<P> In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages (or Medieval period) lasted from the 5th to the 15th century . It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery . The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period . The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages . </P> <P> Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, which had begun in Late Antiquity, continued in the Early Middle Ages . The large - scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire . In the 7th century, North Africa and the Middle East--once part of the Byzantine Empire--came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, an Islamic empire, after conquest by Muhammad's successors . Although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete . The still - sizeable Byzantine Empire, Rome's direct continuation, survived in the Eastern Mediterranean and remained a major power . The empire's law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or "Code of Justinian", was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages . In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions . Monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued . The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th and early 9th century . It covered much of Western Europe but later succumbed to the pressures of internal civil wars combined with external invasions: Vikings from the north, Magyars from the east, and Saracens from the south . </P>

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