Alphabetical Index to Bible Timeline – Page 16 – Amazing Bible Timeline with World History

Posted on February 13, 2017January 9, 2017 by Kat Cendana — Leave a comment

Song Dynasty

In AD 960, a former soldier named Zhao Khuangyin rebelled and declared himself the ruler of the new Northern Song Dynasty. This dynasty’s rule ended 319 years later after the fall of the Southern Song. This chaotic yet prosperous period in China’s history appeared in the Biblical Timeline Poster with World History between AD 960 and 1279.

Reunification Under Emperor Taizu of Song

In his youth, the first Song emperor Zhao Khuangyin (Taizu of Song) worked as a mounted archer in the service of the military governor Guo Wei of the Later Han Dynasty. He became a prominent palace guard after he helped Guo Wei dissolve the Later Han and create the Later Zhou Dynasty (951-960). When Emperor Guo Wei (Taizu) died, Zhao Kuangyin worked for his successor, the Emperor Shizong. He distinguished himself in the Later Zhou court after he and his troop defeated the combined Liao and Northern Han armies. He was promoted to a military governor in 960 during the reign of the empress dowager of the Later Zhou. However, her unpopularity with the military led the troops to rebel against her rule and declare Zhao Khuangyin as the emperor instead.

The court had no choice but to depose the Empress and proclaim Zhao Khuangyin as Emperor when he reached the Later Zhou capital of Kaifeng. Zhao Khuangyin declared himself the emperor of the new Song Dynasty, and he adopted the name Taizu of Song after he dissolved the Later Zhou Dynasty. He was brilliant on the battlefield, but he had something special that other military leaders lacked: political savvy.

Emperor Taizu strengthened his rule by propagating the belief that his proclamation as the emperor had been prophesied since his childhood. In a bid to curb the power of military commanders, he compelled them to retire in return for the grant of the best lands in the countryside. By doing so, Emperor Taizu removed the threat of rebellions led by the powerful military commanders during his reign. It allowed him to focus on conquering the neighboring states with a reformed military behind him.

The Song Dynasty Under Emperor Taizong

Emperor Taizu conquered three of the weaker states to his south during his reign but failed to take the other three plus the stronger Northern Han kingdom. He died in 976 and the unfinished task of conquering the remaining states fell to his younger brother, Song Taizong, who acceded the throne in 979. The second Song emperor conquered the Northern Han in the same year and showed his shrewdness when he asked the Northern Han ruler to abdicate in return for his safety and the security of his estate. With the collapse of the Northern Han, it was up to the Song and the Khitan Liao Dynasty to master the greater part of China.

The Liao was just as formidable as their southern neighbor, but the Khitan troops routed the Song army led by Taizong in the Battle of the Gaoliang River in 979. The defeat endangered his position as emperor. It did not help that rumors of him poisoning his older brother and usurping the throne from the rightful heir circulated in the imperial court. For many of his subjects, Taizong had lost the Mandate of Heaven. He was perfectly aware of his vulnerability to deposition.

When the emperor returned to Kaifeng, he decided to tie up loose ends and get rid of other claimants to the throne once and for all. Taizong summoned one of the princes to his presence and made it clear that he would not be able to leave the palace alive, so the prince went into another room and killed himself. The other claimants to the throne died over the years. The rumors that he had a hand in their deaths also circulated in the court.

In 986, he launched another campaign against the Liao. However, this second attempt was also a dismal failure. He knew that this second defeat could undo his position. He was able to hold onto the throne when he curbed the powers of the high-ranking military officers and relied heavily on the well-educated bureaucrats in his court who were promoted through the civil service exams. In return for their loyalty, the Emperor rewarded these bureaucrats with promotions and relied on them for the rest of his reign.

The Song’s Unexpected Prosperity

Before his death in 997, Emperor Taizong had named his third son, Zhengzong, as the next emperor of the Song dynasty. This son was elevated to the role of his father’s successor because Taizong felt that he was not a great threat to him. However, his passive nature was not particularly useful for the empire when the Liao conducted devastating raids on China’s northern frontier. By 1005, Zhengzong was forced to sign a humiliating peace treaty (Treaty of Chanyuan) which made the Liao not only their equals but turned the Song into a tributary state to the Khitans.

This peace treaty was an embarrassment to Zhengzong and just like his father; it put his position as China’s emperor in danger. The absence of war was strangely beneficial to the Song in the long run, and Zhengzong occupied himself with managing his increasingly prosperous empire. China became wealthier during Zhengzong and his son Renzong’s reign while the money they saved went to infrastructure and education instead of the soldiers’ salaries during wartime. Education was prioritized, and Chinese inventions such as wood block printing made the mass production of books and paper money possible during the golden age of the Song dynasty.

Against the Western Xia Kingdom and the Great Jin Dynasty of the Jurchens

During the tumultuous twilight years of the Tang Dynasty, a group of Tibetan people called the Tanguts wrested the western frontier garrisons from the Tang soldiers and started to carve out a kingdom of their own called the Xi Xia or Western Xia. It flourished as a state during the eleventh century, and by 1038, the Emperor Li Yuanhao of the Western Xia felt that his kingdom had reached equal status to the Song. He wrote to Emperor Renzong and asked for the said recognition, but the emperor only ignored him. Renzong’s own father had bowed down to the “barbarian” Liao many years before. The emperor simply could not handle another humiliation from a people he considered as “barbarians.” The Song emperor’s refusal to acknowledge their equal status pushed the insulted Western Xia king to send his army to invade western China.

His troops carefully chipped away at China’s western territories during a six-year period until Song Renzong was forced to pay Li Yuanhao an annual tribute to get him to stop. The war against the Tanguts forced the Song to recognize that they had been lulled into a false sense of security during the years of peace with the Liao Dynasty. The emperor then decided to reform the Song army from the ground up. One of the best things that came out of this military reform initiated by the Song was the invention of gunpowder. Although it brought them humiliation, the peace that the Song bought from the Western Xia allowed them to train for the next war—this time, with another group of nomads from the north: the Jurchen.

The Jurchens were a Tungusic people that migrated from their homeland somewhere in the present-day region of Manchuria. They became a military threat to the Liao in the early eleventh century after the Wanyan tribe united opposing Jurchen tribes. In the early eleventh century, they started to build a state just like the neighboring Khitan Liao. Aguda (later named Emperor of Taizu of the Great Jin), the ambitious leader of the Wanyan tribe of the Jurchen, craved the recognition of the Song (just like the Western Xia king). He knew that the neighboring Liao was also a force to be reckoned with at that time. To this end, he sent a letter to the Liao emperor demanding to be recognized as his equal and enclosed was an equally outrageous tribute request.

Naturally, the Liao emperor refused to honor either the recognition Aguda wanted or the request for the annual tribute payment to the Jurchen. The rejection angered the Jurchen king, so he sent envoys to the Song emperor Huizong and offered him a military alliance against the Liao. The Jurchen also promised to return the Sixteen Prefectures wrested by the Liao from China back in the tenth century if the Song would agree to this alliance. The inexperienced Song emperor accepted the offer, and together, they attacked the Liao capital of Shangjing, deposed its emperor, and forced thousands of Khitans to flee west. By 1125, the Liao Dynasty had ended, and in its place was the powerful Great Jin Dynasty of the Jurchen people.

Huizong had overestimated the goodwill of the Jurchen. After the conquest of the Liao, they refused to return the Sixteen Prefectures Aguda promised to Huizong when he asked for the Song support. Instead, the Jin dynasty soldiers spilled out of their kingdom and attacked Kaifeng, the Song capital. They were so formidable that Huizong needed to fake a stroke just to escape from his responsibilities as military commander of his empire. The task of facing the Jurchen fell to his son, Qinzong, who had to be strong-armed by palace eunuchs so he would be proclaimed as his father’s successor.

When the Jurchen breached the city, they started to loot, kill, and rape the terrified inhabitants of the Song capital of Kaifeng. They later cornered both emperors in the imperial palace and took them north as captives. Many of the survivors of Kaifeng’s destruction fled south and tried to rebuild their fallen empire in Lin’an (modern Hangzhou). They named it Southern Song, but it did not reach the glory of the former Song Empire which was now in the hands of the Great Jin dynasty of the Jurchen.

References:
Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. By China – Song Dynasty – cs.svg: User:Mozzanderivative work: Kanguole – China 11a.jpg: User:LiDaobing China – Song Dynasty – cs.svg: User:Mozzan, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link 2014. Emperor Huizong. Harvard University Press.
Fairbank, John King, and Merle Goodman. China: A New History. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992.
Grousset, Rene. The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1970.
Mote, Frederick W. Imperial China, 900-1800. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.
Ropp, Paul S. China in World History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Posted on February 10, 2017January 9, 2017 by Kat Cendana — Leave a comment

Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

The End of the Tang Dynasty

The Tang Dynasty’s domination of China officially ended in 907 with the death of the puppet Emperor Ai of Tang. The long road to its decline started during the time of the An Lushan rebellion (755-763). The Tang emperors had lost the Mandate of Heaven, but their legitimacy to rule was not the only casualty of the disintegration. China lost its domination of the Central Asian frontier to the Tanguts after the Tang lost many soldiers during the years of war. The troops loyal only to the different military generals increased, which meant that the power in the provinces now shifted to the local governors. The Five Dynasties and the Ten Kingdoms that came later are recorded on the Biblical Timeline with World History between 907 – 960 AD.

The weak central government was unable to curb corruption committed by the government officials. The common people suffered from severe oppression and poverty so that many were forced to resort to banditry. Huang Chao, a former soldier, and trader, turned into a prolific bandit and rebel after the oppression he experienced during the last years of the Tang. He started his career in Guangzhou. The rebellion he launched quickly spread to the other parts of China until his troops captured Chang’an in 881. He was the first and last king of this “kingdom of Qi” as Huang Chao died in 884 and a new Tang Dynasty was reinstated. The reinstatement, however, was short-lived as its last emperor, Ai of Tang, was ousted by the military commander Zhu Wen in 907 AD.

Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

The tumultuous period between the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and the Song Dynasty (960-1279) was called the era of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms.

The Five Dynasties which flourished during this period were:

Later Liang (907-923)

Zhu Wen, the founder of the Later Liang Dynasty, served as a high-ranking officer in Huang Chao’s rebel army during the last years of the Tang dynasty. He rose to prominence when he helped capture the city of Chang’an in 881. He maintained the control of the imperial family thereafter. Zhu Wen installed Ai of Tang as puppet emperor in 905, but removed the young figurehead two years later and declared himself the new emperor of the brand new Later Liang Dynasty.

He established the city of Kaifeng as the Later Liang capital, but he also controlled the main capital Chang’an and the secondary capital Luoyang. The Later Liang held the greater part of northern China except for the territories dominated by other dynasties and kingdoms. Three kings had ruled Later Liang before the dynasty fell apart. It was later overpowered by the Shatuo Turks from the State of Jin, as well as Later Tang in 923.

Later Tang (923-936)

The Later Tang Dynasty was founded by Li Cunxu (Emperor Zhuangzong), and it rose after the dissolution of its rival dynasty, the Later Liang. Its rulers originated from the Shatuo Turks who had a strong alliance with their northern neighbors, the Khitans. Li Cunxu took over the territories once controlled by the collapsed Later Liang dynasty, then established his capital at Luoyang, and extended his rule from the Shanxi region to as far west as Sichuan. The Later Tang Dynasty ended when it was overpowered by the Liao dynasty of the Khitans.

Later Jin (936-947)

Shi Jingtang, the son-in-law of the Later Tang emperor Li Cunxu, rebelled against his father-in-law and declared himself as the emperor of a new dynasty, the Later Jin. Upon the dissolution of the Later Tang, the Later Jin dynasty took over its territories except for the Sichuan region which was ceded to the Kingdom of Later Shu. Its rulers further lost the Sixteen Prefectures it previously held to the powerful Liao dynasty of the Khitans. It was dissolved by the Liao after Shi Jingtang’s successor rebelled against them.

Later Han (947-951)

The Later Han Dynasty was founded by a former military governor of Bingzhou, Liu Zhiyuan, who rebelled against the Later Jin after its dissolution by the Liao dynasty. He took advantage of Later Jin dynasty’s weakness and the Khitans’ succession issues to declare himself emperor of the Later Han. He ruled from the city of Kaifeng and took over the territories of the Later Jin, but the dynasty’s domination was cut short when Liu Zhiyuan’s son and heir, Liu Chengyou, was ousted in 951 by Guo Wei.

Later Zhou (951-960)

The Later Zhou dynasty was established after a successful coup led by the Han Chinese military commander named Guo Wei against the Later Han’s Liu Chengyou. Guo Wei declared himself the emperor of the Later Zhou and proved to be a capable ruler who provided relative stability to his domain. He died in 954 and was succeeded by his adoptive son, Guo Rong, whose promising reign was cut short when he died in 959. The deceased Guo Rong was succeeded by his young son, but the boy was later deposed by the general Zhao Kuangyin (later Emperor Taizu of Song) in a coup d’etat in 960.

The Ten Kingdoms:

Wu (907-937)

The kingdom of Wu rose right after the collapse of the Tang dynasty in 907. It was established by the soldier-turned-governor Yang Xingmi of Luzhou prefecture. Before the fall of the Tang, Emperor Zhongzong appointed Yang Xingmi as the Prince of Wu and refused to recognize Zhu Wen’s legitimacy as emperor of the Later Liang after the removal of the last Tang emperor. Yang Xingmi, however, later declared Wu as an independent kingdom and proclaimed himself as its king. He then ruled from the city of Guangling and controlled parts of present-day provinces of Anhui, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, and Hubei. The last king of Wu was deposed by Xu Zhigao, the adopted son of the powerful director of the guard Xu Wen in 937, who then founded the kingdom of Southern Tang.

Wuyue (907-978)

The coastal kingdom of Wuyue was under the control of the powerful Qian family whose members rose to prominence in the military during the last years of the Tang dynasty. It was founded by Qian Liu, the Prince of Yue and Wu, who took advantage of the Tang collapse in 907 to declare himself king of the independent kingdom of Wuyue. He ruled from the coastal city of Hangzhou and controlled present-day Shanghai, Zhejiang, parts of Jiangsu province, and Fujian after the fall of the kingdom of Min. The coastal kingdom of Wuyue benefited from the maritime trade with Korea and Japan. Unlike its neighbors, its citizens enjoyed a measure of stability until it was absorbed by the Song Dynasty in 978.

Min (909-945)

Located south of Wuyue in present-day Fujian province, the less prosperous kingdom of Min rose to become one of China’s Ten Kingdoms in 909. It was founded by the former military officer Wang Shenzi who established the city of Fuzhou as his capital and declared himself the Prince of Min when the Tang dynasty collapsed. Although Fujian is located near the coast, its rugged landscape made it isolated and less prosperous than the neighboring Wuyue. When the kingdom of Southern Tang rose to prominence and threatened its delicate independence, the king of Min had no choice but to seek an alliance its northern neighbor, the kingdom of Wuyue. Both kingdoms, however, were unable to resist the Southern Tang which conquered Min in 945.

Chu (907-951)

The Chu kingdom was founded by Ma Yin, a governor who named himself the Prince of Chu when the Tang Dynasty collapsed. He established the kingdom’s capital in Changsha and controlled the Hunan province as well as parts of Guangxi. Ma Yin’s kingdom was relatively peaceful and prosperous. However, its decline started after his death and the rise of the kingdom of the Southern Tang. The kingdom of Chu was later folded into the Song Dynasty domain in 963.

Southern Han (917-971)

The Southern Han Kingdom was established after Liu Yin, a governor, and military officer, became Prince of Nanping two years after the fall of the Tang Dynasty. He declared himself king in 917 and called his domain the Great Han in 918. The king ruled from Guangzhou and controlled the provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi, as well as parts of northern Vietnam and the island of Hainan. Just like neighboring kingdoms, it fell to the Song in 971.

Former Shu (907-925)

Wang Jian, the governor of Western Sichuan, declared himself the king of Shu when the Tang collapsed in 907. Its capital was in Chengdu and the Former Shu dominated Sichuan, Chongqing, as well as parts of Shaanxi, Hubei, and Gansu. It was conquered by Later Tang ruler Li Cunxu, but it retained it brief independence for some time after the Later Tang’s collapse and until it was conquered by the Later Shu.

Later Shu (934-965)

One of the many military governors who took power during the Ten Kingdoms period was Meng Zhixiang. He was a Later Tang governor who was assigned to govern the Former Shu Kingdom until he rebelled and founded his own kingdom which he christened Later Shu (a different ruling family from the Former Shu). It had the same capital and territories as the Former Shu, but it fell to the Song in 965.

Jingnan (924-963)

Also known as Nanping, the kingdom of Jingnan was founded by Gao Jixing who was the military governor of Jiangling County. It was established when the Later Liang fell to the Later Tang in 924. Jingnan’s domain was known to be the smallest and the weakest among the Ten Kingdoms. The Song Dynasty acquired it in 963.

Southern Tang (937-975)

Xu Zhigao was the adopted son of the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Wu. He declared himself king in 937 and renamed his little domain as the kingdom of Southern Tang. Its later rulers absorbed the kingdom of Min in 945 and added the kingdom of Chu in 951. The Southern Tang became a vassal state of Later Zhou but fell to the Song in 976.

Northern Han (951-979)

Years before the domination of the Song, a man named Liu Min tried to revive the glory days of the Han dynasty by folding in the Later Han territories into his own when the dynasty fell in 971. He established his kingdom’s capital in Taiyuan and the Northern Han ruler controlled the Shanxi region which was wedged between the more powerful Khitan Liao territory and the Song. It later fell to the Song in 979.

References:
Picture By Ian Kiu – Own work, CC BY 3.0, Link
Fairbank, John King, and Merle Goldman. China: A New History. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006.
Ropp, Paul S. China In World History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Tan, Koon San. Dynastic China: An Elementary History. Other Press, 2014.

Posted on February 9, 2017January 9, 2017 by Kat Cendana — Leave a comment

Feng Dao and the Printing of the Nine Confucian Classics

Chinese scholars were liberated from the time-consuming and tedious task of writing manuscripts with the invention of the woodblock printing (Chinese characters carved on a block of wood) during the dominance of the Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 AD). Woodblocks were first used in printing patterns on silk, but printing found another medium when paper was invented in China during the first century AD. The high-ranking government official Feng Dao (Feng-to) later played a large part in the widespread use of the movable wood blocks when he proposed the printing of the Nine Confucian classic. This is recorded on the Bible Timeline Poster with World History during 900 AD.

Feng Dao (882-954), formally known as the Prince Wenyi of Ying as well as Feng-To, lived during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period (907-960) after the fall of the Tang Dynasty. He became a high-ranking government official and served different dynasties, but eventually found himself serving the Later Tang emperor Minzong (Li Siyuan). In 932, he proposed for the emperor to authorize the printing of the nine Confucian Classics (specifically, Four Books and Five Classics) which included:

The Four Books

Great Learning
Doctrine of the Mean
Analects
Mencius

The Five Classics

Classic of Poetry
Book of Documents
Book of Rites
I Ching
Spring and Autumn Annals

The emperor approved his request, and the printing (which used the movable wood blocks that were better suited to individual Chinese characters) started in 932 AD. The books were released in 953 AD. These were quickly followed by the printing of three more books (The Annotation of the Classics, Classical Characters, and Jujing Ziyang) using the same method. The use of the movable wood blocks allowed many students easy access to the Confucian classics. All other printing during the Song and Yuan dynasties were later administered by the government.

References:
Picture By Prospero Intorcetta, Philippe Couplet et al. – “Life And Works Of Confucius”, Prospero Intorcetta, et al., 1687, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2523905
Holcombe, Charles. A History of East Asia: From the Origins of Civilization to the Twenty-First Century. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Murphey, Rhoads. A History of Asia. New York: HarperCollins College Publishers, 1996.
Yang, Hu, and Yang Xiao. Chinese Publishing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Posted on February 8, 2017January 9, 2017 by Kat Cendana — Leave a comment

Khitans and the Defeat of the Tatars During the Liao Dynasty, Rise of the

The Khitan people were nomads who originated from the Xianbei (early Mongolians) and occupied China’s northern frontier before the rise of the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD). They were part of the Kumo Xi tribe which later split into two groups in 388 AD: the group that retained the Kumo XI name and the Khitan (Ch’i-tan) which appeared in Chinese records in the fourth century AD. This led to the rise of the Khitans and the defeat of the Tatars which is recorded on the Biblical Timeline with World History after the start of 800 AD.

During the last years of the Sui Dynasty (581-618), the Khitan people united and invaded the Chinese provinces of Hebei and Shaanxi. They later established good relations with the Tang during the Dynasty’s early years. To control the tribe, the imperial court gave their leader a distinctly Chinese-sounding surname of Li, as well as appointed him the governor of his people who lived in Tang territories. The Li clan rose to prominence within the tribe, as well as the imperial court and many of their own men later served as Tang soldiers and generals.

The Gokturks (Tu’chueh), the Khitan people’s powerful Turkic neighbors, rose during the latter part of the eighth century. When they rebelled against the Tang, the Gokturks attacked the rear of the Khitans’ army to prevent them from dominating the steppes just in case they win against Tang China. The Khitans’ ally, the Hsi, also switched sides to the Tang. This caused the group to be defeated and driven out of China.

The Gokturks’ power declined, and Tang China continued to expand its borders. The Khitan people had no choice but to submit to them once again. However, their submission to China did not last long after dissatisfied tribesmen opposed their tribe’s subjugation to China and launched a renewed rebellion. A new Khitan leader named Ketuya emerged during the 720s. He was pushed into the center of the rebellion after he experienced the arrogance of a high-ranking Tang official in the imperial court. He was not one to let the offense pass, so 10 years later Ketuya killed the Khitan king and rebelled against the Tang by submitting to the Gokturks as vassals. Ketuya was killed four years later, but the Tang would never regain complete control of the Khitans.

Power changed hands once again in the succeeding years of the ninth century when the Gokturks while another Turkic group of people, the Uyghur, rose to prominence. With a new powerful neighbor, the Khitans once again submitted themselves as vassals. A renewed Tang-Khitan alliance ended their submission to the Uyghurs. China, by then, had split into different provinces that were ruled by different warlords. The Khitans, meanwhile, took advantage of China’s weakened state to unite their own people. The last years of the Tang saw the rise of the renowned Khitan leader, Abaoji, who would eventually become the first Liao Dynasty Emperor Taizu, one of China’s alien dynasties.

Abaoji was a prominent warrior of the Ila tribe of the Khitan.. He later became the commander of the khagan’s (the Mongolian equivalent of an emperor) personal bodyguard. He then became the chieftain of the Ila in 901 AD and proceeded to attack the neighboring Shiwei, Jurchen, and their former ally, the Hsi. Abaoji was elected as the successor of the deposed Khitan khagan and immediately started the domination of a militarized but divided China. He went on to establish the Liao Dynasty which dominated China for another 200 years. They also subdued the Zubu, a neighboring Tatar tribe, in the 10th century. Emperor Shengzong of Liao quelled a Zubu bid for independence in 983 and finally forced to submit to the Khitan ruler in 1003.

References:
Pictcure By Crop of work done by English Wikipedia user Talessman – File:Asia 1025ad.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18353938
Franke, Herbert, and Denis Twitchett. The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 6: Alien Regimes and Border States, 907-1368. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Mote, Frederick W. Imperial China, 900-1800. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.

Posted on February 7, 2017January 9, 2017 by Kat Cendana — Leave a comment

China,Three Religions: Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism

The most well-known religions for China around 800 AD were Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. They are recorded on the Biblical Timeline Poster with World History during that time.

Confucianism

Confucius (Latin for Kongzi/Kongqiu), the founder of Confucianism, was born around 551 BC during the tumultuous years of the Spring and Autumn Period (771-476 BC). He was born to a noble family in Qufu, the capital of the war-torn and poverty-stricken state of Lu (present-day Shandong). He served as a shi (retainer) in various departments in the state of Lu until its fall in 249 BC when it was invaded by the state of Chu. The influence of the shi faded as the wars continued, so Confucius retired from his government post and immersed himself in scholarly work.

His wisdom was so sought after that he gained many followers as years passed. Five classic Chinese texts were later credited as his work. These include the:

Book of Odes (a collection of poetry)
Book of Documents (another collection of poetry)
Spring and Autumn Annals (chronicles of the state of Lu)
Book of Changes (collection of divination texts and treatises)
Analects (condensed philosophy of Confucius)

chinese_three_religions — “The last days of Buddha teachings.”

In his teachings, Confucius emphasized man’s relationship in society and how he should behave harmoniously within it. He prized nobility in character and emphasized the importance of rituals (such as ancestor worship) in uniting people within a society. For Confucius, respect for others was very important. However, this respect depended on the person’s rank in the family and in the society. Confucianism stressed the importance of filial piety, which was the deepest form of respect especially reserved for emperors, fathers, and older brothers. Filial piety, however, meant that high-ranking persons should act in ways that made them worthy of respect. This ideology only went through an explosive growth after Confucius’ death. It was later adopted as a state cult with the emperor at its head.

Taoism

Lao-tzu (Laozi) was the name of a semi-legendary figure who founded Taoism in the sixth century. His name means ‘old man’ or ‘old master’. Little was known about his early life except that he worked in a Chinese archive before he (just like Confucius) decided that it was time to retire. According to tradition, he traveled west by riding a water buffalo but failed to pay the toll when he reached the city gates. He decided to pay the gatekeeper by dictating the classic Taoist text, the Tao Te Ching (The Classic of the Way and its Power). The gatekeeper accepted his wisdom as payment and allowed him as well as his water buffalo to pass. According to legend, Lao-tzu later became immortal.

Apart from Confucianism, Taoism was one of China’s homegrown religions/philosophies. For the Taoists, the heart of everything is the Tao, an indescribable ‘thing’ from which everything came from (the Mother of All Things). Taoism emphasized passivity, and that a person should live in harmony with the Tao. His masterpiece, the book Tao Te Ching, dealt with death, emptiness, knowledge, and the government.

Buddhism

Siddharta Gautama, the man who would later be known as the Buddha, was born in the city of Lumbini in present-day Nepal in 623 BC. He was born premature, and astrologers prophesied that the boy would either conquer the world in the future or completely reject it. His father wanted Siddharta to conquer the world, so he kept the child inside their palace to protect him from evil. Siddharta grew up in opulence and safety, but in all these, he found no satisfaction, so he left the security of his palace at the age of 29.

Outside his gilded cage, Siddharta saw that people suffered from so many things. He resolved to find a solution to these issues. He renounced all kinds of pleasure by starving himself while meditating for five years. He did not want to stop that and decided to try a middle ground, which he found while sitting and meditating under a bodhi tree. He achieved enlightenment when he discovered the principles of karma or rebirth and man’s release from suffering. Enlightened, he became known as the Buddha. He proceeded to wander in his country where he gained many followers. Buddha did not consider himself a god and neither did he endorse one. For him, the ultimate goal was to be enlightened and to be free from suffering that is caused by unfulfilled desires or by ignorance.

Religion in China

During the dominance of the semi-legendary Xia Dynasty (around 2100-1700 BC), the ancient Chinese practiced divination and veneration of deceased ancestors. They believed in an afterlife, so they buried grave goods that ranged from basic to luxurious with their dead ancestors. The Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BC) continued the ancestor worship practiced by their predecessors and carried out pyroscapulimancy (the burning of ox shoulder bones for divination).

The concept of ‘heaven’ first appeared in China when the Zhou (1046-256 BC) overthrew the Shang. They used the ‘Mandate of Heaven” to justify the removal of the Shang. The chaotic Spring and Autumn Period (771 to 476 BC) saw the rise of China’s native religions: Confucianism and Taoism. But between the two religions, Confucianism had a larger impact on Chinese society and government. Its teachings were adopted by the Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 AD) in their administration. Knowledge of Confucian classics were also used to tests the candidates in civil service exams.

Buddhism arrived in China during the first century AD, but it took another 500 years before it was fully embraced by the Chinese. The Tang (618-906 AD) imperial court and many of the common people adopted Buddhism as their religion. However, its dominance in China would be extinguished in 845 during the time of the Great Persecution under Emperor Wuzong of Tang. Other religions, such as Christianity and Zoroastrianism did not escape the persecution. Buddhism itself would never be dominant in China in the years that followed. Confucianism, however, experienced a revival in 1000 AD.

References:
Picture By Unknown – https://archive.org/details/hutchinsonsstory00londuoft, Public Domain, Link
Ellwood, Robert S., and Gregory D. Alles. The Encyclopedia of World Religions. New York: Facts on File, 2007.
Eno, R. “The Analects of Confucius.” 2015. Accessed September 28, 2016. http://www.indiana.edu/~p374/Analects_of_Confucius_(Eno-2015).pdf.
Lao Tzu. “Tao Te Ching.” Poetry in Translation. Accessed September 28, 2016. http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Chinese/TaoTeChing.htm.
Littlejohn, Ronnie. “Daoist Philosophy.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed September 28, 2016. http://www.iep.utm.edu/daoism/.
Richie, Jeff. “Confucius (551—479 B.C.E.).” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed September 28, 2016. http://www.iep.utm.edu/confuciu/.
Velez, Abraham. “Buddha.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed September 28, 2016. http://www.iep.utm.edu/buddha/.

Posted on February 6, 2017January 9, 2017 by Lizzie McIntyre — Leave a comment

China: Golden Age

The faint glimmer of unity under the Sui Dynasty (581-618) was extinguished after the death of its first Emperor Wendi (581-604). When his son, the Emperor Yangdi (604-618), acceded the throne, he continued his father’s ill-advised and long war with the Korean kingdom of Goguryeo. It ended in a significant loss of troops on the Chinese side until finally, his discontented subjects drove him out of the capital Chang’an. Emperor Yangdi died in 618 AD amidst a bloody civil war, but he left behind a strong administrative system from which the Tang Dynasty later benefited. China’s Golden Age then began during 750 AD according to the Bible Timeline Poster with World History.

Tang China (617-907): The Golden Age

Before the end of the Sui Dynasty, Yangdi’s cousin (also a military commander of the Sui) named Li Yuan led a rebellion against him and wrested the capital Chang’an from the Sui in 617 AD. After declaring himself the new emperor, he announced the establishment of a new dynasty called the Tang and continued the fight to Luoyang, China’s second most important city. By 621, Li Yuan had conquered Luoyang, and he successfully suppressed the rebellion led by other generals in other cities by 624.

Li Yuan became Emperor Gaozu of Tang (Tang Gaozong), and he ruled China for eight years until he was deposed by his own son, Li Shimin. This ambitious son launched a rebellion against his father in 626 and later had him imprisoned along with his own brothers, as well as other possible claimants to the Tang throne. He adopted the name Emperor Taizong in the same year and immediately worked to secure his throne by quelling all rebellions in other Tang cities. Just like his father, Emperor Taizong was a brilliant military commander who was successful on the battlefield. He was known for his strategic alliances to pacify the Turks and other nomads who lived near China’s northern frontier. These new allies later helped the Tang soldiers secure the Silk Road against bandits. China reached the zenith of its influence throughout most of Asia during Tang Taizong’s rule (626-649).

China:_golden_age — “Estimated territorial extent of Wu Zetian’s empire”

Empress Wu Zetian

Emperor Taizong died after a glorious 23-year reign, and he was succeeded by his son, Tang Gaozong. His accomplishments as an emperor were impressive (he expanded the Tang dominion into Korea), but his reign was marked by the rise of China’s first female ruler, the brilliant Empress Wu Zetian. She first started as a minor concubine to Emperor Taizong when she entered the royal palace at the age of thirteen but was temporarily sidelined at a Buddhist monastery when the emperor died. She escaped the Buddhist monastery and found her way back to the palace to become the concubine of Emperor Gaozong. Concubine Wu was promoted in the harem after she gave birth to Gaozong’s son. In 656, she was elevated to the position of empress when the king deposed her rival, Empress Wang after she was accused of strangling Concubine Wu’s daughter. The emperor was hesitant to depose Empress Wang at first, but the accusation that she attempted to poison the emperor sealed her fate and she was removed from her position in 656.

Emperor Gaozong suffered a series of strokes afterward. His weakened state ensured the domination of Empress Wu Zetian in the imperial court. Armed with a combination of cunning and ruthlessness, the Empress proved to be an effective ruler who successfully navigated the intrigues in the imperial court. She ruled as Gaozong’s regent from 660 until he died in 683. She ruled as one also when her son, Zhongzong, acceded the throne. He proved to be too independent, so his mother had him banished when he insisted on ruling alone. She replaced him with another son, Ruizong, who became nothing more than her figurehead. Wu Zetian was a brilliant ruler in her own right. She eventually got tired of ruling as a regent, so she declared herself the new emperor and established a dynasty called the new Zhou. Her solo rule lasted for eight years, but she reinstated the deposed Zhongzong as her successor upon her death in 705.

Return and Collapse of the Tang Dynasty

The imperial court that Wu Zetian left after her death was divided, and stability only returned when her grandson, Xuanzong, acceded the throne in 712 AD. Xuanzong’s reign was considered Tang China’s golden age, but the latter years of his reign marked the empire’s slow decline. Xuanzong was considered a fair and capable ruler, but his path to destruction started when he, at 70 years old, fell in love with his son’s wife, Yang Guifei. The emperor’s obsession with the beautiful Yang Guifei ended the couple’s marriage, and he took her as his concubine after they divorced.

Yang Guifei gradually became powerful as the emperor’s concubine, and the infatuated emperor Xuanzong lavished gifts and granted important administrative positions to her relatives. Her cousin, Yang Guozhong, as well as the Gokturk-Sogdian general An Lushan, benefited from Yang Guifei’s power over the emperor after both men were promoted to prominence in the government. An Lushan, however, launched a rebellion against Emperor Xuanzong in 755 and the situation worsened when her cousin, Yang Guozhong, offered bad advice to the emperor in quelling the rebellion. His advice cost the Tang army many lives, and the emperor, along with Yang Guifei and their companions, were forced to flee from Chang’an to Chengdu for their safety.

The troops who accompanied the besotted emperor rebelled along the way and refused to continue to Chengdu unless the emperor gave them Yang Guifei to be executed. The emperor initially refused, but he had no choice but to hand over Concubine Yang Guifei to a eunuch who then strangled her to death in a Buddhist shrine on the way to Chengdu. They emperor’s entourage continued south to Chengdu, and the end of their romance was later immortalized in later poems.

An Lushan’s rebellion continued after Yang Guifei’s death, but the general suffered from ulcers later in life which made him testy and cruel to his own men. His reputation suffered further when he favored Qing’en, his son by his second wife, as his successor over an older son, Qing’xu, who then conspired with other men to have his father assassinated. An Lushan was killed by his own servant in 757, while Emperor Xuanzong was succeeded by his son Suzong. Suzong then led the recovery of Chang’an with the help of Arab and Uyghur mercenaries. He successfully suppressed the rebellion in 763 AD. What he managed to salvage was a broken empire saddled with hefty losses in lives and in revenues during the years of rebellion.

The glory days of the Tang Dynasty were no more after a century of strife. Various generals started to govern their own provinces as independent warlords. In 879, a salt trader and soldier named Huang Chao started a bloody rebellion in Guangzhou. The Tang had been too weak to resist when his troops captured Chang’an in 881. He crowned himself the emperor of the brand-new Qi Dynasty. This rebellion was only suppressed in 883 AD, but the Tang Dynasty never recovered from the internal strife and had collapsed completely by 907 AD.

Administration

The Tang emperors continued to use the administrative system previously laid out by the Sui emperors when they started to rule in 617. During the Tang rule, the power of aristocratic families was severely limited after the emperor commanded them to leave their home provinces and live closer to Chang’an, so he could keep an eye on them. Professional soldiers served year round, but the Tang government kept farmer-warriors on standby who served only whenever it was necessary. Tang emperors, however, were flexible enough to listen to their critics and implemented reforms when necessary. They inherited a strong tax system from the Sui. In 653, the Tang had implemented a comprehensive legal code based on Confucian values which were copied later by Korea and Japan. At its height, Tang China was at peace with the neighboring kingdoms of Korea, Japan, Tibet, Central Asia, Manchuria, and Vietnam.

Chang’an

The Tang Dynasty’s openness to foreign influence made its capital Chang’an a cosmopolitan city where people from China’s frontiers met to trade and exchange ideas. At that time, Chang’an was the largest city in the world with over two million inhabitants, and pilgrims, diplomats, and merchants flocked this Asian crossroad. No other empire in Europe or anywhere else in the world matched its prosperity, size, and cultural sophistication at that time.

Buddhism

Buddhism was widely practiced by the Sui Dynasty, but it reached its zenith during the domination of the Tang. The policies of granting tax exemptions and land to Buddhist monasteries started during the Sui Dynasty. These policies were continued by the Tang upon their accession. Tang emperors commissioned massive statues of Buddha, and during the eighth century, Buddhism permeated the imperial court, as well as the life of the common Chinese. Buddhism was entwined with literature when Xuanzang, a Buddhist monk, traveled to India and Central Asia to search for Buddhist texts. His journey and adventures later inspired the Ming Dynasty novelist Wu Cheng’en to write the novel, The Journey to the West.

Buddhism flourished under the Tang Dynasty for many years. Its influence declined during the reign of Emperor Wuzong (840-846) when he started the Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution. The long years of rebellion depleted China’s treasury, and Wuzong could not afford to let the monasteries’ tax-exempt status go on any longer. To this end, he started the confiscation of Buddhist properties in 842, commanded the nuns and monks to return to secular life, and left only one monastery per prefecture. Wuzong died in 846, but Buddhism never recovered its former glory in China.

References:
Picture By Ian Kiu – Tang Dynasty 700 AD from “The T’ang Dynasty, 618-906 A.D.-Boundaries of 700 A.D.” Albert Herrmann (1935). History and Commercial Atlas of China. Harvard University Press., CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
Adshead, Samuel Adrian M. T’ang China: The Rise of the East in World History. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
Fairbank, John King, and Merle Goldman. China: A New History. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006.
Latourette, Kenneth Scott. The Chinese, Their History and Culture. New York: Macmillan Company, 1964.

Posted on February 3, 2017January 9, 2017 by Kat Cendana — Leave a comment

Japanese Literature Largely Influenced by the Chinese, The Classical Age of

Background: The Heian Period (794-1185)

In 784 AD, the Heavenly Emperor Kammu (781-806) decided to shake off the influence of the powerful Fujiwara family in his court in the city of Nara. So he ordered for a new capital to be built northwest of the old city. The royal palace in his new capital, Nagaoka, was finished in just six months. Kammu Tenno moved there with his family in the same year. But he could not escape the Fujiwara clan as many of his court’s highest officials descended from the clan and the emperor himself was married to a daughter of the Fujiwara family. This later led to the Classical Age of Japanese Literature that was largely influenced by the Chinese as recorded on the Biblical Timeline Poster with World History around 800 AD.

Kammu Tenno remained in Nagaoka for ten years, but his stay there was less than peaceful. As an unsuccessful coup d’etat and deaths hounded his court. The possibility of going back to Nara was out of the question, so he decided it was high time to move to a new capital. He moved the court to the neighboring city of Yamashiro-no-Kuni and renamed in Heian-Kyo or Tranquility and Peace Capital (present-day Kyoto). When Emperor Kammu died in 806 AD, three of his sons ruled and abdicated in succession until the throne passed to his grandson, Ninmyo Tenno, in 833 AD.

japanese_literature — “Men during Heian era were taught the Chinese language and writing, but women were taught in Japanese “

Although the royal family still held the crown, the influential Fujiwara family slowly gained ground in the court through their favorite method: marrying off Fujiwara daughters to Japanese emperors. In the middle of the ninth century, the nobleman Fujiwara no Yoshifusa arranged the marriage of his daughter Akirakeiko to Emperor Montoku (whose mother also came from the Fujiwara clan). Montoku died in 858 AD, and the couple’s son, the eight-year-old Seiwa, acceded the throne. The ambitious Fujiwara no Yoshifusa took advantage of this and declared himself as the child’s sessho (regent)—a role which he passed on to his adopted son, Fujiwara no Mototsune when he died in 872 AD. Emperor Seiwa came of age that year too, but Mototsune later forced him to abdicate in favor of Yozie, the emperor’s young son.

The Fujiwara clan continued to dominate the royal court for the next 300 years as Regents. While the emperors remained, they were nothing more than idle symbols of authority. Governance was modeled after Sui and Tang China, wherein ministers and other officials oversaw the administration of bureaus. The Heian Period was considered as the Golden Age of Japan, and the Fujiwara clan became the gatekeepers not only in politics but also in the realm of religion and the arts. The Fujiwara clan itself produced one of Japan’s greatest novelists, Lady Fujiwara Takako or better known by her pen name as Lady Murasaki Shikibu, the writer of the Tale of Genji. Literature, religion, and politics were largely influenced by the Chinese during the early years of the Heian Period. Japan cut ties with China as the years progressed, and politics, as well as other aspects of courtly life, became more Japanese.

The Golden Age, however, only applied to courtly life as poverty caused by high taxes and poor administration was widespread outside the walls of Heian. The Fujiwara clan’s domination of Japanese politics ended in the late twelfth century when their alliance with the Minamoto clan was defeated by the prominent samurai clan of the Taira in the Genpei War (later immortalized in the epic Tale of Heike or Heike Monogatari).

Golden Age of Japanese Literature

Poetry

poetry

Characteristics

Choka5-7-5-7-5-7 syllables per line and ends in 5-7-7
Long unrhymed poems of undefined length.
Considered as Japan’s most intricate form of poetry.
TankaFixed 5-7-5-7-7 syllables per line
Short poems with a total of 31 syllables.

The sole form of poetry approved by the Heian court.

The Tang Dynasty was in a state of decline when Japan’s Heian Period was at its height. However, its influence on Japanese politics, arts, and literature was a testament to the dynasty’s greatness. During the early years of the ninth century, many Japanese poets wrote kanshi (Japanese poems that were written in kanji or Chinese characters). While the native Japanese poems called waka (also known as Yamato-uta) were largely forgotten or swept out of public life. Some of the most popular early ninth century poems, particularly the four seasons poetry, were also influenced by the Tang predecessor, the Six Dynasties.The choka form of waka disappeared during the same period, but another form of poetry called the tanka later rose and dominated the Heian court.

During the middle of the ninth century, Chinese influence on poetry had waned, and the native waka made a comeback. Its reappearance was credited to the imperial ladies who held poetry contests or uta uwase within their kokyu (apartments of the imperial consorts); the ladies were also credited with the rise in popularity of the byobu uta or poetry painted on folding screens.

Renowned Heian Period Poets

* Ono no Takamura (802-853) – poems included in the Kokin Wakashu.
* Ariwara no Narihira (825-880) – contributed poems to the Kokin Wakashu and Gosen Wakashu.
* Ki no Tomonori (850-904 – renowned Waka poet and compiler of the Kokin Wakashu.
* Fujiwara no Shunzei (1114-1204) – esteemed waka poet and compiler of the Senzai Wakashu.

Anthologies Compiled During the Heian Period

* Kokin Wakashu (905)
* Gosen Wakashu (951)
* Shui Wakashu (1006)
* Goshui Wakashu (1087)
* Kin’yo Wakashu (1126)
* Shika Wakashu (1157)
* Senzai Wakashu (1188)

Narrative Prose

Apart from poetry, the Heian Period was also the time when narrative prose rose to prominence and it includes genres such as:
* Poem tale (uta monogatari)
* Literary Diary (nikki bungaku)
* Romance
* Miscellany
* Historical tale

Few of the works of the Heian Period writers survived into the modern times. Those that did expressed the influence of the Chinese in a different way. Men during Heian era were taught the Chinese language and writing, but women were taught in Japanese and had to adapt their writing to the phonetic syllabary called kana (Japanese script based on Chinese writing system). Perhaps no other Japanese writer of the Heian Period was more popular than Lady Murasaki Shikibu, and her main work, The Tale of Genji (Genji Monogatari). She showed the influence of the Chinese when she wrote it using the kana.

Just like in poetry, the noblewomen were at the forefront of the growth in Japanese narrative prose in the Heian Period. Sei Shonagon, a noblewoman in service of Empress Teishi, was one of the most renowned after she wrote about witty insights on the imperial court and collected them in the classic miscellany, Makura no Soshi (The Pillow Book). Another noble lady who went by the name of ‘Michitsuna’s mother’ wrote the popular memoir, the Kagero nikki (Kagero Diary), which chronicled her life and her relationship with her husband, the courtier Fujiwara no Kaneie.

References:
Picture By User:Emphrase – Own work, APL, Link
Picture By Convert to SVG by OsamaK from Image:Nihongo.png. based on w:Image:Nihongo Bunpou b.200×200.png. – Own work, Public Domain, Link
Department of Asian Art. “Heian Period (794–1185).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/heia/hd_heia.htm (October 2002)
Hall, John Whitney., and Donald H. Shively. The Cambridge History of Japan. Vol. II: Heian Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1999.
Reichhold, Jane. “A Glossary Of Literary Terms.” AHA Poetry. Accessed September 28, 2016. http://www.ahapoetry.com/whbkglo.htm.
“Writers of the Heian Era.” Women in World History. Accessed September 28, 2016. http://chnm.gmu.edu/wwh/modules/lesson2/lesson2.php?s=0.

Posted on February 2, 2017January 9, 2017 by Kat Cendana — Leave a comment

Saharan Gold Trade

From the ancient up to the modern times, no other metal was prized by humans more than gold. The ease with which it could be molded or hammered into brilliant accessories made it a favorite among the elites. Over time, it was also molded into statues and coins which further increased its value. Although the mining of gold decreased during the Early Medieval Period (between the fifth and tenth century) due to wars and instability, the gold trade across the Sahara flourished because of the expansion of the trade routes in Muslim North Africa. This is recorded on the Biblical Timeline Chart with World History at 800 AD.

Trans-Saharan Gold Trade

As common as salt may seem to modern people, it was a prized commodity in seventh century Ghana Empire (which encompassed not just Ghana but also present-day Senegal, Mali, and the southern part of Mauritania) where it was exchanged for more-abundant gold. It was especially prized by the Soninke Wangara—the ancient inhabitants of Ghana and the first group of the Sudanese people who had experience in metallurgy—whose land was abundant in gold but produced little salt. The gold was mined from the region of Bambouk (in present-day Mali) and a place called Ghiyaru which was rumored to have the best gold in the empire. Meanwhile, camel or donkey-loads of salt were transported from the Mediterranean coast into various trading posts in the Sahel region of the Sahara. They eventually made their way into the Ghana Empire.

To illustrate the importance of salt in the Ghana Empire, Muslim chroniclers recorded that the king taxed a donkey-load of salt with one gold dinar and additional two gold dinars were needed if the merchants wanted to sell it outside the capital. Gold was so abundant in the empire that it was not taxed when it was sent out from Ghana to other kingdoms for trade. It later became the foundation for the empire’s enormous wealth. The Berber merchants—the main transporters of salt and gold in the Sahara—also brought with them the Muslim religion. Many West Africans eventually converted to Islam as the years progressed. The trade continued to flourish until the thirteenth century when Muslim raiders started to invade the empire.

References:
Picture By Aa77zz – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16001484
Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “The Trans-Saharan Gold Trade (Seventh–Fourteenth Centuries).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/gold/hd_gold.htm (October 2000)
Fage, J. D. The Cambridge History of Africa. Vol. II: From C.500 BC to AD 1050. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
“Ghana.” Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM). Accessed September 28, 2016. http://chnm.gmu.edu/fairfaxtah/lessons/documents/africaPOSinfo.pdf.

Posted on February 1, 2017January 9, 2017 by Kat Cendana — Leave a comment

Basil II

Basil II (976–1025 as recorded on the Bible Timeline with World History) was the son of the Byzantine Emperor Romanos II and his wife, Theophano. Although Romanos died in 963 AD, he had already proclaimed his five-year-old Basil and his three-year-old brother, Constantine as heirs. Unfortunately, their position as co-emperors was not as secure as Romanos first thought. So their mother, Theophano, offered to marry the brilliant Byzantine general Nikephoros II Phokas to safeguard her sons’ succession.

Nikephoros II Phokas acceded as emperor and kept his end of the bargain. Theophano later had an affair with his nephew, John Tzimiskes and together, they conspired to remove the general from the throne. The plot ended in the brutal death of Nikephoros Phokas, but to Theophano’s dismay, John Tzimiskes turned on her and sent her to a nunnery while he became the boys’ regent. John died of dysentery in 976 which caused Basil II and his brother Constantine to accede the throne in the same year. The boys succeeded Tzimiskes around the age of eighteen and sixteen. They were first under the regency of their uncle, the eunuch Basil Lekapenos, who served as the boys’ mentor and empire’s temporary administrator.

Temperament

The siblings were poles apart when it came to their personalities. These differences would later shape their destinies. Basil was described as a gruff warrior who forsook pleasures and luxuries to be a capable ruler. His brother and co-emperor, Constantine VIII, became a pleasure-seeker who preferred to live an easy life. The older brother swore off any pleasure to such that it bordered on asceticism. While the younger one embraced it fully and later abandoned the position of the emperor so that Basil ruled the empire alone.

The Bulgar-Slayer

basil_ii — “The Byzantine Empire at the death of Basil II in 1025”

Basil did not have to wait long for his leadership skills to be tested. The Bulgarian rebels demanded that their King Boris II and his brother Romanus be freed from the Byzantine prison after they were captured by John Tzimiskes. The new emperor suspected that the rebel leaders were only using the brothers to unite the Bulgarians against the Byzantines and that their end goal was to claim independence. So he ordered the freedom of the royal brothers and hoped that the Bulgarians would descend into civil war. Boris died when they reached the Bulgarian frontier, but Romanus survived and became a puppet king for one of the rebel leaders, Samuel.

It seemed that the emperor’s strategy backfired as this united the Bulgarians and they started to invade Byzantine cities again. Basil captured Romanus some years later and imprisoned him once again in Constantinople. The unfortunate man had been castrated during his first imprisonment in Constantinople. So Samuel took advantage of this and declared himself as the childless king’s successor. All of this happened while Basil had his hands full of a domestic rebellion led by his former generals and the conflict with the Fatimid Dynasty in the Asian frontier. After he finally got a break from these matters, he focused on building his army to face the Bulgarian threat.

Basil crushed the Bulgars in 1014 AD in the Battle of Kleidion. The Byzantine captured as much as fifteen thousand Bulgar soldiers after the war. The emperor took his revenge by blinding ninety-nine men out of a hundred soldiers. He left the hundredth soldier’s one eye intact, so he could lead the others back to their king. The arrival of his blinded soldiers horrified the Bulgarian King Samuel. This caused him to promptly suffer a heart attack and die. The Bulgarian resistance buckled four years after this, and Bulgaria became a Byzantine domain once again in 1018 AD.

The Rebellion of Bardas Phokas and Bardas Skleros

Basil was beset by troubles throughout his reign, but the rebellion of generals Bardas Phokas and Bardas Skleros hit close to home. Bardas Phokas was the nephew of the murdered emperor Nikephorus II Phokas. When his cousin John Tzimiskes usurped the throne, the younger Phokas led a rebellion against the new Byzantine emperor. He stayed in prison for seven years but was freed by Basil’s uncle and regent Basil Lekapenos to counter the rebellion of another Byzantine general, Bardas Skleros. Bardas Phokas succeeded in suppressing Skleros’ revolt in 978 AD, and for this, he was reinstated and rewarded.

The regent Basil Lekapenos, Bardas Phokas, and Bardas Skleros later came together and led a renewed rebellion against Emperor Basil II after he showed indications of independence from his uncle’s influence. They declared Phokas as leader of this renewed revolt and proclaimed him as the new Byzantine emperor. The battle-hardened Phokas and his troops steadily captured city after city in Asia Minor. They gained so many loyal followers along the way that his troops were able to eventually came close to the gates of Constantinople.

Besieged at all sides, Basil found he had no one to trust in his court. He sent a message to the Kievan Rus king Vladimir (who also happened to be his own brother-in-law) asking for reinforcements. Vladimir sent as much as 6,000 Varangian warriors to help Basil. They met Phokas’ troops in battle in Chrysopolis. The general Phokas, however, fell from his horse after he suffered a stroke. His bewildered troops promptly fled. Phokas had imprisoned Skleros before this, while their accomplice Basil Lekapenos was exiled and died in disgrace. Basil became secretive and suspicious after the double rebellion and refused to send the Varangian warriors back to his brother-in-law. He turned them into his own private bodyguards and started to govern the Byzantine empire with an iron fist.

Against the Fatimid Dynasty

In 995 AD, Basil started a campaign against the Fatimids led by Caliph al-Aziz in Asia. Then he wrested Syria, as well as some parts of Palestine from them. For some reason, he stopped short of Jerusalem. The Fatimid Caliph al-Aziz died some time later, and he was replaced by his son al-Hakim. Basil negotiated a 10-year peace treaty with the Fatimid caliph, and he turned back to Constantinople to prepare for the war against the Bulgars. While Basil was away, al-Hakim proceeded to purge the Christians and Jews out of Egypt and Palestine. According to some historians, he even went as far as razing the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and a synagogue in Jerusalem. The Christians and Jews were outraged, and they expected Basil to avenge the purge and the desecration. However, Basil was too busy in the war against Bulgarians. He also could not disregard the 10-year peace treaty he signed with al-Hakim.

Al-Hakim descended into insanity as years passed. Even his fellow Muslims did not escape his cruel laws. News of his madness eventually reached the Abbasids in the east. They condemned him when he ordered his people to replace Allah’s name with his own during Friday prayers. It seemed that Basil and the Abbasids’ intervention were not necessary as he left the city in 1021 AD to meditate in the desert but never returned. Al-Hakim was thirty-six years old at the time of his mysterious disappearance.

Death

Basil died in 1025 AD. However, he never found the time to marry and produce an heir. His brother, Constantine VIII succeeded him and ruled until 1028 AD.

References:
Picture By Nécropotame (French version); Cplakidas (English translation) – Translated and extensively modified from Image:Map_Byzantine_Empire_1025-de.svg, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4078443
Bury, John Bagnell, comp. The Cambridge Medieval History: The Eastern Roman Empire. Edited by J.R. Tanner, C.W. Previte-Orton, and Z.N. Brooke. Vol. IV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1923.
Leo. The History of Leo the Deacon: Byzantine Military Expansion in the Tenth Century. Translated by Alice-Mary Maffry. Talbot and Denis Sullivan. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2005.
Psellos, Michael. “Chronographia.” Internet History Sourcebook. Accessed September 24, 2016. http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/psellus-chronographia.asp.
Scylitzes, John. John Skylitzes: A Synopsis of Byzantine History, 811-1057. Translated by John Wortley. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Posted on January 31, 2017January 9, 2017 by Kat Cendana — Leave a comment

Papacy (Saeculum Obscurum 904-963 AD), Great Decline of the

great_decline

The Selection of the Pope in the Medieval Period

The Apostle Peter was considered as the first pope of the Catholic Church, but there was no formal process of selection for his successor after his death in the first century. According to tradition, Peter himself appointed his successors. This continued until the third century when Fabian was “elected” as pope after the people witnessed a dove settle on his head. They took this event as a sign that the Holy Spirit favored him, so he was chosen as the pope to succeed the deceased Anterus. This eventually led to the Great Decline of Papacy in 963 AD as recorded on the Bible Timeline Chart with World History.

Senior priests continued to elect popes thereafter, but the path to succession became complicated during the Medieval Period as some papal candidates, and secular rulers used the election and the position to grab power for themselves. The line between the state and the church was blurred when Pope Gregory the Great became the sole ruler of Rome. This was after the city was abandoned by the Eastern Roman rulers during the invasion of the Lombards. Since then, the pope became the ruler of the city. The papacy then became a much-coveted position when its prominence and power increased.

The Saeculum Obscurum

A new kind of power emerged during the last years of the ninth century up until the middle of the tenth century when the family of Theophylact, the Count of Tusculum, rose to prominence. This period (904 to 963 AD) would be known as Saeculum Obscurum (Latin for ‘the dark age’)—a time when corruption, murder, and lust dominated the papacy. It was also the time of the papacy’s great decline. This followed the domination of the powerful and notorious Roman women of the same family. Namely the Count of Tusculum’s wife Theodora, and her daughters, Marozia and Theodora, which led to the period’s nickname: pornocracy.

papacy — “The family tree of Theophylact.”

This started with the rise of Theophylact I, Count of Tusculum, who first appeared in the deposition of Antipope Christopher in 904 (it was also rumored that Theophylact was involved in the murder of Christopher while he was imprisoned). Together with Alberic I, and the Duke of Spoleto, Theophylact supported the election of Sergius III to succeed Christopher. With Sergius III under their thumbs, Theophylact and Theodora began to appoint themselves the rulers of Rome.

Sergius III was a staunch supporter of his predecessor, Pope Stephen VI. He was one of the bishops who took part in the infamous Cadaver Synod that Stephen assembled in 897 AD against his enemy, Pope Formosus. Stephen was later killed by the angry supporters of Formosus. Sergius reinforced the decrees of the said synod when he acceded as pope in 904 AD. Sergius’ notoriety did not stop there as according to Bishop Liutprand of Cremona, he took Theodora’s daughter Marozia as his mistress and fathered Pope John XI. The Frankish chronicler Flodoard contradicted this with a claim that Marozia’s husband Alberic I of Spoleto fathered John.

All of the eleven popes who succeeded Sergius were either supported by or were members of Marozia’s family. The Popes John XI and John XII were direct descendants of the powerful family. Although their direct domination ended in 963 AD, they would continue to produce five more popes who became powerful until the eleventh century (namely Popes Benedict VII, John XIII, Benedict VIII, John XIX, and Benedict IX). The reign of the eleven popes who succeeded Sergius were brief and unremarkable because of the domination of Marozia’s corrupt son, Alberic II, who proclaimed himself the Prince of the Romans.

The last pope of the Saeculum Obscurum, John XII, was the son of Alberic II. This pope rose at the same time as the German king, Otto I. It seemed that the apple did fall far from the tree, as papal historians consider him as a corrupt and an inept ruler who reportedly kept women at the Lateran Palace. Rumors of his immorality and his disloyalty to Otto I led to his deposition, as well as death in 963 AD under mysterious circumstances.

References:
Mann, Horace K. The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages: The Popes in the Days of Feudal Anarchy. Vol. IV. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, &, 1910.
Partner, Peter. The Lands of St. Peter; The Papal State in the Middle Ages and the Early Renaissance. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.
Ullmann, Walter. A Short History of the Papacy in the Middle Ages. London: Methuen, 1972.