Medieval music genres

In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the Post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the

Renaissance

and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages.

Population decline, counterurbanisation, the collapse of centralized authority, invasions, and mass migrations of

tribe

s, which had begun in Late Antiquity, continued into the Early Middle Ages. The large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various

Germanic peoples

, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the 7th century,

North Africa

and the Middle East—most recently part of the

Eastern Roman (or Byzantine) Empire

—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, an Islamic empire, after conquest by Muhammad's successors. Although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire, Rome's direct continuation, survived in the Eastern Mediterranean and remained a major power. Secular law was advanced greatly by the ''Code of Justinian''. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated extant Roman institutions, while new bishoprics and monasteries were founded as Christianity expanded in Europe. The

Franks

, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th and early 9th centuries. It covered much of Western Europe but later succumbed to the pressures of internal civil wars combined with external invasions:

Vikings

from the north, Magyars from the east, and Saracens from the south.

During the High Middle Ages, which began after 1000, the population of Europe increased greatly as technological and agricultural innovations allowed trade to flourish and the Medieval Warm Period climate change allowed crop yields to increase. Manorialism, the organisation of peasants into villages that owed rent and labour services to the nobles, and feudalism, the political structure whereby

knight

s and lower-status nobles owed military service to their

overlord

s in return for the right to rent from lands and manors, were two of the ways society was organised in the High Middle Ages. This period also saw the formal division of the

Catholic

and Orthodox churches, with the East-West Schism of 1054. The

Crusades

, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the

Holy Land

from

Muslim

s, and also contributed to the expansion of Latin Christendom in the Baltic region and the

Iberian Peninsula

. Kings became the heads of centralised nation-states, reducing crime and violence but making the ideal of a unified Christendom more distant. In the West, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of

universities

. The theology of

Thomas Aquinas

, the paintings of

Giotto

, the poetry of

Dante

and

Chaucer

, the travels of

Marco Polo

, and the Gothic architecture of cathedrals such as

Chartres

are among the outstanding achievements toward the end of this period and into the Late Middle Ages.

The Late Middle Ages was marked by difficulties and calamities including famine, plague, and war, which significantly diminished the population of Europe; between 1347 and 1350, the

Black Death

killed about a third of Europeans. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the interstate conflict, civil strife, and peasant revolts that occurred in the kingdoms. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages and beginning the early modern period.

Terminology and periodisation

The Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history: classical civilisation or

Antiquity

, the Middle Ages and the Modern Period.Power ''Central Middle Ages'' p. 3 The "Middle Ages" first appears in Latin in 1469 as ''media tempestas'' or "middle season".Miglio "Curial Humanism" ''Interpretations of Renaissance Humanism'' p. 112 In early usage, there were many variants, including ''medium aevum'', or "middle age", first recorded in 1604,Albrow ''Global Age'' p. 205 and ''media saecula'', or "middle centuries", first recorded in 1625. The adjective "medieval" (or sometimes "mediaeval" or "mediæval"),"Mediaeval" ''Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary'' meaning pertaining to the Middle Ages, derives from ''medium aevum''.Flexner (ed.) ''Random House Dictionary'' p. 1194

Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the " Six Ages" or the " Four Empires", and considered their time to be the last before the end of the world.Mommsen "Petrarch's Conception of the 'Dark Ages'" ''Speculum'' pp. 236–237 When referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being "modern".Singman ''Daily Life'' p. x In the 1330s, the Italian humanist and poet

Petrarch

referred to pre-Christian times as ''antiqua'' (or "ancient") and to the Christian period as ''nova'' (or "new").Knox
History of the Idea of the Renaissance
Petrarch regarded the post-Roman centuries as "dark" compared to the "light" of classical antiquity.Mommsen "Petrarch's Conception of the 'Dark Ages'" ''Speculum'' pp. 227-228

Leonardo Bruni

was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his ''History of the Florentine People'' (1442), with a middle period "between the fall of the Roman Empire and the revival of city life sometime in late eleventh and twelfth centuries".Bruni ''History of the Florentine people'' pp. xvii–xviii Tripartite periodisation became standard after the 17th-century German historian

Christoph Cellarius

divided history into three periods: ancient, medieval, and modern.Murray "Should the Middle Ages Be Abolished?" ''Essays in Medieval Studies'' p. 4

The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is around 500, with the date of 476 first used by Bruni. Later starting dates are sometimes used in the outer parts of Europe. For Europe as a whole, 1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. Depending on the context, events such as the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453,

Christopher Columbus

's first voyage to the

Americas

in 1492, or the

Protestant Reformation

in 1517 are sometimes used. English historians often use the

Battle of Bosworth Field

in 1485 to mark the end of the period. For Spain, dates commonly used are the death of King Ferdinand II in 1516, the death of Queen Isabella I of Castile in 1504, or the conquest of Granada in 1492.

Historians from

Romance-speaking

countries tend to divide the Middle Ages into two parts: an earlier "High" and later "Low" period. English-speaking historians, following their German counterparts, generally subdivide the Middle Ages into three intervals: "Early", "High", and "Late". In the 19th century, the entire Middle Ages were often referred to as the "Dark Ages",Mommsen "Petrarch's Conception of the 'Dark Ages'" ''Speculum'' p. 226 but with the adoption of these subdivisions, use of this term was restricted to the Early Middle Ages, at least among historians.

Later Roman Empire

The

Roman Empire

reached its greatest territorial extent during the 2nd century AD; the following two centuries witnessed the slow decline of Roman control over its outlying territories.Cunliffe ''Europe Between the Oceans'' pp. 391–393 Economic issues, including inflation, and external pressure on the frontiers combined to create the Crisis of the Third Century, with emperors coming to the throne only to be rapidly replaced by new usurpers.Collins ''Early Medieval Europe'' pp. 3–5 Military expenses increased steadily during the 3rd century, mainly in response to the war with the

Sasanian Empire

, which revived in the middle of the 3rd century. The army doubled in size, and cavalry and smaller units replaced the

Roman legion

as the main tactical unit.Brown ''World of Late Antiquity'' pp. 24–25 The need for revenue led to increased taxes and a decline in numbers of the curial, or landowning, class, and decreasing numbers of them willing to shoulder the burdens of holding office in their native towns.Heather ''Fall of the Roman Empire'' p. 111 More bureaucrats were needed in the central administration to deal with the needs of the army, which led to complaints from civilians that there were more tax-collectors in the empire than tax-payers.

The Emperor Diocletian (r. 284–305) split the empire into separately administered

eastern

and

western

halves in 286; the empire was not considered divided by its inhabitants or rulers, as legal and administrative promulgations in one division were considered valid in the other.Collins ''Early Medieval Europe'' p. 9 In 330, after a period of civil war,

Constantine the Great

(r. 306–337) refounded the city of

Byzantium

as the newly renamed eastern capital,

Constantinople

.Collins ''Early Medieval Europe'' p. 24 Diocletian's reforms strengthened the governmental bureaucracy, reformed taxation, and strengthened the army, which bought the empire time but did not resolve the problems it was facing: excessive taxation, a declining birthrate, and pressures on its frontiers, among others.Cunliffe ''Europe Between the Oceans'' pp. 405–406 Civil war between rival emperors became common in the middle of the 4th century, diverting soldiers from the empire's frontier forces and allowing invaders to encroach.Collins ''Early Medieval Europe'' pp. 31–33 For much of the 4th century, Roman society stabilised in a new form that differed from the earlier classical period, with a widening gulf between the rich and poor, and a decline in the vitality of the smaller towns.Brown ''World of Late Antiquity'' p. 34 Another change was the Christianisation, or conversion of the empire to

Christianity

, a gradual process that lasted from the 2nd to the 5th centuries.Brown ''World of Late Antiquity'' pp. 65–68Brown ''World of Late Antiquity'' pp. 82–94

In 376, the Goths, fleeing from the

Huns

, received permission from Emperor

Valens

(r. 364–378) to settle in the Roman province of Thracia in the

Balkans

. The settlement did not go smoothly, and when Roman officials mishandled the situation, the Goths began to raid and plunder. Valens, attempting to put down the disorder, was killed fighting the Goths at the Battle of Adrianople on 9 August 378.Bauer ''History of the Medieval World'' pp. 47–49 In addition to the threat from such tribal confederacies in the north, internal divisions within the empire, especially within the Christian Church, caused problems.Bauer ''History of the Medieval World'' pp. 56–59 In 400, the Visigoths invaded the Western Roman Empire and, although briefly forced back from Italy, in 410 sacked the city of Rome.Bauer ''History of the Medieval World'' pp. 80–83 In 406 the

Alans

, Vandals, and Suevi crossed into

Gaul

; over the next three years they spread across Gaul and in 409 crossed the

Pyrenees Mountains

into modern-day Spain.Collins ''Early Medieval Europe'' pp. 59–60 The Migration Period began, when various peoples, initially largely

Germanic peoples

, moved across Europe. The

Franks

, Alemanni, and the Burgundians all ended up in northern Gaul while the

Angles

,

Saxons

, and Jutes settled in Britain, and the Vandals went on to cross the strait of Gibraltar after which they conquered the province of Africa.Collins ''Early Medieval Europe'' p. 80 In the 430s the Huns began invading the empire; their king

Attila

(r. 434–453) led invasions into the Balkans in 442 and 447, Gaul in 451, and Italy in 452.James ''Europe's Barbarians'' pp. 67–68 The Hunnic threat remained until Attila's death in 453, when the Hunnic confederation he led fell apart.Bauer ''History of the Medieval World'' pp. 117–118 These invasions by the tribes completely changed the political and demographic nature of what had been the Western Roman Empire.Cunliffe ''Europe Between the Oceans'' p. 417

By the end of the 5th century the western section of the empire was divided into smaller political units, ruled by the tribes that had invaded in the early part of the century.Wickham ''Inheritance of Rome'' p. 79 The deposition of the last emperor of the west, Romulus Augustulus, in 476 has traditionally marked the end of the Western Roman Empire.Wickham ''Inheritance of Rome'' p. 86 By 493 the Italian peninsula was conquered by the Ostrogoths, a Gothic tribe.Collins ''Early Medieval Europe'' pp. 107–109 The Eastern Roman Empire, often referred to as the Byzantine Empire after the fall of its western counterpart, had little ability to assert control over the lost western territories. The Byzantine emperors maintained a claim over the territory, but while none of the new kings in the west dared to elevate himself to the position of emperor of the west, Byzantine control of most of the Western Empire could not be sustained; the reconquest of the Mediterranean periphery and the Italian Peninsula (Gothic War) in the reign of Justinian (r. 527–565) was the sole, and temporary, exception.Collins ''Early Medieval Europe'' pp. 116–134

Early Middle Ages

New societies

The political structure of Western Europe changed with the end of the united Roman Empire. Although the movements of peoples during this period are usually described as "invasions", they were not just military expeditions but migrations of entire peoples into the empire. Such movements were aided by the refusal of the Western Roman elites to support the army or pay the taxes that would have allowed the military to suppress the migration.Brown, ''World of Late Antiquity'', pp. 122–124 The emperors of the 5th century were often controlled by military strongmen such as

Stilicho

(d. 408), Aetius (d. 454), Aspar (d. 471), Ricimer (d. 472), or Gundobad (d. 516), who were partly or fully of non-Roman background. When the line of Western emperors ceased, many of the kings who replaced them were from the same background. Intermarriage between the new kings and the Roman elites was common.Wickham, ''Inheritance of Rome'', pp. 95–98 This led to a fusion of Roman culture with the customs of the invading tribes, including the popular assemblies that allowed free male tribal members more say in political matters than was common in the Roman state.Wickham, ''Inheritance of Rome'', pp. 100–101 Material artefacts left by the Romans and the invaders are often similar, and tribal items were often modelled on Roman objects.Collins, ''Early Medieval Europe'', p. 100 Much of the scholarly and written culture of the new kingdoms was also based on Roman intellectual traditions.Collins, ''Early Medieval Europe'', pp. 96–97 An important difference was the gradual loss of tax revenue by the new polities. Many of the new political entities no longer supported their armies through taxes, instead relying on granting them land or rents. This meant there was less need for large tax revenues and so the taxation systems decayed.Wickham, ''Inheritance of Rome'', pp. 102–103 Warfare was common between and within the kingdoms. Slavery declined as the supply weakened, and society became more rural.Backman, ''Worlds of Medieval Europe'', pp. 86–91

Between the 5th and 8th centuries, new peoples and individuals filled the political void left by Roman centralised government. The Ostrogoths settled in

Roman Italy

in the late fifth century under Theoderic the Great (d. 526) and set up a

kingdom

marked by its co-operation between the Italians and the Ostrogoths, at least until the last years of Theodoric's reign.James ''Europe's Barbarians'' pp. 82–88 The Burgundians settled in Gaul, and after an earlier realm was destroyed by the Huns in 436, formed a new kingdom in the 440s. Between today's

Geneva

and

Lyon

, it grew to become the realm of Burgundy in the late 5th and early 6th centuries.James ''Europe's Barbarians'' pp. 77–78 Elsewhere in Gaul, the Franks and Celtic Britons set up small polities.

Francia

was centred in northern Gaul, and the first king of whom much is known is

Childeric I

(d. 481). His grave was discovered in 1653 and is remarkable for its grave goods, which included weapons and a large quantity of gold.James ''Europe's Barbarians'' pp. 79–80

Under Childeric's son

Clovis I

(r. 509–511), the founder of the

Merovingian dynasty

, the Frankish kingdom expanded and converted to Christianity. The Britons, related to the natives of

Britannia

 – modern-day Great Britain – settled in what is now Brittany.James ''Europe's Barbarians'' pp. 78–81 Other monarchies were established by the

Visigothic Kingdom

in the

Iberian Peninsula

, the Suebi in northwestern Iberia, and the Vandal Kingdom in

North Africa

. In the sixth century, the Lombards settled in Northern Italy, replacing the Ostrogothic kingdom with a grouping of duchies that occasionally selected a king to rule over them all. By the late sixth century, this arrangement had been replaced by a permanent monarchy, the Kingdom of the Lombards.Collins ''Early Medieval Europe'' pp. 196–208

The invasions brought new ethnic groups to Europe, although some regions received a larger influx of new peoples than others. In Gaul for instance, the invaders settled much more extensively in the north-east than in the south-west.

Slavs

settled in

Central

and

Eastern Europe

and the Balkan Peninsula. The settlement of peoples was accompanied by changes in languages.

Latin

, the literary language of the Western Roman Empire, was gradually replaced by vernacular languages which evolved from Latin, but were distinct from it, collectively known as

Romance languages

. These changes from Latin to the new languages took many centuries. Greek remained the language of the Byzantine Empire, but the migrations of the Slavs added

Slavic languages

to Eastern Europe.Davies ''Europe'' pp. 235–238

Byzantine survival

As Western Europe witnessed the formation of new kingdoms, the Eastern Roman Empire remained intact and experienced an economic revival that lasted into the early 7th century. There were fewer invasions of the eastern section of the empire; most occurred in the Balkans. Peace with the

Sasanian Empire

, the traditional enemy of Rome, lasted throughout most of the 5th century. The Eastern Empire was marked by closer relations between the political state and Christian Church, with doctrinal matters assuming an importance in Eastern politics that they did not have in Western Europe. Legal developments included the codification of Roman law; the first effort—the ''

Codex Theodosianus

''—was completed in 438.Wickham ''Inheritance of Rome'' pp. 81–83 Under Emperor Justinian (r. 527–565), another compilation took place—the ''Corpus Juris Civilis''.Bauer ''History of the Medieval World'' pp. 200–202 Justinian also oversaw the construction of the

Hagia Sophia

in Constantinople and the reconquest of North Africa from the Vandals and Italy from the Ostrogoths, under Belisarius (d. 565).Collins ''Early Medieval Europe'' pp. 126, 130 The conquest of Italy was not complete, as a deadly outbreak of plague in 542 led to the rest of Justinian's reign concentrating on defensive measures rather than further conquests.Bauer ''History of the Medieval World'' pp. 206–213

At the Emperor's death, the Byzantines had control of most of Italy, North Africa, and a small foothold in southern Spain. Justinian's reconquests have been criticised by historians for overextending his realm and setting the stage for the early Muslim conquests, but many of the difficulties faced by Justinian's successors were due not just to over-taxation to pay for his wars but to the essentially civilian nature of the empire, which made raising troops difficult.Brown "Transformation of the Roman Mediterranean" ''Oxford Illustrated History of Medieval Europe'' pp. 8–9

In the Eastern Empire the slow infiltration of the Balkans by the Slavs added a further difficulty for Justinian's successors. It began gradually, but by the late 540s Slavic tribes were in Thrace and Illyrium, and had defeated an imperial army near Adrianople in 551. In the 560s the Avars began to expand from their base on the north bank of the

Danube

; by the end of the 6th-century, they were the dominant power in Central Europe and routinely able to force the Eastern emperors to pay tribute. They remained a strong power until 796.James ''Europe's Barbarians'' pp. 95–99Curta ''Southeastern Europe'' pp. 59–66

An additional problem to face the empire came as a result of the involvement of Emperor Maurice (r. 582–602) in Persian politics when he intervened in a succession dispute. This led to a period of peace, but when Maurice was overthrown, the Persians invaded and during the reign of Emperor Heraclius (r. 610–641) controlled large chunks of the empire, including Egypt, Syria, and Anatolia until Heraclius' successful counterattack. In 628 the empire secured a peace treaty and recovered all of its lost territories.Collins ''Early Medieval Europe'' pp. 140–143

Western society

In Western Europe, some of the older Roman elite families died out while others became more involved with ecclesiastical than secular affairs. Values attached to Latin scholarship and education mostly disappeared, and while literacy remained important, it became a practical skill rather than a sign of elite status. In the 4th century,

Jerome

(d. 420) dreamed that God rebuked him for spending more time reading

Cicero

than the

Bible

. By the 6th century, Gregory of Tours (d. 594) had a similar dream, but instead of being chastised for reading Cicero, he was chastised for learning shorthand

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