Byzantine%20and%20Slavs

1
Byzantine and Slavs

• Chapter 10

2
The New Rome

• 10-1

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Byzantine Foundations

• A.   In A.D. 330 the Roman emperor Constantine
  built Constantinople at a strategic place where
  Europe and Asia meet the site, on a peninsula,
  offered control over trade routes and natural
  protection from attack.
• Byzantine Foundations
• B. The Byzantine Empire with its classical Greek
  heritage and Christian religion, created a
  distinct Byzantine civilization that was one of
  the most advanced in the world between A.D. 500
  and 1200

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Justinians Rule

• A.   At its height the Byzantine Empire was ruled
  by Justinian, a son of prosperous peasants from
  Macedonia, who became emperor in A.D. 527.

5
Justinians Rule

• B.   Justinians wife, Theodora, participated
  actively in government she was especially
  concerned with improving the social standing of
  women.

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Justinians Rule

• C.   During Justinians reign, the Byzantines
  beat back a serious military threat from the
  Persians to the east.

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Justinians Rule

• D.   Aiming to restore the Roman Empire,
  Justinian regained Italy, North Africa, and
  Spain the reconquest exhausted most of the
  Byzantine resources within a generation of
  Justinians death, the empire lost many of its
  outlying territories to the expanding Persian
  Empire.

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Justinians Rule

• E.   The Justinian Code, or the Corpus of Civil
  Law, written by a commission appointed by
  Justinian, preserved Romes legal heritage and
  became the basis for most European legal systems.

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Justinians Rule

• F. Under Justinian, Byzantine art and
  architecture achieved their distinctive
  character.

10
Byzantine Religion

• A.   The Byzantine emperors, regarded as Gods
  representatives on earth, took an oath to defend
  the Christian faith Byzantine emperors
  frequently played a major role in church affairs.

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Byzantine Religion

• B.   In the A.D. 700s, the use of icons in
  churches became a political issue in A.D. 843
  the Eastern Church allowed the use of pictures,
  but not statues, in worship.

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Byzantine Religion

• C.   As the centuries passed, disagreements
  between the Eastern and Western Churches
  intensified the most serious issue concerned the
  source of religious authoritywhether or not the
  pope in Rome was the supreme leader of the Church.

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Byzantine Religion

• A. By A.D. 1054 doctrinal, political, and
  geographical differences finally led to a schism
  of the Church into the Roman Catholic Church in
  the West and the Eastern Orthodox Church in the
  East the split further weakened the Byzantine
  Empire.

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Byzantine Civilization

• 10-2

15
Byzantine Life

• A.   Although Byzantine society was divided into
  a hierarchy of social groups, there were few
  barriers to prevent a person from moving from one
  group to another.

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Byzantine Life

• B.   Byzantine women were expected to live partly
  in seclusion, but they had gained some rights and
  influences through the empress Theodoras efforts.

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Byzantine Life

• A. Although the base of the Byzantine economy
  was agricultural, commerce thrived in cities such
  as Constantinople.

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Decline and Fall

• A. After Justinian died in A.D. 565, the
  Byzantine Empire gradually gave way to invaders
  by A.D. 700 the empire was reduced to the
  territories that were primarily Greek.

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Decline and Fall

• B.   In A.D. 1204 Christian soldiers from western
  Europe helped the Venetians attack Constantinople
  and looted the city.

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Decline and Fall

• C.   The western Christians established a Latin
  empire in Constantinople but were successfully
  resisted by the Byzantine people.

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Decline and Fall

• D. In A.D. 1453 the Ottoman Turks laid siege to
  Constantinople, defeating the Byzantines in six
  weeks with the fall of Constantinople, central
  Europe lay open to attack by Islamic forces

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Neighboring Kingdoms

• A.   During the time of the Byzantine Empire,
  four neighboring kingdoms went through periods of
  prosperity and declineArmenia and Georgia to the
  northeast and Bulgaria and Serbia to the
  northwest.

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Neighboring Kingdoms

• B.   In the early A.D. 300s, Armenia became the
  first officially Christian country in the world.
  After successfully fending off an attack by the
  Persians, Armenia was invaded by Arab armies in
  the A.D. 600s a succession of Turkish invaders
  followed, and during the A.D. 1800s, Armenia was
  divided between the Russian and Ottoman empires.

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Neighboring Kingdoms

• C.   During the A.D. 1100s and early A.D. 1200s,
  Georgia enjoyed a golden age of freedom and
  culture by the early A.D. 1800s, however,
  Georgia could no longer defend itself and became
  part of the Russian empire.

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Neighboring Kingdoms

• D.   The first Bulgarian state arose in the A.D.
  600s, reaching its peak 300 years later before
  succumbing to Byzantine invaders the second
  Bulgarian state survived 200 years before Ottoman
  invaders from central Asia conquered the
  territory.

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Neighboring Kingdoms

• E. The Serbian kingdom, which had accepted
  Eastern Orthodox Christianity and the Cyrillic
  alphabet, enjoyed prosperity in the A.D. 1300s
  the Serbs were defeated by the Ottomans in 1389
  in the Battle of Kosovo through almost 500 years
  of Ottoman rule, a desire to avenge the shame of
  Kosovo kept Serbian national pride alive.

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The Eastern Slavs

• 10-3

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The Setting

• A. The early Slavic civilization was rooted in
  one of the Byzantine trade routes that ran north
  across the Black Sea and up the Dnieper River,
  then overland to the Baltic Sea.

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The People

• A.   Although historians know little about the
  origin of the first Slavic peoples, they do know
  that by about A.D. 500, the Slavs had formed into
  three distinct groups that had settled in
  different parts of eastern Europe.

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The People

• B.   The largest Slavic group, the Eastern Slavs,
  lived north of the Black Sea this group included
  those now known as Ukrainians, Russians, and
  Belarussians.

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The People

• C. The early Eastern Slavs were farmers and
  hunters who lived in villages made up of related
  families they used rivers for transportation and
  trade, setting up trading towns along the
  riverbanks.

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Kievan Rus

• A.   The early Eastern Slavs were not warlike
  instead they relied on Vikings to protect their
  trade routes and help lay the foundations of
  Slavic government.

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Kievan Rus

• B.   Control of Kiev enabled the Viking Prince
  Oleg to dominate the water trade route and
  establish Kiev as the major city of a region of
  Slavic territories known as Kievan Rus in A.D.
  911 a treaty established trade between the
  Byzantines and the Eastern Slavs.

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Kievan Rus

• C. By A.D. 900 Kievan Rus had organized into a
  collection of self-governing city-states and
  principalities.

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Arrival of Christianity

• A.   In A.D. 988, after his own conversion to
  Eastern Orthodoxy, Prince Vladimir of Kiev
  ordered a mass baptism in the Dnieper River for
  his people.
• B. The conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy brought
  Byzantine culture to Kievan Rus in the form of
  art, education, and architecture.

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Kievs Golden Age

• A.   Under the rule of Yaroslav, Vladimirs son,
  Kievan culture reached its height the first
  library was established and the legal system was
  organized.
• B. After Yaroslavs death, Kiev declined in
  power and wealth in A.D. 1240, Mongol invaders
  from central Asia captured Kiev and destroyed it.

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Mongol Rule

• A.   The Mongols sacked towns and villages,
  killing thousands they taxed the conquered
  peoples and required allegiance to the Mongol
  ruler.
• B. For two centuries, Mongol rule isolated most
  of the Eastern Slavs from European civilization.

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Rise of Moscow

• A.   As city life in the south declined after the
  fall of Kiev, many eastern Slavs moved into
  remote northern forests to escape Mongol rule.

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Rise of Moscow

• B.   Using war and diplomatic marriages, the
  princes of Moscow gradually expanded their
  states territory until, by A.D. 1350, Moscow was
  the most powerful Eastern Slavic city.

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Rise of Moscow

• C.   After Muscovite forces defeated the Mongols
  at the Battle of Kulikovo in A.D. 1380, the tide
  turned in favor of Moscow.

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Rise of Moscow

• D.   After Constantinople fell to the Ottoman
  Turks in A.D. 1453, Moscow stood alone as the
  center of the Eastern Othodox Church. Ivan III,
  who took the title of czar, was regarded as the
  successor of the Byzantine emperor Moscows
  leaders stressed the importance of obedience to
  the czar and the government.

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Rise of Moscow

• E. Western European influences were transformed
  by local Russian styles and tastes the Kremlin,
  for instance, is known for its typically Russian
  onion domes and ornately decorated palaces.