Reply #49: Often debated topic

[jobycom]

The term Dark Ages originally meant everything from the fall of Rome in the West, around the 5th century, until the Renaissance, when enlightened man believed they had returned to the light. The term Middle Ages was developed for that same period, meaning they were the ages between the two periods of light--Rome and the Renaissance.

Historians have long since discovered that Renaissance folk had a grim impression of the entire Middle Ages because they were coming off the Long Fourteenth Century, of Black Death and Hundred Years War fame (not to mention famine, drought, global cooling, glaciers, and lots of other really bad things). Before that period there was the Eleventh to Twelfth Century "Renaissance," and before that the Carolingian period, neither of which were all that "Dark."

So, many medieval historians tend to not like the term "Dark Ages" much, and many of those who do use the term consider it the period between the fall of Rome (which only fell in Europe, and slowly, so that the term isn't completely appropriate even then) and the Carolingian period, or some stretch it to the Millenium, with the emergence of Pope Sylvester II (Gerbert), who began to introduce Arabic and Islamic learning to "Christian" Europe (quotations because it was not yet fully "Christianized, but I digress).

There are some historians who say "What the heck, they are only labels anyway," and use the terms indiscriminately.

And there are careful historian who point out that it depends on where you were. For instance, parts of southern France and Italy never had much of a "Dark Ages" period, whereas Germany never had much of a Roman period to fall into Darkness from.

Sorry for the lecture. That's what happens when one spends too much time in grad school for medieval history then becomes a bookkeeper instead. :)