Middle Ages

The Middle Ages was a period of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The period followed the fall of the Western Roman Empire  in 476, and preceded the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period in a three-period division of history: Classic, Medieval, and Modern. The term “Middle Ages” (medium aevum) was coined in the 15th century and reflects the view that this period was a deviation from the path of classical learning, a path supposedly reconnected by Renaissance scholarship.

The Early Middle Ages saw the continuation of trends set in Late Antiquity, depopulation, deurbanization, and increased barbarian invasion. North Africa and the Middle East, once part of the Eastern Roman Empire, were conquered by Islam. Later in the period, the establishment of the feudal system allowed a return to systemic agriculture. There was sustained urbanization in northern and western Europe. During the High Middle Ages (c. 1000–1300), Christian-oriented art and architecture flourished and Crusades were mounted to recapture the Holy Land. The influence of the emerging nation-state was tempered by the ideal of an international Christendom. The codes of chivalry and courtly love set rules for proper behavior, while the Scholastic philosophers attempted to reconcile faith and reason. Outstanding achievement in this period includes the Code of Justinian, the mathematics of Fibonacci and Oresme, the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, the painting of Giotto, the poetry of Dante and Chaucer, and the architecture of many great cathedrals such as Notre Dame de Paris.

The Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analyzing European history: classical civilization (or Antiquity), the Middle Ages, and the modern period. It is “Middle” in the sense of being between the two other periods in time, ancient times and modern times. Humanist historians argued that Renaissance scholarship restored direct links to the classical period, thus bypassing the Medieval period. The term first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas (middle time). The term medium aevum (Middle Ages) is first recorded in 1604.

Medieval historians did not, of course, think of themselves as being in the middle of history. Instead, they wrote history from a universal and theological perspective. They divided history into periods such as the “Six Ages” or the “Four Empires”, with the present period being the last before the end of the world. They considered the Roman period, especially the time of the Apostles, a historical peak, followed by a long slide toward the Apocalypse.

In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua (ancient) and to the Christian period as nova (new). While retaining the theme of decline from the apogee of ancient Rome, Petrarch’s division was not based on theology, but on a perception of cultural and political decline, especially the idea that Medieval Latin was inferior to Classical Latin. From Petrarch’s Italian perspective, this new period (which included his own time) was an age of national eclipse. Leonardo Bruni  was the first historian to use tripartite periodization in his History of the Florentine People (1442). Bruni’s first two periods were based on those of Petrarch, but he added a third period because he believed that Italy was no longer in a state of decline. Flavio Biondo used a similar framework in Decades of History from the Deterioration of the Roman Empire (1439–1453). Tripartite periodization became standard after the German historian Christoph Cellarius published Universal History Divided into an Ancient, Medieval, and New Period (1683).

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