Period· The columns of time

Middle Ages

500 → 1500

The Middle Ages, in Europe, run from about 500 to 1500, a name coined by Renaissance humanists for the interval between antiquity and their own time.

European period running from about 500 to 1500, whose designation, formed on the Latin medium aevum, was coined by Renaissance humanists to name the interval separating antiquity from their own age. The term is originally disparaging.

What the evidence shows

Renaissance scholars coined the expression while representing themselves as reconnecting directly with antiquity across the interval so named. The ten centuries concerned, from about 500 to about 1500, include the expansion of Islam, the Song dynasty and woodblock printing, the Mongol empire, the gold states of the Sahel, the heavy mouldboard plough, the shoulder collar, the first universities and the Black Death. The shoulder collar illustrates the gap between label and content: ancient harnessing passed a strap across the horse's throat, which compressed its windpipe as soon as effort increased, whereas the collar transfers traction to the shoulders, where the musculature is powerful and breathing unimpeded, multiplying the useful force of the same animal. The designation therefore records the judgement the fifteenth century passed on what preceded it, which constitutes a historical fact distinct from what it appears to describe.

Bounds and conventions

The division is conventional and explicitly European. The alternative would be to coin a neutral designation no reader would recognise, which would exchange accuracy for legibility. The usual term is retained and its scope specified here.

500 to 1500. A European division, without equivalent in most other cultural areas.