The Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a period of European history that lasted from the 5th until the 15th centuries.

It began with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, and was followed by the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery.

The Middle Ages is the middle period of the traditional division of Western history into Classical, Medieval, and Modern periods.

Timeline

Fall of the Roman Empire

The Dark Ages is an historical period used for the first part of the Middle Ages. The term emphasizes the cultural and economic deterioration that supposedly occurred in Europe following the decline of the Roman Empire.

It was a period of intellectual darkness between the extinguishing of the "light of Rome" after the end of the Classical Era, and the rise of the Italian Renaissance in the 14th century.

          

     

Petrarch, who conceived the idea of a European "Dark Age". 1450

Map of the approximate political boundaries in Europe around 450

The Islamic Empire and the caliphs during their greatest extent, 622–750

FEUDAL LIFE

For safety and for defense, people in the Middle Ages formed small communities around a central lord or master. Most people lived on a manor, which consisted of the castle, the church, the village, and the surrounding farm land. These manors were isolated, with occasional visits from peddlers, pilgrims on their way to the Crusades, or soldiers from other fiefdoms.

In this "feudal" system, the king awarded land grants or "fiefs" to his most important nobles, his barons, and his bishops, in return for their contribution of soldiers for the king's armies. At the lowest echelon of society were the peasants, also called "serfs" or "villeins." In exchange for living and working on his land, known as the "demesne," the lord offered his peasants protection.

FEUDAL LIFE

The Dark Ages were a tumultuous time. Roving horse-bound invaders charged the country sides. Religious conflicts arose; Muslims conquered lands. Scarcity of sound literature and cultural achievements marked these years; barbarous practices prevailed.

RELIGION IN THE MIDDLE AGES

The Catholic Church was the only church in Europe during the Middle Ages, and it had its own laws and large coffers. Church leaders such as bishops and archbishops sat on the king's council and played leading roles in government. Bishops, who were often wealthy and came from noble families, ruled over groups of parishes called "diocese." Parish priests, on the other hand, came from humbler backgrounds and often had little education. The village priest tended to the sick and indigent and, if he was able, taught Latin and the Bible to the youth of the village.

Christianity was a major unifying factor between Eastern and western Europe. Increasingly, the Byzantine Church, which became the Orthodox Church, differed in language, practices, and liturgy from the western Church, which became the Catholic Church. The eastern church used Greek instead of the western Latin. The cultural and religious differences were greater than the similarities. The formal break came in 1054, when the Pope and the patriarchy of Constantinople clashed over papal supremacy and mutually excommunicated each other, which led to the division of Christianity into two churches – the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Eastern Orthodox Church

Roman Catholic Church

Churches in the Middle Ages

The Catholic Church was the onlyChristian church during the MiddleAges.

Monks and Nuns of the Middle AgesDuring the Middle Ages, many men and

women became monks and nuns, proclaiming they would “…renounce their own will for the will of God” and “…take the vows of purity, chastity, and poverty”. They provided health care and religious education to the common people.

The Crusades were a series of religiously sanctioned military campaigns, called by the Pope and with the main goal of restoring Christian control of the Holy Land. The crusaders came from all over western Europe. The main series of Crusades occurred between 1095 and 1291.The Crusades were fought mainly by Roman Catholics against Muslims,

POSITIVE SIGNIFICANCEa. It greatly strengthened the consciousness of the westb. It expanded European horizon.c. It promoted scientific learning through encounter with Byzantine and Islamic Culturesd. Exchange of goods and commerce between two civilizationse. Eastern influence on the growth of western Philosophy, Theology.f. Western piety the crusaders for the sake of Christ faced the perils of religious pilgrimage, bearing the cross in imitation of Christ.g. Christian poverty movement was reawakened.

In the 14th century (the 1300's), a horrible disease struck Asia, Africa, and Europe. The people called this illness the Black Death. The disease started in Asia in the 1340's. It quickly spread to Africa, and throughout Europe. Infected people first broke out with red ring shaped marks with dark center spots on their arms and necks. They would run high fevers. They became even more ill, and then they died.

In just two years, 25 million people died of the plague. In ten years, the plague had killed over 1/3 of Europe's population. Can you imagine the fear people must have felt?People were sick everywhere. Whole families were wiped out. Whole villages were wiped out.

People did not know that infected rats carried the disease. They thought it was a punishment from God for being wicked. They believed if you were bad, you would get the plague and die.

Late Middle AgesEurope and Mediterranean regionca. 1328

The end of the Middle Ages in about 1450 led to the beginning of the Renaissance. The principal features of the Renaissance were that learning became important, the lords and the church were both becoming powerful forces for change, the art world was flourishing with innovations like the development of perspective in painting and there was great advancement in science.

The Middle Ages as the Golden AgeThis scenario changed during the

Renaissance of the 12th century. The intellectual revitalization of Europe started with the birth of medieval universities. The increased contact with the Islamic world in Spain and Sicily, and during the Reconquista and the Crusades, allowed Europeans access to scientific Arabic and Greek texts, including the works of Aristotle, Alhazen, and Averroes. The European universities aided materially in the translation and propagation of these texts and started a new infrastructure which was needed for scientific communities. 

A Period of Scholarship, Discovery and InventionDuring the Middle Ages, Muslims reached a golden

age of knowledge. During the times of strife in Europe, Muslims were gathering the ancient texts of great empires (Rome, Greece, Egypt) and re-integrating that knowledge. Muslims during this time invented algebra, trigonometry, and even some aspects of calculus. Muslims also saved, translated and analyzed vast historic records (which may have otherwise been lost). Europe remained behind in terms of knowledge and the sciences until the Renaissance in the early 16th century. Muslims introduced new breeds of livestock, hastened the spread of cotton, and, from the Chinese, learned the art of making paper, a key to the revival of learning in Europe in the Middle Ages.