all right so this is open stacks u.s history chapter 1 section 2 europe on the brink of change so section 1 1.1 was all about the americas north and south america uh this section will be looking at europe this is of course chapter is focusing on before the year 1492 which was columbus's voyage so we're just going to take a look at what was going on in europe in the years leading up to this consequential date we're going to begin with the fall of the roman empire in 476 ce now the fall of the roman empire is important because it meant that for the next thousand years or so there was no central political control in some senses europe was fragmented politically into many small different kingdoms and rulers the time period that succeeded the roman empire is called the middle ages or the dark ages stretching roughly from 500 to 1500 about a thousand years we sometimes refer to this as the dark ages because when compared with the period of roman rule there was just in general less knowledge less trade uh less population less people less literacy uh in some ways it seems sort of like a regression from times earlier a particular event that was devastating to the european population uh really just about 150 years before columbus was the black death a disease that ravaged europe the black death was responsible for killing about one third of europeans died from this disease but the ones who survived did build up some sort of immunity and so you see an image here of some people being afflicted with the black death now during the middle ages life in feudal europe feudalism or feudal is sometimes a term used to describe what the political and social and economic system was like during the dark ages so feudal you might say feudalism is sort of a social political and economic system again recall because there was no central political power politics the economy and society were all very local right we might say local so for example uh many people in europe during the dark ages or during the period of the feudal system uh either lived in castles or manors now typically these castles or manors you could see a picture of a castle here was owned by some sort of lord right so a castle in manor typically offered protection the castle or manor offer protection and produced goods because there was no central ruler trade was very risky so pretty much everything that people consumed was either built or grown you know in the castle or around the castle or on the manor the lords we might say of lords they owned the land slash castle right that was their position typically the lords were the ones who were kind of on top of feudal society uh the knights they offered protection so they offered to fight and in return lived they lived at castle and then lastly most people who were serfs now serfs or serfdom you might say surf sir serfdom these are the farmers right serfs generally speaking provided labor for the lord offering the lord uh and the knights uh crops and so the system worked in a way that serfs provided the food the food went to the knights and the lord the lord offered protection in the castle for the serfs and the knights also offered protection uh fighting on behalf of the lord but it still was a very violent time serfdom itself was a very low standard of living uh in most places of europe wheat was the staple crop for which uh people sustained themselves and also livestock and this was especially in contrast to people in the americas where livestock was not readily available things like pigs cows horses goats sheeps right all of these things were available in europe whereas they were not available in the americas prior to 1492. now one point that we do want to make here is that while feudal society was very much politically we'll say politically fragmented in terms of religion it was unified and that is to say that there were many lords many kings many queens there were often times battles between lords between castles but one thing that nearly all europeans had in common was that they recognized the catholic church as the religious authorities we might say about the catholic church it was the single religious authority during the middle ages uh see ah thor idi and so about the church in society the church during the middle ages had a very heavy influence on european society christianity itself that's really what church we're talking about so let's just make sure that we're all on the same page talking about christianity christianity has uh split into different denominations in different sects over the course of time the first major split was between the east and the western parts of christianity uh christianity initially thrived in the roman empire the way that christianity spread was through the roman empire very early on the romans persecuted christians in christianity but later on roman emperors adopted christianity and that really helped spread it through europe spread in europe and even when the roman empire fell that religious authority continued to exist however there were competing factions or competing centers for religious authority and the first major split happened in 1054 ce that's 500 years after the fall of the roman empire we sometimes refer to this as the great schism on the one side was eastern christianity eastern christianity was led by the patriarch of constantinople constantinople is a city in what is modern day turkey and one thing that differentiated eastern christianity was the use of the greek language whereas western christianity continued to be centered in rome and led by someone called the pope rome is in modern day city in italy city in italy and was used or did use the latin language and so today there's you can even see this split in christianity when you look at christianity that is practiced in places like russia it is this eastern version of christianity whereas when you look for christianity in places like europe it is western christianity or what's sometimes called the roman catholic church so it was this version of western christianity led by the pope that was the unifying factor in europe now a little bit about christian belief because when it comes to colonization of the new world belief systems are important christian belief is heavily rooted in this duality whether it's between good and evil heaven and hell god and satan and we'll talk a little bit more about specific christian belief in particular about the people who end up colonizing the new world this belief system is very closely tied to the physical world especially in medieval europe there was spiritual connotations between the physical and spiritual world essentially what this means is that real world uh we'll say problems are linked to christian belief so one good example of this would be if you know a town or a city has a bad harvest or if a lot of people are getting sick then that has something to do with the you know overarching battle between god and satan that maybe satan or the devil is responsible for some of these real world problems another good example might be the accusation of people being witches or heretics that was common in some of the late middle ages inspired by religious belief uh christian belief is written in the bible so this is the book or christianity and one more important point is that it served as a unifying factor for europe especially what we're going to call western europe now of course i just said or it was just mentioned that christianity did split between east and west in 1054 but really this sort of eastern part here we're talking about places like you know russia eastern europe and even further east whereas most of europe is going to fall into this category here of western christianity most of europe recognizes the pope not the patriarch as the supreme authority and especially in a time period when there was no overarching political authority it was the pope who probably had the most or single most influence in europe more so than any other local king or lord or ruler now a very important development in the old world is the emergence of islam islam is a religion that in some ways is very similar to christianity but in also other ways different islam was founded by muhammad in 622 ce he is the prophet and he was revealed a prophecy from an angel or the archangel and wrote that down in the quran so the quran is the holy book or islam and the advent of islam and the spread of islam put it in contention with the christian world and you can look at a lot of examples of various conflicts and fights between christians and muslims all during the middle ages some examples include the battle of tours 732 the battle of tours was a battle between christians will say this was a battle to stop the spread of islam in europe it was fought in france and if we look at this map here islam originated on the arabian peninsula very quickly spread throughout the middle east across northern africa into spain and it was up here this is where the battle of torres would have taken place somewhere in here so that was the battle that stopped the spread of islam into europe via spain following the battle of tours catholic rulers in spain and muslim rulers in spain bought what was known as the reconquista so this is the in some sense 800 year long conflict between let's say muslims and christians in spain so for the next 800 years after the spread of islam into spain this was really an area that was a kind of continuous battleground between christian and muslim rulers and maybe the most infamous and consequential of these conflicts were the crusades which was an effort by christian rulers to recapture what was called the holy land the holy land mainly referring to the city of jerusalem so if we look at our map here the holy land would have been located kind of in this area and essentially it was armies from europe marching into this area and going on a military conquest to capture the holy land now jerusalem and the crusades are significant for our story here about the colonization of the new world because in some ways it kind of gets the ball rolling in terms of explaining how europeans came to the americas so like we said before jerusalem and the crusades the crusades themselves were an effort by christian rulers uh yeah we'll say rulers to recapture or just to capture jerusalem the city of jerusalem which is a significant city religiously for christians muslims and jews and so there were a series of crusades one of them was successful in capturing jerusalem for a short period of time but at the end of the day muslims retained control of the holy land but the effects were significant uh one effect here was the increase in religious persecution not just the persecution between christians and muslims but also uh religious minorities such as jews there was a very strong religious zeal that was associated with crusading kind of um you know if if you don't agree with me religiously then you know i'm just going to kill you and that very much was the mentality but more importantly a consequence of the crusades was a revival in the trade between the east and the west recall that after the fall of the roman empire for the most part all long-distance trade ended most economies were local everything that was produced and consumed was done so on the manor on the plot of land that the lord owned but the crusades revived trade between east and west many goods that used to travel across the silk roads silk roads are trade networks connecting asia with europe and during the roman period when the romans thrived these silk roads called them because silk was one of these commodities from asia that made its way over to rome those goods were available during the middle ages those goods were no longer available mostly because you know christians didn't have access to that part of the world and there was not a lot of protection right or stability it was very risky did it make sense to trade well the crusades in a lot of ways exposed europeans to these valuable trade goods for you know another time since the falling of the roman empire one such traveler was marco polo was a european traveler he went to china and wrote about the wealth that was there and the trade goods specifically things like silk porcelain also the rumored spice islands i think about spices like you know pepper cinnamon rico whatever sort of other spices that were not available in europe at the time so one of the effects here we might say again about the crusades is that it may be re-exposed europe to eastern trade goods and now it became a question of how do europeans get their hands on these goods that again were rediscovered when those armies traveled um you know traveled east during the crusades how do europeans then get their hands on them for the most part the muslim world was not interested in trading with europeans and if they did wanted to trade with them at a very high price a very high markup muslim merchants could deliver those goods at a high markup but europeans wanted to get their hands on them directly and this provided a motivation for certain countries to look for alternative ways to to gain access to those various trade goods and it was the nations on the iberian peninsula the iberian peninsula is a geographic location which consists of the countries of portugal and spain so we might say of the iberian peninsula this is spain and portugal [Music] that it was these nations that sought new alternative ways to get their hands on uh trade goods from the east now one important thing to take note of is that when it comes to the first people of the old world or at least some of the first confirmed people from the old world to reach the new world is that columbus technically wasn't the first i just want to mention this real quickly leif erikson was a viking approximately 1000 ce had established a temporary settlement in what is eastern canada so vikings were poking around the americas earlier uh the issue for leif erikson was that he didn't really find much reason to stick around and so he is not as significant in terms of the consequential nature of new world and old world connection or discovery so the vikings established the temporary settlement then abandoned it pretty quickly instead it was columbus that was the most consequential so when it came to accessing trade goods in the east it was in fact portugal that acted first sometimes we call portugal the pioneer of exploration their ruler prince henry the navigator or at least one of their rulers funded overseas exploration shipbuilding map making etc etc and the portuguese began sailing down south towards western africa so we might say western africa portugal set up trade with western africa and one difference between portugal and the vikings is that when the portuguese initiated their exploration sailing south down the coast of western africa they did find something of value and that was to trade with the western africans and also set up various trading locations there the portuguese themselves borrowed technology from around the world things like triangular sails allowed the portuguese to maneuver through the seas and the winds a little bit easier they also built smaller ships sometimes called caravals caravel is a small ship that the portuguese used and pretty soon the portuguese were on their way to finding perhaps a direct sea route east of asia or sorry eastward towards asia meanwhile spain wanted to get in on the action as well spain was somewhat of a rival of the portuguese the modern spanish state was created one queen isabella and king fernand combine their crowns um creating the modern spanish states so queen isabella and king ferdinand we'll say these are the monarchs who created uh modern not really yeah we'll say modern spain i'll be fine all right they created the modern spanish state they were very strongly catholic they had a crusading impulse and in fact some of the motivation behind behind spanish exploration and even behind portuguese exploration was this idea of finding a sea route to the holy land right finding alternative routes to continue to crusade queen isabella and king ferdinand put forward the inquisition which was a religious uh court which persecuted non-catholics jews muslims and even rooted out heretics so the religious zeal was very strong for spain and it was during this time that the spanish ended the reconquista not only bringing that 800 long year war to an end but in fact were victorious so the end of the reconquista christian rulers rulers pushed the muslims and we'll say and jews out of spain so that 800 year long war between christians and muslims in spain finally came to a conclusion the christians or catholic side was victorious a consequence of that was the uniting of the crowns between isabella and ferdinand creating the modern spanish state and so spain was ready to get in on this overseas exploration get in on the acquisition of various trade goods and this is where christopher columbus comes in columbus himself was a sailor a navigator he was somebody that could um that you know knew his way around a ship and he proposed an alternate route to reaching asia as compared to the portuguese instead of sailing around africa columbus said that he could sail west to asia that was what he claimed contrary to popular belief columbus did not and most people did not think that the world was flat right that was known at the time anyone who sailed at the time knew that the world was round what was controversial and where columbus really got it wrong was with the earth's circumference columbus believed or columbus thought the world was smaller than it actually was so we thought by sailing west so if we just do kind of a crude uh drawing of europe we'll say this is spain this is the boot of italy look something like that here we have africa saudi arabia india right and then this is just in japan's right here right so this is just a crude drawing the portuguese we'll go ahead and draw them in i don't know we'll do yellow for portugal prince henry and the portuguese they were sailing this way right and all the while setting up trading posts with western africa hoping that they would one day get to asia this way right in asia's of course where the money is to be made columbus said that he could sail this way out west right and then just simply pop up on this side of the world of course what was unknown to columbus at the time was that there was an entire continent on this side of the world known as the americas right and of course that's what columbus eventually ended up bumping into and so the spanish we know where columbus had gotten rejected by a number of other rulers uh thinking that he was crazy the spanish king and queen took a chance on him and uh gave him three ships the nina the pinta and the santa maria right the three ships and in 1492 he went sailing into the atlantic ocean hoping that he would end up in asia instead he landed in the bahamas a group of islands off the coast of florida and so in 1492 the bahamas was columbus landings was a landing location