The Middle Ages: A Brief Introduction

I. Terminology and Scholarship

simply the middle time between ancient times and modern times.

A. Past Historiography

often classified easily and dismissed.

B. Eminent Medievalists


Dana C. Munro: Marc Bloch; Henri Pirenne; Eileen Power; Johan Huizinga;
H. O. Taylor; Caroline Walker Bynum



II. Periodization and the Fall of Rome


A. A Cataclysm


B. The Pirenne Thesis

Militant Islam, is what probably caused the fall of Rome and the Middle ages.

III. Leading Characteristics of the Middle Ages


A. Rural

no currency from 800s to 1100s.

B. Precarious

Germanic Tribes, Islam in control of the Mediterranean. Vikings of the 11th century, the ferocity of the Northmen. Savage forms of trial and justice. Death was a theme. Then the black plague- a quarter of Europe was lost (14th century).

C. Hierarchical

feudalism, a local way of ordering society. Ordered by landowners and warriors (knights). An oath of fielty (of fidelity) from peasants to knights to duke-king to possibly emperor. Social lines are vertical, not horizontal.

Those who prayed, those who fought, and those who labored.

D. Static

basically no notable progression in society.

E. Credulous

Nearly anything could be believed.