Dark Age Revisionism: has it gone too far?

[EHK for Darwin]

These days you can't even say the words 'Dark Age' without some historian (amateur or otherwise) telling you 'Well, they weren't really dark'. Some will say it because everyone else is saying it. Others will point to the archeological and written record discoveries of the last century that have forced most to re-evaluate the era. So its been rehabbed. But does it really deserve the extent of the current rehabilitation? I mean the way you hear it from some corners, there was no societal collapse throughout Europe at all.

But lets face facts: Literacy all but disappeared outside of the monasteries, urbanization receded drastically, trade was a fraction of its former levels, travel and cultural intermingling limited compared to other eras. Your peasants lived lives of chronic ignorance and the nobles received little better. The Greek and Roman Classics were nearly forgotten. Most never saw more than a few miles from their homes. The legal systems were irrational and unsophisticated. While Justinian was laying the foundation for Civil Codes centuries later, much of the rest of Europe had retreated to old tribal practices. Armies of antiquity could reach hundreds of thousands while anything over 10,000 would have been an enormous medieval army.

There was comparatively very little literature and other written records from the era. There was a demographic decline. Limited building projects and cultural and artistic achievements. Technological advances were almost all starting in the East and slowly trickling in. Cities didn't begin to approach the old population levels and sophistication til probably the 18th century. The East to West trend of cultural and technological advancement didn't begin to reverse til the 15th century.

Compared to the eras before and after it, compared to the Arab world, the Chinese Dynasties, the Byzantines...they were a backwater. It was a Dark Age comparatively. This mass academic aversion to the term seems more due to political correctness than actual reality. Recent archeology and unearthed records have helped us re-evaluate the era, but I don't really see where the initial conclusion changes all that much. Maybe it wasn't quite as 'dark' as we thought it was, but it was still pretty bleak.


But than again, I'm one of those amateur history buffs , so who knows. Figured there's alot of smart, learned people here, some of them may even study this shit for a career, so what's your take? Were they dark? How dark? Has all this 'Not so dark' stuff been taken too far? Do I just have a hardon for Rome?

[DanteGabriel]

Oooh. Nice topic. :)

[EHK for Darwin]

[quote name='DanteGabriel' post='1664834' date='Jan 27 2009, 20.02']Oooh. Nice topic. :)[/quote]

Heh, I thought so. One I'd been meaning to start for a while. Lets see how it goes.

[Bronn /Sword of Midnight]

Seems to me your understanding of the situation is pretty accurate and clear..times were indeed dark enough to be noted ..and should always be recognized lest we regress back to those black days...

[DanteGabriel]

I suppose part of the question is: how good was daily life for the vast ruck and run of Europeans [i]before[/i] the fall of Rome? Were Gaulish or German peasants better off? And I'm also curious how daily life was for citizens of Rome after the empire fell apart? Did civil services stop working? I am frankly very ignorant of those fields of study, and that speaks either to my education or to the lack of written records that EHK mentioned.

[EHK for Darwin]

[quote name='Triskele' post='1664843' date='Jan 27 2009, 20.11']I always figured that "Dark Age" was to somehow contrast with "enlightenment." The pre-enlightened period in which life was more nasty, brutish, and short. Not to mention a very limited amount of education beyond the rich and the clergy who ran everything.[/quote]

At least according to Wiki, the first written references to a dark age were by Petrarch in the 1330's who saw the period before him (and to some extent, the one he was still in) as a dark age compared to the major achievements of late antiquity. Writers of the early Renaissance thought they had achieved that new modern age and threw off the backwardness of the previous era. Many Enlightenment era writers had a dim view of even the Renaissance era and thought they were the ones ushering in the new age. Perspective I guess.

[quote]I suppose part of the question is: how good was daily life for the vast ruck and run of Europeans before the fall of Rome? Were Gaulish or German peasants better off? And I'm also curious how daily life was for citizens of Rome after the empire fell apart? Did civil services stop working? I am frankly very ignorant of those fields of study, and that speaks either to my education or to the lack of written records that EHK mentioned.[/quote]

Its my understanding that those within the empire were usually pretty Romanized, with access to most of the learning and 'modern' conveniences of the day. Brits even had Baths! (sadly they've yet to rediscover that innovation) :) Those outside the empire, we're probably in the nasty, brutish, and short territory. But even if it was 'Rome or Barbarism' (no idea on this), Rome covered alot of territory, and one major group doing great works on a massive scale was better than the none that would characterize the post-fall period.

As for the fall, I think something approaching Roman lifestyle continued for a while under the various gothic/vandal kings, but eventually this did die out. I don't believe anything that could even generously be called a civil service continued to exist. Mostly self-sufficient, limited outside contact, basic necessities and little else villages became the standard. And the feudal order we all became familiar with slowly arose. Or something like that. :)

[Ser Reptitious]

I agree with you on the 'Dark Ages' thing. One thing that always baffles me a bit, though, is how the term 'byzantine' is used in a rather derogatory fashion these days, essentially being shorthand for 'outdated'. While the West was very much in the thrall of these dark ages, the Byzantines maintained a significant amount of their classical heritage, and it was in fact the very fall of Constantinople in 1453 that heralded the beginning of the Renaissance in Western Europe, as the fleeing scholars and others brought the classical texts from the conquered city to Italy and other places.

[Aemon Stark]

I think the history of the city of Rome itself bears much of this out. Its population shrank to a fraction of its height, and the likes of the Coliseum were looted for metals and other objects of value.

[DanteGabriel]

[quote name='Ser Reptitious' post='1664916' date='Jan 27 2009, 22.12']I agree with you on the 'Dark Ages' thing. One thing that always baffles me a bit, though, is how the term 'byzantine' is used in a rather derogatory fashion these days, essentially being shorthand for 'outdated'. While the West was very much in the thrall of these dark ages, the Byzantines maintained a significant amount of their classical heritage, and it was in fact the very fall of Constantinople in 1453 that heralded the beginning of the Renaissance in Western Europe, as the fleeing scholars and others brought the classical texts from the conquered city to Italy and other places.[/quote]
I think the meaning of "Byzantine" is more about intricate, complicated plots, because of the level of political maneuvering in the court at Constantinople.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

I'll weigh in.

Let's first define when the "dark ages" were. For instance, does the term encompass the centuries between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance as does Wiki? I personally think that timeline is too long as the cultural and political changes in that time period are profound enough to make that period of time meaningless. Are we looking at the period pre-Charlemagne (under whom there was a remarkable resurgence in learning and the Moorish advance was stopped)? Are we looking at the time prior to "1066 and all that"? What about the Norman invasion of Italy and Sicily (arguably the last "Germanic" incursion into Italy)? It's a little fluid. There are actually quite good records from a lot of Europe for a lot of the mid to later portion of that period. I personally would go no later than the Norman invasion of Italy and Sicily myself, but it's a matter of taste, obviously.

In addition, the "darkness" of the period depends greatly on what part of Europe we are talking about. For instance, the Eastern Empire* under Justinian etc. wasn't particularly "dark" at all. Neither were Moorish controlled Spain (think Cordoba, Sevilla), Sicily and North Africa.

There was a shift from urban society to that of a rural, agricultural society (and everything that implies). Many historians blame the collapse of the large slave-run "latifundia" plantations. The economic underpinning for an urban society (that is, excess grain) collapsed. Land ownership and use was much different under the so-called "barbarians" and that was reflected in societal organization as well (and the societal organizations that arose were in fact quite complex). Finally, do not forget that although we think of the "black death" as occurring in the 14th Century, in fact, there were plagues prior to that time (particularly, in fact, during the time of Justinian) that wiped out plenty of the population.

I wouldn't necessarily say that the period was devoid of artistic achievements either. Unfortunately, many of the architectural achievements were rebuilt or changed in later times. Again, looking to Byzantium, the Hagia Sophia is from the "dark ages" as is the sublime Mezquita in Cordoba (which was begun in the 600s as a Byzantine church and gradually reworked over the centuries into its present state). The incomparable "Capella Palatina" in Sicily was done under the Normans (in the 1100s). The austerely beautiful
St. Germain de Pres in Paris was also begun in the 6th century (though admittedly modified much over the centuries). I hardly need mention the Book of Kells as well. If you include the period through to the Renaissance, you have the gothic cathedrals and various other important illuminated manuscripts.

We should also remember that from the Renaissance, a "classical" education (rather than an ecclesiastical education) became de rigeur, so we are somewhat conditioned to think how wonderful the Romans and their society were. I'm not saying they weren't, but we should remember that we bring our own cultural biases towards dubbing a period "dark" or not.



*I disagree with your original construct placing the Eastern Empire outside of "Europe." I would say one of the fundamental shifts of the "Dark Ages" was from a Mediterranean-based civilization to a continental-based civilization. However, the Byzantine Empire was very much a part of "Europe", up and until its sack by the Ottoman Turks in the 15th Century. The great schism started the divide, but during the time of Justinian, for instance, the schism was not final, and "East" and "West" both religiously and politically had a fair amount of cultural communication. To put it in perspective, Justinian's legal reforms are still used throughout Europe as in many ways they serve as the basis of "Roman" law.

[El Chico]

From what I've read, that assessment's dead-on. The fourteenth century, for example, was possibly the worst period in European history. War, famine, PLAGUE....you've got three of the four horsemen right there. A lot of the art from that period reflects this, too: Mary went from being a kind, cheerful goddess to a grieving, judgemental mother.

There were a few high points, though: the Carolingian Renaissance in France, for one.

[Guest thebadlady]

Lovely topic!!

What objective criteria would you use to judge quality of life? Mortality, nutrition, infant mortality, trade ??? Subjective criteria is a bit more iffy - freedom of religion, freedom (ie, not slavery), justice, general contentment, consumer confidence (:lol:), etc.

Much of my dislike for organized religion comes from the Dark Ages:
[quote]Reformation

During the Protestant Reformation of the 16th and 17th centuries, Protestants wrote of the Middle Ages as a period of Catholic 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, but the opposite: it was a drive to restore what Protestants saw as biblical Christianity. In response to the Protestants, Roman Catholics developed a counter image, depicting the age as a period of social and religious harmony, and not "dark" at all.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, in the Age of Enlightenment, religion was seen as antithetical to reason. Because the Middle Ages were seen as the "Age of Faith," it was seen as a period contrary to reason, and thus contrary to the Age of Reason.[10] Immanuel Kant and Voltaire were two Enlightenment writers who 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.[/quote]

Some scholars dispute that, of course.

[quote]Films and novels often use the term "Dark Age" with its implied meaning of a time of backwardness. The movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail humorously portrays knights and chivalry, following the tradition begun with Don Quixote. A 2007 television show on The History Channel called the Dark Ages "600 years of degenerate, godless, inhuman behavior."[15]

The public idea of the Middle Ages as a supposed "Dark Age" is also reflected in misconceptions regarding the study of nature during this period. The contemporary historians of science David C. Lindberg and Ronald Numbers 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.[16] For instance, a claim that was first propagated in the 19th century[17] and is still very common in popular culture is the supposition that the people from the Middle Ages believed that the Earth was flat. According to Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, this claim was mistaken, as "there was scarcely a Christian scholar of the Middle Ages who did not acknowledge [Earth's] sphericity and even know its approximate circumference."[18][17] 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, though they are not supported by current historical research[/quote]

Too tired right now to check out the creds of those scientists, will do tomorrow.

IIRC, we have/had several historians on the board, I hope they chime in.

[The_BlauerDragon]

[quote name='EHK for a True GOP' post='1664827' date='Jan 27 2009, 18.57']But lets face facts: Literacy all but disappeared outside of the monasteries, urbanization receded drastically, trade was a fraction of its former levels, travel and cultural intermingling limited compared to other eras. Your peasants lived lives of chronic ignorance and the nobles received little better. The Greek and Roman Classics were nearly forgotten. Most never saw more than a few miles from their homes. The legal systems were irrational and unsophisticated. While Justinian was laying the foundation for Civil Codes centuries later, much of the rest of Europe had retreated to old tribal practices. Armies of antiquity could reach hundreds of thousands while anything over 10,000 would have been an enormous medieval army.[/quote]

Very nice topic.

I just realized that if you swapped a couple of words around in the paragraph I've quoted above, you would be fairly accurately describing present day (and more accurately the not to distant future) conditions throughout North America.

Frightening how History repeats itself, isn't it?

[Ser Reptitious]

[quote name='DanteGabriel' post='1664930' date='Jan 27 2009, 20.28']I think the meaning of "Byzantine" is more about intricate, complicated plots, because of the level of political maneuvering in the court at Constantinople.[/quote]

Hmm, you may be on to something, so I consulted the all-knowing [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine"]wiki[/url], which states the following:

[quote]For centuries, western historians used the terms Byzantine and Byzantinism as bywords for decadence, duplicitous politics and complex bureaucracy, and there was a strongly negative assessment of Byzantine civilization and its legacy in Southeastern Europe.[/quote]

I guess I was mostly thinking of the decadence (and negative assessment) part, which is how I mostly seem to encounter the term, but I see your point.

[EHK for Darwin]

[quote name='Ser Reptitious' post='1664916' date='Jan 27 2009, 21.12']I agree with you on the 'Dark Ages' thing. One thing that always baffles me a bit, though, is how the term 'byzantine' is used in a rather derogatory fashion these days, essentially being shorthand for 'outdated'. While the West was very much in the thrall of these dark ages, the Byzantines maintained a significant amount of their classical heritage, and it was in fact the very fall of Constantinople in 1453 that heralded the beginning of the Renaissance in Western Europe, as the fleeing scholars and others brought the classical texts from the conquered city to Italy and other places.[/quote]

The West disparaging the East (and sometimes vice-versa) is almost as old as history itself. The Greeks thought the Persians (and others further east) decadent, corrupting and deceitful. The crusaders coming east were crude and nearly barbaric. They saw splendor and comfort of the imperial court and thought its leaders pampered and effeminate. They saw the use of politics and diplomacy rather than uncompromising force as duplicitous and untrustworthy. The elaborate sophistication of the empire and its great city were really quite a maze to these barely educated crusaders. To be fair there was a healthy dose of snobbery going back the other way as most Byzantines saw these Latins as uncouth, ignorant barbarians too. But later history that we would read was written by the West. And the stories of the Byzantines, true, untrue and half-true had already been enshrined in the Western European consciousness for quite a while. The Byzantines became a scapegoat for just about every Crusading failure and those stories were spread far and wide. There was just a mass cultural divide.

But perhaps the greatest blame in the modern era lies with Gibbon. Credited as the first modern historian, his Decline and Fall of the Roman empire was HUGELY influential for both our impressions of the era and our general approach to history for quite a while. And he was absolutely brutal in his very brief take on the Byzantines.

[quote]The division of the Roman world between the sons of Theodosius [ie., Honorius and Arcadius] marks the final establishment of the empire of the East, which, from the reign of Arcadius to the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, [b]subsisted one thousand and fifty-eight years in a state of perpetual decay[/b]. The sovereign of that empire assumed and obstinately retained the vain, and at length fictitious, title of Emperor of the ROMANS; and the hereditary appellations of CAESAR and AUGUSTUS continued to declare that he was the legitimate successor of the first of men, who had reigned over the first of nations.[/quote]

There are even juicier quotes, but I can't seem to find them. In either case he's largely credited for stagnating further interest and study in the Eastern Roman Empire for quite a long time.

[EHK for Darwin]

[quote name='Zabzy' post='1664932' date='Jan 27 2009, 21.29']I wouldn't necessarily say that the period was devoid of artistic achievements either. Unfortunately, many of the architectural achievements were rebuilt or changed in later times. Again, looking to Byzantium, the Hagia Sophia is from the "dark ages" as is the sublime Mezquita in Cordoba (which was begun in the 600s as a Byzantine church and gradually reworked over the centuries into its present state). The incomparable "Capella Palatina" in Sicily was done under the Normans (in the 1100s). The austerely beautiful
St. Germain de Pres in Paris was also begun in the 6th century (though admittedly modified much over the centuries). I hardly need mention the Book of Kells as well. If you include the period through to the Renaissance, you have the gothic cathedrals and various other important illuminated manuscripts.[/quote]

Pretty sure I mentioned the Muslims and Byzantines. I'm not including them in this 'dark age' because they quite clearly didn't succumb to one. At least nothing on the level of the rest of Europe. They preserved much of their learning, engaged in massive building projects, traded heavily, generated great wealth and artistic, cultural, and technological achievement.

[quote]*I disagree with your original construct placing the Eastern Empire outside of "Europe." I would say one of the fundamental shifts of the "Dark Ages" was from a Mediterranean-based civilization to a continental-based civilization. However, the Byzantine Empire was very much a part of "Europe", up and until its sack by the Ottoman Turks in the 15th Century. The great schism started the divide, but during the time of Justinian, for instance, the schism was not final, and "East" and "West" both religiously and politically had a fair amount of cultural communication. To put it in perspective, Justinian's legal reforms are still used throughout Europe as in many ways they serve as the basis of "Roman" law.[/quote]

It may have geographically been part of Europe, but I think it was splitting culturally long before the official schism or later Crusading disputes. Even by the time of Justinians attempted reconquest there were stark differences between East and West, from language, to arts, military structure, religious and cultural practices. And those divisions only continued to grow. By the first crusades most of Western Europe viewed the Eastern Empire much as the Greeks did the Persians in antiquity, as a bloated, duplicitous, decadent and effeminate culture. But unlike those greeks, your hairy, smelly crusader had very little reason for his cultural snobbery.

[quote]I just realized that if you swapped a couple of words around in the paragraph I've quoted above, you would be fairly accurately describing present day (and more accurately the not to distant future) conditions throughout North America.[/quote]

I'm really not seeing that many parallels. Even if America doesn't continue to be the global top dog, that hardly heralds the rapid decline of civilization.

[AndyP]

While I agree that there was a "dark age", I don't think that it includes the entire middle ages (basically from the fall of Rome till the start of Modern times in the 17th century.) I would define the dark ages to be the period from the demise of the Carolingian emperors to the rise of the Ottonians. Which covers the Norman (ie Vikings) invasions of Europe as well as the Magyars.

[tzanth]

Great topic!

I don't think its merely "political correctness" that refrains historians from calling the period the dark ages. Using a value laden adjective like "dark" prejudices our view of the past and thus biases research into the era regardless of the factual nature of any collapse. Indeed, calling what happened during that time a "collapse" is also problematic as it promotes certain social values over others. Surely, you had a decline in centralized government, the depopulation of urban centers, a shift in trade routes, etc, all of which constituted a collapse of the Roman system. Plenty of individuals at the time, however, were perfectly happy with the changes as they occurred. Indeed, as mentioned by Zazby, some parts of the old Roman empire did perfectly well after its decline. I think its thus better to see the period of a time of changing social systems and shifting power structures rather than as a "dark" age of wide ranging social collapse.

[Ski the Swift]

European Superiority Complex.

They just want to seem more 'Hoo-Hah' then they actually were.

[delete this account pls]

EHK, if you haven't read it, the book Millenium by Tom Holland is a decent read, dealing with Europe in the last centuries of the 'Dark Ages', focusing on the rise of the knightly class, the emergence of the Catholic Church as a unified force and the Christianisation of western Europe. It also makes the argument that the dark ages were a time of relative freedom for the underclasses, compared to what came afterwards.