Chapter 7: The Classical Legacy in the East: Byzantium and Islam
- Justinian was the emperor of the Byzantine Empire
- Wished to restore power, territory, and prestige of Roman Empire
- Chief advisor was his wife, Theodora
- Byzantine Empire capital was Constantinople
- Started building projects that almost caused the empire to go bankrupt
- Invaders fought for territories he had acquired after his death
- The Byzantine state was an autocracy
- The Emperor had absolute authority
- Women ruled empire as regents for young sons or as sole rulers
- Empire’s bureaucracy was made up of military and civilian officers
- Eunuchs held the most important positions in court
- Eunuchs: castrated men
- As Eunuchs couldn’t have children, there was no danger of them turning their offices into hereditary positions or scheming for the future of their children
- Lives of women in the Byzantine Empire were focused around families
- Wore veils that covered their heads
- Couldn’t act on their own, legally
- Imperial women could be sovereigns or regents
- Poor women either worked in agriculture or worked outside their homes
- The Eastern Church practiced Orthodox Christianity
- Rise of Islam started with Muhammad who claimed to have heard the voice of the angel Gabriel, telling him to spread God’s words
- Islam spread from Egypt of Asia Minor by 650
- Women played an early role in the conversion to Islam with Muhammad’s wife being his first convert
- Women in Islam had the right to inherit, own, and go on to manage property
- Islamic civilizations had large irrigation systems which made Iraq and Iran rich. agricultural areas
- Seljuk Turks were victorious over the Byzantines in 1071 and acquired Asia Minor
- After the collapse of the Mongol Empire, the Turkish principality, the Ottoman, expanded and weakened the Byzantine Empire
- Constantinople fell to Ottoman Turks in 1453, marking the end of the Byzantine Empire’s reign which had lasted 1000 years
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