The First Millenium

[Vince]

Welcome to 624!


The Battle of Badr had involved a little more than 1,000 men and less than 100 killed, but it was a major turning point in early Moslem history. Mohammed defeats the Meccans and begins the Moslem Empire.

Now, Mohammed turns to raiding caravans and murder, claiming that Allah has told him to do it. He becomes an enemy of the city of Mecca after slaughtering members of one of their caravans.

 

[Vince]

We have now reached the year 625.

Pope Honorius I (died October 12, 638) was pope from 625 to 638. He taught that Jesus only had one will (Divine) and did not have a human will. Forty years after his death, he was condemned by the Catholic Church for this doctrine. The Catholic Encyclopedia notes: "It is clear that no Catholic has the right to defend Pope Honorius. He was a heretic, not in intention, but in fact;â€

Pope Honorius had fallen for a trick of logic. If Jesus had two natures (as the Catholic Church teaches), then how many wills did He have? Being perfect, Jesus must have had only one will. Was this will human or Divine? If it was Divine, then He did not have a human will. If Jesus did not have a human will, then He could not have had a human nature, so He only had one nature.

This failure of logic made Honorius one of the most famous Popes, as even Catholics would point to him as proof that people should not follow the Pope.

The Moslems suffer a major defeat at the Battle of Uhud. Attacked by a larger Meccan force, the Moslems were winning, when their archers disobeyed Mohammed's orders and started spoiling the Meccan camp. This gave the Meccans a chance to counter-attack, wounding Mohammed and killing many Moslems.

 

[Vince]

Welcome to 626 AD!


Sergius I, Patriarch of Constantinople, holds joint command of the city’s defenses when the Avars besiege Constantinople.He leads a public prayer just before the final attack of the Avars, and right after completing it a huge storm crushes the invading fleet, saving Constantinople. The storm was credited as a miracle of the Virgin Mary.

Arioald becomes king of the Lombards in Italy. He quickly restores Arianism as the state religion.

King Edwin of Northumbria establishes a fort that over the centuries will grow into Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland.

Taizong muders his two brothers, forces his father to abdicate, and becomes Emperor of the Tang Dynasty of China. Under his reign, China enters a Golden Age, becomes the largest and most powerful nation in the world, and sets a high standard for future emperors to follow. He quickly makes peace with the Turks, eases the burdens of farmers, and starts surrounding himself with competent advisers.

 

[Vince]

627 is a dynamite year for Turks and Byzantines.

With the Emperor Haraclius in personal command, the Byzantines invade Persia. At The Battle of Nineveh, Byzantium wins a smashing victory and within a year regains all the territory it had lost. There is never another war between the two empires: their wealth squandered on a war that was essentially a tie, they cannot afford to withstand the forthcoming Moslem attacks.

Still smarting from their two previous defeats, the western Turks ally with Byzantium, while the Avars ally with Persia. Expert at hand-to-hand combat but not at sieges, the Turks seize an “impregnable” Persian fortress and conquer large areas of land. Then the two allies successfully invade Iberia, conquering it after three years.

At the Battle of the Trench, Moslems withstand a twenty-five day siege by Meccans and Jews. The victorious Mohammed then orders the beheading of all the Jewish males who participated in the battle.

Edwin, King of Northumbria, converts to Catholicism. He founds Saint Peter's School in York, which is now the third-oldest school in the world.

 

[Vince]

It's 628, and Byzantium is still doing great.

A victorious Emperor Heraclius enters Jerusalem, accepting the Jews’ surrender. The autonomous Jewish community allies itself with him against Persia.

Losing badly, the Persians seek peace terms with Byzantium. They replace their emperor with his son Kavadh II, who quickly murders his father and eighteen brothers and makes peace with Byzantium.
Persia hands back Armenia, Byzantine Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine and Egypt. A few months later, Kavadh II dies.

But the western Turks do not make peace with Persia. Iberia (not to be confused with the Iberian Peninsula, which includes modern Spain and Portugal) was an Asian kingdom in the former Soviet Union that had been allied with Persia. The Turks destroy Tbilisi, Iberia's largest city.

Brahmagupta, the great Indian mathematician and astronomer, writes an early, yet very advanced, math book. He is the first person known to treat zero as a number, rather than a place-holder, and he develops rules for using negative numbers in math.

 

[Vince]

Things keep moving in 629.

Having accepted the Jews’ surrender and alliance last year, the Byzantines massacre most of the Jewish community in Jerusalem.

Mohammed sends a 3,000 man army against Arab tribes that had murdered his emissaries. But the Byzantines rush to their aid, driving the Moslems back. Fleeing the Byzantines, the Moslems use brilliant skirmishing tactics that convince the Byzantines that Moslem re-enforcements have arrived. The Byzantines retreat, allowing the Moslems to escape.

Al-Khansa, the best-known female poet in Arab literature, converts to Islam.

Dagobert I becomes ruler of all the Franks, re-uniting their fragmented empire. But his family's authority is collapsing, and his dynasty ends a few years later.

In Guatemala, the Mayans establish Dos Pilas as a military outpost to control a trade route. Nineteen years later, Dos Pilas revolts, conquering nearby kingdoms.

 

[Vince]

630 is a big year for the Moslems.


Muhammad's conquers Mecca. People in Mecca see Muhammad's strength as the power of his god, and they see the other gods as having become powerless. There is a mass conversion to Islam, and Muhammad adds Mecca's army to his own. Muhammad conquers the rest of Arabia, putting down others claiming to be prophets.

It’s a bad year for the eastern Turks. Winning their four-year-old war against China, the Turks lose their horses in a summer snowstorm. When they seize the horses of their conquered “allies,†the allies revolt, the Chinese join the allies, and the eastern Turkish kingdom disappears forever. China's Tang Dynasty is now stronger than ever.

Burandokht the Great assassinates her way to the throne of Persia. The daughter of their greatest king, she rapidly establishes justice, reforms the currency, and tries to rebuild Persia's shattered empire. The next year, she is assassinated.

 

[Vince]

Welcome to 631.

The Franks send three armies to invade the Slavs' new kingdom, and the Franks suffer a major defeat. A portion of their territory voluntarily goes over to the Slavs for protection, and the Slavs begin raiding the other Frankish territories.

But the Franks help Sisenand overthrow his father and becomes king of the Franks. He ends all taxes on the clergy and ends various abuses. He and the Catholic Church agree that future kings will be elected by a council that includes the bishops.

 

[Vince]

632

Mohammed dies. Almost immediately, the Ridda Wars begin, as various Arab tribes revolt against Moslem rule.

Queen Seondeok of Silla becomes the Korean peninsula's first known ruling Queen. Among her other accomplishments, she builds the Cheomseongdae (“Star Gazing Platformâ€). Still standing, this 90 foot tall observatory is one of the oldest scientific buildings in existence.

With no sons as heirs, the king chose Seoneok over her two sisters because of her great intelligence. With nearby Baekje in civil war and conflict, she managed to keep peace for most of her fourteen year reign, executing the leaders of two short-lived rebellions with little loss of life.

Raised in Byzantium, Khan Kubrat returns to the western Turks to take his place as rulers of the Bulgars. He quickly rebels against the Turks and establishes Great Bulgar as an independent kingdom in Asia that does not include any parts of modern Bulgaria.

 

[Vince]

Welcome to 633!

The Welsh unite with the German kingdom of Mercia to decisively defeat Northumbria. The most powerful German kingdom in England, Northumbria barely survives the defeat. It splits into two kingdoms, but eventually re-unites.

The Moslems end their civil war and invade Syria and Iraq.

In China, Li Chung Feng builds a celestial globe. Its outer surface omits the sun and moon, but it shows the relative positions of the stars and constellations.

 

[Vince]

634

Facing economic hardship, Moslems begin raiding and attacking peaceful neighbors in order to steal their wealth, declaring that Allah has commanded them to do it.

Folks, there is no possibility that Allah and God are the same person, or that Allah is another name for God.

The Moslems unite to form the Rashidun Caliphate, and within twenty-four years it grows to become the largest empire the world had ever seen up until that time. The Rashidun Caliphate rapidly seized northern Africa and southern Asia, and then quickly collapsed under civil war and assassinations.

In England, Oswald of Northumbria returns from exile, defeats the Welsh, and re-unites Northumbria, all in one year. Attacking his enemies, he becomes England's most powerful king before being killed in battle several years later.

In China, the powerful Tang Dynasty invades Tibet. It takes them a few decades, but the Chinese eventually win.

 

[Vince]

Welcome to 635 AD.


Christian missionaries arrive in China: Nestorian monks from Asia Minor and Persia build the Daqin Pagoda. The oldest surviving Christian church building in China, part of it still stands. Alopen, a Persian bishop of the Assyrian Church of the East, also writes the Jesus Sutras, which taught Christianity in Buddhist and Taoist terms.

Christianity had arrived in China during New Testament times, but had died out.

Kubrat, leader of Old Great Bulgaria in Asia, overthrows the last areas under control of the Avars, and the Bulgarians now have their own kingdom.

Catholic monks establish Lindisfarne as a "Holy Island" off the coast of Northumberland. It becomes a base for mission work in northern England.

Yao Silian, a Chinese scholar, completes the The Book of Liang, which his father had begun. It records the history of the two dynasties before the powerful Tang Dynasty, and includes an important history of Japan.

 

[Vince]

Sorry, Folks, but I accidentally combined 636 and 637 yesterday.

636 is a very good year for the Moslems.

Southeast of the Dead Sea, Moslems win a smashing victory over Byzantia at The Battle of Yarmouk. One of history’s most decisive battles, it marks the beginning of the first wave of Moslem conquests after Mohammed’s death. All of Syria falls to the Moslems.

637

Having decisively defeated Byzantium last year, victorious Moslems capture Jerusalem and Antioch.

In November, the Moslems win a decisive victory over the Persians and capture Persia's capital city, Ctesiphon. Ctesiphon had been the largest city in the world, but now Chang'an, capital of China, becomes the largest.

Moslems establish the city of Basra, in modern Iraq, along the banks of a canal.

 

[Vince]

Hopefully I'll keep the dates straight in 638.

Having invaded Tibet, the Chinese form a marriage alliance with them.

Both the Moslems and the Burmese introduce their new calendars.

Moslems capture Acre, in northern Israel.

Moslem pilgrims had to travel through a dangerously long dry valley on their way to Mecca. Moslems discover water in one area, digging several wells and founding the city of Hafar Al-Batin, which still exists.

 

[Vince]

Welcome to 639.

Expanding rapidly, the Moslems destroy Susa in Persia.

China's ally, the Xueyantuo, suddenly rebel and attack China's capital. Bogged down in a war on the Korean peninsula, the Chinese still manage to counter-attack, and seven years later, Xueyantuo is destroyed.

Having been conquered by the Chinese, the eastern Turks also rebel but are quickly defeated.

Shortly after being conquered by the Moslems, the Black Plague breaks out in Emmaus, in Palestine. About 25,000 people die, including many of Mohammed's companions.

 

[Vince]

640 is a bad year to be the Pope.


Pope Severinus was pope in the year 640, dying about ten weeks after assuming the Papacy. He had become Pope eighteen months earlier, but the Emperor refused to confirm him because Severinus believed that Jesus had two natures, and thus two wills. Agents of the Emperor legally entered the papal palace and looted it, but Severinus stood firm. The dying Emperor finally made Severinus Pope shortly before the elderly churchman died.

On December 24, John IV was made Pope. Reigning almost two years, he sent money to Dalmatia, which had been devastated by war. At the request of Dalmatia's prince, the Pope also sent teacher and missionaries.

The Moslems capture Syria and prepare to invade Africa. They invade Egypt and defeat a slightly larger Byzantine army, ensuring Egypt's eventual fall.

 

[Vince]

641 is a bad year to be a Byzantine Emperor.

February 11 – Byzantine Emperor Heraclius dies. He is succeeded by his sons Constantine III and Heracleonas, but Constantine III dies after few months. The Byzantine people suspect that he has been poisoned by Heracleonas, and depose him. Constans II, son of Constantine III, becomes emperor.

Reigning for 27 years, Constans was unable to stop the Moslem advances into Byzantine territory. He reduced the Pope's power and banned all discussion about how many natures Jesus had. The first Emperor in two centuries to visit Rome, he had ornaments stripped from Roman churches and taken to Constantinople. Despite a minor victory over the Slavs, he was unable to prevent the further collapse of Byzantia in Europe. Fearing that his brother would seize the throne, he had him murdered and was eventually assassinated himself.

In Spain, 79 year old Chindasuinth seizes the Visigoth throne. He executes 700 members of the nobility, gives confiscated lands to the Catholic Church, and establishes peace and prosperity.

Caesarea and Alexandria surrender to the Moslems, who then establish the city of Cairo, Egypt.

 

[Vince]

642

Pope Theodore I, was pope from November 24, 642, to May 14, 649. He fought the new doctrine that Jesus only had one will so fiercely that the Patriarch of Constantinople imprisoned the papal legates.

Pope Theodore I began using the title “Patriarch of the West.†In 2006, an embarrassed Vatican repudiated the title.

Moslems complete their shaky conquest of Egypt and destroy the Library of Alexandria. They next invade Nubia, the Black Christian kingdom to the south. After a series of unsuccessful invasions, the Moslems sign a peace treaty with the Blacks that lasts for six centuries.

In England, Northumbria is defeated by Mercia and the Welsh. Southern Northumbria temporarily forms a separate kingdom, and Northumbria's attempt to conquer all of England is halted.

Kōgyoku becomes the second of eight Japanese empresses. She later abdicates to her son, but when he dies, she re-takes the throne. During her reign, the Soga clan (of which she is a member) takes complete control of Japan.

PERF 558 is written. A tax receipt for a delivery of sheep, it is the oldest surviving Arabic writing. Written in both Greek and Arabic, it uses both the Moslem and Coptic calendars, thus helping scholars establish other dates.

English monks establish a settlement in Hampshire that eventually produces Winchester Cathedral.

 

[Vince]

Welcome to 643.

Moslems win their first victory in the province of Africa, defeating the Byzantines at Tripoli. After eight centuries of Roman/Byzantine rule, Tripoli is lost to Byzantium forever.

Peroz III, the last king of Persia, flees to the Tang Dynasty of China. The Chinese make him a general and governor of their areas near Persia, where he serves successfully. China also sends an ambassador to northern India.

 

[Vince]

644 is a fairly quiet year.

China's powerful Tang Dynasty invades Goguryeo, which included north, central, and part of southern Korea. Having suffered a disastrous defeat a few decades earlier, the Chinese were reluctant to invade again. But Korean general Yeon, learning that Goguryeo's king had ordered him assassinated, had killed the king first and placed a puppet on the throne. Belligerent and brilliant, Yeong was hostile to China. Fearing a Korean invasion, China reluctantly invaded first.

The Moslem Empire assassinates its leader, and 70 year old `Uthman ibn `Affan takes over. A companion of Mohammed, he expands the empire to its greatest height.