We explain what the Middle Ages is, what was the origin and the stages of this period. Also, its main characteristics and how it ended.
During the Middle Ages, hundreds of castles were built throughout Europe.
What is the Middle Ages?
The Middle Ages is the period of history between the fall of the Western Roman Empire, in 476 AD. C., and the arrival of the Spanish to America, in 1492. This historical period is between the Ancient Age and the Modern Age..
This periodization corresponds to the studies on the history of the West, focused on the development of Western European culture. Traditionally, the Middle Ages were considered to be a time of religious oppression. and restriction of culture, science and knowledge. However, different current academic studies qualify this vision and propose a deeper and more complex explanation of the period.
During the Middle Ages, The power of European states was weakened in favor of feudal lords, large landowners who took care of the security of their lands. The political, economic and social organization revolved around the fiefdoms, in which the peasants worked in exchange for the protection and protection of their feudal lord.
Besides, During this period the Muslim religion emerged and expanded through the Arabian Peninsula, the Middle East, North Africa and Southern Europe. In contrast, the Christian Church developed as a fundamental force in Europe, which gave cultural identity to the different political units on the continent.
See also: Medieval Period
Characteristics of the Middle Ages
The oldest universities were founded during the Middle Ages.
Among the main characteristics of the Middle Ages, we can define:
- It began in 476 AD. C., with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ended in 1492 AD. C., with the arrival of European colonizers to America.
- It belongs to a traditional periodization and focuses especially on studies on the history of European societies and the Near East.
- During its more than ten centuries of history, different States rose and fell; Political fragmentation and the establishment of a political, economic and social system called feudalism predominated in Europe.
- The Christian religion dominated the European scene as a political force and generated a cultural identity that confronted Muslim expansion.
The Middle Ages in History
Artists of the 16th century considered the Middle Ages to have been a dark age.
The first scholars who began to use the term “Middle Ages” were philosophers, artists and poets of the 16th and 17th centuries. Giorgio Vasari, an art historian, published his book in 1550 The lives of the most excellent Italian architects, painters and sculptors from Cimabue to our times. In this work he highlighted two historical periods for the splendor of art and culture: the Ancient Age, which exalted Greek and Roman sculpture and architecture, and the Modern Age, his own time, at the height of the Italian Renaissance.
In the time between both periods, Vasari called it the Middle Ages and saw it as a dark period, without cultural advances.He saw the Middle Ages as an inferior stage between two superior stages, Antiquity and Modernity. This view was maintained in other branches of studies on the past, and was shared by 19th century historians.
At the moment, historians no longer consider the Middle Ages a dark age. The development of historical studies and different historiographic schools highlight the importance of the era. In this period there were very important changes and political, economic and cultural movements of great relevance.
Stages of the Middle Ages
In the Early Middle Ages, the power of the Pope over the West predominated.
Historians divide the Middle Ages into three stages:
- Early Middle Ages (476-843 AD). After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, three great centers of power were formed: the Romano-Germanic kingdoms, the Byzantine Empire and the Muslim caliphates. From this stage dates the Frankish Empire of Charlemagne, the reign of Justinian in Byzantium and the great expansion of the Muslim faith.
- Early Middle Ages (843-1100 AD)During this period the feudal system took shape, based on relations of personal loyalty, agricultural production and economic self-sufficiency. The incessant wars and the loss of large political units led to the depopulation of cities and the predominance of rural life. The power of the Christian Pope over the West was consolidated, in direct confrontation with the Byzantine Empire, which founded the Orthodox Church.
- Middle Ages (1100-1492 AD). In this period, cities re-emerged and a new social group appeared: the bourgeoisie. The Christian Crusade Wars to recover territories in the East, the crisis of the 14th century, the Black Death of 1348, the strengthening of the monarchies (England, France and Spain) and the great Schism of the Christian Church date from this period. It ends with the arrival of Columbus to America in 1492 AD. c.
Political power in the Middle Ages
Since the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the political, cultural and administrative unity that existed around the Mediterranean Sea was dissolved. The European continent, North Africa and Near East Asia became areas of dispute between diverse peoples and cultural identities.
- Romano-Germanic kingdoms. During the 5th century AD, various peoples of Germanic origin settled in the domains of the Roman Empire. With the fall of the Empire, these peoples became independent kingdoms. Although some disappeared quickly, others prospered for several centuries. The main Romano-Germanic kingdoms were those of the Visigoths, Suevi, Franks, Burgundians, Ostrogoths, Vandals and Anglo-Saxons.
- Byzantine Empire. The Eastern Roman Empire survived the attacks of the Germanic peoples and remained a political unit for most of the Middle Ages. Over the next millennium, different cultural and political influences combined and transformed the identity of the Eastern Empire, which was characterized by the legacy of Greek culture, the sacred exaltation of the emperor and the Orthodox Christian Church, independent of the papal influence of the West. Throughout the period, the Byzantine Empire constituted a barrier against the advance of the Arab caliphates.
- Islamic Arab Caliphates. The expansion of the Muslim faith in the Arabian Peninsula became the unifying element of the different local tribes. Upon the death of the prophet Muhammad, his successors founded the first dynasties of caliphs and were concerned with the military expansion of Islam into North Africa, the Near and Middle East, and the Iberian Peninsula in Europe. The caliphates were organized around the creation of a network of cities (Damascus, Baghdad, Samarkand, Fez, Cordoba, Granada), linked through trade and a common Islamic culture.
- Carolingian empire. During the 8th and 9th centuries AD, under the Carolingian dynasty, the Frankish kingdom managed to consolidate its political and territorial authority through an alliance with the Christian papacy. During the reign of Pepin the Short and Charlemagne, the Empire was consolidated by establishing ties of personal loyalty with the warrior aristocracy, in exchange for lands and royal privileges. Upon Charlemagne’s death in 814 AD, disputes broke out over the succession of the empire, which eventually ended up dividing into different kingdoms.
- FeudalismWith the second wave of invasions (Normans, Magyars, Saracens and Slavs), the kingdoms that inherited the Carolingian Empire had to resort to the warrior aristocracy to defend their territories, and their power weakened. On the European continent, a political, economic and social system called feudalism was imposed, in which feudal lords (of warrior or religious origin) administered justice, protected and controlled their territories.
- Strengthening of monarchiesThe crisis of the 14th century diminished the power of the feudal lords and allowed the authority of the kings to be strengthened. England, France and the Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula allied themselves with the local bourgeoisies and promoted policies to control the nobles.
- Papal states. In addition to being the prevailing religion in Europe, the Christian Church was established as a territorial political power, whose main territories were in the Italian peninsula. In political terms, the Pope attributed the role of representing God on Earth and claimed to be above any earthly authority. In the economic sphere, the Church was the owner of extensive properties and accumulated wealth that it obtained through alms, tithes, donations and inheritances from kings and feudal lords. Since the 11th century, the Christian Pope called on Christian kings and lords to reconquer Jerusalem, which was under the power of the Muslim caliphates. Between 1096 and 1291 AD. C., the Crusades Wars who, although they had some temporary victories, were finally defeated by the Muslims.
Feudalism in the middle Ages
During the Middle Ages, knights consolidated their power as feudal lords.
Since the 11th century, the feudal system or feudalism was the prevailing model during the Middle Ages, and consisted of the political-territorial organization of Europe into small political units called fiefdoms.
Fiefs were lands that kings had granted to noble warriors for their service. The fiefs included a castle, the forests and the lands surrounding itThe feudal lords owned the usufruct of the land and had the right to exploit the labor of the peasants who lived on the fief.
The granting of fiefs was carried out through a ceremony in which the feudal lord paid homage to the king, swore loyalty and promised to assist him in case of war. Thus, the lord was linked to the monarch by a double bond: that of benefice, by which he recognized that the property belonged to the king, and that of vassalage, by which he pledged his loyalty.
As the power of the kings weakened, The feudal lords began to have more autonomy and acquire more rights over their lands.. For example, the power of ban made them judges of everything that happened on their lands: they could set taxes, establish obligations for peasants, and punish disobedience.
Over time, the most important lords (counts, dukes and marquises) in turn granted parts of their fiefs to other less powerful lords (barons and knights), also through a vassalage ceremony.
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