The Grand Duchy of Lithuania

The Grand Duchy of Lithuania

The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the last pagan state in Europe. Landlocked and protected by dense forests and impassable wetlands, Lithuania was spared the fate of the other Baltic peoples, who were either converted or killed by German and Scandinavian colonizers between the late 12th and early 14th centuries.

Their geographical location also protected the Lithuanians from Rusian armies and the Golden Horde, who conquered much of eastern Europe in the mid-13th century. Yet Lithuania’s position on the Nemunas River system would also later make it an important economic crossroads in the trade between eastern and western Europe.

During the 14th century Lithuania flourished under a series of able rulers, called “grand dukes,” in imitation of their neighbors to the east, the rulers of Rus. Based out of the ancient (and present) capital of Vilnius, the nascent state began to expand east, into the Rusian lands abandoned by the retreating Tartars. By 1323 they had conquered Kiev, the ancient Rusian capital.


The survival of this pagan state on the frontiers of Christendom deeply disturbed the papacy, which made numerous attempts to convert the Lithuanians. Despite their best efforts, the permanent conversion of Lithuania came not at the instigation of papal legates, but rather at the request of Polish nobles, who offered Grand Duke Jogaila the hand of Queen Jadwiga and the throne of the kingdom of Poland.

In 1386 Grand Duke Jogaila became King Władysław (Ladislas) II of Poland. Lithuania, which had been called the “the spawn of Satan” by Christians in the 13th and 14th centuries, now together with Poland became the “bulwark of Christendom,” defending it first from the Tartars and later from the Ottoman Turks.

The Lithuanian state was the largest in Europe at that time, stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. Even after the death of the last member of the dynasty in 1572, the state they had created remained an important player in European politics.

Early Lithuania

The first mention of Lithuania in western sources occurs in an entry in the Annals of Quedlinburg for 1009, which states that the missionary Bishop Bruno of polish “el” Querfurt was martyred there. Historians, however, do not know much about Lithuania before the mid-13th century.

Its geography made it almost impassable for armies in all but the coldest months of winter, which spared it from the first waves of western European expansion along the Baltic littoral, as well as from the territorial ambitions of various Rusian princes and the ravages of the Golden Horde.

Lithuanian society at this time was governed by a loose association of clans based on hill forts, who supported themselves mainly through agriculture, but also through trade and plunder. In the early 13th century power coalesced around the leaders of one of these clans—Ringaudas, whose son, Mindaugas, ruled Lithuania for 25 years (1238–63).

During Mindaugas’s reign he began to take a more active interest in the affairs of his western neighbors. He granted German merchants the right to trade in his lands, and even allied himself with his former enemies, the Teutonic Knights, against western Lithuanians who did not wish to submit to his rule.

This alliance with his German neighbors was symbolized by Mindaugas’s baptism in 1251. Two years later he was crowned by Pope Innocent IV, becoming king of Lithuania. In this same year, Christian, a member of the Teutonic Knights, was enthroned as bishop of Livonia in the new cathedral in Vilnius.

Mindaugas’s conversion however, while a feather in the cap of papal diplomacy, did not have a far-reaching impact on Lithuania for a couple of reasons. First very few of Mindaugas’s subjects followed his example. Second, the new policies that followed his conversion, including allying with the Teutonic Knights, succeeded in further aggravating nobles who were already displeased with Mindaugas’s rule.

In 1259 the frustrated bishop left his seat, and a year later the rebelling western Lithuanians dealt the Teutonic Knights a crushing defeat. The following year Mindaugas apostatized, but some of his subjects were not easily placated. Two years later in 1263, the first great ruler of the Lithuanians was assassinated.

Mindaugas’s death was followed by seven years of civil war, which included the assassination of three of his successors. In 1270 a new ruler emerged, Traidenis, a member of one of the rival clans of Lithuanian nobles. A staunch pagan, Traidenis ruled Lithuania until he died of natural causes in 1282. There is a gap in the historical evidence in the years following his death, but by 1290 a new dynasty emerged that would govern Lithuania (and after 1385 Poland as well) until 1572.

Lithuanians worshiped a pantheon of gods, led by Perkunas, the equivalent of the Scandinavian Thor. The few literary sources describing the religion of the Lithuanians were written by Christians, who often were not neutral observers of pagan practices, which they often tried to fit within the framework of their own belief system. One example of this was the claim made by the Teutonic Knights’ early-14th century chronicler, Peter of Dusburg, that a pagan “pope” led the Lithuanian cult.

Using these sources and other descriptions of Baltic religion and archaeological sources, historians have argued that Lithuanian religion was loosely organized and based on the worship of nature. Priests and priestesses practiced divination both by casting lots and through animal sacrifices.

The brief appearance of Christianity in Vilnius does seem to have had some impact on Lithuanian paganism, as archaeological excavations of Vilnius cathedral have demonstrated that a pagan temple was erected on the site of Mindaugas’s church after his demise.

The ostensible leader of the Lithuanian cult was the grand duke, and it appears that rulers after Mindaugas learned that a monumental religious building could be a powerful expression of central authority. The most likely builder of the temple was Gediminas, who reestablished Vilnius as a political capital in the first years of his reign.

Establishment of The Grand Duchy

The Grand Duchy of Lithuania coat of arms

The founder of the new dynasty, Pukuveras, did not have a great impact on Lithuania, because of his brief reign (1290–95). During the reigns of his sons, Vytenis (1295–1315) and Gediminas (1315–42), on the other hand, Lithuania would dramatically expand politically, geographically, and economically to become one of the most important states in east-central Europe.

In 1298 during a dispute between the archbishop and burghers of Riga and the Teutonic Knights, Vytenis offered the Rigans a Lithuanian garrison to defend this important commercial center from their common enemy. Although the Rigans were finally compelled to expel the pagan garrison in 1313, diplomatic and economic relations between the Lithuanians and Rigans continued. Gediminas continued these policies when his brother died in 1315.

Gediminas built up the Lithuanian economy, inviting foreigners to settle in villages and towns by sending letters to the numerous German towns. He also granted German merchants generous privileges throughout his realm and guaranteed their safety along certain routes, called the vredelant, or “land of peace.”

Although trade with the pagans was condemned by the papacy, especially the trade of military supplies, commerce prevailed throughout the crusading period, even between the Lithuanians and the Teutonic Knights. In fact trade between these two states helped to finance their wars with each other.

Gediminas was aware of the necessity of forming military alliances with his Catholic neighbors, the Rigans and the Poles, against their common enemy, the Teutonic Knights. But he had to be careful about offending his subjects—the pagan Lithuanians as well as the Orthodox Rusians, who were quickly becoming the majority of those living in the Lithuanian state. The Lithuanians had long taken an active role in the affairs of their Rusian neighbors, and some prominent Lithuanians had been baptized according to the Eastern rite.

For example one of Mindaugas’s sons became an Orthodox monk, eventually becoming the patron saint of Pskov, while another of his sons, Vaisvilkas, also retired to an Orthodox monastery after ruling Lithuania for three years (1264–67). In addition lacking a written culture of their own, Lithuanian rulers used the language of their Orthodox subjects, Chancery Ruthenian, at their courts.

During Gediminas’s reign these contacts intensified. Through a combination of conquest and marriage alliances, Lithuanian rule was extended farther into Rusian lands, as the Lithuanians filled the power vacuum left by the retreating Tartars. By 1323 Gediminas had conquered Kiev, the ancient capital of Rus.

In 1315 Gediminas established a separate metropolitan for Lithuania in Novgorodok, which would free his Orthodox subjects from the ecclesiastic control of a Muscovite metropolitan. During the course of the next century, this Lithuanian metropolitanate would be reduced to the rank of a bishopric and then elevated again as the patriarch of Constantinople sought to manipulate the political landscape of Rus.

Christianization of Lithuania

At the same time that he appealed to the head of the Eastern Church, Gediminas was also actively seeking the help of the leader of the Western Church to orchestrate a truce with the Teutonic Knights. The price for this truce would be the conversion of Lithuania.

Gediminas informed Pope John XXII of his intensions in 1322 and joined his longtime allies, the archbishop and burghers of Riga, in condemning the atrocities committed by their common foe, the Teutonic Knights. His letter outlined the history of Lithuania’s relationship with Latin Christianity, noting Mindaugas’s conversion as well as his brothers’ defense of Riga.

When the papal envoys arrived in 1324, however, Gediminas had changed his mind, which led some earlier scholars to argue that his letter to the pope was a Rigan a forgery. Gediminas had been reminded of Mindaugas’s fate by some of his pagan and Orthodox subjects.

When the papal legates departed in 1325, Gediminas looked to the west for a new ally and found King Władysław Lokietek of Poland, who was also involved in a dispute with the Teutonic Knights. In this same year Aldona (baptized Anna), one of Gediminas’s daughters, was married to Władysław’s only son, Casmir (Kazmierz). Although the Polish-Lithuanian alliance dissolved after Anna’s death in 1339, the memory of this union would have a tremendous impact on the destinies of both states.

After Gediminas’s death in 1342, his son, Jaunutis, assumed the grand ducal throne. Despite the fact that he was his father’s chosen heir, his reign was brief (1342–45), because his brother, Algirdas, drove him into exile in Moscow. Grand Duke Algirdas’s reign proved to be lengthy (1345–77), in part because he reconciled his position not only with Jaunutis, to whom he granted land from his patrimony, but also with his six other brothers.

His youngest brother, Kestutis, was his greatest ally, and he was given the important task of defending Lithuania’s western border from the Teutonic Knights. Algirdas continued his father’s kegiatan of expansion into Rus, attacking Moscow and trying to reestablish the metropolitanate for the Lithuanian Rus. He also followed in his father’s footsteps of offering to be baptized—this time to both the pope in Avignon and the patriarch of Constantinople—and then denying these intentions.

Despite these ploys, he, like his father, was tolerant of the Christians who lived in his realm, at least as long as they respected Lithuanian religious practices. Five Franciscans found this out the hard way when they were executed for proselytizing.

When Algirdas died he wanted his throne to pass to his son, Jogaila, but Kestutis challenged his nephew’s succession. In 1381 Kestutis overthrew Jogaila, but the usurper was assassinated a year later. When Jogaila returned to power in 1382, he considered taking a Muscovite princess as his bride in the hope of eventually fulfilling his father’s pretensions to the title of grand prince of All Rus.

The resurgent power of the Tartars, however, signaled by their sack of Moscow in 1382, caused the young grand duke to turn west for a bride, to the kingdom of Poland, with which his grandfather had been allied and which had also just lost its king.

Union with Poland

When King Casimir III the Great of Poland died without a son in 1370, his crown passed to his nephew, Louis of Anjou, king of Hungary. Following his death in 1382, the nobles of the two kingdoms were divided as to who should succeed him. After two years of fighting it was decided that his older daughter, Maria, would succeed him in Hungary, while his younger daughter, Jadwiga, would succeed him in Poland.

In 1384, at the age of 10, Jadwiga was crowned queen. Although she had previously been betrothed to Wilhelm von Habsburg, prince of Austria, the Polish nobles rejected this marriage and instead looked east to pagan Lithuania. This was not such an odd decision, however, considering the historical relationship between the two states, and King Casimir’s first wife was a Lithuanian princess.

When Grand Duke Jogaila accepted Christianity in 1386, which was one of the preconditions of his assuming the throne, he took the Christian name Władysław, the name of Casimir’s father, the ally of his grandfather, Gediminas, and the restorer of the Polish kingdom. The following year Władysław II returned to Vilnius and established a bishopric there to manage his pagan subjects’ conversion to Christianity.

When the childless Jadwiga died in 1399, the Polish-Lithuanian state faced a dilemma. In two important assemblies in 1401 and 1413, the Polish and Lithuanian nobles decided to make the Krevo Union (named after the place in which it was created in 1385) permanent.

In fact, unlike other contemporary mergers of states, such as the Kalmar Union, which united the Scandinavian kingdoms in 1397, the Polish-Lithuanian union would prove to be lasting, even surviving the demise of the Jagiello dynasty (named after the Polish version of Jogaila’s name—Jagiello) in 1572.

Building upon this consensus Wladyslaw II led an army against the perennial enemies of Poland and Lithuania, the Teutonic Knights, dealing them a crushing defeat at the Battle of Grunwald in 1410.

the Battle of Grunwald in 1410

His second son, Casimir IV (his first son, Władysław III, having been killed trying to stop the advance of the Ottoman Turks into Europe at the Battle of Varna in 1444), was a ruler equal to his father, in both ability and longevity—while his father ruled Poland-Lithuania for 45 years (until 1434), Casimir ruled for 48 (until 1492). He also defeated the Teutonic Knights in the Thirteen Years’ War (1454–66) and annexed many of the Knights’ possessions, which had formerly belonged to Poland.

Some scholars have called him “the father of Central Europe,” because his sons ruled the neighboring kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary in addition to Poland-Lithuania, and his grandson was Albrecht von Hohenzollern, the last grand master of the Teutonic Knights, who secularized the order in 1525 and founded the dynasty that was to rule Prussia (and later Germany) until the end of the First World War. The eminent scholar Jan Dlugosz, who wrote the first comprehensive history of Poland, educated these children.

Casimir’s fourth son, Zygmunt I “the Elder,” as his father and grandfather ruled for more than 40 years (1506–48) and expanded his kingdom at the expense of the Teutonic Knights, who in two stages (1525 and 1561) were incorporated into the kingdom.

His reign, however, was marred by the growing power of his two neighbors to the east—Moscow and the Ottoman Empire. Because of these threats, Zygmunt looked west to the Habsburg empire for aid. In 1515 at the Congress of Vienna, a double wedding was arranged.

Zygmunt’s son, King Louis of Hungary and Bohemia, would marry the emperor’s daughter, while the emperor’s son would marry Zygmunt’s daughter, Anna. Unfortunately for the territorial ambitions of Poland-Lithuania, the childless Louis died trying to defend Hungary from the Ottomans at the Battle of Mohacs in 1526. The Habsburgs now controlled what was left of Hungary as well as Bohemia.

Following this disaster Zygmunt had his son, Zygmunt II August, crowned co-ruler in 1529 at the age of nine. He and his father ruled together for nearly two decades—“the Elder” in Kraków, and Zygmunt II in Vilnius. In the years following his father’s death, the childless and ailing Zygmunt II was anxious to see that his family’s legacy as rulers of a united Polish-Lithuanian state did not end with his death.

Near the end of his life he convened the Sejm (parliament) nearly ever year in an attempt to convince the Polish and Lithuanian nobles to form a united republic, ruled by an elected monarch. On July 1, 1569, the religious and secular magnates of Poland and Lithuania swore to Zygmunt to uphold the Union of Lublin, which combined their two lands. Three years later the last of the Jagiellonians died.

The legacy of the state created by Jogaila, however, would endure long after the demise of his dynasty. The last pagan ruler in Europe had transformed his state into the “bulwark of Christendom,” and several of his descendants gave their lives in its defense. But Poland Lithuania was also a multiethnic and multireligious polity, the survival of which necessitated toleration.

In 1573 the Confederation of Warsaw guaranteed the religious rights of all the subjects of Poland-Lithuania— Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christians, as well as Jews and Muslims. The largest state in Europe at that time, the republic created by Zygmunt II would endure for more than two centuries, until it was finally partitioned among Russia, Prussia, and Austria in the late 18th century.

Italian Renaissance

Italian Renaissance - Leonardo da Vinci | Anatomy

As the opening two phases of the grand cultural and intellectual rebirth (literal meaning of the French term Renaissance) of the late medieval period, the Italian Renaissance, or Quattrocentro (Italian for 1400s), and early northern renaissance sparked tremendous achievements in literature, art, architecture, and music that were inspired by creative interaction with rediscovered sources of classical antiquity. Launched from Florence, the Italian Renaissance concentrated its energies in the northern regions of Italy before moving south to Rome, where its spirit was embraced by the Renaissance popes.

It reached its zenith in the late 15th century prior to its dissolution, aggravated both by an ecclesiastical backlash against its perceived secularism and sensuality and by the series of Italian Wars, or foreign invasions against Italy, starting in 1494. The Renaissance fervor was not to be extinguished, however, as its ideals migrated northward to France, then to the Low Countries and Germany, and finally to England and Scandinavia by the close of the 16th century.

Most common people of the time were unaffected by these innovations and did not view their age as distinctive. Producers of its main aesthetic streams, such as authors, artists, and their patrons, willfully rejected the culture of the preceding abad (the Middle Ages) and set out to create a new one.


Sensing only a limited attraction to the courtly motifs of the medieval secular literary tradition and disillusioned by the elaborate argumentation of Scholasticism, the sophisticated urban ruling classes searched for a new culture that would enable them to cope with the quandaries of human existence and empower them to deal with and even manipulate other people.

Perfectly suited for this aim was the literature of ancient Rome, with its strongly political and ethical outlook and the prominence it placed upon oratorical and rhetorical training. To gain a deeper understanding of Latin literature, the urban elites were quickly drawn to the Greek literature that Roman authors frequently cited and presupposed of their readers as background knowledge. Hence the classical Latin and Greek texts of antiquity served as a common springboard for the era’s multifaceted and interdisciplinary cultural shift.

Social Origins

While formally beginning in the 15th century, the social origins of the Italian Renaissance can be traced back to the economic, social, and political developments in Italian society during the 12th through 14th centuries. The 12th and 13th centuries comprised an age of expansion and prosperity directed by the capitalistic noble classes, or grandi, who often resided in the cities and invested in business but whose cultural traditions were military and feudal, giving preference to the chivalric and courtly literature of France.

This changed in the late 13th century when the nonnoble classes, led by rich businessmen, seized control of many town governments and drove the grandi from power. However the 14th century experienced a series of disasters that, paradoxically, modified the structural foundations of Italian society so as to promote the flourishing of artistic and literary endeavors.

Amidst the Hundred Years’ War between England and France, King Edward III of England disclaimed his debts in 1345, leading to the collapse of the two largest Florentine banks, owned by the Bardi and Peruzzi families. From 1347 to 1350 the Black Death, or bubonic plague, exterminated one-third of Europe’s population, which triggered an economic depression followed by a lengthy period of stagnation. While these events prevented the founding of new fortunes, they left the wealth of established rich families largely intact, creating a new social condition.

Since the relatively high degree of social mobility that kept business enterprise open to new talent and preoccupied with acquiring new wealth had evaporated, the dominant business class was converted from a group of self-made men to a group of men who had inherited their wealth and who had been raised in luxury that they intended to preserve but they could largely take for granted.

Rich businessmen, who retained their active participation in politics to defend their material interests from radical movements spawned by working-class agitation, now devoted an equal amount of time to public affairs, especially the patronage of art and literature.

Looking to Greco-Roman antiquity as a model of administrative effectiveness and intellectual genius, the thinkers, writers, and authors of the age, collectively known as humanists, founded a new approach to scholarship, the mission of which was to restore “true” civilization in place of the prevalent “barbarous” civilization.

This view of history was spearheaded largely by Petrarch (1304–1374), who proceeded to synthesize it with his new anthropology, or doctrine of humanity, that humans were rational and sentient beings, intrinsically good by nature, with the power to think and choose for themselves. With this blatant denial of the Christian doctrine of Original Sin, the humanists provoked fresh insights about reality that questioned the church’s philosophical perception of the universe and the role of humanity within it.

Before the 13th century, Italian was not the language of literature in Italy, as most works were composed in Latin, French, or Provençal. However, in the late 13th and early 14th centuries before the rise of Renaissance humanism, a number of masterpieces in the vernacular catalyzed the transition of Italy from a cultural backwater to the leader of European culture.

The nation’s first great literary figure, Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), wrote his magnum opus, La divina commedia (The Divine Comedy), in Italian, which reflected the social and political life of the Florentine people and amassed great popularity.

Petrarch became the second great figure of Italian vernacular literature through poems capturing the attention of both refined courtly society and the common people. The master of the Italian sonnet, Petrarch is best remembered for his highly personal and subjective love poetry, most notably the Canzoniere, a collection of sonnets addressed to his unrequited love, Laura.

The third great figure of 14th century Florentine literature was Petrarch’s disciple, Giovanni Boccacio (1313–75), whose principal work, the Decameron, featured 100 stories recounted by 10 storytellers who fled to the outskirts of Florence to evade the Black Death. His work was heightened by motifs reflecting everyday life, including satire against corrupt clergymen, amusing treatment of human idiosyncrasies, and tales of marital infidelity.

Unfortunately the animo toward classical humanism in the first half of the 15th century temporarily stifled the germination of the vernacular tradition, which deterrence was removed by the major revival of the vernacular in the second half of that century.

Under the influence of Florence’s leading family, the Medicis, Italian resurfaced as a medium for important literary work and came to the fore when Lorenzo de’ Medici, the first of the family educated from an early age in the humanist tradition, formalized Medici rule over the city with his creation of the new Council of Seventy, over which he appointed himself head, in 1469. Lorenzo was a lyric poet of great ability who set the stylistic parameters for both secular and religious poetry in the vernacular.

The Florentine Petrarchan tradition experienced great development under the Venetian cleric Pietro Bembo, a leader in the movement attempting to restore the purity of the Latin language embodied in Cicero, when he embraced its highly refined sentiment and technical mastery of intricate verse forms for his Italian poetry.

Popular literature of a less aristocratic flavor often applied French chivalric and courtly themes to Italian characters. Recasting the French heroic knight into the Italian Orlando, Italian courtiers such as Luigi Pulci (1432–84) adapted this material for consciously humorous verse.

Medieval French chivalric themes were discussed more seriously in the poem Orlando innamorato (Orlando in Love) by Matteo Boiardo (1441–94), a noble at the refined court of the dukes of Ferrara who invented a new style integrating humanistic classical topics with medieval chivalric interests.

This style received further advancement under Ludovico Ariosto (1474–1533) in his Orlando furioso (Orlando’s Insanity) and reached its pinnacle in the 16th century with Torquato Tasso (1544–95), whose Jerusalem Delivered, an epic of the Crusades, revamped this popular medieval theme into a major literary production that influenced practically all other 16th-century literature.

The most brilliant example of Italian prose in the High Renaissance (the early 16th century) is the work of Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) on politics and history. His two principal books, The Prince and Discourses on the First Ten Books on Titus Livius, drew heavily on the author’s firsthand experience as a leading Florentine diplomat and civil servant in the Florentine republic (1494–1512).

Although The Prince is notorious for its advocacy of political self-seeking through deceitful tactics, Machiavelli regarded a balanced republican government, typified by Rome, as the best and most durable form of government and trusted the public spirit and wisdom of the common citizens more than that of princes and aristocrats.

In the artistic sphere, Giotto di Bondone (1266–1336) took the first steps toward the Renaissance, completely forsaking the flat and nonrepresentational appearance of the prevailing Byzantine art in favor of the illusion of three-dimensional form on the twodimensional painted surface.

He was the originator of “tactile value,” portraying his space as an extension of the real space out of which the spectator looked and giving his figures a three-dimensional depth that appeared as if the spectator could reach in and grasp them. Moreover, each of Giotto’s works features the visual representation of one unifying idea instead of a spectrum of meticulous details.

The Renaissance style in sculpture was created by Donatello (1386–1466), who assimilated the basic principles of ancient sculpture, such as contrapposto (with weight shifted to one leg) and the unsupported nude, into a framework creating the appearance of movement and furnishing accurate anatomical structure of his figures.

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) brought this style to maturity with sculptures independent of any surrounding architectural support, including the David and the marble figures he carved for the tomb of Pope Julius II at Rome and for the tombs of the Medici family at Florence.

The striking aspect of his approach is its portrayal of robustness and monumentality in the human body, often styled “Dionysian” after the Greek god known for his unbridled power. His spectacular frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel stand as perhaps the single greatest work of High Renaissance painting, and his redesigning of St. Peter’s crowned his prominence as an architect.

Two other Florentine-trained artists, Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) and Raphael Sanzio (1483–1520), further defined the High Renaissance style. A universal genius with interests in nature, physics, and engineering, Leonardo is most renowned as a painter, revolutionizing his field with the invention of both atmospheric background and sfumato, the “smoky” effect achieved by blurring the outlines of figures to make them softer with an environment of shadow tones. He experimented greatly with new paints even at the expense of the traditional fresco style, seen most prominently in The Last Supper.

Intensely interested in studying the human personality and portraying it on canvas, Leonardo attempted to capture the fragile, fleeting, and illusive qualities of human facial expressions in his Mona Lisa and Virgin and Child with St. Anne. His plans and sketches proved greatly significant for architecture, as they constitute the blueprints for buildings later erected by his friend Bramante (1444–1514).

Raphael’s images, including his many Madonnas, the School of Athens, and Disputa, rank among the world’s most beloved artistic treasures and are noteworthy for their sense of peace and serenity. Furnishing inspiration in architecture as well as in literature, the ideals of classical antiquity experienced restoration in the work of Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) and Leon Battista Alberti (1404–72). Brunelleschi’s designs for two Florentine churches, San Lorenzo and Santo Spirito, reflect his intense study of ancient Roman buildings, as both employ the early basilica form and classical columns.

Further he is renowned for his discovery of the mathematical rules of perspective and his innovations in shape, seen most clearly in the octagonally designed dome base for the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. Alberti revitalized the ancient brick architecture of Roman times, as portrayed by his San Andrea church in Mantua, and established the Renaissance standard use of flat roofs, overhanging cornices, and prominent horizontal lines.

Ironically 15th century music saw little advancement and primarily continued in the genres conceived by Francesco Landini (1325–97), who despite his blindness from childhood became a leading composer and music theorist. Celebrated as a composer of secular works for voice and accompaniment, Landini developed the ballata, or rhythmic dance song; the caccia, a “chasing” song of enjoyment; and, most importantly, the madrigal, a high art form in which poetry was sensitively set to music and so guaranteed that the music would serve as an appropriate vehicle for conveying the spirit and emotional content of the text.

Italian Renaissance church music reached its zenith during the 16th century in the works of Giovanni da Palestrina (1525–94), choirmaster of St. Peter’s in Rome, who composed more than 600 religious pieces, including 102 masses. Typified by the Agnus Dei from his Pope Marcellus Mass, Palestrina achieved a stunning sense of serenity in his works through balance, purity, and arrangement of texts that made the words clearly understandable during performance.

Early Northern Renaissance

With the free exchange of scholars and students between European universities and political exploits, such as the French invasion of Italy in 1494, which brought new contact between cultural elements, Italian concepts and discoveries were reaching into the rest of the Continent by the late 15th and early 16th centuries.

The reorganized and powerful monarchies of the north quickly found that Renaissance thought suited their needs, as its endorsement of social class and military prowess enhanced their status, and its emphasis on public service, personal merit, and learning furnished an attractive substitute for the traditional manners of the uneducated and disorderly feudal classes.

Moreover, the invention of the printing press at Mainz by Johann Gutenberg in 1456 changed the course of history by making possible the rapid dissemination of ideas to a populace moved by the spirit of the age to become increasingly more literate.

Disillusioned by corruption in the late medieval church, including simony (buying and selling of church offices), sinecures (receiving the salary from a benefice, or region to be served by a clergyperson, without overseeing it), pluralism (holding more than one office), clerical concubinage, and the selling of indulgences, the bourgeoisie or rising upper-middle class of merchants found the Renaissance rejection of the recent past and the desire to return to the original sources of antiquity tremendously appealing.

This interest sparked a northern movement of biblical humanism, which exalted ethical and religious factors over the aesthetic and secular ideals typical of Italian humanism and was primarily interested in the Christian past, or Judeo-Christian heritage, rather than the classical Hellenic heritage of Western Europe.

More interested in the human being as a spiritual than a rational creature, these biblical humanists applied the techniques and methods of humanism to the study of the Scriptures. This exegetical approach was spearheaded by John Colet (1466–1519), a pious English cleric who, after visiting Renaissance Italy, soon afterward began in lectures at St. Paul’s Church to expound the literal meaning of the Pauline Epistles, a novelty because former theologians interpreted Scripture allegorically with an almost total unconcern with the meaning originally intended by its authors.

Borrowing his notion of biblical humanism from Colet, Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1469–1536) became the greatest of all the northern humanists and an internationally renowned scholar. Unlike the later reformers who vehemently denounced the evils in the church, Erasmus’s scholarly spirit inclined him to oppose its abuses through clever satire in his The Praise of Folly (1511) and Familiar Colloquies (1518).

His most outstanding contribution both to scholarship and to the future course of church history was his publication of the Greek New Testament (1516), in which he applied humanist rules of textual criticism to the extant Greek biblical manuscripts of his day, accompanied by a new Latin translation directly from the original language and by notes. As a result, scholars were now in a position to make accurate comparison between the New Testament church and the church of their day, with the assessment decidedly unfavorable to the latter.

A necessary complement to the work of Erasmus, Johannes Reuchlin (1455–1522) expanded the humanistic brand of scholarship to the Jewish Bible; in 1499 this prince of German humanists traveled to the Jewish community in Bologna to study Hebrew language, literature, and theology under the Jewish rabbinic scholar Obadiah Sforno.

The fruit of Reuchlin’s scientific study of the Christian Old Testament was his 1506 Of the Rudiments of Hebrew, a combined Hebrew dictionary and grammar, which enabled others to study the text in its original tongue. The humanist enterprise also spread to Spain through Jiménes de Cisneros (1436–1517), a former resident of the papal curia in Rome.

He established the University of Alcala both to train clergy in the Bible, establishing a trilingual college to provide the classical Latin, Greek, and Hebrew instruction that humanists like Erasmus regarded as essential for any sound theology, and to form virtuous character grounded in earnest Christian piety.

The ideals of Italian Renaissance architecture took root in France under King Francis I, when Italian architects and artisans were invited to France for renovations and new building projects for the king. Deciding to make his Fontainebleau Palace into a center for the arts in the 1530s, Francis invited two Italian interior designers, Giovanni Rosso and Francesco Primaticcio, to create a new style of decoration using a mixture of painting and high-relief stucco molding known as strapwork.

This new technique created a dramatic effect in a long gallery room in Fontainebleau known as the Gallery of Francis I. Francis also embarked on major building projects at châteaux Blois and Chambord, both designed in an Italian Renaissance style adapted to French taste with steep roofs, clusters of tall chimney pots, and the placing of vast elongated windows above one another.

Clement Janequin (1485–1560), who developed the Parisian chanson as a vocal ensemble form, made significant developments in music during Francis’s reign. His approximately 300 chansons are programmatic works, where the musical setting narrates the text using sound effects, such as battle noises, and imitations of natural tones, such as bird calls, to augment the effect of the story.

When social dancing became a prevalent form of entertainment, composers were commissioned to write instrumental music to accompany the dances. In the 1589 treatise Orchesographie, a French priest writing under the pseudonym of Thoinot Arbeau (1519–95) designed two broad dance categories arranged for fife and drum, haut (fast and lively) and bas (slow and stately). Most famous was the gagliard dance from the haut category, featuring a quick duple rhythm with each beat divided into three subunits.

Artistic cultivation found its most fertile soil north of the Alps in the Low Countries and Germany. For example, Geertgen tot sint Jans (1465–93), a monastic painter from St. John in Haarlem, fashioned his famous Virgin and Child, where the figures are completely encircled by a wreath of smaller figures and objects, including several popular musical instruments.

One of the leading Flemish mannerist painters was Pieter Bruegel (1525–69), who developed the ideal of “realism toward the peasants,” in which nonaristocratic figures and objects were rendered in flat areas of color without extensive attention to detail or modeling of human figures.

Bruegel remains remembered for his scenes of peasant life illustrating many aspects of their dress, customs, and forms of entertainment. His paintings were often concerned with disclosing how biblical themes are revealed in the everyday world, as portrayed by his The Parable of the Blind Leading the Blind, which shows the helplessness of afflicted peasants.

renaissance painting

The German painter Hieronymus Bosch (1453– 1516), who reflected the widespread pessimism of his age provoked by the Black Death and the Hundred Years’ War, devised the style of mannerist fantasy. This cynicism transferred over into Bosch’s theological deliberation, fueling his fiery preaching against the evils of the world.

Observing animal instincts, appetites, and the evil of overindulgence in humanity, Bosch attempted to warn his contemporaries through his art, renowned for its overwhelming detail and morbid quality, that, save for repentance, salvation lay beyond their reach.

To this end, his Seven Deadly Sins depicts its human subjects, engaged in folly and gluttony, as pitiable and foolish, and his Concert within the Egg, in a paradoxical depreciation of a related art form, casts music in a diabolic light by depicting several persons standing inside a broken eggshell singing a profane song.

This low view of music is shared by his best-known altarpiece, Garden of Delights, a triptych exhibiting scenes of a highly moralistic nature where musical instruments, such as the lute, harp, hurdy-gurdy, bombard, fife, cornet, and drum, serve as instruments of torture for lost souls in hell who had used music for immoral purposes during their earthly lives.

At the same time, Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) grew distinguished for his masterful woodcuts that perfected the technique of crosshatching, where a fine gridwork of lines would be employed in creating light and shadow effects.

Two additional German artists of note were Mathias Grunewald (1460–1528), whose Isenheim Altarpiece depicts the birth, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of Jesus using medieval symbolism and a harsh realistic style, and Hans Holbein the Younger (1497–1543), known for his ability to capture the character and personal attributes of his human subjects.

In both northern and southern Europe, the Renaissance generated lasting effects in the social and religious realms. Looking back to the civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome as furnishing the paradigms for humanity’s greatest achievements, much of the literature and fine art produced in this period depicted humanity as beautiful and godlike and exhibited tremendous concern with the emotional life.

While the ideal of the person as an independent entity with the right to develop according to individual preferences undermined the medieval ideal of one who was to be saved by assuming a humble role in the corporate hierarchy of the church, the return to and scientific study of the primary sources of antiquity made possible a far more accurate knowledge of the Bible. Both of these somewhat divergent factors contributed to the Reformation, with its critique of medieval religion and exaltation of Scripture over tradition.

In the political realm, the rhetorical models of Cicero displaced the perceived scholastic logical wrangling of Aristotle, facilitating improved communication, centralization of power, and administrative effectiveness among the aristocrats of Italian city-states and the rising nation-states of northern Europe. For all its achievements, Renaissance culture stands as one of the primary creative foundations of the modern Western tradition.

Political History of Byzantine Empire

Roman empire in 460 AD

The city of Constantinople, or Byzantium, was founded, according to legend, in 667 b.c.e., by Greeks from Megara and gradually rose in importance during the Roman Empire. Its initial importance was its position on the trade routes in the eastern Mediterranean, especially its close access to the land routes to Persia, Central Asia, India, and China, as well as guarding the entrance to the Pontus Euxinus (Black Sea).

During the second century the Roman Empire had grown so substantially that there were moves to split it into an eastern and a western empire. This concept was introduced by Diocletian, who looked to the past for ideas to resolve the problems facing the Roman Empire.

His idea was that two emperors (each known as an augustus) would rule the two halves of the Roman Empire. Each augustus would then nominate a younger man, known as a caesar, to share the ruling of the empire and succeed to the post of augustus. This reduced the Roman emperors to the equivalent of chief executive officers who nominated their successors.

Diocletian then moved his capital to Nicomedia in modern-day Turkey. The idea did work briefly, but there were enormous problems, and it was left to Emperor Constantine the Great to rework the system. In 330 Constantine established the eastern capital at Byzantium, which he called Constantinople. He also reintroduced a hereditary succession to try to stop the strife caused by contending caesars.

Although his successors ruled over what became known as the Byzantine Empire, those living in Constantinople never saw themselves as Byzantines, the name coming from the Thracian-Greek name for the city. Instead they regarded themselves as Romans (or Romaioi), and direct lineal descendants of the power, traditions, and prestige of the Roman Empire.

Origins of the Byzantine Empire

Essentially the Byzantine Empire owes its origins to Constantine the Great who ruled from 324 to 337. The emperor drew up plans for enlarging his city with the building of a large palace, a forum, a hippodrome, and government departments. To protect the city from attack, Constantine also supervised the building of large walls across the isthmus.

constantinople

Constantine died at Ancyrona, near Nicomedia, and his body was brought back to Constantinople, where it was buried. He was then succeeded by his eldest son, Constantius (or Constantine II), who reigned from 337 to 340. He was succeeded by his brother Constantius II, who ruled until his death in 361 and as sole emperor from 353 to 361. He died of fever near Tarsus in modern-day Turkey.

The next emperor was Julian the Apostate, (r. 361–363). He was the son of Julius Constantius, half brother of Constantius II. The last pagan emperor, he tried to restore religious traditions of Rome in an effort to try to restore his empire to its former glory.

When Julian died in a battle against the Sassanid Persians, a prominent Roman general, Flavius Iovianus, was elected Roman emperor, becoming the emperor Jovian. He was a Christian and is best remembered for being outmaneuvered in a peace agreement with the Sassanids. He died on February 17, 364, after a reign of only eight months.

Byzantine flag

His successors were Valentinian I, another successful general, and his younger brother Valens, Valens becoming emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire. Valens reigned for 14 years, and his first task was to withdraw from Mesopotamia and parts of Armenia, which Jovian had ceded to the Sassanids. However, Valens also had to deal with a revolt by Procopius, a maternal cousin of Julian.

Procopius managed to raise two army legions to support his proclamation as emperor, and Valens considered abdicating to prevent a civil war. When Valens sent two legions against Procopius, both mutinied and joined the rebellion. However, by the middle of 366 Valens had managed to raise a large enough army to defeat the forces of Procopius at the Battle of Thyatira. Procopius was captured soon afterwards and executed.

Battle of Adrianople

The revolt of Procopius encouraged the Goths to attack the Eastern Roman Empire. This meant that Valens had to lead his successful army north, and after defeating a Goth army, he concluded a peace treaty that allowed Roman traders access to the lands controlled by the Goths. War with Sassanid Persia broke out, forcing him to lead his armies back toward Persia.

His campaign was cut short when the Visigoths threatened the northern frontier. They had lost lands to the Huns and were anxious to compensate themselves with Roman lands. Eventually the Visigoths allied with the Huns, and along with the Ostrogoths, attacked the Romans. A massive Byzantine army moved against them, leading to the Battle of Adrianople, August 9, 378.

The Goths and their allies destroyed the Roman army, and Valens was killed during the battle. It left the Byzantines exposed, and with Gratian, the 19-year-old nephew of Valens, as the emperor of the Western Roman Empire, there was the need for a strong ruler to save the empires.

Theodosius I

Theodosius I, born in Galicia, in modern-day Spain, was the son of a senior military officer who was executed after being involved in political intrigues. Theodosius was made commander of Moesia, on the Danube (in modern-day Serbia and Bulgaria). After Adrianople, Gratian appointed him as the co-augustus for the East, and he co-ruled with Gratian and Valentinian II.

Emperor Theodosius I

On a political level, Theodosius was a Christian and made Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire. In 381 he helped convene the second general council of the Christian Church, held at Constantinople, where some of the decisions of the Council of Nicaea in 325 were confirmed.

The main task of Theodosius was to ensure the military survival of the Roman Empire, and he immediately went to war in the Balkans with the Sarmatians. He had defeated them six years earlier, and another victory led to his being proclaimed as co-emperor on January 19, 379.

He was given the provinces of Dacia (modern-day Romania) and Macedonia, both areas having been attacked many times in the previous decades. Living at Thessalonica, Theodosius built up his army. To raise more soldiers, he allowed for Teutons to be recruited, rewarding many of them with senior administrative positions.

Theodosius also sought a compromise with the Visigoths and assigned lands to the Goths in the Balkans in return for peace. It was the first time that an entire people were settled on Roman soil and able to maintain their autonomy. It avoided war with the Goths, many of whom converted to Christianity.

These moves were unpopular with some in Rome, and later historians have blamed these positions on making Rome vulnerable to attack. However, Theodosius was able to use this newfound military force to great effect. When a usurper, Maximus the Confessor, gained support in the Western Roman Empire and invaded Italy, Theodosius was the only commander with enough soldiers to check his advances.

In 378 he defeated Maximus and, later, the forces of another usurper, Eugenius. Theodosius crushed his rebellion at the Battle of Frigidus on September 5–6, 394. By this time Theodosius was sole emperor. He was subsequently known to history as Theodosius the Great.

When Theodosius I died, his younger son, Honorius, succeeded him in the West, and his eldest son, Arcadius, succeeded him in the East. Arcadius appears to have been a weak ruler, and for much of his reign, a minister, Flavius Rufinus, a politician of Gaulish ancestry, made the decisions.

With Honorius being dominated by his minister Flavius Stilicho, the position of emperor was in danger of becoming symbolic. According to some accounts, it was rivalry between the ministers that led to Stilicho having Rufinus assassinated by Goths.

However, a new minister, Eutropius, took over for Rufinus until, in 399, the wife of Arcadius persuaded her husband to remove Eutropius, who was later executed. The Praetorian commander, Anthemius, took over, with Arcadius retreating from the political scene until his death on May 1, 408. His son Flavius Theodosius, who became Theodosius II, succeeded him.

Theodosius II was only seven when he became emperor, but on the reputation of the military builtup by his grandfather, the boy had a trouble-free minority, and the empire remained safe from attack through his long reign, which ended with his death on July 28, 450.

His older sister, Pulcheria, whose interpretation of Christianity was anti-Jewish, heavily influenced Theodosius. Under Pulcheria’s influence, the Christian Church condemned the Nestorian viewpoint of the dual nature of Christ as heretical, and Nestorius, its proponent, was exiled to Egypt.

In 425 the University of Constantinople was founded as a center for Christian learning. Theodosius II is best remembered for his codification of the laws of the Roman Empire. In 429 he ordered that copies of all laws be brought to Constantinople, and nine years later the Codex Theodosianus was published.

Although the Eastern Roman Empire was safe, the Western Roman Empire crumbled during this period, resulting in much power reverting to Constantinople. During the last years of the reign of Theodosius II, the Byzantine Empire came under attack from Attila the Hun, and the Byzantines responded by paying large tribute to the Huns to stop the attacks.

On the death of Theodosius II in 450, Pulcerhia chose as her brother’s successor Flavius Marcianus, her husband, who became Emperor Marcian. Marcian stopped the payments to the Huns, who, by this time, were more concerned with attacking Gaul and Italy. Marcian also fortified Syria and Egypt to prevent attacks and was thought to have distanced himself from events in the Western Roman Empire.

It appears that Marcian may have been involved in the death of Attila in 452, even though he did not send aid to Rome, which was sacked by the Vandals in 455. Marcian and his wife are both recognized as saints by the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Marcian died in 457, and Flavius Valerius Leo Augustus (Leo the Thracian) became the new emperor. He was a successful general who had led campaigns in the Balkans and against the Goths. Leo I sent a large army against the Vandals, under the command of his brother-in-law Basilicus, but it was decisively defeated in 468.

He died in 474 and was succeeded by his seven-year-old grandson, Leo II, who died 10 months later. Leo II’s father, Zeno, became emperor. Initially he had success leading his armies against the Vandals and the Huns in the Balkans.

In January 475 he was deposed by Basilicus, who took control of Constantinople for his reign, which lasted 19 months. In August 476 Zeno took over again, exiling Basilicus and his wife and son to Cappadocia, where they died from exposure. Zeno managed to build up the Byzantine finances. When he died in April 491, his widow, Ariadne, chose an important courtier, Anastasius, to succeed him.

Anastasius was involved in the Isaurian War from 492 to 496, where forces loyal to Longinus of Cardala, a brother of Zeno, revolted. Many rebels were defeated at the battle of Cotyaeum, and although guerrilla war continued for some years, Anastasius was never in serious danger from them again. From 502 to 505 he was involved in a war with the Sassanid Empire of Persia.

Initially the Sassanids were victorious, but the war ended in a stalemate. Anastasius then spent much of the rest of his reign building defenses. These included the Anastasian Wall, which stretched from Propontis to the Euxine, protecting the western approaches to Constantinople. Anastasius died on July 9, 518, the last Roman or Byzantine emperor to be deified.

Justin I was nearly 70 when he became emperor. He was illiterate but was a successful career soldier. The last years of his reign saw attacks by Ostrogoths and Persians. In 526 he formally named Justinian, his nephew, as co-emperor and his successor.

Justinian I

Justinian I was one of the most famous Byzantine rulers and is best remembered for his legal reforms that saw the establishment of a new legal code. He gained a reputation for working hard, being affable but unscrupulous when necessary. His early military moves were to try to regain the lost lands of Theodosius I. He failed in this but quickly gained a reputation for surrounding himself with advisers who achieved their status through merit.

One of these was Tribonian, who had the task of codifying the law—the first time all of Roman law was written down in one code. At the same time Justinian’s general Belisarius decided to launch an attack on the Sassanid Persians and against the Vandals in North Africa, recapturing Carthage. In what became known as the Gothic War, Belisarius retook Rome in 536, and four years later he took the Ostrogoth’s capital, Ravenna. The 540s saw parts of the Byzantine Empire ravaged by bubonic plague.

In 565 Justinian I died and his nephew Flavius Iustinius became Emperor Justin II. The Byzantines lost land to the Sassanids in a disastrous war with Persia. Justin II became troubled by mental problems and may have been going senile. He appointed a general named Tiberius as his successor.

Tiberius II Constantine was the first truly Greek emperor, and he continued the war with the Persians in Armenia. He was succeeded in 582 by a prominent general, Mauricius, who subsequently married the daughter of his predecessor.

The Emperor Maurice reigned from 582 to 602, a time when the empire was constantly attacked. When the Romans intervened in a dynastic war in Persia, they were amply rewarded by the return of eastern Mesopotamia and Armenia. However, while the Byzantines were involved in Persia, the Slavs took control of much of the Balkans. In 602 a mutiny by troops led to a general called Phokas (Phocas) entering Constantinople and killing Maurice, after forcing the deposed emperor to watch the execution of five of his sons.

Phokas was from Thrace and was a successful general of obscure origins before he seized the throne. The seizing of power by Phokas was the first bloody coup d’état since Constantinople became the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. Phokas was initially popular because he lowered taxes and introduced reforms that benefited the Christian Church. However, on a military front, the Eastern Roman Empire faced invasion, especially in the northern Balkans, and raiders did reach as far as Athens.

In addition, King Khosrow II of Persia, installed by Maurice, started to conspire against the man who overthrew him. The Persians championed a young man whom they claimed was a son of Maurice, taking over some of Anatolia. In addition, trouble brewed in Egypt and Syria. In 610 Heraclius, the exarch (proconsul) of Africa, staged a rebellion that ended with Phocas being put to death.

Heraclius I was emperor from 610 to 641 and tried to reunite the empire that was still under attack in the Balkans and from the Persians. The latter managed to capture Damascus in 613, Jerusalem in the following year, and in 616 invaded Egypt. Their raids deep into Anatolia caused Heraclius to consider moving the capital from Constantinople to Carthage, but his reorganization of the military allowed him to stop the invading forces.

Much of this centered on land grants to families in return for having them serve in the military when the empire was in danger. In 626 Constantinople itself was attacked, but in the following year at the Battle of Nineveh, the Byzantines defeated the Persians, leading to the deposing of Khosrow II of Persia and the Byzantines gaining all the land they had lost.

Heraclius started to use the Persian title king of kings, and no longer used the term augustus, preferring basileus, Greek for “monarch.” During the 630s the Arabs proved to be a major threat to the Byzantines, who were decisively defeated in the Battle of Yarmuk in 636. Heraklonas’s two sons succeeded him, Heraklonas Constantine (Constantine III) and Constantine Heraklonas (Heraclius).

The former ruled for only four months before succumbing to tuberculosis. His younger half brother became the sole emperor; however, there were rumors that Constantine III had been poisoned, and a rebellion led to the deposing of Heraklonas four months later, and the son of Constantine III became Emperor Constans II.

Under Constans II, the Byzantines were on the retreat, having to withdraw from Egypt with the Arabs quickly capturing parts of North Africa. The Arabs also destroyed much of the Byzantine fleet off Lycia. Later the Arabs split into what became the Sunni and Shiite factions, and were unable to carry out their plan of attacking Constantinople.

Constans II was assassinated by his palace chamberlain in 668, and a usurper, Mezezius, was emperor for a year until Constans II’s son became Constantine IV and reigned until 685. By now the Arabs attacked Carthage, Sicily, and captured Smyrna and other ports in Anatolia. The Slavs also used the opportunity to attack Thessalonica. The Byzantines were able to successfully use Greek Fire against the Arabs at the sea battle of Syllaeum.

Constantine was worried that his two brothers, crowned with him as coemperors, would pose a threat to him, and he had them both mutilated. This allowed his son Justinian II to succeed to the throne (r. 685–695 and 705–711). In the interval two successful generals, Leontios and Tiberios III, were briefly emperors.

Justinian became increasingly unpopular and was killed by rebels, with Philippikos becoming emperor 711–713. He managed to stabilize the political situation and was succeeded by his secretary Artemios, who became Emperor Anastasius II. After two years a rebel leader and former tax collector deposed him, capturing Constantinople and proclaiming himself Emperor Theodosius III. He only lasted two years; a rebel commander took control of Constantinople and forced Theodosius to abdicate. He later become bishop of Ephesus.

Leo III

The new emperor, Leo III, was able to stabilize the Byzantine Empire, and he remained emperor from 717 until his death in 741. He immediately set about a reorganization of the empire’s administration. Much of this centered on the elevation of serfs to become tenant farmers.

Making alliances with the Khazars and the Georgians, he was able to defeat the Arabs. Leo III, however, is best known for his iconoclasm when, from 726 to 729 he ordered the destruction of the worshipping of images. His son, who became Emperor Constantine V, succeeded him at his death.

He reigned until 775, managing to continue with the reforms and iconoclasm of his father and also defeat the Arabs and the Bulgars. He died while campaigning against the latter and was succeeded by a son who became Emperor Leo IV. Although Leo IV only reigned for five years, he managed to send his soldiers on several campaigns against the Arabs. When he died, his son, aged only nine, became Emperor Constantine VI.

Scheming led to him being taken prisoner and blinded by his mother, who succeeded as Empress Irene, the widow of Leo IV. Her finance minister deposed her in 802. He became Emperor Nikephoros I and continued the wars against the Bulgars and the Arabs until he was killed in Bulgaria in 811.

The son of Nikephoros I became Emperor Staurakios, but he reigned only for just over two months until he was forced to abdicate. He went to live in a monastery, where he died soon afterwards. His brother-in-law then became Emperor Michael I. Eager to become popular, Michael reduced the high levels of taxation imposed by Nikephoros I. He also sought a compromise with Charlemagne.

Abdicating, he retired to a monastery, and Leo V, an Armenian, became the next emperor. He was assassinated in 820, leading to the Phrygian dynasty of Michael II coming to power. Michael II was emperor from 820 to 829, and his son Theophilos succeeded him, ruling until 842. His wife then ruled, and then his son Michael III “The Drunkard,” who was assassinated in 867, ushering in Basil I and the Macedonian dynasty.

Basil I was believed to have been of Armenian ancestry, and he lived in Bulgaria, leading an expedition against the Arabs in 866. He helped in the assassination of his predecessor and became one of the greatest Byzantine rulers. Apart from codifying the laws, he also built the Byzantines into a major military power.

His reign also coincided with the Great Schism, in which Basil determined that Constantinople should remain the center of Christianity, not Rome. Basil allied the Byzantines to the forces of Louis II, the Holy Roman Emperor.

Their combined fleets were able to defeat the Arabs, and although the Byzantines lost much of Sicily, the eastern frontier was heavily reinforced, and Arab attacks against the Byzantines were unsuccessful. When Basil died in 886, his son Leo VI succeeded him, although some accounts identify Leo VI as a son of Michael III.

Leo VI, who was the son of a mistress of Michael III and later mistress of Basil I, ended up at war with the Bulgarians, although his tactical alliance to the Magyars was successful for a period. The Byzantine defeat in 896 was a reverse that was followed by the Arabs capturing the last Byzantine-held bases on Sicily.

A Byzantine expedition tried to recapture Crete but failed, and Leo VI died in 912, succeeded by his younger brother Alexander. Emperor Alexander was extremely unpopular, and his death after a polo match ended his reign of 13 months. Leo VI’s illegitimate son then succeeded as Constantine VII in 913, inheriting a war with Bulgaria.

Constantine was deposed in 920 by Romanos I, the son of a member of the Imperial Guard who was deposed in 944, leading to Constantine VII returning as emperor. He then reigned for 14 years, and when he died, his son Romanos II became the next emperor.

As soon as Romanos II took over, he purged the court of his father’s friends, and allegations were made that he had poisoned his father to gain the throne. Although Romanos II was indolent and lazy, he left the army in the command of capable generals. He died after a reign of four years, succeeded initially by his five-year-old son, Basil II.

Nikephoros II quickly deposed Basil, reigning for six years until he was assassinated. It was during his reign, in 961, that the famous monastery complex on Mount Athos was founded. The next emperor was John I, who reigned for six years, until he died. During his reign he trained ex-emperor Basil to rule, and Basil II became emperor again, reigning for 49 years.

Basil II formed a strong alliance with Prince Vladimir I of Kiev, and together they managed to stabilize the northern borders of the Byzantine Empire. Basil II also took back large parts of Syria, although he did not manage to retake Jerusalem. War in Thrace against the Bulgarians saw the Byzantines destroy their opponents at the battle of Kleidion on July 29, 1014. Basil II was succeeded by his younger brother, Constantine VIII, who reigned for only three years, being succeeded by Romanos III, a great-grandson of the usurper Romanos I.

As the first in a new dynasty Romanos III tried to change many aspects of Byzantine rule. He financed many new buildings, including monasteries. He abandoned plans by Constantine VII to curtail the privileges of the nobles but faced many conspiracies, which led to his overthrow after a reign of fewer than six years. Michael IV, a friend of the daughter of Constantine VIII, ascended the throne. Military reforms were pressing, with the Byzantines under attack from Serbs, Bulgarians, and, more menacingly, the Arabs.

It was also a period when the Normans were a rising military power. Michael IV defeated the Bulgarians and died in 1041, succeeded by his nephew Michael V, who only ruled for four months. Deposed, blinded, and castrated, Michael V was succeeded by Zoe, his adoptive mother.

Constantine IX, the son of a senior civil servant, ruled from 1042 until 1055. A patron of the arts, he was subject to scheming and internal revolts. He was succeeded briefly by Michael VI and then by Isaac I Komnenos. In 1059 Constantine X became emperor and inaugurated the Doukid dynasty. After his reign of eight years, his son Michael VII ruled for 11 years.

For three of those years, Romanos IV, the second husband of Constantine X’s widow, was also emperor. In 1081 Alexios Komnenos, nephew of Isaac I, restored the Komnenid dynasty. Alexios was worried about the Turks controlling the Holy Land and decided to ask Pope Urban II for some military help from western Europe, resulting in the launching of the First Crusade.

Over the next two centuries, as battles with Turks continued over Asia Minor, the empire’s relationship to the West deteriorated. During the Crusades the empire’s lands were meant to be used as a staging ground for the war to “reclaim” the Christian holy lands, but bored, undisciplined crusaders frequently wound up sacking and pillaging Byzantine cities when they were too impatient to wait for their arrival in Muslim territories.

The Byzantine renaissance of the 12th century was an artistic and economic one—an inward-facing revival rather than a return to the sort of diplomatic fervor that had marked the empire’s earlier centuries. At the turn of the very next century, the soldiers of the failed Fourth Crusade were hired by Alexios IV, the son of the deposed Byzantine emperor Isaac II, to restore his father’s throne. Constantinople fell to the crusaders in 1204, and the Latin Empire was established to govern formerly Byzantine lands, with many territories apportioned to Venice.

The Byzantine Empire was officially dissolved, though its culture remained much the same for the next 200 years—through shifting governments, as the Latin Empire never stabilized and was followed by brief-lived successors—until 1453, when the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople and all its lands.

Hundred Years’ War

Hundred Years’ War

In battles fought from 1337 to 1453 primarily by England and France for control of France and the French Crown, England initially had the upper hand, but in 1429 the French, inspired by Joan of Arc, regained all areas of France that they had lost except for Calais. England and France had been at war several times before the Hundred Years’ War because of the landholdings of the English Crown in France.

Through several wars, the French had slowly been regaining control of these lands. With the beginning of the Hundred Years’ War the French found themselves losing ground against the English. Militarily the English longbow proved especially devastating to the French and led to the English victories at Crécy and Agincourt.

The English believed that they were secure in their victory but found the tables turned on them in 1429 by Joan of Arc. The French were able to retake much of the land the English had captured up to that point in the war. The Burgundians switched sides, joining the French, and the English found themselves pushed back even more.


The English would continue to send armies to France and were, at times, able to retake lost territory; the war had definitely turned against them. The akibat years of the war saw the English lose all their territory in France except Calais. With France’s control over all the previously controlled English lands in France, the war ended in 1453.

Early English Lands in France

The English and the French had been at odds over the relationship of their kings to each other because of the English Crown’s control over lands in France. In England the English king was sovereign, yet in France he was a vassal of the French king and accountable to the French king.

This accountability was used, usually on trumped up charges, by the French kings to try to take land away from the English. The French did this in 1202 and when the English king did not show up at the French court to answer charges brought against him, the French king declared his lands to be confiscated and war followed.

During the war (which lasted until 1204), the French conquered Normandy, Maine, and Anjou from the English. With the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1259 the English had been reduced to control of just Aquitaine. The English king also reconfirmed his status as a vassal of the French king with respect to his lands in France.

English army in hundred years' war

The French trumped up charges again in 1294 against Edward I and again declared his lands confiscated and launched an invasion of those lands. The war lasted until 1298. This war also saw the Scots allied with the French against the English in 1295. A new peace treaty, the Treaty of Paris, was signed, returning the lands lost by the English during the war to them.

Isabella, the daughter of the French king Philip IV, was married to the English heir, Edward II. At the time this seemed to be a way to create lasting peace between the two kingdoms but ended up causing more problems by later giving the English king a claim to the French throne during the Hundred Years’ War.

In 1324 the French again provoked the English and summoned the English king to the French court. When the king did not show up, the French again declared the province of Aquitaine confiscated from the English and the two countries went to war again.

The war did not last long and in 1325 Edward II’s son, Edward III, and his mother went to France so Edward III could pay homage to the French king, Charles IV. Returning to England in 1327, Queen Isabella had Edward II deposed and Edward III, only 14 years old, crowned king.

With such a young king, the English ended up agreeing to a peace treaty that favored the French, allowing them to keep the land they had conquered. In 1328 the English were forced to make peace with the Scots and Charles IV, third son of Philip IV, died. None of Philip’s three sons had a male heir. Succession ended up going to the cousin of Charles IV, Philip of Valois.

While neither Edward nor his mother made any claim to the French throne at this time, Edward had himself crowned king of France in 1340. In French law, Edward had no claim to the Crown since French law did not recognize any claim by a female, or her offspring, to the throne of France.

The early years of Edward’s reign saw him pay homage to the French king, since he could not afford a war with France. Focusing on Scotland with the death of the Scottish king, Robert I, Edward was able to gain the upper hand there and bring Scotland back under England’s control.

However, being an ally of the Scots, Philip had an interest in what was happening there and tried to link negotiations for continued peace between France and England with the war in Scotland. In 1336 France had put together a fleet that was to take a French crusade to the Holy Land.

However, Pope Benedict XII canceled the crusade because of the problems of the French, English, and Scots. Instead it seemed to the English that the fleet would be used to invade England. While there was no invasion of England, the fleet did conduct raids on parts of the English coast and convinced the English that war with the French was coming.

Using the same ploy they had before, the French king summoned the English king, as the duke of Aquitaine, to turn over the French king’s brother, who had taken refuge in England. In 1337 when Edward did not comply with Philip’s order, Philip declared Edward’s land confiscated again and the Hundred Years’ War began.

Beginnings of the Hundred Years’ War

The war began with the French invading Aquitaine in 1337. The French fleet continued raiding the English coast. The English were finally able to defeat the French fleet at Sluys in 1340, which gave the English control of the English Channel, making it easier for them to move troops to France.

During this time Edward made alliances with the Low Countries and the German emperor and arranged to have his soldiers join theirs for a campaign against the French. However the date for the campaign kept being delayed until 1340.

The Flemish joined with Edward, who had himself crowned king of France on January 26, 1340. While the English laid siege to the town of Tournai, the French moved against the allied army but did not engage it. The war shifted to Brittany in 1341 with the death of the French duke.

Succession to the title was disputed and the English took the chance to support the side the French king opposed. Neither side was able to gain the upper hand and control of the entire province. The fighting continued for several years to come. In 1343 a truce was called, lasting until 1346.

Edward decided to conduct the campaign in 1346 with an English army and not rely on his allies for soldiers. Edward’s army landed in Normandy hoping to draw the French army away from Aquitaine, which it did. Marching first to the Seine River and then along it toward Paris, the English army raided the countryside and towns as it marched.

The French had destroyed most of the bridges across the Seine River and had a chance to trap the English army but instead allowed the English to cross the river and march away. The French would have the same chance again when the English army reached the Somme River and again the French allowed the English to cross the river and escape. Edward finally stopped retreating and chose the area around Crécy to give battle to the French on August 26, 1346.

Edward picked an easily defended spot that forced the French to attack him uphill. He also deployed his archers to have a clear field of fire against the advancing French. The French arrived on the battlefield late in the day, yet chose to attack instead of waiting until the next day.

The French also did not attempt to organize a massed attack against the English; instead, they attacked as they arrived on the battlefield, thus leading to approximately 15 independent assaults on the English position.

The English archers cut down each assault with few of the French knights actually reaching the English men at arms. French casualties were estimated at over 1,500 knights and nobles and up to 20,000 infantry and crossbowmen. English casualties were about 200 men.

With his victory, Edward moved against Calais, which he laid siege to in September 1346 and captured in August 1347. The next several years would see only minor fighting, and even a truce for a short time. Philip VI died in August 1350 and John II became the new French king. Under the new king, the French and English engaged in peace negotiations, but these were broken off in 1355 by the French.

Treatis and Raids

The English responded to the break in negotiations by launching raids into France. The most successful raid was in 1356, led by Edward’s son, Edward the Black Prince (so named because he wore black armor). Launching from Bordeaux, he marched his army toward the Loire River but turned back before crossing the river.

As he moved back to Bordeaux, he was blocked by a French army led by King John at Poitiers. On September 19, using the terrain to his advantage, the Black Prince was able to defeat the French using the terrain and his archers to cut down the attacking French. More important was the capture of the French king by the English.

With his capture, the French found themselves in a civil war between the dauphin and Charles of Navarre over who should control France. In 1359 Edward brought an army to France in an attempt to capture Reims. When he was unable to capture the city, he considered marching on several other cities, including Paris, but in the end decided to return to England.

The English and French signed a treaty on May 8, 1360, that released King John from English captivity and recognized English sovereignty over Calais, Ponthieu, Poitoum, and Aquitaine. Also part of the treaty was a clause where Edward agreed to stop calling himself the king of France. It looked as if the English had won the war. Even with the peace treaty in place, the French and English continued fighting on a low level.

This included the French civil war, which did not end until May 1364 with the defeat of Charles of Navarre. The French and English also found themselves on opposite sides of the fighting in Castile where the English, under the command of the Black Prince, prevailed. Unfortunately the fighting forced the Black Prince to raise taxes in Aquitaine.

The people of Aquitaine then appealed to the French king, Charles V (who had become king in 1364 when his father, John, had died). Therefore in November 1368 Charles V declared the English land confiscated again. Edward tried to negotiate a settlement with Charles, but when that failed Edward again declared himself king of France and the two countries were at war with each other again.

The French made significant gains in recovering territory they had given up in 1360. They were even able to launch raids on the English coast, whose defenses had been neglected after the peace treaty in 1360. This raised concerns that the French might actually invade England. In response, the English launched raids on cities they thought the French might use to stage their invasion.

By the end of 1369 English actions had eliminated the possibility of a French invasion. Over the next several years the English would continue to launch raids into the French-controlled territory, but they also lost territory to the French. Both sides continued to raid each other’s territory and avoid a set piece battle.

In 1376 Edward the Black Prince died; in the following year, 1377, Edward III also died. This left the Black Prince’s son, 10-year-old Richard II, as king of En gland. Small scale fighting continued through the 1380s until both sides agreed upon a truce in June 1389. The truce would last, with the usual intermittent raiding, until 1415.

Henry V and Charles VI

Starting in the early 1400s the French gave support to Scotland and Wales in their struggle against the English. They also launched several raids against English ports. However the French king, Charles VI, who came to power in 1380, suffered from insanity. Because of this, he was unable to keep his nobles controlled and in 1407, a civil war broke out between the Orléanists and Burgundians.

Both sides asked the English for aid. In 1413 Henry V was crowned king of England. While his father, Henry IV, had provided some support to the Burgundians, Henry V determined to take full advantage of the chaos in France. Thus in 1415 an English army of 12,000 men invaded France.

Landing in Normandy, Henry first laid siege to the town of Harfleur, which took over a month to capture. Henry lost about half his men during the siege. Henry then decided to march over land to Calais. Henry left his siege equipment behind so he could move fast. The French set out in pursuit of Henry with an army of 30,000 men.

Although Henry was moving fast, even in the rain, he had trouble finding a crossing to get across the Somme River, which allowed the French to get ahead of him. They chose the area near the castle of Agincourt to try to stop Henry. While the sides tried to negotiate a settlement, neither side was interested in budging from its position.

On October 25, 1415, the two sides fought the Battle of Agincourt. The French commander had originally wanted to fight a defensive battle since the English were short on supplies, but the French nobles convinced him to attack since they had a numerical superiority.

Battle of Agincourt

The English took up a position with forests on either side of them. They had about 5,000 archers and only 800 men at arms. The archers placed sharpened stakes in the ground in front of them as protection from the mounted French knights. The ground between the two armies was wet and freshly plowed, which made it hard to move across.

The French nobles were unwilling to wait for the English to attack and eventually convinced the French commander to order an attack. With the wet, plowed ground slowing them down, the French took terrible losses from the English archers. Approximately a third of the French troops were in the initial attack and most were either killed or captured.

The next two attacks by the French were also thrown back by the English, although they did not meet the same fate as the first attack since they withdrew before being destroyed. Exact French losses are not known for sure, but estimates put their losses at 6,000–8,000 men. There is also no exact record of English losses, but they were few compared to the French.

Henry’s next campaign started in 1417 and went until 1419. This time he completed the conquest of the Normandy region. The Burgundians, still English allies, were able to gain the upper hand in their civil war and capture Paris.

In May 1420 the Treaty of Troyes was signed; it declared Henry to be Charles VI’s heir and required him to continue to support the Burgundians in their civil war against the Orléanists, who were now supporting the dauphin. Henry died in 1422 and his nine-month-old son became the new king of England. Even with Henry’s death, the English continued their war against the Orléanists. Charles VI died two months after Henry V. With Charles’s death, Henry VI was crowned king of France.

Joan of Arc

The war took a sudden change for the better for the French with the appearance of Joan of Arc in 1429. She led an army to victory against the English, laying siege to the town of Orléans in May 1429. This was the first of many victories that led to the coronation of the dauphin as Charles VII. Joan was captured and turned over to the English in May 1430. The English had her put on trial for witchcraft, convicted, and burned at the stake.

The English had hoped to strike a blow against the French morale but only succeeded in inspiring them. In September 1435 the French civil war was ended and with it the alliance between the Burgundians and the English. The French continued to retake territory from the English, including Paris, which fell in April 1436. Both sides agreed to a truce in 1444, which lasted for five years.

The French used the truce to reorganize their army, so that when the truce ended in 1449 they were ready to end the war. Starting with an invasion for Normandy in 1449 that was completed by 1450, they pushed the English out of France over the next several years. The conquest of Aquitaine would take longer. The initial invasion began in 1451 but was slowed in 1452 when the English sent troops there in an effort to stop the French.

While the English were successful in slowing the French, the French were able to defeat the English army in July 1453 and by October 1453, with the fall of Bordeaux, they completed their conquest of Aquitaine and ended the Hundred Years’ War. The only French soil still controlled by the English was Calais, which they controlled until 1558.