Back in Europe, after the fall of Rome, and then the death of Attila, a great battle was fought for control of Europe between the Germans and Huns. The Germanic tribes united under Ardaric, king of the Gepids, and Theodemir, king of the Ostrogoths, and defeated the various tribes allied under the Huns at the Battle of Nedao in the old Roman province of Pannonia. And from there the Huns slowly faded into memory, with their identity lost among the many ethnic groups that were at one point or another grouped under the heading of Hun. And Europe was again dominated by local tribes and kingdoms, as was the case before the rise of the Greek and Roman empires.
In that fragmentary culture Roman traditions mixed with those of the various tribes. The influence of Roman culture can still be seen in the Roman Catholic Church and the Romance languages that include Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian. German and Dutch were also heavily latinized. The English language evolved from West Germanic mixed with a touch of Latin, very little Celtic, and then North Germanic and finally French after emigration into Britain of Germanic tribes such as the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, followed by Scandinavians and finally the Normans of France. As the parent of the romance languages, Latin – which included the popularly spoken Vulgar Latin, and the dominant writing of Classic Latin – remained a popular common language and persists to this day in fields such as science, law and medicine.
Outside of the often struggling remains of the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine Empire; from the coastal plains, to the mountains and dark forests of the continent, small states battled each other for supremacy in the power vacuum. As nobody could unite a large stable state, conditions became more chaotic, levels of thought diminished from long term to immediate concerns. The period in western Europe would come to be known as the Dark Ages due to stagnation and even decline of knowledge and infrastructure.
Though it constituted a constraint to learning and social evolution, the spreading religion of Christianity provided one of the stronger unifying forces in Europe and around the Mediterranean. In contrast to the Jews who were already chosen by god, the Christians sent forth missionaries to spread their faith to others. Lacking acceptance by mainstream Judaism following the death of Jesus, Christians had set out to attract converts wherever they could. Before Christianity ascended to the throne of the Roman Empire, as a religion it was necessarily inviting, as contrasted to the militaristic monster it would become after gaining the power of the empire. Even as the western half of the empire crumbled; and though Constantinople maintained a stronger position as a head of state; Rome managed to hold onto status a, if not the, primal bishopric in the Christian Church. As bishop of Rome, the Pope was traditionally seen as the successor of St. Peter, the man credited in the book of Matthew with founding the Church, though the Papacy was actually an established Roman institution prior to the rise of Christianity.
Early Christians such as Peter had no significant authority, or position of power. But by the time the church in Rome convinced much of the Christian world that it was the true seat of the faith and that the Pope spoke for God and Jesus, the church was firmly entrenched in formality and custom. More importantly, Christianity had in many areas reverted to its jealous and militaristic Jewish roots. Shortly after coming to power the Christians set to work outlawing other religions and killing off heresy: that being any doctrine not in accord with those of the universal, or Catholic, church. The religion was getting tough, lashing out to defend itself and making a habit of killing to save. Through missionary work and military force, Christianity’s presence continued to grow in Europe.
After the withdrawal of Roman troops, Jute, Frisan, Angle and Saxon tribes migrated to England, forcibly pushing the Britons back. Those invaders eventually dominated England politically. But beginning in 793 Viking raiders from Scandinavia began to raid and colonize England, culminating in the rule of England, Denmark and Norway by Canute, or Cnut, of Denmark in 1016. And after more succession trouble, in 1066 England was conquered by William of Normandy. Normandy was actually a region of France that had been given to the Vikings under Rollo in 911. So, although they had adopted French language and customs that they carried with them to England, the Norman aristocracy was also of Viking descent.
But England wasn’t the only country that came under the rule of Viking descendants. In their travels ranging from the Black Sea to North America the Vikings colonized numerous territories. Rurik, for example, established the city of Novgorod in the 850’s and his descendants the Rus established the Kievan Rus kingdom that gave its name to what is now Russia. But just as Vikings conquered Christian lands, Christianity made its way into Scandinavia and raids fell off after the Viking rulers were converted to Christianity.
Christianity had spread in North Africa and western Asia as well as Europe. And both Judaism and Christianity were popular in the desolate lands of Arabia, not far from their birthplace, alongside a number of local religions in the seventh century. And it was then, perhaps more than 1500 years after the beginnings of Judaism and about six hundred years after the life of Jesus, a merchant from Mecca named Muhammad, who was having trouble making sense of the world, took some pages from Judaism and Christianity, called it his own, and slapped the name Islam on it. In copying those who influenced his development and seeking his own fame, he proclaimed himself to be the last of an untold number of prophets including those instrumental to the development of Judaism and Christianity.
Not being well received in Mecca, some of his followers moved to Ethiopia and later back to the Arabian peninsula to the town of Medina not far from Mecca, where Muhammad joined them. He was a direly bitter man obsessed with killing, and set about conquering the world in the name of his petty, enraged god Allah. His followers were taught to destroy all unbelievers and Allah would burn them in hell causing pain unimagined on Earth. To ensure compliance Muhammad said that those Muslims who didn’t fight for Allah would share the same fiery punishment as the unbelievers while those who fought for Allah would be rewarded with paradise.
Soon Muhammad exploited old rivalries and tribal tensions to unite a group to attack Mecca. Mecca resisted, but Muhammad’s threats of death and horrid damnation and promises of eternal glory swelled his growing army with new recruits. Mecca capitulated to Muhammad’s growing power and he replaced their old religious icons with his own. Impassioned by Muhammad’s lust for conquest, the sparsely populated Arabian peninsula was converted during his lifetime. By his death in the year 632 his firestorm of contempt and conversion had begun to spread into Syria, Mesopotamia and Africa. And undeterred by the death of Muhammad, the jihad obsessed Muslims pushed on in their attempt to subdue the world as the sword of Allah.
The new Islamic zeal for expansion overwhelmed the tired and incoherent Byzantines and Persians. At the Battle of Yarmouk the Muslims routed a numerically superior Byzantine army to gain control of Syria. Byzantine forces consisted of a mixture of Russian, Arab, Armenian and various other ethnic peoples and their battle tactics were disorganized, timid and characterized by foolishness. In an act demonstrating lack of wit by employing symbolism at the expense of fighting ability, forces under the Byzantine General Gregory were reportedly chained together to demonstrate unity. The effect, of course, was to increase their burden and further reduce the mobility of an infantry unit that was already slow by nature.
The Arabs of Islam similarly defeated the Persians, most notably in the Battle of al-Qadisiyyah, and then swept through the Byzantine defenses of Egypt. In little more than ten years after the death of Muhammad the Muslim conquest had reached as far as Armenia and Turkestan. They were, however, unsuccessful in their sieges on the Byzantine capital of Constantinople in 678, and again in 718 when the Byzantines were aided by Bulgarians. In those conflicts the Byzantine’s made effective use of their newly invented “Greek Fire” against the Umayyad Muslim navy. And further to the east, the Khazars aligned themselves with the Byzantines and managed to block the Islamic conquest of Eastern Europe.
By the early part of the eighth century Muslims had pushed west from Egypt, capturing North Africa and from there they moved north across the Straits of Gibraltar and conquered what’s now Spain. After plundering Spain the Umayyads continued into modern France in the year 732, crushing the forces of Duke Eudes of Aquitaine at Bordeaux and sacking the city. Eudes appealed to Charles Martel of the Franks for help and the Christian Franks met the invading Muslims near the town of Tours. The Muslim army was a superior fighting force to the Franks, one of the Germanic tribes that had been hastened westward by the movement of the Huns centuries before.
Hosting a large complement of light cavalry, and heavy cavalry made possible through the use of stirrups on their horses, the Muslims held a decided advantage over the Franks, who had still not adopted stirrups for their relatively small cavalry. Had the battle been on open ground, it surely would have been a rout for the Muslims. But the battle of strategy was won by the Christians at Tours. Charles Martel knew the weaknesses of his force and he knew how powerful the Muslim cavalry could be, so he stayed off the main roads and advanced through the woods to find a defensible position at Tours. There he chose a wooded hilltop in the path of the advancing enemy that negated the cavalry advantage. And he waited.
The Muslim general, ‘Abd-al-Rahman, could have bypassed the Frankish forces and met them in battle at another time under more favorable conditions. Perhaps he thought that the Christians would combine with additional forces if given more time, or perhaps he was confident in the strength of his army and his god’s favor. Whatever the impetus of his reasoning, he made a critical mistake in choosing to engage Martel and his men where they were entrenched. ‘Abd-al-Rahman’s cavalry was neutralized by attacking uphill in the woods and much of the cavalry was lost as they repeatedly charged against fortified defenses.
The Battle of Tours ended with the Franks victorious and ‘Abd-al-Rahman himself dead. Though Martel turned back subsequent Umayyad invasions, historically, the Battle of Tours came to be known as the principal stand that saved Christianity in Europe. And Charles Martel’s grandson, Charlemagne, would expand what would come to be known as the Carolingian Empire in the early ninth century to include modern France, western Germany and northern Italy. But, in the mid ninth century the Carolingian Empire was divided amongst Charlemagne's grandsons into what would become France and the Holy Roman Empire.
By 750 Allah’s armies had lost momentum and began to turn on each other in power plays, resulting in the defeat of the Umayyads by the Abbasids in a Muslim civil war. The Abbasids then moved the caliphate, the center of Muslim world government, from Damascus to Baghdad. As western institutes of learning had been restricted to monasteries, Constantinople and Muslim cities such as Baghdad took over the lead in culture and science in Europe and western Asia. In the centuries to follow, the Islamic world continued to experience the cycle of empire with alternating fragmentation, consolidation, and expansion. And by the turn of the millenium, northwest India was falling under the dominion of Islam.
Not surprisingly, the decline of Christianity at the hands of the Muslims didn’t sit well with European Christians. The Byzantine Empire continued to battle with Muslims for control of the Levant: the area of modern Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. To that end the Western European countries decided to aid the Byzantines with some Crusades to regain the Holy Land. In 1009 the caliph of the Fatimid Dynasty, al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, had the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem destroyed. Though it was allowed to be rebuilt in 1039, visiting pilgrims were occasionally captured and some church officials were killed, inflaming Christian passions. Thus spurred to action, when Byzantine emperor Alexius I sought western assistance Pope Urban II encouraged a holy conquest.
The Crusades began in 1096, but the zeal of the Christians was in no way matched by their planning and organization. Before a professional army launch, a largely peasant army numbering perhaps 100,000 people, including women, set off walking to Jerusalem. But before they could even get to the Holy Land they had to march through many foreign territories. Unfortunately for them, they brought few provisions and lacked the foresight to make arrangements to feed their rag-tag army in the lands they had to cross. Though they considered themselves to be working for all Christians, they were very disappointed by the little aid they received from fellow Christians on their route. When hunger caused them to begin taking what they needed by force they were attacked by Hungarians, Bulgarians and even the Byzantines whom they were supposedly helping. By the time the amateur force reached Constantinople they had suffered substantial casualties and even the people of Constantinople were unable or unwilling to give them much aid.
And still not aligned with a Byzantine or other professional army, the volunteer army boldly crossed the Bosporus into Asia Minor, where they were subsequently slaughtered in great herds upon contacting the Turks. Some, including their leader, a monk from Ariens named Peter, managed to escape and rendezvous with an army of experienced soldiers that had finally arrived from Europe. But as bad as their failure was, they weren’t the only group of crusaders that left western Europe, some were actually attacked and destroyed in central Europe not long after leaving home. And some stirred up Christians expanded the war against the unbelieving Muslims to unbelieving Jews in their own countries. As had happened in countries throughout Europe since the introduction of Christianity, an army of Germans gave Jewish communities the choice of converting to Christianity or being killed, resulting in the death of thousands of Jews.
Still, a sanctioned army of trained soldiers did depart in 1096. They represented numerous, mostly French, territories. Unfortunately for them, their desires often transcended the stated cause and they quarreled among themselves and with Alexius of Constantinople. Despite the heavy internal bickering, harsh desert conditions, and a bout of disease, the Crusaders achieved great success. They marched down the Levant and captured many cities, including the traditional first city of Christianity Antioch, and finally the coveted prize, Jerusalem. In between sieging and slaughtering some of the cities, they defeated numerous Seljuk Turk armies and also marched south from Jerusalem and defeated a Fatimid army from Egypt as a historical bonus.
But, lacking settlers and resources to defend the territory gained, those Christian states established by the crusaders would eventually fall to the Muslims again, sparking future crusades. But subsequent crusades were not nearly so successful, largely because Christian infighting never subsided. By the time of the Fourth Crusade from 1202-1204, Christian resolve was so half-hearted that preparation for the crusade was a comedy of errors. Before even sailing for Egypt as planned, having secured only a third of the roughly 36,000 man army they had anticipated, the Christians found themselves deeply indebted to Venetian merchant marines with whom they had previously contracted transportation.
Through the combination of transportation debt and political intrigues, the Fourth Crusade was diverted from a mission to Egypt and recapturing the Holy Land, to settling old scores in the growing Latin and Greek church schism between Rome and Constantinople that led them to sack a number of Greek cities, and finally Constantinople itself. The principal casualty of the Fourth Crusade was the thin bond of Christianity that had hitherto tentatively united the eastern and western Christians against the similarly dis-joined Muslims.