A Short History of the Middle Ages Fourth Edition

answer was clear: God was angry with them for their sins. What recourse did they have but to seek new avenues to access divine f ...

Above all, iconoclastic churchmen worried about losing control over the sacred. Unlike relics, images could be reproduced infini ...

Plate 2.2: Cross at Hagia Sophia (orig. mosaic 6th cent.; redone 768/769). In this section of a mosaic just off the gallery at H ...

cross can be clearly seen the rectangular space in which the original inscription was replaced by tesserae to match the backgrou ...

Islam began as a religion of the sedentary, but it soon found support and military strength among the nomads. The movement began ...

not those who have lost the way.^8 The Qur’an continues with a far longer sura, followed by others (114 in all) of gradually dec ...

city. Against the Meccans he fought a series of battles; the battle of Badr (624), waged against a Meccan caravan, marked the fi ...

Map 2.2: The Islamic World to 750 What explains their astonishing triumph? Above all, they were formidable fighters, and their e ...

camps of their own, remaining separate from the indigenous populations. Some of these camps were eventually abandoned, but other ...

Genealogy 2.1: Muhammad’s Relatives and Successors to 750 Yet the Shi‘ah, the supporters of Ali, did not forget their leader. Th ...

“mainstream” caliphs of the other Muslims (“Sunni” Muslims, as they were later called), awaiting the arrival of the true leader— ...

Plate 2.3: Damascus Great Mosque Mosaic (706). It is likely that Byzantine artisans were hired to cover the mosque at Damascus w ...

composed mainly of the old Persian and Syrian elite, now converted to Islam and schooled in Arabic—created new forms of prose an ...

Map 2.3: Western Europe, c.750 IMPOVERISHMENT AND ITS VARIATIONS Taking in the whole of Western Europe around this time means dw ...

lick of water called the English Channel, the British Isles were home to a plethora of tiny kingdoms, about three quarters of wh ...

Figure 2.2: Yeavering, Northumberland. Strategically situated near the eastern coast of England, the “royal palace” at Yeavering ...

a thick and nourishing ale) as well as oats, wheat, rye, beans, and flax. Two kinds of plows were used. One was heavy: it had a ...

without wealth or lively patterns of exchange. In the first place, money was still minted, but increasingly in silver rather tha ...

war. Genealogy 2.2: The Merovingians* The royal court—which moved with the kings as they traveled from one palace to another, as ...

Queens were an important part of the court as well. One of them, Balthild (d.680), had once been one of the unwilling travelers ...