Category: Biblical Timeline Poster

The City of Reims

The city of Reims in northern France rose to prominence during the Medieval Period when the Frankish king Clovis had himself baptized in the city. Merovingian and Carolingian kings who succeeded Clovis held their coronations in Reims. The city later earned the nickname the ‘City of Coronations.’ Apart from its political legacy, Reims was also important to shaping the ecclesiastical heritage of France after the Synod or Council of Reims was held there in 991 AD. Because of this, the city was considered to be one of the most important cities in Medieval Period after Rome and Milan. The Synod of Reims is recorded on the Biblical Timeline Poster with World History during 991 AD.

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Gerbert of Aurillac and the Synod of Reims

Gerbert (the future Pope Sylvester II) was born from commoner parents in the Auvergne region and educated in the monastery of St. Gerald of Aurillac where he eventually became a monk. His lowly birth did not stop him from rising to prominence as he was renowned as a very smart and politically savvy man. When Count Borrell II of Barcelona visited Aurillac, Gerbert asked to accompany him to Catalonia so he could study there. The Count agreed and upon reaching Spain, Gerbert studied in the monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll in Catalonia. The scholarly Gerbert took to Catalonia like a duck to water and learned all he could during his stay there.

This was cut short when Count Borrell II took him to Rome on a pilgrimage. It was in the holy city where Gerbert met John XIII and Emperor Otto I. With the help of John XIII, Gerbert became Prince Otto II’s tutor when the emperor summoned him to his court in around 971 and 972 AD. Gerbert was so impressed with Gerannus (the renowned logician and ambassador of the Frankish king Lothair) when he visited Otto I’s court that he requested to come with the envoy to Reims to be his student.

Gerbert was promoted as the abbot of Bobbio Abbey in Italy. He left in 984 AD and returned to Reims in the same year where he joined a new mentor, the Archbishop Adalbero. In Reims, he worked with Adalbero to secure the throne of Otto III in Germany and Hugh Capet in France against the last Carolingian king Louis V the Lazy. Gerbert first became a secretary of Emma, Louis’ mother and aunt of Otto III, while his mentor Adalbero served as the queen’s adviser. Louis was never on good terms with his mother. He resented the clergymen’s support of the young Otto III, so he decided to attack Reims but later failed to take it. The humiliated king ordered the destruction of the archbishop’s properties in retaliation. The frightened Adalbero sent Gerbert to Theophanu, mother of Otto III, to ask her for help. Before the conflict could be resolved, Louis V died on the 21st of May, 987 AD.

The childless Louis V was the last of the Carolingians to rule the Franks. Hugh Capet, Duke of the Franks, succeeded him as king on the 3rd of July, 987 AD. Archbishop Adalbero had died before he saw the accession of Hugh Capet. Gerbert expected the new king to appoint him as archbishop in return for his support. Hugh Capet had other plans as he chose Arnulf, the son of the deceased Frankish king Lothair and nephew of Charles of Lorraine, as the Archbishop of Reims. Hugh Capet’s motive was simple: by choosing Arnulf, he sought to divide and weaken the remaining Carolingians by building an alliance with one of their own. He knew that this rejection would sting Gerbert’s feelings, so Hugh offered any position that he wanted except the Archbishopric of Reims.

He stayed on as Arnulf’s secretary, but it seemed Hugh’s strategy backfired as the newly appointed archbishop, as well as his uncle Charles of Lorraine, started to rule Reims without the king’s authorization. Gerbert, for a short period of time, sided with the Carolingians out of fear for his safety or perhaps his wounded feelings over the appointment. However, his conscience did not allow him to play the game for longer as he sided with Hugh once again after some time. Hugh Capet welcomed him back to his court in 990. Together they assembled a council in the city of Senlis to condemn “those who betrayed Laon and Reims.” Gerbert also wrote to Pope John XV and requested for him to condemn and depose Archbishop Arnulf. Nothing ever came out of this particular request.

Since the request did not get the intended effect from John XV, Hugh and Gerbert once again assembled a provincial council at the parish of St-Basle at Verzy (near Reims) in June, 991. This would later be known as the Synod or Council of Reims. When it was over, the council decreed the removal of Arnulf from his position as archbishop of Reims because he was elected via irregular means. Gerbert was “elected” by the council in the same position. The council described Arnulf as immature and ambitious, and therefore unfit for the position. Gerbert became the archbishop of Reims, but Arnulf was not really amenable to giving up his position. The issue dragged on over the years until the coming of age and reign of Otto III as Holy Roman Emperor, as well as the appointment of Pope Gregory V in Rome.

Background

After the fall of Italy to the Lombards in the 6th century, the task of defending the Church and the Papacy fell to the distant Byzantine emperors. The Byzantine rulers never set foot in Italy after the country fell to the Lombards and the attacks of the Saracens made any trip to Italy next to impossible. However, the emperors in Constantinople still had the power to confirm or reject a pope’s election. The Lombards ruled a large portion of Italy, which left out tiny bits of land that the Pope and the Emperor in Constantinople (ruled on his behalf by the exarch of Ravenna) divided among themselves. The border lines would shift again after the rise of the Frankish king Charlemagne, the man who helped shape Europe into what it was during the Medieval Period. Charlemagne’s ascent as Holy Roman Emperor would not have been possible if not for the presence of another man: Pope Leo III. He is recorded on the Biblical Timeline Poster with World History at the end of the 7th century AD.

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Pope Leo III: Early Life and Election as Pope

The deceased Pope Adrian was buried on December 26, 795 AD. On the same day, the senior priests elected Leo, a cardinal-priest of Santa Susanna, as the new Bishop of Rome (Pope). He was a veteran of the church after he served at the papal treasury at a young age and rose to prominence as vestiarius or the chief of the pontifical treasury some years later. His election was unanimous. He was consecrated immediately without the confirmation of the Byzantine emperor since, at that time, the papacy was largely independent of Constantinople.

Pope Leo was the son of Romans Atyuppius and Elisabeth. Biographers note that perhaps his family was of plebeian (commoner) origin and his father a barbarian which probably played a role in future conspiracies against him. The church of Santa Susanna on the Quirinal flourished under Leo after he was ordained as a priest there. He steadily rose through the ranks until he reached the position of the Pope. He was generally well-regarded by his successors and papal biographers. He was also described as eloquent, well-versed in Scriptures, and generous to the poor.

He immediately informed Charlemagne of his election in a letter he sent in 796 AD. As a sign of his recognition of the king’s power and his own regard for Charlemagne, he also sent the keys to the confession of St. Peter and the banner of the city of Rome. It was also Leo’s way of saying that he considered the king as his own defender, as well as the Church’s. Charlemagne replied to this with a letter of congratulations and sent the newly-elected pope the gifts he was supposed to send to Pope Adrian when he was still alive. Angilbert (Charlemagne’s son-in-law and envoy) delivered these presents to Leo in the same year which included another congratulatory letter from the king’s advisor, Alcuin of York.

This undoubtedly pleased Pope Leo, so he commissioned an exquisite mosaic of himself, Charlemagne, and Apostle Peter in the Lateran Palace called the Triclinium (Triclinio Leoniano—since restored and can still be viewed there today). Pope Leo and the Frankish king had a good diplomatic relationship throughout their lives, and both benefited from this very well.

The Conspiracy Against Leo

In 799 AD, a high official of the papal administration named Paschal conspired with Campulus and some disgruntled members of the military aristocracy to attack the pope. Paschal was Pope Adrian’s nephew and his motivation for attacking the Pope was perhaps rooted in ambition or envy. The fact that Leo was born from plebeian parents and that he rose through the ranks equal to Pope Adrian I probably made Paschal envious. The possibility that Leo showed favoritism to a particular group while neglecting the people Paschal favored was another reason for his rebellion. In any case, his motivation for attacking Leo was never really established even after Charlemagne tried the group.

The attack occurred during the procession of the Great Litanies on the 25th of April. The procession led by Pope Leo left by the Flaminian Gate and ended at St. Peters. The armed men sent by Paschal attacked the pope as they walked with the intention of cutting off his tongue and removing his eyes. The pope’s attendants fled when they saw that he was attacked, while his attackers also escaped from the scene without checking if they had carried out the mutilation successfully. Pope Leo was luckily alive but bloodied on the street while his attackers soon returned and proceeded to cut his face. They dragged him inside the church of Saint Sylvester but later transferred him to the monastery of Saint Erasmus where they kept him under watch.

Luckily, the pope had friends inside the monastery who smuggled him outside and sent him back to St. Peter’s Basilica. After his recovery from the botched mutilation attempt, Leo traveled north to the city of Paderborn where Charlemagne held his court at that time. The pope was warmly received by the king and his noblemen. Charlemagne invited him to stay in Paderborn temporarily. After some time, Leo decided to return to Rome; he left Paderborn with the king’s blessing, and an escorte by the Frankish counts and bishops. The citizens of Rome welcomed him back to the city, and the entourage stayed at the pope’s official residence, the Lateran Palace. Charlemagne’s envoys put on trial some of the people who were involved in the plot to mutilate the pope, found them guilty, and sent them to exile in France.

The Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor

Charlemagne arrived in Rome several days before Christmas Day of 800 AD and stayed there with his entourage. The Pope welcomed him just as warmly as Charlemagne received him a year before in Paderborn. After a few days, they went to St. Peter’s to attend an assembly where the King announced his intention of seeing whether the charges against Pope Leo were true. None of the accusations against the pope were proven true, so Charlemagne condemned all those involved in the attack to death. Leo, however, begged the king for his attackers to be spared, so they were exiled to France instead.

On December 25, 800 AD, Charlemagne, as well as all the Frankish noblemen in his entourage, went to St. Peter’s Basilica to attend the Christmas Day mass. The king knelt at the confession, and when mass began, Pope Leo stood up, approached the king, and placed a crown on his head. He then proclaimed Charlemagne as Imperator et Augustus (emperor and Augustus) or Holy Roman Emperor to all the people who attended the mass. This act made Charlemagne not just the king of the Franks, but also recognized him as the most powerful man in Europe at that time. After the proclamation, the newly crowned Holy Roman Emperor presented the Pope some lavish gifts including a cross adorned with gems.

The pope’s motives were a mix of political and personal. The first was that there was no other ruler who could provide adequate protection against his enemies at that time except Charlemagne. He also did it to protect the people of Rome from the raids of Muslim and Viking raiders who terrorized Europe at that time. Leo could easily ask the Byzantine rulers for support against their enemies, but he did not as Constantinople’s track record for defending Rome against past barbarians had been dismal. In addition, Pope Leo essentially turned Charlemagne from a simple Frankish king to a Roman emperor who was responsible for Leo’s personal and territorial protection.

This arrangement between the pope and the Frankish ruler increased Charlemagne’s power in Europe, but not his territory. Leo’s snub of Constantinople had little political effect on the Byzantine rulers. Because of this, even the neighboring kingdoms looked up to Charlemagne now that he had the title of emperor. The “One Church and One State” scheme united the Carolingian Empire with the Church. However, ecclesiastical authority was still off-limits to Charlemagne. While the pope could also give his advice to the emperor and the responsibility of defending Rome from its enemies fell upon Charlemagne, this did not make either of them master of each other.

Charlemagne stayed for a year in Italy to take care of state business (his son Pepin was king of Italy) and left in Easter of 801 AD. The Saracen navy threatened to overrun Italy in the years that followed, so Charlemagne advised the pope to set up a fleet to protect them against the invaders. Pope Leo followed his advice, and he soon recovered some patrimonies (land) between Gaeta and Garigliano. This harmonious diplomatic relationship continued even after Charlemagne’s death in 814 AD, and well into the reign of Louis the Pious, Charlemagne’s son.

Charlemagne died in 814 AD after a 47-year reign. The crown passed on to his son Louis the Pious. The people mourned over Charlemagne’s death, but it was Leo III who felt the effects of the absence of the emperor’s advice and protection. News of a plot to kill him reached Leo in 815. This time, the pope was not as lenient for he had the plotters executed immediately. The pope later fell ill in the same year, and chaos immediately descended upon Rome as the private armies of some noblemen ransacked homes and farms. The chaos was only quelled by the Duke of Spoleto by order of Bernard, King of Italy. Leo died in June, 816 AD and was buried in St. Peter’s Basilica on the 12th of the same month.

Charlemagne was one of the greatest unifiers of Europe during the Medieval Period, but it was his son Louis the Pious and his grandsons who would carve the vast Carolingian Empire into what is now modern France and Germany. This led to the Treaty of Verdun which is recorded on the Biblical Timeline Poster with World History during 843 AD.

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Background

Charlemagne split the Frankish Empire between his three sons by Hildegard in 806. Only Louis the Pious was alive in 811 AD. The Frankish emperor had no choice but to appoint Louis as sole ruler of the empire who ruled as a sub-king of Aquitaine for some years now. Charlemagne died in 814 AD, and Louis, the newly crowned Holy Roman Emperor also partitioned the Frankish domain between his sons: the oldest, Lothair, crowned as king of Italy; another son, Louis, received Bavaria; and Pepin, the youngest of the three, received his father’s territory of Aquitaine.

The Carolingian Empire, at the time of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious’ reign, stretched from the Atlantic coast of present-day France to Bavaria in the east, and from Saxony in the north up to the duchies of Spoleto and Benevento in the south. The empire’s massive size made communication difficult, its cities easy pickings for marauders, and harder to defend from invaders. Charlemagne also conquered people of different ethnicities and languages, so it made sense that these peoples had different ethnic loyalties—a situation ripe for civil war by the time Louis divided the empire between his three sons. But Louis’ marriage to Judith of Bavaria (after his first wife’s death in 818) and the birth of their son Charles in 823 (later nicknamed the Landless) became the catalyst for the empire’s final division.

Domestic Troubles and Civil War

Louis was fond of his youngest son, so he took away a sizable portion of Lothair’s land located north of Italy known as Alemannia and gave it to the young prince. Lothair was enraged with this new arrangement, so he convinced his brothers to go up against their father, and a civil war erupted in the Carolingian Empire in 830 AD. The brothers overpowered their father in 833 AD, and sent him, as well as Charles and Judith, to different monasteries in the kingdom. But Louis the Pious had another trick up his sleeve. He negotiated with Pepin and Louis to side with him in exchange for more land. The brothers agreed to Louis’ proposal. When the news that his brothers turned on him reached Lothair, he finally agreed to retreat to his own territory in Italy.

Louis also gave Charles his own land in Neustria. Civil war once again erupted between the brothers after his death in 840 AD. Casualties from all sides piled up as war ravaged the empire, while crops failed or were destroyed during this period. This situation was compounded by the arrival of the Viking pirates and the invaders from Al-Andalus. The brothers saw the futility of the war they waged on each other after three years, so they came together and once again divided the Frankish empire between them. This agreement would be known as the Treaty of Verdun which they signed in 843 AD, and the empire was divided into three different territories.

1. Charles the Landless – West Francia (comprised of Neustria, Gascony, Aquitaine, Septimania, parts of Burgundy, and into the Spanish Marches)
2. Lothair – Middle Francia (the richest and most prestigious of the three which was comprised of Alsace, Lorraine, northern parts of Italy, and a portion of Burgundy)
3. Louis the German – East Francia (comprised of Bavaria, Carinthia, East Saxony, Alemannia, and Austria)

Effects of the Treaty of Verdun

Charlemagne and Louis the Pious’ Frankish empire was made up of people of different ethnicities and languages. The Treaty of Verdun gave birth to the distinct identity of the French in West Francia and the Germans in East Francia. Lothair’s realm of Middle Francia was more ethnically and linguistically diverse with the occupation of the Flemish-speaking people in the north, the Franks in the middle, and the Italian in the south. It also shifted the power center from the Franks’ capital of Aachen to different cities in each domain. Without the Treaty of Verdun, Paris would not emerge as an intellectual, trade, and political center of modern France. The political importance of Frankish kings also declined during this period. They were replaced by landholding noblemen (dukes, counts, etc.) who emerged in the Medieval Period.

Background

The origin of the Toltec people is still shrouded in mystery, but archaeological records show that they first appeared around the time when the Maya civilization in Mexico had collapsed between 800 and 900/1100 AD. These mysterious people spoke an Uto-Aztecan language called Nahuatl. They were probably the descendants of the Chichimecas. A nomadic Nahua people from the north and the Nonoalcas, the Mesoamerican people who migrated from the Teotihuacan area. The Toltec people had a reputation as highly-skilled artisans, doctors, merchants, and astronomers. They made great innovations in agriculture and writing during the peak of the Toltec civilization. The building of the Tolec’s capital in Tula, Mexico is recorded on the Biblical Timeline with World History around 900 AD.

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The origin of the Toltec capital of Tula was just as mysterious as the people who lived there. Its story was entwined with the wind god Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl and the ruler-priest Ce Acatl Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl. The Toltec, just like other Mesoamerican people, considered the god Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl as the most powerful in their pantheon and the creator of the world. He was the supreme god of the city of Tula. The Toltec decorated every corner of the city with statues of the Plumed Serpent, the representation of this deity. Apart from his role as the creator of the world, the Toltec also revered him as the creator of civilization and identified him with the legendary Toltec hero Ce Acatl Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl.

Topiltzin and the Foundation of Tula

Topiltzin was the city’s supreme god, priest, warrior, and ruler all rolled into one. His father was the demigod and conqueror Mixcoatl (Serpent of the Clouds) while his mother was Chimalman, the goddess of fertility. In his youth, Topiltzin became a mighty warrior and accompanied his father in various conquests. He rose to political and priestly greatness after his father’s death, then peacefully led the Toltec people to the city of Tula and established it as their capital. In another version of this myth, Topiltzin and the Toltec people conquered Tula which was already a civilized city-state.

He commissioned the construction of temples in the city and turned it into a center for worship of Quetzalcoatl. Topiltzin and the Toltec enriched the city with innovations in agriculture and the arts, which made it a gem in the Mesoamerican world. But the glory days of Tula did not last when the god Tezcatlipoca arrived and lured Topiltzin to abandon his priestly responsibilities. The people he ruled died from plagues, starvation, and wars because of Topiltzin’s fall from grace. So he decided to go into exile with his followers to the underworld where he set himself on fire and was later reborn as the Morning Star.

In another version of the story, Topiltzin was a compassionate ruler who did not favor the Mesoamerican practice of human sacrifice. He decreed that only snakes and butterflies should be sacrificed instead. The god Tezcatlipoca did not want human sacrifice to end, so he tricked Topiltzin and his sister out of their priestly duty of penance and lured them to get drunk all night long. Topiltzin was so ashamed the morning after that he decided to go away from Tula into exile with his followers. Before he left the city, he burned his home and all his possessions. Then he traveled to the Gulf of Mexico where cremated himself and turned into the Morning Star.

Another ending was that upon reaching the Gulf of Mexico, Topiltzin rode a serpent-shaped raft which traveled to the east with a promise that he would return to Tula someday to reclaim his kingdom.

Tula continued to exist after the rule and exile of the legendary Topiltzin, but its golden age only lasted less than a century until the Toltec people were just as mysteriously driven out of the city around 1050 AD.

Harun al-Rashid (the Righteous) succeeded as caliph in 786 AD when his father, al-Mahdi, died the year before. During Harun’s reign, the caliph’s court in Baghdad became more Persian because of the influence of the Barmakid family and the Abbasids’ other Persian backers. The Abbasid court adopted Sassanian customs which required all subjects to bow down before the caliph as a greeting. The caliph also adopted the establishment of a harem (a contrast to original Islamic law which allowed men to have four wives). The Caliphate in Baghdad is recorded on the Biblical Timeline Poster with World History during the 8th century AD.

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The responsibilities of the caliph transformed from active administrator to a mere religious and military symbol during this period when Harun distanced himself from administrative affairs and left this task to his vizier. He, however, remained as the “representative of God” or the holy head of the ummah (Muslim community) on earth. The Persians, by then, held much sway in the Abbasid court as well as in the military. It was something the Arab population resented, but the discontent was offset by the political stability and economic prosperity during Harun’s reign.

It was said that the Abbasid caliphate and Muslim community reached a cultural, political, commercial, and scientific golden age during Harun’s reign. He ordered Muslim scholars to translate Greek and Syriac scientific texts to Arabic, while literature, mathematics, and medicine flourished during his rule. The development of the legal framework of the Islamic community called the Sharia also started and became fully developed during this period.

Harun’s reign started the golden age of the Islamic community. The years that followed were also the start of a long political and economic decline of the Abbasids into the 13th century. The caliph traveled to Khorasan to stop a rebellion in the last year of his reign. He died on the way at the ancient city of Tus (near present-day Mashhad) in 809 AD. He arranged an unconventional succession for his two sons before he died, and appointed the older son, Al-Amin, as ruler in Baghdad. His favorite son by a Persian concubine, Al-Mamun, was appointed as the governor of Khorasan in the east. The arrangement did not go well for the brothers. By 811, a full-scale civil war erupted between the two which ended only in 813 upon the death of Al-Amin.

Al-Mamun succeeded his deceased brother as the new Abbasid caliph, but Shiite and Kharijite rebellions plagued the first ten years of his reign. He died in 833 AD and was succeeded by his brother, Al-Mutassim, who was unpopular among the people of Baghdad. Fearful for his life, the new caliph hired Turkish bodyguards who were former slaves and who, in recent years, had converted to Islam. Al-Mutassim further alienated himself from his own people when he moved the court from Baghdad and established another capital in Samarra.

The Turks steadily rose to power and became influential during the time of Al-Mutassim. Sunni Islam became popular among the people during the time of this caliph, but Shiite rebellion and economic instability plagued the caliphate most of the time. The conflict with the Byzantine Empire also worsened during his reign after Al-Mutassim and his troops repeatedly invaded Byzantine border towns. Al-Mutassim died in Samarra in 842 AD. He was succeeded by Al-Wathiq whose reign was dominated by doctrinal issues.

Al-Mutawakkil succeeded his brother, Al-Wathiq, upon his death, but the new caliph started his 14-year reign with a bang with the brutal execution of his brother’s vizier. The persecution of the Shiites, Christians, and Jews followed this brutal act. They were banned from public employment and subjected to forced conversions to Sunni Islam. He remained in Samarra and his son, Al-Muntasir, hired a Turkish soldier to assassinate the Caliph years later. Al-Muntasir succeeded his father but reigned only for five months before he died by poisoning in 861 AD. The Abbasid caliphate went into a slow and steady decline in the years that followed while the Turkish soldiers held the reins of power until the rise of the Buyid dynasty in the middle of the 10th century.

Jesus laid down the basic tenets of Christianity in first century Palestine, but the Catholic Church expanded these doctrines during the Middle Ages as a response to the people’s spiritual issues at that time. Some of the issues addressed by church fathers during this period included the sins committed by Christians, the corresponding punishments for these transgressions, and the way these punishments could be reduced in this life and beyond. The Sale of Indulgences became a Church doctrine around 700 AD according to the Biblical Timeline Poster with World History.

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These sins later evolved into indulgences which, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints.” It is also defined as the “the partial or plenary according as it removes either part or all of the temporal punishment due to sin.” Swiss theologian and historian Philip Schaff defined it simply as the “remission of the temporal (not the eternal) punishment of sin (not of sin itself), on condition of penitence and the payment of money to the church or to some charitable object.”

History of Indulgences

The idea of paying an indulgence goes back to the Roman era as remissio tributi and abolito as amnesty or pardon granted by the emperor during special occasions. The bishops who attended the Council of Epaone (held in 517 AD in the Kingdom of Burgundy) later expanded the idea of indulgence with an edict that shortened or lightened the penance of the apostates. In 668 AD, Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury authorized the monetary payment to him and the church in lieu of penance and absolution in his Penitential. This marked the first instance that Christians in England offered monetary compensation for the remission of their sins.

The money the church received from the Christians in Europe were then sent to Rome and the sale of indulgences increased during the chaotic years of the Crusades. Indulgences became a regular source of income for the church. It was not until the time of Martin Luther that the validity of indulgences was challenged.

Origin and Migration

The Goths were known as fierce warriors who were part of the tribes that migrated from their homeland in Scandia into the frontiers of the Eastern Roman Empire in Late Antiquity. The Huns later invaded the Goths in their temporary settlement and drove them out of the Black Sea region, desperate and just as hungry as they were when they left Scandia. To ensure that their people would survive, the Gothic leaders sent envoys to Emperor Valens to negotiate a treaty that would allow their people to settle in Moesia or Thrace. In exchange, they would submit to the emperor and convert to Christianity—an arrangement that suited the Emperor Valens just fine but would come to regret later. He accepted and allowed them to settle in Moesia and Dacia Ripensis. In return, the Goths helped convert their neighbors to Arianism, the Ostrogoths, and the Gepids. These events led the Visigoths to invade Gaul and Spain between 415 – 711 AD according to the Biblical Timeline Poster with World History.

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Famine and the greed of Roman officials who handled the funds derailed the treaty between the Goths and Emperor Valens. Many of the Goths went hungry or were enslaved. This situation worsened when the Roman general Lupicinus plotted to have the Goths’ leader Fritigern killed during a banquet. The plot did not succeed, but the die was cast. The Goths felt understandably betrayed. They rampaged through the city because of this slight. This was the Goths’ entry into the fragmented Roman Empire and start of the two peoples’ complicated relationship through the years of the empire’s collapse. The Goths themselves would split into two: the people who settled near the Black Sea were called Ostrogoths while those who ventured west into Gaul and Hispania were known as Visigoths.

To the West: Visigoths in Gaul and Hispania

The Visigoths went on to become some of the most feared barbarians that descended into the remnants of the Western Roman Empire. As years passed and the promise of a homeland became out of their reach, the Visigoths (who were led by the great King Alaric) rampaged into Italy and sacked Rome in 410 AD. King Ataulf later succeeded Alaric upon his death and the king’s marriage to Emperor Honorius’ sister Galla Placidia gave the Visigoths a glimmer of hope that they would soon share in the empire’s land and riches (or what remained of it).

Ataulf knew that another attack into Italy seemed far-fetched for the moment, so he set his sights on conquering Gaul which was then ruled by the usurper Constantine III. Honorius sent soldiers to Gaul to assassinate Constantine III. Ataulf took advantage of the chaos in the territory to invade in 413 AD. The Visigoths seized Narbonensis from the beleaguered Roman soldiers and made the city of Toulouse their new kingdom’s capital. The Visigoths extended their territory into northern Hispania, but for Ataulf, this did not seem enough. He longed to be a part of Roman empire, so he appointed a former Roman senator named Attalus as emperor in his territory

The act angered emperor Honorius, so he sent soldiers from Ravenna to besiege the Visigoths in Gaul and kill Attalus—which the Roman soldiers did with great success the moment they arrived in Hispania. The Visigoths were back to where they started—hungry and besieged. They were unhappy with the turn of events. Ataulf was murdered in 415 AD by a resentful member of his tribe. He was succeeded by a Visigoth warrior named Wallia (Ataulf’s murderer also crowned himself as king, but he was killed by Wallia after seven days of reign). Wallia proposed a treaty to Honorius for him to leave them in peace. This was in exchange for the hostages Alaric took from Rome years before. Which included Galla Placidia and a young boy named Aetius (who later rose as one of the Western Empire’s greatest general).

Hispania: Vandals, Suebi, and the Visigoths

Honorius agreed to the truce and left the Visigoths alone to conquer Hispania. Which, by then, was ruled by the Vandals. The Vandals later left Hispania, sailed off to North Africa, and established Carthage as their own territory; they were replaced by another barbarian tribe, the Suebi, who were easily overpowered by the Visigoths during their conquest of Hispania. There they became more powerful as the rulers of the Western Roman Empire fought off other barbarians. The empire was further weakened from internal strife. By the middle of the fifth century, the Visigoths had pushed the Suebi to a small territory on the northwest corner of Hispania and claimed almost all of the peninsula for themselves. The Visigoths then had something that they yearned for many years: a homeland.

The Visigoths reached the height of their power in Gaul and Hispania during the middle of the sixth and seventh centuries. Various kings rose and fell. The Visigoths played their cards very well against the Franks and Suebi. One Spanish Visigoth princess, Brunhilda, rose to such greatness in Austrasia after she married the Frankish prince Sigebert. Her sister, the younger Galswintha, married Sigebert’s brother and ruler of Neustria, Chilperic. But Chilperic married a woman named Fredegund some time earlier. It was alleged that the couple murdered Galswintha in Neustria so they could be together again.

The death of her sister was something Queen Brunhilda never forgave, and she spent the years that followed plotting revenge against the killers of her sister. She proved to be a capable regent for her son after the death of her husband, which the Frankish noblemen and clergy took as meddling into the affairs of the state. Brunhilda had her childless brother-in-law, Guntram of Burgundy, adopt her son which consolidated his smaller territory into Austrasia after his death. Brunhilda, however, outlived her son and continued to manipulate her grandchildren until her death.

Collapse of Visigothic Rule in Hispania and Gaul

The Visigoths went on to rule for many years until the rise of a new power in the Arabian Peninsula. The combined Berber and Arab forces, as well as the succession problems that plagued the Visigoth royal house, became their downfall. While the Visigoths were busy with their succession problems, a large Muslim army crossed from the tip of what is now Morocco into the southern coast of Spain. The divided Visigoths, now ruled by Ruderic, were easily defeated by the Arabs and Berbers in the Battle of Guadalete.Almost all noblemen who joined Ruderic in battle also perished. This left the Spanish throne vacant. With almost all Visigothic noblemen gone, the Arabs and Berbers easily overran Spain. They claimed the Iberian Peninsula as their own and named it Al-Andalus.

Islam was one of the religious movements which spread quickly at the onset because of the Muslim active conquests during the seventh century. Unlike Christianity which took hundreds of years before it became the state religion of the Roman Empire (through the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 AD), Mohammed lived to see the day when various Arab tribes were united under the banner of Islam. Mohammed did not name an heir to his role as Prophet and leader of the ummah (community) before he died, but the Rashidun caliphate that succeeded him ensured that his legacy would continue even beyond the Arab world. Persia, Syria and North Africa became Mohammedan between 630 – 711 AD according to the Biblical Timeline Poster with World History.

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Out of Arabia

The first trickle of Islamic conquest started in the Battle of Mu’tah (in Kerak, modern Jordan) led by Mohammed himself against the Byzantine Empire. For Abu Bakr, the man who replaced Mohammed as leader of the ummah (Muslim community), there was no time to waste after Mohammed’s death in 632 AD. In 633, he sent General Khalid and his forces to attack the Persian king Yazdegerd III. Four other generals were ordered to march north along with their troops to conquer the Byzantine provinces of Syria and Palestine.

Byzantine, at that time, was ruled by the emperor Heraclius. The empire was weakened after years of battles with the Persians. The Byzantines put up a great fight and proved too much for the four generals that were initially sent to go against them. Abu Bakr recalled Khalid from the Persian front (to Yazdegerd’s relief) and reinforced the troops that fought in the Syrian-Palestinian front. The Byzantines were soundly defeated, and the Muslim troops captured the city of Damascus.

Abu Bakr would not be credited as the one who captured the Byzantine provinces of Syria and Palestine as he died two years into his short reign. He was replaced by his son-in-law, Omar, who led an even greater offensive against the Byzantines and captured Syria as well as Palestine. Jerusalem was captured in 638 AD. Khalid returned to the Persian front to finish what he had started back when Abu Bakr was alive. He besieged Ctesiphon, the Persian capital, in the same year and deposed Yazdegerd III, who then fled east with his court.

To emperor Heraclius’ dismay, the Arabs stormed all the way to Egypt in 639 and wrested the province from Byzantine. He had to console himself that at least Alexandria was still under Byzantine rule, but it was not enough. After years of fighting, he died of a stroke in 641 with most of the empire’s territories now in Muslim control. Alexandria held out long enough until it also fell to the Arab armies in 642 AD. Omar sent a military expedition east into the farthest reaches of Persia until the army reached the hostile desert of Makran. This daring expedition went on until they reached the gateway to India, the Indus River itself.

The Arabs in Egypt were also busy with their transformation of the province into a Muslim stronghold. They built a new capital which they named Fostat (modern Cairo) and continued westward to the former Roman province of North Africa. The Muslims captured Carthage and called the North African inhabitants Berbers who were quickly recruited as part of their army.

The Persian king Yazdegerd was still on the run and wandered around some parts of his former empire to elude the Arab army at his heels. He and his whole court went to Khorasan to seek refuge, but he was murdered by a stonecutter after he fled assassins sent by the governor of Khorasan. His death officially ended the rule of the Sassanid dynasty of Persia and started the rule of the Rashidun caliphate in Persia.

By 644 AD, the assassination of Omar left the position of the Caliph vacant. Uthman, one of the Prophet’s companions, took over as Caliph, but his government was so mired in corruption that he earned the resentment of the people. He was so hated that when he was brutally assassinated by the people of Medina, his body was left to rot in the courtyard for three days; they also refused to have him buried in a Muslim cemetery. He was buried instead in a Jewish cemetery. Ali, Mohammed’s son-in-law, replaced Uthman, but his rule was met with hostility by the Banu Ummaya clan led by one of the Prophet’s wives, Aisha. This struggle for power ended with Ali’s assassination, and he was replaced by Muawiyah, a member of the Banu Ummaya clan as caliph.

Most of North Africa had converted to Islam by the early 700 AD, and the caliph Al-Malik ordered the new converts, the Berbers, to learn and speak Arabic. The new religion and language cemented Arabs and Berbers together. The Berbers would later serve in the Muslim army during the conquest of Hispania.

The city of Tikal came a long way from its humble beginnings as a small farming settlement deep in the El Peten forest of Guatemala to one of the Maya people’s first great city by the Early Classic Period (at the end of 500 AD which is where it is recorded on the Biblical Timeline Poster with World History). From a simple community, it evolved into a large complex society by the first century AD and had a ruling dynasty established at this time. By 150 AD, El Mirador was abandoned, and the rulers of the city of Tikal took advantage of the power vacuum to dominate the lowland region. The rulers later launched military campaigns into other Maya cities in the Peten region which include Uaxacton, Rio Azul, and Naranjo.

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Conquest was not the only way the rulers of Tikal dominated other cities. They also made alliances through royal marriage, as well as long-distance trade networks that reached as far as the cities of Central Mexico. By 378 AD, the great Central Mexican city of Teotihuacan reinforced Tikal’s dominance in the region with military and economic assistance. Traces of its influence could be seen in the Maya city’s architecture (talud-tablero style) and iconography (Maya warlord Siyaj K’ak in full Teotihuacan battle regalia of the feathered serpent), but its influence over the Maya city declined in 550 AD.

Tikal’s was considered a great city at its height and most of its former grandeur can still be seen today. The Tikal landscape was dotted with pyramid temples, acropoleis, palaces, and plazas. The construction of these magnificent buildings was temporarily stopped when the cities of Caracol and Calakmul dominated the region. Tikal rose again after King Jasaw Chan K’awil defeated the then-powerful city of Calakmul in 695 AD.

Years ago during the Late Glacial Maximum, humans crossed from Asia to North America via the Bering Land Bridge and one of those groups of migrants were the Thule people. Siberia, the region where the migrants came from, was inhospitable, but Alaska was no different. The Thule people, however, managed to survive in the hostile environment. They spread out on the coasts as well as to the various islands of the Bering Sea. This is recorded on the Biblical Timeline Chart with World History around 500 AD.

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The period between 200 AD to about 800 AD of the Thule culture was called the Old Bering Sea Stage. This period was marked by the presence and increased use of kayaks and umiaks covered with walrus or seal skins for transportation, while stone tools gave way for slate tools. Some of the artifacts recovered from the Thule culture sites, which date back to the Old Bering Sea Stage, include harpoon points made out of bones and antlers, fishing spears, and walrus scapula shovels. They also hunted sea mammals, such as whales and seals, as sources of food and clothing. Around 1000 AD, the climate became warmer, and the Thule people decided to migrate east to follow the whale migration to the Canadian Arctic. There they interacted with the Dorset people and became the ancestors of the modern Inuit.