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The year 500 was a turning point between the ancient and medieval worlds.
The Western Roman Empire was gone. New kingdoms were rising across Europe. Persia and Byzantium remained great powers, and civilizations flourished from China and India to Africa and the Americas.
It was a world divided by distance, yet connected by trade, migration, warfare, and religion, though probably not as much as it had been just a few centuries earlier.
Learn more about what was happening around the world in the year 500 on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
It has been another 100 episodes, and it is time once again to look at the state of the world, this time going back 500 years from the year 1000 to the year 500.
Before I begin, I should note something that will become more of an issue as we go back in time. It isn’t quite a major problem yet, but it’s becoming one in more and more parts of the world.
We simply have no historical record.
When I began this project of covering the state of the world every 100 episodes, I eventually had to do episodes every 50 years in the 19th century, and then every 25 years in the 20th and 21st centuries, because things were changing too fast and because we had documentation for everything.
As we go backward, we have the opposite problem, which is why I’m covering every 500 years instead of every 100. Not nearly as much was written down as literacy wasn’t as widespread. The vast majority of what was written in the ancient world has disappeared over time.
For example, in the Roman world, an estimated 99% of published texts have been lost.
In some parts of the world that I’ve been covering, they didn’t even have a written language, so we have nothing. We have to rely on archeology for what little we know.
Also, technology changed very little in the ancient world. Life for people living 1,000 years apart was basically the same, at least materially.
We know more about certain times and places, and we can be relatively specific about their history. However, for most of the world, I’m going to have to speak in broad generalities.
So, that being said….the year 500.
The year 500 fell in the middle of one of the great transitional periods in world history. The Roman Empire had disappeared from Western Europe as a unified political system, but Roman government continued in Constantinople and survived in modified form in several western successor kingdoms.
Christianity was spreading through Europe, northeastern Africa, and western Asia, while Buddhism was expanding across Central and East Asia. Powerful states existed in Persia, India, China, Ethiopia, Mesoamerica, and the Andes, but none exercised anything approaching global influence.
The world of 500 was overwhelmingly rural. Probably more than nine people out of ten lived by farming, herding, fishing, or gathering. Most people rarely traveled more than a few miles from where they were born.
Political authority was often indirect, resting on local landowners, chiefs, religious institutions, and military elites. Long-distance trade nevertheless connected the Mediterranean, East Africa, Persia, India, Southeast Asia, and China. Goods and ideas could cross continents even though no individual merchant usually traveled the entire route.
Historians commonly treat this period as part of Late Antiquity, particularly in Europe, the Mediterranean, and western Asia. It was not simply an age of collapse. Some cities and commercial networks declined, but new kingdoms, religions, and political systems were taking shape.
In the year 500, the Roman Empire still existed in the East. Its emperor was Anastasius I, who had ruled from Constantinople since 491. Modern historians normally refer to his state as the Byzantine Empire, but its inhabitants called themselves Romans, and Anastasius regarded himself as the legitimate Roman emperor.
The Eastern Roman Empire controlled the Balkans south of the Danube, most of Anatolia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, parts of Mesopotamia, and islands throughout the eastern Mediterranean.
Constantinople was one of the largest, richest, and most heavily fortified cities in the world. Its strategic location allowed it to control shipping between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean and to serve as the center of an enormous taxation and administrative system.
North Africa was divided between the Eastern Roman Empire, the Vandal kingdom, Berber communities, and smaller regional powers.
The Vandal kingdom controlled Carthage, much of present-day Tunisia, parts of Algeria, and many islands in the western Mediterranean. King Thrasamund ruled from 496 to 523.
The Vandals were a relatively small Germanic military elite governing a much larger Roman African population. They preserved many Roman administrative and economic practices.
Italy was no longer ruled directly by a Western Roman emperor. The last western emperor had been deposed in 476, and in 493 the Ostrogothic king Theodoric had conquered Italy and established his capital at Ravenna.
Theodoric was a Germanic military ruler, but he did not attempt to destroy Roman civilization. He governed through a combination of Gothic military power and Roman civil administration.
Roman senators, lawyers, tax collectors, and officials continued to serve the state. Roman law generally governed the Roman population, while Gothic customs applied within the Gothic army and community.
Much of what is now France was divided among the Franks, Visigoths, Burgundians, and smaller groups.
The most powerful ruler in the region was Clovis, king of the Salian Franks. He had begun expanding from a relatively small base in northern Gaul during the 480s. By 500, he controlled much of northern and central Gaul and was establishing the foundations of the Merovingian Frankish kingdom.
Southern Gaul and most of the Iberian Peninsula were ruled by the Visigothic king Alaric II. His capital was at Toulouse. The Visigoths governed a large Roman population and gradually adapted Roman legal and administrative practices.
In Britain around 500, society was fragmented and poorly documented. Roman imperial government had ended early in the fifth century. In its place were numerous British, Anglo-Saxon, and possibly mixed kingdoms and local warlord territories.
Germanic-speaking settlers, traditionally identified as the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, had established communities in eastern and southern Britain.
The other great power of western Eurasia was the Sasanian Empire. It stretched from Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf across the Iranian plateau toward Central Asia. Its ruler in 500 was Kavadh I, who had recently regained the throne after being deposed and imprisoned by members of the Persian nobility.
The Sasanians considered themselves the heirs of the ancient Persian empire. Their king bore the title “King of Kings.” The government relied on a powerful aristocracy and the Zoroastrian priesthood.
Zoroastrianism was closely associated with the state. Fire temples and priests played important roles, but Persia was religiously diverse. Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and followers of local religions lived within its borders.
The Church of the East had become increasingly independent of the Roman imperial church and was beginning to expand along trade routes into Central Asia and eventually China.
Islam didn’t exist yet as the Propeht Mohamed wouldn’t be born for another 70 years.
Central Asia was one of the world’s most important zones of cultural contact and trade. Caravans crossed a network of routes later collectively called the Silk Roads, carrying silk, horses, spices, metals, and precious stones, as well as religion and art.
The dominant military power in much of the region was the Hephthalite confederation, often called the White Huns. They controlled territories in Bactria, Afghanistan, and parts of Central Asia and exerted pressure on both Persia and northern India.
Around 500, India was politically fragmented, although the Gupta dynasty still retained prestige in parts of northern India. The Gupta Empire had reached its height during the fourth and early fifth centuries but was now weakening due to internal divisions, regional autonomy, and invasions by Huna groups associated with the Hephthalites.
Sri Lanka was dominated by the kingdom centered at Anuradhapura. Irrigation systems and canals supported intensive rice farming, allowing rulers to maintain cities, monasteries, and large construction projects.
Theravada Buddhism was firmly established. Monasteries possessed land, received royal patronage, copied religious texts, and influenced politics.
China was divided between northern and southern dynasties.
Northern China was controlled by the Northern Wei dynasty, founded by the Tuoba, a people from the steppes. Emperor Xuanwu ascended to the throne in 499.
During the late fifth century, Northern Wei rulers began adopting Chinese court rituals, clothing, administrative practices, surnames, and language.
Southern China was ruled by the Southern Qi dynasty, though it suffered from internal conflict and political instability. The emperor Xiao Baojuan ruled brutally and erratically, provoking opposition among officials and military commanders. The dynasty would fall in 502 and be replaced by the Liang.
The Korean Peninsula was divided among the Three Kingdoms of Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla.
Goguryeo was the strongest kingdom. It controlled much of northern Korea and parts of Manchuria. The Baekje controlled much of southwestern Korea. It had strong maritime connections with southern China and Japan. The Silla occupied southeastern Korea. It was still developing a more centralized monarchy and an aristocratic system later associated with hereditary noble ranks.
Japan was in the Kofun period, named for the enormous burial mounds constructed for rulers and aristocrats. The most famous were shaped like keyholes when viewed from above and surrounded by clay figures called haniwa.
A political federation centered on the Yamato court was emerging as the dominant power in central and western Japan. It was not yet a completely centralized Japanese state. Regional clans retained their own lands, followers, ancestral cults, and military power.
The traditional imperial chronology places Emperor Buretsu on the throne around 500, but the early imperial lists combine history and legend.
Egypt remained one of the richest provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire. The Nile supported dense agricultural settlement and produced grain that helped feed Constantinople. Alexandria was a major center of shipping, scholarship, theology, and religious conflict.
Christian monasticism was deeply established in Egypt. Thousands of monks and nuns lived in communities or as hermits.
The Kingdom of Aksum was a major power in what is now northern Ethiopia and Eritrea. It controlled highland agricultural areas and had access to the Red Sea through the port of Adulis.
Aksum had adopted Christianity in the fourth century. Its rulers minted coins bearing Christian symbols, supported churches, and participated in the religious and diplomatic world of the eastern Mediterranean.
South of Egypt, the old kingdom of Kush had declined centuries earlier. New Nubian political formations were developing, including Nobatia in the north, Makuria farther south, and Alodia near the junction of the Blue and White Nile.
Much of sub-Saharan Africa was undergoing the long process conventionally associated with Bantu-speaking migrations. This was not a single mass movement but many centuries of gradual settlement, intermarriage, technological transmission, and cultural change.
Bantu-speaking farmers and ironworkers had spread into much of central, eastern, and southern Africa. They cultivated crops such as millet and sorghum, raised livestock where conditions permitted, and established permanent or semi-permanent villages.
Across the Atlantic, the civilizations of the Americas developed without direct contact with Europe, Africa, or Asia.
In Mesoamerica, the great city of Teotihuacan in central Mexico remained one of the largest urban centers in the world, although it was approaching the later phases of its history. At its height, it may have contained well over 100,000 inhabitants.
Teotihuacan was organized around a monumental central avenue lined with temples, palaces, administrative compounds, and the immense Pyramids of the Sun and Moon. Large residential compounds housed families, artisans, merchants, and immigrant communities from other parts of Mesoamerica.
Among the Maya, the Classic Period was well underway. Numerous city-states occupied the lowlands of what are now Guatemala, Belize, southeastern Mexico, and parts of Honduras and El Salvador.
Maya rulers constructed pyramids, palaces, plazas, reservoirs, and carved stone monuments. They used a sophisticated writing system to record royal accessions, wars, rituals, marriages, and dynastic histories. Maya astronomers maintained complex calendars and observed celestial cycles with great precision.
500 years is a long time in human history. While the world wasn’t undergoing the type of rapid change we see today, half a millennium is more than enough time for entire empires to rise and fall.
Something that we’ll see 100 days from now when look at the world during the year…….One.