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The birth of Hungary The battle of the Lechfeld, which was so important to Western Europe, had an equally profound influence on events in Central and Eastern Europe. The almost total annihilation of their army compelled the Magyars to settle in their new home on the Hungarian plains and within sixty years they had embraced Christianity. Under King Stephen I (997-1038) , who was later canonized, they accepted Christianity from Rome, a process that had been began by Stephen’s father, Duke Geza. The new king accepted not only religion but also his royal title and crown from Pope Sylvester II. Although he had to face opposition from some of his pagan nobility, he was able to push through his religious programs and also to lay the basis of a royal administration closely modelled on that of the German empire. During the eleventh century the new kingdom, halted in its westward advance, also lost part of its territory in the southeast to the nomadic Patzinaks. This loss was balanced for a time by the Hungarian conquest, which gave the new state an important seacoast on the Adriatic. Thus in the early eleventh century, the main contours of medieval Europe had emerged and the political position of the German emperors seemed assured. Sung Dynasty, China The empire of Otto and his Saxon successors was roughly contemporary with a renewed period of grandeur and prosperity in the world’s largest empire, China. We have seen how in the late ninth century the glories of the Wang dynasty were subject to internal divisions and attacks over the frontiers by Asian barbarians. After the deposition of the last T’ang emperor in 907, there followed the fifty-year period generally known as the age of the Five Dynasties. The largest single territory was that in the north, which …

Lechfeld, the battleground outside Augsburg on St. Lawrence’s day, 10 August 955 A. D., was highly significant for the whole of Europe. On a battlefield littered with corpses and discarded weapons, the victorious Otto I, had his cheering troops proclaim him Emperor. Germany had been close to civil war and rebellious nobles had allied themselves with the barbarian Magyars, who were intent on destroying what passed for civilzation in tenth-century Germany. It was Otto’s achievement to unite the Germans against both the rebels and the invading Magyars. His new “Roman” Empire differed from the old in its strongly Christian character. Otto was the protector of the Church and constantly encouraged missionary work among the Slavs. His territorial ambitions also lay in the East, but in these he was largely frustrated. Nevertheless, Otto’s victory at the Lechfeld in 955, ensured that much of Central Europe would be safeguarded for Latin Christianity. Even the defeated Magyars who settled in Hungary, became under their great king St. Stephen, a Christian nation. The battle fought on the Lechfeld outside Augsburg on St. Lawrence’s day, August 10, A.D. 955, was highly significant for the whole of Europe. The victory of King Otto I, over the Magyars, was directly connected with the foundation of his empire and with the constitution of the German imperial Church as a leading political power — which was to survive till its destruction at Napoleon’s hands. The other consequences of Otto’s victory were the re-alignment of the eastern frontier of Bavaria with Austria; the foundation of the Hungarian kingdom with the coronation of Stephen as king; and the formation of Germany’s eastern policy for the next 1000 years. Part of the Chalice of St. Udalrich, Bishop of Augsburg, loyal priest and military leader under Otto I and hero of the battle …

Cluny, the Greatest Benedictine Abbey in Europe, was founded in 910. After the reign of the great Abd al-Rahman III, Islamic Spain was increasingly subject to internal division and the overthrow of the Cordovan Caliphate in 1013, allowed the Christians to capture the great city of Toledo. The Spanish Arabs now called on the newly converted and fanatical North African Berber tribes known as the Almoravides. By the beginning of the twelfth century, these allies, whose empire was based in Morocco, were in control of Islamic Spain. Within seventy years, they in their turn, fell to the still more puritanical sect of the Almohades. In 1195, the Almohades inflicted a crushing defeat on the armies of Alfonso VIII of Castile, but this was more than reversed by the great victory of the united kingdoms of Castile, Leon, Navarre and Aragon on the field of Las Novas de Tolosa in 1212. Islam Fails After that defeat, Islam never recovered its old power in Spain. Under the caliphate of Cordova, both the industry of the Moorish invaders, their religious toleration of the conquered Christians and the formerly persecuted Jews, contributed essentially to the great cultural flowering of the period. The Mozarabes, Christians who retained their faith on the payment of annual dues, were allowed their own places of worship. Throughout the Islamic period, save for a few years before its recapture, the city of Toledo kept itsncathedral, its archbishop and its liturgy. Despite the strict religious principles of the twelfth-century Moroccan rulers and the subsequent flight of numerous Mozerabes to the Chnistian kingdoms of the north, the cultural traditions of earlier ages was strong. It was the works of men like Avempace (d. 1138) who drew on the Aristotelian commentaries of the tenth-century Al Farabi of Damascus and above all, his great …

Caliph of Cordova’s library, raised Cordova to its great eminence. It was Europe’s most glittering capital: a place where Moslems, Christians and Jews lived, worked, studied and thought. Tenth-century Cordova was as preoccupied with philosophy, poetry and medicine, as Paris was to become in the eighteenth century. Spain’s intellectual ferment was a product of the recently established Islamic society, but it was also concerned with the old, with preserving the ancient learning of Greece and Rome. Toward the end of the century, the Caliph Al-Hakam II, gathered a library of four hundred thousand books and manuscripts, indisputably Europe’s finest collection of writings on history, science and literature. The library was largely destroyed by a fanatical successor and Cordova’s days of greatness drew to an end. The door in the western facade of the mosque of Cordova, showing the detailed decoration in tile and bas-relief, typical of the highpoint of artistic achievement under the Caliphate. Cordova, under its great caliphs of the tenth century, was the most splendid city of Western Europe. Ash-Shaquandi, the poet who sang the praises of his native al-Andalus (Andalusia) says that he rode for ten miles on end through its well-lit streets. A fine bridge spanned the river, which still bears its Moorish name of Guadalquivir and on either side stretched the quarters of the dominant Moslem population —Arabs and Berbers from Africa, as well as descendants of Spain’s indigenous inhabitants who had embraced Islam and communities of Jews, Christians (Mozarabes) and slaves from Eastern Europe. One traveller counted 300 public baths; another, 600 — a number perhaps not excessive for a population of over half a million, though it scandalized medieval Christians. Cordova’s other marvelous sights included innumerable workshops for the production of its famous leatherwork, carpets, ivory caskets and other handicrafts; more than four …

Baghdad founded and became the centre of Islamic learning and culture. England in the tenth century As a soldier, Alfred, rightly called the Great, saved his nation; as a legislator, he established the concept of a nationwide law for all the English; as a patron, he not only launched an educational revival, but himself translated Boethius’, On the Consolation of Philosophy and sponsored the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a major historical source for another two centuries. Although he had consolidated the existence of an English nation, Alfred had been able only to contain the threat of the Danes. Vast territories in the north and east of England remained independent of the kings of Wessex and their client-kingdom of English Mercia. Alfred’s son, Edward the Elder, reigned conjointly with his sister Aethelflaed, the Lady of Mercia. At her death the kingdom was united. During this period, the English, basing their defense on the series of fortified towns begun by Alfred, made headway against the incursions of the Scandinavian kingdoms that surrounded them. Even in the midst of a struggle for survival, Alfred had planned for the future. His fortified boroughs provided not only military bases, but the foci of local administration and trade. Edward extended the military fortifications, but an aggressive counterattack against England’s enemies did not come until the reign of Athelstan (924-39). Islamic armies on the march, from a manuscript of the Baghdad School Brother-in-law of the Carolingian Charles the Simple of France, of Hugh Capet, the greatest man in the French kingdom and of the German Emperor Otto I, Athelstan mightily defended his position at home. He inflicted the crushing defeat of Brunanburh on the combined forces of the Scots, Irish, Norse and Welsh — a fight commemorated in one of the great epic poems of Old English. The glitter …

Alfred “The Great”, alone amongst the English kings, has been awarded this title. Earlier invaders of the British Isles had been assimilated, but the thin veneer of English civilzation in the Dark Ages could not withstand the impact of Danish attacks at the end of the eighth century. The fragmented English kingdoms could not seem to unite against this new terror. Then a saviour appeared — in the guise of the young prince of Wessex, Alfred. In the first few years after he came to the throne, Alfred fought many battles against the Danes — and lost most of them. Then the tide turned; in 886, Alfred took London. He had won a capital and he had also created a nation. More than just a soldier, Alfred was a scholar, determined to foster learning among his people. He translated classical works into the vernacular and issued a new legal code based on the Golden Rule. For this combination of talents, Alfred — alone among English kings — has been awarded the title “The Great.” The Alfred jewel made of rock crystal over cloisonńe enamel, set in gold, is inscribed with the words Alfred mec heht Gewyrcan (Alfred ordered me to be made). The base is in the shape of a boar’s head, with hollow snout. Found near Athelney, the supposed sight of Alfred’s fort, the jewel is commonly thought to have belonged to that king. When King Alfred of Wessex captured London in 886, he did more than strike a heavy blow at the Danish invaders. In effect, he became the first King of England and established a new idea of nationhood. His action gave heart to Englishmen all over the land, made them feel that the Danes after all could be defeated and kindled in them the sentiment of …

Charlemagne’s empire destroyed and dissolved in the ninth century, but the idea of “Europe” survived. By the late tenth century, the eastern and western parts of the Frankish kingdom had coalesced into the dim outlines of the future kingdoms of France and Germany. The Spanish March had disintegrated and been succeeded by the Basque kingdom of Navarre and the county of Barcelona. Italy, broken into a series of ineffectual kingdoms in the peninsula, owed a nominal allegiance to the Emperor (now the King of the east Franks) that was to become gradually less meaningful as the Middle Ages progressed. Louis the Pious, from a contemporary manuscript After his death in 814, Charlemagne was succeeded by his son Louis I, called the Pious, an amiable, but often too compassionate man. Unable to command his unruly subjects or control his quarrelsome family, Louis compounded the faults of his virtues by his indulgence toward his second wife, Judith of Bavaria and her son Charles. During his reign, Louis was constantly at war with his sons, who finally brought their conflicts to a conclusion with the Treaty of Verdun in 843, three years after Louis’ death. This treaty — one of the earliest records of the emerging vernacular languages, having both German and French texts — gave the imperial title and capital to the eldest son Lothair, who also received a huge tract of territory stretching from the Low Countries to the plains of central Italy. Louis, called the German, received the eastern lands; and the favourite, Charles the Bald, got the western lands, Verdun was the inevitable consequence of the Frankish practice of dividing a father’s possessions; but in the years that followed, the Carolingian house showed a lack of family loyalty and honest dealing that was remarkable even for the times. The …

Charlemagne crowned, at a solemn moment during the celebration of Mass in Rome’s St. Peter’s Basilica on Christmas Day of the year 800. Pope Leo III stopped and turned toward the large man kneeling in front of the altar. Then, in a dramatic gesture that has been the topic of countless historical arguments since, Leo crowned Charles, King of the Franks, as the new Emperor of the Romans. The coronation apparently took even Charles by surprise; and it probably displeased him as well, since it seemed to imply that he received his power from the Pope. Indeed, this may have been Leo’s aim, for only a year before he had been driven out of the city by a rebellious population and he was now eager to reassert his authority. Whatever Leo’s motives, his action was of momentous significance, in creating a European Christian empire. In continuing the division between East-West and in sowing seeds of conflict between Church and State. The throne of Charlemagne in the minister at Aachen, seat of Carolingian pretension and a focal point of the cultural heritage of Western Europe. On Christmas Day in the year 800, Charlemagne heard Mass in St. Peter’s in Rome. As he knelt at prayer, Pope Leo III placed on his head a gold circlet in token of an imperial crown and the Romans proclaimed him Emperor: “To Charles Augustus, crowned by God, the great and peace-giving Emperor of the Romans, life and victory!” Charlemagne the Frank was a huge man, six feet and four inches tall, broadly built. He spoke quietly and was a cheerful, talkative man, who enjoyed the debating matches that were popular among the Germanic races. He drank sparsely but ate a great deal and detested wearing fine clothes made of silk. He favoured the shirt and …

Frankish hordes crush the Romans at Soissons and the disintegration of Europe begins. Japan during the Heian period For some three and a half centuries after the founding of Kyoto, Japan had an imperial court and administration devoted to a refined culture, that has shaped the character of the people down to this century. Power was in the hands of the Fujiwara family who intermarried with the imperial house and provided “regents” for a line of boy-emperors, most of whom abdicated voluntarily when they reached adulthood. The Emperor became an idealized figure, protected from the corrupting effects of actual political rule. The sensitive, stylish yet formal spirit of the Heian period under the Fujiwara, who enjoyed their greatest ascendancy from the mid-tenth to the mid-eleventh centuries, is fully embodied in the literary masterpiece Genji Monogatari written by a court lady, Murasaki Shikibu, in the early eleventh century. In sharp contrast to the delicate, almost effete life of the capital, was the life on the great semi-independent estates. The large landowners gradually acquired exemption from taxation; thus developed a feudal system with parallels to that in Europe. As the Fujiwara began to lose their grip on events, civil war broke out between rival factions of the family. In the twelfth century, they called two of the powerful military provincial families to their aid. Not surprisingly, when the smoke cleared after a long period of near anarchy, the Fujiwara found that they had been entirely supplanted by their military advisers. In 1166, the Taira family seized power and for the first time in three centuries, japan witnessed political executions; some twenty years later, the Taira were overthrown by the great Minamoto Yoritomo and in 1185, Japan came under a government controlled by the military. The age of the tea ceremony was succeeded …

Japanese renaissance was not until 794 A.D., when the Japanese capital was transferred from Nara to Heian (modern Kyoto), that Japan started to develop a national culture of its own. Since the sixth century, Japan has been ruled by a hereditary imperial famiiy. At first, the Japanese court modelled itself on the Chinese, in its principles of politics, ethics and religion, in its writing system and in its entire culture. About the year 1000, the Lady Murasaki Shikibu wrote the world’s first novel, The Tale of Genji, a masterpiece of literary invention, that mirrored the life of the brilliant Heian court. In painting, architecture and the decorative arts as well, there were signs of a growing culture that was remarkably refined, advanced for its time and most important, essentially Japanese in character. Throughout Japanese history, legitimate authority has resided in the hereditary imperial family, which has been on the throne since the sixth century, but power lay in the possession of land. Despite seventh century measures designed to assert the imperial title to all land, powerful families amassed vast estates and in the course of time, won immunity from tax assessment. It is an ironical fact, that the power of the Fujiwara clan lay in precisely this kind of tax immunity, for eventually, it fatally weakened the imperial (and hence the clan’s) authority. Respecting the hereditary principle that was deep-rooted in all Japanese society, the Fujiwara never attempted to usurp the title of Emperor, but instead acted as regents. The Emperor gave legitimacy to their regime and was also the fount of honour, from which they could draw the titles and offices, to reward their family and supporters. Tamon Ten, one of the four guardian demi-gods from the Kaidan-in Temple; an eighth century statue in clay painted in brilliant colours …