Late Roman Empire Transformations

Political Focus Shift in the Roman Empire

• Political focus shifted eastward during Late Antiquity.

Adoption of Christianity

• Adoption of Christianity altered Mediterranean society.

Collapse of Roman Authority

• Collapse in the West included Germanic migrations and invasions.

Roman Empire Transformations

• The later Roman Empire saw cultural, political, and religious transformations.
• Crises in the Roman government and the rise of Christianity spurred these changes.
• In the 3rd century CE, Valerian's capture by the Sasanians showed the Empire's fluctuating prominence.
• The Empire struggled with foreign groups on its eastern and western frontiers, stretching from Britannia to Syria.

Eastward Shift

• The Roman Empire's eastward shift symbolized significant cultural changes.
• Late Antiquity, roughly 150 to 750 CE, is considered a transitional period between ancient and medieval times due to these shifts.
• Late Antique culture maintained classical influences and ancient institutional values.
• Byzantines, still calling themselves "Romans," tried to keep Christian orthodoxy.
• The rise of new religious identities and the breakdown of the Roman state caused conflicts among regional and cultural groups.
• The empire's borders were constantly changing, and its territory decreased as powers competed for dominance.

Constantinople and the Roman East

• From 235 to 284, the Roman government experienced upheaval known as the Crisis.
• Twenty-six claimants ruled the empire.
• New emperors were often declared by Roman soldiers.
• There were familial and legal connections among the tetrarchs, using imagery to communicate strength.
• Diocletian aimed to stabilize the empire economy by issuing edicts to curb inflation and promote trade.
• In 301, Diocletian issued the Edict on Maximum Prices.
• The first goal was to curb inflation, setting price limits on specific goods.
• Constantine refounded Byzantium as Constantinople in 330 CE.
• Later, Constantinople became the new imperial capital
• Constantinople's location on the empire's eastern border was strategically advantageous for trade routes and Roman military campaigns.
• Constantine's death in 337 marked the cementing of his legacy by campaigning military frontiers, promoting Christianity, and enacting laws against pagan practice.
• Julian, Constantine's nephew, attempted to revive Roman government paganism from 361 to 363.

Rule of Roman Christianity

• During Constantine's rein, the Christian Church had many new members.
• The Edict of Milan in 313 allowed citizens to practice any deity, but mainly aimed to embrace the empire's Christians and give them confiscated property and legal rights.
• The edict ended state-sanctioned persecution of Christians but did not make Christianity the official religion .
• The religion's privileged status brought significant changes for its relationship to imperial government.
• Pagans and Christians relationships were strained.
• Elite pagans and public figures like Libanius and Symmachus held office, and viewed the theologian Gregory of Nazianzus and other Christian counterparts as holding the same philosophical assumptions to debate religion together.

Fall of the Roman West

• Anglo-Saxons is the common name for two distinct groups, a name was applied to them in the eighth century to distinguish them from similarly named Germanic groups on the European continent.
• Western Europe experienced dramatic changes in the post-Roman world.
• Its political order fragmented under Germanic warlords empowered by looting for their followers.
• The Roman church, under the pope, worked to secure military aid from kings and convert groups to Christianity.
• Ensuring its vision of Christian beliefs and practices eclipsed other sects like the Arians was the church's goal.
• Arians questioned Jesus' divinity.
• The merging of religious and military cultures prepared the ground for medieval culture.

Post-Roman Empire

• No exact date exists for the Empire's end, with the eastern half lasting until the fifteenth century.
• Germanic peoples who settled in the former Empire were not hostile to its culture, Roman culture lasted longer than political authority in some places.
• Latin remained the language of the educated.
• Germanic peoples adopted the Latin alphabet for their languages, including English.
• Their alliance with the popes let the Carolingian rulers work independently of the Byzantine Empire, who desired to conquer territory and revive the empire idea.
• Diplomacy, religious movements, conflict, and opportunity still connected the Mediterranean world.
• Charlemagne wanted to revive Roman institutions, reform the church, and convert people to Christianity, like Theodoric.
• The intellectual and reorganization of educational and religious institutions in Charlemagne's reign is called the Carolingian Renaissance.
• That means a "rebirth" of culture and learning, "Carolingian" is a reference to Charlemagne).

Carolingian Empire Decline

• Charlemagne's empire did not last, his son Louis the Pious succeeded him, continuing the revival of learning and church reform..
• Benedict of Aniane and church hierarchy felt that spiritual and administrative matters had declined.
• Louis gave Benedict authority to reform all monasteries in the Frankish empire, promoting the strict observance of rules about monks' eating, working, and praying.
• Warriors oversaw work of laborers on their fiefs.
• Some owned land while most in western Europe were unfree.
• Serfs were servile laborers tied to the land, not enslaved or for sale, but occupied the lowest social rung, could be abused by the lord, and forced to provide labor and goods.

Religion and Society

• The church preserved classical Greek & Roman law, literature, and ideas by the fifth century, while Christianity had developed in antagonism to the Roman state.
• The eastern and western churches had strained political and theological ties and language differences in the eighth century.
• One dispute concerned images in worship, supported by the popes but rejected by some emperors.
• The popes built an argument for their supremacy over the church with scripture and tradition.

Church and the Call to Crusade

• Holy war has colored the history of the Middle Ages and can be seen as altruistic or as a conflict rooted in bigotry.
• Justified holy war existed in Christianity before the Crusades.
• The Crusades helped shape specific ideals that sanctioned armed conflict on religious beliefs.
• These ideals were both internal to Christian Europe and reactions to developments in the Islamic world.

East-West Schism

• Monasteries around France joined by including rights and privileges .
• The Cluniac reform movement started due to this.
• The Cluniac movement had clergy who wanted the church to control the election of bishops and be independent of secular influence.
• From then on, the popes wanted to reunite the two halves under their authority with a vision of a reformed church on the Orthodox Church.
• While Orthodox bishops possibly accepted the pope as "first among equals," the papacy thought being supreme authority in the church was important.

Jerusalem and the Holy Land

• Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have pilgrimage concepts.
• Sacred journeys can enhance a person's connection with God through penance or gratitude.
• Jerusalem drew pilgrims from the three monotheistic religions.
• Pilgrimage was obligatory for Jewish people until destroying the Second Temple in 70 CE, but still played a special role in Jewish life.

Experiencing of the Crusades

• Despite their brief existence, the Crusader States offered an example of Christians, Muslims, and Jewish people living/working together in a Christian kingdom surrounded by hostile states.
• The ignorance and religious bigotry of the crusaders led them to expel Muslims or Jewish people from holy sites/strategic importance.
• There was violent expulsion and killing of civilians.
• European families, especially aristocrats, sent crusaders.
• Dukes of Burgundy kept supporting the crusading movement.
• Crusaders wrote letters describing the military engagements.
• There was provocative language to cast Muslims negatively.

Later Crusading

• Toward the Middle Ages end, the crusading ideal's popularity declined.
• It was due to decline in the power of the papacy as well as the revival of royal power in the fourteenth century.
• Popular popes viewed the Crusades as reformers/men of virtue.