Middle Ages: What was it really like to live in the Middle Ages?

The Middle Ages: To begin your journey into the Middle Ages, try to picture a world with far fewer people, where no one moved away from their hometown, and life moved at a slower pace. There was no electricity, no water from faucets, no television, and no cars. Imagine such a world to begin your journey into a land that was filled with real knights, castles, lords, and ladies and enter The Middle Ages..

THE MIDDLE AGES: The Middle Ages stretched roughly from the fifth century to the fifteenth century. It began with the collapse of the Roman Empire and although Roman customs continued for a while, it was soon replaced by a system of running society called "feudalism." This system made skill with the sword the most powerful and made kings and landholders powerful.

THE MIDDLE AGES, CHIVALRY, & KNIGHTHOOD: Terms and glossaries, Timelines, Maps, the Black Death (Plague), Religion, Science and More.

Between Ancient and Modern: In AD476, warriors attacked the city of Rome and ended more than 800 years of glory for the “eternal city.” Historians mark the fall of Rome as the end of ancient history. The next one thousand years were called the Middle Ages. The Latin term for Middle Ages is "medieval.

The Plague/Black Death:

The Middle Ages--The Black Death: The Black Death serves as a convenient divider between the central and the late Middle Ages....The Black Death did not cause the crisis, for evidence of the changes can be seen well before 1347. But the plague exacerbated problems and added new ones, and the tone of crisis is graver in the second half than in the first half of the century. Standing at the century's mid-point, the plague serves as a convenient demarcation.

Out of the Middle Ages: Life in the city was soon to change drastically. During the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance (1350-1450) the bubonic plague, also called the "Black Death," devastated one half of the population of Europe.

Plague and Disease in the Middle Ages: Medieval History

The Black Death, 1348: Coming out of the East, the Black Death reached the shores of Italy in the spring of 1348 unleashing a rampage of death across Europe unprecedented in recorded history. By the time the epidemic played itself out three years later, anywhere between 25% and 50% of Europe's population had fallen victim to the pestilence.

Feudalism:

Feudalism: In most of medieval Europe, society was dependent on the "feudal" system, which was based on allocation of land in return for service.

The Middle Ages: Feudal Life For safety and for defense, people in the Middle Ages formed small communities around a central lord or master. Most people lived on a manor, which consisted of the castle, the church, the village, and the surrounding farm land. These manors were isolated, with occasional visits from peddlers, pilgrims on their way to the Crusades, or soldiers from other fiefdoms.

Feudalism in the middle ages: Feudalism was the primary political system of the Middle Ages. The system came about, for the most part, because during his reign of England, King William had two major woes: he couldn't keep the people from rebelling and he couldn't take care of all the land.

The Feudal Structure of the Medieval World: During the period of history known as the Middle Ages, feudalism was the law of the land. It was the basis by which the upper nobility class maintained control over the lower classes. This rigid structure of government consisted of kings, lords, and the peasants.

The Vikings and the Middle Ages:

European Middle Ages--The Norse: The last great waves of European migrations began in the eighth century and picked up dramatically in the ninth and tenth centuries. This time it was a group of relatively sedentary Germanic tribes in the northernmost reaches of Europe, the Norsemen.

History - The Middle Ages: From around 800 onwards Ireland was attacked by bands of Viking marauders. The raids continued right through the 9th century and a second major wave began early in the 10th century. The monasteries, as the major centres of population and wealth, were the main target of the Vikings. They were despoiled of their books and valuables and many of them were burned. These attacks, and attacks by the Irish themselves, contributed to the decline of the great monastic tradition at this period.

Viking Longboat: Out of the fragmented world of Europe in the Middle Ages, after the decline of the Western Roman Empire, several societies began to make their presence felt. One of those societies was that of the Norsemen, or more commonly known, the Vikings.