may 10

Today in class we started a new powerpoint and took more notes on it.

- After Rome 500-700

Germanic Kingdoms of Western Europe
   The Germanic Brothers
- Barbarian warlords and their families who assimilated into Roman culture became the " nobles " or aristocrats of medieval Europe
- Germanic tribes who ruler former Roman lands sought to conquer and assimilate other barbarian people who lived beyond the frontiers and were still pagens

More on Germanic Kingdoms
- The Angles and the Saxons ( from Denmark and northwestern Germany) invaded Britain and assimilated the native Britains
- Most of the Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity in the seventh century
- The most powerful Germanic tribe was the Franks
- but the real power laid with the " mayors of the palace " who were royal officials and nobles themselves

Meanwhile, back in the Eastern Empire
- From " Eastern Empire " to ' Byzantium"
- The Eastern Roman Empire continued on while the west was now divided up by the barbarian tribes
- When the emperor Justinian came to power in 527, he decided to reunite the entire Roman Empire by re-conquering the western territories
- Justinian succeeded for a time, but the land he re-took was soon conquered by new barbarian tribes and a massive plague depopulated much of the west

It's a Christian empire now
- Greek byzantine emperors saw themselves as Roman emperors and the heads of the church
- Byzantines perserved Greco-Roman art, architecture, philosophy, and writing despite much it being non-Christian
-Justinian built the massive domed Hagia Sophia ( Holy Wisdom) in Constantinople considered to be the most glorious church on earth at that time

Third version finished in 537, the cathedral of Hagia Sophia, Justinain's cathedral, was later a mosque and is now a museum. Using knowledge of geometery of curves, it had a dome supported by arches high in the air that remained a model for both church-builders and mosque-builders for more than a thousand years

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