Eras
The Post-Classical and Medieval Period
Also Known As The Middle Ages
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The post classical, or medieval, period runs conventionally from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 CE to the fall of Constantinople in 1453 CE, roughly a thousand years in which the political map of Eurasia was reshaped by the successor kingdoms of western Rome, the Byzantine Empire in the east, the rise and rapid expansion of Islam, and, in the century after 1200, the Mongol conquests that briefly linked much of Asia and eastern Europe under one family's rule. In western Europe the period saw the gradual formation of new kingdoms out of former Roman provinces, the spread of Christianity as the organizing framework of political and intellectual life, the rise of feudalism as a way of organizing land and military obligation, and, from around 1000 CE onward, a slow revival of towns, trade and learning often called the High Middle Ages. Historians increasingly avoid treating the period as a uniform dark age between two golden ages of antiquity and the Renaissance, since it includes the flourishing of Byzantine and Islamic civilization, major intellectual and architectural achievements across Eurasia, and deep, productive contact between Christian, Islamic and other societies through trade, translation and, at times, conflict.
Facts
Disputed
Start Year476 CE, the conventional end of the Western Roman Empire, is the most common starting point, but some historians prefer 500 CE as a round marker, and the transition itself is regional and gradual rather than a single dated boundary. End Year1453, the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, is the traditional endpoint, but some historians prefer 1492, Columbus's first Atlantic voyage, or 1500 as a round marker for the beginning of the early modern period. There is no single agreed transition. Geographic ScopePrimarily a European periodization; the term medieval, meaning the middle age, was coined from a European vantage point to describe the centuries between antiquity and the Renaissance. The era's span also covers the rise and rapid expansion of Islam, the Byzantine Empire, and the Mongol conquests across much of Asia, but East Asian, South Asian and pre-Columbian American history are conventionally periodized on entirely different terms for these same centuries, organized around their own dynastic and civilizational sequences rather than this era's boundary events. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Includes
Reigned 1272 to 1307, within the Post-Classical and Medieval Period (476 to 1453).
Reigned 1307 to 1327, within the Post-Classical and Medieval Period (476 to 1453).
Reigned 1327 to 1377, within the Post-Classical and Medieval Period (476 to 1453).
Reigned 1154 to 1189, within the Post-Classical and Medieval Period (476 to 1453).
Founded 1397, within the Post-Classical and Medieval Period (476 to 1453).
Why this is disputed. The Abbasid Caliphate's classical and Golden Age centuries fall within the conventional post-classical and medieval period, though its own internal periodization (rise, Golden Age, decline) does not map neatly onto European medieval boundaries.
The majority of its 962 to 1806 span (844 years) falls within the Post-Classical and Medieval Period (476 to 1453); the remainder falls across the Early Modern and Late Modern Periods.
The full 1337 to 1453 span falls entirely within the Post-Classical and Medieval Period (476 to 1453), ending in the same year the era itself is conventionally closed.
The majority of its 927 to 1707 span falls within the Post-Classical and Medieval Period (476 to 1453); the remainder falls within the Early Modern Period.
The majority of its 987 to 1789 span (802 years) falls within the Post-Classical and Medieval Period (476 to 1453); the remainder falls within the Early Modern Period.
Linked here for the Classic and Postclassic floruit, roughly 250 to 1500 CE. Maya civilization's own chronology does not map neatly onto an Old World periodization, and its Preclassic origins reach back over a thousand years earlier.
Founded 1348, within the Post-Classical and Medieval Period (476 to 1453); the order has continued in active use into the present day.
Held Differently
Late Antiquity, Eras Why this is disputed. Late Antiquity offers a rival periodization of the same centuries rather than accepting a sharp 476 CE break into the medieval period.
Related To
Sources
1. The Cambridge Medieval History
Cambridge University Press
1. The Cambridge Medieval History
Cambridge University PressVols. I-VIII
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.Middle Ages
Medici Family and Bank (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
Encyclopaedia Britannica Editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.Includes: Medici Bank
Magna Carta (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
Includes: Magna Carta
Hanseatic League (World History Encyclopedia)
First Barons' War (Britannica)
Includes: The First Barons' War
John, King of England (Britannica)
Includes: King John of England
Wikipedia
WikipediaIncludes: The High Middle Ages, High Middle Ages, in relation to the medieval periodQuote, Includes: The High Middle Ages, High Middle Ages, in relation to the medieval period
the period of European history between c. 1000 and c. 1300.
Wikipedia
WikipediaRelated To: Late Antiquity, Late antiquity, Chronological range, vs Post-Classical PeriodQuote, Related To: Late Antiquity, Late antiquity, Chronological range, vs Post-Classical Period
Late antiquity is a period of Eurasian, Mediterranean, and Near Eastern history conventionally placed between the third and seventh centuries CE.
Wikipedia
WikipediaIncludes: Knights Templar, Knights Templar, era placementQuote, Includes: Knights Templar, Knights Templar, era placement
In 1119, the French knight Hugues de Payens proposed creating a monastic Catholic religious order.
Wikipedia
WikipediaIncludes: Knights Hospitaller, Knights Hospitaller, era placementQuote, Includes: Knights Hospitaller, Knights Hospitaller, era placement
The monastic Hospitaller Order was formally created when the Pope issued the papal bull Pie postulatio voluntatis on 15 February 1113.
Wikipedia
WikipediaIncludes: Teutonic Order, Teutonic Order, era placementQuote, Includes: Teutonic Order, Teutonic Order, era placement
founded as a military society c. 1190 in Acre.
Wikipedia
WikipediaRelated To: The Migration Period, Migration Period, relation to the medieval periodQuote, Related To: The Migration Period, Migration Period, relation to the medieval period
The Migration Period (c. 300 to 600 AD).
Dissenting Readings (2 dissenting readings)
End Year
Jacques Le Goff's Must We Divide History Into Periods? (2015) argues against 1453 as a meaningful close to the medieval period. Le Goff holds that Western Europe underwent a long Middle Ages running from late antiquity to roughly the mid eighteenth century, and that many innovations credited to the Renaissance, in law, learning, commerce and urban life, have genuinely medieval roots, while much of medieval society persisted unchanged well past the fall of Constantinople. On this reading, a political event in the eastern Mediterranean is too narrow a marker for a transformation that, in most of Western Europe, had not yet happened.
A dissenting reading, from Jacques Le Goff and the long Middle Ages thesisJacques Le Goff, Must We Divide History Into Periods? (Le Goff, 2015), Columbia University Press, 2015
Start Year
Peter Brown's 1971 study The World of Late Antiquity reframed the centuries traditionally read as Rome's decline and fall as a period of dynamic cultural and religious innovation in its own right, arguing against treating 476 CE as a sharp break between a classical golden age and a medieval dark age.
A dissenting reading, from an independent laneWikipedia, Wikipedia
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