Dark Ages (Europe)

The Dark Ages was a period in European history that ran from AD 476 to roughly 1000. In political terms, it began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ended with the accession Otto I as German emperor in 962. The same period is variously referred to as the Early Middle Ages, the Migration Period, and Late Antiquity, depending on the perspective taken.

The term Dark Ages originated with English Protestant writers of the Reformation. They applied it to the entire medieval period, arguing that the papacy promoted ignorance. Yet the High Middle Ages (1000-1250) are no longer viewed as a dark period. Charles Homer Haskins showed how classical science was recovered and taught at the newly established universities in The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century (1927).

Both the phrase Dark Ages and the idea of civilizational decline remain controversial. Archeologically, a layer of Dark Earth is often found covering the ruins of a Roman city. This suggests that a great deal of urban land was converted to farmland during the post-Roman period. Both the quality and quantity of pottery produced and of buildings erected declined markedly.

Since Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776), many authors have written on the cause of the decline of classical civilization. It has been variously attributed to Christianity, barbarian invasions, and plague.

Etymology

"Destruction" from The Course of Empire (1836) by Thomas Cole

Writers of the English Reformation applied the phrase "Dark Ages" to the time of the unreformed Church. "What is the reason that former times were called dark times, the times of Popery, a dark age?" Richard Sibbes asked in 1620. In 1624, Archbishop George Abbot of Canterbury spoke of, "the gloomy dark Ages before Luther."

The phrase is sometimes connected to passages in Latin by Petrarch and by papal historian Caesar Baronius. "The new age that was beginning...could well be called... for its lack of writers dark," Baronius wrote in 1602.

The usage of Dark Ages is specific to English, which is not consistent with the claim that it was derived from well-known Latin authors. Moreover, Baronius was referring to the tenth century in papal history. This meaning was never a common one in English.

The earliest citation for "Dark Ages" in Oxford English Dictionary is a quote by Scottish historian Gilbert Burnet dated 1687. There is no suggestion that the phrase has a Latin origin.

In the 19th century, Dark Ages was synonymous with "Middle Ages," according to a much-cited article by German historian Theodor Mommsen. Around 1900, the meaning of the phrase was restricted to the early Middle Ages.

Various modern sources criticize the term "Dark Ages." The phrase nonetheless appears in authoritative works such as New Cambridge Medieval History and A History of Medieval Europe by R.H.C. Davies.

History

A map of barbarian invasions of the Roman Empire

Fleeing before the terrifying advance of the Huns, the Goths sought refugee inside the empire in 376. The legions Rome had traditionally relied on were shattered by the Goths at the battle of Adrianople in 378. Emperor Theodosius turned to barbarian mercenaries called foederati. This included the Goths themselves, now divided into Visigoths and Ostrogoths. These soldiers were fierce in combat, but could turn on the empire. Taxation was increased to pay for the expanded army. Visigothic foederati played a key role at the battle of Frigidus in 394, where the eastern imperial army destroyed the remaining legions of the West.

In 407, the Rhine froze and whole tribes surged into Roman territory. In Italy, there was a wave of anti-barbarian hysteria. Stilicho, the West's half-barbarian military commander, was executed in 408. By this time, the army was almost entirely barbarian. The soldiers deserted to the Visigoths. The city of Rome fell in 410. In 476, the last emperor in Italy was deposed by Odoacer, a foederati commander. Odoacer became the first king of Italy.

The Dark Ages that followed was a period of population decline and increasing illiteracy. The Plague of Justinian arrived in Egypt from China in 541. The disease killed millions and continued to devastate Europe until about 750. From 500 to 700, Germanic tribes migrated across Europe, with the Angles and Saxons settling in England, the Vandals in North Africa, the Franks in Gaul, and the Ostrogoths and Lombards in Italy. The classical economy, which included urban life, money, and trade, was replaced by an almost exclusively agricultural society of serfs, lords, knights, corvée, barter, and feudal dues.

Britain abandoned

Roman soldiers were suddenly pulled out of Britain in 410, leaving the Britons to their own devices. What happened next is poorly documented and the subject of legends. In Bede's account, there was a dramatic depopulation. The plague, "raged far and wide with fierce destruction . . . [and] ravaged Britain and Ireland with cruel devastation,” Bede wrote. Of Britain’s eight bishops in 664, four died of the plague, as did the kings of Kent and Northumbria.

The "Angles, Saxons, and Jutes" arrived from northwestern Germany, in Bede's account. These peoples were able to conquer Britain without organizing into an army, kingdom, or other large scale grouping. Archeological evidence supports Bede's account of depopulation from the fifth to eighth centuries.

The historian Gildas records an appeal made by the abandoned Britons to the Roman leadership: "the groans of the Britons...The barbarians drive us to the sea, the sea drives us to the barbarians; between these two means of death, we are either killed or drowned." The appeal was written between 446 and 454.

An age of myth and legend

The quinotaur was a legendary ancestor of the France's Merovingian kings.

With so little reliable history surviving from this period, later writers were free to indulge in fanciful stories and legends. The stories of King Arthur, Merlin, and the Knights of the Round Table are from Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory, a writer of the 15th century. In France, the Merovingians rulers were said to be descendants of a sea creature called a quinotaur.

Carolingian Renaissance

Europe's climate warmed following the Vandal Solar Minimum of 690. The end of the plague and the improvement of the climate allowed the economy to recover during the Carolingian Renaissance of 775 to 830. The most lucrative trade at this time was the capture and sale of Slavs and other conquered peoples to the Arabs. The economy was disrupted by Viking raids from 830 to 850. By 850, markets were replaced with fortified towns, allowing economic activity to resume.

The Carolingian Empire broke up in 888 and the Medieval Warm Period began around 900. Although the warming created better conditions for agriculture, the collapse of central authority made the tenth century a time of devastating raids by the Vikings, Arabs, and Magyars. The Byzantine Empire, meanwhile, experienced a Macedonian Renaissance. The accession of Otto I as German Emperor in 962 created an authority that could fend off raiders.

Metrics of decline

Isidore of Seville (c. 560 – 636) created the T-O map. This one puts Asia on top, Europe on the lower left, and Africa on the lower right. That is to say, the map is "oriented" with east on top.

A variety of metrics show that Europe was far wealthier in classical times than it was in the Dark Ages. Living standards declined dramatically in the immediate post-Roman period. Author Bryan Ward-Perkins describes this period as "the end of a civilization."

Dark Earth. Between the remains of Roman and Medieval structures, there is often a layer of organic material that archeologists refer to as "Dark Earth." Dark Earth accumulated at various sites in southern England from 400 to 600. London has four layers of this material going down at least 1.3 meters. Similar soils have been found in Moscow, Paris, Brussels, and Florence. Detailed analysis of Dark Earth from London, Lincoln and Cirencester found that these formerly urban areas had been converted to agricultural use. The process of peasants creating farmland by applying compost has been observed at modern sites in West Africa.

Population. The population of the Roman Empire peaked in 200 at 46 million. By 600, the population of this area had declined by 25 percent. Not until the year 1000 did Europe's population return to the level it had in Roman times.

Pottery The Roman Empire produced high quality pottery with considerable standardization and in massive quantities. The clay was prepared and purified. It was distributed over hundreds of miles and used by people of all social classes. High quality pottery of this kind is found at archeological sites in all but the remotest parts of the empire.

Ancient Roman pottery was mass-produced and generally of high quality. In the Dark Ages, this was no longer the case.

Dark Age pottery was crude and primitive in comparison. Even royal vessels from the 6th-7th century found at a palace of the Northumbian king in Yeavering were hand-shaped, made out of poorly processed clay, and only lightly fired.

Construction. Roman houses were constructed mainly of stone and brick. Clay roof tiles were common throughout the empire. In the Dark Ages, flammable wood replaced fireproof brick and stone as the primary residential building material. Tiled roofs were replaced by impermanent, flammable, and insect-infested materials. Indoor plumbing and tiled floor mosaics disappeared. Floors of the Dark Ages were usually beaten earth.

Literacy. The number and variety of inscriptions in Roman times suggests that literacy was widespread and that it crossed class lines. By the start of the seventh century, literacy was confined to the clergy. Even within this group, standards had declined. Bad grammar was circulated, and was sometimes commended. Even kings were often illiterate. Charlemagne was a great patron of the arts, but he never learned to read or write himself.

Causes of decline

The decline of classical civilization has been variously attributed to Christianity, barbarian invasions, plague, and instability of the climate.

Edward Gibbon. In Decline and Fall, Gibbon suggested at least two dozen explanations ranging from "immoderate greatness" to "barbarism and religion." The factor he turned to most often was moral decline in the Roman army. "The excessive increase of their pay and donatives exhausted the state to enrich the military order, whose modesty in peace, and service in war, is best secured by an honorable poverty," Gibbon wrote.

Decline of the Army. Roman military writer Vegetius blamed the empire's decline on lack of military discipline. The Roman legionaries wore breast plates and helmets until the time of Emperor Gratian (r. 367–383), he wrote.

“ But when, because of negligence and laziness, parade ground drills were abandoned, the customary armour began to seem heavy since the soldiers rarely ever wore it. Therefore, they first asked the emperor to set aside the breastplates and mail and then the helmets. So our soldiers fought the Goths without any protection for chest and head and were often beaten by archers. Although there were many disasters, which led to the loss of great cities, no one tried to restore breastplates and helmets to the infantry. Thus it happens that troops in battle, exposed to wounds because they have no armour, think about running and not about fighting. ”

"Desolation" from The Course of Empire by Thomas Cole (1836)

Christianity. In A Darkening Age, Catherine Nixey updated Gibbon's case against Christianity. The case for Christianity is made in Will Durant's Caesar and Christ (1944). Roman religion deteriorated during the crisis of the third century. It was discredited by pagan emperors who repeatedly failed in battle. Thus the rise of Christianity was an effect of Rome's decline rather than a cause.

Disease The classical world was ravaged by a series of epidemics, beginning with the Antonine Plague of 165–180. This was followed by the Cyprian Plague in the third century. The Plague of Justinian hit Constantinople in 542 and continued to ravage Europe until 750. It killed at least twenty-five million, depopulated cities, and depressed birth rates for generations. It struck at the same time that Justinian restored Roman rule to the Mediterranean.

A contrary view is expressed by Lee Mordechai, et al., who examined number of inscriptions per year, papyri, coinage, and pollen and found no major discontinuities in the sixth centuries that could be explained by plague. Unlike the Black Death in the 14th century, the Plague of Justinian did not lead to rewilding of agricultural land, according to pollen analysis.

Climate. The role of climate has received increased attention from scholars in recent years. A severe drought in southern Russia from 338 to 377 may have led to a decision by the Huns to move west, triggering the Migration Period. Changes in solar activity have been reconstructed using ¹⁴C production as a proxy. This period is sometimes called the Dark Ages Cold Period, but it was not so much continuously cold as unstable. There was a solar minimum in 260 corresponding to the crisis of the third century. A second minimum occurred around 440, corresponding to the fall of the Western Empire. There was also a "Vandal Minimum" in 690. This was at the time of the Arab conquest of the Near East. Even if the amount of climatic cooling was never enough for people at the time to notice it, it would still have reduced rainfall and thus agricultural output.

References

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