The Dark Ages

Between the years of 500 A.D. and 1400 A.D., there were constant invasions and wars often broke out. One of the important invasions included the Vikings’ destruction of Dordrecht (Doc 3). They had raided coastal villages, capturing people and burning everything as they went. The fall of Rome had left the cities with an unstable government, a lack of education, and an increase in diseases. The Black Death had occurred around 1347 A.D., and had caused an increase in deaths, a lack of social interaction, a loss in faith, and the start of anti-Semitism (OI). The disease spread throughout the entire body and caused sores and inflations to appear, which then led to death (OI). Since people were so afraid of catching this disease, they began to avoid interaction and trade became weaker; therefore the economy had a sharp decline. The lack of social interactions, decline in trade, increase in diseases, and constant invasions are reasons for why the Middle Ages were commonly known as the Dark Ages.

The Dark Ages were a period of great upheaval, battles, plague and very little cultural growth. This period began with the fall of Rome around 410 and lasted about 650 years. Rome was often referred to as the “mother land” and her fall created a loss of trade and commerce sending Western Europe into chaos. Lords from all over Europe were fighting to take control. These struggles from within Europe made it easy for outside forces to invade and take wealth and resources (Corbishly 14). The term “barbarian” was used by the Romans to refer to any “non-Roman”. Among some of these barbaric invaders were the Mongols, the Visigoths and the Vikings. All were fearless warriors and brutal

Europe was in a dark age during 500 AD to 1500 AD because of the Black Death, The Crusades, and the way the government was being functioned at the time in Europe. The debate is about whether Europe in a dark age or a growth age. Based on the evidence below Europe was in a dark age. The term dark ages came from the Italian scholar named Petrarch. He was comparing the Middle Ages to the classical era.

In terms of barbarian invasions, Viking attacks, and city raids. The first source of information is from DBQ 1 Doc 1, “The barbarians have broken through the ramparts. The Saracen invasions have spread in successive waves over the south. The Hungarians swarm over the Eastern provinces… they sacked the town and village, and laid waste the fields. They burned down the churches and then departed with a crowd of captives.” This piece emphasizes more on the barbarian invasions and helps to show what kind of a world Europe was like to live in during The Middle Ages. It shows how there was lots of violence, how they had taken captives and burned the churches. The churches were very important to Europe. Burning them, deeply showed how dark this time was. “The Northmen plundered and burned the town of Dordrecht. The Northmen with their boats filled with immense booty, including both men and goods, returned to their own country” (DBQ 1, Doc 2). Another excerpt focuses on the invasions and stealing in the Middle Ages. Vikings would come into towns and steal the goods. These invasions did not occur just once, it was every few months. Which leads me to my next point, the Vikings. The Vikings were a group of people who essentially lived on their boats in the water. They would raid the whole town, then leave and go to the next. If you did not want to be raided, you would have to pay a large sum of money each

According to Document A, The First Crusade, "Some of our men (and this was more merciful) cut off the heads of their enemies; others shot them with arrows, so that they fell from the towers." This quote shows how the Europeans had wars with the Muslim Turks. They would hurt the Muslims, and this showed how violent they were. This quote can show the characteristics of a dark age through violence, war, and chaos. In the same time period, the Black Death was destroying the population. According to Document A of the Black Death, it said, “Child abandoned the father, husband the wife, wife the husband, one brother the other, one sister the other.” Since there were a lot of diseases, many people left their

The Dark Age was a time when the church was at its peak. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells of invasions of England “In this year there was a great slaughter in London and Quentovic and in Rochester” ( doc 3). The Northmen killed people in those countries and took prisoners and killed the rest. The document says this because it gives detail to what happened in London and Quentovic and in Rochester. Thus with the evidence we have, Frantz Funck-Brentano,”The Hungarians swarm over Eastern provinces… they sacked towns and villages, and laid waste the fields” (doc 1). Hungarians were vikings and they were mean. What this quote means is they made a mess of the towns and lit fire to the

The Middle Ages are known for its abundant amount of deaths from plagues and wars. Let’s first look at what happened particularly in Europe during these

The time period spanning from around 500 A.D. to 1500 is perceived as the Dark Ages. Many plagues, wars, lack of knowledge, corruption, prosecution, and lack of freedoms were a part of the early Dark Ages. Many people tend to focus on these things and do not learn that many important things came from this time. The lengthy list following is some of the positives from the Dark Ages: universities, banking, Christianity, guilds, science, Carolingian Renaissance, Byzantine Golden Age, Islamic Golden Age, Commercial Revolution, mathematics, art, architecture, improved weather conditions, improvement upon laws, agricultural boom, the printing press (a fundamental part of journalism today), theater, Islam, and impressive leaders. The Dark Ages were not as dark as they are generally made out to be, for the art/architecture, agriculture, and the sciences/mathematics of that time, awe and impact today’s world.

The Dark Ages was a time of new creations since the Magna Carta was created during the time period. New things were learned, new religions like Buddhism were introduced to countries like Japan through trade. All these things show that the Dark Ages were a time of innovation and learning. The Middle Ages were just called Dark Ages, because at first no one knew what went on during this time frame. The Dark ages is not an appropriate term to describe the Middle Ages as.

During the High Middle Ages, there was no strong, central government that was politically organized enough to meet common needs of the people in Europe. After the fall of Charlemagne’s empire, invasions and anarchy became the societal norm. If they wanted to survive, they had to meet particular needs. The people of the High Middle Ages met their needs of political organization, economic provision, and social aspects through Feudalism, Manorialism, and through the Church.

Europe had been in a dark age at this time during The Crusades, Black Death, and was no trade. There were 4 Crusades going on at this time and they were very horrible because anybody who wanted to be cleansed of their sins would go and kill muslims throughout Europe. People who were in the crusades were knights, serfs, and anybody who wanted land and wanted to be free. The Crusades consisted of blood death war and disease. According to the Black Death documents “They begged for help, weeping so that their hearers wept with them as they described the sufferings of the Muslims in that Holy City: the men killed, the women and children taken prisoner, the homes pillaged”. The Black death was a part of the Dark age because it took

Christianity played a major role throughout the Middle Ages in society and politics. The Middle Ages, classified from 600 AD to 1350 AD, was significantly effected by Christianity because of the impact it had on the daily lives of people of the time. The beginning of the Early Middle Ages, after the Fall of Rome in 476 AD and the period known as the Dark Ages, the reorganization of the empire brought a desire for faith and religion, primarily Christianity. This trend of Christian importance was apparent until 1350, when the Black Death caused the end of a systematized era. The church is often viewed, during this period of time, as a center of corruption, greed, and evil, with materialistic popes and

The Dark Ages were as dark as World War Two full of deaths. In the Middle Ages (Dark Ages) there were many fights and deaths. In this photo these two groups are fighting over something, and they are using fireballs and other objects in battle. This battle could be caused by many things, this could be over land, power, or other goods. These people fought other kingdoms with all their army or vassals.

There were many wars and invasions resulting in millions of people dying in the Dark Ages. In Document 1, it explains how Vikings burned villages down to the ground and invaded monasteries. They slaughtered monks to steal their gold and valuable

When one thinks of the word medieval, there appear to be almost an instantaneous reaction. Some may see the period associated with the gothic architecture, Crusades, brutalism, death, the Black Plague, illiteracy, or the Dark Ages. Others may interpret the period as one full of valiant knights, princesses waiting to be saved, jousting, castles, and noble kings and queens. From video games such as The Legend of Zelda and the popular HBO television series A Game of Thrones, to accounts of medieval torture or treatment in the newspapers, the Middle Ages seems to be more relevant than ever. However, it can be argued that much about what we know about the real Middle Ages was constructed in the nineteenth century due to a comparative lack of records and the imaginative portrayal of the period by the Victorians. Due to the tumultuous period that was the Industrial Revolution, many social critics and artists turned back to the Middle Ages in order to reflect their anxieties of the present and the hopes and expectations of the future. I began to note that the medievalist movement was built upon medieval studies through a desire to create, rather than retrieve the past, which in turn lead to academic debates about authenticity and furthered the tension between the two fields leading to an almost insurmountable break. Those in medieval studies look towards medievalism as a misguided attempt to contemplate history which in turn changed the public’s understanding towards the era away