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Dark Age Europe
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A time of anarchy and chaos (roughly 500 - 1000 AD), when people were disease-ridden and covered with filth, unless one happened to be king... at least, if you believe what ''Hollywood'' says about them — according to real modern historians this is a load of cobblers based primarily on the fact that we don't have many documents from (approximately) the first half of that time, and Renaissance figures were eager to dismiss everything between them and Ancient Grome (which they claimed they were heirs to) as pure garbage and not worth discussing. In Hollywood Land, however, this was a time of muck and more muck. The cleanest—and most well-known—figure of this period generally ends up being Arthur, King (...ish) of the Britons, who had a round table, around which sat his band of noble and chivalrous knights blokes with big swords who fell in love with fair princesses and romanced them platonically from afar. Many of these knights proved not so noble and chivalrous once left to their own devices.note Many medieval knights were teenagers that worked for their lord as hired muscle, fighting wars and behaving more like modern gang members than the romantic accounts would have you believe. Since most accounts of Arthur were written centuries after he supposedly lived, and featured fashion and architecture from the time they were written, many Hollywood 'historians' lump him in with The High Middle Ages (but hey, since when have they been sticklers for accuracy?). This period heralded the fall and division of the Western Roman Empire (the Eastern half was able to survive as the Byzantine Empire... which was never called 'Byzantine' until a century after it fell, by Renaissance figures wanting to paint themselves as heirs to Ancient Grome. Starting to see a pattern yet?), and the rise of monasticism in Europe. Hollywood monks are pious men, clad in long brown robes, with rosaries and tonsure haircuts. They spend their days chanting and dipping feathered quills into inkwells and scribbling strange script into large books by candlelight. That is, when they're not out chasing lusty, busty tavern wenches. Hollywood monks don't take that whole "celibacy" thing all that seriously. Neither, in fact, did the regular clergy; celibacy did not become a requirement of the priesthood until very late in the Middle Ages. It was, however, mandated in nearly every set of monastic rules, including those of Benedict. It was also a time of interesting contrasts: during this period, Christian and Pagan folklore and traditions were syncretized in the minds of the public, which gave rise to some of the most famous mythologies and legends of the Middle Ages, such as Beowulf, Siegfried, and the aforementioned King Arthur. The term "Dark Ages" is typically credited to Petrarch in the 14th century, who used the term to refer to what he perceived to be the ignorance, superstition, barbarism and backwardness between the fall of Rome and the rise of the Renaissance. It was, out-and-out, a disparaging term used by historians right up until the 20th century. In the 20th century, historians wanted to present themselves as more objective with fewer value judgements about the past, but at the same time they didn't want to retire the term "Dark Ages." So, they attempted to redefine it. This was done in two ways. Firstly, rather than applying the term to the entire medieval period (as was done originally), it would be restricted to the early medieval period - the first 500 years or so after the fall of Rome. Secondly, it would be claimed the ages were "dark" because of a collapse of literary tradition and a scarcity of historical records. Even today, some people claim the term "Dark Ages" refers to a lack of medieval written records, and that they are "dark" because we can't see what was going on. By this definition, depending on the area, this could narrow the timeframe of the "Dark Ages" to as short as 200 years or even fewer. This is more charitable, but not only is it distinctly not what Petrarch had in mind when he used the term, even this updated definition is still mistaken. There was plenty of literary tradition in the early, high, and late Medieval period. Word for word, significantly more written material has survived from 500-1000 AD (the supposed depths of the "Dark Ages") than from the entire Roman imperial period. More writings survive from Pope Gregory the Great alone than from basically the entire classical corpus. So it's not about written records. Furthermore, the negative connotations the term was originally meant to convey never entirely went away. Historians eventually realized that attempting to salvage the term as a professional one was a losing battle. Only in the 21st century has the term been definitively retired by professional historians. It used to be claimed (and continues to be claimed by some today) that there was a wholesale and deliberate destruction of "pagan" Roman works by Christians, who threw the entire classical tradition in the trash because they considered it "demonic" and only cared about Jesus, and that's why the ages were "dark." This is also not true, but it does starkly reveal the inherent anti-Christian and anti-Catholic prejudice behind the term, most famously by historians like Edward Gibbon, who believed that the Roman Empire was a period of prosperity, enlightenment, tolerance, and stability until Christianity came along and ruined everything. This view persisted in the Anglosphere right up until the late 20th century, and has only fallen out of fashion in recent decades. Historians today conclude that the term has way too much baggage to be used in an objective way. |
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