History Notes: Period 3

600 CE to 1450

3.1- Emergence of Transregional Networks of Communication and Exchange

Regional means in the area of a region.

Transregional means moving/ traveling in between areas.
Silk Road is a major trade route between east and west afro eurasia.
Afro Eurasia is Africa, Europe, and Asia.
Governance is the exercise of authority or a method of a system of government/the way
you rule an area.
Bureaucracy is government by many bureaus and administrators/how you rule the area.
Infrastructure means the basic underlying framework or features of a system or
organization such as the locations of transportation of trade.
Networks of Trade means the Silk Road or the caravan, the routs of trade.

It was in the best interest of classical governments to make trade more accessible. Higher
profits brought in more tax revenue to the government. Although the Roman roads were built
to move their armies they were also used to to facilitate trade across the empire. All classical
governments made special policies to keep trade going. The silk road brought a great amount
of wealth to Gupta India. The leaders of the country decided to produce coins to ease
transactions and make it easier to compare the value of goods. All classical governments
enacted policies to facilitate commercial activities. When the Qin emperor centralized China
after the Period of Warring States, he constructed an infrastructure of roads and bridges to
increase trade and gather taxes from formerly isolated areas.

3.2- Social Hierarchies and Stratification formed in fundamental empires

Centralized Government is a government ruled by one person only.

Bureaucracy is a form of government that is made of many bureaus, officials, and
administrators.
Social hierarchy is the way that people are placed on the social platform.
Corvee System is the what the government used on its people. It is labor used a a
payment of tax.
Caste System is social class and system.
Patriarchy a form of social organization.

Social hierarchies and stratification formed in fundamenta civilizations became more complex
in large empires.

In classical India, the caste system evolved in order to accommodate the growing complexity
of Gupta society.
The Han society has the scholars-bureaucrats at the top, laborers and artisans next, and artists
and unskilled workers last.

The Qin empire created bureaucracy(coins, roads, etc.).

Bureaucrats are employees of the state whose position in society and their wealth rely on the
state government. They rely on their obedience to his superior. They are centralized people.
The Qin empire sent bureaucrats to the aristocrats to bypass the powerful aristocracy.
Bureaucracy became a tool of centralization.

Nobles and aristocrats are independent people, they do not rely on the government. They used
their money to influence people of power because they have large fortunes to fall back on.
They also make decisions based on what is best for their locations, becoming a decentralized
force.

The Corvee System

Required subjects to provide labor as a payment of tax. Many large imperial projects were
created by using this system.

Women
All empires continued to use patriarchy. Some were very harsh not allowing women to engage
in business. Everything was dominated by males throughout this period.

3.3-Classical Empires Fell

Political corruption the use of powers by the government officials for illegitimate
private gain.
Factions a small, organized, dissenting group within a larger one, especially in politics.
Bribery is the giving or offering of a bribe.
Favoritism, the practice of giving unfair preferential treatment to one person or group at
the expense of another.
Provinces, a principal administrative division of certain countries or empires.
Decentralized to distribute the administrative powers or functions of (a central
authority) over a less concentrated area.
The huns were members of a warlike Asiatic nomadic people who ravaged Europe in
the 4th5th centuries.
Droughts are a prolonged period of abnormally low rainfall; a shortage of water
resulting from this.
Central Asia or Middle Asia is the core region of the Asian continent and stretches from
the Caspian Sea in the west to China in the east and from Afghanistan in the south to
Russia in the north.
Frontiers are a line or border separating two countries.
Raiding is quickly and illicitly take something from (a place).
Germanic people are an ethno-linguistic Indo-European group of Northern European
origin.
Over-extension occurs when a categorical term (a word used to describe a group of
things) is used in language to represent more categories than it actually does.
 Imperial is of or relating to an empire.
Epidemics are a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a
particular time.
Demographics are statistical data relating to the population and particular groups within
it.
Habits are a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give
up.
Migrations are movement from one part of something to another.
Deforestation is the clearing of trees, transforming a forest into cleared land.

Between 200 and 600 CE all the classical empires fell. There are four reasons all of them fell.
1. Political corruption and deterioration.
a. Favoritism and bribery were rife. Provinces and empires became decentralized.
2. The migration of the Huns.
a. Droughts in Central Asia forced the Huns to migrate south and west during this
time. Because of this they made contact with settled classical civilizations that
led to pressure on the Han and Gupta attacking their frontiers and raiding their
lands. As they went west they they forced germanic people to push pressure on
the Roman Empire.
3. Over-extension of borders.
a. All empires found out their borders were so large the military had trouble
guarding them causing to be out-stripped of their resources.
b. The chinese could not protect the Great Wall and keep the Huns out.
c. The romans grew so large they did not have enough military to guard its
borders.
4. The spread of epidemic and disease.
a. The trade routes spread everything.
b. Han, China, and Rome lost thousands to diseases causing them to deplete the
tax base to raise money to protect borders.

Two major changes of society happened after the fall.

1. Demographic and environmental changes.
a. New trade route changed the environment and changed the human diet +
activities.
b. Major migrations altered demographic patterns.
c. Led to deforestations and human habitat.
2. Cultural and Intellectual Developments.
a. Shaped by the European Renaissance, Protestant Reformation, and
Enlightenment.
b. Neo-Confucianism grew in China, changing new art forms developed in
Mughal Empire, India.

Cultural and Intellectual Developments Definitions

1. Renaissance is the humanistic revival of classical art, architecture, literature, and
learning that originated in Italy in the 14th century and later spread throughout Europe.
 Leonardo Di Vinci was a big influence of the Renaissance.

2. Reformation is a 16th-century movement for the reform of abuses in the Roman

Catholic Church ending in the establishment of the Reformed and Protestant Churches.

(Martin Luther)
3. Enlightenment is a European intellectual movement of the late 17th and 18th centuries
emphasizing reason and individualism rather than tradition. It was heavily influenced
by 17th-century philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, and Newton, and its prominent
exponents include Kant, Goethe, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Adam Smith.

4. Neo-Confucianism is relating to an eclectic philosophical movement of the 12th to the

16th centuries, incorporating Taoist and Buddhist elements with an adaptation of
Confucianism.

(Confucius)
3.4-European Kingdoms emerged, rose, and gained world power

Early Middle Ages was the period of European history lasting from the roughly the 6th
century to the 10th century. The Early Middle Ages followed the decline of the Western
Roman Empire and preceded the High Middle Ages(c. 10th to 13th centuries).
Labor and Slavery Systems is a system of division of labor within slavery
Maritime Trade is the shipment of goods (cargo) and people by sea and other
waterways.
Gunpowder empires is a term used to describe the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal
empires. Each of these three empires had considerable military success using the newly
developed firearms, especially cannon and small arms, in the course of their empires.

The globe was full of people, everyone connected through trade, and they brought
technological developments, strengthened political organization, and economic prosperity.
Sea based trade rose more that land causing more technological advances to be shared and
bringing in more money from political leaders wanting to invest.

Europe rose extremely in power, emerging and gaining world power. Europe did not entirely
eclipse powerful empires in Southwestern Asia, Africa, and East Asia.

The power of Nomadic people declined however, they continued to play a powerful role in
trade and cultural diffusion. Power dwindled as trade by water rose, they still continued to
threaten the borders of large land-based empires.

Labor Systems were soon transformed by the acquisition of colonies in the Americas. Slave
labor became very important. Other labor systems such as encomienda in South America, were
adapted from previous native traditions.

Gunpowder empires rose in the Middle east and Asia. Empires still faced the same problems:
the defending of large borders, communication within the empire, and the maintenance of a
large army. In the end they were less powerful than the new sea-based kingdoms in Europe.

The Atlantic Ocean Trade led to the crossing of the Pacific Ocean. New maritime technologies
made these interactions possible. The globe trade patterns changed dramatically.
Sea based trade rose in proportion to land based trade. Astrolabe means an astronomical
instrument for taking the altitude of the sun or stars and for the solution of other problems in
astronomy and navigation: used by Greek astronomers from about 200 b.c. and by Arab
astronomers from the Middle Ages until superseded by the sextant. Triangular Sail means a sail
that is in the shape of a triangle.

This is the beginning of globalization.

Major Maritime Empires
a. Portugal
b. Spain
c. France England
Major Gunpowder Empires
a. Ottoman
b. Ming and Qing China
c. Russia
d. Songhai
e. And some African Empires

This was a big era for slavery. The new European colonies in the Americas depended on it.
Slave trade was an important link in the Atlantic ocean and later Pacific Ocean.

The cultures in America exist the way they do because of early colonizations.

3.5- Continuity and Innovation of State Forms and Their Interactions.

Caliphate is an area containing an Islamic steward known as a caliph (Arabic:

khalfah pronunciation (help. info))a person considered a religious successor to the
Islamic prophet, Muhammad (Muhammad ibn Abdullh), and a leader of the entire
Muslim community.
Afro Eurasia is the largest landmass on Earth, primarily in the Northern and Eastern
Hemispheres.
Pastoral People is that of shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land
according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. It lends its
name to a genre of literature, art and music that depicts such life in an idealized
manner, typically for urban audiences.
Patriarchy a system of society or government in which the father or eldest male is head
of the family and descent is traced through the male line.
State the particular condition that someone or something is in at a specific time.

Ethiopia was a successful nation that got rid of their government and created their own.
Heterogeneous societies mean that there are several, diverse people in a society.

The Americas created state systems that expanded in scope and reach.
Networks of of city-states (small) flourished, for example Maya, Mexica, Inca.