The cultural field linking the Middle Ages and the early modern period is vast and complex in every sense. Chronologically, there is no simple or single break across the turn of the century, though there is indeed among many writers of the period the sense of a cultural rebirth, or Renaissance. The term, first used during the 18th century, was given currency in the 19th century by Jacob Burckhardt and Jules Michelet, who used it to describe what they perceived as a movement representing a clean break with the medieval past and inaugurating the forms and values of modern European ...(100 of 41004 words)