MEDIÆVAL OR MIDDLE AGES.
(Vol. v., p. 469.)
The question there put by L. T. is still constantly asked, and the answer given by a reference to Mr. Dowling's work may perhaps be unsatisfactory to many, as not sufficiently defining the period at which the Middle Ages may be said to terminate. By some of the best historical writers, the commencement and termination are variously stated. In a work recently published by George T. Manning, entitled Outlines of the History of the Middle Ages, with heads of analysis, &c., the Querist seems answered with more precision. Mr. Manning divides General History into three great divisions—Ancient History, that of the Middle Ages, and Modern History; the first division extending from the Creation to about four hundred years after the birth of Christ; the second from A.D. 400 to the close of the fifteenth century of the Christian era; the third embracing those ages which have elapsed since the close of mediæval times.
The Middle Age portions he divides into five great periods, denoted by the vast changes which took place in the course of that history, viz.:
A.D. 0400 to A.D. 0800, First Period.
A.D. 0800 to A.D. 0964, Second Period.
A.D. 0964 to A.D. 1066, Third Period.
A.D. 1066 to A.D. 1300, Fourth Period.
A.D. 1300 to A.D. 1500, Fifth Period.
The doubling of the Cape of Good Hope being the last important event, which he places in 1497.
This is nearly the same view as taken by M. Lamé Fleury, who commences with the fall of the Western Empire in 476, and closes with the conquest of Granada by the Spaniards in 1492: thinking that memorable event, which terminated in a degree the struggle of the Western against the Eastern Empire, a better limit ("une limite plus rigoureusement exacte") than the taking of Constantinople by Mahomet II. in 1453, the date when this historical period is generally terminated by most writers.
Appended to this little volume is a list of remarkable dates and events, as also of battles and treaties during the Middle Ages.
G.