Why is 'Dark Ages' considered innacurate?
- Thread starter Ajidica
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ParkCungHee
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I've always sort of had my own way of classifying eras...
>3000 B.C. = Pre-History
3000 B.C. - 600 B.C. = Bronze Age
600 B.C. - 476 A.D. = Classical Age
476 A.D. - 800 A.D. = Dark Ages
800 A.D. - 1453 A.D. = Medieval Ages
1453 - 1774 A.D. = Pre-Modern (Renaissance, Baroque, and Enlightenment) Era
1774 - 2010 = Modern Times
Now these are imperfect and they need sub-categories, but they are my classifications. My justifications are that 3000 B.C. was the advent of the written word, Egypt, and the Fertile Crescent. 600 B.C. was the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the development of Grecian civilization as we know it. 476 is, of course, the last fall of the Western Roman Empire. 1453 is the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire, one possible date of the first printed bible, and the end of the Hundred Years War. 1774 is the year of the commercialization of Watt's steam engine.
>3000 B.C. = Pre-History
3000 B.C. - 600 B.C. = Bronze Age
600 B.C. - 476 A.D. = Classical Age
476 A.D. - 800 A.D. = Dark Ages
800 A.D. - 1453 A.D. = Medieval Ages
1453 - 1774 A.D. = Pre-Modern (Renaissance, Baroque, and Enlightenment) Era
1774 - 2010 = Modern Times
Now these are imperfect and they need sub-categories, but they are my classifications. My justifications are that 3000 B.C. was the advent of the written word, Egypt, and the Fertile Crescent. 600 B.C. was the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the development of Grecian civilization as we know it. 476 is, of course, the last fall of the Western Roman Empire. 1453 is the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire, one possible date of the first printed bible, and the end of the Hundred Years War. 1774 is the year of the commercialization of Watt's steam engine.
LightSpectra
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I'd rather live in AD 799 than the golden age of Rome any day of the week. I've still not heard a single convincing argument for why the era between the end of the Western Roman Empire and the crowning of Charlemagne was an age of darkness.
Ajidica
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Well, it helps when one chery picks the dates. Of course anyone would rather live in Charlemagnes empire than after its disintigration where a mere 80 years after it being proclaimed and 'Empire' Vikings were sieging Paris and the best things one could say about the Kings were that they were fat or bald. Louis the Fat and Charles the Bald. Although Charlemagnes empire might have been better than during the Roman time (I'm no social historians and I don't know anyone to ask that question) the Roman Empire did maintain stability for quite some time, at least relativle to other countries.
LightSpectra
me autem minui
I remind you that Rome faced a similar crisis with the split between the Imperium, the Palmyrene Empire and the Gallic Empire. Nevertheless the term "Dark Ages" is always used to refer to some manner of intellectual darkness, which was not the case even after the split of the Frankish Empire.
Considering they faced a comparatively similar number of revolts, civil wars and invasions, I'm not sure why you'd say that. The only difference is that Rome was more successful in quashing them.
Ajidica
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The Roman Empire experiance relative stability for around 200 years. (I know they had a few revolts and possibly a civil war but no massive societal/political upheavals) One could possibly extend that for another 50 years but then you get into the soldier emperors where it starts getting iffy. I would also like to point out that the roman empire was HUGE. I believe using the Cursus Publicus one could travel at around 40km per day, and that was using horse changes. Factor in Rome had a relativly centralized administration structure and the Empire had thousands of people the administrative issues become daunting. That is even without taking into account the very different ethnic backgrounds found throughout the empire.
COntrast that to Charlemagnes Empire which lasted really only until the death of Louis the Pious. During that time there was little the Empire couldn't handel as its only enemies were the Saxons (majority of capaigns against them were aggressive) and Al-Andalus (power had waned after Tours). Charlemagnes Empire was smaller than the Roman with a decentralized structure where in theory revolts would be smaller that also meant they were easier to put down.
So while the accomplishments of Charlemagne were impressive, they started to break down after his death while after the establishment of the Roman Empire it lasted for around 200 years.
COntrast that to Charlemagnes Empire which lasted really only until the death of Louis the Pious. During that time there was little the Empire couldn't handel as its only enemies were the Saxons (majority of capaigns against them were aggressive) and Al-Andalus (power had waned after Tours). Charlemagnes Empire was smaller than the Roman with a decentralized structure where in theory revolts would be smaller that also meant they were easier to put down.
So while the accomplishments of Charlemagne were impressive, they started to break down after his death while after the establishment of the Roman Empire it lasted for around 200 years.
LightSpectra
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And what does this have to do with anything pertaining to how the Carolingian Era is commonly thought to be in intellectual darkness?
actually I thought you were a proponent of the Carolinginian Renaissance, which implies something less than ideal existed before...
LightSpectra
me autem minui
Renaissances make life better. It does not necessarily follow that life was undesirable prior to that.
Well, I would have to disagree with you. Let's say from 20 B.C. to 180 A.D., and 600 A.D. to 800 A.D. At the height of the Roman Empire, most of Europe was a much nicer place to live than in the 7th and 8th centuries AD. Despite some revolts and wars on the periphery it was fairly stable. Considering prior to this, all towns had to be built with walls, to deal with the very real possibility of attack or invasion.
Ajidica said:
And how old was the Empire?
Ajidica said:
That's patently false. Diocletian, for instance, oversaw a period of massive reforms which completely changed the social and political strata of the Empire in response to the Crisis of the Third Century.
Ajidica said:
So it had 200 and perhaps an additional 50 years of relative peace in a state which lasted some five hundred years, at least, in the West. That's not exactly sterling, good, but not markedly better than other comparable Empires.
Ajidica said:
The Empire had comparatively few public servants and the ethnic admixture wasn't really all that important -- without nationalism and all that.
Ajidica said:
Contrast what? The rules of the game seem to have had fundamentally changed. Some measure of decentralization seems to have been prevalent in the latter Roman Empire and the trends which propelled that alone don't seem to have markedly changed into the Carolingian Empire. But what does any of that have to do with intellectual achievements?
Yui108 said:
That only works if you ignore half the history of Rome which causes your argument just a little bit of trouble: no?
Not really Masada. I did qualify using the word height, didn't I?
Yui108 said:
If you have to ignore half the history of a state then there's some problems with the generalization, no? Besides, life wasn't markedly better for the majority during the Golden Age of Rome, the so-called Dark Ages, or the Carolingian Restoration. It only looks better if your willing to attribute to the elites some sort of representative viz. a viz. the welfare of the population.
As who?
I'll agree that maybe the qualifier weakens my argument. But I do believe, for the average person, live was better during the Pax Romana. There was less chance of invasion or raid, and through political unity more customers were available for your goods.
Apart from the slavery versus feudalism issue, I'd like to point out that women in the Roman empire were frequently subject to abortions, which were typically carried out by taking poison, being kicked, or having knives inserted. Moreover, abortions were done at the insistence of the husband or father, not the woman herself, who would often die from these methods. So where the issue of abortion is, today, presented by many as a matter of a woman's right to choose, in antiquity abortion was all about ignoring any choice in the matter that a woman might have, and subjecting her to life-threatening risks. I think this is one of the reasons why ancient Christians were opposed to the practice. In the Middle Ages, abortion was still practised, but more rarely, since physicians were (at least in theory) not permitted to do it. So in that respect, the Middle Ages were surely better than the Roman empire, at least if you were a woman.
Of course, there were more women in the Middle Ages anyway, because medieval people did not engage in the ancient practice of exposition of unwanted female babies. Ancient Roman society was male-dominated not merely because of cultural and political norms but because there literally were appreciably more men than women, because a sizeable minority of female babies were just killed.
Of course, there were more women in the Middle Ages anyway, because medieval people did not engage in the ancient practice of exposition of unwanted female babies. Ancient Roman society was male-dominated not merely because of cultural and political norms but because there literally were appreciably more men than women, because a sizeable minority of female babies were just killed.
frekk
Scourge of St. Lawrence
Actually it's used alot, but it doesn't have the meaning most people associate with it anymore (dark, ie grim and barbaric).
It's always had a dual meaning. On the one hand it's meant a dark (ie foreboding or grim) state of affairs. This meaning no longer has much favour.
But the other meaning has kept the term current. "Dark" is also used to refer to the fact that it is obscured - there is a paucity of historical records from this time, so the events are murky.
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