Middle Ages/Medieval

[Steve Hayes]

Tom Holland, in his book "Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind",
says:

By 1753, when the term "Middle Ages" first appeared in English,
Protestants had come to take for granted the existence of a distinct
period of history: one that ran from the dying years of the Roman
Empire to the Reformation.
Source: Holland 2019:381f

I had been under the impression that the concept of the Middle Ages,
or the Medieval (or Mediaeval) period, had developed earlier, during
the Renaissance. Does anyone have any evidence of the use of these
terms in English before 1753?

[jerryfriedman]

Post by Steve Hayes
Tom Holland, in his book "Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind",
By 1753, when the term "Middle Ages" first appeared in English,
Protestants had come to take for granted the existence of a distinct
period of history: one that ran from the dying years of the Roman
Empire to the Reformation.
Source: Holland 2019:381f
I had been under the impression that the concept of the Middle Ages,
or the Medieval (or Mediaeval) period, had developed earlier, during
the Renaissance. Does anyone have any evidence of the use of these
terms in English before 1753?

The OED's first citation for "mediæval" (so spelled) is
from 1817. The etymology connects it to Latin "medium
aevum", which it dates to 1604.

It has "middle age" and "middle ages" back to

[1570
The primitiue tyme of the church,..the middle age, and..
these our latter dayes of the church.

J. Foxe, Actes & Monumentes (revised edition) vol. I. iii. 204/1]

with some both singular and plural from the 17th century.

Its 1753 citation is the first it shows with definite
dates.

1753
Middle Age denotes the space of time commencing from
Constantine, and ending at the taking of Constantinople
by the Turks, in the fifteenth century.

Chambers's Cyclopædia Suppl. at Age

--
Jerry Friedman

--

[Kyonshi]

Post by Steve Hayes
Tom Holland, in his book "Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind",
By 1753, when the term "Middle Ages" first appeared in English,
Protestants had come to take for granted the existence of a distinct
period of history: one that ran from the dying years of the Roman
Empire to the Reformation.
Source: Holland 2019:381f
I had been under the impression that the concept of the Middle Ages,
or the Medieval (or Mediaeval) period, had developed earlier, during
the Renaissance. Does anyone have any evidence of the use of these
terms in English before 1753?

While it did develop earlier it was coined in Italy in the 13th century,
originally referring to the better accessibility of classical texts with
the advent of the printing press. This seems to have been brought into
general historiography in the 15th ct. (in a book about the history of
the Florentines) and then gained wider spread after German historian
Christoph Cellarius popularized it as a general view of history around
the end of the 17th, beginning of 18th ct.
These writings were of course in Latin, so the question is how soon the
term was known enough to be used as a term in English as well, but it's
unlikely that the term would have been used much before 1753.