The Dark Ages

The whole dark ages controversy just comes from misunderstanding and overreaction.

It can be split into Three groups.

>Those who believe the Dark Ages happened and applies to the entire medieval period of roughly 500-1500
This is people with little historical knowledge
>Those who believe the Dark Ages never happened and is a historical meme, and that the medieval period was full of brilliance
These have a little more knowledge but go overboard trying to counter the first point
>Those who believe the Dark Ages is a period of a few centuries commencing after the fall of Western Rome where Europe regressed dramatically, but should preferable be called the migration period
This is the true answer.

Retards who cry about the dark ages also seen to think that it occurred between the 5th century and 1914 or so.

your house is in a nice place mate

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roads_in_the_United_Kingdom#Medieval_roads

Nice post mate. What would you consider to be the end of the 'dark ages'/ migration period? I've always considered it to be the mid-700s, with the rise of Charlemagne, but I'm sure there's a valid argument to be made that it ended perhaps a generation or two before him. Charlemagne was really the first guy to implement 'feudalism' on a large scale, or a vassal system, or whatever you want to call it, and that along with the Carolingian Renaissance seems to make his rule a natural fot for the end of the 'Dark Ages.'

Not him but because I'm a filthy Brit, 1066 always made sense in my head. Vikings finally defeated, then the Saxon way of life is destroyed.

The other problem is that the "dark age" didn't end all at once in Europe and some places weren't even affected

I don't care if it happened or not, it is so fucking kino material Im thankful for it

Even your third response is a little bit too minimalist. The so-called dark age only hit certain parts of Europe during the Early Middle Ages. Places like the Pannonian plain, Britain and the northern Balkans got fucked hard and lost pretty much all of their urban life, places formerly on the periphery of the Roman world. Places that had been fairly central to the Roman world and had retained some level of urbanism under the leadership of bishops or other local nobles, managed to survive the transition to the Middle Ages pretty unharmed. What regression there was, was somewhat minimal. Places like Gaul, Spain and Italy fall into this category.

And that wasn't mostly dirt roads?

I mean, yeah, Western Europe definitely took a couple steps back after the fall of Rome.

Some were, some weren't.

You don't think every single road in the Roman empire was a masterpiece of paving construction, do you?

The city of Rome declining is not the same as Western Europe declining. The only reason the place had a population above 250,000 was because of the grain dole.

I don't have a problem with the term dark ages, but I have a problem with shit for brains imbeciles who think the entire middle ages were dark ages.

The concept of a "dark age" is entirely erroneous. It's more accurate to say that parts of Europe stalled their development during a period of great upheaval following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. It was largely Western Europe that suffered in this time period, the 5th through 7th centuries I'd say are the worst of it. But anywhere on the Empire's borders was pretty thoroughly wrecked by the massive influx of Germanic and Slavic tribes.

An ironic thing is that I often see ignorant people blaming the "dark ages" on Christianity, despite the root cause being the migrations of pagan barbarians. Indeed, you start to see an end to the arrested development once the barbarians start adopting Christianity, such as with Charlemagne.

There's at least one user who lives there, I remember you post faggot

>York minster
>dark ages
It was completed almost 500 years after the "dark ages"

Thinking the Middle Ages were "worse" than Ancient Rome because they didn't build as much large infrastructure projects is like thinking post-communist countries entered a dark age after 1989 because they didn't build anything massive like under communism again. Pic related.

The Roman Empire was a massive slave economy, that's how they were able to extract surplus labour for their projects, but life for the majority of the people was hellish.

At least Medieval peasants were more or less free.

So not using slaves meant everyone just forgot how to use proper sanitation and construct roads?

>What the dark ages were not
1000 years of total worldwide stagnation and then regression caused by barbaric Xtians who were hellbent on hoarding knowledge for themselves and halting progress at every turn until they were saved by the brave humanist efforts of the Renaissance propped up by the Islamic world of course
>What the dark ages were not
Non-existent
>What the dark ages were
A comparatively brief period in western European history where infrastructure and statecraft experienced a temporary lapse in expertise

>A comparatively brief period in western European history where infrastructure and statecraft experienced a temporary lapse in expertise

That is definitely a fucking understatement

>The Roman Empire lost the strengths that had allowed it to exercise effective control; modern historians mention factors including the effectiveness and numbers of the army, the health and numbers of the Roman population, the strength of the economy, the competence of the Emperor, the religious changes of the period, and the efficiency of the civil administration.
>The period saw a continuation of trends begun during late classical antiquity, including population decline, especially in urban centres, a decline of trade, and increased immigration.

...

>Roman empire
>proper sanitation
Please.

The glorification of Rome as opposed to medieval Europe is almost entirely a renaissance/enlightement construct when a handful of philosophers became completely resentful towards anything Christian.

>didn't build anything massive like under communism again

but it did OP,

the dark ages refers to the time between the early 5th and 7th centuries in great Britain.

where we have 1 contemporary written account
and that was an angry monk chastising people

Not pagan barbarians,most of them were arian christians.goths vandals for sure.franks were christians too.saxons were pagans and so were slavic tribes.

im always amazed how fucking pretty yet cack York is.

We can't, nobody wrote anything about it.

/thread

The normans maintained most Anglo-Saxon laws, although they did get rid most Anglo barons and clergy. People tend to forget that under the Anglo-Saxons England was a pretty advanced and wealthy nation, mostly because of the wool trade