ruler of Jerusalem Al Hakim? an
insane ruler destroys Christian buildings which for
200yrs the Muslims had respected & thus sparked
anti-Muslim sentiment in Europe & the Christian
crusades led by Pope Urban II. in 1095 at a time when
the Arab Empire was weak & fragmented.
- 1035-85: Islamic Toledo in Spain dominate the astronomic
world of Western Europe developing new astronomic tables &
planetary plotting devices.
- 1099: massacre of Muslims and even Christians in
Jerusalem by the Crusaders who built magnificent
defensive castles.
- 12thC: Islam continued to spread as unlike the
Christians, their mosques welcomed traders, housed the
sick, learning more from the traders such as:
- from Persians and how to fold steel to make the
best swords.
- silk, damasc, taffeta textiles, pepper, cinnamon
& other oriental spices; soap;
- 1187: Salaadin leads Muslim soldiers against the
Crusaders & retakes Jerusalem but does not
persecute the Christians, thus becoming the most
famous Muslim of all time and establishing a Golden
Age of Islam.. Islamic influences infiltrates Europe
& even Aquinas used Avicenna's philosophy.
- 1248: Christian rulers take most of the now
fragmented Islamic Spain except for Grenada.
- 1258: the 'Golden Age of Muslim' ends with the
Mongol invasion, torching Baghdad, destroying
libraries & killing tens of thousands, but in the
end opened the world to Islam by becoming Muslims
themselves within a decade! The Mongols transformed
Islam by allowing non-Arabs to become Muslim leaders
resulting in the 'gunpowder' Muslim empire of the
Ottoman Turks.
- Holy Roman Empire:
- crusades:
- Christian invasion into
Islamic regions
- 1204 - Christian crusaders take Constantinople
- Arabic numerals
began to be slowly adopted by Western European
mathematicians (including Fibonacci)
in 11thC after translations of their texts, although 1st
translations were by Spanish monks in late 10thC and full
adoption not until after 15thC.
- Spanish Inquisition - insincere converted Jews &
Muslims, heretics,
non-believers, "witches" burnt
at the stake
- Italy:
- 1252 - Florence strikes 1st gold coins (florins) to
be issued in the West since the fall of Rome
- Marco Polo (1271-1292)
- Italian traveller and author,
whose writings gave Europeans the
first authoritative view of life
in the Far East (China).
- Dante (1265-1321)
- Italian poet, wrote his epic
masterpiece The Divine Comedy
in 1307
- France:
- 1162-82 Notre Dame in Paris built
- Vikings in Nth America
- Asia:
- the Mongols:
- Jenghiz Khan (Genghis) rules Nth Asia despite a small army of
max. 110,000 men (r.1206-1227):
- avenged his father's death by defeating the
Tatars who had poisoned him
- defeated the kingdom of Xi Xia in China &
when the Xi Xia refused to help him in a later
campaign, he virtually exterminated them
- when the Shah at Samarkand killed his envoys
sent to negotiate, he avenged the insult by
defeating the Shah's forces even though he was
outnumbered
- over-ran central Asia, Afghanistan, Persia &
parts of Russia
- Ogodei, the 3rd son of Jenghiz, became the Great
Khan of the Mongol Empire
- completed the overpowering of the Chin dynasty
in Nth China
- Batu, Ogodei's son, invaded Europe:
- Nth Russia principalities were defeated in a
lightning Winter raid in 1237-8, the only
successful winter campaign against Russia in
history
- Kiev fell in 1240
- a German-Polish army was annihilated in 1241
- Batu's forces may have reached the Atlantic had
his father not died back in the Mongol capital of
Karakoum which made Batu go back to claim his
position in the line of succession
- India:
- Muslim invasions:
- Mahmud, a Korasan Islamic
warrior, in 1000AD
launched the first of 17
consecutive expeditions
across the Afghan
frontier into India.
- The most successful of
the Muslim rulers after
Mahmud was Muhammad of
Ghur (fl. 1174-1206),
whose reign began in
1173. Regarded by most
historians as the real
founder of Muslim power
in India, he initiated
his campaigns of conquest
in 1175 and, in the
course of the next three
decades, subjugated all
of the Indo-Gangetic
plain west of Benares
(now Varanasi).
- Before the end of
Ala-ud-Din's reign in
1316, the Mongols had
begun to infiltrate the
northern frontiers of the
Muslim dominions in
India. Muhammad Tughluq,
the last Delhi sultan of
importance, completely
alienated both the
Muslims and the subject
Hindus by his extreme
cruelty and his religious
fanaticism. As the empire
was torn by revolutionary
turmoil, some provinces,
notably Bengal, seceded.
- Mongol invasion:
- in 1398, when the Mongol
conqueror Tamerlane led
his armies into India, he
met little organized
resistance.
- Cambodia:
- temples at Angkor Wot built early 12thC, urban
civilisation surrounding it existed from c500AD-1500AD
until it apparently declined due to effects of
deforestation & over-development.
- late middle ages:
- Europe:
- Britain:
- 100yr war with France 1337-1453 after Philip VI
of France lay claim to Gascony & Edward III of
England declared himself king of France
- 1315: great famine
- 1348: Black Death of bubonic plague spread out
from Mongol hordes across Asia, Europe & to
Britain killing as much as 50% (London's pop.
300,000, 300 died each day in the 1st wave) &
in 1349 reached Ireland killing 14,000 in Dublin
alone. This resulted in labour shortage which
allowed labourers to charge more & demand less
rent.
- War of the Roses
- Chaucer (1343?-1400)
- one of the greatest English
poets, whose masterpiece, The
Canterbury Tales, was one of
the most important influences on
the development of English
literature.
- Henry VII:
- in 1497 set weight & distance
standards
-
- France:
- Joan of Arc (1412-31)
- called the Maid of
Orléans, national
heroine and patron saint
of France, who united the
nation at a critical hour
and decisively turned the
Hundred Years' War in
France's favour.
- chandeliers become a status symbol due to
craftsmanship and cost with hand-cut glass being
introduced.
- Spain:
- controlled by the Moors & not a united
kingdom until 1479 with the Moors being expelled
by 1492.
- Germany was in pieces
- the Swiss rebelled against Austrian overlords
- the Byzantine empire overwhelmed by the Turks
- plague wipes out 25% of European population
- Hapsburg dynasty of Austria (1273 - 1918)
- Ottoman empire in Turkey (1288-1918)
- 1348 - Persecution of Jews in Germany after the Black
Death causes many survivors to migrate to Poland
- Gothic period (1350-1480)
- discovery of Cape of Good Hope & sea route to the
Orient to dominate the spice trade:
- Portugese explorers:
- da Gama sails to: Madeira (1418), Azores (1431),
rounds Cape Bojeador (1434), mouth of Senegal
(1444), sights Sierra Leone (1460), Calicut in
India (1498)
- Diaz discovers & sails around Cape of Good
Hope (1487)
- Albuquerque sails from the southern end of the
Red Sea to Indonesia (1509-15)
- Mota reaches Japan (1542)
- discovery of the "New World" - the great
land mass to the west of Europe:
- Spanish-funded explorers:
- the Genoan, Christopher Columbus sails to:
Bahamas which he thought was an Asiatic
archipelago (1492)
- the Florentine, Vespucci sails along Nth coast
of Sth America & Brazil (1454-1512)
- the Portugese, Magellan sailed to Sth America in
1519, & by passing through the Magellan Strait
becomes the 1st European to sail across the
Pacific Ocean & was killed in 1521 when he was
helping the islanders of Cebu in the Phillipines,
fight against the islanders of Mactan.
- British explorers:
- John Cabot sails along northeast coast of
America (1450-1500)
- Asia:
- Americas:
- Incas empire (1200-1583)
- Aztec empire (1325-1521)
- the Aztecs, sweeping in from the north during the
13thC, dominate the Mexican region from their island
stronghold of Tenochtitlan, in Lake Texcoco,
subjugating the Indians, until defeated by Cortez in
1521, aided by Indians.