History of Europe

2008/9 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: History

The history of Europe describes the passage of time from humans inhabiting the European continent to the present day. The first evidence of people living in Europe dates back to 35,000 BC. Europe's ancient classical antiquity dates from Homer's Iliad in Ancient Greece of around 700 BC. The Roman Republic was established in 509 BC, which was usurped by Octavian's new Roman Empire at its first century peak. Christian religion was adopted in the fourth century, and in the sixth was organized, within the Empire, by Emperor Justinian I (527–565) as a Pentarchy of sees in its five most important cities: Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria. Faced with attacking hordes and plague, the Empire crumbled into east and west, and the dark ages gripped the heart of Western Europe. The Byzantine Empire kept the light of civilization burning in the East. A schism within the church's authority in 1054 was added to the earlier division that had persisted since 451 and was followed by Crusades from west to rescue the east from Muslim invasion. Feudal society began to break down, as the Mongol invaders carried the Black Death with them. Constantinople fell in 1453, yet the new world was discovered in 1492. Europe awoke from the medieval period through rediscovery of classical learning. Renaissance was followed by the Protestant Reformation, as German priest Martin Luther attacked Papal authority. The Thirty Years War, the Treaty of Westphalia and the Glorious Revolution laid the basis for a new era of expansion and enlightenment.

The Industrial Revolution, beginning in Great Britain, allowed people for the first time to break from material subsistence. The early British Empire split as its colonies in America revolted to establish a representative government. Political change in continental Europe was spurred by the French Revolution, as people cried out for liberté, egalité, fraternité. The ensuing French leader, Napoleon, conquered and reformed the social structure of the continent through war up to 1815. As more and more small property holders were granted the vote, in France and the UK, socialist and trade union activity developed and revolution gripped Europe in 1848. The last vestiges of serfdom were abolished in Austria-Hungary in 1848. Russian serfdom was abolished in 1861. The Balkan nations began to regain their independecne from the Ottoman Empire. After the Franco-Prussian War, Italy and Germany were formed from the groups of principalities in 1870 and 1871. Conflict spread across the globe, in a chase for empires, until the search for a place in the sun ended with the outbreak of World War One. In the desperation of war, the Russian Revolution promised the people "peace, bread and land". The defeat of Germany came at the price of economic destruction, codified into the Treaty of Versailles, manifested in the Great Depression and the return to a Second World War. With the victory of capitalism and communism over fascism, a cold new world order took shape. Western Europe formed a free trade area, divided by the Iron Curtain of the Soviet Union. When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Europe signed a new treaty of union, which in 2007 encompasses 27 European countries.

History of Europe Timeline
360 BC	Plato attacks Athenian democracy in the Republic.
323 BC	Alexander the Great dies and his Macedonian Empire fragments.
44 BC	Julius Caesar is murdered. The Roman Republic drawing to a close.
27 BC	Establishment of the Roman Empire under Octavian.
330	Constantine makes Constantinople into his capital, a new Rome.
395	Following the death of Theodosius I, the Empire is permanently split into eastern and western halves.
527	Justinian I is crowned emperor of Byzantium.
800	Coronation of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor.
1054	Start of the East-West Schism, which divides the Christian church for centuries.
1066	Successful Norman Invasion of England by William the Conqueror.
1095	Pope Urban II calls for the First Crusade.
1340	Black Death kills a third of Europe's population.
1337 - 1453	The Hundred Years War
1453	Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks.
1492	Christopher Columbus lands in the New World.
1498	Leonardo da Vinci paints The Last Supper in Milan, as the Renaissance flourishes.
1517	Martin Luther nails his demands for Reformation to the door of the church in Wittenberg.
1648	The Peace of Westphalia ends the Thirty Years' War.
1789	The French Revolution.
1815	Following the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte the Treaty of Vienna is signed.
1860s	Russia emancipates its serfs and Karl Marx completes the first volume of Das Kapital.
1914	Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria is assassinated and World War One begins.
1945	The Second World War ends with Europe in ruins.
1989 - 1992	The Berlin Wall comes down and the Treaty of the European Union is signed in Maastricht.

Prehistory

Homo erectus and Neanderthals settled Europe long before the emergence of modern humans, Homo sapiens. The bones of the earliest Europeans are found in Dmanisi, Georgia, dated at 1.8 million years before the present. The earliest appearance of anatomically modern people in Europe has been dated to 35,000 BC. Evidence of permanent settlement dates from the 7th millennium BC in Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece. The Neolithic reached Central Europe in the 6th millennium BC and parts of Northern Europe in the 5th and 4th millennium BC. The Trypillian civilization 5508-2750 BC was the first big civilization in Europe and among the earliest in the world, it was located in modern Ukraine and also in Moldavia and Romania. It was probably earlier than even the Sumerians in the near east. The Trypillyan had cities with 15,000 citizens 6,000 years ago who covered 450 hectares.

Also known as the Copper Age, European Chalcolithic is a time of changes and confusion. The most relevant fact is the infiltration and invasion of large parts of the territory by people originating from Central Asia, considered by mainstream scholars to be the original Indo-Europeans, although there are again several theories in dispute. Other phenomena are the expansion of Megalithism and the appearance of the first significant economic stratification and, related to this, the first known monarchies in the Balkan region. The first well-known literate civilization in Europe was that of the Minoans of the island of Crete and later the Mycenaens in the adjacent parts of Greece, starting at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC.

Though the use of iron was known to the Aegean peoples about 1100 BCE, it didn't reach Central Europe before 800 BCE, giving way to the Hallstatt culture, an Iron Age evolution of the culture the Urn Fields. Probably as by-product of this technological superiority of the Indo-Europeans, soon after, they clearly consolidate their positions in Italy and Iberia, penetrating deep inside those peninsulas (Rome founded in 753 BCE).

Classical worlds

The Greeks and the Romans left a legacy in Europe which is evident in current language, thought, law and minds. Ancient Greece was a collection of city-states, out of which a primitive form of democracy developed. Athens was the most powerful and developed city, and a cradle of learning from the time of Pericles. Citizens forums debated and legislated policy of the state, and from here arose one of the most notable classical philosophers, Socrates. An incessant inquirer, Socrates was put on trial and sentenced to death for "corrupting the youth" of Athens, when his discussions conflicted with the established religious beliefs of the time. Plato, a pupil of Socrates, recorded this episode in his writings, and went on to develop his own unique philosophy, Platonism. His student, Aristotle, taught Alexander the Great, who spread Hellenistic culture and learning to the banks of the River Indus. But the Roman Republic, strengthened through victory over Carthage in the Punic Wars was rising in the region. Greek wisdom passed into Roman institutions, as Athens itself was absorbed under the banner of the Senate and People of Rome ( Senatus Populusque Romanus). The Romans expanded from Arabia to Britannia. In 44 BC as it approached its height, its leader Julius Caesar was murdered on suspicion of subverting the Republic, to become dictator. In the ensuing turmoil, Octavian usurped the reigns of power and bought the Roman Senate. While proclaiming the rebirth of the Republic, he had in fact ushered in the transfer of the Roman state from a republic to an empire, Roman Empire.

Ancient Greece

• Homer, Iliad, Polis
• Greco-Persian Wars
• Delian League, Pericles, Peloponnesian War
• Athenian democracy
• Socrates, Plato, Aristotle
• Alexander the Great
• Macedon

Civic Hellenism

The Hellenic civilization took the form of a collection of city-states (the most important being Athens, Corinth, Syracuse and Sparta), having vastly differing types of government and cultures, including what are unprecedented developments in various governmental forms, philosophy, science, mathematics, politics, sports, theatre and music. The Hellenic city-states founded a large number of colonies on the shores of the Black Sea and the Mediterranean sea, Asia Minor, Sicily and Southern Italy in Magna Graecia, but in the 4th century BC their internal wars made them an easy prey for king Philip II of Macedon. The campaigns of his son Alexander the Great spread Greek culture into Persia, Egypt and India, but also favoured contact with the older learnings of those countries, opening up a new period of development, known as Hellenism.

The rise of Rome

Much of Greek learning was assimilated by the nascent Roman state as it expanded outward from Italy, taking advantage of its enemies' inability to unite: the only real challenge to Roman ascent came from the Phoenician colony of Carthage, and its defeat in the end of the 3rd century BC marked the start of Roman hegemony. First governed by kings, then as a senatorial republic (the Roman Republic), Rome finally became an empire at the end of the 1st century BC, under Augustus and his authoritarian successors. The Roman Empire had its centre in the Mediterranean Sea, controlling all the countries on its shores; the northern border was marked by the Rhine and Danube rivers; under emperor Trajan (2nd century AD) the empire reached its maximum expansion, including Britain, Romania and parts of Mesopotamia. The empire brought peace, civilization and an efficient centralized government to the subject territories, but in the 3rd century a series of civil wars undermined its economic and social strength. In the 4th century, the emperors Diocletian and Constantine were able to slow down the process of decline by splitting the empire into a Western and an Eastern part. Whereas Diocletian severely persecuted Christianity, Constantine declared an official end to state-sponsored persecution of Christians in 313 with the Edict of Milan, thus setting the stage for the empire to later become officially Christian in about 380 (which would cause the Church to become an important institution).

Dark Ages

When Emperor Constantine had reconquered Rome under the banner of the cross in 312, he soon afterwards issued the Edict of Milan in 313, declaring the legality of Christianity in the Roman Empire. In addition, Constantine officially shifted the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to the Greek town of Byzantium, which he renamed Constantinople ("City of Constantine"). In 395 Theodosius I, who had made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, would be the last emperor to preside over a united Roman Empire, and from thenceforth, the empire would be split into two halves: the Western Roman Empire centered in Ravenna, and the Eastern Roman Empire (later to be referred to as the Byzantine Empire) centered in Constantinople. The Western Roman Empire was repeatedly attacked by marauding Germanic tribes (see: Migration Period), and in 476 finally fell to the Heruli chieftan Odoacer. Roman authority in the West completely collapsed and the western provinces soon became a patchwork of Germanic kingdoms. However, the city of Rome, under the guidance of the Roman Catholic Church still remained a centre of learning, and did much to preserve classic Roman thought in Western Europe. In the meantime, the Roman emperor in Constantinople, Justinian I, had succeeded in codifying all Roman law into the Corpus Juris Civilis (529-534). For the duration of the 6th century, the Eastern Roman Empire was embroiled in a series of deadly conflicts, first with the Persian Sassanid Empire, followed by the onslaught of the arising Islamic caliphate ( Umayyad Dynasty). By 650, the provinces of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria were lost to the Muslim forces. In the Western Europe, a poltical structure was emerging: in the power vacuum left in the wake of Rome's collapse, localised hierarchies were based on the bond of common people to the land on which they worked. Tithes were paid to the lord of the land, and the lord owed duties to the regional prince. The tithes were used to pay for the state and wars. This was the feudal system, in which new princes and kings arose, the greatest of which was the Frank ruler Charlemagne. In 800, Charlemagne, reinforced by his massive territorial conquests, was crowned Emperor of the Romans (Imperator Romanorum) by Pope Leo III, effectively solidifying his power in western Europe. Charlemagne's reign marked the beginning of a new Germanic Roman Empire in the west, the Holy Roman Empire. Outside his borders, new forces were gathering. The Kievan Rus' were marking out their territory, a Great Moravia was growing, while the Angles and the Saxons were securing their borders.

The shadows of Rome

The Roman Empire had been repeatedly attacked by barbarian hordes from Northern Europe and in 476, Rome finally fell. Romulus Augustus, the last Emperor of the Western Roman Empire surrendered to the Hun King Odoacer. British historian Edward Gibbon argued in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776) that the Romans had become decadent, they had lost civic virtue. Gibbon said that the adoption of Christianity, meant belief in a better life after death, and therefore made people lazy and indifferent to the present. "From the eighteenth century onward", Glen W. Bowersock has remarked, "we have been obsessed with the fall: it has been valued as an archetype for every perceived decline, and, hence, as a symbol for our own fears." It remains one of the greatest historical questions, and has a tradition rich in scholarly interest.

Some other notable dates are the Battle of Adrianople in 378, the death of Theodosius I in 395 (the last time the Roman Empire was politically unified), the crossing of the Rhine in 406 by Germanic tribes after the withdrawal of the legions in order to defend Italy against Alaric I, the death of Stilicho in 408, followed by the disintegration of the western legions, the death of Justinian I, the last Roman Emperor who tried to reconquer the west, in 565, and the coming of Islam after 632. Many scholars maintain that rather than a "fall", the changes can more accurately be described as a complex transformation. Over time many theories have been proposed on why the Empire fell, or whether indeed it fell at all.

A Byzantine light

Many consider Emperor Constantine I (reigned AD 306–337) to be the first " Byzantine Emperor". It was he who moved the imperial capital in 324 AD from Nicomedia to Byzantium, refounded as Constantinople, or Nova Roma (" New Rome"). The city of Rome itself had not served as the capital since the reign of Diocletian. Some date the beginnings of the Empire to the reign of Theodosius I (379–395) and Christianity's official supplanting of the pagan Roman religion, or following his death in 395, when the political division between East and West became permanent. Others place it yet later in 476, when Romulus Augustulus, traditionally considered the last western Emperor, was deposed, thus leaving sole imperial authority with the emperor in the Greek East. Others point to the reorganization of the empire in the time of Heraclius (ca. 620) when Latin titles and usages were officially replaced with Greek versions. In any case, the changeover was gradual and by 330, when Constantine inaugurated his new capital, the process of hellenization and increasing Christianization was already under way. The Empire is generally considered to have ended after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.

The Plague of Justinian was a pandemic that afflicted the Byzantine Empire, including its capital Constantinople, in the years 541–542 AD. It is estimated that the Plague of Justinian killed as many as 100 million people across the world. It caused the Europe's population to drop by around 50% between 541 and 700. It also may have contributed to the success of the Arab conquests.

Feudal Christendom

The Holy Roman Empire emerged around 800, as Charlemagne, king of the Franks, was crowned by the pope as emperor. His empire based in modern France, the Low Countries and Germany expanded into modern Hungary, Italy, Bohemia, Lower Saxony and Spain. He and his father received substantial help from an alliance with the Pope, who wanted help against the Lombards. The pope was officially a vassal of the Byzantine Empire, but the Byzantine emperor did (could do) nothing against the Lombards.

To the east Bulgaria was established in 681 and became the first Slavic country. The powerful Bulgarian Empire was the main rival of Byzantium for control of the Balkans for centuries and from the 9th century became the cultural centre of Slavic Europe. Two states, Great Moravia and Kievan Rus', emerged among the Western and Eastern Slavs respectively in the 9th century. In the late 9th century and 10th century, northern and western Europe felt the burgeoning power and influence of the Vikings who raided, traded, conquered and settled swiftly and efficiently with their advanced sea-going vessels such as the longships. The Hungarians pillaged mainland Europe, the Pechenegs raided eastern Europe and the Arabs the south. In the 10th century independent kingdoms were established in Central Europe, for example, Poland and Kingdom of Hungary. Hungarians had stopped their pillaging campaigns; prominent nation states also included Croatia and Serbia in the Balkans. The subsequent period, ending around 1000, saw the further growth of feudalism, which weakened the Holy Roman Empire.

High feudalism

The slumber of the Dark Ages was shaken by renewed crisis in the Church. In 1054 a schism, an insoluble split, between the two remaining Christian seats in Rome and Constantinople.

A divided church

The Great Schism between the Western and Eastern Christian Churches was sparked in 1054 by Pope Leo IX asserting authority over three of the seats in the Pentarchy, in Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria. Since the mid eighth century, the Byzantine Empire's borders had been shrinking in the face of Islamic expansion. Antioch had been wrested back into Byzantine control by 1045, but the resurgent power of the Roman successors in the West claimed a right and a duty for the lost seats in Asia and Africa. One holy catholic and apostolic church. Pope Leo sparked a further dispute by defending the filioque clause in the Nicene Creed which the West had adopted customarily. Eastern Orthodox today state that the 28th Canon of the Fourth Ecumenical Council explicitly proclaimed the equality of the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople. The Orthodox also state that the Bishop of Rome has authority only over his own diocese and does not have any authority outside his diocese. There were other less significant catalysts for the Schism however, including variance over liturgical. The Schism of Catholic and Orthodox followed centuries of estrangement between Latin and Greek worlds.

Further changes were set afoot with a redivision of power in Europe. William the Conqueror, a King of Normandy invaded England in 1066. The Norman Conquest was a pivotal event in English history for several reasons. This conquest linked England more closely with continental Europe through the introduction of a Norman aristocracy, thereby lessening Scandinavian influence. It created one of the most powerful monarchies in Europe and engendered a sophisticated governmental system.

Holy wars

After the East-West Schism, Western Christianity was adopted by newly created kingdoms of Central Europe: Poland, Hungary and Bohemia. The Roman Catholic Church developed as a major power, leading to conflicts between the Pope and Emperor. In 1129 AD the Roman Catholic Church established the Inquisition to make Western Europeans Roman Catholic by force. The Inquisition punished those who practiced heresy (heretics)to make them repent. If they could not do so, the penalty was death. During this time many Lords and Nobles ruled the church. The Monks of Cluny worked hard to establish a church where there were no Lords or Nobles ruling it. They succeeded. Pope Gregory VII continued the work of the monks with 2 main goals, to rid the church of control by kings and nobles and to increase the power of the pope. The area of the Roman Catholic Church expanded enormously due to conversions of pagan kings ( Scandinavia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary) and crusades. Most of Europe was Roman Catholic in the 15th century.

Early signs of the rebirth of civilization in western Europe began to appear in the 11th century as trade started again in Italy, leading to the economic and cultural growth of independent city states such as Venice and Florence; at the same time, nation-states began to take form in places such as France, England, Spain, and Portugal, although the process of their formation (usually marked by rivalry between the monarchy, the aristocratic feudal lords and the church) actually took several centuries. These new nation-states began writing in their own cultural vernaculars, instead of the traditional Latin. Notable figures of this movement would include Christine de Pisan and Dante, the former writing in French, and the latter in Italian.(See Reconquista for the latter two countries.) On the other hand, the Holy Roman Empire, essentially based in Germany and Italy, further fragmented into a myriad of feudal principalities or small city states, whose subjection to the emperor was only formal.

The 13th and 14th century, when the Mongol Empire came to power, is often called the Age of the Mongols. Mongol armies expanded westward under the command of Batu Khan. Their western conquests included almost all of Russia (save Novgorod, which became a vassal), Hungary, and Poland (Which had remained sovereign state). Mongolian records indicate that Batu Khan was planning a complete conquest of the remaining European powers, beginning with a winter attack on Austria, Italy and Germany, when he was recalled to Mongolia upon the death of Great Khan Ögedei. Most historians believe only his death prevented the complete conquest of Europe. In Russia, the Mongols of the Golden Horde ruled for almost 250 years.

Black Death

One of the largest catastrophes to have hit Europe was the Black Death. There were numerous outbreaks, but the most severe was in the mid-1300s and is estimated to have killed a third of Europe's population.

Beginning in the 14th century, the Baltic Sea became one of the most important trade routes. The Hanseatic League, an alliance of trading cities, facilitated the absorption of vast areas of Poland, Lithuania and other Baltic countries into the economy of Europe. This fed the growth of powerful states in Eastern Europe including Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, and Muscovy. The conventional end of the Middle Ages is usually associated with the fall of the city Constantinople and of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. The Turks made the city the capital of their Ottoman Empire, which lasted until 1922 and also included Egypt, Syria and most of the Balkans. The Ottoman wars in Europe, also sometimes referred as the Turkish wars, marked an essential part of the history of southeastern Europe.

• Hanseatic League, Marco Polo, Lex Mercatoria, History of trade
• Western Schism (1378-1417)
• Hundred Years War, Joan of Arc

Europe's awakening

Renaissance

Petrarch wrote in the 1330s: "I am alive now, yet I would rather have been born in another time." He was enthusiastic about Greek and Roman antiquity — great men who were dead. Matteo Palmieri wrote in the 1430s: "Now indeed may every thoughtful spirit thank god that it has been permitted to him to be born in a new age." The renaissance was born: a new age where learning was very important.

The Renaissance was inspired by the growth in study of Latin and Greek texts and the admiration of the Greco-Roman era as a golden age. This prompted many artists and writers to begin drawing from Roman and Greek examples for their works, but there was also much innovation in this period, especially by multi-faceted artists such as Leonardo da Vinci. Much of the Greek texts came from Islamic sources, who also improved upon them. Important political precedents were also set in this period. Niccolò Machiavelli's political writing in The Prince influenced later absolutism and real-politik; also important were the many patrons who ruled states and used the artistry of the Renaissance as a sign of their power.

Reformation

During this period corruption in the Catholic Church led to a sharp backlash in the Protestant Reformation. It gained many followers especially among princes and kings seeking a stronger state by ending the influence of the Catholic Church. Figures other than Martin Luther began to emerge as well like John Calvin whose Calvinism had influence in many countries and King Henry VIII of England who broke away from the Catholic Church in England and set up the Anglican Church. These religious divisions brought on a wave of wars inspired and driven by religion but also by the ambitious monarchs in Western Europe who were becoming more centralized and powerful.

The Protestant Reformation also led to a strong reform movement in the Catholic Church called the Counter-Reformation, which aimed to reduce corruption as well as to improve and strengthen Catholic Dogma. An important group in the Catholic Church who emerged from this movement were the Jesuits who helped keep Eastern Europe within the Catholic fold. Still, the Catholic Church was intensely weakened by the Reformation, large parts of Europe were no longer under its sway and kings in the remaining Catholic countries began to take control of the Church institutions within their kingdoms.

Unlike Western Europe, the countries of Central Europe, the