When did the Middle Ages end in Europe?

[Skill and Chance]

I like 1453/Gutenberg as a "median" estimate, but I think there's also a strong case for 1492 and 1347, the latter the end of profitable feudalism in Western Europe due to massive swings in the bargaining power of labor vs. landlords following the Plague. 

[Skill and Chance]

The end of the Middle Ages marks the start of "modernity". I'm not completely sold on the value of the idea of modernity, or that it truly started in the 15th/16th centuries. But I certainly think that 1492 would mark a better start date for modernity than 1453. The thing that stands about the 16th and 17th centuries versus earlier centuries was the degree to which the world became more interconnected as Europeans colonized the New World and established unprecedented sea routes in the Old World. 1517 also seems like a reasonable date given the huge importance than that the Reformation had, even in countries that remained predominantly Catholic.

By contrast, 1453 seems merely symbolic in that, while it represents the fall of the last vestige of the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire had not been a major power for many years by that point.

I generally associate modernity with near universal literacy/public primary education.  By that definition, modernity probably began in late 17th century New England, far later than the end of the Middle Ages.

[Skill and Chance]

1850. Bite me.

I know Le Goff is a Big Name, and I get the point he's trying to make, but that's really too much of a stretch. If the same historical period includes the early barbarian Kingdoms as well as the hypersophisticated courts of 1700 and the political turmoil of 1800, it's really extended beyond utility. Even the idea that "feudalism" was the same thing in the 6th century than it was in the late Ancient Regime (let alone in the 30 years after the Revolutionary and Napoleonic armies steamrolled over it) seems pretty silly to me. As for Christianity, it had radically reshaped itself over this period, and I'm pretty sure even the common believer from 500 would find much in common with that of 1800.

If anything, I'd be far more interested in a periodization that "breaks up" the Middle Ages into more coherent pieces of 2-3 centuries each (for example, the Dark Ages up to Charlemagne, the transition into strong feudalism up to the First Crusade, the Golden Age up until the Great Famine, and the Crisis up until 1453). This is how we usually periodize the modern era, so I think it's a lot more helpful in terms of understanding what happened in the Middle Ages. History might have been "slower" back then, but it wasn't that slow.

Tbh we have the same problem in our periodization of the Classical Era. The idea that we can say anything coherent in a time that spans between the outset of Greek city-states and the fall of Rome is pretty surreal. But at least it's kept at around 1000 years total, which should be the absolute maximum for a historical cycle.

Yes but by your same argument, it's absurd to categorize the fall of Constantinople in the same "modern" era as the atom bomb. I mean, for the average person there was less change in life between 550 and 1450 than between 1450 and 1950.

If you were to look at the most fundamental distinctions between average life in the indisputably modern era and, say, the 13th century, the broadest possible measure, the things a time traveler would notice first and be most struck by, you would say the modern era has these things:

- light/power as a mass utility, & other utilities
- powered (vs animal) transportation, whether by land, air or sea
- instant long distance communication
- the production of images/screens

and to a lesser degree:
- artificial computing (although less noticeable in everyday life)

The average time traveler would not notice that Constantinople had fallen, certainly not before any of the things I mentioned, and certainly would not consider that fact to be more definitive of the differences between their time and ours.

These all point to the mid 19th century.

I am intrigued by this Long Middle Ages idea.  From a US perspective, the statement "In Mississippi, the Middle Ages ended in the 1960's." is not entirely crazy.  From a Western European perspective, this would probably have the Middle Ages ending during the French Revolution->Napoleon->UK Reform Acts->Italian and German unification period.  This would also be around the time economic growth was obvious to the average person in Europe. 

In the US, the generalized end of the "Long Middle Ages" would be the 1860's. 

[Skill and Chance]

1850. Bite me.

I know Le Goff is a Big Name, and I get the point he's trying to make, but that's really too much of a stretch. If the same historical period includes the early barbarian Kingdoms as well as the hypersophisticated courts of 1700 and the political turmoil of 1800, it's really extended beyond utility. Even the idea that "feudalism" was the same thing in the 6th century than it was in the late Ancient Regime (let alone in the 30 years after the Revolutionary and Napoleonic armies steamrolled over it) seems pretty silly to me. As for Christianity, it had radically reshaped itself over this period, and I'm pretty sure even the common believer from 500 would find much in common with that of 1800.

If anything, I'd be far more interested in a periodization that "breaks up" the Middle Ages into more coherent pieces of 2-3 centuries each (for example, the Dark Ages up to Charlemagne, the transition into strong feudalism up to the First Crusade, the Golden Age up until the Great Famine, and the Crisis up until 1453). This is how we usually periodize the modern era, so I think it's a lot more helpful in terms of understanding what happened in the Middle Ages. History might have been "slower" back then, but it wasn't that slow.

Tbh we have the same problem in our periodization of the Classical Era. The idea that we can say anything coherent in a time that spans between the outset of Greek city-states and the fall of Rome is pretty surreal. But at least it's kept at around 1000 years total, which should be the absolute maximum for a historical cycle.

Yes but by your same argument, it's absurd to categorize the fall of Constantinople in the same "modern" era as the atom bomb. I mean, for the average person there was less change in life between 550 and 1450 than between 1450 and 1950.

If you were to look at the most fundamental distinctions between average life in the indisputably modern era and, say, the 13th century, the broadest possible measure, the things a time traveler would notice first and be most struck by, you would say the modern era has these things:

- light/power as a mass utility, & other utilities
- powered (vs animal) transportation, whether by land, air or sea
- instant long distance communication
- the production of images/screens

and to a lesser degree:
- artificial computing (although less noticeable in everyday life)

The average time traveler would not notice that Constantinople had fallen, certainly not before any of the things I mentioned, and certainly would not consider that fact to be more definitive of the differences between their time and ours.

These all point to the mid 19th century.

I am intrigued by this Long Middle Ages idea.  From a US perspective, the statement "In Mississippi, the Middle Ages ended in the 1960's." is not entirely crazy.  From a Western European perspective, this would probably have the Middle Ages ending during the French Revolution->Napoleon->UK Reform Acts->Italian and German unification period.  This would also be around the time economic growth was obvious to the average person in Europe. 

In the US, the generalized end of the "Long Middle Ages" would be the 1860's. 

Maybe not crazy, but it's certainly odd given that racialized chattel slavery (and hence also its legacy) is of Early Modern vintage. It seems to me that, for the Middle Ages in Mississippi to have ended in the 1960s, they would have had to have begun in the last few decades of the nineteenth century, when the ersatz-feudal institution of sharecropping was first substituted for the old "peculiar institution".

This is also just ignoring all the things that a time traveler from the sixth or seventh century to the thirteenth would have noticed, such as heavy plows, sailing ships, and large agricultural surpluses. All of these are things that, while we don't think about them much today, would have been extremely important differences to somebody from a primarily non-urban society.

Well, there was plenty of feudal stuff going on in the Antebellum South between all those indentured servants in 17-18th century Virginia and all of those plantation owning families claiming lineage from Charlemagne, etc. 

But on the whole, I agree with you.  Slavery was in decline throughout the Middle Ages and outright banned in most of Europe by the Black Death (my favored end of the Middle Ages event).  Something was clearly different by 1500, and even in 1000-1200, technology actually had advanced beyond the Roman era on several front.

I like the idea that Five Good Emperors era Rome, Constantine-Justinian era Byzantium, and later Medieval Europe had enough innovation that they were flirting with industrialization before getting most of that progress wiped out by plagues.  Then in modern times we developed vaccines, sterilization, and antibiotics just in time to keep the innovation and urban population growth machine going.  The literal Black Death was getting ready to spread across the world for a 3rd time circa 1900 and potentially wipe out the urbanized population again if we hadn't stopped it first.