Germanic Kingdoms of Western Europe
- Germanic Barbarians
- Barbarian warlords and their families who assimilated into Roman culture became the "nobles" or aristocrats of medieval Europe
- Germanic tribes who ruled former Roman lands sought to conquer and assimilate other barbarian peoples who lived beyond the frontiers and were still pagans
- Angles and the Saxons the Saxons (from Denmark and NW Germany) invaded Britain and assimilated the native Britons
- Most of the Anglo- Saxons were converted to Christianity in the 7th century
- The most powerful Germanic tribe was the Franks
- But the real power lay with the "mayors of the palace" who were royal officials and nobles themselves
- The Eastern Roman Empire continued on while the west was now divided up by the barbarian tribes
- When the emperor Justinian came to power in 527, he decided to reunite the entire Roman Empire by reconquering the western territories
- Justinian succeeded for a time, but the land he re-took was soon conquered by new barbarian tribes and a massive plague killed a lot of the west
It’s a Christian
Empire now
- Greek Byzantine emperors saw themselves as Roman emperors and the heads of the Christian Church
- Byzantine preserved Greco-Roman art, architecture, philosophy, and writing despite mush of it being non- Christian
- Justinian built the massive domed Hagia Sophia ("Holy Wisdom") in Constantinople, considered to be the most glorious church in earth at the time
- Third version of the Hagia Sophia was finished in 537 - 1500 years ago- still here today
- When the Muslims took over it was changed into a mosque- then changed into a museum; prayer room for Christians and Muslims
No comments:
Post a Comment