Episode 6 The Medieval Building of Empire

The Middle Ages Around the World

Dr Joyce E Salisbury

Film Review

The Holy Roman Empire

In 800 AD the French king Charlemagne traveled to Rome to rescue Pope Leo III from a popular uprising in which the people of Rome kidnapped and beat him up and threatened to cut out his tongue. In return, the pope proclaimed him emperor of the lands he had reunited from northern Spain to the North Sea and western Germany to northern Italy. Charlemagne used this centralized power to enact important education reforms and to build alliances with Harun al Rashid of the Abbasid Caliphate against the Byzantines. This massively rejuvenated Europe’s link to the Silk Road trade, which entered Europe via the port of Venice,

Wars of succession among Charlemagne’s grandsons resulted in the Treaty of Verdun, which divided the short lived Holy Roman Empire into Franca, East Franca and the Domain of Lothair. Charlemagne’s German successors (in East Franca) retained the title of Holy Roman Emperor, a position abolished by Napoleon in 1806.

The Abbasid Caliphate

Revenue from the Silk Road trade allowed Harun to build Houses of Wisdom in Baghdad,* where he convened scholars to translate ancient Greek and Latin science texts into Arabic and record them on paper (an art the Arabs learned from the Chinese. In 751 he formed an alliance with the Tang empire against their mutual enemies: the Tibetans and the Steppes nomads.

Following Harun’s death, a dispute over his successor led to numerous provincial governors declaring autonomy. By the early 900s, the Abassid empire only ruled southern and central Iraq.

China

The Tang empire, which supported arts, education, science, engineering and religion represented the golden age of Chinese culture. The water wheel the Chinese used to provide mechanical power for irrigation and to mill grains led to the discovery of paddle boat wheels and clockwork wheels to run clocks. The Tang dynasty also discovered gunpowder, toilet paper, paper money and tea drinking (an expensive habit only Chinee elites could afford). Tea drinking quickly spread to Vietnam, Japan and Korea.

The Tang Dynasty also developed a brisk maritime via the East China and the Yellow Sea. During an 860 peasant rebellion, the emperor fled and one of the peasants Yuang Chow seized the throne,  turned into banditry. The emperor fled and one of the bandits Yuang Chow replaced him, launching the Qi dynasty.

Korea

Thanks to introduction of more productive paddy rice fields, in 668 the Silla kingdom unified the Korean peninsula, establishing a capitol at Seravea with nearly a million people. The Silla adopted a Confucian administrative structure (ie regional division of government) and the Chinese alphabet for writing. It also fostered art, music and dance and produced the first wood block printing in 751 AD. When Buddhism spread to Korea, Korean monks went to China for further study. Eventually Korean aristocrats wrested more power from the emperor until a peasant rebellion brought down the Silla dynasty in 935.

Japan

In the late 8th century, the Japanese laid out out their capitol Nara laid out exactly like the Chinese capitol Chang’an. In 794 they moved to Heian (Kyoto), cut off Chinese diplomatic ties and blockaded Chinese trade on the Yellow and South China Sea. The Heian period (794-1185) led to a focus on beauty and the rise of the Geisha movement in Kyoto. The suspension of trade weakened the Japanese emperor, leading regional Japanese nobles and their Samurai to seize more and more power.

*1001 Nights (aka TheArabian Night is based on the court of Harun in Baghdad.

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/13172786/13172799