Professional Documents
Culture Documents
• This Week:
– Catholic vs. Orthodox Churches: The First Great Split
– Rise of Islam
– Relations among Christians, Muslims, Jews
– Crusades: Causes and Consequences
• Next Week:
– The Spread of Christianity and its Cultural Impact
– Western vs. Eastern Christianity
– The Rise of the Papacy
– From the Middle Ages to the Renaissance
II. CHRISTIANITY: THE FIRST GREAT SPLIT
• Geopolitical side
– West (Rome) vs. East (Constantinople)
– 800: Pope Leo III Crowns Charlemagne (Charles the Great) “Holy
Roman Emperor of the West”
– Theological disputes
• Eastern Churches:
– “Autocephalic” (patriarchs, no pope)
– Majority: Greece, Eastern Europe, Armenia
– Minority: Lebanon, Syria, India
III. RISE OF ISLAM
• Christianity among Arabs:
– Eastern, Southern shores of Mediterranean
– Strength of non-Latin, non-Greek churches (Syria, Egypt)
– Periphery of Byzantine Empire
• Arabian Peninsula
– Caught between 2 empires
– Outside ‘sphere’ of Christianity
• Intellectual contacts:
– Mostly indirect (through translation)
– Respect for Islamic scholarship, considerable impact in Christian world
– Islamic scholars’ lack of enthusiasm for ‘barbarian’ civilization, but did
value translations of Greek texts
• Religious contacts:
– Greater understanding of Christianity in Muslim areas than vice versa
– Christendom generally more preoccupied with Jews inside than Muslims
outside
V. CRUSADES
• General Observations
– Religious AND political AND economic causes
• Geopolitical:
– Consolidation of “fault-line” within Mediterranean world
• Global:
– Commercial rivalry: expanded Indian Ocean trade, Age of Exploration