MIDDLE AGES (ante), the period in history from the 5th to the 15th c., or between the fall of the Roman empire and the reformation. Its beginning witnessed the success ful invasion of southern Europe by the barbarians of the north. The Vandals were masters of Africa; Spain was divided between the Suevi and tlte Visigoths, the latter occupying also a large portion of Gaul; Italy was in the hands of the Ostrogoths; while a tribe of Gertnans under Clovis had invaded and conquered France. The compara tively new Byzantine or eastern empire had already begun to decline, through the weakness and licentiousness of its rulers. Paganism bad been overthrown, and Chris tianity was gradually penetrating into the unknown wilderness of northern and central Europe. What were known as the "dark ages," the first centuries of this period, had commenced the destruction of the old civilization which had been propagated from Phenicia, and had cultninated in the ascendency of Greece and Rome. Western Europe, including even Italy, "lay prostrate at the feet of barbarian conquerors, and was a howling waste, in which the law of the strongest only prevailed."—The middle ages closed with the advent of Dither, 3Ielanchthon, and Calvin, and the great battle for the freedom of the human conscience; with the diseovery of America by Columbus; and ;with the invention of the art of printing by Guttenberg, Faust, and SchOffer, and Its application to the printing-of the T3ible at May-ence. In the beginning of this period the countries which we have named were swayed by incidental leaders and potentates, and given up a prey to a soldiery- ho lived by depredation and rapine. Protection for life or propixty there was none; and even the savage chieftains of that ignorant age -soou perceived the necessity for some authoritative restraint. Out of this necessity grew the feudal system, in France, Germany, Aragon, a large part of Ita'ly, England, and Scotland, probably occasioned in part by the gradual destruction of slavery, and in part to the fall of the Roman empire, for so long a time the seat of government of the world. It was natnral that with Rome fallen, Europe should become divided among petty barons and princes, whose authority could only subsist so long as they were enabled to sustain it by force of anns. Under these circumstances, each leader fortified his possessions; and it WM then that many of the castles and fortresses were erected, whose ruins are to-day the admiration of tourists in Europe. Every man who was
capable of bearing arms was a soldier; and there a-as no such thing as a laboring class, since the binds and villains who did the drudgery under the feudal system were ht Id to be but little above the brutes whose care was oire of their chief duties. Of this period it has been concisely said, " the peculiar general character of feudalism is the dismem berment of the people and of power into a number of petty nations.and petty sovereigns; the absence of any central government." The foundation of this system consisted in the allotment of land in fee (Latin feudum), with the powers of bequest and inheritance, to the petty chieftains, who on their part agreed to give their services and those of their vassals, whenever called upon, either to repel invasion or to make incursions into the territory of others. Later, these barons, counts, and others, were permitted to take sur names, usually from the names of their castles or villages, and to adopt armorial hear ;ngs. This whole movement was a slow formation of the royal and noble elements of society as organized in future centuries.
With feudalism intervened another element of specific influence—the introduction of monasticism and the monastic orders throughout Europe; for the foundation of mon asteries in Europe proves to have been a necessity- to the progress of Civilization. They served as a nucleus around which settlements were formed, the settlements growing into towns, the towns into cities. The prelates and abbots were feudal nobles, equally with the barons and counts. Their tenure of land was the same; and though they were not absolutely required to perform military service, there were many fighting men among them who did so, while none were exempt from furnishing their quota of armed vassals. And as the church grew strong in Rome, some reflection of her strength was felt wher ever her servants were; until it was often the case that the lords and barons were made to experience a power in the hands of the abbots that they themselves did not possess. While the monastic system had undeniable and great evils, the teachings of the monks led generally toward a respectable, honest, and humane mode of life; and on such teach ings the arts of peace and culture began to take root and flourish amid disorder and. depredation, such as had not been known before since the foundation of Rome.