Buddhism in Japan came by way of the Kingdom of Baekje (present-day South Korea). Buddhist monks had visited Japan before the sixth century AD. However, it was only during the tumultuous period of the wars between the Korean kingdoms of Baekje, Silla, and Goguryeo that Buddhism became Japan’s state religion. This occurred around 527 AD according to the Bible Timeline with World History.
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During the middle of the sixth century, King Seong of Baekje decided to retake the land in the Han river valley that once belonged to his kingdom but was conquered by Goguryeo many years back. He sent an offer of alliance to the king of Silla, as well as the Gaya confederacy, to help him wrest the valley from the kingdom of Goguryeo. The leaders of the two kingdoms agreed to help the Baekje army drive out the Goguryeo troops, but the king of Silla betrayed King Seong and switched sides to the king of Goguryeo. They drove the king of Baekje and his troops out of the Han river basin and occupied the area themselves.
Enraged that his plan had backfired and his efforts came to nothing, the king of Baekje reconsidered his strategy. He already made an alliance with the Southern Liang, as well as the Eastern and Western Wei dynasties of China, but he needed a powerful ally in the distant east to counter Silla and Goguryeo. To this end, he prepared gifts—a golden statue of Buddha and some Buddhist texts—and sent them to the Yamato ruler in Japan (then called the land of Wa); these gifts arrived in 552 AD.
“Rock cut seated Buddha statue”
Kimmei, the Tennō or Heavenly Sovereign of the Yamato polity, called together the clan leaders who were under his rule to discuss whether he should accept the gifts from Baekje or not. Some clan leaders opposed the acceptance of the gifts because they were suspicious of any foreign influence especially on their religion, but the leader of the Soga clan convinced Kimmei to accept the gifts. Kimmei accepted the gifts King Seong sent to him and in return, he sent some troops to help the King of Baekje. However, the offensive King Seong launched with the help of the Japanese troops ended only in disaster; he was killed in battle against King Chinhung of Silla who then conquered a large tract of Baekje territory to enlarge his own.
News of the disastrous battle in the Korean peninsula reached Japan which made the Tennō reconsider his earlier decision of accepting the gifts sent by the unfortunate king of Baekje. He regretted his decision later when an epidemic swept the capital, a sign that he took as the old gods’ punishment for his acceptance of Buddhism. Fearful of the gods’ wrath upon the land, Kimmei had the statue of Buddha thrown into a canal and ordered the destruction of the Buddhist temple. But his efforts to stop Buddhism from spreading in Japan were too late; many people had already adopted the teachings of Buddha although Shintoism was still widely practiced.
Prince Shotoku and Buddhism as State Religion
Japan descended into a brief, tumultuous period when the Soga clan leader Soga no Umako had the emperor—and his nephew—Sushun assassinated. Emperors Kimmei, Bidatsu, and Yomei were long dead by then, and no one else was fit to rule Japan at that time. He convinced Kimmei’s daughter and Bidatsu’s widow, Princess Suiko, to accede the throne now that Emperor Sushun was dead. Hesitant at first, Suiko eventually accepted the offer but Sugo no Umako also appointed emperor Yomei’s son, Prince Shotoku Taishi, as coregent.
Prince Shotoku was famous for his capable administration of the land, sound foreign policies, and reorganization of the government appointment system from inheritance to meritocracy. He also issued Japan’s Seventeen-Article Constitution (Jushichijo no Kempo) and was known as one of Japan’s first statesmen. Shotoku Taishi and Suiko Tenno were both devout Buddhists, but the prince was credited as the one who made Buddhism the state religion in 594 AD—a year after he was proclaimed as coregent. The construction of Buddhist shrines all over the Yamato polity and the arrival of Buddhist priests from the Korean peninsula continued to increase during the joint rule of Empress Suiko and Imperial Prince Shotoku Taishi.
The Roman empire was no longer influential by the time Justinian was crowned as emperor of the Byzantines in 527 AD, but Rome’s former rulers left behind many laws that the Eastern emperors used to govern their people. These laws were often contradictory and/or outdated, so in 529 AD, Emperor Justinian decided these laws needed an update. He assembled a committee composed of ten men (decemvirs) who helped him put together the laws passed down from the time of Emperor Hadrian to the reign of his uncle, Emperor Justin I, into an easily understandable code. Their task also included the revision of the laws that were contradictory and the elimination of some that were deemed outdated. The Justinian Code was established during the 5th century AD according to the Bible Timeline with World History.
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The committee was led by the Praetorian Prefect John of Cappadocia and supervised by Tribonian, a renowned Roman jurist. They used three earlier compilations of the laws set by the former emperors which included the Codex Theodosianus, Codex Gregorianus, and Codex Hermogenianus. It had taken four years before the committee released the first part of the revised set of laws that made up the Justinian Code (Corpus Iurus Civilis or Body of Civil Law). It consisted of four parts: the Digesta or the Digest (released in 533 AD), the Codex or the Code (534 AD), the Institutiones or Institutes (535 AD), and the Novellae or Novella (556 AD).
The Digest was a compilation and summary of the writings on the law of the classical Roman jurists, while the Code was an outline of the empire’s laws and other proclamations. The smallest of these was the summary of the Digest, the Institutes, and all of these were updated twenty later with the Novella which included new laws set out by Emperor Justinian.
Emperor Leo III was born in the city of Germanicea in the kingdom of Commagene (present-day southern Turkey) sometime around 685 AD. His original name was Konon, and he grew up in Thrace after his parents were resettled there from their native homeland in the Mount Taurus region. He entered military service under Justinian II and rapidly rose through the ranks over the years. Leo was familiar with the Muslim threat when he was sent to the regions of Lazica and Alania (in modern Georgia) to lead the defense against the Umayyad invasion under Caliph Al-Walid I. Leo III is recorded on the Bible Timeline Chart with World History around 741 AD.
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He became the strategos (general) of the Anatolic theme (province) during the reign of Emperor Anastasios II between 713 AD and 715 AD. Anastasios abdicated in favor of Theodosius III in 715 after a two-year stint as the Byzantine emperor. Leo III conspired with the Armenian general Artabasdos in a coup against Theodosius. From the start, the former emperor was only compelled to fulfill the role of Byzantine ruler. Theodosius was just happy to enter a monastery after the success of Leo’s coup. In return for his support, Leo had his daughter marry Artabasdos and promoted him as the commander of the Opsikion theme.
Second Siege of Constantinople
Emperor Leo III started his reign on the 25th of May in 717 AD. He had no time to waste as the Umayyad navy threatened Constantinople with another invasion (the first siege of Constantinople in 674 AD ended in failure in 678 AD). Leo only had months to prepare the Byzantine navy and army for the invasion before the enemy fleet, led by caliph Sulayman, sailed to the Sea of Marmara. By the time Sulayman’s fleet arrived in the Sea of Marmara on the first of September in 717, an Umayyad army composed of 80,000 men marched from the Middle East to Asia Minor to help them take Constantinople.
“19th-century Italian painting, The Iconoclasts”
The Byzantines first used the “Greek fire” during the First Siege of Constantinople. They used the flamethrower once again during the second Umayyad invasion. It was effective; the result was a massive loss of ships and men on the Umayyad side. Leo was also a good strategist. He removed the chain that guarded the Golden Horn so that the enemy would think that he intended to lure them inside and trap them. The ruse worked, and it forced the enemy ships to sail away to a nearby inlet to take refuge.
The descent of a harsh winter in 717 AD lessened the chances of success of the Umayyad navy and army who were not used to the bitter cold. Admiral Sulayman fell sick and died in the same year; he was then hastily replaced by another admiral from Egypt who brought with him a shipment of additional men, food, and weapons. Among those who came with the new navy were Egyptian Christians who jumped ship the moment they arrived near Constantinople and switched sides to Leo III. They passed on information to the Byzantine emperor who used this to raid the Egyptian ships for food and weapons.
The Byzantines called on their Bulgar allies during the last few months of the siege in 718 AD, and together they attacked the enemy which resulted in a loss of about 20,000 on the Muslim side. The new Umayyad caliph Umar II saw that it was useless to continue the siege and agreed to sign a peace treaty with Leo III. He then recalled his men from the Sea of Marmara on August 15, 718 AD. Only five ships returned to the shores of the Levant after a storm destroyed them on the way. Many were also destroyed by a volcano eruption in the Aegean or captured by the Byzantines.
The Muslim army continued to harass the Byzantines on land in the years that followed. They took Cappadocia and besieged Nicaea in 724 AD. Leo faced a bigger Muslim invasion during the last years of his reign as emperor when a 90,000-strong Muslim army invaded much of Asia Minor and took their Byzantine captives to Syria. The emperor, with his son Constantine and their troops, later drove them back to the Levant.
Rebellions and Iconoclasm
Rebellions hounded Emperor Leo in the early years of his reign, with the first one led by a man named Artemius on the island of Sicily. The rebellion happened during the Second Siege of Constantinople, but Leo sent troops to Sicily to quash the revolt when he had a small break from the naval battles with the Muslims. The former Emperor Anastasios II also decided to return to Constantinople and rallied his allies in 719 AD to seize the throne. But the Bulgars who joined his cause abandoned Anastasios during an important battle. He was captured by Leo who later had him executed.
Emperor Leo’s greatest challenge was the prohibition he imposed on the worship of idols after the Second Siege of Constantinople. During the siege, Patriarch Germanos paraded an icon of the Virgin Mary and Child Jesus around the city which made the people believe that it was the icon that helped lift the invasion. Insulted that he was not properly credited as the one who led the successful defense of the city, Leo promptly had the icons all over the Byzantine Empire removed or destroyed. The eruption of the underwater volcano near the island of Thera (which he took as a sign of God’s wrath) and the Muslims’ prohibition of the worship of idols also pushed him to issue this edict.
The first “victim” of Leo’s iconoclasm was the icon of Christ that decorated the Bronze Gate (Chalke) of the Great Palace in Constantinople. He ordered the soldiers to remove it from its usual place. This enraged the crowd that gathered in front of the palace, and a riot subsequently flared up in the city that resulted in the death of one soldier. The members of the mob that committed the riot were arrested and fined. Leo ordered more icons all over the empire to be removed and destroyed. He had a falling out with Pope Gregory II over this issue which resulted in his excommunication; in addition, the edict was not received very well and rejected as blasphemy in many parts of his own empire.
Legacy
Leo was one of the most energetic Byzantine emperors who ruled during a very chaotic period. His army was one of the most disciplined and effective during the early Middle Ages. During his reign, he reformed the justice system and released a handbook called Ecloga which was a summary of laws issued by the former emperors. The book was published in 740 AD and covered diverse topics such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, maritime laws, and agriculture. He did not expand the empire, but he did keep what remained of the Byzantine territories intact during his reign.
He had four children by his wife Maria and one of them, Constantine, succeeded him as emperor. Leo reigned for a total of twenty-four years and died on June 18, 741 AD after an illness.
The Byzantine Empire was one of the longest-running empires in history and its influence on religion, as well as the arts, reached even into the most distant parts of its dominion. When Constantine the Great first established Constantinople as his capital in 330 AD, he also brought to the city his new-found religion: Christianity. It flourished in Constantinople and soon, numerous churches were built left and right to accommodate the increasing number of new converts to Christianity. The finest examples of Byzantine-style churches were mostly built during the time of the Emperor Justinian and included the Hagia Sophia, Hagia Irene, and Little Hagia Sophia (Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus). Byzantine-influenced churches can also be found in Italy, Greece, Egypt, Armenia, and the Middle East. The worship of idols was later forbidden around 726 AD according to the Biblical Timeline Chart with World History.
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These churches hosted a number of magnificent decorations, such as mosaics and icons, which early Christians used during prayers, meditations, and mass. The icons, which came from the Greek word eikon and means “images,” were depictions of the divine and for the medieval Christians. These icons offered a way to the spiritual world. Byzantine artists frequently depicted Christ, the Virgin Mary, and numerous saints with common themes such as the Nativity, Christ’s crucifixion, and life (as well as death) of the Saints dominated the church art scene. Many medieval Christians worshiped the icons and attributed to them healing powers.
These icons were portrayed in different media such as wooden panels, gems, mosaic, ivory, and frescoes. Some were for personal use (such as icons used as jewelry) and framed wooden panels with tempera or encaustic paints; while some, such as mosaics and frescoes in churches, were for public use.
Emperor Leo III and Iconoclasm
The Byzantine Emperor Leo III authorized the widespread state-sanctioned iconoclasm (image breaking) years after the end of the Second Siege of Constantinople. The Hodogetria, an icon of the Virgin Mary holding the Infant Jesus, was paraded around the city by the Patriarch Germanos during the Arab invasion and was credited by the people like the one that helped lift the siege. As the man who led the defense of Constantinople, Emperor Leo was understandably annoyed by this, and he attempted to get rid of the people’s reliance on the icons in 726 AD.
An example of the Hodogetria, an icon of the Virgin Mary holding the Infant Jesus.
One of the first casualties of the iconoclasm was Christ’s icon that was hung on the Great Palace’s Bronze Gate (Chalke Gate). Emperor Leo sent a group of soldiers to remove the icon, but a bewildered crowd attacked them and left one of the soldiers dead during the altercation. As punishment, the emperor had the mob arrested and fined, while some were tortured for the death of the soldier. The iconoclasm continued and spread to Greece where the people revolted when they learned of Leo’s decree, but the rebellion was immediately quashed. It had, however, already divided the people into two sides: the iconoclasts (icon-breakers) and the iconodules (those who favor icons).
The iconoclasm Emperor Leo started also reached Rome and his attempt at changing one of the church doctrines deeply angered Pope Gregory II. The pope sent a dismissive letter to the Byzantine emperor and admonished him to stop meddling in church doctrine. This issue further drove a wedge between Italy and the Eastern Empire, and when Gregory II died, his successor, Pope Gregory III, excommunicated the iconoclasts in 731 AD. Iconoclasm continued in the East, while Italy ignored Leo’s decree and continued the production of icons all throughout the Middle Ages. When Leo died in 741 AD his son and successor, Constantine V, became more iconoclastic than his father was.
The former Roman provinces of the Levant, Egypt, North Africa, and Hispania quickly fell to the Arabs during the middle of the seventh century. The Byzantines proved to be more resilient and clever in their defense of their capital during the Umayyad invasion. Their use of the “Greek fire” destroyed the majority of the Umayyad navy and the Muslim warriors, led by Caliph Mu’awiyah, retreated after he was forced to sign a peace treaty with the Byzantines. The annual tribute the Byzantines required from the Arabs in exchange for peace discouraged them from attempts for reconquests for many years. It took another 39 years after the First Siege of Constantinople (674-678 AD) before the Arabs made another attempt to conquer the city. The repulse of the Arabs is recorded on the Biblical Timeline with World History at 717 AD.
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Two men were at the forefront of the fight for Constantinople: Emperor Leo III and the new Umayyad caliph Suleiman. Emperor Leo anticipated the arrival of the Arabs early in his reign and ordered for the preparation of Constantinople’s defenses months before the first Muslims ships sailed through the Dardanelles. The new Arab navy was under the command of caliph Suleiman who supplemented his sailors with as much as eighty thousand land troops who marched through Asia Minor from the Middle East to help him conquer Constantinople.
The siege on Constantinople
Emperor Leo took a cue from Constantine IV who fought the same enemy years before and used the “Greek fire” against the Arab navy; once again, the ancient flamethrower set many of their ships on fire and drowned many of their sailors. The weather also helped the Byzantines when the wind fanned the flames of the “Greek fire” and a harsh winter descended on the Sea of Marmara. Suleiman, unused to the bitter cold, died when winter set in and he was replaced by his cousin, Umar II, who then sent a new admiral from Egypt to continue the attacks.
Men from both sides died during the siege of Constantinople, but the Arabs suffered more casualties which compelled caliph Umar to stop and recall his men. All hostilities officially ended on August 15, 718. The Arab navy, as well as the overland troops, limped back home. Constantinople would remain unconquered for another nine hundred years until the rise of the Ottomans.
The Arab Muslims conquered vast swaths of territory during the middle of the seventh century and well into the early eighth century. As early 638 AD, they wrested large parts of Palestine, Syria (Shams), and Mesopotamia from Byzantine and Persian hands. Egypt, North Africa, and Hispania soon followed with the first two provinces taken from the Byzantines and the last from the Visigoths. One jewel that remained out of the Arab Muslims’ reach, however, was the prosperous yet sometimes chaotic capital of the Byzantines: Constantinople. The Arab’s many attacks occured around 668 AD according to the Bible Timeline with World History.
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The Muslims’ first attempt to conquer the great city in 674 AD and the series of naval attacks lasted until 678 AD. The hard task of keeping the city safe from any attempts to breach it fell on Constantine IV, the son of the unpopular Constans II, who came to the throne in 668 AD. The man on the other side was the Umayyad caliph Mu’awiya who started his reign in 661 AD and assembled a navy to counter the Byzantines. He led the Muslim navy in expeditions to Cyprus, Rhodes, Kos, as well the coastal town of Kyzikos by the Sea of Marmara and established a base there as early as 670 AD. It was too close for comfort for the Byzantines, and when he saw that an attack was on the horizon, Constantine prepared the Byzantine navy to defend the city.
“Depiction of the use of Greek fire “
Constantine’s preparation proved to be a wise move as the Arab fleet led by Mu’awiyah sailed for Constantinople four years later. The Arab navy first attacked in spring of 674 but the Byzantines proved to be successful in their defense of Constantinople, and the Arab navy was forced to return to Kyzikos to spend winter there. They made another attempt in spring of the following year but were repelled by the Byzantine’s use of the ancient flamethrower they called the “Greek fire” which burned Arab ships and drowned their sailors.
The cycle of attack and retreat carried on for four years until Mu’awiya agreed to a peace treaty with Constantine IV. The Umayyad caliph was forced to pay a hefty annual tribute to the Byzantines, as well as agreed to leave the naval bases they constructed on the Byzantine islands earlier. The temporary peace allowed Constantine IV to focus on the neighboring Slavs and the Bulgars.
References:
Picture By Unknown – Codex Skylitzes Matritensis, Bibliteca Nacional de Madrid, Vitr. 26-2, Bild-Nr. 77, f 34 v. b. (taken from Pászthory, p. 31), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=302463
Shepard, Jonathan, ed. The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Theophanes, and Harry Turtledove. The Chronicle of Theophanes: An English Translation of Anni Mundi 6095-6305 (A.D. 602-813). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982.
Justinian was known for his campaigns to reclaim the former Roman territories in Italy and North Africa, but perhaps Justinian was made more famous with his “scandalous” marriage to Theodora and the Nika revolt. Whether he was a great leader or a complete failure according to Byzantine historian Procopius, it remains undeniable that he was one of the most remarkable persons to have lived during that time. He is recorded on the Bible Timeline Chart with World History between 527-565 AD.
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Justinian was born in the Illyrian city of Tauresium in 482/3 AD, and he ruled the Byzantine Empire between 527 to 565 AD. His uncles were farmers in Illyria, but they made their way to Constantinople and rose to become soldiers of the empire. One uncle, Justin I, rose to become the emperor of the Byzantine empire in 518 AD and started the Justinian Dynasty that ruled from Constantinople for a total of eighty-two years. Justin adopted his nephew during Justinian’s childhood and brought him to Constantinople to be educated. The young man eventually became a soldier of the empire. He rose through the ranks quickly and by the time he was 30 years old, Justinian was an accomplished military leader. By 521 AD, Justinian received the position of the Consul of the Roman Empire but in the same year, another event would shape his destiny and the way he ruled the Byzantine Empire: he met the future Empress Theodora and fell in love with her immediately.
Theodora
A discussion of Justinian would be incomplete without a mention of Theodora, the woman he fell in love with, married, and crowned as empress. She was as vital to his rule as Emperor as to his personal life, and she rose to such greatness along with her husband during his reign. Theodora’s background was much humbler than Justinian’s; her father was the bear-keeper of the Greens (a faction in the Hippodrome), but he died early during her childhood which left her family destitute. His death left her mother to take care of three young daughters, so she quickly remarried and begged the Greens to give her new husband some job to help support them. The Greens refused, but the Blues saw this opportunity to add another member to their faction and gave Theodora’s stepfather a job. Theodora grew up as an actress, but it meant she also needed to double as a prostitute—an occupation which damaged her reputation and hounded her for life.
“The Empress Theodora at the Colosseum”
Theodora met a Byzantine official during her teens and went with him to North African Pentapolis (in present-day Libya) where he was appointed as governor. She left him when the relationship fell apart. She supported herself through prostitution once again and eventually made her way to Alexandria where she converted to Christianity. The Christianity that she learned in Egypt was Monophysitism (the Greek word monos means ‘one’ while physis means ‘nature’) which asserted that Christ only has one nature and that his divinity had dissolved his human nature/substance. It was considered a heresy by the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. It was also a direct opposition to another popular Christological belief called Nestorianism wherein Christ has a dual nature (both human and divine). However, her new religion steered her away from prostitution. She later moved to Antioch in Asia Minor to stay with her friend and fellow former actress, Macedonia.
Macedonia also left prostitution to work as a spy for Antioch’s state-sanctioned imperial police and she personally wrote letters to Justinian as an informer. Sometime around 521 AD, Justinian visited Macedonia who then introduced the consul to her young friend. The two fell in love, and Theodora accompanied Justinian to Constantinople in 522 AD. It was clear that she did not practice prostitution anymore. The consul promised to marry Theodora, but Emperor Justin I and his wife Euphemia (Justinian’s uncle and aunt) stood in their way because of Theodora’s former profession and monophysitism. The main reason for his aunt and uncle’s opposition to their marriage was Emperor Constantine‘s decree two hundred before that forbade government officials from marrying actresses. This was revoked by Emperor Justin I in 524 AD when his wife Euphemia died. The couple married immediately and by 527 AD, Justinian replaced his uncle as emperor of Byzantium. Theodora was crowned empress in the same year—a far cry from the days when she was destitute and needed to sell her body to survive.
Justinian as Emperor (527-565 AD) and the Nika Revolt
One of Justinian’s first act as an emperor was to put together the confusing mass of laws issued by past emperors and put them together into a single yet understandable code. He assembled a committee, had them rewrite the contradictory laws laid out centuries ago. The result was the Justinian Code that he issued in 529 AD. He also signed a peace treaty with the Persian emperor which was called Eternal Peace. This peace would not last as war flared up between the two empires again eight years later. In addition, Justinian was a man of great ambition and for much of his reign, he waged wars in Italy, Spain, and North Africa to conquer what were once parts of the greater Roman Empire. He needed money to fund for these conquests, so he raised taxes imposed upon the people which earned their anger over the years.
One event, however, marked his early reign, and this was the Nika revolt. Two factions—the Blues and the Greens—competed in the dominance of the entertainment in the Hippodrome. The citizens of Constantinople were divided in their support for these factions (Justinian himself supported the Blues, as was Empress Theodora who, in her childhood, resented the treatment her family received from the Greens after her father’s death). The rivalry went beyond the Hippodrome as it was rumored that the wealthier people supported the blues while, the less affluent supported the Greens. Their rivalry over the years turned bitter and many times so bloody that by 532 AD, the city was ripe for a violent revolt.
Two men—one from the Blues and the other from the Greens—were supposed to be hanged after a relatively minor riot in Constantinople but the torture of the men and a couple of botched executions had angered the crowd. The crowd rioted and set fire to many buildings in Constantinople, including the Church of the Holy Wisdom, government buildings, palaces, and marketplace. They also killed many people on the streets while shouting, “Nika!” and forced Justinian, Theodora, as well as their courtiers to hide in the palace in hopes that the riot would just fade away. It did not burn itself out, so Justinian decided to flee into a nearby city if not for his wife, Theodora, who convinced him to stay and face the people. For Theodora, it was better to die as an empress than go back to her former life.
Justinian realized his wife was right and immediately ordered the general Belisarius and his Illyrian troops to contain the rioters in the Hippodrome. They devised a plan to kill all the rioters inside the Hippodrome and succeeded in slaughtering 30,000 people in one night. The bloody end of the Nika revolt would sear the psyche of the people of Constantinople for many years, and no one challenged Justinian for the remainder of his reign.
The Aftermath: Reconquest of Italy, Gaul, North Africa, and Hispania
Justinian implemented a large-scale recovery program for Constantinople which included the reconstruction of new churches and government buildings. He also embarked on a campaign to reclaim the territories now occupied by the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, and Franks. He sent his trusted general Belisarius to North Africa to counter the Vandals who had occupied Carthage years before. After the death of the great Vandal leader Geiseric, the tribe had fallen to disunity and had neglected the defense of Carthage. Belisarius took Carthage easily when the new Vandal leader fled from the city and the inhabitants themselves opened the city gates to the Byzantine forces in 533 AD.
In 535 AD, Justinian sent Belisarius to wrest Italy from the Ostrogothic monarchy whose rule was in itself on the verge of collapse. He reclaimed Sicily easily in the same year, but it would take another four years for the Byzantines to get rid of the Ostrogoth King Witigis and capture the Italian capital Ravenna. With Belisarius’ victory, Justinian was worried that his general would usurp the throne of Italy, so he recalled the brilliant man from the peninsula and back into Constantinople. Belisarius complied and went back to Constantinople with the captive Ostrogoth king while many of his men remained in Italy to guard the northern border from invading tribes.
The Justinian Plague
Meanwhile, the Eternal Peace Justinian and the Persian king Khosrau negotiation fell apart in 541 after the Byzantine king failed to pay the annual tribute he promised eight years ago. Justinian sent Belisarius once again to the Near East to counter Khosrau, but something more malevolent arrived on the shores of the city that would wipe out a great portion of its population. A mysterious sickness arrived via a ship from Egypt that carried Constantinople’s grain. Many people fell sick days after the ship docked. It was the start of the bubonic plague that raged in the city for three months and killed as much as much as ten thousand a day, according to Procopius of Caesarea.
Even Justinian himself was not spared from the plague, and buboes grew from his body when he fell sick. He recovered later, but as much as 200,000 people in Constantinople alone ended up dead by the time the plague had burned itself out in 543 AD. It also reached the Persian capital of Ctesiphon in Mesopotamia and spread toward the Frankish territory where it also ran its course on the people who lived there. The plague temporarily sidelined Khosrau to Ctesiphon. Persia then came back to Asia Minor and besieged the city of Edessa. The citizens of Edessa effectively defended the city when they worked together and poured oil onto the invading Persian army that dared scale the city walls. The Persians retreated after a negotiation and Justinian after his health returned, was free to recover the Western Roman territories.
Return to the Western Campaigns and Death
Justinian sent more troops to Italy to reinforce the ones left behind by general Belisarius. But this time, they were led by a eunuch-general named Narses. Italy fell to the hands of the Ostrogoths once again. Justinian did not have enough men to counter the threat, so he hired Lombard and Gepid warriors to help general Narses. The barbarian mercenaries were promised land in Pannonia to settle in in exchange for their skills as warriors and with this reward in mind, they successfully drove out the Ostrogoths from Italy. After the battle for domination in the peninsula, Justinian established a governor in Ravenna to rule on his behalf and then wrested Hispania from the Visigoths in 552 AD.
Belisarius and Justinian died in 565 AD after their brief spat because of the emperor’s insecurity. Justinian had his friend imprisoned for some time because he thought the retired general wanted to usurp his throne, but “pardoned” Belisarius before their death. Theodora had died earlier in 548 AD. The couple had no children so his nephew Justin replaced Justinian as emperor.
Patrimonium Petri (also known as Patrimonium Sancti Petri or Patrimony of Saint Peter) refers to the land holdings of the Holy Sea in the Italian Peninsula, the surrounding islands, and some portions of North Africa. According to the Bible Timeline Chart with World History, this was begun around 600 AD. Its legal basis was Constantine’s edict issued back in 321 AD wherein he allowed Christians to own and transfer properties—a right denied to them by previous Roman emperors during the early years of Christianity. Constantine himself gave large portions of his estate to the church which was soon followed by donations from Rome’s wealthy families. What remained of the persecutions were abolished when Christianity became Rome’s state religion in 380 AD under Emperor Theodosius I, but most of these donations stopped by 600 AD.
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“The pope had temporal powers over these regions and as Rome’s ruler during the sixth century”
Most of these land holdings were located within the vicinity of Rome. They gradually spread throughout Italy into the Tuscan Region, Ancona, Osimo, Gaeta, and the areas near Ravenna. The pope also had power over the islands of Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily which were included in the Patrimonium Petri. The pope had temporal powers over these regions and as Rome’s ruler during the sixth century, the pope was in charge of the distribution of the revenues which were usually used to fund for church repairs, improvement of church decorations, as well as for disaster relief programs. The hard task of keeping the city’s less fortunate citizens and the incoming refugees fed fell on the shoulders of the pope, and the funds used to buy food came from the Patrimonium Petri estates. The highest revenues came from the island of Sicily, but this was later confiscated by Emperor Leo III in favor of the Byzantine Empire.
The pope’s land holdings increased over the years when Italy’s noble families died out or had fled to take refuge in the Byzantine territories during the invasion of the Lombards. These estates grew until the middle of the eighth century and were sometimes sandwiched between Byzantine territories and Lombard duchies. When Italy completely disintegrated in the late eighth century, the Patrimonium Petri consisted only of the Papal States which became the future popes’ own little kingdom.
More than a hundred years after Mohammed’s death in 632 AD, Islam experienced rapid growth after the Arab conquest of the former Roman and Byzantine provinces of North Africa and Mesopotamia, as well as the crumbled Persian empire. They tried to push through the Byzantine territories in Eastern Europe, but they failed during the double invasion of Constantinople in 674 and 717 AD. Constantinople was safe (temporarily, at least) but the Arab, and Berber armies made a massive headway in the Iberian peninsula especially after the defeat of the Visigoth king Ruderic in the Battle of Guadalete in 711 AD. Almost all of the nobility who could claim the Visigothic kingship were wiped out in battle. The Muslims ruled Spain after the near-total defeat of the Visigoths. Hispania officially became the Muslim province of Al-Andalus. According to the Biblical Timeline with World History, the Moors (Islamic Africans) conquered Spain during 740 AD.
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When the Arab conquest of North Africa was completed in 702 AD, many of the Berbers (the Greek term for native North Africans) including the Mauri people also converted en masse after they saw their leaders adopt Islam as their religion. The term Moors initially referred to the Mauri people of Mauretania (in present-day northern Morocco), but the word gradually evolved in Europe to cover all Muslims of African-descent who invaded Spain in the eighth century. They were a part of Spain’s rich history and perhaps Islam’s domination of Spain would not have been possible if not for the presence of the Moors.
“The battle of Guadalete”
The Moors constituted the bulk of the Muslim army (along with the Arabs) that crossed the southern tip of Spain eight years later and helped defeat the weakened Visigoths in Iberia. The combined Berber and Arab army were led by a prominent Berber general named Tariq ibn-Ziyad who led them to victory in the Battle of Guadalete. Tariq ibn Ziyad continued to lead the Muslim army into victory in the cities of Toledo and Cordoba until he was recalled by the Caliph in Damascus in 714.
The Moors (which became a catch-all term for all Muslims in Spain by then) led by Abd ar Rahman Al-Ghafiqi would have succeeded in their push into Western Europe if Charles Martel and Odo of Aquitaine had not blocked their path in the Battle of Tours-Poitiers in 732 AD. Al-Ghafiqi died in battle, and the rest of the Muslim army limped back into Al-Andalus. By 740, the Moors had dominated much of Spain except for the northern Kingdom of Asturias which became a tiny remnant of the Visigothic rule after they were defeated by the Arab and Berber armies. The Moors’ domination of Spain was briefly punctuated by the Berber revolt that lasted between 739 to 743 AD.
References:
Picture By Salvador Martínez Cubells – [www.artflakes.com], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18373367
Bauer, S. Wise. The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade. New York: W.W. Norton, 2010.
Lane-Poole, Stanley, and Arthur Gilman. The Story of the Moors in Spain. Baltimore, MD: Black Classic Press, 1990.
Islam’s history in Africa started long before the Arab military conquest of the continent seven years after the death of Muhammad in 632 AD. During the years of persecution, the new Muslims fled across the Red Sea to make the very first migration (hijra) to Axum (in modern Ethiopia), and they sought refuge in the court of the Christian Axumite king Ashama ibn-Abjar. In December of 639 AD, Amr ibn Al-Asi led the very first military conquest of Africa from their base in Palestine. The Arab Muslim troops started the invasion in the Nile Delta, and Islam quickly spread throughout Egypt and most of North Africa during the next 50 years. By 700 AD, Byzantine Africa (Carthage), Maghrib, and Mauretania fell to the Muslims, and most of the North Africans (except for the Egyptian Copts) had converted to Islam which is where it is recorded in the Biblical Timeline Chart with World History.
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The Arabs had been involved in slave trade even before the rise of Islam in the peninsula and they continued this practice even after the death of Muhammad. For the eighth century Arabs, slavery was neither good nor bad—it was simply a natural part of the culture they grew up in, and various cities in the peninsula itself were station points for the slave trade. Muhammad did not abolish slavery in his lifetime, and Muslims consider servitude in a positive light when it is associated with God (servant of Allah). There was no explicit endorsement for the practice of slavery in the Quran, but neither was it forbidden in the Islamic world; passages in the Quran only laid down rules on how Muslims should treat their slaves, as well as when and how they should be freed.
Female Slave
Slaves were a part of life during much of Africa’s history and cities in Sudan, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Somalia were centers for slave trade as early as the reign of Thutmose III. The Arab slave trade was one of the oldest in history, and it preceded the Atlantic slave trade by at least eight hundred years. It rose to greater heights during the Muslim domination of North Africa around 700 AD. As the Arabs expanded their territories in North Africa, they acquired more captive slaves by military conquest and used the concept of jihad as justification.
Some of the captives were sold to buyers who used them as domestic servants while others were sent to work in the fields or herd their masters’ cattle. Some became soldiers, and many were prized either for their skills in wielding a weapon (bow and arrow, swords, etc.) or simply for their loyalty and obedience. Muslims were forbidden to enslave fellow Muslims, and they were only allowed to enslave non-believers and pagans. Non-Muslim slaves were allowed to convert to Islam, but they cannot return to freedom even after the conversion. The conversion of slaves to Islam was discouraged by Muslim authorities after some time as it narrowed down the pool of people that could be enslaved and it also reduced the taxes imposed to and paid by non-Muslims.
Muslims were also expressly forbidden to enslave Arabs, and the slave trade was especially prejudiced toward the black Africans (although Turks and Europeans were also captured and sold). They worked in places such as Ethiopia, Somalia, Mozambique, Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as distant Mesopotamia and Zanzibar. The large-scale slave trade in Africa flourished until its abolition in the 19th century, but small-time slave traders operated in some parts of Africa until the early years of the 20th century.
