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Introduction
As the second millennium began on the Eurasian continent, vibrant
civilizations were concentrated in China, India, and the Islamic World. The sword
symbolizes the 11th century, not because the 11th was any more violent than other
centuries of the millennium, but because it was riven by fundamental divisions
within and between many cultures. Among these divisions were conflicts between China
and her neighbors, conflicts connected with the expansion of Islam, and conflicts
within the Christian world. The sword also represents cleavage, separation, and
insularity. Such was the case in Japan, where ties with outside cultures were
diminishing or virtually non-existent. Yet despite violence and separation, the 11th
century was marked by vibrancy, creativity, and a great deal of cultural transfer,
especially in the Islamic World and in East Asia.
As the world began a new millennium in the 11th
century, only within Christendom did the word "Millennium" have much significance.
Only there was chronology counted from Christ's birth. The rest of the world marked
time in other ways, a fact which symbolizes the world's cultural and regional
disconnectedness during this period: although cultures met, touched, interacted,
and exchanged, for the most part they remained separated and separate. Looking at
Eurasia, there were in the 11th century four great cultural constellations-China,
the Muslim World, India, and Christendom. China considered herself the center of
the universe, dominant in the world of technology, and home to a vibrant internal
market and culture. When outsiders attacked, China often survived by absorbing her
enemies rather than beating them on the battlefield. Yet, China was set off from
the rest of the world by barriers, some geographical like the Takla Makan Desert.
Meanwhile, Islam expanded, absorbed and preserved Greco-Roman science and arts, and
then produced a brilliant synthesis of Islamic and neighboring cultures. Such a
cultural fusion is richly reflected in the Spanish city of Cordoba. India, to the
east, was also affected by Islamic travellers and conquerors who occupied northern
India in 1000 AD. Eleventh century India, a relic of a former great civilization
that had produced two world religious traditions was, at one time, at the forefront
of the sciences. Nowhere, except perhaps Ireland, in the 11th century is isolation
more evident than in Japan. After centuries of borrowing from China, Japan in the
11th century solidified her imperial tradition in splendid isolation. Separation
occurred also within Christendom. In 1054, a split that had been brewing for
centuries, finally forever divided Christendom between East and West, Orthodox
and Catholic. The East became more vulnerable to Islam while the West entered
the second millennium unencumbered, ready to begin the creation of a dynamic new
society that formulated institutions and ways of thought that were destined to
change the course of world history.
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© 1999 Turner Learning, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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