Pop Quiz and After Rome

Today in class, we started off with a pop quiz. This pop quiz was about the barbaric tribes that took over.

After Rome: 500-700

The Germanic Barbarians
- Barbarians warlords and their families who assimilated into Roman culture became to "nobles" or aristocrats of medieval Europe.
- Germanic tribes who rules former Roman lands sought to conquer and assimilate other barbarian peoples who lived beyond the frontiers and were still pagans.

More On Germanic Kingdoms
- The Angles and the Saxons (from Denmark) invaded Britain and assimilated the Britons.
- Most of the Anglo Saxons where converted to Christianity in the seventh century.
- The most powerful Germanic tribe was the Franks.
- But the real power lay with the "mayors of the palace" who were royal officials and nobles themselves.

Back In Eastern Europe
     From "Eastern Empire" to "Byzantium"
       - The Easter Roman Empire continued on while the west was now divided up by barbarians
       - When the emperor Justinian came to power in 527, he decided to reunite the entire Roman Empire by re-conquering the western territories
       - Justinian succeeded for a time, but the land he re-took was soon conquered by new barbarian tribes and a massive plague depopulated much of the west.

Christian Empire
- Greek Byzantine emperors saw themselves as Roman emperors and the heads of the Church.
- Byzantines preserved Greco-Roman art, architecture, philosophy and writing despite much of it being non-Christian.
- Justinian built the massive domed Hagia Sophia ("Holy Wisdom") in Constantinople, considered to be the most glorious church on earth at the time.
- Third version finished in 537, the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia, Justinian' cathedral, was later a mosque and is now a museum.