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Dark Age Revisionism: has it gone too far?


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[quote name='Raidne' post='1666906' date='Jan 29 2009, 17.30']Another ETA: I think you can see the influence of the modern approach to history as social/cultural/economic over the history of ideas approach all over this debate. From that perspective, it's no longer fashionable to talk about what ideas were lost, or the Dark Ages (and partly this is good because things really were exaggerated, like the whole flat earth thing), and so this is what is getting published. And so we have this focus on what value the church as an institution had. But in doing so, we've lost what we true about the original perspective on the middle ages, which is that a lot of the writings of the Roman and Greek philosophers [i]were[/i] lost. You can see the dichotomy now if you read, say, a philosopher's account of the life of Roger Bacon vs., say, the Wiki page which has been totally overrun by socio-cultural historians.[/quote]

I think it's also a matter of what you consider important in the "history of ideas". Technology is ALSO a part of this after all, and in that realm we have some important improvements.

Does a new method of building cheap and seaworthy ships outweigh a dialogue of Plato?
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To further bring home the point of Europe being too big: For Scandinavia I think you can quite reasonably say that things were just getting better in every possible way. We get our first real cities at the time, literacy is actually IMPROVING (as far as we can tell) trade networks are expanding rapidly, government is becoming more stable and centralized... The same is arguably true for Germany, Hungary and Poland, as well as Scotland and Ireland.
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Pots are not the best example for that argument -If I was arguing against myself I'd go for glass production... while the AS were good at producing incredible glasswear they only did so through recycling roman glass as they didn't know how to make it from scratch.

also pourous pots are very useful - we use them a lot in hot weather! take a pourous jug, hang it in a gently breezy place while filled with liquid - the evaporation effect through the pours causes a gentle cooling of the liquid, most refreching on a hot day.

"how life got worse with the fall of Rome."
the fall of rome has little to no relevence to areas that were not part of the empire - they had nothing to lose apart from trade.. and we know that post roman trade continued very nicely in one form or another.

Oh, and in cold weather (such as that which Briatin often experiences in the darker months of the year) thatched roofing is a very good insulator... not that thatch was the universal roofing material - wooden "slates" were also a common method.
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[quote name='Bruce Galactus' post='1666924' date='Jan 29 2009, 11.50']They did have some of Plato actually, in a latin translation, but only a few dialogues.[/quote]

Nope, they had a partial translation of the Timaeus, and that's it. In 1160 they got translations of Phaedo and Meno.

[quote]And the point is that "the church" fought Aristotle, but those who argued FOR Aristotle were *also* members of "The Church".[/quote]

Yes, and I knew fundamentalists at my old church who accepted evolution. Surely we're not going to make semantic errors about the beliefs of individuals vs. the accepted doctrine of an organization? And surely we're not arguing that we can't talk about the accepted doctrine of "the church" when the creation of that doctrine was so incredibly formal?

[quote]Quite frankly I think separating the medieval universities from the church is impossible: Without the church we simply put HAVE no education systme AT ALL. (and no, the church never really tried to monopolize education, it was simply that they were really the only ones interested in it)[/quote]

We already established that the University of Paris was first established not by the church, but by the state. So I can't see how that could possibly be true.
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[quote]We already established that the University of Paris was first established not by the church, but by the state. So I can't see how that could possibly be true.[/quote]

The universities were already building on earlier (church-based) forms of education (cathedral schools and monastic schools) for their student-base though. And as already mentioned, university students *were priests*, technically speaking.
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[quote name='Bruce Galactus' post='1666931' date='Jan 29 2009, 11.54']I think it's also a matter of what you consider important in the "history of ideas". Technology is ALSO a part of this after all, and in that realm we have some important improvements.

Does a new method of building cheap and seaworthy ships outweigh a dialogue of Plato?[/quote]

Agreed, see my commentary on philosophy and architecture as it relates to the 12th century Renaissance upthread. However, even in that example it's really about the common theme of seeking specialization and the advent of the widely known master-craftsman or builder, and not really about the specific details of advancing to this style of buttress over another which is too specific to really be part of the history of ideas as it is commonly understood.

I think we all agree that the Scandinavian history during this period must be looked at somewhat separately, as you seem to agree with in your next post. I think the argument that this term the "Dark Ages" has to be limited to the areas that are now, for the most part, France, Germany and Italy. Maybe Britain as well - that's far out of my realm of knowledge and I'm sure they picked up quite a bit from the Scandinavians.

But I also think scientific method, such as it is, is the most important thing that happened in the history of ideas in the last 2000 years, and while it may have been possible without Plato, it wasn't possible without some discovery of philosophical skepticism.
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[quote]From my perspective the church did not really preserve and maintain very much at all. A bit of Aristotle. Maybe some Cicero? The history of these writings themselves is pretty interesting as an area of study in itself, but quite a bit of it came back through the work of humanists in early Renaissance Italy. Can you think of other examples of major ancient philosophical works that was preserved and maintained by the church?[/quote]

If not for the Church, would anyone have spoken Latin or Greek, and thus when the exodus of Byzantine scholars fled, would anyone have cared about a bunch of documents with alien writing on them?

I would argue that no Church means no classics survive today at all, or those that do would hold a cultural importance of about the same as any other truly dead language.

[quote]Or look at tiled roofs. Again, an useful and comfortable thing. What came afterwards was thatch. Thatch rots much faster, is more prone to insect infestation and flammable.[/quote]

Thatch or wooden shingles are cheap, readily available, and can be made by pretty much anyone. Great for a relatively self sufficient society.
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[quote name='Bruce Galactus' post='1666941' date='Jan 29 2009, 12.03']The universities were already building on earlier (church-based) forms of education (cathedral schools and monastic schools) for their student-base though. And as already mentioned, university students *were priests*, technically speaking.[/quote]

Actually, they were clerics. They were not ordained priests. And so what? They had to be, because philosophy was studied at the highest level in pursuit of the Doctorate of Theology. I'm running out of ways to say this. My argument, simply stated, is that academic progress was held back by church doctrine and the enforcement of church doctrine. This is not at all to say that the academics, being clerics, threatened to excommunicate [i]themselves[/i], but that other individuals, sometimes even the Pope, tried to do so through the institutional procedures and arguments accepted by "the church," the institution.

If you only knew how many times you've made my open up my term paper on the development of the University of Paris now....why don't I just throw out the opening paragraph:

[quote]In 1281 Alexander of Roes stated, “By these three, namely the priesthood, the empire and the university, the holy Catholic church is spiritually sustained, increased and ruled as if by three virtues…” indicating that, by this time, the university was perceived as an independent entity instead of a part of the monarchy or clergy.[/quote]

I think you're really oversimplifying the issue - the university was not seen as a subservient part of the church like you're making it out to be.
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Wikipedia has a good run-down of the University of Paris. When they keep mentioning stuff like, "It grew up in the latter part of the twelfth century around the Notre Dame Cathedral," or, "Three schools were especially famous at Paris, the palatine or palace school, the school of Notre-Dame, and that of Sainte-Geneviève Abbey", and, "St. Stanislaus of Szczepanów, Bishop of Kraków; Gebbard, Archbishop of Salzburg; St. Stephen, third Abbot of C”teaux; Robert d'Arbrissel, founder of the Abbey of Fontevrault"...

Well, it's hard to argue for not considering the universities as fitting part and parcel with the church, and existing in large part due to the church.

As to the scientific method, wasn't it Grosseteste -- bishop of Lincoln -- who first really laid it out as part of his Aristotelian commentaries... ? And then the honorable friar Roger Bacon. Yes, they built on knowledge that came from the Muslim world, but still -- they weren't secularists or noblemen, they were men of the church whose interests and knowledge and scholarship had grown within the church and in large part because of the scholasticism that the church sponsored.
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[quote]My argument, simply stated, is that academic progress was held back by church doctrine and the enforcement of church doctrine.[/quote]

But without the Church is a moot point. No Catholic Church in Western Europe means nobody knew any of the stuff that would be taught in those Universities. Basically, while the Church did slow progress and such, without the Church there would have been little progress to slow in the first place.
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[quote name='CelticBrennus' post='1666949' date='Jan 29 2009, 12.11']If not for the Church, would anyone have spoken Latin or Greek, and thus when the exodus of Byzantine scholars fled, would anyone have cared about a bunch of documents with alien writing on them?

I would argue that no Church means no classics survive today at all, or those that do would hold a cultural importance of about the same as any other truly dead language.[/quote]

As far as Latin, we discussed it upthread. And, as mentioned, the Latin during the medieval period was really bad. It undergoes a Renaissance when the Byzantines show up. You can see it for yourself if you know any Latin - reading medieval Latin is much, much easier than reading Renaissance Latin. And surely Aristotle's stuff would have just been translated into another language from the Arabic - they didn't have all that through straight transmission either you know.

And to the second question, [i]yes[/i] because the [i]ideas[/i] were interesting. What you ask is not a hypothetical - people [i]didn't[/i] know Greek anymore. It [i]was[/i] alien writing. But it's not like it showed up by itself - the major event for Platonic scholarship occurred in 1438 when Plethon showed up in Ferrara and Florence and started talking about Plato as the preeminent ancient philosopher instead of Aristotle. It's not like some documents just showed up in a sack.
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[quote name='Raidne' post='1666955' date='Jan 29 2009, 12.19']Actually, they were clerics. They were not ordained priests. And so what? They had to be, because philosophy was studied at the highest level in pursuit of the Doctorate of Theology. I'm running out of ways to say this. My argument, simply stated, is that academic progress was held back by church doctrine and the enforcement of church doctrine. This is not at all to say that the academics, being clerics, threatened to excommunicate [i]themselves[/i], but that other individuals, sometimes even the Pope, tried to do so through the institutional procedures and arguments accepted by "the church," the institution.

If you only knew how many times you've made my open up my term paper on the development of the University of Paris now....why don't I just throw out the opening paragraph:[/quote]
The paragraph you quoted is from the high middle-ages, when the Church had lost much of its influence to secular rulers. IIRC, one of the primary reasons for the establishment of the universities was the Papacy's need to formulate dogmas, which they did through theological and philosophical debates, so-called questio. Sometimes the Church supported a viewpoint, sometimes it was opposed, often it was non-committed (though of course always wary of ideas which could "undermine society" - as Roman Emperors and Greek city-states had been centuries earlier).

It is true that it later "froze" when these were established, but by then it had also lost its dominant position.

Edits: cause I can't afford an editor.
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There are a couple of things bothering me about the "was the (Roman) Catholic Church a positive force in the [Dark/Middle] Ages" debate:

1. At the time, adherence to doctrinal orthodoxy was considered crucial to ultimate salvation. It is very easy to forget in this sanitized and "rationalized" age how important the condition of one's soul and path to salvation was during the time period. The church attracted extremely smart people who spent their lives contemplating what was the most important issue of the day. If one of those smart people veered too far from established orthodoxy (that is, the way to save souls), this was dangerous, not only for the person in question but also because that person might lead other souls astray, forever damning them to hellfire and perdition. It sounds silly now, but it was very serious business at the time. The idea underlying this wasn't a suppression of thought, rather a desire to make sure that thought proceeded down the path that other smart people had decided was the "correct" path towards ultimate salvation.

2. The period in question covers a LOT of time. It was during this time that a lot of what we consider orthodox Catholic theology was developed or created. Remember that in the Western church, orthodoxy has not remained constant over time. It has chaged significantly over 2000 years, and it changed significantly even in the 1000 year period we are (loosely) discussing. That means some people's ideas were incorporated.

3. As was noted, a lot of the discussion has a very post-Reformation smack to it. We all should keep in mind the context of the Reformation. Martin Luther did not start out trying to take down the Catholic Church. He set out trying to bring the church back to what he perceived as a purer truth.
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[quote name='Elrostar' post='1666427' date='Jan 28 2009, 22.03']Ok, I've tried to read through most of the replies to this thread, but I guess what I keep coming back to is the extremely limited geographic region which one has to consider in order for the term 'Dark Ages' to be really useful.

As part of the basis for this argument in the first place, we had to assume that we were referring only to the portions of Western Europe which had previously been under control of the Roman Empire. But we're specifically not including any area which is under the influence of the Arabs (such as the Iberian peninsula, the Middle East, and all of Northern Africa) or the Eastern Roman Empire (aka the Byzantine Empire), which would include a lot of Greece, Asia Minor, parts of Eastern Europe, etc.


And then there's some debate as to whether or not to include Britain (always the furthest flung part of the Roman world) and Scandinavia. Although there seems to be no question as to whether or not we include large swathes of Germany, even though it was beyond the reach of the Roman Empire.
But Ireland is definitely not included? (Perhaps I'm biased having read "How the Irish saved civilization")

The word that springs to mind is cherry-picking, I guess.[/quote]

I really think you're overblowing the problem a bit. Europe minus the Byzantine and Muslim parts covers a sizable enough area and the vast majority of that, if it wasn't dark already, certainly went dark. Not all at the same time, some hit worse than others, and some parts came out of it quicker than others, but the term Dark Age still applies at the very least for a couple centuries.

[quote]For 2000 years, the Silk Road was a centerpiece of civilization in the world because of trade going back and forth between the Mediterranean and China. All that was happening in 'the dark ages' was a small correction where the end point moved from Rome to Constantinople. Before Rome it was Greece. But the Dark Ages didn't interrupt that trade route.[/quote]

No, it just interrupted the purchasing capacity of everyone at the Western End of the trade route, killing alot of the demand for those goods. Widespread demographic decline and the near disappearance of large scale trade in the region. (to the lowest levels since the Bronze age)

[quote]Just what was so great about the Roman Empire? A quarter or more of the population were chattel slaves - the availability of such "free" labour undermined the economic livelihood of freemen and citizens. Large standing armies provided ready resources for coups, civil wars, and assassinations. Strong central authority is all well and good - when it exists - but it tended to mean that larger regions were swept up into larger conflicts. Cities were repositories for plague, and they remained very unhealthy places to live right up until the 19th century.[/quote]

All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

[quote]I know people like to wax on and on about the arts and philosophy and literature, but in reality, that affected only a very, very small segment of the population. Regular Joe wasn’t employed as a philosopher or an artist. He was either a farmer or a craftsman. That’s been the truth for countless centuries, even when Rome was the premiere power of the Mediterranean. I’m sure Roman Joe didn’t read his Socrates or Suetonius. Very likely, he did not even know who they were.[/quote]

History is not very often driven by the average Joe. Whether they know those philosophers or not, their lives and the directions of their states were shaped by many of their ideas and innovations. The arts are important. They help to build the prestige of a civilization. They draw people to it. Traders, artists, philosophers, engineers, investors, wealth. Arts, prestige and culture saved Babylon from being razed to the ground on several occasions. Conquerors for centuries would seek to attain the city to legitimize their supremacy. And even when the rather independent minded city dwellers got uppity, they usually got away with it, because who in their right mind would destroy the greatest city in the world? (someone did eventually, but this cultural protection lasted for a long ass time) These things have enormous effect whether the average Joe realizes it or not.

[quote]The craftsmen in the ‘Dark Ages’ were masters at what they did.[/quote]

They still were not building on a scale remotely close to what the Romans were for a very long time. Where are their great dams, roads, aqueducts, bridges, their industrial scale mining. And as Other-in-Law mentions, most of those great works of Gothic architecture came later.

[quote]Wasn't it the activities of the Church (and Church-sponsored ones) that largely brought back and spread the Greek philosophers, which helped to thereby stimulate the history of ideas the led to the Renaissance?[/quote]

The church kept some of these things alive in the monestaries, but it was the Byzantines fleeing the decline of the empire, many showing up in Italy, who translated the majority of the Greek philosopher texts. Many more were received from contact with the Muslim world and the Reconquista of Spain. The church's influence, while not minimal, was MUCH less than these other sources.

[quote]Back to literacy - just because a people have never been taught latin and thusly didn't leave any latin manuscripts for us to read does not mean they didn't write... check out the several Runic scripts from north west europe or Oggam - written languages that we have decyphered to one degree or another over recent years.[/quote]

They didn't write on any significant scale. The level of literature, treatises, and practical record keeping seen in the east and int he previous era did not exist. Literacy was at a fraction of its former level. Noone disputes that writing still existed, just that there was very little of it comparatively.

[quote]the fall of the Western Empire, say about 400 ad to a maybe 1000 was indeed a barbaric time that had little to recommend it beyond pure survival.[/quote]

I think that's about the time period most of us have been using for much of the thread. (My first post may have extended things, but I've readjusted)

[quote]so, the Holy Roman Empire was unimportant?[/quote]

The Holy Roman Empire was began in the mid to late 10th century. The Carolingian Renaissance was brief and unsustained in many regards.


[quote]why would a people with a culture and traditions developed over hundred of years adopt the Roman laws/justice system/language if they'd had little to no contact with the Romans.. let alone been conquered by them?[/quote]

First because the Roman system was better and more rational. Second, most of the German legal codes produced from the fall and centuries after had obvious Roman influences in them right down to the use of bad, bastardized latin. So even the unconquered peoples had enough contact to insert some Roman legal concepts or basic code structure into their own sets of laws. They had access. Of course I don't expect them to adopt the better system because they didn't have the infrastructure to fully understand it or implement it...but that's kind of the point. They were backwards in nearly every respect.

[quote]eta: NB/ this value of honour was one of the main reasons why the supposedly more civilised Byzantine Emperors were so keen on having the Varangian Guard - a bunch of "northern barbarians" who were actually capable of keeping their oaths unlike the normal Byzantine troops who frequently schemed and plotted at a level to rival Littlefinger.[/quote]

I think you're overstating the honor issue. It was mainly the fact that their loyalty could be ensured because none of them had that many vested personal contacts or power interests in the empire itself. The locals aren't gonna put a crown on a Varangian. Nor are they integrated enough into the society to do much scheming.
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[quote name='Ran' post='1666956' date='Jan 29 2009, 12.20']Wikipedia has a good run-down of the University of Paris. When they keep mentioning stuff like, "It grew up in the latter part of the twelfth century around the Notre Dame Cathedral," or, "Three schools were especially famous at Paris, the palatine or palace school, the school of Notre-Dame, and that of Sainte-Geneviève Abbey", and, "St. Stanislaus of Szczepanów, Bishop of Kraków; Gebbard, Archbishop of Salzburg; St. Stephen, third Abbot of C”teaux; Robert d'Arbrissel, founder of the Abbey of Fontevrault"...

Well, it's hard to argue for not considering the universities as fitting part and parcel with the church, and existing in large part due to the church.[/quote]

As I've mentioned, University of Michigan exists in large part because of the funding from the State of Michigan. Would you attribute the academic advances of the university to the state? It is impossible that they be separate entities when one provides much of the funding and support for the other? Do you not still see the University as a separate institution from the State of Michigan?

Have universities [i]ever[/i] fit "part and parcel" with their sources of funding? Look at the split between "liberal academia" and the state during the Bush administration, yet a large part of the funding is federal. From the approach you and Galactus are putting forth, I'd have to say that the Bush Administration advanced and supported any academic progress that occurred during his presidency.

[quote]As to the scientific method, wasn't it Grosseteste -- bishop of Lincoln -- who first really laid it out as part of his Aristotelian commentaries... ? And then the honorable friar Roger Bacon. Yes, they built on knowledge that came from the Muslim world, but still -- they weren't secularists or noblemen, they were men of the church whose interests and knowledge and scholarship had grown within the church and in large part because of the scholasticism that the church sponsored.[/quote]

I don't know if you can say he really "laid it out," but yes, there were a few sparks - brilliant people. Yet science as we know it did not yet start to develop. (And surely the Wiki on Grosseteste must be not entirely correct? Even I can't think that the applications of simple induction and deduction were lost until Grosseteste rediscovered their usefulness?).

Anyway, for another perspective, one more in line with my opinion anyway, see Charles Schmitt, who argues that it was Pierre Gassendi - a skeptic - who took the first steps to separate science from metaphysics, and also insisted on verifying predictions through experience. That's really laying it out in all its important parts, IMHO.

Geez, guys I've got three terms papers, The History of Scepticism and the essay on the transmission of the Dialogues from my Complete Works of Plato out now. Can't help but feel I'm being worked a little hard here.

ETA: By the way, the Stanford Encyclopedia for Philosophy is great for this kind of thing. [url="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/grosseteste/#SciMet"]Here[/url] is their page on Grosseteste - see part 11 for the bit on the scientific method.

And [url="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gassendi/#4"]here[/url] is the page on Gassendi.
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[quote]First because the Roman system was better and more rational. Second, most of the German legal codes produced from the fall and centuries after had obvious Roman influences in them right down to the use of bad, bastardized latin.[/quote]

part one - perhaps for a Roman culture, but not for a culture with a different outlook on the world.
part two - Roman infulences/use of latin through the writing by church taught scholars who learned latin etc - take a look at the evolution of English Law (and eventually its infulences on US law among others) and you'll see a Prenorman Anglosaxon system that has gradually changed as society had evolved - seperate from "roman law" in its roots.

while I do deliberatley overplay the honour system (partly as it is a good example of a striking difference between cultures) it is still very important - as important as your deliberate overplaying of the wisdom/perfectness of Rome.
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[quote name='Falagar' post='1666977' date='Jan 29 2009, 12.38']The paragraph you quoted is from the high middle-ages, when the Church had lost much of its influence to secular rulers.[/quote]

Well, the University of Paris wasn't established until 1200, so that's the period at issue in our discussion about whether the universities are inseparable from the Church. Don't know what you want me to do about it - I can't change the dates that things were founded, and so I can't talk about the role of the Church in universities during the early middle ages, because there weren't any on the relevant part of the continent.

Zabzy - I agree with what you say about the realness of damnation for many of these scholars, but I think you underestimate the confidence many of them had at the time that the views they were espousing [i]were[/i] in harmony with Christianity. As you say, Orthodoxy changed over time, often as a result of formal papers put before the papacy by these scholars.
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[quote name='Jaak' post='1666930' date='Jan 29 2009, 10.53']One simple and hard piece of evidence about how life got worse with the fall of Rome. Pottery.

A well-made, well-burned pot is not biodegradable. It can be broken, but the shards never rot and last forever in soil. It can be reused as a pot or a potsherd, for some purposes, but it stays recognizable as potsherd. It cannot be burned nor recycled by melting.

Glazed pot keeps liquids and can easily be cleaned.

In Roman context, there is a lot of mass-produced, decent quality pottery. Monte Testaccio, but there is also a lot of Roman pottery in villas and even in rather humble farmhouses.

Then look at what came in Dark Ages. Mass produced pottery vanished. There was some handmade pottery, poorly fired, porous and much more friable and brittle than the Roman pottery. The common people in Dark Ages were making do with much less useful and comfortable vessels. It was only about year 700 that some pottery produced for market returned to England - Ipswich ware.

Or look at tiled roofs. Again, an useful and comfortable thing. What came afterwards was thatch. Thatch rots much faster, is more prone to insect infestation and flammable.

Or small change in form of small-value bronze coins. The Romans had them, carried them and lost them. This meant that humble people could move about freely and pay their way in small transactions. Again vanished with Dark Ages.[/quote]

Good summary of a few things that had gone thus far unmentioned Jaak. We tend to forget alot of the little, very practical things that disappeared, diminished, or degraded.

[quote]the fall of rome has little to no relevence to areas that were not part of the empire - they had nothing to lose apart from trade.. and we know that post roman trade continued very nicely in one form or another.[/quote]

Trade dropped to the lowest levels since the Bronze age. I'd hardly consider that 'very nicely'. It took the Vikings to really get it kickstarted again. Also, the places in Europe that were not part of the empire were largely too backwards and desolate to bother with. They were already 'Dark'. And even their minimal contact couldn't help but benefit them. (so long as they weren't slaughtered) Rome was the only reason for trade, wealth, materials and ideas to come to Western Europe. And they were developing many of these things themselves as well. The non-empire folks weren't touching this stuff without contact with Rome.
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[quote name='Raidne' post='1666994' date='Jan 29 2009, 12.51']Well, the University of Paris wasn't established until 1200, so that's the period at issue in our discussion about whether the universities are inseparable from the Church. Don't know what you want me to do about it - I can't change the dates that things were founded, and so I can't talk about the role of the Church in universities during the early middle ages, because there weren't any on the relevant part of the continent.[/quote]
Ah, I was confusing cathedral schools into my argument. I would however argue that the cathedral schools were a vital and vigorous force already, with important centers such as the one at Chartres - known for the so-called "Chartrian spirit", which as Charles le Goff argued included variants of naturalism and humanism, and gained influence in the church.
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