A History of the Society and Culture of the Middle Ages

The Middle Ages in Europe started in 500 A.D. and ended in 1400. This time era has been referred to a variety of terms-the Age of Faith, the Dark Ages, the Age of Feudalism, and a Golden Age. This medieval era began with the destruction of the Roman Empire. The disorder that followed the destruction of the Roman Empire led to a rise in feudalism. During this period of darkness, the Roman Catholic Church gave spiritual direction. Even non religious functions for the people occurred at times.

In my opinion, the Middle Ages were the Dark ages.

Society has fallen apart. the people are causing major chaos in their towns. They “burned down the town of Dordrecht.”[Doc. 3] Everyone is killing each other and no one can stop them due to the fact that the government has collapsed along with society. Barbarians have been invading different countries. The barbarians burned down churches, sacked toan and villages, and when they departed, they took a crowd of captives.

There was no longer any trade, only unceasing terror. Peasants were abandoning their ravaged fields to avoid the violence of anarchy. The people also had gone to cower in the depths of the forest or in any inaccessible regions for protection from these barbarians. If they failed to do so, they were taking refuge in the high mountains.[Doc. 1] This goes to show, that society had crumbled and the government no longer existed.

The Black Death gives us another reason why to say that the Middle Ages were the Dark Ages.

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The Black Death, plutonic plague, wiped out 1/3 of the population in Europe. That is about 25 million people dead. The Black Death caused labor wages to increase. Farms and buildings were abandoned because everyone tried to run away from the plague. The plague spread through trade routes. Since there was a vast number of trade routes, the trade route cities were one of the worst places to be during the time of the Black Death.

There were some splotches where the plague hadn’t spread, but that was because of the trade routes were set up. Not every city has a trade route running through them. Thus, giving them the opportunity to stay away from the plague. Also, the plague was spread by the fleas that traveled on the rats. If you got bit by one, chances are you have the disease. Since technology in medicine wasn’t very up to date in the Middle Ages, it was known that if you had gotten the plague, you’ll die.

The symptoms were gruesome. Tumors covered the body and could easily kill you by cutting off your circulation to one of your major organs. The tumors could reach the size of an egg. Purplish splotches also covered the body. Bad breath and odors indicated that you were rotting from the inside out. There is no way to save you. Not even your faith in God. The Black Death made people start to rethink about how much they put their trust in the church.

This medieval culture was far from perfect. It was restricted to a narrow circle of minds. All in all though, there were some positive times during the Middle Ages. For example, after the crusades failed, they helped spread new technology and sciences, medicine, new school teachings, etc. [Doc. 7] Most of the time though, the Middle Ages were in dark times. We can only learn from this to help us in the future in case if a similar situation happens again. Depending on how we use this information, if something similar were to happen, we could make it go by quickly and smoothly or let it destroy everything.