Medieval age - when ?

[King Henry V]

It mostly depends on where you live, in england its 1066-1485. Between the battle of Hastings and Bosworth, before that it was the Dark Ages from 410-1066.

[edyzmedieval]

IMHO,

The Middle Ages are from 1066 to 1453.

[Meneldil]

On a sidenote, 1453 is sometimes considered as the end of the Middle Age in France because during this year, the HYW ended, and the king achieved to rule over the whole country (and thus, to turn France into a 'modern' country).

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

I say 1014 (Clontarf) to 1492 (Columbus, Granada, so forth).

[Hurin_Rules]

What then would you people call the period from the fall of Rome to 1000/1066/1014? This would mean that St. Benedict, Charlemagne, Roland, Otto and Alfred the Great and most of the Vikings were not medieval figures.

Historians no longer use the term 'Dark Ages' because of the pejorative connotations. In fact, they were not as 'Dark' as once thought.

[Marcellus]

What then would you people call the period from the fall of Rome to 1000/1066/1014? This would mean that St. Benedict, Charlemagne, Roland, Otto and Alfred the Great and most of the Vikings were not medieval figures.

Historians no longer use the term 'Dark Ages' because of the pejorative connotations. In fact, they were not as 'Dark' as once thought.

I would call it the 'early' middle ages. But I think that the term 'dark ages' is still used by most people.

[Spartakus]

The periodization of the middle ages I remember was my first assignment when I began studying medieval history at the university. IMO the whole problem is both pointless, artificial and unnecessary. As long as we have a general understanding of when this "period" was, to the extent that we don't apply the term medieval completely out of place, it doesn't really matter wether we say it lasted from 476 to 1453 or 325 to 1517 or whatever, and these names we come up with for the various subdivisions of the period matter even less. They're just there for convenience, to give us a sense of order.

Debate is pointless, because there's really no end to the arguments one can come up with for wether it should be this way or that way. If historians start wasting time over this, the periodization is no longer convenient but an encumbrance, as they're not really doing any historical research of value.

Another fine example is the new period-dating our Ministry of Education is supplying to schools: The Middle Ages are broken up into two eras: The Time of Knights and Monks (500-1000) and the Time of Cities and States (1000-1500). This is so clearly bullocks that you almost cannot take it seriously (at least, I can't) and should therefore only be used as a means to make historical education more easy. Otherwise, this kind of dating is just useless.

Ok, I know I just said we shouldn't waste time arguing over periodization, but this is just plain wrong. It's funny how the "time of knights" is past even before it began. The idea of knighthood as being something more than just fighting on horseback didn't start evolving until the late 11th century. I feel sorry for the knights. "The time of cities and states" is waaay too early as well.

[Ricker]

I agree with Spartakus, although I typically think of the medieval period as the end of the fifth century (around the fall of Rome in 476) until around the middle of the fifteenth, similarly to what others have said.

The biggest reason that I agree with Spartakus is that any beginning and ending dates that are set will necessarily be arbitrary and will typically vary depending upon whatever region is under discussion. Spartakus is completely right when he says that different periods are "just there for convenience, to give us a sense of order" (and I would add understanding as well). It's not as if anyone living during that time would have said, "I'm living during the medieval period," the dark ages, or whatever. I look at it as similar to the way that we describe and talk about feudalism. The term helps to organize modern thoughts and understanding on complex relationships during the period, even though the term 'feudalism' itself didn't originate until later.

Gelatinous Cube, why don't you consider the Viking raids to be a part of the Middle Ages?

If I remember right, Petrarch and other humanists were the ones that came up with the concept of the Middle Ages and tried to paint it in a bad light, starting the idea of the inaccurate idea of the 'Dark Ages'. They wanted to differentiate the Middle Ages from 'glorious' antiquity and their own time of Renaissance. So technically the medieval period, even though it lacks any kind of clear demarcations (in my opinion), is any time between the end of antiquity/the fall of Rome to the beginning of the Renaissance.