The Dark Ages?

[Azi Tohak]

I have seen this debated before, but I can't remember how long ago. Was there really a "Dark Age"? I believe there was, when the Barbarians moved in (and over) the Western Roman Empire. Sure, the Christian Church, Byzantium, and Islam (when it exploded) kept learning alive, but was the time after the fall of Rome (such a convenient [if silly] date) up to... when ever (I really don't know when the so called "Dark Ages" ended), really a period of horrible regression for Western Europe?

Literacy lost, regression to a barter economy, basic freedoms lost (for those who weren't slaves anyway), opressive non-representative rule... were there any bright spots?

Azi

[Rosacrux redux]

This is an interesting subject and one that brings forth quite heated debates, especially when people try to "defend" the so-called "Dark Ages" and claim that actually progress was not interrupted and that Europe was progressing, just ...in a different way.

As GC tried to explain, it is a rather tricky business to try and put labels on certain periods. Especially considering that one man's dark age might be the other man's "golden age". For instance, while Rome collapsed and the western Europe was sinking in barbarity, in the far east there was a blooming culture, with lots of new inventions, great literature and artwork...

Why the "dark ages" are actually "Dark?" Well, there are about a million of defining parameters pointing out that the period we call "dark ages" was actually quite "dark" and the absence of adequate written records is only (a very minor) one of the many many. "Dark" for Western Europe though, not for the whole world.

But there is one small point I'd like to make - or rather two:
- practically, the "dark" period for Europe has begun way before the barbarians sacked Rome. I'd say after the 3rd century scientific research was almost eliminated, standards of living were dropping, abstract thought was out of the picture, basic liberties were abandoned or downright trashed. The barbarians just concluded this process.
- Christian religion has played an equally large role as the barbarians in the fall of the ancient world and the loss of all the "good things" that the graeco-roman culture produced.

[Rosacrux redux]

However, there is one exception. Once Europeans started colonizing the Americas, I think the Americas become a region of their own, susceptible to it's own separate period-dating.


The Americas are a part of "the West", and that's true not only in the colonial period, but also after they formed their own states and nations (or "nations"). But they didn't become a part of the "western" history or culture before the 1500s, so before that - as you say - it is out of the greater picture (our greater picture - can't be partial on that I fear).

Certainly, if the Amerindians were the ones who had discovered gunpowder and ocean sailing first, and came knocking at the "old worlds" door first, they'd have written their own history by now, no?

[Hurin_Rules]

Literacy lost, regression to a barter economy, basic freedoms lost (for those who weren't slaves anyway), opressive non-representative rule... were there any bright spots?


Literacy lost? Yes, most definitely. Part of the reason the 'Dark Ages' is so dark is that fewer people could read and write.

Regression to a barter economy? Yes, more or less. The Pirenne Thesis (the idea advanced by the great French Historian Henri Pirenne, that the Western economy more or less survived the fall of Rome until the Muslim conquests destroyed trade in the Mediterranean) is not widely accepted anymore; it seems trade did indeed decline dramatically from the third century on, and the economy became more local and less monetary.

Basic freedoms lost? Not really. There you do have to qualify what you mean by Dark Ages. Remember that the late Roman State was an exceptionally repressive entity. It forced people to pay high taxes, to remain in their father's profession, to stay bound to the land almost like slaves. It told its people what to do and punished them when they didn't do it. When the barbarians arrived, many 'Romans' rejoiced. They no longer had to pay such high taxes, they could now choose their movements and their professions more freely. You can see this in some of the sources of the time. Also remember that the 'barbarians' had much more personal freedom in their kingdoms than the Romans did in theirs. The Germans had no written codes of law, no police, no prisons, and every free German could carry a weapon, and had the right to defend himself with them. Insofar as ownership of weapons and 'small government' are concerned, it was an American conservative's wet dream. So on the issue of personal freedom, the fall of Rome was not quite so dark as you might expect.

Oppressive, non-representative rule? Not really. Again, the late Roman state was exceptionally repressive, and it was non-representative as well. The emperor ruled like an absolute monarch. Amongst the 'barbarians', on the other hand, there were no emperors. Even kings' authority over the people was far more limited than in the Roman state (you can read this in Tacitus, for example). Kings couldn't simply imprison people without charges, or force their people to accept their political policies. Tribes gathered together in assemblies where more or less all free people were allowed to express their opinion. Legal cases were discussed before the whole assembly. Assemblies sought consensus rather than judgement. So here again, the 'Dark Ages' probably marked an advance for representative rule; in fact, it was more than representative: some of the early barbarian communities were essentially direct democracies.

So yes, there were many bright spots. It seemed dark from the perspective of the historians of the ninteenth century, who were trying to build centralized states and fight against the decentralizing tendencies of prevous centuries. And in many ways the Dark Ages were quite dark. I would have preferred to life in the first or second centuries, without doubt, rather than in fifth or sixth. But there were certainly 'bright spots', and new attitudes towards personal freedom and political authority were certainly two of them.

[Steppe Merc]

There wasn't any Dark Age, IMO. Admitedly, most of what I'm interested in is in the East (not as far East as China, but you get what I mean), and when Western Europe was falling, the East was doing pretty well. Admitedly, the Islamic invasions wasn't so great for the Sassanians and the East and Western Turkish Khanates, but their culture helped enrich the evantual "Muslim" identity.

In the West, I'm not sure if they suffered. I don't know much about that area during that period. But as Hurin pointed out, a lot of Roman law was not so fair, and the Germanics and other non Romans helped bring in more fair laws, at least for a while.