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What I want to know is why this period in history is so badly represented, misunderstood, and littered with misconceptions? For years, I've heard people go on about how it was a period of horrid battle and little progress/intellectual development and that "superstition ruled while science took a backseat."

That's simply not true so why is this area so historically trumped up?

The short answer in Eurocentrism.

Define 'Dark Ages'. The original idea of the entire medieval period being a time of intellectual darkness went out the window in the Victorian era, even though people still use it for stylistic reasons today. If you want to know why people still like to use the term that way- well, that's simple. In western Europe, civilisation was clearly progressing in Roman times. It was clearly progressing from the Renaissance onwards. It was not clearly progressing between those times. This is a very simplistic view, but frankly not that inaccurate when looking at things in the broadest terms.

Historians, though, tend to use 'Dark Ages' to refer to periods of time where there is very little information available for us to know much about it. Hence in Britain it gets very often used for the period between the Roman withdrawal and Alfred the Great, because almost nothing was recorded between those periods.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
Define 'Dark Ages'. The original idea of the entire medieval period being a time of intellectual darkness went out the window in the Victorian era, even though people still use it for stylistic reasons today.

It did, but the belief that the "Dark Ages" (If I'm defining, I'd say the period that came after the degeneracy of the Roman Empire in Western Europe) was a period of "intellectual darkness" has had a resurgence. Anecdotally, a large portion of people I interact with believe this and it was taught in school when I was young, unfortunately.



Alfred the Great? That would be around the eighth century, correct? I always thought this was the period where historical recordings were strengthened, especially by the introduction of the Carolingian minuscule via Charlemagne.

Wasn't the term 'Dark Ages' not introduced in the Renaissance, when people went back to the classics in Roman and Greek times? From that point of view it's not so odd that the time in between was considered 'backwards' because the Renaissance was considered as a new era, returning to one ages ago. Ergo, medieval times may have felt like 'dark ages', Which I don't think they were.

I wikipedia'd and that would be the 9th Century.

Originally posted by queeq
Wasn't the term 'Dark Ages' not introduced in the Renaissance, when people went back to the classics in Roman and Greek times? From that point of view it's not so odd that the time in between was considered 'backwards' because the Renaissance was considered as a new era, returning to one ages ago. Ergo, medieval times may have felt like 'dark ages', Which I don't think they were.

No, they weren't "dark ages" by any means. I know the term was coined by Petrarch and it was probably generated anywhere between 1321 and 1370, I believe. It didn't help that Petrarch was a poet who was practically obsessed with Roman culture. He was an idiot but he's the man who started the ball rolling, etymologically speaking.

Originally posted by Bardock42
I wikipedia'd and that would be the 9th Century.

"That" is quite the vague pronoun. What are you specifically referencing?

Originally posted by The Renegade
Alfred the Great? That would be around the eighth century, correct? I always thought this was the period where historical recordings were strengthened, especially by the introduction of the Carolingian minuscule via Charlemagne.

Not in Britain. There's virtually bugger all written down (that survived) about the entire early/mid Saxon period. Hence its specific use in Britain in referring to a dark age- we can barely see a damn thing about it today. It was Alfred himself who got history going again in Britian, as it were, and much of what we do know about the earlier period was written in retrospect by people in his time, and hence open to great inaccuracy.

Historians use the term in context, not as a broad sweep.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
Not in Britain. There's virtually bugger all written down (that survived) about the entire early/mid Saxon period. Hence its specific use in Britain in referring to a dark age- we can;t see a damn thing about it today.

That is unfortunate indeed. I believe southern/western Europe reaped the highest "benefits" of recorded history during the "Dark Ages," in all fairness.

Originally posted by The Renegade
"That" is quite the vague pronoun. What are you specifically referencing?

The following:

Originally posted by The Renegade
Alfred the Great? That would be around the eighth century, correct?

Originally posted by Bardock42
The following:

Better.

He was alive during the 800's so it threw me off when I referenced his century. Haha.

See, Alfred is so important in English history not just because he created the entire idea of an English state, significant as that is. But he did three things of service to history:

- He put in place the foundations of a kingdom that spread across all of England (his grandson finished the job)

- He ordered that everything of importance be written down

- His legacy survived- no invader came along and burnt it all down, as kept happening in earlier times.

These three things mean that we have a wealth of written and archaeological history that stretches across all of England from Alfred's time onwards. We know everything that historians could reasonably expect to know from that period. In contrast to the preceding centuries, we go from a long period of 'we know almost nothing' to an everlasting state of 'we know nearly everything'.

Hence 'Dark Ages' has a particular pull in Britain, as for that period it's very apt. It's also where the basis of the Arthurian legend comes from, which gives an aura of cool.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
See, Alfred is so important in English history not just because he created the entire idea of an English state, significant as that is. But he did three things of service to history:

- He put in place the foundations of a kingdom that spread across all of England (his grandson finished the job)

- He ordered that everything of importance be written down

- His legacy survived- no invader came along and burnt it all down, as kept happening in earlier times.

These three things mean that we have a wealth of written and archaeological history that stretches across all of England from Alfred's time onwards. We know everything that historians could reasonably expect to know from that period. In contrast to the preceding centuries, we go from a long period of 'we know almost nothing' to an everlasting state of 'we know nearly everything'.

Hence 'Dark Ages' has a particular pull in Britain, as for that period it's very apt. It's also where the basis of the Arthurian legend comes from, which gives an aura of cool.

Knew that about Albert but it's appreciated anyway. You did take the time to write it. I thought earlier you were referencing Europe abroad and not specifically the U.K.

Yeah, the Arthurian legend is badass indeed. Didn't know about the pull it ("Dark Ages" term) had in Britain, within that context.

Yeah it makes Arthurian research an impossible detective story, which is why so many people try it.

The first use of the term "Dark Age" (or a translation of it) was actually by Greek Historians to refer to a time period where their records were spotty and thus it must have been a horrible time period.

Calling the period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages (sometimes the Dark Ages ends at the time of the Crusades, other times it continues right up to Da Vinci's time) implies that the Roman Empire was a progressive, knowledge-driven cultural force and that it's sudden fall set the world back hundreds of years (in Stargate SG1 there's an episode where the team visits a world of transplanted humans whose technology is incredibly more advanced than ours, and the scientist surmises that they "didn't have a Dark Age where scientific development was halted), but there are two big problems with this. First, the Roman Empire was already stagnating and its best discoveries and achievements were basically behind it a century or so before the fall, and second, in the time that Europe was supposedly regressing, China was flourishing.

I had a AP World History teacher who liked to say that China approached an industrial revolution a few times in its history centuries ahead of Europe, but for various (often social reasons) never quite got to one.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
The first use of the term "Dark Age" (or a translation of it) was actually by Greek Historians to refer to a time period where their records were spotty and thus it must have been a horrible time period.


We're referring to the term being specifically used for that period so it's first usage, in that specific context, was by the Italian poet.

Unless you have a source/evidence suggesting otherwise.

Historians and scholars don't have such misconceptions. And the general public has misconceptions about every era. The "Dark Ages" get more attention for some reason, but it's not an isolated period for such struggles.

Originally posted by Digi
Historians and scholars don't have such misconceptions. And the general public has misconceptions about every era. The "Dark Ages" get more attention for some reason, but it's not an isolated period for such struggles.

Oh, no. This isn't what I'm saying at all. The popularity surrounding it's misconception is what has me intrigued. There are others (for example, the belief that people thought the Earth was flat up until a few hundred years ago) but this is one I find interesting.

Of course they wouldn't have those misconceptions (historians + scholars), which is why I'm not addressing them.

Originally posted by The Renegade
Oh, no. This isn't what I'm saying at all. The popularity surrounding it's misconception is what has me intrigued. There are others (for example, the belief that people thought the Earth was flat up until a few hundred years ago) but this is one I find interesting.

Of course they wouldn't have those misconceptions (historians + scholars), which is why I'm not addressing them.

Is this thread about the misconception of historical misconceptions? How do you make an Inception pun out of that?

Originally posted by queeq
Wasn't the term 'Dark Ages' not introduced in the Renaissance, when people went back to the classics in Roman and Greek times? From that point of view it's not so odd that the time in between was considered 'backwards' because the Renaissance was considered as a new era, returning to one ages ago. Ergo, medieval times may have felt like 'dark ages', Which I don't think they were.
I heard the same
They went back to classics and pretended that God-oriented Maedieval people were handicapped..

Renaissance people were God-oriented too! They just found the medieval people culturally backwards.

ok.. should have said Church-oriented..
It's when reformation started.

no. i disagree

with...?

Everything. Shut up.