1.2 The Old English Period and Middle English Period.doc

The Old English Period and the Middle English Period (449-1485)
(Brief Introduction)
Part one About the Middle Ages (476-1453)
In European history, the thousand-year period following the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century (476 ) is called the Middle Ages. It is so called because it came between ancient times and modern times.
In the latter part of the fourth century the Huns (匈奴)swept into Europe from central Asia, robbing and killing as they came along, and large numbers of the half civilized Germanic tribes such as the Visigoths, the Franks, the Angles and Saxons, and the Vandals fled their homelands in northern Europe and were pushed to cross the Danube river(多瑙河) into the territory of the Roman Empire. In . 476 a Germanic general killed the last Roman emperor and took control of the government. While the Eastern Roman Empire continued, the power of ancient Rome was gone. In its place mushroomed a great many Germanic kingdoms, which in a few hundred years were to grow into the nations known as England, France, Spain, Italy, and Germany. Between the fifth and eleventh centuries, western Europe was the scene of frequent wars and invasions. The political unity had given way to widespread destruction and confusion. Hunger and disease killed many lives; towns and villages fell into ruin and great areas of land lay waste.
During the Medieval times th