Middle Ages

In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to late 15th centuries, comparable with the post-classical period of global history. The medieval period is the middle epoch of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages. The Middle Ages began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Modern age during the Renaissance, the Reformation, the European wars of religion, and the Age of Discovery. Early Modernity is a single term adopted to describe this end-stage of the period, during which medieval Europe shades into the modern period. Population decline, counterurbanisation, the collapse of centralised authority, invasions, and mass migrations of tribes had begun in late antiquity (c. ~3rd–8th centuries) and lasted into the Early Middle Ages (c. 5th–10th centuries). The large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the 7th century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, an Islamic empire, after conquest by Muhammad's successors. Although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was incomplete.¶

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Middle Ages”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.¶

Middle Ages is period of European history from the 5th to the late 15th-century, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition.¹¶

The source record links this tradition to 85 external registers, which can be verified through the citation.¹¶