1.1. Terminology

In his theology of history Joachim of Fiore (d. 1202) referred to his own age as the media aetas (middle age) of the Son of God, between the past age of the Father and the coming age of the Spirit. Not until humanism, however, do we find the idea, albeit negative, of a period between antiquity and renaissance. Johannes Andreae of Aleria (1417–75) spoke of the media tempestas (middle time) in a 1469 letter. Christopher Cellarius (1638–1707), especially in his Historia medii aevi (168…