The Middle Ages: Western Europe from 500-1500 AD

Changes are an important part of history, and a natural part of life. In the case of geography throughout history, the world has made many changes to its borders and who has grievances with one another. From the High Middle Ages of olden Europe, to the twentieth century, change has occurred. These changes have unified and broken ties between countries and regions time and time again throughout history. There are many forces that push toward and against unity throughout time. The world map became what is today because of both unity and division marking change in the past.

In the 1300's an Italian scholar named Petrarch came up with the name "Dark Age" to describe the time Europe was going through during the Middle Ages in 500AD-1500AD. Throughout the Middle Ages Europe was going through some rough times, but there were also moments of growth. For example the Black Death was a time of darkness but there were positive times like when universities were built. Although the dark ages were looked at as a negative occurrence, more events show a sign of growth.

As Europe left the Medieval Era and entered the Renaissance, its political system changed in major ways. All political power was essentially ruined by the Huns and the beginnings of Western Countries being divided into countries started. “Europe was ruled by a new aristocracy: the noble” (Manchester 41). Men would acquire a following and then make a claim to land, the greater the following the more land was earned. These land claims were bound together to unify the Modern countries of Western Countries, the same boundaries today are common, such as England, France, and Spain. Most of these men thanked the divine power and were extremely loyal to the church. “By A.D. 1500 most of these sovereign dynasties were in place” (Manchester 55). One leader ruled over all of these countries known as a monarchy. Monarchs would have complete control over the lives of the people and in turn their people would service them first and their

After the fall of the Roman Empire, Europe entered a period of chaos and disarray known as the Dark Ages. For the duration of the Dark Ages, peasants were desperate for protection while rich landowners were desperate for workers. Thus, a system known as feudalism, in which lords protected peasants in exchange for labor, developed. Under the feudal lifestyle, trade slowed to almost a complete stop due to self sufficiency on manors. Education and almost all greco-roman culture disappeared. When Pope Urban II was urgently called to help the Byzantine Emperor, he stepped up in order to conquer the Holy Land of Jerusalem from Muslims. However, while the crusades ultimately failed and lead to religious intolerance, they ended the Dark Ages

Impressed by the riches they found, they returned home to show the treasures that they had discovered. As a result, trade resumed and interregional trade networks were created to retrieve these goods. As a result of trade resuming, the manorial system began to collapse. The reason for this was the increase of merchants and increase trade in cities lead to

Looking first at the political changes that took place across Europe we can break it down into four key areas, the first of which is England. England had “suffered more from Viking invasions than any other part of Europe and eventually fell under Viking rule with Viking Canute (McKay 254). Until Canute passed away and William of Normandy claimed the throne, the English kings had little power outside of calling for war. After William of Normandy took control of the throne, he “limited the power of the nobles and church officials, and built a unified monarchy” to help centralize England (McKay 255). Along with this he created laws, including a centralized tax system, and took control of the judicial system. This centralizing of England continued with William’s successors. In 1215, King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta which limited the power of the king and later became the basis for Parliament. The next area is France, which was known as the most powerful kingdom within Europe, but the kings themselves lacked power. Again this changed once it fell under a new ruler, Philip II. Philip II began waging war and expanding their territory starting with Normandy. Along with this,

During the High Middle Ages, there was no strong, central government that was politically organized enough to meet common needs of the people in Europe. After the fall of Charlemagne’s empire, invasions and anarchy became the societal norm. If they wanted to survive, they had to meet particular needs. The people of the High Middle Ages met their needs of political organization, economic provision, and social aspects through Feudalism, Manorialism, and through the Church.

In the period 1450 through 1800, the ottoman in Spanish Empire is both applied politics, social aspects, and economics in the process of creating their empires. Despite being two different empires, they share many similarities as well as many differences.

The Christian religions rise to supremacy in the middle ages was the result of several factors. Christians had long been persecuted by the Roman Empire because the Romans felt that Christianity challenged and offended the Greco-Roman Gods and the Christians were prone to revolt against Roman rule. Christianity survived because it had many teachings that appealed to the downtrodden in Roman society, these teachings being that even though they were suffering they would gain equality and possibly superiority in the next life, Christianity gave them hope.

The late Middle ages was definitely a troubled time for citizens around Europe. From the 14th Century to the 15th Century, humans were raveled by famines, disruption of socio economics, and lost of faith in the Catholic Church. To the eyes of many at the time, this era was looked at as a major decline of life. With the many deaths, poor condition for poor people, and the schism of the Church, it may seem easy to call this era a decline. Although upon closer looking, this era is more of a transitional period into the next period than a decline due to many reasons. Whether you look at religious, social movements, or economically, the late Middle Ages helped transition Europe into what it has become.

Charlemagne(Charles the great) king of Frank was a great “warrior king”, he controlled the former European core of Western Roman empire, northern Italy and all Gaul and had absorbed its German and North sea periphery. Later in 814 charles died and the crown was passed to his sole heir, Louis the Pious. After Charles death Western Europe began its downfall from a once great united europe to a dozens of little states fighting each other. and this paper will show how an empire of such magnitude and influence could fracture into petty warring states and be powerless against seemingly weak exterior threats. It will also talk about the conflict between Louise 's son’s. Throught the down fall this paper will talk about the attacks the kingdom faced during the decline from the vikings.

A set point in the historical time line stands as the medieval period. The medieval period in history was the era in European history – from around the 5th to the 15th century, coming after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and preceding the start of the early modern era. This historical time period has been long since been the victim of film directors and romantic novelists, which has lead to the common, but false, idea of the medieval period consisting of knights and damsels in distress, wizards and dragons, and castles and battles. Although mainly wrong in most parts and being highly historically inaccurate – some aspects of the dramatic works do play true to the original time period.

Western civilization can be traced back to the Western Mediterranean and Western Europe. It has been linked by many Historians to the Roman Empire, as well as with Medieval Western Christendom which came out of the Middle Ages in order to experience transformative ideas such as the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment. On the surface it may seem that there are abundant reasons to why Western Civilization was able to develop and grow during the Middle Ages. But ultimately it comes down to three main reasons Western Civilization in the Middle Ages was able to grow so rapidly. With all of this said, In order to truly understand how Western European Civilization was able to flourish and grow during the Middle Ages, one must look at the role of the Church during these times, how war and conflict shaped territories, and how disease and famine changed the world. First, during the Medieval Ages the Catholic Church was able to rise to one of the most powerful institutions in Europe. Second, wars such as the Crusades where the Catholic Church began to start military expeditions, otherwise known as Crusades, to kick Muslims out from what they considered the Holy Land. Finally, diseases such as the Black Death changed the way people during the Western Civilization acted and felt.

Europe during the 16th century went through many changes. Due to the Renaissance and Humanism, Europe would see a great change in its structure, thus throwing itself into an age of creative individualism. The Renaissance infused Humanism into government and gave every man a right to his own will and future. This century also saw growth in the form of new lands, reformed government, and technological advances such as the printing press, which could not have arrived at a more perfect time. Europe was more literate and eager to learn than ever before, which can be credited to the Renaissance, and rapid growth of university. The mid 1500s also marked the beginning of the Scientific Revolution. All of these things considered, the Protestant Reformation may have been the most revolutionary event for Europe in the 16th century. It changed the way humans think about the Catholic Church and its politics. The importance of this reformation could not have been better stated than by Steven Kris in his lecture on the Protestant Reformation:

When one thinks of the word medieval, there appear to be almost an instantaneous reaction. Some may see the period associated with the gothic architecture, Crusades, brutalism, death, the Black Plague, illiteracy, or the Dark Ages. Others may interpret the period as one full of valiant knights, princesses waiting to be saved, jousting, castles, and noble kings and queens. From video games such as The Legend of Zelda and the popular HBO television series A Game of Thrones, to accounts of medieval torture or treatment in the newspapers, the Middle Ages seems to be more relevant than ever. However, it can be argued that much about what we know about the real Middle Ages was constructed in the nineteenth century due to a comparative lack of records and the imaginative portrayal of the period by the Victorians. Due to the tumultuous period that was the Industrial Revolution, many social critics and artists turned back to the Middle Ages in order to reflect their anxieties of the present and the hopes and expectations of the future. I began to note that the medievalist movement was built upon medieval studies through a desire to create, rather than retrieve the past, which in turn lead to academic debates about authenticity and furthered the tension between the two fields leading to an almost insurmountable break. Those in medieval studies look towards medievalism as a misguided attempt to contemplate history which in turn changed the public’s understanding towards the era away