Advanced History

Era guide, 500 to 1500

The medieval world: timeline and study guide

The thousand years after Rome saw the rise of Islam, the long life of Byzantium, booming Song China, the Mongol conquests and the growth of kingdoms in Europe and Africa.

Timeline of the medieval world

The medieval world, 500 to 1500
  1. Byzantine Empire330 to 1453
  2. Reign of Justinian527 to 565
  3. Tang dynasty618 to 907
  4. Hijra to Medina622
  5. Umayyad Caliphate661 to 750
  6. Abbasid Caliphate750 to 1258
  7. Charlemagne crowned800
  8. Song dynasty960 to 1279
  9. Norman conquest1066
  10. First Crusade1096 to 1099
  11. Mansa Musa’s pilgrimage1324
  12. Black Death in Europe1347 to 1351
  13. Mongol Empire founded1206
  14. Magna Carta1215
  15. Fall of Constantinople1453
  16. Hundred Years’ War1337 to 1453
  17. Ming dynasty1368 to 1644

On a small screen, swipe the timeline sideways to see all of it.

A world of connected regions

The word "medieval" comes from European history, where it describes the centuries between the end of Roman rule in the west and the Renaissance. For world history it is a rough label. In these centuries, the Islamic world, China and the Indian Ocean trade were at the center of the connected world, and western Europe sat on its edge for much of the period.

Major regions to know

  • Byzantium: the eastern Roman Empire, ruled from Constantinople, which lasted until the Ottoman conquest in 1453. Justinian's law code shaped European law for centuries.
  • The Islamic world: after Muhammad's move to Medina in 622, which begins the Islamic calendar, Arab armies conquered lands from Spain to Central Asia. The Abbasid capital, Baghdad, became a center of learning until the Mongols sacked it in 1258.
  • China: the Tang and Song dynasties saw printing, paper money, gunpowder weapons and a large civil service chosen partly by examination.
  • The Mongols: Genghis Khan united the Mongol tribes in 1206. Within decades his successors ruled the largest land empire the world had then seen.
  • West Africa: the empire of Mali grew rich on gold and trans-Saharan trade. Mansa Musa's pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324 made Mali famous across the Islamic world.
  • Europe: Charlemagne was crowned emperor in 800. Later centuries saw the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the Crusades, the growth of towns and universities, and the Black Death of 1347 to 1351.

Themes that run through the era

Religion and power. Christianity, Islam and Buddhism all shaped states and law. The split between the Latin and Greek churches in 1054 is a frequent topic.

Trade networks. The Silk Roads revived under the Mongols. Indian Ocean routes linked East African city-states such as Kilwa with Arabia, India and China. Trade carried goods, ideas and also disease: the plague that struck Europe in 1347 traveled along these routes.

Knowledge and transmission. Scholars in Baghdad, Cairo and Córdoba translated and extended Greek, Persian and Indian works in mathematics, medicine and astronomy. Many of these texts later reached European universities through Latin translations.

Sources and how we know

Medieval sources include chronicles, charters, tax records, religious texts, travel accounts and archaeology. Travel writers such as Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo are popular with students. Read them with care, as they wrote for particular audiences and sometimes repeated stories they had heard. The primary source guide uses Magna Carta as a worked example.

Practice questions

  • To what extent did the Mongol Empire increase exchange across Eurasia?
  • Compare the role of religion in the Abbasid Caliphate and in Latin Christian Europe.
  • Explain the economic effects of the Black Death in Europe.

Previous era: the ancient world. Next era: early modern, 1450 to 1750.