The Middle Ages

First of all, we should note that it is a little cold-blooded to talk about positive effects of this horrible human tragedy. We should not lose sight of the fact that millions of people died due...

If we define feudalism as the entire system of obligation between lords, clergy, and peasants, including military obligations and manorialism as the narrower set of economic relations between the...

Despite attempts in the early thirteenth century and beyond to reform the Roman Catholic Church from within, corruption within the Church continued to run rampant and collided sharply with a...

The major problems of the church were not so much the result of feudal practice as they were corruption within the church itself. At a time when lands held by the nobility were typically passed to...

Pohnpei has discussed one of the key themes in the transition out of the Middle Ages into the Renaissance and Early Modern Era: the centralization of power under the monarchies. Indeed, political...

The Gregorian reform that strengthened the independence of the Catholic Church in relation to the secular powers was intimately connected to the Investiture Controversy in late eleventh to early...

Trade in the High Middle Ages came from several major events in world history; let's focus on the Black Death and the Crusades. From 1347-1351, the Black Death travelled across the Asian Steppes...

During the Late Middle Ages the Crusades actually helped expand the political and geographical networks between Eastern and Western Europe despite of the loss of life that they also caused. The...

I will answer questions #2 and 6 here since both have to do with similar topics. To say that the Catholic Church claims always to be correct is somewhat unfair. I assume that this question is...

The key element of political life in the Medieval period was feudalism. This meant that politics during this time was a very personal affair based on personal loyalties rather than on loyalty to a...

European life was changing in many ways in the eleventh century CE Let us look at a few reasons why. The first major change was related to the development of agricultural technology. A new plow...

The first and most common key accessory belonging to the late middle ages period is the amonieres sarrasimoises or Saracen almsbags. These were the ancient version of the modern belt bags. The...

During the time that is known as the High Middle Ages, European society began to change. Up to that point, the society had been largely agrarian. During the High Middle Ages, the society became...

Feudalism and manorialism were essentially the foundations upon which the Middle Ages was contrived. In the Middle Ages, the wealthy owned manors and had entire estates, while the poorest...

Modern historians typically say that the effect of the Crusades through cultural exchange was really quite limited. It is certainly true that the 12th century was affected by an increase in...

Feudalism and disunity prevailed in Europe during the Middle Ages. However, by the middle of the fifteenth century, several powerful nation states had emerged in Europe. The Hundred Years' War...

Feudalism was an arrangement in which one nobleman owed allegiance to another. Under this arrangement, a lesser nobleman, commonly called a vassal, swore to fight for the upper nobleman, known as...

The noun "mendicant" means "beggar." It comes from the Latin verb mendicare, meaning "to beg." The mendicant orders of the Middle Ages were comprised of monks who had taken vows of poverty and had...

The Justinian Code (Corpus Juris Civilis) was one of Emperor Justinian's greatest accomplishments—along with the construction of the impressive Church of Holy Wisdom. Justinian, who ruled in the...

In Medieval Europe, the Investiture Conflict was a long and bitter struggle for political supremacy between the secular authorities and the Papacy. At the heart of the conflict was the burning...

The Late Middle Ages are set within the time span of 1307-1485. It precedes the Renaissance, although signs of it were starting to manifest in the arts, including fashion, during this time period....

There are a number of crises that contributed to this reckoning. Three of the most important are: The Black Death. This plague, of course, killed a huge percentage of the population of Europe....

There are at least two ways in which this is true. First, although this was the Age of Faith, it was also an age of growing scientific knowledge. Gothic cathedrals celebrated that knowledge. The...

The High Middle Ages, spanning roughly 1000–1250 AD, is generally regarded as a period of reinvigoration for the European continent. Throughout these centuries, Europe experienced rapid social and...

The rise of the middle class improved the economy in the time of the Crusades (also known as the “High Middle Ages”) because it was people of the middle class who allowed a boom in trade to occur...

Although religion during the Middle Ages was dominated by the Catholic Church, the Church faced many challenges from a variety of sources. “Christianity” evolved to include beliefs and practices...

Early Byzantine fashion and textiles were derived from Roman fashion with togas, chitons and peploses being dominant clothing items. Wider trade relationships over time expanded Byzantium textile...

Guilds played a leading role in the economic lives of medieval cities because they exerted a great degree of control over the entire process of making and selling various goods and services. There...

During this time, the power of the Church generally increased across Europe though it was starting to decline as the Middle Ages came to an end. The main reason for this was the fact that society...

The two most important impacts of this transformation were increased population and increased trade. These also led to a more urbanized population. Beginning around the year 1000, agriculture...

It should be noted, first of all, that the picture of the Crusades is a bit more complex than your question supposes. The First Crusade, for example, was an unmitigated success. The Crusaders...

Economically, the “High Middle Ages” were a period of expansion. During this time there was a move toward town development in Europe along with the growth of city-states in Italy. This urban...

This is a very long period of time, in which a great many changes took place. The earlier part of it was filled with upheavals in European society which are sometimes collectively known as "the...

The problem with the concept of "courtly .love" is that it is more a product of the scholarship of the late 19th and 20th centuries than a term actually used in the Middle Ages themselves. In...

According to the History of Fashion website, there were only a couple elements added to the dress of the Byzantine period. While togas had been popular, tunics replaced the wrapped clothing style...

The Church (which in concrete terms means the Pope, and in this case Pope Innocent III) might have been able to overthrow John and arguably came close to making the attempt. By 1204, John had lost...

During the Middle Ages, the civilization that dominated in Western Europe was an unequal and feudal civilization. The major social/governmental system in Europe during this time was the feudal...

In Late Middle Ages art we witness a total detour from the Romanesque and Byzantine influences. Instead, this period marks the first influences of the future Renaissance, which immediately...

A salient trait about the architectural style at the time of the Late Middle Ages is the adoption of a Pietical approach that would manifest mainly in cloisters, monasteries. This style entails a...

Al-Sufi was an important astronomer of the Middle Ages. He lived in Persia in the 10th century CE. He is best known for his work entitled Book of Fixed Stars. A good deal of Al-Sufi's work...

There is no clear demarcation, other than purely chronological between the "long middle ages" and the Renaissance. many of the features that we characteristically associate with the Renaissance and...

The major changes in government structures between the middle anges and Renaissance varied to a certain degree with region, but could be characterized as increasing centralization of power, and a...

The correspondence between Abélard and Héloïse can be read on a superficial level as a romantic tragedy, as one of the most tragic love stories of all times. The letters have fascinated the...

This is a great topic! If you need this as an answer, think in terms of the topics you might have studied so far about the Middle Ages. My favourites are: Feudalism (societal structures)...

During the Middle Ages, castles were very important military features. This meant that any conquering force had to be able to take a castle in order to dominate the area of the castle. Castles...

The entire design of a castle was designed to provide for the defense of its inhabitants. A castle was meant to be an impregnable fortress that could house many fighters. Those fighters could...

During most of this time period, the Catholic Church was the one spiritual authority in Western Europe. Popes were the unquestioned (except for times when there was more than one pope) heads of...

By the end of the middle ages, the main technology being used to attack castles was cannon. However, cannon did not develop in any very useful way until late in that period. Before the...

The Early and High Middle Ages were formative times for the Catholic Church. The fall of the Western Roman Empire in the late fifth century set the Church on a path that would see it as one of the...

The Crusades were a response to a call by Pope Urban after the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem in 1095.First Crusade (1 1096 to 1099): In this, five armies of nobles and one army of peasants headed...