ReineyA.P. European History

Name______Date______Period______

Video – Crash Course #14 – “The Dark Ages: How Dark were They, Really?”

Directions: As you watch the video, fill in the outline or answer the questions. THEY GO IN ORDER. It does go quickly so you may need to stop and review periodically.

Europe

1. The period between 600 and 1450 C.E. is often called the ______Ages because it came between the ______empire and the beginning of the ______Ages. It is sometimes called the ______Ages because it was purportedly ______but was the age really so dark?

2. Outside of Europe, the Dark Ages were truly an age of ______but….

3. Medieval Europe had less ______, fewer ______, and less ______output than the original Roman Empire…

4. With fewer ______governments, wars were at least ______...... People living in medieval times lived slightly ______, life expectancy was ______, than Europeans during the Roman Empire where life expectancy was ______.

5. Instead of centralized governments, Europe in the Middle Ages had ______, a political system based on a reciprocal relationship between ______and ______....The lords were also vassals to more important lords, most important of all being the ______. Below the knights were ______who did the actual work on the land in exchange for ______.

6. Feudalism was also a ______system with peasants working the land and keeping some of the production to feed themselves while giving the rest to the ______...

7. This system reinforced the status quo…there is little ______and absolutely no ______mobility. Peasants could never work their way up to ______and almost never left villages.

8. This devolution from empire to localism has happened in lots of places at lots of different times and in times of political stress, like after the fall of the ______dynasty in ______....power tends to move into hands of local lords who can protect the peasants better than the ______

9. The other reason the Dark Ages were called dark is because Europe was dominated by ______and by boring ______debates…..the Middle Ages also saw theologians like Thomas ______who was quite an important ______and women like ______of Bingen who wrote all of this liturgical ______and invented the genre of the ______play.

The Islamic World during the Dark Ages

10. They had expanded out of homeland of ______and captured the ______provinces of Byzantines…the Umayyad dynasty expanded west into ______and moved the capital to ______(Syria) because it was closer to the action in the empire.

11. How were Arab Muslims’ societal structure and Middle Ages’ European social structure similar?

12. More important than Persian style monarchy the Abbasids set up was their openness to ______and their ideas. That tolerance and curiosity ushered in a Golden Age of Islamic ______centered in Baghdad. The Abbasids oversaw the effervescence of culture unlike anything since the Hellenistic times. Arabic replaced ______not only as language of commerce and religion but also of ______...Baghdad became a center of ______....Muslim scholars translated works of Greek ______including Aristotle and ______....

China

13. The Tang also produced incredible art that was traded all throughout ______....The Tang were also notable for their ______...By the 11th century, Chinese metalworkers were producing as much ______as Europe produced in the ______century. Some of this iron went to use in new ______which enabled ______to boom thereby supporting ______growth.

14. What was John Green’s opinion of the Dark Ages? Was it really “dark”? Why or why not?