Questions about Egypt during the ERE ("Byzantine") era

Hello!

I've been having some trouble finding info on Byzantine Egypt before the Muslim conquest. Eventually I thought 'why not ask on AH.com', and here I am. So in short, if anyone has the answers to the following questions, I'd be very happy. Thanks!

- I assume that Egypt was mostly Christian and hellenised in this period. Did the general populace speak Greek by now, or did they (or at least some of them) still speak the old Egyptian language?
- At least earlier, I know that the Roman Empire was fairly ambivalent toward religious differences, so long as they all paid their taxes and offered sacrifice before the Emperor's image (the Jews were exempt from the latter requirement). So were there still some practitioners of the old Egyptian polytheistic religion (as in Osiris, Ra and the rest)?
- Were the Egyptians content with imperial rule? I know that the Muslims were able to seize and convert the whole of it fairly quickly. Was this because of discontent with the old rulership, or was it because they were better off (as in paid less taxes and the like) under the Caliph?
- If they were fairly content, then what would it take for a rebellion to break out?

Again, thanks in advance.
 
Hello!

I've been having some trouble finding info on Byzantine Egypt before the Muslim conquest. Eventually I thought 'why not ask on AH.com', and here I am. So in short, if anyone has the answers to the following questions, I'd be very happy. Thanks!

- I assume that Egypt was mostly Christian and hellenised in this period. Did the general populace speak Greek by now, or did they (or at least some of them) still speak the old Egyptian language?
- At least earlier, I know that the Roman Empire was fairly ambivalent toward religious differences, so long as they all paid their taxes and offered sacrifice before the Emperor's image (the Jews were exempt from the latter requirement). So were there still some practitioners of the old Egyptian polytheistic religion (as in Osiris, Ra and the rest)?
- Were the Egyptians content with imperial rule? I know that the Muslims were able to seize and convert the whole of it fairly quickly. Was this because of discontent with the old rulership, or was it because they were better off (as in paid less taxes and the like) under the Caliph?
- If they were fairly content, then what would it take for a rebellion to break out?

Again, thanks in advance.

1. Greek was the most common speaking language in Egypt but still few oeople continued to speak the old language... Part of it survives till today in the coptic language.
2. There were some people practicing the old religion but they were isolated in a small island in Nile (cant remeber the name bropably Menuthis or something like that) were the last pagan Temple stood...Justinian I however closed it while his predecessors either tolerated it or ignored it...
3. Generally speaking the Egyptians were content with the Imperial rule... however clashes occured but mainly for theological reasons... And thats why the muslims were welcome in Egypt... Monophysites show that as an oppurtunity to worship freely according to their own belief without the Orthodox Emperor harassing them...
After monophysitism grew strong and got along with muslims why rebel against them and join the "infidel" Emperor?
 
As I understand it Coptic, as in Coptic Christianity, is the Egyptian language written with Greek letters plus a few added for sounds not made in Greek. So basically people spoke Egyptian which generated the need for the hellenistic class of rulers and clerics etc to write in it with letters they understood.

I think that Christianity was taking over the old religion, but much like other branches of Christianity its early traditions became enshrined in doctrine, most obviously Monophysites, whatever the hell that is. By 451 and the council of Chalcedon these traditions were strong enough for the Coptic church to break with Orthodoxy. This split then lead to persecution in pursuit of Orthodoxy, which is why the Copts weren't hostile to the Muslims and their indifference to the nuances of Christianity.
 
Greek was the prestige language of Egypt. It has been since the Ptolemaic Pharaohs but it was not the most spoken language in all of Egypt. The majority of the Egyptian population (i.e the peasantry) continued to speak the old Egyptian language (either Coptic or its predecessor Demotic) while Greek-speakers were concentrated in Alexandria and the Nile Delta. The majority of folks were Christian though some still practiced the old Egyptian religion in some isolated parts. And the Egyptian population were not fans of Roman rule but they didn't start trouble unless it came to theological issues.
 
"Didnt start trouble except over theology"

That is a a HUGE caveat. The egyptians were mostly monophysite and were persecuted by the orthodox establishment in constantinople. This would vary depending on who was appointed patriarch of alexandria, but it ranged from simmering discontent to riots, almost civil war. The reason egypt fell so easily is that the monophysites were treated better by the muslims that by the greeks.
 
So in summary, if there was a rabidly Orthodox emperor who wanted to vanquish all heresies, and who subjected the Egyptians to some kind of extra taxation (think the Jizya), could they then unite behind some Muhammed-like leader who promised them a better life and the destruction of Nicene (Orthodox) Christianity, and make something like an alt-Arab Breakout?
 
So in summary, if there was a rabidly Orthodox emperor who wanted to vanquish all heresies, and who subjected the Egyptians to some kind of extra taxation (think the Jizya), could they then unite behind some Muhammed-like leader who promised them a better life and the destruction of Nicene (Orthodox) Christianity, and make something like an alt-Arab Breakout?

... Maybe. It's not too likely, and there's a lot of simplification going around in a lot of the things people write about late Roman Egypt.

First things first, though, let's answer the questions.

- The general populace spoke Coptic as a primary language, with Greek as a prestige one. Greek (and to a much lesser extent, Latin) were regularly used by the elite, and Alexandria was pretty much Greek through and through. I'd say most of the populace were probably able to speak some Greek, but in everyday usage, it'd have been Coptic all the way. The further south you go, the looser the Greek influence would've been.

- The Old Religion would likely have been practised to some small extent in a few very remote areas, but it'd be a very quiet and dying trend by the early seventh century. The vast majority of the populace would've been some form of Christian, and about the one thing all the various Christian sects had in common was a huge dislike and suspicion of paganism.

- Yes, the Egyptians generally were reasonably content under Imperial rule. I should qualify that, and say that the majority of the populace was as content as a populace can be that lives under a ramshackle pre-modern dictatorship.

- To get proper rebellion to break out, you need full-scale persecution of the Monophysites, plus disturbances in Constantinople as well.

It's commonly imagined that Egypt and Syria were pretty brutally repressed during the last century of Roman rule, but there's not actually a vast amount of evidence for this being so. Where persecution happened, it was generally directed at loud-mouth, trouble making clerics, which isn't particularly out of the ordinary. Roman rule, like that of any large, pre-modern state, more or less depended on the acquiescence of its subject peoples. And, in Egypt, breadbasket of the Empire, generalised persecution would've been suicidal. The aim for all Emperors from Octavian-Augustus right up to Heraclius was to keep Egypt as calm as possible.

I'm not sure how one would go about changing this state of affairs. About the only way I can think of to have an Egypt that rebels against the Empire successfully is to frame the rebellion in the context of a traditional Roman civil war, with an ambitious Monophysite general aiming to seize the throne in Constantinople, but having the war end in a stalemate, and the eventual establishment of a dynasty that, while claiming all of the Empire, comes more and more to see itself as an Egyptian state.

The idea of oppressed Syrians and Egyptians cheerily welcoming blessed Islamic conquerors is also pretty shaky. The Syrians and Egyptians more likely simply accepted their new masters with a degree of sulky acquiescence. There's not a lot to prove that Islamic rule was any lighter than Roman was on Egypt: both the early Caliphate and the Empire were high-tax, resource extraction states ruled by a tiny elite with little interest in their subject populace except as a source for wealth. The lot of the average Egyptian peasant probably didn't change hugely between the time of Justinian and Muawiya.

Hope this helps! :)
 
Herodotus wrote there were Arabs on both sides of the red sea, I know the Bedouins often traded in Egypt, but I've also read about the Marsh Bedouins of the Nile Delta.
 
Herodotus wrote there were Arabs on both sides of the red sea, I know the Bedouins often traded in Egypt, but I've also read about the Marsh Bedouins of the Nile Delta.

Herodotus is a good thousand years before the period we're discussing, though. You do raise a point, however- were there significant Arab trading communities in East Africa at this point? Or was it mostly isolated merchants?
 
Herodotus is a good thousand years before the period we're discussing, though. You do raise a point, however- were there significant Arab trading communities in East Africa at this point? Or was it mostly isolated merchants?

That would be a good research topic. To generalize there was probably a long history of trade between Arabia and Egypt. Arabs had sandal wood, incence and spices from India, while the Egyptians had grain. It makes sense that it was done by long camel trains across the Sinai as well as merchants from East Africa. That this led to any settling would be an interesting topic.
 
Egypt

From what I've read: (1) Byzantine rule was not very popular, partly due to the religious differences between the native Egyptians and the Greek ruling class. (2) the linguistic situation reflected the Greek/Egyptian divide: the Egyptians continued to speak the last from of Egyptian, written in the Greek alphabet and called Coptic. The Arab conquest was relatively easy.
 
I thought most Egyptians were Monothelite, like the Coptic church today, the Maronite church, and the Ethiopian church? Not strictly Monophysite, although perhaps closer to Monophysite theology than Chalcedonian.
 
I thought most Egyptians were Monothelite, like the Coptic church today, the Maronite church, and the Ethiopian church? Not strictly Monophysite, although perhaps closer to Monophysite theology than Chalcedonian.

The Monthelites were created by Heraclius in order to incite a union between the Chalcedonian and Monophysites and ultimately rejected by both. I think an old Scottish story exemplifies the issue best: A man walking in a village asked how many different churches there were in the village. The villager responds "There used to be two, but we had a union, and now there's three."
 
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I thought most Egyptians were Monothelite, like the Coptic church today, the Maronite church, and the Ethiopian church? Not strictly Monophysite, although perhaps closer to Monophysite theology than Chalcedonian.

What Immortal Impi said. Modern-day, Copts and Ethiopians are Monophysite, while Maronites are an Eastern Rite Catholic church. (Basically, they follow the Pope in matters of pure doctrine, but they get to have their own semi-autonomous clerical hierarchy, married priests, and their own Syriac liturgy.)
 
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