^ Daniel Ziemann: Das Erste bulgarische Reich.^ Thomas Hodgkin: The life of Charlemagne (Charles The Great), London 1897, p.55: "These crowded years of war leave the Frankish Empire established as the one great power west of the Elbe and Adriatic." He gives China, Sassanian Persia, the Caliphate and the Eastern Roman Empire as medieval great powers. ^ a b c d Szabolcs József Polgár, "The Character of the Trade between the Nomads and their Settled Neighbours in Eurasia in the Middle Ages", Studia Uralo-altaica 53 (2019): 253, contrasts "the nomads of the Eurasian steppe with their settled neighbours", calling the former "steppe empires (that is, the greatest nomadic confederations)" and the latter "medieval great powers".^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w William Eckhardt, Civilizations, Empires, and Wars: A Quantitative History of War (McFarland, 1992), p.68, uses the Vikings as an example of a great power that was not a Great Power. ^ a b Gerry Simpson, Great Powers and Outlaw States: Unequal Sovereigns in the International Legal Order (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p.United States of America: Harcourt, Brace and Company. Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt (1250–1450).The following is a list of empires that have been called great powers during the Middle Ages:
Gerry Simpson distinguishes "Great Powers", an elite group of states that manages the international legal order, from "great powers", empires or states whose military and political might define an era. In historiography of the pre-modern period, it is more typical to talk of empires. Use of the term in the historiography of the Middle Ages is therefore idiosyncratic to each author. Lord Castlereagh, the British Foreign Secretary, first used the term in its diplomatic context in 1814 in reference to the Treaty of Chaumont. The term " great power" has only been used in historiography and political science since the Congress of Vienna in 1815.