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Middle Ages: Periods
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The Middle Ages were a period in Europe dating from the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West, around the 5th century. However, the fixing of dates for the beginning and end of the Middle Ages is arbitrary. According to the Norton Anthology, "Medieval social theory held that society was made up of three 'estates': the nobility, composed of a small hereditary aristocracy,...,the church, whose duty was to look after the spiritual welfare of that body, and everyone else..."( Norton 76).
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In history, the Middle Ages is the period of time in Europe between the decline of the Roman Empire and the revival of letters (the Renaissance). Hallam regards it as beginning with the sixth and ending with the fifteenth century.
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The institutions of the Middle Ages developed from those of the Roman Empire, which by 200 included much of what is now western Europe, Turkey, and North Africa. Historians once thought that the Middle Ages began with the fall of the Roman Empire, but there was no decisive moment at which the Roman Empire fell or the Middle Ages began. Today historians talk instead about the transformations of the Roman world. This period of change, usually measured from about 350 to 600, is often called Late Antiquity.
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Early Middle Ages —From the fall of Rome in 486 AD. To avoid undue emphasis on exact years, the date is usually rounded off and the period stated as 500-1000. The Early Middle Ages includes the Migration period (... referred to as the "Dark Ages"), the Ostrogoths and Visigoths, the Merovingians, Anglo-Saxon England, the Frankish Empire and the Viking Age.
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The Middle Ages are commonly dated from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century to the beginning of the Renaissance in the 15th century. These dates are approximate, and are based upon nuanced arguments; for other dating schemes and the reasoning behind them, see "periodisation issues", below.
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The Middle Ages provided the gestation period during which the necessary conditions for the Renaissance were created. This is witnessed by the writings of various visionaries, with Roger Bacon as the best example. Bacon believed that Nature can be described using mathematics and required that all accepted theories be based on experimental evidence, not merely as conclusions drawn from ancient treatises (which themselves have not been tested). Many of these ideas were, of course, of Greek ancestry.
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