Was the High Middle Ages Known as the Golden Age?? EASY 10 POINTSS?

Question by Nelson R: Was the High Middle Ages Known as the Golden Age?? EASY 10 POINTSS?

WAS THE HIGH MIDDLE AGES KNOWN AS tHE GOLDEN AGE?

Best answer:

Answer by Roy . . .
The High Middle Ages was the height of the Golden age of monasticism in Europe .

A ‘Golden Age’, for a civilization, is usually a period scholarship, discovery & invention. These periods are almost always accompanied by increased trade of goods & ideas between previously seperate societies. For much of the East [China, Mongolia, Asia, N Africa, Middle east, Spain under Moorish rule] the European Middle Ages, was a Golden Age.

For Europe in some ways, the High Middle Ages was a Golden Age. [Though the Renaissance in the early 16th century is traditionally considered Europe's Golden Age]

The High Middle Ages was the period of European history in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries (AD 1000-1300). The High Middle Ages was the height of the Golden age of monasticism in Europe [ late 11th century/early-mid 12th century was the height of the golden age of Christian monasticism (8th-12th centuries) ] )

The ‘Middle Ages’ are called this because it is the time between the fall of Imperial Rome and the beginning of the Renaissance (which began in different times in different countries). This period of time is also known as the Medieval Age, the Dark Ages (Because of the fall of education) or the Age of Faith (because of the rise of Christianity).

Philosophical and scientific teaching of the Early Middle Ages was based upon few copies and commentaries of ancient Greek texts that remained in Western Europe after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. Much of Europe had lost contact with the knowledge of the past.

This scenario changed during the Renaissance of the 12th century. The intellectual revitalization of Europe started with the birth of medieval universities. The increased contact with the Islamic world in Spain and Sicily, and during the Reconquista and the Crusades, allowed Europeans access to scientific Arabic and Greek texts, including the works of Aristotle, Alhazen, and Averroes. The European universities aided materially in the translation and propagation of these texts and started a new infrastructure which was needed for scientific communities.

During the Middle Ages, Muslims reached a golden age of knowledge. During the times of strife in Europe, Muslims were gathering the ancient texts of great empires (Rome, Greece, Egypt) and re-integrating that knowledge. Muslims during this time invented algebra, trigonometry, and even some aspects of calculus. Muslims also saved, translated and analyzed vast historic records (which may have otherwise been lost). Europe remained behind in terms of knowledge and the sciences until the Renaissance in the early 16th century. Muslims introduced new breeds of livestock, hastened the spread of cotton, and, from the Chinese, learned the art of making paper, a key to the revival of learning in Europe in the Middle Ages.

At the beginning of the 13th century there were reasonably accurate Latin translations of the main works of almost all the intellectually crucial ancient authors, allowing a sound transfer of scientific ideas via both the universities and the monasteries. By then, the natural science contained in these texts began to be extended by notable scholastics such as Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus and Duns Scotus. Precursors of the modern scientific method can be seen already in Grosseteste’s emphasis on mathematics as a way to understand nature, and in the empirical approach admired by Bacon, particularly in his Opus Majus.

During the Middle Ages trade between countries become much more vast, mostly through the Middle Eastern / Asian trade route known as the Silk Road. Arabs served as the middle men in international trade. Trade in this time was based on how valuable the item was. The items that were higher value, and low weight, travelled the farthest (gold, silk, etc…), and items that were heavier and worth less would travel mostly short distances (food, for example, would mostly travel only within a few villages). Increased trade with Muslims, little by little, transformed the diet of medieval Europe by introducing such plants as plums, artichokes, apricots, cauliflower, celery, fennel, squash, pumpkins, and eggplant, as well as rice, sorghum, new strains of wheat, the date palm, and sugarcane.

During the high Middle Ages, wealth began to return and consumers began to again demand luxuries. Silk, Porcelain, Spices, Incense, gold and gems, all travelled thousands of miles across vast stretches of deserts, mountains and plains.

During the Middle Ages the Mongols created the worlds largest empire, controlling much of Asia, Middle East, and what is today far eastern Europe. Mongolia was so large and powerful that its strength lead to the Pax Mongolica, similar to the Roman Pax Romana. In other words, the Mongol empire was so powerful that it created a period of time that saw no war; only a great deal of international trade and diplomacy along the Silk Road.

The famous Mongol leader, Ghengis Khan built an empire that was so large it eventually collapsed under its own size (much like Rome did) around the time of Khans death in 1227. The former Mongol empire was split four ways, leaving the Chinese to become the dominant power again. The Chinese eventually regained control of northern China under the Yuan Dynasty.

Around 1405, A Chinese mariner named Zheng He sought to explore the world. His fleet of 300 ‘treasure ships’ explored vast areas of the Eastern world, and were many times larger than anything the Europeans had built. (A Zheng He Treasure ship was wider than Columbus’ ship ‘Santa Maria’ was long). Unfortunately for Zheng, his voyages were ended before he had a chance to discover the Americas.

In the late 13th century, a Venetian explorer named Marco Polo became one of the first Europeans to travel the Silk Road to China. Westerners became more aware of the Far East when Polo documented his travels in Il Milione. He was followed by numerous Christian missionnaries to the East, such as William of Rubruck, Giovanni da Pian del Carpini, Andrew of Longjumeau, Odoric of Pordenone, Giovanni de Marignolli, Giovanni di Monte Corvino, and other travellers such as Niccolò da Conti.

The High Middle Ages produced many different forms of intellectual, spiritual and artistic works. This age saw the rise of modern nation-states in Western Europe and the ascent of the great Italian city-states. The still-powerful Roman Church called armies from across Europe to a series of Crusades against the Seljuk Turks, who occupied the Holy Land. The rediscovery of the works of Aristotle led Thomas Aquinas and other thinkers to develop the philosophy of Scholasticism. In architecture, many of the most notable Gothic cathedrals were built or completed during this era.

See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Middle_Ages

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages

http://sd71.bc.ca/sd71/school/courtmid/Library/subject_resources/socials/middleagesframe.htm

http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/renaissance.html

http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0859627.html

http://www.islamicity.com/mosque/ihame/Sec7.htm

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Was the High Middle Ages Known as the Golden Age?? EASY 10 POINTSS?