Conclusion

The Islamic world, Byzantium, and western Europe were heirs to the Roman Empire, but they built on its legacies in different ways. Muslims were the newcomers to the Roman world, but their religion, Islam, was influenced by both Jewish and Christian monotheism, each with roots in Roman culture. Under the guidance of Muhammad the Prophet, Islam became both a coherent theology and a way of life. Once the Muslim Arabs embarked on military conquests, they became the heirs of Rome in other ways: preserving Byzantine cities, hiring Syrian civil servants, and adopting Mediterranean artistic styles. Drawing on Roman and Persian traditions, the Umayyad dynasty created a powerful Islamic state, with a capital city in Syria and a culture that generally tolerated a wide variety of economic, religious, and social institutions so long as the conquered paid taxes to their Muslim overlords.

Byzantium directly inherited the central political institutions of Rome: its people called themselves Romans; its emperor was the Roman emperor; and its capital, Constantinople, was considered to be the new Rome. Byzantium also inherited the taxes, cities, laws, and Christian religion of Rome. The changes of the seventh and eighth centuries—contraction of territory, urban decline, disappearance of the old elite, and a ban on icons—whittled away at this Roman character. By 750, Byzantium was less Roman than it was a new, resilient political and cultural entity, a Christian state.

Western Europe also inherited—and transformed—Roman institutions. The Frankish kings built on Roman traditions that had earlier been modified by provincial and Germanic custom. In the seventh century, Anglo-Saxon England reimported the Roman legacy through Latin learning and the Christian religion. Visigothic kings in Spain converted from Arian to Roman Christianity and allied themselves with the Hispano-Roman elite. In Italy and at Rome itself, the traditions of the classical past endured. The roads remained, the cities of Italy survived (although depopulated), and both the popes and the Lombard kings ruled according to the traditions of Roman government.

Muslim, Byzantine, and western European societies all suffered the ravages of war. Social hierarchies became simpler, with the loss of “middle” groups like the curials at Byzantium and the near suppression of tribal affiliations among Muslims. Politics were tightly tied to religion: the Byzantine emperor was a religious force, the caliph was a religious and political leader, and western European kings allied with churchmen. Despite their many differences, all these leaders had a common understanding of their place in a divine scheme: they were God’s agents on earth, ruling over God’s people. In the next century they would consolidate their power. Little did they know that, soon thereafter, local elites would be able to assert greater authority than ever before.