For the periodic terms, see Middle Ages and Early Middle Ages. The Early Middle Ages is a period in the History of Europe following the fall of the Western Roman Empire spanning roughly five centuries from AD 500

For other uses of the phrase, see Dark Ages (disambiguation).

Petrarch, who conceived the idea of a European "Dark Age. Francesco Petrarca ( July 20, 1304 – July 19, 1374) known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar " From Cycle of Famous Men and Women, Andrea di Bartolo di Bargillac, c. 1450

In European historiography, the term Dark Age or Dark Ages refers to the Early Middle Ages, the period encompassing (roughly) 476 to 1000 AD. The Early Middle Ages is a period in the History of Europe following the fall of the Western Roman Empire spanning roughly five centuries from AD 500 Events By place Western Roman Empire September 4 — Romulus Augustus, the last Emperor of the Western Roman Empire

This concept of a Dark Age was created by the Italian scholar Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca) in the 1330s and was originally intended as a sweeping criticism of the character of Late Latin literature. Francesco Petrarca ( July 20, 1304 – July 19, 1374) known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar Vulgar Latin (in Latin sermo vulgaris, "folk speech" is a Blanket term covering the popular Dialects and Sociolects of the Latin Latin literature, the body of written works in the Latin language remains an enduring legacy of the culture of Ancient Rome. ^[1] Later historians expanded the term to refer to the transitional period between Classical Roman Antiquity and the High Middle Ages, including not only the lack of Latin literature, but also a lack of contemporary written history, general demographic decline, limited building activity and material cultural achievements in general. Classical antiquity (also the classical era or classical period) is a broad term for a long period of cultural History centered on the Mediterranean The Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial The High Middle Ages was the period of European history in the 11th 12th and 13th centuries (AD 1000&ndash1299 Recorded history can be defined as History that has been written down or recorded by the use of Language, whereas History is a more general term referring 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. Popular culture (or pop culture) is the Culture — patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activities significance and importance — Words and phrases are pejorative if they imply disapproval or contempt

The rise of archaeology and other specialties in the 20th century has shed much light on the period and offered a more nuanced understanding of its positive developments. Archaeology, archeology, or archæology (from Greek grc ἀρχαιολογία archaiologia – grc ἀρχαῖος archaīos Other terms of periodization have come to the fore: Late Antiquity, the Early Middle Ages, and the Great Migrations, depending on which aspects of culture are being emphasized. Periodization is the attempt to categorize or divide Time into discrete named blocks Late Antiquity (c 300-600 is a Periodization used by historians to describe the transitional centuries from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, in The Migration Period, also called Barbarian Invasions, or sometimes Völkerwanderung ( German for "wandering of peoples" is the English name

When modern scholarly study of the Middle Ages arose in the 19th century, the term "Dark Ages" was at first kept, with all its critical overtones. When the term "Dark Ages" is used by historians today, it is intended to be neutral, namely, to express the idea that the events of the period often seem "dark" to us only because of the paucity of historical records, artistic and cultural output^[2] compared with later times. ^[3]

Petrarch

"Triumph of Christianity" by Tommaso Laureti (1530-1602), ceiling painting in the Sala di Constantino, Vatican Palace. Tommaso Laureti, often called Tommaso Laureti Siciliano (c 1530 — 22 September 1602) was a Italian painter from Sicily who trained Vatican City, officially the State of the Vatican City (Stato della Città del Vaticano is a Landlocked sovereign City-state whose territory Images like this one celebrate the destruction of ancient pagan culture and the victory of Christianity. Paganism (from Latin paganus, meaning "country dweller rustic" is a word used to refer to various religions and religious beliefs from across the world

It is generally accepted that the concept was created by Petrarch in the 1330s. Francesco Petrarca ( July 20, 1304 – July 19, 1374) known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar Writing of those who had come before him, he said, "Amidst the errors there shone forth men of genius, no less keen were their eyes, although they were surrounded by darkness and dense gloom. "^[4] Christian writers had traditional metaphors of "light versus darkness" to describe "good versus evil". Petrarch was the first to co-opt the metaphor and give it secular meaning by reversing its application. Classical Antiquity, so long considered the "dark" age for its lack of Christianity, was now seen by Petrarch as the age of "light" because of its cultural achievements, while Petrarch's time, lacking such cultural achievements, was seen as the age of darkness.

As an Italian, Petrarch saw the Roman Empire and the classical period as expressions of Italian greatness. The Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial ^[4] He spent much of his time traveling through Europe rediscovering and republishing the classic Latin and Greek texts. Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly He wanted to restore the classical Latin language to its former purity. Humanists saw the preceding 900-year period as a time of stagnation. Renaissance Humanism was a European intellectual movement beginning in Florence in the last decades of the 14th century They saw history unfolding, not along the religious outline of St. Augustine's Six Ages of the World, but in cultural (or secular) terms through the progressive developments of classical ideals, literature, and art. The Six Ages of the World is a Christian historical Periodization outline first written about by Saint Augustine circa 400 AD

Petrarch wrote that history had had two periods: the classic period of the Greeks and Romans, followed by a time of darkness, in which he saw himself as still living. Classical antiquity (also the classical era or classical period) is a broad term for a long period of cultural History centered on the Mediterranean Humanists believed one day the Roman Empire would rise again and restore classic cultural purity, and so by the late 14th and early 15th century, humanists such as Leonardo Bruni believed they had attained this new age, and that a third, Modern Age had begun. Leonardo Bruni (or Leonardo Aretino) (c 1369 &ndash March 9 1444) was a leading humanist, Historian and a Chancellor The term modern period or modern era (sometimes also modern times) is the period of history that followed the Middle Ages between c The age before their own, which Petrarch had labeled dark, thus became a "middle" age between the classic and the modern. The first use of the term "Middle Age" appeared with Flavio Biondo around 1439. Flavio Biondo ( Latin Flavius Blondus) (1392 &ndash June 4, 1463) was an Italian Renaissance humanist historian

After the Renaissance

Main article: Middle Ages in history

Historians prior to the 20th century wrote about the Middle Ages from a mix of perspectives. The Middle Ages in history is an overview of how previous periods have both romanticised and disparaged the Middle Ages. Most of them expressed negative sentiments.

Reformation

During the Protestant Reformation of the 16th and 17th centuries, Protestants wrote of it as a period of Catholic corruption. The Protestant Reformation was a reform movement in Europe that began in 1517 though its roots lie further back in time Protestantism refers to the forms of Christian faith and practice that originated in the 16th century Protestant Reformation. 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 a "purer" Christianity. In response to these attacks, Roman Catholic reformers developed a counter image, depicting the age as a period of social and religious harmony, and not "dark" at all.

Enlightenment

During the 17th and 18th centuries, in the Age of Enlightenment, religion was seen as antithetical to reason. The Age of Enlightenment or The Enlightenment is a term used to describe a phase in Western philosophy and cultural life centered upon the eighteenth century 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. 17th century philosophy in the Western world is generally regarded as being the start of Modern philosophy, and a departure from the medieval approach Immanuel Kant and Voltaire were two Enlightenment writers who were vocal in attacking the religiously dominated Middle Ages as a period of social decline. Immanuel Kant (ɪmanuəl kant 22 April 1724 12 February 1804 was an 18th-century German Philosopher from the Prussian city of Königsberg François-Marie Arouet ( 21 November 1694 30 May 1778) better known by the Pen name Voltaire, was a French Many modern negative conceptions of the age come from Enlightenment authors. 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.

Consequently, an evolution had occurred in at least three ways. Petrarch's original metaphor of light versus dark had been expanded in time, implicitly, at least. Even if the early humanists after him no longer saw themselves living in a dark age, their times were still not light enough for 18th-century writers who saw themselves as living in the real Age of Enlightenment, while the period covered by their own condemnation had been extended and was focused also on what we now call Early Modern times. The early modern period is a term initially used by historians to refer mainly to the period roughly from 1500 to 1800 in Western Europe ( Early modern Europe) Additionally, Petrarch's metaphor of darkness, which he used mainly to deplore what he saw as a lack of secular achievements, was sharpened to take on a more explicitly antireligious meaning in light of the draconian tactics of the Catholic clergy.

In spite of this, the term "Middle Ages", used by Biondo and other early humanists after Petrarch, was the name in general use before the 18th century to denote the period up until the Renaissance. The Renaissance (from French Renaissance, meaning "rebirth" Italian: Rinascimento, from re- "again" and nascere The earliest recorded use of the English word "medieval" was in 1827. The term "Dark Ages" was also in use, but by the 18th century, it tended to be confined to the earlier part of this medieval period. Starting and ending dates varied: the Dark Ages were considered by some to start in 410, by others in 476 when there was no longer an emperor in Rome, and to end about 800, at the time of the Carolingian Renaissance under Charlemagne, or to extend through the rest of the first millennium up until about the year 1000. The Carolingian Renaissance was a period of intellectual and cultural revival occurring in the late eighth and ninth centuries with the peak of the activities Charlemagne (ˈʃɑrlɨmeɪn Carolus Magnus or Karolus Magnus meaning Charles the Great) (747 – 28 January 814 was King of the Franks from 768 to his

Romantics

In the early 19th century, the Romantics reversed the negative assessment of Enlightenment critics. Romanticism is a complex artistic literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength during the The word "Gothic" had been a term of opprobrium akin to "Vandal" until a few self-confident mid-18th-century English "goths" like Horace Walpole initiated the Gothic Revival in the arts—which for the following Romantic generation began to take on an idyllic image of the Age of Faith. The Goths ( Gothic: Gothic usvg|14px|u]]Gothic asvg|14px|a]]Gothic s Horace Walpole 4th Earl of Orford ( 24 September, 1717 &ndash 2 March, 1797) more commonly known as Horace Walpole, was a politician The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement which began This image, in reaction to a world dominated by Enlightenment rationalism in which reason trumped emotion, expressed a romantic view of a Golden Age of chivalry. The term Golden age is best known from Greek mythology and legend but can also be found in other ancient cultures (see below Chivalric order Chivalry is a term related to the Medieval institution of Knighthood. The Middle Ages were seen with romantic nostalgia as a period of social and environmental harmony and spiritual inspiration, in contrast to the excesses of the French Revolution and, most of all, to the environmental and social upheavals and sterile utilitarianism of the emerging industrial revolution. The French Revolution (1789–1799 was a period of political and social upheaval in the History of France, during which the French governmental structure previously an The Industrial Revolution was a period in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when major changes in agriculture manufacturing and transportation had a profound effect on the The Romantics' view of these earlier centuries can still be seen in modern-day fairs and festivals celebrating the period with costumes and events. A Renaissance fair, Renaissance faire, or Renaissance festival is an outdoor weekend gathering usually held in the United States, open to the public and

Just as Petrarch had turned the meaning of light versus darkness, so had the Romantics turned the judgment of Enlightenment critics. However, the period idealized by the Romantics focused largely on what is now known as the High Middle Ages, extending into Early Modern times. The High Middle Ages was the period of European history in the 11th 12th and 13th centuries (AD 1000&ndash1299 The early modern period is a term initially used by historians to refer mainly to the period roughly from 1500 to 1800 in Western Europe ( Early modern Europe) In one respect, this was a reversal of the religious aspect of Petrarch's judgment, since these later centuries were those when the universal power and prestige of the Church was at its height. To many users of the term, the scope of the Dark Ages was becoming divorced from this period, denoting mainly the earlier centuries after the fall of Rome.

Modern academic use

When modern scholarly study of the Middle Ages arose in the 19th century, the term "Dark Ages" was at first kept, with all its critical overtones. Although it was never the more formal term (universities named their departments "medieval history" not "Dark Age history"), it was widely used, including in such classics as Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, where it expressed the author's contempt for priest-ridden, superstitious, dark times. Edward Gibbon ( April 27, 1737 January 16, 1794) was an English historian and Member of Parliament. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (known popularly as The History) was written by English Historian However, the early 20th century saw a radical reevaluation of the Middle Ages, and with it a calling into question of the terminology of darkness. ^[3] A. T. Hatto, translator of many medieval works, exemplified this when he spoke ironically of "the lively centuries which we call dark". It became clear that serious scholars would either have to redefine the term or abandon it.

When the term "Dark Ages" is used by historians today, it is intended to be neutral, namely, to express the idea that the events of the period often seem "dark" to us only because of the paucity of historical records compared with later times. The darkness is ours, not theirs. ^[3] However, since there is no shortage of information on the High and Late Middle Ages, this required a narrowing of the reference to the Early Middle Ages. The Late Middle Ages is a term used by historians to describe European history in the period of the 14th and 15th centuries (AD 1300–1499 Late 5th- and 6th-century Britain, for instance, at the height of the Saxon invasions, might well be numbered among "the darkest of the Dark Ages", with the equivalent of a near-total news blackout in terms of historical records, compared with either the Roman era before or the centuries that followed. Great Britain during the Middle Ages (from the 5th century withdrawal of Roman forces from the province of Britannia The Saxons or Saxon people were a Confederation of Old Germanic tribes. Further east, the same was true in the formerly Roman province of Dacia, where history after the Roman withdrawal went unrecorded for centuries, as Slavs, Avars, Bulgars, and others struggled for supremacy in the Danube basin, and events there are still disputed. Dacia, in ancient geography was the land of the Dacians. It was named by the ancient Hellenes ( Greeks) " Getae " The Caucasian Avars are a modern people of Caucasus, mainly of Dagestan. The Bulgars (also Bolgars or proto-Bulgarians) were a seminomadic people probably of Turkic descent originally from Central Asia, The Danube (In Donau from earlier Danuvius, Celtic *dānu, meaning "to flow run" Slovak and Polish Dunaj However, at this time the Byzantine Empire and especially the Arab Empire experienced Golden Ages rather than Dark Ages; consequently, this usage of the term must also differentiate geographically. While Petrarch's concept of a Dark Age corresponded to a mostly Christian period following pre-Christian Rome, the neutral use of the term today applies mainly to those cultures least Christianized and thus most sparsely covered by the Catholic Church's historians.

However, from the mid-20th century onwards, other scholars began to critique even this nonjudgmental use of the term. ^[3] There are two main criticisms. First, it is questionable whether it is possible to use the term "Dark Ages" effectively in a neutral way; scholars may intend this, but it does not mean that ordinary readers will so understand it. Second, the explosion of new knowledge and insight into the history and culture of the Early Middle Ages, which 20th-century scholarship has achieved, means that these centuries are no longer dark even in the sense of "unknown to us". Consequently, many academic writers prefer not to use the expression at all.

Modern popular use

Medieval artistic illustration of the spherical Earth in a 14th century copy of L'Image du monde (ca. The concept of a spherical Earth dates back to around the 6th century BC in ancient Greek philosophy and possibly ancient Indian philosophy. Gautier de Metz, (also Gauthier Gossuin Gossouin, Walther von Metz) was a French Priest and Poet. 1246)

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. Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a 1975 film written and performed by the comedy group Monty Python ( Graham Chapman, John Cleese es '''''Don Quixote''''' (, see spelling and pronunciation below fully titled es '''''El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha''''' ("The Ingenious Hidalgo Don A 2007 television show on The History Channel called the Dark Ages "600 years of degenerate, godless, inhuman behavior". History, formerly known as The History Channel, is a Satellite and Cable TV channel, with shows on historical events and persons&mdashoften ^[5]

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. In the Middle Ages, Science progressed dramatically from the time of antiquity in areas as diverse as Astronomy, Medicine, and Mathematics 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. David C Lindberg is an American historian of science He is the Hilldale Professor Emeritus of History of Science and Past Director of the Institute for Research in the Humanities Ronald L Numbers (born 1942 is an American historian of science ^[6] For instance, a claim that was first propagated in the 19th century^[7] and is still very common in popular culture is the supposition that the people from the Middle Ages believed that the Earth was flat. The idea of a flat Earth is the idea that the surface of the Earth is flat (a plane) rather than the view that it is a very close approximation of 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. "^[8][7] 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, even though he says that they are not supported by current historical research. ^[9]

Quotations

• "What else, then, is all history, but the praise of Rome?"—Petrarch
• "Each famous author of antiquity whom I recover places a new offence and another cause of dishonour to the charge of earlier generations, who, not satisfied with their own disgraceful barrenness, permitted the fruit of other minds, and the writings that their ancestors had produced by toil and application, to perish through insufferable neglect. Although they had nothing of their own to hand down to those who were to come after, they robbed posterity of its ancestral heritage. "—Petrarch
• "My fate is to live among varied and confusing storms. But for you perhaps, if as I hope and wish you will live long after me, there will follow a better age. When the darkness has been dispersed, our descendants can come again in the former pure radiance. "—Petrarch
• "Between the far away past history of the world, and that which lies near to us; in the time when the wisdom of the ancient times was dead and had passed away, and our own days of light had not yet come, there lay a great black gulf in human history, a gulf of ignorance, of superstition, of cruelty, and of wickedness. That time we call the dark or Middle Ages. Few records remain to us of that dreadful period in our world's history, and we only know of it through broken and disjointed fragments that have been handed down to us through the generations. "— Howard Pyle, Otto of the Silver Hand (1888)
• "The Middle Ages is an unfortunate term. Howard Pyle ( March 5, 1853 – November 9, 1911) was an American Illustrator and writer primarily of books for young audiences It was not invented until the age was long past. The dwellers in the Middle Ages would not have recognized it. They did not know that they were living in the middle; they thought, quite rightly, that they were time's latest achievement. "—Morris Bishop, The Middle Ages (1968)
• "If it was dark, it was the darkness of the womb. Morris Gilbert Bishop ( April 15, 1893 &mdash November 20, 1973) was an American scholar historian biographer author and humorist "^[10] — Lynn White

See also

• Fall of Rome
• Plague of Justinian
• Migration Period
• Middle Ages in history
• Middle Ages
• Islamic Golden Age
• Muslim conquests
• Vikings
• Medieval demography
• Terry Jones' Barbarians
• Phantom time hypothesis
• Carolingian Renaissance

References

External links

• "Dark Ages" in Encyclopædia Britannica Online. The Encyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopaedia published by Encyclopædia Britannica Inc
• "Decline and fall of the Roman myth" by Terry Jones. For other uses see Terry Jones (disambiguation. Terence Graham Parry Jones (born 1 February 1942) is a Welsh