1000 AD - A Tour of Europe / Medieval History Documentary

in spring 996 a solemn procession of horsemen came riding down the alpine passes of northern Italy and onwards towards the mighty city of Rome once the capital of the known world times had been hard of late for the great city finding itself increasingly dominated by men from the north with gilded swords and glittering coats of mail most of those present were veterans of the near perpetual border wars fought by their kinsmen to retain hegemony over their massive and at times unwieldy state many came from the rich and fertile lands along the Rhine River Valley some the rolling hills of bavaria ervice the dark forests of Thuringia a few of the men present likely even hailed from the Slavic marches on the northeastern borders of the realm their leader however like all German kings since Henry the Fowler first forged together their state amidst the chaos of the Magyar invasions was a Saxon at just 16 years old practically all of those years spent in stoic education and preparation for rule he had just come of age and now following in the footsteps of his father and his grandfather before him he'd ridden south to the imperial city to stake his claim as successor to the Emperors of ancient Rome that king was the ruler of East Frankia Otto the third the first iteration of the German state and just as his father and grandfather had done before him he was about to become an emperor [Music] for many of those battle-hardened power brokers present the event was an especially celebratory one after all for a boy King to survive into adulthood amidst a sea of rebellious subjects scheming family members and hostile foreign powers was a remarkable achievement of which much of the credit should be given to his widowed mother Theo farno for Otto himself however a solemn exceptionally well educated and pious young man it had darker overtones to his father otto ii had been emperor before him and his father the founder of east Frankish greatness Otto the first had been Emperor before him each one having ridden at the head of a battle forged army to lay claim to the throne once held by their spiritual predecessor the great Frankish king Charlemagne what distinguished the third auto from his predecessors however was his mother Theo far no unlike German queens that came before the most exotic hailing from England she'd been born at the great city of Constantinople capital of the still existing East and portion of the Roman Empire a piece weaving nice of its Emperor John Zima skis for Zima skis the marriage likely represented little more than a diplomatic overture as far as he was concerned an extension of goodwill to the barely civilized Germanic barbarians who now held sway over much of the heartland of the now-defunct western roman empire after all barely a decade earlier Zima skis his predecessor no Sepphoris focus had waged war against auto ii for control of southern italy a mostly cold war continually stoked by cultural differences between the two christian empires in the early 1980s however this southern Italian theater had cost Otto the second dearly though little actual fighting had taken place between German and Byzantine machination 's ultimately led to his army being wiped out but the invading Kalba Damir of sicily forced to flee in shame on a merchant vessel otto died soon afterwards leaving Theo farno to raise their infant son into adulthood alone beset by instability at every turn from pagan Slavic border landis to discontented Nobles [Music] - Otto the third therefore born of the blood of two empires schooled from his earliest years by the most prestigious scholars Western Europe had to offer proficient in three languages and well drilled in the sword crafts and strategies of war his coming to Rome and subsequent coronation under the auspicious title emperor of the Romans was far more than a simple power play the blood of both east and west ran through his veins as far as he was concerned he was the prince that was promised in Christian theology destined to reunite both portions of the Roman Empire under a single dynasty and perhaps as holy man and Hermits from Egypt to the windswept islands of the North Atlantic foretold to usher in the end of days at the closing of the first millennium for it had been nearly 1,000 years since the birth of Christ and as this all-encompassing date approached though no one knew exactly what would happen the omens could scarcely be ignored quite simply Otto and a significant number of his contemporaries saw himself as the last Roman Emperor though in truth he would live for just a handful more years dying young in his early 20s Otto spent nearly the entirety of the rest of his life in Rome grimly awaiting the approach of the end times even after his death in 1002 the impending approach of the apocalypse postponed now to the thousandth anniversary of Christ's death remained on the minds of scores of Christians from the shores of the Irish Sea to the Fertile waters of the Nile [Music] this was a time of portents of dark omens of Hermits and holy man preaching the coming of the Antichrist and the end of all things of collapsing empires of warrior Lords and a new world on the horizon hi my name's Pete Kelly I'm the creator of this channel join me after this brief advertisement as we explore every remote corner of this fascinating and storied continent at the turn of the first millennium a time when almost all of the European countries we know today first began to take shape this video is sponsored by a longtime supporter of the channel Magellan TV a bit like Netflix but entirely for knowledge this educational streaming service has over 2000 documentaries to choose from on all manner of different subjects history science nature culture and geography including films series and standalone documentaries you can't find anywhere else you can watch Magellan TV anywhere at any time on any device and it even streams in beautiful 4k through the easily downloadable app there are no ads or limited access at any time and new documentaries are added on a weekly basis those of you who head on over to try Magellan tv.com forward slash History time or follow my link in the description below we'll get a completely free trial so why not go and check out this epic series on the normans once you've finished this video it follows on chronologically from this one and many others that I've made and is a great introduction to this influential people whose actions changed the world head on over and get yourself some free knowledge now without further ado back to medieval Europe at the turn of the millennium by the Year 1000 much had changed in Western Europe since the death of Charlemagne two centuries earlier that great progenitor of nearly every Royal House on the continent and the most successful and remarkable of all the monarchs to hold sway in the West since the fall of Rome many had attempted to emulate his accomplishments and attributes and many more would continue to do so after this time though Athelstan first King of the English had laid claim to the title emperor of all Britain and the Danish King Canute would call himself emperor of the North a century later it was the German atone Ian's descendants of the saxon duke henry the fowler who had been the most successful of all his power forged on the battlefield against invading magyar horse nomads many of Charlemagne's descendants had called themselves emperors though Henry's son Otto actually had the audacity and the power to ride down to the holy city of Rome itself and lay claim to the very heart of the old Empire whilst retaining hegemony over the sprawling massive powers to the north of the Alps some of them lands never held by the Romans when compared to their West Frankish neighbors until very recently still ruled over by the descendants of the Great King the success of the eastern portion of Charlemagne's empire makes sense the West Franks flanked only by the sea and Christian neighbors to the south and east but long ago ran out of pagan enemies to war against to their south they the Christian kingdoms of northern iberia themselves long having proved a buffer against the Caliphate of al-andalus beyond still a rich and prosperous bastion of learning though now held in the clutches of the ruthless tyrant al-mansour to the north lay more independent buffer states in the form of Normandy and Brittany the first ruled over by descendants of Norseman the second Celtic descendants of Britons from across the channel perpetual warfare against neither could be justified but kings and Lords still needed to reward their followers with property and plunder in order to retain their power and of course ambitious second sons still sought lands of their own naturally because of a lack of enemies to war against the west Franks had turned on each other in terms of a lack of new lamps for sons to inherit the situation was not too dissimilar to England by the time of Ethelred the unready in 1002 the descendants of Alfred the Great who ruled fur from Cornwall in the south to Lothian in the north along with the various magnates and power brokers under them had become victims of their own success the East Frank's on the other hand had more enemies than they knew what to do with this might have proved a disaster for many but for the descendants of warriors who only two centuries earlier had been defiant pagans fiercely militaristic enemies of Charlemagne it was an opportunity it had taken Charlemagne more than three decades to finally subdue the Saxons and in the twilight years of the first millennium they still retained the heavily martial culture of their forefathers just like with the English reconquest of the Danelaw achieved by the descendants of Alfred in the early 10th century and unlike the West Frankish magnates reduced to fighting against each other to claim new lands as long as they converted to Christianity ambitious Germans and even Slavs could be rewarded with land and title in west Frankia though the family of Charlemagne had clung on to power wherever they could in the centuries following his death but the year 1000 on a good day regional magnates paid lip service to the king on a bad one they went their own way entirely fighting pitched battles against neighboring lords to expand their own power engaging in vicious family feud's spanning generations in the 10th century the most successful of these dynasties of power brokers feeding off the weakness of the crown had been the Roberti UNS descended from robert for strong a war leader endowed with power against viking incursions in the ninth century two of Robert's descendants had briefly been made king in the struggle against the Carolingians imprisoning King Charles the simple in a tower before his son Louie was allowed the throne back supported by another descendant of the Roberti ins Hugh the great a shrewd ruler and de facto leader a Frankia who realized the official title of King had become unimportant by the late 10th century however having grown rich as the mayors of Paris some of Roberts descendants began using a new title named for Hugh the Great's earned Hugh Capay finally they would begin ruling as Kings the Capetian dynasty was born Frances ruling house until the 14th century by the year 1000 however the office of King had been eroded so much by the actions of regional Lords but really it didn't matter much in reality it would take more than a century for the kingship to gain importance again in France it was into this vicious landscape with centralized power all but a thing of the past that any self-respecting lord worth their salt would build themselves a castle often many and begin recruiting outside US and peasants into their own personal retinues and war bands these were the first Knights perhaps the most famous of these castle builders would be Falken era the count of Anjou in the relatively small landscape of the Loire River Valley folk built more than a hundred castles on either side of the Millennium a situation that would have never been allowed had a strong King sat on the throne one of the first Lords to utilize stone masonry on a wide scale Fulks castle building and that of other lords like him inspired a whole new arms race of fortification building not seen in the West since the days of the Romans the age of the castle builders had begun over the space of 50 years Volk for successive Wars with Brittany Bois qu'atsu and Aquitaine engaging in a near perpetual war of attrition with the common people in his Borderlands to a certain extent it was the same all over Frankia from burgundy to Flanders to Aquitaine to the north it was also within this environment that the Norman Lords honed their soldiers and knights into the most effective fighting force seen in this part of the world for centuries [Music] when these competing warlords finally began looking outwards by the 10 90s fighting external enemies rather than each other following in the footsteps of the Normans the Crusades would begin of course the Normans would also conquer England but at the turn of the millennium this war-torn island was beset by an older foe the last resurgence of the Vikings if you want to hear more about this part of Europe I recently made an hour long tour of the Viking world during this same time including Britain Ireland Iceland Scandinavia and more I've also made an entire playlist of videos about the Vikings and the Anglo Saxons go check it all out here to the north of East Frankia lay Denmark mostly pacified of late due to the conversion of its ruling house birth potentially a threat still a resurgent pagan bastard child of the Danish king by the name of Sven Forkbeard having seized the opportunity of our toe the seconds death in 983 to ravage south over the border ultimately using the renowned he won there to overthrow his father Harald Bluetooth usually regarded is the first king of a unified Danish state though times had changed in the north and before long faced with the potential severing of trade links to the south Sven Forkbeard realized the power and Christianity and besides easier pickings could be found across the channel in Britain [Music] fork beards father Harald Bluetooth had himself waged wars against the realms of Norway and Sweden to the north in turn doing Otto's job for him in seeking to convert the pagans there to Christianity and now Sivan Forkbeard would inadvertently continue to do the Lord's work another Christian King had arisen in the far north too perhaps an unlikely candidate for conversion but one who enthusiastically adopted the religion of the Romans nonetheless like Forkbeard as soon as he realized the wealth and power that might follow his name was Olaf Frigg vassan a Viking sea Raider who'd made a name for himself in exploits from the ki Evan waterways of Eastern Europe all the way to the Irish Sea and just like the Danish kings he'd grown rich and fat from picking at the prosperous yet increasingly divided English kingdom to his West and now by adding the white Christ from the south to the North Pantheon alongside Odin and Thor he would become yet more powerful still known as crow bone to his contemporaries invoker of fear and wander from her ogle and in the north to the Straits of Kattegat in the south owner of the long serpent the greatest longboat to the north had ever seen trig vassan was arguably more brutal and authoritarian than any pagan ruler who had come before him said to wear a cape of pure crimson armor of glittering gold trick vassan gave the various chieftains and clan leaders of the North Way a simple choice adoptees new religion or die often in gruesome and inventive ways of course Scandinavia was too small for two all-powerful conquering kings and just as the 1,000th anniversary of Christ's birth was ushered in a truly apocalyptic battle was fought in the frosted seas around Denmark for some of those present Forkbeard having recruited men from as far north as the subarctic hello gallant where men hunted walruses and polar bears he portrayed himself as the defender of the old ways for this was a battleground of the mind an apocalyptic struggle between tradition and the new ways of the south for the staunchly pagan warrior Lords of the North Way this was a fight for cultural survival their very way of life and their history for the Christians of southern scandinavia and their German allies it was a war for the immortal souls of their kinsmen but of course for Forkbeard and trig parson this was a power struggle a game of Thrones between the two apex powers in the north boldly plying north from the southern coast of the Baltic Sea perhaps after cementing an alliance with the polish rulers who held sway their trig vassan walked the decks of the largest long ship ever yet seen in the world though in truth his power was built on reputation the rest of his fleet being small out there waiting for him in the myriad archipelagos of the Danish sea lay a vast coalition of vessels pagon norwegian chieftains and vengeful danish oarsmen alike come together to put an end once and for all to trig vast sums reign of terror by day's end the long serpent finally rammed and boarded by Eric Hawk onsens iron beard housecarls and kinsmen falling all around him wave after wave of warriors felled by his own sword Oh laughs trick Vasanth King of Norway rather than fall alive into the hands of the Danish King left to his death in the icy waters of the Baltic Sea his adversary dead the way was finally clear for Forkbeard to unite the north before turning his gaze once more back to the fertile shores of England of course for all the epic retellings in the saga tradition in actuality for many residents of Scandinavia the Battle of smolder meant little in particular those Lords who had supported Forkbeard in his struggle for they the y'alls of late of late led by Erik hakonsen a giant of a man and a fierce pagan had little in common with their southern Norwegian neighbors and little concept of a unified nation many who lived there in one of the most northerly regions of mainland Europe were hunters fishermen and traders there were some of course who took the sea road south into the Baltic Sea perhaps Laden down with seal pelts and lucrative walrus tusks in order to trade for amber with the Slavs living along the coast they at least had one thing in common with the people who lived on these coastlines the old gods large quantities of Wen's and Slavs in fact perennial enemies to the East Franks would remain staunch pagans for centuries to come some of the last in Europe it was there on the Wendish and Slovak marches that practically every German Lord worth his salt would forge his battle skills against the old enemy yet there were allies amongst the Slavs - just to the south of the whens lay another related yet more amenable people for this was the realm of the poles Frankish missionaries had been far more successful there over the years recognizing its ruling elite as potential friends in the process large portions of the peasantry still worshipped idols of course as they would for decades perhaps centuries to come but the nobility for the most part could be worked with at first under the Duke Mieszko but most notably under his son boleslav a ruler who in the year 1000 just as long ships crashed together in vicious melee to the north boleslav would make a lasting peace and proclamation of personal friendship to the emperor otto the third yet the polls weren't the first Slovak possessors of a unified state the very first had existed back in the murky days of the seventh century not too long after the ancestors of the Slavs first arrived in Central Europe from the East said to be led by a renegade Frankish merchant perhaps implementing societal reforms and infrastructure borrowed from the Merovingian francs and in turn the Romans predecessors to Charlemagne [Music] Simoes Empire had burned brightly and went out just as quickly though its legacy would remain and soon enough a new state was born great Moravia one of the most powerful influential and earliest of all Slovak States ultimately more Avia christian eyes by the Carolingians during the early 9th century would collapse under the weight of invading step warriors from the east during the early 10th though when the German King Henry the Fowler finally picked up the pieces and pushed the Magyars back the legacy of samo and great Moravia emerged again in the form of Bohemia a Slovak Duchy in the newly forged Holy Roman Empire of the Saxon Kings unlike Bohemia the land of the poles had been relatively untouched by the Maquis our incursions and thus when Otto ii and otto the third dealt with the polish rulers for the most part they did so as equals as allies for mutual gain reflected in Boleslav title of king and his independent status beyond the states however as far as the east franks were concerned many older folk still bearing the scars of the terrible invasions of only a few decades before resided one of the most feared groups of people ever to ride into Europe the Magyars as recently as the 950 s they'd ravaged the Rhineland riding in huge bands of horsemen in order to plunder take slaves burn and ruin perhaps most terrifying of all however was the fact that these were unashamed pagans it was clear that this was a different sort than the Scandinavians and the whens likely venerating sky gods of the Eurasian steppe though as far as Otto's immediate predecessors were concerned the distinction mattered little they were Idol worshipers nonetheless at the end of the 9th century ever since they first rode out into the Carpathian Basin from the open steps to the north of the Black Sea the same prayer had been heard in churches from Spain to Italy to France to Germany dear God please save us from the ravages of the Magyars year after year they came sweeping down over the Alps to plunder Italy even racing over the Pyrenees into Iberia only the sea stopped them from heading across the channel to ravage England during Otto's reign after half a century of near continual raids the Magyars still represented the greatest threat to East Frankia yet they were also the catalyst for its greatness for when Otto had rallied together the various German Nobles to push the Magyars back at the lechfeld in 955 he had been hailed as savior of Europe even Muslim rulers such as Abdel Rahman of al-andalus had praised him sending a menagerie of elephants and camels as a gift to the German king but Otto wasn't content with ending the Magyar invasions far from it he used the success to propel himself to the position of emperor in Rome the first non Carolingian ever to bear that title now however fifty years later for lack of a better option no longer able to range far and wide throughout Europe Otto the third just like with boleslav to the north would attempt to turn the Maquis ours into allies gifting their primary chieftain with a rich array of treasures and having him baptized as the first king of Hungary he'd been born vag but his Christian name would be Steven and though he has been born a pagan horse Lord bearing much more resemblance to a step con than a Christian king he would die an anointed Ally to the papacy in Rome and one of the most important rulers in all of Europe still revered today as the patron saint and founder of the medieval Hungarian Kingdom the subsequent Christianization of the Pannonian Basin was one of the most important transformations in European history but of course for all of the Otto nians greatness for all of our toga Third's overtures in bringing previously dangerous pagan kingdoms into the fold there was another Empire a much older wat and they'd been doing the same for much much longer though their Christianity was different from that of the western US they followed an older Crete one that had changed little since the days of Justinian five hundred years before the [Music] eastern and western churches wouldn't officially split for another half century though they had drifted considerably over the years the West looking to Rome the East Constantinople though Otto's mother Theo farno had hailed from Constantinople he himself was undoubtedly a westerner having been raised under the auspices of his father's people and educated by Western holy men one of whom Gobert of aurillac his chief adviser had been made Pope in Rome in 999 partly to keep Eastern Roman churchmen in check and of course to help Otto see in the new millennium the Byzantines on the other hand genuine successors to the legacy of ancient Rome had already weathered their fair share of apocalypsis over the years faced with near enumerable attempts to conquer the great city of Constantinople named for the very first Christian Emperor by Otto's day as far as most Eastern Romans were concerned the dark days were over [Music] during the early 8th century just as the Merovingian Frankish ruler Charles Martel held off against encroaching Berber and Arab invaders from the south Constantinople faced a truly colossal Khalifa fleet numbering perhaps 100,000 man [Music] hemmed in behind the mighty Theodosian walls built to stave off the Huns during the fifth century the Byzantines were only able to save themselves by utilizing an equally apocalyptic weapon in the form of Greek fire a primitive form of napalm the decline of eastern roman power brought on at least in part by the Islamic invasions during the 7th and 8th centuries had opened the floodgates for a deluge of new peoples to spread into Eastern Europe the first of these like the Magyars who came later whoo horse masters who had originated out on the Eurasian steppe said to have been comprised of five tribes each led by a son of the Great Khan Kubrat the balkis had originated in the semi-mythical realm of old great Bulgaria somewhere to the north of the Black Sea perhaps scattered by the arrival of a newer more powerful steppe people from the east one of those bands led by the genuine historical figure aspera that at first ridden to war against the Byzantines and later to their aid against the Umayyad caliphate this complicated love/hate relationship would continue for centuries to come bulgaria ever growing in power and size as the horselords of the steppe merged ever more with their Slavic subjects forging a vast empire to rival Constantinople by the late 10th century having succeeded in converting the bogus to the Roman faith and spurred on by the collapse of the last great Arabic Empire the Abbasids the resurgent Byzantine state finally began a systematic disruption of the Bulgarian leadership along with the incorporation of the now Slavic infused population into the rest of the Empire truth be told far from apocalyptic the last days of the 10th century had seen a spectacular resurgence of Byzantine power for the first time since the days of Justinian after hundreds of years of collapsing frontiers and perennial attacks from enemies on all sides the Empire was growing larger for this was the age of the soldier Emperor's first under nice efforts focus a stoic zealot not unlike his contemporary owlman's or in al-andalus given his taste for massacring and enslaving entire towns and cities along with his near fanatically aesthetic and pious nature a lifelong soldier as the supreme general of the east focus had succeeded in driving back the Islamic tide during the mid 10th century reconquering Silesia Antioch and Crete along the way after his Proclamation as emperor in 963 he even made plans for southern Italy just as off to the second did likewise yet despite his astounding success on the battlefield focus was extremely unpopular with the people thus giving an inn for his imprisoned and estranged general John Zimmer Skees who snuck into the Imperial Palace in 969 to murder his former commander rather than being hailed as a usurper the dashing zimis geese expertly utilized the unpopularity of his predecessor gaining control of the army and only continuing focuses uncompromising and spectacular victories but of course there were always more barbarians to deal with not from the east now but from the north across the Black Sea and deep into the wild river systems never held by the Romans the one weak spot in Constantinople defenses and this new foe came in on long ships sailing down the river systems of the east an amalgamation of Swedish adventurous made common course with Slavic tribes and new people had been forged for their enemies a powerful and devastating foe these warriors known as the ruse combined the ruthless efficiency of their Scandinavian ancestors with the turf resilience of the Slavs and even some aspects of steppe people's such was their close proximity to groups such as the Pechenegs kazar and mac eos before they invaded the hungarian basin and settled down in truth for centuries past the apex power to the north of the Black Sea had been the khazar khaganate the Khazar had once been the Lords of one of the most powerful realms in Eurasia expertly combining the ferocity of their step ancestry with the statesmanship of the Romans and abbasids to their South back during the 7th century following the collapse of the first great Turkic carnate to dominate the Eurasian steppe they dread and West onto the plains north of the Black Sea subjugating old great Bulgaria along with the other step tribes of the region such as the pechenegs magyars and even the August Turks ancestors to the Seljuks the descendants of one of those brothers from old great Bulgaria still survived in the year 1000 making their home along the Volga River becoming Muslims and enjoying good trade links with the Abbasid Caliphate to the south in the process the case ours on the other hand opted for a different path unwilling to definitively choose a site in the unfolding conflict between Romans and the Caliphate they instead adopted Judaism as fellow people of the book they could still be regarded as a great power but hold on to their own independence ruling through militaristic subordinates as fellow people of the book they were able to gain extensive diplomatic ties with the Byzantines and the Abbasids developing large trading centres on the north and shores of the Caspian and Black Seas and even becoming King makers for a time to Constantinople like so many other steppe tribes before them however the chaos ultimately became victims of their own success ruling through subordinates and eventually losing support to these more warlike subjects seeing the Magyars vulgus August Turks and Pechenegs all breakaway by the time the ruse under their ruler status laughs himself the spitting image of a step card came onto the scene in the nine 60s perhaps encouraged by the Byzantine Emperor now Sepphoris focus to break up the Khazar Confederation for good and thus free up their stranglehold on trade they did just that utilizing the dissatisfaction felt by groups such as the pechenegs to decimate the region scattering all manner of horsemen such as the August Turks into the surrounding regions however rather than allow the Byzantines to gain a foothold in region svetislav simply took the lands for himself proceeding to steamroll on into the south through the relatively pacified realm of Bulgaria which he set a place in an orgy of violence with a path directed towards the imperial capital itself focus had created a monster and as soon as his overthrow ur and successor John Zimmer ski's took control he would be forced to deal with it yet for all the terror that he inspired spatty Slav was no strategist Zima skis on the other hand was one of the greatest battlefield commanders the Romans had ever seen he'd never lost a battle and this war was to be no exception utilizing an elite force of cavalry known as immortals specifically raised for the very function of defeating sputter Slav the ruse were soon dealt a number of decisive blows forcing them north out of the smoldering ruins of Bulgaria as he rode back to Kiev svetislav was caught by his old enemies the pechenegs his head turned into a drinking cup those images himself died soon afterwards the stage was set for the young 18 year old Emperor basil the second heir to the ruling Macedonian dynasty to take command a throwback to the hereditary imperial rule that still technically ruled the Empire Bert stood on the verge of replacement by opportunistic soldier emperors periodically seizing the throne basil the son of the last Macedonian Emperor Romano's would forge these two competing elements together in time becoming every bit the capable general as his predecessors as well as legitimate born in the purple emperor by the time Otto the third was crowned emperor in Rome in 996 Basel began preparations for an all-out conquest of the resurgent Bulgarian Kingdom propelled to Empire status by the likes of Karn Crum and Simeon the great both of whom came close to conquering the city of Constantinople even with Bulgaria in its weakened state thanks to the ruse this was a war that wouldn't be completed for more than thirty years to come Bulgaria would arise again though this wouldn't be for another century by the time of Basil's death the Empire had doubled in size in the space of just fifty years perhaps Basil's crowning achievement however had been his diplomatic ties with the new ruler of the ruse still just as much of a threat as ever to the north of the empire a new power had arisen there in the form of svetoslav son vladimir a pagan lord of war who'd murdered his way to the top with the help of a battle-hardened force of scandinavian mercenaries seeing innumerable dead brothers along the way allegedly the husband to hundreds of wives and concubines upon seizing control over the desperate Roose principalities with support from Haqqani all of Norway perhaps inspired by the Christianity adopted by some of the roofs Vladimir had initially sought to have a new religion put in place a semi monotheistic cult dedicated to the worship of the storm God Peron hundreds if not thousands of captives and ruse alike were gifted as blood sacrifices in the name of Peru during those early years of Vladimir's reign before finally just like Trigg vassan had done in scandinavia and perhaps in awe of the seemingly endless riches emanating from Constantinople Vladimir became a Christian the idols of Kiev were put to the torch in a mass conflagration and presumably much to the dismay of Basil's sister she was sent north to become the latest wife of the roost King the deal was a win-win for both rulers in return for marriage to a born in the purple princess and all the prestige that came with it for this was the first time in history that the daughter of an emperor would be married to a barbarian king Vladimir agreed to convert to Christianity and pledged some 5000 of his warriors to Imperial service it was with these men likely the Scandinavians who had first brought Vladimir to power the basil would put down the rebellious relatives of focus and zimis geese now opposing his rule in time these men would become known as the Varangian guard by the end of Basil's reign in 1025 a Commonwealth of States had been brought under either direct Byzantine rule or at least its cultural sphere just to the north of Bulgaria with a Serbs a Slavic state that had settled in the Balkans in the 6th or early 7th century by the 8th century a Serbian principality had been forged taking up much of the formerly Roman province of Dalmatia along with a number of smaller states along the coast though they contested the land with the Byzantine and Bulgarian empires to their east by around 870 like their Bulgarian neighbors thanks to the missionaries Cyril and Methodius they were Christian [Music] though this didn't stop a near perpetual series of wars being waged between the two powers ultimately seeing Serbia conquered by the Bulgarian Emperor Simeon in 924 subsequent maulings at the hands of the Magyars brought them definitively into the cultural and political sphere of the Byzantines finally in 971 when Zima skis took advantage of spotty Slavs reign of terror the Bulgarian Empire was crushed and brought under Eastern Roman control for the first time in over three centuries Byzantine rule stretched to the Danube again and as a result the Serbian states came under the direct governance of the Empire after the death of Zima skis in 976 however a successful uprising started in the nearby regions Imperial control over Serbia quickly unraveled once more until Basel finally completed his conquest in 1018 using the anarchy and confusion in Serbian territory to again restore direct Byzantine rule finally in 1040 under Stefan Vojislav a Serbian state would emerge again surviving in one form or another for hundreds of years to come until conquest by the Ottomans in the 14th century a Bulgarian uprising took place - at around the same time though ultimately this ended in failure the Bulgarians would have to wait another hundred and fifty years for their independence before they too were conquered by the Ottoman Empire [Music] [Applause] to the north croatia was another realm founded by Slavs in the 6th and 7th centuries though due to its proximity to Italy rather than Constantinople when they finally accepted Christianity they tended to look to the West rather than the East Croatia managed to weather the Bulgarian onslaught of Simeon in the mid 9 20 s even taking in Serbians from the neighboring conquered kingdom and ultimately defeating simians army at the Battle of the bosnian highlands in 926 under their own king thomas laughs croatia would remain an independent kingdom for centuries to come but the year 1000 however a new power had arisen further along the Adriatic coast to the north the city-state of Venice formerly a vassal of the Byzantines now independent and ambitious under their Doge or Co low fleet after fleet of warships filed out of the grand lagoon into the Eastern Adriatic gradually taking control over the whole of it one Croatian ruler Kress Emir the 3rd tried to restore the Dalmatian cities and had some success until 1018 when he was defeated by Venice allied with the Lombards of Italy the other Italian city-states to Genoa Pisa Amalfi and others would continue to play a pivotal role in European affairs for centuries to come eventually forging maritime empires all over the Mediterranean and beyond [Music] on the other side of the Empire many hundreds of kilometers away lay another shifting patchwork of Christian states these however could quite justifiably lay claim to the title of oldest Christian countries in the world on the immediate eastern side of the Empire lay the Armenian Highlands a crossroads of east and west long a buffer zone for the Byzantines and the Abbasid Caliphate after the gradual disintegration of Abbasid power however and the steadily rising star of the Byzantines Armenian princes gradually began to cede their lands over to the Empire after their deaths bringing vast swathes of Armenia under Byzantine control to their north along the shores of the Black Sea lay the similarly fierce independent mountain realms of Georgia by the time of Basil's death - most witnesses it probably looked like the entire region would eventually come into the sphere of the Empire although gradual trickles of nomadic Turkic pastoralists riding into the area from the steppes to the east also began to be seen the first signs of a vast torrent that would eventually flood in half a century later to take over the whole of Anatolia beginning its transformation into the turkey we know today [Music] much further to the west in that same confusing battleground that had ultimately led to the downfall of otto ii Byzantine power still held out particularly in larger cities and coastal areas Germanic Lombard invaders from the north having conquered most of the peninsula after the reign of Justinian in the 6th century though these invaders became latin-speaking over time adopted Christianity and emulated as much as they could the lifestyle of those who came before by the 11th century this unique equilibrium had existed for hundreds of years in 1018 Basel had even sent his subordinates to put down a burgeoning Lombard independence movement he fought not just against Millis of bari the lombard leader but also contingents of warriors from the north perhaps the first trickle of another population movement that would change the world irrevocably and eventually see them coming to conflict with the Turkic nomads heading into the eastern frontiers of Christendom of course they were the Normans [Music] eventually Norman invaders would wrestle the mainland from both Lombards and Byzantines as well as the island of Sicily from the control of the Islamic Emirate which now held sway there though that was many decades in the future and no one could have predicted it [Music] further to the south in mainland Africa another new power from the other faith of Islam could be found claiming descent from Muhammad's daughter Fatima coinciding with the breakup of AB acid power the fatimids rose to the for sweeping eastwards from the northern shores of Africa to take Egypt founding the city of Cairo to rival Cordoba and Baghdad as a new center of the Islamic world after a series of hard-fought wars' the Fatima's eventually traded with the Byzantines southern Italy and soon the Italian maritime state of Venice for the most part the Fatimids became a relatively amicable state to deal with usually engaged more with fighting their rival sunny caliphs in Baghdad and Cordoba than Christians though in the last days of the millennium the latest Fatimid caliph al Hakim known as the mad caliphs set about viciously subjugating his Christian and Jewish subjects going so far as to destroy the Temple Mount holy site of all the religions of the book although al-hakim was very much the exception to the rule most other fatima drool us being relatively just for the time and the temple was rebuilt after his death with money sent by the Byzantines yet the damage was done news of the destruction sending shockwaves through the Christian world both the fatimids and their rivals the ax Bassets had utilized Turkic slave soldiers a gradual trickle that would eventually give way to a torrent reshaping the world forever they had originated from the north of the Black Sea and these weren't the only powers to utilize slave soldiers on the other side of the known world the caliphs of Cordoba another breakaway state from the abbasids did the same their walls manned by white warriors from the rivers of Eastern Europe sir calibre or Slovak slaves taken from Eastern Europe and north of the Black Sea carried on ships to al-andalus the lucky ones had their genitalia intact the rest eunuchs it was a similar situation all over Europe from Dublin to Germany from Denmark to Italy merchants grew rich on the slave trade the rulers of al-andalus had their roots in far-off Arabia the last remnants of the wants all-powerful Umayyad Caliphate largest state in the world overthrown by the Abbasids in the eighth century in recently conquered Iberia seized from the visigothic kingdom that held sway there since the fall of Rome they'd found a lush and familiar climate remaking it into the spitting image of their former Syrian heartland far to the east the far north of the peninsula remained independent Christian enclaves clinging on to mountain valleys whilst fighting perennial border wars against the Caliphate for hundreds of years al-andalus thrived as a center of learning and power by 1013 however just as England fell to the Dames Quarter burn central authority collapsed - followed by a splintering into numerous warring kingdoms known as the taifa States to the north the independent Christian states began moving south in the very first days of the wreck on keister a conflict that would escalate for centuries to curb eventually seeing Muslims and Jews expelled from the peninsula entirely by the 15th century the world's didn't end in the year 1000 but in the decades that followed it had changed irrevocably and as East and West increasingly coalesced over the years culminating in the events of the First Crusade at the end of the century it was about to grow much larger thanks for watching if you've enjoyed this video I have loads more on this time period that you can go and watch right now don't forget to Like and subscribe let me know in the comments what you'd like to see covered in the future go and subscribe to my new channel or a visit historical sites all over the world and I'll see you on the next one [Music] you

Channel: History Time

Views: 1,835,533

Rating: 4.8028488 out of 5

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Id: HapGfrGR_gE

Length: 65min 23sec (3923 seconds)

Published: Mon May 04 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Socialdem]

Thanks. Going to watch this tomorrow. Looks like their channel has a bunch of great stuff.