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AP World History:
Unit 6 – Cross-Cultural Exchanges on the Silk Roads, The Commonwealth of Byzantium
and The Expansive Realm of Islam.
Chapters 12-14 – Pages 287-371.
Long-Distance Trade and the Silk Roads Network
• Trade Networks of the Hellenistic Era:
• Trade can be a risky business, but much of that risk was reduced during the
classical era.
• The construction of roads and bridges and the development of large imperial
states provided some ease of movement and some protection for merchants
who sought to sell products from one region to another.
• With the reduction of risk came an increase in volume and accessibility of
exotic goods throughout the eastern hemisphere.
• Greek merchants and bankers were attracted to Bactria and Persia within the
Seleucid empire.
• The Ptolemies in Egypt maintained their land routes east into Africa, while also
building new ports on the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.
• Most significantly, the Ptolemies also learned about the rhythm of the monsoon
winds that blew from the southwest in the summer and northeast in the winter.
• Arab and Indian merchants had capitalized on these dependable winds for
generations; now Hellenistic traders were able to establish regular links
between Arabia, India, east Africa, and Egypt, and then link those expeditions
with ones across the Mediterranean to Europe.
• Though expensive to protect and support, these trade routes had a huge
payback in the wealth of goods transported and in the taxes Hellenistic
governments collected.
• Spices, luxury fabrics, precious metals, jewels, grain, oils and slaves were
valuable commercial items for merchants and governments alike.
• The Silk Roads:
• The Han empire controlled China and maintained order in much of central Asia.
• The Parthian empire ruled Persia and Mesopotamia.
• The Romans ruled the Mediterranean world and the Kushan empire provided
protection and stability in northern India.
• These classical civilizations anchored the developing overland trade routes
known as the silk roads which linked the extreme ends of the Eurasian
landmass.
• The silk roads also included water routes and sea lanes which linked the
Eastern hemisphere through a series of ports along the vast Asian and African
coasts from the South China Sea to the Red Sea.
• An array of agricultural and manufactured products traveled over these silk
roads.
• Silk, of course, was in high demand for its beauty and the Chinese jealously
guarded its secret production technology.
• Spices from China and central Asia served as condiments as well as
ingredients in perfumes, medicines, and magic potions.
• Cotton textiles as well as pearls, coral, and ivory were exported to the west.
• Horses and high-quality jade produced in central Asia were prized in both the
eastern and western ends of the trade route.
• From the west came glassware, jewelry, woolen and linen textiles, bronze
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items, olive oils, wine and works of art.
Merchants did not usually travel from one end of the silk roads to the other,
though there were a few exceptions.
Small foreign merchant communities developed along the silk roads and
coastlines.
Usually trade happened in stages.
Governments jealously guarded movement of merchants within their empires to
assure they could full assess and collect taxes and tariffs on the goods
crossing their territories.
Cultural and Biological Exchanges Along the Silk Roads
Buddhism was the most prominent faith of silk road merchants from 200 BCE-700 CE
Promoted first by the Indian emperor Ashoka, the faith spread with Indian merchants
into Ceylon, Bactria, Iran, Central Asia, southeast Asia, and China.
In China, Buddhism remained mostly a merchant faith and did not have much appeal
for the native Chinese until Buddhist monks and missionaries capitalized on unrest in
China during the fifth century C.E. to spread their faiths.
After that, Buddhism spread quickly through China and into Japan and Korea.
Hinduism was also spread by Indian merchants through the sea lanes of the Indian
Ocean throughout southeast Asia.
Java, Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, as well as parts of modern Vietnam and
Cambodia, embraced the Hindu cults of Shiva and Vishnu, some even adopting
Sanskirt as the means of written communication.
The Spread of Christianity
Early persecution of Christians by the Roman government was based on the Christian
refusal to observe state cults or to participate in state-sponsored religious ceremonies
and on the behavior of Christian missionaries, which the Roman government saw as
disruptive and occasionally vioolent.
The Christian missionaries, however, capitalized on the ease of travel and
communication within Roman empire.
By the end of the third century C.E., Christian communities flourished throughout the
Mediterranean basin, Anatolia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, north Africa, and into
southwest Asia.
Christianity, along with Judaism and Zoroastrianism, remained widespread in
southwest Asia through the coming if the Islamic faith in the seventh century C.E.
Christian practices were heavily influenced by the practices of converts in
Mesopotamia and Iran.
Asceticism and withdrawal from secular society became dominant aspects of
Christian practice and influenced the formation of Christian monasteries and separate
communities in the western Mediterranean basin.
Nestorian Christianity developed in the east, after the teaching of Greek theologian
Nestorius, who stressed the human nature of Jesus rather than the divine.
Christians in the Mediterranean opposed this emphasis, and many Nestorians in the
west moved eastward carrying with them western structure of Christianity.
Nestorian Christian merchants established communities in central Asia, India, and
China by the seventh century C.E.
The Spread of Manichaeism
Like Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity, the spread of Manichaeism relied on the
trade routes of classical civilizations.
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Developed in the third century C.E., and spread by Mani, this faith had its roots in
Zoroastrianism and included elements of Christianity and Buddhism in its theology.
• Mani believed that syncretism, the process of an existing tradition adopting elements
of a new tradition into its theology, would meet the changing cosmopolitan needs of
the classical world.
• The faith promoted a strict ascetic lifestyle, turning away from the material and
physical temptations of classical civilizations, and promised individual salvation and
eternal association with the forces of light and good.
• Throughout the eastern hemisphere, imperial governments saw a danger to public
order in Manichaeism and sought to exterminate this foreign religion and its believers.
• The Roman and Sasanid empires were largely successful in this goal, but
Manichaeism managed to survive in the plains of central Asia where it was readily
adopted by many nomadic Turkish peoples who traded with silk road merchants.
• The Spread of Epidemic Disease
• Pathogens for diseases such as smallpox, measles, and bubonic plague traveled
easily along the silk roads and had devastating effects on the population.
• Despite sketchy population records, it seems clear that both the Roman empire and
Han China lost a quarter to a third of their populations as a result of epidemic
diseases that moved along like silk roads.
• These demographic changes had social and economic effects.
• Both empires moved away from international trade in imperial markets and focused
increasingly on regional exchange of goods.
• Social structures changed and cities became less desirable places to live.
• The demise of the Han and Roman empires are directly linked to the changes brought
by diseases which traveled along the silk roads.
Unit 6 – The Commonwealth of Byzantium
 Chapter 13 – The Commonwealth of Byzantium – Chapter 13 – Pages 317-342.
The Early Byzantine Empire
 The Byzantine empire, sometimes called the Byzantine Commonwealth, existed for
nearly one thousand years as the “economic and political powerhouse of the
postclassical era.”
 During that millennium, it dominated the wealthy and productive eastern
Mediterranean region.
 Led to the formation of large, multicultural zones of trade and communication.
 Sustained interactions with Slavic, Arab, European, and Asian peoples and traditions.
 Geographically, Byzantium’s location offered ready sea and overland access to Asia,
Europe, and Africa.
 Easily defendable site overlooking the Bosporus Strait including a magnificent harbor
which allowed huge trading vessels ease of entry.
 The capital city, first known by the Greek name “Byzantion,” was renamed
Constantinople in 340 C.E. by the Roman Emperor Constantine and then renamed
Istanbul by the conquering Ottoman Turks in 1453.
 Two elements of Byzantine tradition seem most responsible for its survival and
longevity:
 The concept of Caesaropapism.
 Development of an elaborate government bureaucracy.
 Caesaropapism gave the emperor absolute secular power as well as immense
religious power as he appointed the patriarch of the Eastern Christian church.
 Secular - not overtly or specifically religious.
 The Byzantine government bureaucracy was large and intricate.
 Further, this bureaucracy was essential in enforcing the complex Byzantine legal
tradition.
 Justinian is memorable for three reasons:
 his wife.
 his building.
 his laws.
 Theodora, his wife, was his active advisor in politics, diplomacy, and theology.
 She encouraged the military suppression of rebellion.
 the rebuilding of Constantinople.
 The construction of the Church of Hagia Sophia.
 The re-codification of Roman law to fit the demands of the Byzantine world.
 Justinian’s Code, (Body of Civil Law), served as the source of legal inspiration in the
Byzantine empire for nearly 1000 years and influenced civil law codes throughout
western Europe as well.
 Civil law seeks to resolve non-criminal disputes such as disagreements over the
meaning of contracts, property ownership, divorce, child custody, and damages for
personal and property damage.
 Byzantium was threatened by the rise of powerful and expansive Muslim states
beginning in the seventh century.
 By the early eighth century, the Byzantines lost control of Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and
north Africa and even faced possible loss of Constantinople itself.
 The use of “greek fire” by the Byzantines allowed her to retain control of Anatolia,
Greece, and the Balkan region.
 Byzantine rulers also responded to the threat of the Muslim empire by reorganizing its
political structure through the development of the theme system.
 Each imperial province, known as a theme, was place under the jurisdiction of a
general who assumed full military defense and civil administration responsibilities.
 The general then recruited his army from the free peasants in the theme who were
rewarded with allotments of land in exchange for their services.
 Each general was appointed by the imperial government which kept a close eye on
his actions.
 This system allowed for quick mobilization of armies and provide social order.
 Basil the Bulgar Slayer used terror to expand the Byzantine empire back into Syria,
Armenia, Italy, the Danube region, Crete, and Cyprus.
 Relations were strained between the Byzantine empire and western Europe.
 Though both Christian, differences in church language, ecclesiastical practices, and
secular ties provoked conflict between these two branches of Christianity.
 Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics.
 The Byzantine maintained their claim to the remains of the Roman empire in the west
despite the rising power of Germanic groups, especially Charlemagne and the Franks.
 The rise of the Holy Roman Empire (Catholic) after 962 severed and antagonized both
formerly connected empires.
Byzantine Economy and Society
 The location at a crossroads for trade, the abundant agricultural surpluses, and the
tradition of a strong craft and artisan class provided a strong economic base for the
Byzantine empire.
 This robust agricultural economy was made possible largely through a large class of
free peasants who served as the backbone of the Byzantine army and who also
owned and worked their small farms.
 The Byzantine government worked in the 6th through 10th centuries to limit
landholdings of wealthy families on large estates as a way of protecting small
landowners.
 Over time landholding was consolidated into fewer and fewer hands and the former
free peasants became an increasingly smaller class within Byzantine society.
 The decline of the free peasantry reduced the imperial tax coffers and diminished the
number of potential soldiers in the themes.
 The agricultural productivity of the land and the importance of Constantinople as a
trade center guaranteed that the Byzantine empire would remain prosperous despite
the worsening plight of the free peasants.
 Byzantine craftsmen maintained their historic reputation for producing glassware,
textiles, gems, jewelry, fine gold, and silver metalwork.
 After the 6th century Byzantines smuggled silkworms and silkworm technology out of
China.
 Government in Constantinople worked hard to control the production and supplies of
silk to European markets.
 Banks and business partnerships developed to encourage trade and make huge
profits from the goods which flowed through the empire on their way east and west.
 Partnerships allowed them to pool resources and limit risks.
 The Byzantine gold coin, the bezant, became the standard currency of the
Mediterranean basin for six hundred years.
 Silks, precious gems and metals, spices, timber, furs, honey, and slaves all passed
through the Byzantine empire.
 The collection of taxes and tariffs from these goods and the value added to raw
materials turned into luxury products made the Byzantines very wealthy.
 Constantinople was the heart of the Byzantine empire.
 At the heart of “the City,” the opulent imperial palace reflected the empire’s wealth.
 Aristocrats also built elaborate homes for their extended families, servants, and slaves
including separate apartments for women who were frequently excluded from
festivities and parties in order to preserve their “honor.”
 Artisans and merchants frequently lived above their shops, while government workers
and lower level employees lived in multistoried apartment homes.
 The poor lived in multifamily tenements.
 In these classes, women were part of the economic realm of the family.
 Like their Roman ancestors, the City provided entertainment for her citizens.
 Horse races, baths, taverns, restaurants, theaters, circuses, and gaming houses
provided entertainment and distractions.
Classical Heritage and Orthodox Christianity
 The philosophy and literature of classical Greece had a major influence on Christianity
in Byzantium.
 By the mid-eleventh century, differences in doctrine, ritual, and church authority had
lead to a formal split between Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Roman Catholic
Christianity.
 Though the common people of the Byzantine empire spoke Greek, in the earliest
centuries of the Byzantine empire the business of government was conducted in
Latin.
 After the sixth century, however, Greek became the official language of government,
religion, and education.
 Most people in the Byzantine empire were literate.
 The size of the Byzantine government demanded educated workers, so the
government sponsored primary schools to teach reading and writing which were
essential skills for the imperial bureaucracy.
 The state also sponsored a school of higher learning in law, medicine, and
philosophy.
 Aristocrats hired their own tutors to provide private instruction for their sons and
daughters.
 Merchants and people of other middle-class occupations almost always had some
primary education.
 Greek classics and the humanities were the basis of Byzantine scholarship.
 Caesaropapism defined the relationship between church and state in Byzantium.
 Emperors treated the church as part of their government.
 They appointed the patriarch of Constantinople and instructed church officials to
preach obedience to imperial authority as obedience to God.
 The use of icons in ceremony and worship had long been a part of religious practice
in the Orthodox Church.
 Icons - A representation or picture of a sacred or sanctified Christian personage,
traditionally used and venerated in the Eastern Church.
 Emperor Leo III tried to eradicate their use as items of contemplation as he feared
the icon itself was being worshipped.
 He sparked a controversy that plagued the Byzantine church for more than one
hundred years.
 Byzantine theologians sought to reconcile Christian theology and classical Greek
philosophy through a series of councils and conferences designed to clarify
theological matters.
 The most famous of these meetings was the Council of Nicaea in 325 C.E.
 Orthodox Christianity has a strong tradition of asceticism and monasticism.
 Asceticism - rigorous self-denial; extreme abstinence.
 Monasticism - mode of life whereby people live in seclusion, take religious vows, and
follow some fixed set of rules regulating how they spend their time.
 The “pillar saints” and the ascetic monks who followed St. Basil sought mystical union
with God through meditation and prayer.
 Some orthodox monks and nuns served God by providing social services such as
providing food and medical care in times of crisis.
 With the spread of Islam in the seventh century, only Constantinople and Rome
remained as the principal centers of Christian authority.
 The two soon clashed over religious and theological issues.
 the use of icons.
 what type of bread to use during communion.
 Whether priests should marry or even shave.
 The precise relationship between God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.
 The godly and human nature of Jesus.
 Autonomy of individual regions.
 Language of the Mass.
 The split between the Greek Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church was
finalized in 1054 C.E. with the great schism of east and west.
 By the eleventh century, Byzantium was in a period of decline.
The Influence of Byzantium in Eastern Europe
 Surrounded by Islamic and western European societies, Byzantium turned its political,
social, and cultural attention to Russia and eastern Europe where it had an enduring
impact on the Slavic peoples of that region.
 After the eleventh century, the corruption of the theme system through intermarriage
of theme administrators with local nobility produced an elite class which mounted
rebellions against imperial power.
 Undermined local economies.
 Reduced the amount of land available to the free peasants.
 The results were fewer recruits available for military service and lower tax revenues
for the imperial government.
 Coupled with domestic problems, the rise of western powers like the Normans
threatened the Byzantine empire.
 The fourth crusade and the near destruction of Constantinople in 1204 permanently
weakened the empire.
 The 11th century also saw invasion from the east by the Saljuqs who captured most
of Anatolia.
 The rest of that region came to be held by the western European crusaders.
 Loss of the agricultural and human wealth in Anatolia dealt a death blow to the
Byzantines.
 When Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the thousand year old
Byzantine empire ended.
The Establishment of Islam in Arabia
 Five Pillars of Islam:
 The acknowledgement that there is only one god and his prophet is Muhammad.
 Praying to Allah facing Mecca.
 Hajj – annual pilgrimage to Mecca.
 The observation of a month of prayer and fasting during Ramadan.
 The obligation of almsgiving to the poor and destitute.
 The Five Pillars formed a simple and effective foundation to bind all the umma across
all regions into a community of faith.
 Some later Muslims took on the jihad as an additional sin of faithfulness.
 The word jihad means “struggle” and is usually interpreted as a personal spiritual and
moral fight against evil and unbelief.
 Some have also extended it into a physical war against unbelievers.
 The body of holy laws known as the sharia developed in the centuries after
Muhammad’s death.
 Based on the Quran and Muhammad’s sayings, it offers guidance on every aspect of
moral and social behavior such as marriage, inheritance, slavery, business,
governance, and crime.
The Expansion of Islam
 After Muhammad’s death, the choice of a successor was difficult and controversial.
 Clans and towns initially broke away but soon the Islamic leadership readjusted and
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embarked on re-conquest and expansion across the southern boundaries of the
Mediterranean.
Remarkably, Islam continued to expand despite a serious rift between the successors
to the prophet.
Since there could be no more prophets, his advisers appointed Abu Bakr, a close
friend and disciple, to serve as the caliph (“deputy”).
He became head of state as well as religious leader, chief juror, and commander of
the military.
Under his command, they re-conquered the lapsed communities and forced them to
convert.
This expansion continued well beyond Arabia and into the Byzantine and Sasanid
(Persian) empires.
Despite their small numbers, the Muslim soldiers were able to defeat larger armies
across North Africa, and into the Iberian peninsula.
The first four caliphs had been appointed by the most powerful clans but this led to
intense rivalries between clans and factions.
From these disagreements arose the Shia sect followed by a minority of Muslims
today, chiefly in Iran and Iraq.
A cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad had been fourth caliph for a brief period but
was assassinated by his enemies.
His surviving followers organized themselves in support of the caliphate as an
inherited position of Muhammad’s descendents.
They soon developed new holy days in honor of their martyrs as well as other
traditions.
They have served as an alternative to the Sunni, the majority sect of Islam since
then.
The Umayyad caliphate was primarily interested in conquest so they made a policy on
how to deal with the religions of conquered peoples.
Like the Persian and Roman governments, the caliphate allowed the retention of
people’s faith but unlike the other empires, they required the payment of a tax (jizya)
in order to continue their religious practices.
The imposition of the tax and favoritism shown to Arabs were viewed negatively by
the conquered peoples.
The Abbasids took control of the caliphate with the help of the Persians.
It was a far more cosmopolitan regime that did not show special favor to Arabs and
in that way, more closely resembled the Romans and Persians.
Although the Abbasids did not have a policy of conquest, dar al-Islam (“the Islamic
world”) continued to grow with the conquests of regional Islamic armies.
The Abbasids administrated from Baghdad, a newly built city in present-day Iraq.
The ulama or religious officials and qadis (“judges”) administered public policy and
justice based on the Quran and the Sharia.
The Abbasids kept a standing army and established a bureaucracy for finances,
taxation, coinage, and postal services.
They appointed regional governors and maintained an excellent road system.
By the ninth century, the Abbasid dynasty was a center for commerce and banking as
well as industry.
 Its caliph, Harun al-Rashid, had such wealth that he tossed coins to indigents and
sent an elephant to the court of Charlemagne in western Europe.
 Soon after the dynasty weakened from regional civil wars, peasant rebellions, and
foreign conquests as the caliphs became mere figureheads until its ultimate demise
at the hands of the Mongols in 1258 C.E.
The Changing Status of Women
 Arab women had many rights not seen in other regions well before Muhammad’s
time.
 They could inherit property, divorce husbands, and engage in business.
 The Quran furthered these privileges by forbidding infanticide and allowing women to
possess their own dowries.
 Women were seen as equal to men in the eyes of Allah with Muhammad’s generosity
and kindness to his own wives serving as an example for all men.
 However, the Quran and the sharia also reinforced male dominance by recognizing
descent through the male line, putting male family members in charge of women’s
social and sexual lives, and allowing Muslim men to have as many as four wives.
 When Islam expanded into the Mesopotamian and eastern Mediterranean regions, it
took on some of the patriarchal aspects of those societies.
 The veiling of women and household seclusion comes from Mesopotamian and
Persian traditions.
 Although the Quran granted specific rights and privileges to women, later
interpretations of it have limited those rights and place women under the control of
male guardians.
 Thus, when Islam spread to other regions, it picked up cultural traditions with more
profound patriarchal traditions.
Islamic Values and Cultural Exchanges
 Arabic language holds a privileged position as the only true language of the Quran.
 Muslim missionaries spread the word of Islam through the teachings of the Quran,
they allowed many pre-Islamic traditions to be retained by the affected cultures.
 The sharia as a body of civil and criminal law formed a unifying bond across the
Islamic world.
 The ulama and qadis resolved disputes according to a unified code of law while
madrassas (“schools of higher learning”) promoted a sense of unity in education and
understanding of Muslim law and theology.
 Groups of missionaries went to and beyond all areas of the Islamic world to
proselytize.
 Sufi mystics were among the most effective with their goal to bring increased
spirituality to Islam rather than strict adherence to formal religious teachings.
 Ecstatic worship in the forms of passionate sermons, dancing, and singing worried
more strict adherents of Islam but proved enormously popular in most Islamic
communities.
 The sufis were also remarkably tolerant toward the new converts who wished to
follow some of their indigenous beliefs as well.
 They attracted many converts in lands with well-established Christian, Hindu, and
Zoroastrian traditions, such as India and Persia, through their tolerance, their
personal ascetic lifestyles, and their simple message.
 In addition to sufis, qadis, and the ulama, pilgrims on the hajj passed through many
lands and brought their faith and devotion as examples to other peoples.