Answer:
In Europe, the period after the fall of the Roman Empire until 1500 is commonly called the Middle Ages. This period can be characterized both as a period of chaos and instability and a period of a great increase in instability and order. This époque is divided by the scholars into three periods: an early phase, 500-1000; the central, 1000-1300; and the later, 1300-1500. The following events in the course of the European countries’ development give us a way to state that there was a time of chaos and instability during the period under consideration: The decay of the ancient city-state. Existing before as physical and social units, now they have led to the establishment of the isolated rural estate as a typical form of social and economic organization. The economic and cultural unity of the cities was ruined, only some cities survived as ecclesiastical or political centers. The decline of long-distance trade. As a result, the individual’s needs depended only on locally produced goods. Large-scale pottery manufacture and other major industries that depended on long-distance trade vanished in many countries. Diseases. Assaults from outside Europe carried outbreaks of bubonic plague. As a result, there was a drastic population decline in Europe during the Early Middle Ages. The decline of power by the two the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania. The breakup of the Carolingian Empire. This process was accompanied by the invasions, migrations, and raids of external foes which brought chaos and instability to societies. The start of feudalism in Europe in the High Middle Ages. The long conflicts during the Late Middle Ages (for example, the Hundred Years’ War) strengthened royal control over the kingdoms, whereas the conditions in which peasantry existed were extremely hard. The following factors, on the contrary, brought order to the European society: The collapse of the centralized state (the Roman Empire). This contributed to the established government of law and social order. Conversion of peoples to Christianity. It led to a shift of basic loyalty from the state to religion. Explosion in population during the High Middle Ages. The first sustained urbanization, which resulted from the military and dynastic achievements of this period. The protestant reformation. It formed the shifts in attitude leading to the rise of modern nation-states. The rise of strong centralized monarchial states in Denmark, Sweden, Spain, France, England, Russia, and Germany. The independence of Switzerland and the Republic of Belgium. Carolingian Renaissance.
