Essay on Review: Making of the Middle Ages

The Middle ages came after the fall of Rome, no single state or government united the people who lived on the European continent. Instead, the Catholic Church became the most powerful institution of the medieval period. Kings, queens and other leaders derived much of their power from their alliances with and protection of the Church. There were many different events that occurred during the middle ages that gave this time periods all of the different titles. The impacts on the middle ages were feudalism, dark ages, and most importantly faith.

Imagine having to bury your own children. How awful would that be? The Middle Ages were a brutal time that included the bubonic plague, many wars and other horrible things. This period is considered to be one of religion and the Catholic Church, but this was overshadowed by chaos and confusion. Although the Middle Ages is often known as the age of faith, a more appropriate title for the time period would be The Dark Ages because of the black death, wars and the collapse of government.

Some refer to the Middle Ages as the “Dark Ages”. I could not find this more wrong. I think that even though documentation of this area is void, doesn’t automatically mean that it was void of advancements too. Today, I will use three documents: a picture of Joan of Arc, a map of the major trade routes of Afroeurasia, and an excerpt from the Magna Carta. With these I will prove that the Middle Ages were not just a Dark Age in history.

The Middle Ages in Europe mark a roughly thousand year period of time, often thought as a dead period. However, it is far from that. The Middle Ages is rather a Golden Age because it made many advancements, withstood harsh conditions, and transmitted older civilizations’ ideas. This can be seen through both harsh documents and flourished documents.

In the year 476 A.D., Rome officially fell as the greatest and most thriving empire at the time. The time period following this downfall was called the Middle Ages, more infamously recalled as the Dark Ages; but were these years truly as dark as historians say? These medieval times lasted for approximately one thousand years, could such a long time period have been all that dreadful? The answer will soon become clear. The Middle Ages deserved to have the alias of the Dark Ages because there were several severe illnesses, the monarchs were cruel, and the crusades brought the death of many.

Entering the High Middle Ages, Western Europe had figured out most of its inner power struggles and the beginnings of nation-states had emerged. The dust had settled, relatively speaking, for a society that was built around a ruling warrior-class. Monarchies in England, France, and the Holy Roman Empire ruled with absolute and in some cases divine authority, and the encroachment of the Moors in Spain had reached a standstill. In these comparatively calm times, Western European men were free to turn their attention to the development of culture and the cultivation of knowledge. Old Roman and Greek histories were dragged out of

The time before the traditional Renaissance has long been described as a period of stagnation, violence and irrationality. Yet, as more information emerges about this time period, we find that it is not so. While the time before the first millennium was arguably adequately termed the Dark Ages, the 12th century marked a great period of improvement in thought, architecture, literature and many other facets of society. In order for the Renaissance of the 12th century to occur, problems that persisted through the Dark Ages had to be resolved to promote all of these growths. These problems include decentralization of government, lack of a stable food supply and numerous invasions.

Before the Fall of the Roman Empire, in 5th century CE, Europe commanded a high degree of culture and intellectual influence. It was the Frank, King Charlemagne, crowned Roman Emperor on Christmas Day 800, who united people under the Christian church and ushered in a new order of rule, feudalism, during the Low Middle Ages (Markham, 2010, The Revolution, Napoléon, and Education). Feudalism made it difficult for anyone to rise above one’s original station. In other words, the poor remained poor. Markham also said that King Charlemagne brought back “formal learning”. Even though only the very wealthy were allowed religious schooling, by the 11th century, elite church schools were built throughout the empire. In the 13th century the University

Called red because of his red hair and beard and because of his fiery temper

The Middle Ages is the period in European history from the collapse of the Roman empire in the fifth century to the period of the Renaissance in the fifteenth century. The medieval life may, at first, appear to be bleak, harsh, and dreary. But in actuality, it was a time of Kings, immense battles, disease and religious influence. From the devastation of the Bubonic Plague, briefly alluded to in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, to the legendary king and war-hero Arthur of Camelot. The Christian Church was the single most influential institution in society, with the pope taking on a role as the leader of European Christendom and education and intellectual life mostly happening through religious institutions. Through the analysis of compositions written during the Middle Ages, it is observable that significant events influenced the pages of these notable works such as Canterbury Tales, Carmina Burana, and The Book of Taliesin.

There are many factors that led to the end of the medieval period and brought about the emergence of the Renaissance period, otherwise known as, “the age of rebirth.” Some of these factors would have a devastating impact on Europe, which we can still see to this very day. During the Medieval period, the feudal aristocracy and the Catholic Church emerged as the dominant political forces and were instrumental in imposing social and economic order on the people. Peasants were organized within the manorial system as serfs; the guild system dominated economic life and imposed its own wage, price, and production controls in the system. In religious life, the church reached its height of power and influence, not only the spiritual, but also the secular life of Europe. Europeans were feeling bold to launch an expansion of Western Christendom and sometime between the 11th and 13th centuries, this took place in the form of the Crusades in the Baltic border lands. However, the 14th century would be an era of multiple crises that would weaken and even destroy many of the medieval institutions of Europe that seemed the most durable, and in their place, pave the way for the development of modern Europe which we all see today. During the 11th and 13th centuries, Europe, organized strict feudal lines, finally experiencing the social and political organization necessary for successful agriculture and sufficient crop production. Since much of Europe had been forest and unsettled land after

Social scientist, Norbert Elias, examines in part two of his book, The Civilizing Process, the development of manners and the subsequent ‘civilizing' of Western Europe since the middle ages. This journey in time is an attempt to understand what actually happened to humanity during several transitional periods. Elias perceives the development of western civilization in three historical stages. (From the middle ages with a progression to the renaissance (extended to 1750) and finally to modern day society) Each society of the three stages had it's own standards of behavior, which influenced the individual to act in a certain "accepted" way. A correlation was also found between the

There are many terms used to describe the period after the fall of Rome and before the Renaissance, three main terms being the Middle, Medieval, and Dark Ages. In general, these terms are used interchangeably, but are these fair substitutions? In recent years the term “Dark Ages” is becoming less and less acceptable as a phrase which describes the span of years it is meant to refer to. The use of the term “dark” implies a period of stagnation, which is becoming a questionable concept. In particular, the span of time referred to in this paper is 530-1452 BCE, with specific attention paid to the scientific discoveries and innovations rather than art or literature. These dates are significant because in 529 the Academy and Lyceum in Athens

Over the course of various historical eras, people have examined and analyzed certain periods that have given significant influence to our modern world. In Europe, the fifth century to the fifteenth century is known as the Middle Ages and to this day is questioned whether to refer it as a dark time or not. Many may say these ages were dark due to barbarian invasions that eventually led to the fall of the Roman Empire. On the other hand what those individuals lacked to take notice of was the significant contribution the Middle Ages brought into Western civilization. Education, philosophy, literature and humanism are prominent factors that have become a part of the sum of progress during this time. Scholars like John of Salisbury are known for their influence and contributions towards the development of human knowledge throughout the Middle Ages.

Dante 's Inferno is a nearly impeccable representation of the intellectualism found in the High Middle Ages. Dante also gives us much needed insight into the politics of this era. To legitimize this poem, it was necessary to convey the emphasis of classical antiquity so prevalent during the Middle Ages. The Comedia provided this flawlessly. However, we must not gloss over the crux of this emphasis; the learning and belief systems that ruled the age. Scholasticism is a method of learning preeminent during this time which focused on complementing classical antiquity and theology by way of deductive reasoning, an Aristotelian concept. Coexistent with scholasticism was a belief that