Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Were The Dark Ages Really That Dark?

Episode Date: July 28, 2021

The term Dark Ages has been used to refer to a period in European history when culture supposedly regressed and civilization was in decline. The idea of a Dark Ages is one that was prevalent amongst historians for centuries. But lately, historians have been reconsidering the idea of a Dark Age and questioning if there really was a Dark Age. Learn more about the Dark Ages and if they were really that dark, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The term dark ages has been used to refer to a period in European history when culture supposedly regressed and civilization was in decline. The idea of a dark ages is one that was prevalent among historians for centuries. But lately, historians have been reconsidering the idea of a dark age and questioning if there was even a dark age at all. Learn more about the dark ages and if they were really that dark on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? throughline is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night and how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR.

This episode is sponsored by the tourist office of Spain. Spain is one of the most visited countries in the world with more than 80 million people visiting every year. One of the reasons it draws so many visitors is its many UNESCO World Heritage sites. Spain has 49 UNESCO World Heritage sites, which is the third most in the world. That includes the newest world heritage site just created this week, the Paso del Prado and Bien Rittiro in Madrid. This is the central area of Madrid that has a fantastic park and is home to one of the world's great art museums, the Prado.

For more information on how you can plan your dream trip to Spain to visit all their UNESCO World Heritage sites, just visit Spain. Info. Once again, that's Spain. Info. The term dark ages is one that isn't actually used that much anymore by academic historians. However, it's one that was used for centuries and one that is still in colloquial use today. The period, which is referred to as the Dark Ages, can vary, but it usually refers to the early Middle Ages, which is the centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. There are no exact dates for the Dark Ages, but it is roughly given as the 5th to 10th centuries.

There are some people that may extend it out a few centuries further. The starting point would be the end of the Western Roman Empire, which is usually given as 476. This was when the last Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, advocated. If you remember back to the very first episode of this podcast, that the Roman Empire didn't actually end in 476. It only ended in the West. It kept going for almost a thousand years in the east using the city of Constantinople as its capital. And today, we call that Eastern Empire the Byzantine Empire. Even then, the end of the Western Empire wasn't a sudden thing that happened overnight.

If they had newspapers back then, there never would have been a headline that one day read, Roman Empire collapses. The idea of a dark age actually didn't develop until the 14th century, with the Italian scholar Petrarch. The 13th and 14th century saw a rediscovery of, classical authors and a renewed respect for the classical Greek and Roman periods. For centuries after the rise of Christianity, most Europeans thought of the classical period as the Dark Ages. This was the pre-Christian era when paganism was the dominant religion. Pagan authors and thinkers were looked down upon by European Christians.

However, near the end of the Middle Ages, many of the classical books which fell out a favor with the church came back into popularity. The opinion of the classical period changed, no longer was at a dark period, but it became the period of enlightenment. Petrarch wrote of the classical period, quote, amidst the errors, they're shown forth men of genius, no less keen were their eyes, although they were surrounded by darkness and dense gloom. Unquote. What he was saying was even though these people weren't Christian, they were still enlightened people that we should listen to. Petrarch basically viewed history as being in two ages, the age of light, which was the classical period, and the age of darkness, which is what he lived in. He viewed Rome,

in Greece as eras of greatness. The actual phrase, Dark Ages, came from an Italian cardinal name Caesar Baroneus in 1602. He used the Latin phrase Seculum obscureum, which roughly translates into an age of darkness. So, was

Petrarch right? Did Europe sink into an age of darkness after the fall of the Roman Empire? The fall of the Empire in the West did in fact lead to some large-scale changes, and many of them were not for the better. For starters, without a large expanse of government, trade became much more difficult. During the height of Rome, it was common for people to

have items that were transported from distant corners of the empire. There's archaeological evidence, for example, of ceramics from the Middle East, which were found in Britain. The decrease in trade did result in a lower standard of living. Not only that, but because there was no central authority, safety and security became a major concern for everyone. Resources now had to go into defense and protection that would otherwise have gone into the economy. Mass migrable, The Federation also became a hallmark of the era. Vandals and Goths, for example, moved into areas that were before part of Rome. Spain and North Africa became the new home of the Vandals, in fact. The lack of a central authority also led to divisions of the former empire into separate linguistic

blocks. Because travel and trade were reduced, regional dialects and languages were developed. That's why Romance languages, such as Spanish and French, evolved to be so different. However, the biggest thing during this period of time was the rise of the Catholic Church. When the empire fell, the church filled the vacuum left by the empire, at least in part. The church at the local level became the center of society and the focus of culture. It also created the structure upon which education and learning were based for centuries, mostly through monasteries. So I think it's safe to say that the material conditions and the standard of living for many people within the Roman Empire

probably did decrease after the empire fell. But was this period intellectually backward? Was it a time of darkness? This all assumes that before the fall of Rome that it wasn't a time of intellectual darkness. The fact is, Rome really wasn't a hotbed of technical or philosophical innovation. Yeah, Greece and Rome had philosophers, and there were several philosophical schools that came out of the classical period. However, during the Middle Ages, philosophy mostly got channeled into theology. People were still considering the same big questions about how to live a good life,

but it was being done through a Christian lens instead of a pagan one. With respect to technology and science, the Romans really did very little. They were great engineers, to be sure, and so much of what they built survives to this day. Beyond Roman concrete, however, the discovery of which was really an accident, there wasn't much that was very innovative. The Aqueduct and the arch all came from other cultures, even if the Romans did implement them better. The Middle Ages did see some technical advancements, including the greater use of windmills for grain processing, improvements in sailing,

the horse collar and the heavy plow. Moreover, there were several minor renaissance that most people overlook. After the rise of King Charlemagne, an event historians called the Carolingian Renaissance took place in the 8th and 9th centuries. This was a revival in literature, art, and architecture. Even the Vandal kings in Spain and North Africa encouraged literature and funded architectural projects.

Likewise, if you want to compare architecture with the Romans, I think you can pit the great Romanesque cathedrals of the dark ages against anything built by the Romans. There's one other thing I have to address because it always comes up in any discussion about the dark ages. Islam. One common reply to the idea of if there were dark ages was that it was only dark in Europe. In the Islamic Caliphate, it was their golden age. And I would say that that is partially true. Progress in science and mathematics certainly did advance faster under Islam during this period. This wasn't so much that it was suppressed in Europe, but rather that the Caliphate had more money to spend to sponsor these academic pursuits at court.

The Caliphate had the same benefits that the Roman Empire had, a large single trading market, a rather large massive land with no internal strife, and a common language in Arabic. Also, the Caliphate brought in scholars from all over, not just from Islamic-controlled lands, and they were able to do that with their power and money. So I think it's pretty clear, at least to me, that there wasn't in fact a dark age in Europe. The idea of a dark age comes from a collapse in trading government after the fall of the Roman Empire, which did exist, and over-romanticizing the classical world by later European scholars. While the Islamic world did advance further during this period, that doesn't mean that Europe regressed during this period. So, instead of calling it the Dark Ages, perhaps we can probably just stick to the early Middle Ages.

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