1. The West Before the Middle Ages
Origins of Europe and its Supremacy:
The West Before the Middle Ages

2. What is relevant about prehistory in Europe?
200,000 years ago humans likely originated in Africa. The earliest humans in Europe moved there from Africa, as did Neanderthals. Both lived as hunter-gatherers.
10,000 years ago, farming and herding originated in the Middle East. Villages, civilizations and empires followed, first in the Middle East and then independently around the world.
Farming and herding spread from the Middle East to Europe, as did the most productive crops and animals in the world. According to Jared Diamond’s Geographic Determinism theory, this gave Europeans advantages that helped them get “Guns, Germs and Steel” before other cultures.

3. What was the earliest western civilization?
The earliest major civilization to emerge in Europe was Greek.
Thus western civilization as a distinct culture began with the Greeks.
Greek culture was passed on to other Mediterranean peoples including the Romans, whom succeeded them.

4. Describe Greek civilization specifically.
Politically, Greece was organized into city-states or poleis (singular, polis). Initially poleis were ruled by kings; later they were ruled as aristocratic republics dominated by nobles.
Technologically, Greece developed the version of the alphabet we use today as well as new military techniques such as the phalanx.

5. Describe Greek civilization specifically.
Economically and socially, Greece was connected to its neighbors from Spain to the Black Sea through trade. This resulted in a fusion culture similar to that of the Middle East.
Religiously, like many early cultures, Greece was polytheistic. Art, literature and athletics were seen as means to worship deities.

6. Describe Greek civilization specifically.
The two major poleis in Ancient Greece were Sparta and Athens.
Sparta contributed a lasting culture of militarism and subordination of the individual to the state to western civilization.
Athens influenced western civilization through its:
Democratic government and Constitution;
Tradition of free and open debate;
Philosophers, including Socrates, Plato and Aristotle; and
Emphasis on questioning, order, harmony, justice, merit and empirical evidence.

7. How did Greek culture spread?
Military campaigns led by Alexander the Great spread Greek influences between India, the Middle East and North Africa.
Hellenistic culture—a fusion of eastern and western civilization—followed.

8. Describe Roman civilization specifically.
The next culture to contribute to western civilization was the Romans.
First ruled as a monarchy, Rome became a Republic dominated by an aristocratic senate by 509 BCE.

9. Describe Roman civilization specifically.
As a Republic, Rome used its armies to conduct numerous conquests, first of Italy, then throughout the eastern Mediterranean, the western Mediterranean, north Africa and Europe.
After it expanded into Greece, Rome adopted and spread Greek art, literature, philosophy and religion.

10. Describe Roman civilization specifically.
Rome experienced devastating civil wars, and after 44 BCE became an empire ruled by one ruler—an imperator/emperor.
Under early emperors the Roman Empire experienced a period of prosperity known as the Pax Romana, wherein its public works projects, commerce, industry, literature and militarism advanced.

11. Describe Roman civilization specifically.
By the late CE 200s, Rome experienced problems related to overextension, class tensions and wars.
Imperial reforms failed to solve the aforementioned problems.
However, during this period Christianity spread and was institutionalized under bishops in Rome.
Later Roman Emperors legalized Christianity and then made it Rome’s official religion.

12. Describe Roman civilization specifically.
In the C.E. 200s, barbarian war parties began invading the Roman Empire.
By the CE 400s, the Roman Empire was falling due to those invasions and other problems.
Its capital was moved from Rome to Byzantium (later Constantinople and now Istanbul).
By CE 476, Rome and the former western Roman Empire had been overtaken by Barbarian armies whom had sacked Rome and deposed the last Roman Emperor in Rome. The age of the Roman Empire ended.

13. What were the legacies of the Roman Empire—and who inherited them?
After the Roman Empire fell, its territories split into many parts:
Various barbarian and Christian kingdoms in Western Europe
the Byzantine Roman Empire in Eastern Europe, and
Muslim-ruled territories in parts of southern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.
During the Low Middle Ages, western Europe lost most of the Roman Empire’s legacies.
Christianity and other Roman traditions survived in the Byzantine Empire.
Classical learning lived on in the growing Islamic empires.

14. Describe Byzantine civilization specifically.
Before the fall of the Roman Empire, in C.E. 395 Roman leaders divided the empire into western and eastern parts.
For nearly a thousand years, the Byzantine Empire, based out of the city of Byzantium/ Constantinople, survived and continued Roman traditions.
Byzantium, like the Roman Empire, was ruled under a single uniform legal code.
Constantinople was a major city with Roman features like the Hippodrome, a coliseum-like arena for public entertainment.
Emperors upheld Christianity.
Until the CE 600s, the Byzantine Empire maintained a large population, specialized workers, complex institutions, advanced technology and record keeping.
Afterward, Islamic invasions weakened the Byzantine Empire.

15. Describe Byzantine civilization specifically.
The Byzantine Empire also separated from Western Europe after a schism based on religious differences.
The (Universal) Catholic Christian Church split in C.E into the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. While the Pope continued to rule the Roman Catholic Church, the bishop of Constantinople, known as the Patriarch, became the head of the Eastern Orthodox Church. This was the first time that the Christian Church split—and the Roman Pope was unhappy about this change.
Separated and weakened, the Byzantine Empire tried to defend itself during the Crusades but was conquered by the Islamic Ottoman Empire in CE 1453.

16. Describe Islamic civilization specifically.
Islamic civilization rose and grew after prophet Muhammad’s revelations, founding of Islam military conquests in the CE 600s.
By the CE mid-700s, Muslim empires had conquered the southern and eastern Mediterranean regions and much of Spain in Europe as well as begun expanding throughout the Middle East and southwest Asia.

17. Describe Islamic civilization specifically.
During the Golden Age, from CE , Islamic cities were among the most civilized in the world (large populations, institutions, specialized workers, record keeping and advanced technology).
Major inventions during the Golden Age of Islam included:
The astrolabe
Observatories
The armillary sphere
The House of Wisdom (first university)
Medical surgeries

18. Describe Western Europe at the same time.
Meanwhile in western Europe, life deteriorated into the “Dark Ages—” characterized by:
losses in population and urban centers, specialized workers, technology, record keeping/ language / learning and complex institutions;
Invasions and constant warfare increased
Disruptions in trade and economic depression

19. Describe Western Europe at the same time.
Since only the Church and institutionalized Christianity survived in western Europe from earlier western civilization, the importance of the Christian Church grew.

20. What were the legacies of early western civilization?
Historians often referred to the legacies of the Roman Empire as “classical tradition.” Classical tradition included:
Law and government (Greek democracy and Roman republicanism; codified public laws such as the Twelve Tables)
Militarism
Imperialism (political and economic/trade)
Classical learning (humanism in literature, drama, philosophy, medicine, science, math, architecture, and art)
Religion (Polytheism and Christianity)
This brings us to the Middle Ages…