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150-647: Both countries have maintained diplomatic relations since the Middle Ages . The Swiss were able to secure their independence from the House of Habsburg in 1386 by winning the Battle of Sempach , which was followed by a series of other battles during the Swiss-Habsburg Wars for Swiss independence. The Habsburgs, who ruled Austria for more than six centuries, were originally from Aargau , Switzerland, which

300-653: A crisis, and Austria blocked the border with Ticino . The blockade was lifted in 1855. After Austria's defeat in the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, relations became better, partly because there were fears in Switzerland about Prussia after the Neuchâtel Crisis 1856/1857 . A postal and trade agreement was concluded between the two states and a dispute over the course of the Swiss border with Tyrol

450-421: A few families and still others lived on isolated farms spread over the countryside. There were also areas where the pattern was a mix of two or more of those systems. Unlike in the late Roman period, there was no sharp break between the legal status of the free peasant and the aristocrat, and it was possible for a free peasant's family to rise into the aristocracy over several generations through military service to

600-601: A king to rule over them all. By the late sixth century, this arrangement had been replaced by a permanent monarchy, the Kingdom of the Lombards . The invasions brought new ethnic groups to Europe, although some regions received a larger influx of new peoples than others. In Gaul for instance, the invaders settled much more extensively in the north-east than in the south-west. Slavs settled in Central and Eastern Europe and

750-567: A powerful lord. Roman city life and culture changed greatly in the early Middle Ages. Although Italian cities remained inhabited, they contracted significantly in size. Rome, for instance, shrank from a population of hundreds of thousands to around 30,000 by the end of the 6th century. Roman temples were converted into Christian churches and city walls remained in use. In Northern Europe, cities also shrank, while civic monuments and other public buildings were raided for building materials. The establishment of new kingdoms often meant some growth for

900-466: A practical skill rather than a sign of elite status. In the 4th century, Jerome (d. 420) dreamed that God rebuked him for spending more time reading Cicero than the Bible . By the 6th century, Gregory of Tours (d. 594) had a similar dream, but instead of being chastised for reading Cicero, he was chastised for learning shorthand . By the late 6th century, the principal means of religious instruction in

1050-424: A result of rock slides, dynamite explosions, and a few drowned due to water inrushes. Of those that survived, several suffered from serious health issues caused by a hookworm epidemic ( Ancylostoma duodenale ). Medical investigations led to "major advances in parasitology , by way of research into the aetiology, epidemiology and treatment of ancylostomiasis ". During 1875, the workforce went on strike ; this

1200-552: A second team led by M. Koppe via different methodology. During 1871, construction of the Gotthard Tunnel proper commenced. It would take ten years to complete. Boring was commenced from both sides simultaneously, being reliant upon accurate surveying to keep each bore in alignment with one another. Amongst other feats, the boring process involved the first large-scale use of dynamite , a relatively recent innovation that had only been patented in 1867. Another key innovation

1350-474: A small foothold in southern Spain. Justinian's reconquests have been criticised by historians for overextending his realm and setting the stage for the early Muslim conquests , but many of the difficulties faced by Justinian's successors were due not just to over-taxation to pay for his wars but to the essentially civilian nature of the empire, which made raising troops difficult. In the Eastern Empire

1500-454: A testament to the stringent surveying and directing that had been performed throughout the construction phase. The occasion was widely publicised and hailed as a major engineering triumph; the engineer Adolphe Gautier described it at the time as being "the greatest work hitherto attempted by man". Following this milestone, a further two years of construction work continued upon the tunnel. This period of activity largely revolved around removing

1650-620: Is no universally agreed upon end date. Depending on the context, events such as the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, Christopher Columbus 's first voyage to the Americas in 1492, or the Protestant Reformation in 1517 are sometimes used. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period. For Spain, dates commonly used are the death of King Ferdinand II in 1516,

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1800-483: Is reached after approximately eight kilometres (5 mi). After two more kilometers, the border between the cantons of Uri and Ticino is passed; after another five kilometres (3 mi), the tunnel ends at the southern portal near to Airolo (1,142 m or 3,747 ft). The trip takes about seven to eight minutes by train. Services are operated by the Swiss Federal Railways . The origins of

1950-539: The fyrd , which were led by the local elites. In military technology, one of the main changes was the return of the crossbow , which had been known in Roman times and reappeared as a military weapon during the last part of the Early Middle Ages. Another change was the introduction of the stirrup, which increased the effectiveness of cavalry as shock troops. A technological advance that had implications beyond

2100-717: The Alans , Vandals , and Suevi crossed into Gaul ; over the next three years they spread across Gaul and in 409 crossed the Pyrenees Mountains into modern-day Spain. The Migration Period began, when various peoples, initially largely Germanic peoples , moved across Europe. The Franks , Alemanni , and the Burgundians all ended up in northern Gaul while the Angles , Saxons , and Jutes settled in Britain , and

2250-794: The Austrian Empire . Zurich and Tessin favored a tunnel through the Lukmanier , while Basel, Uri and Lucerne tried to prevent this at all means. In 1852, the British supported a tunnel through the Lukmanier massif, but this wasn't realized at the time. Thus in 1853, several Swiss cantons met in Lucerne for a Gotthard Conference. At the conference it was decided to request funds from the Federal Council. which declined alleging that

2400-498: The Austrofascist Engelbert Dollfuß seized power, the political left in Switzerland showed solidarity with the persecuted opposition. Austria's annexation by Nazi Germany in 1938 led to a precarious situation for Switzerland, and thousands of refugees crossed the border into Switzerland. Switzerland then attempted to strengthen its defensive capabilities. However, it was forced to diplomatically recognize

2550-529: The Benedictine Rule for Western monasticism during the 6th century, detailing the administrative and spiritual responsibilities of a community of monks led by an abbot . Monks and monasteries had a deep effect on the religious and political life of the Early Middle Ages, in various cases acting as land trusts for powerful families, centres of propaganda and royal support in newly conquered regions, and bases for missions and proselytisation. They were

2700-775: The Canton of Zürich acquired the villages of Ramsen and Dörflingen from Austria, which later became part of the Canton of Schaffhausen . With the cession of Fricktal and Tarasp (1803) as well as Rhäzüns (1819), the Habsburgs lost their last possessions in Switzerland. After the end of the Napoleonic Wars , Austria recognized Switzerland's independence at the Congress of Vienna . However, relations were strained. Switzerland accepted republican refugees, which displeased reactionary Austria under Metternich , for example in

2850-697: The Carolingian dynasty , briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th and early 9th centuries. 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. During the High Middle Ages, which began after 1000, the population of Europe increased greatly as technological and agricultural innovations allowed trade to flourish and

3000-531: The Desert Fathers of Egypt and Syria . Most European monasteries were of the type that focuses on community experience of the spiritual life, called cenobitism , which was pioneered by Pachomius (d. 348) in the 4th century. Monastic ideals spread from Egypt to Western Europe in the 5th and 6th centuries through hagiographical literature such as the Life of Anthony . Benedict of Nursia (d. 547) wrote

3150-647: The Gotthard Tunnel also strengthened the economic integration of the Alpine regions . The dissolution of Austria-Hungary by the Treaty of Saint-Germain (1919) created ambiguities regarding Switzerland's legal relations with German Austria , for example regarding Austria's national debt to the Swiss. Switzerland therefore recognized the First Republic of Austria only on 9 January 1920, which angered

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3300-584: The Gregorian chant in liturgical music for the churches. An important activity for scholars during this period was the copying, correcting, and dissemination of basic works on religious and secular topics, with the aim of encouraging learning. New works on religious topics and schoolbooks were also produced. Grammarians of the period modified the Latin language, changing it from the Classical Latin of

3450-443: The Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia from Switzerland to support the uprising there against Austrian rule. Overall, relations in the first half of the 19th century were mixed, as both sides distrusted each other. There was also little economic exchange, as the road connections between the two countries were hardly developed and a protectionist economic policy was pursued. The admission of Italian refugees from Milan in 1853 again led to

3600-714: The Macedonian dynasty . Commerce revived and the emperors oversaw the extension of a uniform administration to all the provinces. The military was reorganised, which allowed the emperors John I (r. 969–976) and Basil II (r. 976–1025) to expand the frontiers of the empire on all fronts. The imperial court was the centre of a revival of classical learning, a process known as the Macedonian Renaissance . Writers such as John Geometres ( fl. early 10th century) composed new hymns, poems, and other works. Missionary efforts by both Eastern and Western clergy resulted in

3750-486: The Medieval Warm Period climate change allowed crop yields to increase. Manorialism , the organisation of peasants into villages that owed rent and labour services to the nobles , and feudalism , the political structure whereby knights and lower-status nobles owed military service to their overlords in return for the right to rent from lands and manors , were two of the ways society was organized in

3900-700: 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 . Population decline , counterurbanisation , the collapse of centralized authority, invasions, and mass migrations of tribes , which had begun in Late Antiquity , continued into

4050-659: The United Kingdom refused to aid him. During the Sonderbund War of 1847, Metternich supported the conservative and Catholic camp, and Austria provided 100,000 guilders to the Sonderbund . However, due to the onset of the revolutions of 1848/1849 , the Austrians were no longer able to intervene effectively, as other problems had become more pressing. To Austria's displeasure, arms and soldiers reached

4200-448: The post-war boom . A free trade agreement between Switzerland and Austria was established in 1972. Cooperation between the two countries was also very close in other areas, and by 2008 the two countries had concluded more than 80 bilateral agreements. For Switzerland, Austria is one of the most important trading partners. In 2022, Austria was Switzerland's seventh most important trading partner in terms of trade volume. In 2021, Switzerland

4350-468: The 17th-century German historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods: ancient, medieval, and modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is around 500, with the date of 476 first used by Bruni. Later starting dates are sometimes used in the outer parts of Europe. For Europe as a whole, 1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there

4500-609: The 1820s when numerous persecutes from Turin and Naples found asylum in Switzerland, where Austria had put down uprisings. In 1823, after Austria threatened to invade, Switzerland was forced to adopt a law, which included surveillance of the domestic press and restrictions on the right of asylum. After the start of the Regeneration period in 1830 and the end of the Restoration in Switzerland, Metternich wanted again to launch an attack on Switzerland in 1832, but France and

4650-478: The 5th and the 7th centuries, going first to England and Scotland and then on to the continent. Under such monks as Columba (d. 597) and Columbanus (d. 615), they founded monasteries, taught in Latin and Greek, and authored secular and religious works. The Early Middle Ages witnessed the rise of monasticism in the West. The shape of European monasticism was determined by traditions and ideas that originated with

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4800-731: The 5th century. The Eastern Empire was marked by closer relations between the political state and Christian Church, with doctrinal matters assuming an importance in Eastern politics that they did not have in Western Europe. Legal developments included the codification of Roman law ; the first effort—the Codex Theodosianus —was completed in 438. Under Emperor Justinian (r. 527–565), another compilation took place—the Corpus Juris Civilis . Justinian also oversaw

4950-685: The 6th and 7th centuries, all of them ruled by the Merovingian dynasty, who were descended from Clovis. The 7th century was a tumultuous period of wars between Austrasia and Neustria. Such warfare was exploited by Pippin (d. 640), the Mayor of the Palace for Austrasia who became the power behind the Austrasian throne. Later members of his family inherited the office, acting as advisers and regents. One of his descendants, Charles Martel (d. 741), won

5100-651: The Arabs. The migrations and invasions of the 4th and 5th centuries disrupted trade networks around the Mediterranean. African goods stopped being imported into Europe, first disappearing from the interior and by the 7th century found only in a few cities such as Rome or Naples . By the end of the 7th century, under the impact of the Muslim conquests , African products were no longer found in Western Europe. The replacement of goods from long-range trade with local products

5250-562: The Austrians. In Vorarlberg , the population also demanded annexation to Switzerland in a referendum in 1919, which was rejected by Switzerland because of the change in the linguistic and confessional balance in Switzerland that would have occurred. The numerous disputes between Austria and Switzerland were not settled until 1925 and 1927, respectively, with the conclusion of treaties, so that diplomatic relations normalized. The rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany caused alarm in Switzerland. After

5400-536: The Bald received the western Frankish lands, comprising most of modern-day France. Charlemagne's grandsons and great-grandsons divided their kingdoms between their descendants, eventually causing all internal cohesion to be lost. In 987 the Carolingian dynasty was replaced in the western lands, with the crowning of Hugh Capet (r. 987–996) as king. In the eastern lands the dynasty had died out earlier, in 911, with

5550-623: The Balkan Peninsula. The settlement of peoples was accompanied by changes in languages. Latin , the literary language of the Western Roman Empire, was gradually replaced by vernacular languages which evolved from Latin, but were distinct from it, collectively known as Romance languages . These changes from Latin to the new languages took many centuries. Greek remained the language of the Byzantine Empire, but

5700-643: The Battle of Poitiers in 732, halting the advance of Muslim armies across the Pyrenees. Great Britain was divided into small states dominated by the kingdoms of Northumbria , Mercia , Wessex , and East Anglia which descended from the Anglo-Saxon invaders. Smaller kingdoms in present-day Wales and Scotland were still under the control of the native Britons and Picts . Ireland was divided into even smaller political units, usually known as tribal kingdoms, under

5850-577: The Byzantine Empire, as the assumption of the imperial title by the Carolingians asserted their equivalence to the Byzantine state. There were several differences between the newly established Carolingian Empire and both the older Western Roman Empire and the concurrent Byzantine Empire. The Frankish lands were rural in character, with only a few small cities. Most of the people were peasants settled on small farms. Little trade existed and much of that

6000-523: The Byzantine Empire, which he sealed with the marriage of his son Otto II (r. 967–983) to Theophanu (d. 991), daughter of an earlier Byzantine Emperor Romanos II (r. 959–963). By the late 10th century Italy had been drawn into the Ottonian sphere after a period of instability; Otto III (r. 996–1002) spent much of his later reign in the kingdom. The western Frankish kingdom was more fragmented, and although kings remained nominally in charge, much of

6150-648: The Christian period as nova (or "new"). Petrarch regarded the post-Roman centuries as " dark " compared to the "light" of classical antiquity . Leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People (1442), with a middle period "between the fall of the Roman Empire and the revival of city life sometime in late eleventh and twelfth centuries". Tripartite periodisation became standard after

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6300-660: The Church had widened to the extent that the cultural and religious differences were greater than the similarities. The formal break, known as the East–West Schism , came in 1054, when the papacy and the patriarchy of Constantinople clashed over papal supremacy and excommunicated each other, which led to the division of Christianity into two Churches—the Western branch became the Roman Catholic Church and

6450-499: The Church had become music and art rather than the book. Most intellectual efforts went towards imitating classical scholarship, but some original works were created, along with now-lost oral compositions. The writings of Sidonius Apollinaris (d. 489), Cassiodorus (d. c.  585 ), and Boethius (d. c. 525) were typical of the age. Changes also took place among laymen, as aristocratic culture focused on great feasts held in halls rather than on literary pursuits. Clothing for

6600-704: The Dnieper River in modern Ukraine to the Adriatic Sea. By 1018, the last Bulgarian nobles had surrendered to the Byzantine Empire. Few large stone buildings were constructed between the Constantinian basilicas of the 4th century and the 8th century, although many smaller ones were built during the 6th and 7th centuries. By the beginning of the 8th century, the Carolingian Empire revived the basilica form of architecture. One feature of

6750-585: The Early Middle Ages are mostly illuminated manuscripts and carved ivories , originally made for metalwork that has since been melted down. Objects in precious metals were the most prestigious form of art, but almost all are lost except for a few crosses such as the Cross of Lothair , several reliquaries , and finds such as the Anglo-Saxon burial at Sutton Hoo and the hoards of Gourdon from Merovingian France, Guarrazar from Visigothic Spain and Nagyszentmiklós near Byzantine territory. There are survivals from

6900-715: 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,

7050-455: The Eastern branch the Eastern Orthodox Church . The ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Empire survived the movements and invasions in the west mostly intact, but the papacy was little regarded, and few of the Western bishops looked to the bishop of Rome for religious or political leadership. Many of the popes prior to 750 were more concerned with Byzantine affairs and Eastern theological controversies. The register, or archived copies of

7200-427: The Eastern emperors to pay tribute. They remained a strong power until 796. An additional problem to face the empire came as a result of the involvement of Emperor Maurice (r. 582–602) in Persian politics when he intervened in a succession dispute . This led to a period of peace, but when Maurice was overthrown, the Persians invaded and during the reign of Emperor Heraclius (r. 610–641) controlled large chunks of

7350-436: The European population remained rural peasants. Many were no longer settled in isolated farms but had gathered into small communities, usually known as manors or villages. These peasants were often subject to noble overlords and owed them rents and other services, in a system known as manorialism . There remained a few free peasants throughout this period and beyond, with more of them in the regions of Southern Europe than in

7500-441: The Frankish King Charles the Simple (r. 898–922) to settle in what became Normandy . The eastern parts of the Frankish kingdoms, especially Germany and Italy, were under continual Magyar assault until the invader's defeat at the Battle of Lechfeld in 955. The breakup of the Abbasid dynasty meant that the Islamic world fragmented into smaller political states, some of which began expanding into Italy and Sicily, as well as over

7650-466: The Franks and Celtic Britons set up small polities. Francia was centred in northern Gaul, and the first king of whom much is known is Childeric I (d. 481). His grave was discovered in 1653 and is remarkable for its grave goods , which included weapons and a large quantity of gold. Under Childeric's son Clovis I (r. 509–511), the founder of the Merovingian dynasty , the Frankish kingdom expanded and converted to Christianity. The Britons, related to

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7800-425: The German tried to annex all of East Francia. Louis the Pious died in 840, with the empire still in chaos. A three-year civil war followed his death. By the Treaty of Verdun (843), a kingdom between the Rhine and Rhone rivers was created for Lothair to go with his lands in Italy, and his imperial title was recognised. Louis the German was in control of Bavaria and the eastern lands in modern-day Germany. Charles

7950-420: The Gotthard Road Tunnel following a fatal fire caused by a collision in 2001. The adjacent ramps include several turn tunnels (see Table of turn tunnels). While a triumph of its era and an example of pioneering engineering, the Gotthard Tunnel was considered to be relatively slow to traverse by twentieth century standards, leading to talk of building a superior successor tunnel as early as the 1940s. During 1980,

8100-412: The Gotthard Tunnel and its construction can be traced back to the widely-felt desire to improve interconnectivity between the European nations. Even prior to the scheme's commencement, such a tunnel had been envisioned as a necessary but singular element of a wider railway network that would connect the North Sea and the Mediterranean Sea together, opening up new commercial opportunities by facilitating

8250-431: The Great (d. 526) and set up a kingdom marked by its co-operation between the Italians and the Ostrogoths, at least until the last years of Theodoric's reign. The Burgundians settled in Gaul, and after an earlier realm was destroyed by the Huns in 436, formed a new kingdom in the 440s. Between today's Geneva and Lyon , it grew to become the realm of Burgundy in the late 5th and early 6th centuries. Elsewhere in Gaul,

8400-438: The High Middle Ages. This period also saw the collapse of the unified Christian church, with the East-West Schism of 1054 . The Crusades , first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims . Kings became the heads of centralised nation-states , reducing crime and violence but making the ideal of a unified Christendom more distant. Intellectual life

8550-445: The Italian border. According to Gautier, at the time of the tunnel's construction, there were proposal to operate trains hauled by atmospheric locomotives through the tunnel; however, he voiced his scepticism over the value of doing so in comparison to the additional work that would need to be performed to facilitate such rolling stock being operated. There were also some concerns over the tunnel's ventilation being sufficient considering

8700-403: The Italian peninsula was conquered by the Ostrogoths . The Eastern Roman Empire, often referred to as the Byzantine Empire after the fall of its western counterpart, had little ability to assert control over the lost western territories. The Byzantine emperors maintained a claim over the territory, but while none of the new kings in the west dared to elevate himself to the position of emperor of

8850-619: The Late Middle Ages and beginning the early modern period . The Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history : classical civilisation or Antiquity , the Middle Ages and the Modern Period . The "Middle Ages" first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or "middle season". In early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum , or "middle age", first recorded in 1604, and media saecula , or "middle centuries", first recorded in 1625. The adjective "medieval" (or sometimes "mediaeval" or "mediæval"), meaning pertaining to

9000-439: The Lombards, which freed the papacy from the fear of Lombard conquest and marked the beginnings of the Papal States . The coronation of Charlemagne as emperor on Christmas Day 800 is regarded as a turning point in medieval history, marking a return of the Western Roman Empire, since the new emperor ruled over much of the area previously controlled by the Western emperors. It also marks a change in Charlemagne's relationship with

9150-405: The Mediterranean, pottery remained prevalent and appears to have been traded over medium-range networks, not just produced locally. The various Germanic states in the west all had coinages that imitated existing Roman and Byzantine forms. Gold continued to be minted until the end of the 7th century in 693-94 when it was replaced by silver in the Merovingian kingdom. The basic Frankish silver coin

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9300-411: The Middle Ages, derives from medium aevum . Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the " Six Ages " or the " Four Empires ", and considered their time to be the last before the end of the world. When referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being "modern". In the 1330s, the Italian humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua (or "ancient") and to

9450-496: The Middle East than Europe, losing control of sections of the Muslim lands. Umayyad descendants took over the Iberian Peninsula, the Aghlabids controlled North Africa, and the Tulunids became rulers of Egypt. By the middle of the 8th century, new trading patterns were emerging in the Mediterranean; trade between the Franks and the Arabs replaced the old Roman economy . Franks traded timber, furs, swords and slaves in return for silks and other fabrics, spices, and precious metals from

9600-501: The Pyrenees into the southern parts of the Frankish kingdoms. Efforts by local kings to fight the invaders led to the formation of new political entities. In Anglo-Saxon England , King Alfred the Great (r. 871–899) came to an agreement with the Viking invaders in the late 9th century, resulting in Danish settlements in Northumbria, Mercia, and parts of East Anglia. By the middle of the 10th century, Alfred's successors had conquered Northumbria, and restored English control over most of

9750-415: The Rhine and eastwards, leaving Charles West Francia with the empire to the west of the Rhineland and the Alps. Louis the German (d. 876), the middle child, who had been rebellious to the last, was allowed to keep Bavaria under the suzerainty of his elder brother. The division was disputed. Pepin II of Aquitaine (d. after 864), the emperor's grandson, rebelled in a contest for Aquitaine , while Louis

9900-515: The Roman Empire into a more flexible form to fit the needs of the Church and government. By the reign of Charlemagne, the language had so diverged from the classical Latin that it was later called Medieval Latin . Charlemagne planned to continue the Frankish tradition of dividing his kingdom between all his heirs, but was unable to do so as only one son, Louis the Pious (r. 814–840), was still alive by 813. Just before Charlemagne died in 814, he crowned Louis as his successor. Louis's reign of 26 years

10050-443: The Romans and the invaders are often similar, and tribal items were often modelled on Roman objects. Much of the scholarly and written culture of the new kingdoms was also based on Roman intellectual traditions. An important difference was the gradual loss of tax revenue by the new polities. Many of the new political entities no longer supported their armies through taxes, instead relying on granting them land or rents. This meant there

10200-423: The Vandals went on to cross the strait of Gibraltar after which they conquered the province of Africa . In the 430s the Huns began invading the empire; their king Attila (r. 434–453) led invasions into the Balkans in 442 and 447, Gaul in 451, and Italy in 452. The Hunnic threat remained until Attila's death in 453, when the Hunnic confederation he led fell apart. These invasions by the tribes completely changed

10350-455: The West were not uniform; some areas had greatly fragmented landholding patterns, but in other areas large contiguous blocks of land were the norm. These differences allowed for a wide variety of peasant societies, some dominated by aristocratic landholders and others having a great deal of autonomy. Land settlement also varied greatly. Some peasants lived in large settlements that numbered as many as 700 inhabitants. Others lived in small groups of

10500-453: The acceptance of figurative monumental sculpture in Christian art , and by the end of the period near life-sized figures such as the Gero Cross were common in important churches. During the later Roman Empire, the principal military developments were attempts to create an effective cavalry force as well as the continued development of highly specialised types of troops. The creation of heavily armoured cataphract -type soldiers as cavalry

10650-455: The aid that the Swiss provided to Austria. In 1955, Austria finally regained its sovereignty and became a neutral state on the model of Switzerland. Austrian neutrality was distinguished by a more active foreign policy during the Cold War , and in 1979 Vienna competed with Bern for the site as the third UN headquarters, with Vienna prevailing. Austria became closely integrated into the European economy and Switzerland also benefited from

10800-541: The annexation of Austria due to Germany's overwhelming power. After the end of the Second World War , Switzerland provided Austria with humanitarian aid in the form of donations amounting to at least 53.5 million Swiss francs . The Second Republic of Austria was proclaimed on 27 April 1945, and recognized by Switzerland on 2 November. Soon after, diplomatic missions were established, and close relations were built even before Austria's sovereignty, strengthened by

10950-417: The basilica is the use of a transept , or the "arms" of a cross-shaped building that are perpendicular to the long nave . Other new features of religious architecture include the crossing tower and a monumental entrance to the church , usually at the west end of the building. Carolingian art was produced for a small group of figures around the court, and the monasteries and churches they supported. It

11100-471: The best drills being blunted and greatly slowing the rate of advancement, sometimes to as little as one meter per day. There was also a section of entirely disaggregated bedrock encountered, which could only be cleared using traditional manual techniques, which came with the risk of potential collapse. To attain sufficient clearance for the running of trains, the ceiling was vaulted following the completion of advanced boring. The conditions present in either of

11250-441: The bores were thoroughly inhospitable during the tunnel's construction, particularly in the bore driven from Airolo, where vapours were persistently present throughout the work. They were also hazardous; in one major accident alone, around 200 workers (the exact number is not known) were killed largely by the compressed air-driven trains that were used to carry excavated material out of the tunnel; other tunnel workers were killed as

11400-522: The bores. Air was compressed by water-driven pumps and stored in cooled reservoirs prior to use; as the air pipes traversed greater and greater distances, the diameter of the pipes used was increased in order to maintain pressure. To reduce the heat of the rock during drilling, water jets were routinely used to cool the rockface. While the geology encountered typically comprised rocks of sufficient hardness for mechanical drilling to be used, those of exceptional hardness were often encountered, resulting in even

11550-632: 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 the 11th century. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions. Monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks , under

11700-498: The challenging conditions encountered during construction, but it was believed that these would settle during routine operations without the need for extensive intervention. During 1909, the Gotthardbahn was integrated into the Swiss Federal Railways . On 18 October 1920, the first electric trains were run through the Gotthard Tunnel. Initially, the voltage had to be reduced from the desired 15 kilovolts to 7.5 kV , because

11850-407: The city of Byzantium as the newly renamed eastern capital, Constantinople . Diocletian's reforms strengthened the governmental bureaucracy, reformed taxation, and strengthened the army, which bought the empire time but did not resolve the problems it was facing: excessive taxation, a declining birthrate, and pressures on its frontiers, among others. Civil war between rival emperors became common in

12000-599: The conquest of North Africa sundered maritime connections between those areas. Increasingly, the Byzantine Church differed in language, practices, and liturgy from the Western Church. The Eastern Church used Greek instead of the Western Latin. Theological and political differences emerged, and by the early and middle 8th century issues such as iconoclasm , clerical marriage , and state control of

12150-798: The construction of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople and the reconquest of North Africa from the Vandals and Italy from the Ostrogoths, under Belisarius (d. 565). The conquest of Italy was not complete, as a deadly outbreak of plague in 542 led to the rest of Justinian's reign concentrating on defensive measures rather than further conquests. At the Emperor's death, the Byzantines had control of most of Italy , North Africa, and

12300-551: The control of kings. There were perhaps as many as 150 local kings in Ireland, of varying importance. The Carolingian dynasty , as the successors to Charles Martel are known, officially took control of the kingdoms of Austrasia and Neustria in a coup of 753 led by Pippin III (r. 752–768). A contemporary chronicle claims that Pippin sought, and gained, authority for this coup from Pope Stephen II (pope 752–757). Pippin's takeover

12450-638: The conversion of the Moravians , Bulgars , Bohemians , Poles , Magyars, and Slavic inhabitants of the Kievan Rus' . These conversions contributed to the founding of political states in the lands of those peoples—the states of Moravia , Bulgaria , Bohemia , Poland , Hungary, and the Kievan Rus'. Bulgaria, which was founded around 680, at its height reached from Budapest to the Black Sea and from

12600-543: The country of Liechtenstein and parts of Southern Germany cooperate as part of the European Bodensee region . Middle Ages In the history of Europe , the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the Post-classical period of global history . It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into

12750-753: The death of Louis the Child , and the selection of the unrelated Conrad I (r. 911–918) as king. The breakup of the Carolingian Empire was accompanied by invasions, migrations, and raids by external foes. The Atlantic and northern shores were harassed by the Vikings , who also raided the British Isles and settled there as well as in Iceland. In 911, the Viking chieftain Rollo (d. c. 931) received permission from

12900-401: The death of Queen Isabella I of Castile in 1504, or the conquest of Granada in 1492. Historians from Romance-speaking countries tend to divide the Middle Ages into two parts: an earlier "High" and later "Low" period. English-speaking historians, following their German counterparts, generally subdivide the Middle Ages into three intervals: "Early", "High", and "Late". In the 19th century,

13050-578: The disorder, was killed fighting the Goths at the Battle of Adrianople on 9 August 378. In addition to the threat from such tribal confederacies in the north, internal divisions within the empire, especially within the Christian Church, caused problems. In 400, the Visigoths invaded the Western Roman Empire and, although briefly forced back from Italy, in 410 sacked the city of Rome . In 406

13200-442: The early Carolingian period, with a growing dominance of elite heavy cavalry. The use of militia-type levies of the free population declined over the Carolingian period. Although much of the Carolingian armies were mounted, a large proportion during the early period appear to have been mounted infantry , rather than true cavalry. One exception was Anglo-Saxon England, where the armies were still composed of regional levies, known as

13350-531: The elites was richly embellished with jewels and gold. Lords and kings supported entourages of fighters who formed the backbone of the military forces. Family ties within the elites were important, as were the virtues of loyalty, courage, and honour. These ties led to the prevalence of the feud in aristocratic society, examples of which included those related by Gregory of Tours that took place in Merovingian Gaul. Most feuds seem to have ended quickly with

13500-591: The emergence of Islam in Arabia during the lifetime of Muhammad (d. 632). After his death, Islamic forces conquered much of the Eastern Roman Empire and Persia, starting with Syria in 634–635, continuing with Persia between 637 and 642, reaching Egypt in 640–641, North Africa in the later seventh century, and the Iberian Peninsula in 711. By 714, Islamic forces controlled much of

13650-455: The empire than tax-payers. The Emperor Diocletian (r. 284–305) split the empire into separately administered eastern and western halves in 286; the empire was not considered divided by its inhabitants or rulers, as legal and administrative promulgations in one division were considered valid in the other. In 330, after a period of civil war, Constantine the Great (r. 306–337) refounded

13800-573: The empire to Christianity , a gradual process that lasted from the 2nd to the 5th centuries. In 376, the Goths , fleeing from the Huns , received permission from Emperor Valens (r. 364–378) to settle in the Roman province of Thracia in the Balkans . The settlement did not go smoothly, and when Roman officials mishandled the situation, the Goths began to raid and plunder. Valens, attempting to put down

13950-447: The empire, including Egypt, Syria, and Anatolia until Heraclius' successful counterattack. In 628 the empire secured a peace treaty and recovered all of its lost territories. In Western Europe, some of the older Roman elite families died out while others became more involved with ecclesiastical than secular affairs. Values attached to Latin scholarship and education mostly disappeared, and while literacy remained important, it became

14100-486: The empire. Such movements were aided by the refusal of the Western Roman elites to support the army or pay the taxes that would have allowed the military to suppress the migration. The emperors of the 5th century were often controlled by military strongmen such as Stilicho (d. 408), Aetius (d. 454), Aspar (d. 471), Ricimer (d. 472), or Gundobad (d. 516), who were partly or fully of non-Roman background. When

14250-454: The entire Middle Ages were often referred to as the " Dark Ages ", but with the adoption of these subdivisions, use of this term was restricted to the Early Middle Ages, at least among historians. The Roman Empire reached its greatest territorial extent during the 2nd century AD; the following two centuries witnessed the slow decline of Roman control over its outlying territories. Economic issues, including inflation, and external pressure on

14400-412: The excess spoil and the completion of its masonry. These finishing works were considered to be relatively low risk compared with the preceding boring that had taken so long, and was actually easier to complete than the approach lines to meet with either end of the tunnel. On 1 January 1882, the Gotthard Tunnel was opened for traffic for the first time. The opening drew substantial international attention;

14550-426: The final bid submitted by the Swiss engineer Louis Favre was selected as the best offer, receiving a contract to build the tunnel with an estimated cost of 2830 Swiss francs per meter. As a consequence of the relatively low bid, which contrasted poorly against the additional costs that were incurred during construction, Favre increasingly found himself at odds with Swiss politicians and investors alike. Even prior to

14700-635: The frontiers combined to create the Crisis of the Third Century , with emperors coming to the throne only to be rapidly replaced by new usurpers. Military expenses increased steadily during the 3rd century, mainly in response to the war with the Sasanian Empire , which revived in the middle of the 3rd century. The army doubled in size, and cavalry and smaller units replaced the Roman legion as

14850-552: The grime deposited on the insulators by the steam locomotives encouraged excessive arcing . However, in May the next year, steam was replaced entirely by electric traction, and the problem of soot and grime was eliminated. During 1932, a memorial for those workers who had died during the tunnel's construction was erected close to the station building at Airolo. The memorial contains a relief produced by Vincenzo Vela from 1882/1883, titled "Vittime del lavoro" (Victims of labour). Until

15000-451: The imperial officials called missi dominici , who served as roving inspectors and troubleshooters. Charlemagne's court in Aachen was the centre of the cultural revival sometimes referred to as the " Carolingian Renaissance ". Literacy increased, as did development in the arts, architecture and jurisprudence, as well as liturgical and scriptural studies. The English monk Alcuin (d. 804)

15150-415: The king of the united Austrasia and Neustria. Charles, more often known as Charles the Great or Charlemagne , embarked upon a programme of systematic expansion in 774 that unified a large portion of Europe, eventually controlling modern-day France, northern Italy, and Saxony . In the wars that lasted beyond 800, he rewarded allies with war booty and command over parcels of land. In 774, Charlemagne conquered

15300-679: The large brooches in fibula or penannular form that were a key piece of personal adornment for elites, including the Irish Tara Brooch . Highly decorated books were mostly Gospel Books and these have survived in larger numbers , including the Insular Book of Kells , the Book of Lindisfarne , and the imperial Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram , which is one of the few to retain its " treasure binding " of gold encrusted with jewels. Charlemagne's court seems to have been responsible for

15450-659: The law prohibited the state from financially supporting private railways. But the Federal Councillor Josef Martin Knüsel supported the realization of the Gotthard Tunnel and was against the Lukmanier route. Accordingly, the Gotthard Railway Company was established in 1871 to develop such a route, the company being initially operated under the stewardship of the accomplished Swiss industrialist Alfred Escher . Prior to its formation, surveys had been conducted that determined

15600-528: The letters, of Pope Gregory the Great (pope 590–604) survived, and of those more than 850 letters, the vast majority were concerned with affairs in Italy or Constantinople. The only part of Western Europe where the papacy had influence was Britain, where Gregory had sent the Gregorian mission in 597 to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. Irish missionaries were most active in Western Europe between

15750-417: The line of Western emperors ceased, many of the kings who replaced them were from the same background. Intermarriage between the new kings and the Roman elites was common. This led to a fusion of Roman culture with the customs of the invading tribes, including the popular assemblies that allowed free male tribal members more say in political matters than was common in the Roman state. Material artefacts left by

15900-517: The main and sometimes only outposts of education and literacy in a region. Many of the surviving manuscripts of the Latin classics were copied in monasteries in the Early Middle Ages. Monks were also the authors of new works, including history, theology, and other subjects, written by authors such as Bede (d. 735), a native of northern England who wrote in the late 7th and early 8th centuries. The Frankish kingdom in northern Gaul split into kingdoms called Austrasia , Neustria , and Burgundy during

16050-410: The main tactical unit. The need for revenue led to increased taxes and a decline in numbers of the curial , or landowning, class, and decreasing numbers of them willing to shoulder the burdens of holding office in their native towns. More bureaucrats were needed in the central administration to deal with the needs of the army, which led to complaints from civilians that there were more tax-collectors in

16200-467: The middle of the 4th century, diverting soldiers from the empire's frontier forces and allowing invaders to encroach. For much of the 4th century, Roman society stabilised in a new form that differed from the earlier classical period , with a widening gulf between the rich and poor, and a decline in the vitality of the smaller towns. Another change was the Christianisation , or conversion of

16350-543: The migrations of the Slavs added Slavic languages to Eastern Europe. As Western Europe witnessed the formation of new kingdoms, the Eastern Roman Empire remained intact and experienced an economic revival that lasted into the early 7th century. There were fewer invasions of the eastern section of the empire; most occurred in the Balkans. Peace with the Sasanian Empire , the traditional enemy of Rome, lasted throughout most of

16500-464: The military was the horseshoe , which allowed horses to be used in rocky terrain. The High Middle Ages was a period of tremendous expansion of population . The estimated population of Europe grew from 35 to 80 million between 1000 and 1347, although the exact causes remain unclear: improved agricultural techniques, the decline of slaveholding, a more clement climate and the lack of invasion have all been suggested. As much as 90 per cent of

16650-554: The movement of goods and people between the ports of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany with those of Northern Italy, along with many of the major inland cities lying in between. To achieve this, it was necessary for the line to traverse the Alps around its most central point. Of all possible routes, Gotthard had historically been a favoured one for the passage of travellers by foot or packhorse . But several other locations where

16800-786: The natives of Britannia  – modern-day Great Britain – settled in what is now Brittany . Other monarchies were established by the Visigothic Kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula , the Suebi in northwestern Iberia, and the Vandal Kingdom in North Africa . In the sixth century, the Lombards settled in Northern Italy , replacing the Ostrogothic kingdom with a grouping of duchies that occasionally selected

16950-475: The neighbouring Gotthard Road Tunnel was opened; by 2016, it was reportedly being used to convey around one million freight lorries each year. A second railway tunnel, the Gotthard Base Tunnel , was opened on 1 June 2016 after 17 years of construction; in comparison, it is considerably longer (57.1 km; namely the world's longest railway tunnel) and at an about 500 m lower elevation than

17100-532: The north. The practice of assarting , or bringing new lands into production by offering incentives to the peasants who settled them, also contributed to the expansion of population. Gotthard Tunnel The Gotthard Tunnel ( German : Gotthardtunnel , Italian : Galleria del San Gottardo ) is a 15-kilometre-long (9.3 mi) railway tunnel that forms the summit of the Gotthard Railway in Switzerland. It connects Göschenen with Airolo and

17250-408: The onset of construction activity, the location of the tunnel presented challenges that exceeded those of the earlier Fréjus Rail Tunnel; due to both the steepness and height of the summits, surveys using direct observation were impossible, thus more complex indirect techniques combining triangulation and accurate cartography were performed by a team headed by M. Gelpke, and subsequently confirmed by

17400-668: The opening of the Gotthard Road Tunnel in 1980, the Swiss Federal Railways offered car shuttle train services for cars and trucks through the Gotthard Tunnel. Today, that service exists as the rolling highway from the German to the Italian border and aims to reduce truck traffic on Swiss expressways. An improvisational piggyback service from Göschenen to Airolo was offered during the two-month closure of

17550-480: The optimum locations for either end of the prospective tunnel to be at Göschenen and Airolo . Initially, there were difficulties encountered in securing sufficient finance for the project; accordingly the financing was distributed among a wide variety of private and public investors from Switzerland (20M CHF), Italy (45M CHF) and the German Empire (20M CHF). The confidence of both investors and engineers

17700-545: The payment of some sort of compensation . Women took part in aristocratic society mainly in their roles as wives and mothers of men, with the role of mother of a ruler being especially prominent in Merovingian Gaul. In Anglo-Saxon society the lack of many child rulers meant a lesser role for women as queen mothers, but this was compensated for by the increased role played by abbesses of monasteries. Only in Italy does it appear that women were always considered under

17850-640: The peninsula in a region they called Al-Andalus . The Islamic conquests reached their peak in the mid-eighth century. The defeat of Muslim forces at the Battle of Tours in 732 led to the reconquest of southern France by the Franks, but the main reason for the halt of Islamic growth in Europe was the overthrow of the Umayyad Caliphate and its replacement by the Abbasid Caliphate . The Abbasids moved their capital to Baghdad and were more concerned with

18000-408: The political and demographic nature of what had been the Western Roman Empire. By the end of the 5th century the western section of the empire was divided into smaller political units, ruled by the tribes that had invaded in the early part of the century. The deposition of the last emperor of the west, Romulus Augustulus , in 476 has traditionally marked the end of the Western Roman Empire. By 493

18150-532: The political power devolved to the local lords. Missionary efforts to Scandinavia during the 9th and 10th centuries helped strengthen the growth of kingdoms such as Sweden , Denmark , and Norway , which gained power and territory. Some kings converted to Christianity, although not all by 1000. Scandinavians also expanded and colonised throughout Europe. Besides the settlements in Ireland, England, and Normandy, further settlement took place in what became Russia and Iceland . Swedish traders and raiders ranged down

18300-542: The president of Switzerland, Simeon Bavier , praised the project and declare it to be: "A triumph of art and science, a monument to work and diligence! The barrier which divided nations has fallen, the Swiss Alps have been breached. Countries have moved closer to each other, the world market is open!". Initially, the tunnel was operated by the private railway company Gotthardbahn, which ran conventional trains drawn by steam locomotives between Lucerne and Chiasso at

18450-419: The protection and control of a male relative. Peasant society is much less documented than the nobility. Most of the surviving information available to historians comes from archaeology ; few detailed written records documenting peasant life remain from before the 9th century. Most of the descriptions of the lower classes come from either law codes or writers from the upper classes. Landholding patterns in

18600-525: The rivers of the Russian steppe, and even attempted to seize Constantinople in 860 and 907 . Christian Spain, initially driven into a small section of the peninsula in the north, expanded slowly south during the 9th and 10th centuries, establishing the kingdoms of Asturias and León . In Eastern Europe, Byzantium revived its fortunes under Emperor Basil I (r. 867–886) and his successors Leo VI (r. 886–912) and Constantine VII (r. 913–959), members of

18750-668: The slow infiltration of the Balkans by the Slavs added a further difficulty for Justinian's successors. It began gradually, but by the late 540s Slavic tribes were in Thrace and Illyrium , and had defeated an imperial army near Adrianople in 551. In the 560s the Avars began to expand from their base on the north bank of the Danube ; by the end of the 6th-century, they were the dominant power in Central Europe and routinely able to force

18900-643: The southern part of Great Britain. In northern Britain, Kenneth MacAlpin (d. c. 860) united the Picts and the Scots into the Kingdom of Alba . In the early 10th century, the Ottonian dynasty had established itself in Germany , and was engaged in driving back the Magyars. Its efforts culminated in the coronation in 962 of Otto I (r. 936–973) as Holy Roman Emperor . In 972, he secured recognition of his title by

19050-497: The towns chosen as capitals. Although there had been Jewish communities in many Roman cities , the Jews suffered periods of persecution after the conversion of the empire to Christianity. Officially they were tolerated, if subject to conversion efforts, and at times were even encouraged to settle in new areas. Religious beliefs in the Eastern Roman Empire and Iran were in flux during the late sixth and early seventh centuries. Judaism

19200-630: The tunnel through the Alps was to be constructed were also discussed. in 1838 Zanino Volta of Como approached St.Gallen and Grisons with plans of a tunnel through the Splügen . In the 1840s, the two cantons then joined forces with the Ticino for a tunnel through the Lukmanier. The Kingdom of Sardinia then wanted a tunnel through the Grimsel , so the tunnel through the Alps would be further away from

19350-645: The west, Byzantine control of most of the Western Empire could not be sustained; the reconquest of the Mediterranean periphery and the Italian Peninsula ( Gothic War ) in the reign of Justinian (r. 527–565) was the sole, and temporary, exception. The political structure of Western Europe changed with the end of the united Roman Empire. Although the movements of peoples during this period are usually described as "invasions", they were not just military expeditions but migrations of entire peoples into

19500-443: Was Austria's fourth most important trading partner. In the same year, Austria exported goods worth 8.17 billion euros and in return imported goods worth 9.73 billion euros to Switzerland. On a per capita basis, Switzerland is the largest consumer of Austrian goods and services. The Austrian state of Vorarlberg , the Swiss cantons of Appenzell Ausserrhoden , Appenzell Innerrhoden , St. Gallen , Schaffhausen , Thurgau and Zürich ,

19650-438: Was a trend throughout the old Roman lands that happened in the Early Middle Ages. This was especially marked in the lands that did not lie on the Mediterranean, such as northern Gaul or Britain. Non-local goods appearing in the archaeological record are usually luxury goods. In the northern parts of Europe, not only were the trade networks local, but the goods carried were simple, with little pottery or other complex products. Around

19800-525: Was an active proselytising faith, and at least one Arab political leader converted to it. In addition Jewish theologians wrote polemics defending their religion against Christian and Islamic influences. Christianity had active missions competing with the Persians' Zoroastrianism in seeking converts, especially among residents of the Arabian Peninsula . All these strands came together with

19950-438: Was an important feature of the 5th-century Roman military. The various invading tribes had differing emphases on types of soldiers—ranging from the primarily infantry Anglo-Saxon invaders of Britain to the Vandals and Visigoths who had a high proportion of cavalry in their armies. During the early invasion period, the stirrup had not been introduced into warfare, which limited the usefulness of cavalry as shock troops because it

20100-602: Was bolstered by the Fréjus Rail Tunnel , the construction of which had been substantially aided by the introduction of various modern innovations that made the prospects of building long tunnels more practical than they previously had been. It was decided that the contract to build the tunnel ought to be subject to a competitive tendering process, during which a bidding war broke out between two engineering companies, based in Geneva and Italy respectively. Ultimately,

20250-422: Was conquered by the Swiss in 1415. Because small Switzerland became a Republic early on, while Austria was part of the larger Habsburg monarchy and a major European power for many centuries, the political history of the two countries differed considerably. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, various agreements occurred that influenced the subsequent demarcation of borders between the two countries. In 1770,

20400-474: Was dominated by efforts to regain the dignity and classicism of imperial Roman and Byzantine art , but was also influenced by the Insular art of the British Isles. Insular art integrated the energy of Irish Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Germanic styles of ornament with Mediterranean forms such as the book, and established many characteristics of art for the rest of the medieval period. Surviving religious works from

20550-408: Was invited to Aachen and brought the education available in the monasteries of Northumbria. Charlemagne's chancery —or writing office—made use of a new script today known as Carolingian minuscule , allowing a common writing style that advanced communication across much of Europe. Charlemagne sponsored changes in church liturgy , imposing the Roman form of church service on his domains, as well as

20700-493: Was less need for large tax revenues and so the taxation systems decayed. Warfare was common between and within the kingdoms. Slavery declined as the supply weakened, and society became more rural. Between the 5th and 8th centuries, new peoples and individuals filled the political void left by Roman centralised government. The Ostrogoths , a Gothic tribe, settled in Roman Italy in the late fifth century under Theoderic

20850-555: Was marked by scholasticism , a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities . The theology of Thomas Aquinas , the paintings of Giotto , the poetry of Dante and Chaucer , the travels of Marco Polo , and the Gothic architecture of cathedrals such as Chartres are among the outstanding achievements toward the end of this period and into the Late Middle Ages. The Late Middle Ages

21000-656: Was marked by difficulties and calamities including famine, plague, and war, which significantly diminished the population of Europe; between 1347 and 1350, the Black Death killed about a third of Europeans. Controversy, heresy , and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the interstate conflict, civil strife, and peasant revolts that occurred in the kingdoms. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding

21150-439: Was marked by numerous divisions of the empire among his sons and, after 829, civil wars between various alliances of father and sons over the control of various parts of the empire. Eventually, Louis recognised his eldest son Lothair I (d. 855) as emperor and gave him Italy. Louis divided the rest of the empire between Lothair and Charles the Bald (d. 877), his youngest son. Lothair took East Francia , comprising both banks of

21300-404: Was necessary in order to power any heavy equipment at the time, was unreliable; the Tremola spring was one source, but would greatly change in capacity seasonally, leading to water being extracted from the more distant river Ticino instead. At the suggestion of the Geneva-based engineer M. Colladon, it was decided to use compressed air as a means of conveying energy around the worksite and along

21450-496: Was not possible to put the full force of the horse and rider behind blows struck by the rider. The greatest change in military affairs during the invasion period was the adoption of the Hunnic composite bow in place of the earlier, and weaker, Scythian composite bow. Another development was the increasing use of longswords and the progressive replacement of scale armour by mail armour and lamellar armour . The importance of infantry and light cavalry began to decline during

21600-449: Was promptly violently suppressed by local police force (21 men) from Altdorf , resulting in four deaths amongst the workers and the wounding of 13 others. Consequently, 80 workers left the building site. During 29 February 1880, it was announced that both of the tunnel's advance borings had broken through into one another around the mountain's middle point. It was also observed that a high degree of accuracy had successfully been achieved,

21750-442: Was reinforced with propaganda that portrayed the Merovingians as inept or cruel rulers, exalted the accomplishments of Charles Martel, and circulated stories of the family's great piety. At the time of his death in 768, Pippin left his kingdom in the hands of his two sons, Charles (r. 768–814) and Carloman (r. 768–771). When Carloman died of natural causes, Charles blocked the succession of Carloman's young son and installed himself as

21900-405: Was settled in 1868. Even the assassination of Empress Elisabeth in Geneva by an anarchist in 1898 did not strain relations, as Emperor Franz Joseph I was lenient towards the Swiss. In the second half of the 19th century, with better political relations, economic relations were also significantly intensified and several trade agreements were concluded between the two countries. Projects such as

22050-417: Was the denarius or denier , while the Anglo-Saxon version was called a penny . From these areas, the denier or penny spread throughout Europe from 700 to 1000 AD. Copper or bronze coins were not struck, nor were gold except in Southern Europe. No silver coins denominated in multiple units were minted. Christianity was a major unifying factor between Eastern and Western Europe before the Arab conquests, but

22200-420: Was the first tunnel through the Saint-Gotthard Massif in order to bypass the St Gotthard Pass . It was built as single bore tunnel accommodating a standard gauge double-track railway throughout. When opened in 1882, the Gotthard Tunnel was the longest tunnel in the world. The tunnel rises from the northern portal at Göschenen (1,106 m or 3,629 ft) and the highest point (1,151 m or 3,776 ft)

22350-601: Was the use of mechanised tunneling machines , which Favre, supervisor of the work as well as prime contractor, strongly advocated for, despite pressure to make greater use of manual boring. The engineering used to create the tunnel can be largely credited to Favre, although he was unable to see its completion, having suffered a fatal heart attack while inside the tunnel on 19 July 1879, barely six months before breakthrough would be achieved. The tunnel's construction proved difficult on account of multiple factors technical, geological, and financial. The copious supply of water, which

22500-409: Was with the British Isles and Scandinavia, in contrast to the older Roman Empire with its trading networks centred on the Mediterranean. The empire was administered by an itinerant court that travelled with the emperor, as well as approximately 300 imperial officials called counts , who administered the counties the empire had been divided into. Clergy and local bishops served as officials, as well as

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