It was called the "Dark Ages" because some Renaissance Italians wanted it to be called that way.
There is an abundance of records from that period, but indeed some places lost a lot of literature. Why? Because the church destroyed it? Nope, because barbarian kingdoms and civil wars among them.
Italy was taken by the Ostrogoths, Lombards and even Byzantium wanted a piece of it, and everyone was plotting against everyone.
Iberia was taken by the Visigoths and they had troubles with the Arab expansion.
Britain was pillage land for many.
So, was it the church? Nah, you barely had a church.
Yes. Mind you, I'm looking at it from a UK perspective. There is still, to this day, relatively little known about this period, roughly 600 years, from the fall of the Roman Empire to the Norman Conquest.
Not at the time that the 18th historians who were writing about them named them. And the dark ages were not what you see in the picture, which is the Renaissance. The dark ages went from about the fifth century to the 10th century, CE.
It’s a relative term. As far as 16th and 17th century, historians were concerned, there was a dearth of information from that time. It was dark to them. The sources had to be rediscovered.
Yes! Though it only applied to Europe the rest of the world were happily looking for and finding enlightenment as they lived their lives according to their customs and traditions.
This image is historically inaccurate.
1. The inquisition happened in post-renaissance Iberia
2. The moment that the church was on it's highest of power, it was during Renaissance
3. There were no "dark ages" per say.
You might be right, but, if I'm not mistaken, the Spanish inquisition trialed more. And being accused was a nightmare. It's believed that only 10% of the trials ended in capital punishment.
The problem was not the inquisitors/church, but the people. They demanded these trials, the plebes wanted it.
That's another mistake about the picture in question, modern people forget that the medieval peasant was the one wanting religious justice against the jews, heathens and witches.
If the church or the state didn't trial, they feared the people would turn against them.
Everyone should think about it.
The Dark ages began in a largely pre-Christian Europe at the end of the 4th century when the Romans left Britain. They ended before Norman conquest in 1066 over 500 years before you’re picture
I mean considering back then people thought whipping yourself with a cat o nine tails would make you pious enough to not be killed by it and dabbing shed blood of those that did so in your eyes would make you blessed by default...
As others are pointing out, your comment is completely ahistorical. Dark ages, ~450An - 800AD, were when order fell apart and knowledge lost. Much of the knowledge that was preserved in Europe was done so by Christian monks writing stuff down. Also, in the Middle East by Muslims.
The Dark Ages is a product of propaganda from the Renaissance, and the rather grim century or so from 1350 to 1450 or so. The period you're thinking of, where wealth and power were wielded like a bludgeon by those who had it? The Rennaissance. Absolute monarchies and religious zealotry everywhere.
But we do have documents and information about the medieval ages, particularly once we cross the 10th century threshold.
And we owe many things to those supposed 'dark ages'. What you have going on in the USA now is way worse than medieval Europe, particularly since we have had centuries to evolve
I think it was more about the fact that people didn't know how to write and the knowledge was essentially in the hands of religious people from monasteries and such. Also, the written word was not as important as it is today and the conservation of documents was not a priority.
I'm not defending the term Dark Ages. I am saying it was a grim period for average people and not much happened worthy of being passed on, written or oral.
There's not much happening nowadays that might be considered worthy of being passed on. The difference is that we now consider all information worth for the future generations and the early medieval people weren't worried about that, they were more 'presenteeists'.
Okay, let me explain something as a historian myself. Also a lover of medieval ages.
They were not the dark ages for the reasons exposed here. They were called like that by renaissance writers first and enlightenment writers after so they could define their periods as "the light after the dark". >
As somebody else said, it was called the dark ages because of the lack of written historical record. This was because of the destruction of the previously existing systems of power and society, and the plunder of the wealth of the state and church by their pagan usurpers.
Pagan usurpers? You have it backasserds. “Christianity” usurped pagan holidays. The Church didn’t want common people to read the Bible. It was about controlling the narrative. Keep the people afraid of the wrath of God so they would keep tithing!
Now what if I ask you to provide an academic source that "the church" (which you don't bother to name in specific) forbade laity from reading scripture in a significant part of history?
In some parts of the world peasants could not understand the language used in the church, although this was more of a material and economic issue rather than a religiously intended matter. Iconography and Church statues / paintings served to mitigate this issue.
Every church in a certain part of the world prior to the Protestant Reform had a language it used for liturgics and scholarly work, in the West, Latin was used. In Eastern Europe, Slavonic. In North Africa, Coptic. In Southwest Asia, Syriac / Aramaic. In East Africa, Ge'ez. In S. Asia, Malayalam.
you have heard the saying doing the same thing over and over and constantly failing is insanity your still failing try something different get rid of religion you have a much better chance of sanity and success
And I may be wrong here, but I doubt it because I actually listened in history and civics, but our forefathers came here and fought for our independence to escape religious persecution and tyranny.
Okay to be fair we refer to this period as the Early Middle Ages more often because while Europe was regessing after the fall of western Rome, other areas nearby were flourishing. Notably, the Islamic Golden Age. "Dark Ages" is a Eurocentric viewpoint
The Islamic Golden Age was particularly important in Moorish Spain. Cordova was the largest city in Europe. They Muslims had discovered paper on their travels on the Silk Road. A new industry was created in the making of paper, the reproduction of classical works and the establishment of libraries
Because nobody documented daily life back then because nobody could read or write. And while that particular period was under religious opression, it's dark to US, as in we cant see it. It wasnt dark for them.
Hi, history major here
there is no such thing as the "Dark Age"
Humanity still had advancement in science and what not
Even the Catholic church funded to build universities because at the time, Science was saw as the ultimate expression of worship to God
Also those are specific cases, Gaolileo didn't just discovered the planets, he went to a university. If there was a "dark age" then none of that would happen cause of the "absolute power of the church"
someone never studied this past high school it seems
yes but this was more in response with a paranoid Catholic church, that after the protestant reforms, was worried that people saw the church as weak. However this was after the fact that they indeed, help fund the construction of universities
They still persecuted people who challenged the church's dogma even though evidence suggested those people were right. All to control people by getting them to continue believing in their fairy tales.
And don't even get me started on evolution!
Agreed! The "Dark Ages" refers more to the lack of written material during the early Middle Ages, rather than the beliefs and superstitions of the people.
Started with a dude crying about the fall of Roman empire.
"The concept of a "Dark Age" as a historiographical periodization originated in the 1330s with the Italian scholar Petrarch, who regarded the post-Roman centuries as "dark" compared to the "light" of classical antiquity."
yeah this
and upon re researching the subject, as it been sometime since i studied this, modern science can contribute many of its early advancement to the church, as again, they saw it as a ultimate worship of God to understand the universe they made
Hmm, I always thought the European Dark Ages were the result of a plague fueled Socioeconomic collapse following the demise of the Roman Empire. Didn’t know those darn Christians and feudal land lords caused it all?
I'd also like to point out that the religious zealots of the day are the ones that insisted that Jesus be crucified. The Romans didn't really care about him. Some say the Roman soldier that stabbed him with his spear was being merciful after he wasn't dying fast enough. Yey religion.
Between AD 470 and AD 800, the theocracy was in the Christian East- Byzantium - and they had no loss of learning. Because they still knew the Greek Language, while Western Europe lost Greek after the Fall of Rome.
Ya know, I don’t think so. I did. Then the age of Aquarius hit, there’s all this spiritual meditation, esoteric knowledge, and I think this will catapult us into a new Golden Age! Really I do.
It’s interesting that I’ve felt the need to read about the Crusades recently. Never had an in-depth study if that era in school but seems important now for some reason.
Criminal, deviant minds operating in high places under the guise of righteousness. Professing to be doing God's will, all the while operating with evil, hateful, and malicious motives! History repeats itself when people reject knowledge!
...not the best comparison, since we only call them the "Dark Ages" because a bunch of dudes in the 1800s decided that everything between the Roman Empire and themselves was lawless barbarism, because *obviously* nothing good could exist after Rome (besides them, of course).
And while the Catholic Church had many, *many* flaws, they did form a bedrock that sustained education and knowledge for several centuries until the re-emergence of secular, civic education centers.
Cripes, the Father of Genetics did his experiments while tending a monastery garden!
Petrarch coined the phrase Dark Age. He did so because at the time there were relatively few written accounts available for western Europe dating from about 400-900 AD. The assumption (now known to be errant) was a cultural decline during and after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
People getting hung up on the term "dark ages". When people should be getting hung up on the fact that Christians are doing the same thing today they've always done. Oppress, subjugate, spew hate to homosexuals, transexuals and women, cause war, promote poverty, and sew division, fear and mistrust.
One of my own Damascus moments came when travelling the world & finding the dark ages were retrospective propaganda.
Outside Christian Europe progressive civilisations flourished, science & medicine flowered.
It was those elements flowing back into the west that ended that darkness.
Inertial belief.
Not only outside Europe, but within Europe too. Byzantium (which was not only in modern turkey but had territories even in Italy) was going through important developments in literature and architecture.
In fact, the Arabs would learn much from the Byzantines before their golden age.
School in the 1960s had its roots in the ashes of empire & was born out of that era.
Civilising the savages & the awfulness of the dark ages dominated.
We were taught a parallel reality that even today dominates thinking.
Today learning to think rather than learning by role has started to unshackle.
You're right, I'm a history teacher and I can safely say that the history we teach in school even today is basically propaganda. We need to create this myth that the world was a terrible place until 18th century enlightenment ideas came to play, and those without it are barbarians.
We needed*
Sorry, phone typing sometimes make things unclear. What I mean is, we (western civilization) needed to create this myth to perpetuate the "white man's burden".
We are entering a barbarian at the gate period again.
However the danger is the crowd sated on bread & circuses seeking an escape into the world they see on screen.
Leaders promising lies are simply X factor moments they crave.
Lose what they have?
They have grown complacent
They do not value today.
But the fact is, the middle ages was a fascinating period. Of course, the economy and trade safety went down the drain with the end of Rome, but it doesn't mean that suddenly people became idiots. They were like me and you, they were able to think and question on their own terms.
Nowadays, historiography of a number of heresies that were present during different stages of the middle ages show us that there were debates and controversies. People were illiterate because the barbarians that formed modern Europe weren't educated as Greeks and Romans.
Elon Musk identified obscure federal employees by name as he questioned the value of their jobs in recent social media posts, alarming the largest union representing federal workers.
(This clown is a danger and a threat to America and the World, just like trump is. Dark days are coming after Jan 20
They learned the first few times they said, "Before the Civil Rights and Voter Rights Acts passed," hoping their listeners didn't pick up on the racism, discrimination and white supremacy. Some listener schooled them.
Now they just don't answer and it means exactly the same thing.
The term "Dark Ages" is propaganda applied by various people for different purposes starting with Petrarch in the 14th Century. So much good wook has been done in the last 125 years (+/-) that the term doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
I hold #ThePope directly responsible not cause he is spewing the hate but he isn't trying 2 🛑 it. Only recently has the church done anything about it. 4 2 long #ThePope has been silent while the LGBTQ+ community has suffered @ the hands of christians+ A simple word of "love them as your neighbor"
Post has nada 2 do w/ Gays specifically but religion dictating what others must do. Even 1s outside the faith. Guess U can apply 2 Muslim countries. Religion & Governance should NOT mix stay in their lanes.
The dark ages are still upon us. They mutated form to be industrialized and institutionalized. Consider this short list: Papal bulls and the doctrine of discovery, manifest destiny, Zionism, The scramble for Africa, Maafa, Germany’ first holocaust in Namibia, Neocolonialism, and Gaza.
Ask zealot "christians" what happens if we don't conform to their God? What if? Will you offer me violence?Will you sentence me to death? Will you starve me?I seem to remember things about this kinda stuff in the Bible, of all places.I also remember stuff about rich people like TrAmp and Musk.
They also banned books and burned women, authors, and scholars at the stake. The Enlightenment started out pretty rough, too. Compt and Spencer (Autocrates) had some messed up plans for the masses, as well, very supremacist. Herbert Spencer coined 'survival of the fittest,' not Darwin. ✔️ it out!
What was the good reason for calling them the dark ages?
The term ‘Dark Ages’ started with Petrarch a Christian writer having a whinge about a prior period and the decline of Latin culture and his preferred version of the Church
And over time expanded to cover a thousand years for a hundred reasons
Comments
"This [...] period is [...] lone of the most challenging to understand - which is why it has traditionally been labelled the 'Dark Ages'."
There is an abundance of records from that period, but indeed some places lost a lot of literature. Why? Because the church destroyed it? Nope, because barbarian kingdoms and civil wars among them.
Iberia was taken by the Visigoths and they had troubles with the Arab expansion.
Britain was pillage land for many.
So, was it the church? Nah, you barely had a church.
Plenty of records
The only thing resembling a historical dark age is the post-Mycenaean Greek period ca. 12th century BCE.
The history of the laying on of hands on trump and the goal of the charismatics who have joined forces with opus dei
1. The inquisition happened in post-renaissance Iberia
2. The moment that the church was on it's highest of power, it was during Renaissance
3. There were no "dark ages" per say.
The problem was not the inquisitors/church, but the people. They demanded these trials, the plebes wanted it.
If the church or the state didn't trial, they feared the people would turn against them.
Everyone should think about it.
Dark ages are very real, and come from many reasons.
The American Dark Ages
I think we're just going in cycles of stupid.
*clears throat*
I DIDN'T SIGN OFF ON THAT SHIT!
But I'm back to flip tables and knock sense back into some of the flock.
And we owe many things to those supposed 'dark ages'. What you have going on in the USA now is way worse than medieval Europe, particularly since we have had centuries to evolve
They were not the dark ages for the reasons exposed here. They were called like that by renaissance writers first and enlightenment writers after so they could define their periods as "the light after the dark". >
You won't.
https://www.thegoodshepherd.org.au/blog/why-christmas-not-pagan
there is no such thing as the "Dark Age"
Humanity still had advancement in science and what not
Even the Catholic church funded to build universities because at the time, Science was saw as the ultimate expression of worship to God
We could probably do without any more of those.
yes but this was more in response with a paranoid Catholic church, that after the protestant reforms, was worried that people saw the church as weak. However this was after the fact that they indeed, help fund the construction of universities
And don't even get me started on evolution!
"The concept of a "Dark Age" as a historiographical periodization originated in the 1330s with the Italian scholar Petrarch, who regarded the post-Roman centuries as "dark" compared to the "light" of classical antiquity."
and upon re researching the subject, as it been sometime since i studied this, modern science can contribute many of its early advancement to the church, as again, they saw it as a ultimate worship of God to understand the universe they made
😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3SS-KVdvYw
And WWII
And the Banana Wars
....And Vietnam
Yeah and who do you think was in control of what gets recorded??
Cripes, the Father of Genetics did his experiments while tending a monastery garden!
Everyone else is beneath them.
They could take anything they wanted from any lands they "discovered." Including the land.
Project 2025 agrees.
Catholicism has deserved criticisms. Christianity writ large has deserved criticisms. Every large organization to ever exist has deserved criticisms.
But "Close-minded Christians caused the DARK AGES" isn't one of them.
this is new edition of ages of empires, right?
what's are minimum system requirements?
Otherwise they're doing Christianity incorrectly.
https://chatgpt.com/share/674751bf-69c4-8012-80df-6a85a0c6f320
#Resist #FBR
Credit @coldwarsteve.bsky.social
https://historyforatheists.com/2024/09/the-great-myths-15-what-about-the-dark-ages/
Outside Christian Europe progressive civilisations flourished, science & medicine flowered.
It was those elements flowing back into the west that ended that darkness.
Inertial belief.
In fact, the Arabs would learn much from the Byzantines before their golden age.
Civilising the savages & the awfulness of the dark ages dominated.
We were taught a parallel reality that even today dominates thinking.
Today learning to think rather than learning by role has started to unshackle.
Sorry, phone typing sometimes make things unclear. What I mean is, we (western civilization) needed to create this myth to perpetuate the "white man's burden".
However the danger is the crowd sated on bread & circuses seeking an escape into the world they see on screen.
Leaders promising lies are simply X factor moments they crave.
Lose what they have?
They have grown complacent
They do not value today.
Also to note, all the ones running America were exiled from Europe for being too crazy. Maybe there's a lesson there.
It the practice of sorcery.
(This clown is a danger and a threat to America and the World, just like trump is. Dark days are coming after Jan 20
The 15thC sounds good to them. When they talk about the good old days, they don't mean the 1950s.
Now they just don't answer and it means exactly the same thing.
WE WILL NOT GO BACK.
That would be our Muslim friends.
#UNITEAMERICA
I don’t think it’s funny.
#BubonicPlague
I thought that exact thing during the pandemic when people were getting their medical advice from their pastors.
The term ‘Dark Ages’ started with Petrarch a Christian writer having a whinge about a prior period and the decline of Latin culture and his preferred version of the Church
And over time expanded to cover a thousand years for a hundred reasons
We, on the other hand, may not.