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muskkanye t1_ixydrsr wrote

Ahhhhh I have a question. Why was the early medieval period referred to as Dark Ages?

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jezreelite t1_ixzkn0x wrote

The term was coined by the late medieval/early Renaissance scholar and poet, Francesco Petrarca, better known to Anglophones as Petrarch.

He viewed 14th century Italy as a corrupt and ignorant time and place in comparison to his (a bit overly rosy) view of Classical Antiquity. To be fair to him, 14th century Italy was not a particularly fun place to be, as it was wracked with internal political divisions, economic decline, and the threat of foreign invasion and it was about to get even worse when plague hit in the 1340s.

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GSilky t1_ixzab3z wrote

Iirc, it's because of Petrarch, who was frustrated with the lack of written sources from the period. The term was also used by Voltaire for the same reason. It wasn't that dark, at least the people living during it didn't seem to think so. It's important to remember that all of those "invasions" tended to be more incremental, but by putting hard bounds on it, in our minds it comes across as German apocalypse. If you look at the sources, you find that it was even more a case of migration and attempted assimilation, hence why Germans were commanding Roman armies against other Teutonic forces. Not to stir up shit, but you can look at the current migrant issue around the world and see how people describe a rather prosaic event, with headlines like "Invasion" being popular a popular way to frame the scenario, it wasn't that different back then. No, it wasn't some collective trauma that is being referred to by "Dark Ages", just a current lack of sources. Those sources are being discovered and analyzed now and an interesting picture of an ingenious adaptation to circumstance is being developed.

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bangdazap t1_ixyfqbq wrote

When the (Western) Roman empire fell apart, it led to a precipitous economic, cultural and scientific decline in Europe. Hence the "Dark Ages". This is also why the end of the medieval period is called the "Renaissance" (rebirth), a "rebirth" of the values etc of Rome.

Later historians have tried to nuance the story of the post-Roman period, but the fact remains that there was a great decline.

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Doctor_Impossible_ t1_ixz3ajm wrote

>When the (Western) Roman empire fell apart, it led to a precipitous economic, cultural and scientific decline in Europe. Hence the "Dark Ages".

No. 'Dark Ages' refers to a lack of written sources from the time, not a cultural or intellectual decline.

>but the fact remains that there was a great decline.

Also wrong. The idea of the Roman empire as some sort of peak is fuelled by people like Petrarch and Gibbon, who were nothing more than Roman empire fanboys.

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LateInTheAfternoon t1_ixz8p1q wrote

Originally, and well into the 19th century, "Dark Ages" meant a time of cultural decline (following the negative view with which Petrarch and other Renaissance scholars held for the time separating them from their venerated ancients). This changed with the rise of professional scholarship in history in the 19th and 20th centuries where instead the lack of sources as well as a perceived lack of quality in the sources (as compared with the illustrious historians of Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece) became the important characteristics behind the term "Dark Ages". As of today most historians avoid the term as far as possible in favor for the less judgemental "the Early Middle Ages".

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