In your opinion, should the Middle Ages be called "The Dark Ages"?

Question

In your opinion, should the Middle Ages be called "The Dark Ages"? Please explain your answer

Answer 1

Absolutely NOT.

For starters, note that modern scholars of the era do NOT accept the popular "Dark Ages" view and would rather discard the term. If they continue to use the expression, they either re-interpret the expression to refer to a VERY brief period after the fall of Rome or to describe OUR ignorance of the early Middle Ages.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages

There are a lot of stereotypes about the Middle Ages as a backward time, but it's largely the creation of later folk looking back (and arrogantly failing to recognize that many of their OWN opportunities & accomplishments were made possible by foundations laid in the Middle Ages). I confess I once shared many of these prejudices, till I started to read about the period.

Note the following remarks by Paul H. Freedman, Director of the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities:
"Medievalists have been at (largely unsuccessful) pains to convince their students that the "Dark Ages" is a misnomer, that the centuries between 500 and 1500 saw not only the birth of Europe but the beginnings of parliamentary democracy, romantic affection, universities, and even the discovery of the individual as a complex, internally contradictory agent in uneasy relation to society. "
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/rpw_center/chart.htm

There is a great irony here -- most of those who agree with the "Dark Ages" moniker, and tell us how ignorant and backwards the period was are themselves quite ignorant about the time period! Many of their assertions fly completely in the face of the known facts.

For example, the church did NOT think the earth was flat. Their writings through the centuries demonstrate that they understood it to be spherical. (The ignorant modern conceit is based on the absurd claim that Columbus's proposal was opposed for fear of his 'falling off the edge of the earth'. Not at all -- they opposed him because they had a more accurate estimate of the distance from Europe to the Indies that he did!! That continent in the way bailed him out!)

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In fact, the contributions of the Middle Ages are CONSIDERABLE. After a period of confusion with the collapse of the Roman Empire, rulers and church leaders began to 'turn things around' and gradually move forward.

Here is something of a summary (follow the links for more details).

LEARNING (foundations of modern SCIENCE)
From at least the 8th century Carolingian empire -- a literary revival, development of improved methods of writing (Carolingian minuscules), and copying and studying of documents from the Later Roman Empire.
http://www.ku.edu/kansas/medieval/108/lectures/carolingian_empire.html

The study and learning preserved in early church schools and monasteries was by 1100 developing into the UNIVERSITY system, where inquiry and the foundations of modern science were laid. In short, it was precisely the CHURCH, esp. its clergy, that preserved and expanded knowledge during these centuries. (And in the early centuries of the "Modern Era" the groundbreakers in science tended, whether Catholic or Protestant, to be more devout than the average person.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_university
Rodney Stark, *For the Glory of God* (Ch 1-2).
Stark, "False Conflict", http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.17713/article_detail.asp
"The Rise of the Universities"
http://www.ku.edu/kansas/medieval/108/lectures/universities.html

Note then that the church, whatever its failings was NOT all about "suppressing knowledge". Rather, it was through devout church people and groups that knowledge was preserved and EXPANDED.


FINE ARTS
Art & architecture - Merovingian (beginning in the 5th century!), Carolingian, Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals, castles. The 8th Carollingian revival brought improvements in writing techniques, revival of literature and technical writing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_architecture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merovingian_art_and_architecture
http://www.ku.edu/kansas/medieval/108/lectures/carolingian_empire.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_art
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanesque_architecture


TECHNOLOGY
Some major advances, esp. in the technology of:
a) agriculture -esp the heavy plow (and a series of related inventions -horseshoes, horse collar, tandem harnessing),
and crop rotation
b) navigation (including the magnetic compass), enabling the "Age of Discovery",
c) warfare -- gunpowder
d) 'information' -- the printing press!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_technology
(lists inventions... from 5th to 14th c)
http://www.ku.edu/kansas/medieval/108/lectures/peasants.html =Improvements in Agricultural Technology
*Cathedral, Forge and Waterwheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages*, by Frances & Joseph Gies


ECONOMY - BANKING & URBAN CENTERS (trade, etc)
(12th to 13th century) The foundations of the modern system of investment, including stock companies and "limited liability" (basis of wealth-producing sytems, including modern capitalism)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_market#History

"The Rise of Commerce and Towns" (ca. 1000)
http://www.ku.edu/kansas/medieval/108/lectures/towns.html

Gradual expansion of TRADE through the Middle Ages, esp in the 12th -13th century led to both economic growth as well as developments in other areas of learning as Europeans borrowed and adapted from the societies they contacted.


SOCIETY & GOVERNMENT
This period also saw the foundations of modern legal and political structures (e.g., Parliament) and ideas. Further, there was actually much progress AWAY from the highly stratified and slave-driven societies of the ancient world (an aspect oddly forgotten in many idealized portraits), the gradual growth of a sense of equality among people.
http://www.ku.edu/kansas/medieval/108/lectures/medieval_achievements.html

Answer 2

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
In your opinion, should the Middle Ages be called "The Dark Ages"?
In your opinion, should the Middle Ages be called "The Dark Ages"? Please explain your answer

Answer 3

The artists, scientists and philosophers living in what we call the Renaissance "coined" the phrase "Dark Ages" or "Gothic."

These writers, etc., felt that very little was done for progress, science and the like. This is not true.

The Muslims preserved the writings of the ancient philosophers and monks preserved the works by writing them out by hand.

Architecture progressed from Early Roman Christian through Gothic - which included the development of the arch, stained glass windows and mosaics just to name a few.

Thomas Aquinas was among the many scholars debating the idea of Faith V. Reason. Christian doctrinal controversies helped establish the basic tenants of Christianity. (The Trinitarian Controversy, the Arian Controversy)

As for literature, look to Chaucer and Dante.
There are other examples. I hope I helped.

Answer 4

You can call it as you want. Name is not important when it comes to periodize History, in my view. But concepts, facts, events, processes, ideologies, etc, actually are.

In my opinion and in my learning, the "dark ages" was just a period of time within the broader period known as Middle Ages. Dates just from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to around 1000, for reasons and concepts far too long to discuss.

And i'm not going to discuss it in here, of course....

:-)

Answer 5

Definitely. Today's dummy historians are taking the opposite interpretation by calling +476 AD the Middle Ages. All hints of the Renaissance didn't last and shouldn't be counted. For that matter, if Charlemagne had been more common and lasting, he would have brought the Renaissance in 800 AD

Answer 6

The Middle Ages are known as the Dark Ages. Simply because for almost 500 years nothing changed. No new technology, or ideas, or anything. Everything just stopped. There were no amazing societies like Rome, Greece, Egypt, or even later day Britain and France. The Dark Ages is highly appropriate.

Answer 7

Yes, the Dark Ages because creativity, innovation, invention and research were curtailed. The Middle Ages demonstrate what happens during a theocracy teaches us why we cannot allow a new theocracy movement in either the Christian or Islamic sect.

Answer 8

Yes

The term was created becasuse of the lack of any major government or empire that dominated the Eurasian Peninsula. Mankind fell back to an anarchial state and Science, art and literature were all lacking during this time.

While we know a little more about them, the fact remains that mankind fell back 2000 years technologically after the fall of the Roman Empire and were living in the copper age again. Mankind didnt recover until the Renaissance.

BP

Answer 9

this era is referred to as the Dark Ages because it was one of the most brutal, ignorant, darkest eras of humanity. The Catholic Church controlled everything...these priests and the lecherous popes were some of the worst that the world experienced. the people were kept ignorant...in darkness...so as to better control them...it was a horrific time througout what we know as Europe now including Spain, Portugal...any Catholic nation. I was born and raised a s a strict R. CAtholic and have done extensive research over the past 45 years...i am 56 now...altho there were atrocities against humankind in other parts of the world the Dark Ages were one of the very, very worst times

Answer 10

The light of truth was stomped out by religion. Thanks to Copernicus, Newton, and others, the 'enlightenment' brought mankind out of the dark ages....altho religion still had sway over people, at least science started making inroads into objective reality.

Answer 11

.They're called "Dark" because many were misled by false religious leaders, who advocated atrocities such as the crusades.