Western Civilization

of India, including the use of the zero. In Europe, it

became known as the Arabic system. Al-Khwarizmi (al-

KHWAR-iz-mee), a ninth-century Iranian mathemati-

cian, developed the mathematical discipline of algebra.

In astronomy, the Muslims were aware that the earth

was round, and they set up an observatory at Baghdad

to study the stars, many of which they named. They

also perfected the astrolabe, an instrument used by sai-

lors to determine their location by observing the posi-

tions of heavenly bodies. It was the astrolabe that

made it possible for Europeans to sail to the Americas.

Muslim scholars also made discoveries in chemistry

and developed medicine as a field of scientific study.

Especially renowned was Ibn Sina (ib-un SEE-nuh)

(980–1037), known as Avicenna (av-i-SENN-uh) in the

West, who wrote a medical encyclopedia that, among

other things, stressed the contagious nature of certain

diseases and showed how they could be spread by con-

taminated water supplies. Avicenna was but one of

many Arabic scholars whose work was translated into

Latin and helped the development of intellectual life in

Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

Chapter Summary

At the endof the eighth century, a new kingdom—the Carolin-

gian Empire—came to control much of western and central

Europe, especially during the reign of Charlemagne. The corona-

tion of Charlemagne, descendant of a Germanic tribe converted

to Christianity, as emperor of the Romans in 800 symbolized

the fusion of the three chief components of a new European civ-

ilization: the German tribes, the classical tradition, and Christi-

anity. In the long run, the creation of

a Western empire fostered the idea

of a distinct European identity and

marked a shift of power from the

south to the north. Italy and the Med-

iterranean had been the center of the

Roman Empire. The lands north of the

Alps now became the political center

of Europe, and increasingly, Europe

emerged as the focus and center of

Western civilization.

The Carolingian Empire was well governed but was held to-

gether primarily by personal loyalty to a strong king. The econ-

omy of the eighth and ninth centuries was based almost entirely

on farming, which proved inadequate to maintain a large mo-

narchical system. As a result, a new political and military order,

known as fief-holding, evolved to become an integral part of

the political world of the Middle Ages. Fief-holding was char-

acterized by a decentralization of political power, in which

lords exercised legal, administrative, and military power. This

transferred public power into many private hands and seemed

to provide the security sorely lacking

in a time of weak central government

and invasions by Muslims, Magyars,

and Vikings. In eastern Europe, the

Slavic kingdoms of Poland and Bohe-

mia were established; their peoples

were converted to Christianity by Cath-

olic missionaries, while the eastern

and southern Slavs adopted Orthodox

Christianity.

While Europe struggled, the Byzantine and Islamic worlds

continued to prosper and flourish. The tenth century was the

golden age of Byzantine civilization. Under the Macedonian

dynasty, trade flourished, the Bulgars were defeated, Muslim

armies were repelled, and Byzantine territory was increased.

The Umayyad Dynasty of caliphs had established Damascus as

the center of an Islamic empire created by Arab expansion in

the seventh and eighth centuries. In the eighth century, the new

Abbasid Dynasty moved the capital east to Baghdad, where Per-

sian influence was more pronounced. Greek and Persian scien-

tific and philosophical writings were translated into Arabic, and

the Muslims created a brilliant urban culture.

The brilliance of the urban cultures of both the Byzantine

Empire and the Islamic world stood in marked contrast to the

underdeveloped rural world of Europe. By 1000, however, that

rural world had not only recovered but was beginning to expand

in ways undreamed of by previous generations. Europe stood

poised for a giant leap.

Chapter Summary • 195

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