• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Big Site of History

History of Civilization

The Early Middle Ages in Western Europe

May 20, 2008 by Marge Anderson

Between historians used to call the centuries from 500 to 1000 by the name still generally used for the centuries between 1100 and 800 B.C.: the Dark Ages. This suggests a gloomy barbarian interruption between a bright classical flowering and a later bright recovery or rebirth (Renaissance). But today historians prefer the more neutral term early Middle Ages, for they have come to believe that “dark” is a misleading exaggeration.

Middle Ages accurately enough suggests a time lying between the ancient and the modern world, and the adjective medieval—meaning of the middle age—is in general use. Obviously, these terms—medieval, modern—are words we use about ourselves; that is, we naturally perceive historical chronology in relation to our own times. Thus there is much debate over when medieval history ends and modern history begins.

Related Posts

  • The Civilization of the Early Middle Ages in the West | The Early Middle Ages in Western Europe
  • Europe about 1000 | The Early Middle Ages in Western Europe
  • Feudal Europe | The Early Middle Ages in Western Europe
  • The Breakdown of Roman Civilization | The Early Middle Ages in Western Europe
  • Visigoths, Vandals, Anglo-Saxons, 410-455 | The Early Middle Ages in Western Europe

Filed Under: The Early Middle Ages in Western Europe

Primary Sidebar

Categories

  • Between The World Wars
  • Byzantium and Islam
  • Church and Society in the Medieval West
  • European Exploration and Expansion
  • Judaism and Christianity
  • Modern Empires and Imperialism
  • Romanticism, Reaction, and Revolution
  • The Beginnings of the Secular State
  • The Democracies
  • The Early Middle Ages in Western Europe
  • The Enlightenment
  • The First Civilizations
  • The First World War
  • The French Revolution
  • The Great Powers in Conflict
  • The Greeks
  • The Industrial Society
  • The Late Middle Ages in Eastern Europe
  • The Late Twentieth Century
  • The Modernization of Nations
  • The Non-Western World
  • The Old Regimes
  • The Problem of Divine-Right Monarchy
  • The Protestant Reformation
  • The Renaissance
  • The Rise of the Nation
  • The Romans
  • The Russian Revolution of 1917
  • The Second World War
  • The Written Record
  • Twentieth-Century Thought and Letters

About · Privacy · Contact
Copyright © 2021 Big Site of History