Western Civilization Beyond

Boundaries 7th Edition Noble Solutions

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CHAPTER 8
Early Medieval Civilizations, 600–900

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, students will be able to:
1. Describe factors contributing to the rapid rise of the Arab peoples and spread of Islam as a
political and religious force.
2. Compare and contrast Byzantine political, religious, and cultural developments with their Roman
predecessors.
3. Evaluate the role of religious, ethnic, and regional differences in the rise of early medieval
civilizations.
4. Assess the successes and failures of the Frankish and Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.
5. Analyze the rise and fall of the Carolingian Empire.
6. Compare and contrast the political, economic, and social traditions of the Islamic, Byzantine, and
Western worlds.
7. Compare and contrast the cultural accomplishments of the Islamic, Byzantine, and Carolingian
Empires.
8. List reasons for the fall of Charlemagne’s Empire.
9. Define the term Iconoclasm and explain its impact on the early Christian Church.

CHAPTER OUTLINE
I. The Islamic East
Shortly after 600, an Arabian prophet preached a new faith whose followers conquered and settled
lands from Spain to China.
A. Arabia Before Muhammad
1. The economy of Arabia before Islam
2. Ethnic and religious composition
B. The Prophet and His Faith
1. Muhammad’s background
2. Origins of a new faith
3. The umma muslima
4. The Five Pillars of Islam
5. The Quran, the sunna and the hadith
C. The Arab Conquests
1. The death of Muhammad and the establishment of the Caliphate
2. The spread of Islam by conquest under the Umayyad dynasty
3. “House of Islam” and the “House of War”
D. The Abbasid Revolution
1. Islam’s first golden age
2. Creation of a more international and Arabized regime

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36 Chapter 8: Early Medieval Civilizations, 600–900

3. Abbasid decline after the early tenth century

E. The Emergence of Islamic Culture
1. Elaboration of religious thought and assimilation of diverse cultures
2. Common practices
3. Shi’ite–Sunni split
4. Question of the Western or Eastern character of the Islamic caliphates
II. The Byzantine Empire
The Eastern Roman Empire shrank geographically and changed both its basic administrative
structure and its cultural orientation to produce Byzantine civilization.
A. Shifting Frontiers
1. Byzantium’s relations with its neighbors
a) Persians
b) Slavic peoples
2. Origins of the Papal States
3. Political instability within Byzantium’s Imperial dynasties
B. New Forms of Government
1. Military reforms and the theme system
2. Reforms of the legal system and the imperial administration
C. The Birth of Byzantine Culture
1. The importance of religion
2. The growing influence of monasticism
3. Iconoclasm
4. Increasing divisions between Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism
5. Both old and new, Western and non-Western
III. The Rise of the Carolingian Empire
The social and political heritages of the German and Roman pasts interacted with Christianity to
produce Catholic Europe.
A. Medieval Europe Takes Shape
1. Internal rivalries and the fall of the Visigothic Kingdom in Spain
2. The faltering Lombard Kingdom in Italy
3. The Donation of Constantine
4. Interrupted political consolidation in England
5. Conversion of the British Isles to Christianity
6. Bede and his Ecclesiastical history of the English Church and People
B. The Carolingian Dynasty
1. Rising prominence of the Carolingian family in the Merovingian kingdom
2. Charlemagne
a) General characteristics and the development of the “New Israel” ideology
b) Debate over Charlemagne’s coronation as Roman Emperor
c) The final evolution of the Roman Empire in the West
C. Carolingian Government
1. The theory and limitations of royal power
2. Structure of the royal court
3. Ties between royal court and local government: counts, vassalage, assemblies, touring,
and the missi dominici
D. The Carolingian Renaissance
1. A royally-sponsored revival of learning
2. The work of Alcuin
3. Religious and secular consolidation
4. Theodulf, versatile Carolingian thinker

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 Chapter 8: Early Medieval Civilizations, 600–900 37

5. The hybrid quality of Carolingian art and architecture

E. The Fragmentation of Charlemagne’s Empire, 814–887
1. Size, ethnic complexity, and dynastic squabbling weaken the empire
2. The treaty of Verdun and the creation of the West Frankish, Middle Frankish, and
Eastern Frankish Kingdoms
3. New kingdoms along the frontiers of the declining Carolingian Empire
4. Muslim and Magyar onslaughts
5. The rise of the Vikings
6. Enduring concept of Europe as “Christendom”
IV. Early Medieval Economies and Societies
Despite changing political frameworks, daily life changed little and society remained rural,
hierarchical, and male-dominated.
A. Trade and Commerce
1. Local and international trade among Rome’s three heirs
2. Trade in luxury items versus trade in commodities
B. Town and Countryside
1. Cities become less important in the West
2. Continued urban life in Byzantium and Islamic world
3. The fundamental importance of agriculture
4. The development of the bipartite estate in the West
C. Social Patterns
1. Islam, Byzantium, and the West compared
2. The role and status of women
3. Merchants and the middling classes
4. Status differences among civil servants
5. Peasants and slaves
6. The domestic sphere

LECTURE TOPICS
1. Rome’s three heirs and the concept of the West
2. Islam and its ties to Judaism and Christianity
3. The golden age of Islamic civilization
4. Byzantium as the continuation of the Roman Empire after the fall of Rome
5. The Carolingian Empire
6. Compare the economic, social, political, and cultural/intellectual aspects of early medieval
Islamic, Byzantine, and Western civilizations.
7. Manorialism and the development of European agriculture in the early Middle Ages
8. The Viking invasions of the British Isles and France
9. The resilient Byzantine Empire
10. The changing role of women in early European history
11. The spread of Islam and its impact on Christian Europe

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38 Chapter 8: Early Medieval Civilizations, 600–900

SUGGESTED READINGS
1. Armstrong, Karen, A History of God: The 4000-year quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam,
2004.
2. Campbell, James, ed., The Anglo-Saxons, 1982.
3. Cantor, Norman, Medieval Lives: Eight Charismatic Men and Women of the Middle Ages, 1994.
4. Chapelot, Jean and Fossier, Robert, The Village and House in the Middle Ages, 1985.
5. Croinin, Early Medieval Ireland, 400–1200, 1995
6. Donner, Fred McGraw, Early Islamic Conquests, 1986.
7. Folz, Robert, The Coronation of Charlemagne, 25 December 800, 1974.
8. Herlihy, David, Muliebria: Women and Work in Medieval Europe, 1990.
9. Hodges, R. and Whitehouse, D., Mohammed, Charlemagne and the Origins of Europe, 1989.
10. Hourani, Albert, A History of the Arab Peoples, 1991.
11. Jones, Gwyn, A History of the Vikings, 1984.
12. Kennedy, Hugh, The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates, The Islamic Near East from the Sixth
to the Eleventh Century, 1986.
13. Kaegi, Walter, Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests, 1992.
14. Lewis, David Levering, God’s Crucible, Islam and the Making of Europe, 570–1215.
15. McKutterick, Rosamond, The Early Middle Ages, Short Oxford History of Europe, 2001.
16. McKutterick, Rosamond, The Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians, 751–98, 1983.
17. Norwich, John Julius, Byzantium: The Early Centuries, 1989; Byzantium: the Apogee, 1992;
Byzantium: the Decline and Fall, 1996.
18. Reuter, Germany in the Early Middle Ages, c. 800–1056, 1991.
19. Sawyer, Peter, Kings and Vikings, 1982.
20. Shepard, The Emergence of Rus, 750–1200, 1996.
21. Wickham, C. J., Early Medieval Italy, Central Power and Local Society 400–1000, 1981.
22. Winks, Robin, Medieval Europe and the World: From Late Antiquity to Modernity, 400–1500,
2005.
23. Wood, I.N., The Merovingian Kingdom, 450–751, 1994.

RESEARCH/CLASSROOM DEBATE/DISCUSSION TOPICS

1. How did Islam reflect the early Arab world, and how did it change it? Relate both of these to the
success of early medieval Islam.
2. Compare and contrast the relationship between religion and the state in Western Europe,
Byzantium, and the Islamic world.
3. How did Byzantine culture, society, government, and military change during the Early Middle
Ages?

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 Chapter 8: Early Medieval Civilizations, 600–900 39

4. To what extent was early Islam tolerant of non-believers? What were the rules for non-believers
living under Islamic rulers? Were Islamic rulers tolerant in the modern understanding of the
word? In the context of their time?
5. What factors promoted or hindered learning in the Islamic, Byzantine, and Western worlds?
6. Divide the class into three groups representing Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Have each group
research for classroom discussion their religion’s views on marriage, sexuality, and charity.
7. Compare and contrast the Carolingian empire with its contemporaries, the Byzantine and Abbayad
empires.
8. Divide the class into three groups representing Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and
Islam. Assign each group the task to research and find images of the style of religious art and
architecture for each faith for comparison.
9. Explain how the Catholic West, Byzantium, and Islam were heirs to Greco-Roman civilization
and the Roman Empire.

RESOURCES
1. The Byzantines, The History Channel, DVD, 2006.
2. Byzantium: the Lost Empire, The Learning Channel, 200 minutes, 2 VHS, 1997.
3. The Dark Ages, The History Channel, DVD, 2007.
4. Engineering an Empire: The Byzantines, The History Channel, DVD, 2006.
5. Inside Islam, A&E Television Network, 1 DVD.
6. Islam: Empire of Faith, PBS Video, DVD, 2004.
7. Muhammed: Legacy of a Prophet, DVD, 2002.
8. Islam.com, A Site Worthy of Its Name, www.Islam.com.
9. Islamic Calendar (converter), www.rabiah.com/convert.
10. Muslims, www.pbs/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/muslims.
11. Vikings:Fury from the North, The History Channel, DVD, 2000.
12. Weber, Eugen, “The Byzantine Empire,” “The Dark Ages,” “The Age of Charlemagne,” The
Western Tradition, WGBH Boston, DVD, 1989.
13. Woods, Michael, “The Barbarian West,” Legacy – The Origins of Civilization, PBS, 57 minutes,
1992.

Copyright © 2104 Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.