1. What stresses did the Byzantine Empire endure in the seventh and eighth centuries, and how was iconoclasm a response to those pressures?
2. How did Muslims conquer so many lands in a relatively short period of time?
3. On page 295 (page 324 in the second edition), the author notes that medieval European society was divided into 3 groups: those who worked, those who fought, and those who prayed. What were the relations among these groups? How did each depend on the other? Whom did this system benefit the most?
4. How were the Byzantine, Muslim, and Christian European worlds all in some ways "the heirs of the Roman Empire"?