The Super Summary of World History (29 page)

Historians debate the significance of the victory at Tours; nonetheless, there is no doubt Charles Martel won one of the world’s most important victories. Like the victory of Vasco De Gamma at Du, which destroyed an Arab fleet in the Indian Ocean securing the waterway forever for the West, the victory at Tours by Charles Martel and his men denied the Muslims entry into Europe for the rest of time (at least up until 2010), and saved Christian Europe. If Martel had lost, Europe could have suffered Islamic conquest. If Islam had won Europe we could forget about the Renaissance, the Age of Discovery, the flowering of literature, science, math, art, and all the rest that defines the Western world. Every person enjoying Western Civilization owes an immense debt to Charles Martel and his men who desperately fought and won against the Moors at Tours so long ago.

Although turned back at tours in the West, in
1453
the forces of Islam, under the Ottoman Turks, toppled the last of the Eastern Roman Empire when the city of Constantinople (Byzantium) fell. Byzantium was a Greek-speaking Christian empire, and all that remained of the once mighty Roman Empire in the east. The Byzantine Empire was quite large at one point, stretching from Turkey to Spain by AD 585; however, numerous defeats and poor rulers shrank it to a small size around its capital of Constantinople by 1300. The city of Byzantium’s name was changed to Constantinople by Constantine the First (AD 306 to 337) who made the glorious city the center of the Eastern Roman Empire. Constantine was the first Roman emperor who converted to Christianity; thus, Byzantium became a Christian empire. Now, a little Byzantium background.

Figure 25 Justinian’s Empire (Byzantium) 527-585 AD

Byzantium

The Roman Emperor Diocletian had split the Roman Empire into western and eastern parts in 285 with the goal of better governing each half; however, after the split, the economic power remained in the east, and thereafter the west declined as the east prospered. The city of Constantinople was founded on May 11, 330 by the Roman Emperor Constantine, who was out to found
Nova
Roma
(New Rome). He chose a site with seven hills to mimic the old Rome, but his new city would be far more magnificent. The citizens of Constantinople called themselves Roman at the dedication of the city, and 1,123 years later when the city at last fell to the Turks, they still called themselves Romans. It was Constantine who called the counsel that set forth the Nicene Creed, which defined what it meant to be a follower of Christ and a Christian. When Constantine died he was laid to rest in his
Nova
Roma
city at the Church of the Holy Apostles that he had previously ordered constructed.

The Byzantine Empire would be blessed with great, and not so great, rulers; however, through it all the riches of the East kept the empire alive. At the crossroads of east and west, commerce was the boon of the Byzantines. By keeping the area around the Mediterranean peaceful they encourage trade. The Roman roads and safe sea routes all contributed to Constantinople’s commercial success.

At the
Battle
of
Adrianople
in AD 378 the Goths killed the Roman Emperor Valens and destroyed his legions. This defeat, and the threats from other barbarians, caused Theodosius II of Constantinople to build triple walls around the city some sixty feet high. It was these walls that defined and protected the marvelous city for over 1,000 years.
Justinian
I
(527-585) became emperor of Byzantium and was successful in expanding the empire by constant battle. He managed the re-conquest of Italy and North Africa by about 527; nevertheless, the strain on the empire was great in economic terms. During his reign he had improved the system of taxation and tried to kill off corruption, but with the riches of east pouring in corruption was immortal. With his partner and famous queen
Theodora
(an unusual mix of whore and genius),
[81]
and his gifted general
Belisarius
, Justinian was successfully pushing the reunification of the old Roman Empire when disaster struck. Belisarius had returned Italy and North Africa to Imperial control when the bubonic plague infected the empire, the city of Constantinople, and his stunning Queen Theodora in 541. After Justinian lost his beautiful consort Theodora to the plague he was never the same, and the expansion of the empire stopped. AD 541 was the high point of the Byzantine Empire.

Figure 26 Byzantine Empire 867 AD

Byzantium faced the same problem that Rome had faced: scheming aristocrats. Merchants, small manufacturing concerns, and small farmers began to disappear as wars, natural disasters, taxes, and corruption drove them under. The wealthy aristocrats were waiting to buy up the land being sold by the small farmers. The middle class began to evaporate, and with it the strength of the empire.

The strength of Persia continued to grow, and by 619 they were threatening to topple Constantinople. Heraclius became emperor in 610 and he was already in deep trouble. He turned to the Church for money, and the patriarch gave it to him to save the city and the empire. This was a fusion of church and state unknown in the West. It took ten years to construct a winning army, but Heraclius did it and completely vanquished the Persians. All seemed well for the moment, but the moment soon passed with the coming of Islam.

The threat of Islam arose with a new religious prophet born after the death of Justinian. The prophet
Muhammad
founded his new religion (Islam) on a monotheistic belief in the one true god, Allah. The one true god chose to speak with his ultimate prophet secretly in a cave for some years before Muhammad reveled Allah to the world. These teachings were written down in the
Koran
the Muslim holy book. Muhammad prophesized all believers must submit to Allah, warning that Allah demanded control of every aspect of their lives. The new religion set forth an exacting series of requirements resulting in the government, all social life, law, worship, and even eating habits being controlled by the rules of the Koran, the perfect example of Muhammad’s life, and pronouncements of Muhammad apart from the Koran. The religion condemned all non-believers, and death awaited those who failed to convert. The Muslims preferred dealing death to all heathens, although exceptions existed for “people of the book,” meaning Christians and Jews, who could choose to live in total subjugation to Islam in lieu of death. Muhammad managed to conquer Mecca in 630, thereby ensuring his new religion a strong base of operations. He died in 632; nevertheless, his followers were determined to spread the word of Allah, and in 640 they began a series of fantastic conquests that swept the Middle East, North Africa, Iraq, Persia, Spain, and beyond by 1500.

Muslims believed the “umma,” a religious and social community concept uniting all believers, was to have only one leader—a caliph. The caliph was a
religious
and
political
leader
, thereby uniting the church and the state. The first caliph was
Abu
Bakr.
Under the first three caliphs Islam expanded exponentially. There were two very successful caliphates (Islamic states): the
Umayyad
Caliphate
(661-750) concentrated in Damascus, and the
Abbasid
Caliphate
(750-1258) focused at Baghdad.
[82]
Under the Caliphate’s expert leadership the Muslim armies swept all before them.

Meanwhile, the empire of Byzantium was constantly under attack from all sides. Constantinople held out against two Islamic assaults from the south, one lasting four years between 674 and 678, and another in 717. However, to the north and west the Bulgars and Avars seized nearly all of the Balkans and reduced the empire substantially. Things were looking grim for the empire as it was subjected to simultaneous assaults from different directions.

A general recovery began for the city and the empire after 717, and Byzantium was once more able to recover lost territory in Greece, Macedonia, and Thrace. Following this period of expansion the Komnenoi (also Comneni) dynasty came to power in 1085 and managed to hold the empire together and expand its economic prosperity. Under great pressure, Emperor Alexius I Comnenus invited the Church of Rome to help save the Byzantine Empire. The pope understood the importance of the empire as a bulwark against Islam and responded. Pope Urban II delivered his sermon requesting men to save the Holy Land on November 18, 1095 and he received an overwhelming response. Unfortunately, the Crusaders refused to take advice from Alexius and suffered defeat after defeat. Then a total disaster. Disobeying the orders of the pope and his threat of excommunication, the Fourth Crusade sacked the great city of Constantinople in 1204, breaking its ability to resist further Muslim incursions. After the fall of the Komnenoi dynasty the empire entered a steep decline that eventually resulted in the fall of its capitol and the complete destruction of the Byzantine Empire. The fall of the great city opened up Christian eastern Europe to Muslim conquest.

In 1180 the great city at Constantinople protected about 400,000 inhabitants, in 1204 about 150,000, and by 1453 (the date of its fall) about 50,000. It was during the Fourth Crusade in April of 1204, that Constantinople was sacked by “Christian” troops originally on their way to fight the Muslims. A scheming duke (doge) of Venice, Enrico Dandolo, was seeking revenge for financial losses suffered to the emperor at Constantinople, and he managed to turn the crusade against the great city rather than the Muslims. The Christian crusaders slaughtered the inhabits, looting and burning the city for three days and stealing everything of value. The crusaders even dug up graves and pried open crypts containing the jeweled garments of past emperors, which they promptly stole. Ancient manuscripts with gold inlaid covers were hacked apart for the precious metal. The city failed to recover from this plundering by Latin Christians, and the weakening of the city greatly hastened its decline. The fact that Christian Crusaders attacked and pillaged the strongest Christian bastion in the east against Islam was incredible. Once Constantinople fell the entirety of Eastern Europe was open to Muslim invasion. The duke of Venice had opened the door to an incredible slaughter because of a personal vendetta. The pope was stunned. The call for help from Christian brothers had turned into an orgy of violence against those who had pleaded for aid.

By 1453 Constantinople was isolated in a sea of Islamic controlled territory. Knowing no help was coming from the West, or anywhere else, the 7,000 soldiers of Christ prepared to meet the 80,000 Turks of Allah. The Ottomans were able to capture the city by attacking from land and sea simultaneously, and by pounding the walls down with a massive cannon throwing stones (cannonballs) weighing 1500 pounds. The defenders of the city were few during 1453, but they held out for nearly two months providing yet another testament to the strength of the triple walls that protected the city for so many centuries. Even after the walls were opened up by the huge stone cannonballs, assault after assault was thrown back. The Ottoman Turks used their powerful cannon to batter the city again before their final assault, punching additional large openings in the walls and demoralizing the defenders. The last emperor,
Constantine
XI
, refused to become a vassal of the Muslims, preferring to die in battle. He positioned himself at the weakest point of the wall, and as the enemy swarm stormed through the breach he charged forward. His body was never found. Cannons had overcome the old static defenses that turned back so many previous invaders. After the fall of the mighty city, and an immense slaughter of its citizens where the streets became slick with blood, Islam moved on by invading Eastern Europe and continuing their string of conquests. Byzantium was gone and Constantinople became the capitol of the Ottoman Turks. They renamed it Istanbul. It never regained its former glory or wealth. Rome was at last a distant memory.