Defining the Middle Ages

One of the most frequently asked questions about medieval history is, When did the Middle Ages start and end? The answer to this simple question is more complicated than you might think. There is currently no true consensus among historians, authors, and educators for the precise dates—or even the general dates—that mark the beginning and end of the medieval era. The most common time frame is approximately 500-1500 C.E., but you will often see different dates of significance marking the eras parameters. The reasons for this imprecision become a little more clear when one considers that the Middle Ages as a period of study has evolved over centuries of scholarship. Once a Dark Age, then a romantic era and an Age of Faith, medieval times were approached by historians in the 20th century as a complex, multifaceted era, and many scholars found new and intriguing topics to pursue. Every view of the Middle Ages had its own defining characteristics, which in turn had its own turning points and associated dates. This state of affairs offers the scholar or enthusiast the opportunity to define the Middle Ages in the manner that best suits his own personal approach to the era. Unfortunately, it also leaves the newcomer to medieval studies with a certain amount of confusion. Stuck in the Middle The phrase Middle Ages has its origins in the fifteenth century. Scholars of the time—primarily in Italy—were caught up in an exciting movement of art and philosophy, and they saw themselves embarking on a new age that revived the long-lost culture of classical Greece and Rome. The time that intervened between the ancient world and their own was a middle age and, sadly, one they disparaged and from which they disassociated themselves. Eventually the term and its associated adjective, medieval, caught on. Yet, if the period of time the term covered was ever explicitly defined, the chosen dates were never unassailable. It may seem reasonable to end the era at the point where scholars began to see themselves in a different light; however, this would assume they were justified in their view. From our vantage point of considerable hindsight, we can see that this was not necessarily the case. The movement that outwardly characterized this period was in reality limited to the artistic elite (as well as to, for the most part, Italy). The political and  material culture  of the world around them had not radically changed from that of the centuries preceding their own. And despite the attitude of its participants, the  Italian Renaissance  did not spontaneously burst forth from  nowhere but was instead a product of the preceding 1,000 years of intellectual and artistic history. From a broad historical perspective, the Renaissance cannot be clearly separated from the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, thanks to the work of historians such as  Jacob Burkhardt  and Voltaire, the Renaissance was considered a distinct time period for many years. Yet recent scholarship has blurred the distinction between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It has now become much more important to comprehend the Italian Renaissance as an artistic and literary movement, and to see the succeeding movements it influenced in northern Europe and Britain for what they were, instead of lumping them all together in an imprecise and misleading age. Although the origin of the term middle ages may no longer hold the weight it once did, the idea of the medieval era as existing in the middle still has validity. It is now quite common to view the Middle Ages as that period of time between the ancient world and the early modern age. Unfortunately, the dates at which that first era ends and the later era begins are by no means clear. It may be more productive to define the medieval era in terms of its most significant and unique characteristics, and then identify the turning points and their associated dates. This leaves us with a variety of options for defining the Middle Ages. Empires Once, when political history defined the boundaries of the past, the date span of 476 to 1453 was generally considered the time frame of the medieval era. The reason: each date marked the fall of an empire. In 476 C.E., the  Western Roman Empire officially came to an end  when the Germanic warrior  Odoacer  deposed and exiled the last emperor,  Romulus Augustus. Instead of taking the title of  emperor  or acknowledging anyone else as such, Odoacer chose the title King of Italy, and the  western empire  was no more. This event is no longer considered the definitive end of the Roman empire. In fact, whether Rome fell, dissolved, or evolved is still a matter for debate. Although at its height the empire spanned territory from Britain to Egypt, even at its most expansive the Roman  bureaucracy  neither encompassed nor controlled most of what was to become Europe. These lands, some of which were virgin territory, would be occupied by peoples that the Romans considered barbarians, and their genetic and cultural descendants would have just as much impact on the formation of western civilization as the survivors of Rome. The study of the Roman Empire  is  important in understanding medieval Europe, but even if the date of its fall could be irrefutably determined, its status as a defining factor no longer holds the influence it once had. In 1453 C.E., the  Eastern Roman Empire  came to an end when its  captial  city of Constantinople fell to invading Turks. Unlike the western terminus, this date is not contested, even though the Byzantine Empire had shrunk through the centuries and, at the time of the fall of Constantinople, had consisted of little more than the great city itself for more than two hundred years. However, as significant as Byzantium is to medieval studies, to view it as a  defining  factor is misleading. At its  height, the eastern empire encompassed even less of present-day Europe than had the western empire. Furthermore, while Byzantine civilization influenced the course of western culture and politics, the empire remained quite deliberately separate from the tumultuous, unstable, dynamic societies that grew, foundered, merged and ​​warred  in the west. The choice of Empires as a defining characteristic of medieval studies has one other significant flaw: throughout the course of the Middle Ages, no  true  empire encompassed a significant portion of Europe for any substantial length of time.  Charlemagne  succeeded in uniting large portions of modern-day France and Germany, but the nation he built broke into factions only two generations after his death.  The Holy Roman Empire  has been called neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire, and its emperors certainly did not have the kind of control over its lands that Charlemagne achieved. Yet the fall of empires lingers in our perception of the Middle Ages. One cannot help but notice how close the dates 476 and 1453 are to 500 and 1500. Christendom Throughout the medieval  era  only one institution came close to uniting all of Europe, though it was not so much a political empire as a spiritual one. That union was attempted by the Catholic Church, and the geopolitical entity it influenced was known as Christendom. While the exact extent of the Churchs political power and influence on the material culture of medieval Europe has been and continues to be debated, there is no denying that it had a significant impact on international events and personal lifestyles throughout the era. It is for this reason that the Catholic Church has validity as a defining factor of the Middle Ages. The rise, establishment, and ultimate fracturing of Catholicism as the single most influential religion in  Western  Europe offers several significant dates to use as  start- and end-points for the era. In 306 C.E.,  Constantine  was proclaimed Caesar and became co-ruler of the Roman Empire. In 312 he converted to Christianity, the once-illegal religion now became favored over all others. (After his death, it would become the official religion of the empire.) Virtually overnight, an underground cult became the religion of the Establishment, forcing the once-radical Christian philosophers to rethink their attitudes toward the Empire. In 325, Constantine called the  Council of Nicaea, the first  ecumenical council  of the Catholic Church. This convocation of bishops from all over the known world was an important step in building the organized institution that would have so much influence over the next 1,200 years. These events make the year 325, or at the very least the early fourth century, a viable starting point for the Christian Middle Ages. However, another event holds equal or greater weight in the minds of some scholars: the accession to the papal throne of  Gregory the Great  in 590. Gregory was instrumental in establishing the medieval papacy as a strong socio-political force, and many believe that without his efforts the Catholic Church would never have achieved the power and influence it wielded throughout medieval times. In 1517 C.E.  Martin Luther  posted 95 theses criticizing the Catholic Church. In 1521 he was excommunicated, and he appeared before the  Diet of Worms  to defend his actions. The attempts to reform ecclesiastical practices from within the institution were futile; ultimately, the  Protestant Reformation  split the Western Church irrevocably. The Reformation was not a peaceful one, and religious wars ensued throughout much of Europe. These culminated in the  Thirty Years War  that ended with the  Peace of Westphalia  in 1648. When equating medieval with the rise and fall of Christendom, the latter date is sometimes viewed as the end of the Middle Ages by those who prefer an all-inclusive view of the era. However, the sixteenth-century events that heralded the beginning of the end of Catholicisms pervasive presence in Europe are more  frequently  regarded as the eras terminus. Europe The field of medieval studies is by its very nature eurocentric. This does not mean that medievalists deny or ignore the significance of events that took place outside of what is today Europe during the medieval era. But the entire concept of a medieval era is a European one. The term Middle Ages was first used by European scholars during the  Italian Renaissance  to describe their own history, and as the study of the era has evolved, that focus has remained fundamentally the same. As more research has been conducted in previously unexplored areas, a wider recognition of the importance of the lands outside Europe in shaping the modern world has evolved. While other specialists study the histories of non-European lands from varying perspectives, medievalists generally approach them with regard to how they affected  European  history. It is an aspect of medieval studies that has always characterized the field. Because the medieval era is so inextricably linked to the geographical entity we now call Europe, it is entirely valid to associate a definition of the Middle Ages with a significant stage in the development of that entity. But this presents us with a variety of challenges. Europe is not a separate  geological  continent; it is part of a larger land mass properly called Eurasia. Throughout history, its boundaries shifted all too often, and they are still shifting today. It was not commonly recognized as a distinct geographical entity  during  the Middle Ages; the lands we now call Europe were more frequently considered Christendom. Throughout the Middle Ages, there was no single political force that controlled all of the  continent. With these limitations, it becomes increasingly difficult to define the parameters of a broad historical age associated with what we now call Europe. But perhaps this very lack of characteristic features can help us with our definition. When the Roman Empire was at its height, it consisted primarily of the lands surrounding the Mediterranean. By the time  Columbus  made his historic voyage to the New World, the Old World stretched from Italy to Scandinavia, and from Britain to the Balkans and beyond. No longer was Europe the wild, untamed frontier, populated by barbarian, frequently migratory cultures. It was now civilized (though still often in turmoil), with generally stable governments, established centers of commerce and learning, and the dominant presence of Christianity. Thus, the medieval era might be considered the period of time during which Europe  became  a geopolitical entity. The fall of the  Roman Empire (c. 476) can still be considered a turning point in the development of Europes identity. However, the time when the migrations of Germanic tribes into Roman territory began to effect significant changes in the empires cohesiveness (the 2nd century C.E.) could be considered the genesis of Europe. A common terminus is the late 15th  century when westward  exploration  into the new world initiated a new awareness in Europeans of their old world. The 15th century also saw significant turning points for regions within Europe: In 1453, the end of the  Hundred Years War  signalled the unification of France; in 1485, Britain saw the end of the Wars of the Roses and the beginning of an extensive peace; in 1492, the Moors were driven from Spain, the Jews were expelled, and Catholic unity prevailed. Changes were taking place everywhere, and as individual nations established modern identities, so too did Europe appear to take on a cohesive identity of its own. Learn more about the early, high and late middle ages.