ajblaise
Minister of Propagandhi
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2008
- Messages
- 7,914
- MBTI Type
- INTP
The very notion of a "Dark Age" has actually been discarded by scholars for at least 50-100 years now. The "Dark Ages" were a very rich era in terms of culture.
One recent work dealing with this topic is Julia M. H. Smith's Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000. Of course this is only one among many many many MANY other sources one can consult.
There's also Peter Brown, who has written much about Late Antiquity and notes that the early Medieval period was far more vibrant an age than previously thought.
Just for fun, here's his remarks about one lasting legacy of the "Dark Ages" which still effects us to this day:
--The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity AD 200-1000 pg. 23
Yes you heard it, the book as we know it today was developed by Christian scribes during the "Dark Ages". On a related note I should mention that the practice of putting spaces between words was also developed during this period by Irish monks.
Much has also been written about the great Renaisance of the 12-13th centuries.
It'd be more accurate to describe the Renaissance as "anti-Clerical" which is not the same thing as secular. Need we forget that the Papacy was the greatest parton for artworks during this time, which was a bone of contention with the more austere Protestant reformers.
How would you explain the surge of art and culture that came in the Renaissance, when humanism became popular? Even many of the theologians of the time shifted towards humanist thinking.
Shouldn't the Dark Ages have been the beacon of rich art and culture, instead of the Renaissance?