-
Between the third an the tenth centuries, there where mass migrations in Europe. The Germanic people arrived. They firstly defeated the Western Roman Empire. Then the Slavs and the Magyars arrived from the East. Then the Vikings arrived from the North and the Muslims from the South.
-
The Ostrogoth king Theodoric conquered and defeated the last Roman emperor, Romulos Augustulos. -
Germanic kingdoms
Peak of the Byzantine empire
Birth and spread of Islam -
Thanks to the emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora whose mission was to reunify the Roman empire, the Byzantine empire reached its maximun size with the North of Africa (defeated the Vandals), the South of Spain (defeated the Visigoths) and the Anatolian peninsula (defeated the Ostrogoths) under control. Thy managed all of this thanks to the instability in the Germanic kingdoms.
-
The Franks (a Germanic kingdom) became the most powerful kingdom when they expelled the Visigoths from Gaul. -
In this timesapan, the Basileus of the Byzantine empire was Justinian. With the help of his wife, Theodora, they managed to reconquer some of the old Roma empire territories. Thy acomplished this goal thanks to the instability of the newly formed Germanic kingdoms.
-
From the 7th century to the 10th century the empire gradualy lost its lands to other invaders. The Neo-Persian empire attacked from the East. Despite a victory, the conflicts continued. Then the Muslims conquered more than half of the empire (Palestine, Syria, Egypt), so as a result of this instability the byzantines adopted a defensive strategies against invasions from Slavs on the North and Muslims from the South.
-
In 610, a trader form Mecca called Muhammad claimed the Angel Gabriel had appeared with news of a new monotheistic religion whose god was called Allah and the name of the religion: Islam. -
In 618, when Muhammad started spreading the word of the newly formed religion, his enemies where afraid of his message would disrupt society, so what was left for him in Mecca was hate... And in 622 his last resource was to flee the country and so the journey began: the escape to Medina. This event was called the Hegira (the begining of the muslim calendar). -
When Muhammad reorganised his way of spreading Islam, his followers and the creation of an army, he was ready to take back what was once taken away from him (Islam sacred spot): The Mecca. -
When Muhammad died, the Muslim empire was founded and most of the Arab tribes where under his control. -
When Muhammad died, his four successors would then became the caliphates of the empire (the emperors). They defeated the Byzantine empire and the Neo-Persian empire too, and also spread Islam to Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, Persia and Egypt.
-
After the fourth Caliph died, the Umayyad's dinasty took over the empire and moved the capital to Damascus in Syria. They then divided their lands into emirates (independent provinces the caliph gave a governor political authority over), and conquered India and the Iberian Peninsula, though their defeat in Constantinople by the Byzantines (718AD) and in Poitiers by the Franks (732AD) prevented further expansion.
-
In this timespan, some religious leaders prohibited the worship of religious icons as they belived that this went against the teachings of the bible. Tough, waht the leaders did not expect where the conflicts that where up coming, ¿why?, because the icons played a very important role in the Byzantines religious traditions. So they ended up changing this law.
-
After the assessination of the Umayyads, the dinasty that came was the Abbasid caliphate. They lost Al-Andalus, whose ruler was an Umayyad caliph. This dinasty moved the capital to Baghdad (Iraq). This period, until the 10th century, was the "peak" of the Muslim empire, but in the 10th century the decline was innevitable.
-
Due to the frequent wars, the empire was split into smaller caliphates, such as the Caliphate of Córdoba, or the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt.
-
The East-Weast Schism was the division of the church. In 1054, a conflict between Pope Leo IX (catholic) and the Patriarch of Constantinople Michael I (orthodox), led to the division of the Christian church. -
Feudalism
First crushades -
The Turks, Asian peoples who became the first non-Arab Muslim rulers.
-
Trade was more developed
Black death -
As the Byzantine empire got smaller and smaller due to the pressure from the Slavs in the North and the Muslims in the South, the Ottoman Empire (Turks) defeated what was once called "The Roman Empire" and what was left of it was only the small capital Constantinople. With this event, the Middle Ages turned into the Modern Ages.