Early Middle Ages

Early Middle Ages or Early Middle Ages is a modern term for the first of the three major periods of the Middle Ages, related to Europe and the Mediterranean region for the period from about the middle of the 6th century to about 1050. The Early Middle Ages are preceded by Late Antiquity (284 to 600/700), which already represents a transformation period and partly overlaps with the beginning Early Middle Ages. The two periods following the Early Middle Ages are the High Middle Ages and the Late Middle Ages.

The Early Middle Ages are important as a transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages as well as an independent epoch. Beginning and end are dated differently in historical research, so that differently broad transition periods are considered. Contrary to the older interpretation as a "dark" or "backward" epoch, the Early Middle Ages is viewed in a much more differentiated way in modern research. It is characterized both by continuities and by change in the political, cultural and social spheres, which has repercussions into the modern era. Thus began the continuing division of Europe and the Mediterranean into a Christian and an Islamic part, as well as the Christian part into a Latin and an Orthodox one, which included the cultural sphere of Byzantium. Several of the empires that emerged in the early Middle Ages also formed the basis for states that still exist today.

The beginning of the Early Middle Ages is linked to the so-called Migration of Nations, in the course of which the Western Roman Empire fell in 476. The Roman administrative structures in the West disappeared only slowly, and new Germanic-Roman empires arose on the soil of the Western Empire. The Frankish Empire, founded by the Merovingians in the late 5th century, developed into the most important successor empire in the West. In the East, on the other hand, the Eastern Roman Empire held its ground, and in the 6th century it was even able to reconquer some lost territories in the West. However, large parts of the conquered territories were soon lost again. Ostrom, or Byzantium, was also in a defensive struggle against the Persian Sāsānids until the early 7th century. In the 7th/8th century, as a result of the Arab conquests, the political order in the Mediterranean region changed fundamentally. This meant the definitive end of antiquity. The formerly Byzantine-controlled area in the Near East and North Africa was occupied by the Muslim Arabs and slowly Islamized. Islamic dominions also lasted for a long time in the Iberian Peninsula and Sicily. In the East, the Arabs conquered Persia and penetrated as far as Central Asia.

In the 8th century, the Carolingians took over rule in the Frankish Empire. Under them, the Frankish Empire developed into a hegemonic power in the West. This was associated with a shift of political emphasis from the Mediterranean to western and central Europe and a new phase of "state order" in Europe. Under Charlemagne, who took up the Western imperial system in 800, the Frankish Empire encompassed the core part of Latin Christendom from northern Spain to the area on the right bank of the Rhine and central Italy. The Carolingian Empire, which disintegrated in the 9th century, gave rise to the West Frankish Empire and the East Frankish Empire, from which France and Germany later developed. In East Francia, the Liudolfings rose in the 10th century, attained the western imperial dignity and laid the foundation for the Roman-German Empire, which also included Imperial Italy. France and England eventually developed into territorially cohesive dominions. Politically, the 10th and 11th centuries were a period of consolidation in the Carolingian successor empires, on the Iberian Peninsula and in England; the transition to the High Middle Ages took place. In the north, the Viking Age, which lasted until the 11th century, began in the 8th century. In Eastern Europe, Slavic dominions emerged from the 7th century onward, partly on a tribal basis and partly in the form of empire-building.

Byzantium was able to assert itself after heavy defensive struggles and also overcame the iconoclastic controversy in the 8th/9th century. In the 10th/11th century, Byzantium rose again to become a major power in the eastern Mediterranean. In contrast, the Arab caliphate was repeatedly weakened by internal struggles. The Umayyad dynasty, which had ruled since 661, was overthrown by the Abbasids in 750. Under them, the caliphate experienced a cultural flowering, but also had to accept the secession of sub-territories. In terms of state institutions and the organization of more complex tasks based on them, Byzantium and the caliphate were superior to the weaker monarchies in the West for a long time. Likewise, the economic power there and, above all, the cultural milieu were more pronounced, especially since more of the ancient cultural heritage and scientific tradition had been preserved there.

In Latin Europe, a new social order was established in the early Middle Ages, with the nobility and the high clergy as the leading classes. Landlordism played an important role in this. After a period of decline, culture in Western Europe flourished noticeably in the wake of the Carolingian educational reform in the late 8th and early 9th centuries, before again experiencing a temporary decline. Education remained quite predominantly confined to the clergy. Economically, after a slump in the 7th/8th century, a period of upswing began again, in which the cities played a part, although the early Middle Ages were economically predominantly agrarian.

In the religious sphere, the Christianization of the pagan areas was advanced in the interior of Europe. This slow process continued in part into the High Middle Ages, but extended the Christian cultural sphere considerably into northern and eastern Europe. The papacy, which was initially not politically relevant, and monasticism became increasingly important. The church also played an important role in the cultural sphere. With Islam, a new major monotheistic religion emerged at the beginning of the 7th century.

Term and time delimitation

The Middle Ages are often equated with the millennium from about 500 to about 1500. The term refers primarily to Europe and the Mediterranean region as a cultural area and can therefore only be applied to non-European history to a limited extent, although in historical research specific historical periods are also referred to as the respective Middle Ages with regard to the cultural areas of India, China and Japan. The term Middle Ages is especially relevant for the Christian-Latin influenced part of Europe, since there was a political and cultural break in late antiquity. But also the Byzantine-Greek and Islamic-Arabic areas are essential for the understanding of the Middle Ages, since all three areas were in a reciprocal relationship.

Historical scholarship still debates how to temporally delineate the Early Middle Ages from Late Antiquity and the High Middle Ages. With the end of antiquity and the beginning of the early Middle Ages, a period began that was often regarded as a rather "dark period" in older research. This already began with the emergence of the term "Middle Ages" (medium aevum) in humanism and finally consolidated with the historical model of the Enlightenment in the 18th century, in which this form of periodization became predominant and historical processes were interpreted in a certain sense (a "middle period" between antiquity and modern times). Thus a deliberate devaluation was made from the outset. The early Middle Ages in particular were regarded as a "dark epoch" compared to Antiquity and the Renaissance. This view of history was still influential into the 20th century. In modern research, however, the problem of such sweeping judgments is pointed out and a more differentiated view is pleaded for.

Various dates and events have been proposed for the beginning of the early Middle Ages from different perspectives:

• 306-337: Constantine's reign, Constantinian turn in religious policy
• c. 375: The Huns invade east-central Europe; this is considered the beginning of the migration of peoples and the resulting transformation of western and central Europe.
• 476: The last Western Roman emperor, Romulus Augustus, is deposed by Odoacer.
• 486/87: The Merovingian king Clovis I defeats Syagrius, the last representative of Roman rule in Gaul.
• 529: Benedict of Nursia founds the Abbey of Montecassino in southern Italy, which becomes the cradle of medieval monasticism. In the same year, the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I bans the Platonic Academy in Athens.
• 565: Justinian, who had sought the restoration of Roman rule in the West, dies.
• 568: With the invasion of Italy by the Lombards, the last successor empire of importance for the early Middle Ages is founded on Roman soil.
• 632: The spread of Islam begins.

The early dating is no longer represented in recent research. Instead, the period from about 500 to the middle of the 7th century is now regarded as a fluid transitional period from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages with overlaps. It is taken into account that this process varied greatly from region to region and that (to varying degrees) ancient elements were preserved. Often, the development in Late Antiquity from the 4th century onwards is also included in the consideration, insofar as important preconditions for the later development of Western Europe were created in this phase. This is because Late Antiquity was a transitional period that anticipated individual characteristics of the Middle Ages. While the older research, oriented on classicism, emphasized a break between the antiquity, which was considered exemplary, and the supposedly "dark" Middle Ages ("catastrophe theory"), today's research therefore emphasizes the aspects of continuity and gives them greater weight. The multitude of current publications shows the clear increase of research interest in the transitional period from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, whereby the research approaches vary greatly.

In recent research, the events in the Eurasian region in the first millennium - the emergence of the late Roman Empire with all the associated upheavals, the "migration of peoples," the conflicts with Persia, the emergence of the Islamic world and the Romano-Germanic world in the west of the former empire - are increasingly viewed in a temporal and spatial context. In this context, a model of the period from the 3rd to the 9th century, referred to as "long Late Antiquity," emerged and is advocated by a minority of researchers. It is now undisputed that Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages should not be understood as rigid chronological entities and that rather regionally different transitional periods should be taken into account. In recent research, early medieval Europe is increasingly no longer viewed in isolation, but is embedded in a global historical context.

The end of the Early Middle Ages and the beginning of the High Middle Ages are also not fixed to any single date. Cornerstones are considered to be the final disintegration of the Carolingian Empire and the formation of the successor empires around and after 900, the adaptation of the Western Roman imperial idea by Emperor Otto I in 962 (including the following development, which led from the Eastern Frankish Empire to the later so-called Holy Roman Empire), the end of the Ottonian imperial house (1024) or generally the period around 1050. The outline approaches in German-speaking research are mainly oriented towards Central European dynastic history; in English, French and Italian research, other points of view are in the foreground. This is related to the different scholarly traditions. In Great Britain, for example, the Norman conquest of England in 1066 is considered a caesura. From the Byzantine point of view, the year 1054, which marked the beginning of the Oriental Schism between Rome and Constantinople, and the conquest of Anatolia by Turkish nomads beginning in 1071 are important watersheds. The dating approaches therefore vary in the specialist literature, even in the "European"-oriented overviews, between ca. 900 and the middle of the 11th century.