Posted on 02/06/2010 6:37:51 AM PST by Paladins Prayer
The year is 732 A.D., and Europe is under assault. Islam, born a mere 110 years earlier, is already in its adolescence, and the Muslim Moors are on the march.
Growing in leaps and bounds, the Caliphate, as the Islamic realm is known, has thus far subdued much of Christendom, conquering the old Christian lands of the Mideast and North Africa in short order. Syria and Iraq fell in 636; Palestine in 638; and Egypt, which was not even an Arab land, fell in 642. North Africa, also not Arab, was under Muslim control by 709. Then came the year 711 and the Moors’ invasion of Europe, as they crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and entered Visigothic Iberia (now Spain and Portugal). And the new continent brought new successes to Islam. Conquering the Iberian Peninsula by 718, the Muslims crossed the Pyrenees Mountains into Gaul (now France) and worked their way northward. And now, in 732, they are approaching Tours, a mere 126 miles from Paris.
The Moorish leader, Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, is supremely confident of success. He is in the vanguard of the first Muslim crusade, and his civilization has enjoyed rapidity and scope of conquest heretofore unseen in world history. He is at the head of an enormous army, replete with heavy cavalry, and views the Europeans as mere barbarians. In contrast, the barbarians facing him are all on foot, a tremendous disadvantage. The only thing the Frankish and Burgundian European forces have going for them is their leader, Charles of Herstal, grandfather of Charlemagne. He is a brilliant military tactician who, after losing his very first battle, is enjoying an unbroken 16-year streak of victories.
(Excerpt) Read more at thenewamerican.com ...
Ahhh... Nineteenth century and before... You must mean the time before Napoleon took out the church of Rome, and caused it to cease it's predatory practices... No wonder.
The article is a great read and it hits the nail on the head on the subject at hand. It was a defensive war to preserve the Eastern Roman Empire and did so for an additional 400 years (1453).
Several points to consider.
Massacres of the defenders of cities were pretty much the rule rather than the exception in Mediaval Europe as well as the Levant. The intent was to “incentivize” the surrender of the city in a peaceful manner and it was nearly always successful.
The massacre in Jerusalem has probably been overstated in numbers and the Jewish population recovered quickly after the Kingdom of Jerusalem was set up. Muslims defenders were also massacred.
The successes of the Muslim armies were probably due mostly to superior numbers, superior heavy cavalry and superior artillery. In later years, the Muslims stopped developing their artillery and Europe caught up and then passed them.
I wish we had been taught more about the Eastern Roman Empire in our schools as it outlasted the Western Empire by 1,000 years and was successful in many ways that the Western Empire was not. It is fascinating to read about it. They were blessed with many good Emperors and their stabilty and economic development showed it.
Great post!
“a brilliant military tactician who, after losing his very first battle, is enjoying an unbroken 16-year streak of victories.
*************
He was the Cal Ripken of his time bookmark
Ahem, there were no Protestants then. Crusades were much earlier than Protestantism I think.
WOW, this is great! I think I need to copy and paste most of this whole thread and keep it for teaching my kids. If that is not breaking any rules of course. This is good teaching material here.
The Byzantine Christians were pushing the muslim vampires back for hundreds of years before the first crusade.
Specifically the wars between the 7th and 12th centuries AD
Until the Christians in Spain did the right thing and took their country back.
Eleni, I don’t think the author neglected that. The article was about putting the Crusades in perspective. Information about the eastern Christians was given just insofar as it related to that goal of placing them in perspective. The article was not about the eastern Christians.
However, the author did mention that the Byzantines had already had most of their land conquered by the Muslims. That made it plain that the eastern Christians had long been fighting with them.
“Outside of Venice, which used the Adriatic to rotate the sewage in and out, Europe was pretty nasty from about 535 AD to probably the 1200s ~ when one of my ancestors figured out the best place to build his castle was ON TOP OF THE RIVER so he could have “flushing toilets” in every room.”
Might I point out that the UNITED STATES did not have plumming at it’s inception, and plumming and sewage were not generally implemented untill the late 1800’s in this country (remeber out houses?). Yet, the U S was ahead of most nations from the time of the Declaration of Independence. We were a nation of simple farmers, but we also had great minds like Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson. Your point that Europe was so backward because of the implementation of toilets is pretty weak. Parts of europe were indeed backwards, but there were islands of knowledge and greatnest that persisted though the middle ages. The backwardness of europe in the middle ages is a myth itself and should be put to bed. The mighty caliphate was defeated for hundreds of years in the east by the EUROPEAN Byzantine empire. Islam was indeed ahead of Europe for a while, but this is generally exaggerated.
There were few centers of learning and intellect anywhere in the world from about 535 (give or take a couple of years) and the 900s. Europe certainly didn't have many of them in that period. Most people were more concerned with avoiding wild boar, wild bear, wild wolves, disease, roving bands of thieves and marauders, and so forth.
Even Byzantium got shut down pretty much for 85 years, and when that period was past there were Slavic speaking people living in Greece itself (where'd they'd been prohibited since the days of Pericles, and that crowd).
Venice was still young the day the Dark Ages started, and it took them a couple more centuries to begin the recovery ~ and when that happened they were very much alone. The Renaissance occurs in the 14th to the 17th century, in the Late Middle Ages ~ however, I'm sure you have the Carlingian Renaissance in mind, and that occurred during the late eighth and ninth centuries.
Islamic Spain got a kick start in the EARLY eighth century and didn't give up its lead until the Christian takeover in the 15th century.
Now, regarding toilets, that's what those moats were about ~ early Middle Ages counts discovered that if they dumped just everything into the surround it would keep the enemy at bey ~ along with the wild animals ~ and, if need be, the equally dangerous peasantry.
Americans were much more fortunate. It was feasible to make use of outhouses because there was lots and lots and lots of land. You do have to shut the things down recurringly and relocate the box to another hole. That means you need a large backyard! Even today Europeans need to use sewers. Still, it's possible that in the Early Middle Ages after the population crash folks got along fine with outhouses and trenches. I'll see if someone has written a definitive book about that. There are books that cover the castles, of course, but you don't get the really fancy jobs until the 1200s.
check out these nuggets...
1. The Heavy Plough 5th Century AD
In the basic mouldboard plough the depth of the cut is adjusted by lifting against the runner in the furrow, which limited the weight of the plough to what the ploughman could easily lift. These ploughs were fairly fragile, and were unsuitable for breaking up the heavier soils of northern Europe. The introduction of wheels to replace the runner allowed the weight of the plough to increase, and in turn allowed the use of a much larger mouldboard that was faced with metal. These heavy ploughs led to greater food production and eventually a significant population increase around 600 AD.
2. Tidal Mills 7th Century AD
A tide mill is a specialist type of water mill driven by tidal rise and fall. A dam with a sluice is created across a suitable tidal inlet, or a section of river estuary is made into a reservoir. As the tide comes in, it enters the mill pond through a one way gate, and this gate closes automatically when the tide begins to fall. When the tide is low enough, the stored water can be released to turn a water wheel. The earliest excavated tide mill, dating from 787, is the Nendrum Monastery mill on an island in Strangford Lough in Northern Ireland. Its millstones are 830mm in diameter and the horizontal wheel is estimated to have developed 7/8HP at its peak. Remains of an earlier mill dated at 619 were also found.
3. The Hourglass 9th Century AD
Since the hourglass was one of the few reliable methods of measuring time at sea, it has been speculated that it was in use as far back as the 11th century, where it would have complemented the magnetic compass as an aid to navigation. However, it is not until the 14th century that evidence of their existence was found, appearing in a painting by Ambrogio Lorenzetti 1328. The earliest written records come from the same period and appear in lists of ships stores. From the 15th century onwards they were being used in a wide range of applications at sea, in the church, in industry and in cookery. They were the first dependable, reusable and reasonably accurate measure of time. During the voyage of Ferdinand Magellan around the globe, his vessels kept 18 hourglasses per ship. It was the job of a ship’s page to turn the hourglasses and thus provide the times for the ship’s log. Noon was the reference time for navigation, which did not depend on the glass, as the sun would be at its zenith.
4. Blast Furnace 12th Century AD
The oldest known blast furnaces in the West were built in Dürstel in Switzerland, the Märkische Sauerland in Germany, and Sweden at Lapphyttan where the complex was active between 1150 and 1350. At Noraskog in the Swedish county of Järnboås there have also been found traces of blast furnaces dated even earlier, possibly to around 1100. Knowledge of certain technological advances was transmitted as a result of the General Chapter of the Cistercian monks, including the blast furnace, as the Cistercians are known to have been skilled metallurgists. According to Jean Gimpel, their high level of industrial technology facilitated the diffusion of new techniques: “Every monastery had a model factory, often as large as the church and only several feet away, and waterpower drove the machinery of the various industries located on its floor.” Iron ore deposits were often donated to the monks along with forges to extract the iron, and within time surpluses were being offered for sale. The Cistercians became the leading iron producers in Champagne, France, from the mid-13th century to the 17th century, also using the phosphate-rich slag from their furnaces as an agricultural fertilizer.
5. Liquor 12th Century AD
The first evidence of true distillation comes from Babylonia and dates from the fourth millennium BC. Specially shaped clay pots were used to extract small amounts of distilled alcohol through natural cooling for use in perfumes, however it is unlikely this device ever played a meaningful role in the history of the development of the still. Freeze distillation, the “Mongolian still”, are known to have been in use in Central Asia as early as the 7th century AD. The first method involves freezing the alcoholic beverage and removing water crystals. The development of the still with cooled collector—necessary for the efficient distillation of spirits without freezing—was an invention of Muslim alchemists in the 8th or 9th centuries. In particular, Geber (Jabir Ibn Hayyan, 721–815) invented the alembic still; he observed that heated wine from this still released a flammable vapor, which he described as “of little use, but of great importance to science”
6. Eyeglasses 13th Century
In 1268 Roger Bacon made the earliest recorded comment on the use of lenses for optical purposes, but magnifying lenses inserted in frames were used for reading both in Europe and China at this time, and it is a matter of controversy whether the West learned from the East or vice versa. In Europe eyeglasses first appeared in Italy, their introduction being attributed to Alessandro di Spina of Florence. The first portrait to show eyeglasses is that of Hugh of Provence by Tommaso da Modena, painted in 1352. In 1480 Domenico Ghirlandaio painted St. Jerome at a desk from which dangled eyeglasses; as a result, St. Jerome became the patron saint of the spectacle-makers’ guild. The earliest glasses had convex lenses to aid farsightedness. A concave lens for myopia, or nearsightedness, is first evident in the portrait of Pope Leo X painted by Raphael in 1517.
7. The Mechanical Clock 13th Century AD
The origin of the all-mechanical escapement clock is unknown; the first such devices may have been invented and used in monasteries to toll a bell that called the monks to prayers. The first mechanical clocks to which clear references exist were large, weight-driven machines fitted into towers and known today as turret clocks. These early devices struck only the hours and did not have hands or a dial. The oldest surviving clock in England is that at Salisbury Cathedral, which dates from 1386. A clock erected at Rouen, France, in 1389 is still extant (photo above), and one built for Wells Cathedral in England is preserved in the Science Museum in London.
8. Spinning Wheel 13th Century AD
The spinning wheel was probably invented in India, though its origins are obscure. It reached Europe via the Middle East in the European Middle Ages. It replaced the earlier method of hand spinning, in which the individual fibres were drawn out of a mass of wool held on a stick, or distaff, twisted together to form a continuous strand, and wound on a second stick, or spindle. The first stage in mechanizing the process was to mount the spindle horizontally in bearings so that it could be rotated by a cord encircling a large, hand-driven wheel. The distaff, carrying the mass of fibre, was held in the left hand, and the wheel slowly turned with the right. Holding the fibre at an angle to the spindle produced the necessary twist.
9. Quarantine 14th Century AD
In the 14th century the growth of maritime trade and the recognition that plague was introduced by ships returning from the Levant led to the adoption of quarantine in Venice. It was decreed that ships were to be isolated for a limited period to allow for the manifestation of the disease and to dissipate the infection brought by persons and goods. Originally the period was 30 days, trentina, but this was later extended to 40 days, quarantina. The choice of this period is said to be based on the period that Christ and Moses spent in isolation in the desert. In 1423 Venice set up its first lazaretto, or quarantine station, on an island near the city. The Venetian system became the model for other European countries and the basis for widespread quarantine control for several centuries.
10. The Printing Press of Gutenberg 15th Century AD
Although movable type, as well as paper, first appeared in China, it was in Europe that printing first became mechanized. The earliest mention of a printing press is in a lawsuit in Strasbourg in 1439 revealing construction of a press for Johannes Gutenberg and his associates. (Scant evidence exists to support claims of Laurens Janszoon Coster as the inventor of printing.) The invention of the printing press itself obviously owed much to the medieval paper press, in turn modeled after the ancient wine-and-olive press of the Mediterranean area. A long handle was used to turn a heavy wooden screw, exerting downward pressure against the paper, which was laid over the type mounted on a wooden platen. In its essentials, the wooden press reigned supreme for more than 300 years, with a hardly varying rate of 250 sheets per hour printed on one side.
http://listverse.com/2007/09/22/top-10-inventions-of-the-middle-ages/
Slavery was common. Disease was more common.
The Medieval Warm Period served to help boost the population back towards pre-Dark Ages levels.
That was followed by the Little Ice Age.
Now, for the major piece of history. King Arthur is reported to have booted the lords of the manor off a prime piece of property located around what we would today call Wessex, Essex, East Wessex, and West Essex (it was a communally held vast estate). He then gave the property away to the Illegal Aliens then arriving from across the Channel and mucking everything up.
Anyway, they moved to Brittany and Merlin replanted the vinyards in that country (which was far larger in those days).
Later, the whole family (thousands of people) moved further East to the headwaters of the Rhone where again Merlin directed the planting of vast numbers of vines.
Over the years this region saw the development of its own Arthurian legends.
Eventually one of the eldest daughters of a principal family married the Count of Bourbon and the rest is history.
That's the only Western European family history, with associated bric a brac, that's managed to cross over from several months before the arrival of the Dark Ages down to the end of the Middle of the Middle Ages.
Just about all the details about anybody, or even large family groups, got burned in the hearth as people attempted to avoid freezing to death in 536 and 537AD.
Even the Franks didn't keep a continuous record. They tried, but they just couldn't make it. I can only imagine they were reduced to eating their horses.
Things were rough back then!
Actualy, it was Latin Christendom. And they were supposed to help the East Romans/Byzantines but eventually sacked Constantinople. And I’m not even going to get into the targetting of the Jews in the Rhineland.
The Crusades were necessary. I just wish they had been carried out better.
PS. Soem opf my ancestors were fighting the Caliphate in the Caucuses intermittently from 650 to 737 ina series of wars that makes Tours look like the turning back of a Recon in Force.
Muslims in Andalusia co-opted all minority religions. This included Catholics in Arian areas and Arian christians in Catholic areas. Jews accepted Islamic overlordship because they had no choice and because many Vandal warlords in Hispania were pursuing policies of either driving out Jews or forcing conversion.
Reading your post it all hangs together. What I find interesting when we talk about the era is the way that 700 years of history is spoken of as a unit. My bet is that you will have to think a while before you tell me what year or years you are talking about in your post or even google it to see if it’s 1300 or 900 or 1100 or . . .
My post was as non-specific in dates as yours. Mine was about Islamic tactics in consolodating rule. Jews were given prestigious positions among Dhimmi in the Omayyid Dynasty, which ended in 1039. The Golden Age ended with the Granada Massacre of 1066. The Almoravides were harsh and the Almohades (al-Muwahhidun) were fundamentalists who persecuted Christians and Jews.
Yah, exactly. I think most are using a wikipedia knowledge base and “the conventional wisdom” on this one which is distorted beyond belief by religion, nationalism, and politics, in my opinion.
I like your comment about immanitizing the eschaton!
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