Very strictly speaking, the term “the Middle Ages” refers to Europe and denotes the historical period between the decline in the fifth century and fall in succeeding centuries of the Roman Empire in the West to the fall of Constantinople to the Islamic Ottoman Turks in 1453, or to the beginning of the Renaissance in the fourteenth century. The dates, however, are elastic and have ranged widely between circa 500 and, in the case of England, the accession of Henry VII in 1485 or even Henry VIII in 1509. Other subsections have been introduced: the emotive term Dark Ages for the period between the decline of the Roman Empire and the appearance of vernacular written documents; the Early Middle Ages (the fifth century to ca. 1000); the High Middle Ages (ca. 1000 to the end of the thirteenth century); and the Late Middle Ages (ca. 1400 to around the end of the fifteenth century).
Our present set of icons lived in that medieval age, though not all in the European West. The dates of their historical lives range from King Arthur and Merlin (seen as “real” figures) in the late fifth to mid-sixth century to Sir Thomas More, born in 1478 and executed in 1535, a man who spans and links the medieval and early modern ages. The set is necessarily very selective, and many other figures might have been included, such as Alfred the Great, Thomas
Aquinas, Attila the Hun, Augustine of Hippo, Avicenna and Averroes, Roger Bacon, Frederick Barbarossa, Elizabeth Bathory, El Cid, Giotto, Pope Innocent III, Pope Joan, Kubilai Khan, Murasaki Shikibu, Nostradamus, Saint Patrick, Prester John, Richard the Lionhearted and Saladin, and Minamoto Yoritomo. All can be considered as icons—our limited selection is representative and not all-inclusive.
World History
