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Middle Ages

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: General history

   An early medieval Frankish king depicted with the Pope, from the
   Sacramentary of Charles the Bald (about 870).
   Enlarge
   An early medieval Frankish king depicted with the Pope, from the
   Sacramentary of Charles the Bald (about 870).

   The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic
   division of European history into three "ages": the classical
   civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages and Modern Times. The Middle
   Ages of Western Europe are commonly dated from the 5th century division
   of the Roman Empire (into the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern
   Roman Empire) and the barbarian invasions until the 16th century schism
   of Christianity during the Protestant Reformation and the dispersal of
   Europeans worldwide in the start of the European overseas exploration.
   These various changes all mark the beginning of the Early Modern period
   that preceded the Industrial Revolution.

   The Middle Ages are commonly referred to as the medieval period or
   simply medieval (sometimes spelled "mediaeval" or, historically,
   "mediæval").

Early Middle Ages

   In Western Europe from the 3rd Century onward, the political unity of
   the Roman Empire began to fragment. As the central authority of Rome
   faded, the imperial territories were infiltrated by succeeding waves of
   " barbarian" tribal confederations. Some of these "barbarian" tribes
   rejected the classical culture of Rome, while others, like the Goths,
   admired and aspired to it. The Huns, Bulgars, Avars and Magyars along
   with a large number of Germanic and later Slavic peoples, were
   prominent tribal groups that migrated into Roman territory. Some of the
   incursions were by agreement, in which tribal groups were assigned
   lands to farm and settle in return for acting as allies and
   confederates of Rome. In other cases, particularly from the 4th Century
   onward, incursions were hostile, the land was seized and settled by
   force. By the end of the 5th Century, the institutions of the Western
   Roman Empire had crumbled under the pressure of these incursions. Where
   semblances of Roman governance survived, these were largely in the form
   of weak and isolated city governments or else regional military
   commanders who had turned themselves into local strongmen in the
   absence of central authority. In the more developed eastern half of the
   empire, however, centralized institutions still continued to function,
   centred on the impregnably defended city of Constantinople. Often now
   termed the Byzantine Empire, this Eastern Roman Empire was a direct
   continuation of the Christian Roman Empire of late antiquity.

   This era, often characterized by historians as one of dramatic
   population and cultural change, is sometimes referred to as the
   Migration Period, and as the Völkerwanderung ("wandering of the
   peoples") by German historians. Historically this period has been more
   pejoratively termed the "Dark Ages" by some Western European
   historians. The term "Dark Ages" has now fallen from favour, partly to
   avoid the entrenched stereotypes associated with the phrase, but partly
   because more recent research and archaeological findings about the
   period has revealed that complex cultural influences persisted
   throughout this period.
   Romanesque architecture flourished in the early Middle Ages:
   Hildesheim.
   Enlarge
   Romanesque architecture flourished in the early Middle Ages:
   Hildesheim.

   The question of what happened to the settled and Romanized populations
   of the western Empire is a complex one. In few cases do historians
   consider that the existing populations were driven out or killed off
   entirely by the new arrivals. Only in England, the Rhine Valley and the
   Balkans did the languages spoken by the original inhabitants largely
   disappear, to be replaced by those of the incomers (the meaning of this
   is debated). However changes everywhere would have been notable as
   established society went through changes in law, culture, 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
   with a dramatic change in economic and social linkages and
   infrastructure. Roman landholders, however, could not just pack up
   their land and move elsewhere. Some were dispossessed, others quickly
   changed their allegiances to those of their new rulers. In areas like
   Spain and Italy, this often meant little more than acknowledging a new
   overlord, while Roman forms of law and religion could be maintained. In
   other areas where there was a greater weight of population movement, it
   might be necessary to adopt new modes of dress, language and custom. In
   such areas those who remained soon dropped their former pretences of
   Roman citizenship, so that within a generation or two it would have
   been difficult to distinguish between a Roman and a barbarian.

   The breakdown of Roman society was often dramatic as it became unsafe
   to travel or carry goods over any distance and there was a collapse in
   trade and manufacture for export. Major industries that depended on
   long-distance 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. Thus, whereas sites like Tintagel in Cornwall had managed to
   obtain supplies of Mediterranean luxury goods well into the 6th
   century, this connection was now lost. The administrative, educational
   and military infrastructure of the Roman Empire quickly vanished,
   leading, among other things, to decreased literacy among the upper
   tiers (the majority of Rome's population were always illiterate) and
   the reduced governmental sophistication mentioned above. While the
   authority of Rome weakened, the authority of the bishops increased.
   Augustine of Hippo is such an example and is sometimes used to mark the
   end of the classical age and the beginning of the Middle Ages. One
   historian (Thomas Cahill) supports this saying that Augustine was the
   last of the classical men and the first of medieval men.

New order

   Until recently it has been common to speak of " barbarian invasions"
   sweeping in from beyond Imperial borders and bringing about the end of
   the Roman Empire. Modern historians now acknowledge that this presents
   an incomplete portrait of a complex time of migration. In some
   important cases, such as that of the Franks entering Gaul, settlement
   of the newcomers took place over many decades, as groups seeking new
   economic opportunities crossed into Roman territory, retaining their
   own tribal leadership, and acculturating to, or displacing the
   Gallo-Roman society, often without widespread violence. This migration
   of the barbarians into the Roman empire took place over such a long
   period of time that, the Romans did not even perceive them as a threat.
   By speaking of this time as a time of "Barbarian invasions," it implies
   that it was an organized attack, which it certainly was not. Other
   outsiders, like Theodoric of the Ostrogoths, although warlike, also saw
   themselves as successors to the Roman tradition, employing cultured
   Roman ministers, like Cassiodorus. Like the Goths, the Franks and the
   Burgundians many of the outsiders were foederati, military allies of
   the Empire, who had earned rights of settlement.

   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 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 for lack of a tax base, and the institutional
   support for large scale chattel slavery largely disappeared. The new
   system was incapable of supporting the depth of infrastructure required
   to maintain libraries, public baths, arenas and major educational
   institutions. While not actively destroying such things, the new rulers
   generally saw no point in striving to maintain them, and the economic
   base to support them no longer existed. New building was on a far
   smaller scale. Outside of Italy building in stone was rarely attempted
   until the 8th Century, when a new form of architecture called the
   Romanesque, and based on Roman forms, gradually developed.

   In art, Celtic and Germanic barbarian forms were absorbed into
   Christian art, although the central impulse remained Roman and
   Byzantine. High quality jewellery and religious imagery were produced
   throughout Western Europe, Charlemagne and other monarchs provided
   patronage for religious artworks and books. Some of the principal
   artworks of the age were the fabulous Illuminated manuscripts produced
   by monks on vellum, using gold, silver and precious pigments to
   illustrate biblical narratives. Early examples include the Book of
   Kells and many Carolingian and Ottonian Frankish manuscripts.

   The Christian Church, the only centralized institution to survive the
   fall of the Western Roman Empire intact, was the major unifying
   cultural influence, preserving its selection from Latin learning,
   maintaining the art of writing, and a centralized administration
   through its network of bishops. Bishops were central to Middle Age
   society due to the literacy they possessed. As a result, they often
   played a significant role in shaping good government. However beyond
   the core areas of Western Europe there remained many peoples with
   little or no contact with Christianity or with classic Roman culture.
   Martial societies such as the Avars and the Vikings were still capable
   of causing major disruption to the newly emerging societies of Western
   Europe.
   Map of the world civilizations, c. 820 (Old World unaware of the New
   World's existence, and vice versa)
   Enlarge
   Map of the world civilizations, c. 820 (Old World unaware of the New
   World's existence, and vice versa)

   Outside the de-urbanized remains of cities, the power of central
   government was greatly reduced. Consequently government authority, and
   responsibility for military organization, taxation and law and order,
   was delegated to provincial and local lords, who supported themselves
   directly from the proceeds of the territories over which they held
   military, political and judicial power. In this was the beginnings of
   the feudal system. The hierarchy of military obligations, known as
   feudalism, bound each knight (Latin miles meaning soldier) to serve his
   superior in return for the latter's protection. This made for a
   confusion of territorial sovereignty (since allegiances were built up
   one on top of the other, could be contradictory, and were subject to
   change over time). The benefit of feudalism however, was its
   resiliency, and its ability to provide stable local government in the
   absence of a strong royal power.

   The Early Middle Ages were characterized by the urban control of
   bishops and the territorial control exercised by dukes and counts. The
   rise of independent urban communes free of lordly or episcopal control,
   marked the beginning of the High Middle Ages. The High Middle Ages
   would also see the regrowth of centralized power, and the growth of new
   "national" identities, as strong rulers sought to eliminate competition
   (and potential threat to their rule) from powerful feudal nobles. Well
   known examples of such consolidation include the Albigensian Crusade
   and the Wars of the Roses.

   In the east, the Eastern Roman Empire (called by historians the
   "Byzantine Empire"), maintained a form of Christianized 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, (partially
   reconquered by Belisarius), but this East Roman claim was a political
   fiction under Lombard rule and became strongly disputed from 800.

Rise of the Franks and Islamic invasions

   Two dynamics combined to change Europe forever: the rise of Islam in
   the East (which led to the Islamic conquest of Iberia and invasions of
   Europe) and the rise of the Franks as the first real Imperial power in
   the West since Rome, along with their halting the tide of Islamic
   expansion under the rule of Charles Martel. The rise of Islam also
   began the long, slow, slide into extinction of the Eastern Roman
   Empire, which though it would endure for another seven hundred years,
   and even achieve renewed glory in the tenth century, would never again
   regain the territories in Africa and the Levant it had possessed before
   the Islamic conquests of the seventh century. Islam's coming had the
   unexpected result of shifting Christian power decisively to the West.

   In the West, the first beginning of a new order arose with the
   Carolingians, who began as Mayors of the Palace for the Frankish Kings.
   At their onset, these were merely romanized Germanic barbarians,
   civilized to some degree by Christianity and a gradual evolution into a
   central government controlled by the Carolingian nobility, which
   actually ruled the Franks. This system came both to its height, and its
   end, during the reign of Charles Martel. At the beginning of Charles
   Martel's career, in 716, he had many internal opponents and felt the
   need to appoint his own kingly claimant, Clotaire IV, to the by then
   in-name only Kingship of the Franks. By his end, however, the dynamics
   of rulership in Francia had changed, no hallowed Meroving was needed,
   neither for defence nor legitimacy: Charles divided his realm between
   his sons without opposition (though he ignored his young son Bernard).
   In between, he strengthened the Frankish state by consistently
   defeating, through superior generalship, the host of hostile foreign
   nations which beset it on all sides, including the heathen Saxons,
   which his grandson Charlemagne would fully subdue, and Moors, which he
   halted on a path of continental domination.

   Charles was a brilliant strategic general and tactical commander, able
   to adapt his plans mid-battle to the unforeseen and repeatedly defeat
   enemies, even, as at Tours, when they were far superior in men and
   weaponry. Charles used ground, time, place, and troop morale to offset
   his foes' superior weaponry and tactics.

   He was also a skilled administrator and ruler, organizing what would
   become the medieval European government - a system of fiefdoms, loyal
   to barons, counts, dukes and ultimately the King, or in his case,
   simply maior domi princeps et dux Francorum. ("highest of the king's
   [great] household and commander of the Franks") His close coordination
   of church with state also began the medieval pattern for such
   government. He created the first western standing army since the fall
   of Rome. In essence, he changed western Europe from a horde of
   barbarians fighting with one another, to an organized state. He also
   halted Islamic expansion into Europe, and his crucial defeats of Muslim
   invading armies at Tours, Arles, and River Berre, stopped the Islamic
   tide while the Caliphate was still united, and set the stage for his
   son Pippin the Short to assume the Frankish Throne in what was already
   the basic Carolingian Empire, and his grandson to assume the title of
   the first Western Roman Emperor since Rome's fall, three centuries
   before.

West Roman Empire of Charlemagne (Post-800)

   Charlemagne was crowned emperor in Rome by the Pope on Christmas Day,
   800; his rule briefly united much of modern day France, western Germany
   and northern Italy. For 200 years after Charlemagne's death, Europe was
   in conflict, with east and west competing for power and influence in
   the partly un- christianized expanses of far northern Europe, and power
   devolving to more localized authorities.

   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 abbots, and the collapse of a res publica
   meant that the bishops became identified with the remains of urban
   government. Christianity provided a new cultural stability to people
   groups that were radically different. Whole people groups converted to
   win the support of the church, and to gain power and influence.
   Christianity provided the basis for a first European "identity,"
   Christendom, unified until the separation of the Roman Catholic Church
   and the Orthodox Church in the Great Schism of 1054, one of the dates
   that marks the onset of the High Middle Ages.

Carolingian Renaissance

   During Charlemagne's lifetime, however, as well as that of his son,
   Louis the Pious, the Frankish-ruled Holy Roman Empire experienced a
   flourishing of intellectual and cultural revival. During this period
   there was an increase of literature, the arts, architecture,
   jurisprudence, liturgical and scriptural studies. The period also saw
   the development of Medieval Latin and Carolingian minuscule, providing
   a common language and writing style that allowed for communication
   across most of Europe. After the decline of the Carolingian dynasty,
   the rise of the Saxon Dynasty in Germany was accompanied by the
   Ottonian Renaissance.

High Middle Ages

   Beginning about the year 1000, greater stability came to the lands of
   Western Europe. With the brief exception of the Mongol incursions,
   major barbarian invasions had ceased. The advance of Christian kingdoms
   and military orders into previously regions in the Baltic and Finnic
   northeast brought the forced assimilation of numerous native peoples to
   the European entity.

   The "High Middle Ages" describes the expansionist culture and
   intellectual revival from the late 11th century to the beginning of the
   14th (the " 12th Century Renaissance"). The High Middle Ages saw an
   explosion in population. In central and northern Italy and in Flanders
   the rise of towns that were self-governing to some degree within their
   territories marked a beginning for re-urbanization in Western Europe.

   In Spain and Portugal, a slow reconquest of the urbane and literate
   Muslim-ruled territories began. One consequence of this was that the
   Latin-literate world gained access to libraries that included classical
   literature and philosophy. Through translations these libraries gave
   rise to a vogue for the philosophy of Aristotle. Meanwhile, trade grew
   throughout Europe as the dangers of travel were reduced, and steady
   economic growth resumed. This period saw the formation of the Hanseatic
   league and other trading and banking institutions that operated across
   western Europe. The first universities were established in major
   European cities from 1080 onwards, bringing in a new interest and
   inquisitiveness about the world. Literacy began to grow, and there were
   major advances in art, sculpture, music and architecture. Large
   cathedrals were built across Europe, first in the romanesque, and later
   in the more decorative gothic style.

Crusades

   Following the Great Schism, prime examples of the force of the divided
   cultural identities of Christendom can be found in the unfolding
   developments of the Crusades, during which popes, kings, and emperors
   drew on the concept of Christian unity to inspire the population of
   Western Europe to unite to fight against Islam. From the 7th century
   onward, Islam had been gaining ground along Europe's southern and
   eastern borders. Muslim armies conquered Egypt, the rest of North
   Africa, Jerusalem, Spain, Sicily, and most of Anatolia (in modern
   Turkey), although they were finally turned back in western Europe by
   Christian armies at the Battle of Tours in southern France. Political
   unanimity in Europe was less secure than it appeared, however, and the
   military support for most crusades was drawn from limited regions of
   Europe. Substantial areas of northern Europe also remained outside
   Christianity until the twelfth century or later; these areas also
   became crusading venues during the expansionist High Middle Ages.

Science and technology

   During the 12th and 13th century in Europe there was a radical change
   in the rate of new inventions, innovations in the ways of managing
   traditional means of production, and economic growth. The period saw
   major technological advances, including the invention of cannons,
   spectacles and artesian wells; and the cross-cultural introduction of
   gunpowder, silk, the compass and the astrolabe from the east. There
   were also great improvements to ships and the clock. The latter
   advances made possible the dawn of the Age of Exploration. At the same
   time huge numbers of Greek and Arabic works on medicine and the
   sciences were translated and distributed throughout Europe. Aristotle
   especially became very important, his rational and logical approach to
   knowledge influencing the scholars at the newly forming universities
   which were absorbing and disseminating the new knowledge during the
   12th Century Renaissance.

Late Middle Ages

   The first half of the 14th century witnessed an economic decline that
   began with the first retrenchment after the long, gently inflationary
   rise of a unified economy that had been under way since the 11th
   century. The European climate itself was worsening, after the long
   Medieval Warm Period, leading to the onset of the Little Ice Age. In
   the Black Death, large areas of Western Europe lost around a third—in
   some places as much as half—of their population to disease, especially
   in the crowded conditions of the towns. As a consequence, the mass
   population loss greatly accelerated social and economic change during
   the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In Western Europe, the sudden
   scarcity of cheap labour provided an incentive for landlords to compete
   for peasants by offering wages and freedoms, an innovation that, some
   argue, represents the roots of capitalism.

   Politically, the later Middle Ages were typified by the decline of
   feudal power replaced by the development of strong, royalty-based
   nation-states, especially in England, France and the Iberian Peninsula.
   This consolidation did not decrease the frequency of war, the Late
   Middle Ages seeing such protracted conflicts as the Hundred Years' War
   between England and France. Participation in these wars weakened the
   eastern Christian nations in their confrontations with an increasing
   expanding Islamic world. Indeed, throughout this period the Byzantine
   Empire was in decline, having peaked in influence during the Early
   Middle Ages. After the Battle of Manzikert (1071), the former empire
   was reduced to a shell; it survived in a diminished and weakened form
   until 1453, and ceased to exist by the end of the Late Medieval period.

   Christendom was increasingly divided in this period, notably during the
   14th century. This troubled century saw both the Avignon Papacy of
   1305-1378, also called the Babylonian Captivity, and the so-called
   Western Schism that lasted from 1378-1418. These divides resulted in
   greater loyalty to regional or national churches, and though lay piety
   rarely wavered, secular solutions, rather than religious ones, were
   increasingly sought for the social problems of the time. The Lutherans'
   split with the Roman Catholic Church in 1517, and the subsequent
   division between Catholicism and Protestantism signaled the end of the
   old order.

   Throughout the Late Middle Ages, stresses such as the Great Famine of
   1315-1317, the Black Death of 1348, and popular uprisings, particularly
   in the west, encouraged creative social, economic, and technological
   responses that signaled the end of the old medieval order and laid the
   groundwork for further great changes in the Early Modern Period.

            Europe in 1328

                          Europe in the 1430s

                                             Europe in the 1470s

Historiography

Middle Ages in history

   After the Middle Ages ended subsequent generations imagined, portrayed
   and interpreted the Middle Ages in different ways. Every century has
   created its own vision of the Middle Ages; the 18th century view of the
   Middle Ages was entirely different from the 19th century which was
   different from the 16th century view. The reality of these images
   remains with us today in the form of film, architecture, literature,
   art and popular conception.

Medieval and Middle Ages

"Middle Age"

   The term "Middle Age" ("medium ævum") was first coined by Flavio
   Biondo, an Italian humanist, in the early 15th Century. Until the
   Renaissance (and some time after) the standard scheme of history was to
   divide history into six ages, inspired by the biblical six days of
   creation, or four monarchies based on Daniel 2:40. The early
   Renaissance historians, in their glorification of all things classical,
   declared two periods in history, that of Ancient times and that of the
   period referred to as the " Dark Age". In the early 15th Century it was
   believed history had evolved from the Dark Age to a Modern period with
   its revival of things classical so scholars began to write about a
   middle period between the Ancient and Modern, which became known as the
   Middle Age. This is known as the three period view of history.

   The plural form of the term, Middle Ages, is used in English, Dutch,
   Russian and Icelandic while other European languages use the singular
   form ( Italian medioevo, French le moyen âge, German das Mittelalter).
   This difference originates in different Neo-Latin terms used for the
   Middle Ages before media aetas became the standard term. Some were
   singular (media aetas, media antiquitas, medium saeculum and media
   tempestas), others plural (media saecula and media tempora). There seem
   to be no simple reason why a particular language ended up with the
   singular or the plural form. Further information can be found in Fred
   C. Robinson: "Medieval, the Middle Ages" in Speculum, Vol. 59:4 (Oct.
   1984), p. 745-56. The term "medieval" (traditionally spelled
   "mediaeval") was first contracted from the Latin medium ævum, or more
   precisely "middle epoch", by Enlightenment thinkers as a pejorative
   descriptor of the Middle Ages.

   The common subdivision into Early, High and Late Middle Ages came into
   use after World War I. It was caused by the works of Henri Pirenne (in
   particular the article "Les periodes de l'historie du capitalism" in
   Academie Royale de Belgique. Bulletin de la Classe des Lettres, 1914)
   and Johan Huizinga ( The Autumn of the Middle Ages, 1919).

   A medieval era can also be applied to other parts of the world that
   historians have seen as embodying the same feudal characteristics as
   Europe in this period. The pre-westernization period in the history of
   Japan is sometimes referred to as medieval. The pre-colonial period in
   the developed parts of sub-Saharan Africa is also sometimes termed
   medieval. Today historians are far more reluctant to try to fit the
   history of other regions to the European model and these terms are less
   often used.

Periodization issues

   It is difficult to decide when the Middle Ages ended, and in fact
   scholars assign different dates in different parts of Europe. Most
   scholars who work in 15th century Italian history, for instance,
   consider themselves Renaissance, while anyone working elsewhere in
   Europe during the early 15th century is considered a medievalist.
   Others choose specific events, such as the Turkish capture of
   Constantinople or the end of the Anglo-French Hundred Years' War (both
   1453), the invention of printing by Johann Gutenberg (around 1455), the
   fall of Muslim Spain or Columbus's voyage to America (both 1492), or
   the Protestant Reformation starting 1517 to mark the period's end. In
   England the change of monarchs which occurred on 22 August 1485 at the
   Battle of Bosworth is often considered to mark the end of the period,
   Richard III representing the old medieval world and the Tudors, a new
   royal house and a new historical period.

   Similar differences are now emerging in connection with the start of
   the period. Traditionally, the Middle Ages is said to begin when the
   West Roman Empire formally ceased to exist in 476. However, that date
   is not important in itself, since the West Roman Empire had been very
   weak for some time, while Roman culture was to survive at least in
   Italy for yet a few decades or more. Today, some date the beginning of
   the Middle Ages to the division and Christianization of the Roman
   Empire (4th century) while others, like Henri Pirenne see the period to
   the rise of Islam (7th century) as "late Classical".

   The Middle Ages are often subdivided into an early period (sometimes
   called the "Dark Ages", at least from the fifth to eighth centuries) of
   shifting polities, a relatively low level of economic activity and
   successful incursions by non-Christian peoples ( Slavs, Arabs,
   Scandinavians, Magyars); a middle period (the High Middle Ages) of
   developed institutions of lordship and vassalage, castle-building and
   mounted warfare, and reviving urban and commercial life; and a later
   period of growing royal power, the rise of commercial interests and
   weakening customary ties of dependence, especially after the
   14th-century plague.

Religion

     * Holy Roman Empire
     * The Crusades
     * Pilgrimage
     * Papacy
     * Medieval Inquisition
     * Heresy (for example, Arian; Cathar; John Wyclif)
     * Monastic orders
          + Benedictines
          + Carthusians
          + Cistercians
     * Mendicant friars
          + Franciscans
          + Dominicans
          + Carmelites
          + Augustinians
     * Judaism
     * Islam (Western Europe): Moors
     * Islam (Eastern Europe): Sultanate of Rûm & Ottoman Empire

Article by regions

     * Medieval Britain
     * Byzantine Empire
     * Bulgarian Empire
     * Medieval Czechs lands
     * Medieval France
     * Medieval Germany
     * Medieval Italy
     * Medieval Poland
     * Medieval Romania
     * Medieval Scotland
     * Medieval Spain

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages"
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   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
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