The notion of one Dark Age followed by one Renaissance in Europe is another one of those myths. Perhaps it would be more accurate to talk about multiple period

The notion of one Dark Age followed by one Renaissance in Europe is another one of those myths. Perhaps it would be more accurate to talk about multiple periods of extreme turmoil (wars, plagues, etc.) followed by a flourishing of art and knowledge when things start to settle down. Over the centuries, this happened a bunch of times in different places all over the Mediterranean and Europe.