After Rome Notes

Today in class we took a pop quiz. I don't really know how well I did and I think I got confused on the different barbarians. Then we started taking notes on the time after Rome, which is from 500-700.

Germanic Kingdoms of Western Europe

• barbarian warlords and their families who assimilated into Roman culture became the "nobles" or aristocrats of medieval Europe
• Germanic tribes who ruled former Roman lands sought to conquer ans assimilate other barbarian peoples who lived beyond the frontiers and were still pagans
• the Angles and the Saxons (from Denmark northwestern Germany) invaded Britain ans assimilated the native Britons 
• Most of the Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity in the seventh century
• the most powerful Germanic tribe was the Franks 
• The real power lay with the "mayors of the palace" 
• mayors of the palace - royal officials and nobles themselves

Eastern Europe

• 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  

Now a Christian Empire

• Greek Byzantine emperors saw themselves as Roman emperors and the heads of the Christian Church 
• Byzantines preserved Greco-Roman art architecture, philosophy and writing despite much of it being non- Christian
• Justinian built a massive dome Hagia Sophia ("Holy Wisdom") in Constantinople considered to be the most glorious church on earth at the time