Metamorphoses
The Metamorphoses is a Latin narrative poem by the Roman poet Ovid, considered his magnum opus. Comprising fifteen books and over 250 myths, the chronicles the history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar within a loose mythico-historical framework. Although meeting the criteria for an epic, the poem defies simple classification by its use of varying themes and tones. One of the most influential works in Western culture, the Metamorphoses has inspired such authors as Dante Alighieri, Giovanni Boccaccio, Geoffrey Chaucer, numerous episodes from the poem have been depicted in acclaimed works of sculpture and music. The work has been the subject of numerous translations into English, Ovids decision to make myth the dominant subject of the Metamorphoses was influenced by the predisposition of Alexandrian poetry. However, whereas it served in that tradition as the cause for reflection or insight, he made it instead the object of play. There are three examples of the Metamorphoses by Hellenistic writers, but little is known of their contents, the Heteroioumena by Nicander of Colophon is better known, and clearly an influence on the poem —21 of the stories from this work were treated in the Metamorphoses.
However, in a way that was typical for writers of the period, the Metamorphoses was longer than any previous collection of metamorphosis myths and positioned itself within a historical framework. Some of the Metamorphoses derives from literary and poetic treatment of the same myths. This material was of varying quality and comprehensiveness — while some of it was finely worked, scholars have found it difficult to place the Metamorphoses in a genre. However, the handles the themes and employs the tone of virtually every species of literature, ranging from epic and elegy to tragedy. Commenting on the debate, G. Karl Galinsky has opined that. It would be misguided to pin the label of any genre on the Metamorphoses and it begins with the ritual invocation of the muse, and makes use of traditional epithets and circumlocutions. But instead of following and extolling the deeds of a human hero, the recurring theme, as with nearly all of Ovids work, is love—be it personal love or love personified in the figure of Amor.
Apollo comes in for particular ridicule as Ovid shows how love can confound the god out of reason. The work as a whole inverts the order, elevating humans and human passions while making the gods and their desires. The Metamorphoses ends with an epilogue, one of two surviving Latin epics to do so. Book I – The Creation, the Ages of Mankind, the flood and Pyrrha, Apollo and Daphne, Io, Book II – Phaëton, the raven and the crow, Ocyrhoe and Battus, the envy of Aglauros and Europa
Charles Le Brun
Charles Le Brun was a French painter and art theorist. Declared by Louis XIV the greatest French artist of all time, he was a dominant figure in 17th-century French art, born in Paris, he attracted the notice of Chancellor Séguier, who placed him at the age of eleven in the studio of Simon Vouet. He was a pupil of François Perrier, in Rome he remained four years in the receipt of a pension due to the liberality of the chancellor. There he worked under Poussin, adapting the latters theories of art, on his return to Paris in 1646, Le Brun found numerous patrons, of whom Superintendent Fouquet was the most important, for whom he painted a large portrait of Anne of Austria. Employed at Vaux-le-Vicomte, Le Brun ingratiated himself with Mazarin, secretly pitting Colbert against Fouquet, Colbert promptly recognized Le Bruns powers of organization, and attached him to his interests. Together they took control of the Academy of Painting and Sculpture, and the Academy of France at Rome, another project Le Brun worked on was Hôtel Lambert.
The ceiling in the gallery of Hercules was painted by him, Le Brun started work on the project in 1650, shortly after his return from Italy. The decoration continued intermittently over twelve years or so, as it was interrupted by the renovation of Vaux le Vicomte. In 1660 they established the Gobelins, which at first was a school for the manufacture, not of tapestries only. He was the originator of Louis XIV Style and gave a direction to the national tendencies which endured centuries after his death, the King had declared him the greatest French artist of all time. From this date all that was done in the palaces was directed by Le Brun. In 1663, he director of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture. While he was working on The Battles, Le Bruns style became more personal as he moved away from the ancient masters that influenced him. Le Bruns decoration is not only a work of art, it is the monument of a reign. This contributed to the illness which on 22 February 1690 ended in his death in his private mansion, Le Brun primarily worked for King Louis XIV, for whom he executed large altarpieces and battle pieces.
His most important paintings are at Versailles, besides his gigantic labours at Versailles and the Louvre, the number of his works for religious corporations and private patrons is enormous. Le Brun was a fine portraitist and an excellent draughtsman, but he was not fond of portrait or landscape painting, what mattered was scholarly composition, whose ultimate goal was to nourish the spirit. For Le Brun, a painting represented a story one could read, nearly all his compositions have been reproduced by celebrated engravers
Fredmans epistlar
Fredmans epistlar is a collection of 82 poems set to music by Carl Michael Bellman, a major figure in Swedish 18th century song. Though first published in 1790, it was created over a period of twenty years from 1768 onwards, a companion volume, Fredmans sånger was published the following year. The lyrics, based on the lives of Bellmans contemporaries in Gustavian-age Sweden, describe a gallery of fictional and semi-fictional characters, Jean Fredman, an alcoholic former watchmaker, is the central character and fictional narrator. Ulla Winblad, based on one of Bellmans friends, is the chief of the fictional nymphs and she is half goddess, half prostitute, a key figure among the demimonde characters of Fredmans Epistles. The Epistles are admired for the way that their poetry and music fit so well together and this may have been intended to provide historical depth to his work, he sometimes devoted considerable energy to adapting melodies to fit an Epistles needs. Many of the Epistles have remained significant in Scandinavia, especially in Sweden.
The Epistles have been translated into German, English, Polish, Italian, Bellman wrote a total of 82 Fredmans Epistles, starting in 1768. The overall theme of the Epistles is, on the surface and its effects, they are a diverse collection of songs, often telling stories. They are sometimes romantically pastoral, sometimes serious, even mournful, they paint in words and music a canvas of their age. As a result, listeners are confronted with both striking realism and classical imagery, within these general themes, the Epistles follow no discernible pattern, and do not join together to tell any single story. Their tunes, are borrowed from a variety of sources, the words that are fitted to the tunes are often in parodic contrast to their original themes, very likely achieving humorous effects on their eighteenth-century audiences. Fredmans Epistles are thus not easy to categorise, and the critic Johan Henric Kellgren stated that Bellmans songs had no model and can have no successors. Bellman was a skilful and entertaining performer of his songs, accompanying himself on the cittern, putting on different voices and he is unusual, even unique, among major poets in that almost all of his work was conceived to music.
His achievement has been compared to Shakespeare, Mozart, however, was no great playwright, nor a major classical composer. His biographer, Paul Britten Austin, suggests that the comparison with Hogarth is closer to the mark, Bellman had a gift for using elegant classical references in comic contrast to the sordid realities of drinking and prostitution. The way he does this, at once regretting and celebrating these excesses in song, achieves something of what Hogarth achieved in engravings and paint. The art historian Axel Romdahl describes Bellmans sensibility as if he had been a painter, An unusual swiftness of apprehension, Britten Austin agrees with this, noting that When words and music have faded into silence it is the visual image which remains. Many of the 82 Fredmans Epistles remain popular in Sweden and their diverse styles and themes may be illustrated with examples of some of the best-known songs
Loeb Classical Library
The General Editor is Jeffrey Henderson, holder of the William Goodwin Aurelio Professorship of Greek Language and Literature at Boston University. The Loeb Classical Library was conceived and initially funded by the Jewish-German-American banker and philanthropist James Loeb. The first volumes were edited by T. E. Page, W. H. D. Rouse, and Edward Capps, since scores of new titles have been added, and the earliest translations have been revised several times. Profit from the editions continues to fund graduate student fellowships at Harvard University, the Loebs have only a minimal critical apparatus, when compared to other publications of the text. They are intended for the reader of Greek or Latin. In 1917 Virginia Woolf wrote, The Loeb Library, with its Greek or Latin on one side of the page and its English on the other, the existence of the amateur was recognised by the publication of this Library, and to a great extent made respectable. The difficulty of Greek is not sufficiently dwelt upon, chiefly perhaps because the sirens who lure us to these waters are generally scholars have forgotten.
But for the ordinary amateur they are real and very great. Harvard University assumed complete responsibility for the series in 1989 and in recent years four or five new or re-edited volumes have been published annually, in 2001, Harvard University Press began issuing a second series of books with a similar format. The I Tatti Renaissance Library presents key Renaissance works in Latin with a facing English translation, it is similarly to the Loeb Classics. A third series, the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, was introduced in 2010 covering works in Byzantine Greek, Medieval Latin, volumes have the same format as the I Tatti series, but with a brown cover. The Clay Sanskrit Library, bound in cloth, was modeled on the Loeb Classical Library. As the command of Latin among generalist historians and archaeologists shrank in the course of the 20th century, the listings of Loeb volumes at online bookstores and library catalogues vary considerably and are often best navigated via ISBN numbers. L170N) Iliad, Second Edition, Volume I, Books 1–12 L171N) Iliad, Volume II.
Books 13–24 L104) Odyssey, Volume I, Books 1–12 L105) Odyssey, Volume II. Other Fragments L344) Dionysiaca, Volume I, Books 1–15 L354) Dionysiaca, Volume II. Books 16–35 L356) Dionysiaca, Volume III, Lives of Homer L497) Greek Epic Fragments L001) Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica L019) Quintus Smyrnaeus, The Fall of Troy L219) Oppian and Tryphiodorus L142) Greek Lyric Poetry, Volume I. Sappho and Alcaeus L143) Greek Lyric Poetry, Volume II, Anacreontea, Choral Lyric from Olympus to Alcman L476) Greek Lyric Poetry, Volume III
Glimmande nymf
Glimmande Nymf. blixtrande öga. is one of the Swedish poet and performer Carl Michael Bellmans best-known and best-loved songs, from his 1790 collection, Fredmans Epistles, where it is No.72. A night-piece, it depicts a Rococo muse in the Ulla Winblad mould, asleep in her bed in Stockholm, the epistle is subtitled Lemnad vid Cajsa Lisas Säng, sent om en afton. Bellmans biographer, Paul Britten Austin, calls the song exquisitely delicate, Carl Michael Bellman is the central figure in Swedish song, known for his 1790 Fredmans Epistles and his 1791 Fredmans Songs. He played the cittern, accompanying himself as he performed his songs at the royal court, jean Fredman is a fictional character and the supposed narrator in Bellmans epistles and songs, based on a real watchmaker of Bellmans Stockholm. The music is in 2/4 time, and is marked Andante, there are three verses of 11 lines each, the final line being repeated da capo to make 12 lines in all. The melody is an ariette from an opéra comique, Le peintre amoureux de son modèle by Egidio Duni and it had the timbre Maudit Amour, raison severe.
Although first published in 1790 with the other Epistles, Glimmande nymf came to Bellman in 1771, the initial version was direct in its description, telling the nymph to Lay on this chair your robe, trousers and skirt. It culminated in an account of the death, Jag leker och tager/ Svimmar, suckar dör/ Cajsa Lisa mig tillhör. These lines were replaced with an innocent but still clearly erotic narrative. To convey the mood, Bellman creates a rainbow — after sunset. Bellmans biographer, Paul Britten Austin, comments that the reader does not even notice and it is a beautiful scene, even if its chronology calls for much poetic license. Britten Austin describes the song as A lovely night-piece, its exquisite delicacy is best appreciated when considered against the background of its hushed and fragile music. Britten Austin suggests that although the names the nymph as Caisa Lisa, one cannot but feel that the real heroine is Ulla Winblad. Epistle 72 has been recorded by Fred Åkerström on his album called Glimmande nymf and it has been translated into English by Eva Toller.
The Life and Songs of Carl Michael Bellman, Genius of the Swedish Rococo, Malmö American-Scandinavian Foundation, New York,1967. CS1 maint, Multiple names, authors list Kleveland, Åse, cS1 maint, Multiple names, authors list Massengale, James Rhea. The Musical-Poetic Method of Carl Michael Bellman, text of Epistle 72 Stockholms stad, Glimmande Nymf interpreted by Kajsa Grytt Costumed version by Thord Lindé
Iris (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Iris is the personification of the rainbow and messenger of the gods. She is known as one of the goddesses of the sea, Iris links the gods to humanity. She travels with the speed of wind from one end of the world to the other, and into the depths of the sea, according to Hesiods Theogony, Iris is the daughter of Thaumas and the Oceanid Electra, and the sister of the Harpies and Ocypete. During the Titanomachy, Iris was the messenger of the Olympian Gods, while her twin sister Arke betrayed the Olympians and became the messenger of the Titans. Iris is frequently mentioned as a messenger in the Iliad which is attributed to Homer, but does not appear in his Odyssey. Like Hermes, Iris carries a caduceus or winged staff, by command of Zeus, the king of the gods, she carries an ewer of water from the River Styx, with which she puts to sleep all who perjure themselves. According to Apollonius Rhodius, Iris turned back the Argonauts Zetes, Iris is married to Zephyrus, who is the god of the west wind.
According to the Dionysiaca of Nonnos, Iris brother is Hydaspes, in Euripides play Herakles, Iris appears alongside Lyssa, cursing Heracles with the fit of madness in which he kills his three sons and his wife Megara. Iris was said to have wings, whereas Arke had iridescent ones. She is said to travel on the rainbow while carrying messages from the gods to mortals. During the Titan War, Zeus tore Arkes iridescent wings from her and gave them as a gift to the Nereid Thetis at her wedding, who in turn them to her son, Achilles. Achilles was sometimes known as podarkes Podarces was the name of Priam. Iris appears several times in Virgils Aeneid, usually as an agent of Juno, in Book 4, Juno dispatches her to pluck a lock of hair from the head of Queen Dido, that she may die and enter Hades. In book 5, having taken on the form of a Trojan woman, Iris had numerous poetic titles and epithets, including Chrysopteron, Podas ôkea or Podênemos ôkea and Thaumantias or Thaumantos. Under the epithet Aellopus she was described as swift-footed like a storm-wind and she watered the clouds with her pitcher, obtaining the water from the sea.
Iris is represented either as a rainbow, or as a young maiden with wings on her shoulders. As a goddess, Iris is associated with communication, the word iridescence is derived in part from the name of this goddess. The adjective for a rainbow is iridal, the iris of the eye is named after her, to reflect the many colours of the eye
Paul Britten Austin
Paul Britten Austin was an English author, broadcaster and scholar of Swedish literature. He is known in particular for his translations of and books on the Swedish musician and poet Carl Michael Bellman, including his prizewinning book The Life and he translated books by many other Swedish authors. Britten Austin was born in Dawlish, South Devon and his parents were the writers Frederick B. A. Britten Austin and Mildred King. He was educated at Winchester College, in 1951, he married the novelist Margareta Bergman, sister of film director Ingmar Bergman. They lived in Stockholm, where he was head of Sveriges Radios English-language broadcasting from 1948 to 1957 and he directed the Swedish Tourist Office in London between 1957 and 1968, at the same time working on his book on Carl Michael Bellman. Britten Austin is best known for his work The Life and Songs of Carl Michael Bellman and it describes the life and times of Swedens bard, the eighteenth century singer and poet Carl Michael Bellman.
It was the first full biography of Bellman in any language, the Swedish Academy awarded Britten Austin their special prize for the book, and its interpretation prize in 1979. One reason for this was that it was the first substantial work on Bellman in English, another is the quality of Britten Austins writing. For example, In 1768, the year before Oxenstierna had first heard him at Lissanders, or perhaps even a year before that, Bellman had begun to compose an entirely new sort of song. A genre which had no model and can have no successors, to understand the title it is necessary to go back twenty years. In the Foreword to his life of Bellman, Britten Austin explains, there is not, and apparently never has been, a book on Bellman in English. What, the greatest of all song-writers, in any language, Britten Austin argues that Bellman is unique in being a great poet, in setting all his work to music, and in being as great on the page as when he is sung. He comments on the difficulty of making poetry accessible in another language.
Britten Austin saw Bellman as a loveable and brilliant genius of the Rococo, whose earthy humanity, not unlike Burns. It is clear that Britten Austin admired and sought in his own way to emulate the many-talented Bellman, writing in Books Abroad, Britta Stendahl describes the translations of the songs in the book as euphonious and congenial. She notes that the book provides an overview of the Gustavian age in which the poet lived. Alongside his career and his writings, Britten Austin spent 25 years working on his detailed three-volume eyewitness-only account of Napoleons disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812. He explains he is skeptical of historians
The Anatomy of Melancholy
The Anatomy of Melancholy is a book by Robert Burton, first published in 1621, but republished four more times over the next seventeen years with massive alterations and expansions. On its surface, the book is presented as a textbook in which Burton applies his vast and varied learning, in the scholastic manner. It is encyclopedic in its range and reference, in his satirical preface to the reader, Burtons persona and psuedonym Democritus Junior explains, I write of melancholy by being busy to avoid melancholy. This is characteristic of the style, which often supersedes the books strengths as a medical text or historical document as its main source of appeal to admirers. Burton was an obsessive rewriter of his work and published five revised and expanded editions of The Anatomy of Melancholy during his lifetime and it has often been out of print, most notably between 1676 and 1800. Because no original manuscript of the Anatomy has survived, reprints have drawn more or less faithfully from the editions published during Burtons life, early editions are now in the public domain, with several available in their entirety from a number of online sources such as Project Gutenberg.
Burton defined his subject as follows, the subject of our present discourse, is either in disposition or in habit. In which equivocal and improper sense, we call him melancholy, Melancholy in this sense is the character of Mortality. Much of the consists of quotations from various ancient and medieval medical authorities, beginning with Hippocrates, Aristotle. Hence the Anatomy is filled more or less pertinent references to the works of others. A competent Latinist, Burton included a deal of Latin poetry in the Anatomy. The Anatomy of Melancholy is a lengthy book, the first edition being a single quarto volume nearly 900 pages long. The text is divided into three major sections plus an introduction, the written in Burtons sprawling style. The Anatomy concludes with an extensive index, most modern editions include many explanatory notes, and translate most of the Latin. According to The Guardian literary critic Nick Lezard, the Anatomy survives among the cognoscenti, washington Irving uses a quote from the book on the title page of The Sketch Book.
Burtons solemn tone and his endeavour to prove indisputable facts by weighty quotations were ridiculed by Laurence Sterne in Tristram Shandy, Sterne mocked Burtons divisions in the titles of his chapters, and parodied his grave and sober account of Ciceros grief for the death of his daughter Tullia. Ferriar, John Illustrations of Sterne Petrie, Graham A Rhetorical Topic in Tristram Shandy, Modern Language Review, Vol.65,2, April 1970, pp. 261–66 Edward W. Adams. Robert Burton and the Anatomy of Melancholy, The Gentlemans Magazine, Vol. CCLXXXI, remedial Reading, The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton, introduction by William H. Gass
Robert Burton (scholar)
Robert Burton was an English scholar at Oxford University, best known for the classic The Anatomy of Melancholy. He was the incumbent of St Thomas the Martyr, Oxford and he was born at Lindley, Robert Burton was the son of Ralph and Dorothy Burton and the brother of William Burton the antiquary. Burton spent most of his life at Oxford, first as a pupil at Brasenose College and he studied a large number of diverse subjects, many of which informed the study of melancholia, for which he is chiefly famous. He was appointed vicar of St Thomas Church in Oxford in 1616, Burton was a mathematician and dabbled in astrology. When not depressed he was a companion, very merry and juvenile, and a person of great honesty, plain dealing. Merry, Burton had favourite sources for laughter, there was a rumour that Burton hanged himself in his chambers at Christ Church, supposedly so that his death would match his prediction. Burton was buried at Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford, Burtons Melancholy focuses sharply on the self, unlike Bacon, Burton assumes that knowledge of psychology, not natural science, is humankinds greatest need.
He wrote The Anatomy of Melancholy largely to himself out of being a lifelong sufferer from depression. As he described his condition in the preface Democritus Junior to the Reader, for I had gravidum cor, foetum caput, a kind of imposthume in my head, the treatise itself was intended as treatment. Again, from the preface, I write of melancholy, by being busy to avoid melancholy, there is no greater cause of melancholy than idleness, no better cure than business. However, this sentence may be interpreted ironically, as Burton is citing a well-known adage of the time, the parenthetical aside is meant to be tongue-in-cheek. The work, published under the pseudonym Democritus Junior in 1621, was quite popular, in the words of Thomas Warton, the authors variety of learning, his quotations from rare and curious books, his pedantry sparkling with rude wit and shapeless elegance. Have rendered it a repertory of amusement and information, many writers were deeply influenced by the books odd mix of pan-scholarship, linguistic skill, and creative insights.
This influence was so strong that writers sometimes drew from the work without acknowledgment, samuel Johnson considered it one of his favourite books, being the only book that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise. The book has continued as a favourite among many twentieth and twenty-first-century authors, such as Anthony Burgess, William H. Gass, apart from The Anatomy of Melancholy Burtons only other published work is Philosophaster, a satirical Latin comedy. Faulkner, Nicolas K. Kiessling, and Rhonda L. Blair and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, John William. A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, london, J. M. Dent & Sons. The Gilded Pill, The Reader-Writer Relationship in Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy and quotes at complete review Entry at the Columbia Encyclopedia The BBCs In Our Time discusses The Anatomy of Melancholy
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of Greek used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. It is often divided into the Archaic period, Classical period. It is antedated in the second millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Hellenistic phase is known as Koine. Koine is regarded as a historical stage of its own, although in its earliest form it closely resembled Attic Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects, Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical phases of the language, Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Arcadocypriot, some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions.
There are several historical forms, homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek used in the epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, and in poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic, the origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period and they have the same general outline, but differ in some of the detail. The invasion would not be Dorian unless the invaders had some relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the Attic-Ionic regions, the Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians and Ionians, each with their own defining and distinctive dialects.
Often non-west is called East Greek, Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric, Southern Peloponnesus Doric, and Northern Peloponnesus Doric. The Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek and this dialect slowly replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek, by about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosized into Medieval Greek
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, 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 subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation and movement of peoples, 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 seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired in the Middle Ages.
In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period.
Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date.
English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
