Middle Ages

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A term commonly used to designate that period ofEuropean history between the fall of the Roman Empire and about the middle of the fifteenth century.

The precisedates of the beginning, culmination, and end of the Middle Ages are more or less arbitrarily assumed according to the point of view adopted. The period is usually considered to open with those migrations of the German Tribes which led to the destruction of the Roman Empire in the West in 375, when the Huns fell upon the Gothic tribes north of the Black Sea and forced theVisigoths over the boundaries of the Roman Empire on the lower Danube. A laterdate, however, is sometimes assumed, viz., when Odoacer deposedRomulus Augustulus, the last of the Roman Emperors of the West, in 476. Others, again, begin the Middle Ages with the opening years of the seventh century and the death (609) ofVenantius Fortunatus, the last representative of classicLatin literature. The close of the Middle Ages is also variously fixed; some make it coincide with the rise ofHumanism and theRenaissance inItaly, in the fourteenth century; with the fall of Constantinople, in 1453; with the discovery of America byColumbus in 1492; or, again, with thegreat religious schism of the sixteenth century. Any hard and fast line drawn to designate either the beginning or close of the period in question is arbitrary. The widest limits given, viz., the irruption of theVisigoths over the boundaries of the Roman Empire, for the beginning, and the middle of the sixteenth century, for the close, may be taken as inclusively sufficient, and embrace, beyond dispute, every movement or phase of history that can be claimed as properly belonging to the Middle Ages.

A great part of THE CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA is devoted to the movements,ecclesiastical,intellectual, social, political, andartistic, which made upEuropean history during this period so fertile inhuman activities, whether sacred or profane.

Under the titles covering the political divisions ofEurope, past and present (e.g.,ALSACE-LORRAINE;ANHALT;AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN MONARCHY;BADEN;BAVARIA;BELGIUM;BOHEMIA;BREMEN;BULGARIA;CASTILE AND ARAGON;CROATIA;DENMARK;ENGLAND;FRANCE;GERMANY;GREECE;HAMBURG;HESSE;HUNGARY;IRELAND;ITALY;KARINTHIA;KRAIN;LEÓN;LIPPE;LÜBECK;LUXEMBURG;MECKLENBURG;MONACO;MONTENEGRO;NAVARRE;NETHERLANDS;NORWAY;OLDENBURG;PAPAL STATES;PORTUGAL;REUSS;ROME;RUMANIA;RUSSIA;SAXE-ALTENBURG;SAXE-COBURG AND GOTHA;SAXE-MEININGEN;SAXE-WEIMAR;SAXONY;SCHAUMBURG-LIPPE;SCHWARZBURG;SCOTLAND;SERVIA;SICILY;SPAIN;SWEDEN;SWITZERLAND;VENICE;WALDECK;WALES;WÜRTEMBERG), are given in detail their respective political and religious developments throughout the Middle Ages.

Under articles of a wider scope (e.g.EUROPE;CHRISTENDOM;POPE) is found a more general and synthetic treatment. Particular aspects and movements peculiar to different portions of it are found in such articles asCHIVALRY;CRUSADES;ECCLESIASTICAL ART;FEUDALISM;GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE;INQUISITION;CONFLICT OF INVESTITURES;LAND-TENURE IN THE CHRISTIAN ERA;MONASTICISM;ECCLESIASTICAL MUSIC;PAINTING;PILGRIMAGES;SCULPTURE; in the articles upon the greatreligious orders, congregations, and institutions which then came intoexistence; in the biographies of thepopes, rulers, historical personages, scholars,philosophers, poets, andscientists whose lives fall within this period; in the accounts of theuniversities, cities, anddioceses which were founded and developed throughoutEurope from the fall of the Roman Empire to thetime of theReformation, and in innumerable minor articles throughout the work.

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