Wow, our 51st episode.  We’ll be talking about the modern world any day now.  But before we get to the New World, the Enlightenment, The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the chaos of the 1800’s, the further chaos of the 1900’s, and the soul-crushing angst of the new millennium, let’s take a look back at the chaos of the 400’s, the chaos of the Vikings, the soul-crushing angst of feudalism, the awe-inspiring majesty of the Renaissance, and the paradigm-shifting insights of the Reformation.  

So just to summarize the timeframe, the Middle Ages began with the fall of Rome in AD 476, and they kind of end sometime in the 1600’s.  Some scholars will say that the 1700’s are the beginning of the modern era.  But unlike the fall of Rome, there’s no clear defining event that says, well, that era is over and a new era is beginning.  The Middle Ages kind of Peter out, and the modern age kind of Peters in.  Shakespeare is really part of the end of Middle Ages, as is the King James Bible, but Rene Descartes and his book Discourse on the Method, which was published in 1637, just 25 years after the KJB, is part of the modern era.  Plymouth Colony was founded in 1620, and well, that’s much more a part of the modern era than the Middle Ages.