Change Over Time Europe

Angela Liu

From 0-1200 CE, Europe underwent political transformations as it was first a unified empire in Rome, and due to the quick fall of the Roman Empire, Europe eventually became a feudalistic society; while this was occurring, Islam rose in prominence in the rest of Eurasia. In the beginning of this region, Rome was unified under Octavian in a period of time called the Roman Principate. Octavian tried to maintain a lot of the original governing styles of the past Republic, like the Roman Senate, the two consuls, and the tribunes. The senate was a group of wealthy male elites that made the decisions and brought together Romes political life. The two consuls were officials that supervised the senate and commanded the army. Because the plebeians, or common people, wanted more representation, lower class people were elected as tribunes to speak for the commoners and could veto any decision the senate made that would put the plebeians at a disadvantage. This system of government thrived for two and half centuries, and then Rome experienced the third century crisis which was an era of political, military, and economic instability. In 50 years, there were more than 20 rulers due to their incompetence and most only ruled for a few months or years. During this time of insecurity, Germanic tribes took it to their advantage and started invading the empire and instilled fear within the people. This lead to a rapid population shift from cities into the countryside. In 306, the ruler Constantine made Christianity the official religion and transferred the capital from Rome to the east, Byzantium, and renamed it Constantinople, because it was better protected against the Germanic tribes. However, the divided sections of the empire lead to inequality between the east and the west, and the east (Constantinople) was wealthy while the west experienced even more invasions by the Germanic tribes. Byzantine armies tried to fight against the Germanic tribes, but it was futile and by 530, Western Rome was under the rule of the tribes and Byzantine lost its prominence as they couldnt fight against them anymore, and the Roman Empire fell. The great amount of political

fragmentation caused the European region to become extremely decentralized. Europe fell into the Dark Ages with small amounts of centralized political rule and influence. The city of Constantinople became a place where there were large amounts of crime. In addition, there was a new threat to western Europe, which was the Vikings that originated from Scandinavia. They took advantage of Europes weak political rule and were able to raid the towns since the Europeans did not have organized protection. Despite all of these negative changes that occurred in Europe, Christianity gained lots of influence in western Europe and it gave power to the pope, called the papacy. The increasing importance of the Pope and the church lead to the vestiture controversy, or the struggle between popes and emperors/kings. This is mainly exemplified when Henry IV went against the churchs reforms, and Pope Gregory excommunicated him. When the increased external invasions became a big enough problem for the people that resided in Europe, new political systems arose in this region. This new system that was established was called feudalism. It rose from the fear of invasions from Germanic tribes and Vikings, and the distrust for the central government. The common people turned to local aristocratic rulers. They became serfs, like servants or people that worked for the wealthy lords on their manors, or homes. In return, the nobles that owned these manors offered the serfs protections within their homes. When the system of feudalism became more prominent in Europe, this, combined with the strong Christian faith, allowed people to achieve more political stability. Elsewhere in the world, Islam became more popular especially in the Middle East. Pilgrimages were very important to the Europeans religion, and the Muslims had control over the Holy Land (Jerusalem) for over four hundred years. This, combined with the want to expand their empire politically and the churchs want assume political authority, resulted in the Crusades which lasted from 1095 to 1204. The Pope allowed the people of Europe to dominate and have a conquest of the Middle East. The last Crusade was in 1204, and it marked the end of the political and territorial expansion. The Crusades had a lasting impact, as it exposed the Europeans to many aspects of Muslim culture and helped further

the advancements. From the Roman Empire to the concept of feudalism, it goes to show that those who are weaker rely on the strong, powerful, and wealthy to offer protection, and these strong will always have political dominance. Furthermore, people rely on faith to help them get through times that are challenging, and this is translated into modern times as well, and could not have been this important if Europe did not undergo political transformations and expansions that increased religious importance.