the period in European history from the
collapse of Roman civilization in the 5th century AD to the period of the Renaissance
(variously interpreted as beginning in the 13th, 14th, or 15th century, depending on the
region of Europe and on other factors). The term and its conventional meaning were
introduced by Italian humanists with invidious intent; the humanists were engaged in a
revival of classical learning and culture, and the notion of a thousand-year period of
darkness and ignorance separating them from the ancient Greek and Roman world served to
highlight the humanists' own work and ideals. In a sense, the humanists invented the
Middle Ages in order to distinguish themselves from it. The Middle Ages nonetheless
provided the foundation for the transformations of the humanists' own Renaissance.
The sack of Rome by Alaric the Visigoth in AD 410 had enormous
impact on the political structure and social climate of the Western world, for the Roman
Empire had provided the basis of social cohesion for most of Europe. Although the Germanic
tribes that forcibly migrated into southern and western Europe in the 5th century were
ultimately converted to Christianity, they retained many of their customs and ways of
life; the changes in forms of social organization they introduced rendered centralized
government and cultural unity impossible. Many of the improvements in the quality of life
introduced during the Roman Empire, such as a relatively efficient agriculture, extensive
road networks, water-supply systems, and shipping routes, decayed substantially, as did
artistic and scholarly endeavours. This decline persisted throughout the period of time
sometimes called the Dark Ages (also called Late Antiquity, or the Early Middle Ages),
from the fall of Rome to about the year 1000, with a brief hiatus during the flowering of
the Carolingian court established by Charlemagne. Apart from that interlude, no large
kingdom or other political structure arose in Europe to provide stability. The only force
capable of providing a basis for social unity was the Roman Catholic church. The Middle
Ages therefore present the confusing and often contradictory picture of a society
attempting to structure itself politically on a spiritual basis. This attempt came to a
definitive end with the rise of artistic, commercial, and other activities anchored firmly
in the secular world in the period just preceding the Renaissance.
After the dissolution of the Roman Empire, the
idea arose of Europe as one large church-state,
called Christendom. Christendom was thought to consist of two distinct groups of
functionaries, the sacerdotium, or ecclesiastical hierarchy, and the imperium, or secular
leaders. In theory these two groups complemented each other, attending to people's
spiritual and temporal needs, respectively. Supreme authority was wielded by the pope in
the first of these areas and by the emperor in the second. In practice the two
institutions were constantly sparring, disagreeing, or openly warring with each other. The
emperors often tried to regulate church activities by claiming the right to appoint church
officials and to intervene in doctrinal matters. The church, in turn, not only owned
cities and armies but often attempted to regulate affairs of state.
During the 12th century a cultural and economic revival took place;
many historians trace the origins of the Renaissance to this time. The balance of economic
power slowly began to shift from the region of the eastern Mediterranean to western
Europe. The Gothic style developed in art and architecture. Towns began to flourish,
travel and communication became faster, safer, and easier, and merchant classes began to
develop. Agricultural developments were one reason for these developments; during the 12th
century the cultivation of beans made a balanced diet available to all social classes for
the first time in history. The population therefore rapidly expanded, a factor that
eventually led to the breakup of the old feudal structures.
The 13th century was the apex of medieval civilization. The classic
formulations of Gothic architecture and sculpture were achieved. Many different kinds of
social units proliferated, including guilds, associations, civic councils, and monastic
chapters, each eager to obtain some measure of autonomy. The crucial legal concept of
representation developed, resulting in the political assembly whose members had plena
potestas--full power--to make decisions binding upon the communities that had selected
them. Intellectual life, dominated by the Roman Catholic church, culminated in the
philosophical method of Scholasticism, whose preeminent exponent, St. Thomas Aquinas,
achieved in his writings on Aristotle and the Church Fathers one of the greatest syntheses
in Western intellectual history.
The breakup of feudal structures, the strengthening of city-states
in Italy, and the emergence of national monarchies in Spain, France, and England, as well
as such cultural developments as the rise of secular education, culminated in the birth of
a self-consciously new age with a new spirit, one that looked all the way back to
classical learning for its inspiration and that came to be known as the Renaissance.