Middle Ages: The Dark Ages

The middle ages are often identified as the Dark Age because of the Black Death, invasions by the Barbarians, and because of lack of enlightenment for the common people. A plague most likely originating from Asia spread throughout Europe. Towns and

When people associate things with the word “dark” there mainly referring to things that are evil, bad or have an evil look. So when you put the label “Dark ages” on the Middle ages, you make the assumption that it was not a good time. But you’d be mistaken, it was completely the opposite. Though not much revolution took place in the early Middle Ages, the people were happy and content, and "the Dark Ages" just doesn’t fit with that, it’s not a accurate label to put on the Middle Ages.

The Christian religions rise to supremacy in the middle ages was the result of several factors. Christians had long been persecuted by the Roman Empire because the Romans felt that Christianity challenged and offended the Greco-Roman Gods and the Christians were prone to revolt against Roman rule. Christianity survived because it had many teachings that appealed to the downtrodden in Roman society, these teachings being that even though they were suffering they would gain equality and possibly superiority in the next life, Christianity gave them hope.

During the Middle ages it experienced many things that would be considered dark, faithful, and Feudal. The Middle ages were dark because they were attacked by several disasters; including the Bubonic plague, robberies connected to pirates and “booty”. The Middle ages were faithful because during these dark times there was no government, so everyone had to go and connect with their local church and the churches had to be the government figure for everyone. The churches eventually got lots of the church to go fight for the Crusades, which lasted for a hundred years. The Middle ages would have been called Feudal because the Feudal system was their social order and that's how they operated in life. If I could label the Middle ages it would be dark

Over the years historians had agreed and disagreed over the though of the middle ages being a dark and less civilized time. It was classified as dark because learning new things wasn’t a part of their daily activities. They didn’t lack intelligence, but they never had a reason to design aircraft or anything as intricate in that matter. However, their focus was to bear ground provisions and maintain sustainability. The focus back then was to live. The myth that the “dark ages” was dark is the truth, but it is not true that it was relieved from the shadows after the renaissance. The upbringing of the people started way before the renaissance. Because the goal back then was to survive they had to eat and to eat they had to grow what they

Before the Fall of the Roman Empire, in 5th century CE, Europe commanded a high degree of culture and intellectual influence. It was the Frank, King Charlemagne, crowned Roman Emperor on Christmas Day 800, who united people under the Christian church and ushered in a new order of rule, feudalism, during the Low Middle Ages (Markham, 2010, The Revolution, Napoléon, and Education). Feudalism made it difficult for anyone to rise above one’s original station. In other words, the poor remained poor. Markham also said that King Charlemagne brought back “formal learning”. Even though only the very wealthy were allowed religious schooling, by the 11th century, elite church schools were built throughout the empire. In the 13th century the University

The Middle Ages, or Medieval Times, lasted from the fifth to fifteenth centuries in European history. Specifically, 1300-1500 brought about the period known as the Late Middle Ages. In this period, a decline of the quality of life became apparent. The Late Middle Ages is viewed largely as the early beginnings of what would become the Renaissance only a couple of centuries later. Even being the late part of the Middle Ages, much of this time was still prevalently medieval much like the earlier centuries. Although there was some hope for a continuing era, many signs pointed toward the end of the medieval times as a whole, and inevitably, towards a renaissance. The Black Death, Dante’s The Divine Comedy, and Paolo Ucello’s The Battle of San Romano were very significant during the Late Middle Ages and thus significantly helped to lead to the end of the Medieval Times and towards development of the Renaissance.

Since the existence of mankind, people always have had their instinct to create society. Society is a group of people getting together and sharing an environment to live more comfortable and safe. In the dark ages, a society had a variance of people with different duties, such as hunting, cooking or managing and etc. Because every single person had a different set of skills that can be useful for their societies in a different way. Each duty had its importance and creates an expectation for its society. Those duties can be entitled as first professions of the history of mankind. Let’s think about the times when mankind use rocks to hunt down animals. Because of deficiency of required materials hunting was hard, and dangerous. One day a man decides to sharpen his rock with another rock. Years later another person develops his/her sharpening rock technique becomes perfect at it and hunting becomes effortless for him and his society. Then someone else decides to use this technique for sharpening other people’s rock for food and clothes. By doing that he set off to make his sharpening rock act to be a profession.

Since the Middle Ages, Islam has been defined as a distinguishable “Other” from the European population, as the Crusades characterized Europe as a distinctly Christian entity warring against the Muslim identity of the Middle East. Religion has been a divisive force for centuries in these portions of the world, but the 1905 laïcité law in France established this nation as a secular society, breaking away from Christianity and promoting the privatization of religion in order to guarantee its free exercise. 20th century France witnessed waves of immigration in the form of those of Islamic descent, first with unskilled laborers from Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia coming to work in French factories. The Algerian War between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front saw a second massive wave of those with Muslim affiliation, as Algerians who fought with the French Army feared the NLF’s wrath after Algerian independence and migrated to France in its aftermath during the 1960s and 1970s. Today, France is home to between 4 and 5 million Muslims, which is the largest Muslim population in the continent of Europe, but this presence has done little to alleviate the influence of the Othering of Muslims in French society. Terrorist attacks committed by extremist Islamic groups in recent years, such as the Charlie Hebdo killings in January 2015, the Paris suicide bombings of November 2015, and the truck running over crowds celebrating Bastille Day 2016 in Nice have only heightened

The Dark Ages has been described as both a visual and metaphorical statement to sum up the years beginning around A.D. 450 and continuing until A.D. 1000.At this time, the Roman Empire did not have an emperor. Collectively, this time period is more popularly known as the middle ages and the common topic of significance is the monasteries and the shift in the church’s focus. Even scholars are truly grasping this concept less and less as the years go on. The term “Dark Ages” has become too negative and judgmental of a phrase to keep context and relevancy. The darkness of this time was referring to the intellectual aspect and the barbaric nature that ensued. Despite the negative connotation associated with this time period it helped to set the stage for much advancement in human history.

The Middle Ages were time advancements and downfalls. The Bubonic plague killed millions of people, causing the downfall of feudalism, and the Crusades brought many deaths and the downfall of a major empire. Many instances resulted in almn of Europe. However, the time period also contained many advancements and the church restored everything back into place. Despite many disputes between barbarians and Christians resulting in a political downfall and causing many people to think of the Middle Ages as Dark Ages, the time period, however, should be considered as the Golden Age of Europe because of the church’s effort to maintain social peace and the successful economic relationships in feudalism.

The middle ages (1066-1485) is known as the Dark ages for representing cultural and economic deterioration following the decline of the exuberant Roman Empire. However, a variety of important events that took place in that period, mainly in England, helped shape society as we know it today. Feudalism was created in the middle ages with the king at the top of military, political, and economic hierarchy, nobles owning the land, and peasants, or vassals working on the land. Living conditions were hard in general, but life was especially hard for peasants. The crusades marked the period with knights sent to Jerusalem to fight against Muslims, demonstrating the immense power of the Roman Chaotic Church, in all areas of people’s lives. The Black Death, or bubonic plague, was also a relevant event that killed one third of the population of western Europe. The British middle ages influenced the development of society through the politics, the religion, and the literature of the era.

The late Medieval Age witnessed significant change and reformation in both societal life and religious ideals. As more and more philosophers emerged, they began challenging societal norms and, inevitably, the Catholic Church, which dominated much of medieval life. As the Medieval Age waned, the emergence of humanism and Protestantism ushered in a new wave of a thought. Although the Reformation paved the way for a more anthropocentric outlook on life, in regards to religion it became more theocentric. The literary characters featured in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, written in the twilight of the Medieval Age, demonstrate the anthropocentric nature of individuals living within a society dominated by the Church. Conversely, Martin Luther’s rejection of Catholicism during the Protestant Reformation was inspired by a theocentric outlook which, he would argue, derived directly from the Good Book and, as such, was anything but new.

The Middle Ages, or the Dark Ages, are what Manchester calls, “The densest of the medieval centuries.” (3)* Of course, this isn’t necessarily the only way to put it. It is known that this time period is called the “Dark Ages” because of its lack of development. It cannot be considered an influential time period, as it did not have the same importance as the preceding and succeeding eras.

The Middle Ages was from the 5th to the 15th century. The Middle Ages was the time period between the decline of the Western Roman Empire and the Renaissance. Many scholars call the era the medieval period or the Dark Ages instead of the Middle Ages. During these times, the Great Schism occurred and the empire split into two, the Western Roman Empire and Eastern Roman Empire. These two empires became known as the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church. The Roman Empire officially collapsed because of budgeting, Christianity, and barrack warriors. Everyone that lived during the Dark Ages did not have a terrible life, there were many exceptions. Some people had it better than others. The Middle Ages should not be called the Dark Ages because not everyone was suffering.