The Roman Empire Analysis Essay Example

the first to split the two parts of the Empire for better administration. In 324, it was Constantine who held the reins of power and who managed to spiritually unify the Empire by becoming the first Christian ruler. lthough he did force his subjects to keep in lie with the imperial cult, which was in somewhat contradiction with Christianity, he did proclaimed the Edict from Milan (313) which “granted freedom to all religious cults, and then made Christianity a state religion, forbidding prostitution and divorce, introducing practices that would improve the treatment of prisoners and slaves, offering the Church judiciary benefices and intervening in the life of the ecclesiastic institution in order to maintain the orthodoxy of the doctrine” (Berstein and Milza, 1994, p312).

An additional reform measure taken by Constantine was that of moving the capital on the Bosphor. The legacy of the Western Empire is the result of the invasion of the first wave of barbarians which included the Germanic tribes that later on became the Saxons, the Franks, and the Alamans. Their contribution to the medieval culture relies especially in Clovis’s ambition to keep written proofs of all German old rituals, to take over the Roman administration and to keep the traditional coin of the Byzantine Emperor. Thus, he tried to ensure a minimum cultural continuation. . Clovis is considered to be the founder of the Frank kingdom who, despite his political and cultural openness, remained a barbarian leader (Berstein and Milza, 1994, p23), with all the power concentrated in the hands of the king. After his death, Regnum francorum became the object of increased struggles between his successors. Therefore, the ascension of

the frank aristocracy is doubled by that of the palace officers who, in their quality oh heads of the administration become very powerful through their estates and wealth.

The Pepines had the greatest influence, as their representative, Pepin proclaims himself the king of the Franks, with the help of the Pope. The remarkable element of this part of the history is the fact that, for the first time, the successor of the Apostles, the Pope, asks for the help of a prince that was not the successor of Constantine in order to deal with the challenge the longobards represented for the integrity of the Western Empire. Help could not be demanded from the Eastern Empire’s ruler due to the Iconoclastic Crisis.

Therefore, the Pope in return, recognizes the king’s divine origin. Charles the Great, in turn, engages himself in a series of conquest in order to strengthen the borders of his land, and to prevent any barbarian dangers. Thus, he crashes the longobards, he conquers Bavaria and Saxony, creats marks that would protect the external borders with Spain, Brittany and Normandy. His special relationship with the Pope becomes official when he is crowed “Emperor of the Romans” in 800.

However, the kingdom is still barbaric, as there was no proper administration, the central one was purely formal, the army was not permanent, but rather limited, the taxes were insufficient, and the administration of the counties was in the hands of the local aristocracy. All this, along with the fights among Charles’ sons led to the weakening of the Empire. Faced with more barbarian invasions in the Mediterranean, in Italy, and especially in England and Gallia, the empire breaks

apart at Verdun, in 843.

The cultural life is developed in most areas, there is the reformation of the church, the rise of a special cult for the art of palaces and churches, and most importantly, the spread of the vulgar language instead of Latin, which will eventually contribute to the development of the national cultures. 3. What best characterizes the early manifestations of Christianity is the richness of ideas in connection with the true nature of God. The major issues revolved around the dual nature of God, as being represented by both Jesus and God.

For the Christian Jews, it was hard to accept the sign of equality between the two divine beings. The differentiation between the Jews and the rest f the Christians takes place as the bishops affirm their authority concerning the dogma (Braunstein and Pepin, 1998, p263). These speculations over the nature of Christ and on religion would eventually determine the elaboration in the 4th century of a doctrine that makes clear the difference between the two divine persons: Father and Son.

From a political perspective though, Christianity represented an assault on the authority of the Emperor as the supreme and only leader that must be granted signs of worship. In the beginning of Christian times, Diocletian started a persecution campaign against the early Christians by forbidding their cult, excluding them from all public positions and killing thousands because these refused to take part in the celebrations in honor of the emperor.

Proof of such actions is offered also by the letters between Pliny the Younger and the emperor Trajan (Pliny. Letters). Despite all, however, the Church and Christianity managed to survive because it offered

a spiritual unity for the state and because it most often appealed to the poor people and thus ensured its spreading. Faced with heretic movements such as Aryanism and Nestorianism, the Church succeeds in reorganizing itself in the most important institution of the early middle Ages.