The crisis of the early third century was precipitated by
the retreat from the eastern frontier and violent tendencies of Marcus Aurelius's son, Commodus
When the emperor died in 192 with no heir apparent, civil war once again engulfed the Roman Empire with _________ eventually claiming the throne
Septimius Severus
During the third century, Rome underwent a prolonged period that came very close to destroying the empire. This period is known as the time of the
"Barracks Emperors," when Rome had twenty-six emperors in about fifty years
Realizing that the Roman Empire had become too large for a single ruler to control it
Diocletian divided the empire in half, trusting a junior colleague to rule the western part
When Diocletian took power, he
Isolated himself from ordinary business and people and introduced an eastern style of rule, wearing a diadem and purple robes
As a ruler, Diocletian was known for
separating military from civilian chains of command
Economic reforms introduced by the early fourth century Roman Empire included
wage and price controls fixed by the government
Once Constantine I and his successors had converted to Christianity
it gained power and was designated the only official religion by Theodosius
The Christian label for non-Christians is indicative of its
urban origin
Christianity went from being a persecuted faith in the early fourth century to being the recognized faith of the empire; this last step was the result of the action by the emperor
Theodosius, who prohibited pagan worship
The differences between the eastern and western parts of the Roman Empire
in culture, economy, and language were great and grew larger over time
The traditional date for the fall of Rome is
476 C.E., when Odovacer toppled Emperor Romulus Augustulus
One reason for including classical texts in the education of Christians by the fourth century was
the desire of Christian intellectuals to be regarded as philosophers and to make classical learning applicable to a Christian way of life
Historians looking for a rupture in western European attitudes toward ancient Roman culture and traditions will likely find it between the lives of
Gregory of Tours and Charlemagne
The instability faced in the West by the mid-seventh century may be attributed to
Justinian's failed efforts to reconquer the western empire ,excessive taxes on agricultural lands, the fact that much agricultural land was passing out of production and slave labor was less productive, all of these
In general, the Christian monasticism of the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries was a response to
he increasing worldliness of the church, the patronage of powerful families like the Merovingians, and a hunger to transform lives in accordance with the will of God
Why were so many convents (monastic houses for women) founded during the seventh century C.E.?
Convents met a variety of social and spiritual needs for aristocratic families
The gradual conversion of the early medieval European countryside to Christianity was carried out primarily by
monks who founded new monasteries in frontier areas
As a theologian, Pope Gregory I is regarded as the successor to
Augustine
The key figure in creating an alliance between the Carolingian family, the papacy, and Benedictine monasticism was
Saint Boniface
As a Christian king responsible for ruling a Christian society, Charlemagne
took responsibility for reforming the religious life of his kingdom just as he reformed its government
Underlying the Carolingian Renaissance was the basic conviction that
classical learning was the foundation on which Christian wisdom rested
Which was a significant event in creating Byzantine hostility toward the Latin Christian world?
the coronation of Charlemagne as Roman emperor on Christmas Day, 800
The Carolingian empire collapsed during the ninth century because
the structural limits of its expansion had been reached , the empire was divided among all of Louis's legitimate heirs, of Viking raids
The Vikings are generally regarded as being a destructive force in European history
but such a view may not be correct in light of the principalities they established across northern Europe from Ireland to Russia
The Vikings settled the area in Europe known today as
Normandy
The seventh century C.E. was a turning point in the history of Western civilization because
the Greco-Roman world of antiquity divided into Byzantine, Islamic, and Latin Christian realms
Why did Justinian try to reconquer the western Roman Empire?
because he sought to revive and reconstruct wholly the old empire
Chapter 7 dates the beginning of Byzantine history with the accession of
Heraclius in 610
Between 610 and 1071, the major security threats to the Byzantine empire came from
Persia, then the Muslim Arab armies that absorbed the Persian Empire and streamed into North Africa
The stability of Byzantine government was the product of
an efficient bureaucracy
The early Byzantine religion was known for its
intense interest in matters of doctrine and orthodoxy
The Iconoclastic Controversy of the eighth century C.E. was about
the use or prohibition of images in church, where people might worship the objects
The word Islam means
submission
In their worship of Allah, Muslims worship
the same deity worshiped by Christians and Jews
The Qu'rān contains
the revelations sent by God to Muhammad
Islam spread so quickly in the seventh and eighth centuries because
the Byzantines and Persians had become exhausted by their long wars against each other
The Shiite party arose among Muslims because
of a dispute about the proper succession of caliphs in seventh-century Arabia
In comparison to the Umayyad, the Abbasid caliphate
adopted more of the style of Persian royal absolutism
A major source of mechanical power in medieval Europe after 1050 was the
water mill, which was used to grind grain, crush paper pulp, and press oil
One factor that contributed to the increase in agricultural output in the medieval period was
a rise in average temperature that allowed for a longer growing season
Major towns and cities in the High Middle Ages
sustained their population only through continuous immigration from the countryside
The two fundamental factors driving the high medieval European economy were
population growth and an increasingly efficient market for goods
Self-governing elites most frequently developed in areas of western Europe where
royal authority was either weak or nonexistent
Although the term feudalism has been defined in many ways by historians, Chapter 8 defines it as
a legal system of land tenure formalized by a contract
Central to the establishment of feudal monarchies was the
personal relationship among individuals at each level of feudal society
The monastic reform movement that began at Cluny in Burgundy was unique in that it
undertook the establishment of a large number of subordinate "daughter houses" also free of control by local lords
In the eleventh century, the struggle for power in central Europe was, for the most part, between
king and pope
The importance of the Investiture Conflict was that it
formally, though not in practice, separated the "church" and the "state" in European politics
The First Crusade
weakened Byzantine control over trade in the eastern Mediterranean
Europe was transformed radically in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries because of
the emergence and growth of universities, technological innovations, the emergence of large-scale territorial monarchies
The High Middle Ages witnessed the birth of a new political structure known as the
national monarchy
King Henry II's important dispute with Archbishop Thomas Becket was related to
whoever ultimately had legal jurisdiction over priests and church courts
The Magna Carta was signed by King John
to define the rights of nobles and limit his power, doing so only because his barons forced him into it
Frederick Barbarossa
was elected German emperor, was one of the three kings on the Third Crusade, created the Holy Roman Empire
To preserve their political independence, the popes of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
sanctioned Milan's formation of an anti-German alliance, the Lombard League
Compared to the popes active in the early Middle Ages, popes in the High Middle Ages were
more concerned with establishing a reputation for justice
Innocent III was the most successful pope in the High Middle Ages because he
successfully disciplined kings and heretics, and defined the central dogmas of the Church
Which Christian figure became the center of a rapidly expanding "cult" in the twelfth century and the name-sake of the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris as well as other places?
the Virgin Mary
Saint Francis of Assisi emphasized which religious themes in his ministry and new monastic order?
apostolic poverty and an imitation of the life of Christ
Waldes's reform movement in the late twelfth century was considered heretical by the Church because the Waldensians did not
accept the Church's authority and directives on the issue of lay preaching
The increasing persecution of European Jews in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries should be interpreted in the context of
general Christian concerns about heresy and the growing suspicion of Jews at all levels of society
The growth of schools in twelfth-century Europe can be attributed primarily to
the general economic revival and the emergence of strong government
The rise of lay education in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Europe was important because through it
people were increasingly able to pursue nonreligious lines of inquiry, and Western culture ultimately became more independent of religion than other cultures
Compared to Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas seems to have
placed a greater value on the use of reason and the study of the physical universe to know God