Western Views Of Islam In Medieval And Early Mo... ^HOT^

Other medical Arabic works translated into Latin during the medieval period include the works of Razi and Avicenna (including The Book of Healing and The Canon of Medicine),[57] and Ali ibn Abbas al-Majusi's medical encyclopedia, The Complete Book of the Medical Art.[25]Mark of Toledo in the early 13th century translated the Qur'an as well as various medical works.[58]

Western Views of Islam in Medieval and Early Mo...

The Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history: Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Modern Period.[1] A similar term first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or "middle season".[2] In early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or "middle age", first recorded in 1604,[3] and media saecula, or "middle centuries", first recorded in 1625.[4] The adjective "medieval" (or sometimes "mediaeval"[5] or "mediæval"),[6] meaning pertaining to the Middle Ages, derives from medium aevum.[5]

When dealing with the migrations, the eastern and western elites applied different methods. The Eastern Romans combined the deployment of armed forces with gifts and grants of offices to the tribal leaders. The Western aristocrats failed to support the army but refused to pay tribute to prevent invasions by the tribes.[32] These invasions completely changed the political and demographic nature of the western section of the empire.[37] By the end of the 5th century it was divided into smaller political units, ruled by the tribes that had invaded in the early part of the century.[40] The emperors of the 5th century were often controlled by military strongmen such as Stilicho (d. 408), Aetius (d. 454), Aspar (d. 471), Ricimer (d. 472), or Gundobad (d. 516), who were partly or fully of non-Roman ancestry.[41] The deposition of the last emperor of the west, Romulus Augustulus, in 476 has traditionally marked the end of the Western Roman Empire.[42][B] The Eastern Roman Empire, often referred to as the Byzantine Empire after the fall of its western counterpart, had little ability to assert control over the lost western territories. The Byzantine emperors maintained a claim over the territory, but while none of the new kings in the west dared to elevate himself to the position of emperor of the west, Byzantine control of most of the Western Empire could not be sustained.[43]

Women took part in aristocratic society mainly in their roles as wives and mothers of men, with the role of mother of a ruler being especially prominent in Merovingian Gaul. In Anglo-Saxon society the lack of many child rulers meant a lesser role for women as queen mothers, but this was compensated for by the increased role played by abbesses of monasteries. In contrast, in medieval Italy women were always considered under the protection and control of a male relative.[70] Women's influence on politics was particularly fragile, and early medieval authors tended to depict powerful women in a bad light. Examples include the Arian queen Goiswintha (d. 589), a vehement but unsuccessful opponent of the Visigoth's conversion to Catholicism, and the Frankish queen Brunhilda of Austrasia (d. 613) who was torn to pieces by horses after her enemies captured her at the age of 70.[71] Women usually died at considerably younger age than men, primarily due to infanticide and complications at childbirth.[E] Infanticide was not an unusual practice in times of famine, and daughters fell victim to it more frequently than their brothers who could potentially do harder works. The disparity between the numbers of marriageable women and grown men led to the detailed regulation of legal institutions protecting women's interests, including the Morgengabe, or "morning gift", a compensation for the loss of virginity.[73] Early medieval laws acknowledged a man's right to have long-term sexual relationships with women other than his wife, such as concubines and those who were bound to him by a special contract known as Friedelehe, but women were expected to remain faithful to their life partners. Clerics censured sexual unions outside marriage, and monogamy became also the norm of secular law in the 9th century.[74]

The High Middle Ages was a period of tremendous expansion of population. The estimated population of Europe grew from 35 to 80 million between 1000 and 1347, although the exact causes remain unclear: improved agricultural techniques, assarting (or bringing new lands into production), a more clement climate and the lack of invasion have all been suggested.[190][191] Most medieval western thinkers divided the society of their own age into three fundamental classes. These were the clergy, the nobility, and the peasantry (or commoners). In their view, adherence to mainstream Christianity secured social cohesion.[192][193]

A special contractual framework, known as feudalism in modern historiography, regulated fundamental social relations between people of higher status in many parts of Europe. In this system, one party granted property, typically land to the other in return for services, mostly of military nature that the recipient, or vassal, had to render to the grantor, or lord. Although the vassals were not the owners of the land they held in fief from their lords, they could grant parts of it to their own vassals.[199][200] Not all lands were held in fief. In Germany, inalienable allods remained the dominant forms of landholding. Their owners owed homage to a higher-ranking aristocrat or the king but their landholding was free of feudal obligations.[201] With the development of heavy cavalry, the previously more or less uniform class of free warriors split into two groups. Those who could equip themselves as mounted knights were integrated into the traditional aristocracy, but others were assimilated into the peasantry.[202] The position of the new aristocracy was stabilized through the adoption of strict inheritance customs. In many areas, lands were no longer divisible between all the heirs as had been the case in the early medieval period. Instead, most lands went to the eldest son in accordance with the newly introduced principle of primogeniture.[203] The dominance of the nobility was built upon its landholding, military service, control of castles, and various immunities from taxes or other impositions. Control of castles provided protection from invaders or rivals, and allowed the aristocrats to defy kings or other overlords.[204] Nobles were stratified. Kings and the highest-ranking nobility controlled large numbers of commoners and large tracts of land, as well as other nobles. Beneath them, lesser aristocrats had authority over smaller areas of land and fewer people, often only commoners. The lowest-ranking nobles did not hold land, and had to serve wealthier aristocrats.[205][K] Although constituting only about one percent of the population, the nobility was never a closed group: kings could raise commoners to the aristocracy, wealthy commoners could marry into noble families, and impoverished aristocrats sometimes had to give up their privileged status.[207]

As a consequence of the Church reform movement, cathedral chapters were expected to operate a school from the late 11th century. The more lenient cathedral schools quickly marginalised the traditional monastic schools whose students lived under strict rules. Schools reaching the highest level of mastery within the disciplines they taught received the rank of studium generale, or university from the pope or the Holy Roman Emperor. Those who had completed their curricula could teach anywhere in Catholic Europe, and could rise to high administrative positions.[310][311] The new institutions of education encouraged scholarly discussions.[312] Debates between the realists and the nominalists over the concept of "universals" were especially heated. Philosophical discourse was stimulated by the rediscovery of Aristotle and his emphasis on empiricism and rationalism. Scholars such as Peter Abelard (d. 1142) and Peter Lombard (d. 1164) introduced Aristotelian logic into theology.[313] Scholasticism, the new method of intellectual discourse and pedagogy, required the study of authoritative texts, notably the Vulgate and patristic literature, but references to them could no more override rational argumentation during a debate.[314] Scholastic academics summarized their and other authors' views on specific subjects in comprehensive sentence collections, or summae, such as the Summa Theologica, a supreme example of medieval theology by Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274).[315]

Another influential factor is the reality that the Roman liturgy was not the only liturgical system in use during the early medieval period. Initially, different western rites, in this case referring to geographically defined traditions of liturgical uses, developed in several areas, including Rome, Benevento, and Milan (the Ambrosian Rite) in Italy, Spain (the Mozarabic Rite), and France (the Gallican Rite, particularly in Francia, the early medieval kingdom of the Franks). Beginning in the 7th century, the early Roman rite was diffused to many other areas of the western church and continued its development with lesser or greater local adaptation. This is especially true of the strong Gallican (and later, Germanic) influence on the shape and content of the Roman liturgy.

African Civilization introduces students to African history in a three-quarter sequence. Part one considers literary, oral, and archeological sources to investigate African societies and states from the early Iron Age through the emergence of the Atlantic World. We will study the empires of Ghana and Mali, the Swahili Coast, Great Zimbabwe, and medieval Ethiopia. We will also explore the expansion of Islam, the origins and effects of European contact, and the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

The first part of the sequence examines the period from approximately 500 to 1700 in European history. It challenges students to question two-dimensional, rigid narratives about the fall of Rome, the Dark Ages, the Renaissance and Reformation, and the early Enlightenment by reading historical sources with empathy and attention to their authors' own perspectives. For example, we explore the entanglement of the political, economic, and religious by reading a chronicle written by a monk; we examine gender relations and daily life by reading men's and women's personal letters; and we investigate the earliest contacts between Europeans and the peoples of the Americas by reading eyewitness accounts of their interactions. In the process of recovering the lived experiences of medieval and early modern Europeans, the course engages with the sophisticated societies and cultures of premodern Europe, which many subsequent generations post-1700 would come to label backwards and uncivilized. 041b061a72