The time period known as The Middle Ages lasted for approximately 1000 years.?

Question

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The time period known as The Middle Ages lasted for approximately 1000 years. What characteristics of the time period contributed to its lengthy existence? Be sure to discuss the following: the role of religion in medieval Europe and how the feudal system contributed to the perpetuation of the Middle Ages.

Answer 1

Well, the reason the feudal system contributed to the perpetuation is because they seemed to be set in a caste system that the serfs couldn't get out of and the nobles couldn't fall out of.

Something else that contributed to it was it's lack of religion and knowledge (dark ages) and all the sickness (black plague).

Answer 2

The term Middle Ages reflects the period between Clasical culture and the Renaissance.
The term Dark Ages suggests the collapse of the Empire of Rome because of the incursion of the Barbarian nations who had lived outside the Empire. The crossed into the Western Empire and transformed the cultures there from Roman to European. The languages blended Latin with Germanic and Slavic and Norse. The only central authority was the Catholic Church which by default tried to convert the barbarians and educate them in the learning of antiquity. Moslem invaders spread the Teachings of Mohammed by conquest through Spain and up into the Balkans.
Europe was under siege from inside and outside.
Since the Roman armies had previously enforced
peace making commerce and travel possible and were gone people focused on their own localities rather than beyond. The idea of Catholic was to bring folks out of this self centered idea and make them aware of a larger community. Sometimes it was successful. Other times not. The feudal arrangement was a measure to provide some local security for planting/harvesting to avoid famine and support the populations. There were few national KINGS since territories were much smaller. National identity did not emerge till much later. The Church used the fuedal system to tame the internecine fighting and turn the tide agaist the expansion of Islam. The forces of Mohammed did not convert. They seized by conquest. To provide some stability the Crusades were mounted to allow for travel to the lands under Moslem control which previously had been part of the Roman Empire. Pilgrims from Europe had been plundered and massacred going to and from the Holy Lands. The soldiers were encouraged to stop fighting one another and direct their energy against the invaders. Trader encouraged the idea since markets might open again. Bankers encouraged the idea since they could loan money to the nobility to pay for the adventure. The Crusades ultimately failed since it was fighting fire with fire. They were a betrayal of the ideals of Jesus and caused alienation of Europe from The Near East and Islamic Northern Africa. The landed classed benefitted from the experience since it removed warring population from local areas. Only with the Fall of (1453)Constantinople to the Moslem Turks did the fleeing scholars of the Eastern Roman Empire return much of Classical Learning to Western Europe. This influx along with the Black Death changed the make up of Europe into a more Nationality-Aware Grouping.

Answer 3

The Middle Ages is often dated from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 to the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire in 1453. The concept of the Middle Ages arose in the Renaissance era and was used to denote the period in betwwen classical antiquity and the Renaissance. Because of the political disintegration of the Roman Empire, the Church was the only large institution left so it assumed a leadership role. Also, education (and the preservation of ancient manuscripts) fell within the purview of the Church, as they were the only literate ones left. With the collapse of centralized political power, life became more violent, more nasty & brutish, and the biggest local thug could reduce everybody else to submission, thus setting himself up as a count or a duke. Once the idea of the three orders - the clergy (who pray for God), the nobility (who fight for God), and the Third Estate (who work for God) - had been developed by the Church, it had staying power because the best way to get the majority to not question an idea is to tell them God said so.

Answer 4

Islam spread far from its birthplace in the modern nation of Saudi Arabia. By AD1095, Muslim territory included land where Jesus Christ lived. Christians warriors of the era believed Christians, not Muslims, should control their holy lands.

The Crusades were a series of wars initiated by Christians to win back their holy lands from Muslims.

The Crusaders were ultimately unable to reclaim their holy lands, but the wars had another effect: Western Europeans had left their homes to fight in a distant war. The stories of the returning Crusaders encouraged their countrymen to look beyond their own villages for the first time.

Feudalism perpetuated the Middle Ages since it was a long-lasting type of system. Feudalism had begun as a contract, the exchange of land tenure for military service. Over time, as lords could no longer provide new lands to their vassals, nor enforce their right to reassign lands which had become de facto hereditary property, feudalism became less tenable as a working relationship

Feudalism refers to a general set of reciprocal legal and military obligations among the warrior nobility of Europe during the Middle Ages, revolving around the three key concepts of lords, vassals, and fiefs.

Defining feudalism requires many qualifiers because there is no broadly accepted agreement of what it means.

Answer 5

First the Middle Ages lasted from about 700 CE to 13th century CE when the Renaissance began in Italy. A closer name for the times would be the Dark Ages which lasted from when Rome divided into the Eastern and Western Empires in the Late 700's Europe was drawn into itself and the church held control of intellectual thought and live in general.

In the Early 1300's Italian writers began to let Arabic ideas influenced their thinking and the Renaissance began. The Arabs had held the knowledge of the Roman Empire along with the Byzantine Empire in the East. With Venice and Genoa's trade with the Eastern Mediterranean and trade with China like the Polo's would have made Northern Italy more receptive to new ideas and thoughts.

That is a short History of the Middle Ages I hope it helps. Always feel free to use Wikipedia for your quick research. Start with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages for info on the Middle Ages. Cheers.

Answer 6

In medieval (Middle Age) Europe, the Church ruled supreme, even over kings. It had been the official religion of Rome, and its power continued even after Rome's collapse, partly through its wealth and landholdings.

The Middle Ages began in 500 A.D., shortly after the fall of the Roman Empire. The Romans had held Europe together by military might, as well as by maintaining order and an infrastructure, such as roads, armies, etc. When they were gone, there was no strong government left behind. The feudal system ended up replacing it--those who had no land had no choice but to work for those who did. The feudal lords took advantage of it, and the workers, or serfs, were kept in poverty, often with generation after generation doing the same work as their ancestors. There was no room for advancement in the feudal system, unless a member of the family had the luck of joining the Church, where he could learn to read, write, and become a priest.

The one cause of the downfall of the feudal system was actually the Black Plague. Millions of Europeans were killed by it, leaving fewer workers to work the land. Lords were forced to offer more money to serfs to get them to work for them, creating a middle class where the people could actually choose what they wanted to do and who they wanted to work for.

The real end of the Dark Ages was the Rennaisance, or Age of Enlightenment. It spread across Europe gradually, weakening the hold of the church as people began to turn away from antiquarian beliefs of the church to the love of the arts and science.

Answer 7

I'd go 1,100 - 1,200 years, although it is a vague period of time and every historian has a different idea. What I have settled on, based on a lot of reading, is from Constantine, 315, up through the War or the Roses ending in 1485. Some people, however, go from the last western Roman Emperor (he was not the last, they moved to Byzantium and changed their names) who died in 476 up through the fall of Constantinople in 1453 ... which is a tighter time frame.

Answer 8

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudal