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A Catholic World History from Ancient to Modern Times

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CHRIST

THE KII{G LORD OF HISTORY

CHRIST

THE KII{G LORD OF'HISTORY By

Anne W. Carroll

THIRD EDITION

"Pilate therefore said to him: Art thou a hing tlrcn? Jesus answered: Thou sayest that I am a hing. For, this was I born, and for this came I into the world."

-John

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TAN BOOKS AND PUBLISHERS, INC. Rockford, Illinois 61105

Copyright O 1994 (Third Edition) by TAN Books and Publishers, Inc.

first edition of this book copyright O 1976 by Anne W. Carroll and published by Prow Books/Tranciscan Marytown Press, Kenosha, Wisconsin (now in Libertyville, Illinois). Second edition (Revised and Enlarged) copyright @ The

1986 by Trinity Communications, Manassas, Virginia and published by Trinity Communications. Retypeset by TAN for the 2008 reprinting, with minor updating of the last chapter.

ISBN: 978-0-89555-503-8

Library of Congress Control No.: 93-61594 Cover illustration credit: "The Coronation of Charlemagne" as Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III in Rome on Christmas Day, 800 A.D. Painting by von Kaulbach; housed in the Maximilianeum, headquarters of the Bavarian Parliament, Munich. Painting owned by the Maximilianeum Foundation. Photo: Archiv Wolf-Christian von de Mülbe.

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

TAN BOOKS AND PUBLISHERS, INC. P.O. Box 424 Rockford, Illinois 61105 1994

Dedicated To My Husband

Table of Contents 2.

What History Is All About Abraham

o d.

Moses

1.

7

.

15

25

The Kingdom of Israel . . . . 5. The Achievement of Greece 6. The Achievement of Rome . . . . 7. The Most Important Event in History 8. The Apostolic Age . 9. Empire Versus Church . . . . 10. The Great Heresies 11. The Barbarians and the Church . . . . . 12. The Prophet and the Emperor 13. The Foundation of a New Civilization t4. The High Middle Ages . 15. The Greatest of Centuries . . . . . . 16. Spain Becomes a Great Power . . t7. Revolt and Counterattack 18. England Against the Faith 19. The Catholic Defense 20. The Catholic Offense 21. The Age of France 22. The Rise and Fall of the Stuarts ¡).) Liberals and Despots . . . . 24. Thc French Revolution 2l». 'l'lrc Agc of Napoleon . . . . 4.

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43 52 67 80 91

102 118 133

744 159 1,82

203 215 230 244

264 276

294 310

323 346

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26. The Nineteenth CenturY 27. Worid War I and the Russian Revolution 28. The World Between Wars ' 29. World War II 30. The Modern World Epilogue: HistorY and the Future Bibiiography Index

370 393

416 429 447 465 467

470

Chapter One What History Is All About I- IEISTORY is the Japanese decision to bomb Pearl Harbor, which brought the United States into World War IL History is H I I Robert E. Lee's choice to command Confederate armies instead of Union armies in the Civil War, so that the Union had a much harder time winning the war. History is the settlement of New England by Pilgrims and Puritans, so that their ideas influenced the kind of government the United States eventually had. History is Christopher Columbus persuading the King and Queen of Spain to support his voyage in which he discovered the New World. History is the record of events which have made a difference in the world. You can easily see that not all events make history. When Robert E. Lee decided to command Confederate armies, he made history. His decision made a difference in the way the Civil War was fought and the results of that war. But not everything Robert E. Lee did in his life would be written in a history book. The book would be so long and dull that not even Mrs. Robert E. Lee would want to read it. Historians are men who write history. They must make choices about the events to be included. They must decide which events have made a difference and should be recorded. Since every historian has his own ideas and views, each one will choose different events to put in his history. Nearly every historian of the Civil War will include Lee's decision for the Confederacy. But not all of these historians will think it is important to know whether or not Lee himself owned slaves. Some historians wiII emphasize one battle of the war, others a different battle. Some will give credit for the North's victory to President Lincoln, others to General Grant. There is n«r "¡rcrfirct" history of the Civil War which includes everything 7

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WHer Hlsrony Is

that everyone thinks is important. People have too many different ideas always to agree on what is and is not important. It is the same with the history of any war or any country or any century. Each historian will write about the events he thinks are important and will give his own point of view on these events. If he did not, history would be a boring list of dates and events, nothing more. The history in this book will cover events from about 4000 years ago up to the recent past. It obviously can't discuss everything or you would never finish the book. Therefore it must judge which events in the history of the world have made the most difference and have had the most influence on the most people. Where can we begin in choosing these events? We can begin by asking ourselves this question: What is the most important event that has ever happened in the world, which has had the greatest impact on other events and has influenced the lives of the greatest number of people? To answer this question, some people would choose the formation of one of the great empires of the world. An emptre is a nation which rules other nations, and the greatest of these have certainly

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occurred, that is still influencing history at the present that even made a difference in iistory before it occurred.time, and There is only one event that meets all of these _requirements. That event is what Christians call the Incarnation: the birth, life, death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, who was both God and

man. You

will probably think_that any discussion of Jesus belongs in a religious book, not in a-history took. But Jesus wrs ,ot only a religious figure. He was a historilal figure as well. the noman his_ torian Tacitus writes about Jesus in his history. The Jewish his_ torian Josephus discusses what Jesus did. But even more, we cannot really understand the history of the world unless we look at it from thá standpoint of the Incarnation. Of all the nations that existed before the Incarnation, only one still exists_today:.the Jewish nation, the people *frofr"pured the world for the coming of Jesus. Other nations which existed at that time have no effect on the way things are now. After the Incarnation, the mást influential events had to do with the establishment and spread of the Catholic Church. The Church was the only institution which survived the collapsu-of ilization. The civilization in which we live, *uát"rn Ro-ur, .irr_ civilization, could just as easily have been called Catholic civilization. Our y-orld was shaped by Catholicism, the religio, forrá"¿ by Jesus Christ. At the present time, 2000 y"u", aftár Christ, the Catholic Church is still the strongest and most influentiai institution in the world. Many of the problems which our world p"ese.rtty fac"s are caused by its rejection of the Church and its tlachings. Even historians who do not beiieve Jesus was God torical importance. ".k";i;J;e His his_ This history book, therefore, wiil be based on the fact that the -Incarnation is the central event in history and that'Lverything in relátionrrrif io ihis errert. $se t|3t has happenef has meaning"under But this is not a study of religion another name. We will find out what happ en2!--in hlstory, why it frupp"rráá, what its results were, and what difference it lade áft""*urá.. We will study glg_ut people who have made history and their achievements. llu We will meet heroes and viliains. In fáct, we will .orru, most of tho events other history books present. tsut there will be one important difference. All history books Ir¡¡ve a point of view, as we have already seen. Some believe that nror)().y is thc most important thing in túe world; .o_" Lmphasize wrlrs; sr»nlt' lrclicvo trading and exploration expláin everything. In

influenced history. Some of the great empires which you may know are Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Rome. But can they be the most important thing that has ever happened? They influenced many people at the time they existed, but nothing remains of them now but monuments that a tourist might visit. They all collapsed or were conquered and no longer influence history. Other people might think of some great general or great ruler: Alexander the Great, who conquered an empire against greater odds than any other conqueror ever has; Augustus Caesar, who ruled the huge Roman Empire during a time of peace and prosperity; Napoleon of France, who dominated Europe for many years. Each of these men was very powerful and dominated the world while he was alive. Even after these men died, events were still influenced for a time by the things they had done. But where are any of them now? Their empires are gone and they no longer influence history. Even when an individual influenced history after his life, we cannot find any evidence that he influenced history before he existed. Men and nations do not change the events that nappened before them. So to find the most important event in the history of'thc world, we must find an event that had a great influcncc ¡rt th«r tirrrc it,

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this book we will say that Jesus Christ is the most important person who ever lived and that history makes sense only if we study it from that point of view. If this method seems strange, keep one fact in mind: there is only one event which has influenced every single person who ever lived-including every person reading this book. That event is the Incarnation of Jesus Christ.

The Where of History History is the story of events and the people who made those events. We can't understand them fully unless we know where these events occurred. Geography can be confusing, but it is very important. It would make a big difference in your life if you were living in Africa or Asia or South America instead of the United States. The Civil War would make no sense to us if we thought it occurred in Sweden or Egypt or Japan instead of the United States. Different parts of the world have different characteristics, and these characteristics make a difference in the way things happen. Most place names have changed in the course of history. The United States was not always called the United States. The countries of Europe used to have different names. Boundaries have shifted. Nations which used to exist don't exist now. Nevertheless, historians writing about any period of history usually locate events in relationship to the general areas of the world. So we will begin by reviewing these general areas. Then with each unit that we study, we will be able to place the events in their proper areas and find out the names given to the prominent places in that particular time. As you already know, the globe is divided for convenience into hemispheres: sometimes we speak of the eastern and western hemispheres; other times of the northern and southern hemispheres. The great land masses of the world are the continents, of which there are seven. We will be concerned with only six, since the penguins of Antarctica have not yet made much history. Be sure that you can name and locate the six continents. You should also be able to name and locate the major oceans. Since this is a survey of world history, we cannot study in detail all of the countries in the wor1d. Therefore we must concentrate on the areas which have produced the greatest achievements and which have had the most effect on the rest of the world. That is why we will primarily study the history of Europe and the Middle

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East. This does not mean that nothing important happened any_ where else, but that we have to decide wháre tUe moii ¡mportant things happened. Nor will we spend much time on American history, as significant as that is. The United States did not have a Sráát influence history until th.e_ 2,0th century. For most of the"¿,000 years -on history that we will be studyin!, the United States didn,t of even exist. Even after our nation was founded, it was too s*all to make much of a difference in world events until abou t lgLT . Study a globe or map of the world until you can easily locate - following the places: North Africa, Mediterran"r, Suu, Arabia, Nile River, Russia, the Middle East, Israef, Sp.i", portugal, Prypt, B_ritish Isles, Scandinaüa, Greece, Italy, Fran"á, C""-uny, Asia {inor, Austria, poland, Tigris and buphrates Rivárs,-i;;". River, Rhine River, Red Sea, India and China.

The When of History Dates are the when of history.

It is not always necessary to know it is importánt to kno#;;;;;i: mately when it happened and whether it happened before or after related events. After all, it makes a big diffe."rr.u *fr"1n", some_ thTg happened in the 1900s, the 1600s, the 1200s or the 200s. the exact date of an event, but

The most obvious point about the dating system which histori_ ans use is that it is divided into two parts: B.C. and A.D. B.C. stands for Before Christ; A.D. stand s for Anno Domini, which Latin for the "year of Our Lord,,,referring to ifr";;;; since is the birth of Christ. Here is further evidence of our earlier conclusion .ha! th_e most important historical event that has ever happened is the Incarnation; even our dating system is based on it. Some non-Christian or anti-Christian historians today try to avoid using "Year of Our Lord,, and ,,Before Christ,,, fy rrrgirrg B.C. to B.C.E. (Before Common Era) and A.D. to C.E. (Common "t Era). But.a change of designation does not change the reality that everyone in the Western world uses a dating .yJ"* which counts down to and counts up from the birth of JÁus Christ. (100-year spans of time), the number of the century Jo", ,ot the date. A person living in the 20th century would writematch dates beginning with 19. The reason is that tine included fiist the years from 1 A.D. to 100 A.D. The seconá century "errtrry in"clrded the ycars flrom 101 A.D. until 200 A.D. and so on. So the éentury,s num_

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ber is always one number ahead of the actual dates that we write. The years before Christ's birth, or the B.C. years, may be regarded as a kind of countdown to the birth of Christ. Therefore these numbers are the reverse of the A.D. numbers. The A.D. dates with the higher numbers occurred after the A.D. dates with lower numbers. The opposite is true of B.C. The higher numbers occurred earlier. The year 1900 A.D. is 100 years later than the year 1800 A.D. But the year 1900 B.C. is 100 years earlier than the year 1800 B.C. The last year dated B.C. is 1 B.C. That year was followed by 1 A.D. in our dating system. We will begin our discussion of history around the year 2000 B.C.-two thousand years before Christ's birth-because this was the time that God began to act directly in history in preparation for the Incarnation. Before this time some events occurred of which we have records, but their influence didn't last and they have no significance to us now. Earlier than about 3000 B.C., we have no written historical records because writing had not been invented. The years before 3000 B.C. are known as prehistorlc times and belong to the study of archeology rather than history.

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Ascension into Heaven. The New Testament conta ins 27 books; the Old Testament contains 46 books. fiyo" use an edition of the Bible com:nonly used by Protestants (suci as the f