ABSTRACT
Historians conventionally divide the Middle Ages into three phases: early, high and late. Western society in the early Middle Ages (c. 5001050) was impoverished and relatively primitive. Little monumental architecture survives from that period because later, more prosperous generations replaced the buildings. Aside from liturgical objects and manuscripts, which are important but would rarely be described as beautiful, there is little from before the twelfth century that would impress the ordinary modern observer. In the modern popular imagination, the real 'Middle Ages' is the high Middle Ages (c. 1050-1300), a period that fiction writers and film makers love for its crusades, knights in armour, tournaments, stone castles, cathedrals, stained glass windows, monasteries, illustrated manuscripts, inquisitors and universities. Because the popular media are weak on chronology, they occasionally confuse the phases of the Middle Ages: sometimes Charlemagne, who lived in the early Middle Ages, is shown in crusader's armour or standing on the turret of a fourteenth-century castle. The 'real Middle Ages' of the popular media lasted only about five human lifetimes, from the First Crusade (1096) to the death of Pope Boniface VIII (1304). Because the cultural and religious accomplishments packed into such a relatively brief time were built on a foundation of remarkable growth in population and wealth, it is useful to look briefly at the economic rise of Latin Europe.
