Middle Ages is a term that describes the period in European history from about the 400’s through the 1400’s. The Middle Ages are also known as the medieval period, from the Latin words medium (middle) and aevum (age). 
The term Middle Ages came from some European writers in the 1300’s and 1400’s. They used the term to describe the gap—as they saw it—between the arts, culture, and society of ancient Greece and Rome and the rebirth, or renaissance, of classical ideas in their own time. Many later writers and historians accepted this description of the Middle Ages. They portrayed its early centuries in particular as a barbaric “dark age” of cultural decline. Most historians now believe these descriptions treat the era unfairly. The medieval period was in truth a time of lively expansion in art, culture, and society, as well as in commerce, language, politics, and religion.
Modern historians divide the lengthy medieval period into three parts. The early Middle Ages lasted from about the 400’s until about 1000, followed by the High Middle Ages until about 1300, and then the late Middle Ages through the 1400’s.
This article mostly discusses what happened in western Europe from the 400’s through the 1400’s. For information on southeastern Europe during this time, see Byzantine Empire . To learn how other cultures influenced the medieval era, see Muslims and Rome, Ancient . See also World, History of the .
The fall of Rome
The late Roman Empire.
At its height, the Roman Empire included much of Europe , North Africa , and the Middle East . Governing such a large empire was difficult and complex. In the 200’s, the empire began suffering from political instability. Many emperors were killed by assassins or in civil wars. Diocletian , who became emperor in 284, tried to end the chaos. He reorganized the empire into an eastern half and a western half, each with a senior emperor and a junior emperor. The arrangement gave important generals the chance to become emperor without starting a civil war.
The West Roman Empire included lands in western Europe and the western half of North Africa. The East Roman Empire consisted mainly of the Balkans in southeastern Europe and present-day Egypt , Israel , Lebanon , Syria , and Turkey .
Germanic peoples
began to move into central Europe around 1000 B.C. They came from northern Europe and Scandinavia and spoke languages from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. By the A.D. 200’s, they occupied regions in the Rhine and Danube river basins along the northern and northeastern boundaries of the Roman Empire. Many Germanic-speaking people adopted the civilization of their Roman neighbors. They traded with Roman merchants and enlisted in Roman armies.
The Romans called the Germanic peoples barbarians, a word they used to describe peoples who lived outside the empire. Roman writers often described barbarians as fierce warriors. Although some were warriors, the vast majority of the Germanic-speaking people were farmers. They lived in tribes, each governed by a chief.
In the late 300’s, many Germanic groups began to request permission to move within the Roman Empire. They wanted to escape the Huns , a central Asian people who were invading the region north of the Black Sea . In many cases, Germanic groups were permitted to settle within the empire. In return, the Roman government required them to pay taxes, farm empty lands, and provide men to serve in the imperial army.
During the 400’s, political control broke down again in the West Roman Empire. Some Germanic leaders in western Europe, supported by local Roman aristocrats and officials, began to establish small kingdoms. Generally, the Germanic rulers continued to govern using Roman practices. In most cases, this transition was gradual and relatively smooth.
Some clashes did occur, however. Some Visigoths revolted against East Roman rule and defeated a Roman army at Adrianople (now Edirne, Turkey) in 378. In the early 400’s, Roman soldiers withdrew from the province in Britain, leaving it open to raids along the northern border and the western coast. In 476, a Germanic general in the Roman army deposed the last official emperor of the West Roman Empire, Romulus Augustulus . The East Roman Empire, however, survived as the Byzantine Empire until 1453.
Romano-Germanic kingdoms
During the 400’s and 500’s, Germanic groups established many small kingdoms in what had been the West Roman Empire. These kingdoms are known as Romano-Germanic kingdoms. The groups that established these kingdoms included Burgundians and Franks in Gaul (now mainly France ), Visigoths in southwestern Gaul and Spain , Ostrogoths in Italy , and Vandals in North Africa. The Angles , Saxons , and Jutes created kingdoms in southeastern Britain.
Germanic-speaking people were a minority of the population in their kingdoms, where the Latin language and other aspects of Roman culture still dominated. Germanic kings often ruled from old Roman fortress cities and used imperial coins. Their legal systems relied heavily on Roman codes of law.
One key difference from Rome, however, was in the formation of armies. The new kingdoms, much smaller than the once-vast empire, gradually stopped collecting the heavy land taxes that had funded the large Roman army. Instead, they formed small armies whenever the need arose. Free men owed a personal obligation to fight when summoned by the monarch. The core of the armies often consisted of soldiers from the royal court. In return for military service, the free men expected the monarch to provide land, goods, or privileges. Sometimes monarchs and their followers acquired land and other wealth from military campaigns, but plunder was not their major source of income. Royal funds came mostly from the fisc (royal treasury and properties), which included farmlands, vineyards, herds of animals, mines, and even rental properties in cities.
Farms and towns.
In the 500’s, the old Roman system of slave-operated large farms began to break up. A new type of estate developed, which historians have called a bipartite estate or manor. On such an estate, a landowner would control part of his land directly and rent out other portions to tenant farmers. The rents usually included part of each tenant’s crop as well as such services as working the landlord’s personal fields, cutting wood, storing grain, or repairing roads and bridges. By the 800’s, most farmland in western Europe was organized into estates.
Many peasants owned a section of land, and some owned all their land. Only a small number of slaves remained. Most peasants and landless laborers were semifree. Others were free. Semifree people could not be bought or sold. They had control over some aspects of their lives, but they had to obtain permission from the landowner for certain activities, such as moving away, getting married, or exchanging property. 
Historians once thought the end of the West Roman Empire was a chaotic time when trade nearly disappeared and towns shrank or were abandoned. Since the late 1900’s, archaeological studies have shown that towns in the post-Roman period continued to be centers of population, economic production, and political power. Some towns shrank, but others grew. New towns also appeared, especially as more trade developed in northeastern Europe. Economies were particularly strong in realms that emerged in present-day France, Belgium , and the Netherlands .
The Christian church
had become the official church of the Roman Empire by 400. Almost all Germanic peoples, except the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, were already Christians or became Christians soon after they entered the empire. In the empire’s final years, Christian bishops had begun to take on such government responsibilities as overseeing law courts and maintaining city walls. They also performed such nonofficial tasks as caring for the poor and looking after travelers. Early medieval bishops, most of whom came from aristocratic families, worked closely with rulers to maintain their kingdoms. Around 600, Christian rulers and church officials began a vigorous, organized effort to send missionaries to the non-Christian areas of Europe. 
Two church institutions, the cathedral and the monastery, became centers of learning in the early Middle Ages. Cathedrals were the churches of bishops. Monasteries were communities of men and women who gave up worldly life to serve God through prayer and work. The monks of some monasteries and the clergy of the cathedrals helped continue the reading and writing of Latin. They preserved many ancient books. They also founded most schools in Europe. Religious institutions, especially monasteries, played an important role in developing and spreading technology, such as new farming techniques and water mills to grind grain.
The rise of Islam.
In about 610 in Mecca, a city in the Arabian Peninsula, the Prophet Muhammad declared that he had begun to receive revelations from God. Muhammad began to preach the religion of Islam and converted many Arabs . Followers of Islam, called Muslims , began expanding into neighboring areas. Between 630 and the early 700’s, Muslim armies conquered the Persian Empire and took Syria, Palestine , and North Africa from the Byzantine Empire. They also seized most of Spain from the Visigoths.
Muslims assumed a major role in the trade on and around the Mediterranean Sea . They eventually introduced many new crops and such industries as papermaking and silk weaving to western Europe.
The Carolingian Empire
united much of western Europe under one ruler in the late 700’s. The Carolingians were a family of Frankish kings who ruled from the mid-700’s to 987. The most important Frankish rulers were Pepin the Short and his son Charlemagne .
Pepin the Short, the Frankish kingdom’s chief government official, became king of the Franks in 751 with support from the pope . In return, Pepin aided the pope against the Lombards , a Germanic people who had taken control of northern Italy.
Charlemagne inherited the throne in 768. He conquered much of what is now Germany and most of Italy, uniting more territory in western Europe than any ruler had since the end of the Roman Empire. In 800, the pope crowned Charlemagne emperor of the Romans.
The Carolingian administration depended on local officials called counts. The counts were in charge of the judicial system within their counties. They also maintained public order and mobilized men in times of war. The Carolingian rulers monitored the activities of their counts by sending out important men called missi (meaning those sent out) from the court. The missi made sure the counts performed their duties honestly and effectively.
The early Middle Ages reached their highest point of achievement during Charlemagne’s rule. He worked to protect and reform the church. He supported education and scholarship. He established a school at his palace in Aachen . Teachers from across Europe gathered there. They organized schools and libraries and copied ancient manuscripts. These activities caused a new interest in learning called the Carolingian Renaissance. 
Charlemagne’s empire did not last long after his death in 814. His three grandsons fought one another for control. In 843, the Treaty of Verdun divided the empire into three parts, one for each grandson. The divided empire soon came under attack from Vikings in the north, Muslims in the south, and Magyars in the east. By the late 800’s, the Carolingian Empire no longer existed. However, the political and cultural accomplishments of the Carolingians continued to influence western European society.
Post-Carolingian Europe
After the end of Charlemagne’s empire, Europe was again divided into kingdoms and smaller principalities. The monarchs, dukes, and counts who ruled these territories kept many of the government institutions established by Pepin and Charlemagne.
Feudalism.
In the past, some historians believed that central government authority broke down throughout western Europe and was replaced by a political system called feudalism . Under this system, local lords became the most powerful leaders, as people gave military and other services to them in return for protection and land.
Today, most historians think this picture of medieval society is incorrect. Landholding lords, vassals (followers who promised loyalty and service to a lord), and fiefs (property granted by a landholding lord to a vassal in return for the vassal’s service) did exist. However, the private authority of even the most powerful lords never entirely replaced the authority of the monarch. All lords swore loyalty to their monarch and provided soldiers for the royal army. Most royal soldiers were actually nonprofessional militia troops called up by the king and not the private forces of feudal lords. In addition, government structures varied in different parts of Europe. There was no overall system.
France and Germany.
In France, the end of the Carolingian Empire brought a decline in the king’s authority that lasted until the late 1100’s. Strong lords controlled such regions as Aquitaine, Anjou, Flanders, and Normandy. Legally, these lords were the king’s subordinates, but for several centuries their power rivaled the king’s authority. Within their territories, the lords collected taxes and fines, acted as judge in legal disputes, and maintained private armies.
The kings of Germany became the most powerful rulers in the post-Carolingian period. In the late 900’s, Otto I , also known as Otto the Great, extended his rule across Germany and into central Italy. In 962, the pope crowned him emperor of what later became known as the Holy Roman Empire.
Otto also had pressed east. In 955, he defeated the pagan Magyar tribes, which had been raiding parts of Germany, Italy, and France. In the early 1000’s, the Magyars adopted Christianity and united to form the powerful kingdom of Hungary.
New connections
developed with areas of Europe that had been outside the Roman and Carolingian empires. From the late 700’s to about 1100, Vikings from the region of Scandinavia in northern Europe raided, traded, and colonized parts of England, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Russia, Scotland, and Spain. Viking sailors explored the North Atlantic Ocean and established colonies in Iceland and Greenland. However, most Scandinavian people were not Viking adventurers but were farmers who remained at home. In the 900’s to 1000’s, the kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden became established in Scandinavia and adopted Christianity
From the 800’s to 1000’s, Christianity also spread widely among the Slavic peoples in central and eastern Europe. Groups in north-central Europe—including the Czechs, Poles, and Slovaks—came under the religious and cultural influence of western Europe and the Roman Catholic Church. Most groups in southeastern Europe and those in what are now Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine converted to the Orthodox form of Christianity practiced in the Byzantine Empire. As a result, they became strongly influenced by Byzantine culture.
The power of the church
bound together most people in medieval Europe. The church baptized people at birth, performed marriage ceremonies, and conducted burial services. The church’s teachings and festivals intertwined with the daily lives and customs of the people. Church leaders often served as court advisers and officials.
The church as a whole became the largest landowner in Europe. Many rulers and individuals gave land to churches as a donation or in return for services performed by the clergy. During the early Middle Ages, most rulers maintained a large measure of control over churches and the appointment of church leaders within their realms. Consequently, the resources of the church were often at the secular (nonreligious) ruler’s disposal. Later, the church acquired more independence.
The lives of the people
Medieval society included many types of people—free and semifree, peasants and townspeople, clergy and professional soldiers. In the 1000’s, as the early Middle Ages shifted into the High Middle Ages, some western Europeans divided society into three main groups—lords who governed and fought, clergy who served the church, and peasants who worked the land. Not everyone fit into three neat categories, however, a fact that became increasingly apparent as town growth rapidly accelerated.
The lords
included most high-ranking landholders and officials. Wealthy secular lords usually lived in the countryside in large, often fortified homes. They spent much of their lives managing their estates and the peasants who farmed the land.
Military responsibilities were an important part of a lord’s life. A lord was expected to provide, and sometimes command, a certain number of soldiers in times of war. The soldiers included mounted fighting men. By the 1200’s, some wealthy landowners adopted the title of knight . Many of these men and their ancestors provided military service to the ruler, but the knightly title was based upon wealth rather than ability in war. Knights became a hereditary social class that ranked between the nobles and the peasants.
Nobles and knights enjoyed stories and songs about heroic adventures. The code of chivalry grew out of such stories. Chivalry described the ideals, though not necessarily the reality, of knightly behavior. A knight was supposed to be courageous in battle, fight according to certain rules, keep his promises, defend the church, and show gentlemanly conduct toward women. 
From a young age, aristocratic women learned to manage a household. A medieval household was large. It might include children and other relatives, servants, craftspeople, and even warriors. The task of managing it required good business sense and administrative skills. In some cases, the wives of powerful men also managed the family’s lands when their husbands were absent. Women had few rights, however. Among the aristocracy, a father or other male relative normally decided whom a woman would marry. In most cases, women were excluded from ruling or warfare.
The clergy.
Most bishops and other high-ranking clergymen were noblemen who devoted their lives to the church. The churches they ruled possessed extensive lands and other economic assets. The church leaders managed these estates much as secular landholders managed theirs.
Women could not serve as bishops or priests , but they could lead religious lives as nuns . During the Middle Ages, most nuns came from aristocratic families, because a sum of money was needed to enter an abbey or convent. People often donated land to the abbeys and convents where nuns lived. The abbess (female head) of a large abbey might be responsible for extensive lands and many workers.
Monks and nuns who led monastic lives had to follow strict rules. They had to spend a certain number of hours each day studying, praying, and taking part in religious services. Some scholarly monks left the monastery and became advisers to kings or other rulers.
Many peasants who became clergymen served as village priests. Each village priest lived in a small cottage near his church. He performed church ceremonies such as baptisms, marriages, and burials. He advised and helped peasants and settled disputes. Some village priests were as poor as the peasants they served, but others came from aristocratic households.
The peasants
made up a sizeable portion of the population. Peasants were small-scale landowners, and often had sufficient wealth to be required to serve in the ruler’s army in times of war. Peasants were much better off than farm laborers, who had no property of their own. These laborers often lived in crude huts and slept on bags filled with straw. They ate black bread, eggs, poultry, and such vegetables as cabbage and turnips.
A family usually worked together to farm the land. At the start of the Middle Ages, peasants generally used oxen to pull a light plow suitable to the dry, light soils in the Mediterranean region. Early medieval Europeans invented a heavy plow that was more effective at turning over the wet, heavy soils of northern Europe. The introduction in the 800’s of horse collars that protected a horse’s windpipe so the animal could pull heavier loads eventually gave farmers the option of using horses for heavy farm work.
The use of water mills to grind grain into flour began to spread during the early Middle Ages, freeing up laborers for other tasks. Windmills spread from the Middle East to Europe by the 1100’s. As agricultural improvements slowly spread, food production gradually increased and the population grew.
Some peasants carved out new farms in thinly settled frontier regions and by clearing forests or draining swamps. These enterprising farmers generally enjoyed more control over their own lives. In densely populated regions where available land was scarce, powerful neighbors or rulers were able to impose more obligations on peasants and even more on landless laborers.
The High Middle Ages
Medieval civilization reached its highest point of achievement between about 1000 and 1300. This period is called the High Middle Ages.
Medieval population growth peaked during the High Middle Ages. Better ways of farming, some of which began to spread in the early Middle Ages, produced more and more food. New farmland was cleared. Towns grew rapidly. Townspeople achieved wealth and influence, altering the traditional image of a society made up of lords, clergy, and peasants. Strong governments and periods of peace and security also contributed to the prosperity. Greater prosperity gave more people time to devote to new ideas and activities.
Life in towns and cities.
From about the 1000’s, more and more people sought a new way of life in towns. Some landless laborers moved to towns where they could live as free citizens. Towns served as centers for producing such necessary goods as ceramics, cloth, glass, iron tools and weapons, and leather goods. Women often worked with their husbands in a family’s business. They also worked independently in such occupations as silk weaving and beer brewing. Towns provided growing markets for merchants, who began to develop new ways of organizing themselves to make it easier to obtain credit and share risks.
Many cities that dated back to the Roman Empire had outgrown the massive stone walls that had protected them. Some cities began expanding their walls to enclose new suburbs and important churches. In contrast to the orderly grid pattern of the old Roman cities, the streets of newer suburbs and towns were often narrow, crooked, dark, and unpaved. Houses stood crowded together. People often threw their garbage into the streets, and disease spread quickly. As towns became wealthier during the 1200’s, the people in some of them began to pave their streets with rough cobblestones and improve sanitation.
A townsperson who went out at night often took his servants along for protection against robbers. The servants carried lanterns and torches because there was no street lighting. The wide use of lamps, torches, and candles made fire one of the great dangers for a medieval town. Wealthy citizens had stone and brick houses, but most houses were made of wood. A large fire could wipe out an entire town. The city of Rouen, in France, burned to the ground six times between 1200 and 1225.
Guilds set up by merchants and craftworkers became powerful during the High Middle Ages. A guild was an organization that established prices and wages, settled disputes between workers and employers, and protected its members against unfair business practices. During the 1000’s, important merchants and guilds in Italian cities began to demand charters that gave them certain rights of self-government. In the 1100’s and 1200’s, many townspeople elsewhere in Europe made similar demands. Guilds often led the fight for self-government, and so members of guilds often ran the new town governments.
Expanding trade.
Medieval merchants traveled far to trade with the peoples of the Byzantine Empire in southeastern Europe. The Crusades , a series of Christian military expeditions against the Muslims that began in the late 1000’s, encouraged more European trade with the Middle East. Italians in Genoa, Pisa, Venice, and other towns built fleets of ships to carry goods across the Mediterranean Sea to trading centers in Spain and northern Africa. The Muslims in the Middle East had trade links with China, India, and other parts of eastern Asia. Some of the goods the Italian merchants purchased from Muslim traders came from those distant lands.
European merchants exchanged their goods at trade fairs held in towns along the main trade routes. Each fair was held at a different time of the year, and merchants traveled from one fair to another. In the 1100’s, the county of Champagne in northeastern France became the site of the first great European fairs. Its towns lay on the trade routes that linked Italy with northern Europe. Flemish merchants (from what is now Belgium) brought woolen cloth to the fairs. Italian merchants brought silks, spices, and perfumes from the Middle East, India, and China. Merchants from northern and eastern Europe brought furs, lumber, and stone. Leaders in the towns of northern Germany created the Hanseatic League to organize trade in northern Europe.
In the late 1100’s, the nomadic Mongol tribes of central Asia began a campaign of conquest that created the biggest land empire in history. From the mid-1200’s to the mid-1300’s, the Mongols controlled China, most of India, Central Asia, much of the Middle East, and Russia. The Mongols were savage conquerors, but their vast empire promoted trade. Contact with the Mongol Empire increased European awareness of the cultures in such distant lands as China and India.
The powers of church and state.
A vast reform movement within the church began in the 900’s at the Benedictine abbey of Cluny, France. It lasted about 200 years. It changed the way monks lived. It also sought to correct problems within the church, such as simony (buying or selling sacred things or church offices). Eventually, the movement played a role in reducing the influence of secular rulers over church leaders and putting more power into the hands of the pope.
At the start of the 1000’s, the German emperor had the strongest royal government in western Europe. However, secular German nobles often challenged his authority. In the late 1000’s, conflict also arose with the pope over whether the emperor could appoint church officials, many of whom also served as government officials.
Strong imperial government collapsed by the mid-1200’s. German nobles became more independent. In northern and central Italy, city-states with small, well-organized governments became the dominant powers.
Royal authority increased in other areas, especially in England, France, and Spain. The royal government in England had been strong and centralized since the 900’s. It remained strong after William , the duke of Normandy in northern France, conquered England in 1066. William built many castles to enforce his authority. Most castles built before the 1000’s had been made of earth and wood, but stone castles now became common. In the 1100’s, King Henry II expanded royal judicial authority, making justice more uniform throughout the kingdom.
The French King Philip II , also known as Philip Augustus, reigned from 1180 to 1223. He centralized the government, tightening royal authority over some of the most powerful French nobles. His grandson Louis IX expanded the royal administration of justice throughout his realm.
Small Christian kingdoms in the northern part of the Iberian Peninsula (now Spain and Portugal) increased their power during the 1000’s. At the same time, Muslim control of the peninsula collapsed. By the mid-1200’s, the southern kingdom of Granada was the only Muslim-controlled territory in Spain.
Learning and the arts
during the High Middle Ages were devoted to glorifying God and strengthening the power of the church. From 1100 to 1300, almost all the great ideas and artistic achievements reflected the influence of the church.
Princes and laborers alike contributed money to build magnificent stone cathedrals that rose above medieval towns. The High Middle Ages is known for its Gothic style of architecture, with pointed arches, soaring ceilings, and interiors filled with light from tall stained glass windows. The beautiful windows and sculptured figures that decorated cathedrals portrayed events in the life of Jesus Christ and other stories from the Bible. The cathedrals still standing in the French cities of Chartres, Reims, Amiens, and Paris are reminders of the faith of medieval people.
The Byzantine, Islamic, and western European civilizations had each preserved writings and traditions from the ancient Greeks and Romans, but not all the same writings or traditions. Increasing contact among these civilizations reintroduced some learning that had been lost to western Europe since the end of the Roman Empire. Scholars translated Greek and Arabic writings into Latin and studied their meanings. In particular, more western scholars became familiar with the writings of the Greek philosopher Aristotle. Scholars argued whether Aristotle’s teachings opposed those of the church. A field of thought called scholasticism grew out of their discussions and writings. Among the great teachers and writers of this period were Peter Abelard , Saint Albertus Magnus , and Saint Thomas Aquinas .
Students gathered at the cathedral schools where the scholars lectured. Students and scholars formed organizations called universities, which were similar to the craftworkers’ guilds. From the universities came men to serve the church and the new states, to practice law and medicine, to write literature, and to educate others.
The late Middle Ages
Between 1300 and 1500, medieval Europe gradually gave way to modern Europe. During this period, the Middle Ages included the beginning of the period in European history known as the Renaissance. For a discussion of the great developments in art and learning during this period, see Renaissance .
A halt in progress.
During the High Middle Ages, Europe’s population, towns, industry, and trade all grew rapidly. Social conditions also improved. These developments came to an end in the 1300’s. The population decreased, people became discontented, and industry and trade shrank.
Around 1300, climate changes made weather in western Europe slightly cooler and wetter. As a result, the agricultural practices could not sustain the increased population. Famines and floods caused widespread hardship. An outbreak of plague , later called the Black Death , began in 1347. It eventually killed a fourth to a half of Europe’s people. 
The reduction in population because of famines, disease, and the plague had various social and economic consequences. Because of a labor shortage, governments tried to enact strict laws to keep peasants on their land and subject to high rents and other traditional obligations. Peasants rose in bloody revolts. In the towns, workers fought the rich merchants who kept them poor and powerless. The revolts generally failed. Nevertheless, by the end of the late Middle Ages, peasants in western Europe had gained freedom from many traditional duties to their landlords and restrictions on their actions. In eastern Europe, however, many landlords were able to tighten their control and impose new obligations.
War also played a part in the slowdown of European progress. From 1337 to 1453, England and France fought the Hundred Years’ War . This conflict interrupted trade and exhausted the economies of both nations.
The rise of the Ottoman Empire
in the Middle East and eastern Europe surprised and alarmed European society. Starting in the mid-1300’s, the Ottoman Turks conquered the Byzantine Empire’s territory in Asia Minor (now part of Turkey) and the Balkan Peninsula. In 1453, the Byzantine capital of Constantinople (now Istanbul) fell, and the empire ended. Ottoman power in the Mediterranean region peaked in the 1500’s and 1600’s. The Ottoman Empire lasted until the early 1900’s.
The growth of royal authority.
By the 1300’s, the rulers in France, England, and the kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula had sophisticated administrative systems. The kings collected large sums of money through taxation. Often, they used this money to pay for wars, raising large armies of paid soldiers. The kings also began to make alliances with an emerging middle class of townspeople and small landowners, offsetting the influence of the great lords.
Traditionally, medieval kings had received advice from a council of high-ranking aristocrats and clergy. To gain wider cooperation for their policies, rulers eventually began to invite representatives from towns and counties to council gatherings. By the 1300’s, the council gatherings in some countries had developed into representative assemblies. In Castile (now part of Spain), England, and France, the monarchs’ need for money to pay for frequent wars during the late Middle Ages enabled these assemblies to gain more influence, especially over taxes. The English assembly was called Parliament .
In Spain, the marriage between Queen Isabella of Castile and King Ferdinand of Aragon during the late 1400’s led to the union of the two largest kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula. In 1492, the armies of Aragon and Castile captured Granada, the last Muslim stronghold in Spain. That same year, the Italian-born navigator Christopher Columbus reached the West Indies on a voyage supported by Isabella, and Spain’s empire in America was born.
Troubles in the church.
The power of the late medieval popes grew with that of the kings. A number of bitter disputes arose between the rulers of church and state. Church leaders took an increasing part in political affairs, but the popes sometimes surrendered their independence and gave in to the kings. This happened especially from 1309 to 1377, when the popes ruled the church from Avignon, France, instead of Rome.
After the popes returned to Rome, disputes over the election of popes divided the church. Two, and sometimes three, men claimed the title of pope at the same time. Such disputes hurt the church’s influence. They also caused criticism of church affairs and church teaching. Groups of people who challenged the church’s authority also won many followers. The church tried to root out such opposition. The religious unity of western Europe weakened, leading to the Protestant Reformation of the 1500’s.
Art, learning, and literature.
During the late Middle Ages, some scholars and artists became less concerned with religious thinking and concentrated more on understanding people and the world. This new outlook is sometimes called humanism . It first emerged in the wealthy city-states of northern and central Italy. The scholars and artists of ancient Greece and Rome had emphasized the study of humanity. Scholars and artists of the late Middle Ages rediscovered many ancient works and gained inspiration from them. Painters and sculptors began to glorify people and nature in their works. Architects began to design more nonreligious buildings. Scholars delighted in the study of pre-Christian authors of ancient times.
During the late Middle Ages, more and more writers composed prose and poetry not in Latin but in the vernacular (native languages), including English , French , and Italian . The most famous English author of the period was the royal official and poet Geoffrey Chaucer . The increasing use of the vernacular opened a new literary age. It gradually brought learning and literature to the common people. Finally, the introduction of the printing press in Europe in the mid-1400’s meant that books and documents could be made more cheaply. As a result, books became available for many more people to read.
The late Middle Ages opened with famine, plague, and war, but medieval European society proved strong. By the 1500’s, society also had recovered politically and economically. A time of brilliant achievement in art and learning was born. However, many medieval institutions and cultural achievements survived well beyond 1500, the date most often used to mark the end of the Middle Ages. The era has continued to influence Europe and other parts of the world to this day.
