Byzantine Empire and Middle Ages

SS.912.W. 2.1

• Locate the extent of the Byzantine territory at the height of the empire.

SS.912.W.2.2

• Describe the impact of Constantine the Great’s establishment of “New Rome” (Constantinople) and his recognition of Christianity as a legal religion.

SS.912.W.2.3

• Analyze the extent to which the Byzantine Empire was a continuation of the old Roman Empire and in what ways it was a departure.

SS.912.W.2.4

• Identify key figures associated with the Byzantine Empire.

SS.912.W.2.5

• Explain the contributions of the Byzantine Empire.

SS.912.W.2.6

• Describe the causes and effects of the Iconoclast controversy of the 8th and 9th centuries and the 11th-century Christian schism between the churches of Constantinople and Rome.

​

SS.912.W.2.7

• Analyze the causes (Justinian’s Plague, ongoing attacks from the “barbarians”, the Crusades, and internal political turmoil) for the decline of the Byzantine Empire.​

SS.912.W.2.8

• Describe the rise of the Ottoman Turks, the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, and the subsequent growth of the Ottoman empire under the sultanate including Mehmet the Conqueror and Suleyman the Magnificent.

​SS.912.W.2.14

• Describe the causes and effects of the Great Famine of 1315-1316, the Black Death, the Great Schism of 1378, and the Hundred Years War on Western Europe.​

SS.912.W.3.2

• Compare the major beliefs and principles of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

SS.912.W.3.7

• Analyze the causes, key events, and effects of the European response to Islamic expansion beginning in the 7th Century.

​

​

• Understand how the Black Plague impacted society and the economy.

• Identify and describe the problems facing the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages and how they responded to those challenges.

• Explain the causes and effects of the Hundred Years War.

• Understand how and why Constantinople became the new Rome.

• Identify how and why the Byzantine Empire grew under the reign of Justinian.

• Compare how Christianity in the Eastern and Western Empire.

• Explain the causes for the collapse of the Byzantine Empire and describe the heritage of the empire.

1. How did the Black Plague, unrest in the Church, and war impact Europe in the late 1300s-1400s

2. Why and how did the physical location of the Byzantine Empire affect its growth socially, politically, economically, and culturally?

3. How did the establishment of Constantinople as the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) impact medieval times?

4. How did the Byzantine Empire contribute to the world during medieval times?

5. What were the causes of the decline of the Byzantine Empire?

Academic Vocabulary 

​

• Hundred Years War

• Constantinople

• Justinian

• Justinian’s Code

• Autocrat

• Theodora

• Patriarch

• Icon

​

• Black death

• Epidemic

• Inflation

• Schism

• Longbow

• Joan of Arc

• Inflation

• Great Schism