The Enlightment was a cultural, intellectual and philosophical movement that took place in Europe during the 18th century. It supposed a scientifical revolution which promoted the scientific method and focused on reason over the ortodoxy of religious beliefs which predominated in the European society at those times and were for the first time severerly questioned.
The ideas of the Enlightenment decreased the authority of the old institutions such as monarchy and the Church and set the playfield for the political revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. The greatest revolution symbolizing the ideas spread by the Enlighment was the French Revolution in 1789, which fostered sharp social, religious, political and econominal changes such as individual liberties and right, the division of powers or religious tolerance.
The historical event that the beginning of the Anglo-Saxon period roughly corresponds with is C. the Roman pull-out from Britain. Both of these happened sometime in the 5th century.
