The Germanic
Barbarians
·
Barbarian warlords and their families who
assimilated into Roman culture became the “nobles” or aristocrats of medieval
Europe
·
Germanic tribes who ruled former Roman lands
sought to conquer and assimilate other barbarian peoples who lived beyond the
frontiers and were still pagans. (Angles, Franks, Ostrogoth’s, Saxons, Vandals,
and Visigoths)
·
The Angles and Saxons (from Denmark and
northwestern Germany) invaded Britain and assimilated the native Britons
·
Most of the Anglo-Saxons were converted to
Christianity in the seventh century
·
The most powerful Germanic tribe was the Franks
·
But the real power lay with the “mayors of the
palace” who were royal officials and nobles themselves
From “Eastern Empire”
to “Byzantium”
·
The Eastern Roman Empire continued on while the
west was now divided up by the barbarian tribes
·
When the emperor Justinian came to power in 527,
he decided to reunite the entire Roman Empire by reconquering the western territories
·
Justinian succeeded for a time, but the land he
re-took was soon conquered by new barbarian tribes and a massive plague
depopulated most of the west
·
Greek Byzantine emperors saw themselves as Roman
emperors and the heads of Christian Church
·
Byzantine preserved Greco-Roman art,
architecture, philosophy and writing despite much of it being non-Christian
·
Justinian built the massive domed Hagia Sophia
(“Holy Wisdom”) in Constantinople, considered to be the most glorious church on
earth at the time.
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