History Of The Byzantine Empire

Submitted By aidenmj
Words: 3105
Pages: 13

Russia
● Around 500 AD, the slavic people lived near the Ukraine. Then, they began to move east into modern day Russia and south towards the Byzantine Empire
● Around
800 AD
, the vikings began to attack (the slavs)
● 862 AD, the slavs asked a viking ,
Rurik ‘ the Rus’ to rule over them in Novgorod
● Because of viking raids, Europe militarizes itself but they’re still not united Russian Orthodox Christianity
● 863 AD, Cyrill and Methodius (brothers), were sent as missionaries by the
Christian Church in the Byzantine Empire and they developed an alphabet based on the Greek, that was capable of representing Slavic sounds so they could translate the Bible (The Cyrillic Alphabet)
● East of Rome hits its highest point under the
Emperor Justinian (r. 527 ­ 565 AD) Charlemagne's ‘Charles the Great’ Government
● Charlemagne was crowned on
December 25, 800 AD by Pope Leo III as the new
King of Rome (Holy Roman Emperor)
● His empire was divided into several hundred regions & each region was governed by a count
● Each count was responsible to organize an army & make laws
● Charlemagne would send out two­man­teams (Missi Dominici) to make sure counts weren’t plotting against him
● There were no taxes and public money was made by harvests from the
Emperor’s large estates
● All peasants had to serve 3 months every year in the army
● The nobility provided calvary
● He started schools for the noble children and occasionally a bright, peasant child would be allowed to attend (Carolingian Renaissance)
● Charlemagne tried to tie together Christianity, the legacy of Rome, and the
Barbarian ancestry Decline of Charlemagne’s Empire
● Declined when Charlemagne’s son,
Louis the Pious
, took over (wasn’t really holy, Roman, or an empire after Charlemagne’s death in 814)
● Louis became sole king of the Franks in 814 and then Emperor in 816 after the
Pope’s coronation
● Louis’s sons began fighting against him when he tried to give his 4th son a part of the kingdom
● Louis was a very religious but ineffective ruler and he lost power to the counts

● His empire was plagued by civil war, between him and his sons, through 840 AD
● When Louis dies, his sons continued fighting for another 3 years but stop with the
Treaty of Verdun (843 AD)
● Charles the Bald in the west, Lothiar I in the middle, and Louis the German in the east ● Charles and Louis have Lothiar murdered and split his territory in 870 AD
● The Kingdom weakened as they continued to fight over boundaries, the counts no longer obeyed them, and they lost land to the Muslims, Slavs, and Magyars Feudalism
● A social, political, and economic society where there was constant fighting between the counts
● After the vikings died down, Europe had no one to fight so they started fighting each other
● 98% of the population were peasants
○ Free peasants had talents
○ Serfs owed debt to the land
■ Manor consisted of a manor house & serfs would work the domain
● Three sections
○ Those who work (peasants)
■ Education was rare & starvation was common
○ Those who fight (nobles)
■ When they weren’t fighting they were practicing
■ Chain mail protected you from indirect hits
■ Crossbows were outlawed in Christian­Christian warfare
■ Plate armor was heavy but protected you well
○ Those who pray (clergy)
■ Social, political, and economic functions
■ Medieval Church became like a government
■ Church’s biggest weapon was excommunication
■ Two types of clergy
● Regular clergy (monks, lived in monasteries & nuns, lived in convents) ● Secular clergy (priests, bishops, & cardinals)
● Provided schools for the upper class children, hospitals, inns, & refuge in war times
● Monks copied books & illuminated manuscripts

Alfred the Great
● King of Wessex in 871 AD & he pushed the vikings out of England into the North where the Celts were
● He united England for the first time & Christianity was firmly established