8 ms·

> The Roman Empire did fall, and was followed by the Dark Ages Rome didn't "fall", the "Dark Ages" weren't "dark." Those are oversimplifications from historian

> The Roman Empire did fall, and was followed by the Dark Ages Rome didn't "fall", the "Dark Ages" weren't "dark." Those are oversimplifications from historians centuries ago, a point emphasized in most introductory history classes.

madaxe_again 11y ago
Rome disintegrated, and if the sacking of a once glorious capital by the various tribes of Europe isn't a "fall", I'm not sure what is. The Dark Ages weren't "dark" in the sense that many understand them, but they were a period of fragmented power, small empires, and warring dynasties - much as much of the Roman period was, but the fact that their structure disintegrated is undeniable. In their case, it all tied back to lines of communication and an increasingly inefficient taxation system, which lead to declining revenues for Rome, rot at the fringes, and eventual atomisation.
- orthoganol 11y ago
  Many will argue the Roman Empire just shifted to the East where it continued to have an impressive, long-lived empire. You certainly can argue the Western Roman Empire declined over a period of centuries, but that is nothing like a 'fall.' The 'dark ages' witnessed the high mark of Western Christendom, which had its own fascinating form of 'international' unity and an impressive legacy of achievements, and it certainly shaped modern Europe. I mean, I think everyone knows that 'Dark ages' is a made up label from centuries ago during the Enlightenment era. Either way, neither of those labels are endorsed by any serious modern historian as far as I know.
  - toyg 11y ago
    > The 'dark ages' witnessed the high mark of Western Christendom, And quite a number of low marks in terms of industrial production, technical knowledge, public health, collective wealth, individual freedoms and so on. In fact, without the rising Arab civilization undertaking huge efforts to acquire and preserve what the Western countries were discarding as "unchristian", we would have lost even more knowledge than we did. There are so many reasons the "dark" attribute stuck and survived for almost 700 years (it wasn't an Enlightenment construct but rather a Renaissance one, although technically coined even earlier). It might be too generic a term to survive the contemporary level of analytical debate of history, but ignoring it would be a disservice to the cause of science and progress.
    - cmdkeen 11y ago
      Places like Irish monasteries were also saving ancient literature. Indeed it was them, and not Arabs, who kept alive literacy and reintroduced it - along in cases with Christianity, to the West.
      - johngossman 11y ago
        I enjoyed Cahill's book on this topic, but it is a bit of a romantic overstatement of the case. A more balanced perspective here: http://www.theeway.com/skepticc/review05.html http://www.theeway.com/skepticc/review05.html
    - ptaipale 11y ago
      > And quite a number of low marks in terms of industrial production, technical knowledge, public health, collective wealth, individual freedoms and so on. What makes you claim this? The growth of population, economy and individual freedoms continued through the Middle Ages. Ancient Rome was not a particularly "civilized" place if you look at it by, say, medieval English standards. And lots of technical innovations were made during Middle Ages (both through interaction with Middle East and Asia, and through independent development). Technical knowledge accumulated. Public health learned some lessons - yes, some of those very slowly, it took 200 years to fully recover form the Black Death - but the population and economy grew, except for this plague anomaly which the ancient civilizations would hardly have handled any better. Throughout Middle Ages, agricultural output grew and new tools were brought in and new crops were introduced, as well as crop rotation in farming (from just farming to fallowing and then to three-field rotation). New scripts were developed, e.g. Carolingian minuscule enabled faster writing and producing of books (prior to the printing press which is seen as the starting point of Renaissance but was developed by medieval people). Regarding individual freedoms: slavery, common in ancient civilizations, was largely abolished in Europe during medieval times. Magna Carta is clearly a medieval document. Medieval times were not dark. Development was not as fast as later on, but it existed, almost continuously, with some (mostly local) setbacks.
      - mcguire 11y ago
  - astine 11y ago
    "I mean, I think everyone knows that 'Dark ages' is a made up label from centuries ago during the Enlightenment era." Actually, the idea comes from Petrarch, who was a late Mediaeval writer who was upset at the disrespect paid to ancient Latin and Greek literature and culture during the Migration and Mediaeval periods. Of course, Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment intellectuals all picked up on the idea for their own reasons.
  - DominikR 11y ago
    > Many will argue the Roman Empire just shifted to the East where it continued to have an impressive, long-lived empire. It is a historic fact that Constantine the Great moved the capital of the Roman Empire in 330 to Constantinople, where it remained the center of the Empire for the next 1100 years.
- DominikR 11y ago
  By the time Rome was sacked, the center of the Roman empire was for several hundred years already in the east. To be more precise in Nova Roma or Constantinople (modern day Istanbul) and this since the 11th May 330. It remained the center of the Roman empire until 1453, this was long after the Roman culture in the west was almost completely destroyed. (and with it western Christianity turned into a tool of oppression) So while the West during these times faced oppression and feudalism, the Roman empire certainly did not.
gbog 11y ago
> the "Dark Ages" weren't "dark." I don't know. With the cognitive relativism of our times, we want to make sure each civilisation, and each of its ages, are "equal". They certainly can be equally interesting for studies, but if we take a simple way to measure its effect on the human race by checking out how many books that are still read today have been written during these periods, you'll see that ancient Greece and Rome (and ancient China, and French enligthment) have been periods of great fertility, while for the normally educated man it is hard to find more than 2 or 3 books from the Middle Age that are still read and having influence nowadays. So, at least following a few similar criteria, the Dark Ages were "dark". And it is not very surprising: when all the intelligensia spend almost all its brain power in obscure religious debates, you get very few results.
- cmdkeen 11y ago
  Really how many works from Greece and Rome are still widely read today? The Aeneid, Odyssey are as obscure as Beowulf or Canterbury Tales in terms of who actually reads them certainly if your standard is the "normally educated man". Plus writing off Augustine, Aquinas et al as having "obscure religious debates" is rather churlish. The morality developed during that period, combined with governmental changes formed the basis for the political / legal system which now governs most of the world. I'd much rather their debates happened rather than live under Greek, Roman or Chinese systems.
  - titzer 11y ago
    If by obscure, you mean that tens if not hundreds of thousands of high school and college students read all or part of them every year, and that their themes and motifs permeate our culture and still underly our understanding of governance, mathematics, and even Science, then yeah...they're obscure.
    - hsitz 11y ago
      The writings of Plato and Aristotle, in particular, are still widely read among the "well-educated" and continue to exert enormous influence on the world. It is perhaps true that they are not now important of the "normally educated", but this is something that has happened only in last twenty or thirty years, as trend of college educations becomes more and more "vocational". I don't know what a previous poster meant by mentioning Augustine and Aqunas and then saying "the morality developed during that period" (Augustine 4th century BC, Aquinas 13th century). The truth is that Augustine was especially heavily influenced by Plato and Aquinas' entire philosophy was mostly an attempt to synthesize Aristotle with Christianity. There is a tendency by some Christians to think morality somehow can't exist without God, but the truth is otherwise. The Greeks certainly had well-developed modern morality, along with brilliant moral theory. And the reality is that most of the important advancements in morality have come from "liberal", often secular, thinkers, while Christianity (and other religions) get pulled upward from old barbarisms only while kicking and screaming.
johngossman 11y ago
There's been a lot of recent interest in this topic. For example: http://www.amazon.com/The-Fall-Rome-And-Civilization/dp/0192807285 http://www.amazon.com/The-Fall-Rome-And-Civilization/dp/0192... Summary is that though Rome didn't fall overnight, there was a massive economic collapse first in the west and then several centuries later in the east (the latter coming on the heals of a devastating outbreak of the plague).
aibara 11y ago
Indeed. The only reason to still consider certain parts of the Middle Ages as "dark", particularity the early portion, is the due to the lack of contemporary sources. The Merovingian Kingdoms of the seventh century, for example, are genuinely hard to study because we've lost so much. The term "dark" should not be used, as it still much too frequently is, as some negative value judgment that covers a thousand year period which encompassed hundreds of different societies and cultures spanning an entire continent. It is understandable why people think this way, since European history (at least in the United States and Canada) is still largely taught in a way that skims over the Middle Ages: check out how awesome Greece and Rome were, then, well, the Middle Ages when they had these grand churches, but who cares because then came the Renaissance when everything was cool again. I've taught European Medieval history survey courses at the university level and one of the most difficult challenges was getting this idea of a horrible "dark" age dispelled from the students' minds. This is not to say that everything was somehow great or that all ages are "equal" in "value" (whatever that really means), but you can not begin to study a period of history without facing your own preconceptions of it (and, really, your own society).

madaxe_again 11y ago

Rome disintegrated, and if the sacking of a once glorious capital by the various tribes of Europe isn't a "fall", I'm not sure what is. The Dark Ages weren't "dark" in the sense that many understand them, but they were a period of fragmented power, small empires, and warring dynasties - much as much of the Roman period was, but the fact that their structure disintegrated is undeniable. In their case, it all tied back to lines of communication and an increasingly inefficient taxation system, which lead to declining revenues for Rome, rot at the fringes, and eventual atomisation.

orthoganol 11y ago
Many will argue the Roman Empire just shifted to the East where it continued to have an impressive, long-lived empire. You certainly can argue the Western Roman Empire declined over a period of centuries, but that is nothing like a 'fall.' The 'dark ages' witnessed the high mark of Western Christendom, which had its own fascinating form of 'international' unity and an impressive legacy of achievements, and it certainly shaped modern Europe. I mean, I think everyone knows that 'Dark ages' is a made up label from centuries ago during the Enlightenment era. Either way, neither of those labels are endorsed by any serious modern historian as far as I know.
- toyg 11y ago
  > The 'dark ages' witnessed the high mark of Western Christendom, And quite a number of low marks in terms of industrial production, technical knowledge, public health, collective wealth, individual freedoms and so on. In fact, without the rising Arab civilization undertaking huge efforts to acquire and preserve what the Western countries were discarding as "unchristian", we would have lost even more knowledge than we did. There are so many reasons the "dark" attribute stuck and survived for almost 700 years (it wasn't an Enlightenment construct but rather a Renaissance one, although technically coined even earlier). It might be too generic a term to survive the contemporary level of analytical debate of history, but ignoring it would be a disservice to the cause of science and progress.
  - cmdkeen 11y ago
    Places like Irish monasteries were also saving ancient literature. Indeed it was them, and not Arabs, who kept alive literacy and reintroduced it - along in cases with Christianity, to the West.
    - johngossman 11y ago
      I enjoyed Cahill's book on this topic, but it is a bit of a romantic overstatement of the case. A more balanced perspective here: http://www.theeway.com/skepticc/review05.html http://www.theeway.com/skepticc/review05.html
  - ptaipale 11y ago
    > And quite a number of low marks in terms of industrial production, technical knowledge, public health, collective wealth, individual freedoms and so on. What makes you claim this? The growth of population, economy and individual freedoms continued through the Middle Ages. Ancient Rome was not a particularly "civilized" place if you look at it by, say, medieval English standards. And lots of technical innovations were made during Middle Ages (both through interaction with Middle East and Asia, and through independent development). Technical knowledge accumulated. Public health learned some lessons - yes, some of those very slowly, it took 200 years to fully recover form the Black Death - but the population and economy grew, except for this plague anomaly which the ancient civilizations would hardly have handled any better. Throughout Middle Ages, agricultural output grew and new tools were brought in and new crops were introduced, as well as crop rotation in farming (from just farming to fallowing and then to three-field rotation). New scripts were developed, e.g. Carolingian minuscule enabled faster writing and producing of books (prior to the printing press which is seen as the starting point of Renaissance but was developed by medieval people). Regarding individual freedoms: slavery, common in ancient civilizations, was largely abolished in Europe during medieval times. Magna Carta is clearly a medieval document. Medieval times were not dark. Development was not as fast as later on, but it existed, almost continuously, with some (mostly local) setbacks.
    - mcguire 11y ago
- astine 11y ago
  "I mean, I think everyone knows that 'Dark ages' is a made up label from centuries ago during the Enlightenment era." Actually, the idea comes from Petrarch, who was a late Mediaeval writer who was upset at the disrespect paid to ancient Latin and Greek literature and culture during the Migration and Mediaeval periods. Of course, Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment intellectuals all picked up on the idea for their own reasons.
- DominikR 11y ago
  > Many will argue the Roman Empire just shifted to the East where it continued to have an impressive, long-lived empire. It is a historic fact that Constantine the Great moved the capital of the Roman Empire in 330 to Constantinople, where it remained the center of the Empire for the next 1100 years.
DominikR 11y ago
By the time Rome was sacked, the center of the Roman empire was for several hundred years already in the east. To be more precise in Nova Roma or Constantinople (modern day Istanbul) and this since the 11th May 330. It remained the center of the Roman empire until 1453, this was long after the Roman culture in the west was almost completely destroyed. (and with it western Christianity turned into a tool of oppression) So while the West during these times faced oppression and feudalism, the Roman empire certainly did not.

gbog 11y ago

> the "Dark Ages" weren't "dark." I don't know. With the cognitive relativism of our times, we want to make sure each civilisation, and each of its ages, are "equal". They certainly can be equally interesting for studies, but if we take a simple way to measure its effect on the human race by checking out how many books that are still read today have been written during these periods, you'll see that ancient Greece and Rome (and ancient China, and French enligthment) have been periods of great fertility, while for the normally educated man it is hard to find more than 2 or 3 books from the Middle Age that are still read and having influence nowadays. So, at least following a few similar criteria, the Dark Ages were "dark". And it is not very surprising: when all the intelligensia spend almost all its brain power in obscure religious debates, you get very few results.

cmdkeen 11y ago
Really how many works from Greece and Rome are still widely read today? The Aeneid, Odyssey are as obscure as Beowulf or Canterbury Tales in terms of who actually reads them certainly if your standard is the "normally educated man". Plus writing off Augustine, Aquinas et al as having "obscure religious debates" is rather churlish. The morality developed during that period, combined with governmental changes formed the basis for the political / legal system which now governs most of the world. I'd much rather their debates happened rather than live under Greek, Roman or Chinese systems.
- titzer 11y ago
  If by obscure, you mean that tens if not hundreds of thousands of high school and college students read all or part of them every year, and that their themes and motifs permeate our culture and still underly our understanding of governance, mathematics, and even Science, then yeah...they're obscure.
  - hsitz 11y ago
    The writings of Plato and Aristotle, in particular, are still widely read among the "well-educated" and continue to exert enormous influence on the world. It is perhaps true that they are not now important of the "normally educated", but this is something that has happened only in last twenty or thirty years, as trend of college educations becomes more and more "vocational". I don't know what a previous poster meant by mentioning Augustine and Aqunas and then saying "the morality developed during that period" (Augustine 4th century BC, Aquinas 13th century). The truth is that Augustine was especially heavily influenced by Plato and Aquinas' entire philosophy was mostly an attempt to synthesize Aristotle with Christianity. There is a tendency by some Christians to think morality somehow can't exist without God, but the truth is otherwise. The Greeks certainly had well-developed modern morality, along with brilliant moral theory. And the reality is that most of the important advancements in morality have come from "liberal", often secular, thinkers, while Christianity (and other religions) get pulled upward from old barbarisms only while kicking and screaming.

johngossman 11y ago

There's been a lot of recent interest in this topic. For example: http://www.amazon.com/The-Fall-Rome-And-Civilization/dp/0192807285 http://www.amazon.com/The-Fall-Rome-And-Civilization/dp/0192... Summary is that though Rome didn't fall overnight, there was a massive economic collapse first in the west and then several centuries later in the east (the latter coming on the heals of a devastating outbreak of the plague).

aibara 11y ago

Indeed. The only reason to still consider certain parts of the Middle Ages as "dark", particularity the early portion, is the due to the lack of contemporary sources. The Merovingian Kingdoms of the seventh century, for example, are genuinely hard to study because we've lost so much. The term "dark" should not be used, as it still much too frequently is, as some negative value judgment that covers a thousand year period which encompassed hundreds of different societies and cultures spanning an entire continent. It is understandable why people think this way, since European history (at least in the United States and Canada) is still largely taught in a way that skims over the Middle Ages: check out how awesome Greece and Rome were, then, well, the Middle Ages when they had these grand churches, but who cares because then came the Renaissance when everything was cool again. I've taught European Medieval history survey courses at the university level and one of the most difficult challenges was getting this idea of a horrible "dark" age dispelled from the students' minds. This is not to say that everything was somehow great or that all ages are "equal" in "value" (whatever that really means), but you can not begin to study a period of history without facing your own preconceptions of it (and, really, your own society).