Why did the historians coin the term Dark Middle Ages?

Answer 1

Not really. In terms of death, destruction, human misery and despair, it's hard to beat the 20th century, which saw two catastrophic world wars, the Holocaust, the AIDS epidemic, and widespread famine in Asia and Africa, just to name a few of the century's "darkest" moments.

Answer 2

The term Dark Ages (middle 5th to the 11th centuries) refers to a time when there was a decreased literary output, which is taken to show a decrease in learning and literary activity. An investigation of the time shows that it was not uniform in its nature, especially as regards intellectual output.

Many things were invented or introduced during this period, including horse shoes, stirrups, the heavy plow, the horse collar, new types of crop rotation, new types of tidal and wind mills, grinding wheels, early oil based paint, improved soap, and so on. The thing that distinguishes most of this is not that there was no invention, but that the inventions were unrecorded, and so no names or dates can be talked about.

There was a long period of building an amalgam of Roman and Germanic Laws, that eventually resulted in the Carolingian legal system. Since the Germanic judges were people who had to memorize the laws, much of their work and knowledge is unrecorded, until a change came when the laws were all written.

Art works of this period are also not well represented, largely because of decay. What we have from such discoveries as Sutton Hoo show a high degree of competence in fine gold work, embroidery, and so on.

Schools were being opened during this time. The Visigoths were opening schools at a time when they were also contesting the question of whether they were in the Roman Empire or not, the early 6th century. Anglo-Saxons opened schools, beginning in the 6th century, and some of these remain open today. Charlemagne opened schools, as well, and some of these are still open.

The decline of the Roman Empire began about two hundred years before the Dark Ages started, and the Dark Ages are probably best seen as a time of recovery.

Answer 3

The term Dark Ages is used to describe a two periods in Western human history.

One definition is of that period falling between the end of classical antiquity (the fall of Rome) in the fifth century and the beginning of the Italian renaissance around the end of the 13th century. This definition is out of favor among historians partly because it is considered far too sweeping and, of course, denigrates the history and achievements of those who lived in those ages we no longer consider to be quite so dark.

The other definition covers the entire period of the Middle Ages, approximately between the fifth and fifteenth centuries, when classical learning was considered to have been lost. This term is no longer used by historians.

Neither application of the term Dark Ages makes much sense today in light of our constantly expanding knowledge of this period of Western history. Since the term was first used in the fourteenth century, by the Italian scholar known in English as Petrarch, we have gradually thrown light upon medieval times in a manner not possible during Petrarch's time, though some historians then did dream of a future where more of the past would be revealed.

How interesting that the further into the future we move, the more we learn about the distant past.