I was told by a my professor that they considered the start of the Carolingian dynasty (in particular Charlemagne) as the beginning of the middle ages.
I thought my professor had a interesting perspective because she was a Art History professor. So she viewed things in terms of cultural and artistry.
She explained that after the the fall of Rome in the 5th century there really wasn’t artistic and cultural form that was definable till the rise of Charlemagne and the Carolingian dynasty. (in Central and Western Europe that is)
That’s not quite true, on the contrary the Merovingian dynasty is marked by a rather unique blend of classical Roman/Christian imagery with “barbarian” flourishes (like Celtic knots, fantastical beasts of Frankish folklore…), like so; whereas Carolingian art went into a new direction altogether, particularly when it comes to representation of people.
Plus you’ve got the whole “bees” thing that Napoleon cribbed from. And the grenat. Merovingian bitches loved them some grenat.
So Rome was sacked in the 5th century and feudalism rose in the 8th century. Might there be a case for resurrecting the term “Dark Ages” to apply to the intervening period? 450 to 750 spans 300 years after all: the transition at the end of the Middle Ages only amounts to about a century. Or is ~450 to ~750 properly characterized as late Antiquity?
You make an interesting point here, what would this time be called? The Merovingian dynasty around during this time but a lot of their art was influenced by the antiquity. Transitioning from Antiquity influenced art to something more Medieval during Charlemagne’s time
Well, if you end the Middle Ages around 1492 (seems to be the consensus round here), that makes Martin Luther, Hernan Cortez, Henry VIII and Ivan the Terrible (among others) “modern”.
Really this is an argument that the traditional division of European history into Ancient, Middle and Modern Ages (which goes back to the 17th century) has become outdated. I’d argue that you need at least five - in addition to Late Antiquity/Dark Ages/Migrations Period/whatever you choose to call it, there should be an “Early Modern” period that starts with the Age of Discovery and runs through to the 18th-century revolutions.
The boundaries between the periods would correspond to the fall of Rome, the rise of feudalism, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment
