realm: Dictionary Information

Realm n. 1 formal kingdom. 2 domain (realm of myth). [latin -regimen]

realm: Geographic Locations

2984299 Réalmont Realmont Montdadou,Realmont,Réalmont 43.77754 2.18885 P PPL FR 76 81 811 81222 3129 216 Europe/Paris 2016-02-18

2523636 Realmonte Realmonte Realmonte,Rialmunti 37.30847 13.46429 P PPLA3 IT 15 AG 084032 3443 144 150 Europe/Rome 2014-04-13

realm: Historical Excerpts

Ancient Egypt ‘Egypt,’ as the Greek historian Herodotus noted, ‘is the gift of the Nile.’ Egyptian civilization %vas already some three thousand years old when Herodotus visited the country c440 Bc, but his statement had long been true. The annual flooding of the Nile carried fresh soil onto the fields that bordered it, saving them from exhaustion. Nile water was also diverted to irrigate the crops, an essential expedient in a country where rain seldom fell. Finally, the Nile served as a highway linking the villages strung along its narrow valley for nearly a thousand miles from the Delta to the First Cataract. By c3000 this long ribbon of cultivated and populous territory had been brought under the control of a single ruler, the Pharaoh. Some three centuries later the pharaohs of the 4th Dynasty commanded sufficient resources and techniques to erect the pyramids. These enormous tombs (designed to preserve the pharaohs’ mummified bodies) and the inscriptions, works of art, jewelry, and furniture discovered in their secret chambers reflect the rich and orderly civilization achieved in the Nile Valley by c2700. agriculture, weaving, pottery making, wood and metal work, geometry, engineering, medicine, and hieroglyphic writing had become specialized skills. Egyptian history from cS500 to c500 may be divided into five periods. 1) Between c3500 and c2700 the scattered villages, united first into an Upper Kingdom (the river settlements) and a Lower Kingdom (the Delta communities) , were combined into a single realm. 2) The Old Kingdom dius formed, with its capital at Memphis, enjoyed a period of great splendor and artistic achievement which endured some 500 years, c2700-c2200.





the 3rd century before Christ was a century of hellenistic civilization. -In China during this same 3fd century the Ch’in conqueror Shih Huang Ti reknit the divided realm and expanded its boundaries. By the century’s close the Han Dynasty had conuhenced its memorable rule. Chinese institutions had found the form they were to preserve for 2000 years.





torious Philip of Macedon forcibly united the Greeks in a Hellenic League and prepared to attack Persia. Philip’s son Alexander the Great (336-323) changed the entire map of the ancient world in his brief reign of thirteen years. By a series of brilliant victories (Granicus 334, Issus, 333, and Gaugamela, 331) he conquered the vast Persian empire. Phoenicia submitted in 333, Egypt in 332, and between 329 and 324 Alexander conquered Iran, invaded India, and then returned to Babylon, where he died suddenly. alexander’s empire was divided into separate kingdoms by his generals. But his conquests, the cities he founded and the prestige of the Hellenic civilization he exemplified exerted a wide influence. The 3d century bc was a period in which hellenistic thought and culture dominated the Middle East and most of the mediterranean area. Rome At some time in the 8th century bc (tradition later set the date as 753) Latin settlers beside the Tiber united to found a city. Until the 6th century Rome was part of the Etruscan realm; but by c500 the Romans had extended their rule over most of Italy. Three wars with Carthage followed (264-241, 218-201, and 149-146). In the second, Hannibal led, a carthaginian army from Spain across the Alps, and his campaigns in Italy (218203) brought Rome close to defeat. But the second war, like the first, ended in a Roman triumph, and in the third, Carthage was destroyed (146). Meanwhile, in the eak, Romans fought four ‘macedonian’ wars and five ‘syrian’ wars between 276 and 148. By 50 bc Rome was mistress of the mediterranean, which was ringed by its provinces and subordinate allied states. Julius Caesar, who crossed the Alps and conquered Gaul (58-51), made himself dictator of Rome, but was assassinated in 44.





Global perspectives he rapid expansion of Islam ivas the utstanding development of this period nd had a profound influence on the iture of Asia, Africa, and Europe. All /estern Europe had declined by the th century, following the division of le Roman Empire in the 4th and the ivasions of the Goths in the 5th. The.astern Roman (byzantine) half of le empire survived and enjoyed a modrate revival in the 6th century under ustinian. What finally shattered the nity of the mediterranean world were le Moslem conquests (7th to 9th cenuries) The spread of Moslem rule and culure throughout the area marked in •lack on the map isolated Western :uropc. christianity, which had beome the dominant faith in the Roman empire before its breakup, suffered a evere reverse. Most of the leaders of he early churdi had lived and worked n the areas the Moslems overran, and erusalem itself came under their conrol. By the 8th century the regions emaining to the Christians (christeniom) were only one-fourth as extensive.s the regions dominated by the Mosems. The Christian Church was further /eakened by a persistent schism. The.-atin Christians (Roman Catholic), leaded by the bishops of Rome, differed n doctrine from the Greek Christians (byzantine) in the Balkans and Asia vlinor. The Byzantine Empire remained prosperous and populous throughout most of the Middle Ages while Western European society became isolated and semibarbaric From the 5th to the 14th centuries the great cities and centers of civilization lay in the Islamic domains, the Byzantine Empire, China, and..^ndia. Even the Mayan peoples of America had cities during this period more impressive tlian the ruined and shrunken towns of Western Europe. For a thousand years after the rise of Islam (7tli to 17th centuries) the pressure of the Moslems helped to shape tlie fate of Christian Europe. Europe was the ‘prison of Medieval christendom’ and the difficulties the Europeans experienced in their efforts to break out may be traced on subsequent maps. The Chinese and Islamic empires were dynamic and aggressive in die period 500-1000. The Moslems advanced to the western frontiers of India and pushed beyond the Caspian Sea into central Asia, where they encountered the outposts of tlie Chinese realm whidi had expanded into Turkestan. h dicsTollowccl: ana in aao uic yiu





Islam In the five centuries from 500 to 1000 the most remarkable historical development was the rapid expansion of a new religion, Islam. Its founder, the Prophet Mohammed, (570-632), fired his followers (Moslems) with an extraordinary zeal, and their military victories added the prestige of success to the new faith and won millions of converts. When Mohammed died in 632 his influence was centered in Mecca and Medina and, although many neighboring tribes had accepted Islam, its influence was still limited to Arabia. Under his successors the Moslems began a century of conquest (632-732) that created a vast Islamic empire stretching from the Indus to Spain. In swift succession they conquered Syria, mesopotamia, Armenia, and Persia and reduced the Byzantine Empire in the Middle East to the Anatolian peninsula. simultaneously, they invaded Egypt, swept westward across the north of Africa, crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, and occupied Spain. When they pushed north of the Pyrenees they were checked by the Frankish leader, Charles Martel (Battle of Tours), and the Pyrenees became a frontier between Moslem Spain and Christian Europe. The magnitude of these Moslem conquests and the losses suffered by the Christians in the 7th century are difficult to conceive. In 600 the Christian realm surrounded the mediterranean, corresponding roughly to the Roman Empire at its greatest extent. By 732 more than half these Christian lands had fallen to the Moslems.





al-Mansur (754-775) who established Baghdad as the center of administration, Harun al-Rashid (786-809) the caliph of the Arabian Nights^ and Mamun, (813-33) who encouraged art, science, and philosophy. In Spain a descendant of the Omayyad Dynasty, abd-er-rahman I (756-788) established his rule at Cordova and the Spanish Moslems refused to recognize the Abbasid caliphs at Baghdad. They remained in touch, however, with the flourishing civilization of the Arab world. During the 10th and 11th centuries Cordova readied its peak as a center of culture and learning. In comparison the shrunken medieval towns of Christian Europe were backward and provincial. By the close of the 9th century the Abbasid caliphate began to break up. Persia and Khorasan were lost to rival dynasties and Khorasan supplanted Baghdad as the center of Moslem intellectual activity. By the close of the 10th century the Abbasid caliphs had lost influence and Mahmud of Ghazni (997-1030) conquered a vast Moslem realm from the Tigris to the Oxus and the Ganges.





-xpansion of Christian realm (christendom) ohemia, Moravia, Poland, Hungary won to Cadiolic faith by cl 000 iev, Varangian principality, chief state ladimir the Saint





Moslem realm weakened by internal disorders during 11th century Mahmud of Ghazni invaded northern India





a fact which helps to explain the Christian victories in the 1st Crusade. Invaders from Asia, the Seljuk Turks, captured Baghdad and their leader, Tughril Beg, took the title of sultan. The Seljuks extended thdr rule from Anatolia to beyond the Caspian Sea. Under Alp Arslan.(1063-1073) they took Armenia and Georgia, pressed close to constantinople in the west, and invaded Turkestan in the east. But the 12th century saw the Seljuk Empire split into fragmentary realms under competing military leaders. The slow expulsion of -tlie Moors from Spain reduced the power of the Moslems iji the Western mediterranean, and although they retained control of North Africa from Morocco to Egypt, the fleets of the rising Italian cities challenged them on the sea with increasing success. This growth of Italian naval strength was an important element in supporting the crusades. In the east the Moslems succeeded, after clOOO, in winning increasing influence in northern India. The Sultanate of Delhi expanded under their control until it reached from the Indus to the Ganges by the 13th century. A Moslem dynasty also established itself in the Deccan, But further Moslem penetration into southern India was delayed by the resistance of. the Hindu kingdom of vijayanagar which continued to flourish until the 16th century.





against the Moslems in the 1 1th century, successes due to unusually favorable circumstances, did riot continue, iy the 14th century the Moslems renewed their offensive. In Spain, it is true, their power declined like sand running out of an hourglass. But elsewhere in the mediterranean area and the Middle East they made notable gains. In northern India, although they remained a minority, the Moslem invaders won a dominant position. In central Asia and even in China millions of converts accepted Islam. In the West the advance of the Ottoman Turks had a significant effect on the course of European history. This Asian tribe, recent converts to Islam, nibbled at the Byzantine frontiers in Anatolia throughout the 14th century. By 1400 they had also invaded and taken most of the Balkan Peninsula, threatening the shrunken empire of Byzantium from both sides. New assaults on the Moslem realms by the Mongol conqueror Tamerlane saved Byzantium temporarily when Tamerlane defeated an Ottoman army at Angora (1402) But the Ottoman march of conquest was soon resumed. Their forces besieged the city of Byzantium (constantinople) anew in 1422. They repulsed the Venetians, Hungarians, Serbians, and other Christian peoples who attempted to resist them. Finally, in 1453, they stormed constantinople itself. The fall of the Eastern Roman Empire opened all southeast Europe to tlie Turks. The Black Sea became a Turkish lake. The lower Danube valley fell under Turkish control until tliey captured Budapest and threatened Vienna. The Crescent had scored a momentous victory in its long contest witli the Cross. In Western Europe the 15th century saw the monarchical territorial states take definite form. In France, Spain, and England the royal power triumphed over the disruptive resistance of the feudal barons. In Italy prosperous city states provided a society





Central ond Eastern Europe GERMANIES. A hohenzollcrn prince became Frederick I, Elector and Margrave of brandenburg, broadening the influence of a dynasty that was later to play a great role. RUSSIA. Ivan III (1462-1505), grand duke of Muscovy, married the niece of the last emperor of Byzantium, annexed Novgorod, conquered part of Lithuania, and took the title of Czar (Caesar) His enlarged domains were the nucleus of the later Russian empire. In contrast to the centralizing trend noted in these various monarchical states, ttvo large realms (polandlithuania and the Holy Roman Empire) failed to coalesce and one (the Byzantine Empire) was overthrown in the 15th century. Poland and Lithuania were loosely united in 1386 and the Poles defeated the German Order of Teutonic Knights at Tannenbcrg in 1410. But the efforts of the Jagellon kings to unify their vast domains failed and by 1500 Poland had become a weakened and disorganized realm with an elected king. The emperors of the Holy Roman Empire likewise failed to consolidate their domain into a unified state.. Although after 1438 the emperors were chosen from the House of Hapsburg they were weakened by their exaggerated ambitions, by concessions yielded the ‘Seven electors’ who controlled the elections, and by the tlircat of Turkish armies in the Danube Valley which menaced the Hapsburg capital at Vienna. In the 15th century the strengthening of royal authority in most European countries was accompanied by a check or decline in the growth of representative assemblies which had developed in the 14th century. This trend was also observable in the papacy; the ‘conciliar Movement,’ an attempt to limit papal power by a church council, failed to prosper.





America During the first half of the 16th century tlxe Spaniards expanded their conquests in the New World without serious competition from any other European nation except the Portuguese. Portugal claimed the coast of Brazil, discovered by Pedro Alvarez Cabral (1500) who swung far westward on a voyage around Africa. For twenty years after columbus’ first voyage Spanish conquest and settlement was limited to the islands of the West Indies and the Isthmus of Panama. In 1519 Hernando Cortds led 600 men into Mexico, readied the Aztec capital at tenochtitlan, and xvas xvelcomed by its ruler, Montezuma. The Spaniards seized the Aztec emperor but were driven from the capital (1520) Returning the following year they conquered the city and made themselves masters of the Aztec realm. Ten years later Francisco Pizarro, with a few hundred men, sailed down the xvest coast from Panama to invade the Inca empire. Marching inland to Cajamarca he was visited by the Inca monarch Atahualpa, made him prisoner by a treacherous attack (1532), and subsequently executed him. Reinforced by furtlier recruits Pizarro occupied the Inca capital at Cuzco (1533). The audacious tactics of the Spanish conquistadors brought the two most cultured and populous regions of the New World under tlieir control. No certain estimates are available but together they probably held two or three times the population of Spain (about six million in 1500)





,.=,n Furone Poland and Lithuania were joined (Union of Lublin, 1569) to form Tbut amorphous state between the Baltic and the Black Sea. Ivan IV (the Terrible) Hussia crushed revolts of the nobles ^boyars-) and fought Germans, Poles, Swedes, and Tartars to hold and enlarge the Moscovite realm. NMthern India was reunited by Akbar, (1556-1605), greatest of the Mogul emperors, on efficient organizer remarkable for his religious toleration. In Persia Shah Abbas the Great (1586-1628) modernized his army and defeated the Uzbeks (1597). China reached MW cultural heights under its Ming rulers. In Japan western traders and missionaries were well received until Hideyoshi (1537-98), who was laboring ruthlessly to unite the Idngdom, became suspidous of the Christians.





Asio CHINA. The sveakening Ming administration failed to w ithstand the attacks of aggressive northern tribes (Manclius) Disorder spread ssdth bandit and pirate forces defying the imperial authorities. The Ming Dynasty ended (1644) svhen the emperor committed suicide, and the Mancliu (Ch ing) Dynasty succeeded it. Isolated resistance by Ming supporters and powerful pirate organizations lasted for several decades. JAPAN. After hideyoshi’s death (1598) Japan came under the control of leyasu and his successors, who, as shoguns, ruled for the ineffectual emperors. This Tokugawa Period (16031867) marked a reversal of Japanese policy tow’ard foreigners. Christian missionaries were expelled and Japanese forbidden to travel abroad. By 1641 Japan was an isolated realm. Only die Dutch were permitted to maintain a post, strictly supervised, at Nagasaki. EAST INDIES. By 1600 Portuguese trade and possessions in die East were threatened by the Dutdi and English. The English East India Company (founded 1600) and the Dutch East India Company (founded 1602) broke die Portuguese monopoly. English envoys were dispatclied to Akbar’s court and the English obtained trading concessions at Surat and Madras in India. The Dutcli established diemselves in die Spice Islands and wrested Malacca from Portuguese control in 1641. To provide a stopover on the long voyage to the East die Dutch founded Capetoisn at the southern tip of Africa (1652). The Portuguese kept their posts at Macao in China and Goa in India, but dicir great period ^vas over.





Globol perspectives Spain, Portugal, Holland, England, and France built empires, overseas, tlie Russians crossed the almost empty regions of northern Asia. Between the 15th and the IStli centuries they proved themselves, in terms of territory conquered, the most ambitious empire-builders of all. Between 1462 and 1796 the czarist domains expanded 7 million square miles, a rate of growth that averaged over 20,000 square miles a year. By 1800 the Spanish empire in America included some 5 million square miles, but it was a more remarkable achievement because of the distance and the geographical obstacles overcome. Like the English and French in North America the Russians penetrated an area sparsely populated and without any high culture. Their advance was an occupation ratlier than a conquest. By 1647 they founded a post on the Sea of Okhotsk, but did not realize for nearly a century that it opened onto the Pacific. In 1741 Vitus Bering crossed to Alaska. Russian fur traders followed the coast of North America as far south as California where they set up a post at Fort Ross in 1812. Wherever tlie Russians encountered finn resistance their advance slowed or halted. In Europe they took over two centuries to reach the Baltic Sea and over three to reach the Niemen River. In the south they fought the Turks for three centuries before they arrived at the Dniester and the Caucasus. In tlie Far East tlieir efforts to encroacli on the boundaries of the Chinese Empire met with very limited success. The nations of Western Europe, preoccupied with their own concerns and conflicts, gave little thought to the Russian penetration into Asia and beyond. There were, however, several awe-inspiring facts about the Russian realm and its prospects that merited their serious attention. 1. /Irea. By tlie 18th century the Russian Empire included half of Europe and one-tliird of Asia: in all it comprised one-eighth of the land surface of tlie globe. The nortliern coastal regions that bordered the ice-bound PoLir Sea were treeless tundra. But four-fifths of Russia was covered witli forest or temperate grasslands. 2. Population. With large, areas suitable for culth-ation Russia could support a large population, but its resources had not been intelligehtly ex





Europe AUSTRIA^ In the reign of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor (1658-1705), the Hapsburg realm survived largely tlirough the aid of its allies. The Turks besieged Vienna but were repulsed by an army under John Sobieski, King of Poland. Thereafter, Turkish power weakened and by 1700 the Hapsbiil gs had recovered most of Hungary. SPAIN. The fortunes of Spain continued to decline under the sickly Charles 11 (1665-1700), last of the Spanish Hapsburg line. He bequeathed his kingdom to Philip of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV of France, who reigned as Philip V. ITALY. The economic decline of the Italian states continued; they had become pawns in the dynastic conflicts of the Bourbons and Hapsburgs. Venice lost Crete to the Turks (1669) but regained a foothold in Greece (1699) SWEDEN. The valor and discipline of the Swedish army and the military talents of the Vasa kings made Sweden a leading power in northern Europe. Charles X (1654-60) won territory from Poland and Denmark, and ■ Charles XI (1660-97) consolidated the royal power by humbling the nobles and the assembly (Estates) RUSSIA. Despite internal disorders and peasant revolts Russia expanded steadily. Under the second Romanov czar, Alexis (1645-76), the eastern Ukraine tvas tvrested from Poland, and under Theodore III (1676-82) the southern Ukraine was conquered from the Turks. In the Far East, however, the Russians dashed with Chinese forces in Manchuria and yielded ground (Treaty of Nerchinsk, 1689) From 1682 to 1696 Ivan V and his half-brother Peter I ruled jointly; then Peter I (the Great) became sole czar.





(1787) planned ‘a more perfect union.’ tlie constitution it drafted went into effect in 1788; and George Washington became die first president (1789-93, 1793-97). American political theorists and statesmen found answers to four complex problems never previously resolved with equal success. (1) They reconciled the independent claims of thirteen sovereign states and establislied a federal union that gave the Federal Government sufficient powers for its essential functions. (2) They constructed a government of balanced powers, with an executive, legislative, and judicial branch, each providing a dieck on the others so that none could exceed its prescribed functions and authority. (3) They devised a republican and democratic form of government capable of controlling a vast and growing empire: hitherto large realms had been held together by kings or emperors. (4) Having suffered from the defects of the British colonial system, they solved tlicir own ’colonial’ question in a novel and daring manner: they provided tliat the unsettled svestern lands should form territories, to be admitted to the Union as states as soon as tliey were organized, and that sucli states should have equal status with the original thirteen. In tlic young republic two political parties formed. The federalists (Alexander Hamilton, John Adams) favored the financial and commercial interests, the republicans (jefferson) the agrarian and popular elements.