Middle Ages
the World from the 6th to 15th Centuries

home | ancient world | 16-17th centuries | 18-19th centuries | 1901 to World War II | 1945 to 21st century

Power and Class

Byzantium and the Sassanids make way for Islam -- Empires fail; Islam rises, expands and divides. 501 to 672

Islamic Empire and Disintegration -- expansion, the Umayyads, the Abbasids and Fatimids, 672 to 1055

Europe, from 501 to 1200 -- Britain, Slavs and Bulgars, Charlemagne, Hispania, crusaders and heretics.

India, from 501 to 1200 -- Hephthalites and declining trade; Islam arrives; stagnation and economic decline

Turks, Conquests and the Crusades -- the Seljuk Turks, crusades, Zengid dynasty, Saladin, 840 to 1212

The Sui, Tang and Song Dynasties -- dynastic rise and fall, conceit and military weakness, 501 to 1126

Genghis Khan and the Great Mongol Empire -- unity, law, conquest, succesion and division, 1200 to 1281

China from Mongols to the Ming -- rebellion and first Ming emperor; ocean voyages, Confucianism, to 1400

Japan to 1333 CE -- failed reforms; emperor figureheads; privilege and disorder; the Mongol invasions

Muslims from Samarkand to Instanbul, 1336 to 1483 -- Timur; Ottomans to the Balkans and Constantinople

Europe, 1201 to 1500 -- economic, technological and cultural change; monarchical power versus Church power

African Empires to CE 1500 -- monarchs and the divine, Ethiopia, Muslim migrations and trade with Europeans

Maya, Aztec, Inca, Inuit: before Columbus -- people of the Americas

Science and Philosophy

Western Europe -- Bede, Abelard, Lombard, Aquinas, Ockam, Aucassin and Nicolette

East Asia -- Cheng-Yi, Xhu-Xi, neo-Confuciansim

Muslims -- al-Kindi, Ibn Sena (Avicenna), al-Ghazali, Omar Khayyam

Religion

Christianity: Belief and Worldly Power -- monasteries, East-West schism, heresy, inquisition

Islam: its Medieval Interpretations -- Pre-Islam in Arabia, the Koran and Hadiths

Hinduism, Buddhism and Islamic Armies -- Bakhti, Krishna vs Vishnu. Ghurids against Buddhism and Hindusim "

Japan, Buddhism and Spiritual Bathing -- emperors, commoners, samurai, bushido, and zen

home | ancient world | 16-17th centuries | 18-19th centuries | 1901 to World War II | 1945 to 21st century