Deck 11: B: The Worlds of Christendom Contraction, Expansion, and Division 500-1300

Question 1

In what ways did the legacy of Roman civilization survive in Western Europe following the collapse of the Roman Empire?

Answer 1

•The Germanic peoples who invaded or migrated into Roman lands were often deeply influenced by Roman culture.
•Many Germanic rulers actively embraced written Roman law,using fines and penalties to provide order and justice in their new states in place of feuds and vendettas.
•Some of the larger Germanic kingdoms had aspirations to re-create something like the unity of the Roman Empire.

Question 2

What factors enabled Christian communities in Africa and Asia to survive in the face of Islamic expansion?

Answer 2

•Most Muslim rulers allowed Christians to continue practicing their religion as long as they paid a special tax.
•Nestorian Christian communities in Syria,Iraq,and Persia (also known as the Church of the East)attest to the persistence of pockets of Christianity within the Arab Empire.
•Coptic Christianity continued under tolerant Muslim rulers until the Crusades and the Mongol threat made the Muslim state regard Christians as politically suspect.
•Christian minority communities persisted in some urban areas and in monasteries in remote regions of Egypt.
•Christianity in Ethiopia thrived largely because its geography protected it from Arab expansion.
•The Nestorian church in China was not affected by the spread of Islam.It enjoyed state approval until the mid-ninth century when the state turned against all foreign religions.
•Christianity enjoyed a brief revival under the Mongols,who regarded Jesus as a shaman.

Question 3

What differences separated the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches?

Answer 3

•The key difference was that the Roman Catholic Church maintained some degree of independence from political authorities,while in Byzantium the emperor assumed something of the role of both "Caesar," as head of state,and the pope,as head of the Church-a relationship that became known as caesaropapism.
•Greek became the language of the Eastern orthodox Church,while Latin remained the language of the Roman Catholic Church.
•More than in the West,Byzantine thinkers sought to formulate Christian doctrine in terms of Greek philosophical concepts.
•The Eastern orthodox and Roman Catholic churches disagreed on a number of doctrinal issues,including the nature of the Trinity,the relative importance of faith and reason,and the veneration of icons.
•Priests in Byzantium allowed their beards to grow long and were permitted to marry,while priests in the West shaved,and,after 1050 or so,were supposed to remain celibate.
•orthodox ritual called for using bread leavened with yeast in the Mass,but Catholics used unleavened bread.
•Eastern orthodox leaders sharply rejected the growing claims of Roman popes to be the sole and final authority for all Christians everywhere.

Question 4

How did Western Europe compare to China in the eleventh century?

Question 5

How was the spread of Christianity in Western Europe similar to the spread of Buddhism in China?

Question 6

How did the understanding of the relationship between reason and faith in Western Europe differ from that found in the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic world?

Question 7

How did Western Europe's situation during the High Middle Ages (1000-1300)differ from the situation after the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century?

Question 8

In what ways did the multiple competing states in Western Europe shape European civilization?

Question 9

What was the long-term impact of the Crusades on Western Europe?