What is the "Dark Ages"?

Question

I have heard that it is a period of time that noone has found any written periods during this time.

Answer 1

Basically, the Dark Ages is the period that begins roughly around the fall of Rome to about 1000 C.E. and ends with the advent of the Renaissance. It was a time when people were very strictly controlled by the church, the feudal system was strong in Europe and people had very poor quality of life. It was "Dark" because there was little enlightenment or creativity in the ways of literature, music, and fine arts. It's hard to say who actually coined the term, but it was most certainly done sometime in the Renaissance when all of the arts were flourishing and people were looking back at the past as a time of ignorance and boredom. It's more of an ethnocentric term than an actual description of the era as any Medievalist will tell you.

Answer 2

Actually, the dark ages , was a period in history commonly referred to by the years 476 A.D. to 1066 A.D.
This is because in 476 A.D. the Western Roman Empire fell. It was the official collapse of order and general government in the west. There followed wars and barbarian invasions and peoples's standard of living went down in contrast to the government , order and high civilizations of the previous Roman Empire. It was in comparing this age to the former that the term DARK was coined.
It was said to have ended at the battle of HASTINGS in 1066 A.D.
This date is given because aroung at the time people began to be more civilized than before, it was the end of the period of Viking/Northman/Norman raids and the modern nation states were being foundered in essence.
It was followed by the High Middle Ages which ended official with the fall of Constantinopal on Thursday, the 29th of May 1453.
This ushered in the Modern World. And the term MIDDLE AGES refers to all the period between the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 A.D. and the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire(the BYZANTIUM or Byzantine) in 1453. Generally the DARK AGES are the first half of the middle ages. And during that time monks in monesteries kept culture alive by copying old manuscripts , and of course in the east they had learning. It was only in the west was it the DARK AGES. Hope this helps.

Answer 3

it was a time when they didn't keep many written records thats why we can't find much information on it ... but there was a lot of fighting and many wars took place durring the time... i guess history wasn't high on the to do list

Answer 4

You are correct that when scholars use this term nowadays they are referring to a lack or limitation in written records -- though our knowledge is much better than it used to be. If the term is still used at all it should be confined to the very brief period after the fall of Rome --at most two centuries, NOT to the whole "medieval" period, for which we actually have a lot of information.

But, unfortunately, as one answer has already demonstrated, the term "Dark Ages" is often used in POPULAR culture to refer to the supposed ignorance and backwardkness (usually attributed to the importance of the Church) of the period after the fall of the Roman Empire. In fact, not only is this is NOT how scholars use it... it is the popular STEREOTYPE itself that is ignorant!! Most academics who still use the term (and many wish to avoid it since it IS so misleading) use it only to refer to OUR relative ignorance about things due to our lack of written records for certain periods.

But don't take my word for it. What follows is a cluster of clips, incluing several from scholars of the period, who explain that "Dark Ages" is a rather poor name for the period, since a great deal of progress was, in fact, taking place. And the Church, far from being a cause of ignorance, was the institution that PRESERVED knowledge and learning and spearheaded a number of intellectual and technical advances, from agriculture to architecture to the founding of the university system and the beginnings of the modern scientific method.


First, a clip from the "Dark Ages" article in Wikipedia:

"The phrase the Dark Ages (or Dark Age) is most commonly known in relation to the European Early Middle Ages (from about A.D. 476 to about 1000).

"This concept of a 'Dark Age' was first created by Italian humanists and was originally intended as a sweeping criticism of the character of Late Latin literature. Later historians expanded the term to include not only the lack of Latin literature, but a lack of contemporary written history 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 pejorative use and expanding its scope. . . . Most modern historians dismiss the notion that the era was a "Dark Age" by pointing out that this idea was based on ignorance of the period combined with popular stereotypes: many previous authors would simply assume that the era was a dismal time of violence and stagnation and use this assumption to prove itself."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages


from 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

On science and the "Dark Ages":

"In fact, although scientists at times have been persecuted, the scholastic tradition and modern science were a direct result of the Roman Catholic Church. In the "dark" ages, the church (and especially its belief system about progress and learning the details of God's works) created the first Universities, the concept of academic freedom (even to the extent that scholars could travel through hostile lands safely) and science itself. This is well documented (it started around 1100 AD) but very few people know it - including academics.

"It is popular history that science was either Greek in origin, or from the Enlightenment (or perhaps from the Arabs). That, however, ignores the facts, just as "the dark ages" is a misnomer. The rise of science (not just observations) in Europe but nowhere else is not an accident - the causative factors were the Catholic belief system, the church's ability to set up institutions, and the monastic system which gave many scholars the time and place to do their work, not to mention providing other folks to write and duplicate work before the age of the printing press." -John Moore
http://gmroper.mu.nu/archives/169558.php

On "Dark Ages" and the (medieval) Church:

". . . in history I found that Christianity, so far from belonging to the dark ages, was the one path across the dark ages that was not dark. It was a shining bridge connecting two shining civilisations. . . . the Christian Church was the last life of the old society and was also the first life of the new. she took the people who were forgetting how to make an arch and she taught them to invent the Gothic arch. In a word, the most absurd thing that could be said of the Church is the thing we have all heard said of it. How can we say that the Church wishes to bring us back into the Dark Ages? The Church was the only thing that ever brought us out of them." (Chesterton G.K., "Orthodoxy", 1961, reprint, p.146)
http://www.asa3.org/archive/evolution/200005/0133.html


"I must disagree with your statement that Christianity set Europe back for centuries. First of all, Rome fell due to several things, among them a weakening political system, a far flung economy they could no longer control, and extensive and increasing pressure from "barbarians." Their knowledge and texts were preserved by Arabs and by Christian convents and monasteries. The title "Dark Ages" is generally agreed upon as being a misnomer and is no longer used in academic discussion. Rather with Europe in comparative political chaos, learning and knowledge took rather different directions. In Europe academic progress now continued out of the limelight and in secluded places. These institutions for learning (convents/monasteries) eventually served as the model for what would become colleges and universities. They also produced minds like Hroswitha, Hildegard von Bingham, Peter Abelard, and Thomas Aquinas. The Renaissance was an event actually jump started by a couple of monks in Italy (whose names elude me at the moment) who decided to make the works of the Greeks and Romans more widely known in the interest of rejuvenating learning in Europe."
http://www.dumbrella.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=786&start=50&

For a helpful overview of the advances of the medieval period, an explanation of how the negative view came to take root, thanks to the hard work of a handful of very ANTI-church authors, and why their claims are mistaken (including the preposterous notion the the Church of Columbus's day thought the world was flat) see the article "False Conflict" by Rodney Stark
http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.17713/article_detail.asp

Answer 5

usually 13 to 16 years old
....
historians may have some other ideas