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Middle Ages

EPOCH THREE OF SIX · 500 – 1500

Not a pause and not a dark age. The Migration Period reshuffles Europe as Charlemagne is crowned in Rome; crusades, feudal obligation and Gothic spires define the centuries that follow; then plague and the Hundred Years' War close them out — while Baghdad's Golden Age and a Mongol empire stretching from China to the Danube prove the centre of gravity lies elsewhere.

“Middle Ages” is a European label for a European gap — the thousand years between two periods Europe once considered its own, Rome and the Renaissance that claimed to revive it. Nothing about the rest of the world was standing still in between.

Early Middle Ages (Migration Period, Charlemagne) 500 – 1000 Soon High Middle Ages (Crusades, feudalism, Gothic era) 1000 – 1300 Soon Late Middle Ages (Black Death, Hundred Years' War) 1300 – 1500 Soon Islamic Golden Age 622 – 1258 Soon Mongol Empire 1206 – 1368 Soon