Re:What you can learn about medieval Europe if you focus on ...
by cygx on Friday February 12, 2021 @12:40AM
(#26111046)
Just because the boundaries are fuzzy doesn't necessarily invalidate the concept of a 'dark age'.
If you don't like the term, we could call it "the age where total population, urbanization levels, manuscript production, trade volume, lead pollution, [placeholder for other convenient or inconvenient metric] in Europe[1] stayed far below peak Roman levels" - but that's kind of a mouthful...
[1] 'western' Europe in particular, but some of the effects are visible at continental scale, or even globally
Re:What you can learn about medieval Europe if you focus on ...
by Karrot_Kream on Thursday February 11, 2021 @11:56PM
(#26110874)
Indeed, and the Carolignian Empire, at its height, had united almost all of Western Europe again and led directly to France and the HRE as successor states. If you look at the conquest and governmental structures in the Carolignian Emprie, you'd have a very hard time arguing that they were undeveloped, locked in a "dark age".
Actually, it originally was. The "Dark Ages" was coined during the late Middle Ages/early Renaissance to refer to the entire period following the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of "modern" knowledge. It's only recently (20th century) that the term is shrunk back to refer to the Early Medieval period.
> It's named for the fact that very little written output was produced during this time. It ran about 500-1000AD.
There's your problem. The drought of manuscripts runs from about 500-800; the Carolingian Renaissance (and Albert the Great's concomitant reforms) brings back the manuscript production.