The World History. The main features of the development of the countries of the East in the Middle Ages The era of the Middle Ages in the East is the period
The evolution of medieval Eastern society followed a special path that distinguished it from the development of the feudal West. The dominance of socio-economic and socio-political traditional structures determined the extremely slow nature of this evolution.
In the educational literature, the boundaries of the period under study (the lower limit is usually called the 5th-7th centuries) is associated with a complex of historical factors: with qualitative changes in the political structure, with the creation of centralized empires, with the completion of the formation of the largest civilized centers, world religions and their powerful influence to peripheral zones, etc.
Highlighting the most common features of the similarity of the socio-economic evolution of the medieval countries of the East (such as India, China, the Arab Caliphate, Japan), it should be noted that none of these countries reached the European level of late feudalism in the Middle Ages, when develop capitalist relations. Here, in comparison with the main medieval European countries, the development of industry, commodity-money, market relations lagged sharply. The slowed-down nature of development determined the stable multi-structured nature of medieval eastern societies, the long-term coexistence of patriarchal-clan, clan, slave-owning, semi-feudal and other structures.
A great influence on the entire course of the historical development of the countries of the East was exerted by the wide spread of state ownership of land, which was combined with another form of ownership - communal ownership and with the corresponding private land ownership by communal peasants.
The specific features of the socio-political development of the countries of the East were determined by the fact that state forms characteristic of feudal Western Europe did not take shape here. Consider this feature in detail.
Topic 12. The English Revolution of the middle of the seventeenth century. and the formation of a constitutional monarchy
When studying this topic, first of all, it is necessary to understand the reasons and preconditions, the nature, features and stages of the revolution, during which the English bourgeois state arose.
Considering the history of the emergence and formation of the bourgeois state in England, its essence, forms and mechanism of government, it is necessary to pay attention to the most important state-legal documents of the revolution.
The compromise of the ruling class elite had a significant impact on the subsequent development of British state and legal institutions. The state began to exist in the form of a constitutional monarchy. To understand the process of its formation, knowledge of the content, meaning and place in the state and legal development of England is required of such documents as the "Petition of Law" in 1628, "The Great Remonstration" in 1641, "The Instrument of Management" in 1653, "Habeas corpus act "1679," Bill of Rights "1689," Act of Dispensation "1701
Topic 13. Education in the USA
The United States arose during the national liberation war of the North American colonies against the British mother country.
The war for independence acquired a revolutionary character, and victory in this war meant not only the conquest of independence, but also the creation of favorable conditions for the development of bourgeois production relations.
It is necessary to consider the prerequisites, nature, driving forces, the main stages of the war of independence, to identify the program requirements, which were reflected in the Declaration of Independence of 1776, Articles of Confederation of 1781, the Constitution of 1787 and the "Bill of Rights" of 1791.
The subsequent development of the United States took place under the sign of strengthening the positions of the big bourgeoisie, but at the same time it is necessary to take into account the complex and sometimes contradictory processes caused, in particular, by the rivalry between the northern and southern states, in which slavery remained. It is necessary to note the special nature of American slavery and not to equate it with ancient slavery.
The victory of the democratic North in the civil war meant a further strengthening of the power of the financial and industrial bourgeoisie and the end of the American bourgeois revolution, the first stage of which was the war for independence. Special attention should be paid to the legal consolidation of the results of the civil war in the United States and, first of all, to the constitutional reforms of the last third of the 19th century.
Topic 14. The Great French Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century.
The bourgeois state and law arose in France during the bourgeois revolution of 1789-1799. This revolution not only had a decisive impact on the further development of France, but also accelerated transformations in other states of Europe and America. State and legal institutions created in the era of the revolution for their perfection and clarity have long become the standard of bourgeois law.
Studying the history of the French bourgeois state, it is necessary to investigate the preconditions, nature, driving forces and main stages of the revolution in the course of which it arose. For this, it is necessary to study the most important documents of this period: the Declaration of Human Rights. and a citizen of 1789, the Constitutions of 1791 and 1793, the Le Chapelier law of 1791, agrarian legislation.
It is necessary to understand the reasons and nature of the coup d'etat of 1794, which established a regime legally sanctioned by the Constitution of 1795, which was a transitional stage to the military dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Topic 15. State system of France in the nineteenth century.
Considering the development of the country's political system in the 19th century, it is necessary to identify the reasons for the change in the forms of government in France, to be able to analyze the constitutional acts of 1814, 1830, 1848 and 1875, identifying the form of government (typology of monarchy or republics).
The alignment of social and political forces in France on the eve of the revolution. The great French bourgeois revolution, its main stages and historical significance. Activities of the Constituent Assembly. Declaration of the rights of man and citizen of 1789, its historical significance. The first constitution of France in 1791. The state system of the period of the constitutional monarchy. The overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the First Republic in France. Bodies of central government and local government. Girondins and Jacobins. Jacobin dictatorship, its emergency organs. Constitutional acts of the Jacobins and emergency legislation. Agrarian legislation of the revolution. Armed forces of the period of the revolution.
Thermidorian coup. State system and organs of the Directory period. Constitution of 1795. The coup of Napoleon Bonaparte and the constitution of 1799. State system of France during the Consulate. Supreme power, central and local government of the First Empire.
The main features of legislation during the period of the Consulate and the First Empire. Restoration of the Bourbons. State system of the legitimate and July monarchies. Constitutional Charters of 1814 and 1830 Electoral system. Establishment of the Second Republic. Constitution of 1848 Changes in the electoral system. Power of the President and Supreme Bodies. The coup of 1851 and the establishment of the military dictatorship of Louis Napoleon. Constitution of 1852, organization of state power according to it. Establishment of the Second Empire, its legal form and internal politics.
Revolution of 1870 and the birth of the Third Republic. The Paris Commune of 1871 as an attempt to create a new state system. The governing bodies of power and administration of the Commune. New principles of the structure of the court and legal proceedings. Legislative activity of the Commune. Fall of the Commune. Constitutional laws of the Third Republic of 1875, their subsequent development. State system of the Third Republic. The formation of a multi-party system and the functioning of the political regime of the republic. Local government and self-government.
French colonial empire and colonial administration.
Topic 16. Formation of the German Empire
The example of the formation of a unified state in Germany is in many ways unique: for hundreds of years, dozens of small formations existed on its territory: principalities, duchies, counties. It is necessary to find out the reasons for such a long period of fragmentation in the presence in the German lands of many signs of a new, capitalist order; further to reveal the paths taken by the unification. At the same time, it is important to note what was the main, determining, and what was secondary. Considering the constitutional acts of 1849 and 1850, it is necessary to highlight in them the general legal material and features of the German constitutional tradition. When analyzing the Constitution of 1871, it is necessary to take into account the peculiarities of the construction of its sections, articles, to find features of continuity with the acts studied earlier.
Features of the development of the countries of the East in the Middle Ages
India
China
Japan
Arab Caliphate
7.1. Features of the development of the countries of the East in the Middle Ages
The term "Middle Ages" is used to designate the period of history of the countries of the East in the first seventeen centuries of the new era. The natural upper boundary of the period is considered to be the 16th - early 17th centuries, when the East becomes the object of European trade and colonial expansion, which interrupted the course of development characteristic of Asian and North African countries. Geographically, the Medieval East covers the territory of North Africa, the Near and Middle East, Central and Central Asia, India, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia and the Far East.
The transition to the Middle Ages in the East in some cases was carried out on the basis of already existing political formations (for example, Byzantium, Sassanian Iran, Kushan-Gupta India), in others it was accompanied by social upheavals, as it was in China, and almost everywhere the processes were accelerated thanks to participation of "barbarian" nomadic tribes in them. In the historical arena during this period, such hitherto unknown peoples as Arabs, Seljuk Turks, Mongols, appeared and ascended. New religions were born and civilizations arose on their basis.
The countries of the East in the Middle Ages were associated with Europe. Byzantium remained the bearer of the traditions of Greco-Roman culture. The Arab conquest of Spain and the campaigns of the Crusaders to the East contributed to the interaction of cultures. However, for the countries of South Asia and the Far East, acquaintance with Europeans took place only in the 15th-16th centuries.
The formation of medieval societies in the East was characterized by the growth of productive forces - iron implements spread, artificial irrigation expanded and irrigation technology improved, the leading trend in the historical process both in the East and in Europe was the establishment of feudal relations. Different results of development in the East and West by the end of the XX century. due to the lesser degree of its dynamism.
Among the factors that determine the "lagging" of Eastern societies, the following stand out: the preservation, along with the feudal system, of the extremely slowly decaying primitive communal and slaveholding relations; the stability of communal forms of community life, which held back the differentiation of the peasantry; the predominance of state property and power over private land ownership and private power of feudal lords; the undivided power of the feudal lords over the city, weakening the anti-feudal aspirations of the townspeople.
Periodization of the history of the medieval East
Taking into account these features and based on the idea of the degree of maturity of feudal relations in the history of the East, the following stages are distinguished:
I-VI c. AD - a transitional period in the emergence of feudalism;
VII-X centuries. - the period of early feudal relations with the inherent process of naturalization of the economy and the decline of ancient cities;
XI-XII centuries - before the Mongol period, the beginning of the heyday of feudalism, the formation of the estate-corporate system of life, cultural take-off;
XIII centuries - the time of the Mongol conquest, which interrupted the development of feudal society and reversed some of them;
XIV-XVI centuries - the post-Mongol period, which is characterized by a slowdown in social development, the conservation of a despotic form of power.
Eastern civilizations
A variegated picture was presented by the Medieval East in civilizational terms, which also distinguished it from Europe. Some civilizations in the East emerged in antiquity: Buddhist and Hindu - on the Indian subcontinent, Taoist-Confucian - in China. Others were born in the Middle Ages: Muslim civilization in the Near and Middle East, Indo-Muslim in India, Hindu and Muslim in Southeast Asia, Buddhist in Japan and Southeast Asia, Confucian in Japan and Korea
7.2. India
(VII - XVIII centuries)
Rajput period (VII-XII centuries)
As shown in Chapter 2, in the IV-VI centuries. AD in the territory of modern India
powerful Gupta empire. The era of the Guptas, perceived as the golden age of India, was replaced in the 7th-12th centuries. a period of feudal fragmentation. At this stage, however, the isolation of the country's regions and the decline of culture did not occur due to the development of port trade. The tribes of the conquerors of the Huns-Ephthalites who came from Central Asia settled in the north-west of the country, and the Gujarats that appeared with them settled in Punjab, Sindh, Rajputan and Malwa. As a result of the merger of the newcomers with the local population, a compact ethnic community of the Rajputs arose, which in the VIII century. began from the Rad, an expansion into the rich regions of the Ganges Valley and Central India. The most famous was the Gurjara clan - Pratikharov, who formed a state in Malwa. Here the most striking type of feudal relations with a developed hierarchy and vassal psychology took shape.
In the VI-VII centuries. in India, a system of stable political centers is developing, fighting with each other under the banner of different dynasties - North India, Bengal, the Deccan and the Far South. The canvas of political events of the VIII-X centuries. the struggle for the Doab (between the Djamna and the Ganges) began. In the X century. the leading powers of the country fell into decay, divided into independent principalities. The political fragmentation of the country turned out to be especially tragic for Northern India, which suffered in the XI century. regular raids Mahmud Ghaznavid(998-1030), the ruler of a vast empire that included the territories of the modern states of Central Asia, Iran, Afghanistan, as well as Punjab and Sindh.
The socio-economic development of India in the Rajput era was characterized by the growth of feudal possessions. The richest among the feudal lords, along with the rulers, were Hindu temples and monasteries. If initially they were complained only of uncultivated land and with the indispensable consent of the community that owned them, then from the VIII century. more and more often, not only land is transferred, but also villages, the inhabitants of which were obliged to bear in-kind duty in favor of the recipient. However, at this time, the Indian community was still relatively independent, large in size and self-governing. The full-fledged commune member inherited his own field, although trade operations with land were certainly controlled by the communal administration.
Urban life, which stood still after the 6th century, began to revive only towards the end of the Rajput period. Old port centers developed faster. New cities arose near the castles of the feudal lords, where artisans settled, serving the needs of the court and the troops of the landowner. The development of urban life was facilitated by the increased exchange between cities and the emergence of groups of artisans by caste. Just as in Western Europe, in the Indian city the development of handicrafts and trade was accompanied by the struggle of citizens against the feudal lords, who imposed new taxes on artisans and merchants. Moreover, the lower the class status of the castes to which the artisans and merchants belonged, the higher the tax was.
At the stage of feudal fragmentation, Hinduism finally prevailed over Buddhism, defeating it by the power of its amorphousness, which corresponded perfectly to the political system of the era.
The era of the Muslim conquest of India Delhi Sultanate - (XIII - early XVI centuries)
In the XIII century. a Muslim state is established in the north of India . D The Eli sultanate, the domination of the Muslim military leaders from the Central Asian Turks was finally formed. Sunni Islam became the state religion, Persian became the official language. Accompanied by bloody strife, the dynasties of Gulyams, Khilji, Tughlakids were successively replaced in Delhi. The troops of the sultans made conquest campaigns in Central and South India, and the conquered rulers were forced to recognize themselves as vassals of Delhi and pay the Sultan an annual tribute.
A turning point in the history of the Delhi Sultanate was the invasion of North India in 1398 by the troops of the Central Asian ruler Timur(another name is Tamerlane, 1336-1405). The Sultan fled to Gujarat. An epidemic and famine began in the country. Abandoned by the conqueror as the governor of the Punjab, Khizr-khan Sayyid seized Delhi in 1441 and founded a new dynasty of Sayyids. Representatives of this and the Lodi dynasty that followed it ruled already as governors of the Timurids. One of the last Lodi, Ibrahim, seeking to exalt his power, entered into an irreconcilable struggle with the feudal nobility and Afghan military leaders. The opponents of Ibrahim turned to the ruler of Kabul, Timurid Babur, with a request to save them from the tyranny of the Sultan. In 1526 Babur defeated Ibrahim at the Battle of Panipat, thus laying the foundation for Mughal Empire, which existed for almost 200 years.
The system of economic relations is undergoing some, albeit not radical, changes in the Muslim era. The state land fund is significantly increasing due to the possessions of the conquered Indian feudal families. The main part of it was distributed in a conditional service award - ikta (small areas) and mukta (large "feeding"). The Iktadars and Muktadars collected taxes from the villages granted to them in favor of the treasury, some of which went to support the family of the holder, who supplied a soldier to the state army. Mosques, owners of property for charitable purposes, keepers of the tombs of sheikhs, poets, officials, and merchants were the private landowners who disposed of the estate without government intervention. The rural community has survived as a convenient fiscal unit, however, the payment of the poll tax (jiziyah) fell on the peasants, most of them Hinduism, a heavy burden.
By the XIV century. historians attribute a new wave of urbanization in India. The cities became centers of crafts and trade. Domestic trade was mainly focused on the needs of the capital's court. The leading article of import was the import of horses (the basis of the Delhi army is the cavalry), which were not bred in India due to the lack of pasture. Archaeologists find treasures of Delhi coins in Persia, Central Asia and on the Volga.
During the reign of the Delhi Sultanate, the penetration of Europeans into India began. In 1498, under the leadership of Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese first reached Calicata on the Malabar coast of western India. As a result of subsequent military expeditions - Cabral (1500), Vasco de Gama (1502), d "Albuquerque (1510-1511) - the Portuguese seize the Bijapur island of Goa, which became the mainstay of their possessions in the East. The Portuguese monopoly on sea trade undermined India's trade relations with countries of the East, isolated the deep regions of the country and delayed their development. To the same waged wars and destruction of the population of Malabar. Gujarat was also weakened. Only the Vijayanagar Empire remained in the XIV-XVI centuries powerful and even more centralized than the former states of the south. was considered a maharaja, but all the fullness of real power belonged to the state council, the chief minister, to whom the governors of the provinces were directly subordinate. lands of one village, and the community members increasingly began to turn in half-fledged sharecropping tenants. In the cities, the authorities began to give the collection of duties at the mercy of the feudal lords, thereby strengthening their undivided domination here.
With the establishment of the power of the Delhi Sultanate, in which Islam was a forcibly implanted religion, India was drawn into the cultural orbit of the Muslim world. However, despite the fierce struggle between Hindus and Muslims, long-term cohabitation led to the mutual penetration of ideas and customs.
India in the era of the Mongol Empire (XVI-XVIII centuries)
The final stage in the medieval history of India was the rise in its north at the beginning of the 16th century. new powerful Muslim Mughal Empire, which in the XVII century. managed to subjugate a significant part of South India. The founder of the state was Timurid Babur(1483-1530). The power of the Mughals in India was strengthened during the years of half a century of rule Akbara(1452-1605), who transferred the capital to the city of Agra on the Jamnah River, conquered Gujarat and Bengal, and with them access to the sea. True, the Mughals had to come to terms with the rule of the Portuguese here.
"Moguls in North India and Afghanistan were called both the Mongols themselves and the Muslim princes who ruled in the lands conquered by the Mongols and intermarried with them. The entire region of Central Asia and Afghanistan was called Mogolistan. Babur came to India from there, therefore he and all those who arrived with him began to be called Mughals. Europeans also called the ruler Great Moron.
In the Mughal era, India entered the stage of developed feudal relations, the flowering of which went parallel to the strengthening of the central power of the state. The importance of the main financial department of the empire (divan), which was obliged to monitor the use of all suitable lands, increased. A third of the harvest was declared the state's share. In the central regions of the country, under Ak bar, the peasants were transferred to a monetary tax, which forced them to be included in market relations in advance. All the conquered territories entered the state land fund (khalisa). From it, jagirs were distributed - conditional military awards, which continued to be considered state property. The Jagirdars usually owned several tens of thousands of hectares of land and were obliged to support military detachments, the backbone of the imperial army, on these incomes. Akbar's attempt to liquidate the jagir system in 1574 ended in failure. Also in the state there was a private land property of feudal lords - zamindars from among the conquered princes who paid tribute, and small private estates of Sufi sheikhs and Muslim theologians, inherited, and free from taxes - suyurgal or mulk.
During this period, handicrafts reached a high flourishing, especially the production of fabrics, which were valued throughout the East, and in the region of the southern seas, Indian textiles acted as a kind of universal equivalent of trade. The process of merging the upper merchant stratum with the ruling class begins. Money people could become jagirdars, and the latter - the owners of caravanserais and merchant ships. Merchant castes are formed, playing the role of companies. Surat, the country's main port in the 16th century, becomes the birthplace of a stratum of comprador merchants (i.e., associated with foreigners).
In the XVII century. the importance of the economic center passes to Bengal. Here the production of fine fabrics, saltpeter and tobacco is developing in Dhaka and Patna. Shipbuilding continues to flourish in Gujarat. A new large textile center, Madras, is emerging in the south. Thus, in India, XVI-XVII centuries. the emergence of capitalist relations is already being observed, but the socio-economic system of the Mughal Empire, based on state ownership of land, did not contribute to their rapid growth.
In the Mughal era, religious disputes become more active, on the basis of which wide popular movements are born, the state's religious policy undergoes major turns. So, in the XV century. in Gujarat, among the Muslim cities of trade and craft circles, the Mahdist movement arose. In the XVI century. the ruler's fanatical adherence to orthodox Sunni Islam turned into lawlessness for the Hindus and the persecution of Shia Muslims. In the XVII century. oppression of Shiites, destruction of all Hindu temples and the use of their stones to build mosques Aurangzeb(1618-1707) caused a popular uprising, anti-Mogul movement.
So, medieval India personifies the synthesis of the most diverse socio-political foundations, religious traditions, ethnic cultures. Having melted all this many beginnings inside herself, by the end of the era she appeared before amazed Europeans as a country of fabulous splendor, attracting to itself with wealth, exoticism, secrets. Within it, however, began processes similar to the European ones, inherent in the modern era. The internal market was formed, international relations developed, social contradictions deepened. But for India, a typical Asian power, a despotic state was a strong deterrent to capitalization. With its weakening, the country becomes an easy prey for European colonialists, whose activities interrupted the natural course of the country's historical development for many years.
7.3. China
(III - XVII centuries)
The era of fragmentation - (III-VI centuries)
WITH the fall of the Han Empire at the turn of the II-III centuries. in China, there is a change of eras: the ancient period of the country's history ends and the Middle Ages begins. The first stage of early feudalism went down in history as time Three kingdoms(220-280). On
On the territory of the country, there were three states (Wei - in the north, Shu - in the central part and Wu - in the south), the power in which was close to a military dictatorship.
But already at the end of the III century. political stability in China is again being lost, and it becomes an easy prey for the nomadic tribes who poured in here, mainly settling in the north-western regions of the country. From that moment, for two and a half centuries, China was divided into northern and southern parts, which affected its subsequent development. The consolidation of centralized power takes place in the 20s of the 5th century. in the south after the founding of the Southern Song empire here and in the 30s of the 5th century. - in the north, where Empire of the Northern Wei, in which the desire to restore a unified Chinese statehood was expressed more strongly. In 581, a coup d'etat took place in the north: the commander Yang Jian removed the emperor from power and changed the name of the state Sui. In 589, he subdued the southern state to his power and for the first time after a 400-year period of fragmentation restored the political unity of the country.
Political changes in China III-VI centuries. are closely associated with cardinal shifts in ethnic development. Although foreigners penetrated before, but it was the IV century. becomes a time of massive invasions, comparable to the Great Migration of Nations in Europe. The tribes of the Xiongnu, Sanbi, Qiang, Jie, Di who came from the central regions of Asia settled not only in the northern and western outskirts, but also in the Central Plain, mixing with the indigenous Chinese population. In the south, the processes of assimilation of the non-Chinese population (yue, miao, li, i, man and yao) proceeded faster and less dramatically, leaving significant areas un colonized. This was reflected in the mutual isolation of the parties, as well as in the language - there were two main dialects of the Chinese language. The northerners called themselves the inhabitants of the middle state, that is, the Chinese, only themselves, and the southerners called the people of W.
The period of political fragmentation was accompanied by a noticeable naturalization of economic life, the decline of cities and a reduction in money circulation. Grain and silk became the measure of value. The allotment system of land use (zhan tian) was introduced, which affected the type of organization of society and the way it was managed. Its essence consisted in securing for each worker, attributed to the class of personally free commoners, the rights to receive a plot of land of a certain size and the establishment of fixed taxes on it.
The allotment system was opposed by the growth of private land plots of the so-called "strong houses" ("da jia"), which was accompanied by the ruin and enslavement of the peasantry. The introduction of the state allotment system, the struggle of the authorities against the expansion of large private landownership lasted throughout the medieval history of China and affected the design of the country's unique agrarian and social system.
The process of official differentiation proceeded on the basis of the disintegration and degeneration of the community. This found expression in the formal amalgamation of peasant farms into five-yard and twenty-five-yard buildings, which were encouraged by the authorities for tax benefits. All unequal strata in the state were collectively called "vile people" (jianren) and opposed to "good people" (liangmin). The growing role of the aristocracy was a striking manifestation of social shifts. Nobility was determined by belonging to the old clans. Gentility was consolidated in the lists of noble families, the first general register of which was compiled in the 3rd century. Another distinctive feature of public life in the III-VI centuries. there was a strengthening of personal relationships. The principle of personal duty of the younger to the elder has taken a leading place among moral values.
Imperial period
During this period, the imperial order was revived in China, the political unification of the country took place, the nature of the supreme power changed, the centralization of government increased, the role of the bureaucratic apparatus increased. During the reign of the Tang dynasty (618-907), the classical Chinese type of imperial government was formed. In the country there were rebellions of military governors, the peasant war of 874-883, a long struggle with the Tibetans, Uighurs and Tanguts in the north of the country, a military confrontation with the South Chinese state of Nanzhao. All this led to the agony of the Tang regime.
In the middle of the X century. from the chaos the state was born Later Zhou, which became the new nucleus of the political unification of the country. Land reunification was completed in 960 by the founder of the Song Dynasty Zhao Kuanying So the capital of Kaifeng. In the same century, a state appears on the political map of northeastern China Liao. V 1038 on the northwestern borders of the Song Empire, the Western Xia Tangut Empire was proclaimed. From the middle of the XI century. between Song, Liao and Xia, an approximate balance of power is maintained, which at the beginning of the XII century. was violated with the emergence of a new rapidly growing state of the Jurchens (one of the branches of the Tungus tribes), which formed in Manchuria and proclaimed itself the Jin Empire in 1115. It soon conquered the state of Liao, captured the capital Song together with the emperor. However, the brother of the captured emperor managed to create the Southern Song empire with its capital in Lingan (Hangzhou), which extended its influence to the southern regions of the country.
Thus, on the eve of the Mongol invasion, China was again split into two parts - the northern one, which includes the Jin Empire, and the southern one, the territory of the Southern Song Empire.
The process of ethnic consolidation of the Chinese, which began in the 7th century, already at the beginning of the 13th century. leads to the formation of the Chinese people. Ethnic self-awareness manifests itself in the separation of the Chinese state, opposing foreign countries, in the spread of the universal self-name "han ren" (people of han). The population of the country in the X-XIII centuries. accounted for 80-100 million people.
In the Tang and Song empires, administrative systems that were perfect for their time were formed, which were copied by other states. Since 963, the country's military formations began to report directly to the emperor, and local military ranks were appointed from among the civil servants of the capital. This strengthened the power of the emperor. The bureaucratic apparatus has grown to 25 thousand. The highest government institution was the Department of Departments, which headed the six leading executive bodies of the country: Officials, Taxes, Rituals, Military, Judicial and Public Works. Along with them, the Imperial Secretariat and the Imperial Chancellery were established. The power of the head of state, officially called the Son of Heaven and Emperor, was hereditary and legally unlimited.
Economy of China VII-XII centuries. was based on agricultural production. The allotment system, which reached its apogee in the 6th-8th centuries, by the end of the 10th century. disappeared. In Song China, the land use system already included a state land fund with imperial estates, large and medium-sized private landholdings, small-peasant land ownership, and estates of state land holders. The taxation procedure can be called total. The main one was the land two-time tax in kind, amounting to 20% of the harvest, supplemented by trade tax and labor work. To keep track of taxpayers, household registers were compiled every three years.
The unification of the country led to a gradual increase in the role of cities. If in the VIII century. there were 25 of them with a population of about 500 thousand people, then in the X-XII centuries, during the period of urbanization, the urban population began to make up 10% of the total population of the country.
Urbanization was closely linked to the growth of handicraft production. Such areas of government craft as silk weaving, ceramic production, woodworking, papermaking and dyeing were especially developed in the cities. The family workshop was a form of private craft, the rise of which was restrained by the powerful competition of government production and the comprehensive control of the imperial power over the urban economy. Trade and craft organizations, as well as shops, constituted the main part of the city's craft. The technique of the craft was gradually improved, its organization changed - large workshops appeared, equipped with machines and using hired labor.
The development of trade was facilitated by the introduction at the end of the 6th century. standards of measures and weights and the release of a copper coin of specified weight. Trade tax revenue has become a tangible item of government revenue. The increase in the extraction of metals allowed the Song government to issue the largest amount of hard currency in the history of the Chinese Middle Ages. The intensification of foreign trade fell on the VII-VIII centuries. The center of maritime trade was the port of Guangzhou, which connected China with Korea, Japan and coastal India. Overland trade went along the Great Silk Road through the territory of Central Asia, along which caravanserais were arranged.
In the Chinese medieval society of the pre-Mongol era, the demarcation went along the line of aristocrats and non-aristocrats, the service class and commoners, free and dependent. The peak of the influence of aristocratic clans falls on the 7th-8th centuries. The first genealogical list of 637 recorded 293 surnames and 1654 families. But by the beginning of the XI century. the power of the aristocracy is weakening and the process of merging it with the bureaucratic bureaucracy begins.
The "golden age" of bureaucracy was the Song time. The service pyramid consisted of 9 ranks and 30 degrees, and belonging to it opened the way to enrichment. The main channel of penetration into the environment of officials was state exams, which contributed to the expansion of the social base of service people.
About 60% of the population were peasants who legally retained their rights to land, but in fact did not have the opportunity to freely dispose of it, leave it uncultivated or abandoned. From the IX century. there was a process of disappearance of the personally unequal estates (jianren): state serfs (guanhu), state artisans (gong) and musicians (yue), private and dependent landless workers (butsoi). A special stratum of society was made up of members of Buddhist and Taoist monasteries, numbering in the 20s of the XI century. 400 thousand people.
The cities in which the Lumpen layer appears become centers of anti-government uprisings. The largest movement against the arbitrariness of the authorities was the uprising led by Fang La in the southeastern region of China in 1120-1122. On the territory of the Jin Empire until its fall in the XIII century. there were national liberation detachments of "red jackets" and "black banner".
In medieval China, there were three religious doctrines: Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. In the Tang era, the government encouraged Taoism: in 666, the sanctity of the author of an ancient Chinese treatise - the canonical composition of Taoism was officially recognized Lao Tzu(IV-III centuries BC), in the first half of the VIII century. the Taoist Academy was established. At the same time, the persecution of Buddhism intensified and neo-Confucianism was established, which claimed the role of the only ideology that substantiated the social hierarchy and correlated it with the concept of personal duty.
So, by the beginning of the XIII century. in Chinese society, many features and institutions acquire a complete form and are consolidated, which subsequently will undergo only partial changes. The political, economic and social systems are approaching the classical models, changes in ideology lead to the highlighting of neo-Confucianism.
China in the era of Mongol rule. Yuan Empire (1271-1367)
The Mongol conquest of China stretched out for almost 70 years. In 1215, Beijing was taken, and in 1280, China was completely at the mercy of the Mongols. With the accession to the throne of the Khan Kublai(1215-1294) the Great Khan's headquarters was moved to Beijing. Along with it, Karakorum and
Shandong. In 1271, all the possessions of the great khan were declared the Yuan Empire on the Chinese model. Mongol domination in the main part of China lasted a little over a century and was noted by Chinese sources as the most difficult time for the country.
Despite its military might, the Yuan Empire was not distinguished by its internal strength, it was shaken by civil strife, as well as the resistance of the local Chinese population, the uprising of the secret Buddhist society "White Lotus".
A characteristic feature of the social structure was the division of the country into four categories of unequal rights. The Chinese of the north and the inhabitants of the south of the country were considered, respectively, people of the third and fourth grade after the Mongols themselves and immigrants from the Islamic countries of western and central Asia. Thus, the ethnic situation of the era was characterized not only by national oppression by the Mongols, but also by the legalized opposition of northern and southern Chinese.
The domination of the Yuan Empire rested on the strength of the army. Each city contained a garrison of at least 1000 people, and in Beijing there was a khan's guard of 12 thousand people. Tibet and Kore (Korea) were in vassal dependence on the Yuan palace. Attempts to invade Japan, Burma, Vietnam and Java, undertaken in the 70s and 80s of the XIII century, did not bring success to the Mongols. For the first time, Yuan China was visited by merchants and missionaries from Europe, who left notes about their travels: Marco Polo (circa 1254-1324), Arnold from Cologne and others.
Mongol rulers, interested in receiving income from the conquered lands, from the second half of the XII century. more and more began to adopt traditional Chinese methods of exploiting the population. Initially, the taxation system was streamlined and centralized. Tax collection was withdrawn from the hands of local authorities, a general population census was carried out, tax registers were compiled, per capita and land grain taxes and a household tax levied on silk and silver were introduced.
The current laws determined the system of land relations, within the framework of which private land, state land, public land and specific allotments were allocated. A stable trend in agriculture since the beginning of the XIV century. there is an increase in private land holdings and an expansion of lease relations. The surplus of the enslaved population and prisoners of war made it possible to widely use their labor on state lands and on the lands of soldiers in military settlements. Along with slaves, state land was cultivated by state tenants. Temple land tenure was widespread as never before, replenished both through government donations and through purchases and direct seizure of fields. Such land was considered an eternal possession and was cultivated by brothers and tenants.
Urban life began to revive only towards the end of the 13th century. The register lists of 1279 numbered about 420 thousand craftsmen. Following the example of the Chinese, the Mongols established the treasury's monopoly on the disposal of salt, iron, metal, tea, wine and vinegar, and established a trade tax in the amount of one-thirtieth of the value of the goods. Due to the inflation of paper money at the end of the XIII century. natural exchange began to dominate in trade, the role of precious metals increased, and usury flourished.
From the middle of the XIII century. the official religion of the Mongol court becomes lamaism - Tibetan type of Buddhism. A characteristic feature of the period was the emergence of secret religious sects. The previous leading position of Confuncianism was not restored, although the opening in 1287 of the Academy of the Sons of the Fatherland, the forge of the highest Confucian cadres, testified to the adoption of the imperial Confucian doctrine by Khan Khubilai.
Minsk China 1368-1644
Ming China was born and died in the crucible of the great peasant wars, the events of which were invisibly directed by secret religious societies such as the "White Lotus". In this era, Mongol domination was finally eliminated and the foundations of an economic and political system that corresponded to traditional Chinese ideas of ideal statehood were laid. The peak of the Ming empire's power was in the first third of the 15th century, but by the end of the century negative phenomena began to grow. The entire second half of the dynastic cycle (16th - first half of the 17th centuries) was characterized by a protracted crisis, which by the end of the era acquired a general and comprehensive character. The crisis, which began with changes in the economy and social structure, manifested itself most visibly in the field of domestic politics.
First Emperor of the Ming Dynasty Zhu Yuanzhang(1328-1398) began to pursue a forward-looking agrarian and financial policy.
He increased the share of peasant households in the land wedge, strengthened control over the distribution of state land, stimulated military settlements sponsored by the treasury, resettled peasants to empty land, introduced a fixed taxation, and provided benefits to poor households. His son Zhu Di toughened the police functions of the authorities: a special department was established, subordinate only to the emperor - Brocade robes, denunciations were encouraged. In the XV century. two more punitive-detective institutions appeared.
The central foreign policy task of the Minsk state in the XIV-XV centuries. was the prevention of the possibility of a new Mongol attack. Not without military clashes. And although peace was concluded with Mongolia in 1488, the raids continued in the 16th century. From the invasion of the country by the troops of Tamerlane, which began in 1405, China was saved by the death of the conqueror.
In the XV century. the southern direction of foreign policy is becoming more active. China is interfering in Vietnamese affairs and seizing a number of areas of Burma. From 1405 to 1433 seven grandiose expeditions of the Chinese fleet under the leadership of Zheng He(1371-about 1434). On different campaigns, he led from 48 to 62 only large ships. These voyages were aimed at establishing trade and diplomatic relations with overseas countries, although all foreign trade was reduced to the exchange of tribute and gifts with foreign embassies, while the strictest prohibition was imposed on private foreign trade activities. The caravan trade also took on the character of ambassadorial missions.
Government policies on domestic trade were not consistent. Private trading activity was recognized as legal and profitable for the treasury, but public opinion considered it unworthy of respect and required systematic control by the authorities. The state itself pursued an active internal trade policy. The treasury forcibly purchased goods at low prices and distributed the products of state crafts, sold licenses for trade activities, maintained a system of monopoly goods, maintained the imperial shops and established state "trading settlements".
During this period, bank notes and small copper coins remained the basis of the country's monetary system. Although the ban on the use of gold and silver in trade was weakened, it was, however, rather slowly. The economic specialization of the regions and the trend towards the expansion of state crafts and trades are indicated more clearly than in the previous era. Handicraft associations during this period gradually begin to acquire the character of guild organizations. Written regulations appear within them, and a wealthy stratum appears.
Since the XVI century. the penetration of Europeans into the country begins. As in India, the Portuguese were in the lead. Macau (Aomen) became their first possession on one of the southern Chinese islands. From the second half of the 17th century. the country is flooded with the Dutch and the British, who assisted the Manchus in conquering China. At the end of the 17th century. in the suburbs of Guangzhou, the British founded one of the first continental trading posts, which became the center for the distribution of British goods.
In the Ming era, neo-Confucianism dominated religion. From the end of the XIV century. the desire of the authorities to place restrictions on Buddhism and Taoism is traced, which led to the expansion of religious sectarianism. Other striking features of the country's religious life were the Sinification of local Muslims and the spread of local cults among the people.
The growth of crisis phenomena at the end of the 15th century. begins gradually, with a gradual weakening of the imperial power, the concentration of land in the hands of large private owners, the aggravation of the financial situation in the country. Emperors after Zhu Di were weak rulers, and temporary workers were in charge of all affairs at the courts. The center of political opposition was the chamber of censors and prosecutors, whose members demanded reforms and accused the arbitrariness of the temporary workers. Activities of this kind met with severe opposition from the emperors. A typical picture was when another influential official, submitting an accusatory document, was simultaneously preparing for death, expecting a silk cord from the emperor with the order to hang himself.
The turning point in the history of Ming China is associated with the powerful peasant uprising of 1628-1644. headed by Li Tzu-chen. In 1644, Li's troops occupied Beijing, and he himself declared himself emperor.
The history of medieval China is a motley kaleidoscope of events: a frequent change of ruling dynasties, long periods of domination by conquerors, as a rule, who came from the north and very soon dissolved among the local population, adopting not only the language and way of life, but also the classical Chinese model of ruling the country, which took shape in the Tang and Sung epochs. Not a single state of the medieval East was able to achieve such a level of control over the country and society as it was in China. Not the least role in this was played by the political isolation of the country, as well as the ideological conviction prevailing among the administrative elite about the chosenness of the Middle Empire, of which all other powers of the world are natural vassals.
However, such a society was not free from contradictions. And if the motives of peasant uprisings were often religious and mystical convictions or national liberation ideals, they did not in the least cancel, but, on the contrary, were intertwined with the demands of social justice. It is significant. that Chinese society was not as closed and rigidly organized as, for example, Indian. The leader of a peasant uprising in China could become an emperor, but a commoner. passed state examinations for an official position, could start a dizzying career.
7.4. Japan
(III - XIX centuries)
The era of the Yamato kings. The birth of the state (III-ser. VII centuries)
The core of the Japanese people was formed on the basis of a tribal federation Yamato Japan was called in ancient times) in the III-V centuries. Representatives of this federation belonged to the Kurgan culture of the early Iron Age.
At the stage of state formation, society consisted of consanguineous clans (uji) that existed independently on their own land. A typical clan was represented by its head, priest, lower administration and ordinary free persons. Groups of semi-free (bemins) and slaves (yatsuko) adjoined it, without entering it. The first in the hierarchy was the royal clan (tenno). Its allocation in the III century. was a turning point in the country's political history. The tenno clan ruled with the help of advisers, district lords (agata-nushi) and regional governors (kunino miyatsuko), the same leaders of local clans, but already authorized by the king. The appointment to the post of ruler depended on the will of the most powerful clan in the royal environment, which also supplied the royal family with wives and concubines from among its members. 563 to 645 such a role was played by the Cora clan. This period of history was named the Asuka period after the residence of the kings in the Yamato province.
The internal policy of the Yamato kings was aimed at uniting the country and at shaping the ideological basis of autocracy. An important role in this was played by the "Legislation of 17 Articles" created in 604 by Prince Shotoku-taisi. They formulated the main political principle of the supreme sovereignty of the ruler and the strict subordination of the younger to the elder. Foreign policy priorities were relations with the countries of the Korean Peninsula, which sometimes reached armed clashes, and with China, which took the form of ambassadorial missions and the goal of borrowing any suitable innovations.
Socio-economic system of the III-VII centuries. enters the stage of decomposition of patriarchal relations. The communal arable land, which was at the disposal of rural households, is gradually beginning to fall under the control of powerful clans, vying with each other for the initial resources: land and people. Thus, a distinctive feature of Japan consisted in that significant role of the tribal feudalizing nobility and more obvious than anywhere else in the Far East, the tendency to privatize land holdings with the relative weakness of the power of the center.
In 552, Buddhism came to Japan, which influenced the unification of religious and moral-aesthetic ideas.
Fujiwara era
The historical period following the era of the Yamato kings spans time, the beginning (645-1192) which falls on the "Taika coup" in 645, and the end - in 1192, when military rulers stood at the head of the country with the title shogun ".
1 Shogun is the title of the military feudal rulers of Japan in 1192-1867, under which the imperial dynasty was deprived of real power. Shogunate - government of the shoguns in feudal Japan (also called bakufu).
The entire second half of the 7th century passed under the motto of reforms Taika. State reforms were designed to reorganize all spheres of relations in the country according to the Chinese Tang model, to intercept the initiative of private appropriation of the country's initial resources, land and people, replacing it with the state one.The central government apparatus consisted of the State Council (Dazyokan), eight government departments, and a system of main ministries. The country was divided into provinces and counties, headed by governors and county governors. An eight-degree system of family titles with the emperor at the head and a 48-rank ladder of court ranks were established. Since 690, population censuses and land redistributions have been carried out every six years. A centralized system of manning the army was introduced, weapons were confiscated from private individuals. In 694, the first capital city of Fujiwarakyo was built, a permanent place of the imperial headquarters (before that, the headquarters were easily transferred).
Completion of the design of the medieval Japanese centralized state in the VIII century. was associated with the growth of large cities. In one century, the capital was transferred three times: in 710 to Haijokyo (Nara), in 784 in Nagaoka and in 794 in Heiankyo (Kyoto). Since the capitals were administrative, not trade and craft centers, after the next transfer they came to desolation. The population of provincial and county towns did not exceed, as a rule, 1000 people.
Foreign policy problems in the VIII century. recede into the background. The consciousness of the danger of an invasion from the mainland is dying out. In 792, universal military service was abolished. the coast guard is eliminated. Embassies to China are becoming rare, and trade is beginning to play an increasingly important role in relations with the Korean states. By the middle of the IX century. Japan is finally switching to a policy of isolation, leaving the country is prohibited, and the reception of embassies and ships is stopped.
Formation of a developed feudal society in the 9th-12th centuries. accompanied by an increasingly radical departure from the Chinese classical model of state structure. The bureaucratic machine turned out to be permeated through and through with family aristocratic ties. There is a tendency towards decentralization of power. The divine tenno already reigned more than actually ruled the country. The bureaucratic elite around him did not develop, because a system for the reproduction of administrators on the basis of competitive exams was not created. From the second half of the 9th century. the power vacuum was filled by representatives of the Fujiwara family, who actually began to rule the country from 858 as regents under juvenile emperors, and from 888 as chancellors under adults. The period from the middle of the 9th to the first half of the 11th century. is called "the time of the reign of regents and chancellors". It flourished in the second half of the 10th century. with representatives of the House of Fujiwara, Mitinaga and Yorimichi.
At the end of the IX century. the so-called "state-legal system" (ritsuryo) is formed. The new supreme state bodies were the personal office of the emperor and the police department, directly subordinate to the emperor. The broad rights of governors allowed them to strengthen their power in the province so that they could oppose it to the imperial. With the decline in the importance of the county government, the province becomes the main link in public life and entails the decentralization of the state.
The population of the country, mainly engaged in agriculture, numbered in the 7th century. about 6 million people, in the XII century. - 10 million. It was divided into full-fledged (remin) and unequal (semin) tax-paying taxpayers. In the VI-VIII centuries. the allotment system of land use prevailed. The peculiarities of irrigated rice cultivation, which is extremely labor-consuming and required the personal interest of the worker, determined the predominance in the structure of production of small-scale labor-free farming. Therefore, slave labor was not widely spread. Full-fledged peasants cultivated state land plots to be redistributed once every six years, for which they paid a tax in grain (in the amount of 3% of the officially established yield), fabrics and fulfilled labor duties.
Domainal lands during this period did not represent a large state farm, but were given to dependent peasants for cultivation by separate fields.
Officials received allotments for the term of office. Only a few influential administrators could use the allotment for life, sometimes with the right to inherit it for one to three generations.
Due to the natural nature of the economy, government departments were predominantly able to enter the few urban markets. The functioning of a small number of markets outside the capitals was hampered by a lack of professional market traders and a shortage of peasant food products, most of which were withdrawn in the form of taxes.
A feature of the country's socio-economic development in the IX-XII centuries. there was the destruction and complete disappearance of the allotment system of management. Fiefdoms that had the status of "granted" to private individuals (shoen) by the state came to replace them. Representatives of the highest aristocracy, monasteries, noble houses that dominated the counties, the hereditary estates of peasant families appealed to state bodies for recognition of the newly acquired possessions as shoen.
As a result of socio-economic changes, all power in the country from the tenth century. began to belong to noble houses, owners of shoen of various sizes. The privatization of lands, incomes, positions was completed. To settle the interests of the opposing feudal groups in the country, a single estate order is created, for which a new term "imperial state" (ede kokka) is introduced, replacing the previous regime - "rule of law" (ritsuryo kokka).
Another characteristic social phenomenon of the developed Middle Ages was the emergence of the military class. Having grown from the detachments of vigilantes used by the owners of shoen in internecine struggle, professional warriors began to turn into a closed class of samurai warriors (bushi). At the close of the Fujiwara era, the status of the armed force rose due to social instability in the state. In the samurai environment, a code of military ethics arose, based on the main idea of personal loyalty to the master, up to the unconditional readiness to give his life for him, and in case of dishonor - to commit suicide according to a certain ritual. So samurai turn into a formidable weapon of large farmers in their struggle with each other.
In the VIII century. Buddhism becomes the state religion, which quickly spread among the top of society, which has not yet found popularity among the common people, but is supported by the state.
Japan during the era of the first Minamoto shogunate
In 1192, a sharp turn in the historical fate of the country took place, the supreme ruler of Japan with the title of shogun was Minamoto Yerimoto, the head of an influential aristocratic house in the north-east of the country. The headquarters of his government (bakufu) was the city of Kamakura. The Minamoto shogunate lasted until 1335. This was the heyday of Japan's cities, crafts and trade. As a rule, cities grew around monasteries and the headquarters of large aristocrats. At first, Japanese pirates contributed to the flourishing of port cities. Later, regular trade with China, Korea and the countries of Southeast Asia began to play a role in their prosperity. In the XI century. there were 40 cities, in the XV century. - 85, in the XVI century. - 269, in which corporate associations of artisans and merchants (dza) arose.
With the coming to power of the shogun, the agrarian system of the country has qualitatively changed. Small samurai became the leading form of land tenure, although large fiefdoms of influential houses, the emperor and the all-powerful Minamoto vassals continued to exist. In 1274 and 1281. the Japanese successfully resisted the invasion of the Mongol army.
From the successors of the first shogun, power was seized by the house of the relatives of the Hojo, called the Shikken (rulers), under which a semblance of an advisory body from the highest vassals appeared. Being the mainstay of the regime, the vassals carried hereditary security and military services, were appointed to the post of administrators (zito) in the estates and state lands, by the military governors in the provinces. The power of the military government of the bakufu was limited only to military-police functions and did not cover the entire territory of the country.
Under the shoguns and rulers, the imperial court and the Kyoto government were not liquidated, for the military power could not rule the country without the authority of the emperor. The military power of the rulers was significantly strengthened after 1232, when an attempt was made by the imperial palace to eliminate the power of the shikken. It turned out to be unsuccessful - the detachments loyal to the court were defeated. This was followed by the confiscation of the 3000 shoen belonging to the supporters of the court. Second shogunate Ashikaga
The second shogunate in Japan arose during the long strife of the princes of noble houses. On (1335-1573) for two and a half centuries, periods of civil strife and the strengthening of centralized power in the country have alternated. In the first third of the 15th century. the positions of the central government were the strongest. The shoguns obstructed the growth of control of the military governors (shugo) over the provinces. To this end, bypassing the shugo, they established direct vassal ties with local feudal lords, obliged the shugo of the western and central provinces to live in Kyoto, and the southern eastern part of the country in Kamakura. However, the period of centralized power of the shoguns was short-lived. After the assassination of shogun Ashikaga Yoshinori in 1441 by one of the feudal lords in the country, an internecine struggle developed, which grew into a feudal war of 1467-1477, the consequences of which affected a whole century. The country is entering a period of complete feudal fragmentation.
During the years of the Muromachi shogunate, there was a transition from small and medium feudal land ownership to large. The system of fiefdoms (shoen) and state lands (kore) is declining due to the development of trade and economic ties, which destroyed the closed borders of feudal possessions. The formation of compact territorial possessions of large feudal lords - principalities - began. This process at the provincial level also proceeded along the line of an increase in the holdings of military governors (shugo ryokoku).
In the Ashikaga era, the process of separating handicrafts from agriculture deepened. Handicraft workshops now arose not only in the metropolitan area, but also in the periphery, concentrating in the headquarters of military governors and the estates of feudal lords. Production focused exclusively on the needs of the patron was replaced by production for the market, and the patronage of strong houses began to provide a guarantee of monopoly rights to engage in a certain type of production activity in exchange for the payment of sums of money. Rural artisans, moving from a wandering to a sedentary lifestyle, a specialization of rural areas arises.
The development of the craft contributed to the growth of trade. Specialized trading guilds emerged, separated from craft workshops. On the transportation of tax revenue products, a stratum of Toimaru merchants grew, which gradually turned into a class of intermediary merchants who transported a wide variety of goods and engaged in usury. Local markets were concentrated in areas of harbors, ferries, post stations, shoen borders and could serve an area with a radius of 2-3 to 4-6 km.
The centers of the country remained the capitals of Kyoto, Nara and Kamakura. According to the conditions of the emergence of the city, they were divided into three groups. Some grew out of post stations, ports, markets, customs outposts. The second type of cities arose with temples, especially intensively in the XIV century, and had, like the first, a certain level of self-government. The third type was market settlements at the castles of the military and the headquarters of the provincial governors. Such cities, often created by the will of the feudal lord, were under his complete control and had the least mature urban features. The peak of their growth was in the 15th century.
After the Mongol invasions, the country's authorities took a course to eliminate the country's diplomatic and trade isolation. Taking measures against the Japanese pirates attacking China and Korea, the bakufu restored diplomatic and trade relations with China in 1401. Until the middle of the 15th century. the monopoly of trade with China was in the hands of the Ashikaga shoguns, and then began to go under the auspices of large merchants and feudal lords. From China, silk, brocade, perfumery, sandalwood, porcelain and copper coins were usually brought, and gold, sulfur, fans, screens, lacquered dishes, swords and wood were sent. Trade was also conducted with Korea and the countries of the South Seas, as well as with Ryukyu, where a unified state was created in 1429.
The social structure in the Ashikaga era remained traditional: the ruling class consisted of the court aristocracy, military nobility and the top of the clergy, the common people - of peasants, artisans and merchants. Until the XVI century. clearly established classes-estates of feudal lords and peasants.
Until the 15th century, when there was a strong military power in the country, the main forms of peasant struggle were peaceful: escapes, petitions. With the growth of principalities in the XVI century. the armed peasant struggle also rises. The most massive type of resistance is the anti-tax struggle. 80% of peasant uprisings in the XVI century. took place in the economically developed central regions of the country. The rise of this struggle was also facilitated by the onset of feudal fragmentation. Massive peasant uprisings took place in this century under religious slogans and were organized by the neo-Buddhist sect Jodo.
Unification of the country by the Tokugawa shogunate
Political fragmentation has put on the agenda the task of * uniting the country. This mission was carried out by three prominent political figures of the country: Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582), Toyotomi HiJoshi(1536-1598) and Tokugawa Ieyasu(1542-1616). In 1573, after defeating the most influential daimyo and neutralizing the fierce opposition of the Buddhist monasteries, Oda overthrew the last shogun from the House of Ashikaga. Towards the end of his short political career (he was assassinated in 1582), he took possession of half of the provinces, including the capital Kyoto, and introduced reforms that contributed to the elimination of fragmentation and the development of cities. The patronage of Christians who appeared in Japan in the 40s of the 16th century was conditioned by the irreconcilable resistance of Buddhist monasteries to the political course of Oda. In 1580 there were about 150 thousand Christians in the country, 200 churches and 5 seminaries. By the end of the 17th century. their number increased to 700 thousand people. Last but not least, the growth in the number of Christians was facilitated by the policy of southern daimyo, interested in the possession of firearms, the production of which was established in Japan by the Catholic Portuguese.
The internal reforms of Oda's successor, a native of the peasants Toyotomi Hijoshi, who managed to complete the unification of the country, had the main goal of creating an estate of serviceable taxpayers. The land was assigned to peasants who were able to pay state taxes, and government control over cities and trade was strengthened. Unlike Oda, he did not provide patronage to Christians, conducted a campaign to expel missionaries from the country, persecuted Japanese Christians - destroyed churches and printing houses. Such a policy was not successful, for the persecuted took refuge under the protection of the rebellious southern daimyo who had converted to Christianity.
After the death of Toyotomi Hijoshi in 1598, power passed to one of his associates, Tokugawa Izyasu, who in 1603 proclaimed himself shogun. Thus began the last, third, and longest (1603-1807) Tokugawa shogunate.
One of the first reforms of the Tokugawa house was aimed at limiting the omnipotence of daimyo, of which there were about 200. For this purpose, the daimyos hostile to the ruling house were geographically dispersed. Crafts and trade in the cities under the jurisdiction of such tozama were transferred to the subordination of the center along with the cities.
The Tokugawa agrarian reform once again secured the peasants for their lands. Under him, classes were strictly demarcated: samurai, peasants, artisans and merchants. Tokugawa began to pursue a policy of controlled contacts with Europeans, singling out the Dutch among them and closing ports to everyone else and, above all, missionaries of the Catholic Church. The European science and culture that came through the Dutch merchants in Japan received the name of Dutch science (rangakusha) and had a great influence on the process of improving the economic system of Japan.
The 17th century brought political stability and economic prosperity to Japan, but an economic crisis began in the next century. The samurai found themselves in a difficult situation, having lost the necessary material content; peasants, some of whom were forced to go to the cities; daimyo, whose wealth has been declining markedly. True, the power of the shoguns still remained unshakable. A significant role in this was played by the revival of Confucianism, which became the official ideology and influenced the way of life and thoughts of the Japanese (the cult of ethical norms, devotion to elders, the strength of the family).
The crisis of the third shogunate became evident in the 1930s. XIX century. The weakening of the shoguns' power was used primarily by the tozama of the southern regions of the country, Choshu and Satsuma, who grew rich due to the smuggling of arms and the development of their own, including the military industry. Another blow to the authority of the central government was struck by the forcible "opening of Japan" by the United States and European countries in the middle of the 19th century. The emperor became the national patriotic symbol of the anti-foreign and anti-Shogun movement, and the imperial palace in Kyoto became the center of attraction for all the rebellious forces of the country. After a short resistance in the fall of 1866, the shogunate fell, and power in the country was transferred to the 16-year-old emperor. Mitsuhito (Meiji)(1852-1912). Japan has entered a new era in history.
So, the historical path of Japan in the Middle Ages was no less tense and dramatic than that of neighboring China, with which the island state periodically maintained ethnic, cultural, economic contacts, borrowing samples of the political and socio-economic structure from a more experienced neighbor. However, the search for their own national path of development led to the formation of an original culture, a regime of power, and a social system. Greater dynamism of all processes, high social mobility with less deep forms of social antagonism became a distinctive feature of the Japanese way of development,
the nation's ability to perceive and creatively process the achievements of other cultures.
7.5. Arab Caliphate
(V - XI centuries. AD)
On the territory of the Arabian Peninsula already in the II millennium BC. lived Arab tribes that were part of the Semitic group of peoples. In the V-VI centuries. AD Arab tribes prevailed in the Arabian Peninsula. Part of the population of this peninsula lived in cities, oases, was engaged in handicrafts and trade. Another part wandered in deserts and steppes, was engaged in cattle breeding. Trade caravan routes between Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Judea passed through the Arabian Peninsula. The intersection of these paths was the Meccan oasis near the Red Sea. In this oasis lived the Arab tribe of Qureish, whose tribal nobility, using the geographical position of Mecca, received income from the transit of goods through their territory.
Besides Mecca became the religious center of Western Arabia. An ancient pre-Islamic temple was located here Kaaba. By Legend has it that this temple was erected by the biblical patriarch Abraham (Ibrahim) with his son Ismail. This temple is associated with a sacred stone that has fallen to the ground, which has been worshiped since ancient times, and with the cult of the god of the Quraish tribe. Allah(from Arabic ilah - master).
In the VI century. n. h. in Arabia, due to the movement of trade routes to Iran, the importance of trade is declining. The population, having lost income from the caravan trade, was forced to look for sources of livelihood in agriculture. But there were few land suitable for agriculture. They had to be conquered. For this, forces were needed and, consequently, the unification of fragmented tribes, who, moreover, worshiped different gods. The need for the introduction of monotheism and the rallying on this basis of the Arab tribes was increasingly determined.
This idea was preached by adherents of the Hanif sect, one of which was Muhammad(c. 570-632 or 633), who became the founder of a new religion for the Arabs - Islam. V this religion is based on the dogmas of Judaism and Christianity: belief in one God and his prophet, the last judgment, the afterlife, unconditional obedience to the will of God (Arabic Islam - obedience). The names of prophets and other biblical characters common to these religions testify to the Jewish and Christian roots of Islam: the biblical Abraham (Islamic Ibrahim), Aaron (Harun), David (Daoud), Isaac (Ishak), Solomon (Suleiman), Ilya (Ilyas), Jacob (Yakub), Christian Jesus (Isa), Mary (Maryam), etc. Islam has common customs and prohibitions with Judaism. Both religions prescribe circumcision of boys, forbid depicting God and living beings, eating pork, drinking wine, etc.
At the first stage of development, a new religious worldview - Islam was not supported by the majority of Muhammad's tribesmen, and first of all by the nobility, as they feared that the new religion would lead to the termination of the Kaaba cult as a religious center, and thereby deprive them of income. In 622, Muhammad and his followers had to flee from persecution from Mecca to the city of Yathrib (Medina). This year is considered the beginning of the Muslim chronology. The agricultural population of Yasri-ba (Medina), competing with the traders from Mecca, supported Muhammad. However, only in 630, having gained the necessary number of supporters, he was able to form military forces and seize Mecca, the local nobility of which was forced to submit to the new religion, especially since Muhammad proclaimed the Kaaba the shrine of all Muslims.
Much later (c. 650) after the death of Muhammad, his sermons and sayings were collected in a single book Koran(translated from Arabic means reading), which has become sacred for Muslims. The book includes 114 suras (chapters), which set out the main tenets of Islam, prescriptions and prohibitions. Later Islamic religious literature is called sunnah. V it contains legends about Muhammad. Muslims who recognized the Quran and Sunnah began to be called Sunnis, and who recognized only one Quran, - Shiites. Shiites recognize legitimate caliphs(governors, deputies) of Muhammad, spiritual and secular heads of Muslims only his relatives.
The economic crisis of Western Arabia in the 7th century, caused by the movement of trade routes, the lack of suitable land for agriculture, and a high population growth, pushed the leaders of the Arab tribes to seek a way out of the crisis by seizing foreign lands. This is reflected in the Quran, which says that Islam should be the religion of all peoples, but for this it is necessary to fight the infidels, exterminate them and take their property (Quran, 2: 186-189; 4: 76-78, 86).
Guided by this specific task and the ideology of Islam, the successors of Muhammad, the caliphs, began a series of campaigns of conquest. They conquered Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia. Already in 638 they captured Jerusalem. Until the end of the VII century. under the rule of the Arabs were the countries of the Middle East, Persia, the Caucasus, Egypt and Tunisia. In the VIII century. Central Asia, Afghanistan, Western India, Northwest Africa were captured. In 711, the Arab troops led Tarika sailed from Africa to the Iberian Peninsula (from the name of Tariq, the name Gibraltar was derived - Mount Tariq). Having quickly conquered the Iberian lands, they rushed to Gaul. However, in 732, at the Battle of Poitiers, they were defeated by King Charles Martell of the Franks. By the middle of the IX century. the Arabs captured Sicily, Sardinia, the southern regions of Italy, the island of Crete. This stopped the Arab conquests, but a long-term war with the Byzantine Empire was fought. The Arabs twice besieged Constantinople.
The main Arab conquests were made under the caliphs Abu Bakr (632-634), Omar (634-644), Uthman (644-656) and the Umayyad caliphs (661-750). Under the Umayyads, the capital of the Caliphate was moved to Syria to the city of Damascus.
The victories of the Arabs, their seizure of vast territories were facilitated by the many years of mutually exhausting war between Byzantium and Persia, disunity and constant enmity between other states that were attacked by the Arabs. It should also be noted that the population of the countries occupied by the Arabs, suffering from the oppression of Byzantium and Persia, saw the Arabs as liberators who reduced the tax burden primarily to those who converted to Islam.
The unification of many former scattered and warring states into a single state contributed to the development of economic and cultural communication between the peoples of Asia, Africa and Europe. Crafts, trade developed, cities grew. Within the Arab Caliphate, a culture developed rapidly, absorbing the Greco-Roman, Iranian and Indian heritage. Through the Arabs, Europe got acquainted with the cultural achievements of the Eastern peoples, primarily with the achievements in the field of exact sciences - mathematics, astronomy, geography, etc.
In 750, the Umayyad dynasty in the eastern part of the caliphate was overthrown. The Abbasids, the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad's uncle, Abbas, became the caliphs. They moved the capital of the state to Baghdad.
In the western part of the caliphate, the Umayyads continued to rule in Spain, who did not recognize the Abbasids and founded the Cordoba Caliphate with the capital in the city of Cordoba.
The division of the Arab Caliphate into two parts was the beginning of the creation of smaller Arab states, the heads of which were the rulers of the provinces - emirs.
The Abbasid Caliphate waged constant wars with Byzantium. In 1258, after the Mongols defeated the Arab army and captured Baghdad, the Abbasid state ceased to exist.
The Spanish Umayyad caliphate also gradually narrowed. In the XI century. As a result of internecine strife, the Cordoba Caliphate broke up into a number of states. This was used by the Christian states that emerged in the northern part of Spain: Leono-Castile, Aragonese, Portuguese kingdoms, which began to fight the Arabs for the liberation of the peninsula - the reconquest. V In 1085 they conquered the city of Toledo, in 1147 - Lisbon, in 1236 Cordoba fell. The last Arab state on the Iberian Peninsula, the Emirate of Granada, existed until 1492. With its fall, the history of the Arab Caliphate as a state ended.
The Caliphate as an institution for the spiritual leadership of the Arabs by all Muslims continued to exist until 1517, when this function was transferred to the Turkish Sultan, who conquered Egypt, where the last Caliphate lived - the spiritual head of all Muslims.
The history of the Arab Caliphate, numbering only six centuries, was complex, ambiguous and at the same time left a significant mark on the evolution of the planet's human society.
Difficult economic situation of the population of the Arabian Peninsula in the VI-VII centuries. in connection with the relocation of trade routes to another zone made it necessary to search for sources of livelihood. To solve this problem, the tribes living here embarked on the path of establishing a new religion - Islam, which was supposed to become not only the religion of all peoples, but also called for the fight against infidels (infidels). Driven by ideology
Islam, the caliphs carried out a broad policy of conquest, turning the Arab Caliphate into an empire. The unification of the former scattered tribes into a single state gave impetus to economic and cultural communication between the peoples of Asia, Africa and Europe. Being one of the youngest in the East, occupying the most offensive position among them, having absorbed the Greco-Roman, Iranian and Indian cultural heritage, the Arab (Islamic) civilization had a huge impact on the spiritual life of Western Europe, representing a significant military threat throughout the Middle Ages. ...
Self-test questions
1. Give the periodization of the history of the Medieval East, based on the criterion of the degree of maturity of feudal relations.
2. How did land relations develop in India, China, Japan at various stages of feudalism?
3. What changes has undergone the system of economic, political and social relations in these countries from stage to stage of feudalism?
4. Describe the political system of India, China, Japan. What is common and special in each of them?
5. When did urbanization begin in these states and what processes were accompanied by it?
6. What are the economic and social prerequisites for the unification of Arab tribes and the emergence of Islam.
7. List the countries captured by the Arabs in the 7th-9th centuries.
8. Identify the main reasons for the collapse of the Arab Caliphate.
New time
The beginning of the capitalist development of England in the 16th century.
LECTURE number 12 § 11. East in the Middle Ages.
Political development of India in the Middle Ages ... In the V - VII centuries. on the territory of India there were about fifty states at war with each other. Later, a relatively unified state was formed here.
From the end of the VIII - the beginning of the IX century. the troops of the Arab Caliphate, and then individual Muslim rulers began to make campaigns against India. Small Muslim states were formed in the north of India.
In 1206, a military leader of one of the Muslim rulers declared himself a sultan, making the city of Delhi his capital. Gradually powerDelhi Sultanate spread to all of North and Central India, and at times covered South India. Much of Indian land was distributed between Muslim warriors and mosques. Indian rulers had to obey the Muslims. The entire state apparatus, like the army, consisted of Muslims. However, despite the spread of Islam in India, the bulk of the population still remained faithful to Hinduism. The confrontation between Hinduism and Islam, the incompatibility of life customs, norms of behavior determined by these religions led to the weakening of the Delhi Sultanate.
Culture of india ... The most famous monuments of architecture of the early Middle Ages are located inAjante andEllore ... Ajanta became famous mainly for the wall paintings of Buddhist monasteries. The temple complexes of Ellora are famous for their sculptures, among which the life-size statues of elephants stand out.
The conquest of North India in the X - XII centuries. Muslims brought new to India cultural traditions of Central Asia, the Middle East, Iran. In India, structures with arches, domes and vaults began to be built. There were also new types of structures - mosques, minarets, mausoleums.
India's contribution to science is also great. So, it became extremely important to createdecimal number system ... Indian scientists have created a table to calculate the location of the planets. Scientist and AstronomerAriabhata expressed the idea that the Earth is a ball and revolves around its axis. Many astronomical works of Indian scientists have been translated into Arabic. Thanks to this, the ideas embedded in them penetrated into other countries.
China in the III - XIII centuries. After the collapse in the III century. The Han Empire in China was followed by a long period of unrest and internecine wars, accompanied by attacks by nomads. The unity of the country was restored only by 589 by the dynastySui ... However, as a result of the peasant uprisings of 611 - 618. the Sui dynasty was overthrown. In 618 a dynasty came to powerTan , which once again strengthened the central government.
The unification of China during the Tang era made it possible to expand its influence among its neighbors, to pacify many nomads. A number of transformations contributed to the strengthening of centralization. At the end of the 6th - beginning of the 7th century. construction was in progressThe Great Canal between the Yellow and Yangtze rivers, the Great Wall of China was fortified. From the second half of the VIII century. the decline of the Tang Empire begins. The growth of the administrative apparatus increased expenses, and the willfulness of the nobility grew. In the IX century. peasant uprisings begin. In 874, they developed into a grandiose peasant war. In 881, the peasant army captured the capital.
China was re-united in 960 under the rule of the dynastySung ... But in the XII century. the northern territories of the country were seized by nomadic peoples who created their own states there (the Jin Empire, the Tangun kingdom).
Mongol conquests. The disintegration of China made it easier for the Mongols to conquer the country. The creatorMongolian state becameGenghis Khan ... He managed to unite the Mongol tribes and create a powerful army, united by iron discipline and equipped with the best weapons for that time. With this army, Genghis Khan began his campaigns of conquest. In 1211 - 1213 he managed to conquer the Jin empire and the Tangun kingdom. In 1219, Genghis Khan's army attacked the powerful state of Khorezm, which occupied the territory of Central Asia and Iran. A year later, after fierce battles, all these lands were annexed to the Mongol Empire. The Mongols also conquered the tribes of southern Siberia. A vast power was formed, stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Caspian Sea. After the death of the founder of the empire, the conquests were continued by his sons and grandsons.
According to the will of Genghis Khan, the conquered lands were divided into four parts, in which the descendants of his four sons began to rule (the Golden Horde, the Hulaguid state, the Chagatai ulus, the Yuan empire). They soon became independent states.
During the reign of Genghis Khan's descendants, the Song state was conquered (1279). The dynasty of the Mongol emperors of China was namedYuan ... China was under the rule of the Mongol dynasty for over a century. The brutal oppression and plundering of the population by the conquerors more than once provoked uprisings. In 1368, as a result of a powerful popular movement, the power of the Mongols was overthrown. The leader of the uprising was a peasantZhu Yuanzhang ... He was proclaimed the Son of Heaven, the emperor. The reign of the dynasty beganMin (1368 - 1644).
Ming dynasty ... Having ascended the throne, Zhu Yuanzhang did a lot to strengthen the central power and economy of the country. The distribution of land to landless and land-poor peasants had a beneficial effect on the life of China. Taxes have been reduced. The craft has achieved great success. The main commodities in China's trade with other countries were fabrics and porcelain. The Chinese carefully kept many craft secrets. So, only two families owned the secret dressing of one of the varieties of silk, and for three hundred years they had married each other so that the secret did not go beyond the families.
China fought successfully against Vietnam. The Chinese fleet sailed to the countries of Southeast Asia, to India and even to the east coast of Africa. The gifts of foreign rulers were perceived as the arrival of barbarians with tribute. In response, they gave gifts to the arrivals. The value of these awards was to be as many times higher than the tribute, as the prestige of the emperor was valued above the prestige of the ruler who sent the gifts.
Features of the development of Japan ... In the IV century. a large part of Japan was united under the rule of one of the tribal unions. In 645, the prince came to powerNakanoe who made big transformations. Instead of a tribal union, a state was created in the image of the Chinese. The supreme body wascouncil under the ruler , who was conventionally called the emperor. The country was divided into provinces. The peasants received from the state for temporary use a plot of land corresponding to the number of family members. In addition to paying the state with grain and handicrafts, it was necessary to carry out various works. Cities arose that were built under the influence of China and Korea.
Samurai ... Over time, the central government in Japan weakened. The provincial rulers strove for complete independence. In this they relied on the Japanese samurai knights.
Samurai are warriors who received land from the ruler of the region or another noble person for their service.
The bulk of the samurai came from wealthy peasants. Another way was to provide land to domestic servants. The top of the samurai class was replenished also at the expense of the rulers of the provinces.
Samurai life was based onBushido laws (translated from Japanese - "The Way of the Warrior"). Faithfulness to the master, modesty, courage, and readiness for self-sacrifice were glorified as norms of behavior. The samurai, going on a campaign, took three vows: to forget your home, to forget about your wife and children, to forget about your own life. A persistent custom was the suicide of a samurai after the death of his master.
There were continuous wars between the samurai groups, which undermined the economy and the integrity of the country. In 1192, the leader of one of the groups appropriated the titleshogun (commander-in-chief) and became the de facto ruler of Japan, pushing the emperor out of power. The shogunate institute existed in Japan until the second half of the 19th century.
In the XIII century. the Japanese managed to repel the Mongols' attempt to seize their country. However, then a strife broke out, ending with the overthrow of the shogun from the Minamoto dynasty. After many years of struggle, the country established itselfAshikaga shogunate.
QUESTIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS
1. How did the Delhi Sultanate come about? What were the main contradictions that undermined the power of this state?
2. Tell us about the main achievements of Indian culture during the Middle Ages.
3. Why is the period of the Tang Dynasty in China considered the country's heyday?
4. How did the Mongol Empire come about? What parts did it split into? How did China free itself from the dominion of the Mongol dynasty?
5. Tell us about the features of the development of China during the Ming Dynasty.
6. Who are samurai? What role did they play in Japanese history? What are the Laws of Bushido? What qualities should a samurai have? Why do some people nowadays strive to observe the norms of behavior characteristic of the samurai?
7. Compare the development of India, China, Japan in the Middle Ages. What are the common features and differences?
With the growth and development of the productive forces: iron tools, irrigation, feudal relations were strengthened. But this transition from primitive communal and slave-owning relations was slower than in Europe. State ownership of land limited the power of the feudal lords. The state organization arose here before the formation of private rights to land plots began. The state has become a hypertrophied general community. But such a huge community could not work on its head every day like an elder in a village. The patriarch moved away from the people, forced to resort to the help of servants. But such a patriarch was not limited by anything other than tradition. Surrounded by servants, distant and separated from the people, the patriarch was also distanced from tradition. The result is despotism. Private ownership of land, which nevertheless was formed from grants, thus formed only among those close to the authorities, that is, among the upper stratum of the ruling class. The property of the others was rare, incomplete, subject to arbitrariness, which negatively influenced the economic initiative and also led to stagnation.
In Europe, the Middle Ages is a synonym for "feudalism", it is the period between antiquity and capitalist relations. And in the East there was antiquity. Eastern civilization developed unevenly:
periods of prosperity alternated with periods of decline. Therefore, it is difficult to strictly define the boundaries of the Middle Ages in the East. The Middle Ages for the civilization of the East are considered to be the first 17 centuries of the new era.
The following stages are distinguished in the history of the East:
I-VI v. AD - the transitional period of the emergence of feudalism;
VII-X centuries - the period of early feudal relations, natural exchange and the decline of ancient cities;
XI-XII centuries - pre-Mongol period, the beginning of the heyday of feudalism, the development of cultural
XIII centuries - the time of the Mongol conquest, which interrupted the development of feudal society;
XIV-XVI centuries - post-Mongolian period, slowdown of social development, despotic form of power.
Geographically Medieval East includes territories:
North Africa, the Near and Middle East, Central and Central Asia, India, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia and the Far East. east feudal sultanate samurai
The medieval East was distinguished from Europe by the presence of different civilizations.
Some civilizations in the East originated in antiquity;
Buddhist and hindu- on the Indian subcontinent,
Taoist-Confucian- in China.
Others were born in the Middle Ages:
muslim civilization in the Near and Middle East,
Indo-Muslim- in India,
hindu and muslim- in the countries of Southeast Asia,
Buddhist- in Japan and Southeast Asia,
confucian- in Japan and Korea
The medieval East was a symbol of wealth and luxury for Europeans. The living standard there, up to the end of the 18th century, was significantly higher than in the West; cities outnumbered European cities in terms of their numbers. In the large cities of the East, craft developed, reaching a very high level for the Middle Ages. Europe bought silk, porcelain, weapons, spices in the East.
Meanwhile, the life of the medieval East was turbulent.
Old empires collapsed, and new states arose in their place. Hordes of nomads destroyed ancient centers of culture, endangering the very existence of civilization. If Western Europe is already by the XII century. mainly freed from this danger, then in the East a long time later the struggle against nomads continued.
The East was by no means a single whole: a huge abyss separated nomadic tribes and sedentary cultures, the historical paths of ancient civilizations (Indian and Chinese) and younger ones that appeared by the 6th-7th centuries were different. n. NS. (Arabic and Japanese).
Before considering these civilizations separately, you can
highlight common characteristic features:
- - the state is the supreme owner of the land.
- - who has power, he has property;
- - the basis of society and the state is the rural community;
- - private property plays only an auxiliary role, and
the state is dominant;
The presence of large cities, which previously played the role of administrative,
religious centers, as well as centers of international trade.
In all the states of the East, the economic system was organized according to the following scheme: those who worked the land were united into communities. Communities had the right to cultivate the land and use all the necessary resources for farming: water, forest, suburbs, etc. But the right to own and dispose of land and its resources was in the hands of the state apparatus. Therefore, the community paid tax to the state,
And the state built canals, roads, bridges, temples, etc. The state apparatus had access to the distribution of manufactured products and, accordingly, received their share in the property. The higher the position occupied by a person in the state apparatus, the greater the share he received. Therefore, we say that the feature of Eastern civilization was the power of property.
The more efficiently the state apparatus worked, the more regularly and in sufficient volume taxes were collected. The state was strong and powerful. Its power increased from the productivity of a peasant or artisan. But the life of the whole society was disrupted: an uprising, famine, the death of states, etc. Two main reasons ruined the state: when unreasonable rulers overestimated the amount of taxes, uprisings took place or raids of nomads destroyed the traditional system of life.
GENERAL FEATURES OF THE EMPIRE
The vast majority of works created by traditional historians contain, as we see, distortions and insurmountable contradictions. What to believe? In our opinion, only facts. This, of course, is extremely difficult, because they are often replicated and dispersed by the supporters of the Scaligerian chronology in different epochs and centuries, who created chimerical antiquity in the 16-19 centuries.
Here is a short list of twins from "antiquity" and the Middle Ages, compiled by the researcher V. Ivanov:
Virgil - Virgil Polydor (Many-wise?) 15-16 centuries.
Titus Livy - Tito Livio (da Forli) 15th century
Jerome - Erasmus of Rotterdam 15-16 centuries.
Augustine - Lorenzo Valla 15th century
Vitruvius - Leon Batista Alberti 15th century
Theophrastus - Theophrastus Paracelsus 16th century
Hipparchus - Tycho Brahe 16th century
Aristarchus of Samos - Nicolaus Copernicus 16th century
Archimedes - Kepler, Galileo 16-17 centuries.
Jesus Christ is a collective image of the 16-17 centuries.
And yet we will try to determine what actually happened in the times that played a decisive role in the formation and development of modern civilization. From time to time we will have to briefly repeat what has already been said, many provisions will be confirmed only in subsequent chapters, but these shortcomings are inevitable, since it is impossible to tell everything at once.
Recall that we do not have precise landmarks in place names and names, and even worse - in the dating of events that took place before the 18th century. Some researchers believe this is the result of some kind of worldwide conspiracy aimed at distorting the history of this or that country, belittling its importance in the fate of mankind, to silence facts that are extremely unpleasant for someone.
To think so is extremely wrong. Everything that we have today in traditional history is the result of the gradual layering of errors and distortions by fit past events under a deliberately incorrect model dictated by momentary political interests. A practice that is still widespread today.
The decisive role was played by the wrong chronological model invented by numerologists and astrologers in the 16th century. As we have already noted, the erroneous interpretation of a number of fundamental concepts such as “the beginning of a new era”, “from the birth of Christ”, etc., as well as key words in determining time periods, contributed to the distortion of history. For example, the main meaning of the Latin word saeculum is "generation." Meanwhile, but often interpreted and translated as "century". (Ananiev et al. Complete Latin Dictionary. 1862, p. 761) But if in one text “7 centuries ago” is written, and in the other - “7 generations ago,” then the difference will be at least 500 years. This is the credibility of many keywords.
The situation with geography is even more confusing. A medieval author, mentioning Rome, Troy, Egypt, Palestine or Galilee, could, depending on his education and local tradition, call a variety of places that way, and in most cases these are not the places and cities that bear these names today. The mention by an old French author of the burning of Troy could mean something quite different from what a later author in England meant. The spiritual verse of the "People of God" sect, formed in Russia in 1645, sounded like this:
“On the blue sea of Khvalynsky and everyday life, sailing guests sailed from distant cities, Israeli childbirth. Guests sailed to Jerusalem hail, to stone Moscow ... " ("History of Russian Literature", vol. I, St. Petersburg, 1908, p. 398)
Moscow, it turns out, was Jerusalem for them, and the Slavs were Israeli clans.
The lack of proper names for our ancestors and the constant change of nicknames such as "Great Tsar", "Tsar Warrior" adds to the difficulties. When translated directly into different languages, they are perceived as different names. An excellent example is the biographies of the ancient Egyptian Akhenaten and the medieval Constantine V, which coincide to the smallest detail.
In order to restore the correct picture of events and the correct chronology, it is necessary to determine the priorities in the study and the gradation of historical sources.
The highest priority in the construction of chronology should be recognized for strict methods of mathematical modeling and astronomical calculations, since the likelihood of a fake when sketching, for example, stellar zodiacs is very small. This was brilliantly demonstrated by A. Fomenko and his followers.
Among the written sources, those in which there are no descriptions of political events are more significant: these descriptions, unfortunately, are always biased. Much more confidence in various codes, laws, IOUs, receipts and generally any "not intended for posterity" documentation.
Based on them, we can confidently say that European civilization is the oldest and therefore the most developed in the history of mankind. It took a long time towards its qualitative leap, which took place by 800-900 AD, to use the terminology of traditional history. The jump is due to the massive transition to a settled lifestyle and agriculture, primarily in the Mediterranean region, the most favorable for human habitation.
About the next two centuries, almost no written sources have survived, since writing was just born in those days in the form of drawing hieroglyphs.
Indirect help in the study of this period can only be provided by the analysis of such an objective and reliable process as the development of technology. He shows that at the turn of the second millennium, iron smelting was discovered by mixing ore and coal, and a horse appeared on the list of domestic animals. With a nomadic lifestyle, it is impossible to engage in metallurgy. And the nomads did not need it. Only the needs of the economy could force people to look for more efficient materials for creating tools and more powerful draft power for cultivating fields. These discoveries determined the rapid development of regions with an abundance of iron ore and coking coal deposits, especially in Central Europe.
By the 11th century, the development of the economy reached a level when it became possible to allocate part of the accumulated social product for the maintenance of a regular army. The beginnings have appeared professional army.
This is important to emphasize for the following reason. All "antique" works, as well as in historical works devoted to "ancient" wars, tell about armies of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, armed with the latest military equipment of that time. For example, the name is ancient Persia, which equipped an army of two hundred thousand for campaigns. Gigantomania also did not pass the Bible. The book contains the results of the census of the Jews who took part in the military campaign of Moses. There were six hundred thirty-five thousand five hundred and fifty men of military age.
Statements that have nothing to do with reality. The theory, developed by the most prominent commanders and military theorists of the world, shows that any country, both in the past and now, can have an army in which no more than 5 percent of the male population is involved. Ten percent is already an economic and military catastrophe: the state is not able to maintain a large army, which must be supplied with everything necessary and continuously replenished with fresh and full-fledged manpower during hostilities.
A professional army, and only professionals can fight successfully, appeared only when society was able to allocate for it a part of the accumulated gross product. That is, in the Middle Ages.
Immediately, the entire northern Mediterranean region began to slowly "boil" militarily. The richer southern regions, which, however, did not have metallurgy due to the lack of deposits of iron ore and coal, turned out to be lagging behind in the quality of weapons. And the further, the more. A decisive leap took place in the years 1150–1200. The invention of the iron horseshoe, without which the use of a horse in general is impossible, led to the emergence of military cavalry, which had an undeniable advantage over infantry in battles.
The military expansion of the technologically advanced northwest against the richer southern regions resulted in a global war. The first in the history of mankind world war.
Reports of its early stages and the process of creating an empire in historical chronicles are obscured and littered with descriptions of wars during its disintegration, so the work on detailing this process is a matter of many decades. However, let's try to formulate what can be traced today.
We assume that the primary expansion, let's call it conditionally the first crusade of Alexander the Great, began in the Balkans and covered most of the inhabited land area in southern Europe and southern Asia, up to Kashmir in India, and in northern Africa, including Ethiopia.
Having begun, the expansion, that is, the expansion of the empire, continued continuously. Wars of conquest have their own laws. There is no empire in the history of mankind that would not strive for the constant expansion of borders and spheres of influence. The victorious professional army dictates its own "rules of the game" to the metropolis. She needs permanent war. Otherwise, there will be no trophies, no titles, no glory. It should also be taken into account that professional warriors do not possess any skills other than the skill to kill. In peacetime, they are out of work. After the world wars of the twentieth century, they were called “lost generations”.
Ultimately, permanent war leads to a catastrophic depletion of material and human resources and to the weakening of the metropolis. So it was with the first empire - right up to the events of the "fourth" crusade, which was the beginning of its collapse.
The hikes were called cross not by chance. Any military expansion requires a spiritual justification, proof of the correctness of the attack. Troops must be inspired with awareness justice war. Otherwise, they will fight without a fighting lift, and this is fraught with defeat.
The ideological substantiation of the primary expansion was reflected in religious chronicles as the right of the “people of Israel” to the Holy Land, given to them by God. It is noteworthy that the army of Moses, who carried out the campaign, was divided into 12 tribes-detachments, which received 12 vast territories with cities and fields as a reward after the victory. In secular chronicles, the conquest is described as the first crusade for the possession of the Holy Land and its cleansing of the "infidels." The territory of the empire is also divided into 12 fems.
The definition of "cross" does not at all speak of the Christian nature of the campaign in the modern sense of the word. Let us remind ourselves once again that the Christian cross appeared long before Jesus Christ as a symbol of the Sun.
We assume that by the time the empire was formed, 4 main power blocs claimed dominance: from the West - Latin, from the North - Slavic-Gothic, from the East - Semitic and from the South - Ethiopian.
The war between the Latins and the Slavic Goths, called the Hittites in Egyptian terms, was long and ended with the conclusion of peace. The Slavic-Gothic influence was enormous. It can be traced over a vast territory, right up to India, where Sanskrit is indistinguishable from Proto-Slavic and one of the tribes retained the ancient name of the Aryans, that is, the Arians, followers of the largest branch of Gnosticism.
The initial conquest was largely economic in nature. The less wealthy northwest went to war in the southeast to conquer fertile lands. According to the Old Testament, it was said through the mouth of the Lord:
"I ... go to rescue him (the people of Israel) from the hand of the Egyptians and bring him out of this land into a good and spacious land, where milk and honey flow." (Ex. 3: 8.)
Thus, the first crusade was essentially peasant. Women, old men and children were traveling in the troop train to settle in the conquered places once and for all - with families, clans, clans. In the history of mankind, such a campaign was repeated only once and was called the conquest of the American Wild West.
The settlers claimed that these lands were bequeathed to them by God. From the point of view of the people of the 21st century, their claims seem dubious. Today we are all convinced that the right to own this or that territory is confirmed long ago the life of this or that people on it. But it was not always so. Until the 19th century, the territory conquered which was considered the most compelling argument in disputes over who they belonged to. If I won, then it’s mine! .. Variations of such statements were later repeated more than once in the wars of conquest of various empires.
I would like to emphasize that almost all the chronicles, scattered both geographically and on the timeline, reflected two great political figures. Let's call them CONQUEROR and REFORMER, although in some versions these figures merge.
The Conqueror's personality has been duplicated many times. Here is an incomplete list of his "reflections":
"Ancient Egyptian" Ramses II = Alexander the Great = Diocletian = Justinian I = Charlemagne = Joshua. The details of this extraordinary biography are repeated in a number of descriptions of other figures of the past in the "ancient Egyptian" records.
In the biography of the Conqueror, there are often a couple of figures: a father and a son. For example, a couple of Macedonian and a couple of Ramses, and perhaps there really were two of them.
The questions immediately arise: why did they “multiply” on the pages of the chronicles? And why are they named differently?
Let us remind once again that all the above names are not names at all, but nicknames. but now we perceive, for example, the words "Charlemagne" as the name of a particular ruler. In fact, they only mean "The Great King." Any ruler could be called a great king. And if we nevertheless call someone Charlemagne, then only by virtue of the historical traditions. What his parents actually called him, no one knows. And, obviously, he will never know, because in those days there was no custom to give a person one name from birth to death.
As J. Kesler emphasizes in one of his works, these nicknames, which are essentially the same, in different languages and sound differently. So he appears in one place, for example, King Chlorine, and in another - Red. And not every reader understands that this is one and the same person, because Chlorine is Red. Only in another language.
Therefore, we designated the first emperors of the world's first empire with the words "Conqueror" and "Reformer".
As for the duplication of their figures in various chronicles, this happened after the collapse of the empire, when the chroniclers and chroniclers of the newly formed states were composing an allegedly ancient and glorious genealogy of the new rulers. The history of the empire that had gone into oblivion served as a fertile material for them, full of interesting events, wars, incidents. It was possible to draw from her any facts and decorate them as much as imagination allowed. We saw this in the writings about "ancient" Greece, and about "ancient" Rome, and about even more "ancient" China.
And one more reason for duplication. The Conqueror and Reformer, like all people on earth, had both positive and negative qualities. In addition, their deeds, recognized as excellent in one era, were considered reprehensible in another era. So the chroniclers had to separate the bad, in their opinion, deeds from the good. And since in a number of cases "bad" actions had to be put somewhere, then a great figure, as a rule, had a "villain" - an understudy, whom the chroniclers sent to ancient times. Often under the same name.
The "good" stunt doubles had one thing in common: they were Christian true faith and devoted all their lives to its victory. And among them were the ancestors of those who ruled the countries during the creation of the chronicles.
Chroniclers slavishly devoted their works to them, the "Magnificent", "Sunlike", "Purple-bearing", and so on, and so on. The authors took care of their daily bread.
In reality, life was full, as it is now, and baseness, and holiness, a little bit of everything.
In the era of the Conqueror united religion as the ideological basis of the empire has not yet been formed. There was a continuous annexation of more and more new lands, and a mixture of languages and rivalry of cult paradigms reigned in the state. From local pagan cults they drew everything that could serve to exalt the Conqueror. This, in particular, was reflected in the legend that Alexander the Great, having conquered Egypt, took from the hands of local priests the symbols and the title of Pharaoh, the earthly embodiment of the Sun God. That is, he became a living god. In the East, the Conqueror was called the Father of the Khans, or Batya Khan, in the western version - By the Vatican, in the Gothic version - "Attila".
The word "papa" has become a key word for understanding all subsequent political processes.
The capital of the Conqueror was named the Eternal City, or the City of the World, or the City of the Viceroy of God. This is the meaning of the names in different languages: "Jerusalem", "Rome", "Tsar-grad" ... After centuries it will be called Constantinople. This will be done in the 15th century by the Roman Catholic Church, which finally separated from Byzantium. A new it will proclaim Rome its capital ("the Eternal City"). The renaming operation was carried out to substantiate the Charter “Konstantin's Gift”. According to her, the papacy allegedly inherited imperial powers from Byzantium. And when, soon in the same century, Lorenzo Valla proved the falsity of "Constantine's Gift", Catholic Rome began to explain the name of the former Tsar Grad by derivatives of Greek name Konstantin... In other words, there was a great emperor with that name, and the city was named after him. This is how we perceive the name of the Eternal City today. But the whole secret is that the very word "Constantine" means in Latin " Constant". That is, "Eternal".
Italian Rome was founded only at the end of the XIV century, in the XII-XIII centuries it has not yet been marked on the maps. And why was it necessary to designate some kind of fortress, erected far from the main transport routes? ("Rome" means only "fortress") All references to "Rome" at that time should be attributed to the city on the Bosphorus.
The Bosphorus is the most convenient place for the most developed region on the planet at that time.
From here it was a stone's throw to the rich provinces. It was easiest to deliver abundant tribute from the conquered territories here by waterways. A place of eternal rest, again, is close by. We mean the Valley of the Kings in Egypt.
By the way, nobody knew Egypt as such. He was called Mits-Rim, which has survived to this day in Hebrew. “Egypt” freely moved anywhere in the chronicles until the 16th century. At the same time, "Syria" and "Palestine" moved with him. For example, Egypt, Syria and Palestine of the fourth crusade occupy the territory of modern Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland and Russia, that is, Eastern Europe. This sounds crazy to modern people. For chroniclers of the Middle Ages it is quite normal. After all, they could not have known what their descendants would call the Eastern European countries.
The main symbol of imperial power was the two-headed eagle looking to the West and to the East. Since ancient times, the eagle has been mainly perceived as a symbol of power. He was associated with By the sun, fire and light, and was also a symbol fertility and masculine strength. According to the Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung, "the ultimate meaning of this symbol is the idea of heights."
The eagle is found in almost every corner of the planet, including the Inca civilization in Central America. Therefore, many researchers believe that the empire even then reached America. It is not only the two-headed eagle that leads to such reflections, but also the fact that Christopher Columbus took a man who knew Hebrew with him on his journey as a translator. And when the navigator's ships approached the shores of Cuba, it was the translator who went ashore first. Columbus believed that the natives must understand Hebrew.
After the death of the Conqueror, the Reformer came to power. He is named in the chronicles in different ways: Octavian Augustus = Constantine the Great = Constantine V (Copronym) = Amenhotep IV, or Akhenaten.
Whereas the Conqueror mainly seized lands and collected tribute, the Reformer had to rule a huge empire in relatively peaceful conditions, which turned out to be much more difficult than fighting. The formation of a unified statehood ran into deepest contradictions in the religious and linguistic spheres. Local religious cults and the diversity of languages, in the absence of a single written language, turned out to be the centrifugal forces that threatened to tear the empire apart.
Modern man basically identifies himself by his "roots", which mean, among other things, language, customs, ceremonies and rituals, including religious ones. At the time in question, religion was the main identification feature. And if people on the ground prayed to their gods, and not to the god of the metropolis, then, consequently, they did not consider themselves a single population of the new mega-state. There is no need to explain what such ideas can and do lead to. Political turmoil raged throughout the empire. Local beliefs fueled growing separatism, which effectively exploited the fact that the succession of reign in the capital was not secured. ideologically.
It was necessary to urgently take measures to introduce into the minds of people everywhere the idea of the legitimacy of the imperial power, that is, its divine origin, which excludes any resistance. People had to pray one god, god of the emperor. The title of Pharaoh - a living god - did not help in regions where no one knew anything about the sun god - Ra and did not want to know anything. It was necessary to rely on a different religious and ideological basis, the same throughout the entire space of the Oycumene.
Such a foundation was found with the help and support of the Semitic power bloc, close to the Reformer not only in spirit, but also in kinship.
Details of the Reformer's biography indicate that his mother was from the East, and her language was different from that generally accepted in the capital.
This detail can be traced in the biographies of Akhenaten, Constantine the Great, Constantine V, and is also reflected in the biography of Moses. Apparently, from childhood, the Reformer spoke Hebrew or a close variety of it - Aramaic. One of the sources says that Akhenaten is the second son of Amenhotep III and Queen Thaye, an Israelite.
There is every reason to believe that the Reformer from his mother joined the idea of one God, formulated by the priests of the East. Of course, this idea did not destroy the other gods completely and irrevocably. Jewish monotheism, even in its mature, finished form, retained traces of ties with its predecessor, the main God. As the Torah says: "Who is like you, Lord, among the gods?" (Ex.15: 11) And only then the Lord became the way we know him. Its main features were confirmed in the Psalms and Books of the Prophets.
We find an Egyptian trace in the apocrypha and legends of the Middle Ages. Some of them state that before becoming a Jewish prophet, Moses was Egyptian priest.
The transition to faith in one God solved a lot of problems. It meant not only quantitative changes (one deity instead of many), but also qualitative: one God is one in all manifestations. And it is to him, the only one, that the emperor is loyal. From this followed the most important conclusion for the Reformer: if God is one, then the only emperor and empire faithful to Him are the only ones. More succinctly it is expressed by the formula: "One God - one emperor - one empire." And there shouldn't be any deviations.
The simplification of religion was colossal. The pantheon of gods has been destroyed, all characters have been removed from it, so as not to cause any further controversy. In Judaism, there is no status of saints, no spirits. Angels appeared only in the Talmud, that is, in the interpretation of the Torah, which arose only in the 16th century. The characters in the Old Testament are God and people. Unique reduction in the number of actors and simplification of religious life.
At the same time, the new religion dealt a powerful blow to local beliefs by banning the worship of "idols." One God is invisible, this is one of his main qualities. And if so, then there can be no visible images of him. This is indicated by the third commandment of the Torah: "Do not make yourself an idol and no image of what is in the sky above, and what is on the earth below, and what is in the water below the earth." (Ex. 20: 4)
Therefore, anyone who worships "idols" is a pagan and is subject to punishment. An extremely easy and effective method of detecting dissent. One has only to find an idol or a fetish from someone, and you can apply all measures of influence to the freethinker, up to execution. The crime is obvious.
The ban on images was reflected in the process of creating the zodiacs, which were extremely popular at that time. Them for a rather long period in general stopped drawing... Here are the dates of the Egyptian zodiacs made by mathematicians A. Fomenko and V. Kravtsevich in 2001-2002:
Long Denderah zodiac - April 22–26, 1168 A.D.
Round Denderah zodiac - morning of March 20, 1185 g A D.
The Upper Athribis zodiac: May 15-16, 1230 A.D.
The Lower Athribis zodiac: February 9-10, 1268 A.D.
Small Esna zodiac - May 6-8, 1404 A.D.
…… and later.
In the interval between the middle of the 13th century and almost until the end of the 14th, the zodiacs were not drawn. This is, in our opinion, the reign of the Reformer and his successors.
Another brilliant find is the prohibition to pronounce the name of God. Thus, he became supranational. No one else could appropriate it to themselves, calling it in their own way: Zeus, Perun, Jupiter or something else. The name of the Lord is known only to especially trusted people. All others call him simply God, or the Lord of the world, or the Creator. Thus, another fundamental support is knocked out from under local beliefs.
The fact that Judaism is directed primarily and mainly against paganism is evidenced by almost every page of the Torah. A common thread running through her Books is the idea of the grave sinfulness of apostasy from monotheism, a return to the "golden calf" and other idols. At their core, the Books of the Old Testament are the battle manual of the Israelites, that is, theomachists, in a war against local beliefs.
However, the invisible and nameless God could be too far from people who are accustomed to addressing their idols with requests, wishes and demands. The faith of ordinary people does not tolerate abstractness. The people, especially the illiterate, need concreteness and trusting relationships with the deities. In the shamanism of the northern peoples and the beliefs of many African tribes, the custom is still preserved even to punish their idols if they do not fulfill their requests. They are simply burned or thrown away as trash.
It was necessary to bring the Creator closer to his creations. Therefore, in Judaism, God is represented as someone endowed with understandable human qualities. He is kind, fair, but sometimes extremely angry. Sometimes He even loses a sense of proportion, seeking to punish apostates from the true faith, and then Moses long persuades Him to change his anger to mercy, giving various arguments. God comes to his senses and agrees with a wise interlocutor. That is, he behaves in a completely human way.
Believers turn to Him with requests and wishes, calling them Father, shepherd, judge, etc. He listens to them and marks in the Book of Fates who behaves how in the current year. And depending on the behavior of people, it determines who will live in the next year, and who has come to go to the next world. Heavenly Bookkeeping works without interruption.
It is noteworthy that God uses precisely A book. In our opinion, this detail once again indicates the time of the creation of the Torah. It was written when people stopped using clay tablets and scrolls for writing. Then when the books appeared.
Monotheistic priests, marked by the circumcision rite as a symbol of belonging to the Divine Union, became intermediaries between God and people. The time of the "pure" castrates is irrevocably gone. But since they were not going to resignedly cede their dominant position in society, the change of the priestly elite was accompanied by massive repressions.
This is also noted in the official history. True, from the standpoint of the Scaligerian chronology. It is reported that “Emperor Constantine the Great in 325 by special decree declared illegal any kind of castration. For the act of castration, the death penalty was threatened. Many priests were exiled or imprisoned in monasteries. For example, the brethren of the Topos monastery in the mountains of today's Turkey once consisted exclusively of eunuchs. "
The provinces also resisted. Therefore, as the official history admits, "since Constantine the Great, the state power intervenes in dogmatic movements and directs them at its own discretion ... State interests did not always coincide with the interests of the church."
The reformer convenes a council in the Bithinian city of Nicaea. In later chronicles, it was reflected and split into a dozen cathedrals of the Roman Catholic Church, attributed by the Scaligerian chronology to the depths of the centuries. Therefore, it is possible to determine what happened on it only approximately. “The number of members of the council who arrived is not known exactly ... The acts (acts) of the Nicene Council have not survived. Some even doubt whether the minutes of the council were drawn up at all, ”historians write.
Nevertheless, they refer to information allegedly left in the "writings of the members of the council and historians." That is, one historian wrote something, another took what was written at face value, and as a result we have a story about how the true faith fought against the Arian heresy within the framework of the Christian church.
In fact, it was about the struggle of the God-fighting Israelis against paganism. But although "the emperor presided at the council, who even presided over the debate," they failed to achieve victory. The stakes in this struggle were too great. Outwardly, it all boiled down to differences in the interpretation of religious concepts. In reality, it was about ideological domination in the empire.
And then the Reformer applied a tried and tested method: a holy war with the "infidels" began.
It was reflected in Western chronicles as a crusade against the Qatar. It is named Albigon, and authentic evidence has been preserved about it. They explicitly state that the purpose of the punitive expedition was to introduce a new religious identification. This is one of the least distorted pages of history, with the only amendment that the Qatar religion is paganism, and Catholicism of that time is proto-Judaism, that is, Judaism without the Talmud.
In the eastern chronicles, the campaign was reflected as a jihad of "Muslims" in response to the conquests of the Crusaders. In fact, the Qur'an has not yet been written. This is evidenced by a variety of data.
Let us recall the facts discovered by J. Kesler. Until the 17th century, the British never used the words: "Muslims, Islam, Koran, minaret, muezzin, hijra, Kaaba." But by that time the sons of foggy Albion had already visited all countries of the world and conquered half of them.
It would seem that the Russians, who have lived next to the Islamic world from time immemorial, should have known who Muslims are. Nothing like this. The Cathedral Code of 1649 says (translated into modern language):
"What if busurman by some means, by force or by deception, will persuade the Russian person to his Busurman faith and besides, he will also cut off ... something like this busurmana execute, burn with fire without any mercy. "
"Busurmans" were called at that time Jews, collecting taxes. (I AM. Kesler)
The first Russian researcher of the Koran, the historian Tatishchev, wrote that the Koran in all of Russia can be read by only four people, including the Tatars. But this is already the 18th century.
There is a curious mention of Mohammed in one of the old works devoted to the magnet:
“The magnet, as you all know, has a great property, without which it is impossible to sail on the seas surrounding the earth (the world), and without which it is impossible to recognize neither the sides nor the limits of the light (of the earth). Coffin Persian Prophet Mohammed hangs above the ground in their Rapatta, in Derbent.
That is, there are no mosques yet, but there are rapats, and Mohammed is some kind of magician and wizard. In general, in European culture, the image of Mohammed was originally the object of various attacks and accusations of treachery, cruelty, and lust. And for some reason he is not an Arab, but a Persian.
But back to the empire.
A wave of religious persecution swept across Europe and Asia. Images, names of gods were banned, strict standards of clothing and gender relations were introduced, in many respects with an oriental bias. Pagan temples and sculptures were destroyed. Based on these events, legends were written about the destruction of Rome by the barbarians.
The coming to power of the Semitic group in Rome meant the transition to the Aramaic-Hebrew language standard, and this strengthened the position of the Semitic regions and weakened Latin Europe. This is why traditional history believes that this is a "dark time of pan-European decline." It is also called the time of the enormous influence of Eastern, Arab culture. Allegedly, the Arabs gave Europe mathematics, astronomy, medicine ... Everything is correct. That's just not the Arabs, but the Aramaic, Semitic group. It was practically not divided into Hebrew and Arabic. Until the late 15th century, Israelites prayed in Hebrew in minaret temples and wrote prayers in Arabic and Hebrew.
Lattices on the windows of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. The Jewish Magendavid guards the Muslim temple.
“The root of the word“ Arab ”is RAV, and the prefix A at the beginning is a Hebrew identifier, the same as the Greek one ?, although the transcription has changed, since until the onset of the printing period, spelling was everywhere free. "From the root of RAV comes the word rabbi, the biblical Reuben and many other concepts." (N. Morozov)
The reformer's prohibition to pronounce the name of God is splendidly attested to by the famous “Great Chapter” (Magna Carta). This large state document of the 13th century uses the phrase "God and the Holy Church", but there is not a single mention of the name of God, as well as Christ and other characters of modern Christianity.
The uniqueness of the “Great Chapter” lies in one of the most ancient references to Judaies (that is, the Latin “judge”) and the specific designation of their role. Judaies did not mean the people of the Jews, as they think today, but meant any state position. Precisely any, since in those days there was no specialization in the bureaucratic apparatus, and all kinds of writing and financial work were entrusted to the caste of officials - Judais. By the way, the English word jugde comes from the same root, and it's clear why.
There are many references in the Vatican bulls that Christians should not engage in usury, with a direct indication that this occupation is entrusted only to Judais. The Judais were the financiers of the Vatican, and most of the revenues collected went to the papal treasury.
Portrait of a medieval tax collector.
The same period in Eastern sources is described as the “Tatar-Mongol yoke”, which lasted for about 260 years, starting with Genghis Khan and ending with the “great standing on the Ugra” in 1481 (during the reign of Ivan III).
The same period is characterized by the short-term “Latin” conquest of Constantinople (1204) and the split of the Byzantine Empire, then the restoration of “Greek” power (1261), followed by the flourishing and final fall of Byzantium in 1453.
This date exactly coincides with the end date of the "Hundred Years War" between England and France (1337-1453), which, in fact, began much earlier, namely in 1204, with the French conquest of the continental possessions of the English kings of the Angevin dynasty ( Normandy, Anjou, Flanders and Guienne).
Together, these are the same events that took place in the Israeli-Byzantine Empire, described in traditional history from different points of view.
After the Reformer, the Sage, that is, Solomon, became the ruler. Again, this is not the name of a specific person, but a nickname similar to Archimedes (“Archimedes” means “Beginning of beginnings”). The role of Solomon is mainly claimed by the Byzantine emperors Leo VI the Philosopher and Andronicus II Palaeologus. In traditional history, they are separated by several centuries. But their biographies coincide to the smallest detail. This was discovered by the Bulgarian mathematician and historian Yordan Tabov.
Matches from the category of those that are not random:
Leo VI and Andronicus II are second sons, whose older brothers died in childhood. Both had brother named Constantine.
The second brother of Leo VI - Constantine - was crowned emperor, and then left the stage of history. There is also little information about Andronicus's brother with the same name; but the brothers are known to have been on bad terms.
Fate was favorable to the future emperors Leo and Andronicus from their youth: they were declared emperors - co-rulers of their fathers in early childhood, when they was four years old. (YOU p. 233 and p. 377).
Caring parents married them very early, before the age of majority, when Leo was about 16 years old. (YOU p. 233 and 40), and Andronicus is about 15 years old (YOU p. 377 and 382).
Their wives were named accordingly Anna and Teofana(Theophano). At first glance, these are different names, but "Theophanes" in their meaning can be deciphered as Theo + Anna, divine Anna. The biography of Leo states that Teofana was very pious, for which, after her death, she was canonized. So the first part of her name justifies itself. It is possible that even during her lifetime the court flatterers "lengthened" her original name from "Anna" to "Theophanes". But for the enemies, she, apparently, remained just Anna.
During the times of Leo VI and Andronicus II, formidable enemies invaded Byzantium: Scythians, came from the northern coast of the Black Sea. Leo was attacked by Oleg's "Tavro-Scythians", and Andronicus was attacked by Tatars - "Scythians". But it is believed that the "Tatar hordes" in the XIII century consisted of Russians and Tatars, and Khan Nogai in some sources is called "Noga" - a Russian nickname.
The reigns of Leo VI and Andronicus II are marked conflicts between the Byzantine Church and the Catholic:
At the request of the Pope, Leo eliminates Patriarch Nicholas the Mystic and enters into confrontation with Orthodox priests. Shortly after Leo's death the patriarch restored (YOU p. 237-239);
During the time of Andronicus, the treaty with the Catholics was annulled and patriarch restored (YOU p. 377).
It is very important to note a rare detail common to Leo and Andronicus: both were patrons of arts and sciences... Both were active in legislative activity.
Leo was married four times, and after his death there were problems with the succession to the throne. (J. Tabov. "When Kievan Rus was baptized")
Now let's remember the biblical Solomon:
He was famous for wisdom
He was a patron of the arts, he wrote great poetry himself,
He was a polygamist, and after his death there were problems with the succession to the throne,
He became famous for his legislative activity.
The Old Testament tells us that one Israel ends on Solomon. The country is split into two large parts - Israel and Judea. Absolutely right! The great empire of the medieval Leo - Andronicus - Solomon split into Western and Eastern.
Problems with the heirs of the Sage and the polygamist led to a fateful change of dynasties in the "Eternal City" and the coming to power of a side branch of the Komnenos, who brought to the capital instead of the Semitic Greek culture and language.
The acceleration of the collapse of the empire was facilitated by an unprecedented disaster - the plague epidemic. It hit Europe, according to all sources, in the middle of the XIV century, although it can be admitted that the dating of this terrible pandemic still requires careful study.
The plague was truly the "scourge of God." Before the formation of the empire, diseases did not become widespread due to the lack of communication between regions. The Black Death came by routes imperial trade and communications, and in a short time covered almost the entire European space. The first pandemic in human history has broken out.
The quarantine of the regions during the plague violated the well-established mechanism of interaction between the provinces and the center, and caused a lot of superstitions about the "wrath of the gods." As a result, the Zealots revolt first broke out, and later the Hussite revolution broke out, calling their largest fortress simply and modestly - "Zion".
The coming to power of the Komnenos put an end to the strict iconoclastic prohibitions of Judaism. The Komnenos were not “descendants” of King David, and therefore abandoned the concept of God's chosen emperor, the head of the “Jewish people,” partially returning to pagan standards. This immediately put the "Saracens", and the Europeans called the Byzantines that way, outside the common Israeli caste.
The rejection of imperial austerity, on the one hand, provoked a partial rollback to pre-imperial cults, which was later called the "Renaissance", on the other hand, it quickly led to what the Reformer fought so consistently with - the difference of religions and the so-called great schism Eastern and Western churches.
A fundamentally important moment in the emergence of new religions: they appeared due to political necessity. The emergence of states on the ruins of an empire required a new identity. This was the main impetus for the creation of beliefs that differ from imperial monotheism. But more on this in the following chapters.
Comnenus himself was reflected in the later eastern chronicles as Augustus, who allegedly conveyed the signs of imperial power to the Slavic Grand Duke Vladimir Monomakh, and in Western church chronicles - as Constantine the Great.
By the middle of the 14th century, the undermining of the empire took on a catastrophic character for Constantinople. In Greece, a Zealot rebellion broke out (1342–1349), described by Josephus in the "Jewish War" as a Zealot revolution of the 1st century AD. NS. One of the most famous Zealots is Simon. Zealot - later reflected in the Gospels as one of the apostles of Jesus Christ.
The world war began for the imperial crown.
Subsequently, sung by Homer as the Trojan War, and also reflected in the chronicles as the Tarquinian and Gothic Wars, it touched everyone. A variety of regions and pretenders to the throne entered the battle: Bulgarian leaders from the north, Turkish leaders from the east, Gaulish, Greek and many others from the west.
The empire collapsed and this led to a massive change of dynasties across Europe. Here are the data from traditional historiography:
1379 - the partition of Austria between Albrecht III (Albertine line) and Leopold III (Shtriyskaya line)
1359-1371 - the division of Bulgaria into the Tarnovo and Vidin kingdoms. 1396 - loss of independence - Turkey.
1373-1411 - Brandenburg (Branibor) Luxemburg government before changing to the Hohenzollerns.
1377-99 - England. Last Plantagenet, replaced by Lancaster.
1382-1387 - Hungary. Maria, replaced by Czech kings Egmond Luxembourg (Sigismund I)
1370-1385 - Poland. Anjou house. Since 1386 - the Jaggelon dynasty, starting with Vladislav Jagailo.
1385 - Portugal. The beginning of the Avisso dynasty, the end of the Burgundian dynasty.
1363 - Sweden. End of the Folkung dynasty.
1357-1371 - the end of the Bruce dynasty, the arrival of the Steward dynasty.
1396 - change of the dynasty in Aragon (Berengars).
Those who were henchmen of the former empire had to leave the arena of history.
The monotheists also left. Part of the religious elite fled from New Rome to the south of France - an old biblical region. Later, the stay of the monotheists there as fugitives will be reflected in the Old Testament as the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, and in the history of the Catholic Church - as the captivity of the popes in Avignon, which is the same thing.
Most of the Judaies fled to Imperial-Semitic Mauritania. It was there that, from the middle of the XIV to the end of the 15th century, the ethnic characteristics of people who would later be called Jews were formed.
The new Western elite, full of ambitious plans, are arranging a decisive assault on the capital of the former empire, which is called the fourth crusade in traditional history. The ideological justification for it is a new religious and political idea associated with the execution of Bogomil Basil, who turned into the Messiah, that is, into Jesus Christ. "Punish the" executioners of Jesus "- this is the official slogan of the campaign.
Ordinary crusaders, going to war, were sure that they were really going to punish the executioners of Jesus. Moreover, on the maps of the crusaders, Jerusalem is indicated immediately behind Macedonia, in the Balkans - where it is located modern Istanbul.
The fact that the crusaders fought not with the Muslims, but with the Greeks, is confirmed by many facts, including linguistic ones. In France, the word "mosque" (musquette) is unknown until 1351. Minarets (minaret) were not seen until 1606, muezzins were not heard (in the form of maizin) - until 1568, the current muezzin appeared already in 1823. Imam (in the form of iman) has been in use since 1559. (J.Kesler)
Even the word "Saracen" (sarrasin) is noted in French simultaneously with the word "synagogue" allegedly in 1080, although these same Muslim Saracens invaded France, according to the school history textbook, in the 8th century.
After the capture of Jerusalem-Rome-Constantinople, the overthrow of Greek rule, the Latin state of the crusaders was formed.
In 1431 at Basel Cathedral first the date from the Nativity of Christ is introduced - in honor of Jesus-Basil, who was crucified relatively recently. At the Florence Cathedral in 1439, part of the Greek and Slavic religious elite recognized Jesus Christ and the supremacy of Western religious standards. The era of modern Christianity has come.
However, not all parts of the former empire recognized the new Latin masters.
Many of the eastern orders, for example, the Turkic-speaking Golden Horde, opposed them. This was dictated by the same political motives - the formation of independent states and the desire to separate oneself not only physically, but also spiritually from the former empire, as well as from Christians who claimed to be the successors of the imperial monotheists. The confrontation between two powerful blocs - western and eastern - determined political life for several centuries to come.
Since 1400, pressure from the east has increased. In 1453, Mehmet II captured the Eternal City with a powerful blow. It would seem that after the seizure, a general persecution of Christians would begin. After all, if you follow the Scaligerian chronology, by the middle of the 15th century, Christianity already existed and flourished for a whole millennium, and Islam, victoriously taking over the minds of people in many Asian countries, managed to form into a religion complete in form and postulates that does not recognize other beliefs.
From the book Slavic Europe of the V-VIII centuries the author Alekseev Sergey ViktorovichGeneral features History of Western and especially Eastern Slavs in the VIII century. illuminated by written sources much poorer than the history of the southern. Meanwhile, we are talking about most of the Slavic world, stretching even then from the Laba to the upper Volga. Throughout this width in the 8th century
From the book History of the Ancient World. Volume 3. Decline of ancient societies the author Sventsitskaya Irina SergeevnaLecture 1: Common features of the third period of the ancient
From the book War in the Middle Ages the author Contamine Philip1. GENERAL FEATURES As a result of the battle of Lechfeld in 955, the threat from the Hungarians was eliminated, the last raids of the Vikings and Saracens were completed (early 11th century), and the West, emerging from the state of defense, managed to significantly expand the sphere over several generations.
From the book A Short Course in Russian History the authorGeneral features of the activities of the first Kiev princes The common interest that created the Grand Duchy of Kiev, foreign trade, also directed its further development, directed both the internal and external activities of the first Kiev princes. Reading the initial annals, we
From the book Barbaric Invasions of Western Europe. Second wave author Musset LucienAdvancement of the Slavs in the IV-VIII centuries. General features The text of Jordan speaks with certainty about the Slavs, which, in the middle of the 6th century, places them between the southern Danube, Dniester and Vistula (the Antes occupied the territory between the Black Sea, Dniester and Dnieper). Therefore, it is this
From the book of Daki [Ancient people of the Carpathians and Danube] by Berchu DumitruGENERAL FEATURES Fig. 51. Approximate Chronology of the Early Iron Age (Hallstatt) in Romania The farm became mainly cattle-breeding in nature, which
From the book World History: in 6 volumes. Volume 3: The World in Early Modern Times the author The team of authorsGENERAL FEATURES OF THE WORLD HISTORY AT THE LATE XV – XVII CENTURIES
From the book A Study of History. Volume I [The Rise, Rise and Decay of Civilizations] the author Toynbee Arnold Joseph4. Common Features Two characteristics common to all these detained societies are immediately apparent — caste and specialization; and both of these phenomena can be expressed in one formula: the individual living beings that make up each of these societies are not at all the same
From the book History of Korea: From Antiquity to the Beginning of the 21st Century. the author Kurbanov Sergey Olegovich§ 1. General features Speaking about the socio-economic structure of the Three States, the following important points should be taken into account: 1) the different nature of the socio-economic structure, depending on a specific period of history: the initial stage, the stage of flourishing or
From the book The best historians: Sergei Soloviev, Vasily Klyuchevsky. From the origins to the Mongol invasion (collection) the author Klyuchevsky Vasily OsipovichGeneral features of the activities of the first Kiev princes The common interest that created the Grand Duchy of Kiev, foreign trade, also directed its further development, directed both the internal and external activities of the first Kiev princes. Reading the initial annals,
From the book World History. Volume 3 Age of Iron the author Badak Alexander NikolaevichGeneral features of the period First half of the 1st millennium BC NS. - the period of further development of the slave society and the formation of new slave states. In Iran, Central Asia and North India outside the Indus Valley, in South Arabia, there is a transition to
From the book Review of the history of Russian law the author Vladimirsky-Budanov Mikhail Flegontovich From the book Soviet Economy on the Eve and During the Great Patriotic War the author The team of authors1. General features and features of the military restructuring of the industry of the Union republics With the loss of a number of large industrial regions, all the tasks of providing the Red Army with weapons, ammunition, equipment, the population and the army with consumer goods had to be solved
From the book The Creative Heritage of B.F. Porshnev and its modern significance author Vite OlegGeneral features The totalitarian ideological superstructure aspired to the same "monopoly universalism" as the medieval church. Firstly, without exception, all intellectual activity was included in a single system of "social organizations",
From the book History of the Ancient World. Volume 2. The flourishing of ancient societies the author Sventsitskaya Irina SergeevnaLecture 1: General features of the second period of ancient history Productive forces and means of violence In the field of productive forces, the defining moment for the second period of ancient history was the transition to steel production. Iron is more difficult to smelt from ore than copper
From the book Holy Wars in Buddhism and Islam: The Myth of Shambhala the author Berzin Alexander
