# Which events bookended the Middle Ages? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 8, 2015, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-bookended-the-middle-ages/712096 "2015-02-08T04:23:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2015, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-bookended-the-middle-ages/712096/41 "2015-02-10T14:19:35Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > T The crowning of Charlemagne (800) seems like an event of the Middle Ages, as opposed to something that started it off. I wouldn’t want to peg that late a date. Well the Triumph of Belisarius (534 AD) does not feel like a Middle Age event. Nor do the Rome-Persian Wars which lasted another century after that. Even the “fall of Rome” in 476 AD meant sweet fuck all, the capital was in Ravenna and the Romans would infact regain Rome the following century and hold onto it for longer than the US has been a country. OTH, 698 (or 718) are very direct. The fall of N Africa meant that it was separated from the European World of which it has been a part and converted the Romans into what was essentially a Greek Empire. The discovery of America, made a paradigm shift. It converted countries on the periphery of the world (England, Spain, France) into world powers. ---
**Author:** ![Kinthalis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kinthalis/32/16084_2.png) [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2015, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-bookended-the-middle-ages/712096/42 "2015-02-10T16:20:07Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > 476 for the end of antiquity, 1492 for the end of the Middle Ages. I can live with these cutoffs. > > I’m not ready to scrap the idea of the Dark Ages, though. They’re the period after (Western) Rome fell, but before France, Germany and England began to take shape. I’d say they were the part of the Middle Ages before Christendom and Islam were vying for control of the landscape. But do we date that to the First Crusade or to Charles Martel holding the Moors off at the Pyranees? > > One way of demarcating the late Middle Ages from the Dark Ages is, Late Middle Ages began when the Pope was able to raise an army and have it do what he wanted (First Crusade), and it ended when he lost that ability (with the Protestant Reformation). The Dark Ages also began with what some non-historians would describe as the “Arthurian” era. He didn’t exist, but it’s fun to consider when he conceivably could have. NC Wyeth always depicted that era as roughly 11-12th Century, but late 5th would fit the timeline better. > > And yeah, beginning and ending points of any epoch are pretty arbitrary. That’s what makes discussing them fun. Haven’t the “Dark Ages” recently began to be called the “migration Period” by historians? Marking the migration of northern people south and westward as the Huns and possibly climate change made living in the north and east kind of harsh? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2015, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-bookended-the-middle-ages/712096/43 "2015-02-10T21:44:43Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > or to Charles Martel holding the Moors off at the Pyranees? They went a little further than the Pyrenees :), Poitiers is about halfway between the mountains and modern-day Paris. > [@](#): > > One way of demarcating the late Middle Ages from the Dark Ages is, Late Middle Ages began when the Pope was able to raise an army and have it do what he wanted (First Crusade), and it ended when he lost that ability (with the Protestant Reformation). Bit of a nitpick there I guess, but the Pope didn’t raise fuck all. He \*called \*for a crusading army to be raised by Christian kings. He had exactly zero power to do it himself, and answering his call was very much optional. His Hatness merely opined it would probably be a good idea, Salvation-wise. Contrary to popular image, the kings and aristocrats of Europe were not quaking in their little booties at what pope said or didn’t say. Hell, we French essentially [committed popenapping](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avignon_Papacy) at one point, a feat of magnificent bastardry I’m not sure any of you lot ever matched (/smug). OTOH the Levant happened to be _really stinking rich_, so… I mean, I’m sure many of the blokes who took the cross really did it out of personal religious fervour, but international military invasions and their logistics are not built on faith and dreams. Salvation or no, a buck is a buck and God wasn’t raining any manna that day. ---
**Author:** ![merrick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/58956e/32.png) [@merrick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/merrick)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2015, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-bookended-the-middle-ages/712096/44 "2015-02-11T00:08:46Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > That however wouldn’t really be accurate outside of England/Great Britain IMO. Maybe Spain too, but then the last one was the 8th century one so that’d be two centuries of “migrants” twisting their thumbs :o. Not just there - in addition to the Goths, Vandals, Franks and other Germanic types moving into former Roman territory, you’ve also got the Huns, Avars, Bulgars and the like pushing into Europe from the East, not to mention the expansion of the Slavs. Wikipedia describes the [Migration Period](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migration_Period) as lasting from ~400 to ~800AD (though for some reason it excludes the Arabs), but the migrations didn’t end then - there were still the Magyars, Pechenegs, Cumans and Turks to come westwards and of course the Vikings coming down from the North. > [@](#): > > Not necessarily - even for people who weren’t inside it, the Roman Empire was affecting their lives in many ways - as a trade partner, as a raiding cash cow, as a diplomatic interlocutor, even just as a prestigious Thing. In many ways the Barbarian Kingdoms that succeeded Rome were shaped and got their identities \*from \*Rome - in all the examples I’m familiar with, the guys that ended up becoming local kings and overthrowing the Roman governors or busting past the \*limes \*in force were people that Rome had formally recognized and had either made partners in some way, or whose rule Rome had legitimated. Rome was kind of the US of their day, they had their noses in everybody’s shit :p. > > Although I’ll grant that when you go \*really \*far to the North and East (like Scandinavia, Lithuania, Russia…), the story’s probably different. But then “the Middle Ages” is fundamentally a Western European construct. The ones who migrated got all the press, but what about the ones who stayed in Germany? You can’t really talk about Western Europe let alone “Europe” without Germany (at least not once the Western Empire falls, which I suppose is an argument for ending Antiquity in the 5th century). I’ll agree that the Germans who migrated into the Empire ended up Romanised to some degree (through the Germanic tribal side of their culture tended to overcome the Roman urban one as time went on), but Germany itself wasn’t significantly Romanised until much later, and then by the Church, not the Empire. > [@](#): > > The Arabian peninsula wasn’t Roman ;). But it’s true that a lot of the Muslim “conquests” were them showing up in Byzantine lands and going “hey, we heard they were persecuting you guys because you’re not the right kind of Christians ? Howsabout you let us in, \*we \*don’t give a shit. We’ll lower your taxes, too”. But the Umayyad empire was a patchwork of cultures and circumstances really, there wasn’t really a single, universal administrative system or principle by which it was governed. It was very much ad hoc - in Persia and Syria the Persian administration pretty much just changed the letterhead and kept going without missing a beat, in Egypt and Anatolia the Arabs changed more things, in other places the locals just wouldn’t surrender and had the boot put to them hard, etc… The Arabian peninsula wasn’t Roman, but there were plenty of Arabs on the borders of Roman Palestine and Syria and some of them (e.g. the Ghassanids) were definitely Roman federates. There’s a theory that south of Anatolia the Roman garrisons were never restored following the devastation of the Persian War (in the same way that the Roman garrisons in Gaul were never restored after 406), and that security was left in the hands of local federates, who were then joined by more Arabs migrating into the power vacuum. Incidentally, I didn’t see my suggestion of the fall of the Umayyads in 750 on **LIttle Nemo** ’s excellent list. If you want some other events round about that time, there’s the battle of Tours (the Muslim high-water mark in Western Europe) in 732 and the Donation of Pepin (which created the Papal State and formalised the partition of Italy) in 754. Or you could go for the Treaty of Verdun in 843, which partitioned the Carolingian Empire and created the proto-states which ultimately became France and Germany - as my father put it “a thousand years of warfare between the Germans and the French can be traced to Charlemagne’s decision to divide his empire between his sons” ---
**Author:** ![merrick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/58956e/32.png) [@merrick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/merrick)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2015, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-bookended-the-middle-ages/712096/45 "2015-02-11T00:24:32Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Contrary to popular image, the kings and aristocrats of Europe were not quaking in their little booties at what pope said or didn’t say. Hell, we French essentially [committed popenapping](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avignon_Papacy) at one point, a feat of magnificent bastardry I’m not sure any of you lot ever matched (/smug). That’s nothing. The Emperor Henry III once dismissed three Popes at a sitting - which I think is an unbeatable record - before appointing his own candidate. Granted, they didn’t all _stay_ dismissed once he’d left Rome, but still… ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2015, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-bookended-the-middle-ages/712096/46 "2015-02-11T02:41:14Z")
> [@merrick](#): > > as my father put it “a thousand years of warfare between the Germans and the French can be traced to Charlemagne’s decision to divide his empire between his sons” Was your father aware that Charlemagne was only survived by one son ;)? It was the first half of the reign of his son Louis the Pious that probably stands as the high water mark of the Carolingian state. Now poor Louis was the one who calamitously produced four vigorous heirs, after several generations of good fortune. Partible inheritance had always been a Frankish custom - the Carolingians had just gotten lucky. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2015, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-bookended-the-middle-ages/712096/47 "2015-02-11T09:12:52Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Well the Triumph of Belisarius (534 AD) does not feel like a Middle Age event. Nor do the Rome-Persian Wars which lasted another century after that. I could go later then. 698 or 718 would be ok with me. Or earlier: Constantine died in 337. Afterwards all would be tinged with Christianity, giving it a medieval feel. Or so I might claim with a str-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-tch. (The establishment of Constantinople in 330 would be more probable.) Honestly though my historical knowledge of this era is sadface. > [@](#): > > Even the “fall of Rome” in 476 AD meant sweet fuck all, the capital was in Ravenna and the Romans would infact regain Rome the following century and hold onto it for longer than the US has been a country. Well there are 2 criteria. We can look at turning points in which case 476 loses big time, while 1492 is a grand slam champ. But what I’m trying to do is pick dates that bundle together like with like. Placing the Gutenberg Bible and most of the Age of Discovery in the Middle Ages seems incongruous. But that means that my turning point has to be something relatively trivial (if symbolic) like Brunelleschi’s presentation of perspective. Impressive, but not exactly world-historic. It seems though that the consensus is 500-1500 or thereabouts which feels odd to me. At both ends. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2015, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-bookended-the-middle-ages/712096/48 "2015-02-11T11:36:20Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Was your father aware that Charlemagne was only survived by one son ;)? I think somebody’s forgetting about Drogo of Metz, Hugh, and Theodoric, all of whom Louis made sure took vows and found themselves no longer eligible to inherit. But Drogo became Archbishp of Metz, and Hugh became Louis’s archchancellor. I don’t know what happened to poor Theodoric. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2015, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-bookended-the-middle-ages/712096/49 "2015-02-11T13:26:16Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > I think somebody’s forgetting about Drogo of Metz, Hugh, and Theodoric, all of whom Louis made sure took vows and found themselves no longer eligible to inherit. But Drogo became Archbishp of Metz, and Hugh became Louis’s archchancellor. I don’t know what happened to poor Theodoric. Oh, bah - _bastards_. Like they’re worth anything :D. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2015, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-bookended-the-middle-ages/712096/50 "2015-02-11T14:18:30Z")
> [@merrick](#): > > Incidentally, I didn’t see my suggestion of the fall of the Umayyads in 750 on **LIttle Nemo** ’s excellent list. Sorry. I missed that one. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2015, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-bookended-the-middle-ages/712096/51 "2015-02-11T18:39:47Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Oh, bah - _bastards_. Like they’re worth anything :D. Hafta invade a whole island before aristos give ‘em the time o’ day. I swear, bastards, they can’t get no respect… ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2015, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-bookended-the-middle-ages/712096/52 "2015-02-12T04:26:25Z")
If we’re including arbitrary dates, how about the execution of Boethius in 524, who’s been called the last classical philosopher and the first medieval one. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2015, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-bookended-the-middle-ages/712096/53 "2015-02-12T06:22:43Z")
Wiki: [Ancient history - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_history) > [@](#): > > Although the ending date of ancient history is disputed, some Western scholars use the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD (the most used),[3][4] the closure of the Platonic Academy in 529 AD,[5] the death of the emperor Justinian I in 565 AD,[6] the coming of Islam[7] or the rise of Charlemagne[8] as the end of ancient and Classical European history. and > **[Middle Ages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages)** > > In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the Post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is itself subdivided in... > [@](#): > > In European history, the Middle Ages, or Medieval period, lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: Antiquity, Medieval period, and Modern period. The Medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early, the High, and the Late Middle Ages. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2015, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-bookended-the-middle-ages/712096/54 "2015-02-12T17:26:30Z")
If you want an extreme end date, Philip Daileader (who is an [authority](http://www.wm.edu/as/history/faculty/faculty-list/daileader_p.php)) has argued that the Middle Ages didn’t end until the Modern Age began - an transition he places around the French Revolution. Personally, I have a hard time accepting the idea of George Washington being a figure from the Middle Ages. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-bookended-the-middle-ages/712096/55 "2015-02-13T13:32:22Z")
I could go with the Middle Ages being as late as the 1620s, really. They discovered America, but treated the natives like Saracens to be converted or killed; it didn’t really change their way of thinking. But meeting the Indians of Virginia and Massachusetts made a big impression on the English. Up until this point, Europeans couldn’t imagine any greater freedom than to choose between two interchangeable despots. But with the Indians of North America, they encountered fairly structured and intricate societies whose individual members could drop out, and back in, at will without fear of being punished for desertion or apostasy. That was a whole new level of freedom and a bigger game-changer than finding new lands or Incan gold. It contributed more to the Enlightenment than all the Shakespeare plays and Florentine paintings combined. ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-bookended-the-middle-ages/712096/56 "2015-02-13T16:51:19Z")
I think it’s overstating the power of European monarchs to refer to them as despots. And I think citing historical events is a problematic way of identifying epochal transitions. Did the end of WWII usher in a new age, or was it the social, political, economic, and technological factors that existed in the early 20th century which drove events that restructured the global order? That’s why I cited the advent of pike and shot armies. The most important public good that a nation’s leadership could provide in the middle ages was defense. You can’t be a nation if you don’t have the means to defeat rebels or barbarians. The necessity of defense, coupled with medieval military technology, drove feudal social relations. But introduce gunpowder technology to a fractured and competitive Europe, and you lay the ground for a different kind of society, one that requires more centralization and industry to be effective, where there’s less need for a warrior class, where urban areas can thrive. It wasn’t any particular discovery that dawned a new age, it was the changing conditions that allowed increasing numbers of people to do more in life than grow food and wage war. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-bookended-the-middle-ages/712096/57 "2015-02-13T17:36:58Z")
It’s true that longbows, pikes, and gunpowder broke the elite monopoly on force. But I think the more fundamental change was when paper, ink, and movable type broke the elite monopoly on information. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-bookended-the-middle-ages/712096/58 "2015-02-13T19:15:03Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > It’s true that longbows, pikes, and gunpowder broke the elite monopoly on force. But I think the more fundamental change was when paper, ink, and movable type broke the elite monopoly on information. Poking around a few sites, I see estimates that the literacy rate in Europe from circa 1300 to 1800 jumped from 10% to 25%. I’d say the elite monopoly in information held on for a good while. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2015, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-bookended-the-middle-ages/712096/59 "2015-02-13T22:29:10Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > Poking around a few sites, I see estimates that the literacy rate in Europe from circa 1300 to 1800 jumped from 10% to 25%. I’d say the elite monopoly in information held on for a good while. 25% is pretty impressive, it means literacy spread well beyond the elite. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2015, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-bookended-the-middle-ages/712096/60 "2015-02-14T00:51:18Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > Poking around a few sites, I see estimates that the literacy rate in Europe from circa 1300 to 1800 jumped from 10% to 25%. I’d say the elite monopoly in information held on for a good while. Bear in mind that you only need one person in a group to be able to read for the information in the newspaper/book to spread to the whole group - people used to organize news & book reading “parties”, particularly in the winter. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-bookended-the-middle-ages/712096.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-events-bookended-the-middle-ages/712096.md?page=4)