Religious Empires A.D.
4001000
What Your Child
Needs to Know
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his or her own.
EUROPE
As shown in Chapter 4, by A.D. 400, the old
Roman Empire of the West was on the verge of col-
lapse. Soon the period that historians of Europe
call the Middle Ages would begin. The noun Mid-
dle Ages and the adjective medieval refer to the pe-
riod between ancient history and modern history.
The Fall of Rome
In A.D. 410, the barbarian Visigoths from the north
laid siege to Rome. Exhausted and with little food
left, Roman citizens opened the city gates and let in
the invaders. The Visigoths pillaged much of Rome,
but Alaric (AL uh rik), who was a Christian con-
vert, commanded his soldiers not to molest women,
destroy churches, or steal church valuables.
Soon after, there appeared an enemy that the
Romans and their invaders could unite against. In
A.D. 433, Attila (uh TIH luh) became ruler of the
Huns, a people from Mongolia in Asia. He con-
quered much of eastern Europe and helped create
a new Hun homeland in Hungary. Then Attila in-
vaded Gaul (France) and Italy. Romans, Goths,
and Franks fought Attila and defeated him. The
Huns retreated, and Attila died two years later. No
strong ruler took his place, and the empire of the
Huns quickly fell apart.
What effect, then, did Attila have on the west-
ern Roman empire? By displacing other barbarian
tribes who were in his way as he moved toward
Rome and driving them west, Attila indirectly has-
tened the final fall of Rome. The Vandals sacked
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the city in A.D. 455. Then in A.D. 476, the Ger-
man chief deposed the last western Roman em-
peror and took over the throne. The western
Roman Empire was no more.
Western Christianity Spreads
With Rome gone as a political power, Christianity
was the one unifying force left in Europe. The
church of Rome sent missionaries to other lands to
convert the people to the Christian faith. One of
these was the man who would become St. Patrick.
He converted the population of Ireland beginning
in A.D. 432. Irish monasteries became great centers
of learning. Scholars went there from all over Eu-
rope, and monks there copied important works of
religion and literature. In A.D. 597, the man who
would become St. Augustine (AW guh steen) of
Canterbury traveled from Rome to southern En-
gland. There he converted the pagan king to the
Christian religion and spread the faith among the
people who lived in that part of the world.
Later, in A.D. 751 in Gaul, Pepin (PE puhn) the
Short became king of the Franks, who had earlier
invaded Rome. Now Pepins coronation was blessed
by the Roman church. Then Pepins son, Charle-
magne (SHAR luh mayn), or Charles the Great,
conquered the rest of France, Germany, and Italy.
He created the largest empire since that of Rome,
the Holy Roman Empire. Charlemagne spread
Christianity throughout his empire and built schools
and churches.
In Rome, Pope Leo III wanted to strengthen
the kings ties to the church even more. Therefore,
on Christmas Day A.D. 800, he intended to crown
Charlemagne the first Holy Roman Emperor. Ac-
cording to legend, Charlemagne took the crown
from the pope and crowned himself as a signal of
his power. The title Holy Roman Emperor meant
that Charlemagne had legitimate claims on Italy.
Charlemagne ruled until his death in A.D. 814.
The Birth of Russia
In the northern European lands of Norway, Den-
mark, and Sweden, there lived a hardy people
called the Vikings. In the 700s and 800s, many
Vikings left those lands and headed south in ves-
sels called longships to find new lands to settle.
Each longship could hold fifty or more men; the
 Get Ready! for Social Studies World History
Reproduction of a Viking ship
men could sail, row, or haul the sturdily built boat
overland when necessary and could even take it on
navigable rivers to attack cities far inland.
The Vikings probably had heard of Charle-
magnes victories and wanted to avoid capture by
that brutal emperor. Some Vikings attacked and
sacked coastal European cities. But not all Vikings
were destroyers. Some were traders and farmers.
Many of them settled in western and southern Eu-
rope. Other Vikings settled in Iceland and Green-
land, and by the year 1000 even sailed to and
explored North America.
Swedish Vikings entered present-day Ukraine
and Russia and established the city of Kiev (KEE
ef ). These Vikings called themselves Ros, which
means oarsmen. This is how Russia got its name.
Kiev became a great trading center between the
East and the West and the capital of the first Rus-
sian state. In A.D. 989, Vladimir (VLA duh mir) I,
a Kievan prince, married a Byzantine princess and
converted to eastern Christianity (discussed next).
THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE
After the fall of Rome in the 400s, the Byzantine
Empire with its capital in Constantinople (formerly
Byzantium) became the main Christian power in
the world. Christianity in the Byzantine Empire
was influenced by Greek culture, so it developed
differently from Christianity in the west. Western
Christianswho would later call themselves
Roman Catholicsregarded the pope as the only
leader who could speak for the church. Eastern
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Christianswho would call themselves Eastern
Orthodox Christiansdid not see the pope that
way.
The Byzantine emperor Justinian (juh STIH
nee uhn) ruled from A.D. 527 to 565. Justinian
tried to win back most of the lost western empire in
Italy, Spain, and North Africa. He was successful,
but after his death most of these lands were lost
againsome to the religion Islam (discussed
later). Justinians more lasting legacy was a set of
important laws called the Justinian Code. This
code was based on Roman laws and became a
model for European lawmakers for centuries.
By the time Basil II became emperor in
A.D. 976, the Byzantine Empire (even without the
lands it had lost) was experiencing its golden age.
Literature and art flourished. The emperor built li-
braries, schools, and museums. After Basils death in
1025, the Byzantine Empire began a long decline.
THE RISE OF ISLAM
Arabia is the general name given to the large
peninsula in southwest Asia, east of Egypt. Nowa-
days, we consider Arabia part of what we call the
Middle East. In A.D. 610, a forty-year-old Arab
trader named Muhammad (mu HAH muhd) said
he had a vision in which the Archangel Gabriel ap-
peared to him and told him to spread the faith of
Godin Arabic, Allah. This message and many
others form the religious book called the Koran
(also spelled Quran), from the Arabic verb mean-
ing to read. Muhammad founded a new religion,
Islam. In Arabic, Islam means surrender to Allah.
Islam stresses the importance of love, equality,
and the unity of all Arab people. Believers in Islam
consider Allah the same God worshiped by Chris-
tians and Jews and consider Muhammad the
prophet of Allah. According to the Koran,
Muhammad is the last prophet of God and the
messages he received from God are more authori-
tative than those received by Moses and Jesus.
Islam attracted many followers, called Muslims,
and the rulers of Muhammads home city, Mecca
(ME kuh), felt threatened by his power. Muham-
mad and his followers fled to Medina (muh DEE
nuh) for their safety in A.D. 622. Their flight was
called the Hegira (hih JYE ruh) and marks the first
 Religious Empires A.D. 4001000

year of the Muslim calendar. In A.D. 630, a Muslim

army led by Muhammad captured Mecca. By
Muhammads death in A.D. 632, Islam had spread
throughout Arabia. Today there are more than a
billion Muslims throughout the world.
After Muhammad died, Muslim religious and po-
litical leaders called caliphs conquered Persian lands
and other parts of todays Middle East and central
Asia. The Muslim army also marched on Egypt and
Libya in North Africa, conquering lands once held
by the Byzantine emperor Justinian. In A.D. 711, the
Muslims invaded Spain. They might have succeeded
in conquering the rest of western Europe, but in
A.D. 732 the Franks, led by Charles Martel (mar
TEL), a great-grandfather of Charlemagne, defeated
them at the Battle of Poitiers (pwah TYAY) in
France. The Muslims retreated from France but re-
mained in control of Spain for almost eight hundred
years. By A.D. 751, the Muslim domain stretched
from the borders of France to the edge of China.
Although fierce fighters, the Muslims were not
cruel conquerors. They did not force conquered
peoples to adopt their religion and were tolerant of
other religions. They built schools, libraries, and
great universities throughout their growing empire.
The Muslims made great advances in mathe-
maticsespecially in algebraand medicine. They
also produced fine works of literature such as The
Rubiyt (ROO bee aht), by the twelfth-century
Persian poet Omar Khayym (oh mar kye YAHM),
and The Arabian Nights, a collection of stories that
was produced between the 800s and the 1400s.
From the late 700s until the 1200s, the capital
of the Muslim world was Baghdad (BAG dad), in
present-day Iraq. Baghdad had a great mosque, the
place of worship for Muslims, but it also had an
international flavor, with products from India,
Africa, Russia, and China. Baghdad even had a
paper mill after merchants learned about paper
from the Chinese (see next section).