Image: Queen Elizabeth I, a leading sovereign of the early modern period.
Historians are troubled by “periodization.” Periodization means dividing history into chronological eras such as the Middle Ages and the Modern Era, and the dither is about the early modern period. To some of my readers, this fuss may be about as exciting as the grammarians’ debate over the Oxford comma (whether to put a comma before “and” in a series). But I can assure you it is more complicated and possibly more important. If you’re willing to come along for the ride, let’s begin.
In the nineteenth century, Renaissance scholars (who held a lot of sway) decided that the Renaissance launched the modern era. They divided European history into “ancient” (from about 776 B.C.—the first Greek Olympic games—to the sack of Rome in 476 A.D.) and “modern” (from the Renaissance —1300 to 1500 or so—to today. Between the two they squeezed in the Middle Ages, which were not considered worthy of much attention.
But that “periodization” wasn’t satisfactory as time went on. Around the 1970s, the term “early modern” crept in. According to historian Jerry Bentley, the cause was the expansion of American higher education in the 1950s and 1960s, which led to the production of many Ph.D.s and a tendency to specialize in smaller and smaller topics. ”The notion of early modern Europe was a principal beneficiary of this specialization,” he says. [1]
