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Book No. – 48 (History)
Book Name – Western Civilisation: Their History and Their Culture (Edward Mcnall)
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1. THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE AND ITS CULTURE
2. THE FLOWERING OF ISLAM
3. WESTERN CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES
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Rome’s Three Hiers: The Byzantine, Islamic, and Early-Medieval Western Worlds
Chapter – 9
Table of Contents
- Constantinople was a bustling city with merchants coming from all over, by sea or land.
- It was compared to Baghdad, the great city of Islam, as one of the few cities like it in the world.
- Constantinople housed the church of Santa Sophia and the Pope of the Greeks, as the Greeks did not obey the Pope of Rome.
- The city had as many churches as there were days of the year.
- A significant amount of wealth was brought to Constantinople from the islands, making its wealth unparalleled in the world.
- Benjamin of Tudela in his Travels described Constantinople’s grandeur and its wealth.
- The Koran (III, no) refers to the community as the best ever raised up for mankind, emphasizing the importance of enjoining right, forbidding wrong, and having faith in God.
- A monk of St. Gall referred to the rise of Charlemagne as the golden head of a new empire, replacing the Roman Empire.
- By around 700 A.D., a new period in Western civilization emerged, with no single empire ruling the Mediterranean.
- Byzantine, Islamic, and Western Christian civilizations became the three main rivals, each with distinct languages and ways of life.
- Byzantine civilization descended from the Eastern Roman Empire, was Greek-speaking, and combined Roman governmental traditions with Christian faith.
- Islamic civilization was Arabic-speaking and inspired by a new, dynamic religion.
- Western Christian civilization was the least economically advanced and faced organizational weaknesses in government and religion.
- Despite its challenges, the Western Christian civilization had unity in Christianity and the Latin language.
- Over time, Western Christian civilization began to find greater political and religious cohesiveness.
- Western writers historically denigrated the Byzantine and Islamic civilizations as backward and irrational.
- However, from the seventh to the eleventh centuries, the West was the most backward of the three civilizations.
- For several centuries, the West lived in the shadow of Constantinople and Mecca.
- Modern scholars are recognizing the accomplishments of Byzantine and Islamic civilizations.
- These civilizations greatly influenced the development of Western Europe both directly and indirectly.