When Did the Middle Ages Start and End?

The conventional dates, why every one of them is arguable, and how the period is actually divided

The Middle Ages are conventionally dated from 476 to 1453, or from 476 to 1492, and the reason there is more than one answer is that the period was named retrospectively by people who wanted to define it as the gap between two ages they admired. The broadest and safest statement is the one most reference works now use: the Middle Ages lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th century, with around 500 the most commonly cited starting point and around 1500 the most commonly cited end.

The specific dates all mark events rather than transitions. 476 is the year the last Western Roman emperor was removed. 1453 is the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans, and also the end of the Hundred Years' War. 1492 is Columbus reaching the Americas. 1517 is Luther's ninety-five theses, and it is used as the endpoint whenever the question at hand is religious rather than political.

None of these dates was noticed at the time as the beginning or end of anything. Nobody living in 477 thought the ancient world had finished, and nobody in 1454 thought a new age had started. We use the dates as filing conventions, and the interesting part of the question is why the conventions were chosen and what they distort.

Where the term came from, and why that matters

The idea of a middle age is a value judgement built into a label. It comes from Italian humanists of the 14th and 15th centuries who saw themselves as reviving classical antiquity after a long interruption. If you are reviving something, there must have been a gap, and the gap needs a name. Petrarch, writing in the 1330s, is generally credited with the underlying conception: the centuries after Rome were dark by comparison with the light of classical learning, and his own generation was turning the lights back on.

That means the period was defined by what its namers thought it was not. It is not antiquity and it is not the Renaissance. Almost no other historical period in common use is defined that way, and it explains why the boundaries are so contested: a category defined negatively has no natural edges of its own.

It also explains why the scheme is Eurocentric and, more narrowly, Western European. The Byzantine Empire did not experience a fall of Rome in 476, because it was Rome and it continued for another thousand years. The Islamic world's chronology has no use for these markers at all. Historians of China, India, Africa, and the Americas either borrow the term loosely for their own periods or, more often now, do not use it.

The start: why 476 is disputed

In 476 the general Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustulus, the last emperor to rule from Italy, and sent the imperial regalia to Constantinople. It is a clean, datable event, which is most of its appeal. It is not, however, an obvious rupture. The Western Empire had been effectively run by generals for decades, imperial authority in Britain, Gaul, and Spain had already lapsed, and Roman administration, law, language, landholding, and taxation carried on in much of the West under new rulers who often presented themselves as Roman officials.

Historians have proposed a range of alternatives depending on what they think actually changed. The conversion of Constantine and the reorientation of the empire around Christianity in the early 4th century is one candidate. The sack of Rome in 410 is another. The reign of Justinian and the failure of his reconquest in the 6th century is a third. The Arab conquests of the 7th century, which broke the Mediterranean into separate worlds, are a fourth and, on the economic evidence, a strong one.

The scholarly mainstream has moved a long way from a single date. Late antiquity is now widely treated as a period in its own right, running roughly from the 3rd or 4th century to the 7th or 8th, in which the transition from Roman to medieval happened gradually and differently in different provinces. On that view 476 is not the boundary, it is one event inside a long boundary zone.

The end: 1453, 1492, 1500, or 1517

The end is disputed for the same reason and is arguably even less settled. 1453 has two claims: the Ottoman capture of Constantinople ended the Eastern Roman Empire, and the Hundred Years' War ended in the same year. If you think the Middle Ages are defined by the survival of the Roman world in the East, 1453 is the natural close.

1492 marks Columbus's first Atlantic crossing and, in Spanish historiography, the fall of Granada and the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in the same year. It is favoured when the story being told is about Europe's turn outward and the beginning of global connection. 1517 is used when the story is about the fracturing of Western Christendom. And 1500 is used simply because a round number is honest about the fact that no single event did it.

Other candidates cluster nearby: the invention of movable-type printing in Europe around 1450, the Wars of the Roses ending in 1485, the Italian Renaissance's high point in the 1490s. The clustering itself is the point. Something did change across the second half of the 15th century in Western Europe, and the choice of which year to nominate is largely a choice about which change you consider decisive.

Early, High and Late: the useful divisions

Because a thousand-year block is useless for almost any real question, English-speaking historians follow a German scholarly tradition and divide the period into three. The Early Middle Ages run roughly from 500 to 1000, the High Middle Ages from roughly 1000 to 1300, and the Late Middle Ages from roughly 1300 to 1500. As with the outer boundaries, these are conventions and the edges vary by author and by region.

The Early Middle Ages are the period of successor kingdoms, the Carolingians, monastic learning, Viking and Magyar and Arab raiding, and a population and economy well below Roman peaks in the West. The High Middle Ages are the period of growth: population rising sharply, land being cleared, towns and universities founded, cathedrals built, the Crusades launched, and centralised monarchies taking shape. The Late Middle Ages are the period of crisis and reordering: famine from 1315, the Black Death from 1347, the Hundred Years' War, the Papal Schism, and a demographic collapse from which Europe did not fully recover for a century and a half.

This three-part division is far more useful than the outer dates. Almost every argument about whether the Middle Ages were backward or advanced turns out, on inspection, to be an argument about which of the three someone has in mind.

The 'Dark Ages' label

In the 19th century the entire medieval millennium was routinely called the Dark Ages. Once the three-part division was adopted, historians restricted the term to the Early Middle Ages, and today most modern scholars avoid it altogether because of its negative connotations, finding it misleading and inaccurate.

There is one narrow, defensible sense in which the early medieval West is dark: the written record thins dramatically. Fewer documents were produced and fewer survived, so the period is dark to us in the sense that we can see less of it. That is a statement about evidence, not about the people living then, and archaeology has been steadily filling the gap for decades.

The label is misleading in every other sense. The centuries it covers include the codification of Roman law under Justinian, the Islamic Golden Age, Carolingian scholarship and the manuscript copying that preserved most surviving classical literature, heavy-plough agriculture, the mouldboard and the horse collar, and the beginnings of the university. We have a fuller treatment of the evidence on both sides in our guide on whether the Dark Ages were really dark.

Frequently asked questions

When did the Middle Ages start and end?

Conventionally from 476 to 1453, or from 476 to 1492, and more loosely from the 5th to the late 15th century. Around 500 is the most commonly cited start and around 1500 the most commonly cited end. All of these are conventions rather than events anyone noticed at the time.

Why do historians disagree about when the Middle Ages began?

Because 476, the deposition of the last Western Roman emperor, was not an obvious rupture. Roman law, language, landholding, and administration continued in much of the West under the successor kingdoms. Many historians now prefer a long transition, treating late antiquity from roughly the 3rd or 4th century to the 7th or 8th as a period in its own right.

Is 1453 or 1492 the end of the Middle Ages?

Both are used, and the choice depends on the question. 1453 marks the Ottoman capture of Constantinople and the end of the Hundred Years' War. 1492 marks Columbus's first crossing and, in Spain, the fall of Granada. 1517, for Luther's theses, is used for religious history, and 1500 is used when the writer wants a round number rather than an event.

What are the Early, High and Late Middle Ages?

A three-part division adopted by English-speaking historians from German scholarship. The Early Middle Ages run roughly 500 to 1000, the High Middle Ages roughly 1000 to 1300, and the Late Middle Ages roughly 1300 to 1500. The edges vary by author and by region, but the division is far more useful than the outer dates.

Are the Middle Ages the same as the Dark Ages?

No. In the 19th century the whole medieval period was often called the Dark Ages, but once the three-part division was adopted the term was restricted to the Early Middle Ages, and most modern scholars now avoid it entirely as misleading and inaccurate. The only defensible sense of 'dark' is that fewer written records survive from the early medieval centuries.

Further reading

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Related guides

• Were the Dark Ages Really Dark?
• Best Books on Medieval History
• Best Books on the Renaissance

Sources consulted

• Wikipedia, 'Middle Ages'
• Wikipedia, 'Dark Ages (historiography)'
• Open Library record, Chris Wickham, The Inheritance of Rome
• Open Library record, Matthew Gabriele and David M. Perry, The Bright Ages

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