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In the Muslim world, assimilated Christians who spoke Arabic, adopted Arabic dress (including the veil for women), appreciated Arabic poetry and music, interacted with Muslims socially, and held haram food taboos were called [BLANK-1]. These Christians did not attach much importance to the religious differences between Christianity and Islam. Religious leaders and scholars of the time disagreed. On both sides, the Christian and the Muslim, religious leaders looked unkindly on these assimilated Christians.

Around the 2nd-4th centuries, the Christian Church formalized its leadership structures and centralized church authority. It borrowed Emperor Diocletian’s plan for geographical administrative divisions called dioceses, and assigned a leader to each of these dioceses called [BLANK-1]. These church officials were responsible for organizing preaching, overseeing the community’s goods, maintaining orthodoxy, and delegating responsibilities for preaching and teaching. The center of their authority was a huge church structure called a cathedral. Most of these church officials lived lives similar to the Church Father St. Ambrose of Milan and came to their positions in a similar manner. Ambrose was a rich and powerful Roman aristocrat who held high office in the state, converted to Christianity, and subsequently was named to this high church office. He was educated in classical law and rhetoric and became a notably eloquent preacher.

During the Kamakura Shogunate, Buddhism was spread to ordinary Japanese people by energetic preachers. One new sect of Buddhism was [BLANK-1] which was named after a fiery and intolerant preacher who lived from 1222-1282 and who claimed that in order to be saved, people had only to sincerely evoke the Lotus Sutra

Conflicts and complications between France and England existed since the Norman Invasion of England by the (French) Norman, William the Conqueror in 1066, and was exacerbated in the following decades and centuries. However, this muddled situation of political legitimacy for France and England reached its height in 1337, when the English King, [BLANK-1], claimed the right to inherit the French throne because he was the grandson of the French King. This began the Hundred Years’ War, which would eventually be won by the French after 116 years of intermittent combat.

[BLANK-1] is the longest-tenured non-governmental institution in world history. It is separate from other Christian institutions due to its commitment to Petrine Doctrine (the idea that Peter – the first pope – was given a privileged position in church hierarchy) and its insistence that the pope is the ultimate and infallible church authority. By the fifth century, popes of this Christian faith began to exercise a great deal of secular authority. They made treaties with political leaders and groups, charged taxes, enforced laws, and organized armies.

Beginning around 100, accelerating around 340, and slowing down by ca. 500, a large and diverse group of European tribesmen called [BLANK-1] migrated across Europe, generally moving West and North. This group included large factions known as Germans (including the Franks, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Burgundians, Anglo-Saxons, etc). and the Celts (whom the Romans called Gauls). These groups were under population pressures, first from Roman expansion and later from the invasion of the Huns; they were also searching for valuable land, goods, and food supplies due to the slight global cooling experienced in late antiquity. They received their name because they did not speak Greek or Latin, and the Greeks and Romans perceived them to be speaking nonsense syllables (akin to blah-blah or yada yada). These groups would set up patriarchal and hereditary kingdoms in some lands (France, England, Germany, North Africa, etc.) and would blend their culture with that of the Romans. For instance, many of these groups would convert to Christianity in large numbers. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the cities established by Rome declined and these groups were unable to maintain much of the technology and knowledge that had been common in Roman times (for instance, they did not know how to make glass or roof tiles) and they failed to maintain Roman roads and aqueducts. Most of the kingdoms these groups established were short lived; the obvious exception to this rule was the Frankish Kingdom, which reached its height with the rule of Charlemagne.

Rome’s third-century crisis ended when [BLANK-1] rose through the ranks of the military to take Rome’s throne in 284 C.E., ending the period of chaos. This Roman ruler adopted the court ceremonies and trappings of the Persian Empire. He also split the empire in half in 293, dividing the Roman Empire into the Eastern Roman Empire and the Western Roman Empire. He ruled the Eastern Roman Empire himself and gave a colleague the title augustus and the power to rule the western part.

During the Italian Renaissance, the subjects of artwork differed dramatically from those that had been commissioned by the Catholic Church during the Medieval Period. The Catholic Church had focused exclusively on religious subjects, usually of a repetitive theme such as the Crucifixion or Mother Mary holding the Baby Jesus (Madonna and Child). During the Renaissance, however, private patrons outside church control commissioned artists to paint, sculpt, or draw other topics. Portraits of wives, mistresses, or family members, as well as still life subjects such as fruit, larders, flowers, or depictions of the banal became known as [BLANK-1]. The Catholic Church found these artistic depictions obscene and objectionable because they did not relate to historical or religious subjects.

Invasions from great seafaring, warlike “Northmen” called [BLANK-1] around 800-941 led to serious crises in continental Europe, as states struggled to defend local villages and monasteries from attack. These Northmen originated in Scandinavia and extended their power there; by the ninth century, they regularly raided European monasteries and villages with deck-less boats that held around 50 men. They would rape, pillage, and plunder, and leave the communities devastated. The inability of state governments to effectively repel these attacks revealed their relative weakness and led to the rise of feudalism as a solution to provide better local protection for Europeans. The raids of these Northmen were remarkably widespread in the ninth and tenth centuries, originating in Scandinavia but ranging as widely as France, the British Isles, Spain, Russia, Anatolia, Iceland, Greenland, and North Africa. One group challenged Anglo-Saxon rule in Britain and eventually merged and intermarried with the Anglo-Saxon royal family.

Key Term Bank​Anasazi Cultures​Andalusia​Arabian Camels​Bactrian Camels​The Battle of Hattin​Book of the Gods and Rites​The Delhi Sultanate​Esoteric Buddhism​Fulcher of Chartres​Guidance: Alms, Marriage, and Testimony​The Gupta Empire​Honen Buddhism​Joseph de Acosta​Khanates​Llamas​Magyars​Mahmud of Ghazni​Mongols​Peasants​The Pyramid of the Sun​Scholasticism​Serfs​Shinran Buddhism​The Tale of Genji​The Tale of Heike​The Tea Trade​Turks​Vikings​Xiongnu​Yi Song-gye