In this final post regarding Europe during the Byzantine Age (313-1054 AD), I want to touch upon two things: the impact of Charlemagne, and the threat of Islam. In the previous few posts, I pointed out that Constantine’s moving the capital of the Roman Empire to Constantinople had a tremendous impact on world history, not to mention Christianity itself. Basically, Christianity in the East developed in the midst of the glory of the Byzantine Empire, whereas Christianity in the West was faced with forging its way among the ruins of a fallen pagan society. The Pope became virtually the only kind of administrator in the West, and so he took on almost a political as well as religious role. And, consequently, the papacy became extremely corrupt during this time. At the same time, though, there were thousands of monks, nuns, and priests who went throughout Europe, building monasteries, caring for the poor, and slowly but surely rebuilding Europe from the ground up.
Nevertheless, Europe during this time was essentially the Wild West, with numerous local kings vying for power in their own corner of Europe. There was one ruler, though, who changed all that: Charlemagne. His impact on the development, and dare I say renaissance, of Europe (500 years before the more famous Italian Renaissance) cannot be overstated.
Charlemagne
Charlemagne (742-814 AD) originally inherited the Frankish kingdom (think, modern day France and Germany) from his father Pepin in 768 AD. Eventually, though, he expanded his kingdom to include parts of Italy, and on Christmas Day 800 AD, Pope Leo III crowned him as the Holy Roman Emperor—basically the first sole emperor of Western Europe since the collapse of Rome some 400 years prior. The reason why Pope Leo crowned Charlemagne emperor is pretty simple. He had just become pope five years earlier and still had a number of enemies. Charlemagne agreed to be his protector, and in return the Pope declared him to the Holy Roman Emperor. For the next 700 years, there was understood to be Christendom in Europe: a Christian Roman Empire.
Now I’m sure one can read a much more detailed account of Charlemagne’s life in many books, but I simply want to point out his impact on European culture. Yes, Charlemagne fought many wars, and in many ways spread Christianity by the edge of his sword, but fighting wars is really nothing new for kings and rulers. What made Charlemagne unique was his commitment to promote education, literature, music, the arts and culture throughout his realm. His efforts sparked what is known as the Carolingian Renaissance. (Feel free to watch this short youtube video…)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGjq8Wtaavg
The liberal arts that Charlemagne were divided in the following manner: the trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric; and the quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. He established the palace school in his capital at Aachen. The man he chose to oversee the school was a Northumbrian scholar Alcuin. Eventually, Charlemagne encouraged monasteries to provide education, even issuing an edict that monks and priests were to provide education for the children in their districts.
Now, even though these schools were attached to monasteries and parishes, they did not solely focus on Christian topics. Yes, they studied the Bible and Church doctrine, but they also studied things like Greek philosophy and Germanic legends. It was also during this time that we see the rise of the troubadours—court musicians who sang of things like chivalrous knights and courtly love. Simply put, it was Charlemagne’s vision of educating Europe that eventually gave rise to so many things we take for granted today—the university being just one of them.
Most people, though, probably have never heard of the Carolingian Renaissance, and that is a shame, for the fact is, if it wasn’t for the Carolingian Renaissance during the time of Charlemagne, Europe would not have developed in the way that it did, and thus there never would have been an Italian Renaissance, complete with the likes of Michelangelo, da Vinci, Dante…you name it.
The Threat of Islam
There is one final thing that must be mentioned regarding the Byzantine Age—the effect of the rise of Islam. From its inception in the early 7th century, the armies of Islam proceeded to sweep through the entire region of Arabia, all the northern coast of Africa, up through the entire Middle East, and even into Turkey, thus constantly encroaching on what had been Byzantine land.
To be clear, the spread of Islam was the spread of a radical monotheism. Muhammad no doubt was deeply influenced by Judaism and Byzantine Christianity that had made their way throughout the Arabian Peninsula. But it is also equally obvious that Muhammad’s understanding of both Judaism and Christianity was severely lacking. Nevertheless, his insistence on only one God would have been immediately attractive to Jews and Monophysite Christians in Egypt who had been deeply upset by the Council of Chalcedon’s creed in 451 AD. In fact, the very reason why Muhammad even was invited to Medina in the first place was because there were a number of Jews who heard his preaching of monotheism, and had hopes he might be the long-awaited messiah.
It was only after they had decided that Muhammad wasn’t, in fact, the messiah, that Muhammad changed his tone in regards to respecting the “People of the Book.” As Rodney Stark put it in his book The Triumph of Christianity:
“Initially, Muhammad expected that Jews and Christians would accept him as the prophet who fulfilled both faiths. Frustrated when they rejected him, as soon as he possessed the sufficient means to do so, Muhammad attacked the Jews in Mecca and Medina; and eventually he forced the male members of the last Jewish clan in Medina to dig their own mass grave, whereupon all six to nine hundred of them were beheaded and the women and children were sold into slavery. Then Muhammad also sent his army to seize the Jewish towns” (200).
The historical facts bear out that Muslim armies took Byzantine lands by force, And since they themselves were largely unlearned, they relied on Byzantine scholars, doctors, and administrators to rule their newly won Islamic Empire. It many circles it has become fashionable to point out that while Western Europe was enveloped in the “dark ages,” that the Islamic world was cultivating a renaissance of learning. Well, in a vastly over-simplistic way, that is true.
Yes, western Europe from roughly 400-800 AD was in ruin, but not because of the rise of Christianity. The pagan system was left in ruins, and it was Christianity that was rebuilding Europe after it had been crushed under the weight of that dead paganism. Secondly, the “renaissance of learning” within the Islamic Empire was only made possible by the legacy and culture of learning of the Byzantine Empire that the Muslim armies had conquered. Simply put, the seeds of culture and learning within the Islamic Empire were that of Byzantine scholarship, philosophy, and medicine.
Another thing to mention about Islam was its cruelty to both Jews and Christians. It is fashionable today to make that claim that throughout history, particularly in the so called “dark ages,” Islam was peaceful and tolerant, whereas as Christianity was violent and intolerant, but the facts show that simply to be not true.
First, Muhammad himself, both in word (in the Quran) and in deed, advocated the killing and persecution of any Jews or Christians who did not accept him as God’s prophet. Yes, the official position of Muslim rulers was that Jews and Christians be tolerated, and that they were allowed to practice their faith, but, as Rodney Stark points out, they were only allowed to practice their faith “…under quite repressive conditions—death was (and remains) the fate of any Muslim who converted to either faith. Nor could any new churches or synagogues be built. Jews and Christians were also prohibited from praying or reading their scriptures aloud, not even in their homes or in churches or synagogues, lest Muslims should accidentally hear them” (207-208). Furthermore, Christians and Jews were not only forced to wear certain clothing that identified them as Christians and Jews, they also had to pay excessive taxes, precisely because they were Christians and Jews.
This all happened, though, primarily in former Byzantine lands. Islam never was able to make its way into Europe, although there were many attempts to invade Europe, the last one being stopped at the Battle of Tours in 732 AD by the Franks, who were led by Charlemagne’s grandfather, Charles Martel.
Such Islamic aggression during the Byzantine Age is important to note for two reasons. First, it was the reason for the general decline of the Byzantine Empire, to where Eastern Christians found themselves living more and more under the yoke of a hostile Islamic Empire. We in the West are largely ignorant of their plight.
Second, the rise of Islam and its aggressive tactics also explains the reason for the Crusades and the dawning of what I have called, The High Catholic Age. For in Western Europe, for over 600 years, the dedicated work of thousands of monks, despite the morbid corrupt of so many popes and cardinals during this time, laid the foundation for a cultural and spiritual resurgence in Europe. So, when the Byzantine Emperor appealed to the Pope in 1095 AD for help from Islamic invaders, it was the Pope’s call for the Crusades that sparked a cleansing of the Catholic Church, the vaulting of Europe back onto the world stage….and all the problems and challenges that come with it.
