Middle Ages (Meaning and Explanation)

We explain what the Middle Ages was, its stages, art, literature and other characteristics. Also, what was feudalism.

The Middle Ages was a period of wars, epidemics and new political forms.

What was the Middle Ages?

The Middle Ages, Middle Ages or Middle Ages was the period in the history of Europe (and especially Western Europe) that It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and ended with the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453 or with the European discovery of America in 1492.

Its thousand years of duration were characterized by a certain political fragmentation and by the predominance of the Catholic Church, which governed culture, set limits on the development of philosophy and science, and exercised strict surveillance and religious persecution. For this reason, this stage It was often characterized as a time of religious obscurantism or “Dark Ages.” although today it is known that it produced important technical innovations and allowed the emergence of relevant artistic styles.

The Middle Ages received its name because it was considered an intermediate stage between the Ancient Age and the Modern Age. During this period, the company It was organized mainly according to a feudal order, essentially rural or peasant. However, it also experienced a resurgence of cities starting in the 11th century and the birth of a new social class: the bourgeoisie.

Medieval life was far from being static and uniform. It was the scene of numerous human displacements, epidemics (such as the Black Death), wars and new political forms including the formation and expansion of empires beyond the borders of Western Europe, such as the Muslim empires or the Byzantine Empire. This gave rise to conflicts and conquests, such as the Muslim invasion of the Iberian Peninsula, the Crusades and the Spanish Reconquista.

The term Middle Ages, as a historical period, cannot be applied to all civilizations in the world. It was a specifically European stage, with different characteristics from what was happening at that same time in regions such as China, India, Japan or Arab culture.

The consideration that the history of Europe is the history of the world is a Eurocentric historical criterion. In any case, the term “medieval” is sometimes used to also refer to the history of some non-Western societies, such as medieval India or the medieval Islamic world.

Key points

The Middle Ages was a period in European history that fell between the Ancient Age and the Modern Age.
It began after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and ended with the capture of Constantinople by the Ottomans in 1453.
It was characterized by the cultural and ideological predominance of the Catholic Church, by the feudal system and by vassalage relations.
Medieval society was essentially rural and was made up of the nobility, the clergy and the peasantry, although it also gave rise to the urban bourgeoisie.

Characteristics of the Middle Ages

The Middle Ages It was a time of political fragmentation in Western Europe characterized by the existence of Christian kingdoms in which some feudal lords had more power than the monarch himself. Furthermore, political authority depended on the legitimation of the Catholic Church, represented by the pope.

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Was a time of wars and conquests motivated by political and religious reasons such as the Muslim invasion of the Iberian Peninsula, the Crusades in the Holy Land and the Spanish Reconquista. Castles and knights became literary motifs, although imaginary aspects such as magic and fantastic species (elves, orcs, goblins, dragons) were added.

These supernatural beings were part of the current imagination at the time, in which local traditions and beliefs confronted or combined with the dominant Christian religion. In general, in the Middle Ages faith (guarded by the Church) prevailed over reason although there were important medieval philosophers, both Christians, Muslims and Jews.

It was an extensive period, of deep but slow transformations. For example, the slavery characteristic of classical antiquity was replaced by the feudal mode of production and the initial process of ruralization was followed in the middle of the Middle Ages by a recovery of urban life that led to the birth of a new social class: the bourgeoisie.

In the Middle Ages, epidemics, military invasions and superstition abounded. It was also the time when Universities were born, trade began to expand and some important innovations were developed techniques and technologies for practical purposes (for agriculture, navigation and war).

Feudalism of the Middle Ages

Feudal society was made up of the nobility, the clergy and the peasantry.

Medieval society was mainly rural. Three large classes were distinguished:

The nobility. It was a military aristocracy made up of landowners who politically, economically and legally administered their territories.
The clergy. It was the group of clerics of the Catholic Church, who also administered lands and also exercised religious, moral and legal authority in the Christian kingdoms. Incorporation into the clergy was often the only means of social advancement for the impoverished classes, since belonging to the nobility was determined from birth.
Peasants and other workers. They were free peasants who paid tribute and serfs attached to the land of a feudal lord, to whom they had to pay rent and other benefits. The artisans and merchants who worked in the cities also belonged to this class, although they remained outside the feudal order.

Feudalism was a system of mutual obligations by which a feudal lord who owned land granted some of it to a vassal to whom he also offered protection, in exchange for various considerations (payments, military services and a commitment of fidelity). In some regions, feudal lords concentrated more power than the king himself.

Feudalism found its limit with the rise of the bourgeoisie. It was a new urban social class that was dedicated to business and commerce and that was consolidating itself as a political and economic power detached from the nobility and the clergy. The rise of this new class fueled the changes that led to the Renaissance and the Modern Age.

Stages of the Middle Ages

The Middle Ages are commonly divided into three stages:

Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries). It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the progressive abandonment of many cities. Christianity was consolidated in Europe and expanded to other territories, while Jerusalem passed into Muslim hands in the context of the Arab conquests of the 7th century. It ended with the beginning of feudal institutions, the entrenchment of the Macedonian dynasty in the Byzantine Empire, and the decline of the Abbasid caliphate in the Near East and North Africa.
Middle Ages (11th to 13th centuries). It was the truly feudal stage of the Middle Ages, characterized by the ties of vassalage and the growth of the population and the economy. It was also the time when the Crusades were carried out (1096-1291) and when Muslim rule expanded in the Iberian Peninsula and other regions. Furthermore, in this stage the cities regained their importance and a new social class emerged, the urban bourgeoisie, which promoted commerce and some changes favorable to the emergence of capitalism.
Late Middle Ages (14th to 15th centuries). It was the period in which the crisis of the 14th century occurred, which caused the destabilization of medieval society as a result of prolonged war conflicts and a series of famines and epidemics. The largest epidemic was the Black Death (1347-1352), which killed millions of people in Europe and reduced its population by almost half. Furthermore, it was the stage of the growth of the bourgeoisie and the emergence of modern values that put scholasticism (the main philosophical current of the Church) in crisis. This was the final stretch of the Middle Ages that led to the beginning of the Modern Age.

Literature of the Middle Ages

Medieval literature is well known, especially for the cycles of chivalry, such as the Arthurian and Carolingian which told the legendary adventures of Christian knights in a world full of magic and mysteries. These stories and songs usually contained Christian symbols and metaphors.

Art of the Middle Ages

middle ages art — Medieval art illustrated biblical stories and affirmed the power of the Church.

Medieval art emerged at a time in history when there was no notion of art as an end in itself nor the concept of fine arts, but was part of the mechanical arts, linked to crafts, and had religious and political objectives.

Thus, medieval art had a clear function, which could be:

Serve as an offering to God.
Serve as pedagogical accompaniment for knowledge of biblical stories and Christian rites and beliefs.
Serve as an assertion of power of the Church (religious scenes) and political power (portraits of kings and nobles).

In many cases, medieval art was influenced by other cultures, as was the case with Byzantine art (influenced by both Greco-Roman culture and Eastern artistic styles) and Mozarabic art (which combined Christian and Muslim aesthetic elements). In this period great works of painting, sculpture, architecture and music were composed. The predominant styles of the Middle Ages were pre-Romanesque, Romanesque and Gothic.

Philosophy of the Middle Ages

Medieval philosophy encompassed various reflections that sometimes attempted to combine the traditions of classical antiquity with the Christian faith. Christian philosophy was also influenced by Jewish and Islamic philosophies. One of the disciplines that used philosophical methods in the Middle Ages was theology, which dealt with the nature of God through the study of religious texts.

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Due to the Christian predominance in medieval culture, most of the Fundamental authors of Antiquity, such as Plato or Aristotle, were subjected to various forms of censorship with the intention of prohibiting what were considered “pagan” influences. However, many works of these thinkers continued to be studied in scholarly environments (such as universities) and others survived through Muslim translations, whose intellectuals were also in charge of commenting on them (such as Ibn Rushd, also known as Averroes).

These translations allowed the re-entry of Aristotle into Christian Europe, whose work from the 12th century influenced thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas (main representative of scholasticism), Ramón Llull, John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham, while other previous intellectuals, such as Augustine of Hippo or John Scotus Erigena, were of Platonic affiliation.

The central themes of medieval philosophy had to do with faith, reason, nature and existence divine, the problem of evil, human free will and other matters that concerned the relationship between the divine and earthly worlds. The modern ideas of science, empirical knowledge and experiment did not exist as such in the medieval mentality, although thinkers such as William of Ockham early highlighted the importance of empirical observation and alchemists were direct precursors of chemistry.

Church of the Middle Ages

One of the most characteristic features of the Middle Ages was the omnipresence of the Catholic Church, whose interventions in politics and culture were constant. The medieval Christian kingdoms had theocratic aspects, since The Church crowned kings and consecrated them as emissaries of God on Earth. The highest authority of the Church was the pope.

The Church He controlled the books and official knowledge and exercised judicial functions since the laws by which society was governed were mainly religious, although there were also secular codes imposed by feudal lords or monarchs in their respective domains. Ecclesiastical authorities could even prosecute kings and nobles, since God's law was considered above that of human beings.

The Inquisition was one of the main institutions of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. Its representatives acted as emissaries of ecclesiastical power and subjected people accused of heresy, witchcraft, demonic pacts or paganism to investigations and judicial processes.

These processes could involve anyone accused by their enemies, intellectuals or scientists engaged in research that challenged Christian dogma, or women accused of witchcraft, although the latter was more characteristic of the Modern Age. The methods of the Inquisition included humiliation, torture, prison sentences and executions.

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References

Britannica, Encyclopaedia (2022). Middle Ages. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/
García de Cortázar, JA & Sesma Muñoz, JA (2008). Medieval History Manual. Alliance.
Hunt, L. et al. (2016). The Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures. 5th edition. Bedford/St. Martin's.
LeGoff, J. (1999). The civilization of the medieval West. Paidós