Europe

===Early Middle Ages===
{{Main|Late Antiquity|Early Middle Ages}}
{{See also|Dark Ages (historiography){{!}}Dark Ages|Age of Migrations}}
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During the [[decline of the Roman Empire]], Europe entered a long period of change arising from what historians call the "[[Age of Migrations]]". There were numerous invasions and migrations amongst the [[Ostrogoths]], [[Visigoths]], [[Goths]], [[Vandals]], [[Huns]], [[Franks]], [[Angles (tribe)|Angles]], [[Saxons]], [[Slavs]], [[Pannonian Avars|Avars]], [[Bulgars]] and, later on, the [[Vikings]], [[Pechenegs]], [[Cumans]] and [[Magyars]].<ref name="mieawl"/> [[Renaissance]] thinkers such as [[Petrarch]] would later refer to this as the "Dark Ages".<ref>''Journal of the History of Ideas'', Vol. 4, No. 1. (January 1943), pp. 69–74.</ref>

Isolated monastic communities were the only places to safeguard and compile written knowledge accumulated previously; apart from this very few written records survive and much literature, philosophy, mathematics and other thinking from the classical period disappeared from Western Europe, though they were preserved in the east, in the Byzantine Empire.<ref>[[Norman Cantor|Norman F. Cantor]], ''The Medieval World 300 to 1300''.</ref>

While the Roman empire in the west continued to decline, Roman traditions and the Roman state remained strong in the predominantly Greek-speaking [[Eastern Roman Empire]], also known as the [[Byzantine Empire]]. During most of its existence, the Byzantine Empire was the most powerful economic, cultural and military force in Europe. Emperor [[Justinian I]] presided over Constantinople's first golden age: he established a [[Code of Justinian|legal code]] that forms the basis of many modern legal systems, funded the construction of the [[Hagia Sophia]] and brought the Christian church under state control.<ref name="natgeo 135">National Geographic, 135.</ref>

From the 7th century onwards, as the Byzantines and neighbouring [[Sasanids|Sasanid Persians]] were severely weakened due to the protracted, centuries-lasting and frequent [[Byzantine–Sasanian wars]], the Muslim Arabs began to make inroads into historically Roman territory, taking the Levant and North Africa and making inroads into [[Asia Minor]]. In the mid-7th century, following the [[Muslim conquest of Persia]], Islam penetrated into the [[Caucasus]] region.<ref>{{cite book |quote=(..) It is difficult to establish exactly when Islam first appeared in Russia because the lands that Islam penetrated early in its expansion were not part of Russia at the time, but were later incorporated into the expanding Russian Empire. Islam reached the Caucasus region in the middle of the seventh century as part of the Arab [[Muslim conquest of Persia|conquest]] of the Iranian Sassanian Empire.|title=Islam in Russia: The Politics of Identity and Security|first=Shireen |last= Hunter | publisher= M.E. Sharpe | date = 2004 |page=3 |display-authors=etal}}</ref> Over the next centuries Muslim forces took [[Cyprus in the Middle Ages|Cyprus]], [[Malta]], [[Emirate of Crete|Crete]], [[Emirate of Sicily|Sicily]] and [[history of Islam in southern Italy|parts of southern Italy]].<ref>Kennedy, Hugh (1995). "The Muslims in Europe". In McKitterick, Rosamund, ''The New Cambridge Medieval History: c. 500 – c. 700'', pp. 249–272. Cambridge University Press. 052136292X.</ref> Between 711 and 720, most of the lands of the [[Visigothic Kingdom]] of [[Iberian Peninsula|Iberia]] was brought under [[Muslim]] rule—save for small areas in the north-west ([[Asturias]]) and largely [[Basque people|Basque]] regions in the [[Pyrenees]]. This territory, under the Arabic name [[Al-Andalus]], became part of the expanding [[Umayyad Caliphate]]. The unsuccessful [[Siege of Constantinople (717–718)|second siege of Constantinople]] (717) weakened the [[Umayyad|Umayyad dynasty]] and reduced their prestige. The Umayyads were then defeated by the [[Francia|Frankish]] leader [[Charles Martel]] at the [[Battle of Tours|Battle of Poitiers]] in 732, which ended their northward advance. In the remote regions of north-western Iberia and the middle [[Pyrenees]] the power of the Muslims in the south was scarcely felt. It was here that the foundations of the Christian kingdoms of [[Kingdom of Asturias|Asturias]], [[Kingdom of Leon|Leon]] and [[Kingdom of Galicia|Galicia]] were laid and from where the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula would start. However, no coordinated attempt would be made to drive the [[Moors]] out. The Christian kingdoms were mainly focused on their own internal power struggles. As a result, the [[Reconquista]] took the greater part of eight hundred years, in which period a long list of Alfonsos, Sanchos, Ordoños, Ramiros, Fernandos and Bermudos would be fighting their Christian rivals as much as the Muslim invaders.
[[File:Europe 843ad viking incursions map.png|thumb|250px|[[Viking]] raids and division of the Frankish Empire at the [[Treaty of Verdun]] in 843]]

During the Dark Ages, the [[Western Roman Empire]] fell under the control of various tribes. The Germanic and Slav tribes established their domains over Western and Eastern Europe, respectively.<ref name="natgeo 143">National Geographic, 143–145.</ref> Eventually the Frankish tribes were united under [[Clovis&nbsp;I]].<ref name="natgeo 162">National Geographic, 162.</ref> [[Charlemagne]], a Frankish king of the [[Carolingian]] dynasty who had conquered most of Western Europe, was anointed "[[Holy Roman Emperor]]" by the Pope in 800. This led in 962 to the founding of the [[Holy Roman Empire]], which eventually became centred in the German principalities of central Europe.<ref name="natgeo 166">National Geographic, 166.</ref>

[[East Central Europe]] saw the creation of the first Slavic states and the adoption of [[Christianity]] ({{nowrap|{{c.}} 1000&nbsp;CE)}}. The powerful [[West Slavs|West Slavic]] state of [[Great Moravia]] spread its territory all the way south to the Balkans, reaching its largest territorial extent under [[Svatopluk I of Moravia|Svatopluk I]] and causing a series of armed conflicts with [[East Francia]]. Further south, the first [[South Slavs|South Slavic states]] emerged in the late 7th and 8th century and adopted [[Christianity]]: the [[First Bulgarian Empire]], the [[Principality of Serbia (early medieval)|Serbian Principality]] (later [[Kingdom of Serbia (medieval)|Kingdom]] and [[Serbian Empire|Empire]]) and the [[Duchy of Croatia]] (later [[Kingdom of Croatia (925–1102)|Kingdom of Croatia]]). To the East, [[Kievan Rus']] expanded from its capital in [[Kiev]] to become the largest state in Europe by the 10th century. In 988, [[Vladimir the Great]] adopted [[Russian Orthodox Church|Orthodox Christianity]] as the religion of state.{{sfn|Bulliet|Crossley|Headrick|Hirsch|2011|page=250}}{{sfn|Brown|Anatolios|Palmer|2009|page=66}} Further East, [[Volga Bulgaria]] became an Islamic state in the 10th century, but was eventually absorbed into Russia several centuries later.<ref>Gerald Mako, "The Islamization of the Volga Bulghars: A Question Reconsidered", Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi 18, 2011, 199–223.</ref>
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