Early Middle Ages

The Early Middle Ages are a period in the History Of Europe usually considered to extend from the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th Century until the rise of the Holy Roman Empire in the 10th Century under Otto I The Great . Aspects of continuity in the earlier part of this transitional period are discussed under the heading " Late Antiquity ". The Early Middle Ages of Western Europe includes the Migration Period (also referred to as the " Dark Ages "), the Ostrogoths and Visigoths , the Merovingian s, Anglo-Saxon England , the Frankish Empire and the Viking Age .

MIGRATION PERIOD

See Also: Migration Period

As the authority of the Western Roman Empire dwindled in Western Europe , its territories were entered and settled by succeeding waves of " Barbarian " tribal confederations, some of whom distrusted and rejected the classical culture of Rome, while others, like the Goths admired it and considered themselves the legatees and heirs of Rome. Prominent among these peoples in the movement were the Huns and Avars and Magyars with the large number of Germanic and later Slavic peoples.

The era of the migrations is referred to as the Migration Period . It has historically been termed the " Dark Ages " by Western European historians, and as ''Völkerwanderung'' ("wandering of the peoples") by German historians. The term " Dark Ages " has now fallen from favour, partly to avoid the entrenched stereotypes associated with the phrase, but also partly because more recent research into the period has in fact revealed its surprising artistic sophistication, though its political and social senses were unevolved and its technologies undeveloped, compared to the preceding culture.
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Although the settled population of the Roman period were not everywhere decimated, the new peoples greatly altered established society, and with it, law, culture and religion, and patterns of property ownership. The '' Pax Romana '', with its accompanying benefits of safe conditions for trade and manufacture, and a unified cultural and educational milieu of far-ranging connections, had already been in decline for some time as the 5th century drew to a close. Now it was largely lost, to be replaced by the rule of local potentates, and the gradual break-down of economic and social linkages and infrastructure.

This break-down was often fast and dramatic as it became unsafe to travel or carry goods over any distance and there was a consequent collapse in trade and manufacture for export. Major industries that depended on trade, such as large-scale pottery manufacture, vanished almost overnight in places like Britain. The Islamic invasions of the 7th and 8th centuries, which conquered The Levant , North Africa , Spain , Portugal and some of the Mediterranean islands (including Sicily ), increased localization by halting much of what remained of seaborne commerce. So where sites like Tintagel in Cornwall had managed to obtain supplies of Mediterranean luxury goods well into the 6th century, this connection too was lost. Administrative, educational and military infrastructure quickly vanished, leading to the rise of illiteracy among leadership.

BYZANTINE EMPIRE

See Also: Byzantine Empire

In the east, the Eastern Roman Empire (called by historians the " Byzantine Empire "), maintained a form of Christianised Roman rule in the lands of Asia Minor , Greece and the Slavic territories bordering Greece, and in Sicily and southern Italy . The eastern emperors had maintained a nominal claim to rule over the west, reconquered by Belisarius , but this East Roman claim was a political fiction under Lombard rule and became strongly disputed from 800 .

A NEW ORDER

Between the 5th and 8th centuries a completely new political and social infrastructure developed across the lands of the former empire, based upon powerful regional noble families, and the newly established kingdoms of the Ostrogoths in Italy , Visigoths in Spain and Portugal , Franks and Burgundians in Gaul and western Germany , and Saxons in England . These lands remained Christian, and their Arian conquerors were soon converted, following the example of the pagan Frank Clovis I . The interaction between the culture of the newcomers, the remnants of classical culture, and Christian influences, produced a new model for society. The centralized administrative systems of the Romans did not withstand the changes, and the institutional support for large scale chattel slavery largely disappeared.

The hierarchy of reciprocal obligations known as Feudalism or the feudal
system, binding each man to serve his superior in return for the latter's protection, made for a confusion of territorial sovereignty (since allegiances were subject to change over time, and were sometimes mutually contradictory). The benefit of feudalism however, was its resiliency, and the ability of local arrangements to provide stable government in the absence of a strong royal power in a political order distinguished by its lack of uniformity. Territoriality was reduced to a network of personal allegiances.

CHRISTIANIZATION

Germanic Christianity

Hiberno-Scottish Mission

Anglo-Saxon Mission

The Christian Church, the only centralized institution to survive the Fall Of The Western Roman Empire intact, was the sole unifying cultural influence in the West, preserving its selection from Latin learning, maintaining the art of writing, and a centralized administration through its network of Bishop s. The Early Middle Ages are characterized by the urban control of bishops and the territorial control exercised by dukes and counts. The rise of Urban Communes marked the beginning of the High Middle Ages.

RISE OF ISLAM

Muhammad

Umayyad

Al-Andalus

CAROLINGIAN RENAISSANCE

See Also: Carolingian renaissance

The Frankish Realms under Charlemagne briefly united much of modern day France, western Germany and northern Italy (the Carolingian Empire ). Scholarship and Classical learning flourished under Charlemagne, with Alcuin appointed leading advisor on ecclesiastical and educational affairs and with Fulda as an intellectual center.

VIKING AGE

See Also: Viking Age

RISE OF THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE

Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor

During the 9th and 10th centuries, Europe became bi-polar, with east and west competing for power and influence in the largely un- Christianized expanses of far northern Europe. The spread of Christianity in the Migrations Period, both from the Mediterranean area and from Ireland , occasioned a pre-eminent cultural and ideological role for its Abbot s, and the collapse of a '' Res Publica '' meant that the bishops became identified with the remains of urban government. Christianity provided the basis for a first European "identity," Christendom , unified until the separation of Orthodox Churches from the Catholic Church in the Great Schism of 1054 , one of the dates that marks the onset of the High Middle Ages .

SEE ALSO

Dark Ages

Early Medieval Literature

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Early Middle Ages