Middle Ages

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the Middle Ages

  2. (history) The period of primarily European history between the decline of the Western Roman Empire (antiquity) and the early modern period or the Renaissance; the time between c. 500 and 1500 CE.
    Synonyms: Barbarous Age, Dark Ages
    Hyponyms: Academical Age, Dark Ages, Early Middle Ages, High Middle Ages, Late Middle Ages, Lowest Age, Non-Academical Age
    • 1722, Memoirs of Literature, second edition, volume VI, London: Robert Knaplock · Paul Vaillant, article xxxix. Leipsick., page 296:
      The Geography of the middle Ages, ſays Mr. Juncker, ought to begin with the Diviſion of the Roman Empire made by Theodoſius the Great, about the End of the fourth Century, and muſt not reach farther than the Time of the Emperor Maximilian I. who divided Germany into Circles in the beginning of the XVIth Century.
      The middle Ages in this usage span the years 394/5–1500/12.
    • 1753, Ephraim Chambers, edited by George Lewis Scott and John Hill, A Supplement to Mr. Chambers’s Cyclopædia; or, Univerſal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences., volume I, London: several publishers, s.v. AGE, subentry Middle Age:
      Middle Age denotes the ſpace of time commencing from Conſtantine, and ending at the taking of Conſtantinople by the Turks, in the fifteenth century. Martin. Dial. Geogr. in Pref. Mem. de Trev. an. 1729. p. 1359. See alſo Bibl. Univ. T. 12. p. 393. ſeq.
      The Middle Age in this usage spans the years 306/324–1453.
    • a. 1780, James Harris, Philological Inquiries, in three parts, part I, London: Charles Nourse, published 1781, epistle dedicatory, page 4:
      The Third and last Part will be rather Historical than Critical, being an Essay on the Taste and Literature of the middle Age.
    • ibidem, part III, chapter i, page 240:
      The Interval between the fall of these two Empires (the Weſtern or Latin in the fifth Century, the Eaſtern or Grecian in the fifteenth) making a ſpace of near a thouſand years, conſtitutes what we call the Middle Age.
      The Middle Age in this usage spans the years 476–1453.
    • 1818, Henry Hallam, View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, third edition, volume III, London: John Murray, published 1822, chapter ix: “On the State of Society in Europe during the Middle Ages.”, part i, page 304:
      The Middle Ages, according to the division I have adopted, comprize about one thousand years, from the invasion of France by Clovis to that of Naples by Charles VIII.
      The Middle Ages in this usage span the years 486–1495.
    • 1842, William Thomas Brande, Joseph Cauvin, editors, A Dictionary of Science, Literature, & Art, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, s.v. MIʹDDLE AGES, page 741/1:
      A term usually employed to denote, somewhat vaguely, a space of several centuries in European annals, intervening between what are called the ancient and modern periods of history. The centuries between the ninth or tenth and the end of the fifteenth after Christ are generally comprehended under this loose denomination. In the work of Mr. Hallam on the Middle Ages, that historian has assumed as his period of commencement the conquest of Gaul by the Franks, about A. D. 500; and, for his conclusion, the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII., about 1500; and with reference to the affairs of the Greeks and their oriental neighbours, he places, as the most convenient limit between ancient and modern history, the era of Mohammed.
    • 1882, James Cotter Morison, Macaulay (English Men of Letters), New York: Harper & Brothers, chapter iii: “The ‘Essays.’”, page 70:
      His acquaintance with the Middle Age generally may without injustice be pronounced slight; and though well informed as to the history of the Continent, his knowledge of it, as we shall have occasion to see, was not so accurate of deep.
    • 1887, James Cotter Morison, The Service of Man. An Essay towards the Religion of the Future., London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., chapter vii: “What Christianity has done”, pages 177–178:
      Within two centuries of its [scil. the Nicene Creed’s] promulgation, the Græco-Roman world had descended into the great hollow which is roughly called the Middle Ages, extending from the fifth to the fifteenth century, a hollow in which many great, beautiful and heroic things were done and created, but in which knowledge, as we understand it, and as Aristotle understood it, had no place.
    • 2001, Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl (Artemis Fowl; book 1 of 8), Viking, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 52:
      She could see the town below her, nestled on top of a low hill, surrounded by a crenellated wall from the Middle Ages.

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Further reading

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  • Middle Ages on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
  • James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Middle age, sb.”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volume VI, Part 2 (M–N), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 421, column 2:
    2. The Middle Age, now usually the Middle Ages: the period intermediate between ‘ancient’ and ‘modern’ times; in earlier use commonly taken as extending from c 500 to c 1500; now used without precise definition, but most frequently with reference to the four centuries after A. D. 1000. Cf. mod.L. medium ævum, G. mittelalter, F. moyen âge.
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