title: HBO Max

text: The service provided closed captioning support at launch, but initially lacked support for audio description (AD) for those with visual impairments. In October 2020, the American Council of the Blind announced it had reached a settlement with WarnerMedia whereby at least 1,500 hours of HBO Max content will be available with AD by the end of March 2021, increasing to at least 6,000 hours by March 2023, along with other accessibility enhancements to the website and apps by September 2021. HBO Max later began rolling out AD on select titles on March 26, 2021.


title: HBO Max

text: The majority of active subscribers to the HBO pay TV service (which previously included HBO Go), and most customers that were subscribed to HBO Now at time of launch, can access HBO Max for no extra charge, with all three services generally sharing the same price point of $14.99 per month. However, this transition is contingent on the customer's current provider or biller having signed a new distribution agreement for HBO Max with WarnerMedia.


title: HBO Max

text: On May 27, 2020, as part of an agreement with Time Warner that renewed its carriage contract for the Turner Broadcasting System networks and gave its over-the-top television service Sling TV distribution rights to the linear HBO channel, Dish Network secured an option to become a distribution partner for HBO Max following the exclusivity period with Apple. HBO content is also available as a premium add-on for DirecTV Stream and Hulu for the same $14.99 price as HBO Max.


title: HBO Max

text: In announcing HBO Max, WarnerMedia immediately confirmed that HBO subscribers on AT&T-owned platforms (including AT&T TV, DirecTV, U-verse, and AT&T Mobility) will receive HBO Max on-launch at no additional charge. AT&T customers who are subscribed to their highest-tiered internet, TV and wireless plans will also receive HBO Max for free, while those on lower-tiered plans will get a free trial ranging from one month to one year. Existing HBO Now subscribers billed directly by HBO were also migrated to HBO Max on-launch at no additional charge. On April 27, 2020, an agreement was announced for HBO Now subscribers via Apple (both in-app subscriptions and Apple TV Channels) to be migrated to HBO Max. Content from HBO Max will be listed in the Apple TV app along with there being a dedicated HBO Max hub in the app. On Apple TV devices, HBO Max is available to the regular fourth generation Apple TV and fifth and sixth generation Apple TV 4K; earlier versions which do not support third-party app download are not supported.


title: HBO Max

text: At launch, HBO Max was only available to customers in the United States and certain territories of the same country. Due to regional rights restrictions, HBO cannot offer the service outside of the country, and its terms of use explicitly forbid the service from being used outside the United States. Users from outside the U.S. that are detected to have used services such as virtual private networks (VPN) to evade the geo-blocking to use HBO Max are subject to have their services terminated with no refund.


title: HBO Max

text: WarnerMedia subsequently negotiated with other pay TV providers for similar arrangements. On February 20, 2020, WarnerMedia announced a distribution deal with YouTube TV that would allow members to add HBO and Cinemax, while also being able to include HBO Max as an add-on. On April 15, 2020, WarnerMedia announced a similar deal with Charter Spectrum (which acquired Warner's former cable division after it was spun off in 2009, in May 2016) to give access to HBO Max for HBO subscribers via their TV Everywhere credentials. A similar agreement was announced with Hulu on May 1 for most existing subscribers via Hulu + Live TV, as well as being available as an add-on to all other plans on the service. On May 20, 2020, it was announced that WarnerMedia had made distribution deals with Altice USA, Cox Communications, Xbox, Samsung, PlayStation, Verizon Communications and the National Cable Television Cooperative (NCTC). An agreement with Comcast (Xfinity) was announced a few hours after the platform's launch. HBO Max is also available on Xfinity Flex and Cox Contour Stream Player.


title: HBO Max

text: The most prominent platforms without agreements to carry HBO Max at the launch were Amazon (maker of the Fire TV and Fire HD devices) and Roku, which together are estimated to control 70% of the U.S. streaming player market. With both platforms, non-Max HBO content remained available as usual through the companies' respective channels platforms and/or through HBO Now (which was rebranded to just "HBO" on July 31, 2020) while deals for HBO Max were being worked out. On May 13, 2020, John Stankey, CEO of AT&T, revealed to "Variety" that Amazon was very unlikely to become a launch partner for HBO Max; the parties have remained at an impasse following the launch, reportedly due to a disagreement about whether Amazon can host the additional Max programming directly on its Amazon Prime Video Channels platform as it does for HBO currently. On November 16, 2020, it was announced that WarnerMedia and Amazon had reached an agreement to make HBO Max available on Fire TV and Fire Tablet devices beginning the following day, while also allowing subscribers of HBO via Prime Video Channels access to the HBO Max app at no extra cost (although the additional Max programming will still not be hosted on the Prime Video Channels platform). The dispute with Roku was reported to hinge on carriage commissions and advertising sales on the future ad-supported tier. On December 16, 2020, it was announced that WarnerMedia and Roku had reached an agreement to make HBO Max available on Roku devices beginning the following day, while also allowing subscribers of HBO via Roku Channels access to the HBO Max app at no extra cost (although the additional Max programming will still not be hosted on the Roku Channels platform); conversely, Roku remote controls from the past five years which included an HBO Now app shortcut button now route viewers directly to the HBO Max app instead. Dish Network was also erroneously mentioned as a holdout in some media reports; HBO has not been available at all from Dish since late 2018 due to a separate dispute. On July 29, 2021, WarnerMedia and Dish announced that they had reached an agreement to resolve the dispute and restore HBO to Dish's satellite service, along with offering access to HBO Max to HBO subscribers via Dish at no extra cost.


title: HBO Max

text: There were plans for HBO Max to introduce an ad-supported tier by 2021, with AT&T later announcing during their Investor Day event on March 12, 2021, that the tier would launch in June of the same year. HBO original programming will continue to be ad-free for subscribers of the tier, but the tier will not allow access to Same-Day Premieres. WarnerMedia later announced during their 2021 upfront presentation on May 19 that the ad-supported tier would launch during the first week of June at a price point of $9.99 a month. The tier would end up launching on June 3, while also adding a yearly option for both tiers (priced at $99.99 a year for the ad-supported tier and $149.99 a year for the ad-free tier).


title: HBO Max

text: Localized versions of HBO Max launched on June 29, 2021, in Latin America and the Caribbean, on October 26, 2021, in Andorra, Spain and the Nordics (excluding Iceland), and on March 8, 2022, in Central & Eastern Europe and Portugal, in part by converting existing streaming services operated by HBO in some of those markets to the HBO Max platform. In the interim, some HBO Max original programs have been made available on WarnerMedia's existing international platforms, also including HBO Asia.


title: HBO Max

text: In other countries, HBO and/or HBO Max original programs are licensed to third-party networks and streaming services under long-term deals. In these cases, HBO Max has left it up to individual rightsholders to decide whether to offer its programming on an over-the-top basis. The extent and lengths of the deals vary by country; not all networks that carry HBO programs also carry HBO Max programs, and in some cases individual programs are carried by different services.


title: HBO Max

text: WarnerMedia said in late 2019 that it planned to continue HBO's existing international licensing partnerships for the time being. However, as part of the WarnerMedia further restructuring announced in August 2020, WarnerMedia president Jason Kilar said HBO Max would be expanding its scope globally. Operations chief Andy Forssell indicated later that year that the company ultimately plans to have HBO Max active in 190 countries, but that a timeline for most of the remaining countries had not been decided.


title: HBO Max

text: HBO Max was launched on June 29, 2021, in the 39 territories of Latin America and the Caribbean, where HBO already operated directly its streaming service HBO Go, and premium television channels.


title: HBO Max

text: Before the launch of HBO Max, Canadian rights to HBO-owned-and-distributed programming were held by Bell Media, the mass-media unit of telecom company Bell Canada.


title: HBO Max

text: Programming is offered through the hybrid Crave pay television and streaming service, which includes an HBO-branded multiplex channel that launched in 2008, and Bell's French-language pay service Super Écran.


title: HBO Max

text: In 2019, Bell Media announced an expanded partnership with WarnerMedia for the rights to scripted programming produced by Warner Bros. and its affiliates for HBO Max. The deal does not include the rights to series produced for the service by third-party studios. In addition, several youth and family-oriented shows produced for HBO Max were acquired by rival broadcaster Corus Entertainment for their specialty channels.


title: HBO Max

text: Under a long-term agreement until 2024 between HBO and Sky Group (Comcast), Sky operates Sky Atlantic which broadcasts the majority of HBO's programming. Sky Atlantic is available in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Italy. In February 2011, Sky Atlantic launched on the Sky platforms in the United Kingdom and Ireland, which maintains a distribution deal with HBO to offer the majority of its programming on the channel. Under the five-year agreement between HBO and Sky, newer HBO programs will air on Sky Atlantic before airing on other television channels within the United Kingdom and Ireland. Before 2011, TG4 in Ireland had a long-term agreement to broadcast HBO programming free-to-air, this ceased following the creation of Sky Atlantic. In many other countries, HBO Max has licensed exclusive rights to its programming to television networks owned by third parties, including Sky Atlantic in the United Kingdom. In March 2021, WarnerMedia confirmed that HBO Max would not launch in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Italy before 2025 due to an existing deal for HBO programming with Sky Group which was renewed in 2019 but does not automatically include HBO Max programs produced by third-party companies or Warner Bros.


title: HBO Max

text: On August 15, 2012, HBO announced plans to launch HBO Nordic, a multiplatform video distribution service serving Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland that was created through a joint venture with Parsifal International. The video on demand service launched in December 2012. HBO programming also airs in Iceland on Stöð 2.


title: HBO Max

text: In Spain, HBO programs were previously broadcast on pay television service Canal+, since 2011. In 2016, during the discontinuation of the Canal+ branding in Spain, HBO launched a standalone streaming service called HBO España, which is the Spanish equivalent of HBO Now and HBO Nordic.


title: HBO Max

text: HBO Europe had announced on multiple occasions that they were not aware that they were going to replace their current service with HBO Max, nor would their rates be increased. However, in December 2020, the head of HBO Max, Andy Forssell, revealed that all HBO services in Europe, including HBO España and HBO Nordic, will be replaced by HBO Max. On October 26, 2021, HBO Max was launched in the Nordics (excluding Iceland) and Spain and Andorra.


title: HBO Max

text: In the 2010s HBO Europe launched streaming service HBO Go in 13 Central and Eastern European countries. HBO programs in Portugal were previously broadcast on the premium television channel TVSéries from the services of TVCine, since 2015. In 2019, less than a year before the discontinuation of TVSeries, HBO Europe launched a standalone streaming service called HBO Portugal. Similarly to the Nordics and Spain, HBO Max was launched in Portugal and Central and Eastern Europe on March 8, 2022, replacing HBO Portugal and HBO Go.


title: HBO Max

text: Plans to also introduce HBO Max in certain Eastern European countries where HBO Go was previously absent, such as Turkey and Greece were announced on October 2021, but these plans were later halted due to the pending merger of the service with Discovery+.


title: HBO Max

text: On November 13, 2008, Orange launched Orange Cinéma Séries (renamed OCS in 2012), a five-channel package, dedicated to movie and series. The same year, OCS signed a long-term agreement with HBO. On October 10, 2013, they launched the channel OCS City Génération HBO (later renamed OCS City) to broadcast only HBO productions. The HBO catalog is also available to stream on their streaming service. Since 2019, OCS has the complete exclusivity on the HBO catalog in France. Before that, other channels like Canal+, Canal+ Séries or NT1 could aired reruns of selected HBO series after their original run on OCS. However, OCS do not have the rights on the HBO Max catalogue.


title: HBO Max

text: In October 2021, former Canal+ executive Vera Peltekian was appointed as VP and commissioning editor of original HBO Max programming for France. HBO Max launch in France is not yet set because of the multi-year deal with Orange. The deal is expected to end in 2023. Before the end of the deal, Canal+, Salto, and Warner TV broadcast the Warner Bros.-produced scripted live-action Max Original series, certain films and reunion specials. Programs not owned by Warner Bros. (like Lionsgate's "Love Life") have been licensed separately to other French broadcasters.


title: HBO Max

text: On February 9, 2012, HBO Netherlands started as a joint venture between HBO and Dutch cable operator Ziggo. HBO Netherlands aired as a three-channel multiplex service in addition to offering a localized version of HBO Go to subscribers. HBO Netherlands was not limited to subscribers of Ziggo, instead, many Dutch cable operators offered HBO Netherlands. However, on September 28, 2016, HBO Netherlands announced that it would cease operations on December 31, 2016. That same day, it was announced that Ziggo had bought exclusive rights to HBO programming. On November 1, 2016, it was announced that Ziggo will offer HBO programming exclusively as part of their new "Movies & Series" service starting from January 2017. In September 2021, it was reported that Ziggo's rights to HBO programming is set to expire at the end of the year. Ziggo confirmed that its HBO programming rights are set to expire on January 1, 2022, as a result of WarnerMedia launching HBO Max in The Netherlands in 2022. However, some recently aired seasons will remain on the "Movies & Series" service.


title: HBO Max

text: Fox Showcase, an Australian premium television service, began airing HBO original programming in 2012, through a licensed distribution arrangement with subscription television provider Foxtel. Before this, limited HBO content was broadcast through the now-defunct Movie Network, which was founded by HBO (through Time Warner), Village Roadshow, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Disney–ABC International Television. HBO Originals are also available on-demand via Foxtel services Foxtel Now and Binge. Sky Movies in New Zealand originally operated as a joint venture between HBO and Sky Network Television. The channel was renamed HBO in 1993; Time Warner later sold its share in the service to Sky in 1998, and it was renamed back to Sky Movies. HBO programming is currently shown by Sky channel SoHo, and its subscription streaming service Neon, in New Zealand. Deals with some other partners including Foxtel in Australia and Sky in New Zealand which includes a significant portion of HBO Max's original programming were agreed or renewed between 2019 and 2021.


title: HBO Max

text: In June 2021, WarnerMedia appointed a managing director for the launch of HBO Max in eight territories across Southeast Asia and the exploration of the possibilities to launch HBO Max in the Indian market.


title: HBO Max

text: Warner Bros. Discovery India decided to premiere their HBO Max original programming, including their original films, on Amazon Prime Video.


title: HBO Max

text: In Japan, reached a deal to carry HBO and HBO Max original programs in Japan beginning on April 1, 2021. This replaced a previous deal between HBO and Amazon Prime Video Japan.


title: HBO Max

text: HBO Max received mixed reception from media observers on launch. The range of available content was generally well received, but many commented on the likelihood of confusion with HBO's other since-deprecated streaming platforms, HBO Go and HBO Now, and the service's higher subscription price compared to other newly launched streaming platforms like Disney+. Television critics also expressed frustration that the library of original series (not including its former late night adult content) for sister network Cinemax was not originally available on HBO Max, though much of its output had arrived on the service by the end of 2021.


title: HBO Max

text: AT&T announced in July 2020 that HBO Max had nominally achieved 26.6 million subscribers after its first month of operation, including 23.6 million wholesale customers, primarily legacy HBO pay TV subscribers that were covered by new agreements that added access to HBO Max at no extra charge. However, only 4.1 million customers had activated their HBO Max accounts by the same date. The latter figure was seen by many observers as a disappointment, particularly in light of Disney+ having reached 10 million subscribers within a day of launch; "The New York Times"'s media critic Ben Smith wrote that WarnerMedia had "badly botched" the launch.


title: HBO Max

text: However, AT&T executives contended that it had been a "flawless launch" citing increased customer engagement compared to HBO Now and overall growth in total subscriptions to either HBO or HBO Max (36.3 million, vs. 34.6 million HBO or HBO Now subscribers at the end of 2019), while acknowledging that there was more to do to persuade existing HBO subscribers to start using the HBO Max apps. Executives had previously noted that HBO Max was starting from a different place than other streaming services as it was building on the existing HBO subscriber base, and had to work within the constraints of many of HBO's pre-existing deals (such as those with Amazon and Roku).


title: HBO Max

text: In October 2020, AT&T revealed that the number of activated HBO Max subscribers had reached 8.6 million by the end of September, while the number of nominal (eligible) subscribers reached 28.7 million. The total number of HBO / HBO Max subscriptions in the U.S. also increased to 28 million. With an agreement being reached the following month with Amazon (which is reported to have had 5 million HBO subscribers through Prime Video Channels), the number of HBO Max-eligible subscribers is understood to have increased to over 33 million. In September 2022, Warner Bros. Discovery was sued by a shareholder, alleging that WarnerMedia had overstated the number of HBO Max subscribers by including unactivated subscriptions bundled with AT&T services.


title: Middle Ages

text: In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages.


title: Middle Ages

text: Population decline, counterurbanisation, the collapse of centralized authority, invasions, and mass migrations of tribes, which had begun in Late Antiquity, continued into the Early Middle Ages. The large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the 7th century, North Africa and the Middle East—most recently part of the Eastern Roman (or Byzantine) Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, an Islamic empire, after conquest by Muhammad's successors. Although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire, Rome's direct continuation, survived in the Eastern Mediterranean and remained a major power. Secular law was advanced greatly by the "Code of Justinian". In the West, most kingdoms incorporated extant Roman institutions, while new bishoprics and monasteries were founded as Christianity expanded in Europe. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th and early 9th centuries. It covered much of Western Europe but later succumbed to the pressures of internal civil wars combined with external invasions: Vikings from the north, Magyars from the east, and Saracens from the south.


title: Middle Ages

text: During the High Middle Ages, which began after 1000, the population of Europe increased greatly as technological and agricultural innovations allowed trade to flourish and the Medieval Warm Period climate change allowed crop yields to increase. Manorialism, the organisation of peasants into villages that owed rent and labour services to the nobles, and feudalism, the political structure whereby knights and lower-status nobles owed military service to their overlords in return for the right to rent from lands and manors, were two of the ways society was organised in the High Middle Ages. This period also saw the formal division of the Catholic and Orthodox churches, with the East–West Schism of 1054. The Crusades, which began in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims, and also contributed to the expansion of Latin Christendom in the Baltic region and the Iberian Peninsula. Kings became the heads of centralised nation-states, reducing crime and violence but making the ideal of a unified Christendom more distant. In the West, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. The theology of Thomas Aquinas, the paintings of Giotto, the poetry of Dante and Chaucer, the travels of Marco Polo, and the Gothic architecture of cathedrals such as Chartres mark the end of this period.


title: Middle Ages

text: The Late Middle Ages was marked by difficulties and calamities including famine, plague, and war, which significantly diminished the population of Europe; between 1347 and 1350, the Black Death killed about a third of Europeans. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the interstate conflict, civil strife, and peasant revolts that occurred in the kingdoms. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages and beginning the early modern period.


title: Middle Ages

text: The Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history: Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Modern Period. The "Middle Ages" first appears in Latin in 1469 as "media tempestas" or "middle season". In early usage, there were many variants, including "medium aevum", or "middle age", first recorded in 1604, and "media saecula", or "middle centuries", first recorded in 1625. The adjective "medieval" (or sometimes "mediaeval" or "mediæval"), meaning pertaining to the Middle Ages, derives from "medium aevum".


title: Middle Ages

text: Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the "Six Ages" or the "Four Empires", and considered their time to be the last before the end of the world. The concept of living in a "middle age" was alien to them, and they referred to themselves as "", or "we modern people". In their concept, their age began when Christ had brought light to mankind, and contrasted the light of their age with the spiritual darkness of previous periods. The Italian humanist and poet Petrarch (d. 1374) was the first to revise the metaphor. He was convinced that a period of decline had begun when emperors of non-Italian origin assumed power in the Roman Empire in the 1st century AD, and described it as an age of "darkness". His concept was further developed by humanists like Giovanni Boccaccio (d. 1375) and Filippo Villani who emphasized the "rebirth" of culture in their age after a long period of cultural darkness. Leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his "History of the Florentine People" (1442), with a middle period "between the fall of the Roman Empire and the revival of city life sometime in late eleventh and twelfth centuries". Tripartite periodisation became standard after the 17th-century German historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods: ancient, medieval, and modern.


title: Middle Ages

text: The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is around 500, with the date of 476—the year the last Western Roman Emperor was deposed—first used by Bruni. Later starting dates are sometimes used in the outer parts of Europe. For Europe as a whole, 1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. Depending on the context, events such as the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, Christopher Columbus's first voyage to the Americas in 1492, or the Protestant Reformation in 1517 are sometimes used. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period. For Spain, dates commonly used are the death of King Ferdinand II in 1516, the death of Queen Isabella I of Castile in 1504, or the conquest of Granada in 1492.


title: Middle Ages

text: Historians from Romance-speaking countries tend to divide the Middle Ages into two parts: an earlier "High" and later "Low" period. English-speaking historians, following their German counterparts, generally subdivide the Middle Ages into three intervals: "Early", "High", and "Late". In the 19th century, the entire Middle Ages were often referred to as the "Dark Ages", but with the adoption of these subdivisions, use of this term was restricted to the Early Middle Ages in the early 20th century.


title: Middle Ages

text: The Roman Empire reached its greatest territorial extent during the 2nd century AD; the following two centuries witnessed the slow decline of Roman control over its outlying territories. Runaway inflation, external pressure on the frontiers, and outbreaks of plague combined to create the Crisis of the Third Century, with emperors coming to the throne only to be rapidly replaced by new usurpers. Military expenses increased steadily during the 3rd century, mainly in response to the war with the newly established Sasanian Empire in the middle of the 3rd century. The army doubled in size, and cavalry and smaller units replaced the Roman legion as the main tactical unit. The need for revenue led to increased taxes and a decline in numbers of the curial, or landowning, class, and decreasing numbers of them willing to shoulder the burdens of holding office in their native towns. More bureaucrats were needed in the central administration to deal with the needs of the army, which led to complaints from civilians that there were more tax-collectors in the empire than tax-payers.


title: Middle Ages

text: The Emperor Diocletian (r. 284–305) split the empire into separately administered eastern and western halves in 286. This system, which eventually encompassed two senior co-emperors and two junior co-emperors (hence known as the Tetrarchy) stabilised the imperial government for about two decades. Diocletian's further reforms strengthened the governmental bureaucracy, reformed taxation, and strengthened the army, which bought the empire time but did not resolve the problems it was facing: excessive taxation, a declining birthrate, and pressures on its frontiers, among others. In 330, after a period of civil war, Constantine the Great (r. 306–337) refounded the city of Byzantium as the newly renamed eastern capital, Constantinople. For much of the 4th century, Roman society stabilised in a new form that differed from the earlier classical period, with a widening gulf between the rich and poor, and a decline in the vitality of the smaller towns. Another change was the Christianisation, or conversion of the empire to Christianity. The process was stimulated by the 3rd-century crisis, accelerated by the conversion of Constantine the Great, and by the end of the century Christianity emerged as the empire's dominant religion. Debates about Christian theology, customs and ethics intensified. Mainstream Christianity developed under imperial patronage, and those who persisted with theological views condemned at the Church leaders' general assemblies known as ecumenical councils had to endure official persecution. Heretic views could survive by popular support, or through intensive proselytizing activities. Examples include the uncompromisingly Monophysite Syrians and Egyptians, and the spread of Arianism among the Germanic peoples. Judaism remained a tolerated religion although legislation limited the Jews' rights hindering Christians' conversion to Judaism.


title: Middle Ages

text: Civil war between rival emperors became common in the middle of the 4th century, diverting soldiers from the empire's frontier forces and allowing invaders to encroach. Although the movements of peoples during this period are usually described as "invasions", they were not just military expeditions but migrations of entire peoples into the empire. In 376, the Goths, fleeing from the Huns, received permission from Emperor Valens (r. 364–378) to settle in Roman territory in the Balkans. The settlement did not go smoothly, and when Roman officials mishandled the situation, the Goths began to raid and plunder. Valens, attempting to put down the disorder, was killed fighting the Goths at the Battle of Adrianople on 9 August 378. In 401, the Visigoths, a Gothic group, invaded the Western Roman Empire and, although briefly forced back from Italy, in 410 sacked the city of Rome. In 406 the Alans, Vandals, and Suevi crossed into Gaul; over the next three years they spread across Gaul and in 409 crossed the Pyrenees Mountains into modern-day Spain. The Franks, Alemanni, and the Burgundians all ended up in Gaul while the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes settled in Britain, and the Vandals went on to cross the strait of Gibraltar after which they conquered the province of Africa. The Hunnic king Attila (r. 434–453) led invasions into the Balkans in 442 and 447, Gaul in 451, and Italy in 452. The Hunnic threat remained until Attila's death in 453, when the Hunnic confederation he led fell apart.


title: Middle Ages

text: When dealing with the migrations, the eastern and western elites applied different methods. The Eastern Romans combined the deployment of armed forces with gifts and grants of offices to the tribal leaders. The Western aristocrats failed to support the army but refused to pay tribute to prevent invasions by the tribes. These invasions completely changed the political and demographic nature of the western section of the empire. By the end of the 5th century it was divided into smaller political units, ruled by the tribes that had invaded in the early part of the century. The emperors of the 5th century were often controlled by military strongmen such as Stilicho (d. 408), Aetius (d. 454), Aspar (d. 471), Ricimer (d. 472), or Gundobad (d. 516), who were partly or fully of non-Roman ancestry. The deposition of the last emperor of the west, Romulus Augustulus, in 476 has traditionally marked the end of the Western Roman Empire. The Eastern Roman Empire, often referred to as the Byzantine Empire after the fall of its western counterpart, had little ability to assert control over the lost western territories. The Byzantine emperors maintained a claim over the territory, but while none of the new kings in the west dared to elevate himself to the position of emperor of the west, Byzantine control of most of the Western Empire could not be sustained.


title: Middle Ages

text: In the post-Roman world ethnic identities were flexible, often determined by loyalty to a successful military leader or by religion instead of ancestry or language. Ethnic markers quickly changed—by around 500, Arianism, originally a genuine Roman heresy, was associated with Germanic peoples, and the Goths rarely used their Germanic language outside their churches. The fusion of Roman culture with the customs of the invading tribes is well documented. Popular assemblies that allowed free male tribal members more say in political matters than had been common in the Roman state developed into legislative and judicial bodies. Material artefacts left by the Romans and the invaders are often similar, and tribal items were often modelled on Roman objects. Much of the scholarly and written culture of the new kingdoms was also based on Roman intellectual traditions. An important difference was the gradual loss of tax revenue by the new polities. Many of the new political entities no longer supported their armies through taxes, instead relying on granting them land or rents. This meant there was less need for large tax revenues and so the taxation systems decayed.


title: Middle Ages

text: Among the new peoples filling the political void left by Roman centralised government, the first Germanic groups now collectively known as Anglo-Saxons settled in Britain before the middle of the 5th century. The local culture had little impact on their way of life, but the linguistic assimilation of masses of the local Celtic Britons to the newcomers is evident. By around 600, new political centres emerged, some local leaders accumulated considerable wealth, and a number of small kingdoms were formed. From among these realms, the kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, and East Anglia emerged as dominant powers by the end of the 7th century. Smaller kingdoms in present-day Wales and Scotland were still under the control of the native Britons and Picts. Ireland was divided into even smaller political units, usually known as tribal kingdoms, under the control of kings. There were perhaps as many as 150 local kings in Ireland, of varying importance.


title: Middle Ages

text: The Ostrogoths, a Gothic tribe moved to Italy from the Balkans in the late 5th century under Theoderic the Great (r. 493–526). He set up a kingdom marked by its co-operation between the Italians and the Ostrogoths, at least until the last years of his reign. Power struggles between Romanized and traditionalist Ostrogothic groups followed his death, providing the opportunity for the Byzantines to reconquer Italy in the middle of 6th century. The Burgundians settled in Gaul, and after an earlier realm was destroyed by the Huns in 436, formed a new kingdom in the 440s. Between today's Geneva and Lyon, it grew to become the realm of Burgundy in the late 5th and early 6th centuries. Elsewhere in Gaul, the Franks and Celtic Britons set up stable polities. Francia was centred in northern Gaul, and the first king of whom much is known is Childeric I (d. 481). Under Childeric's son Clovis I (r. 509–511), the founder of the Merovingian dynasty, the Frankish kingdom expanded and converted to Christianity. Unlike other Germanic peoples, the Franks accepted Catholicism which facilitated their cooperation with the native Gallo-Roman aristocracy. Britons fleeing from  – modern-day Great Britain – settled in what is now Brittany.


title: Middle Ages

text: Other monarchies were established by the Visigoths in the Iberian Peninsula, the Suebi in northwestern Iberia, and the Vandals in North Africa. The Lombards settled in Pannonia, but the influx of the nomadic Avars from the Asian steppes to Central Europe forced them to move on to Northern Italy in 568. Here they conquered the lands once held by the Ostrogoths from the Byzantines, and established a new kingdom composed of town-based duchies. By the end of the 6th century, the Avars conquered most Slavic, Turkic and Germanic tribes in the lowlands along the Lower and Middle Danube, and they were routinely able to force the Eastern emperors to pay tribute. Around 670, another steppe people, the Bulgars settled at the Danube Delta. In 681, they defeated a Byzantine imperial army, and established a new empire on the Lower Danube, subjugating the local Slavic tribes.


title: Middle Ages

text: During the invasions, some regions received a larger influx of new peoples than others. In Gaul for instance, the invaders settled much more extensively in the north-east than in the south-west. Slavs settled in Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkan Peninsula. The settlement of peoples was accompanied by changes in languages. Latin, the literary language of the Western Roman Empire, was gradually replaced by vernacular languages which evolved from Latin, but were distinct from it, collectively known as Romance languages. These changes from Latin to the new languages took many centuries. Greek remained the language of the Byzantine Empire, but the migrations of the Slavs expanded the area of Slavic languages in Eastern Europe.


title: Middle Ages

text: As Western Europe witnessed the formation of new kingdoms, the Eastern Roman Empire remained intact and experienced an economic revival that lasted into the early 7th century. There were fewer invasions of the eastern section of the empire; most occurred in the Balkans. Peace with the Sasanian Empire, the traditional enemy of Rome, lasted throughout most of the 5th century. The Eastern Empire was marked by closer relations between the political state and Christian Church, with doctrinal matters assuming an importance in Eastern politics that they did not have in Western Europe. Legal developments included the codification of Roman law; the first effort—the "Codex Theodosianus"—was completed in 438. Under Emperor Justinian (r. 527–565), a more comprehensive compilation took place—the "Corpus Juris Civilis".


title: Middle Ages

text: Justinian almost lost his throne during the Nika riots, a popular revolt of elementary force that destroyed half of Constantinople in 532. After crushing the revolt, he reinforced the autocratic elements of the imperial government and mobilized his troops against the heretic western realms. The general Belisarius (d. 565) conquered North Africa from the Vandals, and attacked the Ostrogoths, but the Italian campaign was interrupted due to an unexpected Sasanian invasion from the east. For the movement of troops from the Balkan provinces left the region virtually unprotected, the neighboring Slavic and Turkic tribes intensified their plundering raids across the Danube. Between 541 and 543, a deadly outbreak of plague decimated the empire's population, and the epidemic swept through the Mediterranean several times during the following decades. Justinian was to apply new methods to counterbalance its negative effects. He covered the lack of military personnel by developing an extensive system of border forts. To reduce fiscal deficit, he nationalized the silk industry and ceased to finance the maintenance of public roads. In a decade, he resumed expansionism, completing the conquest of the Ostrogothic kingdom, and seizing much of southern Spain from the Visigoths.


title: Middle Ages

text: Justinian's reconquests and excessive building program have been criticised by historians for bringing his realm to the brink of bankruptcy, but many of the difficulties faced by Justinian's successors were probably due to other factors, including the epidemic. An additional problem to face the empire came as a result of the massive expansion of the Avars and their Slav allies. They conquered the Balkans and Greece with the exception of a few coastal cities before their assault on Constantinople was repulsed in 626. In the east, border defences collapsed during a new war with the Sasanian Empire and the Persians seized large chunks of the empire, including Egypt, Syria, and much of Anatolia. A Persian army approached Constantinople to join the Avars and Slavs during the siege but a Byzantine fleet prevented them from crossing the Bosporus in 626. Two years later, Emperor Heraclius (r. 610–641) launched an unexpected counterattack against the heart of the Sassanian Empire bypassing the Persian army in the mountainous regions of Anatolia. He triumphed and the empire recovered all of its lost territories in the east in a new peace treaty.


title: Middle Ages

text: In Western Europe, some of the older Roman elite families died out while others became more involved with ecclesiastical than secular affairs. Values attached to Latin scholarship and education mostly disappeared, and while literacy remained important, it became a practical skill rather than a sign of elite status. In the 4th century, Jerome (d. 420) dreamed that God rebuked him for spending more time reading Cicero than the Bible. By the 6th century, Gregory of Tours (d. 594) had a similar dream, but instead of being chastised for reading Cicero, he was chastised for learning shorthand. By the late 6th century, the principal means of religious instruction in the Church had become music and art rather than the book. Most intellectual efforts went towards imitating classical scholarship, but some original works were created, along with now-lost oral compositions. The writings of Sidonius Apollinaris (d. 489), Cassiodorus (d. ), and Boethius (d. ) were typical of the age.


title: Middle Ages

text: Changes also took place among laymen, as aristocratic culture focused on great feasts held in halls rather than on literary pursuits. Clothing for the elites was richly embellished with jewels and gold. Lords and kings supported entourages of fighters who formed the backbone of the military forces. Family ties within the elites were important, as were the virtues of loyalty, courage, and honour. These ties led to the prevalence of the feud in aristocratic society, examples of which included those related by Gregory of Tours that took place in Merovingian Gaul. Most feuds seem to have ended quickly with the payment of some sort of compensation.


title: Middle Ages

text: Women took part in aristocratic society mainly in their roles as wives and mothers of men, with the role of mother of a ruler being especially prominent in Merovingian Gaul. In Anglo-Saxon society the lack of many child rulers meant a lesser role for women as queen mothers, but this was compensated for by the increased role played by abbesses of monasteries. In contrast, in medieval Italy women were always considered under the protection and control of a male relative. Women's influence on politics was particularly fragile, and early medieval authors tended to depict powerful women in a bad light. Examples include the Arian queen Goiswintha (d. 589), a vehement but unsuccessful opponent of the Visigoth's conversion to Catholicism, and the Frankish queen Brunhilda of Austrasia (d. 613) who was torn to pieces by horses after her enemies captured her at the age of 70. Women usually died at considerably younger age than men, primarily due to infanticide and complacations at childbirth. Infanticide was not an unusual practice in times of famine, and daughters fell victim to it more frequently than their brothers who could potentially do harder works. The disparity between the numbers of marriageable women and grown men led to the detailed regulation of legal institutions protecting women's interests, including the , or "morning gift", a compensation for the loss of virginity. Early medieval laws acknowledged a man's right to have long-term sexual relationships with women other than his wife, such as concubines and those who were bound to him by a special contract known as , but women were expected to remain faithful to their life partners. Clerics censured sexual unions outside marriage, and monogamy became also the norm of secular law in the 9th century.


title: Middle Ages

text: Peasant society is much less documented than the nobility. Most of the surviving information available to historians comes from archaeology; few detailed written records documenting peasant life remain from before the 9th century. Most of the descriptions of the lower classes come from either law codes or writers from the upper classes. Landholding patterns were not uniform; some areas had greatly fragmented landholding patterns, but in other areas large contiguous blocks of land were the norm. These differences allowed for a wide variety of peasant societies, some dominated by aristocratic landholders and others having a great deal of autonomy. Land settlement also varied greatly. Some peasants lived in large settlements that numbered as many as 700 inhabitants. Others lived in small groups of a few families and still others lived on isolated farms spread over the countryside. There were also areas where the pattern was a mix of two or more of those systems. Legislation made a clear distinction between free and unfree, but there was no sharp break between the legal status of the free peasant and the aristocrat, and it was possible for a free peasant's family to rise into the aristocracy over several generations through military service. Demand for slaves was covered through warring and raids. Initially, the Franks' expansion and conflicts between the Anglo-Saxon realms supplied the slave market with prisoners of war and captives. After the Anglo-Saxons' conversion to Christianity, slave hunters mainly targeted the pagan Slav tribes—hence the English word "slave" from , the Medieval Latin term for Slavs. Christian ethics brought about significant changes in the position of slaves in the 7th and 8th centuries. They were no more regarded as their lords' property, and their right to a decent treatment was enacted.


title: Middle Ages

text: Roman city life and culture changed greatly in the early Middle Ages. Although Italian cities remained inhabited, they contracted significantly in size. Rome, for instance, shrank from a population of hundreds of thousands to around 30,000 by the end of the 6th century. Roman temples were converted into Christian churches and city walls remained in use. In Northern Europe, cities also shrank, while civic monuments and other public buildings were raided for building materials. The establishment of new kingdoms often meant some growth for the towns chosen as capitals. The Jewish communities survived the fall of the Western Roman Empire in Spain, southern Gaul and Italy. The Visigothic kings made concentrated efforts to convert the Hispanic Jews to Christianity in the 7th century but the Jewish community quickly regenerated after the Muslim conquest. Under Muslim rule, the Jews' activities were less limited, and the Muslim rulers regularly employed them in their courts. In contrast, Christian legislation forbade the Jews' appointment to government positions.


title: Middle Ages

text: Religious beliefs were in flux in the lands along the Eastern Roman and Persian frontiers during the late 6th and early 7th centuries. State-sponsored Christian missionaries proselytised among the pagan steppe peoples, and the Persians made attempts to enforce their Zoroastrianism on the Christian Armenians. Judaism was an active proselytising faith, and at least one Arab political leader—Dhu Nuwas, ruler of what is today Yemen—converted to it. The emergence of Islam in Arabia during the lifetime of Muhammad (d. 632) brought about more radical changes. After his death, Islamic forces conquered much of the Near East, starting with Syria in 634–35, continuing with Persia between 637 and 642, and reaching Egypt in 640–41. In the eastern Mediterranean, the Muslim expansion was halted at Constantinople. The Eastern Romans used the Greek Fire, a highly combustible liquid, to defend their capital in 674–78 and 717–18. In the west, the advance of Islamic troops continued. They conquered North Africa by the early 8th century, annihilated the Visigothic Kingdom in 711, and invaded southern France from 713.


title: Middle Ages

text: The Muslim conquerors bypassed the mountainous northwestern region of the Iberian Peninsula. Here a small kingdom, Asturias emerged as the centre of local resistance. The defeat of Muslim forces at the Battle of Tours in 732 led to the reconquest of southern France by the Franks, but the main reason for the halt of Islamic growth in Europe was the overthrow of the Umayyad Caliphate and its replacement by the Abbasid Caliphate. The Abbasids moved their capital to Baghdad and were more concerned with the Middle East than Europe, losing control of sections of the Muslim lands. Umayyad descendants took over Al-Andalus (or Muslim Spain), the Aghlabids controlled North Africa, and the Tulunids became rulers of Egypt.


title: Middle Ages

text: The migrations and invasions of the 4th and 5th centuries disrupted trade networks around the Mediterranean. African goods stopped being imported into Europe, first disappearing from the interior and by the 7th century found only in a few cities such as Rome or Naples. By the end of the 7th century, under the impact of the Muslim conquests, African products were no longer found in Western Europe. The replacement of goods from long-range trade with local products was a trend throughout the old Roman lands that happened in the Early Middle Ages. This was especially marked in the lands that did not lie on the Mediterranean, such as northern Gaul or Britain. Non-local goods appearing in the archaeological record are usually luxury goods or metalworks. In the 7th and 8th centuries, new commercial networks were developing in northern Europe. Goods like furs, walrus ivory and amber were delivered from the Baltic region to western Europe, contributing to the development of new trade centers in East Anglia, northern Francia and Scandinavia. Conflicts over the control of trade routes and toll stations were common, and those who failed turned to raiding or settled in foreign lands.


title: Middle Ages

text: The flourishing Islamic economies' constant demand for fresh labour force and raw materials opened up a new market for Europe around 750. Europe emerged as a major supplier of house slaves and slave soldiers for Al-Andalus, northern Africa and the Levant. Located in the vicinity of the Central European slave hunting areas, Venice developed into the most important European center of slave trade. In addition, timber, fur and arms were delivered from Europe to the Mediterranean, while Europe imported spices, medicine, incense, and silk from the Levant. The demand for exotic merchandise was reinforced primarily by internal factors, like population growth, and improved agricultural productivity. The large rivers connecting distant regions facilitated the expansion of transcontinental trade. Contemporaneous reports indicate that Anglo-Saxon merchants visited fairs at Paris, pirates preyed on tradesman travelling on the Danube, and Eastern Frankish merchants reached as far as Zaragoza in Al-Andalus.


title: Middle Ages

text: The various Germanic states in the west all had coinages that imitated existing Roman and Byzantine forms. Gold continued to be minted until the end of the 7th century in 693-94 when it was replaced by silver in the Merovingian kingdom. The basic Frankish silver coin was the denarius or denier, while the Anglo-Saxon version was called a penny. From these areas, the denier or penny spread throughout Europe from 700 to 1000 AD. Copper or bronze coins were not struck, nor were gold except in Southern Europe. No silver coins denominated in multiple units were minted.


title: Middle Ages

text: The idea of Christian unity endured although differences in ideology and practice between the Eastern and Western Churches became apparent by the 6th century. The formation of new realms reinforced the traditional Christian concept of the separation of church and state in the west, whereas this notion was alien to eastern clergymen who regarded the Roman state as an instrument of divine providence. In the Eastern Christians' view, an individual could be saved from sin through direct mystical communication with God, but western clerics tended to regard themselves as unavoidable intercessors. In the late 7th century, clerical marriage emerged as a permanent focus of controversy: the Latin Church promoted complete celibacy while the eastern clergy insisted on the more tolerant traditional approach. After the Muslim conquest of the Levant, the Byzantine emperors could less effectively intervene in the west. When Leo III (r. 717–741) prohibited the display of paintings representing human figures in places of worship, the papacy openly censured the emperor's iconoclast doctrine and his claim to declare new dogmas by imperial edicts. Although the Byzantine Church condemned iconoclasm in 843, further issues such as fierce rivalry for ecclesiastic jurisdiction over newly converted peoples, and the unilateral modification of the Nicene Creed in the west widened to the extent that the differences were greater than the similarities. The decisive break, known as the East–West Schism, came in 1054, when the papacy and the patriarchy of Constantinople clashed over papal supremacy and excommunicated each other, which led to the division of Christianity into two Churches—the Western branch became the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern branch the Eastern Orthodox Church.


title: Middle Ages

text: The ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Empire survived the movements and invasions in the west mostly intact, but the papacy was little regarded, and few of the Western bishops looked to the bishop of Rome for religious or political leadership. Many of the popes prior to 750 were more concerned with Byzantine affairs and Eastern theological controversies. The register, or archived copies of the letters, of Pope Gregory the Great (pope 590–604) survived, and of those more than 850 letters, the vast majority were concerned with affairs in Italy or Constantinople. The only part of Western Europe where the papacy had influence was Britain, where Gregory had sent the Gregorian mission in 597 to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. Irish missionaries were most active in Western Europe between the 5th and the 7th centuries, going first to England and Scotland and then on to the continent. Under such monks as Columba (d. 597) and Columbanus (d. 615), they founded monasteries, taught in Latin and Greek, and authored secular and religious works. Early medieval people did not visit churches regularly. Instead, meetings with itinerant clergy and pilgrimages to popular saints' shrines were instrumental in the spread of Christian teaching. From the 6th century, Irish and British clerics developed special handbooks to determine the appropriate acts of penance—typically prayers, and fasts—for sinners. These penitentials were introduced in Continental Europe by missionaries from the British Isles. They covered several aspects of everyday life but placed a special emphasis on sexuality. To defend monogamous marriage, they prescribed severe penances for adulterers, fornicators and those engaged in non-reproductive sexual acts, such as homosexuals.


title: Middle Ages

text: The Early Middle Ages witnessed the rise of Christian monasticism. The shape of European monasticism was determined by traditions and ideas that originated with the Desert Fathers of Egypt. Monastic ideals spread through hagiographical literature such as the "Life of Anthony". Most European monasteries were of the type that focuses on community experience of the spiritual life, called cenobitism, which was pioneered by the Egyptian hermit Pachomius (d. ). Bishop Basil of Caesarea (d. 379) wrote a monastic rule for a community of Cappadocian ascetics which served as a highly esteemed template for similar regulations in the Mediterranean. These mainly covered the spiritual aspects of monasticism. In contrast, the Italian monk Benedict of Nursia (d. 547) adopted a more practical approach, regulating both the administrative and spiritual responsibilities of a community of monks led by an abbot. The Benedictine Rule became widely used in western monasteries already before it was decreed the norm for Frankish monastic communities in 817. In the east, the monastic rules compiled by Theodore the Studite (d. 826) gained popularity after they were adopted in the Great Lavra, a newly established imperial monastery on Mount Athos in the 960s. The Great Lavra set a precedent for the founding of further Athonite monasteries, turning the mount into the most important centre of Orthodox monasticism.


title: Middle Ages

text: Monks and monasteries had a deep effect on the religious and political life of the Early Middle Ages, in various cases acting as land trusts for powerful families and important centres of political authority. They were the main and sometimes only outposts of education and literacy in a region. Many of the surviving manuscripts of the Latin classics were copied in monasteries in the Early Middle Ages. Monks were also the authors of new works, including history, theology, and other subjects, written by authors such as Bede (d. 735), a native of northern England. The Byzantine missionary Constantine (d. 869) developed Old Church Slavonic as a new liturgical language enriching Slavic vocabulary with Greek religious terms. He also created an alphabet, likely the Glagolitic script, for it. These innovations established the basis for a flourishing Slavic religious literature. Constantine died as the monk Cyril in a Roman monastery. His work was continued by his brother Methodius (d. 885) and their pupils. A version of Greek uncial script now known as Cyrillic replaced Glagolitic after around 900.


title: Middle Ages

text: Royal authority was substantially weak in Francia. The Merovingian kings customarily distributed the kingdom among their sons and destroyed their own power base by extensive land grants. In the northeastern Frankish realm Austrasia, the Arnulfings were the most prominent beneficiaries of royal favour. As hereditary Mayors of the Palace, they were the power behind the Austrasian throne from the mid-7th century. The Arnulfings consolidated their authority by keeping their patrimony undivided through generations, and one of them, Pepin of Herstal (d. 714) also assumed power in the central Frankish realm Neustria. His successor Charles Martel (d. 741) took advantage of the permanent Muslim threat to confiscate church property and raise new troops by parcelling it out among the recruits. His victory over an expeditionary force from Al-Andalus in the Battle of Tours brought him enormous prestige.


title: Middle Ages

text: The Carolingians, as Charles Martel's descendants are known, succeeded the Merovingians as the new royal dynasty of Francia in 751. This year the last Merovingian king Childeric III (r. 743–751) was deposed, and Charles Martel's son Pepin the Short (r. 751–768) was crowned king with the consent of the papacy and the Frankish leaders. Two or three years later Pope Stephen II (pope 752–757) personally sanctioned the coup by anointing Pepin and his two sons with chrism during his visit to Francia. He came to persuade Pepin to attack the Lombards whose expansion menaced the city of Rome. Pepin defeated the Lombards and enforced their promise to respect the possessions of the papacy. His subsequent donation of Central Italian territories to the Holy See marked the beginnings of the Papal States. At the time of his death in 768, Pepin left his kingdom in the hands of his two sons, Charles (r. 768–814) and Carloman (r. 768–771). When Carloman died of natural causes, Charles blocked the succession of Carloman's young son and installed himself as the king of the reunited Francia. Charles, more often known as Charles the Great or Charlemagne, embarked upon a programme of systematic expansion in 772. In the wars that lasted beyond 800, he rewarded allies with war booty and command over parcels of land. Charlemagne subjugated the Saxons, conquered the Lombards, and created a new border province in northern Spain. Between 791 and 803, Frankish troops annihilated the Avars' empire which facilitated the development of small Slavic principalities, mainly ruled by ambitious warlords under Frankish suzerainty.


title: Middle Ages

text: The coronation of Charlemagne as emperor on Christmas Day 800 is regarded as a turning point in medieval history, marking a return of the Western Roman Empire, since the new emperor ruled over much of the area previously controlled by the Western emperors. It also marks a change in Charlemagne's relationship with the Byzantine Empire, as the assumption of the imperial title by the Carolingians asserted their equivalence to the Byzantine state. In 812, as a result of careful and protracted negotiations, the Byzantines acknowledged Charlemagne's title of "emperor" but without recognizing him as a second "emperor of the Romans", or accepting his successors' claim to use his new title. The empire was administered by an itinerant court that travelled with the emperor, as well as approximately 300 imperial officials called counts, who administered the counties the empire had been divided into. The central administration supervised the counts through imperial emissaries called "missi dominici", who served as roving inspectors and troubleshooters. The clerics of the royal chapel were responsible for recording important royal grants and decisions.


title: Middle Ages

text: Charlemagne's court in Aachen was the centre of the cultural revival sometimes referred to as the "Carolingian Renaissance". Literacy increased, as did development in the arts, architecture and jurisprudence, as well as liturgical and scriptural studies. The English monk Alcuin (d. 804) was invited to Aachen and brought the education available in the monasteries of Northumbria. Charlemagne's chancery—or writing office—made use of a new script today known as Carolingian minuscule, allowing a common writing style that advanced communication across much of Europe. Charlemagne sponsored changes in church liturgy, imposing the Roman form of church service on his domains, as well as the Gregorian chant in liturgical music for the churches. An important activity for scholars during this period was the copying, correcting, and dissemination of basic works on religious and secular topics, with the aim of encouraging learning. New works on religious topics and schoolbooks were also produced. Grammarians of the period modified the Latin language, changing it from the Classical Latin of the Roman Empire into a more flexible form to fit the needs of the Church and government. By the reign of Charlemagne, the language had so diverged from the classical Latin that it was later called Medieval Latin.


title: Middle Ages

text: Charlemagne continued the Frankish tradition of dividing his empire between all his sons, but only one son, Louis the Pious (r. 814–840), was still alive by 813. Just before Charlemagne died in 814, he made Louis co-emperor. Louis's reign of 26 years was marked by numerous divisions of the empire among his sons. Initially, Louis promised the bulk of his empire to his eldest son (d. 855) and invested him as co-emperor. He granted two marginal provinces, Aquitaine and Bavaria to his younger sons Pepin (d. 838) and Louis the German (d. 876), while Lothair received the Kingdom of Italy from him. When his second wife Judith (d. 843) gave birth to a fourth son Charles the Bald (d. 877), Louis decided to revise his previous plans about the division of the empire. This led to civil wars between various alliances of father and sons over the control of various parts of the empire. When Pepin died, Louis forged an alliance between Lothair and Charles by proposing to divide the empire into two nearly equal parts between them, and leaving only Bavaria to the middle child, Louis, but Lothair's claim to suzerainty over his younger brothers caused a new civil war after their father's death.


title: Middle Ages

text: By the Treaty of Verdun (843), a kingdom between the Rhine and Rhone rivers was created for Lothair to go with his lands in Italy, and his imperial title was recognised. Louis the German was in control of Bavaria and the eastern lands in modern-day Germany. Charles the Bald received the western Frankish lands, comprising most of modern-day France. Charlemagne's grandsons and great-grandsons divided their kingdoms between their descendants, eventually causing all internal cohesion to be lost. There was a brief re-uniting of the empire by Charles the Fat in 884, although the actual units of the empire were not merged and retained their separate administrations. Charles was deposed in 887 and died in January 888. By that time, the Carolingians were close to extinction, and non-dynastic claimants assumed power in most of the successor states, such as Odo of Paris (r. 888–898) in West Francia, and the rival kings Berengar of Friuli (r. 888–924) and Guy of Spoleto (r. 889–894) in Italy. In the eastern lands the dynasty died out with the death of Louis the Child (r. 899–911), and the selection of the Franconian duke Conrad I (r. 911–918) as king. In West Francia the dynasty was restored first in 898, then in 936, but the last Carolingian kings were unable to keep the powerful aristocracy under control. In 987 the dynasty was replaced, with the crowning of Hugh Capet (r. 987–996) as king.


title: Middle Ages

text: Frankish culture and the Carolingian methods of state administration had a significant impact on the neighboring peoples, and Frankish threat triggered the formation of new states along the empire's eastern frontier—Bohemia in the shelter of the Bohemian Forest, Moravia along the Middle Danube, and Croatia on the Adriatic coast. The breakup of the Carolingian Empire was accompanied by invasions, migrations, and raids by external foes. The Atlantic and northern shores were harassed by the Vikings, who also raided the British Isles and settled there. In 911, the Viking chieftain Rollo (d. c. 931) received permission from the Frankish king Charles the Simple (r. 898–922) to settle in what became Normandy. The eastern parts of the Frankish kingdoms, especially Germany and Italy, were under continual Magyar assault until the invaders' defeat at the Battle of Lechfeld in 955. The breakup of the Abbasid dynasty meant that the Islamic world fragmented into smaller political states, some of which began expanding. The Aghlabids conquered Sicily, the Umayyads of Al-Andalus annexed the Balearic Islands, and Arab pirates launched regular raids against Italy and southern France.


title: Middle Ages

text: The Vikings' settlement in the British Isles led to the formation of new political entities, including the small but militant Kingdom of Dublin in Ireland. In Anglo-Saxon England, King Alfred the Great (r. 871–899) came to an agreement with the Danish invaders in 879, acknowledging the existence of an independent Viking realm in Northumbria, East Anglia and eastern Mercia. By the middle of the 10th century, Alfred's successors had conquered the territory, and restored English control over most of the southern part of Great Britain. In northern Britain, Kenneth MacAlpin (d. c. 860) united the Picts and the Scots into the Kingdom of Alba. In the early 10th century, the Ottonian dynasty established itself in Germany, and was engaged in driving back the Magyars and fighting the disobedient dukes. After an appeal by the widowed Queen Adelaide of Italy (d. 999) for protection, the German king (r. 936–973) crossed the Alps into Italy, married the young widow and had himself crowned king in Pavia in 951. He demonstrated his claim to Charlemagne's legacy with his coronation as Holy Roman Emperor in Rome in 962. Otto's successors remained keenly interested in Italian affairs but the absent German kings were unable to assert permanent authority over the local aristocracy. France was more fragmented, and although the Capetian kings remained nominally in charge, much of the political power devolved to the local lords. In the Iberian Peninsula, Asturias expanded slowly south in the 8th and 9th centuries, and continued as the Kingdom of León when the royal centre was moved from the northern Oviedo to León in the 910s.


title: Middle Ages

text: The Eastern European trade routes towards Central Asia and the Near East were controlled by the Khazars. Their multiethnic empire resisted the Muslim expansion, and the Khazar leaders converted to Judaism by the 830s. The Khazars were nominally ruled by a sacred king, the khagan, but the commander-in-chief of his army, the beg, was the power behind the throne. At the end of the 9th century, a new trade route developed, bypassing Khazar territory and connecting Central Asia with Europe across Volga Bulgaria. Here the local elite, and by around 985 the masses of the local population converted to Islam. In Scandinavia, contacts with Francia paved the way for missionary efforts by Christian clergy, and Christianization was closely associated with the growth of centralised kingdoms in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Besides the settlements in the British Isles, and Normandy, Scandinavians also expanded and colonised in eastern and northern Europe. Swedish traders and slave hunters ranged down the rivers of the East European Plain, captured Kyiv from the Khazars, and even attempted to seize Constantinople in 860 and 907. Norse colonists settled in Iceland, and created a political system that hindered the accumulation of power by ambitious chieftains.


title: Middle Ages

text: Byzantium revived its fortunes under Emperor Basil I (r. 867–886) and his successors Leo VI (r. 886–912) and Constantine VII (r. 913–959), members of the Macedonian dynasty. Commerce revived and the emperors oversaw the extension of a uniform administration to all the provinces. The imperial court was the centre of a revival of classical learning, a process known as the Macedonian Renaissance. Writers such as John Geometres (fl. early 10th century) composed new hymns, poems, and other works. The military was reorganised, which allowed the emperors John I (r. 969–976) and Basil II (r. 976–1025) to expand the frontiers of the empire on all fronts. Missionary efforts by both Eastern and Western clergy resulted in the conversion of the Moravians, Danubian Bulgars, Czechs, Poles, Magyars, and the inhabitants of the Kievan Rus'. Moravia fell victim to Magyar invasions around 900, Bulgaria to Byzantine expansionism between 971 and 1018. After the fall of Moravia, dukes of the Czech Přemyslid dynasty consolidated authority in Bohemia although they had to acknowledge the German kings' suzerainty. In Poland, the destruction of old power centres and construction of new strongholds accompanied the formation of state under the Piast dukes in the second half of the 10th century. During the same period, the princes of the Árpád dynasty applied extensive violence to crush opposition by rival Magyar chieftains in Hungary. The Rurikid princes of Kievan Rus' replaced the Khazars as the hegemon power of East Europe's vast forest zones after Rus' raiders sacked the Khazar capital Atil in 965.


title: Middle Ages

text: After the Edict of Milan legalized Christianity, new public places of worship were built in quick succession in Rome, Constantinople and the Holy Land under Constantine the Great. Basilicas, large halls that had previously been used for administrative and commercial purposes, were adapted for Christian worship. During his successors' reign, new basilicas were built in the major cities of the Roman world, and even in the post-Roman tribal kingdoms until the mid-6th century. In the late 6th century, Byzantine church architecture adopted an alternative model imitating the rectangular plan and the dome of Justinian's Hagia Sophia. Built in Constantinople after the Nika riots, the Hagia Sophia was the largest single roofed structure of the Roman world. As the spacious basilicas became of little use with the decline of urban centres in the west, they gave way to smaller churches, mainly divided into little chambers. By the beginning of the 8th century, the Carolingian Empire revived the basilica form of architecture. One new standard feature of Carolingian basilicas is the use of a transept, or the "arms" of a T-shaped building that are perpendicular to the long nave. Other new features of religious architecture include the crossing tower and a monumental entrance to the church, usually at the west end of the building.


title: Middle Ages

text: Magnificent halls built of timber or stone were the centres of political and social life all over the early Middle Ages. Their design often adopted elements of Late Roman architecture like pilasters (on the exterior walls of Charlemagne's palace at Aachen), columns (in the Carolingian royal palace at Ingelheim), and sculptured discs (in the Asturian kings' palace at Oviedo). In Bulgaria, two splendid palace complexes were built at the royal capital Preslav—one for the tsar (or emperor), and one likely for the patriarch. In northern Europe, rural community leaders lived in large, sometimes 40-meter-long wooden houses, but most peasants shared a small wooden or wattle and daub hut with four or five other people. The leaders' houses were divided into multiple rooms, and often included a stable, whereas the peasants' huts had one or two rooms. After the disintegration of the Carolingian Empire, the spread of aristocratic castles indicates a transition from communal fortifications to private defence in western Europe. In this period, most castles were wooden structures but the wealthiest lords could afford the building of stone fortresses. One or more towers, now known as keeps, were the most characteristic features of a medieval fortress. Castles often developed into multifunctional compounds with their drawbridges, fortified courtyards, cisterns or wells, halls, chapels, stables and workshops.


title: Middle Ages

text: Carolingian art was produced for a small group of figures around the court, and the monasteries and churches they supported. It was dominated by efforts to regain the dignity and classicism of imperial Roman and Byzantine art, but was also influenced by the Insular art of the British Isles. Insular art integrated the energy of Irish Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Germanic styles of ornament with Mediterranean forms such as the book, and established many characteristics of art for the rest of the medieval period. Surviving religious works from the Early Middle Ages are mostly illuminated manuscripts and carved ivories, originally made for metalwork that has since been melted down. Objects in precious metals were the most prestigious form of art, but almost all are lost except for a few crosses such as the Cross of Lothair, several reliquaries, and finds such as the Anglo-Saxon burial at Sutton Hoo and the hoards of Gourdon from Merovingian France, Guarrazar from Visigothic Spain and Nagyszentmiklós near Byzantine territory. There are survivals from the large brooches in fibula or penannular form that were a key piece of personal adornment for elites, including the Irish Tara Brooch. Highly decorated books were mostly Gospel Books and these have survived in larger numbers, including the Insular Book of Kells, the Book of Lindisfarne, and the imperial Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram, which is one of the few to retain its "treasure binding" of gold encrusted with jewels. Charlemagne's court seems to have been responsible for the acceptance of figurative monumental sculpture in Christian art, and by the end of the period near life-sized figures such as the Gero Cross were common in important churches.


title: Middle Ages

text: During the later Roman Empire, the principal military developments were attempts to create an effective cavalry force as well as the continued development of highly specialised types of troops. The creation of heavily armoured cataphract-type soldiers as cavalry was an important feature of the Late Roman military. The various invading tribes had differing emphases on types of soldiers—ranging from the primarily infantry Anglo-Saxon invaders of Britain to the Vandals and Visigoths who had a high proportion of cavalry in their armies. The greatest change in military affairs during the invasion period was the adoption of the Hunnic composite bow in place of the earlier, and weaker, Scythian composite bow. The Avar heavy cavalry introduced the use of stirrups in Europe, and it was adopted by Byzantine cavalrymen before the end of the 6th century. Another development was the increasing use of longswords and the progressive replacement of scale armour by mail armour and lamellar armour.


title: Middle Ages

text: The importance of infantry and light cavalry began to decline during the early Carolingian period, with a growing dominance of elite heavy cavalry. Although much of the Carolingian armies were mounted, a large proportion during the early period appear to have been mounted infantry, rather than true cavalry. The use of militia-type levies of the free population declined over the Carolingian period. One exception was Anglo-Saxon England, where the armies were still composed of regional levies, known as the "fyrd", which were led by the local elites. In military technology, one of the main changes was the return of the crossbow, which had been known in Roman times and reappeared as a military weapon during the last part of the Early Middle Ages. Stirrups spread in Carolingian Europe from the 9th century, enhancing the effectiveness of the use of weapons by cavalrymen. A technological advance that had implications beyond the military was the horseshoe, which allowed horses to be used in rocky terrain.


title: Middle Ages

text: The High Middle Ages was a period of tremendous expansion of population. The estimated population of Europe grew from 35 to 80 million between 1000 and 1347, although the exact causes remain unclear: improved agricultural techniques, assarting (or bringing new lands into production), a more clement climate and the lack of invasion have all been suggested. Among the agricultural innovations, a more advanced crop rotation system replaced the traditional two-field agriculture in many regions, leaving only one third of the arable land without sowing in each season. Most medieval western thinkers divided the society of their own age into three fundamental classes. These were the clergy, the nobility, and the peasantry (or commoners). In their view, adherence to mainstream Christianity secured social cohesion.


title: Middle Ages

text: As much as 90 percent of the European population remained rural peasants. Many were no longer settled in isolated farms but had gathered into more defensible small communities, usually known as manors or villages. In the system of manorialism, a manor was the basic unit of landholding, and it comprised smaller components, such as parcels held by peasant tenants, and the lord's demesne. Most peasants living in a manor were subject to the manor lord. Slaveholding was declining as churchmen prohibited the enslavement of co-religionists and promoted manumission, but a new form of dependency serfdom supplanted slavery by the late 11th century. Unlike slaves, serfs had legal capacity, and their hereditary status was regulated by agreements with their lords. Restrictions on their activities varied but their freedom of movement was customarily limited, and they usually owed , or labor services, to their lords. Freemen often chose serfdom by submitting themselves to a local strongman's jurisdiction for various reasons, such as protection or the remission of a debt, but there remained free peasants throughout this period and beyond. Serfs and slaves could enhance their status by bringing new lands into cultivation because the lords of uncultivated lands rewarded colonists doing the burdensome work of assarting with freedom.


title: Middle Ages

text: A special contractual framework, known as feudalism in modern historiography, regulated fundamental social relations between people of higher status in many parts of Europe. In this system, one party granted property, typically land to the other in return for services, mostly of military nature that the recipient, or vassal, had to render to the grantor, or lord. Although the vassals were not the owners of the land they held in fief from their lords, they could grant parts of it to their own vassals. Not all lands were held in fief. In Germany, inalienable allods remained the dominant forms of landholding. Their owners owed homage to a higher-ranking aristocrat or the king but their landholding was free of feudal obligations. With the development of heavy cavalry, the previously more or less uniform class of free warriors split into two groups. Those who could equip themselves as mounted knights were integrated into the traditional aristocracy, but others were assimilated into the peasantry. The position of the new aristocracy was stabilized through the adoption of strict inheritance customs. In many areas, lands were no longer divisible between all the heirs as had been the case in the early medieval period. Instead, most lands went to the eldest son in accordance with the newly introduced principle of primogeniture. The dominance of the nobility was built upon its landholding, military service, control of castles, and various immunities from taxes or other impositions. Control of castles provided protection from invaders or rivals, and allowed the aristocrats to defy kings or other overlords. Nobles were stratified. Kings and the highest-ranking nobility controlled large numbers of commoners and large tracts of land, as well as other nobles. Beneath them, lesser aristocrats had authority over smaller areas of land and fewer people, often only commoners. The lowest-ranking nobles did not hold land, and had to serve wealthier aristocrats. Although constituting only about one percent of the population, the nobility was never a closed group: kings could raise commoners to the aristocracy, wealthy commoners could marry into noble families, and impoverished aristocrats sometimes had to give up their privileged status.


title: Middle Ages

text: The clergy was divided into two types: the secular clergy, who cared for the believers' spiritual needs mainly serving in the parish churches, and the regular clergy, who lived under a religious rule as monks, canons or friars. Throughout the period clerics remained a very small proportion of the population, usually about one percent. Although high-ranking clerics, like bishops and canons were mainly appointed from among the aristocracy, church career was a channel for social advancement as clerics were not born into their class but ordained to their office. Church courts had exclusive jurisdiction over marriage affairs, and churchmen supervised several aspects of everyday life. Church authorities supported popular peace movements forbidding armed conflicts during the holiest seasons of the liturgical year, and offering spiritual protection for serfs, pilgrims, women and children during wartime.


title: Middle Ages

text: The expansion of population, greater agricultural productivity and relative political stability laid the foundations for the medieval "Commercial Revolution" in the 11th century. People with surplus cash began investing in commodities like salt, pepper and silk at faraway markets. Rising trade brought new methods of dealing with money, and gold coinage was again minted in Europe, first in Italy and later in France. Accounting methods improved, partly through the use of double-entry bookkeeping. New forms of commercial contracts emerged, allowing risk to be shared within the framework of partnerships known as or . Bills of exchange also appeared, enabling easy transmission of money. As many types of coins were in circulation, money changers facilitated transactions between local and foreign merchants. Loans could also be negotiated with them which gave rise to the development of credit institutions called banks for the money changers' , or benches. As new towns were developing from local commercial centres near fortresses, bridges or harbours, the economic growth brought about a new wave of urbanisation. Kings and aristocrats mainly supported the process in the hope of increased tax revenues. Most urban communities received privileges acknowledging their autonomy but few cities could get rid of all elements of royal or aristocratic control. Townsmen were in a somewhat unusual position, as they did not fit into the traditional three-fold division of society. Throughout the Middle Ages the population of the towns probably never exceeded 10 percent of the total population.


title: Middle Ages

text: The Italian maritime republics such as Amalfi, Venice, Genoa, and Pisa were the first to profit from the revival of commerce in the Mediterranean. In the north, German merchants established associations known as and took control of the trade routes connecting the British Islands and the Low Countries with Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. Great trading fairs were established and flourished in northern France, allowing Italian and German merchants to trade with each other as well as local merchants. In the late 13th century new land and sea routes to the Far East were pioneered, famously described in "The Travels of Marco Polo" written by one of the traders, Marco Polo (d. 1324). Economic growth provided opportunities to Jewish merchants to spread all over Europe, mainly with the active support of kings, bishops or aristocrats. Although the Christian rulers appreciated the Jews' contribution to the local economy, many Christians regarded the newcomers as an imminent threat to social cohesion. As they could not engage in prestigious trades outside their communities, they often took despised jobs such as ragmen or tax collectors. They were especially active in moneylendering for they could ignore the Christian clerics' condemnation on loan interest. The Jewish moneylenders and pawn brokers reinforced Antisemitism which led to accusations of blasphemy, blood libels, and pogroms. Church authorities' growing concerns about Jewish influence on Christian life inspired segregationist laws, and even their expulsion from England in 1290.


title: Middle Ages

text: Women in the Middle Ages were officially required to be subordinate to some male, whether their father, husband, or other kinsman. Women's work generally consisted of household or other domestically inclined tasks such as child-care. Peasant women could supplement the household income by spinning or brewing at home, and they were also expected to help with field-work at harvest-time. Townswomen could engage in trade but often only by right of their husband, and unlike their male competitors, they were not always allowed to train apprentices. Noblewomen could inherit land in the absence of a male heir but their potential to give birth to children was regarded as their principal virtue. The only role open to women in the Church was that of nuns, as they were unable to become priests.


title: Middle Ages

text: The High Middle Ages saw the development of institutions and traditions that would dominate the European states' political life till the late 18th century. By the end of the period, representative assemblies came into being in most countries, in kingdoms and city-states alike, that were able to exert influence on state administration primarily through their control of taxation. The papacy, long attached to an ideology of independence from secular influence, first asserted its claim to temporal authority over the entire Christian world; the Papal Monarchy reached its apogee under the pontificate of (pope 1198–1216). In the Holy Roman Empire, the Ottonians were replaced by the Salian dynasty in 1024, who famously clashed with the papacy under (r. 1056–1105) over Church appointments as part of the Investiture Controversy. His successors continued to struggle against the papacy as well as the German nobility. A period of instability followed the death of Emperor (r. 1111–25), who died without heirs, until Barbarossa (r. 1155–90) took the imperial throne. Although he ruled effectively, the basic problems remained, and his successors continued to struggle into the 13th century. Barbarossa's grandson Frederick II (r. 1220–50), who was also heir to the throne of Sicily through his mother, clashed repeatedly with the papacy. His court was famous for its scholars and he was often accused of heresy.


title: Middle Ages

text: Under the Capetian dynasty the French monarchy slowly began to expand its authority over the nobility, growing out of the Île-de-France to exert control over more of the country in the 11th and 12th centuries. They faced a powerful rival in the Dukes of Normandy, who in 1066 under William the Conqueror (duke 1035–1087), conquered England (r. 1066–87) and created a cross-channel empire that lasted, in various forms, throughout the rest of the Middle Ages. Norman warbands seized southern Italy and Sicily from the local Lombard, Byzantine and Muslim rulers. Their hold of the territory was recognised by the papacy in 1059, and Roger II (r. 1105–54) united these lands into the Kingdom of Sicily. Under the Angevin dynasty of (r. 1154–89) and his son Richard I (r. 1189–99), the kings of England ruled over England and large areas of France. Richard's younger brother John (r. 1199–1216) lost Normandy and the rest of the northern French possessions in 1204 to the French King Philip II Augustus (r. 1180–1223). This led to dissension among the English nobility, while John's financial exactions to pay for his unsuccessful attempts to regain Normandy led in 1215 to "Magna Carta", a charter that confirmed the rights and privileges of free men in England. Under (r. 1216–72), John's son, further concessions were made to the nobility, and royal power was diminished. The French monarchy continued to make gains against the nobility during the late 12th and 13th centuries, bringing more territories within the kingdom under the king's personal rule and centralising the royal administration. Under Louis IX (r. 1226–70), royal prestige rose to new heights as Louis served as a mediator for most of Europe.


title: Middle Ages

text: In Iberia, the Christian states, which had been confined to the north-western part of the peninsula, began to push back against the Islamic states in the south, a period known as the "Reconquista". By about 1150, the Christian north had coalesced into the five major kingdoms of León, Castile, Aragon, Navarre, and Portugal. Southern Iberia remained under control of Islamic states, initially under the Caliphate of Córdoba, which broke up in 1031 into a shifting number of petty states known as "taifas". Although the Almoravids and the Almohads, two dynasties from the Maghreb, established centralised rule over Southern Iberia in the 1110s and 1170s respectively, their empires quickly disintegrated. Christian forces advanced again in the early 13th century, culminating in the capture of Seville in 1248. New kingdoms such as Hungary and Poland, after their conversion to Christianity, became Central European powers. Northern Crusades and the advance of Christian kingdoms and military orders into previously pagan regions in the Baltic and Finnic north-east brought the forced assimilation of numerous native peoples into European culture.


title: Middle Ages

text: With the rise of the Mongol Empire in the Eurasian steppes under Genghis Khan (r. 1206–27), a new expansionist power reached Europe's eastern borderlands. Convinced of their heavenly sanctioned mission to conquer the world, the Mongols used extreme violence to overcome all resistance. Between 1236 and 1242, they conquered Volga Bulgaria, shattered the Kievan Rus' principalities, and laid waste to large regions in Poland, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia and Bulgaria. Their commander-in-chief Batu Khan (r. 1241–56)—a grandson of Genghis Khan—set up his capital at Sarai on the Volga, establishing the Golden Horde, a Mongol state nominally under the distant Great Khan's authority. The Mongols extracted heavy tribute from the Rus' principalities, and the Rus' princes had to ingratiate themselves with the Mongol khans for economic and political concessions. The Mongol conquest was followed by a peaceful period in Eastern Europe. This facilitated the development of direct trade contacts between Europe and China through newly established Genoese colonies in the Black Sea region.


title: Middle Ages

text: In the 11th century, the Seljuk Turks took over much of the Middle East, occupying Persia during the 1040s, Armenia in the 1060s, and Jerusalem in 1070. In 1071, the Turkish army defeated the Byzantine army at the Battle of Manzikert and captured the Byzantine Emperor Romanus IV (r. 1068–71). The Turks were then free to invade Asia Minor, which dealt a dangerous blow to the Byzantine Empire by seizing a large part of its population and its economic heartland. Although the Byzantines regrouped and recovered somewhat, they never fully regained Asia Minor and were often on the defensive. The Turks also had difficulties, losing control of Jerusalem to the Fatimids of Egypt and suffering from a series of internal civil wars. The Byzantines also faced a revived Bulgaria, which in the late 12th and 13th centuries spread throughout the Balkans.


title: Middle Ages

text: The crusades were intended to seize Jerusalem from Muslim control. The First Crusade was proclaimed by Pope Urban II (pope 1088–99) at the Council of Clermont in 1095 in response to a request from the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos (r. 1081–1118) for aid against further Muslim advances. Urban promised indulgence to anyone who took part. Tens of thousands of people from all levels of society mobilised across Europe and captured Jerusalem in 1099. One feature of the crusades was the pogroms against local Jews that often took place as the crusaders left their countries for the East. These were especially brutal during the First Crusade, when the Jewish communities in Cologne, Mainz, and Worms were destroyed, as well as other communities in cities between the rivers Seine and the Rhine. Another outgrowth of the crusades was the foundation of a new type of monastic order, the military orders of the Templars and Hospitallers, which fused monastic life with military service.


title: Middle Ages

text: The crusaders consolidated their conquests into crusader states. During the 12th and 13th centuries, there were a series of conflicts between them and the surrounding Islamic states. Appeals from the crusader states to the papacy led to further crusades, such as the Third Crusade, called to try to regain Jerusalem, which had been captured by Saladin (d. 1193) in 1187. In 1203, the Fourth Crusade was diverted from the Holy Land to Constantinople, and captured the city in 1204, setting up a Latin Empire of Constantinople and greatly weakening the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines recaptured the city in 1261, but never regained their former strength. By 1291 all the crusader states had been captured.


title: Middle Ages

text: Popes called for crusades to take place elsewhere besides the Holy Land: in Spain, southern France, and along the Baltic. The Spanish crusades became fused with the "Reconquista" of Spain from the Muslims. Although the Templars and Hospitallers took part in the Spanish crusades, similar Spanish military religious orders were founded, most of which had become part of the two main orders of Calatrava and Santiago by the beginning of the 12th century. Northern Europe also remained outside Christian influence until the 11th century or later, and became a crusading venue as part of the Northern Crusades of the 12th to 14th centuries. These crusades also spawned a military order, the Order of the Sword Brothers. Another order, the Teutonic Knights, although founded in the crusader states, focused much of its activity in the Baltic after 1225, and in 1309 moved its headquarters to Marienburg in Prussia.


title: Middle Ages

text: During the 11th century, developments in philosophy and theology led to increased intellectual activity. There was debate between the realists and the nominalists over the concept of "universals". Philosophical discourse was stimulated by the rediscovery of Aristotle and his emphasis on empiricism and rationalism. Scholars such as Peter Abelard (d. 1142) and Peter Lombard (d. 1164) introduced Aristotelian logic into theology. In the late 11th and early 12th centuries cathedral schools spread throughout Western Europe, signalling the shift of learning from monasteries to cathedrals and towns. Cathedral schools were in turn replaced by the universities established in major European cities. Philosophy and theology fused in scholasticism, an attempt by 12th- and 13th-century scholars to reconcile authoritative texts, most notably Aristotle and the Bible. This movement tried to employ a systemic approach to truth and reason and culminated in the thought of Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), who wrote the "Summa Theologica", or "Summary of Theology".


title: Middle Ages

text: Chivalry and the ethos of courtly love developed in royal and noble courts. This culture was expressed in the vernacular languages rather than Latin, and comprised poems, stories, legends, and popular songs spread by troubadours, or wandering minstrels. Often the stories were written down in the "chansons de geste", or "songs of great deeds", such as "The Song of Roland" or "The Song of Hildebrand". Secular and religious histories were also produced. Geoffrey of Monmouth (d. c. 1155) composed his "Historia Regum Britanniae", a collection of stories and legends about Arthur. Other works were more clearly history, such as Otto von Freising's (d. 1158) "Gesta Friderici Imperatoris" detailing the deeds of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, or William of Malmesbury's (d. c. 1143) "Gesta Regum" on the kings of England.