- [Instructor] Growing up we all have impressions of
the Middle Ages, we read about knights in shining armor,
castles with moats and towers, but when were
the Middle Ages?
The simple answer, the Middle Ages in Europe
are the roughly 1000 years from the fall of the Roman
Empire and to be particular the fall of the Western Roman
Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire continues on for most
of the Middle Ages, but it starts in roughly 476
and it continues on for 1000 years as we get
into the 14th and 15th centuries.
And it's really the time period that connects the world
of Rome, Europe during antiquity and it connects it
to the Europe that begins to emerge in the 14th, 15th,
and 16th centuries.
The Europe of the Age of Exploration, the Europe
of the Renaissance.
Now what we're going to do in this video is we're going
to look at maps of the various time periods
of the Middle Ages.
The Middle Ages are broadly divided into three major
sections, the early Middle Ages, from the fall of
the Western Roman Empire to about the year 1000.
The high Middle Ages, which was a high point
for the Middle Ages in Europe which goes from about what
the year 1000 to the year 1300, and then the late
Middle Ages, which gets us to the 15th century and it's
considered not that pleasant of a time to live in Europe.
So let's just start with what Europe looked like right
after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
So as you can see here, this map is referring to the time
period between 476 when Odoacer takes over Rome and 493.
And you can see the Eastern Roman Empire is still here
but the Western Roman Empire is now fragmented
amongst many Germanic kingdoms, you have the Visigoths,
you have the Franks, you have the Kingdom of Odoacer.
With the fall of Rome we are entering into the early
Middle Ages.
Now the Eastern Roman Empire which considers itself
the Roman Empire its capital at Constantinople
under Justinian has a little bit of a last horah
and is able to recapture the Italian peninsula so it's
able to recapture some of the territory that was formally
part of the Western Roman Empire, some of the territory
in North Africa that you don't see on this map.
But for the most part Western Europe stays under the control
of various Germanic kingdoms.
So here we have fast forwarded to the year 814 which would
be right around here on our timeline.
And you can see a major event has occurred either on the map
or on this timeline.
You have Charlemagne king of the Franks crowned Holy
Roman Emperor.
On the map, you can see Charlemagne's empire right over here
he has conquered Northern Italy, much of what we consider
modern day France, much of what we consider modern day
Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Belgium.
Charlemagne is really one of the defining figures of
the Middle Ages and especially the early Middle Ages.
As you can see, he's able to unify much of Western Europe.
A lot of our ideas about kings and castles and knights begin
to emerge around the time of Charlemagne.
This notion of being a Holy Roman Emperor because he's able
to provide protection to the Pope.
The Pope says hey I'm going to say that you are continuing
on the legacy of the Roman Empire.
Now as we'll see and we cover in much more detail in other
videos, the title of Holy Roman Emperor or Emperor
of the Romans, does not continue on with Charlemagne's
descendants, but when you get to 962, Otto who is a German
king is crowned Holy Roman Emperor again and you continue
to have Holy Roman Emperors all the way until 1806.
Now another major feature of the early Middle Ages
and you can see it on this map, is that Islam in the 7th
and 8th centuries comes out of Arabia and is able to
conquer much of the Middle East, Persia, North Africa,
which you don't see on this map, and much of what we
consider today to be modern day Spain and you can see it,
do you see the Caliphate or Cordova right over here.
You see the Abbassids here in the east who also controlled
much of North Africa.
Now let's fast forward to the high Middle Ages.
So here we are in the year 1135 on our timeline that would
be right about, let's see this is 1100, that would be 1150
1135 would put us right around here.
And you could already see some interesting things on
this map, the Holy Roman Empire under Charlemagne is now
fragmented, the Western third is now the Kingdom of France,
the Eastern 2/3 are still considered the Roman Germanic
Empire or the Holy Roman Empire.
And even though it looks fairly unified in this map,
over different periods of time it's really a bunch of
fragmented Germanic kingdoms nominally under this Holy
Roman Empire sometimes it's a little bit more unified
under a stronger Holy Roman Emperor.
Now the other things that you see and we saw it on the last
map is that the Byzantine Empire is continuing to lose
territory and you can see the Muslim empires in this case
it's the Seljuk Turks are able to take even more territory.
Now one of the things that has happened by the time we look
at this map and it's not clear by looking on the map
is that you have in 1054 the Great Schism between the Latin
Church centered at Rome and the Eastern Greeks Church
centered at Constantinople and we have a whole series
of videos on that and all of the factors that led to it.
But as we get to the time of this map one of the things
that the high Middle Ages is most known for,
the Great Schism or the East-West Schism is one of the them,
the Schism between what eventually becomes the Roman
Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, but what
the high Middle Ages are also known for are the Crusades.
As already mentioned you see how the Seljuk Turks are able
to take much of Anatolia, much of the peninsula from
the Byzantine Empire.
And the West decides to send what will eventually be called
Crusaders to help regain land from the Muslims.
And so that's where you see the Crusades beginning in 1096
at the very end of the 11th century.
You can see the multiple crusades that occur over roughly
the next 200 years.
And the Crusaders were trying to reclaim land from
the Muslims and especially the Holy Land, much of which
is below the map where you can't quite see it over here.
But it turns out that when they are able to reclaim some
of that land they don't give it back to the Byzantines
they set up what are known as Crusader Kingdoms and you can
see some of them right over here in this bluish color.
So once again you had this East-West Schism and the Crusades
are further expanding the division between east and west.
And that really becomes significant in 1204 when
the Crusaders themselves sack Constantinople,
take Constantinople from the Byzantines, so that's in some
ways the point of no return.
The Byzantines are eventually able to take Constantinople
back but this is really the beginning of the end
for the Byzantine Empire.
Now even though the high Middle Ages are known for this
tension between east and west The Great Schism, even though
it's known for the Crusades, most of which were fairly
unsuccessful despite being very very very bloody
for the Crusaders, the high Middle Ages were considered
a high point for the Middle Ages.
Farming technology coupled with better weather actually
significantly increased agricultural productivity
at this time.
But then roughly in the year 1300, historians consider
ourselves moving into the late Middle Ages.
So you can see here in this map by the late Middle Ages,
Europe is starting to resemble the Europe that we know
in later periods once we get into the Renaissance
and the Age of Exploration.
By this point, much of the Iberian Peninsula has been
reclaimed from Muslim rule although you still have
Muslim rule in Granada.
Most of the Byzantine Empire has now been taken over
by the Ottomans, save Constantinople, Constantinople
eventually falls in 1453.
This map right over here is roughly what Europe looked like
in the 14th century.
So this period right over here, Constantinople falls in 1453
ending the Byzantine Empire formally.
And what the late Middle Ages is most known for is being
not that pleasant of a time to live in Europe.
In 1347, you have the Black Death, which by some estimates
kills 50 million people in Europe, which is roughly 60%
of the population at the time.
It's also a time of famine, the weather cycles get worse
and even before the Black Death you have a significant
famine occurring in the 14th century.
You can see right over here between 1337 and 1453
you have the Hundred Years' War between France and England
which lasts over 100 years, once again not a pleasant time
to live in especially Western Europe.
But as we get into the end of the 15th and especially
into the 16th century, historians consider that to be
the end of the Middle Ages and we start getting into
the Age of Exploration and the Renaissance which we will
discuss in future videos.