Modern period in the context of "Middle Ages"

⭐ In the context of the Middle Ages, what aspect of the preceding era demonstrated a degree of continuity despite widespread changes in Europe?

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⭐ Core Definition: Modern period

The modern era or the modern period is considered the current historical period of human history. It was originally applied to the history of Europe and Western history for events that came after the Classical antiquity and the Middle Ages, often from around the year 1500, like the Reformation in Germany giving rise to Protestantism. Since the 1990s, it has been more common among historians to refer to the period after the Middle Ages and up to the 19th century as the early modern period. The modern period is today more often used for events from the 19th century until today. The time from the end of World War II (1945) can also be described as being part of contemporary history. The common definition of the modern period today is often associated with events like the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and the transition from nationalism toward the liberal international order.

The modern period has been a period of significant development in the fields of science, politics, warfare, and technology. It has also been an Age of Discovery and globalization. During this time, the European powers and later their colonies, strengthened their political, economic, and cultural colonization of the rest of the world. It also created a new modern lifestyle and has permanently changed the way people around the world live.

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👉 Modern period in the context of Middle Ages

In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, comparable with the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages.

Population decline, counterurbanisation, the collapse of centralised authority, invasions, and mass migrations of tribes, which had begun in Late antiquity (c. ~3rd–8th centuries) and into the Early Middle Ages (c. 5th–10th centuries). The large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the 7th century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, an Islamic empire, after conquest by Muhammad's successors. Although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was incomplete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire, Rome's direct continuation, survived in the Eastern Mediterranean and remained a major power. The empire's law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or "Code of Justinian", was rediscovered in Northern Italy in the 11th century. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions. Monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise the remaining pagans across Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th and early 9th centuries. It covered much of Western Europe but later succumbed to the pressures of internal civil wars combined with external invasions: Vikings from the north, Magyars from the east, and Saracens from the south.

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Modern period in the context of Bard

In Celtic cultures, a bard is an oral repository and professional story teller, verse-maker, music composer, oral historian and genealogist, employed by a patron (such as a monarch or chieftain) to commemorate one or more of the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities.

With the decline of a living bardic tradition in the modern period, the term has loosened to mean a generic minstrel or author (especially a famous one). For example, William Shakespeare and Rabindranath Tagore are respectively known as "the Bard of Avon" (often simply "the Bard") and "the Bard of Bengal". In 16th-century Scotland, it turned into a derogatory term for an itinerant musician; nonetheless it was later romanticised by Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832).

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Modern period in the context of Holy war

A religious war or a war of religion, sometimes also known as a holy war (Latin: sanctum bellum), is a war and conflict which is primarily caused or justified by differences in religion and beliefs. In the modern period, there are frequent debates over the extent to which religious, economic, ethnic or other aspects of a conflict are predominant in a given war. The degree to which a war may be considered religious depends on many underlying questions, such as the definition of religion, the definition of 'war', and the applicability of religion to war as opposed to other possible factors.

According to scholars such as Jeffrey Burton Russell, conflicts may not be rooted strictly in religion and instead may be a cover for the underlying secular power, ethnic, social, political, and economic reasons for conflict. Other scholars have argued that what is termed "religious wars" is a largely "Western dichotomy" and a modern invention from the past few centuries, arguing that all wars that are classed as "religious" have secular (economic or political) ramifications. In several conflicts including the Israeli–Palestinian and Indo–Pakistani conflicts and the wars in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, religious elements are overtly present, but variously described as fundamentalism or religious extremism—depending upon the observer's sympathies. However, studies on these cases often conclude that ethnic animosities drive much of the conflicts.

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Modern period in the context of Scottish Highlands

The Highlands (Scots: the Hielands; Scottish Gaelic: a' GhĂ idhealtachd [ə ˈɣɛːəlÌȘË tÌȘʰəxk], lit. 'the place of the Gaels') is a historical region of Scotland, comprising the Northernmost mountain ranges on the island of Great Britain, divided by the Great Glen between the Grampian Mountains to the southeast and the Northwest Highlands, divided from the islands of the Hebrides by the Minch. The term is also used for the area north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, although the exact boundaries are not clearly defined, particularly to the east.

Originally home to the Caledonians/Picts, the region came to be the mainland stronghold of the Hebridean Gaels, whose Q-Celtic language succeeded that of their P-Celtic neighbours. The Scottish Gaelic name of A' GhĂ idhealtachd literally means "the place of the Gaels" and traditionally, from a Gaelic-speaking point of view, includes both the Western Isles and the Highlands. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots language replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands.

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LINKED FROM (PARENTS)
← Middle Ages ← Medieval ← Medieval period ← Medieval Europe ← Bard ← Holy war ← War of religion ← Medieval era ← Scottish Highlands ← Religious war
LINKS TO (CHILDREN)
Historical period → Human history → History of Europe → Western history → Classical antiquity → Middle Ages → Reformation → History of Germany → Protestantism → Early modern period → World War II → Contemporary history → French Revolution → Industrial Revolution → Nationalism → Liberal international order → Age of Discovery → Globalization → European powers → Colonization →