Video Transcript: Lesson 13

 Unit 08 01 Early Europe and Early Islam

Well, welcome back. This is the Christian leaders Institute world history, one on one course. And we're going sort of from the beginnings of civilization until the year 1500 In this course, where today, I think we're going to finish the central section, which, in which we've covered the years 500 BC to 1080. And we've had to be selective about what places we've gone and cultures, we've talked about civilizations, we've been to India, China, Mesopotamia, Egypt, that eastern part of the Mediterranean, we went to South America and Purdue in Peru and Mesoamerica, Central America, and then had spent considerable time in the development of the Greco Roman period and the developments from there. Today, we're going to finish off just a little bit with the development of Western Europe in the medieval early medieval time. And then look at the beginnings of the rise of Islam. That we'll finish off the central section brings us about to the year 1000. Section D three will cover the years 1000 ad to 1500, more or less. So welcome today, we have seen this slide in the previous class. But I wanted to just start here again today, just to remind us all that beginning around the edge of Constantine, when the Roman Empire is split into the eastern part and the western part, the eastern part is really the more significant. That becomes eventually by xantham. With its capital in Constantinople. The Patriarch of Constantinople is the head of the Christian church. It's there in Turkey that the major councils are held that divide that decides significant doctrinal issues, they decide what is going to be Orthodox Christianity, councils of Nicea, for instance and others. The Eastern Church spreads its quite rapidly and eventually up into Russia. And that becomes a major stronghold of artifact for a while Moscow is the center of the Christian faith in the Orthodox or Eastern tradition. We're going to look a little more at the west today. And many of us in the West think that Rome from the very beginning was the very heart of the Christian faith and the capital of the Christian faith, and that the Pope was the main Christian leader, that's really not quite accurate historically. There is a long development, it takes 500 years plus, before the Eastern Church and the Western Church. They finally do split and have different authorities. But the Western Church under the pope grows very slowly, we noticed Bob Gregory the first, for instance, around the years 600 ad, and he very significantly increased the political and military influence of the church, he began to wed the power of the state and the power of the church. This is a relatively new development. And he found that necessary to do mostly because of the invasion of barbarian tribes, those barbarians were in fact, Aryan Christians, if you remember from our earlier class, who the areas were. So the medieval papacy, and the medieval church is characterized by both a wedding of between the political authority, military authority, secular authority, and the religious or church authority founded centered in Rome. It's also characterized by some of the difficult times that are often called the Dark Ages of early medieval

Europe. The wedding of political authority, secular authority and sacred authority in Europe is really highlighted on Christmas day in 800. AD, that is the beginnings more or less of the Holy Roman Empire. And you'll notice that it's holy and Roman. They pretended more or less that it was a continuation of the ancient Roman Empire, but now it is with the sacred authority of the Pope and The secular authority of the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. And the first one is the person called Charlemagne. Charlemagne was a king of the Franks people who lived in France. And, you know, King in this period has to be used quite loosely. They didn't have ultimate authority, they were really just the leaders of their tribal groups. And more or less, but people did owe them allegiance. Pope Leo the third crown Charlemagne on Christmas Day, to be the August, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took a few more years before that to be solidified. But that is a traditional date, Christmas 800 ad. And from then I'll after, until the time in Napoleon, really, there is a Holy Roman Empire. They have during different periods of time, they have more influence or less influence. But during that whole Medieval Period, until into the modern era, they are a central authority in Western Europe. So with Charlemagne, we see a deep wedding of the power of the state and the power of the church. They aren't always on the same page. As matter of fact, sometimes they're very much rival. Sometimes they're here we have armies that fight against each other, the church and the Holy Roman Empire. So we might not think of it as a entirely blissful wedding between the two. It's also during, during this period of time that there is an increase separation between the church and the East and the church in the West. And finally, around the year 1000, a little bit after that, there is a definitive split, in which the Eastern Orthodox Church goes one direction, and the West goes another and they recognize different little bit different doctrines as well as different authorities. early medieval Europe is also characterized by a social arrangement and a political arrangement called feudalism. And it's significant for us to note that during feudal times, it really is a way in which the larger King again think of King not in a modern sense, but king as one who's probably the most strong ruler in an area, the way in which that King could bind the other local authorities, the URLs and the barons, the landowners, how are they bound together? What is the relationship between a king and these other local rulers who may have an estate of which they build a stronghold of one kind or another, the feudal system is how we describe they're bound together. Basically, the local leaders pledged themselves to be loyal to the King. And part and parcel of that pledge is not only taxation, but also that they the local leaders, the Earls and barons, and the like the Lord's and the ladies of the local manner. They pledge military support, they pledged their population to become soldiers in the king's army, should that happen. They're not standing armies. They're more like militias that can be called up when necessary. In return, the Earls and barons receive the right to farm the land, and that's done by their their peasants, which in the feudal system, they are known as the serfs, the serfs serve the local Baron, and in turn the Barons serve the regional King.

There are develops during this period of time professional warrior class and many of the Earls and barons have two or three or four of these professional soldiers. They are they originally, they are the people who are under military training, high military training, they're well equipped with armor, and they keep peace and there's virtually they keep the Earls and barons in a position of authority. They're sort of the enforcers in that feudal period they are almost all always from the wealthier families. And it is a position of great prestige to be a knight. You had a horse you had the armor usually had some other knaves, who helped to polish your armor and take care of your swords and that sort of thing and gets you into the armor and saddle up your horse. And then the knights in particular, get romanticized in the West, we think of these knights is glorious, doing valorous deeds and taking care of damsel in distress and the like. I won't say that they didn't do great deeds of bravery. But they are probably more accurately looked at as mercenaries. They're hired thugs. They're hired armed guards. And they they are often quite ruthless with the peasant population. Over a period of time, they become very restless. And one way of dealing with that restlessness. I mean, you have highly trained military people with all this equipment and the temptation, the desire to use that and test themselves in battle is seemingly unavoidable. And so they begin to have these tournaments and games in which they battle each other. And we, we hear about the jousting matches, and it's a great prestige if your knight can overcome another and these were bloody and not often fatal tournaments between the Knights. So in feudalistic society, you begin to have a real separation between the Lords and Ladies and upper classes who own the land or at least have the rights to the land, and the serfs are peasants, the vast majority of the population in Europe who are responsible to take care of the land to farm it. Build the equipment necessary to take care of the land on the light. It is a very stratified society, with the Knights being the enforcers of the upper class rule. That's medieval Europe. I thought maybe we'd spend just a moment on Britain in particular by Britain is a very good example of how the feudalistic society begins to to impact and Britain was not ever under the control of the Holy Roman Empire. So it develops on its own politically, around the year four by the year 450, the Roman Empire's power, which had been the Signet most significant political power in Rome for 500 years, had exhaust was exhausted. People were even forgetting and even though the upper society and many of the cities and towns that were founded, are founded as Roman military bases, by the year 450, people are forgetting that and it's lapsing back into sort of a dark age. During that period of time, there's a vast migration that comes over from the European mainland, the Germanic tribes known as the Saxons and the angles. They come in, particularly into the eastern part of Europe, I'm sorry, a part of Britain and begin to both by migration, as well as conquest, become the dominant people there in eastern England, they displace the traditional Britain rulers, and the tribes that had lived there for generations and generations, they produced what we refer to as the Anglo Saxon culture. And when one thinks of early England that is the kind of culture that we, we think of it actually is basically Germanic.

And medieval English is closer to Northern Germanic languages, old German and Friesian and some of those languages that it is to the traditional Celtic or languages of native Britain. As I, as I mentioned, it's not a part of the Holy Roman Empire, but it is a very early adopter of the Christian faith. England is totally Christianized. and Ireland in particular, becomes a real bastion of Christianity. And the monasteries that are made created in early Ireland become really the high places of culture of literacy. And this is where many of the books are stored. This are scrolls. This is where the monks are highly trained in the reproduction of Insya manuscripts. What We're ancient for them already. And because Ireland is never really sacked or console conquered by any others, that is the place where much of the literary tradition of Western culture, European culture is actually preserved. We get to thank those Irish monks, for keeping Western literature alive. Around the same time that Charlemagne is being crowned the Holy Roman Empire, Emperor of Europe, European mainland, there is a fierce and impressive seafaring people who begin to infiltrate from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, the Scandinavian countries, we think particularly of Norway, but they really do come from all those other countries. And they become new. In their long boats, they began to raid parts of northern Europe, and in particular England. So that's around the year 800. And these people are called the north, the northmen or Norseman. Often we know them better as Vikings. They are ruthless, they are barbaric. They are not Christian. And they come and and conquer really. Although short lived, various parts of England, the West six area, Northumbria, the eastern coastline of England, but also parts of France, Northern Europe, northern Germany, and they send their vessels also into the Mediterranean. And so they raid Muslim places in Spain and in Italy and North Africa. They are the scourge. They are the plague. They are greatly feared and the Vikings are legendary among people. By 950. Because of the Viking raid raids, the various local little kings and England and people little kingdoms in England had to begin to work together to fight off the Vikings and the king of Wessex becomes the dominant leader and the house of Wessex actually, is the most significant political authority in England for the next 100 years or so until 1066, when William the Conqueror, comes from France, the Norseman also, by the way, settle part of Northern France, known as Normandy, and Normandy is actually just named after the Norseman. That's where the North men settled where they conquered. So for now, we're gonna leave Europe and move back into the Mesopotamian area, and spend the rest of this class today on Islam. Your reading for Islam, is that the Wikipedia article on the history of Islam let me just say a thing about the resources that we're going to be using here, primarily, thus far in this course, we've used reading selections that come from the ancient Encyclopedia of history, which is a not common cause it's not subject to copyright. And so we can use that. And those are really excellent articles, I believe.

Now that we're entering the medieval period, leaving behind the ancient period, that encyclopedia is we're beginning to run out of articles there. And there is really nothing comparable that I have found in quality. And so we're going to have to look at Wikipedia articles, because they are available to us as Non copyrighted material. And I just want to just caution you about Wikipedia articles, they are much better than they used to be in terms of accuracy. But you and I both know that they are not subject to the kind of rigorous academic investigation that other articles are subjected to. And so I would encourage you to be careful, take it with a grain of salt. You'll find contradictions within Wikipedia articles, even in and of themselves. So I think that they're trustworthy in the main and the big picture, as they are quite useful and trustworthy. Therefore we're going to use but not necessarily all the details, all the dates, all the names, all the places are entirely accurate. So just be a little careful when you're reading Wikipedia articles. Now, they're coming the rise of Islam. You have to place ourselves back into the Arabian Peninsula. Around the year 610, a businessman, he was a trader used to traveling between Mecca and other places, by the name of The Hobbit began to receive as he claimed, Revelations, he had encounters with an Angel Gabriel is often mentioned, and Gabriel revealed to him what God's desires and wills are. Many of these passages are many, many of these revelations Muhammad shared orally at first, and later some of those are written down. They are those early passages and other passages later are gathered together the written documents into the book that we don't as the Quran, the holy book of Islam. And the various passages are called the serous Islam, as revealed to Muhammad is a radically monotheistic religion. And in the world in which Muhammad lived, there was a Christianity existed in Arabia and was very strong. That was all part of the Byzantines. Judaism in Arabia was very strong, particularly down in Yemen, and Yemenite. Jews continue until this day, as a matter of fact, although many have come to the modern state of Israel, and just basic survival of the ancient polytheistic religions and superstitions in particular, the presence of evil and good, and the constant battle that we saw in early as though astronism, which was very dominant religion there, continued to play a significant part of pre Mohammed religion. Muhammad came and said, there is one God and His name is Allah. And he Muhammad is his prophet. That's the central claim of Islam. And then the word Islam just simply comes from the Arabic meaning submission. So what one does is submit, or gives one's heart faith, mind to this basic teaching, that there is the one God and Muhammad is his prophet, and by Prophet Muhammad just isn't just one prophet in the light of many, Mohammed book portrayed himself as being the final prophet, before the coming of the Kingdom. In Muhammad teachings, ethical treatment of neighbors fair treatment is a primary goal, doing what's right doing justice, in business, in home, in politics, is very significant. And at first Muhammad, vision was not political, it was much more of a spiritual kingdom, he did, there is a teaching of the judgment to come in which are our deeds are judged whether they have been righteous or unrighteous. And the righteous are rewarded, and the unrighteous are condemned.

Find there is a paradise that awaits or an ideal kingdom. These are similar ideas that one finds in the Judaism of the day, as well as in Christian faith, and Islam, Judaism and Christianity in these central ideas can also be traced back to that XO astronism that we discussed. Way back when we were talking about ancient Persia. Those religious ideas are shared by all the faiths that come out of the Mesopotamian, original cultures and literature. Muhammad had great things to say great appreciation for Moses, for Abraham, for Jesus, they are all prophets, and he did not discount at all the the face of Judaism or Christianity, but saw his own face and the Revelation that he received as the next step in God's will God's plan. And so Islam for Mohammed is the combination of Judaism and Christianity. There's a time to go into all the struggles that he personally had. He gained disciples for himself and some followers. He gained some prominence in Mecca, but then was rejected by the leader, other leaders in Mecca, and he had to flee to Medina, that's known as a hedgeye, rush his flight. But then after a period of time, he comes back to Makkah, and there in Mecca, becomes the primary leader not only have a new face, but also have a new political order. So by the time of his death, in 632, so very few years, really, by the time of his death, both through political military, and marriage alliances, the fundamentally the family groups that had been in Arabia are united, all under a Islamic perspective, all under Muhammad. And it is a formidable group, although not, we might not get the case that they're all unified together. But they are, they are they more or less can be identified as one faith. Mohammed does make Mecca as the capital of his world. He is religiously tolerant. Like I said, there are a lot of Christians, a lot of Jews and a lot of others who live in Arabia at this time. And Muhammad was religiously tolerant of them. And Islam in particular, over its history is almost always been religiously tolerant of other faiths. They do invite converts to Islam, and encourage conversion, but they expect the sons of the converts to serve in the military. That is one of the requirements. And if one doesn't convert, there is an extra tax that one pays and it's a pretty significant tax. And so there is always an economic incentive to become Muslim in the various countries in which they ruled. And one of the things that we'll see, as it expands, amazingly, within the next 100 years, is that though not every citizen, not every person who lived in the countries where Islam is dominant, and Islamic political military controllers dominant, we might not get the picture that every single person becomes a Muslim. That is a longer process, often a couple of 100 year process. But over the period of time, people do begin to accept Islam as their personal or their religion that they will practice. But during its early stages, they are the Islamic leaders are very tolerant of those who are not practicing that faith. They just sell they pay their taxes. Following the death of Muhammad, we can talk about the next 100 years or the next century as one of amazing growth and amazing conquest by Islamic forces.

Muhammad dies and there are four of his generals. They're really leaders of various other families. They are known as the Russia Dune, they begin to jockey for control, who's going to be the primary Islamic ruler within 30 years. Very brief span of time, I mean, a little bit longer than Alexander the Great, but not much. And during that 30 year period of time, they expand Islamic influence west of through the Mediterranean into parts of northern Africa, including North Egypt, and they go east, almost to the Indus Kush mountains, and to the Indus Valley. And in other words, that whole period, prior to the coming of Islam, where the Byzantine Empire had had at least nominal authority. Often its authority was presented. We can think about Egypt and other places that did not easily accept the rule of the Byzantine Empire. They come under the control of these different Russia did, or different generals of the Islamic powers. It's also during this period of time that at least according to traditional Muslim teaching, the Quran and the sayings of Muhammad, the revelations that he received, and his later writings, later thoughts are brought together and assembled into the holy book of the Quran begins to be codified. There are debates about that, how long that's took, and by what means it happened. But often it's thought of, and I think in traditional is Muslim teaching, this is when the Quran is produced. So within these 30 years following the death of Muhammad, Islam grows, this is the Arab Peninsula. It grows from what is primarily just about around Mecca, and just an Arab religion, and moves, like I said, all the way through North Africa. And well up into Syria, well, up into this is still controlled, Turkey is still controlled by the Byzantine church at this time, but it has lost, the Byzantine church has lost all of this territory, and all of these people, all these cultures, to Islam. In our next section, section three, we're gonna talk about the Silk Road and the different trade routes. But major trade routes come right through here. And the conflict between the Byzantine Empire, which whose wealth and whose economy really rests on the Silk Road in many ways, and the Islamic forces, so much of that conflict is the economic conflict and the the battles about who can trade with China, and who can trade with India, the world is all connected. In other words, you can't talk about Europe without talking about China and India, and the like. So within 30 years, this area is all controlled by the immediate powers of Muhammad. One of the major split that happens early on in Islam is between what we know as the Shiite group and the Sunni Group. Today, the Sunni Islam is vastly larger in terms of population. But the CID is still a significant group, particularly in Iran, Nevada nation of Iran, and in parts of eastern Iraq. I thought it might be helpful just to understand how that split happened and that it happened very early on within a generation after Muhammad's death. Mohammed has a cousin, who also is his son in law, Ali Ibn Abi Talib, often just known as Ali. He is the youngest of those four generals that I mentioned earlier. And Ali is married to Fatima, one of Muhammad's daughters. So there's a direct, biological descendency involved here. Ali is assassinated and supplanted by a usurper, not one of the four but actually a servant of one of the four

Bhulaiyaa. Please pardon me if I'm not pronouncing that correctly. And this gentleman, will WIAA founds a new dynasty, a new group, not one of those four generals, but one that he names after I think it's his grandfather, do Umayyad dynasty? Nehemiah dynasty is the family that's going to be in control of the Islamic conquest for the next generation or so. The people there are there are people within Islam who believe that it is only the descendants of Ali through Fatima? Who are the legitimate leaders, the Islamic Caliphate or political control and these are called the Shia. They follow Ollie. The other group, particularly those of the funded by the, in the EU, my IDs are those who believe that that is not the case. And so they are known as the Sunni's. So Shiites believe that Ali is the only true successor of Muhammad through Fatima and like I said, they are primarily today in eastern Iraq and Iran. It's not by coincidence that they are often not Arabs either. They are more Persian descent and so there is a different tribal or different racial split. They are different kinds of Mesopotamian than most of the Sunni's Sunni is one embrace. By the way, almost all the other cultures, North Africa and Indonesia and Philippines, Russia and China, the United States. Almost all contemporary Muslims are Sunni. But the the Shia are and Shiites are of significant group. The Umayyad dynasty lasted from about 100 years from 661 to 750. And they moved the capital. They moved the Hamas capital from Mecca to Damascus in Syria. They continue that military conquest and the expansion of Islam, they went even farther east into India. And I believe that when we discussed India, noted that it was the beginning of this period of time that most of them control, particularly along the western borders, northern and western borders of India, Muslims start to become dominant in that in the Indian peninsula. There was an internal rebellion within the United dynasty. And when that rebellion actually began to succeed, part of the dynastic family moved through North Africa, and crossed the Straits of Gibraltar into Europe into Spain, but the Iberian Peninsula, and very quickly, their troops and their cultures spread almost throughout the entire Iberian Peninsula. Is that a fact? They were, they crossed the Pyrenees and moved into today, what we call modern France, and move quite aways north north of Paris, even to a Edward continuing to move and we're threatening, more or less to overwhelm Western Europe to become the dominant force of Western Europe. There is a leader. He was one of the leaders of the Franks. His name is Charles Martel, Charles the hammer. And he was able to organize some armies and to fight against the Islamic invasion. And they met at a place called tours in 732, in the famous in a very famous battle that changed the course of Western history. So Charles a hammer was able to defeat the Islamic

advance, push them back over the pyramids, push them back into the Iberian Peninsula, where the Muslims establish themselves for the next few 100 years. And Charles Martel become becomes a dominant leader, therefore, among the Franks, greatly appreciated by the Pope, of course, and it is his grandson, who is Charlemagne, who then becomes crowned the Holy Roman Empire. It's really all connected together. The Amaya dynasty does control the Iberian Peninsula, Spain, until 1031. And so that is 300 plus years that they are the dominant culture. This is just a map to show the how the Umayyads expanded here, they're quite aways control into the east into India. So the current countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan in the light and all these stand the Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan and the other countries are all under Muslim control. They have solidified themselves in North Africa. They fight within the Native people the Berbers, considerably but after a while the Berbers even begin to adopt Islam in countries of North Africa, they very much solidify control in Egypt. And as I mentioned the Umayyads it Off Split Have them at least go into the Iberian Peninsula and take become the dominant culture there in Spain. Those of us again in the West, and I acknowledge very early on in this course, that I'm a Westerner. And I think of it from that perspective, I can't think of any other way. Often one thinks of Spain as being the the flower, the real heart of Christianity. And while that is very much true, that is going to be true in a later period of time. In early medieval times, Spain is Muslim, not Christian. the Umayyads, eventually are overthrown by another dynasty, another major family called the Avocet dynasty, and it is in control for about 60 years from 750 to 810. AD, they once more moved the capital. And you know, the cat moving the capital is a sign of saying we're reasserting a new kind of authority. They move the capital from Damascus in Syria, where the Umayyads, who are into Iraq, to Baghdad, and those of us who grew up reading the Arabian Nights in the stories of abid of Shirzad, and the like, that those stories come from this period of time, during the opposite rule. It's often understood as the real flowering of Islamic cultures. Extraordinarily wealthy, I mentioned they were, they were the middle of the silk trade, and they control the wealth that flowed from the west, to China and from China, to the west. They were very interested in literature, and preserved much of the great literature that came out of the Hellenistic world out of that Greco Roman period, while Europe is falling into a period of illiteracy. They don't know what the scrolls are, they use them for starting their fires and they, they have no respect for their libraries, they don't pass on the parchments are made out of material that decay and nobody copies them. And so the Great, the great literature of the west of Greece and Rome, is literally decaying falling apart. But the opposites in particular, preserve this literature, they preserve Plato, they preserve Aristotle, they preserve Heraclitus, they preserve the great writings, particularly of the Greeks, and otherwise those writings would be unknown to us. They are very interested in in higher forms of mathematics. And so

they is perhaps learning from folks in India developed the use of zero into mathematics. It's not for nothing that we still use Arabic numbers, and Arabic numbers system comes from this period of time, I believe. They create great art and beautiful art. And as I mentioned, they become fabulously wealthy during this period of time because of that trade that's going on from East to West. This is also a period of time that many non Arabs come back to this map. So you know, this is where the Arabs are. But you can see that much of the Islamic controlled world is not Arab population, there are different kinds of people, different races, different ethnic groups. And while the Arabs have been in control, they have not demanded that the local population necessarily become all become Muslims. During this period of time, that's when the conversion or the change of religion happens for many of these people. The local population begins to accept the Muslim faith. So this is considered the real flowering time of Islamic culture. As I said, that's between 750 and 800. Ad by the year 1000. The opposite day dynasty had pretty well disintegrated, and when it disintegrated, these various tribes and groups splintered it into into various factions there are so loosely all under Islamic faith, but they really are not a unified Islamic empire anymore. It won't be for a while. So you have different groups who control different areas. And that's illustrated in this map. This is around the year 1000. And the map still says talks about an advocate dynasty that goes to 1258. But it really is split into many different, many different family groups in constant conflict with the Byzantine Empire, and the Byzantine Empire is really beginning to crumble, really beginning to lose control around this year. And they in fact, are the ones who begin the middle of the Middle Ages when they ask the West for help in fighting against Islam, and that's when we get the Crusades. So in summary, around the year 1000. By this time, Islam has become a world religion. It's for the most part tolerant of other religions. They are masters of trade, both overland, the silk routes, as well as the maritime routes, especially between China and Byzantium, India and Africa. And so they are right in that position, everything flows through them, and they take their cut. They have expanded amazingly, within these few 100 years, through both conquests and then later conversion. They preserved the cultures of the Hellenistic era that Greco Roman era during a period of time that Europe is in its dark ages, medicine, Mathematics, Philosophy, all are reintroduced to the west, from Islamic scholars. That's an amazing thing. There is no Western culture, no Western culture without the preservation of the Islamic scholars, great debt. That en section to 500 BC to 100 ad. And the next section things that we have to look forward to the final section 1000 ad to 1500 include things like the Silk Road, the coming up the Turks and how important that is the Mongol invasion, the cons, Ganga is calm, Google Aton and the like the Crusades. The Incas in Peru, the Aztecs in Mesoamerica there's a lot to cover. Looking forward to that third section. Thank you very much. God bless you today.