The world to 1500 : a global history by Stavrianos Leften Stavros

Author:Stavrianos, Leften Stavros
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Ancient, Middle Ages
Publisher: Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice-Hall
Published: 1982-03-01T16:00:00+00:00

destined to remain a dream, for soon after Charlemagne's death Europe was swamped by new waves of attacks from the south, the east, and the north. In the south, Moslem pirates and adventurers conquered the islands of Crete and Sicily and also raided all the Mediterranean coasts with devastating effect on maritime trade. In the east, still another nomadic force from Central Asia, the Magyars, reached the Hungarian plains in 895 and followed the example of the preceding Huns and Avars in raiding the surrounding lands.

Most wide-ranging were the raids of the Norsemen, or Vikings. They were the equivalent on sea of the nomads on land. In place of horses they built fast ships with shallow draught that gave them unrivalled speed and mobility. The Vikings from Norway sailed westward to Iceland, Greenland, and North America. With their comrades from Denmark they raided the British Isles and the west coast of Europe and even forced their way through the Straits of Gibraltar to ravage both shores of the Mediterranean. Since Sweden faces eastward, the Vikings from that country crossed the Baltic Sea to Russian rivers and followed them to their outlets in the Caspian and Black seas.

Thus the whole of Europe was overrun by these daring raiders. At first, in the late-eighth and ninth centuries, they were interested only in plunder, and they destroyed countless monasteries and towns. Few regions were safe, for the Norsemen with their shallow-draught ships were able to penetrate up the rivers far into the interior. In the churches of the time was heard the prayer, "From the wrath of the Northmen, O Lord, deliver us." In the tenth and eleventh centuries the Vikings began to settle down in the overseas territories, thus occupying and ruling large parts of northern France and the British Isles. But wherever they settled they were eventually absorbed into the existing Christian state. The king of France, for example, in the hope of forestalling further depredations by the Vikings, recognized their leader in 911 and gave him the title of duke of what came to be known as Normandy, a name derived from the Norsemen who settled there. One of the descendants of this Duke Rollo of Normandy was William the Conqueror, who successfully invaded England in 1066.

The triple assault of Moslems, Magyars, and Vikings destroyed the Carol-ingian Empire. Western Europe once more was in a shambles. The lowest point was reached in the tenth century. At no time since the end of the Roman Empire did the present seem so wretched and the future so bleak. (See Map XII, "Continued Barbarian Invasions in the West, 9th and 10th Centuries.")

V. THE GREAT WESTERN EXCEPTION

From this survey of the invasions marking the transition from the classical to the medieval eras, it is apparent that the various regions of Eurasia were affected quite differently. South China and south India were unscathed because they were geographically too remote to be reached by the invaders. Through the centuries, the Byzantine Empire, with its resourceful diplomacy

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