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Yes but the Dark Age specifically refers to Western Europe, in much the same way the disastrous impact of the Mongol Empire on Islamic scholarship, for example
by steve19 7y ago
Yes but the Dark Age specifically refers to Western Europe, in much the same way the disastrous impact of the Mongol Empire on Islamic scholarship, for example the burning of libraries during or after the Siege of Baghdad, barely touched Western Europe. Chances are the Mongols destroyed some advanced mathematics that took centuries to rediscover.
- kennywinker 7y agoThe dark ages simply refers to the loss of texts. There are few surviving texts from that period, so it is “dark”. Later the term was re-branded to mean “bad time when no new science was done” but that’s a viewpoint that doesn’t fit the facts. Source (a very enjoyable read at that!): https://going-medieval.com/2017/05/26/theres-no-such-thing-as-the-dark-ages-but-ok/ https://going-medieval.com/2017/05/26/theres-no-such-thing-a...
- Chathamization 7y agoI mean, there definitely seems to have been a large decline in population, economic output, political cohesion, urbanization, record keeping, trade, etc., in much of the former Roman world following the fifth/sixth century. I suppose it's a value judgement on whether one considers that a "bad time."
- breck 7y agoCurious if you have any sources? I've never seen a data driven case that such a thing as the "dark ages" ever happened.
- atroche 7y agoThis is an excellent read: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/15/were-there-dark-ages/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/15/were-there-dark-ages/
- FranzFerdiNaN 7y agoWell, someone has a bone to pick with the early Middle Ages. What an angry rant to prove that the dark ages really existed. He sometimes has a point but in total it really is a non-historian making some weird arguments to prove that 800AD was terrible (look at the difference in these maps! Just completely ignore any cultural and artistic context that matter why they look the way they do!). I’m surprised he didn’t compare Greek statues with medieval paintings to prove his point.
- Keysh 7y agoThere's an excellent book on the subject called The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization, by Bryan Ward-Perkins. It includes a detailed overview of the archeological evidence, which shows a very clear and dramatic decline in the economy and living standards -- and some areas of technology -- between circa 350 and 600 in the Western Empire. (And the recovery afterwards took centuries.) The Eastern Empire, interestingly, doesn't show any signs of a similar decline until the 7th Century. For example, peasant households in Italy at the height of the empire had a wide variety of well-made pottery, some of it originating from production centers hundreds of miles away, along with tiled roofs; after the collapse, the variety and quality of pottery was greatly reduced, and tiled roofs disappear. (Tiled roofs provide better protection against rain, are less flammable, and require less maintenance and rebuilding than wooden shingles or thatch; but they also require large kilns, lots of clay and fuel, and a good transportation network.) And ice cores from Greenland show extensive metalworking going on in Western Europe (in the form of copper and lead pollution carried through the air) during the Roman Empire; after the collapse of the Western Empire, the pollution levels don't return to Roman-era values until the 16th Century.
- ghaff 7y agoAnother source, in addition to the one cited by Keysh, is Social Development by Ian Morris which goes into some more depth on the data he used in Why the West Rules--for Now. http://pzacad.pitzer.edu/~lyamane/ianmorris.pdf http://pzacad.pitzer.edu/~lyamane/ianmorris.pdf Across a wide set of measures, there was a significant decline of the West after the fall of the Roman Empire.
- roboys 7y agoThe dark ages also saw a huge disparity in education between the East and the West. Until the 15th century less than 5 people in Europe could do long division. For comparison, Aryabhatta discovered calculus in 5th century India and Madhava made large contributions in the 13th century (Newton/Leibniz were wrongly credited for similar work many years later).
- leereeves 7y agoThe way I heard it, Aryabhatta and those who followed discovered some of the ideas behind calculus and a few useful results, but not calculus itself, neither the basic ideas like derivatives and integrals nor the vast conclusions that followed from those.
- Retric 7y ago> Until the 15th century less than 5 people in Europe could do long division. That’s wildly inaccurate. Arithmetic was very much a subject at several schools with the addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division all being taught. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrivium https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrivium Long division being difficult in Roman numerals is one of the reasons for the switch.
- roboys 7y ago>That’s wildly inaccurate. Arithmetic was very much a subject at several schools... I'm talking specifically about "long division" in Europe... and have heard this factoid from multiple mathematicians including Nasim Taleb. So I expect there is a basis for the claim...
- Retric 7y agoLet’s be clear, if you mean the modern notation, that was was ‘invented’ after the dark ages. So under that definition it’s ~0 people world wide in the dark ages. Excluding independent discovery. However, if we are talking about the number of people being able to accurately do 1234 / 56 = 22 r 2. That was regularly taught in the Middle Ages with plenty of examples of such calculations being available.
- wolfgke 7y ago> The dark ages simply refers to the loss of texts. There are few surviving texts from that period, so it is “dark”. Later the term was re-branded to mean “bad time when no new science was done” but that’s a viewpoint that doesn’t fit the facts. Relevant (even though considered as pseudoscience): > https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=New_Chronology_(Fomenko)&oldid=905439504 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=New_Chronology_(F...
- goto11 7y agoIt is actually the other way around. The original meaning by Petrarch was not about the lack of historical source material. He did mean "bad/ignorant times".
- novacole 7y agoYes, but Rome isn’t Western Europe. So western Europe’s entire history is a “dark age” before the Age of Enlightenment. (Edit: incorrectly said renaissance instead of Age of Enlightenment... the renaissance wasn’t Western European either)
- sk5t 7y agoWhat's this about "Rome isn’t Western Europe"--have you consulted a map of the Roman empire?
- boomboomsubban 7y agoHave you looked at the population spread of the Roman Empire? Rome had people, the rest of the empire was predominantly to the East/South. Rome was Mediterranean, not Western European.
- kgwgk 7y agoWhat is your definition of “Western European” precisely? https://aaron7roberts.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/roman_empire_pop.jpg https://aaron7roberts.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/roman_empi... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empi... also shows larger populations in the “Latin West” than in the “Greek East”.
- boomboomsubban 7y agoThe first map shows roughly thirteen million people in non-Italy "Western Europe" and roughly twenty two millions in the non Western Europe parts. Wikipedia has an actual population density map[1] that highlights my point. Even in traditional "Western Europe," the population is predominantly Mediterranean. It also has a list of the most populous cities during the peak of the Empire, largely outside of Western Europe. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empire#/media/File%3ACartogram_of_the_estimated_populations_of_cities_in_the_Roman_world_in_the_Imperial_period.jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empi... edit terrible math on my part.
- cptskippy 7y agoHis point is that most Western history lessons completely ignore everything but Western Europe during that time frame and present a view of history that nothing was happening globally of any importance. That really was my experience growing up in Western education. My understanding was that history focused on the important things and it wasn't until much later in life that I learned there was a lot happening globally after the fall of the Roman empire before the European renaissance. After the USA was established, US history lessons completely ignore the rest of the globe until the early 20th century. I only learned yesterday that Italy wasn't a country until 1861 and I am almost 40.