UNIT ONE
PREFACE
What is history?
History is the story of the past. It involves the study of written records left us by people who lived in the past. Before there were written records, we try to piece together what might have happened from archeologists, who study the objects (called artifacts) they find when they dig up a civilization and then try to figure what that culture might have been like from the kinds of things they used. History also involves argument because it is rare that historians all agree on the significance of an event.
Never make the mistake of thinking that history is "long ago". A minute just passed is history. It's past, and it won't exist again. You can think of your personal history by thinking of the events in your life that made you what you are today. You can think of your family's history: how your parents or guardians happened to meet and decide to form a family, when and where you and your siblings - if you have any - were born, what places you have lived, what activities your family has enjoyed together and so on. You can think of the history of your school class: how many of you began kindergarten together, what year each of you came to this school, who your friends have been, what activities that you've done in each grade do you all remember?
Why is history important?
History is important because it gives us our identity. It tells us how we came to be where we are, and it helps us figure out where we are going in the future. What a group of people chooses to record, and how they record it, tells us a lot about that group of people. History teaches us about human beings. Humankind has always faced the same challenges: how to govern a group of people so that there is a balance between individual freedom and the safety of the group; how to organize society; how to make and distribute goods so that people don't go without the necessities of life; how to protect yourself from societies more aggressive than yours; what values are important for all the people in the society to learn; how to deal with change, which has been particularly important in the modern world, to name just a few. Hopefully, the knowledge of what other people did about these challenges and how their decisions turned out will help us make better decisions about the challenges.
How history is written
Historians who wish to write history are somewhat like detectives. They must do a lot of research, and they have to put together enough "evidence" to write what they wish to put across. They try as hard as they can in most cases to be as objective (fair, not taking a side) as possible about the research, and to read about the stories from many points of view. However, no human can be completely objective. Things have happened to us in our lives that influence the way we think about things. It is our nature to tell the story the way we see it, and we have to strive all our lives to remember that not everyone would tell exactly the same story as we would, and to realize that truth is never complete. To illustrate this, because it is difficult to understand, I am going to tell you a story. This story actually happened to a friend of mine the summer before she turned 12 in September. Her name was Polyn and she was a member of a pretty big family; she had 4 brothers and four sisters. She was the next to the oldest child, and the oldest girl. She was a gifted musician, her parents planned to make a concert pianist out of her, and she loved music. Her mother had been a pianist before she married and had actually recorded a few records. Now, to fully get the picture in this story, you have to know that records in the '40's and early 50's were made of hard rubber, and they were fragile things. If they got too hot, they warped and sounded funny, and if you dropped them, they broke. Most children, therefore, were not allowed to play around with the records. Polyn's father had made it clear that the records stayed in his study, and the kids didn't go in there.
On this particular hot summer afternoon, Polyn disobeyed her father and went into the study and got the recordings of her mother anyway. She took the records to her room, which she had to share with her younger sister, Mariska, and played them on the portable record player that she had. All was fine and dandy until Mariska decided she wanted to come in the room and play. Polyn told Mariska to get out. Mariska did not, asserting her right to be in the room; it was her room as much as Polyn's, she said. Polyn continued to tell Mariska to get out. Mariska then began to play with the things on Polyn's dresser because she knew Polyn hated that. Polyn continued to yell at her sister to get out. Mariska then threatened "to tell" about Polyn's having the forbidden records. Polyn went to grab her sister, and Mariska ran over and walked on the records. She broke every one. Polyn was now furious; she grabbed Mariska, who was kicking and screaming, shoved her in the clothes closet, and locked the door. Mariska, by now, was really screaming; she was afraid of being shut in dark places and that Polyn would leave her there.
By this time, the screaming brought Polyn's mother running up the stairs to see what was going on. When Polyn heard her mother running up the stairs, she let Mariska out of the closet. When Mother got to Polyn's room, she found the broken records lying on the floor, and two crying and obviously angry girls. Of course, she wanted to know what had happened. Now, everybody could agree that this was an event; something had happened; records had gotten broken. However, you need to think here. Will Polyn and Mariska tell the same story about this event? Will either story be completely true? When Polyn later related this story to me later, in a very tearful manner, did I hear a true story? Because I am sure you want to know what happened, Polyn, being the oldest, and the one "supposed to know better" was punished. She thought it was very unfair.
When you are reading history, I want you to remember this story. You have to think about who the author of the material you're reading is, and you have to realize that no matter how fair he tries to be, he will always have a point of view. There is always "another side of the story". To Americans, the Sons of Liberty were patriots who helped win our country's independence from Britain. To the British, they were terrorists and vandals who kept all the colonists worked up - and oh! how they would have loved to have caught them. We can only form opinions about historical events after we have read many versions of the story of an event.
Periods of history
For convenience, because there have been by now, tens of thousands of years of human history, historians divide history into "historical periods" or "eras". The historical period or era is then given a name by the historians. The name is usually an attempt to describe the era. The people who lived at the time the historian is writing about did not know they were living in any certain historical period. Like we do today, the people living then thought they were ever so smart and modern. Years from now, historians writing about us will give us a name, yet we do not know that name now.
Another thing to remember about the names is that they are culture-specific. European historians writing about European history divided that history into periods and gave those periods names which describe European history at that time. To try to use the names outside of their culture does not make any sense. For example, you will see that although the years 500-1000 A.D. were pretty miserable in Europe-lots of fighting-not enough to eat-miserable living conditions for many people- this was not so in the Middle East. These years were probably the height of Islamic civilization.
How the Middle Ages got its name
For most of this year, you will be studying a period of time in European history known as the "Middle Ages". The European historians who named it that lived during the Renaissance, which was a time of much new learning and discovery. The Renaissance men didn't think much of the period of time that had come before them. They compared it negatively to themselves, and to the other period of history that they thought was really awesome and great like themselves - the age of the Greeks and the Romans, which they called "Classical Civilization". (Renaissance men tended to think they were the reincarnation of ancient Greeks; we'll learn more about that later.) Renaissance historians thought two things about the Middle Ages: one, that people then were really pretty ignorant; they lived in a "dark" age where there was no knowledge; and two: that nothing important happened in the Middle Ages. Therefore the time period was not worthy of a more exciting name. It came in the middle of themselves and the Greeks and Romans; that was all that could be said about it. We know now that what the Renaissance men thought was not exactly true. Knowledge did not completely disappear, and many important things happened, things that are still influencing us today. However, by the time all this was discovered the name had been used for too long, and it had "stuck". It was too late to change it.
What happened in the Middle Ages?
We say the Middle Ages began around 500 AD In the beginning of the Middle Ages, and going on intermittently for about 500 years after that, there were barbarian invasions of Europe. Because so many barbarians came, and they came so often, it was hard for the Europeans already living there to assimilate them quickly or peacefully. There was a lot of fighting, both between Europeans living there and barbarians and between the different barbarian tribes themselves. All this fighting caused a lot of death, destruction, and a disruption of everyday activities such as school, trade, central government and other things we take for granted. You have to use your imagination here as your country has not been involved in any major wars that happened here in your lifetime - or even mine, for that matter! Almost continuous warfare for 500 years did a lot of damage. Civilization almost died in Europe at the beginning of the Middle Ages. Then the barbarian invasions stopped, and Europe could begin to put itself back together again. As it did this, it created "Western culture", which you are very much a part of. It created this new culture by putting together ideas from three places: Judeo-Christian ideas, Greek and Roman ideas and Germanic barbarian ideas. Part of our study this year will be to learn what these ideas were, and to see how the ideas were put together.
How close are we to the Middle Ages?
In time, we are not that far away from the Middle Ages. If we count the generations of people that there have been since the Middle Ages, there are about fifteen generations. A generation is a group of people all about the same age. You and your friends, brothers and sisters are one generation; your parents are another generation. On the average, there are about 3 generations a century.
As you already read, during the Middle Ages, Europeans built the culture that you are a part of, so as you study the Middle Ages this year, some of the things that the medieval people thought and did will seem familiar to you. They celebrated the many of the same holidays as you do. Their code of behavior was about the same. They prized some of the same values as we do. In other ways the people of the Middle Ages were very different from you. For example, they took religion a lot more seriously than most of us do today. They thought faith was the most important thing to have, and they worried a lot over what would happen to them when they died. Their inflexible social structure will also seem strange to you. It will be part of your task this year to see what differences and likenesses there are between their time and ours.
How we count time
This section will show you how historians count years in such a way as to make dividing history easier for them. The earth's movements were the source of many of our ideas of the division of time. Early man noticed that the sun rose and set in regularly recurring intervals, and that the seasons passed in a regular pattern also. So the first divisions of time came from the earth's movements-its rotation on its axis which took 24 hours, and its revolution around the sun, which took 365 days. The 24 hour period became a "day" and the 365 day period became a "year". Later, men noticed the moon and how it waxed and waned on a regular pattern, too - a pattern which took 28 days. This became the division of time known as the "month". When we talk about history, however, speaking in terms of days, weeks and years is not particularly useful. There are just too many of them. It would be like telling someone your age in days instead of years. Certain words were thought of to describe certain periods of years. Here they are; they are necessary vocabulary for this course so learn them:
Because not all events happen at a single time (the event is ongoing), and because some times we don't know an exact date, historians sometimes give a date that looks like this: c. 1400 AD. The "c" stands for "circa" or "around"; at around this particular date, certain events happened.
Sometimes you will see a date like this: "the fourth century" . This is a useful way of expressing when something that was ongoing, like barbarian invasions, happened. This date means "years in the 300's". To decide what century a date or certain years is in, we count one century ahead, like this: years in the 1900's are the 20th century.
In order to count time, we must have a beginning point. People of various cultures have different starting points depending on what events in their history seem to them to be the most important. To people of Western culture, like ourselves, who are mostly Christian in religion, the most important event ever to happen was the birth of Christ, so the Christian calendar begins with that event. Years before that event are called "Before Christ" or "before the Christian era"; years since that event are called "AD" which is Latin for "in the year of our Lord" ; you also some times see "C.E." which means "Christian era". According to the Christian calendar, Christ was born 1,997 years ago! With the Christian calendar, there are many more years before Christ than after, because in terms of the history of this earth, 1,997 years ago is pretty recent! Because of the influence of Western culture on the rest of the world, the Christian calendar is used many, many places; however, you need to remember there are other calendars; you will hear about them in class over the course of the year.
Chapter Questions and Outline
By answering the questions, you will be making an outline of the chapter. Answer the questions in sentences and, as much as possible, in your own words.
Preface ( title of outline)
I. What is history?
A. What is history?
B. What does history involve?
C. If a civilization had no written records, how does a historian learn about it?
II. Why is history important?
A. Why is history important?
B. What challenges have humans always faced?
III. How history is written
A. How are historians who wish to write history like detectives?
B. What must a historian do before forming an opinion regarding historical
IV. Periods of history
A. What is a historical period?
B. How do historical periods get their names?
C. What do we mean when we say the names for historical periods are
culture-specific?
V. How the Middle Ages got its name
A. Which historians named the Middle Ages?
B. What did these historians think about the Middle Ages? (2 things)
1.???
2.???
C. What was ‘Classical Civilization’?
D. What do we know now about the Middle Ages that the Renaissance
people did not consider?
VI. What happened in the Middle Ages?
A. When did the Middle Ages begin?
B. What happened at the beginning of the Middle Ages?
C. What almost died in the Middle Ages?
D. What are the three places from which Western culture got its ideas?
1.??
2.??
3.??
VII. How close are we to the Middle Ages?
A. What is a generation?
B. How many generations would there be in 100 years?
C. What did Europeans do during the Middle Ages?
D. What similarities were there between the Middle Ages and our times?
E. What differences were there between ourselves and the Middle Ages?
IX. How we count time
A. What was the source of many of our measurements of time?
B. The rotation of the earth was used as a measurement of a _____.
C. The revolution of the earth was used as the measurement of a _____.
D. How did we get the measurement of the month?
What is a:
1. decade
2. century
3. millennium
F. What does the abbreviation ‘c.’ mean before a date? Why is it used?
IX. How we count time
A. What years are included in the term ‘4th century’?
B. What century is the year 1683 in?
C. With what point in time does the Christian calendar begin?
D. Years before Christ are labeled _....... or...........
E. Which are there more of, AD years or BC years? Explain why this is
so.
F. Why is the Christian calendar used in so many places in the world?
Extra Credit Questions
These are ‘thought questions’ which are not answered directly in the text or they require a little research.
Unit Two - The Roman Empire and Barbarians