Middle Ages

In European history, the Middle Ages or Medieval period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: Antiquity, Medieval period, and Modern period. The Medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early, the High, and the Late Middle Ages.

Depopulation, deurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, which had begun in Late Antiquity, continued in the Early Middle Ages. The barbarian invaders, 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 Eastern Roman Empire—came under the rule of the Caliphate, an Islamic empire, after conquest by Muhammad's successors. Although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with Antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power. The empire's law code, the Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later 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 later 8th and early 9th century. 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.

A. R. Gurney

A. R. Gurney (born November 1, 1930) born as Albert Ramsdell Gurney Jr, sometimes credited as Pete Gurney is an American playwright, novelist and academic. He is known for works including Love Letters, The Cocktail Hour, The Dining Room His and Sweet Sue. Gurney currently lives in New York and Connecticut. His series of plays about upper-class White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) life in contemporary America have been called "penetratingly witty studies of the WASP ascendancy in retreat." In "The Cocktail Hour" (1988), for example, a lead character tells her playwright son that theater critics "don't like us.... They resent us. They think we're all Republicans, all superficial and all alcoholics. Only the latter is true."

Biography

Born in Buffalo, New York, Gurney, a graduate of St. Paul's School (Concord, New Hampshire), attended Williams College and the Yale School of Drama, after which he began teaching Humanities at MIT. He began writing plays such as Children and The Middle Ages while at MIT, but it was his great success with The Dining Room that allowed him to write full-time. Since The Dining Room, Gurney has written a number of plays, most of them concerning WASPs of the American northeast. While at Yale, Gurney also wrote the musical: Love in Buffalo; this was the first musical ever produced at the Yale School of Drama.

Middle Ages (disambiguation)

The Middle Ages was a period in Western history spanning the time from the 5th to the 16th century (approximately: 400–1500)

Middle Ages or middle age may also refer to:

Medieval or Mediaeval (the adjectival form of "Middle Ages") may refer to:

Middle Ages (TV series)

Middle Ages is an American comedy-drama television series that aired from September 3 until October 1, 1992.

Premise

Residents of a suburb of Chicago deal with their mid-life traumas.

Cast

Episodes

References

External links

Portugal in the Middle Ages

The kingdom of Portugal was established from the county of Portugal in the 1130s, ruled by the Alfonsine Dynasty. During most of the 12th and 13th centuries, its history is chiefly that of the gradual reconquest of territory from the various petty Muslim principalities (taifas) of the period.

This process was essentially complete with the ascension of Afonso III of Portugal, the first to claim the title of King of Portugal and the Algarve. The history of Portugal in the period between the death of Afonso III in 1279 and the beginning of the Portuguese Empire in 1415 includes the succession crisis of 1383 and the subsequent transition from the Portuguese House of Burgundy to the House of Aviz.

Background

Towards the close of the 11th century crusading knights came from every part of Europe to aid the kings of León, Castile and Aragon in fighting the Moors. Among these adventurers was Henry of Burgundy, who, in 1095, married Theresa of León, illegitimate daughter of Alfonso VI of León. The County of Portugal was included in Theresa's dowry. Count Henry ruled as a vassal of Alfonso VI, whose Galician marches were thus secured against any sudden Moorish raid. But in 1109 Alfonso VI died, bequeathing all his territories to his legitimate daughter, Urraca of Castile, and Count Henry at once invaded León, hoping to add it to his own dominions at the expense of his suzerain.

Portugal

Portugal (Portuguese: [puɾtuˈɣaɫ]), officially the Portuguese Republic (Portuguese: República Portuguesa), is a country on the Iberian Peninsula, in southwestern Europe. It is the westernmost country of mainland Europe, being bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east. The Portugal–Spain border is 1,214 km (754 mi) long and considered the longest uninterrupted border within the European Union. The republic also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira, both autonomous regions with their own regional governments.

The land within the borders of current Portugal has been continuously settled and fought over since prehistoric times. The Celts and the Romans were followed by the Visigothic and the Suebi Germanic peoples, who were themselves later invaded by the Moors. These Muslim peoples were eventually expelled during the Christian Reconquista of the peninsula. By 1139, Portugal had established itself as a kingdom independent from León. In the 15th and 16th centuries, as the result of pioneering the Age of Discovery, Portugal expanded Western influence and established the first global empire, becoming one of the world's major economic, political and military powers.

Portugal (disambiguation)

Portugal is a country in southwestern Europe.

Portugal may also refer to:

Similar spellings

See also