From Centralization to Fragmentation in the East

I.               The Byzantine Emperor and Local Elites

A. Imperial Power

1. Tagmata and the Emergence of Effective Mobile Armies (c. 850) — Around 850, a Byzantine recovery began, rooted in new military organization. Themes continued to protect provinces, but new mobile armies of elite troops stopped merely defending territory and began to advance on the Islamic Empire. By 1025, Byzantine victories extended the empire from the Danube to the Euphrates.

2. The Wealth of the Emperors — These victories gave new prestige and wealth to the army and imperial court, and emperors collected revenues from vast imperial estates along with taxes and services in lieu of taxes from the general population. The emperors gained additional wealth from a prosperous agricultural economy organized for trade.

3.  Imperial Trade — Byzantine commerce involved direct imperial control of craft and commercial guilds as well as entrepreneurial organization of markets. Markets organized by entrepreneurs attracted foreign merchants and a steady stream of commodities that ensured imperial revenues. Because trade was intermingled with foreign policy, the Byzantine government considered trade a political as well as an economic matter. Byzantine foreign trade was important and flourished throughout the Middle East, western Europe, and with the Kievan Rus

B. The Macedonian Renaissance, c. 870–c. 1025

1. Basil I and the Revival of Classical Learning — With the empire regaining its military strength and the court remembering Byzantium’s past glory, the Byzantine emperors revived classical intellectual pursuits. Basil I (r. 867–886) from Macedonia founded the imperial dynasty of the period known as the Macedonian renaissance (“rebirth”) (c. 870–c. 1025). Centered in Constantinople, the rebirth of the study of classics was advanced by an intellectual elite who had continued to study classics over the preceding century despite the trend toward a religious education.

2. Support for the Arts — New artistic works flourished under the sponsorship of emperors and members of the imperial court who served as patrons to writers, philosophers, and historians. Icons were allowed, and the classical and Christian traditions merged in manuscript illuminations of religious writings

C. The Dynatoi: A New Landowning Elite

1. Hereditary Military Families — Alongside the scholarly and artistic elite in Byzantium, a new elite group formed in the countryside. In border regions, powerful military families (dynatoi) thrived, enriched by booty and new lands. Some families, notably the Phocas family in the tenth century, gained independent power that rivaled that of the emperors (Nicephorus Phocas was declared emperor by his armies and reigned from 963–969).

2. The Rural Character of the Dynatoi — The dynatoi took over entire villages and used peasant labor for their advantage. Overall, the social organization of the empire became more like western Europe, with rural aristocratic lords controlling lands and the peasantry and wielding considerable political power

D. The Formation of Eastern Europe and Kievan Rus

1. Slavic Settlement and Khagan Expansion — By 800, Bulgarian rulers (khagans) presided over large territories of Slavic settlement from the Danube to Greece and from the Black Sea to Croatia.

2. Bulgaria and Serbia: The Byzantine Conquest of Greece and the Balkans — Byzantine expansion under Nicophorus I (r. 802–811) established control over Greece, and led to conflict with Bulgaria and the emperor’s death in battle. After a peace was established in 816, and intermittent peace lasted about thirty years. However, Basil II (r. 976–1025) led a methodical conquest of the Balkans, which led to the spread of Byzantine religion and culture to the region, including the development of a precursor to the modern Cyrillic alphabet.

3. Kievan Rus: Expansion and Relations with Byzantium — The region that would become Russia lay outside the sphere of direct Byzantine rule in the ninth and tenth centuries. In the ninth century, Vikings imposed their rule. Moving southward they took control of the key commercial region around Kiev and settled as the Rus. From Kiev, the Rus sailed across the Black Sea in search of markets for trade. The relationship between Rus and Byzantium began with trade, but was interrupted by war when the Byzantines tried to use the Rus to attack the neighboring Khazars. The plan backfired, and the Khazars forced the Rus to attack Constantinople in 941. Soon, however, the Rus regrouped and resumed trading with Byzantium.

4. Kievan Rus: Conversion and Fragmentation — Good relations between the Rus and the Byzantines were solidified when Rus leader Vladimir (r. 978–1015) converted to Christianity. A close alliance developed, which tied the Rus closer to Byzantine culture, especially their form of Christianity. In 1054, the death of Iaroslav the Wise led to the division of the Rus kingdom between his sons, and civil wars followed. Outside invasions also weakened

II. The Rise and Fall of the Abbasid Caliphate

A. The Abbasid Caliphate, 750–936 

1. Civil War and the Abbasid Coalition — Civil war in 750 brought down the Umayyads and established the Abbasids as the new caliphate. They found support in an uneven coalition of Shi’ites and non-Arabs, who had been excluded from the Umayyad power structure. The empire’s capital moved from Damascus to Baghdad, a new city, while the empire became increasingly centralized.  

2. Caliph Harun al-Rashid (c. 786–809) and Abbasid Decline — Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809) built a wealthy trading system, but the empire began to decline after his death. Harun al-Rashid’s two sons fought a civil war, and the empire lost control of many regions. The empire recruited  a mercenary army of freed slaves, many of them Turks skilled at firing arrows from horseback, but the Abbasid tax base was inadequate to support the huge army and complex civil administration. By the tenth century the caliphs were figureheads, and regional governors with their own mercenary armies wielded independent power, fragmenting the caliphate.

B. Regional Diversity in Islamic Lands

1. Forces of Islamic Fragmentation — The caliphate lost its unity in part because the initial conquest had brought many ethnicities, many of whom practiced different customs and identified with different regions, into one empire. The Sunni/Shi‘ite split also generated polarization. As political and religious unity fragmented, local traditions and local rulers became increasingly important.

2. The Fatamid Dynasty — In Egypt the Shi‘ite Fatamid dynasty allied with North African Berbers and by 909 ruled Tunisia. Claiming descent from Ali and claiming to be the mahhdi (the divinely guided Messiah), Fatamid rulers controlled Egypt by 969, and their empire, with its lavish court, extended to North Africa, Arabia, and Syria.

3. The Spanish Emirate and the Caliphate of Córdoba —  Sunni Muslims ruled Islamic southern and central Spain, with a capital at Cordoba. Cordoba was an independent Islamic state that dated from the original conquest of the region in 756. The Cordoba emirate was originally led by Abd al-Rahman, a member of the Umayyad family. The empire was diverse, and included many Jews and Christians, who were allowed freedom of worship and sometimes adopted Arab lifestyle and customs. The caliphate broke up in 1031, and local rulers seized power.

C. Unity of Commerce and Language

1. Shared Language: Arabic — Trade networks, religion, and a shared language allowed for cultural unity in the politically fragmented Islamic world. Arabic, the language of the Qur’an, was used in both commerce and government.

2. Shared Commerce — Although every region had its own political and commercial system, borders were open and contact and travel were an important feature of Islamic life. Islamic society supported vast international trade networks, and Muslim merchants engaged in trade with England, Timbuktu, central Africa, and Russia

D. The Islamic Renaissance, c. 790–c. 1050

1. A Broad-Based Movement — Political fragmentation multiplied centers of learning and culture. Libraries were established at Cordoba and in the Abbasid caliphate, and ancient writings from Persia, India, and Greece were preserved and studied.

2. Supporting Science and Mathematics — In mathematics, Al-Kwarazami (d. 850) wrote books on algebra and developed Arabic numbers. The new independent Islamic rulers also supported science, and medicine, physics, and natural sciences were all studied.

3. Islamic Education and Scholarship — Rich Muslims established schools as a sign of charity and piety. The Qur’an and other literary and legal texts were closely studied, but only by men. Islamic scholars made widespread use of cheap paper, which made their scholarship more widely available.