How do you view the Middle Ages?

[Kommodus]

It seems to me that when the Middle Ages/Medieval period is mentioned, many people immediately get a picture in their mind. Of course this picture includes castles, knights, kings, peasants, etc. More often than not, it is a stark picture of oppression and ignorance - the peasants are walking/crawling around with mud on their faces, oppressed by a power-hungry church that suppresses learning, scientific advancement, the arts, and individuality. Many people picture the Middle Ages as a brutal, barbaric time, during which little advancement of culture, science, or civilization in general was made.

I have often wondered where this picture is conjured up from. I would guess that much of it is drawn from Monty Python, or perhaps the game "Medieval: Total War." I should not be surprised, however, to find that the picture is quite inaccurate. Here's another perspective:

http://www.chesterton.org/gkc/historian/middleages.html

Here is a sentence taken at random from a book written by one of the most cultivated of our younger critics, very well written and most reliable on its own subject, which is a modern one. The writer says: "There was little social or political advance in the Middle Ages" until the Reformation and the Renaissance.

...

A little while before the Norman Conquest, countries such as our own were a dust of yet feeble feudalism, continually scattered in eddies by barbarians, barbarians who had never ridden a horse. There was hardly a brick or stone house in England. There were scarcely any roads except beaten paths: there was practically no law except local customs. Those were the Dark Ages out of which the Middle Ages came. Take the Middle Ages two hundred years after the Norman Conquest and nearly as long before the beginnings of the Reformation. The great cities have arisen; the burghers are privileged and important; Labour has been organised into free and responsible Trade Unions; the Parliaments are powerful and disputing with the princes; slavery has almost disappeared; the great Universities are open and teaching with the scheme of education that Huxley so much admired; Republics as proud and civic as the Republics of the pagans stand like marble statues along the Mediterranean; and all over the North men have built such churches as men may never build again. And this, the essential part of which was done in one century rather than two, is what the critic calls "little social or political advance." There is scarcely an important modern institution under which he lives, from the college that trained him to the Parliament that rules him, that did not make its main advance in that time.

So, what picture comes to mind when you think of the Middle Ages? I'm anxious to hear your comments.

[King Henry V]

I have often wondered where this picture is conjured up from. I would guess that much of it is drawn from Monty Python, or perhaps the game "Medieval: Total War."

Ironically, one of the members of Monty Python, Terry Jones, is also a frim proponent of the culture of the Middle Ages. It is one of the most maligned periods in history, and most of our misconceptions come from the Humanists who denigrated all aspects of it in their search to go back to Antiquity, or the Victorians, notably the pre- Raphaelites who conceived the whole romanticised notion of the Middle Ages.

[mercian billman]

I would agree with the author of the quote, and state that the middle ages were a time of great advancement for western europe and many other cultures as well. The only thing I would add is that the catholic church did not supress learning, scientific advancement, the arts etc.

Most European universities were established by the church, the cathedrals and their lavish decorations would not have been possible without advancements in architecture and construction. It's also important to note that the catholic church was the first real anti-slavery lobby in Europe and has never wavered on it's stance that slavery is morally wrong. The church was also one of the few orginizations capable of challenging the power of ruling monarchs, outside of local barons and other forms of nobility, in this sense the church managed to keep the power of ruling monarchs in check. While the church wasn't perfect, it certainly was not the power hungry suppresive orginization, hollywood and Dan Brown portray it to be.

[Watchman]

That last bit should read "Protestant propagandists", really. No particular genius is required to divine why breakaway factions from a major institution have a vested interest in making the original institution look as bad as possible...

Oh, and don't get me started on witch hunts. The amount of ignorance on the topic even in educated circles often boggles the mind.

[mercian billman]

That last bit should read "Protestant propagandists", really. No particular genius is required to divine why breakaway factions from a major institution have a vested interest in making the original institution look as bad as possible...

I used Dan Brown, because of the recent release of the DaVinci Code, but I understand what your getting at.

Oh, and don't get me started on witch hunts. The amount of ignorance on the topic even in educated circles often boggles the mind.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this statement

[Watchman]

I used Dan Brown, because of the recent release of the DaVinci Code, but I understand what your getting at.

IMHO Brown is just a greedy opportunist whose chief motivations to write the stuff he does include a full and well-deserved certainty of it being suitably "controversial" and more to the point striking a chord in sufficiently many people's usually rather ignorant preconceptions to sell well. Ditto, really, for Hollywood and such. The point is really that they'd have little to work on and pander to without about five hundred years of groundwork by diverse sectarian propagandists...

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this statement

Oh, I've just been told some pretty awe-inspiring first-hand accounts of misconceptions on the topic by people who really should know (and, indeed, have been told) better...

[Aenlic]

I tend to favor Terry Jones views, as written and as expressed in some of his wonderful TV shows.

The Middle Ages have gotten a very bad rep for all of the wrong reasons. They are seen as some sort of backwards period of history, full of violence and ignorance and suffering. While such things were indeed part of Middles Ages life; they were no more prevalent than at other times.

There was as much violence before and after the Middle Ages as during the period. The wars before and since the Middle Ages were just as bloody and common. A case could be made, perhaps, that politically the period was stagnant; but the feudal systems of the period gave rise the political advances which came later.

Economically and culturally, the Middle Ages were as just as vibrant as the Renaissance. The Champagne Fairs, the great trading concerns like the Hanseatic League, the trading empires of Genoa, Pisa and Venice, the great trade empires of the Silk Road and more were much more robust than anything that had come before.

The great universities were established during the Middle Ages, not so much by the Church itself as by the religious orders like the Dominicans and Cistercians (who were often rather obviously independent of official Church decree, thus allowing otherwise prohibited scientific exploration). Even before that, the spread of the teaching monks from the Irish monasteries into Western Europe set the foundations for the great teaching and educational orders.

As was pointed out, the whole idea of the Middle Ages as being a deep dark hole from which mankind had to climb is just an artifact of the often over-simplified and unwarranted reverence for a "lost" classical era of the Greek and Romans. I blame the romanticists of the Victorian era. So much nonsense originated during that period; and some of it is still rampant today.

[Avicenna]

The only thing I would add is that the catholic church did not supress learning, scientific advancement, the arts etc.

Have you forgotten Galileo?

[Watchman]

Galilei lived from mid-1500s to mid-1600s (I didn't incidentally realize he was that late). No way that's Middle Ages by any measure.

Besides, the Reformation had the funny side effect of causing a whole new spate of fanaticism, rigid orthodoxy, persecution, horrible massacres and othe rsuch niceties. Before it the Church had for quite a while actually had pretty much a laissez-faire attitude - so long as you didn't try to buck them and paid whatever you might have been due, they didn't really care too much. A rather major part of their nominal rules were observed in name only. That may have indeed merited such denouncements as "corruption" and "decadence", but it also meant that in practice the Catholic Church had in fact gotten rid of many of the unpleasantries organized and monopolistic religion is usually associated with.

Then came Luther's hammer-work, and it eventually took the mind-boggling devastation (and grotesque economical costs) of the Thirty Years' War to convince most folks too much religious fervor wasn't really such a hot thing.

Did you incidentally know, the mechanical clock - in many ways a strong symbol of the modern world - was initially developed in monasteries during the Early Middle Ages or thereabouts to help the monks and nuns keep track of their prayer times...?

[Kommodus]

Wow, I see there's a surprising amount of support for Chesterton's essay here. I hope ya'll read the whole thing and not just the snippet I quoted; it's very clever and well-written. Just so you know, my aim with this thread was not to point the figure at whomever is chiefly responsible for slandering the Middle Ages (draw your own conclusions), but to poke fun at the modern misconceptions I still encounter far too often. Many of your comments have been encouraging - not everyone buys into them.

[Rosacrux redux]

There's a fine balance that should be preserved. The medieval period was not a dark age of mud, crap and savagery, but it equally wasn't a period of prosperity, progress and spiritual upheaval. It was a backwards period, socially, economically, scientifically, technologically and politically, even compared with the late antiquity (and the latter was already significantly worst compared to the pre-AD antiquity). But for the populations that prospered in that period (the Germanics) it was one of great progress: they started off as assorted tribelings living in huts and became "the new Romans"... that's quite some progress for them.

Also, one shouldn't forget that while western Europe was indeed rather backwards, eastern Europe (Byzantium) was pretty much advanced, and even more so the Arabs had an excellent culture, thriving and all. Not to mention the Chinese...

[Duke John]

Many may see it as as going backwards from ancient Rome, but how many of that was build on the backs of slaves? After the Middle Ages we had the age of colonization, how civil is it really to take control over entire continents and massacre its populations just because you set foot on it? And in the last decades there have been too many genocides and exhaustion of resources to be proud of the modern period. Times have changed but humankind has remained backwards throughout.

So I look at the Middle Ages as a time of different customs, views, politics, technology and living standard, nothing more.

[Geoffrey S]

It was different. Whenever people speak about the cliches of the Middle Ages it's almost as if they implicitely see people of that period as dumber, almost lesser people than those before or after, in assuming that they took any old nonsense for granted and wallowed about in mud; to me, this smacks of revisionism. People were no more stupid than they are now, despite the comfort it might give us to think otherwise; it makes things easier, believing ourselves to be superior and above mistakes. Far more recent history shows people differently.

As has been said, the problems (lower class) people had to suffer under were no worse than in the classical period. That kind of thinking is probably due to viewing the classical period as some kind of ideal that was lost.

[Watchman]

The really funny thing is that at least half of the "bad stuff" common misconceptions attribute to the Middle Ages were either Early Modern or even later phenomena, or got worse after the Medieval period...

[naut]

How do you view the Middle Ages?

With my eyes. I view it as an important and very interesting era of human history. Although it was full of death and suffering I am glad it occured.

1. So I can study and learn about it.
2. So that Medieval:Total War was able to be made.

[Kralizec]

The early middle ages weren't exactly a nice time to be living, that can't really be said of late antiquity either except for the elite. For the serfs it would hardly make any difference.
Because of the splintered makeup of medieval Europe, its history is way more dynamic. Events like the invention of gunpowder and the discovery of America (wich happened outside of the middle ages proper, but the causes can be found in it) can easily be explained from this perspective. On the other hand, empires with political unity that span most of the known world from their perspective like Rome or China, don't get much done- the history of both is one of remarkably little technological progress.

[Watchman]

If you look at it, China in particular had pretty little in the way of political unification and technological stagnation. Instead it had its own peculiar cycle of unification - high point - collapse - fragmentation - low tide - reunification, by some accounts dictated primarily by the rate at which the population grew to exceed the agricultural capacity.

'Sides, if you happen to have forgotten they invented gunpowder. Europeans just eventually went way past them in its military applications. As well as quite a few other clever ideas.

Not that Rome was excessively united either. Civil wars and power struggles seem to have gotten pretty endemic once the Republic got de facto relieved of its duties.

[Archayon]

I remember the formulation "middle" ages or "dark" ages is from Petrarca. Being a linguist, he compared the latin during the middle ages with that of ... (Cicero i thought? and some other one, i don't remember).

It was a total different society, total different way of living, total different values and priorities. It is hard to imagine life in the Middle Ages.

That's why it seems so mysterious, but also so attractive, i suppose.


Arch

[ajaxfetish]

I see the middle ages as a period when western civilation was rebuilt after a shattered past. As such it was very dynamic and very diverse across different regions and nations, with lots of innovation in many different fields, and it laid much of the foundation for our societies today.

It is definitely maligned in its modern stereotype, though. Often when I tell people I am studying medieval history they seem confused that I would choose a 1000 year period of no change and no progress and universal darkness. It's enough to make me grind my teeth.

I think it is easy to see people with a different cultural paradigm as inferior or stupider, not just people from far enough in the past. Reading passages and coming across a mention of someone accepting ideas or explanations based on Christian faith or acceptance of ideas such as spirits and familiars makes it easy to dismiss their rationality out of hand, but I think if we were to look at ourselves from outside our own box we would find just as many mental blocks, limitations, or restrictions that we are blithely unaware of from our own perspective.

And incidentally, not only was Galileo post-medieval (from a time when many of the atrocities usually associated with the middle ages--witch hunts, the inquisition, etc--are more applicable), but as I understand it he was called down not so much for making assertions the church couldn't accept, as for making such controversial assertions without being able to prove them (but still claiming they were absolutely true), and for his general arrogant and demeaning attitude.

Ajax

[Archayon]

I see the middle ages as a period when western civilation was rebuilt after a shattered past. As such it was very dynamic and very diverse across different regions and nations, with lots of innovation in many different fields, and it laid much of the foundation for our societies today.

It is definitely maligned in its modern stereotype, though. Often when I tell people I am studying medieval history they seem confused that I would choose a 1000 year period of no change and no progress and universal darkness. It's enough to make me grind my teeth.

I think it is easy to see people with a different cultural paradigm as inferior or stupider, not just people from far enough in the past. Reading passages and coming across a mention of someone accepting ideas or explanations based on Christian faith or acceptance of ideas such as spirits and familiars makes it easy to dismiss their rationality out of hand, but I think if we were to look at ourselves from outside our own box we would find just as many mental blocks, limitations, or restrictions that we are blithely unaware of from our own perspective.

totally agree, on everything.
That's exactly what i thought



Arch

[ChewieTobbacca]

Our views on the Middle Ages are defenitely skewwed by the romanticists and Victorians and what not of a little over a century ago.

Life was defenitely cruel and painful - death was common. After all, during the years of the Black Death, the royal family of England's average life span was below 20 years. Imagine that - members of the royal family dying before what are considered our prime years. Now imagine the peasantry...

As far as the conception that the Middle Ages aren't a period of great change is defenitely a huge misconception. Much of what society is today is in no small part due to the Middle Ages. The end of the old feudal order, the secularization of government, the birth of modern notions of science, etc. were rooted in the Middle Ages.

[Hurin_Rules]

The origins of the idea of the 'Middle Ages' can be traced back to the Renaissance scholars (although the actual words 'medieval' and Middle Ages date to a bit later). The scholars of the Italian renaissance saw everything that wasn't classical or consciously imitating classical forms as backwards, and their own age as reviving classical culture. Hence anything not classical or neo-classical was bad. In some ways, they made some good points; in other respects, they were just letting their own prejudices get in the way. Take 'Gothic' architecture, for example. To the scholars of the renaissance, it was barbaric, and so had to be denigrated and named after a 'barbaric' Germanic tribe. But of course now we can see that Gothic was one of the great styles of architecture in any historical period.

Now, there is no denying the Middle Ages was 'backwards' in some ways. In terms of military training, Roman troops were better trained because they could live collectively and train in common. Few medieval troops could do this. On the other hand, the Middle Ages developed technologies that helped make up for such deficits. Medieval cavalry had better saddles, horseshoes, bigger horses and stirrups. So which is more 'backwards', the Roman or the medieval army? To me, its a debatable point.

Was the Middle Ages 'backwards' economically? At the beginning of the period, yes: economies had turned inwards, becoming local, and trade declined. However, at the end of the Middle Ages one could make the argument that the Middle Ages had made more advances than Rome ever did. There was a burgeoning middle class (something that Rome never really had) of traders, merchants and artisans; thriving fairs and international trade; new techniques of credit and banking, new alliances between government and capital, etc. etc.

Politicall, Europe broke up after the fall of Rome. so looking at a map, it seems Europe declined. But of course, the fall of Rome also meant more competition, more experimentation. Europe was far more diverse politically at the end of the Middle Ages than it was in late antiquity: you had everything from absolute monarchies to oligarchies to republics and communes. Also, whereas the Romans gave up their republic for the security only despotism could provide, medieval people developed the parliamentary system that we hold so near and dear today.

If the Middle Ages was backwards, then so are we.

[Keba]

The first question I would ask is what does one consider the Middle Ages? Is it from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the Reneissance, or is it from the turning point of 1000 AD onward.

If the former, then it is two periods, one of which was, in fact, a period of immense decline, both culturally and scientifically. This also includes the last years of the Western Roman Empire, which was already a pale version of it's previous vibrant self. Of course, this only applies to Western Europe, as Byzantium and the Arabs were quite advanced, both technologically and culturally.

If the latter, then it is a period which is quite interesting, and quite unlike the previous period. Now, my opposition to organised religion clouds my judgment a bit, and I generally dislike the period (also, because it has been over-used, in my opinion). Now, the public image of the Middle Ages as knights in shining armour and whatnot is completely wrong, but then, most people do not even know who was fighting whom at the Battle of Agincourt, or what the Golden Horde was, as is the image of that period being backward, the Dark Ages were, but the Middle Ages were not, not by a longshot.

If the Middle Ages was backwards, then so are we.

So true.

[Aenlic]

The exact time periods are a matter of dispute; but generally I've seen it as being called the "Dark Ages" or the "Early Middle Ages" from the fall of the Roman Empire, the source of the time disputes - say 476 - until the 10th century and the Middle Ages proper being the period after the 10th century, with an arbitrary date using Hastings in 1066 or Manzikert in 1071 (for some reason MTW uses the ascension of William II to the throne of England in 1087). The ending date is in dispute as well; generally sometime in the late 15th century, using various event (Columbus and the New World, the final stages of the Reconquista, Gutenburg's printing, or as in MTW, the end of the 100 Years War and the Turkish conquest of Constantinople, both in 1453)

Petrach coined the term Dark Ages. Today it is used more to delineate a period lacking in written records, roughly 400-1000. Sometimes they add a transition period and to include the less "dark" aspects in Byzantium and the Arabic world called "Late Antiquity" instead. And some authors date the beginning as the advent of Mohammed and so use the 7th century.

[Watchman]

Finnish historical terminology entirely lacks the equivalent of the English "Dark Ages". I once got curious about this and asked a historian (my mother actually), who told me the period in question is simply either lumped under "Migration Period" or known by some more specific sub-category (à la "Viking Age") if appropriate. She explained that this was due to the simple fact in the British Isles the period following the Roman withdrawal pretty much, so far as is known, lived up to the term as things really were pretty harsh, chaotic, warlike and generally "dark" over there, but the Migrations themselves were pretty much over after the Angles and Saxons (the Viking settlers later on are a whole different story). On the continent, however, not only did the Migrations go on much longer - the last major one being the Hungarian-Magyars in the 900s - but also in many places things were also much less "dark", with reasonably strong and prosperous states which if nothing else were fairly able to defend their populaces. Certain regions - northern Italy springs to mind - were downright vibrant already this early on.

[Hurin_Rules]

The exact time periods are a matter of dispute; but generally I've seen it as being called the "Dark Ages" or the "Early Middle Ages" from the fall of the Roman Empire, the source of the time disputes - say 476 - until the 10th century and the Middle Ages proper being the period after the 10th century, with an arbitrary date using Hastings in 1066 or Manzikert in 1071 (for some reason MTW uses the ascension of William II to the throne of England in 1087). The ending date is in dispute as well; generally sometime in the late 15th century, using various event (Columbus and the New World, the final stages of the Reconquista, Gutenburg's printing, or as in MTW, the end of the 100 Years War and the Turkish conquest of Constantinople, both in 1453)

Petrach coined the term Dark Ages. Today it is used more to delineate a period lacking in written records, roughly 400-1000. Sometimes they add a transition period and to include the less "dark" aspects in Byzantium and the Arabic world called "Late Antiquity" instead. And some authors date the beginning as the advent of Mohammed and so use the 7th century.

Yep, just one relatively minor point: many scholars date the beginning of 'Late Antiquity' to the beginning of the fourth century, CE, when Rome recovered from the invasions of the third century under Diocletian and Constantine, who remade the empire in order to save it. In the West, the period usually lasts until the eighth century and the rise of the Carolingians/Charlemagne.

'the Dark Ages' is generally not used by historians anymore, due to its pejorative connotations. Early Middle Ages is the most commonly used term in English. The Early Middle ages are commonly reckoned to have lasted till about 1000, the high Middle Ages to 1300 and the late Middle Ages to sometime between 1450 and 1500.

[IrishArmenian]

Well, in Eire (someone tell me how to make the accnets), it was a time of constant guerilla warfare, so I kind of got a shoot-and-run idea from me pa. But I mostly think of the oppressive Crusaders that sacked the East, but the Cillician Armenians keeping all their stuff and protecting the Crusaders, despite that.
Damm I am biased!

[Aenlic]

(someone tell me how to make the accnets

In Windows under the start button it's :

Start/programs/accessories/system tools/character map

and use the charmap tool to find the character you want, click on it, hit the select button, then the copy button. You can do an entire line of unicode this way, before hitting copy, and then paste it into your text.

But for just a few letters, the quicker and easier in some ways, method is just to go to this website to look up the alt+keypad number combos:

http://www.starr.net/is/type/altnum.htm

So, typing alt-0201 gives you the É for Éire. (make sure your numlock is on, though)

[Rodion Romanovich]

How do you view the Middle Ages?
The Middle ages is a long period with a lot of variety so neither the brutal nor the romantic view is entirely wrong - both existed temporarily and locally during the gigantic period, though neither were norm for the entire period.

Brutality/Freedom - both existed. The brutality and lawlessness of "barbarians" is usually exaggerated - in fact the barbarians while having shorter law books probably had more peaceful communities. As usual however problems arose when law was spread into these communities - a similar effect could be seen later during the with hunting periods. When people who hadn't had law before got hold of such a power tool they immediately saw the possibility of using it as a weapon against others, which is exactly what was done in small villages during the witch hunting. The semi-lawlessness of the changeover period with necessity had to come with a lot of brutality and disorder, until it became obvious to the masses that abusing the law could strike back at yourself. The nordic and perhaps initially also germanic idea of entire families using revenge against each others to avenge murder and similar is often pictured as something that caused a lot of bloodshed and murder, but in fact this must have been extremely rare or it would have led to the extinction of the populations. Rather, it must have served as an effective way of keeping people from committing crime if they knew there would be extreme bloodshed as a result of it. It was anarchism and the stronger could defeat the weaker, but not without cost. Therefore the idea seems to have been used mostly by monarchs and throne pretenders, and little by the average citizen, for which it seems to have worked well as a deterrent. I think that the lawlessness of the early period wasn't more or less problematic that the overly complex easily abused law systems of the late period, but the changeover period between them was probably were bloody and often incorrectly called "lawless".

Church oppression/education - church varied a lot, from the "pornocratic" papacy of the fall of rome period, to for example the educated Saint Augustine, to Gregorius who wanted reformation of the church etc. There were popes who called for crusades, popes who sold places in paradise for money, but also popes who spoke vehemently against slavery.

Chivalry - this also existed at times, but probably not as widely spread as claimed. Just like Rome where chivalry ideals were part of the buildup of the empire (clementia and standing by your word and being loyal to allies) but later lost, the germanic empires and states lost these values too several times during the Medieval period and after it. It's difficult to say how much of chivalry was a way of demonstrating your own strength and how much of it was a matter of actual just and honorable behavior... I think it was more of the former to be honest, but there were some cases of chivalry, for example when England in the hundred years war aborted their operations because the French king had died and the new king was just a boy and you couldn't attack a boy - hardly anything seen in any other period of history I think. But it also seems such things were rare.

War - while there were more wars, these wars tended to affect fewer than the roman wars because the states were so much smaller. However during some periods there were clearly worse wars - the hundred years war for instance. Such wars that tended to go on for so long periods because both parts were of about equal strength for a long time before any distinct advantage for either side was achieved. The late Medieval wars started to look more like the mess of the eighty and thirty years wars, because in the changeover period when states got larger the high rate of aggression in foreign politics of the periods of smaller states still remained for a while, until it became apparent how larger states with necessity must be less aggressive in foreign politics to be successful. That's the only explanation I can think of for this chain of events, but there are probably many other reasons behind it too.

In summary I'd say the Medieval period was something in between the two views but also that the period is so long and diverse that it's impossible to put a single label on it. While perhaps not as good as the early Rome and Hellenistic Greece in many aspects, the late Rome was doomed to death by it's corruption and oppression, so the Medieval period was both inevitable and an improvement, however it was also inevitable when states got larger and there was a lot of warfare for inches of ground to look back at Rome and idealize the view of Rome and try to use the tricks used by Rome to manage to succeed militarily. However since the late Roman ugly tricks seemed to have been more inspiring than the early Roman clementia and honor, no Medieval empire really got that large or remained for a very long time, because ugly tricks only give short term gains.

[beauchamp]

The middle ages you say? It was the heydey for us in the Islamic world, for the europeans it was a time of darkness.