RAC: Overview
Reorganization and Conquest: 600 - 1350 CE
Introduction
Think back to when you were a kid – were you the one building the block tower to the sky, or the one who crushed those towers? Or, did you like building as much as you liked destroying? Don’t worry – neither type says anything about who you are, but it might help you understand some of the empires in this module. So many large empires crumbled at the end of Module 2, and spoiler alert, the big empires of this era are going to face a crisis at the end of this module, too!
But in that “in-between” is a pretty sweet spot – a golden age: the world’s largest land empire, a revived trade network, and strangely enough, a little boy’s homework! The Caliphates, the Mongols, the Byzantines, the Kievan Rus, and the Western Europeans all had to answer the same question – what do you do when your tower blocks fall? And more importantly, do you have what it takes to stack them again (and again, and again)?
Essential Questions
- How did Western Europe reorganize society after the fall of the Western Roman Empire?
- How did the Byzantine and Mongol empires impact Kievan Rus?
- Why did Christianity and Islam split into smaller denominations?
- What was the political impact of Christianity and Islam?
- What were the contributions of Medieval Islamic scholars and Christian monastic people to science, math, geography, and art?
- How did Pax Mongolica, the Crusades, the Black Plague, and Dar al-Islam impact trade?
Module Lessons Preview
In this module, we will study the following topics:
Key Terms
The Byzantine Empire
The Great Schism of 1054 CE (Christianity)
The Origins of Islam
Islam: Beliefs, Growth, and Change
Islam: Dynasties
The Mongols: Background and the Rise of Genghis Khans
The Mongols: The Empire after Genghis Khan
Kievan Rus
The Western European Middle Ages: Structures
The Western European Middle Ages: The High Middle Ages
The Black Death
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