Modern history, in a comprehensive sense, begins with the downfall of the Western Roman Empire; for with that event the volume of ancient history was closed: new actors then appeared on the stage, and a new civilization arose.
THE ROMAN WORLD SUCCEEDED
BY THE GERMANIC
The development of the German world begins, kindled by foreign culture, religion, polity, and legislation. These new elements were taken up by the Teutonic tribes, and amalgamated with their own national life.
THE HISTORIC
DARK AGES
In many respects this period seemed a relapse into barbarism, and the interval from the fifth to the eleventh century is sometimes called specifically the Dark Ages. But in a juster view it was the germinating season: the seeds of modern civilization, cast into the soil, were quickening in new institutions and new nations; so that when we see modern society in the fifteenth and sixteenth nations; so that when we see modern society in the fifteenths and sixteenth centuries assuming the fixed shape which it still wears, we must remember that it grew into that shape in the antecedent thousand years.
REAL NATURE OF THIS
PERIOD
The most important historic features of the Middle Ages were certain peculiar forms of society, rather than the development of great nations. Indeed, the modern nations as such were only in their beginnings, and these characteristic social peculiarities were common to all of them. Thus, all the nations of Europe were under that peculiar form of society called feudalism; all bore certain relations to the papal power; all participated in the Crusades and in the spirit of Chivalry; and all passed through the period named the Dark Ages, and shared in the intellectual revival which marked the latter part of the Middle Ages.
THE EASTERN OR BYZANTINE EMPIRE
THE EASTERN OR BYZANTINE EMPIRE.—This Empire, called also the Greek Empire, was sustained under various fortunes, for a period of almost one thousand years after the overthrow of the Western or Roman Empire. After the fall of Rome nearly sixty different emperors had occupied the throne at Constantinople, when, A.D. 1202, that city was taken by the crusaders from France and Venice. By this event the Greek emperors were forced to establish their court at Nicæa in Asia Minor. After the lapse of sixty years, their former capital was recovered; and, subsequent to this, eight different emperors held the scepter there, until the empire was gradually reduced in strength and extent, and it consisted of but a little corner of Europe. Its existence was prolonged to A.D. 1453, when Constantinople fell into the hands of the Turks, who have retained it to the present day.
While the new nationalities and the new civilization of Western Europe were being developed under the influence of German vigor, the emperors at Constantinople, though they ruled dominions where the language and civilization were mainly Greek, still claimed to be Roman emperors, and under their sway the laws and official forms of imperial Rome were maintained.