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Urban Ranger
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Apolyton Duke of Off-Topic
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It depends on whom you ask. Some consider the Dark Ages continued to around 1500AD, i.e, until the Renaisance began.
Edit: this webpage has it till 1300AD just as an example.
Last edited by Urban Ranger on 16-12-2002 at 15:38
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mandarin
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We'd all be more homosexually inclined lol? didnt the romans have a special penchant for that kind of thang. Then again the greeks werent known for their sexual inhibitiveness.
Guess their military might needed an outlet in the far reaches of their empire....
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Kontiki
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Canada
Aug 2001
time: 00:24
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IIRC, the "Dark Ages" are called such because of the perceived loss of inventiveness and spread of knowledge. I think it's been long since determined that in fact technology and knowledge kept humming along during this time, but perhaps not as quickly disseminated because of the lack of a cohesive empire. Of course, large empires with central control can just as easily shut down progress - witness China.
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Dr Strangelove
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quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
The Dark Ages were dark because of the systematic repression carried out by the Church, with stupid things such as the Crusades and the Inquisition. |
The Inquisition didn't happen during the dark ages, and the Crusades began right at the end. Historians generally label the years between the fall of the roman empire and the beginning of the rise of the nation states of europe as the dark ages. The date of the sacking of Rome in 453 AD provides a convenient starting point. Determining when the dark ages ended and the medieval period begins is more difficult. Some historians place the end of the dark ages at the Battle of Hastings, others use the foundation of the Holy Roman Empire, the christianization of the Vikings, or even the launching of the first Crusade as the date of the end of the dark ages.
In essence the dark ages mark a period of the dissolution of powerful centralized government with the attending loss of trade, wealth, infrastructure, and learning. The invasion of Atilla the Hun is probably the single most important event contributing to the transition from empire to dark ages. Not only did he humiliate and demoralize the empire, but he also stripped it of its wealth, disrupted trade, and drove the German tribes into Roman territory. Even before the appearence of Atilla the government of Rome was in decay. The average emporer in the 5th century lasted only 2 to 4 years. They were elected by faction, or worse, by knife, and seldom commanded the real loyalty of the whole empire. A combination of Atilla's destruction of the Roman military, a loss of respect for the legions and desperation to find a secure home drove the Germans to occupy various portions of the empire.
Before the end the empire began to retract towards its Italian home base. This deprived the peripheral provinces of infrastructure, since only the army held the knowledge of how to maintain the roads, forts, and baths. It is apparent that in the 500 year reign of the empire no one had bothered to provide for the teaching of civil engineering beyond the oral traditions of the army. Perhaps even if they had, the new smaller improverished states would have been unable to maintain the Roman infrastructure anyway. The retraction of the emnpire also meant the decline of trade. This furthered the decline of infrastructure, but not only in the periphery, but also in the old core fo the empire. In the 3rd century the empire had been about 25% urbanized. By the 5th century europe was less than 5% urban. Citizens who were froced out of the cities by starvation often found themselves at the mercy of landowners. This may have been the origin of servility.
By the end of the 5th century the empire was impoverished, diminished and large parts of it occupied by German tribes. Leadership was passed on to the Germans, but there wasn't a leader remaining who commanded the respect of all the tribes, so the empire finally just drifted apart. Since Italy itself became divided all hope of reforming the empire was lost.
After the fall of the empire the barbarians picked over the remains. Stability was elusive, no place was safe. Europe retracted into fortified villages and waited for the winter to pass. Eventually some of the barbarians became strong and fostered stability. The Frankish empire of the Merovingians is an example of this. Eventually the church reached out to the barbarians and pacified them. An example of this would be the end of raiding that followed the christianizing of Denmark and Norway.
All in all the Christian church had much more to do with ending the decadence of the dark ages than perpetuating it. It is easy to make the claim that it was the church which ultimately triumphed over the barbarians. One could also argue that the empire fell not because Christianity weakened its warrior values, but instead that the church was too late to prevent decadent politics from collapsing the empire from within. You can blame Atilla the Hun on either bad weather in Mongolia or the aggressive campaigns of the Chinese along their northern borders designed to quash the activities of tribal raiders.
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16-12-2002 10:53
).
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