The End of The Middle Ages

The End of The Middle Ages — page 5 — Introduction T he period of European history from extending about 500 to 1400 1500 CE is traditionally known as the Middle Ages The term was first used by 15th-century scholars to designate the pe riod between their own time and the fall of the Western Roman Empire The period is often considered to have its own internal divisions early central or high and late The change from ancient ways to medieval customs came so gradually however that it is difficult to tell exactly when the Middle Ages began The conventional date of the be ginning of the Middle Ages is 476 CE when the Germanic general Odoacer defeated the Roman general Orestes and overthrew the emperor 8

The End of The Middle Ages — page 6 — The fan vaults of Gloucester Cathedral seen here are an example of the Perpendicular style a phase of late Gothic architecture unique to England 9

The End of The Middle Ages — page 7 — The end of The Middle Ages Romulus Augustulus ending the Western Roman Empire The eastern part of the empire called the Byzantine Empire survived for about another thousand years Other historians give the year 410 when Alaric king of the Visigoths sacked Rome Still others say that the ancient world lasted until 750 or even 1000 when the extensive practice of slavery as in the classical world finally came to an end in western Europe It is equally hard to determine exactly when the Mid dle Ages ended for decisive events leading to the modern age took place at different times Historians say variously that the Middle Ages ended with the fall of Constantinople the capital of the Byzantine Empire in 1453 with the Euro pean discovery of America in 1492 with the beginning of the Reformation in 1517 or with the coming of the French Revolution in 1789 The Middle Ages was first defined as a distinct histor ical period in the 15th century by scholars who saw their own time as one of great cultural progress and the revival of the Classical learning of ancient Greece and Rome These scholars thus thought of the time between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and their own time as one of decline and then stagnation The Middle Ages came to be seen as a long period dominated by ignorance and superstition Historians today however mostly do not accept this position They emphasize the many important changes that occurred in society during the Middle Ages New forms of political social cultural and economic organization emerged 10

The End of The Middle Ages — page 8 — inTroducTion The monarchies that developed laid the foundations for the nation-states of the modern period People also first began to consider Europe as a distinct cultural unit The Roman Catholic Church became a significant part of medieval life Later in this period the population began to grow greatly agriculture and trade flourished and cities expanded Medie val Europe gave the world the first universities and medieval architects produced magnificent Gothic cathedrals It has been traditionally held that by the 14th century the dynamic force of medieval civilization had been spent and that the late Middle Ages were characterized by decline and decay Europe did indeed suffer disasters of war famine and pestilence in the 14th century but many of the under lying social intellectual and political structures remained intact In the 15th and 16th centuries Europe experienced an intellectual and economic revival conventionally called the Renaissance that laid the foundation for the subsequent expansion of European culture throughout the world 11

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