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196-579: Early modern Europe , also referred to as the post-medieval period , is the period of European history between the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution , roughly the mid 15th century to the late 18th century. Historians variously mark the beginning of the early modern period with the invention of moveable type printing in the 1450s, the Fall of Constantinople and end of

392-612: A "realist" perspective on wars and diplomacy have emphasized the Peace of Westphalia (1648) as a dividing line. It ended the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), where religion and ideology had been powerful motivating forces for warfare. Westphalia, in the realist view, ushered in a new international system of sovereign states of roughly equal strength, dedicated not to ideology or religion but to enhance status, and territorial gains. The Catholic Church, for example, no longer devoted its energies to

588-850: A universal monarchy in Western Europe. The Habsburgs expanded their control within and outside the Holy Roman Empire as a result of the dynastic policy pursued by Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor . Maximilian I married Mary of Burgundy , thus bringing the Burgundian Netherlands into the Habsburg inheritance. Their son, Philip the Handsome , married Joanna the Mad of Spain (daughter of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castile ). Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (son of Philip and Joanna) inherited

784-596: A broad if uneven hierarchy of law and protection. These localised hierarchies were based on the bond of common people to the land on which they worked, and to a lord, who would provide and administer both local law to settle disputes among the peasants, as well as protection from outside invaders. The western provinces soon were to be dominated by three great powers: first, the Franks ( Merovingian dynasty ) in Francia 481–843 AD, which covered much of present France and Germany; second,

980-495: A cultural center for master architects, sculptors, musicians, painters, and artisans of every kind...In its myth and message, Rome had become the sacred city of the popes, the prime symbol of a triumphant Catholicism, the center of orthodox Christianity, a new Jerusalem. It is clearly noticeable that the popes of the Italian Renaissance have been subjected by many writers with an overly harsh tone. Pope Julius II, for example,

1176-469: A dramatic shift in the historiography of the Reformation. Until the 1960s, historians focused their attention largely on the great leaders and also the theologians of the 16th century, especially Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli. Their ideas were studied in depth. However, the rise of the new social history in the 1960s look at history from the bottom up, not from the top down. Historians began to concentrate on

1372-721: A formidable new opposition to the dominance of the Catholic Church , especially in Northern Europe. The early modern period also witnessed the circumnavigation of the Earth and the establishment of regular European contact with the Americas and South and East Asia. The ensuing rise of global systems of international economic, cultural and intellectual exchange played an important role in the development of capitalism and represents an identifiable early phase of globalization . Regardless of

1568-468: A historical intellectual movement, The Enlightenment . This movement advocated rationality as a means to establish an authoritative system of aesthetics , ethics, and logic . The intellectual leaders of this movement regarded themselves as a courageous elite, and regarded their purpose as one of leading the world toward progress and out of a long period of doubtful tradition, full of irrationality, superstition, and tyranny, which they believed began during

1764-641: A historical period they called the Dark Ages . This movement also provided a framework for the American and French Revolutions , the Latin American independence movement, and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth Constitution of May 3 , and also led to the rise of liberalism and the birth of socialism and communism . It is matched by the high baroque and classical eras in music, and

1960-590: A medieval concept which has steadily evolved since the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the gradual rise of the Papacy more in religio-temporal implications practically during and after the reign of Charlemagne; and the concept let itself be lulled in the minds of the staunch believers to the archetype of a holy religious space inhabited by Christians, blessed by God, the Heavenly Father, ruled by Christ through

2156-571: A painting, from Eastern Christianity . Christianity has used symbolism from its very beginnings. In both East and West, numerous iconic types of Christ , Mary and saints and other subjects were developed; the number of named types of icons of Mary, with or without the infant Christ, was especially large in the East, whereas Christ Pantocrator was much the commonest image of Christ. Christian symbolism invests objects or actions with an inner meaning expressing Christian ideas. Christianity has borrowed from

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2352-461: A period of peace, civilisation and an efficient centralised government in the subject territories ended in the 3rd century, when a series of civil wars undermined Rome's economic and social strength. In the 4th century, the emperors Diocletian and Constantine were able to slow down the process of decline by splitting the empire into a Western part with a capital in Rome and an Eastern part with

2548-417: A radical change in the rate of new inventions, innovations in the ways of managing traditional means of production, and economic growth. The period saw major technological advances, including the adoption of gunpowder and the astrolabe , the invention of spectacles , and greatly improved water mills , building techniques, agriculture in general, clocks , and ships . The latter advances made possible

2744-458: A series of blunders that ruined their efforts to find allies. King Louis XIV of France, by contrast, developed the most sophisticated diplomatic service, with permanent ambassadors and lesser ministers in major and minor capitals, all preparing steady streams of information and advice to Paris. Diplomacy became a career that proved highly attractive to rich senior aristocrats who enjoyed very high society at royal courts, especially because they carried

2940-449: A strong impact on all other aspects of life: marriage and family, education, the humanities and sciences, the political and social order, the economy, and the arts. Christianity had a significant impact on education and science and medicine as the church created the bases of the Western system of education, and was the sponsor of founding universities in the Western world as the university

3136-511: A tool and method for learning which places emphasis on dialectical reasoning . The Byzantine Empire , which was the most sophisticated culture during antiquity, suffered under Muslim conquests limiting its scientific prowess during the Medieval period . Christian Western Europe had suffered a catastrophic loss of knowledge following the fall of the Western Roman Empire . But thanks to

3332-470: A transitional period, known as the Renaissance . Early Modern Europe is usually dated to the end of the 15th century. Technological changes such as gunpowder and the printing press changed how warfare was conducted and how knowledge was preserved and disseminated. The Reformation saw the fragmentation of religious thought, leading to religious wars . The Age of Exploration led to colonization , and

3528-422: A universal Christendom ), language, or feudal allegiance (belonging to the manor or extended household of a particular magnate or lord ). The beginning of the early modern period is not clear-cut, but is generally accepted to be in the late 15th century or early 16th century. Significant dates in this transitional phase from medieval to early modern Europe can be noted: The end date of the early modern period

3724-549: Is any poetry that contains Christian teachings, themes , or references. The influence of Christianity on poetry has been great in any area that Christianity has taken hold. Christian poems often directly reference the Bible , while others provide allegory . Christian art is art produced in an attempt to illustrate, supplement and portray in tangible form the principles of Christianity . Virtually all Christian groupings use or have used art to some extent. The prominence of art and

3920-483: Is considered the height of temporal power of the papacy. The Corpus Christianum described the then-current notion of the community of all Christians united under the Roman Catholic Church . The community was to be guided by Christian values in its politics, economics and social life. Its legal basis was the corpus iuris canonica (body of canon law). In the East, Christendom became more defined as

4116-510: Is derived, had a political theory which we should do well to study; for their theory about a universal empire and a Catholic church was in turn the echo of a former age of reason, when a few men conscious of ruling the world had for a moment sought to survey it as a whole and to rule it justly. Developments in western philosophy and European events brought change to the notion of the Corpus Christianum . The Hundred Years' War accelerated

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4312-579: Is generally regarded as an institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian setting. Many clerics throughout history have made significant contributions to science and Jesuits in particular have made numerous significant contributions to the development of science . The cultural influence of Christianity includes social welfare , founding hospitals , economics (as the Protestant work ethic ), natural law (which would later influence

4508-553: Is the period associated with the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603) and was a golden age in English cultural history. It was the height of the English Renaissance , and saw the flowering of English literature and poetry . This was also the time during which Elizabethan theatre grew. William Shakespeare , among others, composed highly innovative and powerful plays. It was an age of expansion and exploration abroad. At home

4704-538: Is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD 500), the Middle Ages (AD 500–1500), and the modern era (since AD 1500). The first early European modern humans appear in the fossil record about 48,000 years ago, during the Paleolithic era. Settled agriculture marked the Neolithic era, which spread slowly across Europe from southeast to

4900-705: Is variously associated with the Industrial Revolution , which began in Britain in about 1750, or the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789, which drastically transformed the state of European politics and ushered in the Napoleonic era and modern Europe. The role of nobles in the Feudal System had yielded to the notion of the Divine Right of Kings during the Middle Ages (in fact, this consolidation of power from

5096-641: The 2nd century , attributed to Ignatius of Antioch c. 107. Early Christendom would close at the end of imperial persecution of Christians after the ascension of Constantine the Great and the Edict of Milan in AD ;313 and the First Council of Nicaea in 325. According to Malcolm Muggeridge (1980), Christ founded Christianity, but Constantine founded Christendom. Canadian theology professor Douglas John Hall dates

5292-657: The Aegean Sea , on the coast of Asia Minor , the Levant , Cyprus and Italy. Mycenaean artefacts have been found well outside the limits of the Mycenean world. Quite unlike the Minoans, whose society benefited from trade, the Mycenaeans advanced through conquest. Mycenaean civilization was dominated by a warrior aristocracy . Around 1400 BC, the Mycenaeans extended their control to Crete,

5488-584: The Anabaptists . Subsequent Protestant churches generally trace their roots back to these initial four schools of the Reformation. It also led to the Catholic or Counter Reformation within the Roman Catholic Church through a variety of new spiritual movements, reforms of religious communities, the founding of seminaries, the clarification of Catholic theology as well as structural changes in the institution of

5684-507: The Battle of Adrianople on 14 April 1205. The reign of Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria led to maximum territorial expansion and that of Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria to a Second Golden Age of Bulgarian culture . The Byzantine Empire was fully re-established in 1261. In the 11th century, populations north of the Alps began to settle new lands. Vast forests and marshes of Europe were cleared and cultivated. At

5880-751: The Battle of Lepanto against the Turks. Pope Sixtus V sided with the Catholics during the French wars of religion . Worldwide religious missions, such as the Jesuit China mission , were established by Pope Gregory XIII . Gregory XIII is also responsible for the establishment of the Gregorian calendar . Following the Peace of Westphalia and the birth of nation-states , Papal claims to universal authority came effectively to an end. European history The history of Europe

6076-703: The British Isles . Around 12,500 BC, the Würm glaciation ended. Magdalenian culture persisted until c. 10,000 BC, when it quickly evolved into two microlithist cultures: Azilian ( Federmesser ), in Spain and southern France , and then Sauveterrian , in southern France and Tardenoisian in Central Europe, while in Northern Europe the Lyngby complex succeeded the Hamburg culture with

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6272-782: The Byzantine Empire 's gradual loss of territory to an expanding Islam and the Muslim conquest of Persia . This caused Christianity to become important to the Byzantine identity. Before the East–West Schism which divided the Church religiously, there had been the notion of a universal Christendom that included the East and the West. After the East–West Schism, hopes of regaining religious unity with

6468-528: The Church scholars such as Aquinas and Buridan , the West carried on at least the spirit of scientific inquiry which would later lead to Europe's taking the lead in science during the Scientific Revolution using translations of medieval works . Medieval technology refers to the technology used in medieval Europe under Christian rule. After the Renaissance of the 12th century , medieval Europe saw

6664-748: The Corinthian War and the defeat of Sparta at the Battle of Leuctra . At the same time at the north ruled the Thracian Odrysian Kingdom between the 5th century BC and the 1st century AD. Hellenic infighting left Greek city states vulnerable, and Philip II of Macedon united the Greek city states under his control. The son of Philip II, known as Alexander the Great , invaded neighboring Persia , toppled and incorporated its domains, as well as invading Egypt and going as far off as India, increasing contact with people and cultures in these regions that marked

6860-794: The Cro-Magnon population, Early European Farmers who migrated from Anatolia during the Neolithic Revolution , and Yamnaya pastoralists who expanded into Europe in the context of the Indo-European expansion . The Indo-European migrations started in Southeast Europe at around c. 4200 BC. through the areas around the Black sea and the Balkan peninsula . In the next 3000 years the Indo-European languages expanded through Europe. Around this time, in

7056-691: The Crown of Bohemia , Hungary , Slovene Lands , the Spanish Netherlands and much of Germany and Italy, were staunch defenders of the Roman Catholic Church. Some historians believe that the era of the Reformation came to a close when Roman Catholic France allied itself with Protestant states against the Habsburg dynasty. For the first time since the days of Martin Luther, political and national convictions again outweighed religious convictions in Europe. Two main tenets of

7252-669: The Early European modern humans . Some locally developed transitional cultures ( Uluzzian in Italy and Greece, Altmühlian in Germany, Szeletian in Central Europe and Châtelperronian in the southwest) use clearly Upper Paleolithic technologies at very early dates. Nevertheless, the definitive advance of these technologies is made by the Aurignacian culture, originating in the Levant (Ahmarian) and Hungary (first full Aurignacian). By 35,000 BC,

7448-456: The Edict of Serdica in 311), declaring the legality of Christianity in the Roman Empire. In addition, Constantine officially shifted the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to the Greek town of Byzantium , which he renamed Nova Roma – it was later named Constantinople ("City of Constantine"). Theodosius I , who had made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire , would be

7644-560: The European migrant crisis , and the Russian invasion of Ukraine . Homo erectus migrated from Africa to Europe before the emergence of modern humans. Homo erectus georgicus , which lived roughly 1.8 million years ago in Georgia , is the earliest hominid to be discovered in Europe. The earliest appearance of anatomically modern people in Europe has been dated to 45,000 BC, referred to as

7840-485: The Franks and part of the Carolingian dynasty , was crowned by the pope as emperor. His empire based in modern France, the Low Countries and Germany expanded into modern Hungary, Italy, Bohemia , Lower Saxony and Spain. He and his father received substantial help from an alliance with the Pope, who wanted help against the Lombards . His death marked the beginning of the end of the dynasty, which collapsed entirely by 888. The fragmentation of power led to semi-autonomy in

8036-514: The Greek and Roman Empires , as the centralized Roman power waned, the dominance of the Catholic Church was the only consistent force in Western Europe. Until the Age of Enlightenment , Christian culture guided the course of philosophy, literature, art, music and science. Christian disciplines of the respective arts have subsequently developed into Christian philosophy , Christian art , Christian music , Christian literature etc. Art and literature, law, education, and politics were preserved in

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8232-481: The Habsburg Netherlands in 1506, Habsburg Spain and its territories in 1516, and Habsburg Austria in 1519. The main opponents of the Habsburg Empire were the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of France . The Habsburgs clashed with France in a series of Italian wars. The Battle of Pavia (1525) initiated the Habsburg primacy in Italy and the replacement of France as the main European power. Nevertheless, religious wars forced Charles V to abdicate in 1556 and divide

8428-402: The Holy Roman Empire was also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation . The Habsburg House of Austria held the position of Holy Roman Emperors since the mid-1400s and for the entire Early modern period. Despite the lack of a centralized political structure in a period in which national monarchies were emerging, the Habsburg Emperors of the Early modern period came close to form

8624-430: The Hundred Years' War in 1453, the end of the Wars of the Roses in 1485, the beginning of the High Renaissance in Italy in the 1490s, the end of the Reconquista and subsequent voyages of Christopher Columbus to the Americas in 1492, or the start of the Protestant Reformation in 1517. The precise dates of its end point also vary and are usually linked with either the start of the French Revolution in 1789 or with

8820-429: The Hundred Years' War , and the Valois Dynasty's attempts at re-establishing control over the scattered political centres of the country were hindered by the Wars of Religion ). Much of the reigns of Henry IV , Louis XIII and the early years of Louis XIV were focused on administrative centralisation. Despite, however, the notion of " absolute monarchy " (typified by the king's right to issue lettres de cachet ) and

9016-401: The Indies by crossing the Atlantic. He landed on a continent uncharted by Europeans and seen as a new world , the Americas. To prevent conflict between Portugal and Castile (the crown under which Columbus made the voyage), the Treaty of Tordesillas was signed dividing the world into two regions of exploration, where each had exclusive rights to claim newly discovered lands. The structure of

9212-409: The Late Antique period iconography began to be standardised, and to relate more closely to Biblical texts, although many gaps in the canonical Gospel narratives were plugged with matter from the apocryphal gospels . Eventually the Church would succeed in weeding most of these out, but some remain, like the ox and ass in the Nativity of Christ . An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly

9408-400: The Levant from the Muslim states that occupied it made the High Middle Ages the age of the Crusades , while the political system of feudalism came to its height. The Late Middle Ages were marked by large population declines, as Europe was threatened by the bubonic plague , as well as invasions by the Mongol peoples from the Eurasian Steppe . At the end of the Middle Ages, there was

9604-401: The Moors invaded the Christian Visigothic kingdom of Hispania in 711, under the Berber general Tariq ibn Ziyad . They landed at Gibraltar on 30 April and worked their way northward. Tariq's forces were joined the next year by those of his Arab superior, Musa ibn Nusair . During the eight-year campaign most of the Iberian Peninsula was brought under Muslim rule – save for small areas in

9800-424: The Peace of Westphalia , which ended the Thirty Years' War, were: The treaty also effectively ended the Papacy's pan-European political power. Pope Innocent X declared the treaty "null, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane, empty of meaning and effect for all times" in his bull Zelo Domus Dei . European sovereigns, Roman Catholic and Protestant alike, ignored his verdict. Scholars taking

9996-485: The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was the largest country with a large population and was very powerful. It was the largest semi-democratically governed polity of its time. It had low taxes but managed to field thousands of Winged Hussars who composed of nobility who followed Sarmatism . The Polish military routinely beat other respectable opponents such as the Ottomans, the Swedes and the Russians. The papacy continued to exercise significant diplomatic influence during

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10192-467: The Protestant Reformation was established and successfully defended against the Catholic powers of Spain and France. The Jacobean era was the reign James I of England (1603–1625). Overseas exploration and establishment of trading factories sped up, with the first permanent settlements in North America at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607, in Newfoundland in 1610, and at Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts in 1620. One king now ruled England and Scotland;

10388-479: The Radical Reformation , which gave rise to the Anabaptist , Moravian and other Pietistic movements. The Roman Catholic Church responded with a Counter-Reformation initiated by the Council of Trent . Much work in battling Protestantism was done by the well-organised new order of the Jesuits . In general, Northern Europe, with the exception of most of Ireland, came under the influence of Protestantism. Southern Europe remained Roman Catholic, while Central Europe

10584-400: The Roman and Greek cultures. Classical antiquity , also known as the classical era, classical period, classical age, or simply antiquity, is the period of cultural history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD comprising the interwoven civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome known together as the Greco-Roman world , centered on the Mediterranean Basin . It is

10780-413: The Roman Empire came to dominate the entire Mediterranean Basin . The Migration Period of the Germanic people began in the late 4th century AD and made gradual incursions into various parts of the Roman Empire. The fall of the Western Roman Empire in AD 476 traditionally marks the start of the Middle Ages . While the Eastern Roman Empire would continue for another 1000 years, the former lands of

10976-454: The Vikings who raided, traded, conquered and settled swiftly and efficiently with their advanced seagoing vessels such as the longships . The Vikings had left a cultural influence on the Anglo-Saxons and Franks as well as the Scots . The Hungarians pillaged mainland Europe, the Pechenegs raided Bulgaria, Rus States and the Arab states. In the 10th century independent kingdoms were established in Central Europe including Poland and

11172-468: The Visigothic kingdom 418–711 AD in the Iberian Peninsula (modern Spain); and third, the Ostrogothic kingdom 493–553 AD in Italy and parts of the western Balkans. The Ostrogoths were later replaced by the Kingdom of the Lombards 568–774 AD. Although these powers covered large territories, they did not have the great resources and bureaucracy of the Roman empire to control regions and localities; more power and responsibilities were left to local lords. On

11368-415: The Western Roman Empire disintegrated into feudal kingdoms and principalities , the concept of Christendom changed as the western church became one of five patriarchates of the Pentarchy and the Christians of the Eastern Roman Empire developed. The Byzantine Empire was the last bastion of Christendom. Christendom would take a turn with the rise of the Franks , a Germanic tribe who converted to

11564-431: The Western part fell to the Heruli chieftain Odoacer . Roman authority in the Western part of the empire had collapsed, and a power vacuum left in the wake of this collapse; the central organization, institutions, laws and power of Rome had broken down, resulting in many areas being open to invasion by migrating tribes. Over time, feudalism and manorialism arose, providing for division of land and labour, as well as

11760-423: The absolute king Henry VIII establishing the English church . In modern history , the Reformation and rise of modernity in the early 16th century entailed a change in the Corpus Christianum . In the Holy Roman Empire , the Peace of Augsburg of 1555 officially ended the idea among secular leaders that all Christians must be united under one church. The principle of cuius regio, eius religio ("whose

11956-469: The fall of the Western Roman Empire (or by some scholars, before that) in the 5th century to the beginning of the early modern period in the 16th century marked by the rise of nation states , the division of Western Christianity in the Reformation , the rise of humanism in the Italian Renaissance , and the beginnings of European overseas expansion which allowed for the Columbian Exchange . Many consider Emperor Constantine I (reigned 306–337) to be

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12152-478: The neo-classical period in the arts, and receives contemporary application in the unity of science movement which includes logical positivism . The expression "early modern" is sometimes used as a substitute for the term Renaissance , and vice versa. However, "Renaissance" is properly used in relation to a diverse series of cultural developments; which occurred over several hundred years in many different parts of Europe—especially central and northern Italy—and span

12348-454: The state church of the Roman Empire with the Edict of Thessalonica of 380. In terms of prosperity and cultural life, the Byzantine Empire was one of the peaks in Christian history and Christian civilization , and Constantinople remained the leading city of the Christian world in size, wealth, and culture. There was a renewed interest in classical Greek philosophy , as well as an increase in literary output in vernacular Greek. As

12544-427: The theological doctrines of Christianity. Scholasticism , which means "that [which] belongs to the school", and was a method of learning taught by the academics (or school people ) of medieval universities c. 1100–1500. Scholasticism originally started to reconcile the philosophy of the ancient classical philosophers with medieval Christian theology. Scholasticism is not a philosophy or theology in itself but

12740-422: The " Western World " has been intimately connected with the concept of "Christianity and Christendom"; many even attribute Christianity for being the link that created a unified European identity . Early Christianity spread in the Greek/Roman world and beyond as a 1st-century Jewish sect, which historians refer to as Jewish Christianity . It may be divided into two distinct phases: the apostolic period , when

12936-404: The 'inauguration of Christendom' to the 4th century, with Constantine playing the primary role (so much so that he equates Christendom with "Constantinianism") and Theodosius I ( Edict of Thessalonica , 380) and Justinian I secondary roles. "Christendom" has referred to the medieval and renaissance notion of the Christian world as a polity . In essence, the earliest vision of Christendom

13132-522: The 10th century, and by the year 1000, the Roman Catholic Apostolic Kingdom of Hungary was recognised in central Europe. With the brief exception of the Mongol invasions , major barbarian incursions ceased. Bulgarian sovereignty was re-established with the anti-Byzantine uprising of the Bulgarians and Vlachs in 1185. The crusaders invaded the Byzantine Empire, captured Constantinople in 1204 and established their Latin Empire . Kaloyan of Bulgaria defeated Baldwin I , Latin Emperor of Constantinople , in

13328-628: The 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries show a rapidly increasing population of Europe, which caused 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. From about the year 1000 onwards, Western Europe saw the last of the barbarian invasions and became more politically organized. The Vikings had settled in Britain, Ireland, France and elsewhere, whilst Norse Christian kingdoms were developing in their Scandinavian homelands. The Magyars had ceased their expansion in

13524-493: The 20th century, World War I led to a remaking of the map of Europe as the large empires were broken up into nation-states . Lingering political issues would lead to World War II , during which Nazi Germany perpetrated The Holocaust . The subsequent Cold War saw Europe divided by the Iron Curtain into capitalist and communist states, many of them members of NATO and the Warsaw Pact , respectively. The West's remaining colonial empires were dismantled . The last decades saw

13720-444: The 5th millennium BC the Varna culture evolved. In 4700 – 4200 BC, the Solnitsata town, believed to be the oldest prehistoric town in Europe, flourished. The first well-known literate civilization in Europe was the Minoan civilization that arose on the island of Crete and flourished from approximately the 27th century BC to the 15th century BC. The Minoans were replaced by the Mycenaean civilization which flourished during

13916-479: The 7th century Byzantine history was greatly affected by the rise of Islam and the Caliphates . Muslim Arabs first invaded historically Roman territory under Abū Bakr , first Caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate , who entered Roman Syria and Roman Mesopotamia . As the Byzantines and neighboring Sasanids were severely weakened by the time, amongst the most important reason(s) being the protracted, centuries-lasting and frequent Byzantine–Sasanian wars , which included

14112-565: The 9th century AD, at the Preslav Literary School , and experienced the Golden Age of Bulgarian cultural prosperity during the reign of emperor Simeon I the Great (893–927). Two states, Great Moravia and Kievan Rus' , emerged among the Slavic peoples respectively in the 9th century. In the late 9th and 10th centuries, northern and western Europe felt the burgeoning power and influence of

14308-500: The 9th century by a scribe somewhere in southern England, possibly at the court of king Alfred the Great of Wessex . The scribe was translating Paulus Orosius ' book History Against the Pagans ( c.  416 ) and in need for a term to express the concept of the universal culture focused on Jesus Christ . It had the sense now taken by Christianity (as is still the case with the cognate Dutch christendom , where it denotes mostly

14504-470: The Americas . The modern period was characterized by profound changes in many realms of human endeavor. Among the most important include the development of science as a formalized practice, increasingly rapid technological progress , and the establishment of secularized civic politics, law courts and the nation state . Capitalist economies began to develop in a nascent form, first in the northern Italian republics such as Genoa and Venice as well as in

14700-520: The Americas, Asia ( Spanish Philippines ), Europe and some territories in Africa and Oceania. The Ancien Régime (French for "old regime") was the political and social system of the Kingdom of France from about 1450 until the French Revolution that started in 1789. The Ancien Régime was ruled by the late Valois and Bourbon dynasties. Much of the medieval political centralization of France had been lost in

14896-661: The Aurignacian culture and its technology had extended through most of Europe. The last Neanderthals seem to have been forced to retreat to the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula . Around 29,000 BC a new technology/culture appeared in the western region of Europe: the Gravettian . This technology/culture has been theorised to have come with migrations of people from the Balkans (see Kozarnika ). Around 16,000 BC, Europe witnessed

15092-566: The Catholic Church's hierarchy in the Renaissance became increasingly entangled with insatiable greed for material wealth and temporal power, which led to many reform movements, some merely wanting a moral reformation of the Church's clergy, while others repudiated the Church and separated from it in order to form new sects. The Italian Renaissance produced ideas or institutions by which men living in society could be held together in harmony. In

15288-615: The Christian faith and entered into communion with Rome . On Christmas Day 800 AD, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne , resulting in the creation of another Christian king beside the Christian emperor in the Byzantine state. The Carolingian Empire created a definition of Christendom in juxtaposition with the Byzantine Empire, that of a distributed versus centralized culture respectively. The classical heritage flourished throughout

15484-417: The Christian foundations of its culture, although formerly it had been so imbued with Christianity and had drawn from it such strength and vigor that the people of these nations in many cases owe to Christianity all that is best in their own tradition. Writing in 1997, Canadian theology professor Douglas John Hall argued that Christendom had either fallen already or was in its death throes; although its end

15680-463: The Church and protected by the Spirit-body of Christ; no wonder, this concept, as included the whole of Europe and then the expanding Christian territories on earth, strengthened the roots of Romance of the greatness of Christianity in the world. There is a common and nonliteral sense of the word that is much like the terms Western world , known world or Free World . The notion of "Europe" and

15876-683: The Church of England alternated, for decades, between sympathies for ancient Catholic tradition and more Reformed principles, gradually developing, within the context of robustly Protestant doctrine, a tradition considered a middle way ( via media ) between the Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions. The following outcomes of the Protestant Reformation regarding human capital formation, the Protestant ethic , economic development , governance , and "dark" outcomes have been identified by scholars. Margaret C. Jacob argues that there has been

16072-549: The Church. The Catholic Church 's peak of authority over all European Christians and their common endeavours of the Christian community—for example, the Crusades , the fight against the Moors in the Iberian Peninsula and against the Ottomans in the Balkans —helped to develop a sense of communal identity against the obstacle of Europe's deep political divisions. The popes, formally just

16268-679: The Church. The largest Protestant groups were the Lutherans and Calvinists . Lutheran churches were founded mostly in Germany, the Baltics and Scandinavia, while the Reformed ones were founded in Switzerland, Hungary, France, the Netherlands and Scotland. The initial movement within Germany diversified, and other reform impulses arose independently of Luther. The availability of the printing press provided

16464-693: The Early modern period. The Popes were frequently assembling Holy Leagues to assert Catholic supremacy in Europe. During the Renaissance, Julius II and Paul III were largely involved in the Italian Wars and worked to preserve their primacy among the Italian princes. During the Counter-Reformation, the Papacy supported Catholic powers and factions all over Europe. Pope Pius V assembled the Catholic coalition that won

16660-569: The Habsburg possessions between Spain and Austria. The next Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I completed the Council of Trent and maintained Germany at peace until the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). The Habsburgs controlled the elective monarchies of Hungary and Bohemia as well, and eventually turned these states into hereditary domains. In 1492 the Catholic Monarchs of Castile and Aragon funded Christopher Columbus 's plan to sail west to reach

16856-637: The Middle Ages in both the Byzantine Greek East and the Latin West. In the Greek philosopher Plato 's ideal state there are three major classes, which was representative of the idea of the "tripartite soul", which is expressive of three functions or capacities of the human soul: "reason", "the spirited element", and "appetites" (or "passions"). Will Durant made a convincing case that certain prominent features of Plato's ideal community where discernible in

17052-494: The Renaissance Popes, whose inability to govern the Church by showing personal example of high moral standards set the climate for what would ultimately become the Protestant Reformation. During the Renaissance, the papacy was mainly run by the wealthy families and also had strong secular interests. To safeguard Rome and the connected Papal States the popes became necessarily involved in temporal matters, even leading armies, as

17248-483: The Roman Empire in about 380. The Roman Empire had been repeatedly attacked by invading armies from Northern Europe and in 476, Rome finally fell . Romulus Augustus , the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire , surrendered to the Germanic King Odoacer . When Emperor Constantine had reconquered Rome under the banner of the cross in 312, he soon afterwards issued the Edict of Milan in 313 (preceded by

17444-480: The Southern Hemisphere in general, by 2010 about 157 countries and territories in the world had Christian majorities . Western culture , throughout most of its history, has been nearly equivalent to Christian culture , and many of the population of the Western hemisphere could broadly be described as cultural Christians . The notion of " Europe " and the " Western World " has been intimately connected with

17640-693: The Spanish Empire was established under the Spanish Habsburgs (1516–1700) and under the Spanish Bourbon monarchs, the empire was brought under greater crown control and increased its revenues from the Indies. The crown's authority in The Indies was enlarged by the papal grant of powers of patronage , giving it power in the religious sphere. Under Philip II of Spain , Spain, rather than the Habsburg empire,

17836-703: The Treaty of Westphalia (1648), or arguably, including the Nine Years' War and the War of the Spanish Succession in this period, with the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713. In the 18th century, the focus shifts away from religious conflicts, either between Christian factions or against the external threat of Islamic factions. The European Miracle , the Age of Enlightenment and the formation of

18032-559: The Virgin , parts of the Old Testament, and, increasingly, the lives of popular saints . Especially in the West, a system of attributes developed for identifying individual figures of saints by a standard appearance and symbolic objects held by them; in the East they were more likely to identified by text labels. Each saint has a story and a reason why he or she led an exemplary life. Symbols have been used to tell these stories throughout

18228-466: The West were ended by the Fourth Crusade , when Crusaders conquered the Byzantine capital of Constantinople and hastened the decline of the Byzantine Empire on the path to its destruction . With the breakup of the Byzantine Empire into individual nations with nationalist Orthodox Churches, the term Christendom described Western Europe, Catholicism, Orthodox Byzantines, and other Eastern rites of

18424-600: The Western Empire would be fragmented into a number of different states. At the same time, the early Slavs began to become established as a distinct group in the central and eastern parts of Europe. The first great empire of the Middle Ages was the Frankish Empire of Charlemagne , while the Islamic conquest of Iberia established Al-Andalus . The Viking Age saw a second great migration of Norse peoples. Attempts to retake

18620-411: The Western world. Rome in the Renaissance under the papacy not only acted as guardian and transmitter of these elements stemming from the Roman Empire but also assumed the role as artificer and interpreter of its myths and meanings for the peoples of Europe from the Middle Ages to modern times... Under the patronage of the popes, whose wealth and income were exceeded only by their ambitions, the city became

18816-634: The appearance of a new culture, known as Magdalenian , possibly rooted in the old Gravettian. This culture soon superseded the Solutrean area and the Gravettian of mainly France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal and Ukraine. The Hamburg culture prevailed in Northern Europe in the 14th and the 13th millennium BC as the Creswellian (also termed the British Late Magdalenian) did shortly after in

19012-521: The awe in which lay sinners held them.... After the collapse of Charlemagne's empire , the southern remnants of the Holy Roman Empire became a collection of states loosely connected to the Holy See of Rome . Tensions between Pope Innocent III and secular rulers ran high, as the pontiff exerted control over their temporal counterparts in the west and vice versa. The pontificate of Innocent III

19208-817: The beginning of the Hellenistic period . After the death of Alexander the Great , his empire split into multiple kingdoms ruled by his generals, the Diadochi . The Diadochi fought against each other in a series of conflicts called the Wars of the Diadochi . In the beginning of the 2nd century BC, only three major kingdoms remained: the Ptolemaic Egypt , the Seleucid Empire and Macedonia . These kingdoms spread Greek culture to regions as far away as Bactria . Much of Greek learning

19404-468: The beginning of the geometric period, the Greek Dark Ages of traditional historiography. The Bronze Age collapse may be seen in the context of technological history that saw the slow spread of ironworking technology from present-day Bulgaria and Romania in the 13th and the 12th centuries BC. The Tumulus culture and the following Urnfield culture of central Europe were part of the origin of

19600-573: The best quality of parchment, called vellum , traditionally made of unsplit calfskin , though high quality parchment from other skins was also called parchment . Christian art began, about two centuries after Christ, by borrowing motifs from Roman Imperial imagery , classical Greek and Roman religion and popular art. Religious images are used to some extent by the Abrahamic Christian faith, and often contain highly complex iconography, which reflects centuries of accumulated tradition. In

19796-641: The bishops of Rome, claimed to be the focus of all Christendom, which was largely recognised in Western Christendom from the 11th century until the Reformation, but not in Eastern Christendom. Moreover, this authority was also sometimes abused, and fostered the Inquisition and anti-Jewish pogroms , to root out divergent elements and create a religiously uniform community. Ultimately, the Inquisition

19992-455: The capital in Byzantium, or Constantinople (now Istanbul). Constantinople is generally considered to be the center of " Eastern Orthodox civilization ". Whereas Diocletian severely persecuted Christianity , Constantine declared an official end to state-sponsored persecution of Christians in 313 with the Edict of Milan , thus setting the stage for the Church to become the state church of

20188-455: The causes, the Mycenaean civilization had disappeared after LH III C , when the sites of Mycenae and Tiryns were again destroyed and lost their importance. This end, during the last years of the 12th century BC, occurred after a slow decline of the Mycenaean civilization, which lasted many years before dying out. The beginning of the 11th century BC opened a new context, that of the protogeometric,

20384-660: The centre of the Minoan civilization, and adopted a form of the Minoan script (called Linear A ) to write their early form of Greek in Linear B . The Mycenaean civilization perished with the collapse of Bronze-Age civilization on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The collapse is commonly attributed to the Dorian invasion , although other theories describing natural disasters and climate change have been advanced as well. Whatever

20580-464: The changeover was gradual and by 330, when Constantine inaugurated his new capital, the process of hellenization and increasing Christianisation was already under way. The Empire is generally considered to have ended after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. The Plague of Justinian was a pandemic that afflicted the Byzantine Empire, including its capital Constantinople , in

20776-586: The cities of the Low Countries , and later in France, Germany and England. The early modern period also saw the rise and dominance of the economic theory of mercantilism . As such, the early modern period is often associated with the decline and eventual disappearance (at least in Western Europe) of feudalism and serfdom . The Protestant Reformation greatly altered the religious balance of Christendom , creating

20972-658: The climactic Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 , under Umar , the second Caliph, the Muslims entirely toppled the Sasanid Persian Empire , and decisively conquered Syria and Mesopotamia, as well as Roman Palestine , Roman Egypt , and parts of Asia Minor and Roman North Africa . In the mid 7th century AD, following the Muslim conquest of Persia , Islam penetrated into the Caucasus region, of which parts would later permanently become part of Russia. This trend, which included

21168-548: The common stock of significant symbols known to most periods and to all regions of the world. Religious symbolism is effective when it appeals to both the intellect and the emotions. Especially important depictions of Mary include the Hodegetria and Panagia types. Traditional models evolved for narrative paintings, including large cycles covering the events of the Life of Christ, the Life of

21364-460: The concept of "Christianity and Christendom"; many even attribute Christianity for being the link that created a unified European identity . Historian Paul Legutko of Stanford University said the Catholic Church is "at the center of the development of the values, ideas, science, laws, and institutions which constitute what we call Western civilization." Though Western culture contained several polytheistic religions during its early years under

21560-511: The conquests by the invading Muslim forces and by that the spread of Islam as well continued under Umar's successors and under the Umayyad Caliphate , which conquered the rest of Mediterranean North Africa and most of the Iberian Peninsula . Over the next centuries Muslim forces were able to take further European territory, including Cyprus , Malta, Crete , and Sicily and parts of southern Italy . The Muslim conquest of Hispania began when

21756-456: The creation of international law ), politics, architecture, literature, personal hygiene , and family life. Christianity played a role in ending practices common among pagan societies , such as human sacrifice , slavery , infanticide and polygamy . Christian literature is writing that deals with Christian themes and incorporates the Christian world view. This constitutes a huge body of extremely varied writing. Christian poetry

21952-493: The design and construction of buildings and structures in Christian culture . Buildings were at first adapted from those originally intended for other purposes but, with the rise of distinctively ecclesiastical architecture, church buildings came to influence secular ones which have often imitated religious architecture. In the 20th century, the use of new materials, such as concrete, as well as simpler styles has had its effect upon

22148-467: The design of churches and arguably the flow of influence has been reversed. From the birth of Christianity to the present, the most significant period of transformation for Christian architecture in the west was the Gothic cathedral . In the east, Byzantine architecture was a continuation of Roman architecture . Christian philosophy is a term to describe the fusion of various fields of philosophy with

22344-424: The diminution of the absolute authority of the Roman Catholic Church as well as the lessening of the influence of all faiths upon national governments. Many historians have identified the early modern period as the epoch in which individuals began to think of themselves as belonging to a national polity—a notable break from medieval modes of self-identification, which had been largely based upon religion (belonging to

22540-524: The dominant state was the remaining Eastern Roman Empire. In the feudal system, new princes and kings arose, the most powerful of which was arguably the Frankish ruler Charlemagne . In 800, Charlemagne, reinforced by his massive territorial conquests, was crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III , solidifying his power in western Europe. Charlemagne's reign marked the beginning of a new Germanic Roman Empire in

22736-608: The early 16th century, Baldassare Castiglione ( The Book of the Courtier ) laid out his vision of the ideal gentleman and lady, while Machiavelli cast a jaundiced eye on "la verità effetuale delle cose"—the actual truth of things—in The Prince , composed, humanist style, chiefly of parallel ancient and modern examples of Virtù . Some Protestant movements grew up along lines of mysticism or renaissance humanism ( cf. Erasmus ). The Catholic Church fell partly into general neglect under

22932-476: The economy and society. The Reformation led to a series of religious wars that culminated in the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), which devastated much of Germany , killing between 25% and 40% of its entire population. Roman Catholic House of Habsburg and its allies fought against the Protestant princes of Germany, supported at various times by Denmark, Sweden and France. The Habsburgs, who ruled Spain, Austria,

23128-590: The efforts by the kings to create a centralized state, Ancien Régime France remained a country of systemic irregularities: administrative (including taxation), legal, judicial, and ecclesiastic divisions and prerogatives frequently overlapped, while the French nobility struggled to maintain their own rights in the matters of local government and justice, and powerful internal conflicts (like the Fronde ) protested against this centralization. The need for centralization in this period

23324-413: The empire of universal peace, all-permeating rational art, and philosophical worship, is mentioned no more. An unformulated conception, the prerational ethics of private privilege and national unity, fills the background of men's minds. It represents feudal traditions rather than the tendency really involved in contemporary industry, science, or philanthropy. Those dark ages, from which our political practice

23520-435: The end of Christendom came about because modern governments refused to "uphold the teachings, customs, ethos, and practice of Christianity". He argued the First Amendment to the United States Constitution (1791) and the Second Vatican Council 's Declaration on Religious Freedom (1965) are two of the most important documents setting the stage for its end. According to British historian Diarmaid MacCulloch (2010), Christendom

23716-707: The end of the 1st century BC, under Augustus and his authoritarian successors. The Roman Empire had its centre in the Mediterranean, controlling all the countries on its shores; the northern border was marked by the Rhine and Danube rivers. Under the emperor Trajan (2nd century AD) the empire reached its maximum expansion, controlling approximately 5,900,000 km (2,300,000 sq mi) of land surface, including Italia , Gallia , Dalmatia , Aquitania , Britannia , Baetica , Hispania , Thrace , Macedonia , Greece , Moesia , Dacia , Pannonia , Egypt, Asia Minor , Cappadocia , Armenia , Caucasus , North Africa, Levant and parts of Mesopotamia . Pax Romana ,

23912-495: The ensuing Greco-Persian Wars , namely during the Second Persian invasion of Greece , and precisely after the Battle of Thermopylae and the Battle of Artemisium , almost all of Greece to the north of the Isthmus of Corinth had been overrun by the Persians, but the Greek city states reached a decisive victory at the Battle of Plataea . With the end of the Greco-Persian wars, the Persians were eventually forced to withdraw from their territories in Europe. The Greco-Persian Wars and

24108-399: The exploitation of the people and resources of colonies brought resources and wealth to Western Europe. After 1800, the Industrial Revolution brought capital accumulation and rapid urbanization to Western Europe, while several countries transitioned away from absolutist rule to parliamentary regimes. The Age of Revolution saw long-established political systems upset and turned over. In

24304-400: The fall of remaining dictatorships in Western Europe and a gradual political integration , which led to the European Community , later the European Union . After the Revolutions of 1989 , all European communist states transitioned to capitalism. The 21st century began with most of them gradually joining the EU . In parallel, Europe suffered from the Great Recession and its after-effects ,

24500-401: The first " Byzantine emperor ". It was he who moved the imperial capital in 324 from Nicomedia to Byzantium , which re-founded as Constantinople, or Nova Roma (" New Rome "). The city of Rome itself had not served as the capital since the reign of Diocletian (284–305). Some date the beginnings of the Empire to the reign of Theodosius I (379–395) and Christianity's official supplanting of

24696-487: The first apostles were alive and organizing the Church, and the post-apostolic period , when an early episcopal structure developed, whereby bishoprics were governed by bishops (overseers). The post-apostolic period concerns the time roughly after the death of the apostles when bishops emerged as overseers of urban Christian populations. The earliest recorded use of the terms Christianity (Greek Χριστιανισμός ) and catholic (Greek καθολικός ), dates to this period,

24892-399: The fourth century by which governments upheld and promoted Christianity." Curry states that the end of Christendom came about because modern governments refused to "uphold the teachings, customs, ethos, and practice of Christianity." British church historian Diarmaid MacCulloch described (2010) Christendom as "the union between Christianity and secular power." Christendom was originally

25088-402: The gospel. The Protestant position, however, would come to incorporate doctrinal changes such as sola scriptura and sola fide . The Reformation ended in division and the establishment of new church movements. The four most important traditions to emerge directly from the Reformation were Lutheranism , the Reformed (also called Calvinist or Presbyterian ) tradition, Anglicanism , and

25284-565: The great colonial empires , together with the beginning decline of the Ottoman Empire , mark the end of the geopolitical "history of Christendom". Instead, the focus of Western history shifts to the development of the nation-state , accompanied by increasing atheism and secularism , culminating with the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars at the turn of the 19th century. In his 1964 encyclical letter Ecclesiam Suam , Pope Paul VI observed that One part of [the] world ... has in recent years detached itself and broken away from

25480-515: The great patron of arts Pope Julius II did. During these intermediate times, popes strove to make Rome the capital of Christendom while projecting it through art, architecture, and literature as the center of a Golden Age of unity, order, and peace. Professor Frederick J. McGinness described Rome as essential in understanding the legacy the Church and its representatives encapsulated best by The Eternal City : No other city in Europe matches Rome in its traditions, history, legacies, and influence in

25676-426: The history of the Church. A number of Christian saints are traditionally represented by a symbol or iconic motif associated with their life, termed an attribute or emblem , in order to identify them. The study of these forms part of iconography in Art history . Christian architecture encompasses a wide range of both secular and religious styles from the foundation of Christianity to the present day, influencing

25872-408: The influence of the Federmesser group as well. Evidence of permanent settlement dates from the 8th millennium BC in the Balkans. The Neolithic reached Central Europe in the 6th millennium BC and parts of Northern Europe in the 5th and 4th millenniums BC. The modern indigenous populations of Europe are largely descended from three distinct lineages: Mesolithic hunter-gatherers , a derivative of

26068-412: The instruments and opportunities of culture, and ruled with almost unlimited sway half of the most powerful continent on the globe. The clergy, like Plato's guardians, were placed in authority... by their talent as shown in ecclesiastical studies and administration, by their disposition to a life of meditation and simplicity, and ... by the influence of their relatives with the powers of state and church. In

26264-427: The intervention of Tervel of Bulgaria and weakened the Umayyad dynasty and reduced their prestige. In 722 Don Pelayo formed an army of 300 Astur soldiers, to confront Munuza's Muslim troops. In the battle of Covadonga , the Astures defeated the Arab-Moors, who decided to retire. The Christian victory marked the beginning of the Reconquista and the establishment of the Kingdom of Asturias , whose first sovereign

26460-430: The land-owning nobles to the titular monarchs was one of the most prominent themes of the Middle Ages). Among the most notable political changes included the abolition of serfdom and the crystallization of kingdoms into nation-states. Perhaps even more significantly, with the advent of the Reformation , the notion of Christendom as a unified political entity was destroyed. Many kings and rulers used this radical shift in

26656-424: The last emperor to preside over a united Roman Empire, until his death in 395. The empire was split into two halves: the Western Roman Empire centred in Ravenna , and the Eastern Roman Empire (later to be referred to as the Byzantine Empire ) centred in Constantinople. The Roman Empire was repeatedly attacked by Hunnic , Germanic , Slavic and other "barbarian" tribes (see: Migration Period ), and in 476 finally

26852-449: The late 17th century, 1648 to 1700, was an age of great intellectual, scientific, artistic and cultural achievement. Historian Frederick Nussbaum says it was: "prolific in genius, in common sense, and in organizing ability. It could properly have been expected that intelligence, comprehension and high purpose would be applied to the control of human relations in general and to the relations between states and peoples in particular. The fact

27048-468: The late 6th century BC, the Greek city states in Asia Minor had been incorporated into the Persian Empire , while the latter had made territorial gains in the Balkans (such as Macedon , Thrace , Paeonia , etc.) and Eastern Europe proper as well. During the 5th century BC, some of the Greek city states attempted to overthrow Persian rule in the Ionian Revolt , which failed. This sparked the first Persian invasion of mainland Greece . At some point during

27244-405: The latter half of the period in which they ruled [800 AD onwards], the clergy were as free from family cares as even Plato could desire [for such guardians]... [Clerical] Celibacy was part of the psychological structure of the power of the clergy; for on the one hand they were unimpeded by the narrowing egoism of the family, and on the other their apparent superiority to the call of the flesh added to

27440-616: The latter was fully absorbed by the Acts of Union 1707 . The tumultuous Caroline era was the reign of King Charles I (1625–1645), followed by his beheading by Oliver Cromwell 's regime in 1649 . The Caroline era was dominated by the growing religious, political, and social conflict between the King and his supporters, termed the Royalist party, and the Puritan opposition that evolved in response to particular aspects of Charles' rule. The colonization of North America continued apace, with new colonies in Maryland (1634), Connecticut (1635), and Rhode Island (1636). In early modern Europe,

27636-540: The leadership of the church as an institution . This model of church-state relations was accepted by various Church leaders and political leaders in European history . The Church gradually became a defining institution of the Roman Empire. Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313 proclaiming toleration for the Christian religion, and convoked the First Council of Nicaea in 325 whose Nicene Creed included belief in "one holy catholic and apostolic Church". Emperor Theodosius I made Nicene Christianity

27832-512: The means for the rapid dissemination of religious materials in the vernacular. The core motivation behind the Reformation was theological , though many other factors played a part, including the rise of nationalism , the Western Schism that eroded faith in the Papacy , the perceived corruption of the Roman Curia , the impact of humanism , and the new learning of the Renaissance that questioned much traditional thought. There were also reformation movements throughout continental Europe known as

28028-475: The media, style, and representations change; however, the unifying theme is ultimately the representation of the life and times of Jesus and in some cases the Old Testament . Depictions of saints are also common, especially in Anglicanism , Roman Catholicism , and Eastern Orthodoxy . An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration. The earliest surviving substantive illuminated manuscripts are from

28224-415: The mid-16th century and the rule of Philip II. There would be no Italian revolts against Spanish rule until 1647. The death of the Ottoman emperor Suleiman the Magnificent in 1566 and the naval victory over the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 cemented the status of Spain as a superpower in Europe and the world. The Spanish Empire comprised territories and colonies of the Spanish Monarch in

28420-411: The more vaguely defined beginning of the Industrial Revolution in late 18th century England. Some of the more notable trends and events of the early modern period included the Reformation and the religious conflicts it provoked (including the French Wars of Religion and the Thirty Years' War ), the rise of capitalism and modern nation states , widespread witch hunts and European colonization of

28616-460: The newly settled Kingdom of Hungary . The Kingdom of Croatia also appeared in the Balkans. The subsequent period, ending around 1000, saw the further growth of feudalism , which weakened the Holy Roman Empire. In eastern Europe, Volga Bulgaria became an Islamic state in 921, after Almış I converted to Islam under the missionary efforts of Ahmad ibn Fadlan . Slavery in the early medieval period had mostly died out in western Europe by about

28812-419: The north and west. The later Neolithic period saw the introduction of early metallurgy and the use of copper-based tools and weapons, and the building of megalithic structures, as exemplified by Stonehenge . During the Indo-European migrations , Europe saw migrations from the east and southeast. The period known as classical antiquity began with the emergence of the city-states of ancient Greece . Later,

29008-499: The northwest ( Asturias ) and largely Basque regions in the Pyrenees . In 711, Visigothic Hispania was weakened because it was immersed in a serious internal crisis caused by a war of succession to the throne. The Muslims took advantage of the crisis within the Hispano - Visigothic society to carry out their conquests. This territory, under the Arab name Al-Andalus , became part of the expanding Umayyad empire. The second siege of Constantinople (717) ended unsuccessfully after

29204-420: The onslaught of the arising Islamic Caliphate ( Rashidun and Umayyad ). By 650, the provinces of Egypt , Palestine and Syria were lost to the Muslim forces , followed by Hispania and southern Italy in the 7th and 8th centuries (see Muslim conquests ). The Arab invasion from the east was stopped after the intervention of the Bulgarian Empire (see Han Tervel ). The Middle Ages are commonly dated from

29400-423: The organization, dogma and effectiveness of "the" Medieval Church in Europe: ... For a thousand years Europe was ruled by an order of guardians considerably like that which was visioned by our philosopher. During the Middle Ages it was customary to classify the population of Christendom into laboratores (workers), bellatores (soldiers), and oratores (clergy). The last group, though small in number, monopolized

29596-401: The other hand, it also meant more freedom, particularly in more remote areas. In Italy, Theodoric the Great began the cultural romanisation of the new world he had constructed. He made Ravenna a centre of Romano-Greek culture of art and his court fostered a flowering of literature and philosophy in Latin . In Iberia, King Chindasuinth created the Visigothic Code . In the Eastern part

29792-515: The pagan Roman religion , or following his death in 395, when the empire was split into two parts, with capitals in Rome and Constantinople. Others place it yet later in 476, when Romulus Augustulus , traditionally considered the last western emperor, was deposed, thus leaving sole imperial authority with the emperor in the Greek East . Others point to the reorganisation of the empire in the time of Heraclius (c. 620) when Latin titles and usages were officially replaced with Greek versions. In any case,

29988-674: The period AD 400 to 600, primarily produced in Ireland, Constantinople and Italy. The majority of surviving manuscripts are from the Middle Ages , although many illuminated manuscripts survive from the 15th century Renaissance , along with a very limited number from Late Antiquity . Most illuminated manuscripts were created as codices , which had superseded scrolls; some isolated single sheets survive. A very few illuminated manuscript fragments survive on papyrus . Most medieval manuscripts, illuminated or not, were written on parchment (most commonly of calf , sheep, or goat skin), but most manuscripts important enough to illuminate were written on

30184-474: The period during which Greece and Rome flourished and had major influence throughout much of Europe , North Africa , and West Asia . The Hellenic civilisation was a collection of city-states or poleis with different governments and cultures that achieved notable developments in government, philosophy, science, mathematics, politics, sports, theatre and music. The most powerful city-states were Athens , Sparta , Thebes , Corinth , and Syracuse . Athens

30380-449: The period roughly between 1600 BC, when Helladic culture in mainland Greece was transformed under influences from Minoan Crete, and 1100 BC. The major Mycenaean cities were Mycenae and Tiryns in Argolis, Pylos in Messenia, Athens in Attica, Thebes and Orchomenus in Boeotia, and Iolkos in Thessaly. In Crete , the Mycenaeans occupied Knossos . Mycenaean settlement sites also appeared in Epirus , Macedonia , on islands in

30576-401: The practice of indulgences to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg , Germany, commonly used to post notices to the University community. It was very widely publicized across Europe and caught fire. Luther began by criticizing the sale of indulgences , insisting that the Pope had no authority over purgatory and that the Catholic doctrine of the merits of the saints had no foundation in

30772-402: The precise dates used to define its beginning and end points, the early modern period is generally agreed to have comprised the Renaissance , the Reformation , the Scientific Revolution , and the Enlightenment . As such, historians have attributed a number of fundamental changes to the period, notably the increasingly rapid progress of science and technology, the secularization of politics, and

30968-422: The process of transforming France from a feudal monarchy to a centralized state. The rise of strong, centralized monarchies denoted the European transition from feudalism to capitalism . By the end of the Hundred Years' War, both France and England were able to raise enough money through taxation to create independent standing armies. In the Wars of the Roses , Henry Tudor took the crown of England. His heir,

31164-421: The region is, his religion") established the religious, political and geographic divisions of Christianity, and this was established with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, which legally ended the concept of a single Christian hegemony in the territories of the Holy Roman Empire, despite the Catholic Church 's doctrine that it alone is the one true Church founded by Christ. Subsequently, each government determined

31360-415: The region, and has been defined as a critical starting point for the formation of states in Europe. To the east, Bulgaria was established in 681 and became the first Slavic country. The powerful Bulgarian Empire was the main rival of Byzantium for control of the Balkans for centuries and from the 9th century became the cultural centre of Slavic Europe. The Empire created the Cyrillic script during

31556-493: The religion itself, just like the German Christentum ). The current sense of the word of "lands where Christianity is the dominant religion" emerged in Late Middle English (by c.  1400 ). Canadian theology professor Douglas John Hall stated (1997) that "Christendom" [...] means literally the dominion or sovereignty of the Christian religion." Thomas John Curry , Roman Catholic auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles , defined (2001) Christendom as "the system dating from

31752-517: The religion of their own state. Christians living in states where their denomination was not the established one were guaranteed the right to practice their faith in public during allotted hours and in private at their will. At times there were mass expulsions of dissenting faiths as happened with the Salzburg Protestants . Some people passed as adhering to the official church, but instead lived as Nicodemites or crypto-protestants . The European wars of religion are usually taken to have ended with

31948-460: The same time settlements moved beyond the traditional boundaries of the Frankish Empire to new frontiers in Europe, beyond the Elbe river, tripling the size of Germany in the process. Crusaders founded European colonies in the Levant , the majority of the Iberian Peninsula was conquered from the Muslims, and the Normans colonised southern Italy, all part of the major population increase and resettlement pattern. Christendom Following

32144-595: The search for what became known as a 'balance of power.' Diplomacy before 1700 was not well developed, and chances to avoid wars were too often squandered. In England, for example, King Charles II paid little attention to diplomacy, which proved disastrous. During the Dutch war of 1665–67, England had no diplomats stationed in Denmark or Sweden. When King Charles realized he needed them as allies, he sent special missions that were uninformed about local political, military, and diplomatic situations, and were ignorant of personalities and political factionalism. Ignorance produced

32340-470: The spread of Christianity from the Levant to Europe and North Africa during the early Roman Empire , Christendom has been divided in the pre-existing Greek East and Latin West . Consequently, internal sects within the Christian religion arose with their own beliefs and practices, centred around the cities of Rome ( Western Christianity , whose community was called Western or Latin Christendom ) and Constantinople ( Eastern Christianity , whose community

32536-485: The status of the most powerful nation in Europe. Increasingly, other nations copied the French model; French became the language of diplomacy, replacing Latin. By 1700, the British and the Dutch, with small land armies, large navies, and large treasuries, used astute diplomacy to build alliances, subsidizing as needed land powers to fight on their side, or as in the case of the Hessians, hiring regiments of soldiers from mercenary princes in small countries. The balance of power

32732-402: The tax on salt ( gabelle ) and by contributions of men and service from the nobility. The key to this centralization was the replacing of personal patronage systems organized around the king and other nobles by institutional systems around the state. The creation of intendants —representatives of royal power in the provinces—did much to undermine local control by regional nobles. The same

32928-606: The teachings of the Church, in an environment that, otherwise, would have probably seen their loss. The Church founded many cathedrals , universities , monasteries and seminaries , some of which continue to exist today. Medieval Christianity created the first modern universities . The Catholic Church established a hospital system in Medieval Europe that vastly improved upon the Roman valetudinaria . These hospitals were established to cater to "particular social groups marginalized by poverty, sickness, and age," according to historian of hospitals, Guenter Risse. Christianity also had

33124-441: The tenets of the all encompassing order the Church had brought and as the repository of the legacy of classical antiquity : The enterprise of individuals or of small aristocratic bodies has meantime sown the world which we call civilised with some seeds and nuclei of order. There are scattered about a variety of churches, industries, academies, and governments. But the universal order once dreamt of and nominally almost established,

33320-567: The transition from late Medieval civilization and the opening of the early modern period. The term "early modern" is most often applied to Europe, and its overseas empire. However, it has also been employed in the history of the Ottoman Empire . In the historiography of Japan, the Edo period from 1590 to 1868 is also sometimes referred to as the "early modern" period. The 17th century saw very little peace in Europe – major wars were fought in 95 years (every year except 1610, 1669 to 1671, and 1680 to 1682.) The wars were unusually ugly. Europe in

33516-423: The true pope. The Avignon Papacy developed a reputation for corruption that estranged major parts of Western Christendom. The Avignon schism was ended by the Council of Constance . Before the modern period, Christendom was in a general crisis at the time of the Renaissance Popes because of the moral laxity of these pontiffs and their willingness to seek and rely on temporal power as secular rulers did. Many in

33712-564: The understanding of the world to further consolidate their sovereignty over their territories. For instance, many of the Germanic states (as well as English Reformation ) converted to Protestantism in an attempt to slip out of the grasp of the Pope. The intellectual developments of the period included the creation of the economic theory of mercantilism and the publication of enduringly influential works of political and social philosophy, such as Machiavelli 's The Prince (1513) and Thomas More 's Utopia (1515). The Protestant Reformation

33908-435: The values, beliefs and behavior of the people at large. She finds, "in contemporary scholarship, the Reformation was then seen as a vast cultural upheaval, a social and popular movement and textured and rich because of its diversity." "The Age of Enlightenment" refers to the 18th century in European philosophy, and is often thought of as part of a period which includes the Age of Reason. The term also more specifically refers to

34104-415: The very difficult task of reclaiming dioceses lost to Protestantism, but to build large-scale missions in overseas colonial possessions that could convert the natives by the thousands Using devoted members of society such as the Jesuits. According to Hamish Scott , the realist model assumes that "foreign policies were guided entirely by "Realpolitik," by the resulting struggle for resources and, eventually, by

34300-448: The victory of the Greek city states directly influenced the entire further course of European history and would set its further tone. Some Greek city-states formed the Delian League to continue fighting Persia, but Athens' position as leader of this league led Sparta to form the rival Peloponnesian League . The Peloponnesian Wars ensued, and the Peloponnesian League was victorious. Subsequently, discontent with Spartan hegemony led to

34496-424: The west, the Holy Roman Empire . Outside his borders, new forces were gathering. The Kievan Rus' were marking out their territory, a Great Moravia was growing, while the Angles and the Saxons were securing their borders. For the duration of the 6th century, the Eastern Roman Empire was embroiled in a series of deadly conflicts, first with the Persian Sassanid Empire (see Roman–Persian Wars ), followed by

34692-493: The year 1000 AD, replaced by serfdom . It lingered longer in England and in peripheral areas linked to the Muslim world, where slavery continued to flourish. Church rules suppressed slavery of Christians. Most historians argue the transition was quite abrupt around 1000, but some see a gradual transition from about 300 to 1000. In 1054, the East–West Schism occurred between the two remaining Christian seats in Rome and Constantinople (modern Istanbul). The High Middle Ages of

34888-403: The years 541–542. It is estimated that the Plague of Justinian killed as many as 100 million people. It caused Europe's population to drop by around 50% between 541 and 700. It also may have contributed to the success of the Muslim conquests . During most of its existence, the Byzantine Empire was one of the most powerful economic, cultural, and military forces in Europe, and Constantinople

35084-465: Was 'killed' by the First World War (1914–18), which led to the fall of the three main Christian empires ( Russian , German and Austrian ) of Europe, as well as the Ottoman Empire, rupturing the Eastern Christian communities that had existed on its territory. The Christian empires were replaced by secular, even anti-clerical republics seeking to definitively keep the churches out of politics. The only surviving monarchy with an established church, Britain,

35280-430: Was Don Pelayo. The conquerors intended to continue their expansion in Europe and move northeast across the Pyrenees, but were defeated by the Frankish leader Charles Martel at the Battle of Poitiers in 732. The Umayyads were overthrown in 750 by the ' Abbāsids , and, in 756, the Umayyads established an independent emirate in the Iberian Peninsula. The Holy Roman Empire emerged around 800, as Charlemagne, King of

35476-448: Was a powerful Hellenic city-state and governed itself with an early form of direct democracy invented by Cleisthenes ; the citizens of Athens voted on legislation and executive bills themselves. Athens was the home of Socrates , Plato , and the Platonic Academy . The Hellenic city-states established colonies on the shores of the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea ( Asia Minor , Sicily , and Southern Italy in Magna Graecia ). By

35672-412: Was a reform-oriented schism from the Roman Catholic Church initiated by Martin Luther and continued by John Calvin , Huldrych Zwingli , and other early Protestant Reformers . It is typically dated from 1517, lasting until the end of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. It was launched on 31 October 1517 by Martin Luther , who posted his 95 Theses criticizing

35868-492: Was a site of a fierce conflict, culminating in the Thirty Years' War , which left it devastated. The Reformation reshaped the Church of England decisively after 1547. The separation of the Church of England (or Anglican Church) from Rome under Henry VIII , beginning in 1529 and completed in 1537, brought England alongside this broad Reformation movement; however, religious changes in the English national church proceeded more conservatively than elsewhere in Europe. Reformers in

36064-419: Was a vision of a Christian theocracy , a government founded upon and upholding Christian values , whose institutions are spread through and over with Christian doctrine . In this period, members of the Christian clergy wield political authority . The specific relationship between the political leaders and the clergy varied but, in theory, the national and political divisions were at times subsumed under

36260-482: Was almost completely opposite. It was a period of marked unintelligence, immorality and frivolity in the conduct of international relations, marked by wars undertaken for dimly conceived purposes, waged with the utmost brutality and conducted by reckless betrayals of allies." The worst came during the Thirty Years' War , 1618–1648, which had an extremely negative impact on the civilian population of Germany and surrounding areas, with massive loss of life and disruption of

36456-400: Was assimilated by the nascent Roman state as it expanded outward from Italy, taking advantage of its enemies' inability to unite: the only challenge to Roman ascent came from the Phoenician colony of Carthage , and its defeats in the three Punic Wars marked the start of Roman hegemony . First governed by kings , then as a senatorial republic (the Roman Republic ), Rome became an empire at

36652-448: Was called Eastern Christendom ). From the 11th to the 13th centuries, Latin Christendom rose to the central role of the Western world . The history of the Christian world spans about 2,000 years and includes a variety of socio-political developments, as well as advancements in the arts , architecture , literature , science , philosophy , politics and technology. The Anglo-Saxon term crīstendōm appears to have been coined in

36848-411: Was directly linked to the question of royal finances and the ability to wage war. The internal conflicts and dynastic crises of the 16th and 17th centuries (the wars between Catholics and Protestants and the Habsburg 's internal family conflict) and the territorial expansion of France in the 17th century demanded great sums which needed to be raised through taxes, such as the land tax ( taille ) and

37044-509: Was done away with by order of Pope Innocent III. Christendom ultimately was led into specific crisis in the late Middle Ages , when the kings of France managed to establish a French national church during the 14th century and the papacy became ever more aligned with the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation . Known as the Western Schism , western Christendom was a split between three men, who were driven by politics rather than any real theological disagreement for simultaneously claiming to be

37240-414: Was gradual and not as clear to pin down as its 4th-century establishment, the "transition to the post-Constantinian, or post-Christendom, situation (...) has already been in process for a century or two", beginning with the 18th-century rationalist Enlightenment and the French Revolution (the first attempt to topple the Christian establishment). American Catholic bishop Thomas John Curry stated in 2001 that

37436-405: Was identified as a more powerful nation than France and England globally. Furthermore, despite attacks from other European states, Spain retained its position of dominance with apparent ease. Spain controlled the Netherlands until the Dutch revolt , and important states in southern Italy. The Spanish claims to Naples and Sicily dated back to the 15th century, but had been marred by rival claims until

37632-643: Was not only an effective secular leader in military affairs, a deviously effective politician but foremost one of the greatest patron of the Renaissance period and person who also encouraged open criticism from noted humanists. The blossoming of renaissance humanism was made very much possible due to the universality of the institutions of Catholic Church and represented by personalities such as Pope Pius II , Nicolaus Copernicus , Leon Battista Alberti , Desiderius Erasmus , sir Thomas More , Bartolomé de Las Casas , Leonardo da Vinci and Teresa of Ávila . George Santayana in his work The Life of Reason postulated

37828-423: Was one of the largest and wealthiest cities in Europe. The Early Middle Ages span roughly five centuries from 500 to 1000. In the East and Southeast of Europe new dominant states formed: the Avar Khaganate (567–after 822), Old Great Bulgaria (632–668), the Khazar Khaganate (c. 650–969) and Danube Bulgaria (founded by Asparuh in 680) were constantly rivaling the hegemony of the Byzantine Empire. From

38024-407: Was severely damaged by the war, lost most of Ireland due to Catholic–Protestant infighting, and was starting to lose grip on its colonies. Changes in worldwide Christianity over the last century have been significant, since 1900, Christianity has spread rapidly in the Global South and Third World countries. The late 20th century has shown the shift of Christian adherence to the Third World and

38220-415: Was true of the greater reliance shown by the royal court on the "noblesse de robe" as judges and royal counselors. The creation of regional parlements had initially the same goal of facilitating the introduction of royal power into newly assimilated territories, but as the parlements gained in self-assurance, they began to be sources of disunity. This period refers to England 1558–1603. The Elizabethan Era

38416-416: Was very delicately calculated, so that winning a battle here was worth the slice of territory there, with no regard to the wishes of the inhabitants. Important peacemaking conferences at Utrecht (1713), Vienna (1738), Aix-la-Chapelle (1748) and Paris (1763) had a cheerful, cynical, game-like atmosphere in which professional diplomats cashed in victories like casino chips in exchange for territory. Since 1512,

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