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Late Antiquity is a rough periodization (c. 300-600 AD) used by historians and other scholars to describe the interval between Classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages in Europe and the Mediterranean world — between the decline of the western Roman Empire from the 3rd century AD onward, to the Islamic conquests, and the re-forming of Eastern Europe under the Byzantine Empire. The term Spätantike, literally "late antiquity", has been used by German-language historians since its popularization by Alois Riegl in the early twentieth century.[1] It was given currency in English partly by the writings of Peter Brown.