World History: States (1200-1450)

Introduction to Unit 1 (1200-1450)

• The main focus of Unit 1 is understanding how major civilizations built and maintained their states between 1200 and 1450.
• The term "state" refers to a territory politically organized under a single government.

Song Dynasty of China (960-1279)

• The Song Dynasty maintained and justified its rule through two main methods: emphasizing Confucianism and expanding the Imperial bureaucracy.

Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism

• Confucianism is a philosophy that defined Chinese culture from its earliest days and was revitalized during the Song Dynasty.
• Neo-Confucianism was a Revival of Confucianism during the song Dynasty, with changes that sought to rid Confucian thought of Buddhist influences.
• Confucianism emphasizes a hierarchical society, where individuals have prescribed roles and proper orders.
• The philosophy emphasizes that those below defer to those above, and those above care for those below.
• Filial piety, emphasizing children's obedience and honor towards parents, grandparents, and ancestors, was central to Confucianism.

The Place of Women in Song China

• During the Song Dynasty, women were relegated to a subordinate position and faced increased social restrictions.
• Women were stripped of legal rights, with their property becoming their husband's property. Widows and divorced women could not remarry.
• Women had limited access to education.
• Elite women endured foot binding, a practice that restricted their movement and symbolized status.

Expansion of the Imperial Bureaucracy

• Bureaucracy is a government entity arranged hierarchically to carry out the emperor's will.
• The Song Dynasty expanded the Imperial bureaucracy, which helped maintain their rule.
• Bureaucratic jobs were earned based on merit through civil service examinations based on Confucian classics.
• The civil service exam was theoretically open to all men, but in reality, it favored the wealthy due to the required study time.

Influence of Chinese Traditions on Neighboring Regions

• The kingdoms of Korea, Japan, and Vietnam were influenced by Chinese traditions.
• Korea adopted a civil service examination and embraced Buddhism.

The Role of Buddhism in Song China

• Buddhism originated in India and spread to China long before the Song Dynasty.
• The teachings of Buddhism revolve around the Four Noble Truths: life is suffering, suffering is caused by craving, suffering ceases when craving ceases, and the path to the cessation of suffering is the Eightfold Path.
• Buddhism shares beliefs with Hinduism, such as reincarnation and the goal of dissolving into the Oneness of the universe (Nirvana).
• Theravada Buddhism, practiced in Sri Lanka, confined Buddhist practices to monks and monasteries.
• Mahayana Buddhism, prevalent in East Asia, encouraged broader participation in Buddhist practices.
• Bodhisattvas in Mahayana Buddhism aimed to help others achieve enlightenment.
• Forms of Buddhism arose as the belief system interacted with various Asian cultures.

Economy of Song China

• The Song rulers inherited prosperity and population growth, increasing prosperity and population.
• The commercialization of the Song economy involved manufacturers and artisans producing excess goods for sale in markets.
• Porcelain and silk were significant trade goods.
• Agricultural innovations, like the introduction of Champa rice, led to increased food production and population growth.
• Champa rice matured early, resisted drought, and could be harvested multiple times a year.
• Innovations in transportation, such as the expansion of the Grand Canal, facilitated trade and communication.

Developments in Dar al-Islam (House of Islam)

• Dar al-Islam refers to the regions where Islamic faith was the organizing principle of civilizations.
• Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were practiced in the heartland of the Muslim faith.
• Each of these religions are monotheistic.
• Believers used these religions and principles to shape their society.
• Before 1200, the Abbasid caliphate, based in Baghdad, was dominant.
• By 1200, the Abbasid caliphate began to lose power, and new Islamic political entities arose, dominated by Turkic people.
• The Turkic empires continued some practices from the former Empire.
• Seljuk Empire was established in the 11th century by Turkic pastoralists.
• The seljuks brought in warriors that saw saw the weakness in the Abbasid Regime and fought with them instead.
• The Mongols sacked Baghdad in 1258, ending the Abbasid Empire.
• The Abbasids remained in power to a more limited degree, claiming to be the religious figurehead for Islam
• Turkic empires continued the practice of establishing Sharia law as the organizing principle of their legal systems
• The turkic empire was mostly administered by the military.

Cultural and Scientific Innovations in the Muslim World

• Muslim scholar Nasir al-din al-Tusi made advances in mathematics and invented trigonometry.
• Muslim scholars preserved Greek works of philosophy by translating them into Arabic and making commentaries.
• The House of Wisdom in Baghdad was a library established under the Abbasid Empire, containing many scholarly works.
• Dar al-Islam, along with Song China, represented the center of world scholarship and wealth during this period.

Expansion of Muslim Rule

• Muslim empires expanded through military expansion, as seen with the establishment of the Seljuk, mamluk, and Delhi sultanates.
• Traveling Muslim merchants stimulated trade and the movement of merchants throughout Africa.
• The Empire of Mali in West Africa converted to Islam, increasing access to trade within Dar al-Islam.
• Sufis, a new sect of Islam emphasizing mystical experience, spread through missionary activities.
• Much of the conversion in South Asia resulted from Sufi missionary work.

Developments in South and Southeast Asia

• In South and Southeast Asia, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam influenced societies.

Religion in South Asia

• By 1200, Buddhism was in decline in South Asia with only a few monastic communities remaining.
• Hinduism remained the most widespread religion in India, while Islam became the second most important.
• The bhakti movement began in southern India, emphasizing devotion to one Hindu god.
• The bhakti movement challenged social and gender hierarchies in Hindu India.

State Building in South Asia

• The Muslim Delhi sultanate ruled much of Northern India but faced difficulties imposing a total Muslim state.
• The rajput Kingdom was a collection of rival Hindu kingdoms that kept Muslim rule at bay.
• The vijayanagara Empire rose up in the South as a Hindu kingdom in response to the Muslim rule in the north.

Establishment of Kingdoms

• A failed attempt by the Delhi Sultanate to extend Muslim rule into the South led to the establishment of a rival kingdom.
• Emissaries sent by the Delhi Sultanate, who were former Hindus converted to Islam, reverted to Hinduism and established a rival empire in the South.

Southeast Asian Empires

• Southeast Asia had a diverse set of sea-based and land-based empires that interacted with China and India.

Majapahit Kingdom

• The Majapahit kingdom, based in Java from 1293 to 1520, was a Buddhist kingdom and one of the most powerful states in Southeast Asia.
• The Majapahit maintained influence by controlling sea routes for trade, rather than naval power.
• The Majapahit began to decline when China started supporting its trading rival, the Sultanate of Malacca.

Khmer Empire

• The Khmer Empire was founded as a Hindu kingdom, but its leadership later converted to Buddhism.
• Angkor Wat was built as a Hindu temple, but Buddhist elements were added after the conversion to Buddhism.
• Angkor Wat stands as a monument to the kingdom's religious continuity and change over time.

American Civilizations

• By 1200, the majority of the population in the Americas lived in Mesoamerica and the Andean civilization.

Aztec Empire

• The Aztec Empire was founded in 1345 by the Meshika people.
• Their capital city, Tenochtitlan, was the largest city in the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans.
• By 1428, the Aztecs formed an alliance with two other Mesoamerican states and established an empire with an aggressive expansion policy.
• The Aztecs created a tribute system that required conquered people to provide labor and goods.
• Enslaved people from conquered regions played a large role in Aztec religion, especially as candidates for human sacrifice.

Inca Empire

• In the early 1400s, the Inca Empire was established and stretched nearly across the entire Andean Mountain Range.
• The Incas incorporated the land and languages of older Andean societies.
• The Incas developed an elaborate bureaucracy with rigid hierarchies of officials to maintain power over their conquered territories
• Instead of a tribute system like the Aztecs, the Incas adopted the Mita system, which required all people under their rule to provide labor on state projects.
• The Aztecs were mostly decentralized in how they ruled, while the Inca were highly centralized.

Mississippian Culture

• The Mississippian culture was the first large-scale civilization in North America.
• It grew up around the Mississippi River Valley due to fertile soil suitable for agriculture.
• Large towns dominated smaller satellite settlements politically.
• The Mississippians were known for their monumental mounds around which their towns were organized.
• The largest of these mounds is a series of about 80 human-built burial mounds constructed by the Cahokia people.

East African Swahili Civilization

• The Swahili Civilization was a series of cities organized around commerce along the East African coast.
• These cities grew more influential over time as they became more involved in the Indian Ocean trade.
• Each city was independent politically, but they shared a common social hierarchy, with the merchant elite above commoners.
• The Swahili civilization was deeply influenced by Muslim traders, some of whom settled in the various Swahili States.
• Muslim traders influenced the emergence of Swahili, a hybrid language between indigenous African Bantu languages and Arabic.
• The Swahili States rapidly became Islamic, which increased their integration into the larger world of Islamic trade.

West African Civilizations

• In West Africa, there were powerful and highly centralized civilizations, including the Ghana, Mali, and Songhai Empires.
• The growth of these civilizations was driven by trade, which led them to become Muslim.
• However, mostly the elite members and government officials in these Empires converted to Islam, while the majority of the population held on to their indigenous beliefs and traditions.
• The Hausa Kingdoms were not centralized Empires but rather a series of city-states, similar to the Swahili states in the East.
• The Hausa Kingdoms acted as brokers of the trans-Saharan trade.

Great Zimbabwe

• The Great Zimbabwe's capital city was built sometime between 1250 and 1450,
• Contained massive structures covering almost 200 acres and held a population of about 18 thousand
• The Great Zimbabwe became a powerful African state that grew thanks to trade.
• The Great Zimbabwe's economic bread and butter was farming and cattle herding, but with increasing African and international trade became exceedingly wealthy and shifted mainly to gold exports
• Unlike the Swahili and Hausa states, rulers and people in Zimbabwe never converted to Islam but rather maintained their indigenous shamanistic religion.

Kingdom of Ethiopia

• The Kingdom of Ethiopia grew and flourished because of trade, especially with other states around the Mediterranean and the Arabian Peninsula.
• Ethiopia was a Christian state in a sea of African States dominated by Islam and Indigenous belief systems.
• Their power structure was hierarchical, with a monarch holding the top spot and various class structures below.

European Belief Systems and State Building

• Europe was dominated by Christianity, with two different flavors: Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic.

Byzantine Empire

• The Byzantine Empire represented the eastern half of what was left of the Roman Empire.
• Its version of Christianity was called Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

Kievan Rus

• The Kievan Rus emerged as a new state that would carry the Eastern Orthodox Christian belief system forward.
• The adoption in 988 of Eastern Orthodox Christianity united the people of the Kievan Rus and plugged them into a larger network of trade in Afro-Eurasia.

Western Europe

• In Western Europe, the version of Christianity that dominated was the Roman Catholic Church.
• Western Europe had split into tiny decentralized States after the fall of the Roman Empire and were largely isolated from international trade.
• Roman Catholicism linked every state together culturally, and the church had significant influence over society, culture, and politics.
• Muslims and Jews also exerted influence in Europe.
• In the 8th century, Muslims conquered much of the territory of the Iberian Peninsula.
• Jews lived in smaller pockets throughout Europe but faced anti-Semitism and Jewish persecution.

European States

• There were no large empires in Europe, and decentralization and political fragmentation were the political flavor.
• The main social, political, and economic order across Europe was organized around feudalism.
• Powerful Lords and Kings gained Allegiance from lesser Lords and Kings as vassals.
• The vassals received land from their Lords in exchange for military service.
• On a smaller scale, European society and economics were organized according to manorialism.
• A manor is a huge piece of land owned by a lord rented out to peasants who worked the land.
• Peasants were bound to the land of those powerful landowners and lived and worked there in exchange for the Lord's protection.
• These working peasants were known as serfs, and they were bound to the land but not the personal property of the landowners.
• The center of political and economic power in Europe during this time was in the hands of the land-owning Lords.
• After about 1000 CE, monarchs began to grow in power, and States became highly centralized, knocking the power pants right off the nobility.