East in the Middle Ages highlights. Lecture: Features of the development of the countries of the East in the Middle Ages. The formation of the Old Russian state and its political development

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 administration intensified, and the role of the bureaucratic apparatus increased. During the years of the Tang Dynasty (618-907), the classical Chinese type of imperial administration took shape. There were revolts of military governors in the country, a 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. out of chaos, the state of the Later Zhou was born, which became the new core of the political unification of the country. The reunification of the lands was completed in 960 by the founder of the Song dynasty, Zhao Kuanyin, with the capital Kaifeng. In the same century, the state of Liao appears on the political map of northeastern China. In 1038, the Western Xia Tangut Empire was proclaimed on the northwestern borders of the Song Empire. 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 12th century. was violated with the advent of a new rapidly growing state of the Jurchens (one of the branches of the Tungus tribes), which was formed in Manchuria and proclaimed itself in 1115 the Jin Empire. It soon conquered the state of Liao, captured the capital of Song along with the emperor. However, the brother of the captured emperor managed to create the Southern Song empire with its capital in Lin'an (Hanzhou), which extended its influence to the southern regions of the country.

So the day before Mongol invasion China was again split into two parts, the northern part, which included the Jin empire, and the southern 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-consciousness manifests itself in the singling out of the Chinese state, which opposes foreign countries, in the spread of the universal self-name "Han Ren" (Han people). The population of the country in the X-XIII centuries. was 80-100 million people.

In the Tang and Song empires, management systems perfect for their time were being formed, which were copied by other states. Since 963, all military units of the country began to report directly to the emperor, and local military officials were appointed from among the civil servants of the capital. This strengthened the power of the emperor. The bureaucratic apparatus grew to 25,000. The highest government institution was the Office 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 the emperor, was hereditary and legally unlimited.

The economy of China in the 7th-12th centuries. 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 Sung China, the land use system already included a state land fund with imperial estates, large and medium-sized private land holdings, small-peasant land ownership, and estates of state land holders. The order of taxation can be called total. The main one was a two-time land tax in kind, amounting to 20% of the harvest, supplemented by a trade tax and working off. Household registers were compiled every three years to account for taxpayers.

The unification of the country led to a gradual increase in the role of cities. If in the eighth 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 account for 10% of the total population of the country.

Urbanization was closely linked to the growth of handicraft production. Such areas of state-owned craft as silk weaving, ceramic production, woodworking, papermaking and dyeing received special development in the cities. A form of private craft, the rise of which was held back by the powerful competition of state-owned production and the comprehensive control of imperial power over the urban economy, was the family workshop. Trade and craft organizations, as well as shops, were the main part of the urban craft. The technique of the craft was gradually improved, its organization changed, large workshops appeared, equipped with machine tools 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 issuance of a copper coin of a fixed weight. Tax revenues from trade have become a tangible item of government revenue. The increase in metal mining allowed the Song government to issue the largest amount of specie in the history of the Chinese Middle Ages. The intensification of foreign trade fell on the 7th-8th centuries. The center of maritime trade was the port of Guangzhou, linking 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 bureaucratic bureaucracy begins.

The "golden age" of officialdom was the time of the Song. 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 that 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 abandon it. From the 9th century there was a process of disappearance of personally deprived estates (jianren): state serfs (guanhu), state artisans (gun) and musicians (yue), private and dependent landless workers (butsu). A special stratum of society was made up of members of Buddhist and Taoist monasteries, numbering in the 20s of the 11th century. 400 thousand people.

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. the national liberation detachments of the "red jackets" and the "black banner" operated.

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 the ancient Chinese treatise, the canonical work of Taoism Laozi (4th-3rd centuries BC), was officially recognized as sacred; Taoist academy established. At the same time, the persecution of Buddhism intensified and neo-Confucianism was established, which claimed to be 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 are becoming complete and fixed, which will subsequently undergo only partial changes. The political, economic and social systems are approaching the classical models, changes in ideology lead to the promotion of neo-Confucianism.

The evolution of medieval Eastern society followed a special path, distinguishing 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 educational literature, the boundaries of the period under study (usually referred to as the 5th–7th centuries as the lower limit) are 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 areas, etc.

Highlighting the most common similarities in 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, and market relations lagged behind. The slow nature of development determined the stable multiformity 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 widespread state ownership of land, which was combined with another form of ownership - communal ownership and with the corresponding private landownership of 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. English revolution mid-seventeenth century and the rise of a constitutional monarchy

When studying this topic, first of all, it is necessary to understand the causes and prerequisites, 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 top of the ruling classes had a significant impact on the subsequent development of English state-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, significance and place in the state-legal development of England of such documents as the “Petition for the Right” of 1628, the “Great Remonstrance” of 1641, the “Instrument of Government” of 1653, “Habeas corpus ast" 1679, "Bill of Rights" 1689, "Deed of Dispensation" 1701

Topic 13. US education

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, main stages of the war for independence, to identify program requirements that were reflected in the Declaration of Independence of 1776, the 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 the strengthening of the position 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 character of American slavery and not to identify 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 completion of the American bourgeois revolution, the first stage of which was the war for independence. Particular attention should be paid to the legal consolidation of the results civil war in the USA and, above all, on the constitutional reforms of the last third of the 19th century.

Topic 14. The Great French Revolution at the end of the 18th century.

The bourgeois state and law arose in France during the bourgeois revolution of 1789-1799. This revolution not only had a decisive influence on the further development of France, but also accelerated the transformations in other states of Europe and America. The state and legal institutions created in the era of the revolution, in their perfection and clarity, became the standard of bourgeois law for a long time.

When studying the history of the French bourgeois state, it is necessary to investigate the background, character, driving forces and main stages of the revolution in which it arose. For this, it is necessary to study the most important documents of this period: the Declaration of the Rights of Man. and the citizen of 1789, the Constitutions of 1791 and 1793, the Le Chapelier law of 1791, agrarian legislation.

It is necessary to understand the causes and nature of the coup d'état 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 state system of the country 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 the 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 State system of the period of constitutional monarchy. The overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the First Republic in France. Bodies of central power 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 revolution. State system and organs of the period of the Directory. The Constitution of 1795. Napoleon Bonaparte's Coup and the Constitution of 1799. The political system of France during the Consulate period. Supreme power, central and local administration of the First Empire.

The main features of legislation in the period of the Consulate and the First Empire. Restoration of the Bourbons. The 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. The 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 according to it of state power. Approval of the Second Empire, its legal registration and domestic policy.

Revolution of 1870 and the birth of the Third Republic. The Paris Commune of 1871 as an attempt to create a new political system. 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. Education German Empire

The example of the formation of a single state in Germany is unique in many respects: 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 way of life; further reveal the ways in which the unification proceeded. 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 single out the general legal material and features of the German constitutional tradition in them. When analyzing the Constitution of 1871, it is necessary to take into account the features 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 refer to the period in the history of the countries of the East of the first seventeen centuries of a new era. The natural upper limit 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 Far East.

The transition to the Middle Ages in the East in some cases was carried out on the basis of already existing political entities(for example, Byzantium, Sasanian Iran, Kushano-Gupta India), in others it was accompanied by social upheavals, as was the case in China, and almost everywhere the processes were accelerated due to the participation of "barbarian" nomadic tribes in them. In the historical arena during this period, such hitherto unknown peoples as the Arabs, the Seljuk Turks, and the Mongols appeared and rose. New religions were born and civilizations arose on their basis.

The countries of the East in the Middle Ages were connected 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 of the East was characterized by the growth of productive forces - iron tools spread, artificial irrigation expanded and irrigation technology improved, the leading trend historical process both in the East and in Europe - there was an assertion of feudal relations. Various outcomes of development in the East and West by the end of the 20th century. were due to a lesser degree of its dynamism.

Among the factors causing the "delay" of Eastern societies, the following stand out: the preservation, along with the feudal way of life, of extremely slowly disintegrating primitive communal and slave-owning 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 the 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:

1st-6th centuries AD - the transitional period of the birth of feudalism;

7th-10th centuries - the period of early feudal relations with its inherent process of naturalization of the economy and the decline of ancient cities;

XI-XII centuries - before the Mongolian period, the beginning of the heyday of feudalism, the formation of a class-corporate system of life, cultural take-off;

13th century - the time of the Mongol conquest, which interrupted the development of feudal society and reversed some of them;

XIV-XVI centuries - the post-Mongolian period, which is characterized by a slowdown in social development, the conservation of the despotic form of power.

Eastern civilizations

A colorful picture was presented by the Medieval East in terms of civilization, which also distinguished it from Europe. Some civilizations in the East arose in antiquity: Buddhist and Hindu - on the Hindustan Peninsula, Taoist-Confucian - in China. Others were born in the Middle Ages: Muslim civilization in the Near and Middle East, Indo-Muslim civilization in India, Hindu and Muslim civilization in the countries of Southeast Asia, Buddhist civilization in Japan and Southeast Asia, Confucian civilization in Japan and Korea.

7.2. India

(VII - XVIII centuries)

Rajput period (7th-12th centuries)

As shown in Chapter 2, in the IV-VI centuries. AD on the territory of modern India has developed

powerful Gupta empire. The Gupta era, perceived as the golden age of India, was replaced in the 7th-12th centuries. period feudal fragmentation. At this stage, however, the isolation of the regions of the country and the decline of culture did not occur due to the development of port trade. The tribes of the conquering Huns - Ephthalites, who came from Central Asia, settled in the north-west of the country, and the Gujarats who appeared with them settled in Punjab, Sindh, Rajputana and Malwa. As a result of the merging of alien peoples with the local population, a compact ethnic community Rajputs, which in the VIII century. began expansion from Rajputana 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. It was here that the most striking type of feudal relations with a developed hierarchy and vassal psychology developed.

In the VI-VII centuries. in India, a system of stable political centers is taking shape, fighting each other under the banner of various dynasties - Northern India, Bengal, the Deccan and the Far South. Canvas of political events of the VIII-X centuries. began the struggle for Doab (between the Jumna and the Ganges). In the tenth 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 11th century. regular military raids Mahmud Ghaznevid(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 during the Rajput era was characterized by the growth of feudal estates. The richest among the feudal lords, along with the rulers, were the Hindu temples and monasteries. If initially only uncultivated lands complained to them and with the indispensable consent of the community that owned them, then from the 8th century. more and more often, not only lands are transferred, but also villages, the inhabitants of which were obliged to bear a natural service in favor of the recipient. However, at this time the Indian community was still relatively independent, large in size and self-governing. A full-fledged community member hereditarily owned his field, although trade operations with land were certainly controlled by the community administration.

City life, frozen after the 6th century, began to revive only towards the end of the Rajput period. The 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 landowner's troops. The development of urban life was facilitated by the increased exchange between cities and the emergence of groupings of artisans according to castes. 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 value of the tax was the higher, the lower was the class position of the castes to which the artisans and merchants belonged.

At the stage of feudal fragmentation, Hinduism finally took over Buddhism, defeating it with the power of its amorphousness, which perfectly corresponded 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. Muslim state established in northern India . D the Elian Sultanate, the dominance of Muslim commanders from the Central Asian Turks is finally taking shape. Sunni Islam becomes the state religion official language- Persian. Accompanied by bloody strife, the dynasties of Gulyams, Khiljis, and Tughlakids were successively replaced in Delhi. The troops of the sultans made aggressive campaigns in Central and South India, and the conquered rulers were forced to recognize themselves as vassals of Delhi and pay an annual tribute to the sultan.

The turning point in the history of the Delhi Sultanate was the invasion of Northern 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 governor of the Punjab, Khizr Khan Sayyid captured Delhi in 1441 and founded a new Sayyid dynasty. Representatives of this and the Lodi dynasty that followed it already ruled as governors of the Timurids. One of the last Lodi, Ibrahim, in an effort to exalt his power, entered into an uncompromising struggle with the feudal nobility and Afghan military leaders. 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 initiating Mughal Empire, existed for nearly 200 years.

The system of economic relations undergoes some, although not radical, changes in the Muslim era. The state land fund is growing significantly due to the possessions of the conquered Indian feudal families. Its main part was distributed in a conditional official award - iqta (small plots) and mukta (large "feedings"). Iqtadars and muktadars collected taxes from the granted villages in favor of the treasury, part of which went to the support of the family of the holder, who supplied the warrior to the state army. Mosques, owners of property for charitable purposes, keepers of the tombs of sheikhs, poets, officials and merchants were private landowners who managed the estate without state intervention. The rural community survived as a convenient fiscal unit, however, the payment of the poll tax (jizia) fell on the peasants, who mostly professed Hinduism, as a heavy burden.

By the XIV century. historians attribute a new wave of urbanization to India. Cities became centers of crafts and trade. Domestic trade was mainly focused on the needs of the capital's court. The leading import item was the import of horses (the basis of the Delhi army is cavalry), which were not bred in India due to the lack of pastures. Treasures of Delhi coins are found by archaeologists in Persia, Central Asia and on the Volga.

During the reign of the Delhi Sultanate, Europeans began to penetrate India. In 1498, under Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese first reached Calikat 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 captured the Bijapur island of Goa, which became the backbone of their possessions in the East. The Portuguese monopoly on maritime trade undermined India's trade relations with countries of the East, isolated the interior regions of the country and retarded their development.In addition, wars and the destruction of the population of Malabar led.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.Its head 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. State lands were distributed in conditional military awards - amars. A significant part of the villages were in the possession of Brahmin collectives - sabkhs. the lands of one village, and community members increasingly began to turn into less than full sharecroppers. In the cities, the authorities began to pay the collection of duties at the mercy of the feudal lords, which strengthened their undivided rule here.

With the establishment of the power of the Delhi Sultanate, in which Islam was a forcefully implanted religion, India was drawn into the cultural orbit of the Muslim world. However, despite the fierce struggle of the Hindus and Muslims, long cohabitation led to the mutual penetration of ideas and customs.

India in the era of the Mongol Empire (XVI-XVIII centuries)

The final stage of 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. Timurid was the founder of the state Babur(1483-1530). The power of the Mughals in India was strengthened during the years of rule Akbar(1452-1605), who moved the capital to the city of Agra on the Jamne 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.

"The Mughals in Northern India and Afghanistan were called both the Mongols themselves and the Muslim princes who ruled 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, so he and all those who arrived with him began to be called Mughals, while the Europeans called the ruler Great Moron.

In the Mughal era, India enters a stage of developed feudal relations, the flowering of which went hand in hand with the strengthening of the central power of the state. The importance of the main financial department of the empire (sofa), which is obliged to monitor the use of all suitable lands, has increased. The share of the state was declared a third of the harvest. In the central regions of the country, under Akbar, the peasants were transferred to a cash tax, which forced them to be included in market relations in advance. The state land fund (khalisa) received all the conquered territories. Jagirs were distributed from it - conditional military awards, which continued to be considered state property. Jagirdars usually owned several tens of thousands of hectares of land and were obliged to support military detachments on these incomes - the backbone of the imperial army. Akbar's attempt to liquidate the jagir system in 1574 ended in failure. Also in the state there was private land ownership of feudal 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.

Crafts flourished during this period, 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 could become owners of caravanserais and merchant ships. Merchant castes are formed, playing the role of companies. Surat, the main port of the country in the 16th century, becomes the place where a layer of comprador merchants (that is, those associated with foreigners) is born.

In the 17th century the importance of the economic center passes to Bengal. Here, in Dhaka and Patna, the production of fine fabrics, saltpeter and tobacco is developing. Shipbuilding continues to flourish in Gujarat. In the south, a new large textile center Madras is emerging. Thus, in India XVI-XVII centuries. the emergence of capitalist relations is already observed, but the socio-economic structure of the Mughal Empire, based on state ownership of land, did not contribute to their rapid growth.

In the Mughal era, religious disputes are activated, on the basis of which broad popular movements are born, the religious policy of the state undergoes major turns. So, in the XV century. in Gujarat, among the Muslim cities of trade and handicraft circles, the Mahdist movement was born. In the XVI century. the fanatical adherence of the ruler to orthodox Sunni Islam turned into disenfranchisement for the Hindus and the persecution of Shiite Muslims. In the 17th century oppression of the Shiites, the destruction of all Hindu temples and the use of their stones for the construction of mosques Aurangzeb(1618-1707) caused popular uprising, anti-Mughal movement.

So, medieval India personifies the synthesis of a wide variety of socio-political foundations, religious traditions, and ethnic cultures. Having melted all this many beginnings within itself, by the end of the era, it appeared before the astonished Europeans as a country of fabulous splendor, attracting wealth, exoticism, and secrets. Inside it, however, began processes similar to European ones, inherent in the New Age. The internal market was formed, international relations developed, social contradictions deepened. But for India, a typical Asian power, the 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 the time Troetsarsgvia(220-280). On

Three states formed on the territory of the country (Wei - in the north, Shu - in the central part and Wu - in the south), the power in which, by type, approached 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 that poured in here, mainly settling in the northwestern regions of the country. From that moment on, for two and a half centuries, China was divided into northern and southern parts, which affected its subsequent development. The strengthening of centralized power occurs 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 it intensifies Northern Wei Empire 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 Sui state. In 589, he brought the southern state under his control 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 connected with cardinal shifts in ethnic development. Although foreigners penetrated before, but it was in the 4th century. becomes a time of mass invasions, comparable with the Great Migration of Peoples in Europe. The Xiongnu, Sanpi, Qiang, Jie, Di tribes that came from the central regions of Asia settled not only on the northern and western outskirts, but also on the Central Plain, mixing with the indigenous Chinese population. In the south, the processes of assimilation of the non-Chinese population (Yue, Miao, Li, Yi, Man and Yao) were faster and less dramatic, leaving significant areas uncolonized. 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 the inhabitants of the middle state, that is, the Chinese, only themselves, and the southerners called people Wu.

The period of political fragmentation was accompanied by a noticeable naturalization of economic life, the decline of cities and a reduction in monetary circulation. Grain and silk began to act as a measure of value. An 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 assigning to each worker, assigned to the estate of personally free commoners, the rights to receive a plot of land of a certain size and establish fixed taxes from it.

The allotment system was opposed by the process of 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 power against the expansion of large private land ownership lasted throughout the medieval history of China and affected the design of the unique agrarian and social system of the country.

The process of official differentiation proceeded on the basis of the decomposition and degeneration of the community. This found expression in the formal unification of peasant farms into five-yard and twenty-five-yard houses, which were encouraged by the authorities for the purpose of tax benefits. All the inferior layers in the state were collectively called "mean people" (jianzhen) and were opposed to " good people"(liangmin). A striking manifestation of social shifts was the increasing role of the aristocracy. Nobility was determined by belonging to the old clans. Birth was fixed 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 3rd-6th centuries was strengthening of personal relations The principle of the 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 administration intensified, and the role of the bureaucratic apparatus increased. During the years of the Tang Dynasty (618-907), the classical Chinese type of imperial administration took shape. There were revolts of military governors in the country, a 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 southern Chinese state of Nanzhao. All this led to the agony of the Tang regime.

In the middle of the X century. out of chaos, the state of the Later Zhou was born, which became the new core of the political unification of the country. The reunification of the lands was completed in 960 by the founder of the Song Dynasty Zhao Kuanyin the capital of Kaifeng. In the same century, a state appears on the political map of northeastern China. Liao. IN In 1038, the Western Xia Tangut Empire was proclaimed on the northwestern borders of the Song Empire. 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 12th century. was violated with the emergence of a new rapidly growing state of the Jurchens (one of the branches of the Tun-"Gus tribes), which formed in Manchuria and proclaimed itself the Jin Empire in 1115. It soon conquered the Liao state, captured the capital of the Song along with the emperor. However, the brother of the captured emperor managed to create the Southern Song empire with its capital in Lin'an (Hanzhou), 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 included 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-consciousness manifests itself in the singling out of the Chinese state, which opposes foreign countries, in the spread of the universal self-name "han ren" (Han people). The population of the country in the X-XIII centuries. was 80-100 million people.

In the Tang and Song empires, administrative systems perfect for their time were being formed, which were copied by other states. Since 963, all military formations of the country began to report directly to the emperor, and local military officials were appointed from among the civil servants of the capital. This strengthened the power of the emperor. The bureaucracy grew to 25,000. The highest government institution was the Department of Departments, which headed the six leading executive bodies of the country: Chinov, 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 the emperor, was hereditary and legally unlimited.

The economy of China in the 7th-12th centuries. 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 Sung 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 order of taxation can be called total. The main one was a two-time land tax in kind, amounting to 20% of the harvest, supplemented by a trade tax and working off. Household registers were compiled every three years to account for taxpayers.

Urbanization was closely linked to the growth of handicraft production. Such areas of state-owned craft as silk weaving, ceramic production, woodworking, papermaking and dyeing received special development in the cities. A form of private craft, the rise of which was held back by the powerful competition of state-owned production and the imperial power's comprehensive control over the urban economy, was the family workshop. Trade and craft organizations, as well as shops, were the main part of the urban craft. The technique of the craft was gradually improved, its organization changed - large workshops appeared, equipped with machine tools and using hired labor.

In the Chinese medieval society of the pre-Mongol era, the demarcation went along the lines 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 officialdom was the time of the Song. The service pyramid consisted of 9 ranks and 30 degrees, and belonging to it opened the way to enrichment. The main channel for penetration into the environment of officials was state examinations, 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 abandon it. From the 9th century there was a process of disappearance of personally deprived estates (jianzhen): state serfs (guanhu), state artisans (gun) and musicians (yue), private and dependent landless workers (butsui). A special stratum of society was made up of members of Buddhist and Taoist monasteries, numbering in the 20s of the 11th century. 400 thousand people.

There were three religious doctrines in medieval China: 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 work of Taoism, was officially recognized Lao Tzu(IV-III centuries BC), in the first half of the VIII century. Taoist academy established. At the same time, the persecution of Buddhism intensified and neo-Confucianism was established, which claimed to be 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 are becoming complete and fixed, which subsequently will undergo only partial changes. Political, economic and social systems are approaching classical patterns, changes in ideology lead to the promotion of neo-Confucianism.

China in the era of Mongol rule. Yuan Empire (1271-1367)

The Mongol conquest of China lasted almost 70 years. In 1215 Beijing was taken, and in 1280 China was completely in the hands of the Mongols. With the accession to the throne of the Khan Khubilai(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 according to the Chinese model. Mongol domination in the main part of China lasted a little over a century and is noted by Chinese sources as the most difficult time for the country.

Despite the military power, the Yuan empire was not distinguished by 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".

characteristic feature social structure was the division of the country into four categories unequal in rights. The Chinese of the north and the inhabitants of the south of the country were considered, respectively, the 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 dominance of the Yuan Empire rested on the power 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 70-80s 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.

Mongolian 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 system of taxation was streamlined and centralized. Tax collection was removed from the hands of local authorities, a general census of the population was carried out, tax registers were compiled, poll 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 lands, state lands, public lands and specific allotments were allocated. A steady trend in agriculture since the beginning of the XIV century. there is an increase in private land holdings and the expansion of rental 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 lands were cultivated by state tenants. As never before, temple land ownership spread widely, replenished both by state donations and by purchases and direct seizure of fields. Such lands were considered eternal possession and were cultivated by the brethren and tenants.

Urban life began to revive only towards the end of the 13th century. In the register lists of 1279, there were about 420 thousand craftsmen. Following the example of the Chinese, the Mongols established the monopoly right of the treasury to dispose 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. In connection with 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. becomes the official religion of the Mongolian court lamaism - Tibetan variety of Buddhism. A characteristic feature of the period was the emergence of secret religious sects. The former leading position of Confucianism 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 acceptance by Khan Khubilai of the imperial Confucian doctrine.

Ming China 1368-1644

Ming China was born and died in the crucible of the great peasant wars, whose events were orchestrated invisibly by secret religious societies such as the White Lotus. In this era, the Mongol domination was finally abolished and the foundations of economic and political systems were laid that corresponded to traditional Chinese ideas about ideal statehood. The peak of the power of the Ming Empire fell on 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 (XVI - first half of the XVII 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 policy.

First Emperor of the Ming Dynasty Zhu Yuanzhang(1328-1398) began to pursue a far-sighted agrarian and financial policy.

He increased the share of peasant households in the land wedge, strengthened control over the distribution of state lands, stimulated military settlements patronized by the treasury, resettled peasants on empty lands, introduced a fixed taxation, and provided benefits to poor households. His son Zhu Di toughened the police functions of power: a special department was established, subordinate only to the emperor - Brocade robes, denunciation was encouraged. In the XV century. there were two more punitive-detective institutions.

The central foreign policy task of the Minsk state in the XIV-XV centuries. was to prevent the possibility of a new Mongol attack. There were no military clashes. And although peace was concluded with Mongolia in 1488, the raids continued even 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. activated south direction foreign policy. China interferes in Vietnamese affairs, seizes a number of areas in Burma. From 1405 to 1433 seven grandiose expeditions of the Chinese fleet under the leadership of Zheng He(1371 - about 1434). In different campaigns, he led from 48 to 62 large ships only. 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 a strict ban was imposed on private foreign trade activities. Caravan trade also acquired the character of embassy missions.

Government policy regarding internal trade was 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 led an active domestic trade policy. The treasury compulsorily purchased goods according to low prices and distributed the products of state crafts, sold licenses for trading activities, maintained a system of monopoly goods, maintained imperial shops and planted state "commercial settlements".

During this period, bank notes and small copper coins remained the basis of the country's monetary system. The ban on the use of gold and silver in trade, although weakened, but, however, rather slowly. More clearly than in the previous era, the economic specialization of the regions and the trend towards the expansion of state crafts and trades are indicated. Craft associations during this period gradually begin to acquire the character of guild organizations. Written charters appear inside them, a prosperous stratum arises.

From the 16th century the penetration of Europeans into the country begins. As in India, the championship belonged to the Portuguese. Their first possession on one of the southern Chinese islands was Macao (Maomen). From the second half of the XVII century. the country is flooded by the Dutch and the British, who assisted the Manchus in conquering China. At the end of the XVII 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 occupies a dominant position in religion. From the end of the XIV century. the desire of the authorities to put restrictions on Buddhism and Taoism is traced, which led to the expansion of religious sectarianism. Other striking features of the religious life of the country 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 imperial power, the concentration of land in the hands of large private owners, and the aggravation of the financial situation in the country. The emperors after Zhu Di were weak rulers, and temporary workers ran all the affairs at the courts. The center of the political opposition was the Chamber of Censors-Procurators, whose members demanded reforms and accused the arbitrariness of the temporary workers. Activities of this kind met with a severe rebuff from the emperors. A typical picture was when another influential official, submitting an incriminating document, was simultaneously preparing for death, waiting for a silk lace from the emperor with an order to hang himself.

The turning point in the history of Ming China is associated with a 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 who, as a rule, came from the north and very soon dissolved among the local population, having adopted not only the language and way of life, but also the classical Chinese model of governing the country, which took shape during the Tang and Sung eras. Not a single state of the medieval East could achieve such a level of control over the country and society, which was in China. Not the last role in this was played by the political isolation of the country, as well as the ideological conviction that prevailed among the administrative elite about the chosenness of the Middle Empire, whose natural vassals are all other powers of the world.

However, such a society was not free from contradictions. And if religious and mystical convictions or national liberation ideals often turned out to be the motives for peasant uprisings, they did not in the least cancel, but, on the contrary, intertwined with the demands of social justice. Significantly. 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. having passed the state exams for an official position, he 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 was called Japan in antiquity) in the III-V centuries. Representatives of this federation belonged to the Kurgan culture of the early Iron Age.

At the stage of formation of the state, 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 freemen. Adjacent to it, without entering it, were groups of semi-free (bemins) and slaves (yatsuko). The first in importance in the hierarchy was the royal clan (tenno). Its selection in the III century. marked a turning point in the political history of the country. The tenno clan ruled with the help of advisers, lords of the districts (agata-nushi) and governors of the regions (kunino miyatsuko), the same leaders of the local clans, but already authorized by the king. 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. From 563 to 645 this role was played by the Cora clan. This period of history was called the Asuka period after the name of the residence of the kings in the province of Yamato.

The domestic policy of the Yamato kings was aimed at uniting the country and at formalizing the ideological basis of autocracy. Important role this was played by the "Statutes of 17 Articles" created in 604 by Prince Setoku-taishi. 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, sometimes reaching armed clashes, and with China, which took the form of ambassadorial missions and the goal of borrowing any suitable innovations.

Socio-economic system III-VII centuries. enters the stage of decomposition of patriarchal relations. Communal arable land, which was at the disposal of rural households, began to gradually fall under the control of strong clans, opposing each other for the initial resources: land and people. Thus, the distinctive feature of Japan consisted in the significant role of the tribal feudalizing nobility and, more clearly 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 and aesthetic ideas.

Fujiwara era

The historical period following the era of the Yamato kings covers the time, the beginning (645-1192) which falls on the "Taika coup" in 645, and the end - in 1192, when the country was headed by military rulers with the title shogun."

1 Shogun - the title of the military-feudal rulers of Japan in 1192-1867, during which the imperial dynasty was deprived of real power. Shogunate - the government of the shoguns in feudal Japan (another name is bakufu).

The entire second half of the 7th century passed under the motto of the Taika reforms. State reforms were called upon to reorganize all spheres of relations in the country according to the Chinese Tang model, to seize the initiative of private appropriation of the country's initial resources, land and people, replacing it with the state. The central government apparatus consisted of the State Council (Dajokan), eight government departments, and a system of main ministries. The country was divided into provinces and counties, headed by governors and county chiefs. An eight-degree system of title families with the emperor at the head and a 48-rank ladder of court ranks were established. Since 690, censuses of the population and redistribution of land began to be carried out every six years. A centralized system of manning the army was introduced, and weapons were confiscated from private individuals. In 694, the first capital city of Fujiwarakyo was built, the permanent place of the imperial headquarters (before that, the place of the headquarters was easily transferred).

Completion of the formation of the medieval Japanese centralized state in the VIII century. was associated with growth major cities. In one century, the capital was transferred three times: in 710 in Haijokyo (Nara), in 784 in Nagaoka and in 794 in Heiankyo (Kyoto). Since the capitals were administrative, and not trade and craft centers, after the next transfer they fell into disrepair. The population of provincial and county towns, as a rule, did not exceed 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 fading. In 792, universal military service was abolished. the coast guard is dismantled. Embassies to China become rare, and trade begins to play an increasingly important role in relations with the Korean states. By the middle of the IX century. Japan finally switches to a policy of isolation, it is forbidden to leave the country, and the reception of embassies and courts is stopped.

The formation of a developed feudal society in the IX-XII centuries. was accompanied by an increasingly radical departure from the Chinese classical model of government. The bureaucratic machine was thoroughly permeated with family aristocratic ties. There is a trend towards decentralization of power. The divine tenno already reigned more than actually ruled the country. The bureaucratic elite did not develop around him, because the system of reproduction of administrators on the basis of competitive examinations was not created. From the second half of the ninth century the vacuum of power was filled by representatives of the Fujiwara family, who actually begin to rule the country from 858 as regents for minor emperors, and from 888 as chancellors for adults. The period of the middle of the IX - the first half of the XI century. is called "the time of the reign of regents and chancellors." Its heyday falls on the second half of the 10th century. with representatives of the Fujiwara house, Mitinaga and Yorimichi.

At the end of the ninth century the so-called "state-legal system" (ritsuryo) is being 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 the governors allowed them to strengthen their power in the provinces so much that they could oppose it to the imperial one. With the decline in the importance of 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 those who paid full rights (ryomin) and those who did not have full rights (semmin). In the VI-VIII centuries. dominated by the allotment system of land use. The peculiarities of irrigated rice growing, which was extremely laborious and required the personal interest of the worker, determined the predominance of small free labor farming in the structure of production. Therefore, the labor of slaves was not widely used. Full-fledged peasants cultivated state land plots subject to redistribution every six years, for which they paid a tax in grain (in the amount of 3% of the officially established yield), fabrics and performed labor duties.

Dominal lands in this period did not represent a large master's economy, but were given to dependent peasants for processing in 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 transfer it by inheritance for one to three generations.

Due to the natural nature of the economy, access to the few urban markets was predominantly government departments. The functioning of a small number of markets outside the capitals ran into the absence of professional market traders and the lack of peasant trade products, most of which were withdrawn in the form of taxes.

A feature of the socio-economic development of the country in the IX-XII centuries. was the destruction and complete disappearance of the allotment system of management. They are replaced by patrimonial possessions, which had the status of "granted" to private individuals (shoen) from the state. Representatives of the highest aristocracy, monasteries, noble houses that dominated the counties, hereditary possessions of peasant families applied to state bodies for the recognition of newly acquired possessions as shoen.

As a result of socio-economic changes, all power in the country from the 10th century. began to belong to noble houses, owners of shoen of different sizes. The privatization of land, income, positions was completed. To settle the interests of the opposing feudal groups in the country, a single class order is being created, to designate which a new term "imperial state" (otyo kokka) is introduced, replacing the former regime - "the rule of law" (ritsuryo kokka).

Another characteristic social phenomenon of the era of the developed Middle Ages was the emergence of the military class. Having grown out of 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 end of the Fujiwara era, the status of the armed forces rose due to social instability in the state. In the samurai environment, a code of military ethics arose, based on the main idea of \u200b\u200bpersonal 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 8th century Buddhism becomes the state religion, quickly spreading at the top of society, not yet finding popularity among the common people, but supported by the state.

Japan during the era of the first Minamoto shogunate

In 1192, a sharp turn took place in the historical fate of the country, Minamoto Yerimoto, the head of an influential aristocratic house in the northeast of the country, became the supreme ruler of Japan with the title of shogun. The headquarters of his government (bakufu) was the city of Kamakura. The Minamoto Shogunate lasted until 1335. This was the heyday of cities, crafts and trade in Japan. As a rule, cities grew around monasteries and 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 changed qualitatively. Small-scale samurai ownership becomes the leading form of land ownership, although large feudal possessions of influential houses, the emperor and the all-powerful Minamoto vassals continued to exist. In 1274 and 1281 the Japanese successfully resisted the invading Mongol army.

From the successors of the first shogun, power was seized by the house of Hojo relatives, called Shikkens (rulers), under whom a semblance of an advisory body of higher vassals appeared. Being the mainstay of the regime, the vassals carried hereditary security and military service, were appointed to the position of administrators (dzito) in the estates and state lands, military governors in the province. The power of the Bakufu military government 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, because military power could not govern 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 sikken. It turned out to be unsuccessful - the detachments loyal to the court were defeated. This was followed by the confiscation of 3,000 shoen belonging to 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 alternated. In the first third of the XV century. the position of the central government was the strongest. The shoguns prevented the growth of control of military governors (shugo) over the provinces. To this end, bypassing the shugo, they established direct vassal ties with local feudal lords, obliged the shugo-western and central provinces to live in Kyoto, and the south-eastern part of the country - in Kamakura. However, the period of centralized power of the shoguns was short-lived. After the murder of Shogun Ashikaga Yoshinori in 1441 by one of the feudal lords, an internecine struggle unfolded in the country, which grew into a feudal war of 1467-1477, the consequences of which were felt for a whole century. A period of complete feudal fragmentation begins in the country.

During the years of the Muromachi shogunate, there was a transition from small and medium feudal landownership to large. The system of estates (shoen) and state lands (kore) is falling into decay due to the development of trade and economic ties that destroyed the closed boundaries of feudal possessions. The formation of compact territorial possessions of large feudal lords - principalities begins. This process at the provincial level also proceeded along the line of growth in the possessions of military governors (shugo ryokoku).

In the Ashikaga era, the process of separating crafts from agriculture deepened. Craft workshops now arose not only in the metropolitan area, but also on 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 the strong houses began to provide a guarantee of monopoly rights to engage in certain types of industrial activity in exchange for the payment of sums of money. Rural artisans are moving from a wandering to a settled way of life, there is a specialization of rural areas.

The development of handicraft contributed to the growth of trade. There are specialized trading guilds, separated from the craft workshops. On the transport of products tax revenue a layer of toimaru merchants grew up, 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 the areas of harbors, crossings, post stations, shoen borders and could serve the territory with a radius of 2-3 to 4-6 km.

The capitals of Kyoto, Nara and Kamakura remained the centers of the country. 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 gates. The second type of cities arose at temples, especially intensively in the XIV century, and, like the first, had a certain level of self-government. The third type was market settlements at the castles of the military and the headquarters of provincial governors. Such cities, often created at 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 set a course to eliminate the diplomatic and trade isolation of the country. Taking measures against the Japanese pirates who attacked 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. Silk, brocade, perfumes, sandalwood, porcelain and copper coins were usually brought from China, and gold, sulfur, fans, screens, lacquerware, swords and wood were sent. Trade was also conducted with Korea and the countries of the South Seas, as well as with the Ryukyu, where in 1429 a united state was created.

The social structure in the Ashikaga era remained traditional: the ruling class consisted of the court aristocracy, the military nobility and the top clergy, the common people consisted of peasants, artisans and merchants. Until the 16th century the classes-estates of feudal lords and peasants were clearly established.

Until the 15th century, when a strong military power existed in the country, the main forms of peasant struggle were peaceful: escapes, petitions. With the growth of the principalities in the XVI century. the armed peasant struggle also rises. The most massive form of resistance is the anti-tax struggle. 80% of peasant uprisings in the 16th century. were held in the economically developed central regions of the country. The rise of this struggle was also facilitated by the onset of feudal fragmentation. Mass peasant uprisings took place in this century under religious slogans and were organized by the neo-Buddhist Jodo sect.

Unification of the Tokugawa Shogunate

Political fragmentation put on the agenda the task* of uniting the country. This mission was carried out by three prominent politicians of the country: Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582), Toyotomi HiJoshi(1536-1598) and Tokugawa Ieyasu(1542-1616). In 1573, having defeated the most influential daimyo and neutralized the fierce resistance of the Buddhist monasteries, Oda overthrew the last shogun from the Ashikaga house. Towards the end of his short political career (he was assassinated in 1582), he took possession of half the provinces, including the capital Kyoto, and carried out 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 determined by the implacable resistance of the 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 XVII century. their number increased to 700 thousand people. Not in last turn The growth in the number of Christians was facilitated by the policy of the southern daimyo, who were interested in owning firearms, the production of which was established in Japan by the Catholic Portuguese.

The internal reforms of Oda's successor, a native of 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, state control over cities and trade was strengthened. Unlike Oda, he did not patronize Christians, campaigned to expel missionaries from the country, persecuted Christian Japanese - destroyed churches and printing houses. Such a policy was not successful, because 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, longest in time (1603-1807) Tokugawa shogunate.

One of the first reforms of the Tokugawa house was aimed at limiting the omnipotence of the daimyo, of which there were about 200. To this end, daimyo hostile to the ruling house were geographically dispersed. Craft and trade in the cities under the jurisdiction of such tozama were transferred to the center along with the cities.

The agrarian reform of the Tokugawa once again secured the peasants to their lands. Under him, classes were strictly demarcated: samurai, peasants, artisans and merchants. Tokugawa began to pursue a policy of controlled contacts with the Europeans, singling out the Dutch among them and closing the ports to everyone else, and above all, the missionaries of the Catholic Church. European science and culture, which came through Dutch merchants, received in Japan 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 was noticeably reduced. True, the power of the shoguns still continued to remain unshakable. A significant role was played in this 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 clear from the 30s. 19th century The weakening of the power of the shoguns was primarily used by the tozama of the southern regions of the country, Choshu and Satsuma, who grew rich through the smuggling of weapons and the development of their own, including the military industry. Another blow to the authority of the central government was dealt 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 historical era.

So, the historical path of Japan in the Middle Ages was no less intense and dramatic than that of neighboring China, with which the island state periodically maintained ethnic, cultural, and economic contacts, borrowing models of 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. A distinctive feature of the Japanese path of development was the greater dynamism of all processes, high social mobility with less profound forms of social antagonism,

the ability of a nation 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 dominated the Arabian Peninsula. Part of the population of this peninsula lived in cities, oases, engaged in crafts and trade. The other part wandered in the deserts and steppes, 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. This oasis was inhabited by the Arab tribe 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 According to legend, this temple was erected by the biblical patriarch Abraham (Ibrahim) with his son Ismail. This temple is associated with a sacred stone that fell to the ground, which has been worshiped since ancient times, and with the cult of the god of the Kureysh tribe. Allah(from Arabic ilah - master).

In the VI century. n. h. in Arabia, in connection with the movement of trade routes to Iran, the importance of trade falls. The population, which lost income from the caravan trade, was forced to look for sources of livelihood in agriculture. But there was little land suitable for agriculture. They had to be conquered. For this, forces were needed and, consequently, the unification of fragmented tribes, moreover, worshiping different gods. The need to introduce monotheism and unite the Arab tribes on this basis was more and more clearly defined.

This idea was preached by adherents of the Hanif sect, one of whom was Muhammad(c. 570-632 or 633), who became the founder of a new religion for the Arabs - Islam. IN the basis of this religion are the dogmas of Judaism and Christianity: faith in one God and his prophet, the Last Judgment, afterlife retribution, unconditional obedience to the will of God (Arabic Islam - obedience). The names of the prophets and other biblical characters common to these religions testify to the Judaic and Christian roots of Islam: the biblical Abraham (Islamic Ibrahim), Aaron (Harun), David (Daud), Isaac (Ishak), Solomon (Suleiman), Ilya (Ilyas), Jacob (Yakub), Christian Jesus (Isa), Mary (Maryam) and others. Islam has common customs and prohibitions with Judaism. Both religions prescribe the circumcision of boys, forbid portraying 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 cessation of the cult of the Kaaba as a religious center, and thereby deprive them of their income. In 622, Muhammad and his followers had to flee 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 merchants from Mecca, supported Muhammad. However, only in 630, having recruited the necessary number of supporters, did he get the opportunity to form military forces and capture Mecca, the local nobility of which was forced to submit to the new religion, all the more it suited them that Muhammad proclaimed the Kaaba the shrine of all Muslims.

Much later (c. 650), after the death of Muhammad, his sermons and sayings were collected into a single book. Koran(translated from Arabic means reading), which has become sacred to 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. IN It contains traditions about Muhammad. Muslims who recognized the Koran and the Sunnah began to be called Sunnis and those who recognize only one Koran, - Shiites. Shiites recognize as legal caliphs(governors, deputies) of Muhammad, spiritual and secular heads of Muslims only of his relatives.

The economic crisis in Western Arabia in the 7th century, caused by the displacement of trade routes, the lack of land suitable for agriculture, and high population growth, pushed the leaders of the Arab tribes to seek a way out of the crisis by seizing foreign lands. This is also reflected in the Koran, which says that Islam should be the religion of all peoples, but for this it is necessary to fight against the infidels, exterminate them and take away their property (Koran, 2:186-189; 4:76-78, 86).

Guided by this specific task and the ideology of Islam, Muhammad's successors, the caliphs, launched a series of conquests. They conquered Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia. Already in 638 they captured Jerusalem. Until the end of the 7th century under the rule of the Arabs were the countries of the Middle East, Persia, the Caucasus, Egypt and Tunisia. In the 8th century Central Asia, Afghanistan, Western India, Northwest Africa were captured. In 711, Arab troops led by Tariq sailed from Africa to the Iberian Peninsula (from the name of Tariq came the name Gibraltar - Mount Tariq). Having quickly conquered the Iberian lands, they rushed to Gaul. However, in 732, at the battle of Poitiers, they were defeated by the Frankish king Charles Martel. By the middle of the IX century. Arabs captured Sicily, Sardinia, the southern regions of Italy, the island of Crete. At this, the Arab conquests stopped, but a long-term war was waged with the Byzantine Empire. Arabs besieged Constantinople twice.

The main Arab conquests were made under the caliphs Abu Bakr (632-634), Omar (634-644), Osman (644-656) and the caliphs from the Umayyad dynasty (661-750). Under the Umayyads, the capital of the Caliphate was moved to Syria in the city of Damascus.

The victories of the Arabs, the capture of vast areas by them were facilitated by the long-term 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 disparate 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, incorporating 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 caliphs were the Abbassids, descendants of the uncle of the Prophet Muhammad - Abbas. They moved the capital of the state to Baghdad.

In the western part of the Caliphate, in Spain, the Umayyads continued to rule, who did not recognize the Abbasids and founded the Caliphate of Cordoba with its 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 Abbassid Caliphate waged constant wars with Byzantium. In 1258, after the Mongols defeated the Arab army and captured Baghdad, the Abbassid state ceased to exist.

The Spanish Umayyad Caliphate was also gradually shrinking. In the XI century. As a result of internecine struggle, the Caliphate of Cordoba broke up into a number of states. This was used by the Christian states that arose in the northern part of Spain: the Leono-Castile, Aragonese, Portuguese kingdoms, which began to fight against the Arabs for the liberation of the peninsula - reconquista. IN 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 of the spiritual leadership of the Arabs by all Muslims continued to exist until 1517, when this function was transferred to the Turkish sultan, who captured 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 human society Planets.

The difficult economic situation of the population of the Arabian Peninsula in the VI-VII centuries. in connection with the movement of trade routes to another zone necessitated the 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 a fight against infidels (gentiles). Guided by ideology

Islam, the Caliphs carried out a broad policy of conquest, turning the Arab Caliphate into an empire. The unification of the former disparate 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, incorporating Greco-Roman, Iranian and Indian cultural heritage, Arab (Islamic) civilization had a huge impact on the spiritual life of Western Europe, representing a significant military threat throughout the Middle Ages.

Questions for self-examination

1. Give a 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 the system of economic, political and social relations in these countries undergone 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 did it accompany?

6. Name the economic and social prerequisites for the unification of Arab tribes and the birth of Islam.

7. List the countries captured by the Arabs in the 7th-9th centuries.

8. Determine the main reasons for the collapse of the Arab Caliphate.

new time

The beginning of the capitalist development of England in the XVI century.

COMMON FEATURES OF THE EMPIRE

The vast majority of the works created by traditional historians contain, as we see, distortions and insurmountable contradictions. What to believe? In our opinion, only the facts. This, of course, is extraordinarily difficult, because they are very often replicated and scattered by the supporters of the Scaligerian chronology in various epochs and centuries, who created chimerical antiquity in the 16th-19th centuries.

Here is a short list of twins from "antiquity" and the Middle Ages, compiled by researcher V. Ivanov:

Virgil - Virgil Polydorus (Much Wise?) 15th–16th centuries

Titus Livius - Tito Livio (da Forli) 15th c.

Jerome - Erasmus of Rotterdam 15th–16th centuries

Augustine - Lorenzo Valla 15th c.

Vitruvius - Leon Batista Alberti 15th c.

Theophrastus - Theophrastus Paracelsus 16th c.

Hipparchus - Tycho Brahe 16th c.

Aristarchus of Samos - Nicolaus Copernicus 16th c.

Archimedes - Kepler, Galileo 16th–17th centuries

Jesus Christ - 16th–17th century collective image

And yet we will try to determine what really happened in the times that played a decisive role in the formation and development of modern civilization. At times we will have to briefly repeat what has already been said, many points 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 exact landmarks in geographical names and names, and even worse - in the dating of events that occurred before the 18th century. Some researchers believe this is the result of some kind of global conspiracy aimed at distorting the history of a particular country, belittling its importance in the fate of mankind, hushing up 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 a gradual layering of errors and distortions through fit past events under a deliberately wrong model dictated by momentary political interests. A practice that is widespread even 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, also contributed to the distortion of history. For example, the main value Latin word saeculum - "generation". Meanwhile, but is often interpreted and translated as "a century". (Ananiev et al. Full Latin dictionary. 1862, p. 761) But if one of the texts says “7 centuries ago”, and the other says “7 generations ago”, then the difference will be at least 500 years. Such is the degree of credibility of many keywords.

The situation with geography is even more complicated. A medieval author, referring to 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 Old French author's reference to the burning of Troy may have meant 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 \u200b\u200bKhvalynsk and everyday life, sailing guests sailed from distant cities, Israeli childbirth. The guests came 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 families.

The lack of proper names among our ancestors and the constant change of nicknames like " Great king"," The king-warrior. When directly translated 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 in every 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 the chronology should be recognized for rigorous methods of mathematical modeling and astronomical calculations, since the probability of forgery 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 tendentious. There is much more confidence in various codes, laws, IOUs, receipts and, in general, any documentation “not intended for posterity”.

Based on them, we can confidently say that European civilization is the oldest and therefore most developed in the history of mankind. It took a long time to reach 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 settled life and agriculture, primarily in the Mediterranean region, the most favorable for human habitation.

Almost no written sources have been preserved about the next two centuries, since writing was only born in those days in the form of drawing hieroglyphs.

Indirect assistance in studying this period can only be provided by an 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 in the list of domestic animals. With a nomadic lifestyle, it is impossible to engage in metallurgy. And nomads didn't need it either. 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 the fields. These discoveries determined fast development regions with an abundance of iron ore and coking coal deposits, especially in Central Europe.

By the 11th century, the development of the economy had reached a level where it became possible to allocate part of the accumulated social product for the maintenance of regular troops. The beginnings have appeared professional army.

This is important to emphasize for the following reason. In all "ancient" writings, as well as in historical works devoted to "ancient" wars, they talk about armies of hundreds of thousands of soldiers armed with last word the then military equipment. For example, ancient Persia is called, which equipped a two hundred thousandth army for campaigns. Gigantomania did not bypass the Bible either. The Book contains the results of the census of the Jews participating in the military campaign of Moses. They numbered 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 domestic product. That is, in the Middle Ages.

Immediately, the entire region of the northern Mediterranean began to slowly “boil” militarily. The richer southern regions, which, however, did not have metallurgy due to the lack of iron ore and coal deposits, turned out to be lagging behind in the quality of armaments. And the further, the more. In the years 1150-1200 came the decisive leap. The invention of the iron horseshoe, without which it is impossible to use a horse at all, 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 more affluent south resulted in a world war. The first in the history of mankind world war.

Reports about its early stages and the process of creating an empire in historical chronicles are obscured and clogged with descriptions of the wars of the period of its collapse, so work on detailing this process is the work 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 Alexander the Great, started from the Balkans and covered most of the inhabited land in southern Europe and southern Asia, up to Kashmir in India, and in northern Africa, including Ethiopia.

Once begun, the expansion, that is, the expansion of the empire, continued uninterrupted. 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 "rules of the game" to the mother country. 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 have any skills other than the ability to kill. In peacetime, they remain out of work. After the world wars of the 20th century, they were called the "lost generations".

Ultimately, a permanent war leads to a catastrophic depletion of material and human resources and to the weakening of the mother country. So it was with the first empire - up to the events of the "fourth" crusade, which was the beginning of its collapse.

The campaigns were called crusades not by chance. Any military expansion requires a spiritual justification, evidence of the correctness of the attack. Troops must be encouraged by the awareness justice war. Otherwise, they will fight without a combat enthusiasm, and this is fraught with defeat.

The ideological justification for 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, which carried out the campaign, was divided into 12 knee-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 cleansing it from "infidels". The territory of the empire is also divided into 12 themes.

The definition of "crusade" does not at all speak of the Christian nature of the campaign in modern understanding this word. Let me remind you 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 of the Latins with the Slavic-Goths, in Egyptian terms called the Hits, 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 has preserved ancient name Aryans, that is, Arians, followers of the largest branch of Gnosticism.

The primary 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, the mouth of the Lord said:

"I ... go to deliver them (the people of Israel) from the hand of the Egyptians and bring them out of this land into a good and spacious land, where milk and honey flow." (Ex. 3:8.)

Thus, the first crusade was essentially a peasant one. Women, old people and children walked in the convoy of troops in order to settle in the conquered places once and for all - 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 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 prescription life of this or that people on it. But it was not always so. Until the 19th century, the territories conquered which was considered the most compelling argument in disputes about who they belong to. If I conquered, then it is mine!.. Variations of such statements were later repeated more than once in the wars of conquest of the most diverse empires.

I would like to emphasize that almost all the chronicles, scattered both geographically and on the time scale, reflected two great political figures. Let's conditionally call them CONQUEROR and REFORMER, although in some versions these figures merge.

The identity of the Conqueror has been duplicated many times. Here is a partial 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 is often a pair of figures: father and son. For example, a pair of Macedonians and a pair of Ramses, and perhaps there really were two of them.

Questions immediately arise: why did they “multiply” on the pages of chronicles? And why are they named differently?

Let us remind once again that All the above names are not names at all, but nicknames. 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 still call someone Charlemagne, it is only because of the historical traditions. What his parents actually called him, no one knows. And, obviously, he will never know, because in those days it was not customary to give a person one name from birth to death.

As J. Kesler emphasizes in one of his works, these nicknames, which are identical in essence, on different languages and they sound different. So it appears in one place, for example, King Chlorine, and in another - Red. And not every reader understands that this is the same person, because Chlorine is Red. Only in another language.

Therefore, we designated the first emperors of the first empire in the world 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 composed supposedly ancient and glorious genealogy of the new rulers. A fertile material full of interesting events, wars, incidents, served for them the history of an empire gone into oblivion. You could draw any facts from it and decorate them as much as your imagination allowed. We have seen this in writings about "ancient" Greece, and about "ancient" Rome, and even more "ancient" China.

And another reason for duplication. The Conqueror and Reformer, like all people on earth, had both positive and negative qualities. In addition, their deeds, recognized as beautiful in one era, were considered reprehensible in another era. So the chroniclers had to separate the bad, in their opinion, deeds from the good ones. And since in a number of cases “bad” deeds had to be put somewhere, the 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 imbued with Christian true faith and gave it to victory all their lives. And among them there were necessarily the ancestors of those who ruled the countries at the time of the creation of the chronicles.

The chroniclers slavishly dedicated their works to them, the "Magnificent", "Sun-like", "Purple-bearing", and so on and so forth. The authors cared about their daily bread.

In reality, life was full, as it is now, of baseness and holiness, a little bit of everything.

In the Age of the Conqueror unified 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 the local pagan cults, they scooped everything that could serve to exalt the Conqueror. This, in particular, was reflected in the legend that Alexander the Great, having conquered Egypt, accepted from the hands of local priests the symbols and the title of Pharaoh, the earthly incarnation 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 - the Vatican, in the Gothic version - "Atilla".

The word "pope" became the key to understanding all subsequent political processes.

The capital of the Conqueror was called the Eternal City, or the City of the whole World, or the City of the Viceroy of God. This is precisely the meaning of the names in different languages: “Jerusalem”, “Rome”, “Tsar-grad” ... Centuries later 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 she will proclaim Rome as her capital (“Eternal City”). The renaming operation was carried out to justify the Diploma "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 the "Konstantin'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 14th century; in the 12th-13th centuries it was not yet marked on 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” of that time should be attributed to the city on the Bosphorus.

The Bosphorus is the most convenient place in the most developed region on the planet at that time.

From here it was a stone's throw to rich provinces. It was easiest to deliver abundant tribute from the conquered territories here by waterways. The place of eternal rest, again, is at hand. We are referring to the Valley of the Kings in Egypt.

By the way, no one knew Egypt as such. They called him Mitz Rim, which is still preserved in Hebrew. "Egypt" freely moved through the chronicles of the chroniclers anywhere until the 16th century. Along with him moved "Syria" and "Palestine". 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. For modern people, this sounds crazy. For the 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 double-headed eagle, looking to the West and East. Since ancient times, the eagle has been predominantly perceived as a symbol of power. He was associated with sun, fire and light, and was also a symbol fertility and male power. According to the Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung, "the ultimate meaning of this symbol is the idea of height."

The eagle is found in almost all corners of the planet, including the Inca civilization in Central America. Therefore, many researchers believe that the empire had already reached America. It is not only the double-headed eagle that leads to such reflections, but also the fact that Christopher Columbus took with him on his journey as a translator a person who knew Hebrew. And when the navigator's ships approached the shores of Cuba, it was the translator who was the first to go ashore. Columbus believed that the natives must understand Hebrew.

After the death of the Conqueror, the Reformer came to power. He is named differently in the chronicles: Octavian August = Constantine the Great = Constantine V (Copronym) = Amenhotep IV, or Akhenaten.

If the Conqueror mainly seized land and collected tribute, then the Reformer had to manage a huge empire in relatively peaceful conditions, which turned out to be much more difficult than fighting. The formation of a unified state came up against the deepest contradictions in the religious and linguistic spheres. Local religious cults and a variety of languages in the absence of a single script turned out to be the centrifugal forces who threatened to tear the empire apart.

A modern person basically identifies himself by his “roots”, which means, among other things, language, customs, rites and rituals, including religious ones. In the times in question, the main identification feature was religion. And if local people 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 megastate. It is not necessary to explain what such ideas can and do lead to. Political unrest raged in the empire. Local beliefs fueled a growing separatism that effectively exploited the fact that the succession of kings in the capital was not secured. ideologically.

It was necessary to urgently take measures to introduce everywhere into the minds of people the idea of the legitimacy of imperial power, that is, its divine origin, excluding any resistance. The people had to pray alone god, the god of the emperor. The title of pharaoh - the living god did not help in regions where no one knew anything about the god of the Sun - Ra, and did not want to know. It was necessary to rely on a different religious and ideological basis, the same throughout the Oikoumene.

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 family ties.

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, the Reformer from childhood spoke Hebrew or its close variety - Aramaic. One of the sources says that Akhenaten is the second son of Amenhotep III and Queen Teye, an Israelite.

There is every reason to believe that the Reformer from his mother joined the idea of a single 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 connections with its predecessor - the main God. As the Torah says: “Who is like you, Lord, among the gods?” (Ex. 15:11) And only then did the Lord become what we know him to be. Its main features were affirmed in the Psalms and the Books of the Prophets.

We also find the Egyptian trace in the apocrypha and legends of the Middle Ages. Some of them state that before becoming a Jewish prophet, Moses was an 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 ones: one God is one in all manifestations. And it is to him, alone, that the emperor is faithful. From this followed the conclusion, the most important for the Reformer: if God is one, then the emperor and empire faithful to Him are also the only ones. More briefly, this is expressed by the formula: "One God - one emperor - one empire." And there should not be any deviations.

The simplification of religion was colossal. The pantheon of the gods has been destroyed, all characters have been removed from it so as not to cause any more 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 number reduction actors and simplification of religious life.

At the same time, the new religion dealt a powerful blow to local beliefs by forbidding 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. The third commandment of the Torah speaks of this: “You shall not make for yourself an idol or any image of what is in heaven 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. Extremely lightweight and effective method discovery of dissent. One has only to find an idol or a fetish in someone, and all measures of influence can be applied to a freethinker, up to and including execution. The crime is there.

The ban on images was reflected in the process of creating zodiacs, extremely popular in those days. Them for quite a long period in general stopped drawing. Here are the datings 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 century, the zodiacs were not drawn. This is, in our opinion, the time of the reign of the Reformer and his heirs.

Another brilliant find is the prohibition to pronounce the name of God. Thus, he became supranational. No one else could appropriate it for themselves, naming it in their own way: Zeus, Perun, Jupiter, or something else. The name of the Lord is known only to especially trusted people. Everyone else calls him simply God, or the Lord of the world, or the Creator. Thus, another fundamental support has been 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. The idea of the grave sinfulness of retreat from monotheism, a return to the "golden calf" and other idols runs like a red thread through her Books. At its core, the Old Testament Books are the military regulations 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 turning to their idols with requests, wishes, demands. Faith ordinary people does not tolerate abstraction. 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 requests. They are simply burned or thrown away as garbage.

It was necessary to bring the Creator closer to his creations. Therefore, God in Judaism is presented as someone endowed with understandable human qualities. He is kind, fair, but sometimes extremely angry. Sometimes He even loses the sense of proportion, seeking to punish apostates from the true faith, and then Moses long persuades Him to change his anger to mercy, citing 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 Him Father, shepherd, judge, etc. He listens to them and marks in the Book of Fates who behaves in the current year. And depending on the behavior of people, it determines who will live in the next year, and who it is time to go to the other world. Heavenly accounting works without interruption.

It is noteworthy that God uses 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. When the books appeared

Monotheist priests, marked by the rite of circumcision as a symbol of belonging to the Divine Union, became intermediaries between God and people. The time of the “pure” castrati is gone forever. But since they were not going to meekly concede the dominant position in society, the change of the priestly elite was accompanied by mass repressions.

This is also the official history. True, from the standpoint of the Scaligerian chronology. It is reported that “The Emperor Constantine the Great in 325 by a special decree declared any kind of castration illegal. The act of castration was punishable by death. Many priests were exiled or imprisoned in monasteries. For example, the brethren of the monastery of Topos in the mountains of today's Turkey once consisted exclusively of eunuchs.

The provinces also resisted. Therefore, as official history admits, “beginning with Constantine the Great, state power intervenes in dogmatic movements and directs them at its own discretion ... The state interests did not always coincide with the interests of the church.”

A reformer convenes a council in the Bithynian city of Nicaea. In later chronicles, it was reflected and split into a good dozen cathedrals of the Roman Catholic Church, attributed by the Scaligerian chronology to the depths of centuries. Therefore, it is possible to determine what happened on it only approximately. “The number of members of the council who arrived is not exactly known ... The Acts (acts) of the Council of Nicaea have not been preserved. 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 participants in 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 Israelites with paganism. But although “the emperor presided over the council, who even led the debate,” it was not possible to achieve victory. The stakes in this fight were too high. Outwardly, everything boiled down to differences in the interpretation of religious concepts. In fact, it was about ideological domination in the empire.

And then the Reformer applied a tried and tested remedy: a holy war began with the "infidels."

It was reflected in Western chronicles as a crusade against the Cathars. It is called Albigonsky, and authentic evidence has been preserved about it. They explicitly state that the purpose of the punitive expedition was to introduce a new religious identity. This is one of the least distorted pages of history, with the only amendment that the religion of Qatar is paganism, and the 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 Quran had 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 English had never used the words: “Muslims, Islam, Koran, minaret, muezzin, hijra, Kaaba.” But the sons of foggy Albion by that time had already visited all the countries of the world and conquered half of them.

It would seem that Russians, who have been living near the Islamic world for centuries, should have known who Muslims are. Nothing like this. The Council Code of 1649 says (translated into modern language):

"And if Busurman by some means, by force or deceit, will incline a Russian person to his busurman faith and besides, it will cut off ... something like that busurmana execute, burn with fire without any mercy.

"Busurmans" were called in those days Jews collecting taxes. (I. Kesler)

The first Russian researcher of the Koran, the historian Tatishchev, wrote that only four people in all of Russia, including the Tatars, could read the Koran. But this is already the eighteenth century.

There is a curious mention of Mohammed in one of the old works on the magnet:

“The magnet, as you all know, has a great property, without which it is impossible to navigate the seas surrounding the earth (the world), and without which it is impossible to know either the sides or the limits of the world (of the earth). Coffin Persian prophet Mohammed hangs above the ground in their rapata (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 initially the object of various attacks and accusations of deceit, 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 are written about the destruction of Rome by the barbarians.

The coming to power of a Semitic group in Rome meant a transition to the Aramaic-Hebrew language standard, and this strengthened the position of the Semitic regions and weakened Latin Europe. That is why traditional history believes that the “dark time of the European decline” has come. It is also called the time of great 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 end of the 15th century, the Israelis prayed in Hebrew in temples with minarets 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 attributive member, the same as the Greek?, although the transcription has changed, since until the onset of the printing period, spelling was everywhere free. “The word rabbi, the biblical Reuben, and many other concepts came from the root RAV.” (N.Morozov)

The Reformer's prohibition against pronouncing the name of God is splendidly confirmed 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 "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 denoted any state job title. Precisely any, since in those days there was no specialization in the bureaucracy, and all kinds of writing and financial work were entrusted to the caste of officials - Judaies. By the way, English word jugde from the same root, and it is clear why.

There are many references in the bulls of the Vatican that Christians should not engage in usury, with a direct indication that this activity is entrusted only to Judaies. The Judae were the finance workers of the Vatican, and most of the revenue collected went to the papal treasury.

Portrait of a medieval tax collector.

The same period is described in eastern sources as the “Tatar-Mongol yoke”, which lasted approximately 260 years, starting with Genghis Khan and ending with the “great stand on the Ugra” in 1481 (during the reign of Ivan III).

The same period is characterized by a 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 date of the end 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 Guyenne).

All 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 Palaiologos. 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 Konstantin.

Stepbrother of Leo VI - Constantine - was crowned emperor, and then left the historical stage. There is also little information about Andronicus' brother with the same name; but it is known that the brothers were on bad terms.

Fate was favorable to the future emperors Leo and Andronicus from a young age: they were declared emperors - co-rulers of their fathers in early childhood, when they was four years old. (VAC p. 233 and p. 377).

Caring parents married them very early, before adulthood, when Leo was about 16 years old. (VAC pp. 233 and 40), and Andronik is about 15 years old (VAC pp. 377 and 382).

Their wives were named accordingly Anna and Theophane(Theophano). At first glance, these are different names, but "Theophan" in meaning can be deciphered as Theo + Anna, the divine Anna. In the biography of Leo, it is stated that Theophan was very pious, for which, after her death, she was canonized as a saint. So the first part of her name justifies itself. It is possible that even during her lifetime, court flatterers "lengthened" her original name from "Anna" to "Theophan". But for the enemies, she, apparently, remained just Anna.

During the time of Leo VI and Andronicus II, formidable enemies invaded Byzantium: Scythians, coming from the northern coast of the Black Sea. Oleg's "Tauro-Scythians" attacked Leo, while 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 "Leg" - a Russian nickname.

The reigns of Leo VI and Andronicus II are marked conflicts between the Byzantine Church and the Catholic Church:

At the request of the pope, Leo eliminates Patriarch Nicholas the Mystic and enters into a confrontation with Orthodox priests. Shortly after Leo's death patriarch restored (VAS pp. 237-239);

During Andronicus, the treaty with the Catholics was annulled and Patriarch restored (YAC p. 377).

It is very important to note a rare detail that is common to Leo and Andronicus: both of them were patrons of sciences and arts. Both were active in lawmaking.

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”)

And now let's remember the biblical Solomon:

He was renowned for his wisdom

He was a patron of the arts, he himself composed magnificent poems,

He was a polygamist, and after his death there were problems with the succession to the throne,

He became famous for his legislative activities.

The Old Testament tells us that united Israel ends with Solomon. The country splits into two large parts - Israel and Judea. Absolutely right! The great empire of the medieval Leo - Andronicus - Solomon broke up 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 misfortune - the plague epidemic. It hit Europe, according to all sources, in the middle of the XIV century, although it can be recognized 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. "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 broke out.

The quarantine of the regions during the plague disrupted the 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 uprising of the Zealots first thundered, and later the revolution of the Hussites 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 against Judaism. The Komneni 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 placed the "Saracens", and the Europeans called the Byzantines exactly that, outside the common Israeli caste.

The rejection of imperial strictness, 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 - to the difference in religions and the so-called great schism. Eastern and Western churches.

A fundamentally important point in the emergence of new religions: they appeared due to political need. The emergence of states on the ruins of the empire required a new self-identification. This was the main impetus for the creation of beliefs that differed from imperial monotheism. But more about this in the next chapters.

Komnenos himself was reflected in later Eastern chronicles as Augustus, who supposedly handed over 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 loosening of the empire took on a catastrophic character for Constantinople. The Zealot Revolt (1342–1349) broke out in Greece, described by Josephus in The Jewish War as a Zealot revolution of the 1st century AD. e. One of the most famous Zealots is Simon. Zealot - later reflected in the Gospels as one of the apostles of Jesus Christ.

started World War 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 contenders for the throne entered the battle: Bulgarian leaders from the north, Turkish leaders from the east, Gallic, Greek and many others from the west.

The empire was crumbling, and this led to a massive change of dynasties throughout Europe. Here is the data of traditional historiography:

1379 Partition of Austria between Albrecht III (Albertine line) and Leopold III (Shtrian line)

1359–1371 - the division of Bulgaria into the Tarnovo and Vidin kingdoms. 1396 - loss of independence - Türkiye.

1373–1411 - Brandenburg (Branibor) The Luxembourg government before being replaced by the Hohenzollerns.

1377-99 - England. Last Plantagenet, replacement for Lancasters.

1382–1387 - Hungary. Maria, replacement for Czech kings Egmond Luxembourg (Sigismund I)

1370–1385 - Poland. Angevin house. Since 1386 - the Jaggelon dynasty, starting with Vladislav Jagiello.

1385 - Portugal. Beginning of the Avisso Dynasty, 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 dynasty in Aragon (Berengars).

Those who were proteges 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 - the old biblical region. Later, the stay of 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 14th 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, arranges a decisive assault on the capital of the former empire, called in traditional history the Fourth Crusade. The ideological justification for it is a new religious and political idea associated with the execution of the Bogomil Basil, who turned into the Messiah, that is, into Jesus Christ. “Punish the “executioners of Jesus” 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 beyond Macedonia, in the Balkans - where it is 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 before 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 at the same time as the word "synagogue" allegedly in 1080, although these same Muslim Saracens invaded France, according to the school history textbook, back in the VIII century.

After the capture of Jerusalem-Rome-Constantinople, the overthrow of Greek rule, the Latin state of the crusaders was formed.

In 1431 at the Basel Cathedral first a date is introduced from the Nativity of Christ - in honor of Jesus-Basil, who was crucified relatively recently. At the Council of Florence 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 begun.

However, not all parts of the former empire recognized the new Latin masters.

Many of the Eastern orders, such as 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 themselves not only physically, but also spiritually from the former empire, as well as from Christians who declared themselves to be the successors of imperial monotheists. The confrontation between two powerful blocs - Western and Eastern - determined political life for several centuries to come.

Beginning in 1400, pressure from the east increased. In 1453, Mehmet II captured the Eternal City with a powerful blow. It would seem that after the capture, the general persecution of Christians will begin. After all, if we follow the Scaligerian chronology, by the middle of the 15th century Christianity already existed and flourished for a whole millennium, and Islam, having triumphantly mastered 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.

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Introduction 1. India (VII - XVIII centuries) 2. China (III - XVII centuries) 3. Japan (III - XIX centuries) 4. Arab caliphate (V - XI centuries AD) Conclusion Literature

Introduction

Traditionally, the term "Middle Ages" is used to designate the period in the history of the countries of the East of the first 17 centuries of a new era. The upper boundary of the period includes the 16th - early 17th centuries. At this time, the East turns into an object of European commercial and colonial expansion, which interrupted the course of events characteristic of Asian and North African countries. Geographically, the medieval East covered North Africa, the Near and Middle East, Central and Central Asia, India, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia and the Far East. The East passed to the Middle Ages, in one case, through the already existing political formations (for example, Byzantium, Sassanian Iran, Kushano-Gupta India), in another case, it was accompanied by social upheavals, as was the case in China. Almost everywhere, processes were accelerated due to the participation of barbarian tribes in them. At this time, the Arabs, the Seljuk Turks, and the Mongols appeared and rose to the fore in the historical arena. New religions were born, on the basis of which civilizations were formed. In the Middle Ages, the states of the East were connected with Europe. Byzantium remained the bearer of the traditions of Greco-Roman culture. The interaction of cultures was facilitated by the conquest of Spain by the Arabs, as well as the campaigns of the crusaders to the East. However, the countries of Asia and the Far East became acquainted with Europeans only in the 15th-16th centuries. The formation of medieval societies of the East was characterized by the growth of productive forces - the spread of iron tools, the expansion of artificial irrigation, and the improvement of irrigation technology. The leading trend in the historical process of the East and Europe of this period was the assertion of feudal relations. The difference between the results of the development of the East and the West by the end of the 20th century was explained by a lesser degree of its dynamism. The factors explaining the “delay” of Eastern societies include the following: primitive communal and slave-owning relations that survived along with the feudal system and very slowly disintegrated; stable communal forms of community life that restrain the differentiation of the peasantry; prevailing state ownership and power over private land ownership and the private power of feudal lords; the undivided power of the feudal lords over the city, weakening the anti-feudal aspirations of the townspeople. The purpose of writing an essay is to study the countries of the East in the Middle Ages. The objectives of the study are to consider the development process of such countries as India, China, Japan, the Arab Caliphate.

Conclusion

The East in the Middle Ages followed its own path of development. The eastern countries are characterized by the absence of a clear boundary between the ancient world and the Middle Ages. Eastern countries in the Middle Ages developed antisynchronously. Some of them were far ahead in their development and already lived under a feudal system, while many others still had tribal unions. The transition to the Middle Ages proceeded differently for different countries. Somewhere it happened quietly, and in some countries it was the result of serious political upheavals. Eastern civilizations had their own characteristics and were seriously different from European ones. They are characterized by the following features: - ownership of the land by the state; - the rural community was the basis of society; - large cities played the role of religious and trading centers. The basis of society and the state was the rural community. In many countries of the East there was a similar system of government. Peasants and artisans, members of the community, cultivated the land, produced a product. Only the state apparatus had the right to resources and land. The community gave the surplus of the produced product in the form of a tax to the state. The higher the level in the state apparatus a person occupied, the more power and resources were concentrated in his hands. From the 16th century At times geographical discoveries ties between Eastern countries and European countries have strengthened. The process of transition to the Middle Ages in the eastern countries was accompanied by the disappearance of many ancient cities. Their decline was primarily associated with the crisis of the tribal system, the center of which they were.

Bibliography

1. World history. Textbook for high schools. Pole. Markova 2. History of the Middle Ages. Agibalova E.V., Donskoy G.M. Moscow "Enlightenment", 1981. 3. Deinorov, E. History of Japan / E. Deinorov. - M.: AST: Astrel, 2011. - 767, p. 4. History of China; Textbook / Edited by A.V. Meliksetov. - 2nd ed., corrected. and additional - M.: Publishing House of Moscow State University, Publishing House graduate School, 2002. - 736 p. 5. Alaev L.B. and others (responsible ed.) History of the East. In 6 volumes. Volume 4. East in modern times (late 18th - early 20th centuries). Book. 1 M.: Eastern Literature, 2004. - 608 p.

Features of the development of the countries of the East in the Middle Ages

India

China

Japan

Arab Caliphate

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