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MIDDLE AGES, THE

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Originally appearing in Volume V18, Page 412 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MIDDLE AGES, THE . This name is commonly given to that See also:period of See also:European See also:history which lies between what are known as See also:ancient and See also:modern times, and which has generally been considered as extending from about the middle of the 5th to about the middle of the 15th centuries. The two See also:dates adopted in old textbooks were 476 and 1453, from the setting aside of the last See also:emperor in the See also:West until the fall of See also:Constantinople. In reality it is impossible to assign any exact dates for the opening and See also:close of such a period. The trend of See also:recent See also:historical re-See also:search leads one even to doubt the validity of the very conception of any definite See also:medieval period. The See also:evolution of modern European society has been continuous. Progress has not been See also:uniform. There was much retrogression with the intrusion of new See also:barbarian races; but from their absorption by the loth See also:century until the loth there is not a century in which some notable gain was not made towards the attainments of modern See also:civilization. The correct See also:perspective places between the summits of modern and ancient times, not a See also:long level stretch of a thousand years, with mankind stationary, spell-See also:bound under the authority of the See also:Church, absorbed in See also:war or monastic dreams, but a downward and then a long upward slope, on both of which the forces which make for civilization may be seen at See also:work. It is clear that a survey of the history of these so-called middle ages—long use makes the See also:term inevitable—must include not only the See also:political phase, but also See also:economics, See also:religion, See also:law, See also:science, literature, &c., since all are involved in the concept. A hurried outline of each of these vital branches of our civilization will at once reveal the falseness of the usual periodizing. It is only after having traced these one by one that we can properly See also:review the See also:process as a whole.

In political history, the epochal fact which marks the close of ancient times is the decline of the See also:

Roman See also:Empire. This was a process extending over three or four centuries, in which no one date lends itself to the historian. The deposition of See also:Romulus Augustulus, the last Roman emperor in the West, in 476, was certainly not one of those events upon which the history of the Western See also:world depends. Outwardly it did not See also:mark the end of the Empire, but the restoration of imperial unity. The See also:throne in See also:Italy had been vacant before, and the restoration of unity was realized in fact under Justinian. There is no See also:reason why the date 476 should stand out in European history more strongly than See also:half a dozen other such dates. Yet we may say that the 5th century did See also:witness the actual dismemberment of the Roman Empire. The new nations in See also:Spain, See also:Gaul, parts of Italy and See also:Britain were forming the See also:rude beginnings of what were to become See also:national states in the centuries following. Western See also:Europe was taken out of the imperial See also:mould and broken up. This is a revolution of sufficient magnitude to be regarded as politically the opening of a new era. It had been long preparing in the economic and administrative decline of the Empire, and in the steady influx of Germanic peoples into Roman territory for over two centuries; but the See also:power of the old civilization to absorb the new races was exhausted by the 5th century, and the political history of Europe was turned into a different path. That path, however, was not destined to end blindly in a " middle See also:age." The See also:line of political development marked out in the 5th century —that of the national See also:state—still continues.

The revolution in which See also:

Alaric, See also:Theodoric and See also:Clovis figured did not set the problem for the middle ages only, as is frequently stated; its full meaning did not appear until the See also:Peninsular War, the See also:Prussia of See also:Stein and See also:Scharnhorst, and even See also:Solferino and See also:Sedan. Thus the 5th century politically introduces not so much the history of the middle ages as that of modern Europe. The immediate introduction, however, was a long one—so long and so distinct from the later development as to constitute in itself a distinct phase. For five or six centuries—from the 5th until about the r 1th—comparatively little permanent progress was made. The Germanic tribes were still adjusting themselves and slowly learning to combine their See also:primitive institutions with the remains of those of See also:Rome; the premature See also:union under See also:Charlemagne gave way before new invasions, and anarchy be-came crystallized in See also:feudalism. It was not until the 12th and 13th centuries that modern national states really took shape: See also:England with its trial by See also:jury, See also:circuit courts, Magna Charta and See also:parliament; See also:France under the strong See also:hand of the Capetians. A political middle age certainly See also:lay between See also:Theodosius and See also:William the Conqueror, or at least between Justinian and See also:Henry II. It is difficult to grasp its vastness. Few students of history realize that the period from the Saxon to the See also:Norman See also:Conquest of England would take us as far back as from See also:George V. to See also:Edward I.; or that from Theodosius to See also:Philip See also:Augustus there is an See also:interval equal to that between the See also:accession of See also:Hugh See also:Capet and the See also:French Revolution. This, however, is not the period most frequently termed the middle ages in political histories. It does not include those two institutions which more than any others stand in popular See also:imagination as genuinely medieval—the papal See also:monarchy and the See also:Holy Roman Empire. The papacy received its full monarchial structure under See also:Hildebrand (See also:Gregory VII.) in the middle of the 1 rth century; its political decline set in suddenly after the pontificate of See also:Boniface VIII. at the opening of the 14th.

The See also:

great age of the Empire began slightly earlier, and continued until the fall of the See also:Hohenstaufen in the middle of the 13th century. One cannot now deny the term middle ages to the period of these two institutions. It has been consecrated to this use too long. Yet when we include under a See also:common name two eras so distinct as this and that preceding, our term becomes so vague as to be almost valueless. Moreover, it is doubtful if this second period is really as " medieval " as it has seemed. Papal monarchy and Holy Roman Empire were not the only political phenomena of their age, and it is possible that their vast pre-tensions have somewhat blinded historians as to their realimportance. While they were struggling to enforce their claims to universal See also:sovereignty, the royal power, less extravagant but more real, was See also:welding together the feudal states of France and moulding the England of to-See also:day. Compared with this obscure process—this spread of the See also:king's See also:peace along the highways and through the distant See also:forest lands of the 12th and 13th centuries—papal interdicts and See also:jubilees, however impressive their spectacle, are but fleeting shows. The See also:chivalry of See also:Germany pouring through Alpine passes for an See also:Italian See also:campaign, or a See also:coronation, See also:left little trace in history except the See also:lesson of their futility. There is much in the imperial and papal histories that is merely spectacular and romantic; much that appeals to the imagination and lends itself to myth; and since the See also:sources are abundant —the papal archives inexhaustible and the See also:German See also:chronicles easily accessible—an undue emphasis has been placed upon them. It is at least evident that the political middle ages were already disintegrating during the period of papal monarchy and Holy Roman Empire. In economic history there is a more definite line traceable.

The one great economic See also:

change brought about by the decline of the Roman Empire was the lessening of See also:urban See also:life throughout the greater See also:part of Europe, the closing up of avenues of communication and the predominance of isolated agricultural communities. This phase began to give way in the 11th century to a commercial and See also:industrial See also:renaissance, which received a great impetus from the crusading movements—themselves largely economic—and by the 14th century had made the See also:Netherlands the factory of Europe, the See also:Rhine a vast artery of See also:trade, and See also:north Italy a hive of busy cities. The See also:discovery of See also:America and the expansion of See also:commerce merely readjusted conditions already highly See also:developed. The period of isolated See also:economy which we may term medieval lasted only from about the 5th to the 12th centuries. As for manufactures, the See also:antique methods survived until the 18th and 19th centuries. In religious history—to be distinguished from that of the political organization referred to above as the papal monarchy—the See also:official recognition of the See also:Christian Church by See also:Galerius in 311 serves as a convenient starting-point for what we know as universal Christendom, though the slow disappearance of paganism, as distinct from See also:Christianity, stretches over at least a century more. The See also:Reformation of the 16th century has long been regarded as the close of the period. The real close, how-ever, is the See also:present day—as the result of the See also:rationalism and science of the 18th and 19th centuries. The heroes of the Reformation, judged by modern See also:standards, were reactionaries. Unconsciously and to its own ultimate damage the Reformation forged the weapons of progress; but it was itself in no sense, except the institutional and political, the end of that religious history inaugurated before the See also:Council of See also:Nicaea. The real change in attitude which marks the See also:dawn of a new era came in the See also:generation of See also:Voltaire. And " medievalism " is only now on the See also:defence against " modernism," both See also:Catholic and See also:Protestant.

In legal history there was a distinct medieval period, when Germanic customs superseded Roman law, that most splendid of Rome's legacies. But the renaissance of law began relatively See also:

early; by the 12th century it had created a university, by the 13th it was helping to organize national states and laying the basis for that See also:order which the economic renaissance was already demanding. In science there was no great product in antiquity to be lost. Compared with See also:art or law, literature or See also:philosophy, ancient science (in our sense) was almost insignificant. The promise in See also:Aristotle of such See also:production remained unfulfilled. The 17th century is not so much a renaissance here as a See also:mere beginning. No one can deny the See also:general unscientific, uncritical nature of " medieval " thought. A single See also:Roger See also:Bacon does not relieve his age of the See also:charge. But the middle age in science must include much of antiquity, including See also:Pliny. Philosophy was the one subject which had, clearly and definitely, a medieval period. See also:Scholasticism, which absorbed the See also:attention of most thinkers from about the 11th to about the 15th centuries, is so easily marked off and played so considerable a role in the See also:academic history of that See also:time, that historians often refer to it as the only intellectual See also:interest of " medieval " men. Then, selecting some of the later and less virile scholastics as victims, they ask how men could be seriously interested in their trivialities.

But these men were not all busy over the problem of how many angels could stand on a See also:

needle-point; nor were they all dominated by the religious spirit of faith or intellectual cowardice. They were searching for truth with scientific eagerness. Their very failure made possible the modern era. It is perhaps unnecessary to point out how small a proportion of the " intellectuals " were scholastics even in the 13th century. In the See also:realm of art the " middle ages " had already set in before See also:Constantine robbed the See also:arch of See also:Titus to decorate his own, and before those museums of antiquity, the temples, were plundered by Christian mobs. The victory of Christianity—iconoclastic in its primitive spirit—was but a single See also:chapter in the See also:story of decline. The process was completed by the misery of the decaying empire, and by the Germanic invasions. The barbarians, however, destroyed less than has been commonly supposed. Destruction was more the product of See also:necessity than of wantonness. Thus public monuments became fortresses, and antique See also:sculpture was built into See also:city walls. Such art as continued was almost wholly religious; for in the See also:wilderness of the times the churches formed oases of See also:comparative prosperity and peace, and, even in the darkest times, wherever such oases existed there the seeds of art took See also:root. The Church See also:architecture of the " middle ages," then developed naturally and without a break, through the See also:Byzantine and Romanesque styles, out of the See also:secular and religious architecture of See also:Greece and Rome.

And, with the return of comparatively settled and prosperous conditions, not only architecture but the other arts also blossomed under the See also:

influence of what was later stigmatized as the " See also:Gothic" spirit into new and See also:original forms. Down to the Reformation the churches continued to be, as the temples of the ancient world had been, the See also:main centres of the arts; yet the arts were not confined to them, but flourished wherever, as in castles or walled cities, the conditions essential to their development existed. With the revival of civilized conditions in secular life, secular ideals in art also revived; the ecclesiastical traditions in See also:painting and sculpture, which always tend to become stereo-typed, began in the West to be encroached upon long before the period of the " Renaissance." The 12th and 13th centuries, which witnessed the great struggle between the secular and spiritual See also:powers in the state, witnessed also the rise of a literature inspired by the lay spirit, and of an art which was already escaping from the thraldom of the stereotyped ecclesiastical forms. Gothic sculpture was not incidentally decorative, it was an essential See also:element in the See also:harmony of the architectural See also:design. The elongated See also:kings that guard the See also:door of See also:Chartres See also:Cathedral, or the portals with the Last See also:Judgment, are a necessary element in the See also:facade. Thus fettered, even the See also:realism of the Gothic sculptors failed, except in rare instances, of its full expression. The plastic arts were left for Italy, where antique See also:models were at hand, and the See also:glory of its achievement in the 15th and 16th centuries was so great as to obscure in men's eyes what had been done before. But this Italian renaissance was not the only one. It was but one of many; and it was concerned with the two subjects which perhaps least deeply influence the lives of the See also:mass of men —See also:literary See also:humanism and art. It is obviously absurd, in the See also:face of the foregoing facts, to regard it as the end of a middle age in anything but in its own See also:field. When one studies the history of Europe subject by subject, as indicated above, and not merely in a monastic See also:chronicle of things in general, chosen according to the author's point of view, one See also:sees the old-time framework passing away. The traditional See also:idea of a barren middle age and a single glorious renaissance proves false.

An organic study of the past reveals a more rational picture of the process which produced the Europe of to-day. See also:

Cataclysm and See also:special creation here as elsewhere give way to evolution. The new See also:synthesis reveals a universaldecline from the 5th to the See also:roth centuries, while the Germanic races were learning the rudiments of culture, a decline that was deepened by each succeeding See also:wave of See also:migration, each tribal war of See also:Franks or See also:Saxons, and reached its See also:climax in the disorders of the 9th and roth centuries when the half-formed civilization of Christendom was forced to face the migration of the Northmen by See also:sea, the raids of the Saracen upon the See also:south and the onslaught of Hungarians and Slays upon the See also:east. That was the dark age. It left Europe bristling with feudal castles, and already alert for the See also:march of progress. At once the march begins. Henry the See also:Fowler beats back the Slays and places the outposts of Christendom along the See also:Elbe and the See also:Oder. See also:Otto I., his son, drives the See also:Magyars from See also:southern Germany and establishes the East Mark (See also:Austria) to guard the upper See also:Danube. The_ restoration of the Empire in 962 marks the first milestone on the pathway of recovery. Already scholarship had found a See also:home in monasteries planted in the See also:heart of the German forests. The succeeding century brought the Empire to the See also:acme of its power, until Henry III. in the See also:Synod of See also:Sutri, sat in judgment on the impotent and demoralized papacy. Meanwhile France had been learning something even in its feudal anarchy.

The monks of See also:

Cluny were at work. The Capetians had begun. The great monastery of Bec was See also:drawing the sons of See also:northern sea-robbers to the service of that greatest-civilizing force, the Church. The progress made through even this darkest age may be measured by the difference between the See also:army of Rollo and that which William the Conqueror gathered for the invasion of England. There is a See also:legend, current among historians from the days of See also:Robertson and See also:Hallam, that as the See also:year r000 approached See also:man-See also:kind prepared for the Last Judgment; that the See also:earth "clothed itself with the See also:white See also:mantle of churches," and like a penitent watched in terror and in See also:prayer for the fatal dawn. Contemporary sources fail to See also:bear out this beautiful conception. Apart from the fact that reckoning from the See also:birth of See also:Christ was by no means universal, and consequently the mass of men were ignorant that there was such a thing as the year r000, one wonders how that most enduring type of architecture, the Romanesque, reached its maturity among men who thought that the earth itself was so soon to " shrivel like a parched See also:scroll." Recent scholarship has absolutely disproved this legend, founded on a few trite phrases in monastic chronicles, and still to be heard in similar contexts. • The year r000 marks no See also:epoch in medieval history. The latter half of the 11th century witnessed the most remark-able political creation in Europe since the days of See also:Caesar, the papal monarchy of Hildebrand. The great scholastic controversies had already begun in the See also:schools of France; the revival of Roman law had called forth the university of See also:Bologna, and the canonists had begun the codification of the law of the Church. The way was already cleared for the busy 12th century—the age of See also:Louis VI. and Henry II., of See also:Glanvill and See also:Suger, of See also:Abelard and See also:Maimonides, of See also:Frederick See also:Barbarossa and See also:Alexander III., of the emancipation of French communes and cities and the See also:independence of those of See also:Lombardy, of the growth of See also:gilds and the See also:extension of commerce, of See also:trouvere and See also:troubadour and the beginnings of See also:vernacular literature, of the creation of Gothic art, of trial by jury and the supremacy of royal See also:justice. Such are but a fraction of its achievements.

The 12th century stands beside the 18th as one of the greatest creative centuries in human history. The 13th like the rgth applied these creations in the transformation of society. The century of See also:

Dante was also that of the first See also:English parliament; its vast economic expansion enabled the national state to See also:triumph in both England and France, and furnished the grounds for the overthrow of Boniface VIII. Into the complex history of this momentous age it is impossible to go in any detail. Sufficient to say that in the opening See also:quarter of the 14th century England and France at least stood on the brink of " modern times." Then these two nations entered upon that long tragedy of the See also:Hundred Years' War, a calamity absolutely immeasurable to both. But during its massacres, jacqueries, plagues and famines, the cities of Italy, growing See also:rich with trade and manufactures, were in their turn the centres of progress, this time in a new direction, toward the recovery of the antique past and the development of art. This is the so-called Renaissance (q.v.). The humanists which it produced, interested only in its splendid revelations, forgot or ignored the achievements of the period which intervened between See also:Cicero and See also:Petrarch. Then by the See also:genius of their work they fastened their mistaken perspective upon historians and the cultured world at large. They struck upon the unfortunate and opprobrious term " middle ages " for that which stood between them and their classic ideals. The term was first used in this sense by Flavio Biondo, whose " decades " was an See also:attempt to See also:block out the See also:annals of history from 410 to 1410. His treatment See also:fell in admirably with the ideas of his age and of that following.

To Protestants the age of the papal monarchy was like the reign of See also:

Anti-Christ. Then, after the indifference of humanists and Protestant polemic, came the disgust of men of science at the scholastic philosophy—an attitude best exhibited in Bacon's See also:Advancement of Learning. The ,8th century was thus trebly barred from a knowledge of genuine medieval history. Romanticism, that reaction in which See also:Sir See also:Walter See also:Scott, the Schlegels and See also:Victor See also:Hugo so largely figured, was as far from understanding what it admired as classicism had been from what it hated. Its extravagant praise of all that savoured of the middle ages was still See also:blind to their real progress and work. They were, for it, the ages of See also:romance and chivalry. The view of the romanticists was as one-sided as any that had gone before. It is only with the introduction of a wider outlook in the scientific study of history that it has been possible to straighten the perspective and modify the traditional See also:scheme. In the purely intellectual See also:sphere it is certainly true that the recovery of the antique world was of great importance; that it made possible genuine See also:criticism by presenting new points of contrast and opening up See also:fields that led away from theological quibbles. But it did not mean the " See also:double discovery of the See also:outer and inner world." Mankind did not, as See also:Burckhardt and J. A. See also:Symonds See also:lead one to imagine, suddenly throw off a See also:cowl that has blinded the eyes for a thousand years to the beauty of the world around, and awaken all at once to the mere joy of living.

If any one was ever awake to the joys of living it was the minnesinger, troubadour or See also:

goliard, and the world had to wait until See also:Rousseau and See also:Burns before its See also:external beauty was discovered, or at least deeply appreciated, by any but a few Dutch artists. Even See also:Goethe crossed the See also:Alps with his See also:carriage shutters closed. Mont See also:Blanc is not mentioned by travellers until after the middle of the 18th century. The discovery of the outer world is a recent thing in art as well as in science. As for the claim that the " Renaissance " delivered men from that blind reliance upon authority which was typical of " medieval " thought, that is a See also:fallacy cherished by those who themselves rely upon the authority of historians, blind to the most See also:ordinary processes of thought. In this regard, indeed, in spite of the advance of scientific method and the See also:wealth of material upon which to See also:base criticism, we are still for the most part in the middle ages. The respect for anything in books, the See also:dogma of journalistic inerrancy which still See also:numbers its devotees by millions, the common See also:acceptance of even scientific conceptions upon the dicta of a small See also:group of investigators, these are but a few of the signs of the persistence of what is surely not a medieval but a universal trait. The so-called Renaissance did much; but it did not do the things attributed to it by those who see the " middle ages " through humanist glasses. Upon the whole, therefore, it would seem that not only was there no one middle age common to all branches of human evolution, except the period more definitely marked as the dark age, but that those characteristics which are generally regarded as " medieval " were by no means limited to a single epoch of European history. In See also:short, the dark age was a reality; but the traditional " middle ages " are a myth. (J. T.

End of Article: MIDDLE AGES, THE

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