Chapter 9 world history AP notes Essay

Overall Summary (ablongman)- In addition to the great civilizations of Asia and sexual union Africa forming during the postclassical period, two related major civilizations formed in Europe. The Byzantine Empire, in western Asia and southeasterly Europe, expanded into east Europe. The other was defined by the influence of Catholicism in western and central Europe.The Byzantine Empire, with rule in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the east Mediterranean, maintained very high levels of political, economic, and ethnic life between 500 and 1450 C.E. The empire continued many popish patterns and spread its Orthodox Christian civilization through most of eastern Europe, Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia. Catholic Christianity, without an imperial center, spread in western Europe. Two bring out civilizations emerged from the differing Christian influencesThe Byzantine EmpireThe Byzantine Empire unfolded initially as part of the greater roman letters Empire. Then, as this framework shatte red with Roman decline, it took a life of its own, particularly from the reign of Emperor Justinian onward. It centered on a territory different from and smaller than the eastern Mediterranean as Rome had defined it. This was the result of refreshing pressures, particularly the surge of Islam end-to-end North Africa and the bulk of the Middle East. Despite many attacks, the empire flourished until the eleventh century.Origins of the EmpireYou can think of the beginning of the empire as the quaternate century CE oThis was when the Romans set up their western capitol of Constantinople This one urban center became a strong and thriving center of an empire with a locomote imperial structure Emperor Constantine started to build many elaborate buildings, several(prenominal) of which were Christian churches oBuild his city take out of the small town of ByzantiumoEastern emperors would rule from this bare-assed cityEven before the fall of western RomeWarded off intruders (including the Huns)Had a solid tax base because of the peasant agriculture of the eastern MediterraneanEmperor Justinian (in the 6th century) changed the officiallanguage to Greek (Latin had been the judicial system language of the eastern empire however, it became inferior & considered barbaric) oThis Greek knowledge gave scholars of the eastern empire to read the ancient Athenian philosophical and literary classics & the Hellenic writings freely High levels of commerce (Had been in the eastern Mediterranean) helped the new empireHellenized Egyptians and Syrians started to become involved in their administration oThis was due to the incident that many of them were moving to Constantinople (& entered the expanding bureaucracy) Byzantine empire had many foreign enemies