1. In this century, Christianity faced another religious doctrine, which formed an army that, since the previous century, grew frighteningly: Islam. The Muslims organized themselves very quickly in the world. They spread through the Arabian Peninsula and took the north of Africa in a very rapid way. The Christian Roman Empire experienced, then, a process of retraction, on account of the growth of this new force that imposed itself.
2. From this century on, Christianity will experience a second change in its profile. In its first times, it was doctrinal and religious, but ended up becoming more formal, more linked to the aspects of power, being this its first change. From this moment of the history, it came to be a warrior doctrine. When we speak of Christianity of this century, we deal with soldiers, warriors, men carrying swords in the hands, for they had motivations to fight, since they were dealing with an enemy.
3. Christianity will, then, enter in a new phase; there will be a second transformation: the phase of combats, of the armies that, in the name of Jesus, unfurled their swords to kill adversaries in the name of the faith. This is the tone of the 8th century, that we will know and that will spread for some more centuries. From then on, there was a clash of cultures, a clash of ideologies, with both sides wanting to prevail.
4. Good part of the expansion of Islam happened in the previous century, when of its birth. In this 8th century, the Christian Roman Empire was very frightened, because it had been being devoured by the Muslim Empire in a very significant way, for, together with the military force, came also the religious culture. It was a religious army that advanced to convert the masses of the Roman Empire.
5. When, in 638, the caliph Umar took Jerusalem, he ordered to build a mosque, today known as Mosque of Umar. After, he ordered to build the Dome of the Rock, so that there would be settled the bases of Islam.
6. Already in this century, a great caliph called Tariq Ibn Ziyad crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and, in the year 711, took the Iberian Peninsula, that is, Portugal and Spain, that passed to the hands of the Muslims. They also tried to expand themselves to the rest of Europe. However, when they wanted to enter France, they came across the Carolingian dynasty (that comes from “Carolus”, Charles), of Charles Martel.
7. A curiosity: mount, in Arabic, is called “gibal”, and, when the army of Tariq Ibn Ziyad arrived in Spain by a narrow channel, by the throat of Morocco, going to Europe, that mount came to be called Mount Tariq, by the fact of having been there that Tariq crossed to initiate the domination of the Iberian Peninsula. This strait became known as “Gibal Tariq”, today Gibraltar.
8. After Charles Martel, his son entered into the history as Pepin, the Short, due to the fact of his reign having been very short. Next, there arises his grandson, Charlemagne. The Muslims, in 732, tried to capture two French cities, Tours and Poitiers. However, for the first time after conquering the Iberian Peninsula, they were defeated by Charles Martel.
9. In Poitiers and Tours happened two battles. Charles Martel, who at the time was king of France, won these confrontations, defeated the caliph and his warriors and expelled them from France. If it were not for him and his Carolingian dynasty, perhaps today Europe would be all Muslim. With this, for the first time the Christians took up arms and became warriors, for they needed to defend their faith — not like the ancient apologetes, who defended it only with arguments. In this moment, the Christians became warriors also to defend their territories.
10. Charles Martel achieved significant victories that gave him enormous power. He was seen by the population as a kind of idol, an extraordinary winner. However, he was not even king in fact, but ended up conquering enormous popularity, even without throne or crown.
11. There occurred two very significant facts during the reign of Pepin, his son: Pope Zachary went to France to anoint him king. Thus, there was formed the alliance between the temporal power and the religious power, between the State and the Religion. Pepin granted some lands to Pope Stephen II, successor of Pope Zachary. With this donation, began that which, in the Church, is called Papal State. The Church passed, then, to possess lands and properties.
12. More relevant than Charles Martel and Pepin was the son of this last, Charlemagne. He had enormous importance in this period, by promoting the unification of the Roman Empire of the West, that found itself fragmented after its fall.
13. Charlemagne reigned until 843. In the year 800, still in this century, more precisely on the day 25 of December, Pope Leo III went to France and crowned him emperor. Thus, was created the Holy Franco-Germanic Empire, similar to the Roman Empire, but with another name and another territory, now encompassing almost all Europe, except Portugal and Spain. Europe, that already had freed itself from the emperors, returned to have one. But this one was different, for now it was necessary an imperial power to defend itself from the Muslim invasions.
14. Charlemagne promoted the Carolingian Renaissance, that is, he provided a period of investments in the arts, in the beautification of the cities and in the even greater union between State and Church, that, from now on, would walk together. There still existed the Byzantine Empire; therefore, it was necessary a strong emperor in the West to face his counterpart, Leo III, who accumulated the office of pope. These disputes of power predominate throughout the history.
15. The period of Charlemagne as emperor was of peace with Islam. Jerusalem was totally in the hands of the Muslims and, even so, the Christians could make their pilgrimages to the holy city; they could go and come without impediments by part of Islam. There was no conflict, for Charlemagne respected the administrative and political control of Jerusalem in the hands of the Muslims. He did not convene an army to retake Jerusalem; therefore, there was peace in this period.
16. It was elevated to the caliphate, then, an extremely important character in the history of Islam, one of the most wise caliphs that this religion ever had: Harun al-Rashid. His wisdom was notable and, when he assumed the power, he declared: “I will make of our empire the most wise and powerful that the Earth ever knew.”
17. He discovered that the Christians were destroying the knowledge existing in their regions. The ancient parchments of Alexandria were being burned. Texts of scholars, philosophers, mathematicians and geometers were being destroyed or forgotten. Christianity, at that time, had a very rigid posture in relation to science.
18. Harun al-Rashid, then, sent a team of Arabs, that departed from Baghdad toward the Christian world, to collect all the parchments that they found. Thus they did, taking them to Baghdad. However, the texts were in Latin, Greek or Hebrew, being necessary to translate them first to Arabic. After, he ordered to build a great library to keep all this gathered wisdom. He reedited, thus, the idea of the Library of Alexandria: a single place where all the knowledge would be concentrated.
19. He also built an institution called Bait al-Hikmah (House of Wisdom), where the knowledge of humanity was gathered. Thus, Islam ascended in scientific terms. There gathered great sages, called polymaths (those who dominate many knowledges), so that, by order of the caliph, they made these knowledges accessible to all the Arab nation. Then, there began to exist a distancing between Islam and the Christian world, that was becoming more backward and ignorant, while Islam developed itself.
20. They studied ballistics — knowledge that, much time later, Galileo would use to calculate the angle of the cannon. They studied optics and astronomy, realized a series of great inventions, discovered anesthetics extracted from the leaves of the poppy and many other things unknown by the Christians. Innumerable knowledges were produced in Bait al-Hikmah.
21. This wise caliph was very friend of Charlemagne. However, they never met personally and exchanged gifts with frequency. When pilgrims passed through the lands of the caliph, Charlemagne sent him gifts, and this, in retribution, sent others. The gifts of Charlemagne were modest, without much luxury. Already the caliph presented him with ingenious objects, as certain time in which he sent him a water clock, considered one of the most sophisticated inventions of that time.
22. Then, Bait al-Hikmah marked the apogee of Islam in this century. It was during the Abbasid caliphate that Baghdad (in ancient Mesopotamia) was built and there erected the House of Wisdom. However, after a first golden period, it experienced a decline after the Crusades, in reason of the intolerance suffered later by both parts.
23. Harun al-Rashid (the fifth of the caliphs) and Charlemagne arrived at the conclusion that, if they maintained the state of war, they would not prosper, and decided to coexist respectfully.
24. In this century began to arise deep divergences between the Byzantine and Catholic beliefs. The Jews believe in God (monotheism), but not in images, according to the second commandment of the Law. The Christians, coming from a Jewish cradle, maintained similar position. However, after the Roman Empire become Christian, in the 4th century, the Christians began to assimilate Roman customs, as the veneration of images. There was, then, a partial assimilation of the Roman culture in this aspect, for they began to idolize human figures — as the apologetes — through images carved in wood.
25. In the Byzantine Empire arose the movement of the iconoclasts (“clast” means to break, to rupture, to destroy). According to its defenders, the adoration of images would be staining Christianity. This debate — about if there should be veneration to saints or not by part of the Christians — originated the Second Council of Nicaea, in 787.
26. In this council, it was decided that neither iconodulia (veneration and adoration of images) nor iconoclasm (opposition to images) would be endorsed. It was defined, then, that the adoration would be due only to God, but that there could be a form of veneration and gratitude to the saints of the Church.
27. This was the first great objection to the cult to the saints. Centuries later, there would occur a schism among Christians, separating those who would be recognized as orthodox (without cult to images) and the Catholics (worshipers of images).
28. Three important facts stood out in this century: the Muslim expansion, the Carolingian Empire and the iconoclasm. But the most important was the reigning peace between Catholics and Muslims...