High Middle Ages

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High Middle Ages

The High Middle Ages was the period

Periodization

Periodization is the attempt to categorize or divide time into named blocks. The result is a descriptive abstraction that provides a useful handle on periods of time with relatively stable characteristics....
of European history

History of Europe

The history of Europe describes the passage of time from humans inhabiting the European Continental Europe to the present day. For convenience sake, historians divide long periods into more manageable eras....
in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries (AD 1000–1299). The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages

Early Middle Ages

The Early Middle Ages is a period in the history of Europe following the fall of the Western Roman Empire spanning roughly five centuries from AD 500 to 1000....
and followed by the Late Middle Ages

Late Middle Ages

The Late Middle Ages is a term used by historians to describe history of Europe in the periodization of the 14th and 15th centuries . The Late Middle Ages were preceded by the High Middle Ages, and followed by the Early modern Europe ....
, which by convention end around 1500.

The key historical trend of the High Middle Ages was the rapidly increasing population

Medieval demography

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Encyclopedia

The High Middle Ages was the period

Periodization

History of Europe

Early Middle Ages

Late Middle Ages

Medieval demography

Medieval demography is the study of human demography in Europe during the Middle Ages. It is an estimate of the number of people who were alive during the Medieval period, population trends and movements....
of Europe, which brought about great social and political change from the preceding era. By 1250 the robust population increase greatly benefited the economy, reaching levels it would not see again in some areas until the 19th century. This trend was checked in the Late Middle Ages by a series of calamities

Crisis of the Late Middle Ages

Around the start of the 14th century a series of events began that brought centuries of European prosperity and growth to a halt. Three major crises would lead to radical changes in all areas of society - they were demographic collapse, political instabilities and lastly religious upheavals....
, notably the Black Death

Black Death

The Black Death, was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history, widely thought to have been caused by a bacterium named Yersinia pestis , but recently attributed by some factors to other diseases....
but also including numerous wars and economic stagnation.

From about the year 1000 onwards, Western Europe saw the last of the Barbarian invasions and became more politically organized. The Viking

Viking

A Viking is one of the Norsemen explorers, warriors, merchants, and Piracy who raided and colonized wide areas of Europe from the late eighth to the early eleventh century....
s had settled in the British Isles

British Isles

The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include Great Britain and Ireland, and numerous smaller islands....
, France

France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
and elsewhere, whilst Norse Christian kingdoms were developing in their Scandinavia

Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a historical and geographical subregion in northern Europe that includes the Scandinavian Peninsula. It consists of the kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark; some authorities also include Finland and some might even include Iceland....
n homelands. The Magyars had ceased their expansion in the 10th century, and by the year 1000, a Christian Kingdom of Hungary

Kingdom of Hungary

The Kingdom of Hungary , which existed from 1000 to 1918, and then from 1920 to 1946, was a considerable state in Central Europe....
was recognized in central Europe. With the brief exception of the Mongol invasions

Mongol invasions

The Mongol invasions progressed throughout the 13th century, resulting in the vast Mongol Empire covering much of Asia by 1300.The Mongol Empire emerged in the course of the 13th century by a series of conquests and invasions throughout Central Asia and Western Asia, reaching Eastern Europe by the 1240s....
, major barbarian incursions ceased.

In the 11th century, populations north of the Alps

Alps

The Alps is the name for one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east; through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany; to France in the west....
began to settle new lands, some of which had reverted to wilderness after the end of the Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the Roman Republic phase of the Ancient Rome, characterised by an autocracy form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
. In what is known as the "great clearances," vast forests and marshes of Europe were cleared and cultivated. At the same time settlements moved beyond the traditional boundaries of the Frankish Empire

Frankish Empire

Francia or Frankia, later also called the Frankish Empire , Frankish Kingdom , Frankish Realm or occasionally Frankland, was the territory inhabited and ruled by the Franks from the 3rd to the 10th century....
to new frontiers in eastern Europe, beyond the Elbe River, tripling the size of Germany in the process. Crusaders founded European colonies

Crusader states

The Crusader states were a number of mostly 12th- and 13th-century Feudalism states created by Western European crusaders in Asia Minor, Greece and the Holy Land ....
in the Levant

Levant

The Levant describes, traditionally, the Eastern Mediterranean at large, but can be used as a geographical term that denotes a large area in Western Asia formed by the lands bordering the Eastern shores of the Mediterranean, roughly bounded on the north by the Taurus Mountains, on the south by the Arabian Desert, and on the west by the M...
, the majority of the Iberian Peninsula was conquered

Reconquista

The Reconquista was a period of 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula succeeded in retaking the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslims....
from the Moors, and the Normans

Normans

The Normans were the people who gave their names to Normandy, a region in northern France. They descended from Viking conquerors of the territory and the native population of mostly Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock....
colonized southern Italy, all part of the major population increase and resettlement pattern.

The High Middle Ages produced many different forms of intellectual, spiritual and artistic works

Medieval art

Medieval art covers a vast scope of time and place, over 1000 years of art history in Western art history, the Islamic art. It includes major art movements and periods, national and regional art, genres, revivals, the artists crafts, and the artists themselves....
. This age saw the rise of modern nation-states in Western Europe

Western Europe

Western Europe refers to the countries in the western most half of Europe. This concept has had different meanings, political and cultural as well as geographical issues have influenced the area....
and the ascent of the great Italian city-state

City-state

A city-state is an independent country whose territory consists solely of a single major city and the area immediately surrounding it. Examples include the city-states of ancient Greece , the Phoenician cities of Canaan , the Sumerian cities of Mesopotamia , the Mayans of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica , the central Asian cities along the Silk Roa...
s. The still-powerful Roman Church

Roman Catholic Church

The Roman Catholic Church, officially known as the Catholic Church is the world's largest Christianity Ecclesia , representing over half of all Christians and one-sixth of the world population....
called armies from across Europe to a series of Crusades

Crusades

The Crusades were a series of religious war waged by much of Christian Europe against external and internal opponents. Crusades were fought mainly against Muslims, though campaigns were also directed against Paganism Slavic peoples, Jews, Eastern Orthodox Church, Mongols, Catharism, Hussites, Waldensians, Old Prussians, and political enemi...
against the Seljuk Turks, who occupied the Holy Land

Holy Land

The Holy Land , generally refers to the geographical region of the Levant called Land of Canaan or Land of Israel in the Bible, and constitutes the Promised land....
. The rediscovery of the works of Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
led Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas

Saint Thomas Aquinas, Dominican Order was a priest of the Roman Catholic Church in the Dominican Order from Italy, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus and Doctor Communis....
and other thinkers to develop the philosophy of Scholasticism

Scholasticism

Scholasticism was the dominant form of theology and philosophy in the Western Europe in the Middle Ages, particularly in the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries....
. In architecture, many of the most notable Gothic cathedrals

Gothic architecture

Gothic architecture is a style of architecture which flourished during the high and late Middle Ages. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
were built or completed during this era.

High Middle Ages

Historical events and politics