Talk:Dark Ages (historiography)/Archive 2

Petrarch

Hello - I came to this page to quickly brush up on what Petrarch wrote that established the "dark ages" trope. If there is one thing that a reference article could do, it is say what Petrarch said, when, and in what works. As it stands it's not particularly clear what Petrarch said. Of the sources given, one is a weird screed by a statistician, and one is an article by Mommsen from 1942 which I can confirm does not once quote Petrarch using the phrase "dark ages" or cite passages where he does so. (All he has is Petrarch using "shadow" metaphors to describe Italy after the Rome's zenith, and Petrarch deciding to cut off his history of Rome at the reign of Emperor Titus.) I think it would be reasonable to hold this article up to the standard of actually citing Petrarch using the phrase "dark ages," or if no such quotes exist to make clear that he was merely one of the people who laid the groundwork for the mentality that made "dark ages" an apt description. I know nothing about Petrarch, but there must be either someone who has read most of his work, or who can find a citation in a standard reference source... 134.174.140.216 (talk) 06:27, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Historiographic dustbin

The term "Dark Ages" has been abandoned for quite some time now in academia. No need to argue about an inaccurate term. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.248.183.139 (talk) 18:06, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I am afraid brother, you are talking something against the craft of History. Secondly categorizations are the inventions of the Historians and subject to review. Those which are abandoned still retain the meaning and purpose. --Sumir 14:17, 7 September 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sumir Sharma (talk • contribs)

The Discussion

I'd rather support the way the current article is written.

• There is only one recent book that uses the term, and even that use is quite special; critics, please, please, please provide us all with more recent books and articles that use the term seriously:

In addition, Perkins has said forthright, that the term Dark Ages is problematic. Even he doesn't take it seriously. He uses it by convention, in large part (I think) to appeal to a popular non-specialists audience, because the metaphor is so powerful, it churns up interest in the period. So he sort of uses it, then apologizes for it at the same time. BTW see the Encyclopedia Britannica article on Dark Ages (in the External Links). It takes the exact approach this article does. This article is standard mainstream, nothing wrong with the framing or approach. The problem really is readers who are so dead-set that the Dark Ages are real, they can't see past it as being just a metaphor, and so get upset when this article debunks a cherished myth. Fothergill Volkensniff IV (talk) 17:47, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

• It is absolutely inappropriate to use pejorative terms when speaking about fellow editors on these talk pages. In particular, I wouldn't support those who blame the professional medievalists using highly emotional words like "historiorectumy" (User:MartinDuffy). After all, those are people who bring in the primary facts you want to get, and nobody else.
• The point of those who blame deconstructionist approach of Doric and others is understandable. This approach clearly has (some) downsides, but it's inevitable. Wikipedia is a deconstructionist project, as it says: "no original research". This is a trap. When I write about Dark Ages, I need to use existing works only; but when I've written a good overview of these works, it turns out that what I did is original research on these books. But we should go on, and work around this trap, provide both the facts and the discussion - the question is: where and in what articles?

But whatever we decide, there is one point I insist on:

• The existing work of Doric and others should not be destroyed. Other points of view are welcome, but no destruction, please!

Michael Grinberg (talk) 08:56, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Archives and move

Where have the archives gone? Have they been lost in this move? Otherwise, (OK, restored) I can't see the move has been discussed, & it seems a bad idea to me. We are never going to have a main period article called "Dark Ages". I havew proposed a merge of the new Dark Ages with Early Middle Ages as a preliminary to restoring the previous title. Please comment at Talk:Early_Middle_Ages#Merge_with_POV_fork_Dark_Ages. Johnbod (talk) 02:32, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't see the move as justified given that Early Middle Ages covers the history already and was linked at the top of the old Dark Ages (and current Historiography of...) article. I wonder why some people are so attached to the expression as a description/name for the times.--Boffob (talk) 04:44, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I undid the move, as it had been done without any discussion. I don't necessarily disagree with the result, but consensus has to be gathered before we do anything as major as that. But whatever happens, we don't need an article titled Dark Ages to discuss the historical era, we already have that.--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:58, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Too lazy to do it myself, but it needed doing. Angus McLellan (Talk) 16:20, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

No problem. I can't imagine how this could have been seen as an uncontroversial move.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:47, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I think that history should be covered in Early Middle Ages, the historiographical overview should be here (Dark Ages). So I agree. Or at least the Dark Ages could be a disambig page pointing to 1) History (Early Middle Age) 2) Somewhat alternative (Dark Ages) 3) Historiography (Dark Ages in History). But it's better just to keep the status quo, cos I don't know any modern medievalist who uses the term seriously, without quotes. Michael Grinberg (talk) 20:08, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

That's how I feel. I wouldn't mind if Dark Ages was a disambiguation page and this one was moved, but "Dark Ages" can't be an article on the actual time period when we already have articles on that very thing. And we certainly can't just move it without discussion.--Cúchullain ^t/c 21:39, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there is a problem with the current situation. Johnbod (talk) 22:48, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Much scholarly discussion here whether a layperson actually means Middle Ages when they search Wikipedia for Dark Ages. You need to step outside for some air, talk with some regular people, and realize there is a very specific meaning when regular people use the term Dark Ages. This article seems to defend the Dark Ages as not all that bad, and many times attempts to correct misconceptions about the Church during this time period. Admittedly, this biased slant was much worse a year ago, when this article claimed the Dark Ages were so called only because of lack of illumination. In short, the common use of the term Dark Ages should be explained in this article, with links to clarification articles as necessary. Thank you for not letting this article get scrubbed clean by those seeking to polish the image of their religion. --WikiObserver, 05:41, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

The problem with the "duplication" argument is that we already have two articles on the history of the period: Early Middle Ages and Late Antiquity overlap significantly. Why are these two OK as history articles, but Dark Ages — by far the most popular term, and the most likely to be searched — reserved for historiography? This is unfriendly to our readers. People who type in "Dark Ages" want to know about the historical period, not hear a lecture on why some deconstructionists and moral relativists think the term is bad. *** Crotalus *** 01:08, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

"Dark Ages" should be a redirect to Early Middle Ages or a disambiguation page. The current article is a lot of nonsense. It's just not true that "Dark Ages" is some kind of taboo word among historians of the period. A History of Medieval Europe: From Constantine to Saint Louis (2006) by R. H. C. Davis uses it as a section heading. Whatever historians think of the word, the most likely search term should direct the reader to useful information as opposed to deconstructionism. Kauffner (talk) 01:25, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Note this is Ralph Henry Carless Davis & the book was first published in 1957! Johnbod (talk) 10:38, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

the article scope is fine as it is: discussing the "Dark Ages" notion. The disambiguation note at the top is enough to make clear what this article is about. If the term is "deconstructed" too much, the solution is to fix the article, not to tear it down. I am not convinced that "Dark Ages" is more widespread in common usage than "Early Middle Ages". "Dark Ages" may occur more often in contexts of sword & sorcery fantasy, and it would be perfectly misleading to redirect such a term to the specific topic of Early Middle Ages which has little or nothing to do with swords or sorcery. --dab (𒁳) 07:05, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Dark Ages is not a more common term than "Middle Ages". As the article explains, the phrase "dark ages" is unclear because it has been used for the entire Middle Ages and just for the Early Middle Ages (and beyond). And as for the "duplication" argument; we actually have several articles covering the period(s), Late Antiquity, Early Middle Ages, High Middle Ages, Late Middle Ages, and Middle Ages. The difference between these and Crotalus' proposed version of the Dark Ages article is that these already adequately cover a specific period of time (which admittedly don't have set beginning and ending dates). Crotalus seems to want an article that discusses Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, but as pointed out that's only one way "Dark Ages" has been used, and so this title is not correct. As for moving the so-called deconstructionism and putting the disambiguation here, that's an idea that bears further discussion.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:34, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

On the "people get frustrated" argument. It's a good question how we should treat the "People who type in... want to know" (*** Crotalus ***) argument. The point is, should active contributors follow such wishes? Let's imagine Hannah has heard her mother talking about "Dark Ages". She types in "Dark Ages" and sees the current page. So what? It's not evident that she is that much frustrated. She gets to know that the term indeed refers to a period of history and that the current trend is to call it "Early Middle Ages". Because there's a disambig statement at the top, she's got options: read about the facts, learn why the epoch was called "Dark" etc. Is that bad? Certainly no. Now let's imagine another case. George is surfing the Wikipedia. One day he arrives at the Dark Ages page, where he sees mostly factual history. We assume that the article is quite well-written and tells some basic facts about the period (It's a good question, though, if we can use pieces of research that do not contain the term!). From my point of view, when George has read the article, he has got a not quite accurate vision that "Dark Ages" is a mainstream concept; even further, as the article has references and contains pieces of "academical" historical narrative, he can even imagine that this is a mainstream research concept, which is simply not true.

The aim of education and reference tools like Wikipedia is not only to provide readers with anticipated facts, to enrich their vision of problems with details, but also to correct their false assumptions, let them know the terms they use are deprecated; and — YES! — the truth is we cannot but shift these readers towards a more "academical" vision of things. This is obvious. I'm afraid I can't agree with those in this talk page's archive section who claim that we should act in favour of more popular visions of history. We are collecting knowledge, not lore.

To move on with this discussion, we need the following points to be clarified:

1. Who really feels uncomfortable, confused or frustrated with the current state of things? I mean, not "feels someone may feel", but actually feels. Is there a way we can measure that?
2. We should find a way to measure the popularity of the terms "Dark Ages" and "Early Middle Ages" both in recent research and historical culture.

Sorry for such a long monologue and for my English. What do you think? Michael Grinberg (talk) 20:24, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

"Dark Ages" is deprecated in a vast majority of current research. It is occasionally used with qualifications or as a colloquialism, but almost never as the preferred term for the period. Additionally, remember that "Dark Ages" is not used only to refer to the Early Middle Ages, it can also refer to the entire Middle Ages (as was the case for Petrarch), so that ambiguity should be factored in as well.--Cúchullain ^t/c 20:30, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

FWIW Dark Ages had 49k hits this April, Early Middle Ages had 15K - a result that surprised me, I admit. But the disam page had only 1,500 hits, and Dark Ages (computer game) 5K. Perhaps this strengthens the case for making DA a redirect to EMA. Johnbod (talk) 20:50, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I did a search for both full strings on Google. "early middle ages" has approximately 551,000 hits. "dark ages" has about 5,120,000 hits. That's a difference of an order of magnitude. Even if 50% of "dark ages" hits are for other uses of the term, that's still five times as many uses.

One solution would be to move this article back to Historiography of the Dark Ages, redirect Dark Ages to Early Middle Ages, and put a banner at the top of Early Middle Ages that says: "Dark Ages redirects here. For the history of the term's usage, see Historiography of the Dark Ages." *** Crotalus *** 00:27, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Except that "Dark Ages" is a horribly shady term that doesn't only refer to the Early Middle Ages, but also to the whole Middle Ages, etc. I don't know why this keeps having to be reiterated.

This article is less about historiography than about the use of darkness as a metaphor. I'd move it to "Dark Ages (term)". There is also the Greek Dark Ages and the Dark Ages as a period in cosmology, so a redirect from "Dark Ages" to either EMA or the disambiguation page is fine with me. A lot of the readers of "Early Middle Ages" must be people redirected from "Dark Ages" or elsewhere. As a search term, EMA is just not the same league as Dark Ages. As for Petrarch, that's another problem with this page. The term "Dark Ages" was coined in 1640, long after Petrarch. Petrarch thought the world was dark after the Roman Empire fell because he was an Italian nationalist. This is different from the modern concept of a dark age as period of intellectual and civilizational decline.

"Dark Ages" is mainstream. Even the people complaining about it are using the phrase, not EMA. Here are some more examples of historians using the term non-ironically:

Barbara Crawford (ed.) Scotland in Dark Ages Europe, (Aberdeen, 1994)

Richard Hodges, Light in the Dark Ages: The Rise and Fall of San Vincenzo al Volturno. (1997)

See also University of Manchester Press Kauffner (talk) 03:07, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

My research, which has been fairly brief, turned up the following authors who all used the term "Dark Ages": Will and Ariel Durant, William Manchester, Bryan Ward-Perkins, Charles Van Doren, and Joseph McCabe. I keep hearing that the term is obsolete and that no historians ever use it any more and they all think it's terrible and pejorative, etc... Could someone please provide a citation for this? Not a citation of a historian saying "Early Middle Ages" (I know some of them do) but a cite of a reliable historiographer saying that the term is obsolete? *** Crotalus *** 03:51, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

The "historians" you cite are unimpressive on this point, and I should not have to explain why. Just search "Dark Ages" at GoogleScholar and see what you get. Few of the hits are reference to the early Middle Ages. You will even find your sought-after references to "the period once called the Dark Ages" and, of course, Dark Ages in scare quotes. Srnec (talk) 05:59, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Especially interestingly, Theodore E. Mommsen refers in his 1942 paper "Petrarch's Conception of the 'Dark Ages'" (Speculum, 17:2, 226–242) to the "term 'Dark Ages'" as something already abandoned or "increasingly restricted in its application" at some time before his writing. The Britannica had abanonded the term by 1928, stating that "the contrast, once so fashionable, between the ages of darkness and the ages of light has no more truth in it than have the idealistic fancies which underlie attempts at medieval revivalism". Srnec (talk) 06:07, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Could someone search a reliable scholarship database? I'm afraid I won't be able to do this during the next couple of weeks. Michael Grinberg (talk) 05:13, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Light in the Dark Ages is non-ironic? Frankly, I don't care too much what title the main article for the period is at ("Dark Ages" or "Early Middle Ages"), or what title the historiography is under ("Dark Ages" or "Historiography of the..."), but the article that Crotalus wrote was a POV-pusher. Though well-cited, its citations did not represent the balance of scholarship. Frankly, I support the current solution if only because it will not give those with an axe to grind a natural grindstone. Srnec (talk) 05:48, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Crotalus, I hope you are not serious. How about you try to answer your question yourself? Go to Google scholar. Search for "Early Middle Ages": 25,000 hits, all about the actual Early Middle Ages. Then search for "Dark Ages". 30,000 hits. Now look at the hits, and see how hardly any are about the Early Middle Ages, but instead about the Greek Dark Ages, the "First Dark Age in Egypt", deep sky astronomy, "Toddlers’understanding of intentions, desires, and emotions", the "Digital Dark Ages", and what have you. I hope this concludes this section, thank you. --dab (𒁳) 11:50, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I've been holding back here because I was slammed for dominating the page, but it is very gratifying to find FIVE wiki-editors of standing defending broadly the position I was asserting. It was getting lonely for a bit. This article needs to develop quite a lot, but I think it is on the whole going the direction it should do.

What we do need here is more quotes on both sides, so I would encourage both Smec and Crotalus to take the citations they have found and build them into the article proper. We already know what the result will be: they will prove that the term is NOT entirely obsolete, but is seriously out of fashion.

Can I just stress again that while sometimes 'dark ages' refers to the early middle ages, it also sometimes refers to the WHOLE of the middle ages. The semantic narrowing to the early MA became fashionable at the end of the 19th c, and historians were becoming disenchanted with the term altogether by the early 20th, so there actually is a relatively short window in the history of this term when it was linked with any precision to the early medieval period in scholarly writing. I'm afraid this muddies the waters for those who want redirect solutions, but really, the point of this article as it stands is to reflect the complexity of the term. --Doric Loon (talk) 13:15, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

On Google scholar, "Dark Ages"+"Middle Ages" gives you 9,100 hits and "Dark Age"+ "Middle Ages" -"Dark Ages" gives you another 2,440 for a total of 11,540 -- and only a tiny percentage of the hits are pre-1960. It's not as many as EMA, but it does show scholarly use. Besides, we are not writing for scholars, we are writing for our readership, which prefers "Dark Ages" to EMA by a margin of nearly four to one. I'm happy with the main article titled as "Early Middle Ages." I just think that when someone types in "Dark Ages" as a search term, it should return relevant history, and not stuff about Petrarch. Kauffner (talk) 13:27, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

so, the suggestion is, at good long last, to move this article to Dark Ages (term) and the present Dark Ages (disambiguation) to Dark Ages? That's certainly arguable, although you'd probably find my signature under "oppose". The question is why this entire debate was necessary instead of just making this perfectly straightforward suggestion. --dab (𒁳) 13:40, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Or is it to make "Dark Ages" redirect to "Early Middle Ages", with a hat note to the Dark Ages disam page? In view of the fact (above) that Dark Ages gets 3 times the WP hits of Early Middle Ages, I would support that. Johnbod (talk) 13:45, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

no. Here you get my dedicated opposition. Just googling for "Dark Ages"+"Middle Ages" is naive. How about sources that state the "Dark Ages" is the period separating Classical Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages? This is silly. "Dark Ages" is a fuzzy term, and there is no need to replace a perfectly valid one with something as poorly defined. The "Dark Ages proper" last from about 500 to 750, but there are immediately lots of caveats to that too. So you get 9,000 hits for googling "Dark Ages"+"Middle Ages" on google scholar? Well, I get 21,000 hits for googling "Dark Ages"+"Modern", and I am not suggesting we redirect Dark Ages to Modernity.

in my view, the mere amount of perfectly misguided and uninformed comments we get on this page is reason enough not to redirect this page to Early Middle Ages, Migration period, Societal collapse or any other serious article on a historical period. --dab (𒁳) 13:50, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I haven't been concerned about the ghits at all - meaningless in this case imo - but the WP traffic figures. Whatever they are looking for, 3 times as many people come to our Dark Ages page as to Early Middle Ages. I think, as none of the popular culture articles seem to get much traffic (the disam page gets only 3% of the traffic of Dark Ages), we can presume the majority are looking for the main historical article, and so we should take them straight to it. Johnbod (talk) 14:02, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry, "none of the popular culture articles seem to get much traffic"?? This must be the most out-of-touch statement I've heard in a long time. Soulfly has been viewed 38627 times in 200808 (Soulfly being a band with a 2005 album entitled... Dark Ages) I do suppose that most of the people coming to "Dark Ages" expected to read an explanation of the meaning of the term, which is precisely what this article is about, except those that may be looking for the Soulfly album.

this is all beside the point. We use neither traffic figures nor google hits for these questions, we use actual usage in academic sources. I can still see a possibility in making this a disambiguation page, of course, but if nobody is actually going to suggest this, I won't either. --dab (𒁳) 15:03, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Word. It's not a matter of hits, it's a matter of verifiability. And dab page idea which has been half-heartedly suggested by several of us bears further discussion, but any attempt to redirect "Dark Ages" only to "Early Middle Ages" is flat unacceptable.--Cúchullain ^t/c 17:24, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

36k in 9 months isn't much in fact but of course the vast majority of these will have gone direct. As I keep saying, the disam page only gets 1.5K per month, to cover Soulfly & about 15 other entries - 3% of the total Dark Ages traffic. Now we have the selector in the search pages, that sort of disam page gets much less traffic. When we are looking at redirects and navigation we should take account not only of correct academic terminology but of how our users, very few of whom are academic in any sense, actually use WP. There are a HUGE number of users hitting "Dark Ages", with very few going on to the disam page, or apparently to "Early Middle Ages". I can't believe most of them want to read about the "historiography" so it seems to me we are leaving most unsatisfied. Johnbod (talk) 17:11, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I get it, we're stuck with Petrarch here. So let me scale things down and make a more modest proposal. Put the term "Dark Ages" on top of the EMA article, i.e. The Early Middle Ages, or Dark Ages, is a period in the history of Europe following... yakety yak. Then the article would show up in a Google search for "Dark Ages". Kauffner (talk) 15:39, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Once again, the term doesn't only refer to the Early Middle Ages, so that isn't a viable option.--Cúchullain ^t/c 17:24, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Can you produce any evidence that any one since say 1880 has used the word seriously in that sense? I find it hard to believe. Historically that was a meaning, but people using the term today, like Crotalus and his references, surely only mean some part of the Early Medieval period, which is therefore legitimately the primary meaning. Johnbod (talk) 17:59, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

RHC Davis defines the Dark Ages as Constantine to 900. (3rd edition, 2006.) If you type "Dark Ages" into Encarta, you get redirected to EMA. Britannica defines the Dark Ages as "the early medieval period of western European history." (No other definitions given.) Merriam-Webster defines it as "the European historical period from about a.d. 476 to about 1000." (definition 1b.)

Judging from Google Trends, "Dark Ages" is at least 10 times more common as a search term than EMA.[1] So most of the traffic EMA gets now is presumably the result of links from "Dark Ages" and elsewhere. Kauffner (talk) 19:14, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. The resources you cite are encyclopedias and dictionaries. They provide us with definitions of terms to help us read any text mentioning "Dark Ages"... What we need is to see evidence from scholarship corpora (google scholar is good, but not enough, because it mostly reflects metadata and not full-text search) to see how history researches use the terms. As for google search, this is not a (strong) argument. We won't use slang or abbreviations to name articles even if they are more used than the "dull academic" terms, or am I wrong? Michael Grinberg (talk) 19:55, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

To answer your question, Jon, a very brief search revealed this [

http://books.google.com/books?id=nasOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA50&lpg=PA50&dq=%22lively+centuries+which+we+call+dark%22&source=web&ots=NPsQ3CdRMC&sig=fj0pIQthRfZzSqG2VHpLQU5NfbM&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result book] which says "In the lively centuries which we call dark and in the early Middle Ages we have abundant literary activity." I know other examples can be found. This on top of the fact that virtually no historian after about 1940 has used "Dark Ages" to refer to any period, makes that issue moot in my opinion. Even if the EMA is now the primary meaning, it is not the only or original one, and the term has become so deprecated that a simple redirect will not do.--Cúchullain ^t/c 20:06, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Your example demonstrates my point not yours - clearly Hay is not using the term to describe the whole Middle Ages, but apparently a smaller (earlier?) part of the Early Middle Ages. He is not a latter-day Petrarch - the search goes on. Davies' book mentioned above has its "PART ONE" called "The Dark Ages", covering to up 900. He was then a fellow of Merton, Oxford (from 1970 Professor at Birmingham) and (rather oddly I agree) never felt the need to change this in subsequent editions. You don't seem to absorbed my point that titles are about what the scholarship says but redirects are about what the user needs. Johnbod (talk) 20:25, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I think it's fairly clear that Hay is describing the entire period (it's a discussion of chronicles and histories up to the 12th century) as that which we call Dark; his phrasing even suggests that the early Middle Ages are something else altogether ("In the lively centuries we call Dark and in the early Middle ages...") I maintain that a simple redirect to EMA is not what the user needs, as the Dark Ages concept is so murky.--Cúchullain ^t/c 23:14, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

The point is - what is the user actually likely to be looking for information on? It's clearly not the High Middle Ages, nor the whole Middle Ages. The full range of possible meanings of the term are not immediately relevant, since most of the people making the half million hits the page gets annually won't be aware of the tradition in historiography. It will be the Age of Migrations, or better, the Early Middle Ages. Johnbod (talk) 00:07, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not really seeing the scholarly consensus that other people are certain exists. In my Dark Ages article proposal, I cited, among others:

• Bryan Ward-Perkins who is "an archaeologist and historian of the later Roman Empire and early Middle Ages, with a particular focus on the transitional period between those two eras" (according to our article on him). His book was published by Oxford University Press in 2005. If that book isn't a reliable source, I would be interested to know why.
• William Manchester, a renowned historian. The book that I cited was published in 1992.
• Will and Ariel Durant, Pulitzer Prize-winning historians. In fact, they won the Pulitzer for The Story of Civilization, of which Age of Faith (1950) — the work I cited — is part. You can argue that the scholarly consensus has changed since 1950, but, again, I'd be interested in seeing some solid citations to this effect.

Someone said above that "The "historians" you cite are unimpressive on this point, and I should not have to explain why". Well, I looked over it again and I'm not seeing it. What is the problem here? I also don't see how you can argue that sources from 1950, 1992, and 2005 are out of date when this historiographical article is built around an article published in 1942. An obscure journal article from 66 years ago doesn't outweigh numerous other reliable historians.

And finally: Some people don't like the idea of having Dark Ages as a period article. They say that would be duplication. Well, why isn't Late Antiquity also considered a duplicate or POV fork? According to our own Early Middle Ages article: "Aspects of continuity with the earlier classical period are discussed in greater detail under the heading "Late Antiquity"." Well, what's wrong with discussing aspects of discontinuity in greater detail under the heading Dark Ages? *** Crotalus *** 00:23, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

now you are saying you want to write a WP:SS sub-article to Early Middle Ages. There is nothing wrong with this in principle. Just avoid {{duplication}}. We already have, as you note, Early Middle Ages (500-1000), Late Antiquity (300-600), Viking Age (800-1050), Migration Period (300-600), all treating different aspects of overlapping periods. If you think you can usefully add yet another article cleanly integrated in a WP:SS structure, you don't need anyone's permission to write it, just do it. --dab (𒁳) 07:18, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Looking at your proposal, I think you should add a "Socioeconomic and intellectual regression during the Dark Ages" section to Early_Middle_Ages#Transmission_of_learning (since this is what you seem to want to talk about) and then follow WP:SS. I am not sure why you are so infatuated with the term "Dark Ages", but it is certainly permissible to discuss the "socioeconomic and intellectual regression", such as it was, taking place during the migration period. To extend the "Dark Ages" into the 9th, let alone 10th century still seems unarguable indefensible. You are looking at the 6th and 7th, maybe 8th, centuries, and even there you need to be careful where you want to claim a "regression" took place. Our EMA article has an aptly-titled section "Resurgence of the Latin West (700-850)", which would correspond to the end of your "Dark Ages". --dab (𒁳) 07:23, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

"Unarguable" means "hard/impossible to argue 'against in English, dab. Johnbod (talk) 08:34, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

you got me there. I was racing against a near-empty laptop battery, resulting in compacted syntax :) thanks for your attentive reading in any case :p --dab (𒁳) 09:42, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

You may also want to note that the article was doing what you seem to be wanting it to do, until July 2004, before its shortcomings were fixed by some judicious editors. This makes this whole debate a little bit of a deja vu. --dab (𒁳) 07:33, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Variation in reference

Kauffer, it is not acceptable for you to delete material after you have failed to achieve a consensus here on talk for such deletion. The phrase you want to delete allows the reader to know that there is an ambiguity in the term DA. That such an ambiguity exists, has been amply demonstrated. It is an important part of the history, but it is also current, particularly in the popular sources you refer to. (Wasn't it you who associated the term "dark ages" with the plague - which came to Europe in the 13th c? Maybe it wasn't you, but clearly some people who have written here and like the phrase use it for the whole of the Middle Ages.) If you want a modern academic reference, see the Dunphy quote in the article. The point is, there is no dispute about the fact that the Early MA is the main and most frequent reference. The question is why you want to stop readers knowing it can be anything else. --Doric Loon (talk) 19:26, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Dunphy specifically describes this usage as "popular if ignorant". I doubt if he is actually correct on "popular" - at least in Europe describing the whole MA as the Dark Ages is pretty extinct I would have thought, and long has been. That is not why it is in the article; it is there because of Petrarch etc. Personally I would welcome explanation in the opening para that it began as a term for the whole MA, but is now used for the EMA. I think the current opening is rather misleading to the uninformed. Johnbod (talk) 19:40, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

The first graph should be a straightforward statement of what the term means in modern common usage, as you might see in a dictionary. That's the way I have rewritten it. Dark Ages = Middle Ages is an obsolete 19th century usage. No plague in the Dark Ages? What about the plague of Justinian? Kauffner (talk) 13:53, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with [Doric Loon]. The current wording allows for both definitions, the historical one describing the whole middle ages, which has become less common (though by no means is it gone entirely), and the modern conception which generally refers to the Early Middle Ages. Perhaps something like "Dark Age or Dark Ages is a term generally referring to the Early Middle Ages, or more broadly to the whole of the Middle Ages." Then we go into the development of the term and the historical context, etc. However, I still think the current wording is fine, as defining specifically the Early Middle Ages as "Dark" is a more modern development, while the concept is hundreds of years old.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:41, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

What classifies a period as "Dark"

I find it interesting that while this article could be more properly called The European Dark Ages, Historians are using the term for many other periods of history, for example "The Greek Dark Age" after the fall of the Myceanaeans, or the "Late Bronze Age Dark Age" before EIA IA, or the "Mayan Dark Age" with the collapse of the Classic Maya.

When we examine all of these periods we find the following symptoms

1. . Major depopulation of urban centres,
2. . Collapse of long distance trade.
3. . Resersion to subsistence peasant modes of agrarian production.
4. . Collapse of centralised authority
5. . Increased intra and inter-regional violence
6. . Simplified technological production in major technologies (eg pottery, architecture etc)
7. . Reduced literary output, and reduction of literate segment of the population to a tiny elite

(if literacy survives at all)

All of these features are found also in the so-called "European Dark Age" from Constantine to about the year 900. The population of Rome, for instance went from 700,000 people to less than 15,000 by 800 CE! If that does not qualify as "Dark" I don't know what does. John D. Croft (talk) 19:30, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

John, why do you do original research on Wikipedia? We report on what the latest and best scholarship says. Fothergill Volkensniff IV (talk) 04:51, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

OED

The OED is kind of an awkward factoid and its not clear where to place it. The only section which is really an etymology of "dark age" is the one about Petrarch. After that the article is about bigger issues and it gives the impression that "Dark Ages" is a more recent idea - it might be linguistically in English 19th century, but the concept is old, and that's what we need to clearly stress as being important. In fact its use in English is almost non-consequential - why not also detail its use in Russian, or Swedish - every country has its own etymology of the term. OK sure this is the English language Wikipedia, it's good to include it, but it should be explained. I know Wikipedia loves quoting the OED. If we do bring it up, we should say something about it - why did "Dark Ages" only show up in England in the 19th century? (I have some thoughts about that). Why did it take till the 17th century for the concept to reach England? That's really whats significant about the OED, its history of usage in English culture. Anyway, open to discussion to improve and refine the article! Fothergill Volkensniff IV (talk) 05:38, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I still think the "After the Renaissance" section is the best place for it (at least it's better than the Petrarch section). I also think the new wording was too wordy. Better just to say what the OED says than trying to explain why that's what it says. I've reworded somewhat to give a sense of which context the word was used in.--Cúchullain ^t/c 18:03, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Ok.. I explained why I thought the Petrarch section was the better location, since topically, that section deals with the etymology of the term. You say "After the Renaissance" is better, but did not provide a rationale. Can I assume you believe so because of chronological ordering of events? Fothergill Volkensniff IV (talk) 15:17, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually see the section "Enlightenment" it deals with the various uses of terms such as "Medieval" and "Dark Ages" and when they were first used. The OED fact should be integrated into the main body of text, in the Enlightenment section and the previous one. Where it is now, is simply a header for the entire section, a lead in. It's out of place and jarring to the flow of the narrative. Why mention the OED right there at the very top of the section? It makes no sense. It seems to be giving undo importance to the fact and the OED. This stuff is already discussed in the main body of the section. Fothergill Volkensniff IV (talk) 15:24, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Also just to clarify, the OED is just a source. It makes no claim to authority in terms of earliest usage. The wording should reflect that, and not make absolute claims to being "first" or "earliest". OED makes no such claims. Fothergill Volkensniff IV (talk) 15:35, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Looks good to me now. Good work.--Cúchullain ^t/c 16:55, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually the OED does claim that it provides the earliest recorded uses: "The quotation paragraph contains a selection of authentic examples of usage illustrating a definition. The quotations document the history of a term from its earliest recorded usage, and are extremely helpful tools for clarifying grammatical and syntactic aspects of a definition." (emphasis mine; my link won't work here but it's #5 under "Sense section" in the "guide to OED entries"). As such we can refer to the uses as the earliest as long as the line is attributed to the OED.--Cúchullain ^t/c 17:15, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Dating revert war

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the medieval European "dark ages" thusly: "a term sometimes applied to the period of the Middle Ages to mark the intellectual darkness characteristic of the time; often restricted to the early period of the Middle Ages, between the time of the fall of Rome and the appearance of vernacular written documents." Additionally, the article clearly demonstrates that the term has been applied to the Middle Ages as a whole, not just to the Early Middle Ages. This needs to be addressed in the lead, as this is not an article on a set time period, but on a conception of a time period.--Cúchullain ^t/c 22:36, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I can't get into the OED site to check this. But I take it this is what footnote 1 points to. Can you please copy the exact words from the OED into the footnote, Cúchullain, so we are not dependent on a link which doesn't work for all of us? Probably it's just a temporary problem, but that quote should be on the page. Thanks. --Doric Loon (talk) 10:41, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

On second thoughts, I'm "being bold" and doing it myself. But you should check I've got it right, because I am working second-hand. That footnote is important because it is referenced three times. --Doric Loon (talk) 10:47, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi I hope this doesn't earn me another ban (I believe there is a broad consensus to unban). Anyway, the OED definition is clearly idiosyncratic - see the remarks on my talk page). The term is sometimes (I would say very rarely) used to refer to the whole of the middle ages. It is used by all modern scholars (I can't find an exception) to refer either to the period 500-1000, or sometimes to the narrower period 500-750, in order to exclude the Carolingian renaissance. The introduction should also mention the relativistic nature of the definition, as meaning Western Europe. Peter Damian (talk) 12:24, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Glancing up I noticed there has been lively discussion about this. I don't think it's correct to say that scholars no longer use the term. Russell while not contemporary has a whole chapter entitled 'The Dark Ages' meaning specificaly 500-1000, and the other three writers are definitely contemporary, and they use the term. Note that one of them uses the term 'the so-called Dark Ages', so perhaps the article should be called The so-called Dark Ages? Peter Damian (talk) 13:58, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

The OED is really the absolute authority on British language usage. You can certainly supplement it with other sources, but you can't ignore it. It is the natural starting point for charting the history of an English word. --Doric Loon (talk) 15:39, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Can we continue on my talk page? I have been warned I will be blocked if I continue here. Meanwhile, my copy of the concise is not consistent with what is said here. All the sources I have correctly say that the main usage is 500-1000, although occasionally the whole MA is meant. Enough. Peter Damian (talk) 15:44, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand. You can't be blocked for discussing politely on talk. I suspect your opinion is a minority one here, but you are certainly entitled to it. --Doric Loon (talk) 16:00, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Peter Damian was banned, and is evidently on a parole which allows him to edit in his user space but not article or talk pages. I will watch his talk page to see if he says anything else.

Doric Loon is right about the authority of the OED and of the correctness of its definition. Clearly the the original conception of the "Dark Age" included more than just the Early Middle Ages, as it was coined by Petrarch for the period immediately preceding him (as is established in the article.) Even in more modern use, the definition is inconsistent (as is the definition of Early Middle Ages); sometimes it is said to end in 800, other times 1000. The fluidity needs to be made clear from the get go.--Cúchullain ^t/c 17:59, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

And Doric, you copied the definition correctly; looking at it, the link may not work for anyone who's not a University of North Florida student as it's a pay site.--Cúchullain ^t/c 18:00, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Peter Damian had this to say:

Well first I am not sure about that version of the OED. The versions I checked in the library all agree that 'Dark Ages' now means the period 500-1000. All other dictionaries checked so far agree. Some writers (such as Peter King in the citation I gave earlier) restrict it so as to exclude the Carolingian renaissance. Note I am not disputing that it once meant the whole of the Middle Ages. Just that its modern meaning is the period up to the 12th century renaissance. I am a medieval scholar and I know of no other scholars who would use the term in its old pre-19C sense. For some citations see here. Peter Damian (talk) 19:32, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The citations include Peter King, who is a distinguished medieval scholar, Terence Parsons and of course Russell. In summary, no dictionary I can find, including OED, agrees with the primary meaning of the term as you give it in the article. The idea that any modern scholar would use it that way is preposterous. Peter Damian (talk) 19:35, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

The OED I cited is the online version, which is presumably as up to date as the most recent print edition (or more so). Two other dictionaries are cited, Merriam-Webster and American Heritage, and both give definitions consistent with the OED. The point is, the time period attributed to the "Dark Ages" has always been fluid, and our first line must reflect that. I don't doubt that most scholars who use the term today consider it synonymous with the Early Middle Ages (or the early Early Middle Ages) but the original conception of the term clearly spanned the entire period between the collapse of Rome and the so-called Renaissance. Remember that this isn't an article about the actual period, it's an article about the ever-changing conception of that period, and needs to reflect that.--Cúchullain ^t/c 20:10, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

The online OED doesn't give a specific date range, but the The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Literature says "roughly AD 500-1000". FWIW... Zagalejo^^^ 20:55, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

From OED, compact edition in 3 volumes, vol. I (A-O, 1971):

dark, a. … 13. … c. Specialized comb. or phrases : dark ages, a term sometimes applied to the period of the Middle Ages to mark the intellectual darkness characteristic of the time ; …

From vol. III (Supplement, 1987):

dark, a. Add: … 13. … c. dark ages (often with capital initials), also (a) often restricted to the early period of the Middle Ages, between the time of the fall of Rome and the appearance of vernacular written documents; (b) (freq. in sing.) the period between the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the historical period in Greece and other Aegean countries; (c) transf. a period of obscurantism or ignorance; joc. an obscure or little regarded period before the present; …

This seems to be consistent with the following scenario: Peter is right. The original writer of the OED entry made the mistake of presenting a very marginal meaning as the only one. This was partially corrected in the supplement by adding the normal meaning. Newer editions of the OED still carry the baggage of stressing the marginal meaning that shouldn't be there in the first place.

Actually I think the following scenario is more likely: Peter has a scholarly bias. There is a difference in usage between medievalists and the general public.

I think in both cases something like the following might work:

… is a term referring to the Early Middle Ages, although it is occasionally applied to the Middle Ages in general.

A related question is, of course, what this article should discuss. The lede of Early Middle Ages says: "Aspects of the evolution of the earlier classical period are discussed under the heading Dark Ages." I am not sure that that is currently correct. --Hans Adler (talk) 21:28, 6 December 2008 (UTC) --Hans Adler (talk) 21:28, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Peter Damian has this to say:

Hans Adler (talk:Dark ages) is absolutely right. Nothing to add. Note however that later editions of OED appear to have the standard meaning anyway (the one referred to here is 1971). Best Peter Damian (talk) 22:35, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

It's the online OED we're appealing to here, I don't know what to tell you as far as inconsistencies go. This article discusses the concept of a "dark age" that descended after the fall of Rome. This concept originates with Petrarch, who saw the Renaissance (specifically, him) as ending that age. Much later, people in the 20th and 21st centuries like to restrict the meaning of the term, saying it ended around AD 1000, it ended with the Carolingian Renaissance, it ended with the Renaissance of the 12th century, etc. However, the original term meant the whole period between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance, and many people still use the term in that way. The dating has always been fluid, because the concept is so abstract. We are discussing the concept and its origins here, and so we need to include the whole picture.--Cúchullain ^t/c 22:47, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. And I don't really see why this is a cause of debate. The term has two main uses, the head of the article gives both, the subsequent discussion explains who uses (or used) it which way. Surely that is right? Since at present no-one seems to be challenging the discussion further down the article, I am a loss to see why the article head is in dispute. --Doric Loon (talk) 09:57, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I think the problem is that Wikipedia is many subject specific encyclopedias as well as a general one. This often leads to conflicts where a generally used term has a more specific technical meaning in the subject that is considered most competent w.r.t. the term. Perhaps in this case the lede is correct for an article in a general encyclopedia, and incorrect for an article in an encyclopedia of history. If that is the full extent of the problem, it should be possible to solve it with compromise language that everybody can live with. Perhaps Peter can explain what he has in mind. (I hope that the absurd restriction that allows him to edit the kind of pages where his troubles started in the first place, but not to help build the encyclopedia, is lifted as soon as possible.) --Hans Adler (talk) 10:48, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I have checked in the Oxford Dictionary of English which is not the same as the Oxford English Dictionary. This does not even mention the old-fashioned use (referring to the whole of the middle ages). Also in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, which is the same, although this is based on the ODE, and supersedes earlier versions. So we are now in a dilemma. All dictionary sources apart from the OED give the modern meaning as the primary one. Even the OED itself says that the term is 'often' restricted to the modern use. WP:WEIGHT allows us to weight these sources, in which case I suggest the article begin with the modern usage, while mentioning the older one.

Hans says "Perhaps in this case the lede is correct for an article in a general encyclopedia, and incorrect for an article in an encyclopedia of history. " Actually I don't agree with this because most encyclopedias and dictionaries (including Britannica, in the reference that Connolley recently reverted) give the meaning I am used to. Also I am not familiar with any 'popular' sense of the term. The completely uneducated will not know that there was any history before computers and television. Those with a minimum of education will have got that education from somewhere. And most reference works I am familiar with give the dates of the Dark Ages as 500-1100. Perhaps if I check in my son's history of the Middle Ages book, would that settle the question? Peter Damian (talk) 11:45, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

copied here from Peter's talk page Hans Adler (talk) 13:20, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

This so-called 1971 OED edition that's being referred to is in fact a reprint of the first edition, the "D" volume of which was originally published in 1897. Any dictionary written in last 50 years will define Dark Ages as the Early Middle Ages (~476-1000). The current lede implies that the older meaning is still in active use, which is not the case. As for Petrarch, the earliest citation for "Dark Ages" is from 1640. That's hundreds of years after Petrarch -- he doesn't belong in the article at all. Kauffner (talk) 13:31, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

You are wrong about Petrarch: 1640 appears to be the first use of the phrase in English; it is significantly older in Latin. You are also wrong about the popular usage - I have heard it often. Scholars more or less stopped using the phrase for the later period in the early 20th century, but then again, they also mostly stopped using it for the earlier period by the mid-20th century, so the point is, there may be a small body of opinion which likes the restricted use, but most of past scholarship used the broader one, and most of present scholarship doesn't use either at all, while popular usage is generally pretty vague about what it means. That being the case, I vote we work chronologically, record the orignial use first, then the various developments. --Doric Loon (talk) 13:50, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

OK, I've attempted a compromise in the text. Does this seem OK? --Doric Loon (talk) 14:30, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

This version is certainly an improvement. If you know anything about the how the phrase was used in Latin, why don't you put that in the article? "Dark" is Anglo-Saxon, so I find this claim hard to believe. If the phrase was translated from Latin, it would normally come out as Latinate: "Dismal Ages", "Chaotic Ages", "Umbrian Age" -- something like that. As far as scholarly use goes, I can easily search Google scholar and come up with hundreds of examples of historians using "Dark Ages" in recent decades -- although I don't deny that EMA is the preferred term nowadays. Kauffner (talk) 14:55, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I would prefer: "... is a term in European historiography referring originally to the whole Middle Ages, but in the last century used more often only to refer to the Early Middle Ages." Or a search of the archives here, and the history of the article will reveal dozens of other attempted wordings. The equivalent terms in the most relevant languages should ber mentioned somewhere too - I notice btw that several of the iw linked articles are in fact only about the Greek Dark Ages. Johnbod (talk) 15:27, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

For the lede, I'd suggest, "..., but in the last century the meaning has narrowed to the Early Middle Ages (500-1000)." To answer your question, "Dark Ages" translates as Âges foncés (age dark) in French, secoli bui (centuries of darkness) in Italian, and finsteres Mittelalter (the dark Middle Ages) in German. Kauffner (talk) 17:08, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh really? The iw articles are "Âge sombre ...(employée ... en particulier par l'historiographie anglo-saxonne), "Dunkle Jahrhunderte" (mostly Greek, but also affecting early medieval Britain it seems) and, indeed "Secoli bui". 18:09, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Sombre is literally "sink", but, yes, it seems to be the common usage in French. For German, IMO finsteres Mittelalter is a better translation because it's specifically this period, whereas Dunkle Jahrhunderte is a dark age in general -- and both phrases appear to be common usage. It certainly looks the other languages, especially French, got the phrase from English. Kauffner (talk) 18:54, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

"Sombre is literally 'sink'"? "Âges foncés (age dark)"?? Don't you think this is getting a little bit surreal? Are you using babelfish or something? Imho, this entire thing falls udner WP:LAME. --dab (𒁳) 19:30, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I reread Mommsen and no where does he give a Latin phrase equivalent "Dark Ages" used by Petrarch or anyone else. I checked OED, Random House, and Merraim-Webster and none of these dictionaries claim the phrase is derived from Latin. French wiki says that Âge sombre is a translation from English, which would be odd if Petrarch was in fact the origin. Kauffner (talk) 13:43, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

You read Mommsen's article "Petrarch's Conception of the 'Dark Ages'" and didn't find any discussion of Petrarch's conception of the dark ages? This article (like Mommsen's) is about a concept of a "dark age", not the specific English name for that concept.--Cúchullain ^t/c 20:36, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Voice from the ether

This is the disembodied voice of Peter Damian currently being channelled through joopercoopers. Yes, he's coming through......."I see they have altered the intro to "Dark Age or Dark Ages is a term in European historiography referring originally to the Middle Ages, or in 20th century usage more specifically to the Early Middle Ages.[1][2]" which has now corrected the error, but is a little clumsy. Could you ask them if they have any objection to my editing it to add some important details, and tidy up the style?". When he's unblocked of course. There. No, hang on there's more "Perhaps mention to the guy who is struggling for the Latin, that it is Aetas tenebrae - age of darkness". Thanks for your time. Regards --Joopercoopers (talk) 17:58, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

At four paragraphs, the lead is already rather long. If you have more details, can't you work them in further down? Including the Latin of course. --Doric Loon (talk) 20:17, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Further ectoplasmic communications suggest as the first paragraph "The Dark Age or Dark Ages are pejorative terms originating in the 17th and 18th centuries to signify the 'darkness' of understanding which supposedly fell upon Europe after the end of the Roman empire until new 'light' arrived in the Renaissance. Following work by medieval scholars from the nineteenth century onwards, recognising the brilliance of achievements in the later Middle Ages, the term is less frequently used, although it is still used by some historians to refer to the period of the Early Middle Ages (c.400-800), or sometimes just to the 5th and 6th centuries." <puff of smoke as the ghost of good editors past returns to rattling chains>

Four paragraphs is pretty typical at FA as far as I can see, and precision and explanation of term seems of paramount importance to me, before anything else is discussed. Regards --Joopercoopers (talk) 23:32, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I can go along with that as a second paragraph under our one-sentence short definition, except let's avoid arguments about the century by just saying "originating in the Early Modern Period"; and perhaps the dates 400-800 should be left out here for the same reason. However I predict that some other editors will object to the pejorative aspect being highlighted so much in the lead. You may be opening up old controversies again. But I think this wording is exactly right. If we add this, the lead becomes rather long, but maybe the paragraph about Petrarch can be shortened - he has his own section underneath anyway. --Doric Loon (talk) 07:57, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

BTW, I have just been reading the survey of Jewish history by Rabbi Ken Spiro (http://www.aish.com/) Today's instalment opens thus: "The period of history we are looking at is known as the Renaissance which historians generally date from about 1350 to about 1650. Renaissance means "rebirth." Rebirth of what? Of knowledge. We have now left the Dark Ages dominated by the repressive policies of the Church in Rome and are beginning a time period associated with individual expression, self-consciousness, and worldly experience, and accomplishments in scholarship, literature, science, and the arts." Now I suspect this author is not professional historian, but he is certainly a well-read layman. So this is a good quote proving that in 2008 there is a popular usage even among pretty well-informed people which makes the Dark Ages run to ca 1350. --Doric Loon (talk) 08:10, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

We can't say the terms originated in the "17th and 18th centuries"; the article is about the concept which is significantly older than its first recorded instance in English. I also think it's a terrible idea to try and put a definite date on the Dark Ages because definitions have varied so widely over time. However, it is a good idea to explain in the first sentence that the concept alleges an intellectual darkness that characterized the period.--Cúchullain ^t/c 20:24, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

long-standing problems with this article

I have been watching this article on-and-off for a couple of years now. It consistently has the same recurring problems of scope and definition. I honestly don't know why people obsess over the term so much, but I've seen several rounds of tenacious and dedicated defense of one meaning or another. A look at the interwikis adds to the confusion and unease:

• da:Den mørke middelalder: this appears inspired by the en: article directly,
• de:Dunkle Jahrhunderte is about the term "Dark Ages", not the Middle Ages in particular. Most of the article discusses Greece and the Ancient Near East, and the Middle Ages just get a short note towards the end.
• fr:Âge sombre a stubby article on terminology (how is which term used in which language)
• it:Secoli bui just a stub noting the term denotes 476 al 1000 dopo Cristo according to Petrarca

The German article further has interwikis to el:Γεωμετρική εποχή (which refers only to the later Greek Dark Ages, to the exclusion of the Protogeometric period) and other "Greek Dark Ages" equivalents (it:Medioevo ellenico, tr:Yunan karanlık çağları).

In a nutshell: this is a mess. The article should finally make up its mind what it is supposed to be about. In the view of its contorted history, I strongly recommend that it should be about the term itself (as envisaged in the de: and fr: articles), and thus widen its scope to the inclusion of any "dark age", not just the Middle Ages, delegating all detail on how the Middle Ages were viewed historically to the existing Middle Ages in history. --dab (𒁳) 12:44, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't why you go around this dog track again, but of course I still think this page should be a redirect to Early Middle Ages. I find it hard to hard to believe that any significant percentage of the readers who type in "Dark Ages" as a search term are in fact looking for information about Petrarch. My second choice would be to move the essay here to "Dark Ages (term)" and make this page a disambiguation page. Kauffner (talk) 13:06, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Would it be fair to say that the European "Dark age" was the original, from which all the others (Greek, Patagonian, whatever) were named? Because if that is a semantic extension of this concept, then DAB is absolutely right - this article should have a section somewhere towards the bottom dealing with that. I think we have always had a pretty clear idea what the article is about - it has been challenged repeatedly , bu always with the result that we returned to what seemed to be a consensus of the majority - namely that this article is about a historiographical construct, which has been refined and altered over the centuries; and of the concept of a Greek Dark Ages is a reapplication of the same construct, then it makes perfect sense to include it here. BUT I hope DAB realises that he has just taken on responsibility for a fair bit of article-building! --Doric Loon (talk) 16:12, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. The article is about the concept of an age of darkness. We need to retain an article on that subject under whatever title.--Cúchullain ^t/c 20:50, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

it does seem as if Petrarca's description of the Middle Ages (that would be the Early and possibly High Middle Ages, since Petrarca himself was writing in the 1330s, which themselves are well within the Late Middle Ages in our terminology) is at the origin of the term. Although I woulnd't rule out the possibility that there were earlier, less influential references to an "age of darkness". I have adapted the lead in line with Cuchullain's comment. The lead should state (a) The article is about the concept of an age of darkness, and only (b) mention that the term was coined in the context of the European Middle Ages. --dab (𒁳) 11:33, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

the description of the "controversial" nature of this term is overblown and too sensationalist. Apparently a reaction to the occasional hysteria here on talk. So saying "Dark Age" is judgmental. Big deal. Saying societal collapse is judgemental, and we don't get angry postings on Talk:Societal collapse saying the term should be avoided. It is a historian's job to make "judgements" about historical processes, and "Dark Age" is one term used to make such judgements. I really don't see the problem. --dab (𒁳) 11:55, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

as an afterthought, this article should probably reside at Dark Age or Age of Darkness, discussing any "Dark Age", while "The Dark Ages" indeed mostly refers to the EMA and should be mentioned as a special case. --dab (𒁳) 12:47, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I meant, "the concept of an age of darkness that came after the fall of Rome. I have reworded the intro in a way which I hope will be satisfactory to all: it is now clear the article is about this fluid concept, not a distinct time period. I think I have established the historical context now: the concept originally implied the entire Middle Ages were dark, but now it often only means the Early Middle Ages.--Cúchullain ^t/c 16:48, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I repeat that if we take "originally" to mean "Petrarca", it is impossible that "the entire Middle Ages" were intended, since Petrarca wrote 170 years before the conventional end of the Middle Ages. Petrarca wrote about Vulgar Latin, which is the Latin of roughly the 3rd to 9th centuries, from which it follows that in the "original" meaning, the "dark age" includes Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, but not the High Middle Ages, and much less the Late Middle Ages. dab (𒁳) 18:08, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I am also suspcious of the editorializing about "judgemental" vs. "non-judgemental" usage. It should, much rather, be "objective" vs. "subjective". In subjective usage, it may mean "barbaric rubbish", which everyone will grant isn't very scholarly. In objective usage, it means urban decay, societal collapse, population decrease, and decrease in literary production. Now this is a judgement, but it is an objective judgement. The population of Rome was 1 million in AD 100, 0.1 million in AD 500 and 0.05 million in AD 1000. Now this is a "judgement", and it is perfectly fair to say that "Rome entered a dark age", even if it isn't necessarily a "value" judgement, because, hey, maybe you prefer noble savagery over urban decadence. --dab (𒁳) 18:28, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

This article has always been about the European Dark Ages, which "originally" (meaning beginning with Petrarch) referred to the period between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance. I was careful to make that clear in the text of the lead. Mommsen is clear that the Petrarch and the Humanists of his time saw the "darkness" as extending right up to them.

You may have something on the "judgemental" usage; that bears looking at, as it in this article it is generally just stated that the usage is judgemental, with no source to back it up.--Cúchullain ^t/c 18:43, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I begin to understand that this article's fuzzy scope, and the pointless controversy and weird requirements for "disambiguation" it engenders is due to you, Cúchullain. This article has always been about the term "Dark Age". Yes, this requires discussion of the period after the fall of Rome, but no, the article has never been about the period after the fall of Rome, see Dark Ages (disambiguation). --dab (𒁳) 18:57, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

You are misunderstanding me. This article has been, since at least 2004, about a popular conception that sees all or part of the Middle Ages as a period of darkness. It's not about the actual history of the Middle Ages (and I don't see how you could conclude that I wanted it to be) it's not about "dark ages" in general, and it's not about English use of the phrase "dark ages". I don't think we disagree fundamentally on what this article is supposed to discuss.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:59, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

OK, cool it guys. Over the years we've had a lot of unnecessary aggro on this page, like the hysterical nonsense from the mallard below, and you two have always been on the sensible side, so don't come to blows now. I am in the middle of a work crisis and can only give this a minute just now, but can I just point out that you seem to be agreed about the main point: the article is about historiographical constructs. Now it seems to me that the phrasd DA was first used, and is still mostly used, in connection with the (early) medieval period in Europe. And since as we have seen, that usage is controversial and the controversy also needs to be charted, I think we can agree that the largest part of this article will be devoted to that. But DAB has rightly pointed out that the use of it for other historical periods is not unrelated - it is a transferal of terminology, and therefore part of the same story. I wonder if we can agree that this later development in the history of the phrase also belongs in this article, but perhaps should be kept mostly for a section underneath the section on the traditional use. Maybe if we can get a consensus on those questions about the big shape of the article, then after that it will be clearer what we want to put in the head. I have always said that this article is along the right lines, but has a long way to go. This might be the chance to make a step forward. --Doric Loon (talk) 20:15, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

BTW - I'm not terribly worried about the question of whether Petrarch lived before the end of the MA. You will find dozens of articles by medievalists on when the MA ended - it is fuzzy. But the consensus is that it gradually gave way to the humanist renaissance, and since Petrarch was a humanist, his mentality was post-medieval even if the medieval world had not quite faded out. --Doric Loon (talk) 20:22, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Doric. What I was trying to do in the intro is get across that since Petrarch the period was seen as having a definite begininning (ie, the collapse of Rome). Petrarch saw his own age as dark (according to Mommsens it was "an era of "tenebrae", of darkness."[2]), but later writers (not Petrarch himself) saw this era of tenebrae as having an end, and that was with the recovering of Classical learning. Originally this "recovery" was said to have occured during the Renaissance (that's where the name comes from); but later, when the accomplishments of the Middle Ages became better known, they placed the end at different times (Petrarch's time, c.1000 AD, the Carolingian Renaissance, the Renaissance of the 12th century, etc.) This seems like the simplest summary what the "dark ages" concept really is.

I would not object to the article indicating that the concept of other "dark ages" derives directly from this conception of a medieval dark age, but it ought to be discussed in the body of the article more directly before it goes in the lead.--Cúchullain ^t/c 20:28, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Strong Criticism of this Article

You have got to be kidding me. This whole article is a joke. is this the conservopedia? The whole article is simply apologist for the church, it repeats itself numerous times, right off saying t he term is "pejorative" (isn't that the POV of the writer? If people have been historically critical of an age of earlier history, how do we say it's someone else's right to dismiss it? Obviously saying its "pejorative" and then safely and repeatedly re-assuring stuff that "nobody really means it" and the term is "rarely used by scholars" is outrageous. It's like all of the real terrible things, and the embracement of ignorance Europe was thrust into is blamed on this or that one man, and we're re-assured its just someones opinion, barely anyone says it, etc etc. This is simply not true. This article is a disgrace to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not the Catholic Church. it is not a place to whitewash or dismiss history, or only talk about certain people in negative terms and not others. You people should be ashamed of yourselves. Radical Mallard 16:20, 10 December 2008 2:39 AM (EST)

well, Radical Mallard, your kind of "criticism" is the topic of discussion right above. You fail to point out what you think is the problem or how it is supposed to be in support of the Roman Catholic Church. Content on Wikipedia is not dependent on what you may find "outrageous" per WP:CENSOR. I take it you are paraphrasing, because the terms "opinion" or "barely" are not in the aritcle text. If you can point your finger to any actual error, you are of course welcome to correct it. --dab (𒁳) 11:37, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

My apologies then, though I don't believe expressing surprise or shock in the talk section is all that bad. I will point out, however, that terms like "some say", or "but" etc, leaving out info, emphasizing this or that, are ways of manipulation or "neutralization". It is better that neither "side" is happy with a detailed entry than one side or the other dominating. On one hand, the term "pejorative" could be used if a characterization of a time period were unfair, however there is no detailed listing of the crimes committed by the church in Europe at the time, which would shed light on why the time period was called a Dark Age. By excluding evidence of actual crimes against humanity, the use of the term is reduced to a shadow, a phantom, with no substantiation, and real criticisms and characterizations are shrugged away as lies or "misconceptions" or a sort of sour grapes. What is rather strange here is the use of the origin is tracked down to a single person and it is made to seem like "if only this person hadn't done this", when in fact (1) all terms have an origin in one person, so one person coming up with a label does not necessarily invalidate it... (2) It is presented as though the scholar were nationally biased, but I would like to ask who is not biased.. it is also common to exorcise a person on ones "side" by finding some way to characterize them as an "other". But we have to remember that while there may have been different city states, kingdoms, or nations, the church was universal in large stretches of Europe. (3) Petrarch having been alive in the 1300's must surely give him some weight in the matter, as we are much further away from those times today. While I do agree that the term "Dark Ages" is less useful from a scholarly perspective as "Middle" or "Medieval" UNLESS one is discussing the actual behavior of those in charge of society (as opposed to simply an assessment of this or that list of names for things like kings, knights, or types of weapons and armor), the use does denote a specific time period that is commonly known about and widely criticized. That the "Dark Age" is regarded as a dark age specifically because the church forbade scientific inquiry that could possibly shed doubt upon the bible, and the lack of medicine, health & cleanliness knowledge, and the widespread use of summary execution, public humiliation and torture. If you refuse to cite these for real evidence, then the value of Wikipedia is surely diminished. Radical Mallard, 12 December 2008 9:27 PM (EST)

From a Catholic POV, the High Middle Ages was the golden age. Huizinga wrote sadly of the "waning of the Middle Ages." But there is no Dark Ages nostalga, expect possibly in Muslim fundamentalists. The content of this article seems to be driven by a fear of making negative judgements, as if the people of the Dark Ages are children with delicate self-esteem. Kauffner (talk) 09:05, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I quite agree, Kauffner. The Middle Ages was a golden age for one kind of Catholicism, but Catholicism is very diverse, and I know no modern Catholics who hanker after that golden age. It makes no sense at all to suggest that the re-evaluation of the darkness motif is motivated by religion. Quite the contrary, it is motivated by a sense of cultural relativism, which the very religious would reject. I differ from you, though, in that I don't think such respect for other cultures is something we should mock. However, the important thing is this: neither the re-evaluation nor the relativism which informs it are ours - they are phenomena out there in the world which we simply report. --Doric Loon (talk) 09:38, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

If that was true, no one would be typing in "Dark Ages" as a search term. Do you think the general public calls it the "Early Middle Ages"? You are projecting your own opinion on to others on the basis of no evidence at all. Kauffner (talk) 01:36, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Your most recent edit seems to go against that argument, by implying that when people say "dark ages" it can refer to any period of decline, not just the medieval "Dark Ages".--Cúchullain ^t/c 02:31, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

By the by I think the problem you bring up can be resolved by re-adding the hatnotes that had been there, as I suggested immediately below.--Cúchullain ^t/c 02:40, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you there, Kauffner. Besides, many religious people criticized the earlier times. It isn't like actually describing why the widespread conception that the church had made life quite terrible for Europeans *at the time* would somehow damage the church's reputation... I think excluding it and citing the dubious POV and misrepresentative emphasis of modern fundamentalist Christians who are dismissive of critique and historical accounts is a far greater mistake. Radical Mallard, 12 December 2008 9:30 PM (EST)

Disambiguation

It seems clear to me that the recently-removed hatnotes redirecting readers to Middle Ages and Early Middle Ages were necessary to stop confusion, based on discussions like this one. I believe they should be put back up for those who were looking for the history of the era rather than the term itelf.--Cúchullain ^t/c 22:08, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Who removed those and why? Surely that is obviously helpful? --Doric Loon (talk) 15:01, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh I see - it was part of DAB's edit; but I think if we don't have an x-ref to MA and EMA in the first line, we are inviting people to complain they can't find what they are looking for. --Doric Loon (talk) 15:11, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Ronald L. Numbers & Other Problems

As Ronald L. Numbers was a 7th day adventist, a creationist, and a person opposed to mainstream scientific views, his point of view should not be depicted hare as anything more than that: simply his point of view, or he should be removed altogether. Of course he is going to argue against the characterization of the Dark Ages as a time when the church did wrong. We see the same thing from Nazi revisionists and Communist Party ideologues. It doesn't speak well of this entry to include his opinion. It could already be implied that Christian fundamentalists would prefer to whitewash the actual history of the time period, but that doesn't actually help Christianity or a scientifically and historically accurate understanding of what happened at all, and the huge number of both catholic and protestant leaders who have come forward and criticized and apologized for the behavior of the church in that time period are simply ignored here, as are the scientists and Christians who were severely punished, the fraudulent "miracles", the profiteering, and other real crimes that were committed by the church at the time. The entry is behaving as though none of this matters and people who might be made uncomfortable with criticism of the church need to be placated, however we don't see this sort of sentiment in entries referring to oppositional movements and such, or in recent history. It's simply bad scholarship here. Furthermore, claims that the term is incorrect or isn't used by academics can be easily disproved by showing work of other academics who do use the term. Just one small example of a reliable reference which covers all of this and offers a differing (from Ronald L. Numbers's statements) and valid amount of evidence about Church behavior during the Dark Ages is Carl Sagan's "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark", which lists numerous references of it's own. Radical Mallard, 12 December 2008 9:08 PM (EST)

I don't understand the logic. Why would a 7th Day Adventist, or a "Christian Fundamentalist" (which normally means conservative evengelical, i.e. staunch protestant) want to defend an age dominated by the Catholicism which they hate so much? The Middle Ages might have been a golden age for some streams within Catholicism, but they are the absolute nadir of history for radical Protestants. Like you, I am a little worried to hear that we are quoting literature from this stable, but being a 7th Day Adventist would not make anyone biased against Dark Age terminology. I find this entire religious argument which you keep bringing entirely spurious. Petrarch coined the phrase Dark Ages, but he was as religious as all intellectuals in his period. Dark Age vs Golden Age has nothing to do with religion. Nor does it have anything to do with the human rights which you mentioned earlier. It has to do with the question of whether a culture at a certain period in its history cultivated the arts, classical learning, and intellectual life generally. And I really don't believe that anyone here, or anyone in the literature we are citing, is influenced one way or the other by religious views when they judge that question. --Doric Loon (talk) 18:23, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd just like to point that Ronald Numbers is NOT a creationist. He WAS a 7th Day Adventist during his youth, but now describes himself as agnostic. He is a very respected historian (as one can see in his wiki-page). --189.13.47.204 (talk) 22:39, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Unreliable source?

James Franklin's article "The Renaissance Myth" is cited four times in the article. This article was published in Quadrant, a conservative "literary and cultural journal." I am not familiar with Australian magazines, so I would like to ask those more well versed: is this really a scholarly source? Or is is the Australian equivalent of, say, the National Review? If the latter, I don't think it would be appropriate to cite it in a history article (though it might be appropriate as a representative conservative opinion source in articles on Australian political issues). *** Crotalus *** 14:59, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I added the Franklin article after it was suggested by Peter Damian above. I don't know anything about Quadrant, but to my understanding Franklin is a respected historian of ideas in Australia. I'll look into Quadrant, and if anyone finds anything indicating the source isn't reliable, let's just remove it. Any number of other sources can be used to replace it, nothing Franklin says in the article is very controversial.--Cúchullain ^t/c 18:05, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

This strange article

This is a mess. My golden rule is that an article in a tertiary source like Wikipedia should not look too different, and certainly not utterly different, from any tertiary or secondary source in standard reference work. I compiled a few of these here (plus some primary sources like courses called 'The Dark Ages') User:Peter_Damian/Dark_Ages. Is anyone bothered by this? For example, it is utterly false to claim that scholars do not call the Dark Ages the 'Dark Ages'. That is proved by recent scholarly works that use the term. (I agree that to cite such works is original research, but I also think that cries of 'original research' against a claim that is obviously true smacks of bad faith).

Some other thoughts: it is not really clear what the article is supposed to be about. There is an awful lot about Petrarch, but until I get hold of Mommsen's paper, I can't make a judgment about that. My impression was that Petrarch never used the term 'Dark Age' or anything like it, but simply referred to the whole period before him as one of darkness.

There is also a confusion running through the article of whether it is about the indefinite concept of 'a' dark age, which could apply to any period of human history fitting the description, or whether it is about the period specifically called by many historians, namely c 500-750.

Thoughts, anyone? Peter Damian (talk) 09:54, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

The claim is not that no scholars use the term, but that the majority tend to avoid it. This is not utterly false. If you follow the discussions we have had here, you will find many sources have been evaluated and the balance is basically what the article says.

You are right about the uncertainty about the focus of the article. Until recently it was only about the European use of the term, but in the last month there has been an attempt to broaden it. This has only been partly done, and the result is not yet satisfactory.

You may also be right that there is too much about Petrarch. The trouble is that this article needs some very fundamental work, and there doesn't seem to be anybody with the time to do it. Do bring your ideas. --Doric Loon (talk) 00:23, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

The confusion about the scope of the article is only recent. It has always been about the supposed medieval European "dark age" that came after the fall of Rome. Petrarch spoke often about such an era of darkness, and many later writers and scholars followed him. The problem with expanding it to include other "dark ages" is that no one has provided any sources that draw connections between the concept of a European dark age and the concept of the Greek Dark Ages, the Cambodian Dark Ages, or anything else. The article does need a lot of work, but I believe that barring someone introducing a lot of new sources, it should stick to addressing the conception of a medieval Dark Age.--Cúchullain ^t/c 17:01, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

OK thanks for the replies.

• I don't think it's true that scholars even 'tend to avoid' the phrase. They use it when they want to refer to the dark ages, for example. It is true they almost never use it to refer to the whole of the medieval period.
• On the idea that the article reflects the balance of the sources, again here are the sources I picked up at random. The encyclopedic ones are authoritative. Why does the article not reflect these?

The main problem is what the article is meant to be about. I'll have a think about that - most of all I need to locate the Mommsen. And a happy Christmas to everyone here. Peter Damian (talk) 16:27, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry Peter, but we've already got citations for all of this: a whole battery of citations showing scholars expressing unhappiness with the term, a small number of citation in which they still use it, most of the latter referring only to the early period, but a few still referring to the whole of the Middle Ages. Sorry if that contradicts your hunch, but the citations are in place. --Doric Loon (talk) 17:01, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

OK where are these citations? I've provided mine. We are talking about the claim that 'the majority [of scholars] tend to avoid the term'. There is one source cited in the article, where are the others? It is very important to give authoritative sources. Peter Damian (talk) 20:50, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] One of my sources says that 'many scholars' prefer to avoid the term. That is not the same as the 'majority' of scholars avoid the term. And please stop talking about 'hunches' which I equate with 'guesses'. I don't guess, I use reliable sources. Peter Damian (talk) 20:53, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, there's no need to get defensive at any rate, we're all trying to improve the article here. Sources already used in the article include the Dictionary of the Middle Ages, Britannica, and Graeme Dunphy's "Literary Transitions, 1300–1500: From Late Mediaeval to Early Modern" in: The Camden House History of German Literature vol IV: "Early Modern German Literature", which all include some level of caveat about using the term.--Cúchullain ^t/c 23:11, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

And don't forget Hay, who is quite a nice example. For minority use of DA to mean the period right up to the renaissance, see Ken Spiro further up this page. None of us seem to have the time to do a lot of work on this, so the citations are gathering rather slowly, but the list is growing, and the pattern is clear. --Doric Loon (talk) 01:51, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

"Scholars" may be too general; "historians" - even specialists in modern areas would surely get dirty looks in the faculty - or "medievalists" might be better. Johnbod (talk) 02:34, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you all, but what do these sources actually say. Which one says that 'the majority of scholars' &c? Is Peter King, a distinguished medievalist, in the minority? What do these sources actually say? Thanks Peter Damian (talk) 18:29, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] I'm asking this because elsewhere the citations do not support the claims made in the body of the article. For example, it says that "a recently published history of German literature describes the term as "a popular if ignorant manner of speaking." ". But the source actually says "A popular if ignorant manner of speaking refers to the mediaeval period as "the dark ages." Spelling it out, the source says that the ignorance consists in referring to the whole medieval period as 'the dark ages'. But the claim it is supposed to support is that the use of the term itself (rather than using it with a certain meaning) is what is ignorant. Peter Damian (talk) 18:38, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Furthermore, Cúchullain says above that "virtually no historian after about 1940 has used "Dark Ages" to refer to any period". That is clearly incorrect. Peter Damian (talk) 18:40, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] I have expanded the section on modern scholarly use of the term 'Dark ages' in User:Peter_Damian/Dark_Ages. Please feel free to expand this further, and perhaps we can find these references to 'the majority' of scholars preferring to avoid the term. As I have found many scholars who do use the term, and if they are in the minority, surely it should be easy to locate citations for this silent majority? Once again, not just references, actual quotations please. Thanks Peter Damian (talk) 10:27, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

The trouble is, it is easy to quote the minority of scholars who do use the term, but quoting the absence of the term in the writings of others as an argument from silence is pretty meaningless unless we do a big statistical survey, which would then be original research. So we are inevitably forced back on a restricted type of source: encyclopedia and dictionary entries (we have quoted the Britannica, which is clear enough, but apparently not academic enough for you), handbooks for students (I know that the new Handbook of Medieval Studies will deal with this, I have read what it says, and it is pretty blunt, but it won't appear till next year), and throw-away comments by scholars who mention the issue in passing (we have quoted several of these, which are very obviously disparaging about the term, but they are not systematic enough for you). I personally feel the citations we have given (they are not vague references, we do quote) establish the case, but let's keep looking. --Doric Loon (talk) 12:04, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, there is a more general Wikiwide problem here: it is not always easy to provide citations for majority practice. A small number of people wear eye-patches. We can easily demonstrate that. But can you provide a citation proving that the majority do not? --Doric Loon (talk) 12:07, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

This is known as the fallacy of 'reversed burden of proof'. You claim that X, because I cannot provide citations that not-X. The standard practice here is not to claim either X or not-X. If you cannot provide citations to the effect that the majority of scholars avoid the term, leave it out, it's as simple as that. Where does the Britannica actually say this, by the way? You still haven't provided any actual quotations. Hint: this means copy and pasting text, or actually typing stuff in. By the way, it is clear from the sources I have provided that many scholars are uncomfortable about using the term - they talk about the 'so-called' Dark Ages, or they enclose the term in scare quotes. Peter Damian (talk) 13:48, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] I agree that the Britannica says that modern historians rarely use the term because of the value judgment it implies, but that is not the same as saying the 'majority' of scholars avoid using the term. Precision of language is paramount. Moreover the Oxford Companion contradicts Britannica, saying that the term "still has a stronghold in what should be more appropriately described as the Early Middle Ages". Peter Damian (talk) 14:21, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

But Peter, we HAVE cut and pasted the exact text of the Britannica into the article, and I see no contradiction between what it says and the other statements in the article. "Historians rarely use" v "the majority of historians avoid"? To me those are both same the same thing. Except that the Britannica wording is possibly stronger, i.e. we are playing it safe. --Doric Loon (talk) 08:22, 27 December 2008 (UTC) BTW, which Oxford Companion (there are dozens of them)? Perhaps you could give us the whole of that reference - it sounds useful. And it supports what the article already says: no-one has claimed here that nobody is using DA terminology at all. We only claim that almost all serious authorities put major caveats around it. And your Oxford Companion quote gives another clear example of that. --Doric Loon (talk) 08:27, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

The Oxford Companion quote is in User:Peter Damian/Dark Ages which I have linked to about 10 times, and have asked you to read more than once. It is the 3rd quotation from the top - could I respectfully suggest that you carefully read all these citations taken from different kinds of sources, then we will come back and finish the discussion? Thanks. Not meaning to seem rude but it is of paramount importance that we base any article on citations from RS's. Then we can come back to the other questions you raise above. Thanks Peter Damian (talk) 09:20, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, you have lots of good quotes there. I am perplexed: one of YOUR quotes says "Many historians prefer not to talk about the Dark Ages at all". Almost exactly the wording we had in the article which you objected to. I need to repeat what I said about the eye-patches. It is far easier to find examples of minority use than explicit statements by the majority that they do not follow the minority use; I do not accept your conclusion from this that the majority should therefore just not be mentioned, as that would leave the impression that the minority use is the norm: we cannot stop people from writing on this page that the DA terminology is used by some scholars - and we wouldn't want to. We therefore MUST complete the picture by saying what the more normal terminology is. We are NOT without references, we have a whole battery of good references, and you have just added at least another two. More will certainly come, but surely we have enough to justify what is being said here. I'm really not clear what your objection is. --Doric Loon (talk) 11:47, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

My objection is to the some of the claims made on this page, e.g. that 'the majority of historians' avoid the phrase which is difficult to verify. I also object to the sentence of the article which says "Modern scholarship tends to avoid using the phrase.". This is not true. Contemporary scholars do not avoid the phrase at all. Rather, they use it, but in a cautious and qualified way. For example, they enclose the term in scare quotes, or they call it the 'so-called' Dark Ages, or they say that this period is traditionally called the Dark Ages. So the article should reflect that fact. I think part of the reason for this is that 'Dark ages' specifically refers to a period in the Latin West, whereas 'Early Middle Ages' refers to the same period but throughout the Latin and Byzantine world, and in the Middle East. So it is a useful term.

Some things to add. I am a historian of philosophy and logic, and in my subject the 7th-8th centuries really were an incredibly dark age, in the sense of being unenlightened. This period produced no works of philosophy whatever. In the Carolingian renaissance there was an upturn. Then there was another small dark age after that, and then we have the 12th -century explosion of activity. Must go now. I have some ideas for improving the article a lot, but currently afraid of it exploding into an edit war, as so many of these things do. Best (re-signing) Peter Damian (talk) 15:01, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Is that last comment by Peter, or somebody new? OK, let's have suggestions. There won't be an edit war if we discuss it here first, and I'm not sure we are so far apart that no agreement can be reached.

First off, I would propose that we move back to where we were a month ago in terms of the scope of the article, i.e. restrict it to the period in European history, with the exception that right at the bottom we add a short section saying that the terminology was then taken up and applied to other so-called dark periods, and cross-reference to the separate articles on these.

Second, I suggest we shorten the Petrarch section - he is relevant here but not as big as the balance of the article suggests.

Third, I suggest we expand the section on modern scholarly usage. It can become more nuanced. It has become quite clear here that there is quite a variety of usage. Perhaps before we attack that in the article itself we could try to sort out exactly which different uses we have identified.

I stand by the contention that the majority of medievalists avoid this phrase. (Using it only with scare quotes is a variety of avoiding!) I am a medievalist, and have no hesitation to say from my own long experience that I have never heard the term DA used in a conference paper or lecture. I have seldom read it in any modern work by an author I take seriously, and when I do, it always comes with some kind of caveat. But I am not a philosopher, so you may well be able to persuade me that usage in your discipline is different. --Doric Loon (talk) 13:32, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Agree with most of this. Happy to say something on the lines of, modern scholars tend to use the term in a cautious/qualified way, because of the value judgment it implies. Nevertheless, on actual scholarly use, you have the quotations by Peter King and Jorge_J._E._Gracia, both distinguished experts in medieval philosophy. Neither of these are in scare quotes, but rather used in an entirely unqualified sense. I suspect the reason for this, as I have already pointed out, this period was for philosophers a terribly dark age, because almost nothing was written (in the Latin West) then, and because many of the important works of Aristotle (and Plato) were lost to them until the twelfth century. As for the history of other areas (social, military, architectural and so on) I know very little. On 'having to persuade you it is different', you have the citations. That is all that is relevant. What is your area of specialisation, can I ask? Peter Damian (talk) 15:15, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Historiography. I am interested especially in what medieval writers inadvertently say about themselves when they write history, how they locate themselves historically, how annals and chronicles serve purposes of political and sociological legitimation. In the history of identity there are no dark ages - people always had identity crises! --Doric Loon (talk) 20:53, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Undue weight?

We currently have 5 citations to a single 1942 journal article by Theodor Ernst Mommsen. Now, the journal in question is indeed peer-reviewed and appears to be reliable - but, still, this is a single article, written 65 years ago. I would be interested to see if anyone else ever followed up on Mommsen's view that Petrarch invented the concept of the Dark Ages. How do we know this is mainstream academic belief and not just one idiosyncratic view? Maybe it is, but the citations given don't provide enough information to verify that. Surely enough has been said that we don't need to lean so heavily on this one source. *** Crotalus *** 19:38, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Surely there is - see for example the work by Franklin already cited. Note, the others have agreed that the excessive coverage of Petrarch can be cut down. Peter Damian (talk) 20:56, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Mommsen is one of the big names in the Roman and early medieval history, I cannot imagine that his is "one idiosyncratic view". That source is used several times because it is so apt for what we are discussing. Further I don't see the discussion of Petrarch as "excessive". The section is the origin of the concept of a Dark Age. The Franklin article doesn't say anything that Mommsen doesn't say - both indicate that Petrarch originated the concept of the "dark age" in order to compare his time unfavorably with the grandeur that was Rome. That is an essential idea in the concept of the "Dark Ages" to this day - that this period was "dark" compared to the "light" of the preceding (or subsequent) period.--Cúchullain ^t/c 01:25, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not disputing Mommsen's credentials, but even first-rate historians often have a few unusual views that are not shared by the profession as a whole. What I'm looking for would be other journal articles approvingly citing Mommsen on this subject, or (even better) tertiary sources like popularizations and encyclopedias that repeat what Mommsen is saying. Otherwise, we have no way of knowing whether Mommsen's views on this particular subject ever attained the status of academic conventional wisdom. I'm not saying his views should be excluded, but if a single journal article is all we have, then I think our focus on Petrarch is undue weight. Also, if this is just Mommsen's view, it should be specified as such ("According to Mommsen (1942), Petrarch...") and not written as if it were undisputed fact. *** Crotalus *** 16:18, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

A quick Google book search shows that the article was reprinted in this 2002 text on Italian Renaissance scholarship, and referenced in Life and Thought in the Early Middle Ages by Robert Stuart Hoyt, Humanism and the Renaissance by Zachary Sayre Schiffman, and dozens or hundreds of other books. Not that the Google test is particularly valid, but those books certainly are.--Cúchullain ^t/c 21:17, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Mocking Christianity

The image caption for the image of "Triumph of Christianity" used to say:

Images like this one mourn the destruction of ancient pagan culture and mock the victory of Christianity.

It was modified to say:

Images like this one celebrate the triumph of Christianity over ancient paganism.

The caption goes on to read: "In fact much of what has survived from Antiquity was preserved by the Church including the pagan-like worship of iconography, as demonstrated by the triumph of one icon (the cross) over another icon (the statue) (my clarification in italics). This painting is making a mockery of Christianity. Furthermore, look at the entire painting, the entire room is pagan (the floor is modeled on a pagan design) and the cross is a small little piece in it, dwarfed by everything else. I bring this up not to cause trouble, these interpretations are known and understood. Sources: [3][4]. It seems like the point of having this painting in this article is for that interpretation, to show how Italian renaissance painters began embracing antiquity and the past - it's sort of out of place if all it shows is the simplistic view of triumph of Christianity. Green Cardamom (talk) 22:22, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

The TLS piece doesn't say anything like "mockery"; I can't read the other one. There is an certain ambiguity in the work (and irony in that the Popes would immediately have collected the bits of Mercury & stuck them together again), but the original caption (which I didn't change) would need a lot more referencing than that. I don't believe at all that this is the standard view, especially given the context of the rest of the paintings in the room the ceiling. Your additions are very POV - worship is just not correct theologically (for Christians). Nor does iconography mean what you think. By this date Romans did not think of classical architecture as "pagan" - they had assimilated it for over a century. Whether the picture helps the article now is a different matter. Johnbod (talk) 23:59, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I was just trying to get the point across simply that there is more to this image than the somewhat shallow view it currently describes. The two source go into this, I'm sure there are many other sources with a little research. It's an appropriate picture for this article, just not in its current description (which isn't "wrong", just not very insightful - why Mercury? Why the cross so small and the room so large? Why the Pagan flooring? etc..). Green Cardamom (talk) 13:26, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Pejorative

Is there a problem keeping the pejorative meaning of the term "Dark Ages", and explicitly acknowledging that usage? I ask because there are places in the article that suggest that a pejorative term is inappropriate in polite company. (OK, inappropriate in this context in a WP article.)

Caveats:

We accept that the term applies to the EMA in Western Europe (or more generally to societal collapse). Not the whole MA, and especially not the High MA. Not elsewhere during that time. Not with firm or wide temporal boundaries (maybe 400-700 in Briton and Iberia, perhaps narrower in France, etc.).

We are not drawing conclusions about the role of Christianity, the Catholic church thereof, or for that matter the price of tea in China, as either a contributor to the collapse or a bulwark against even greater "darkness".

Accepting those points, what is the controversy? The EMA in Western Europe was a time of societal collapse: i.e., depopulation of the region and especially of cities; loss of literacy; decline in the general levels of education and of economic activity; frequent war and civil unrest; a large reduction in new works of literature and of invention in (say) civil engineering; etc.

I guess if you feel that poverty, ignorance, and illiteracy are value-neutral, then you should resist using "Dark Age(s)" pejoratively. But if you don't feel that way, why the concern? Jmacwiki (talk) 20:21, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I think the most important thing to say about that is that it is not for us to decide. If the consensus among historians were to use the term that way, we would report it so. But that consensus doesn't exist. I think you are right that, with determination and good will by the whole scholarly community, it would be possible in time to purge the term of other associations and make it usable the way you describe. But the trend among historians is just different. And that's what we have to report. --Doric Loon (talk) 20:36, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

"...In the Age of Enlightenment, religion was seen as antithetical to reason"

I find this sentence difficult to believe. I think this section gives too much weight Voltaire's philosophy and his specific attacks against the Catholic religion. There were many more enlightenment era thinkers such as Blaise Pascal, John Locke, and Francis Bacon who were just as (if not more) significant to history and incorporated Christian revelation of God as the foundation of their philosophy. Even non-Christian philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome, such as Plato and Cicero recognized a supreme power and life beyond death as fundamental to reason. These philosopher's ideas were in turn, incorporated into much of the Catholic church's teachings. Criticisms of religion in the Age of Enlightenment were specific to its collusion with government, not that revelation was opposed to reason. 66.215.216.61 (talk) 00:20, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

This article should be scrapped and started again

The article is uninformative, repetitive, and irredeemably biased. It tells the reader nothing about why the period is often called the Dark Ages, and provides no explanation of why some people now disagree with this assessment. It just launches straight into an attack on the concept, repeating over and over that this is no longer the correct way of thinking.

The article should be rewritten on something like the following template:

Explain why the period is known as the Dark Ages

Population decline

Economic decline

Loss of knowledge

Decline in literacy

etc.

Explain the history of the term including different interpretations

Explain why some people are unhappy with the term

I don't think I have the knowledge to attempt such a re-write, but hopefully someone else does. Misodoctakleidist (talk) 13:36, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

But that is the structure it does have. The problem is, that the reasons why the period was known as the Dark Ages are not the ones you cite - the original reasons have to do with Renaissance self-legitimization. That's why Petrarch & co. stand at the place in the article where you rightly want an explanation of why the term was coined. The things you cite as reasons are actually very late attempts to redeem the term after it had become problematic. That's why we give them only further down the article. But by all means look at this again. --Doric Loon (talk) 15:46, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Those are the reasons for the use of the term today - and have been for quite some time. Whether it initially had a slighty different meaning is only of minor importance to the article. The present stucture of the article is extremely unhelpful to readers. Before even properly explaining the term and the reasons for its use, it launches into a long sections about the history of the term and its shifting meanings. The rest of the article is spent pushing an ideological agenda of Dark Age apologism. Given that you are one of the small number of obsessive editors who have brought this article to its current deplorable state, it's harldy surprising that you think it's fine. The comments on this talk page and in the archive would seem to suggest that almost everybody esle diagrees. Misodoctakleidist (talk) 17:51, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Well if you make personal comments like that you won't achieve anything. I didn't say it can't be improved. I do say I rather like the idea that an article on the history of a concept should be arranged broadly chronologically, first showing the thinking of the people who developed the idea, then showing what others have subsequently made out of it. --Doric Loon (talk) 09:24, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Writing the article in a chronological way is extremely confusing for readers who just want to read about the concept as it is commonly used. The article on the offide law doesn't start in the mid 19th century and leave an explanation of the actual offside law until the very end. The article should focus on the concept as it is commonly used, and leave the explanation of its historical evolution until the end. There is presently no coherent section of the article that actually does this. It's more like an article on what various historical figures have said about the Dark Ages.

I think that's partly why it is such a mess. It reads like one of those badly written "criticism" sections in so many other Wikipedia articles: "so and so says this. Other may diagree because blah blah, but that would be to overlook so and so." It is a complete muddle. That's why I think we need to seperate the three different things the article needs to do: explain the term as it is commonly used, explain it's hitorical evolution, and explain why many people now reject its use. Misodoctakleidist (talk) 02:16, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

No one says the article is perfect. But your personal comments about other editors and your unclear, hand-waving assertions that the article doesn't discuss "the concept as it is commonly used" are certainly not improving it in the slightest. Why should an article on a concept that is seven hundred years old primarily discuss how the concept is used in the 21st century? The lede currently gives a pretty fair summary of the main points of the article, explaining how the concept has evolved over time down to the amorphous modern view(s). If you feel that this summary is inadequate then check out some sources and expand it.--Cúchullain ^t/c 02:54, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

This is supposed to be an encyclopaedia article, not an essay on the history of ideas. An encyclopaedia article on the Dark Ages should first and foremost explain what the Dark Ages were, and why people call them that. This article bombards readers with information about various intellectual disputes before it has even done the basics. Misodoctakleidist (talk) 03:50, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

There is already a (sub)section which attempts that. If you think it could be improved FIXIT.--Cúchullain ^t/c 12:50, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Somewhere, it needs to be explained that the phrase "Dark Ages" does not come from Petrarch. The article very catty about this subject now. 1687 "is the earliest recorded use of the term in English" -- an unsupported implied claim that the term was used in some other language earlier. I would suggest an "Etymology" section that follows the etymologies given in OED, Random House, etc. Kauffner (talk) 12:09, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Catty? :-) Sure, write an etymology section. --Doric Loon (talk) 15:57, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

The OED only gives the earliest use in English. It was used in other languages long before that, beginning with Petrarch's Latin. This fact is cited to Mommsen's article, which you should check out to verify it for yourself.--Cúchullain ^t/c 16:15, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Petrarch wrote it in Italian.......Do you just make this stuff up as you go along? Kauffner (talk) 11:22, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

An easy oversight. You're grasping at straws.--Cúchullain ^t/c 11:32, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree. The article is confusing as it attacks the concept without first presenting it properly. Also it is attacked as referring to the entire Middle Ages, and then for referring to the Early Middle Ages. But isn't the latter less controversial? The History Channel did a whole series called the "Dark Ages" referring to the Early Middle Ages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.223.173.64 (talk) 22:31, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

What, precisely, does "demographic decline" mean?

"general demographic decline" appears in 2nd para. What exactly is it intended to mean? Thanks very much.--Tyranny Sue (talk) 02:43, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

What a mess

This article is a mess. I agree with the person above that it should focus on the modern meaning of the term, which signifies the period c550-750 in the Latin West. It is called 'dark' for two reasons, the first reflecting our lack of knowledge of the period, thus it is dark from our viewpoint, the second, that this period (in the West) was culturally unenlightened, not possessing many or most of the great works of classical antiquity. These propositions are agreed upon by most or all scholars. There was no work in philosophy to speak of until Anselm, for example. A history of the modern world (talk) 12:14, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit]I have considerably changed the introduction to reflect reality. Comments welcome. A history of the modern world (talk) 12:43, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Your edits had the same problems that have been discussed repeatedly over the years. These are that (1) we already have articles on the historical periods referred to as the "Dark Ages", namely the Early Middle Ages and the Middle Ages generally, (2) that the term "Dark Age" is a value judgment, and (3) the term is abstract and has many uses that all need to be discussed in an article on the term. Further, we disambiguation links to Early Middle Ages and Middle Ages in case that's what readers are looking for.--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:12, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't care if it has been discussed repeatedly, if the discussion was a mistake. The original introduction claims that 'this usage is also disputed by most modern scholars, who tend to avoid using the phrase'. Incorrect. Some modern scholars avoid using the phrase (as my new introduction concedes). Many modern scholars do not. E.g. Terry Parsons here. Nor is it correct to say the term 'is' a value judgment. The new introduction clearly states why the term 'dark' is used. A history of the modern world (talk) 16:03, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Note also that Early Middle Ages is not always appropriate to discuss this period, because 'Early Middle Ages' covers Byzantium and Islam, which were not dark. 'Dark ages' specifically refers to the darkness of the Latin West. A history of the modern world (talk) 16:12, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Why is it not appropriate to consider the remains of the Roman Empire, or the Islamic world, or Germany or Ireland or Scandinavia come to that? And it's not obvious what distinguishes the period c. 550-750 from the years before or after in Iberia or Gaul. Very Italo-Centric to be sure. Angus McLellan (Talk) 17:04, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Because we are talking, rightly or wrongly, of the use of a term. 'Dark ages' now generally refers to a period of time in the Latin West. The exact dates are a matter of argument (see the references supplied below). "Our use of the phrase 'the Dark Ages' to cover the period from 600 to 1000 marks our undue concentration on Western Europe. In China this includes the time of the Tang dynasty , the greatest age of Chinese poetry, and in many other ways a most remarkable epoch. From India to Spain, the brilliant civilisation of Islam flourished. [Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, II.7 'The Papacy in the Dark Ages' " A history of the modern world (talk) 17:09, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Some schlolarly works which use the term 'dark age'

(In reply to the nonsensical and absurd suggestion that modern scholars avoid using the term).

• The diagram accompanying and illustrating the doctrine shows up already in the second century CE Boethius incorporated it into his writing, and it passed down through the dark ages to the high medieval period, and from thence to today. Diagrams of this sort were popular among late classical and medieval authors, who used them for a variety of purposes. (Similar diagrams for modal propositions were especially popular.) [5]

• In order to understand how the theory of analogy arose we have to bear in mind the history of education in the Latin-speaking western part of Europe. During the so-called dark ages, learning was largely confined to monasteries, and people had access to very few texts from the ancient world. This situation had changed dramatically by the beginning of the thirteenth century. The first universities (Bologna, Paris, Oxford) had been established, and the recovery of the writings of Aristotle supplemented by the works of Islamic philosophers was well under way. [6]

• The period in the history of Latin Europe after that of the "Fathers of the Church" has traditionally been called the "dark age", because very few writings were produced then. This was followed by what has sometimes been called "The Carolingian Renaissance", associated with the court of Charlemagne, toward the end of the eighth century. The political writers of the ninth century—Hincmar of Rheims, Rabanus Maurus, Jonas of Orleans etc.—are not household names, yet they gave expression to ideas that were important throughout the rest of the middle ages, in particular ideas about the role of a king and the difference between king and tyrant. [7]

• Our use of the phrase 'the Dark Ages' to cover the period from 600 to 1000 marks our undue concentration on Western Europe. In China this includes the time of the Tang dynasty , the greatest age of Chinese poetry, and in many other ways a most remarkable epoch. From India to Spain, the brilliant civilisation of Islam flourished. [Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, II.7 'The Papacy in the Dark Ages'

• The revival of philosophy after the Dark Ages (roughly 525 - 750) was a drawn-out process. (Peter King, 'Philosophy in the Latin Christian West:750-1050', in Gracia and Noone).

• Many who base their views on a knowledge of Western Europe alone would stress the contrast between the destructive tendencies of the early medieval phase and the constructive tendencies of the later phase. In the scheme, the 'Dark Ages' of the fifth to eleventh centuries are characterised by the progressive dismemberment of the Roman world; the turning point is reached with the so-called 'twelfth-century renaissance'; and the peak of 'high' medieval civilisation is reached in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. These distinctions have little relation to the East, where the Roman Empire survived until 1453, and where no 'renaissance' in the Western sense was every experienced. (Norman Davies, Europe, a history, Oxford 1996, p. 292, chapter 'The Middle Age'.
• '... advancing a detailed model of the process of state formation, again in Europe, since the Dark Ages' Social theory: a guide to central thinkers By Peter Beilharz
• "Commerce in the Dark Ages: A critique of the evidence" - Philip Grierson, 1959 Royal Historical Society.
• "Frisian Trade in the Dark Ages' - Dirk Jellema 1955 Medieval Academy of America
• Sainted women of the Dark Ages Jo Ann McNamara, John E. Halborg, E. Gordon Whatley ("Here are the biographies of eighteen women who lived in the sixth and seventh centuries, sometimes called the Dark Ages").
• "A generation ago it was possible to read that little was to be gained from further studies of the 'real' dark ages, the period extending from the fall of the Roman Empire to about 1000". ("The Carolingian Age: Reflections on its place in the History of the Middle Ages" - R.E. Sullivan, 1989, Medieval Academy of America.
• The Northern World in the Dark Ages 400—900 E James - The Oxford History of Medieval Europe, 2001
• An Encyclopedist of the Dark Ages: Isidore of Seville Ernest Brehaut, Studies in History, Economics and Public Law Columbia University, New York, 1912
• The era of history that Barbarians deals with is sometimes called by the neutral name of the Early Medieval Period (the Early Middle Ages) from AD 300 to 1000 - beginning with the decline and fall of the Western Roman empire and ending with the coming of a new millenium. In England, part of this period (or sometimes even the whole period) has often been called the Dark Ages, an era little known and understood, whose very name embodies this obscurity. [..] The term 'Dark Ages' is a loaded one that can be read in two ways. Firstly, it is seen as dark in the sense that there are few written records to illuminate the period, compared with those before and after it, and writing is understood to be a marker of civilisation. Secondly, the Dark Ages have been portrayed by conventional history as a time of moral, cultural and social decay, precipitated by the collapse of Rome and, therefore, civilisation itself.
• Many historians prefer not to talk about the Dark Ages at all, and use different terms to describe this period. In Germany it is known as the Age of Migration, or time of Volkerwanderung (wandering peoples), in recognition of the fact that this was a period of great upheaval and change in the make-up of the ethnic map of the continent.
• Between this time [A.D. 636, marking the death of Isadore of Seville] and the Carolingian renaissance nothing of philosophical importance took place [...] this [Carolingian] period was followed by a dark age which ended with another, more lasting, revival of learning in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. [Gracia, and Gracia and Noone, p2].
• "The renaissance of letters which Charles the Great inspired marks the end of the dark ages". [A History of the Medieval Church: 590-1500 Margaret Deanesly, Routledge, 1969, orig. pub. 1925, p52]
• "From the Dark Ages to the Renaissance " - book title, Peter P. Liddel, Mitchell Beazley, 2006
• In the sixth century C.E., what was left of the greatness of the Roman Empire, and even of classical Greece, gave way in the West to a period of intellectual decline. This used to be called the Dark Ages, but in a modern avoidance of derisive names, many textbooks now refer to this as a period of transition. However, the sixth and seventh centuries were 'darker' in that literacy declined quite severely from the days of the first- and second-century Roman Empire or even the fourth or fifth century. With this decline in literacy cam a comparable and associated decline in written texts. Daily Life in the Age of Charlemagne, John J. Butt, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002 p158.
• Humanist scholars realized that even the oldest manuscripts discovered in monastic libraries were not at all contemporaneous with the compilations of the antique texts they contained. At best, they were products of the Dark Ages (c. 550-c.750, but many of the manuscripts dated from the ninth and tenh centuries, a period known as the Carolingian Renaissance. [8] The Origins of Old Germanic Studies in the Low Countries, Cornelis Dekker, BRILL, 1999
• If there is any period for which the term 'Dark Ages' is appropriate, it is that time between the early seventh century and Charlemagne. The Seven Liberal Arts in the Middle Ages, David Leslie Wagner, Indiana University Press, 1983 p21

A history of the modern world (talk) 16:07, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Reference works which use the term

• Dark Ages: The early medieval period of Western European history. Specifically, the term refers to the time (476-800) when there was no Roman (or Holy Roman) emperor in the West, or, more generally, to the period between about 500 and 1000, which was marked by frequent warfare and a virtual disappearance of urban life. It is now rarely used by historians because of the value judgment it implies. Though sometimes taken to derive its meaning from the fact that little was then known about the period, the term’s more usual and pejorative sense is of a period of intellectual darkness and barbarity. (Britannica 15th edition).
• Dark Ages: the period of European history from about the 5C to the 11C, regarded as historically obscure and culturally uneventful (Chambers concise dictionary and thesaurus 2001)
• Dark Ages: A term originally deployed in the 17th and 18th centuries to indicate the intellectual darkness which was believed to have descended on Europe with the ending of the Roman empire until new light was provided by the Renaissance. Since the achievement of the Middle Ages has come to be properly recognised the term has been in retreat, but it still has a stronghold in what should be more appropriately described as the Early Middle Ages (c.400-800). In the field of British history it is sometimes applied just to the 5th and 6th centuries (Oxford Companion to British History).

Reverting to improved version of the introduction

Please discuss changes here - I have made detailed comments above. Thanks A history of the modern world (talk) 08:32, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Please obtain consensus before making these kinds of sweeping changes. It is obvious that you understand that you do not have consensus regarding you changes. You seem to be promoting a POV that "truth" amounts to "Romans came, things were good; Romans left, things were bad", or an Italo-centric POV, as was noted above. Certainly this article needs improvement, but so far your definition of improvement seems to mean the promotion of your own perspective only: you're simply replacing material with which you disagree with material that you like, and not otherwise addressing the article's material.

Your list of references is of interest in the promotion of your views, but others have their own lists, and a "my experts vs. your experts" dispute is unlikely to produce a consensus. Regards, Notuncurious (talk) 17:07, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

(1) I have reverted. Please note that I made many other changes to the article, few of which any will disagree. Do not throw out the baby &c. (2) I am not promoting my own perspective, just mainstream academic consensus. Please do not revert again unless you provide reasoned, coherent arguments. A history of the modern world (talk) 18:10, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

You appear to be edit-warring, using multiple edits of the article in an attempt to parse and channel discussion into your own POV-framework, and doing so repeatedly over several days. Regards, Notuncurious (talk) 18:44, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Please assume good faith! I have asked repeatedly that the edits are addressed individually in a reasoned manner, and not block reverted. I made many changes to the article, corrected a number of factual mistakes, and spotted some inaccurate citations. So, please address the question, thanks A history of the modern world (talk) 18:49, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Let's start at the beginning. What is this "Latin West" thing? Angus McLellan (Talk) 19:04, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

The "Latin West" is a fairly standard term in medieval studies for the parts of Europe where the educated language was Latin rather than Greek. The Western Roman empire (and the northern parts influenced by it) as opposed to the Byzantine East. --Doric Loon (talk) 20:00, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

True, and I think that it isn't a problem per se (though it might be noted as a neologism, and perhaps a misleading one if used outside the context of written literature).

However, in Ahotmw's version, it is cited as "a term ... to mark the intellectual darkness characteristic of the time ..." That simply repeats the thesis that this era was one of "cultural decline or societal collapse", it does not support the thesis.

There are other problems with Ahotmw's effort to change the connotations and implications of the article unilaterally – it should be returned to the stable version so that Ahotmw can work things out on the talk page first. That might not be an insurmountable problem. Regards, Notuncurious (talk) 22:03, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. The problem is not with Ahotmw's individual changes necessarily, it's with the way he is trying to insert them. Ahotmw, the preferred bold, revert, discuss method was designed to deal with exactly this problem. Being bold is great, but if the new changes are challenged and reverted, the next step is to head to the talk page to discuss and defend your changes so that other people can weigh in without disrupting the article text. The solution is not to just keep reverting back to your preferred version and demand that other editors defend their challenges to your edits; this is edit warring and is highly unproductive. Please do not do it again. Instead, engage in a productive dialogue on the talk page, I'm sure we can work something out to all of our mutual satisfaction.--Cúchullain ^t/c 13:26, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I've restored some of Ahotmw's uncontroversial changes, and added a sentence contrasting the original concept of the dark age to the one common now. Thoughts?--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:19, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I thought that changing the thrust of the article from 'concept' to 'fact' regarding a 'decline and collapse' was the main issue of contention and controversy, and this is now back to a perspective of 'concept', which I think is proper pending a discussion on the topic. If Ahotmw (and others) are firm in the view that the perspective should be 'fact', I hope that they'll continue to press the issue here. (and also note, many articles have a POV where a later editor holds a contrary view, and the original POV is contested – the original POV was simply put there first, and that doesn't mean it will withstand a challenge; but the challenge should be made through discussion, preferably on the talk page, if the change is contested). Regards, Notuncurious (talk) 16:55, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I have reverted the body of the article, to include the stylistic and mostly copyedits and which I hope are not controversial. Now can we discuss the lead. My first problem (which someone above also mentioned) is that the article does not begin straight away with the modern definition, which has been stable for more than 60 years (see the Bertrand Russell quote above) and probably longer than that - I have a history of the high Middle Ages written in 1885 by Hastings Rashdall where he unambiguously identififies the Dark Ages as between the fall of Rome and the Carolingian Renaissance. See the other quotes above for the modern definition, which almost universally agrees with Rashdall. We have to start with the modern meaning of the term. Can we agree on that? A history of the modern world (talk) 19:49, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

My primary concern was in going from a leading description as a 'concept' or 'idea' to one implying a 'fact'; and in some of the methodology of updating the article (but that seems to have been an honest difference of procedure). Certainly it is appropriate to say that the term was used as described, when in fact that was the case. For the rest, we probably won't all agree on everything, but that is to be expected: reasonable people may disagree. Please continue boldly in improving the article, Ahotm. Regards, Notuncurious (talk) 20:11, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

The most recent change illustrates why blanket reverting in the middle of an ongoing discussion is bad medicine. It removed several of the positive changes I made in restoring (some of) your material, and re-introduced a number of style errors I had corrected. I think I've caught them all, but seriously, don't do that again, it's a huge pain in the ass.

I don't agree that the current lead doesn't describe the "modern meaning". What is controversial about "the perceived period of cultural decline or societal collapse that took place in Western Europe between the fall of Rome and the eventual recovery of learning", followed by a description of the different ways the term is used? What other definition could there be? Tacking it down with one of the several popular but arbitrary ending dates is not necessary in the first sentence, given that there is no agreement on that point, and that many or most modern scholars avoid using the term in the first place. It is also not a good idea to start the article off saying that the "Dark Ages" was a matter of fact, when most of the rest of the article discusses it as a matter of perception. It's just cognitive dissonance.

It will be beneficial for you to make your suggestions for changes here first before making huge swaths of edits, as per WP:BRD. I am confident we can come up with something we can all accept.--Cúchullain ^t/c 20:43, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I put the 'failed verification' back - read my comment. The footnote does not verify your 'consequently', nor the stuff it is supposed to be consequent upon. On the modern meaning, this specifically includes periods, rather than the vague 'recovery of learning'. Specifically, it is between the fall of Rome and the Carolingian Renaissance. And note that 'learning', whatever that means, was not recovered in the Carolingian Renaissance, because the works of classical antiquity were not recovered, at least in the Latin West, until well into the 13th century. On your claim that the ending dates are arbitrary, that is complete nonsense. As I said above, there is near universal consensus, dating from the late 19th century, about the periods concerned. A history of the modern world (talk) 22:14, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

There is certainly no "universal consensus" that the "Dark Ages" ended with the Carolingian Renaissance, least of all in the sources you provided. Britannica says 800 or 1000. Chambers says the 11th century. The Oxford Companion to British History says "the Renaissance" or 800 or the 6th century. That's a span of 800 years. The concept has always been vague and subjective, and we need to reflect that.--Cúchullain ^t/c 22:59, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I said 'near universal consensus', please don't misquote me. You also misquote Britannica, which says the period is 'specifically' to 800 and 'generally' to 1000. And the Oxford companion which says that the period to the Renaissance was its original meaning. I specifically said 'modern meaning' didn't I? Chambers refers to the more general meaning. There is an absolute consensus among scholars that the term does not refer to the period up to the Renaissance. Nor to the period up to the 'eventual recovery of learning' in the early 13th century. If there is any disagreement it is as to whether the period includes the Caroligian renaissance or not. But then everyone agrees that the Carolongian period was a brief period of enlightment followed by another smaller dark age, so there is a general consensus about the facts. Therefore your suggestion that the concept is 'vague and subjective' is not on. A history of the modern world (talk) 19:46, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

PS you might learn the difference between 'principle' and 'principal'.A history of the modern world (talk) 19:57, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

To quote an apt user box, I reserve the right to completely screw up my edits. You might learn to not be a dick.

Claims of academic consensus require sources specifically indicating there is a consensus, a list of quotes of the term in use doesn't cut it. They don't all agree anyway. Several specifically note the problems with the term, or are directly critical and dismissive of it. Two others apply it idiosyncratically (ie, saying that the century or so prior to Charlemagne could be called a "dark age", or that a philosophical "dark age" followed the Carolingian Renaissance); these can hardly be used to support claims of consensus. Several more offer no specific ending dates or are vague about it (for example the title The Dark Ages to the Renaissance, which is incidentally subtitled "700-1599 AD").

Here are things I think we agree on: (1). "Dark Ages" is a reference to the period of "darkness", real or perceived, in Western Europe, which is distinguished from earlier and later periods of "light". (2). Originally, this was taken to be the period after the extinguishing of the "light" of Rome, and before the "Renaissance"; this definition still has some popular traction. (3). Since the accomplishments of the Middle Ages have become better recognized, use of the term has been restricted, and is now more specifically applied to earlier parts of this period. The most popular dates for the end of the "dark age" include c. 750-800 (the approach of the "Carolingian Renaissance") and 1000-1100 (the approximate end of the Early Middle Ages). (4). The term is criticized by many modern scholars for its negative connotations, and many of them don't use it for any period. Howzat?--Cúchullain ^t/c 22:09, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Dark Ages = Early Middle Ages

This article devotes a lot of space to criticizing the terminology of "Dark Ages" as applied to the ENTIRE Middle Ages. Fine. But isn't it still commonly and legitimately applied to the EARLY Middle Ages? The article on "Early Middle Ages" verifies this and even gives a timeframe and helpful explanation of why this is so: "It lasted from about AD 500 to 1000.[1] The period featured raiding, migration, and conquest by Huns, Germanic peoples, Arabs, Vikings, Hungarians and others. There was frequent warfare and a virtual disappearance of urban life.[2]" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Middle_Ages). The first footnote for that article then gives precise dates supporting the timeframe but also signaling its flexibility; the source for the second sentence is from Encyclopedia Britannica 2009. I find this approach way more helpful than the current article which attacks the concept of "Dark Ages" in broad brushstrokes without first presenting how it is most commonly used by scholars.

I think the criticisms are all valid and worthy of note. But I think they are given undue weight in the introduction. There is a reference to the Early Middle Ages in the introduction, but then this is qualified and qualified again so the reader is left with no good definition. Plus, the sources mentioned don't seem to support this qualification of even the very narrow definition (i.e. Early Middle Ages).

Perhaps the term "Western Europe" would help clarify that this did not refer to Byzantium or Islam; the term "Latin West" might be confusing to readers.94.223.173.64 (talk) 23:01, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I was surprised to find this article to not be helpful at all to help me understand the Dark Ages. I agree with the above post which suggests that the criticisms about the term are valid and worthy of note, but the article never seems to get very far beyond that (overdone IMO) discussion. The article states that the Dark Ages were a time of "societal collapse". According to wikipedia that implys: "The common factors appearing to contribute to societal collapse are economic, environmental, social and cultural, but they manifest combined effects like a whole system out of balance. In many cases a natural disaster (e.g. tsunami, earthquake, massive fire or climate change) may seem to be an immediate cause. However, other cases of civilizations in similar situations that were resilient and survived the same kind of insult show that such causes are not sufficient." And this is what I had expected to learn from this article, yet there is little to nothing about the reasons for the collapse of the society of that time. Gandydancer (talk) 13:12, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

The "Dark Ages" are a construct, the term is not of any real significance. There is no meaningful definition; never was. Folks who try to nail one down are trying to reformat a subjective characterization of the Middle Ages in accordance with modern knowledge of such things as the 12th-century Renaissance and the accomplishments of the Byzantine and Islamic Empires. This article has always discussed the concept of a "Dark Age" descending after the fall of Rome, and this is a concept that has changed over time. Readers interested in the historical period are directed to our articles on the Early Middle Ages and Middle Ages.--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:29, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Clever use of flags

Eddie Izzard joked that England claimed the world through the clever use of flags -- humourously suggesting that they went around the world raising the Union Jack over unsuspecting local populations who were oblivious to the fact that they'd been punked, colonially speaking. This is what is sort of afoot in Wikipedia. For instance, when I bring up this article, the following legend appears across the top of the article: "This article discusses the term 'Dark Ages' as it is used colloquially, without a rigid adherence to the disciplined academic study of history. For a discussion of the historic era as referenced by scholarly sources, see Early Middle Ages and Middle Ages." I guess someone has decided that a great service to the Wikipedia users is to go around tagging the work that other people do with "this is rubbish," across the top, given that it's much easier than pointing out a specific fact to contest, or better yet, fixing whatever is wrong with the article. In most cases, these flags, however well intentioned they may have been, do precious little to shed any light on the thing being complained of. In the instant case, we are told that the article lacks "rigid adherence to the disciplined academic study of history." Hmm. I think that's supposed to tell me it's bad. But, I'm not sure. It also sounds like some sort of POV warning. But, an ambiguous one, to say the least. It lacks pinpoint precision. These ponderous, preachy sounding banners draped all over Wikipedia are themselves subject to the very academic and intellectual malaise that they so eagerly accuse all around. Everywhere, that is, except with themselves. Carlos_X (talk) 23:22, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Easy there, tiger. The banner does indeed smack of compromise. That's because some editors believe that an article with this title should be about the era (i.e., the Early Middle Ages in Western Europe) and its cause (i.e., societal collapse), because most WP users presumably visit the page with that very subject in mind. But other editors believe it should be about the history of the scholarly use of the term Dark Age(s), because they got here first, chose the title, and wrote about that subject (planted that flag, as it were).

What ensued was an edit war, or at least a long series of edit battles. If you care to conduct an archeological dig through the archives of this article's page, and especially of this (Talk) page itself, you'll see the fossils of those battles.

That banner represents the truce. Mealy-mouthed, yes. Inelegant, definitely. But the best that the two camps have been able to come up with. And the demilitarized zone is actively watched. If you'd care to take one of the sides, and edit boldly (in good WP fashion), you can probably watch a new battle ensue in a matter of hours, maybe minutes. Jmacwiki (talk) 03:24, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, if you look at the history, I put the flag there quite recently, following a disagreement that was mainly expressed on the talk page, where it belongs, as does mealy-mouthed and inelegant commentary. I was not involved in setting up the article, nor in setting its POV. I also edited the lead paragraph, in an effort to circumvent future argumentation ... it does hold to the original POV, though ... 'twas an effort to disentangle things, which (perhaps) will work itself out in the fullness of time. It was an early attempt, and certainly not a perfect one. The article is open for improvement: perhaps one of you will expend some effort in that regard?

Without getting specific, there seems to be a bit of sanctimonious preachiness discernible. But perhaps that is part of an effort to leave things better than they were found, and not a self-satisfying but unuseful passing of judgement upon the intentions of others. Regards, Notuncurious (talk) 04:31, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, I was certainly right that the border was being actively watched: Your edit came just over an hour after mine. ;-)

I can't comment on the preachiness here [I may be quite blind to my own]. But I can say that I was initially disappointed by the content of the article, as apparently many others have been before and since. And I tried, both in this article and some related ones (e.g., societal collapse, Dark_Ages_(disambiguation)), to either (a) express information that I felt was more likely to be useful to most readers or (b) find a middle ground. Some of the latter was partially successful. But at least the truce is less tiring to either read or fight than the battle. And, to be fair, it is now easy to get to the description of the era itself. Jmacwiki (talk) 04:33, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

The explanations are very much appreciated. The fact that contributors to this article took the time to read my post, and respond to it earnestly is commendable -- to say nothing of all the work you have put in to the entry, including the negotiation with people with diametrically opposed points of view. My only additional comment is simply this: think of the reader! Think of the high school student who will browse at the page for 10 minutes, or the person bringing up the page on their BlackBerry years hence. What I'm hearing is that the flag is a flag of truce, an accommodation worked out or in the process of being worked out, between those vying for editorial control of the article. But, that's not readily apparent to the reader, unless they start sifting through the layers of history and comment on the talk page. Shouldn't a flag have much more first blush worth than that? Carlos_X (talk) 22:31, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

The flag won't do, though, because it is grammatically ambiguous: This article discusses the term 'Dark Ages' as it is used colloquially, without a rigid adherence to the disciplined academic study of history - does that mean we discuss the term without reference to scholarship, or we discuss it as it is used by those who do not refer to scholarship? Presumably the latter, since the editors have worked hard at referencing serious literature, but it does sound like "the article is unscholarly". That needs rephrased just for that reason. Apart from that, I think the flag is wrong. The article does not focus on colloquial use. This article is a minefield, so I understand how difficult it is to get the right flag at the top, but I don't think this is it. --Doric Loon (talk) 13:51, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Chris Wickham's new book

The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000 By Chris Wickham Volume 2 of PENGUIN HISTORY OF EUROPE

An ambitious and enlightening look at why the so-called Dark Ages were anything but that

Prizewinning historian Chris Wickham defies the conventional view of the Dark Ages in European history with a work of remarkable scope and rigorous yet accessible scholarship. Drawing on a wealth of new material and featuring a thoughtful synthesis of historical and archaeological approaches, Wickham argues that these centuries were critical in the formulation of European identity. Far from being a middle period between more significant epochs, this age has much to tell us in its own right about the progress of culture and the development of political thought.

Sweeping in its breadth, Wickham’s incisive history focuses on a world still profoundly shaped by Rome, which encompassed the remarkable Byzantine, Carolingian, and Ottonian empires, and peoples ranging from Goths, Franks, and Vandals to Arabs, Anglo- Saxons, and Vikings. Digging deep into each culture, Wickham constructs a vivid portrait of a vast and varied world stretching from Ireland to Constantinople, the Baltic to the Mediterranean. The Inheritance of Rome brilliantly presents a fresh understanding of the crucible in which Europe would ultimately be created. 2009 - 650 pages

Looks like an interesting source. Dougweller (talk) 17:42, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Quite a good read, so far. --Kansas Bear (talk) 19:16, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Just curious, but: Why is this book review here? Is it just hyping book sales?

Or is the review a discussion of the subject of the article, i.e., the Dark Ages, or of the article itself? The very first point at the top of the article's Talk page is, This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. I think most readers and editors of this page recognize that the Middle Ages had many achievements. However, that is quite separate from whether there WERE Dark Ages somewhere, esp. in Western Europe, esp. for the first few centuries after the fall of Rome.

(As for the intellectual matter that these centuries were essential to forming the modern European identity: Sure, but so what? The Great Depression was crucial to the identity of a generation of Americans. Does that mean we laud its existence, and work to find all the advancements of the 1930's that weren't related to the Depression, in order to show how good life was in the US at the time -- that it wasn't really a Depression, just an unusually long sequence of merely economically inconvenient years?) Mackinaw (talk) 22:54, 13 February 2010 (UTE)

Presumably these editors are simply bringing up a work they feel can be used to benefit the article. This is totally appropriate. What's not appropriate is general discussion about the subject; ie, personal opinions on whether the Dark Ages really were "dark".--Cúchullain ^t/c 05:47, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I quite agree: It is not appropriate to invoke personal opinions about whether the coupled declines in population, trade, literacy, engineering, administration, and political stability (a societal collapse) in most of Western Europe between 400 and 800 occurred, especially north of Italy; and constituted a "Dark Age". They did, and they did. The former is a factual matter, the latter definitional.

But you would hardly get that impression from this article. If you wanted to read about that period in that region, and you were very lucky, you would go directly to Early Middle Ages. (Good luck with knowing about that direct route if you're the average WP reader!) If you were unlucky, you would go to the disambig. page, which would carefully try to steer you here first, where you would read about where you should have gone -- probably after reading this article telling you that it's not nice to use the phrase at all, lest you offend either the delicate sensibilities of those centuries or perhaps the particular academic discipline that no longer uses the phrase.

If we were trying to do a service to those who use the phrase too cavalierly, we would directly steer them to EMA and completely omit Middle Ages in the intro. Of course, to do them a real service, we would retitle this page "Dark Ages (historiography)" and redirect "Dark Ages" directly to the EMA page. (But that's just an opinion, albeit not personal. It is widely shared.) Jmacwiki (talk) 06:08, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Why in the world would I care about the sales of the book? I thought it was clearly relevant to the subject of the article and that someone might be interested enough to use it to improve an article that clearly needs work. I think retitling the article as you suggest is a brilliant idea, ditto the redirect. I'll start a new section heading. Dougweller (talk) 06:41, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

"Why in the world?" Because you might be flacking it, for all I know. The content and style had very much the form of a book review, not a common sight in Talk pages. Since you apparently aren't, I'm fine with it, though confused: If you think it's a good source of material for this article, why not just edit the article and cite it, instead of describing it? Jmacwiki (talk) 07:01, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

The reasons are perfectly clear to anyone who assumes good faith and has a modicum of deductive capacity. This was very obviously a simple attempt to bring to attention a potentially useful source.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:03, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I forgot to give the link where I found the review, that would have clarified it. As I don't have the book, I can't cite it. Dougweller (talk) 14:13, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Still a little essayish

While I think the article is pretty factually accurate, there are still some essayish theatrical rhetorics in some places that makes the text style a little annoying, f.ex. the slightly ridiculous pro-Catholic sentiments exemplified by f.ex.:

Burnet had a Protestant axe to grind and his use of the term is invariably pejorative.

(Silly tone!)

Baronius's "dark age" seems to have struck a chord with historians..

(Pling plong!)

Petrarch's original metaphor of light versus dark had been expanded in time, implicitly at least.

(Fluff! Specify!)

In the section Modern academic use that was marked {{Essay-like}} in Dec 2009, I couldn't find any essayishness, so someone must have cleaned that section since then. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 11:26, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Emphasis on Petrarch not justified

The idea that Petrarch coined or developed the word "Dark Ages", which is the organizing principle of this article, is a misinterpretation of Mommsen's essay. It's like someone just read the title and not the actual essay. "Dark Ages" is a translation of the Latin saeculum obscurum, a phrase coined by Caesar Baronius in the 16th century. It does not appear in Petrarch's writing. You can find this information now if you look deep in the article, but it belongs in the lede. Kauffner (talk) 12:57, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

The lede says: "The concept of a Dark Age originated with the Italian scholar Petrarch..." (my emphasis). It doesn't imply he created (or used) the phrase, and makes it clear that he thought of it somewhat differently than the later writers. I don't have Mommsen's article in front of my, but IIRC it says that Petrarch's comment about the Classical geniuses "shining forth" despite being surrounded by the "darkness" of Paganism was the first instance of the light-and-dark metaphor being used in the context of cultural achievement, rather than religion. Their "shining" opens up the obvious contrast with the later poets, who are in the dark due to their inferior writing. He also conceived of modern times (to him) as an era of "darkness", though he had a somewhat different view of when they had begun. In any event we can add some more on Petrarch to the lead, but we don't want it to get too clunky.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:06, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Baronius should be in the lede! He coined the word "Dark Ages" and he put it into scholarly history. Baronius' conception of a dark age is based on an analysis of literary output, not on Petrarch. As an aside, I should note that Petrarch was primarily a poet and that his views on history were a gimmick to promote himself and his poetry. They allowed him represented his poetry as the light that ended a thousand years of darkness. Petrarch could write poetry in Latin of Cicero and let other poets know that their language was inferior and corrupted. St. Paul wrote "Through a Glass Darkly", so the darkness/ignorance metaphor is hardly original to Petrarch. Kauffner (talk) 09:34, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Sure, Baronius could go in the lede. But Petrarch should stay too; Mommsen makes it clear that he was fundamental in developing the "dark ages" concept. Baronius et al had the same motivation – they wanted to imply that the post-Roman centuries were "dark" in comparison to the cultural "light" of earlier (and later) times. When I can get my hands on Mommsen's article again I'll double check what he actually says regarding Petrarch's use of the light and dark imagery and portrait of the "dark" modern times.--Cúchullain ^t/c 22:03, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Baronius did not coin the term Dark Ages. I forget who did but can dig it up. Plus, different countries call it different things, don't get too hung up on the English usage. The important thing is the concept of it all - what later generations called that concept, in which countries, is really almost a point of trivia. Green Cardamom (talk) 05:36, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Retitle article and redirect 'Dark Ages' to EMA

As per the suggestion above by Jmacwiki. This article should be about the phrase, EMA is our article about that time period. Dougweller (talk) 06:41, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, what this article "should" be about is open (I have no particular problem with what's been written in the article). However, its title is seriously misleading and does our readers a disservice. It should be titled to attract exactly the (few!) readers who want to understand the history of the term: "Dark Ages (historiography)". It doesn't. It misleading attracts people (I was one of them!) who are interested in the meaning of the phrase "Dark Ages". (This phrase has two primary meanings: EMA and societal collapse. Either might be an appropriate redirect.)

If you look up planet, you don't get a scholarly discussion of the history of this word (starting with "wanderer"). You get the content of its current meaning, perhaps with a little etymology thrown in. Likewise for spirit (starting with "breath"). And company (starting with "having bread together").

Does anyone know of ANY other WP page, of whatever title, that discusses, not the current meaning of its title, but only the history of its title? Jmacwiki (talk) 07:21, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

It does discuss the meaning of the title; the concept of a "dark age" that suppsoedly befell some part of Europe for a some period after the collapse of Rome. Readers looking for the actual history of the period are directed to Early Middle Ages and Middle Ages right at the top of the page.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:03, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

This again! Yesterday I was looking for an article on Philadelphia in Greece. So I typed in "Philadelphia". I got Philadelphia in the US. But the very first line of that article gave me a link to click which led me to what I actually wanted. I couldn't have been happier with that. We do not MISLEAD readers if an article is not about what they hoped to find in it; as long as that top line makes it quite clear what is here and where they have to go for something else, why on earth should anyone be upset about that?

In this particular case, the key point is that there is another, more correct, more scholarly, more appropriate title for the article on the period, namely EMA, so there is no serious discussion about putting THAT material here. Ergo there is nothing else we can sensibly do with this page apart from deal with the discussion about the merits and demerits of the PRASE dark ages.

We have had this discussion so many times and every time the logic of this has become clear. Would be good if we can leave it at that. --Doric Loon (talk) 23:51, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I think Jmacwiki's point is one of Wikipedia rules, namely, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. A very strong case can be made that the primary topic of "Dark Ages" is the European Middle Ages. Now, if you accept that (I think we all would), you would also assume the primary topic would be for the survey history (Early Middle Ages), and not the historiography, as Jmacwiki said above. I would agree with that also. But here's the problem: say you redirect Dark Ages->EMA .. well, EMA would then need a sub-section discussing the historiography of the term Dark Ages (since the term redirects to that article).. and if that sub-section existed, the redirect would have to go to that subsection (ie. "#REDIRECT Dark Ages -> Early Middle Ages#Dark Ages"), and that sub-section would be too big and would have to be split out to a separate article -> namely, this one!! So in the end, the person would be pointed back here anyway, in a confusing round-about. It's shorter, clearer and better to use top hat redirects and disambiguation pages as it currently is and let people click through to the EMA article or the DAB page. Green Cardamom (talk) 06:49, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

To clarify: This article should simply be retitled "Dark Ages (historiography)". It's a perfectly good article on that subject. But if I type "Dark Ages" into the search box when looking for an article on the Western European EMA (which is exactly what I did, originally), the title would tell me not to select this article. It fails to do that now.

We need an article about the era, with the title "Dark Ages". Presumably, such a new article would contain just a redirect to EMA, but that would be up to the new article's author.

As for Doric Loon's preference that we leave this alone, I submit that the only way this will really go away is if we either respect the principle of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC or convince the WP community to change that principle. Right now, we are in direct violation of it. Jmacwiki (talk) 18:35, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

One solution that has been brought up before would be moving this article to Dark Ages (historigraphy) or somesuch, and then moving Dark Ages (disambiguation) to Dark Ages. I would object to redirect "Dark Ages" to "Early Middle Ages" on the grounds that "Dark Ages" is so variously defined - the definition is different in nearly every source discussing it. I would also oppose creating a new article titled "Dark Ages" that is about the history of the era - we already have several relevant articles for that.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:58, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I would certainly favor a dab solution along these lines. "Dark Ages" is quite popular as a search term and I suspect that the overwhelming majority of readers are not seeking material about Petrarch and Mommsen. Kauffner (talk) 12:58, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Do you have any data to substantiate the statement that this is a popular search term? (I have only my personal experience.) Jmacwiki (talk) 00:22, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Jmacwiki, in regards to this: "We need an article about the era, with the title "Dark Ages"" .. the best and most reliable academic medieval historians don't use the term Dark Ages anymore. It would be a violation of WP:RS (reliable sources), one of the key concepts of Wikipedia. This issue will keep coming up because there are so many popular histories and older histories that use Dark Ages, but they are not reliable sources (for this topic), and as Cúchullain says there is no real common definition of Dark Ages. You assume Dark Ages is a real thing but it is not, it is an invented concept (technically a term of periodization), and that concept has changed with time and today is so highly controversial and mixed that it can't have a Wikipedia page without a long discussion about it (this article). Among the best most reliable sources, Dark Ages is no longer used and has been replaced with Early Middle Ages. Wikipedia reflects the best most reliable sources. Green Cardamom (talk) 16:26, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

If you are asserting (a) that societal collapse is not "a real thing", or (b) that Western Europe did not experience a dramatic decline during the EMA as a result of the collapse of the WRE -- including far more than a loss of mere literary output! -- then you have much to explain.

As for WP:RS, the current dab page seems to handle that matter gracefully. The reader is steered to pages that discuss what s/he may have had in mind, and those pages have appropriate sources. What wouldn't meet this standard under the retitling that I proposed -- the dab page itself??

If I read your POV correctly, it would be the right solution if WP's readers were primarily historians. They aren't.

Cutting to the chase: Please explain how this article is not a direct violation of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Jmacwiki (talk) 00:22, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Reference for Dark Ages of Latin Europe

I don't understand the reference placed by this sentence: " In the 19th century scholars began to recognize the accomplishments made during the period, thereby challenging the image of the Middle Ages as a time of darkness and decay." It links to this article: http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/renaissance.html

Nowhere in that article does it say anything about the Dark Ages being a misconception. It talks about the Renaissance, but states: "But if the Renaissance is a myth, the Dark Ages were, unfortunately, only too real." It then goes on to discuss why.

I don't know if this should have its own section- I don't usually do this, but I felt I should call attention to it. It seemed to me to be misleading- I went to it expecting to read about how the Dark Ages were in fact an enlightened period and ended up reading about the Renaissance. If anything, the article seems to reinforce the so-called myth it is being cited to debunk. I thought I should point it out.Fred Talle (talk) 10:19, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

The source equates Dark Ages with Early Middle Ages. Since it notes the various accomplishments of the High Middle Ages, it refutes the idea the Middle Ages was a dark age. Kauffner (talk) 13:23, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, exactly. Scholarship has challenged the notion that the entire Middle Ages were a time of darkness. When "Dark Ages" is now used it is usually tied specifically to the Early Middle Ages or to some part of it.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:33, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I see. My mistake, sorry. Fred Talle (talk) 23:23, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Henri Pirenne

There is no mention of the brilliant Belgian historian, Henri Pirenne, who concluded that there was indeed a Dark Age in Europe that coincided with the advance of Islam into Europe. The WP article on Henri Pirenne states, inter alia: "According to Pirenne, the real break in Roman history occurred in the 8th century as a result of Arab expansion. Islamic conquest of the area of today's south-eastern Turkey, Syria, Palestine, North Africa, Spain and Portugal ruptured economic ties to western Europe, cutting the region off from trade and turning it into a stagnant backwater, with wealth flowing out in the form of raw resources and nothing coming back. This began a steady decline and impoverishment so that by the time of Charlemagne western Europe had become almost entirely agrarian at a subsistence level, with no long-distance trade." Pirenne's conclusions correspond with on-the-ground facts such as the mining and destruction of antiquities for stonework, the disappearance of coinage, the advance of the slave trade, the destruction of art, music, and historical records, and the fortification of Christian communities. Santamoly (talk) 16:00, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I believe Pirenne is talking about what some have called the "Byzantine Dark Ages", which is said to have run from the Islamic conquests to the restoration under the Macedonian dynasty. This doesn't coincide exactly (or at all, really) with what English-speakers typically call the "Dark Ages". --Cúchullain ^t/c 19:08, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

The term Dark Ages is generally descriptive, not precise at all. The term according to the WP disambiguation page refers to ". . . a perceived period of decline experienced in Western Europe after the fall of Rome." It's the same phenomenon noted by Pirenne. Although you suggest that English speakers are thinking of something else, the perception is the same to Spanish, French, German, and Italian speakers. Pirenne's conclusions were particularly focused on the chill that arrived with the Arabs. The result was a cultural and economic darkness, coinciding with the Arab crushing of commerce and culture, albeit to different degrees in different regions. In Europe, where the Arabs conquered, darkness was the result. Santamoly (talk) 05:36, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but does Pirenne use the phrase "dark ages" or its equivalent? That's what this article is about - the concept and phrase. I think his work may be more appropriate for an article dealing with the actual history of the period, such as Early Middle Ages.--Cúchullain ^t/c 12:23, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I think we're going in circles now. The article says that the term "Dark Ages" "is frequently applied . . . to the earlier part of the era, the Early Middle Ages". Whether it's called "Dark Ages" or "Early Middle Ages", it appears that we're talking about the same thing. Pirenne made the effort to explain how the concept of cultural darkness in Europe arose from Islamic conquest, regardless of what we call it today. However, "Dark Ages" pretty well sums it up, and Pirenne provides the analysis. Without Pirenne, there's no reasonable explanation for the existence of the term "Dark Ages". Santamoly (talk) 04:47, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Hardly - the term pre-dates him by a long way, as the article explains. Johnbod (talk) 03:08, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

In the 19th century, the Dark Ages was the same as the Middle Ages. Pirenne demonstrated a "revival of commerce" around 1000. This is the basis of the EMA/HMA distinction. So to the extent that Dark Ages=EMA, it is due to his work. Kauffner (talk) 06:27, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

A gross overstatement. All sorts of other things distinguish 600 from 1100, or indeed Petrarch's lifetime. I very much doubt that many if any 19th writers used the term for the whole medieval period without discrimination - see the "enlightenment" section of the article. The !9th century was precisely when the romanticisation of the later medieval period was at its height. Johnbod (talk) 16:35, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

The practice of equating Dark Ages with Middle Ages derives from Henry Hallam, whose histories were influential in the 19th century. (The article credits Burckhardt, but it appears that he never used the term.)[9] Kauffner (talk) 13:03, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

The Pirenne Thesis is really rather old and outdated now, but important from a historiographical perspective. I'm not sure how important it is in the historiography of the term Dark Ages. Green Cardamom (talk) 21:25, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Google Books Ngram Viewer

Interesting graph courtesy Google Books:

Medieval,Dark Ages,Middle Ages,Early Middle Ages

There's a lot of interesting discussion here. One important point though, before anyone says "Dark Ages is more than Early Middle Ages", that is true only because there are far more popular books that serious academic books, Dark Ages can mean a lot more than just European history; and since 2000 Early Middle Ages has nearly doubled in usage, while Dark Ages has declined in usage, showing a trend where EMA will probably overtake DA in the next decade or so at current rates. Dark Ages is flat to declining while Early Middle Ages is rapidly rising, which confirms what the article says. --Green Cardamom (talk) 23:42, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Maybe I'm looking at the graph wrong, but it appears that "Early Middle Ages" has not increased significantly according the the chart, though it would look as if "Dark Ages" is declining somewhat. And if you believe the chart, it looks as if "Middle Ages" has been declining since the 40s, which simply cannot reflect the reality.--Cúchullain ^t/c 01:40, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

The idea that Christianity was opposing science during this time

I boldly edited the intro, attributing to "Anti-Christian scholarship" the idea of the Middle Ages as a time of backwardness. I hope that by doing so I am stating the mainstream view.

However, I feel that even if this is the modern, mainstream view, it would help our readers to be aware of other (even "fringe") views. Moreover, I am not sure if this is a case of:

• a mainstream view, which deserves proper emphasis, versus a marginal view which should not be given equal validity; or,
• a very popular current idea, which is opposed by enough scholars so that both views should be mentioned "fairly"

Please guide me, because I don't want to make any mistakes about this. --Uncle Ed (talk) 14:22, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

So far as I know the idea of the Middle Ages as backwardness became the mainstream view at a time when all Western scholarship was Christian scholarship. (E.g. mainstream scholars of the time worked on reconciling what they found in nature with the Book of Genesis.) And as far as I know, except for experts who know better and either disagree or have a more nuanced story to tell, that is still the mainstream view.

Apart from the question whether your change was correct (I guess it wasn't), by changing the text but not the source you may have misrepresented the source. The source makes it very clear that the reason the Middle Ages are presented negatively is that they were a simple society that resulted from the collapse of a complex one. We tend to see complexity (of a society) as desirable, so simplicity is considered bad.

Please provide the page number where the source mentions anything like "anti-Christian scholarship". Hans Adler 14:52, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Gosh, I didn't intend that at all. I have self-reverted and attributed to historian Jeffrey Burton Russell the idea that "anti-Christians" spread the now-discredited notion that medieval Christians believed in a Flat Earth. [10]

I hope this is better. --Uncle Ed (talk) 15:06, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I think that's overstating it a bit, and doesn't make it clear why it's in the intro. The flat earth business is only one of several things discussed in the "popular use" section, and anti-Christian bias doesn't appropriately describe the motivations of all (or even most, probably) of those who have propagated this kind of conventional wisdom. In some cases they are Christians themselves, trying to disparage other types of Christians; in some cases they are just characterizing the era in general without focusing on the religious elements; in some cases they are Hollywood filmmakers who just don't know any better; and in some cases they are more reacting to the Walter Scott-style romanticization of the middle ages than anything else.--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:31, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

In the West the question of being anti-science barely arose in this period, as there was so little science to be anti. The Eastern church can be accused, in the Late Antique/Early Byzantine period, of turning its back against the classical traditions of science it had inherited and then maintaining this position in later periods, as contrasted with the interest the Muslim world eventually took in Greek science. Johnbod (talk) 15:33, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Classical science was translated and received in the 12th century. Then in 1200-1400, there were a series of advances that pushed things into new territory: mechanical clocks, glass mirrors, spectacles, graphs, the blast furnace, the shift from Roman to Hindu-Arabic numerals, just to name a few.[11] The best-known anti-science Medieval philosopher is Duns Scotus. (From his name, the word "dunce.") But he represented an extreme position and the slogan of mainstream philosophy was "join faith to reason", i.e. they believed Christianity was true and that science was also true, and that someday a really smart guy would come along and explain how it all fit together. Kauffner (talk) 04:00, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

That's all after this period. Johnbod (talk) 04:57, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

It wasn't after the period according to Petrarch and the humanists, who came up with the "dark ages" concept to begin with. But I think we're getting away from the main discussion here, which is about conceptions of the "dark ages" in popular usage. Popular conceptions will be significantly different than those held by scholars--Cúchullain ^t/c 13:54, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Modern popular concepts of the Dark Ages can't be said to include the High Middle Ages, whatever Petrarch thought. Johnbod (talk) 02:58, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I gather that there is a modern consensus that Christian Europe did not return to a pre-scientific belief in a Flat Earth, but that there is still some debate over whether in general the West adopted a religiously motivated anti-scientific stance. Is this right?

Are there still historians (or other "verifiable sources") arguing about this? --Uncle Ed (talk) 12:13, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Restricting ourselves to the "Dark Ages" I don't think it is controversial that the achievements of classical science were largely not carried forward into "Dark Age" culture, with most texts just not making it through the Late Antique period. In the West, I don't think there is much evidence of "a religiously motivated anti-scientific stance" in this period - there just wasn't the science to be anti. The High Middle Ages are a different matter, and one must be careful to distinguish them. Johnbod (talk) 13:36, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)There is consensus that even in the Early Middle Ages, educated people in the West knew the earth was round, as seen in the writings of Boethius, Isidore of Seville, Saint Bede, and others. I don't think any scholar would suggest that the decline in scientific progress during the period was due specifically to a "religiously-motivated anti-scientific stance"; essentially all the scientific learning that was taking place at all was within the church, and there were many other factors in the decline. I suppose they might say that the Church didn't make science a big priority, or encouraged it chiefly only when it might serve some religious or social purpose. But again, the scholarly is different than the popular view, which generally does see the era as one of scientific retardation, and may blame the Church for that.--Cúchullain ^t/c 13:54, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

(unindent) I wonder if people are confusing Christian "anti-scientific thought" with Muslim or Islamic anti-scientific thought:

• ... the prominent Sufi scholar Abu Hamid al-Ghazali argued that the very idea that there were laws governing the physical universe was an attempt to limit Allah’s freedom and was therefore blasphemous. Muslims who argued for ideas like this were contradicting the Qur’an, making them infidels and thus subject to execution. [12] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ed Poor (talk • contribs) 16:54, 21 April 2010

It seems unlikely that anyone who knew enough about the history of Western civilization to identify part of it as the "Dark Ages" would ever confuse Muslim thinkers with Christians. That quote doesn't imply that "scientists were executed" by Muslims at any rate. There seems to be a detectable bent in your comments here.--Cúchullain ^t/c 17:41, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion: I did not sign my comment above. Also, I was quoting a Christian apologist, rather than a historian.

My only "bent" is that we should present an unbiased view of this historical period. If the "light" of learning was lost, let's say how much was lost and explain why. But let's also not accept uncritically any POV which says that Europe was more anti-scientific than it really was.

It seems to me that there are multiple views on how dark this period was, and that there is a vigourous dispute over the degree to which Christianity was responsible for making it dark (by opposing rationality), or for keeping the flame of reason alive. I hope to see Wikipedia present a balanced view on this: I neither want to promote nor condemn Christianity. (If I seem biased to you, I can drop out.) --Uncle Ed (talk) 18:13, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

The Christianity vs science meme originates with the trial of Galileo rather than from anything that happened during the Middle Ages. The documented Medieval science was typically sponsored by the church. Kauffner (talk) 12:38, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I disagree with this: "I don't think any scholar would suggest that the decline in scientific progress during the period was due specifically to a "religiously-motivated anti-scientific stance"." There is no historical doubt that "religiously-motivated anti-scientific stance" was largely responsible for causing and and maintaining the well named Dark Ages. The Christian persecution of Galileo, the "father of modern observational astronomy," the "father of modern physics," the "father of science," was no anomaly, it was a natural, borne of the times, of the Church. (Indeed, in the USA, in the last 40 years this "religiously-motivated anti-scientific stance" flowing on the back of increasing fundamentalism is gaining modern resurgence, as evidenced in public and private school's censored biology (RE: evolution) textbooks. The President of the United States defied critics of intelligent design and endorsed that it be taught by the end of 2005. In January 2006, the Governor of Kentucky promoted the theory while addressing the Commonwealth in a speech. It would be foolish to pretend this mind-set did not exist at the start of the Dark Ages, when Christianity essentially became law. )

Some history Re: Ancient Greek Philosophy: ...."Foiled in the attempt to resuscitate the old beliefs, its supporters then turned with fresh ardor to scientific work, and especially to the study of Plato and Aristotle, in the interpretation of whose works they rendered great services. The last home of philosophy was at Athens, where Proclus (411-485) sought to reduce to a kind of system the whole mass of philosophic tradition, until in 529 CE, the teaching of philosophy at Athens was forbidden by [the great Christian builder and despot, Eastern Roman Emperor] Justinian." http://www.iep.utm.edu/greekphi

Banning science as paganism. That's pretty specific, yet seemingly not well known.

Wikipedia on Justinian: "Perhaps the most noteworthy event occurred in 529 when the Neoplatonic Academy of Athens was placed under state control by order of Justinian, effectively strangling this training-school for Hellenism. Paganism was actively suppressed."

"Paganism" is a word of Christian historians, it includes "the study of Plato and Aristotle."...that is: philosophy and science. When discussing anti-Christian bias, we must NOT forget Christian bias: the early historians, and most of western culture. "The last home of philosophy." Can there be any doubt?

Doug Bashford--68.127.85.141 (talk) 18:47, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

You're getting muddled trying to trace a theme over hundreds and hundreds of years of history. Obviously the 17th-century trial of Galileo, and any comments by modern American politicians (!), occurred many years after anyone would consider the "dark ages" to have ended. In the 5th-7th centuries in Western Europe, it is not accurate to say that the Church had any greater "anti-scientific stance" than the rest of society at large. There were lots of factors in the decline, and obviously the secular powers were no more interested in science than the church was. Indeed, virtually all scientific learning that was going on at all was happening at the cathedral schools and monasteries.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:15, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

I was "muddled?" Thanks for your input. Sorry, I had thought by stating the facts and premises, the implied argument would follow naturally, be obvious. Let my try to clarify. The reason I included Age of Enlightenment (aka Age of Reason) and modern examples, etc was to highlight the power of the Church in post-Dark Ages times and even now, to subvert science and reason. And thus — if it's so powerful even now, — then imagine how much more powerful and influential the Church was over society in the backwards, theocratic and superstitious Dark Ages where kings, popes, and institutional stagnation ruled. Freedom of thought and science were not only illegal, they were also socially taboo! In 1784, Immanuel Kant described the Age of Enlightenment simply as the freedom to use one's own intelligence! I attempt to bring thought itself into historical context, else we are certain to be lost in an alien topic of gibberish.

The Renaissance encompassed a partial resurgence of thought and learning based on old pre-Christian, pre-Dark Age classical sources. But civilization did not actually move forward to new ground until the Enlightenment of the 1700's which spawned among many other new and powerful ideas and values; capitalism, the USA, and wide-spread democracy. For example, the United States Declaration of Independence reflects boiler-plate Enlightenment values of self rule, and individual and social freedom, as well as values against authoritarian government and corporate monopolies (all of which have seemingly since faded).

"Historian Peter Gay asserts the Enlightenment broke through "the sacred circle," whose dogma had circumscribed thinking. The Sacred Circle is a term used by Peter Gay to describe the interdependent relationship between the hereditary aristocracy, the leaders of the church and the text of the Bible. This interrelationship manifests itself as kings invoking the doctrine "Divine Right of Kings" to rule. Thus church sanctioned the rule of the king and the king defended the church in return." quote from: Age of Enlightenment.

You (and others here) claim: "Indeed, virtually all scientific learning that was going on at all was happening at the cathedral schools and monasteries." Yet I think it's important to know that claim seems to be the quasi-official stance of many or most of the churchly historians.

For example, one of the three "following external Web sites" suggested by www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/151663/Dark-Ages is http://www.allabouthistory.org/the-dark-ages.htm a Christian version of reality, also unhappy with modern times also makes that claim. And as is typical of "Christian history," they equate the fall of Western Rome with the fall of of the Roman Empire! They then devalue the rise of the Eastern Roman Empire (the Byzantine Empire) and the effects of those like its Christian ruler Justinian had in banning science and philosophy. ("Our 21st Century world is no less dark," that Web site claims.)

You claim "the secular powers" were also not interested in science? Huh!? There were no secular powers!

"Just as the thought of the ancient world was dominated by philosophy, so was the thought of the Middle Ages dominated by Christian teachings." .... "For nearly 1,000 years it overshadowed the search for philosophy and tolerated no opposition." from: http://library.thinkquest.org/3075/mediev2.htm

True, Justinian alone in 529 CE, nor any of the other things I cited caused the Dark Ages. But the Dark Ages were caused in large part by the things that these are the icons for. These institutionalized thinking disorders were the norm. They represent a society, a culture, and a way of thinking, including dictatorial taboos and thought restrictions dictated from above. Many, if not most of the notable Christian scholars were most often based in the philosophies that Justinian and other Christian clergy banned as paganism, -- or in imported Muslim science, math, and literature. These historical facts are not hidden away, obscure, nor disputed. However, they have been banned in American public high schools and seemingly been made taboo in the common Mass Media by what seems to be a rising global tendency towards theocracy.

Doug Bashford--71.142.9.117 (talk) 23:20, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Why the "map" instead of the "territory"?

An analysis of the name should not take priority over an article about the subject it describes.

The search for "dark ages" sent me to this extensive but biased analysis of the EXPRESSION "dark ages", when chances are that most users are, like me, looking for the "Early Middle Ages" article - even if they didn't know the new politically correct denomination. This deviates atention from the core features and issues of the "Early Middle Ages", increasing the chances that users end up learning nothing about it, but a disguised defence of the roman church rule.

It's like directing a search for "jihad" or "holy war" to a discussion about the origin, fairness and historical uses of those names, instead of one about holy wars of the past, justification of exceptions by religions, mass murders, etc. It is unfair, misleading and inadequate - but easy to fix. I don't know how or would do it myself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sysfx (talk • contribs) 22:39, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

This article gets a huge number of hits, almost 40,000 a month. I can't believe so many people want to read about Petrarch, or be lectured about their word usage. Most presumably want material on the Middle Ages. The solution is to move the text at Dark Ages (disambiguation) to this page and move the material here to "Dark Ages (term)", or something like that. This would require a vote on this page as well as two page moves. But of course we have had this discussion before. I should explain that the logic behind doing it this way has nothing to do with religion. It was Catholic historians who created the EMA/HMA distinction so that the "bad" parts of the Middle Ages could be thrown into EMA and thus separated from HMA, which could then be portrayed as a flowering of Christianity. The motivation for condemning the use of the term "Dark Ages" is instead relativism and a fear of making negative judgments, even when the people concerned have been dead for over 1000 years. Kauffner (talk) 07:52, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I've suggested such a move several times in the past, but so far no one has made much effort to move in that direction. And the motivation for avoiding the use of the term "Dark Ages" in serious discussion of the Middle Ages (no one is condemning anything) is that it is so associated with inaccurate conceptions that using it just reinforces misconceptions.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:28, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

This is a histiography article. See talk archives for responses to this point, which has been gone over at least two dozen times over the past 5 years or so. We already have history articles on this topic, Middle Ages, so we are using the name place-holder for a history of the term Dark Ages, which is largely antiquated among professional Medieval historians. Green Cardamom (talk) 21:28, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Even better, Sysfx, just read the above section, "Retitle article and redirect 'Dark Ages' to EMA", which goes over the argument. This article's title promises that it is about the era, but it is not. This is a direction violation of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Sysfx's complaint is yet more evidence that it misleads many WP users. (And I agree with Kauffner that it probably misleads most users who come to this page, though that is just a guess on my part.)

The fact that we have had this argument so many times, for so many years, is damning evidence that the title does not accurately match the content, and that lots of people who come here want the content of either societal collapse or Early Middle Ages. (No, not the full Middle Ages. That, and explaining yet again that the High Middle Ages weren't dark are just red herrings). Jmacwiki (talk) 01:49, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Look: Does anyone want to move the article Early Middle Ages here? No, because EMA is the better term. Does anyone want to duplicate that article here? No, duplication is not helpful. So does anyone want this article title for a different content? No. On the other hand, do we need an article on the lively debate which has taken place on the terminology of darkness? Yes, it is a big and important issue. Is there a more appropriate title under which to put that content than simply "Dark Ages"? Not really: "Dark ages controversy" or "Dark ages (historiography)" would be the best alternatives, but we only use clumsy titles like those if the simpler title is needed for other content.

Do some people come here when they are looking for the material that is under EMA? Yes, undoubtably. Are those people being misled? No, because the first sentence they find here tells them where to go to find what they want. Do we normally get upset if we go to a Wikipedia article mistakenly expecting a particular content and find a different content? Not if we get an immediate warning and can go where we want to be with just one click.

This article needs to be improved. It would be great if those of you who have time to be involved here would put your energies into that. --Doric Loon (talk) 09:53, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

... article needs to be improved? Use WP:SUMMARY over Early Middle Ages. J. D. Redding

D.L. is wrong on one point, I believe: "So does anyone want this article title for a different content?" Yes, that is precisely the point: content about Dark Ages generally! The EMA, absolutely, and up front (but only synopsized here: DL is quite right that duplicating that article is not appropriate). But also synopses and links for the apparently catastrophic Greek Dark Ages, the fate of Cambodia after the disappearance of the Khmer empire, Easter Island, arguably the post-Soviet period in Russia (probably too recent for generalizations, though), etc.

I.e., discussion of the aftermath of societal collapses, the paths that societies take out of them, or the reduced state that they remain locked into until they go extinct as societies or are taken over by other peoples. What facts archeologists and historians have pieced together about the individual cases, the speculations they have voiced, and, especially, the generalizations they have reached. And, yes, a brief note on the history of term (with links to the current content, of course) -- exactly as we might do for "planet".

All in the article titled "Dark Ages". Jmacwiki (talk) 20:30, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

What you're talking about is a totally different article than this one, which has had basically the same scope for six or so years. If you want to write an article like that, I would suggest you go ahead, but place it at a different title. When and if it comes together, we can discuss the move options. I doubt an article like the one you are describing will really come together, however, as I've not seen a lot of sources who discuss the supposed phenomenon of various societies' "dark ages" all together.--Cúchullain ^t/c 01:59, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, what I am talking about is indeed a totally different article, because this article is the wrong one for this title. That is precisely the point. This article is about the map, not the territory. The title should be removed from this article and given to one about the territory. This article should be retitled "Dark Ages (historiography)".

If this article has had basically the same scope for 6 years, then for 6 years it has been systematically mis-recruiting readers, except possibly for the tiny fraction that are professional historians.

As for whether there are sources who discuss various societies' "dark ages" collectively, we could at least start with the obvious ones that look at the consequences of societal collapse, such as Jared Diamond's Collapse and others mentioned on that page (Toynbee's, Tainter's, Wright's, etc.) Jmacwiki (talk) 06:09, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

We shouldn't move this article based on some theoretical article that doesn't even exist yet. When and if an article like the one you're describing is created (and vetted), we can discuss the move options then. Currently, the only real options are (1) this article stays at this title, (2) "Dark Ages" becomes a disambiguation page, or (3) "Dark Ages" redirects to an extant article such as Early Middle Ages. 1 has worked for the last 6 or 7 years; 2 is also feasible; 3 is very unlikely to happen.--Cúchullain ^t/c 18:07, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I guess it should be possible to send searches for both "Dark Ages" and "Early Middle Ages" to the "Early Middle Ages" article and rename this article "Dark Ages (historiography)" as previously suggested. This will save time for users and spare them from reading this (comparatively irrelevant) discussion about the name. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sysfx (talk • contribs) 18:32, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Biased?

Reading this page for the first time (May 25, 2010), I come away with a large impression of bias. The whole thing reads like a one-sided argument (apologetics). References like (42), the Ronald Numbers lecture, state that many ideas surrounding the dark ages are myths, but does not explain or provide evidence as to why. The lecture itself is very one-sided in trying to defend Christianity from its opponents, with arguments such that Galileo wasn't that mistreated since he had a cushy cell. This article needs arguments from both sides. The aspect of dark-ages-as-less-documented as well covered, but other uses such as the enlightenment negative view need to be addressed with a segment arguing for and against with references that contain full arguments or provide evidence if one side is truly more accurate. I was hoping to try to learn more about possible causes and theories for the poor quality of life and technological stagnation of the middle ages, but instead this reads: "the middle ages weren't THAT bad", "we're concerned about the negativity of the term", "it is hard to find a way to deal with this that doesn't make Christianity look bad, but we'll try", and provides many cited resources that try to apologize and mitigate the conditions of the time rather than deal with any real issues. Yes the term is loaded, but there are valid and important reasons for it to be that should be documented rather than avoided and ignored. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.80.241.21 (talk) 22:38, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

I too felt a lack of neutral POV on this article. To me the entire article feels like a huge essay on Christian apologetics instead of focusing on events and time lines that you would expect to see under an article with the word "age" in it. I expect articles like this to be on conservapedia, not wikipedia. Not once is there any mention of the many verses in the bible that blatantly say that the earth is on foundations, so that it will not move, that the waters below were seperated from the waters above, that the sky is a solid Firmament that had windows that were said to have been open to release the flood waters during the Noah's arc tale, or the many verse that speak of the "four corners of the Earth". Surely there were those scholars that still held to the sciences of the Greeks and Romans, but to read this essay you would walk away assuming that everyone during the dark ages believed the spherical Earth...when obviously it was in conflict with scripture, which was blasphemy. I would very much like to dot a few sentence and maybe a paragraph on this page, but something tells me I will be in the middle of an edit war if I say something negative about religion or say something that doesnt make religion look like science. Bare minimum if I dont get a reply I will put on tags disputing a neutral point of view on the offending sentences and statements.Cosmicforums (talk) 02:35, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Try Myth of the Flat Earth. This is not a history article but a historiography article, and you are dealing mainly with a remark in passing, which is only a tiny aspect of the subject. Johnbod (talk) 03:12, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Well Johnbod, since this is a historography, you would surely not complain if I placed a remark or 2 in passing from the book "Holy Horrors" by James Haught on life in the Dark Ages as well. I of course am trying to asume this article is done in good faith and also wishing to uphold the Neutral POV of Wikipedia as well. I see now that this is just one article in the "middle ages" wiki portal, so I am no longer worried about the time line, seeing as the portal itself constitutes the time line.Cosmicforums (talk) 18:22, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Who is he? Is he an reliable source? Please consider WP:UNDUE first. Johnbod (talk) 00:46, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

---

The bias struck me as blatantly obvious. All referenced historians(1 2 3) are in some way associated with the History of Science_Society, and their statements are presented as fact. At the very least it should be stated that -some historians argue- that rationality etc are in high regard. (In reality it was probably not black and white, but this sentence is IMHO.) Atomicdryad (talk) 19:19, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

One would think that recieving awards from the History of Science Society (world’s premiere society in the field of the history of science[13]) is actually a good thing. --Leinad-Z (talk) 22:20, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

From what I gathered, the History of Science Society is not only the oldest and most prestigious institution of its kind, it is also the largest one, with the membership of more than 3,000 historians of science from all over the world. I don't know how to be associated with it can be presented as something suspicious. That said, Lindberg and Numbers do seem to share many projects. For instance, they are the chief editors of the 8-volume "Cambridge History of Science". --Leinad-Z (talk) 16:33, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, there's nothing to this complaint. There is absolutely no reason to dismiss those scholars because they are associated with an academic society in a relevant field. That would be like dismissing them because they all have Ph.D.s in relevant disciplines. That's the opposite of what Wikipedia should be doing. Additionally, Atomicdryad's suggestion of adding phrases like "some historians argue" would just introduce weasel words. This would only give the appearance of neutrality, but in fact would just distort the text.--Cúchullain ^t/c 18:07, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Avoiding bias

The section that deals with science and rationality was marked by Atomicdryad to be checked. I don't know how this process works, but I assume that eventually someone will come to this page and evaluate the section. As the main contributor for the text, I'd like to make some considerations.

• Some years ago, I listened to this course and was surprised by how different medieval science was from my initial suppositions. Further reading soon revealed that scholars are aware of the striking differences between popular views on medieval science and the understanding of specialized historians.
• IMO, the main reason this section is being contested is the failure of current popularizers (the media, etc.) in communicating the actual views of scholars. ... (If it was not for the reading that I've been doing, I would also be thinking that the section may be biased.)
• In this article, before highlighting direct quotations, I took great care to check if those scholars were solid and recognized academics -- and they are. It actually seems that they are second to none regarding the topic.
• I think the views expressed by the quotations in the article are mainstream among the specialized historians. As such, it is inappropriate to fill the section with "some argue that" and equivalent weasel words.

The bottom line is: to do a good evaluation of the section one needs to be familiarized with the academic understanding on the topic, which differs from popular notions. To simply follow "common sense" and "what everyone knows" here is more likely to introduce bias than to eradicate it. The WikiProject History of Science probably should be involved. For instance, I can think of one or two professional historians of science there who may give invaluable advice here. --Leinad-Z (talk) 16:33, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Spot on.--Cúchullain ^t/c 18:07, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I suspect it 'is' a matter of bias, or at least current thought, that the Early Middle Ages (at least) was a relatively dim period. The argument is solid that empires were lost to feudalism, and this transformation hampered collective reason and innovation. Poverty, plagues, "barbarian" invasions, monarchial competition all contributed. It need not be a singular criticism of early Christianity because it likely would have occurred anyway since there were many factors involved. ZincOrbie (talk) 04:58, 17 March 2011 (UTC)