Introduction The medieval period, or Middle Ages, is, as its name suggests, a period of time that falls between the ancient and modern worlds The Middle Ages began with the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century c.e and ended with the voyages of discovery, including Columbus’s discovery of the Americas, about 1,000 years later While 17th- and 18th-century scholars saw the medieval period as a “dark age,” modern research has shown that the medieval era was a dynamic period of social, political, and economic changes that laid the foundation for the modern world The decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire took place over more than a century In the early fourth century the Roman Empire was split into the Eastern Roman Empire, with its capital in Constantinople, and the Western Roman Empire, with its capital in Rome By the early fifth century barbarian tribes from outside the Roman world began to cross the RhineDanube frontier and attack portions of the Western Roman Empire, sacking Rome itself in 410 c.e At about the same time the Roman legions abandoned the province of Britannia (Britain), never to return In 476 c.e the last of the Western Roman emperors, Romulus Augustus, was deposed by the Germanic leader Odoacer This date marks the end of the Western Roman Empire Beginning in the fifth century Germanic tribes, including the Franks, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Angles, and Saxons, established smaller kingdoms within the former Western Roman Empire The Eastern Roman Empire, on the other hand, continued as the Byzantine Empire until the very end of the Middle Ages It was overthrown by the Ottoman Empire in 1453 The European voyages of discovery in the late 15th and early 16th centuries mark the end of the Middle Ages Columbus’s discovery of the Americas led to a period of intensive contact between the Eastern Hemisphere and Western Hemisphere New World crops such as the potato revolutionized agriculture in the Old World, and American tobacco spread rapidly throughout the Eastern Hemisphere European colonists introduced diseases such as measles to the Americas Because the Native American populations had no immunity to these new diseases, many North and South American peoples were decimated by them The discovery of the Americas also led to an intensive period of colonization of the New World by Europeans beginning in the early 16th century with the Spanish colonization of Mexico Thus the end of the Middle Ages is conventionally dated at 1500 Sources of Information for the Medieval Period Scholars have used a variety of sources of information to study the Middle Ages Traditional medieval studies have been based on historic texts, including documents, literature, and inscriptions However, not all medieval societies produced written records As a result, archaeologists, scholars who study material remains from past societies, are playing an increasingly important role in medieval studies Other important sources of information on medieval societies include art and architecture Documentary Records Written records, ranging from parish registers and land grants to histories, geographies, inscriptions, and accounts of saints’ lives, have always provided information on life in the Middle Ages However, the quantity and quality of written records vary greatly by time and place In the Americas the Mayan peoples of Mesoamerica kept extensive written records The decipherment of these Mayan glyphs has provided valuable information on the political history of Mayan cities However, most other regions of the Americas did not keep written records at all In southeastern Europe, Byzantine xxv