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The Middle Ages is a period of European history that lasted from the 5th until the 15th centuries. It began with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, and was followed by the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. It is the middle period of the traditional division of Western history into Classical, Medieval, and Modern times. The period is subdivided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages.

The Early Middle Ages suffered depopulation, deurbanization, and continuing barbarian invasions, which had begun in Late Antiquity. The invaders formed new kingdoms in the remains of the Western Roman Empire. In the 7th century, North Africa and the Middle East, once part of the Eastern Roman Empire (the Byzantine Empire), became an Islamic Empire after conquest by Muhammad's successors. Although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with Antiquity was not complete. The still sizeable Byzantine Empire survived and remained a major power. The empire's law code, the Code of Justinian, was widely admired. In the West, most kingdoms continued some Roman institutions, while monasteries were founded as Christianity expanded in western Europe. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, established an empire covering much of western Europe; the Carolingian Empire endured until the 9th century, when it succumbed to the pressures of invasion — the Vikings from the north; the Magyars from the east, and the Saracens from the south.

During the High Middle Ages, which began after AD 1000, the population of Europe increased greatly as technological and agricultural innovations allowed trade to flourish and crop yields to increase. The major social systems of this period were Manorialism, the organization of peasants into villages which owed rent and labor services to the nobles, in return for their protection; and feudalism, whereby knights and lower-status nobles owed military service to their overlords, in return for the possession of lands and manors. The Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by western European Christians to regain control of the Middle Eastern Holy Land from the Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralized nation states, imposing law and order, but solidifying the political divisions within Christendom. Intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy which emphasized the harmony of faith and reason, and by the founding of universities. The philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, the paintings of Giotto, the poetry of Dante and Chaucer, the travels of Marco Polo, and the architecture of Gothic cathedrals such as Chartres are among the outstanding achievements of this period.

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