The 'Dark Ages' Weren't as Dark as We Thought • Hacker News Board

Re: The 'Dark Ages' Weren't as Dark as We Thought

#221

Post by atoav » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 7:53 AM UTC

scarmig wrote: post #185

ardit33 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not correct. They were much worse indeed. Remember, Romans had a fairly advanced society, and buildings, architecture, and infrastructure. Roads crossing whole regions, (the highways of the time), aqua-ducts, ways to dispose sewage, etc... This all slowly degraded and eventually disappeared with the fall of the empire. Stone building were replaced by mud huts, and I don't know about you, but not having running water…

You can't compare Britain in the post-Roman area with Rome at the height of empire. London in the "Dark Ages" didn't have aqueducts. But Londinium was part of the periphery of the empire, and it also never had aqueducts. There's not that much information to be gained by cherry picking the elements of the central core of the Roman Empire and asking why they weren't present in far flung areas in the post-Roman era. Ske…

It was always my impression that the term “dark ages” was never about quality of life, but created in opposition to the enlightenment (partly because we don’t know much about that age, partly because of the role superstition and belief held in documented cases).

In Austria and Germany most people descripe the Nazi era also as “dark times”, despite there beeing roads built (although the Nazis were so in debt at the beginning of the war already that you can hardly call this a success).

So dark has multiple definitions. I thought the most.common one was about a time where rational thought and humanism didn’t really win, but tribal rivalry (on any scale) and radical beliefs did

Re: The 'Dark Ages' Weren't as Dark as We Thought

#222

Post by Bayart » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 8:02 AM UTC

coliveira wrote: post #94

smacktoward wrote: post #43

> The true “dark age,” of course, was the early 1940s when, simply as a side effect of industrial killing, great swathes of the past disappeared. One small yet major example—the extraordinary series of paintings of the visions of Hildegard of Bingen, made in the 1170s either by the saint herself or under her supervision, disappeared in the general catastrophe that unfolded in Dresden in early 1945. We only know what…

The so-called dark ages are not much worse than other periods of human history when there is were no large government institutions. With the end of the Roman Empire in the west, Europe came to be ruled by local tribes, in the same way that happened throughout history. Europeans demonstrated to be as barbarians as any other group of people in the world that had no strong institutions to protect society from their imme…

>Europe came to be ruled by local tribes, in the same way that happened throughout history. Europeans demonstrated to be as barbarians as any other group of people in the world that had no strong institutions to protect society from their immediate power urges.

It really wasn't. As Roman imperial faded in, agents that were Roman auxiliaries filled the void with the support and help of local authorities, chiefly senatorial families and the Church (filled with members of senatorial families), which kept being a structuring force for society during lulls in civil government.

Stable government recovered relatively quietly and frankly certain areas were better off in terms of peace after the Western part of the empire « collapsed » than during the strife preceding it. Areas that were really worst off got ravaged by civil war, not tribal violence (such as is the case with Italy).

I recommend Karl Ferdinand Werner's books on the subject, the transition between Imperial Roman Gaul and Frankish(-Roman) Gaul. But his paper La "conquête franque" de la Gaule : itinéraires historiographiques d'une erreur (The "Frankish conquest" of Gaul : historiographical itineraries of an error) is enlightening and short, if you can read French.

The narrative of the Late Antiquity/Early Medieval "barbarian invasions" is known to be complete rubbish, don't fall for it.

Re: The 'Dark Ages' Weren't as Dark as We Thought

#223

Post by Bayart » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 8:05 AM UTC

Gibbon1 wrote: post #179

ardit33 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not correct. They were much worse indeed. Remember, Romans had a fairly advanced society, and buildings, architecture, and infrastructure. Roads crossing whole regions, (the highways of the time), aqua-ducts, ways to dispose sewage, etc... This all slowly degraded and eventually disappeared with the fall of the empire. Stone building were replaced by mud huts, and I don't know about you, but not having running water…

> Stone building were replaced by mud huts, and I don't know about you, but not having running water in your town, or paved roads to the next town or port seem like huge drawbacks to life quality. I read somewhere that skeletal remains show people got taller after the end of the Roman empire. And then started getting shorter through the Renaissance right up till the agricultural revolution in the early 20th century.

That's the thing with urbanization : it's great for production and capital but it's terrible for your health. The industrial revolution was very much a low point in human welfare.

Re: The 'Dark Ages' Weren't as Dark as We Thought

#224

Post by michaelscott » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 8:10 AM UTC

cerealbad wrote: post #39

I would love to see a reasonable explanation for the rapid development of Western Europe. The henge circles all across the world (including the new world) show an advanced mathematics and astronomy for thousands of years before the rise of settler empires say parity ~9000 BC. Jump forward all the way to the late 1800s and despite the glacial pace of social change in Russia they are still designing one of the best rif…

I have a pet theory about this and the development of "advanced" civilization in general, that civilizations always advance relatively rapidly due to constant conflict. It doesn't necessarily have to be military conflict, but it generally seems to have been right up to the 20th century.

Because Europe is geographically small, the probability of neighbour conflict is always very high especially when that small space contains such a high degree of variation in language and culture. If you add a particularly ambitious, capable and politically-placed individual to that mix like an Alexander the Great you tend to get empires forming.

I don't think this is specific to Europe at all; Asia has experienced similar rapid development throughout its history, many times being very technologically advanced from a global perspective, and the origin of smaller empires like the Aztecs, Iroquois and the Oyo in other parts of the world.

Re: The 'Dark Ages' Weren't as Dark as We Thought

#225

Post by acqq » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 8:13 AM UTC

z3phyr wrote: post #219

Balgair wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Dark Ages were very much regional, with separate areas undergoing their own eras of 'darkness' and losing communication with the rest of the world. Interestingly, Ireland during the 400's to 600's was something of a bastion of Catholicism and 'western/classical' thought in their monasteries. Even though Britain was very pagan and 'dark', Ireland remained 'enlightened' at this time (though the populace was still v…

Pagan does not constitute dark. Most of the pagans recorded history when they were in power.

Yes, the term is problematic: "pagan" was traditionally just a derogatory term:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paganism

"The notion of paganism, as it is generally understood today, was created by the early Christian Church. It was a label that Christians applied to others, one of the antitheses that were central to the process of Christian self-definition. As such, throughout history it was generally used in a derogatory sense. - Owen Davies, Paganism: A Very Short Introduction, 2011"

Re: The 'Dark Ages' Weren't as Dark as We Thought

#226

Post by agent008t » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 8:13 AM UTC

scarmig wrote: post #185

ardit33 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not correct. They were much worse indeed. Remember, Romans had a fairly advanced society, and buildings, architecture, and infrastructure. Roads crossing whole regions, (the highways of the time), aqua-ducts, ways to dispose sewage, etc... This all slowly degraded and eventually disappeared with the fall of the empire. Stone building were replaced by mud huts, and I don't know about you, but not having running water…

You can't compare Britain in the post-Roman area with Rome at the height of empire. London in the "Dark Ages" didn't have aqueducts. But Londinium was part of the periphery of the empire, and it also never had aqueducts. There's not that much information to be gained by cherry picking the elements of the central core of the Roman Empire and asking why they weren't present in far flung areas in the post-Roman era. Ske…

The more primitive the society, the healthier skeletons you will find. Because in a primitive society only the healthiest and the fittest can survive. Whereas an advanced society can take care of the weak and the sick.

Re: The 'Dark Ages' Weren't as Dark as We Thought

#227

Post by nonbel » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 8:14 AM UTC

xefer wrote: post #28

The thing that stands out for me about this period is the lack of a "descent from antiquity". [1] There is no well-established genealogical descent in Western Europe from antiquity to the modern era. Familial lines of descent can be traced to the very late Roman period, and from the early medieval period to the modern era. But there is a chasm that can't be crossed because the societal norms that allowed families to…

Very interesting, I hadn't heard of this issue.

Others have reported issues with archaeological and historical evidence from this same period, proposing that up to 700 years of mainstream chronology shouldn't be there: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19745763

Especially interesting from your link is that all the royal lines of Europe trace their origins to Charlemagne, who according to these alternative chronologies was probably a myth.

Re: The 'Dark Ages' Weren't as Dark as We Thought

#228

Post by Bayart » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 8:17 AM UTC

ivanhoe wrote: post #128

Those were the dark ages because previously there was a highly developed civilization with its sophisticated culture, art, science, technology and liberties, and then the western world sunk into an era where almost all of it was temporarily forsaken. It fell into the darkness and chaos (at least from the point of people who lived in the Roman empire). Barbaric tribes raided the lands, many local wars again started si…

What "held science back" was the obsession with sticking to Greek dogma.

Health and sanitation degraded with the Renaissance more than anything (which WAS a regression in many aspects). Before that the general practices hadn't much changed since Roman times, save for infrastructure gradually getting worse.

And it's not like the Ancient world was immune to massive plagues, it's just not part of our collective imagery anymore.

Re: The 'Dark Ages' Weren't as Dark as We Thought

#229

Post by rgblambda » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 8:26 AM UTC

acqq wrote: post #150

Balgair wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Dark Ages were very much regional, with separate areas undergoing their own eras of 'darkness' and losing communication with the rest of the world. Interestingly, Ireland during the 400's to 600's was something of a bastion of Catholicism and 'western/classical' thought in their monasteries. Even though Britain was very pagan and 'dark', Ireland remained 'enlightened' at this time (though the populace was still v…

> Even though Britain was very pagan and 'dark', Ireland remained 'enlightened' at this time (though the populace was still very 'dark' and pagan in Ireland). Do you happen to know something about the coinage in Ireland in that period? Also, searching for the survived original sources in that entry, they are either first half 400, written outside of Ireland, then some written later than 600 AD? Maybe I missed somethi…

In Ireland we were taught in school that coinage was introduced by the Vikings and previous to that was a primitive system of cattle trading.

Re: The 'Dark Ages' Weren't as Dark as We Thought

#230

Post by rgblambda » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 8:30 AM UTC

syn0byte wrote: post #114

ddebernardy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, there were families in those days with unfathomable wealth. If memory serves me well, one was so wealthy that when they sold their land after becoming Christians they caused a real estate crisis across the Roman Empire. (Source: The inheritance of Rome, Chris Wickham, one of the early chapters.) And just a few centuries earlier, Julius Caesar arguably was one of the richest to have ever lived on earth. It's se…

Is it a sensible expectation though? I would fully expect the richest/powerful to bear the brunt of retaliation as a civilization crumbles. The sins of the father and all that. Would you want to be related to Trump if the economy tanked and social services started breaking down?

The heirs to the German Kaisar seem to be doing well for themselves. Then again, Kaisar Wilhelm was only forced to abdicate and exiled.