The
Dark Ages is a term in
historiographyHistoriography is the history of history, the aspect of history and of semiotics that considers how knowledge of the past, either recent or distant, is obtained and transmitted...
referring to a perceived period of cultural decline or
societal collapseSocietal collapse broadly includes both quite abrupt societal failures typified by the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel, the Mayan Civilization collapse and others of the type, as well as more extended grinding declines of superpowers like the Roman empire in Western Europe and the Han Dynasty...
that took place in
Western EuropeWestern Europe is the collection of countries in the westernmost region of Europe, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a cultural entity—the region lying west of Central Europe...
between the
fall of RomeThe decline of the Roman Empire refers to both the gradual disintegration of the economy of Rome and the barbarian invasions that were its final doom...
and the eventual recovery of learning. Increased understanding of the accomplishments of the Middle Ages in the 19th century challenged the characterization of the entire period as one of darkness. Thus the term is often restricted to periods within the Middle Ages, namely the
Early Middle AgesThe Early Middle Ages, or Dark Ages, is a period in the history of Europe following the fall of the Western Roman Empire. It lasted from about AD 500 to 1000. The period featured raiding, migration, and conquest by Huns, Germanic peoples, Arabs, Vikings, Hungarians and others. There was frequent...
, though this usage is also disputed by most modern scholars, who tend to avoid using the phrase.
The concept of a
Dark Age was created in the 1330s by the Italian scholar
PetrarchFrancesco Petrarca , known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest Renaissance humanists. Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism"...
(Francesco Petrarca), and was originally intended as a sweeping criticism of the character of
Late LatinVulgar Latin can be defined simply as colloquial Latin.-Origin of the term:...
literatureLatin literature, the body of written works in the Latin language, remains an enduring legacy of the culture of ancient Rome. The Romans produced many works of poetry, comedy, tragedy, satire, history, and rhetoric, drawing heavily on the traditions of other cultures and particularly on the more...
. Petrarch regarded the centuries since the fall of Rome as "dark" compared to the light of
classical antiquityClassical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
. Later historians expanded the term to refer to the transitional period between
RomanAncient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
times and the
High Middle AgesThe High Middle Ages was the period of European history in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries . The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which by convention end around 1500....
, including not only the lack of Latin literature, but also a lack of contemporary
written historyRecorded history can be defined as human history that has been written down or recorded by the use of language. It starts in the 4th millennium BC, with the invention of writing. The period before this is known as prehistory.Recorded history begins with the accounts of the ancient world by...
, general demographic decline, limited building activity and material cultural achievements in general. Popular culture has further expanded on the term as a vehicle to depict the Middle Ages as a time of backwardness, extending its
pejorativePejoratives are terms which have a negative connotation. Sometimes a term may begin as a pejorative word and eventually be adopted in a non-pejorative sense...
use and expanding its scope.
Dark Ages of Latin Europe
The term "Dark Ages" was originally intended to denote the entire period between the fall of Rome and the
RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe...
; the term "
Middle AgesThe Middle Ages of European history is a period of European history covering roughly a millennium in the 5th century through 16th centuries. More specific starting and ending points are sometimes adopted by scholars to suit their respective specializations or current focus...
" has a similar motivation, implying an "intermediate" period between
Classical AntiquityClassical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
and the modern era. In the 19th century scholars began to recognize the accomplishments made during the period, thereby challenging the image of the Middle Ages as a time of darkness and decay. The term "Dark Ages" is now rarely used in scholarship, and when used, it is often restricted to the
Early Middle AgesThe Early Middle Ages, or Dark Ages, is a period in the history of Europe following the fall of the Western Roman Empire. It lasted from about AD 500 to 1000. The period featured raiding, migration, and conquest by Huns, Germanic peoples, Arabs, Vikings, Hungarians and others. There was frequent...
.
The rise of
archaeologyArchaeology or archeology is the science that studies human cultures through the recovery, documentation, analysis, and interpretation of material culture and environmental data, including architecture, artifacts, biofacts, and landscapes...
and other specialties in the 20th century has shed much light on the period and offered a more nuanced understanding of its positive developments. Other terms of
periodizationPeriodization is the attempt to categorize or divide time into named blocks. The result is a descriptive abstraction that provides a useful handle on periods of time with relatively stable characteristics...
have come to the fore:
Late AntiquityLate Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the transitional centuries from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world. Precise boundaries for the period are a matter of debate, but noted historian of the period Peter Brown...
, the Early Middle Ages, and the
Great MigrationsThe Migration Period, also called the Barbarian Invasions or Völkerwanderung , was a period of human migration that occurred roughly between the years 300 to 700 CE in Europe, marking the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages...
, depending on which aspects of culture are being emphasized. When modern scholarly study of the Middle Ages arose in the 19th century, the term "Dark Ages" was at first kept, with all its critical overtones. On the rare occasions when the term "Dark Ages" is used by historians today, it is intended to be neutral, namely, to express the idea that the events of the period often seem "dark" to us only because of the paucity of artistic and cultural output, including historical records, when compared with both earlier and later times.
Petrarch
The concept of a Dark Age, if not the term itself, was introduced by
PetrarchFrancesco Petrarca , known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest Renaissance humanists. Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism"...
in the
1330s-Events and trends:* The poet Petrarch coined the pejorative term "Dark Ages" to describe the preceding 900 years in Europe, beginning with the fall of the western Roman Empire in 410 through to the renewal embodied in the Renaissance....
. Writing of those who had come before him, he said: "Amidst the errors there shone forth men of genius; no less keen were their eyes, although they were
surrounded by darkness and dense gloom".
ChristianChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented by the revelations in the New Testament....
writers, including Petrarch himself, had long used traditional
metaphorsA metaphor is a figure of speech concisely comparing two things, saying that one is the other. The English metaphor derives from the 16th c...
of "light versus darkness" to describe "good versus evil". Petrarch was the first to co-opt the metaphor and give it
secularSecularity is the state of being separate from religion.For instance, eating and bathing may be regarded as examples of secular activities, because there may not be anything inherently religious about them...
meaning by reversing its application. Classical Antiquity, so long considered the "dark" age for its lack of Christianity, was now seen by Petrarch as the age of "light" because of its cultural achievements, while Petrarch's time, allegedly lacking such cultural achievements, was seen as the age of darkness.
As an Italian, Petrarch saw the
Roman EmpireThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor,...
and the classical period as expressions of Italian greatness. He spent much of his time travelling through Europe rediscovering and republishing classic
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
and
GreekGreek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...
texts. He wanted to restore the classical Latin language to its former purity.
HumanistsRenaissance Humanism was a European intellectual movement that was a crucial component of the Renaissance, beginning in Florence in the latter half of the 14th century. The humanist movement developed from the rediscovery by European scholars of Latin literary and Greek literary texts. Initially,...
saw the preceding 900-year period as a time of stagnation. They saw history unfolding, not along the religious outline of
St. AugustineAugustine of Hippo , Bishop of Hippo Regius, also known as St. Augustine or St. Austin, was an Algerian Berber philosopher and theologian....
's
Six Ages of the WorldThe Six Ages of the World is a Christian historical periodization outline first written about by Saint Augustine circa 400 AD. It is based along Christian religious events, from the birth of Adam to the events of Revelation...
, but in
cultural (or secular) terms through the progressive developments of classical ideals, literature, and art.
Petrarch wrote that history had had two periods: the
classicClassical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
period of the Greeks and Romans, followed by a time of darkness, in which he saw himself as still living. Humanists believed one day the Roman Empire would rise again and restore classic cultural purity, and so by the late
14thAs a means of recording the passage of time, the 14th century was the century which lasted from 1301 to 1400.-Events:* The transition from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age...
and early
15th centuriesAs a means of recording the passage of time, the 15th century was the century which lasted from 1401 to 1500.Spanish and Portuguese explorations led to discovery of the Americas and the sea passage along Cape of Good Hope to India for the European civilization...
, humanists such as
Leonardo BruniLeonardo Bruni , was a leading humanist, historian and a chancellor of Florence. He has been called the first modern historian.-Biography:...
believed they had attained this new age, and that a third,
Modern AgeModern Age is an American conservative academic quarterly journal, founded in 1957 by Russell Kirk in close collaboration with Henry Regnery...
had begun. The age before their own, which Petrarch had labelled dark, thus became a "middle" age between the classic and the modern. The first use of the term "Middle Age" appeared with
Flavio BiondoFlavio Biondo was an Italian Renaissance humanist historian. He was the historian who coined the term Middle Ages and is known as one of the first archaeologists....
around 1439.
Reformation
During the
Protestant ReformationThe Protestant Reformation was a Christian reform movement in Europe which is generally deemed to have begun with Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses in 1517 although a number of precursors such as Jan Hus predate that event...
of the 16th and 17th centuries,
ProtestantsProtestantism is a branch within Christianity, containing many denominations with some differing practices and doctrines, that principally originated in the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. It is considered to be one of the major divisions within Christianity, together with the Roman...
wrote of the Middle Ages as a period of
CatholicThe Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church. With more than a billion members, over half of all Christians and more than one-sixth of the world's population, the Catholic Church is a communion of the Western, or Latin Rite Church, and...
corruption. Just as Petrarch's writing was not an attack on Christianity per se – in addition to his humanism, he was deeply occupied with the search for God – neither was this an attack on Christianity: it was a drive to restore what Protestants saw as biblical Christianity.
The
Magdeburg CenturiesThe Magdeburg Centuries is a celebrated ecclesiastical history, divided into thirteen centuries, covering thirteen hundred years, ending in 1298; it was first published from 1559 to 1574. It was compiled by several Lutheran scholars in Magdeburg, known as the Centuriators of Magdeburg. The chief of...
was a celebrated work of ecclesiastical history compiled by
LutheranLutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the teachings of the 16th century German reformer Martin Luther. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...
scholars and published between 1559 and 1574. Devoting a volume to each century, it covered the first thirteen centuries of Christianity up to 1298. The volumes covering the remaining three centuries up to the eve of the Reformation were completed in manuscript, but never published. The work was virulently anti-Catholic. Identifying the
PopeThe pope is the Bishop of Rome and, as such, is leader of the worldwide Catholic Church...
as the Anti-Christ, it painted a "dark" picture of church history after the fifth century, characterizing it as "increments of errors and their corrupting influences".
Baronius
In response to the Protestants, Roman Catholics developed a counter-image, depicting the
High Middle AgesThe High Middle Ages was the period of European history in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries . The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which by convention end around 1500....
in particular as a period of social and religious harmony, and not "dark" at all. The most important Catholic reply to the
Magdeburg Centuries was the
Annales EcclesiasticiAnnales Ecclesiastici , consisting of twelve folio volumes, is a history of the first 12 centuries of the Christian Church, and was authored by Cardinal Caesar Baronius...
by Cardinal
Caesar BaroniusVenerable Cesare Baronio was an Italian Cardinal and ecclesiastical historian....
(Cesare Baronio). Baronius was a trained historian who kept theology in the background and produced a work distinctly more balanced than the
Magdeburg Centuries. The
Annales, covering the first twelve centuries of Christianity up to 1198, was published in twelve volumes between 1588 and 1607. It was in the tenth volume of the
Annales that Baronius coined the term "Dark Age" for the period between the end of the
Carolingian EmpireCarolingian Empire is a historiographical term sometimes used to refer to the realm of the Franks under the Carolingian dynasty. This dynasty is seen as the founders of France and Germany...
in the 880s and the beginning under
Pope Clement IIClement II, born Suidger of Morsleben and Hornburg , was Pope from December 25, 1046 to his death. He was the first in a series of reform-minded Popes from Germany....
in 1046 of the
ReformThe Gregorian Reforms were a series of reforms initiated by Pope Gregory VII and the circle he formed in the papal curia, circa 1050–80, which dealt with the moral integrity and independence of the clergy...
later brought to completion by
Pope Gregory VIIPope Saint Gregory VII , born Hildebrand of Sovana , was Pope from April 22, 1073, until his death...
. Baronius termed the age "dark" because of the paucity of written records available to the historian studying it.
According to the
Oxford English DictionaryThe Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press , is a comprehensive dictionary of the English language...
, a line from
Gilbert BurnetGilbert Burnet was a Scottish theologian and historian, and Bishop of Salisbury. He was fluent in Dutch, French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew...
's 1687 collection
Travels mentioning "the darker ages" is the earliest recorded use of the term in English.
Enlightenment
During the 17th and 18th centuries, in the
Age of EnlightenmentThe Age of Enlightenment, or simply The Enlightenment, is a term used to describe a time in Western philosophy and cultural life, centered upon the eighteenth century, in which reason was advocated as the primary source and legitimacy for authority....
, many critical thinkers saw religion as antithetical to reason. For them the Middle Ages, or "Age of Faith", was therefore the polar opposite of the
Age of ReasonAge of reason may refer to:* 17th-century philosophy, as a successor of the Renaissance and a predecessor to the Age of Enlightenment* Age of Enlightenment in its long form of 1600-1800* The Age of Reason, a book by Thomas Paine...
.
KantImmanuel Kant was an 18th-century German philosopher from the Prussian city of Königsberg...
and
VoltaireFrançois-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, essayist, and philosopher known for his wit and his defense of civil liberties, including both freedom of religion and free trade.Voltaire was a prolific writer and produced works in almost every...
, among others, were vocal in attacking the religiously dominated Middle Ages as a period of social decline. Yet just as Petrarch, seeing himself on the threshold of a "new age", was criticizing the centuries up until his own time, so too were the Enlightenment writers criticizing the centuries up until their own. These extended well after Petrarch's time, since religious domination and conflict were still common into the 17th century and beyond, albeit diminished in scope.
Consequently, an evolution had occurred in at least three ways. Petrarch's original metaphor of light versus dark had been expanded in time, implicitly at least. Even if the early humanists after him no longer saw themselves living in a
dark age, their times were still not
light enough for 18th-century writers who saw themselves as living in the
real Age of Enlightenment, while the period covered by their own condemnation had been stretched to include what we now call Early Modern times. Additionally, Petrarch's metaphor of darkness, which he used mainly to deplore what he saw as a lack of secular achievements, was sharpened to take on a more explicitly anti-religious and
anti-clericalAnti-clericalism is a historical movement that opposes religious institutional power and influence, real or alleged, in all aspects of public and political life, and the involvement of religion in the everyday life of the citizen...
meaning.
In spite of this, the term "Middle Ages", used by Biondo and other early humanists after Petrarch, was the name in general use before the 18th century to denote the period up until the
RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe...
. The earliest recorded use of the English word "medieval" was in 1827. The concept of the Dark Ages was also in use, but by the 18th century, it tended to be confined to the earlier part of this medieval period. The earliest entry for a capitalised "Dark Ages" in the
Oxford English Dictionary is a reference in Henry T. Buckle's
History of civilisation in England in 1857. Starting and ending dates varied: the Dark Ages were considered by some to start in 410, by others in 476 when there was no longer an emperor in Rome, and to end about 800, at the time of the
Carolingian RenaissanceThe Carolingian Renaissance was a period of intellectual and cultural revival occurring in the late eighth and ninth centuries, with the peak of the activities occurring during the reigns of the Carolingian rulers Charlemagne and Louis the Pious. During this period there was an increase of...
under
CharlemagneCharlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 to his death. He expanded the Frankish kingdoms into a Frankish Empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe...
, or to extend through the rest of the
1st millenniumThe first millennium is a period of time that commenced on January 1, 1 AD, and ended on December 31, 1000, of the Julian calendar. This millennium is the beginning of the Anno Domini/Common Era for this calendar....
.
Romanticism
In the early 19th century, the
RomanticsRomanticism is a complex artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength during the Industrial Revolution...
reversed the negative assessment of Enlightenment critics. The word "
GothicThe Goths were a heterogeneous East Germanic tribe. The historian Jordanes claimed that the Goths arrived from semi-legendary Scandza, believed to be somewhere in modern Götaland , and that a Gothic population had crossed the Baltic Sea before the 2nd century, lending their name to the region of...
" had been a term of opprobrium akin to "Vandal" until a few self-confident mid-18th-century English "goths" like Horace Walpole initiated the Gothic Revival in the arts. This sparked off an interest in the Middle Ages, which for the following Romantic generation began to take on an idyllic image of the "Age of Faith". This image, in reaction to a world dominated by Enlightenment rationalism in which reason trumped emotion, expressed a romantic view of a
Golden AgeThe term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology and legend, but can also be found in other ancient cultures . It refers either to the earliest and best age in a sequence of ages, such as the Greek range of Golden, Silver, Bronze, and Iron Ages, or to a time in the beginnings of humanity that was...
of
chivalryChivalry is a term related to the medieval institution of knighthood. It is usually associated with ideals of knightly virtues, honor and courtly love. The word is derived from the French word chevalier, indicating one who rides a horse Chivalry is a term related to the medieval institution of...
. The Middle Ages were seen with romantic nostalgia as a period of social and environmental harmony and spiritual inspiration, in contrast to the excesses of the
French RevolutionThe French Revolution was a period of political and social upheaval and radical change in the history of France, during which the French governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with feudal privileges for the aristocracy and Catholic clergy, underwent radical change to forms based...
and, most of all, to the environmental and social upheavals and sterile utilitarianism of the emerging
industrial revolutionThe Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, and transport had a profound effect on the socioeconomic and cultural conditions in the United Kingdom. The changes subsequently spread throughout Europe, North...
. The Romantics' view of these earlier centuries can still be seen in modern-day
fairs and festivalsA Renaissance fair, Renaissance faire, or Renaissance festival is an outdoor weekend gathering, usually held in the United States, open to the public and generally commercial in nature, which emulates a historic period for the amusement of its guests. Some are permanent theme parks, others are...
celebrating the period with costumes and events.
Just as Petrarch had turned the meaning of light versus darkness, so had the Romantics turned the judgment of Enlightenment critics. However, the period idealized by the Romantics focused largely on what is now known as the
High Middle AgesThe High Middle Ages was the period of European history in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries . The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which by convention end around 1500....
, extending into Early Modern times. In one respect, this was a reversal of the religious aspect of Petrarch's judgment, since these later centuries were those when the universal power and prestige of the Church was at its height. To many users of the term, the scope of the Dark Ages was becoming divorced from this period, denoting mainly the earlier centuries after the fall of Rome.
Modern academic use
When modern scholarly study of the Middle Ages arose in the 19th century, the term "Dark Ages" was at first kept, with all its critical overtones. Although it was never the more formal term (universities named their departments "medieval history" not "Dark Age history"), it was widely used, including in such classics as
Edward GibbonEdward Gibbon was an English historian and Member of Parliament. His most important work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788...
's
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman EmpireThe History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was written by English historian Edward Gibbon and published in six volumes. Volume I was published in 1776, and went through six printings. Volumes II and III were published in 1781; volumes IV, V, VI in 1788-89. The original volumes were...
, which expressed the author's contempt for the "rubbish of the Dark Ages". However, the early
20th centuryThe 20th century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1901 and ended on December 31, 2000, according to the Gregorian calendar.The British Empire, the Russian Empire, the German Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire dissolved in the first half of the century, with all but the...
saw a radical re-evaluation of the Middle Ages, and with it a calling into question of the terminology of darkness. Historiographer
Denys HayDenys Hay was a historian specializing in medieval and Renaissance Europe, and notable for demonstrating the influence of Italy on events in the rest of the continent....
exemplified this when he spoke ironically of "the lively centuries which we call dark". It became clear that serious scholars would either have to redefine the term or abandon it.
When the term "Dark Ages" is used by historians today, it is intended to be neutral, namely, to express the idea that the events of the period often seem "dark" to us because of the paucity of historical records compared with both earlier and later times. The term is used in this sense in reference to the
Bronze Age collapseThe Bronze Age collapse is the name given by those historians who see the transition in the Near East and Eastern Mediterranean from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age, as violent, sudden and culturally disruptive...
and the subsequent
Greek Dark AgesThe Greek Dark Ages and Greek Dark Age are terms which have regularly been used to refer to the period of Greek history from the presumed Dorian invasion and end of the Mycenaean Palatial civilization around 1200 BC, to the first signs of the Greek city-states in the 9th century BC...
, the
Dark ages of CambodiaThe Dark Ages of Cambodia, covers the history of Cambodia from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, a period of continued decline and territorial loss. Cambodia enjoyed a brief period of prosperity during the sixteenth century because its kings, who built their capitals in the region southeast...
(ca. 1450-1863), and also of a hypothetical
Digital Dark AgeThe Digital Dark Age is a term used to describe a possible future situation where it will be difficult or impossible to read historical documents, because they have been stored in an obsolete digital format...
which would ensue if the
electronic documentAn electronic document is any electronic media content that are intended to be used in either an electronic form or as printed output....
s produced in the current period were to become unreadable at some point in the future. Some Byzantinists have used the term "Byzantine Dark Ages" to refer to the period from the earliest Muslim conquests to about 800 AD , because there are no extant historical texts in Greek from this period, and thus the history of the Byzantine Empire and formerly Byzantine territories that were conquered by Muslims is poorly understood and must be reconstructed from other types of contemporaneous sources, such as religious texts. It is also known that very few Greek manuscripts were copied in this period, indicating that the seventh and eighth centuries, which were a period of crisis for the Byzantines because of the Muslim conquests, were also less intellectually active than other periods.
Since the
Late Middle AgesThe Late Middle Ages is a term used by historians to describe European history in the period of the 14th and 15th centuries . The Late Middle Ages were preceded by the High Middle Ages, and followed by the Early Modern era ....
significantly overlap with the
RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe...
, the term "Dark Ages" has become restricted to distinct times and places in medieval Europe. Late 5th- and 6th-century
BritainEngland during the Middle Ages was fragmented into a number of independent kingdoms...
, for instance, at the height of the Saxon invasions, might well be numbered among "the darkest of the Dark Ages", with the equivalent of a near-total news blackout in terms of historical records, compared with either the Roman era before or the centuries that followed. Further south and east, the same was true in the formerly Roman province of
DaciaIn ancient geography, especially in Roman sources, Dacia was the land in East-Central Europe inhabited by the Dacians. Ancient Greeks called the same people "Getae"...
, where history after the Roman withdrawal went unrecorded for centuries, as Slavs,
AvarsThe Eurasian Avars, sometimes referred to as the European Avars, or Ancient Avars, were a highly organized and powerful confederation of a mixed ethnic background, thought to be closely related to the Mongols, Bulgars, Khazars and other Oghur Turkic peoples of the time...
,
BulgarsThe Bulgars were originally semi-nomadic people, probably of Turkic descent, originating in Central Asia, who from the 2nd century onwards conquered different parts of Europe...
, and others struggled for supremacy in the
DanubeThe Danube is the longest river in the European Union and Europe's second longest river after the Volga.The river originates in the Black Forest in Germany as the much smaller Brigach and Breg rivers which join at the German town Donaueschingen, after which it is known as the Danube and flows...
basin, and events there are still disputed. However, at this time the
Arab EmpireIslamic Empire may refer to*The Caliphates of the early Middle Ages:**Rashidun Caliphate **Umayyad Caliphate - Successor of the Rashidun Caliphate***Umayyad Emirate in the Al-Andalus...
is often considered to have experienced the
Golden AgesThe Islamic Golden Age or the Islamic Renaissance, is traditionally dated from the 9th to 13th centuries for 400 years C.E., but has been extended to the 15th century by recent scholarship...
rather than Dark Ages; consequently, this usage of the term must also differentiate geographically. While Petrarch's concept of a Dark Age corresponded to a mostly Christian period following pre-Christian Rome, the neutral use of the term today applies mainly to those cultures in Europe least Christianized and thus most sparsely covered by the Catholic Church's historians.
However, from the mid-20th century onwards, other scholars began to critique even this nonjudgmental use of the term. There are two main criticisms. First, it is questionable whether it is possible to use the term "Dark Ages" effectively in a neutral way; scholars may intend this, but it does not mean that ordinary readers will so understand it. Second, the explosion of new knowledge and insight into the history and culture of the Early Middle Ages, which 20th-century scholarship has achieved, means that these centuries are no longer dark even in the sense of "unknown to us" (although in some places, they remain undoubtedly the victims of
societal collapseSocietal collapse broadly includes both quite abrupt societal failures typified by the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel, the Mayan Civilization collapse and others of the type, as well as more extended grinding declines of superpowers like the Roman empire in Western Europe and the Han Dynasty...
). Consequently, many academic writers prefer not to use the expression at all, and a recently published history of German literature describes the term as "a popular if ignorant manner of speaking".
Modern popular use
Films and novels often use the term "Dark Age" with its implied meaning of a time of backwardness. For instance, the popular movie
Monty Python and the Holy GrailMonty Python and the Holy Grail is a 1975 comedy film written and performed by the comedy group Monty Python , and directed by Gilliam and Jones...
humorously portrays knights and chivalry, following in a tradition begun with
Don Quixote, fully titled The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha , is a novel written by Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes...
. The 2007 television show
The Dark Ages from
The History ChannelHistory, formerly known as The History Channel, is an international satellite and cable TV channel that broadcasts programs regarding historical events and persons, as well as various metaphysical, pseudoscientific, and paranormal phenomena—-often with observations and explanations by noted...
called the Dark Ages "600 years of degenerate, godless, inhuman behavior".
The public idea of the Middle Ages as a supposed "Dark Age" is also reflected in misconceptions regarding the
study of nature during this periodIn the Middle Ages, science progressed dramatically from the time of antiquity in areas as diverse as astronomy, medicine, and mathematics. Whereas the ancient cultures of the world In the Middle Ages, science progressed dramatically from the time of antiquity in areas as diverse as astronomy,...
. The contemporary historians of science
David C. LindbergDavid C. Lindberg is an American historian of science. He is the Hilldale Professor Emeritus of History of Science and Past Director of the Institute for Research in the Humanities, at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Lindberg holds a degree in physics from Northwestern University and a Ph.D....
and
Ronald NumbersRonald L. Numbers is an American historian of science. He was awarded the 2008 George Sarton Medal by the History of Science Society for "a lifetime of exceptional scholarly achievement by a distinguished scholar".- Biography :...
discuss the widespread popular belief that the Middle Ages was a "time of ignorance and superstition", the blame for which is to be laid on the Christian Church for allegedly "placing the word of religious authorities over personal experience and rational activity", and emphasize that this view is essentially a caricature. For instance, a claim that was first propagated in the 19th century and is still very common in popular culture is the supposition that all people from the Middle Ages believed that the
Earth was flatThe Flat Earth model is a view that the Earth's shape is a flat plane.Various cultures have had conceptions of a flat Earth, including ancient Babylon, Ancient Egypt, pre-Classical Greece and pre-17th century China. This view contrasts with the realization first recorded around the 4th century BC...
. According to Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, this claim was mistaken: "There was scarcely a Christian scholar of the Middle Ages who did not acknowledge [Earth's] sphericity and even know its approximate circumference". Ronald Numbers states that misconceptions such as "the Church prohibited autopsies and dissections during the Middle Ages", "the rise of Christianity killed off ancient science", and "the medieval Christian church suppressed the growth of natural philosophy" are examples of widely popular myths that still pass as historical truth, although they are not supported by current historical research.
Quotations
- "What else, then, is all history, but the praise of Rome?"—Petrarch
- "Each famous author of antiquity whom I recover places a new offence and another cause of dishonour to the charge of earlier generations, who, not satisfied with their own disgraceful barrenness, permitted the fruit of other minds, and the writings that their ancestors had produced by toil and application, to perish through insufferable neglect. Although they had nothing of their own to hand down to those who were to come after, they robbed posterity of its ancestral heritage."—Petrarch
- "My fate is to live among varied and confusing storms. But for you perhaps, if as I hope and wish you will live long after me, there will follow a better age. When the darkness has been dispersed, our descendants can come again in the former pure radiance."—Petrarch
- "Between the far away past history of the world, and that which lies near to us; in the time when the wisdom of the ancient times was dead and had passed away, and our own days of light had not yet come, there lay a great black gulf in human history, a gulf of ignorance, of superstition, of cruelty, and of wickedness. That time we call the dark or Middle Ages. Few records remain to us of that dreadful period in our world's history, and we only know of it through broken and disjointed fragments that have been handed down to us through the generations."— Howard Pyle
Howard Pyle was an American illustrator and writer, primarily of books for young audiences. A native of Wilmington, Delaware, he spent the last year of his life in Florence, Italy.__FORCETOC__...
, Otto of the Silver Hand (1888)
- "The Middle Ages is an unfortunate term. It was not invented until the age was long past. The dwellers in the Middle Ages would not have recognized it. They did not know that they were living in the middle; they thought, quite rightly, that they were time's latest achievement."—Morris Bishop
Morris Gilbert Bishop was an American scholar, historian, biographer, author, and humorist.Raised in Canada and New York, he attended Cornell from 1910-1913, earning a Bachelor's in 1913 and then a Master of Arts degree in 1914...
, The Middle Ages (1968)
- "If it was dark, it was the darkness of the womb." — Lynn White
See also
- Fall of Rome
- Plague of Justinian
The Plague of Justinian was a pandemic that afflicted the Eastern Roman Empire , including its capital Constantinople, in the years 541–542 AD. The most commonly accepted cause of the pandemic is bubonic plague, which later became infamous for either causing or contributing to the Black Death of...
- Migration Period
The Migration Period, also called the Barbarian Invasions or Völkerwanderung , was a period of human migration that occurred roughly between the years 300 to 700 CE in Europe, marking the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages...
- Middle Ages in history
The Middle Ages in history is an overview of how previous periods have both romanticised and disparaged the Middle Ages. After the period came to an end with the Renaissance, subsequent cultural movements such as the Enlightenment and Romantics created images of the Middle Ages that say as much...
- Islamic Golden Age
The Islamic Golden Age or the Islamic Renaissance, is traditionally dated from the 9th to 13th centuries for 400 years C.E., but has been extended to the 15th century by recent scholarship...
- Muslim conquests
Muslim conquests , also referred to as the Islamic conquests or Arab conquests, began after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad...
- Carolingian Renaissance
The Carolingian Renaissance was a period of intellectual and cultural revival occurring in the late eighth and ninth centuries, with the peak of the activities occurring during the reigns of the Carolingian rulers Charlemagne and Louis the Pious. During this period there was an increase of...
- Medieval demography
Medieval demography is the study of human demography in Europe during the Middle Ages. It is an estimate of the number of people who were alive during the Medieval period, population trends and movements...
- Crisis of the Late Middle Ages
Around the start of the 14th century a series of events began that brought centuries of European prosperity and growth to a halt. Three major crises would lead to radical changes in all areas of society - they were demographic collapse, political instabilities and lastly religious upheavals.A...
- Great Apostasy
The Great Apostasy is a term used by some religious groups to allege a general fallen state of traditional Christianity, or especially of Catholicism, magisterial Protestantism and Eastern Orthodoxy, that it is not representative of the faith founded by Jesus and promulgated through his twelve...
External links
- "Dark Ages" in Encyclopædia Britannica
The Encyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopaedia published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., a privately held company. The articles in the Britannica are aimed at educated adult readers, and written by a staff of about 100 full-time editors and more than...
Online.
- "Decline and fall of the Roman myth" by Terry Jones
Terence Graham Parry Jones is a Welsh comedian, screenwriter, actor, film director, children's author, popular historian, political commentator and TV documentary host. He is best known as a member of the Monty Python comedy team....
.