The Middle Ages: A Thousand Years of Western History
The Middle Ages is the historical period of Western civilization between the 5th and 15th centuries. Its onset is conventionally placed in the year 476 with the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and its end in 1492 with the discovery of America,[1] or in 1453 with the fall of the Byzantine Empire, a date which has the advantage of coinciding with the invention of printing (Gutenberg Bible) and the end of the Hundred Years’ War.
From Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages
Historians now prefer to qualify this break between Antiquity and the Middle Ages so that between the 3rd and 8th centuries, it is often referred to as Late Antiquity. This was a period of major transition in all spheres:
- Economic: The replacement of the slave mode of production by the feudal mode of production.
- Social: The disappearance of the concept of Roman citizenship and the definition of medieval estates.
- Political: The breakdown of centralized structures of the Roman Empire that led to a dispersal of power.
- Ideological and Cultural: The absorption and replacement of classical culture by theocentric cultures, Christian or Islamic (each in their space).[2]
Divisions of the Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is usually divided into two major periods:
- Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th century), with no clear differentiation from Late Antiquity.
- Late Middle Ages (11th to 15th century), which in turn can be divided into:
- High Middle Ages (11th to 13th century).
- The last two centuries, which witnessed the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages or the 14th century.
The Concept of the “Dark Ages”
Although there are some examples of prior use, the concept of medieval was born as the second age of the traditional division of historical time due to Christopher Cellarius (Historia Medii Aevi a temporibus Constantini Magni ad Constaninopolim a Turcis captam deducta (Jena, 1688)). He considered it an intermediate time, with little value in itself, between the Ancient Age, identified with the art and culture of the Greco-Roman civilization of classical antiquity, and the cultural renewal of the Modern Age, in which he stands, beginning with the Renaissance and Humanism. The popularization of this scheme has perpetuated a misconception: that of seeing the Middle Ages as a dark time, deep in intellectual and cultural decline, and a secular social and economic sluggishness (which in turn is associated with feudalism in its most obscurantist form, as defined by the revolutionaries who fought the Old Regime). It would be a period dominated by isolation, ignorance, theocracy, superstition, and millennial fear fueled by endemic insecurity, violence, and brutality of constant wars and invasions, and apocalyptic epidemics.[5]
A Period of Change and Development
However, in this long period of a thousand years, there were all sorts of facts and very different processes, varying across time and geography, responding both to mutual influences with other civilizations and spaces as well as internal dynamics. Many of them had a big projection into the future, including those who laid the foundations for the subsequent development of European expansion and the development of social actors who developed a stratified society based predominantly on rural life but that witnessed the birth of an emerging urban life and a bourgeoisie that would, over time, develop capitalism.[6] Far from being an immobile time, the Middle Ages, which began with the migration of entire peoples and settlers, continued major processes (Reconquista in the Iberian Peninsula, Ostsiedlung in Eastern Europe). Its last centuries saw old roads (many Roman roads decayed) repaired and modernized with graceful bridges and filled with all sorts of travelers (warriors, pilgrims, merchants, students, goliards), embodying the spiritual metaphor of life as a journey (homo viator).[7]
New Political Forms
Also emerging in the Middle Ages were new political forms, ranging from the Islamic caliphate to the universal powers of Latin Christendom (Papacy and Empire) or the Byzantine Empire. The kingdoms of the Slavs belonged to Eastern Christianity (acculturation and evangelization of Cyril and Methodius). To a lesser extent, all types of city-states emerged, from the small German cathedral cities to maritime republics that remained as Venice, leaving in the middle of the scale the ones with more future projection: the feudal monarchies, which turned into authoritarian monarchies, prefiguring the modern state.