TOWARDS A NEW MIDDLE AGES: HISTORICAL PROFILE OF THE MIDDLE AGES
The term Middle Ages designates, historiographically, the well-known historical period which, conventionally, starts from 476 AD. (year of the fall and end of the Western Roman Empire) and ending in 1492 (year in which the new world was discovered). Let’s be clear, these temporal delimitations are purely arbitrary. That is, they were decided by traditional historiography to delimit a very long historical period (about a thousand years) and also very heterogeneous in its various phases. Generally this historical period is divided into two well-defined periods. The High Middle Ages which began in 476 and ended in the year 1000 and the Late Middle Ages which started from the year 1000 until the discovery of the Americas. The “two Middle Ages” represent two very different historical periods. The first, adored by romantic literati, is the period of chivalry, of the economic involution that led to the Curtense economy and the almost absence of monetary circulation, of the rigid social tripartition that distinguished the society of the time into three different “ states” or social classes (oratores, bellatores, and laboratores), to the hierarchical relationships that were strictly feudal which implied the extinction of bureaucratic apparatuses paid by the various Kings and Lords (also impoverished by the possibility of drawing on the tax on trade brought to collapse from the Muslim invasion which made the Mediterranean an insecure sea infested by Saracen piracy) and the replacement of the latter with relations of vassalage which over time would lead, de facto, to the insubordination and rebellion of many subordinates and therefore to a problematic political-administrative decentralization which will greatly weaken the various monarchies of the time. The second is a period of economic rebirth thanks to the revitalization of trade (as a consequence of the repulsion of the Saracens towards the south and east, the annihilation of Muslim piracy in the Mediterranean Sea, the progressive recovery of trade with the East and the creation of capital that allowed investments in technological innovation, the birth of a social class (bourgeoisie) of traders (freed from the feudal agricultural production system) with a strong entrepreneurial spirit, the birth of cities and municipalities that began to undermine the feudal system as well as had taken shape from the 6th and 7th centuries AD. Parallel to these developments was the progressive strengthening of the monarchies of the time which, thanks to the revitalization of trade, were once again able to afford to create a bureaucratic apparatus under their direct control (because it was paid and by the sovereign).This process allowed the start of a slow but inexorable process of political-administrative centralization by the sovereigns of the time throughout Europe and therefore the overcoming of the Curtense economy that had dominated in the early Middle Ages.
TOWARDS A NEW MIDDLE AGES: ONE MIDDLE AGES, MANY MIDDLE AGES.
The Middle Ages or Middle Ages literally means “middle age” and designates an intermediate period between two periods of economic splendor and general development and progress. Given that the opinion in this regard, as we have noticed, is not univocal and even what is considered the darkest part of this historical period had (and still has) great admirers, it is undeniable that the age the middle is considered a great parenthesis in the history of the world and of the West in particular. A parenthesis of economic, political and social involution and regression that plunged much of the world into an obscurantist dynamic that is still not easy to interpret today. It should be noted that what we commonly define as the Middle Ages is not the only Middle Ages in the history of humanity. There is at least one other Middle Ages present in traditional historiography: the Hellenic Middle Ages. Transposed into the historical and geographical context of the south of the Balkan peninsula, its “meaning” is similar to that of “our” Middle Ages (in the sense that it represented a period of involution and regression in the midst of two “flourishing” historical periods).The term Hellenic Middle Ages refers to the period between the invasion of the Dorians (i.e. the Spartans, coming from central-northern Europe) which led to the destruction of the Mycenaean civilization and the formation of the system of Greek poleis. Chronologically this period is included, in principle, between 1200 BC and 800 BC. The period between the collapse of the civilization which had the city of Mycenae as its fulcrum and the birth of the system of Greek Poleis which will be characterized by economic development, the flowering of the arts, the birth of philosophical thought etc. proper to the period of Greek history which goes, approximately, between the 7th and 4th centuries BC. In causes, facts and “evolutionary” dynamics the two periods are almost identical. An invasion of external populations that manages to militarily overwhelm a fruitful advanced civilization and a subsequent period of great instability characterized by a profound political, economic and social involution until the flowering of a new phase of development and progress at every level. In this framework it is clear that the historical function of the Middle Ages seems to have been that of a “temporal interlude”, of a “watershed” between two different flourishing civilizations. Almost a sort of reset after the splendor and excesses that abound especially in the terminal phases of flourishing civilizations when luxury, well-being and affectation of ways and of living delude its rulers into having reached a sort of ” celestial dimension”. In this framework, the historical phase of the periods commonly defined as “Middle Ages” would be necessary in a cyclical vision of human history and civilizations for which each civilization has its own life cycle (which follows that of every living organism on earth) which it leads to being born, then to develop, then to reach an economic, social, political and geopolitical apogee and finally to age and degenerate until its ruin. Every civilization in human history has undergone this development and this destiny. We don’t believe ours will be an exception. Even though we hear discussions about the exclusivity and exceptionality of Western civilization every day.
TOWARDS A NEW MIDDLE AGES: THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF PRECISELY OUTLINE THE PATH OF THE NEW MIDDLE AGES.
If it is highly probable that the world is entering a new Middle Ages, it is not easy to understand what its characteristics will be from an economic, social, political and geopolitical point of view. This is because it is not clear how the ongoing world war will evolve and how it will be won by one of the parties in conflict. Only the development of the war dynamics will be able to enlighten us on what will happen and how the new political and geopolitical structures will take shape. We, unlike many geopolitical analysts (or self-styled ones), do analysis and not propaganda. As has been done repeatedly in the West for two years now (hypothesizing future post bellum structures such as the division of Russia into different macro-regions or the fragmentation of the European Union). Only the winners will be able to create a new geopolitical structure that reflects the existing balance of power once the conflict is over. As did, in a more or less orderly way, the barbarian populations who invaded the Roman Empire and the Dorians in the geographical context of the southern Balkans during the 12th century BC. The only certain thing is that a phase is opening of world history that leads us to a transition from one era to another. Even if the methods of development of this new medieval phase in the history of humanity remain, at the moment, still obscure.