What Is the Difference Between the Early and High Middle Ages?
How the Early and High Middle Ages differ in chronology, institutions, culture, economy, and religion, and where the boundary between them falls.
The Middle Ages is conventionally divided into three periods: the Early Middle Ages (c. 500-1000), the High Middle Ages (c. 1000-1300), and the Late Middle Ages (c. 1300-1500). The boundary between the Early and High Middle Ages is one of the most important in medieval history, and it corresponds to a real transformation in European politics, society, economy, and culture. The High Middle Ages is the period of the great cathedrals, the Crusades, the rise of universities, the consolidation of feudal monarchies, the expansion of towns and trade, and the development of scholastic philosophy. The Early Middle Ages is the period of the formation of medieval Europe out of the post-Roman world: the Christianization of the continent, the rise of the Carolingian Empire, the Viking expansion, the conversion of the Slavs and Magyars, and the slow demographic and economic recovery of Western Europe.
Chronology
The most important difference is chronological. The Early Middle Ages runs from roughly 500 to roughly 1000, the High Middle Ages from roughly 1000 to roughly 1300. The boundary is conventional, and there is no single event that opens the High Middle Ages. Some historians prefer 1050 or even 1100 as the boundary; others use the year 1000 itself, which was associated in its time with millennial anxieties, the launch of the Christianization of Hungary, and the end of Viking expansion. The choice of date is, as with the start of the Early Middle Ages, partly a matter of convention and partly a statement about the period. For more on these chronological questions, see the How Long Did the Early Middle Ages Last?.
Political organization
The political organization of the two periods was strikingly different. The Early Middle Ages was an era of relatively small kingdoms, often centered on royal or episcopal palaces, with limited administrative reach. The Carolingian Empire, the largest early medieval state, was a vast but fragile construction that fell apart within a century of its greatest extent. By contrast, the High Middle Ages saw the rise of larger, more centralized, and more durable monarchies: the kingdom of France, the Holy Roman Empire, the Norman and Angevin kingdoms of England, the kingdoms of Spain, the Norman kingdom of Sicily, the crusader states, and the kingdoms of Eastern Europe. The High Middle Ages also saw the development of more sophisticated administrative institutions, including standing armies, regular taxation, written law codes, and royal courts.
The High Middle Ages also saw the rise of the great aristocratic dynasties - the Capetians, the Plantagenets, the Hohenstaufen, the Premyslids, the Árpáds, the Piasts - that would dominate European politics for centuries. These dynasties developed a more stable relationship with their subjects, with the Church, and with each other, and they laid the foundations of the modern European state system.
Economy and society
The economic life of the two periods was also very different. The Early Middle Ages was, in much of Western Europe, a period of demographic decline, simplified material culture, and limited long-distance trade. The High Middle Ages was, by contrast, a period of demographic growth, urban expansion, and commercial revolution. The population of Western Europe roughly doubled between 1000 and 1300. New towns were founded, especially in northern Europe, and old cities like Paris, London, Florence, Milan, Bruges, and Cologne grew into major centers of trade and manufacture. The High Middle Ages saw the development of new forms of commercial organization: merchant guilds, market towns, money economies, banking, and the early forms of insurance and credit.
In the countryside, the High Middle Ages saw the gradual replacement of the manorial system by more commercialized forms of agriculture, the clearing of new lands for cultivation, and the diffusion of new crops and new techniques. The great monastic estates of the Early Middle Ages were supplemented, and in some cases replaced, by the larger and more efficient estates of the High Middle Ages, often organized around new Cistercian and Premonstratensian houses.
Religion and culture
The religious and cultural life of the two periods was also strikingly different. The Early Middle Ages was an era of missionary activity, of the establishment of monasteries, and of the slow Christianization of the countryside. The High Middle Ages was an era of the great cathedrals, the Crusades, the rise of the papal monarchy, the development of scholastic theology, and the growth of the great universities. The early medieval Church was a comparatively decentralized institution, in which local bishops and monastic founders had a great deal of autonomy, and in which the pope’s authority was limited. The High Middle Ages saw the triumph of the papal monarchy, the Gregorian reform, and the great contest between the papacy and the Empire that dominated the second half of the period.
The intellectual life of the two periods was also distinct. The Early Middle Ages was an era of monastic learning, focused on the Bible, the liturgy, and the writings of the Church Fathers. The High Middle Ages was an era of scholasticism, in which the writings of Aristotle, the new translations from Greek and Arabic, and the developing academic institutions of the universities produced a new and much more systematic approach to theology, philosophy, and natural science. The architectural, artistic, and literary achievements of the High Middle Ages - the gothic cathedral, the chivalric romance, the Summa Theologiae of Aquinas - are very different from those of the Early Middle Ages.
What changes at the boundary
The boundary between the Early and High Middle Ages is, in many ways, the most important transition in medieval history. It is the moment when the foundations laid in the early Middle Ages - the Christianization of Europe, the formation of the Latin church, the rise of feudal and manorial institutions, the development of the great kingdoms - begin to bear fruit in a recognizable medieval civilization. The castle, the cathedral, the market town, the university, the chartered commune, the crusade, the Gothic script, the Latin Bible: these are all High Medieval forms, but they are all built on early medieval foundations.
A more extensive account is given in the Defining the Early Middle Ages and The Early Middle Ages: A Complete Overview. For the chronology of the period, see the Timeline and Key Dates.
A useful comparison
| Dimension | Early Middle Ages (c. 500-1000) | High Middle Ages (c. 1000-1300) |
|---|---|---|
| Politics | Small kingdoms; Carolingian and post-Carolingian states; empire briefly revived | Capetians, Plantagenets, Hohenstaufen, Norman kingdoms; centralized monarchies |
| Population | Low and recovering; cities shrunken | Rapid growth; urbanization; commercial revolution |
| Economy | Limited long-distance trade; manorial economy; silver penny | Expansion of trade, towns, markets; merchant guilds; banking |
| Religion | Conversion of pagans; missionary activity; monastic expansion | Papal monarchy; Crusades; scholastic theology; great cathedrals |
| Learning | Monastic scriptoria; Carolingian Renaissance; Latin learning | Universities; scholasticism; recovery of Aristotle; vernacular literatures |
| Architecture | Early Christian basilicas; Carolingian and Ottonian; wooden churches | Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals; castles; stone bridges |
| Writing | Carolingian minuscule; vernacular beginnings (Old English, Old Norse, Old Church Slavonic) | Gothic script; vernacular literatures in French, German, Italian, English |
| Warfare | Comital levies; Vikings; Magyars; Muslim raids | Heavy cavalry; crusades; standing armies; castle warfare |
This is, of course, a simplification. There is a great deal of overlap between the two periods, and many of the High Medieval developments were visible in the early Middle Ages. The Cistercian Order, often taken as a High Medieval development, was founded in 1098, only just after the conventional boundary. The architecture of the Romanesque was a development of the late tenth and eleventh centuries, on the boundary between the two periods. The great vernacular literatures of the High Middle Ages - the Chanson de Roland, the Nibelungenlied, the Arthurian romances - have their roots in early medieval oral and written traditions. The boundary is therefore best understood as a zone of transition, not a sharp line.
Related articles
- Defining the Early Middle Ages
- The Early Middle Ages: A Complete Overview
- Timeline and Key Dates
- How Long Did the Early Middle Ages Last?
- The Carolingian Empire