The Dark Ages

The Dark Ages has come to describe the time between the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century AD to 800 AD with the start of the role of Charlemagne over the Holy Roman Empire. Even though it was given the term: The Dark Ages, there were still a number of important events and movements that happened during that time. It was a time of oppression of secular act, history and science but an emergence of the Christianization of those subjects.

A term commonly used to designate that period of European history between the fall of the Roman Empire and about the middle of the fifteenth century.The precise dates of the beginning, culmination, and end of the Middle Ages are more or less arbitrarily assumed according to the point of view adopted. The period is usually considered to open with those migrations of the German Tribes which led to the destruction of the Roman Empire in the West in 375, when the Huns fell upon the Gothic tribes north of the Black Sea and forced the Visigoths over the boundaries of the Roman Empire on the lower Danube. During this time, the authority of the Pope would be established as well as the Feudal system.

Great works of art and contributions in the field of history, science and theological thought seen by both Christian and secular critics would emerge during this time . That is why the term “Dark Ages” has steadily been losing favor in modern academic circles. “When the term "Dark Ages" is used by historians today, it is intended to be neutral, namely to express the idea that the events of the period often seem "dark" to us, due to the paucity of historical records compared with later times. The darkness is ours, not theirs.

” The “Dark Ages” are commonly considered to be the early part of the period known as the Middle Ages.Often the term “Dark Ages’ refers to the initial five hundred years following the fall of Rome. It is thought of as beginning around 412 AD and continuing till 800 AD. Many trace the start of this period of history to the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century. During this time period Rome and other cities deteriorated because of the invasions of barbarians from northern and central Europe. Since there was no longer an imperial authority with the power to protect the citizens of the cities, the urban population declined sharply during this period of historyThe early Christians propagated their new religion amongst the peoples of Europe with a fanaticism unseen in those lands until then.

Certainly none of these original religions ever contemplated converting nonbelievers upon pain of death, and were culturally and physically unprepared for the fanaticism engendered by a Middle Eastern religion such as Christianity. In the Dark Ages, there was no separation of church and state, and it was the political class, not the priestly class, which held ultimate power in the church.Kings were often the head of the national church, and they appointed the bishops. Many bishops controlled vast feudal domains. The church bureaucracy, with a near-monopoly on literacy, formed the backbone of local government in much of the West; so the power to appoint bishops amounted to the power to control the government. This period also saw the head of the Catholic Church, the Pope, becoming the single most important political figure in Europe.

He was elected by a small band of bishops who in their turn were appointed by the Pope.The Pope's permission was required for the appointment of kings, territorial annexations and a host of other political matters. Also, during this period, all art forms became Christianized. In any review of European art, the shift in subject matter from the Classical Age to the Dark Ages, is noticeable and obvious to even the passing onlooker.

The only art works of note of the Dark Ages are all scenes from the Bible, or those depicting great Christian events of the time: non-Christian events were ignored unless they had direct relevance to the Church.In this way even the figure of Jesus Christ became European. The Christian dominated artists of the Dark Ages portrayed Christ as a Nordic racial type, with blond hair and blue eyes, an image which has lasted to the present day in the minds of many Christians the world over. But The Catholic Church could not monopolize the culture without taking some extraordinary measures. The persecution of scholars steadfastly maintained by the Christian Church for over four hundred years had gradually driven all students of science and philosophy out of Europe.

These people sought and found refuge in Arabia, the still unconquered land of liberty in those days, where they continued to promulgate the knowledge which had caused their persecution and exile. The withdrawal of the church from cities to monasteries caused the church to be orientated more inwardly than outwardly. While some times the church is blamed for the spiritual darkness of the dark ages, in many ways it was the only light, no matter how dim, that shone in the darkness of surrounding barbarism and heathenism.During this time it was the priests and the monks that saved from the ruins of the Roman Empire the treasures of classical literature, along with the Holy Scriptures and patristic writings and preserved them for better times. Certainly while the light that shone was more from ecclesiastical tradition and not always the clear light found in the Word of God, nevertheless it was light in the dark days of that time and it continued until the Reformation.

The Dark Ages was a time of spectacular church growth as well as a retardation of secular views on history, science and the arts. The definition and terminology of this time period has changed over the past seven hundred years when Italian scholar Francesco Petrarca first coined the phrase over seven hundred years ago. It will be interesting to see what changes if any will result in how contemporary society views this period in history.