Summary (lec.

2)

A) Rome & Roman Empire:

1. Rome united the ancient Mediterranean and joined it to the western Europe.
2. Romans created an amalgam of ideas and ins?tu?ons that would become the basis of
the later European life.
3. Romans excelled in the prac?cal arts of war, law, engineering, and administra?on.
4. La?n, their language, became the mother of many other tongues.
5. Romans borrowed from Greeks, Etruscans, Egyp?ans, and other ancient cultures of the
Near East.
6. Despite being poor and surrounded by powerful enemies in the early years, Rome
developed a superb army and an effec?ve poli?cal system that was based upon the
ac?ve par?cipa?on of its ci?zens and the rule of law.
• Greek civiliza?on was at its peak, Rome was s?ll a modest seOlement in central Italy.
7. Rome controlled the Italian Peninsula as Carthage and Macedon were defeated and
acquired an empire that stretched from Spain to Greece.
8. The empire’s crea?on was ini?ally a response to adversity, emphasizing on military
values of courage, discipline, and endurance.
9. Rome’s early history involved harsh adapta?ons and explosive growth, developing
ins?tu?ons to rule an empire.
10. Over centuries, Roman state evolved from monarchy to classical republic and then to an
autocra?c semi-elec?ve empire.
11. At Rome’s peak, romans had developed not less than 29 great military highways
radiated from the capital and many roads were stone paved.
12. Constantine converted into christianity which started a process that gave the late
empire a new state religion.
13. The germanic people emegrates from denmark and northen germany to the western
empire and formed new kingdom/ civilization.
14. Also, the church played an important rule and converted the germanic tribes into
christianity. as well as bishops play more active role in imperial government.
15. Constantine built the new rome which was called the city of cintantine and was
developed for defensicIve reasons and had an excellent strategic location.
16. The divison of roman empire into western empire and its capital was rome and the
eastern empire which was the byzantine empire, and its capital was new rome/
constantine city.
B) The Church:

17. The continuing attraction of the Greco-Roman cultural legacy which was especially in
architecture (there awesome designs in buildings) and art.
18. The christain chruch developed an organiztional government under the leadership of
the bishop of rome- pope.
19. Germanic kingdoms and byzantine empire were the heirs of the roman civilization as in
the east, greek and eastern elemnts of the late antiqueity were more of the
consequnence as the eastern empire was transformed into the byzatine empire.

C) Rise of Islam:

1. Resulted in the loss of southern and eastern parts of the mediterranean parts of the
roman empire,
2. Islam forced europe to back upon itself,
3. The new civilization emerged and become the hearts of the western civilization.

D) The major purpose of crusades was to gain control of Palestine, but Palestine was under the
control of the Muslims, Seljuk Turks.

E) Causes of crusades:

1. Seljuk Turks invaded the Byzantine Empire as well as the holy land, Jerusalem.
2. As the Seljuk Turks converted into Islam, they had almost taken all Byzantine lands in
Asia Minor as well as the holy lands,
3. This forced the emperor of Byzantine empire to ask for military assistance from the
pope in Rome.

F) Goals of Crusades:

1. Religious goal: recapture the holy lands.

2. Military goal: stop Muslim attacks on Byzantine lands.
3. Political goal: kings and the church saw the crusades as a way to make European knights
fight together instead of against each other.
4. Personal goal: young men saw the crusades as a way to gain wealth and a better
position in society.

G) Effects of crusades:
 1. Trade: the merchants who lived in the early crusader states, expanded their trade as far
as Southeast Asia, benefitting all Europe.
2. Society: Crusades allowed those who remained at home, especially women, the
opportunity to manage their affairs or to operate shops and inns in their own.
3. Church: the power of church had declined due to the failure of the most of all crusades.
4. Political: with the declined power of the church, many noble men were dead or
displaced, and kings and monarchs consolidated power to create more centralized
governments.
5. Explorations: with the new knowledge of world beyond Europe, later Europeans would
drive to trade with regions like China.

H) Richard the lion heart:

1. Known for his courage, charm, grace, and ruthlessness.

2. He slaughtered 3,000 men, women, and children when he captured the Acre city.

I) Salah El-den:

1. Most famous Muslim leader,

2. Known as devout, honest, and brave man,
3. Spared the lives of all Christians in Jerusalem once he captured them.