The Post Classical World

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The Post Classical World

• Medieval European Society and the Rise of Islam

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Timeline

• 1456 Gutenberg Bible (Invention of movable type)
• 1492 Columbus Discovery of the New World
• ca 1500 Renaissance
• 1517 Protestant Reformation
• 1607 Founding of Virginia (Jamestown Colony)
• 1620-30 Founding of Plymouth Colony and
  Massachusetts Bay

Post Classical World
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At the locus of ancient civilizations

• Western Christendom, Feudalism and Manorialism
  develop in Western Europe
• Byzantine Empire and Eastern Orthodox
  Christianity develops in eastern portion of
  former Roman Empire
• New Religion is founded in the Middle East Islam

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The Muslim World

• Mohammed born 570 CE
• Islam spreads 600s or 7th Century onward
• Civilization shifts to the east
• Christendom confronts a large and growing
  empire on its southern and eastern border.

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Tenets of Islam

• Emerged from the Judeo-Christian tradition.
  Mohammed was a prophet as was Abraham, Jesus,
  and other ancient Hebrew religious leaders
• A missionary religion (like Buddhism and
  Christianity
• A monotheistic religion (like Judaism and
  Christianity)

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Tenets of Islam

• Five Pillars
• Basic creed Belief in one God Allah
• Ritual prayer five times a day
• Alms giving
• Fasting during month of Ramadan
• Pilgrimage to Mecca (the Hajj) in ones lifetime

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Comparison of Islam and Christianity Examples

• Similarities
• Sacred text Bible or Quran (Koran)
• Conception of sin, heaven and hell
• Monotheistic, missionary, patriarchal religion
  deriving from same tradition of ancient writings
• Ritual practices to organize daily life
• Christianity sacraments of baptism, confession,
  communion, marriage, last rites
• Islam daily prayer, fasting during Ramadan,
  pilgrimage to Mecca

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Comparison of Islam and Christianity Examples

• Differences
• Christianity a hierarchical priesthood
• Islam a decentralized priesthood
• Christianity a rule of monogamous marriage
• Islam men may take additional wives
• Islam permitted divorce medieval Christianity
  did not

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Expansion of Islam
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Expansion of Islam
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Islamic World, 900
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Expansion of Islam, 1300
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Ottoman Empire, 1566
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Meanwhilein Europe

• How does a society grow?
• How does a population increase?

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Europe in 1099
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European Ancient and Medieval Population Estimates

• About 1000, the medieval world had stabilized.
  For the next 300 years it grew.
• 200 - 40 million
• 600 - 20 million
• 1000- 23 million
• 1340 - 60 million
• 1400 - 35 million
• 1500 - 55 million
• Detailed Population Estimates

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Castle
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Peasant House
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Peasant House
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For Individuals.....What Regulates Family
Formation?

• Age of Maturity
• Permission of Parents, Kin, or Perhaps Lord or
  Master
• Resources to Set Up a Household land, housing,
  trade

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By 1300.

• Europe was crowded not by todays standards,
  but according to the economic and technological
  standard of the time.
• So people either had to
• (1) decide that their children would get poorer,
  or
• (2) figure out how to control population growth.
  

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Results.

• Agnatic lineages become common.
• Sons had to await the death of their fathers to
  inherit.
• Inheritances were organized to concentrate
  economic resources, not disperse property, so
  land was entailed and primogeniture was
  practiced.

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And..

• Entail prevents the break up of land parcels,
• Primogeniture requires that the eldest son
  inherit all family resources.
• Other children were
• (1) sent into the church
• (2) sent to the Crusades
• (3) given small property settlements which left
  them downwardly mobile.

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And.

• Men wait to marry
• Women marry young because they might miss a
  mate.

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Cultural Results...

• Large age differences between husbands and wives,
  and thus perceptions of distant fathers and more
  loving mothers
• A system adjusted to the economic realities -
  slow expansion with potential for adjustment and
  additional growth
• or demographic disaster..

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Spread of the Black Death - 1347
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European Ancient and Medieval Population Estimates

• About 1000, the medieval world had stabilized.
  For the next 300 years it grew.
• 200 - 40 million
• 600 - 20 million
• 1000- 23 million
• 1340 - 60 million
• 1400 - 35 million
• 1500 - 55 million
• Detailed Population Estimates