The Middle Ages are broadly divided into three major sections, the early Middle Ages from the fall of the Western Roman Empire till about the year 1,000, the high Middle Ages, which was a high point for the Middle Ages in Europe, which goes from about the year 1,000 to the year 1,300, and then the late Middle Ages, which gets us to the 15th century and is considered not that pleasant of a time to live in Europe. So let's just start with what Europe looked like right after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. So as you can see here, this map is referring to the time period between 476 when Odoacer, or Odoacer, takes over Rome in 493, and you can see the Eastern Roman Empire is still here, but the Western Roman Empire is now fragmented amongst many Germanic kingdoms. You have the Visigoths, you have the Franks, you have the kingdom of Odoacer. With the fall of Rome, we are entering into the early Middle Ages. Now, the Eastern Roman Empire, which considers itself the Roman Empire, it's its capital at Constantinople, under Justinian has a little bit of a last hurrah and is able to recapture the Italian peninsula, so it's able to recapture some of the territory that was formerly part of the Western Roman Empire, some of the territory in North Africa that you don't see on this map, but for the most part, Western Europe stays under the control of various Germanic kingdoms. So here we have fast-forwarded to the year 814, which would be right around here on our timeline, and you can see a major event has occurred, either on the map or on this timeline.