Were the Dark Ages real or was it a period where they merely made fewer sculptures and paintings for future historians to gawk at?
If I was a historian angry at them for not giving me cool art I might call it the Dark Ages too. I might even tell lies about how not having sculptures and paintings means everyone back then lived in literal shit.
There was a period of time in the Western part of Europe where things did go backwards. However some people will exaggerate how long it lasted or imply that it in the Eastern part as well.
The dark ages are labelled because very little of the time was recorded compared to before and after,and because a vast quantity of earlier knowledge was destroyed
>>461566
>Anglo-Saxons.
Did not blossom at all. Fucks were perhaps the longest Western European entity to hang around the dark ages.
Just always remember that the Dark Ages were caused by Islamic conquests and piracy, in case you're ever arguing with a Muzzie and they bring up le Islamic golden age xDD
>>461621
>what is failure to unify.
>what is deurbanization of major roman cities.
>>461666
>Just London.
>of all the cities that Romans built there.
k
>>461681
>Dark Ages IRISH
>Piratical Tribalniggerous Irish
>Civilization.
Yeah, not replying to this thread anymore.
The Franks ended the dark ages with their large scale unification of most of Western Europe. The Scandis and the Anglos are in the periphery of that.
>>461620
Remember how much Roman and Greek literature went to the West because of the fall of Constantinople.
Get this /pol/ shit out of here.
>>461687
Where in Europe did Charlemagne get his most literate monks from? You may be surprised.
Dark Ages existed for Italy and the Mediterranean, but Germany and Britain stopped being complete shitholes during the period, and other continents didn't give a shit.
>>461687
Exactly. The Franks ended the dark ages through the work of Frankish scholars like Clement of Ireland, Joseph Scottus, and Johannes Scotus Eriugena. I don't see why people keep bringing up the Irish when talking about their work.
>>461660
Urban centers were death traps desu. Deurbanization is good.
>>461687
How does violent conquest and large scale tyranny equate to ending the Dark Ages?
For that matter, why do y'all niggas endlessly romantisize large blobs on a map? All those large blobs say little about the lives of the people living there and are more testaments to bloody conquest and tyranny than anything else.
Dark Ages was dark because there was no significant scientific or philosophical achievement. There were some literatures but they were aimed at praising heavenly things not earthly matters.
So dark Age was really dark and christianity nothing contributed here positively.
Basically church was fine with scientific research as long as as it did not go against biblical theory. the very moment scientific research went against biblical theory immediately persecution happened. And in those days that ment being burnt at the stake
>>461930
Honestly, what scientific achievements were the Romans taking part in? I think technology was moving at a snail's pace well before the Dark Ages.
>>461954
Hero of Alexandria created a steam engine,so there could have been an industrial revolution 1700 years ago
>>461977
No they didn't. It in no way compared to a Newcomen steam engine.
>>461691
>Muslims conquer an important christian city which lead to more christians fleeing to the west
You are just proving him right.
>>461566
>https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27%C3%82ge_des_t%C3%A9n%C3%A8bres
>https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edad_Oscura
>>461990
His machine was used for opening temple doors so it was functional.
>>462013
From the description it wasn't a true steam engine. The doors only opened as the water was displaced by evaporation. The pressure from water changing state wasn't used for anything except in the pic related model which had no practical application. Maybe I'm misreading about it though.
>>461548
Apart from all the things that happened;
Religion took a much bigger part of people's lives. Most of Europe was christened. Also, it wasn't even a very nice form of christianity that we see today with forgiveness and rehabilitation. Medieval christianity was much more brutal in it's talks of the end of the world, final judgement, etc. etc.
More people grew to be illiterate, although there weren't many literate people to begin with. Europe lost it's one unified language. Latin and Greek remained but in different parts of Europe other languages would supercede or evolve from them.
This in turn made exchange of knowledge somewhat hampered, tho not to much.
Overall tho, the biggest contribution to the dark ages being so "dark" is probably the fact that religion took a much bigger part of everyday life. Instead of socializing, people spent their freetime in prayer or in service. In cities, places of social gatherings disappeared and were replaced by churches and monestaries. Certain sporting events were either banned or phased out. A small amount of de-urbanization occured.
None of this is inherently "worse" than how it was before but it was very different. And religion in particular contributed to guiding what form of scholarly worship was allowed and what wasn't - something which had not been an issue before. But things like naval or construction engineering was obviously not affected by this (tho art was).
>>461954
Romans were not really pursuing scientific methods per say, but their pre-Christian empire was a much more free one in regards as to what form of theological or philosophical studies could be performed.
After the introduction of christianity, people thought that the wellfare of the state and king was tied to how pious the people were. So obviously non-christian thinking was suppressed. This is one of the reasons the jews were often persecuted - they were blamed for catastrophies.
>>462079
> After the introduction of christianity, people thought that the wellfare of the state and king was tied to how pious the people were
You are wrong. Christianity, being individualistic religion, in general don't care about salvation of a community as a community, only about salvation of an individual. Roman/Greek paganism, on the other hand, was traditionalistic communal religion where action of a member could endanger relationships with a deity for an entire community. Also you are underestimating role of traditional paganism in Roman society, their live was full of bizarre rituals, celebrations, sacrifices and divinations, sponsored by the state and individuals.
>>461620
Lol, no
>>461620
>the Dark Ages were caused by Islamic conquests
Literally how
>>461929
You just described the Roman Empire
>>462510
Christian apologetic is truly a marvel to behold.
>>461548
>a period where they merely made fewer sculptures and paintings for future historians to gawk at?
Not just sculptures and paintings, everything. Literature, infrastructure, science, you name it.
>>462510
Trade lines between Europe and the middle east were cut off, isolating Europe geographically.
>>461995
But he's not, since the opposite seems to have happened when there were Islamic conquests - rather than Western Europe becoming weaker or more backwards, it only got stronger.
Moors conquer Spain -> rise of the Carolingians
Arabs conquer Sicily and parts of Southern Italy -> Ottonian Renaissance and rise of Venice
Turks conquer Middle East -> 12th Century Renaissance
Turks conquer Balkans -> Renaissance
>>461548
>I might even tell lies about how not having sculptures and paintings means everyone back then lived in literal shit.
Tbh everyone back then lived in "literal" shit. For our 2015 standards, of course. And by back then I obviously mean everything before ~1950 and that's only for a very specific part of the world as the rest is mostly living in literal shit (again, for our standards) even now.
But yeah, in the end of the day, the dark ages do not deserve to be called that and specially not if you want to apply it to all or most of the medieval period like some do. From the perspective of the sophistication and power of state there was indeed a recession in the ex-roman empire, but the state being powerless may be better or worst depending on a big number of factors. Also, you're probably culturally or even genetically descended from germanic peoples so for you everything went actually better.
>>462527
Without data for 1-5th centuries this graph is useless for a discussion about the Dark Ages, the results can be explained by banal deterioration.
>>462530
Which is wrong in any case, as trade and communication had been nearly cut off by the end of the 6th century thanks to plague, Slavs and Avars, and the disappearance of Egyptian/Syrian shipping during the war with the Sassanids. Trade and communication and even pilgrimage started up again after the 7th century, and it kept growing from then on.
>>461548
>Were the Dark Ages real or was it a period where they merely made fewer sculptures and paintings for future historians to gawk at?
There really was a huge decline in European standards of living, materially, technologically, and socially.
http://historum.com/ancient-history/43434-rise-fall-ancient-economy.html
>>462684
Nice graphs, they actually show that the decline was gradual and started back in the 1st century.
>>462720
>The Antonine Plague of 165–180 AD—also known as the Plague of Galen, a Greek physician living in the Roman Empire who described it—was an ancient pandemic brought back to the Roman Empire by troops returning from campaigns in the Near East.
> The total deaths have been estimated at five million,[4] and the disease killed as much as one-third of the population in some areas and devastated the Roman army
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonine_Plague
>>462772
That would explain it.
>>461621
Not the work of the Anglo-Saxons.
>>461620
German barbarians literally caused the fall of Rome
>>461566
>the Medieval period gave formerly "barbarian" cultures the opportunity to take the lead in Europe and allowed them to blossom.
Which had about the same effect as giving formerly "barbarian" tribes the opportunity to take the lead in Africa and allowing them to blossom.
Europe was ruined for centuries, in relative if not absolute terms.
>>462132
That's just flat out not true.
The entire idea of Iconoclasm revolved around that Roman society was suddenly no longer favoured by god because of it's idol worship. Christian history is littered with these type of conflicts way before Luther or even the Schism. Just check out the Monophysites.
>>462515
I am very aware of that fact.
>>461930
>Basically church was fine with scientific research as long as as it did not go against biblical theory. the very moment scientific research went against biblical theory immediately persecution happened. And in those days that ment being burnt at the stake
The dark ages were about 1,000 years earlier than that, bud.
>>462720
This shows that the Romans built really shitty boats.
I find it really hard to believe that there was little boat traffic on the Mediterranean as late as 1500.
The dark Ages is kind of bullshit. Rome was even still around. The Middle East and Far East were thriving. The term is an egregious example of historical tunnel vision used to describe a period of stagnation localized to western Europe.
The Rome empire had provided security for the lives, property and contracts of the population, once it was gone there was a total collapse of society, literacy,building technology(concrete), medicine and government.
From 500 to 1000 AD were truly the most depressing phase of the history of western civilization.
I cannot understand what's the problem in accepting Dark Ages europe.
>>466241
What did Romans due to foster literacy aside from export their literate elites to rule over foreign peoples?
>>466266
*do
>>466157
Was the west truly stagnant though or did they simply not produce as much art?
>>466241
That its a shitty term that exists on English but not in other languages to begin with.
>>466279
Western Europe became pretty chaotic. Islam was invading from the south. Barbarian tribes were on the move. The Vikings were raiding, trading, and exploring. There's just not a lot going on because 1) everyone is concerned primarily with day to day survival and 2) there's no massive bureaucracy maintaining or keeping steady records anymore. A lot of what people did write down was lost in looting and pillaging. Most of the learning during this period of Western history was confined to isolated monasteries.
>>466266
Literacy was common enough for Caligula to obfuscate his written laws posted in the forum by hanging them high up and written in tiny characters.
