The "Dark" Age

yes... which weren't a thing when the Wester Roman empire existed and destroyed all the pirates from the Balearics islands to Cilicia, and what happens when trade by sea diminishes drastically because of piracy?

Societies collapses, less goods travel, less people travel, less ideas, technology spreads way more slowly, etc

>Why do so many people call medieval times "dark age"?

The high medieval was pretty dope, but the early middle ages, from the fall of Rome to the 10th century, was the very definition of a Dark Age.

So we're in agreement that this is the cause of Muslim piracy after the fall of the Roman Empire, good.

The medieval period has two halves, the early medieval or dark ages, and the high medieval. All those fancy castles and cathedrals and knights in shining armor date from the high medieval, which ran from ~1000 to ~1400 and ended with the Renaissance.

Yes and? which is a consequence of the fall of the Roman empire

Are you seriously implying that the idea of there being a dark age in europe after the fall of rome is some sort of conspiracy to peddle the islamic golden age? Honestly dude, fuck off.

But nobody mentioned the Roman empire, I don't see what vague point you're trying to make.

No.

You're a fucking retard, just fucking kill yourself already, the dark ages were a consequence of the fall of the WRE, you dense loser

>He unironically believes in the Islamic golden age
>Gets offended on behalf of Muslims
>Doesn't know about the technological and agricultural developments in Europe that actually thrived in Europe during the "dark age"
We call people like you "soyboys".

Why are you so angry and keen on using the fall of western Rome as an excuse for the hardships Europeans faced daily due to Muslim invasions?

I'm not getting offended on behalf of muslims, i'm getting offended that you're denying what is an obvious fact to anyone with a functioning brain, there was a significant drop in living standards and historical sources after the fall of rome, if you think "dark age" implies no technological progression you're a fucking retard.

Rome fell because they became christians.

>muslim piracy is now muslim invasion
>im fucking plying
The economies of scale Rome had made it easier to stop piracy than individual smaller states, who had no serious incentive to stop piracy on outgoing trade.

>WRE destroyed ~476
>Islam started 610

I'm not denying that, I simply offered an explanation for the cause in the lack of trades by sea during that period. You can stop strawmanning anytime soon.

Nobody said that because Rome fell there was no trade, the obvious logical leap anyone could make is that the Romans prevented piracy, meaning that trade was more plentiful under Rome, Pirates always existed in the Roman empire, and it had incentives to stop them, use your goddamned brain

Baseless accusation.
Okay, nobody debuted that.
>Still leaves the better half of the dark ages to invasions, piracy, slavery, and genocide

Good switcheroo

Not him but what are you talking about? At least half the period known as the middle ages was a dark age, hence, many people refer to it as a dark age.

Read Socrates germscum. Countries fall because of impiety.

>"dark age"? J
The "dark ages" is an example of an early meme. It was literally a meme created by protestants to paint Catholicism in a bad light.

The reason I ask this is because my stupid fat fuck professor assigned us a essay instead of giving an exam on the last day of class because he wanted to watch the new star wars.
>2. One popular concept in European/World history is that the “Dark Ages" ended with the Renaissance. Do you agree? Were the “Dark Ages” really that bad? Is there a better way to look at this period in history? Collect and analyze evidence to support your position.
I now know that the dark ages ended in 800 A.D., but based on the prompt I'll probably argue that religion, tech, and architecture improved.
Also what are some good informational Medieval Age websites? All I get on google are list articles about the middle ages.
Yes, I asked on /wsr/

>Implying Rome wasn't a decadent, corrupt shit hole that was already in decline centuries before Christianity became mainstream in Rome
Also what the fuck is germscum? I thought I was going to discuss history with people who knew what they were talking about, instead I get brainlets who literally think the "dark ages" existed and everybody was starving and suddenly stupid, when in reality they made technological leaps unseen before both in military and agricultural (chain links, crossbow, metallurgy, farm rotation, stronger horses and bulkier population due to higher crop reap due to better farming tools and systems, etc) not to mention the growth of trade in the mainland which was the only reason Europeans could afford to travel halfway across the known world to meet Muslim armies in battle and still decisively defeat them and send them running even when outnumbered 10-1.
>tfw four in the morning and arguing with (euphoric) brainlets who never picked up a book about the subject before
I'm going to sleep, I'll let you admire all the cultural advancements and advanced architecture Europeans built from that period even if you don't deserve it :^)

"The" dark age is a bit of a misnomer, it varied in length across the continent. In Britain it was over by the 8th century, but in the Balkans the dark ages never ended right up to the Turkish / Austrian conquest of the region.

>Is there a better way to look at this period in history?
He's saying that "the dark ages" concept is a meme. Look up the topic on /r/askhistorians.

If you restrict the phrase to refer to "Early Middle Ages" then I suppose that's more accurate but the term has too much baggage behind it that many historians are just discarding it all together. "Early Middle Ages" is fine.

Dont wake up.
>crop rotation was made in the middle ages
hilarious. Even aztec savages had crop rotation in their tribes.

>Early Middle Ages
revisionist

books.google.com.au/books/about/God_s_Battalions.html?id=FF9JlwEACAAJ&redir_esc=y&hl=en
This book will cover it in certain chapters, you can thank me when your cuckold of a professor gets triggered by factual information.

Also this board is trash, what's with all the captchas per post?

>chain links, crossbow, metallurgy, farm rotation, stronger horses
All of this is pre-Roman, stronger horses came from contact with the Arabs after the early medieval period.

>bulkier population due to higher crop reap due to better farming tools and systems, etc
This is not true for early medieval Europe, its population didn't recover to Roman levels until after the middle ages.

>By ad 900, developments in iron smelting allowed for increased production in Europe, leading to developments in the production of agricultural implements such as ploughs, hand tools and horse shoes. The carruca heavy plough improved on the earlier scratch plough, with the adoption of the Chinese mouldboard plough to turn over the heavy, wet soils of northern Europe.

>This led to the clearing of northern European forests and an increase in agricultural production, which in turn led to an increase in population.[95][96] At the same time, some farmers in Europe moved from a two field crop rotation to a three field crop rotation in which one field of three was left fallow every year. This resulted in increased productivity and nutrition, as the change in rotations permitted nitrogen-fixing legumes such as peas, lentils and beans.[97] Improved horse harnesses and the whippletree further improved cultivation.[98]

>Watermills were introduced by the Romans, but were improved throughout the Middle Ages, along with windmills, and used to grind grains into flour, to cut wood and to process flax and wool.[99]

hurr derk aje's durr

Romans didn't have chain links or the crossbow, and Arab horses were generally lighter and weaker than European fed horses, which is exactly why they were used for rapid ranged skirmishes rather than direct charges.

Fuck off Gibbon.

The Romans used the crossbow as artillery in the form of the Scorpion, they learned the technology from the Greeks who used primitive crossbows in battle. Chain links have existed since at least the bronze age, and linked chains in iron they are first attested by the Celts,so again this is pre-Roman. If you want to claim that these technologies continued to develop despite the collapse of Rome then fine, but they are not new ideas.

Advances in the plough are significant for northern Europe but obviously made no impact in the South where they are not needed, likewise crop rotation. Both of these would have big impacts down the road and I guess you could call them inventions, although they're really just refinements of existing technology again.

He wants me to counter the common belief that the whole medieval age was a "dark age". Which I will use examples from the high medieval age. What are some examples aside from agriculture () and architecture (gothic and romanesque)?
link?
not true

Forgot muh pic

Anybody else here think that they would have actually thrived in the Dark Ages? Back then it was like a really cool MMORPG and you could make alliances and get armor and ride horses and stuff like that. Life v.2017 just sucks

I think it would get old pretty fast. It'd be a fun place to visit, maybe, for some light-hearted trans-temporal pillaging and rapine.

Roman era would seem like walking upon heavenly realms in comparison so no

The right answer (and I can't believe no one fucking said it) is it's called the dark ages mainly because there is relatively little recorded history during that time, it's "dark" because a lot less good information exists of the period. Greeks and Romans were keen on writing shit down, later cultures weren't. It was actually Christianity (despite what idiots believe) that encouraged and taught people to read and write, pulling Europe out of the dark ages and shedding first hand light on what was really going down in the times.

How about Minnesang and people like Hildegard von Bingen, as well as the Carolingian Renaissance

wth?? They couldnt read nor write? i could do so by age four lol

>Scorpion
Still not a high powered portable crossbow that could easily be carried/transported and used by anyone, it just isn't the same.

>Chain links
My bad, I forgot the point to be made about chain links was that it contrasted other people with the European in terms of armour and the advantage it gave to the Europeans against the Saracens.

As for agriculture, regardless of what is "refined", the tools and systems are inventions that made European significantly more healthy, efficient, and stronger than others during this period. Which goes to show that the "dark ages" really weren't "dark" at all, considering they were doing better off than other people.

>The right answer (and I can't believe no one fucking said it) is it's called the dark ages mainly because there is relatively little recorded history during that time, it's "dark" because a lot less good information exists of the period.
Cause it´s just Dark to British history.
The ones who keep using "Dark Age" in their language after all.

That's objectivly wrong, reddit.

>objectivly wrong

Oh? Where's your proof?

Wheres yours?

You claimed the other Anons post was "objectively" wrong, this is a positive claim which you have not demonstrated.

Not that guy, but we have more written records from VIIth Century than for any other Roman Century save from IVth and VIth.
And the VII is the less documented Medieval Century.

>Wickham, Chris. 2009. The Inheritance of Rome.
From the introductory chapter.

this

It seems like the suopposed catastrophes were basically one big event, namely the barbarian invasions, not an 'age' defined by this across the continent. Usually big events verge on being an age, but don't determine every single thing else going on.

Actually, Marseille was sacked by Greek pirates as well, but it's economic prosperity was first ended by the Carolingian Franks who devastated the city in the 8th century.

>board is trash
>unironically posts Rodney Stark

It's called the dark ages not because of scarcity of sources (though there wasn't much to be fair) but of the shitty quality of their Latin.

Basically people started writing like a bunch of hicks, which pissed off Renaissance Italians who were reading original Latin texts again and could compare.

The time after the collapse of the Roman empire until roughly the 1000's was a legit dark age though. Society became far more primitive, cities and urban environments were abandoned, the economy was in tatters, and literacy became a rare thing indeed.

It's the closest thing we humans have came to what an apocalypse would look like besides the Bronze Age collapse

You don't have pirates without trade, which is why historic Saracen piracy tended to coincide with increasing economic prosperity in the Mediterranean.

Trade tends to dry up because of long-distance and inland political instability.

Marseille was attacked by Greeks, Moors, Franks, and even Vikings in the 9th century. It was doing good in the 8th. What caused its instability was the overall collapse of Carolingian authority that opened up the city to various raids. Once the political situation improved, trade improved, and once trade improved there was money and manpower to shore up defenses again.

>by 900 ad this and this happened and they vould clear forrest / plant better etc
>by the endof the dark age, things started happening/being developed so they could stop being dark age

g*erms must be so proud

Lack of sources. That only applies to the early medieval period, though.

Medieval logic:

archive.org/stream/historyofformall00boch#page/148/mode/2up
archive.org/stream/historyofformall00boch#page/152/mode/2up
archive.org/stream/historyofformall00boch#page/250/mode/2up

>is that simple

A lot of people have an interest in denigrating white people or Catholicism (or both) and thus keep the meme alive.

>I view all of history through contemporary politics

>"Stop pointing out my motives."