My father has been a history teacher for 40 years and believes the Dark Ages were called such because of the loss of knowledge following the fall of the Holy Roman Empire. I think the term is somewhat metaphorical and a misnomer.
Who is in the right here?
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further proof that the public school system is fricked
This is a bait thread
I am deadset serious. He works at a Catholic school.
I can totaly imagine a guy who is not passionate about history and just teaches what he learned 40 years ago. But yeah op is trying a bit to hard with
>my father [is old] and believes [an old, disproven view on how things worked]. I think [the current consensus on the thing]. who is in the right here?
Its called that because theres a period between the collapse of Rome and the 10th century when theres a lack of written sources caused by multiple reasons (loss of codices, illiterate migrants, etc.) so we know relatively little about the period.
The Dark Ages weren't so dark. The term came from the Renaissance when it was popular for scholars to disparage everything that came before them as ignorant. The modern scholarship takes a more nuanced view.
>The modern scholarship takes a more nuanced view.
Modern scholarship also takes the view that the Ottoman Empire didn't decline, but simply adapted to existing political and economic circumstances in such a way that it continued to lose territory until it was dismantled and collapsed.
Worth a watch.
I mean, it certainly applies to post-roman britain all the way up until the saxons consolidated power there
>the Dark Ages were called such because of the loss of knowledge following the fall of the Holy Roman Empire.
>fall of the HRE
So the Dark Ages began in 1806?
It was definitely a dark time to be alive during the reign of Napoleon.
Yes
It's about the lack of written sources for what happened after the fall of the roman empire on the period of germanic kingdoms like the visigoths or the merovingians
>Guys the dark ages weren't real
>Monks kept writing alive and some people could be educated through the church
>Yeah, there was a near apocalyptic 18 months of no sun in 536 ad, doesn't mean the dark ages were dark lol
>Yeah Byzantium lost 50 percent of its population, so what? The Scandinavians lost 80 percent of their population? Who cares, it's not a dark age just cause Rome fell
>Yes, Rome disappeared as a centralizing power but the church was still there. Yeah running water from mountain tops stopped in most cities due to population decline but that doesn't mean it was a dark age
>So what if without centralized power hundreds of small petty kings ruled as petty warlords in places once highly organized like France. Doesn't mean there is a dark age
I just think it's silly to get so uptight about the use of the phrase "dark age." During the fall of any centralized power there is usually a dark age.
for the average guy, nothing much changed. the process of de-centralization started many decades before the fall of western rome, with many people moving to the countryside becoming subsistence farmers, because the constant civil wars making the grain fleets unreliable. and there is nothing wrong with decentralization.
I don't think there's anything wrong with decentralization, but there's still the whole issue of massive population decrease (not just in cities) and most educational institutions ceasing to function in western Europe aside from the church. Dark ages is a fitting title for that time period.
>Roman Empire falls
>Scandinavia loses 80 percent of its population
That has more to do with the sun disappearing for 18 months. Possibly that's the root of Ragnarok mythology in Scandinavians.
the dark ages have existed and lasted only a few centuries after the fall of the roman empire.
the problem is morons expanding the dark ages across the entire medieval period
The Crusades is a great marker for when Europe begins to develop beyond what they were during the Roman era. City planning still wasn't as good but tech totally shifted in an entirely different direction. Before that era it's like 500 ad to 800 / 900 ad is an extension of the iron ages. Especially while big migrations are still happening 450 ad to 700 ad
The time between the fall of the western roman empire and the emergence of the carolingian empire was a veritable dark age but the people who extend the definition to the 15th century or whenever they think the renaissance started in earnest are moronic
I considerably history before William's 1066 Conquest to be the dark ages.
Based dad. He's right
>i have no rod and i must bait