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Unity and Diversity in

Three Societies

750–1050

CHAPTER RESOURCES

MAIN CHAPTER TOPICS

1. From 850 to 1050, the Byzantine, Islamic, and

western Christian worlds experienced the rise of powerful

but short-lived empires, which quickly broke down as

power was dispersed under the control of numerous

local rulers. In all three regions, new military elites also

arose. Despite these stressful times, each realm witnessed

a corresponding period of artistic and intellectual

renaissance.

2. After a century of defensive warfare against the

Muslims, the Byzantine Empire went on the offensive

(c. 850) and recovered some of the territory it had lost.

These victories led to a revival of court life during the

Macedonian renaissance (c. 870–c. 1025).

3. The new states of Bulgaria, Serbia, and Kievan

Russia emerged from the Slavic polities established from

850 to 950. These were heavily influenced by Byzantine

religion and culture.

4. Civil war in the Islamic world ended the Umayyad

caliphate in 750, which was succeeded by the Abbasid

caliphate based in Baghdad. Islamic political and

religious unity splintered into regional Islamic states

during the ninth century. These states remained united

by commerce and the Arabic language. The entire Islamic

world experienced an artistic and scientific renaissance

from about 790 to 1050.

5. In France, the Carolingian mayors of the palace

deposed the Merovingian kings (c. 750). The military

conquests of Charlemagne (r. 768–814) created the

largest empire since the fragmentation of the western

Roman Empire in the fifth century.

6. Hoping to combine Germanic and Roman

strengths in a new Christian empire, Charlemagne imitated

ancient imperial practices by conducting a building

campaign at his capital of Aachen, standardizing weights

and measures, promoting education, and improving

communication and law enforcement throughout his

realm. Pope Leo III endorsed his efforts on Christmas

Day 800, crowning him “Emperor” and “Augustus” in

Rome. This action marked a definitive papal swing away

from the Byzantine emperor and toward the west.

7. The gains of the Carolingians were largely lost in

the chaos of intrafamilial struggles that followed under

Charlemagne’s successors (814–911). This conflict resulted

in the three-part division of the empire with the

Treaty of Verdun (843), which roughly defined the divisions

of modern Europe.

8. As the Carolingian Empire disintegrated, foreigners

invaded: Vikings from the north, Muslims from

the south, and Magyars from the east.Vikings eventually

settled in the Danelaw in England, halted by King Alfred

the Great (r. 871–899). In France, they settled in Normandy

after the conversion of their leader, Rollo, to

Christianity in 911. During that same period, Muslims

began to conquer Sicily. The Magyars were defeated in

955 at Lechfeld by the German king Otto I (r. 936–973).

SUMMARY

Byzantium: Renewed Strength

and Influence, p. 296

Imperial Might

From 850 to 1025, after a century on the defensive, the

Byzantines returned to offensive warfare on all frontiers,

recapturing Antioch, Crete, and Bulgaria. These victories

brought wealth and prestige to the Byzantine emperors.

To quell the threat of uprisings among his own forces,

the emperor employed eunuchs in civil and military service.

Eunuchs posed no personal or dynastic challenge

because they lacked independent power bases.

Byzantine imperial wealth depended on imperially

controlled guilds and entrepreneurially run trade fairs.

Trading privileges were granted to key “nations” of foreign

merchants resident temporarily in Byzantine territory

in exchange for services rendered. The Venetians, for

instance, promised to transport troops to Italy whenever

necessary in exchange for a reduction in customs dues.

Byzantine officials also negotiated favorable treatment

for their own merchants in other countries.

The Macedonian Renaissance, c. 870–c. 1025

This renewed prosperity financed the Macedonian

renaissance (c. 870–c. 1025), which flourished during the

dynasty established by Basil I from Macedonia (r. 867–

886). The scholarly elite pursued and sponsored classical

studies, and icons began to be restored in 843. The mingling

of classical and Christian influences manifested

itself particularly in manuscript illumination.

New States under the Influence of Byzantium

Emperor Nicephorus (r. 802–811) launched a Byzantine

offensive against the Slavs. Although he recaptured

Greece, Nicephorus was killed in the move against the

Bulgarian ruler Krum (r. c. 803–814). The war endured

until Basil II the “Bulgar-Slayer” (r. 976–1025) conquered

the region and forced it to convert to Byzantine Christianity.

The Byzantine religion often accompanied territorial

conquest. The Serbs also converted and settled into

the region that would become modern Serbia. In 863, the

brothers Cyril and Methodius, sent as missionaries to the

Slavs, created a Greek-based alphabet for the Slavic language.

Their innovation would become the modern

Cyrillic alphabet.

Although outside Byzantine political dominion,

Russia fell within its religious and cultural orbit in the

ninth and tenth centuries. A descendant of Vikings,

the chieftain Oleg founded a tribal association that later

became Kievan Russia. In 905, it forced Byzantium to

welcome Russian traders or suffer attacks. Russia converted

to Byzantine Christianity under Vladimir

(r. c. 980–1015), prince of Kiev. This move cemented

Russian links with the Christian world and further alienated

it from western Europe. Although Prince Iaroslav

the Wise (r. 1019–1054) had forged some cultural contact

with western Europe, disunity between his heirs

erupted in Russia with his death.

From Unity to Fragmentation

in the Islamic World, p. 303

The Abbasid Caliphate, 750–c. 950

In the Islamic world, civil war ended the Umayyad caliphate

in 750, which was replaced by the Abbasids who

were supported by Shi’ites and non-Arabs. They relocated

their capital to Baghdad, near the former Sassanid

capital. The Abbasid caliphate reached its apex under

Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809). Afterward, the dynasty

declined, suffering from revenue shortages needed to fuel

the burgeoning bureaucracy and army.Many former soldiers,

disgruntled with their pay, backed rival caliphs. But

the caliphs became mere figureheads after a series of civil

wars; by the tenth century, new rulers emerged. They

relied on the support of a new military elite, the Mamluks

(Turkish slaves or freedmen who served as highly

trained, mounted troops). Unlike their Byzantine and

western European counterparts, they often changed allegiance

because they were paid in cash rather than land.

Regional Diversity

The local Islamic states followed regional customs and

were highly diverse, despite the western Christians’ tendency

to characterize all their inhabitants as “Saracens”

(from the Latin for “Arabs”). The Fatimids, a Shi’ite

group named for Ali’s wife, rose to control Tunisia in 909

and, by 969, Egypt, which they held for two centuries.

Sunnis had ruled al-Andalus (central and southern

Spain) since 756, when the Umayyad Abd al-Rahman

fled the Abbasid revolution and his army subsequently

conquered Spain. He founded the emirate of Córdoba,

where Jews,Muslims, and Christians (Mozarabs) resided

together under a policy of religious toleration. Al-

Andalus flourished under Abd al-Rahman III (r. 912–

961) who guaranteed freedom of worship, opened civil

service to all, and sent ambassadors to Byzantium and

Europe. But, in 1031, Córdoba broke up as rulers of

small, independent regions ( taifas) took power.

The Islamic Renaissance, c. 790–c. 1050

Despite this fragmentation, commerce and the Arabic

language still united the Islamic world. Goods were

traded from the Atlantic to Persia over a vast international

network. The Islamic world also experienced its

own renaissance during the period from about 790 to

1050, when Arabic scholars wrote important commentaries

on Greek, Persian, and Indian classics. Islamic

mathematicians also made great strides, with al-

Khwarizmi’s development of equation theory ( al-jabr,

from which the word algebra is derived) around 825 and

al-Hasan’s studies (c. 1000) on quadratic and cubic equations.

Muhammad ibn Musa (d. 850) included the crucial

number zero from the numerical system devised in India,

into the Islamic world; the west later used these “arabic”

numbers to replace Roman numerals in the twelfth century.

Among the most versatile of Islamic scholars was

Ibn Sina (or Avicenna, 980–1037) who wrote on logic,

natural science, physics, and medicine. Higher education

also emerged much earlier than in the west. Schools for

76 CHAPTER 8 UNITY AND DIVERSITY IN THREE SOCIETIES 750–1050

Qur’anic and related studies (madrasas) proliferated

because literacy was necessitated by the Islamic injunction

that all believers should read the Qur’an. While

western Europe and the Byzantine Empire used parchment

that restricted access to documents to the rich,

Islamic scholars used paper, making their work widely

available to all who could read.

The Creation and Division of

a New Western Empire, p. 309

The Rise of the Carolingians

In western Europe, the Carolingians rose to prominence

as the mayors of the palace in Merovingian France.

Charles Martel (mayor from 714–741), founder of the

dynasty, earned his fame by defeating Muslim forces

between Poitiers and Tours about 733. Charles and his

family kept power by pitting aristocratic competitors

against each other and supporting monasteries, which in

turn supported them. His son Pippin III (d. 768), who

deposed the Merovingian king in 751, won papal sanction

by defending the pope against the Lombards. The

formation of this Franco-papal alliance was sealed in 756

with the Donation of Pippin, which gave back to the

pope the cities that had been ruled by the Lombard king.

Charlemagne and His Kingdom, 768–814

The most famous Carolingian was Pippin’s son Charlemagne

(r. 768–814). A man of contradictory impulses,

Charlemagne built on his father’s legacy by forging

through conquest the largest territorial base seen since

the fall of the western Roman Empire.After defeating the

Lombards, Charlemagne annexed northern Italy in 774,

warred against the Saxons for more than thirty years and

forced them to be baptized, battled the Avars in the

southeast, and established a buffer between the Franks

and al-Andalus. Inspired to create a Christianized fusion

of the Roman and Germanic worlds, he emulated

Roman imperial practices by inaugurating a building

program at the capital Aachen. To discourage corruption,

he standardized weights and measures and

appointed special officials to oversee his regional governors:

the missi dominici. These messengers rode on circuit

throughout his realm, delivering Charlemagne’s

directives and checking on his regional representatives

(the counts) by inquiring about their performance

among the local populace. Pope Leo III (r. 795–816) formalized

Charlemagne’s status in Rome on Christmas

Day 800, crowning him Augustus. This act, which may

have been intended to exalt papal power as much as elevate

Charlemagne, signaled a decisive papal shift away

from Byzantium and toward the west. Meanwhile, the

papacy was laying the foundations for its own claims to

imperial authority with the Donation of Constantine, a

forged document that claimed the emperor had bequeathed

to the pope the imperial crown and dominion

over both Rome and the entire western empire.

The Carolingian Renaissance

Charlemagne’s reign also marked the beginning of the

Carolingian renaissance (c. 790–c. 900) noted for its revival

of classical learning and its emphasis on overall

education.Many of its achievements can be attributed to

the English scholar Alcuin (c. 732–804), Charlemagne’s

tutor and adviser. Alcuin was brought from England to

supervise Charlemagne’s educational efforts that advocated

universal literacy through monastic schools.

The era was reflected in innovative development of

Carolingian minuscule, the prototype of modern

letter fonts.

Charlemagne’s Successors, 814–911

Charlemagne’s son Louis the Pious (r. 814–840) continued

his father’s administration and ordered that the rule

of St. Benedict be imposed on all monasteries, making it

the monastic standard in the west. Louis’s sons quarreled

over the succession, fomenting intrafamilial warfare. In

843, the three surviving brothers split the empire into

eastern, middle, and western kingdoms; the Treaty of

Verdun set the basic divisions of what would become

modern western Europe. The western third, ruled by

Charles the Bald (r. 843–877), would eventually become

modern France; the eastern third, ruled by Louis the

German (r. 843–876), would become Germany; and the

“Middle Kingdom,” governed by Lothar (r. 840–855),

would later be absorbed as part of France and Germany,

and the modern states of the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg,

Switzerland, and Italy.

Land and Power

The Carolingian economy, although based heavily on

agriculture, still encompassed long-distance trade. Landholding

was reorganized among western aristocrats into

self-supporting manors worked by free peasants, who

also tilled the manses on which they settled. All peasants

owed obligations of produce or labor to their landlords,

and worked the demesne (very large manse of the lord).

This arrangement represented an advance over the

ancient system, where slave families could be separated.

The origins of the modern, nuclear family may lie in this

manor system because the peasant families resided

together.A new form of farming also emerged: the threefield

system, in which peasants sowed two-thirds of their

fields with two different crops, while the third field

remained fallow. This practice increased production

yields and encouraged soil regeneration.

750–1050 THE CREATION AND DIVISION OF A NEW WESTERN EMPIRE 77

Vikings, Muslims, and Magyars Invade

After Charlemagne’s death, Europe experienced its last

foreign incursions. From the north, the Vikings swept

along the coast, raiding and pillaging for a century.

Superb maritime navigators, they also moved into the

open Atlantic, reaching Iceland, Greenland, and even

North America by about 1000. The Vikings were subdued

in Wessex, England, by King Alfred the Great

(r. 871–899), who had previously bought them off with

Danegeld (tribute). In 876, the Vikings settled in the

northeast of England under their own laws in the

Danelaw. The Vikings also settled in Normandy, which

the Frankish king Charles the Simple granted to their

leader, Rollo, when he converted to Christianity (911).

The kingdom of Denmark was also established; it converted

to Christianity by 950 and later gained control

over Norway, Sweden, and England under King Cnut

(r. 1017–1035).

From the south, mercenary armies of Muslims

began to conquer Sicily, which took a century to subdue

(827–927). Throughout the Mediterranean, Muslims

established themselves as fearsome, cutthroat pirates.

From the east, the nomadic Magyars, a Slavic

people, entered the Danube region (c. 899) and settled

in modern Hungary. They launched aggressive raids

westward until the German king Otto I (r. 936–973)

stopped them at the battle of Lechfeld (955). This

victory brought Otto fame and marked the last foreign

invasion the west endured. There is debate, however,

about whether Magyar containment had more to do

with them settling down as farmers than with their

military defeat.

The Emergence of Local Rule in

the Post-Carolingian Age, p. 323

Public Power and Private Relationships

The breakdown of centralized authority in the post-

Carolingian world, the rise and usage of vernacular languages

in place of Latin, and foreign invasions caused

people to seek protection from the local counts. Counts

slowly became powerful landlords, controlling local castles,

maintaining law and order, and monitoring the local

economy.As they evolved into regional rulers, they dominated

the local peasantry and emerged as a new military

elite in the west.

Social order was cemented by personal loyalty.

Carolingian kings relied on their fideles (“faithful men”)

who were granted land (fiefs) in exchange for their service.

These grants often became hereditary. The fideles

frequently gained retainers of their own (vassals) who

also received fiefs for service. The military, social, and

economic order based on this system is called feudalism.

Its hierarchy involved promises of mutual obligation and

loyalty and evolved to substitute for the lack of public

authority in post-Carolingian Europe.

Feudal society contained three broad groupings:

those who fought, those who prayed, and those who

labored. Knights and members of the church were free

and often the vassals of other lords while having vassals

of their own. Even some women and monasteries became

high-ranking military vassals and granted fiefs to others

to render their military service. Vassalage was marked by

the rituals of homage, in which the vassal promised to be

the lord’s man, and fealty (a promise of service, fidelity,

and trust) to the lord by swearing on relics or a Bible.

This exchange worked as a public, oral contract between

the two parties with reciprocal obligations.

Many farmers—the vast majority of the population—

were gradually reduced from free peasantry status

to involuntary servitude as serfs. They inherited this

status and lost ownership of their manses to lords; they

exchanged their manual labor for basic security. As landlords

grew more powerful, they increased their control

over not only services, but also access to mills, ovens, and

breweries. Agricultural innovations, such as the threefield

system, the substitution of horses for oxen as draft

animals, and the introduction of heavy plows to work

the claylike northern soil increased crop yields to feed a

growing population. The peasants lived in villages, the

social life of which centered on the local church and its

religious feast days. Regular tithes, equal to one-tenth of

their crops or income, supported the church. As the villages

expanded, some even negotiated land-lease rights

from the local lords. Village life, though, could complicate

loyalties and obligations, especially when they were

owed to persons outside the community.

Especially in France, local lords often consolidated

their power in castles by 1000. These castellans extended

their influence through the ban (the jurisdiction over

taxation, legal matters, fines, and defense). Castellans

enjoyed near-autonomy in their localities.

War and Peace

All those who fought (kings, counts, castellans, and

knights) did so on horseback, wearing heavy chain mail

and equipped with stirrups, a lance, and shield. Lords

and vassals often lived and feasted together. Many

remained unmarried. This lifestyle provided an option

for elite males who found it increasingly difficult to

marry and to support families on estates of their own,

due to changed inheritance patterns.With rising population

and cessation of great conquests, the former system

of partible inheritance (with family property divided

among all children) became impractical because splintering

an estate would impoverish elite families. Instead,

the entire estate was bequeathed to one child, usually the

78 CHAPTER 8 UNITY AND DIVERSITY IN THREE SOCIETIES 750–1050

eldest son, via a system called “primogeniture.” The heir

claimed descent from the father, rather than from both

parents. This practice denied younger sons an inheritance

and thus the opportunity to found a family;

instead, they became knights (called “youths” regardless

of their age) or joined the church. This new system also

disinherited most daughters who lost the power that

came from inheriting land, and who became increasingly

rare as feudal vassals. Women did continue to serve as

links between powerful families through marriage and

had to manage estates when their husbands went to war.

The peasants’ and church’s opposition to the spreading

violence that accompanied the rise of an exclusively

warrior class found expression in a movement called the

Peace of God, which began in southern France and

spread widely by 1050. Regional councils issued decrees

prohibiting violence against noncombatants and their

property upon pain of excommunication. The Truce of

God prohibited fighting between knights on Thursdays

through Sundays and soon supplemented the Peace of

God. Mediation between placita (“parties”) was also

encouraged. These innovations also sanctioned the use

of force to contain those who violated the peace, the

truce, or mediated settlements.

Political Communities in Italy, England,

and France

Regional differences became more pronounced during

this period. Italy, with its vestiges of Roman infrastructure,

diverged from the rest of western Europe. Italian

cities remained centers of influence, and powerful lords

often based themselves within urban palaces from which

they directed their rural affairs. Markets continued, and

a cash economy was more vital here than elsewhere on

the continent. Familial organization focused not on

patrilineages but on consorteria. These formal contracts

stipulated that all male family members shared equally in

a family’s profits and inheritance, from which women

were excluded.

As the Carolingian kings in France lost prestige,

kings in England and Germany gained it. In England,

Alfred the Great (r. 871–899) did much to unify the

island by building fortifications ( burhs) and a navy and

promoting the Anglo-Saxon language. He also produced

the first English code of law since 695, in which he drew

on laws from all preceding kingdoms and merged them

into a code for all English people. Alfred and his successors

pushed back Danish influence in England, although

many Vikings settled there permanently and converted

to Christianity. New administrative units of shires and

hundreds were created. This centralization was fragile,

and England was conquered by the Danish king Cnut

(r. 1017–1035), who allowed many Anglo-Saxon institutions

to continue.

In France, the Carolingians died out and were

replaced by the Capetians when Hugh Capet was elected

king (r. 987–996). His dynasty would control France

until the fourteenth century.

Emperors and Kings in Central and

Eastern Europe

In Germany, five duchies emerged. When the last Carolingian,

Louis the Child, died in 911, the dukes elected

Henry I of Saxony (r. 919–936) as the next monarch. His

victories against the Magyars were continued by his son

Otto I, who also seized the Lombard crown in Italy. The

pope crowned him emperor in 962, and Otto claimed

the old Carolingian Middle Kingdom, announcing himself

the restorer of the Roman Empire. He founded the

Ottonian dynasty, which continued through the reign of

Henry II (r. 1002–1024). The Ottonians adopted patrilineal

inheritance and rewarded nobles in exchange for

their military and political support. Revolts by minor

royals and discontented nobles against Ottonian kings

were common. The Ottonians enjoyed better relations

with the church and often named bishops as royal officials.

Increasingly, the Ottonian kings even claimed the

right to invest bishops and the pope. Ottonian Germany

enjoyed its own renaissance, especially under the royal

tutor Gerbert (later Pope Sylvester II, r. 999–1003).

Women participated to an extraordinary extent in this

revival of classical learning.

German monarchs and the papacy supported newly

converted Christian rulers in eastern Europe. These

included the Czech Václav (r. 920–929) who became

Duke of Bohemia (and that country’s patron saint after

being murdered by his brother), and Mieszko I of Poland

(r. 963–992). He placed Poland directly under papal protection,

and his son Boleslaw the Brave (r. 992–1025),

who eventually controlled territory to Kiev, was proclaimed

king. In Hungary, the Magyars also settled down,

subjugating local Slavs. The Magyar ruler Stephen I

(r. 997–1038) converted to Christianity, receiving a royal

crown in return from the pope. The Christianization and

settling of eastern Europe led to the spread of agriculture,

and with it, the growth of internal division.