Middle Ages

The Middle Ages were a period in European history, roughly lasting from the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 AD to the fall of Constantinople (1453) or beginning of the Renaissance around 1500 AD.

Early Middle Ages: 476 to 1100 AD

Europe in 486; click to enlarge

Crusades: 1095-1291 AD

see Crusades

Europe in 1097; click to enlarge

Periodization

The periodization of the Middle Ages is an occasionally contentious, sometimes complicated question. Conventionally, the external boundaries of the Middle Ages went from the year 476 (when Romulus Augustus was deposed by his general Odoacer) to somewhere around the year 1500.

Within the Middle Ages, setting internal boundaries is less controversial. The Early Middle Ages lasted from 476 until the year 1000. The term Dark Ages, which is very seldom used in modern scholarship, might be applied with the most precision to this period of time.

Though the year 1000 is arbitrary-- and any historical periodization will be-- certain significant changes can be seen in Medieval culture at about this time. It is around this time that an uptick can be discerned in many cultural and political aspects of life. In particular, many of the things that characterize the Middle Ages in the popular imagination begin to take their familiar forms-- knights, castles, and the medieval university. Furthermore, many modern scholars believe that the climactic changes in Western Europe (the Medieval Warm Period) and consequently increased agricultural production played an important role in these cultural changes.

The year 1300 is more arbitrary than the year 1000, but following 1300 a series of disasters befell Western Europe. Bad weather led to famine in the years after 1314, and in 1347 and following the Black Death (or Black Plague) began to spread through Western Europe. The Late Middle Ages are given an arbitrary terminus ad quem of 1500.

In considering the central events of the Late Middle Ages though, a paradox arises. To take one example, two of the central figures in the Italian Renaissance, Petrarch and Giovanni Boccaccio, are also two important primary sources in analyzing the Black Death. Which period, then, do they belong to-- the Late Middle Ages or the Italian Renaissance?

It is probably best to understand this overlap in periods as a result of the historical development of the different academic disciplines which take the Italian Renaissance/Late Middle Ages as their field of study. Historians are loath to setting sharp boundaries between historical events which develop gradually, and so see the development from the High to Late Middle Ages incrementally. Other disciplines, and in particular Art History, see cultural changes more discretely, and to some extent teleologically. That is to say, Art Historians see a drastic change from earlier medieval artists to the refined perspective and naturalistic concerns of Michelangelo, Rafael and Leonardo da Vinci. These disciplinary differences can be seen as a difference in emphasis.

Renaissances and the Middle Ages

It is also possible to see the Middle Ages in relation to the idea of a Renaissance, a period of cultural revitalization (literally 'rebirth' in French language). For early scholars like Jakob Burckhardt, it was possible to see the Italian Renaissance as exemplifying everything that the crude Middle Ages lacked. As scholars have studied the Middle Ages more-- and as scholars personally invested in medieval culture have become more numerous-- such attitudes have become less common.

By comparison with the features of the Italian Renaissance, scholars have come to see cultural revitalization in several periods of the Middle Ages. In 1927, Charles Homer Haskins made the first move in this direction by writing his influential book The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century, in which he praised the high cultural achievements of 12th century Europe.

Scholars of the Carolingian period picked up on the cultural improvements in their period, too, with the result that the eighth and ninth centuries are occasionally called the 'Carolingian Renaissance'.

In Art History, as well, and in particular in the study of the outward expansion of techniques and concerns of Italian Renaissance painters, the term 'Northern Renaissance' is used to describe such artists as Jan van Eyck and Albrecht Durer.

Bibliography

Surveys

• Artz, Frederick B. The Mind of the Middle Ages, A.D. 200-1500: An Historical Survey (1954) online edition
• Cantor, Norman F. The Civilization of the Middle Ages (2nd ed. 1994), 624pp excerpt and text search
• Lamonte, John L. The World of the Middle Ages: A Reorientation of Medieval History (1949) online edition
• Southern, R. W. The Making of the Middle Ages (1961), highly influential survey excerpt and text search
• Strayer, Joseph R. Western Europe in the Middle Ages: A Short History (1955) online edition

Agriculture, economy and rural life

• Ambrosoli, Mauro. The Wild and the Sown: Botany and Agriculture in Western Europe, 1350-1850. Cambridge U. Press, 1997. 460 pp.
• Bloch, Marc. French Rural History an Essay on Its Basic Characteristics (1972)
• Bloch, Marc. Feudal Society: Vol 1: The Growth and Ties of Dependence (1989); Feudal Society: Vol 2: Social Classes and Political Organisation(1989) excerpt and text search
• Gras, Norman. A history of agriculture in Europe and America, (1925). online edition
• Harvey, Nigel. The Industrial Archaeology of Farming in England and Wales. (1980). 232 pp.
• Langdon, John. Horses, Oxen and Technological Innovation: The Use of Draught Animals in English Farming from 1066 to 1500. (1986). 331 pp.
• Thompson, James Westfall. Economic and Social History of Europe in the Later Middle Ages (1300-1530) (1931) online edition

Britain

Scotland and Ireland

• Armstrong, David. The Kingdom of Scotland in the Middle Ages 400-1450 (Heinemann Scottish History) (2002)
• Barrell, A. D. M. Medieval Scotland (2000) excerpt and tetx search; online edition
• Barrow, G.W.S. Kingship and Unity, Scotland 1000-1316 (1981), in The New History of Scotland
• Barrow, Geoffrey. Robert Bruce: And the Community of the Realm of Scotland (2005) excerpt and text search
• Brown, Michael. The Wars of Scotland, 1214-1371 (2004), New Edinburgh History of Scotland, vol 4
• Cosgrove, Art. ed., A New History of Ireland, ii: Medieval Ireland, 1169-1534 (1987). 982 pp.
• Cosgrove, Art. "The Writing of Irish Medieval History", I.H.S., xxvii (1990), 97-111
• Dickinson, W.C. Scotland from the Earliest Times to 1603 (3rd edition, 1977) online edition
• Duncan, A.A.M. Scotland: the Making of the Kingdom (1975), Edinburgh History of Scotland
• Grant, Alexander. Independence and Nationhood: Scotland 1306-1469 (1991), New History of Scotland. excerpt and text search
• Oram, Richard D. Domination and Lordship: Scotland 1070-1230 (2003), New Edinburgh History of Scotland, vol 3
• Sadler, John, Border Fury: England and Scotland at War, 1296-1568. (2005). 617 pp. ISBN 1-4058-4022-6

Church

• Brown, Peter. The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity 200-1000 AD (2002), 640pp
• Catholic Encyclopedia, (1913) online edition thousands of articles on related topics
• Latourette, Kenneth S. A History of Christianity, Volume 1: Beginnings to 1500 (1975), by leading Protestant historian excerpt and text search
• Logan, F. Donald. A History of the Church in the Middle Ages. 2002. online edition
• Ullmann, Walter. A Short History of the Papacy in the Middle Ages, (2002), 393pp, online edition

France

• see also Annales School
• Bloch, Marc. Feudal Society: Vol 1: The Growth and Ties of Dependence (1989); Feudal Society: Vol 2: Social Classes and Political Organisation(1989) excerpt and text search
• Bloch, Marc. French Rural History an Essay on Its Basic Characteristics (1972)
• Duby, Georges. France in the Middle Ages 987-1460: From Hugh Capet to Joan of Arc (1993), survey by a leader of the Annales School excerpt and text search
• Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel. Montaillou: Cathars and Catholics in a French Village, 1294-1324 (1978) excerpt and text search
• Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel. The Peasants of Languedoc (1966; English translation 1974) search
• Potter, David. France in the Later Middle Ages 1200-1500, (2003) excerpt and text search

Historiography

• Cantor, Norman F. Inventing the Middle Ages (1993) 480pp excerpt and text search
• Cosgrove, Art. "The Writing of Irish Medieval History", I.H.S., xxvii (1990), 97-111
• Rubin, Miri. The Work of Jacques Le Goff and the Challenges of Medieval History (1997) 272 pages excerpts and text search

Primary sources

• Cantor, Norman F. ed. The Medieval Reader (1995), 384pp