>The Dark Ages

Pure myth.

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i'm eternally grateful for the hyper-catholic, abortion clinic-picketing history teacher i had in 12th grade who set everyone straight

The only real Dark Age I can think of is Greek Dark age

>Entire civilization mode collapses
>Entire writing system disappears forever, never to be revived
>The Past becomes entirely mythical
>Regress to nearly neolithic way of life

>>34891
do you have any articles on this?

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>>34891
The traditional Early Middle Ages dark age is mostly a falsehood but definitely not in the case of 5th-9th century England.

Civilisation literally broke down completely unlike on the continent.

>>34891
Also this.

I've never understood why people call them that.

Yes, the fall of Rome affected a lot of things but it wasn't that bad.
I mean, Charlemagne lived during these so-called "Dark Ages"

>>34988
did everyone live heavily Romanized lives or was that mostly just in London?

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>>34737
>The decline of Rome was fine, shit was carrying on normal.
There was a Dark Ages.

It was just a short period however (400s-700s AD). The Vaccuum of Western Rome was filled in by warring Germanic Kings until Frankish hegemony established regional peace.

Furthermore there was a step backward in society (decentralization, return to Agrarianism) compared what once existed under Roman rule.

The myth is the entire Medieval period was a Dark Age.

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>>34988
>civilization broke down in england
How can one man be so wrong?
Do you even Anglo-Saxon?

>Burning of books
>Christians destroying knowledge
>"Dark ages"

How do people still believe in this shit

>>34891
>regress to nearly neolithic way of life

only in Greece, the rest of the wrold continue developing

>>35095
That's why I called it the Greek Dark age, anon.

>>35048
The Romaization of England didn't last very long after Rome fell.
They held out for a little while but got invaded by Anglo-Saxon mercenaries that they invited to help fight the Scots and the Picts.
Anglo-Saxons took over and pushed the native British into what are now Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall

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>>35048
Most people in the south-eastern parts were very heavily Romanized, in the north and west a bit less so (more likely to drink beer and speak Briton). There had been a pretty high amount of urbanisation and a lot of money flowed into the country because of the multiple legions stationed there until 410 AD.

>>35081

>Do you even Anglo-Saxon?

I do, i'm English. The Anglo-Saxons were literal barbarians for centuries, responsible for helping wipe out what remained of civilisation in lowland Britain. It was only around the 9th century that they finally picked themselves up from the dirt and made something of themselves, that's literally 400 years.

>>35043
There are relatively few Latin writings from the period. But there are many greek ones.

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The dark ages were created by the arab muslim invasions... they crippled mediteranian trade and blocked Europe from trade with india and china for centuries, hence the cities shrank and feudalism was implemented. It is no coincidence that Europe dragged itself up to a position of eminence after the new world was discovered and the horn of Africa navigated (thus bypassing the Islamic empires).

>>35092
Because Christians are evil bigots who never did anything for anyone.

>>34737
But it's true, if by dark ages you mean the early middle age and not the times after 1000 ad, most urban centres were abandoned or heavily de-populated, roman infrastructures went to the shitter almost everywhere, of course it didn't all happen at the same time but it did happened.

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I'm sick of this 'no Dark Ages' meme.

Western Europe between 400 AD and 750 AD absolutely did have a Dark Age. Every aspect of civilization declined; urbanism, infrastructure, literacy, architecture, etc. Yes, there were some monasteries with nice books, but those were a few refuges of civilization in a Europe that had mostly collapsed. It was the low point of Western history, when every other civilization was more impressive. Obviously this doesn't apply to Byzantium or Islam, or to Europe after the Carolingians.

>>35152
>Anglo-Saxons took over and pushed the native British into what are now Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall

Disclaimer: There wasn't a mass exodus of Britons leaving behind empty land for the ethnically pure Anglo-Saxons to take over. Most people today in England are ethnically "Celtic" or "Brythonic" just like those elsewhere in the British Isles.

>>35217
kinda true, they were not the only reason but they did influence a lot.

>>35237
This, but poltards don't like it so they still will not agree.

>>35152
You know, a recent study from March 2015 shows that the majority of genetic markers within England, are still 'Celtic' Briton in origin. The Saxons didn't expel all the britons to wales etc. 30% was of Germanic origin, so still significant (but that includes the Danes who are indistinguishable from the anglo saxons, and still in the minority.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v519/n7543/full/nature14230.html

>>35237
The rejection of the Petrarchan Dark Ages deals mostly with the idea that everything before Dante was part of the Dark Ages, which is the common idea concerning them.

Also, decline is not what a dark age is. A dark age is a complete loss of culture, not a significant decline.

The Church saw to it that literacy never completely disappeared in Europe, so there was never really a dark age in the proper sense.

It was more like a dim age.

>>35240
>>35355

whoops too late

>>35391
>Also, decline is not what a dark age is. A dark age is a complete loss of culture, not a significant decline.

"no"

>>35278
Why do you guys bring up /pol/ every time someone says something positive about europe?

>>34988
>Civilisation literally broke down completely unlike on the continent.

..is what historians thought 50 years ago, but now no-one does.

>>35475
Err... no I don't do it every time someone does, I do it when someone spouts bullshit like in this case.

Poltards can't bring themselves to admit then Europe was in a bad state during a period when Christianity was strong because they see everything black and white.

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>>35424
's true, tho.

Greece had a real Dark Age following the collapse of the Mycenaean Palatial culture, whereas Europe following the Collapse of the Roman Empire never regressed so thoroughly, retaining great deals of its culture and literary traditions.

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>>35478
Well it's an exaggeration.

But as this is essentially the only real evidence revisionists have that England was not a chaotic clusterfuck, i'm inclined to believe people like Gildas.

>>35563
Europe and the mediterranean world which produced that literature was much bigger and produced much more documents than what mycenean Greece produced so of course they didn't lose it all, also the mediterranean and southern erope had known writing systems since a long time by then.

>>35528
I'm not a /pol/tard nor am I a christian but Christianity was even stronger later, in the High Middle Ages, and shit wasn't fucked up then.
Religion doesn't necessarily lead to shitty times like the so-called "Dark Ages".
The "Dark Ages" were really just the vacuum felt by the absence of the Roman Empire, shit was back up and running with in a century.

>>35237
The problem is that what most people associate with the Dark Ages just didn't happen, it's a pejorative term that leads people into bad assumptions and wild generalisations, thats why no self respecting historian uses it anymore.

Pretty much the ONLY place that went "Dark" in that period was Britain, specifically what would become England, but even then the "dark" is mostly just a lack of writing, the Anglo Saxons still had many thriving complex states in that period on a larger scale than in other parts of western europe.

>>35563
Europe and the mediterranean world which produced that literature was much bigger and produced much more documents than what mycenean Greece produced so of course they didn't lose it all, also the mediterranean and southern erope had known writing since a long time by the end of the western roman empire.

I should tell you guys that dark age means "little studied".

>>35166
>Anglo-Saxons were barbarians
Maybe for the first hundred years or so.
They became a lot more civilized as christianity came to the island.
I don't know if it was a cause-effect relationship or a coincidence but the Anglo-Saxons quickly became a very pious people, building many monasteries and writing religious texts, histories, etc.

Look at this fucking faggot with that retarded salad on his head.

The Renaissance was the real Dark Ages.

>>35713
lol

>>34737
It wasn't Christianity that caused the Dark Ages like some believe, it was the rise of Islam.

All of the major trade routes passed through what would be Muslim territory, and Africa was the breadbasket of Europe since the Roman era. Having that cut off was a major blow to the economy of the west.

>>35741
This, I had a communist history teacher who said "i-it wasn't just islam, it was the slavery production method which collapsed and caused the dark ages""

Yeah, it's not liek Carthage and most of Nortj Africa wasn't razed by the arabs, it's not like arabs made it impossible to trade across the mediterranean, it's not like coastal cities in Southern Europe were mostly abandoned or de-populated because of constant arab raids.

>>34931
Plenty of sources in this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Dark_Ages

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>>35594
>taking a first hand source on face value and accepting his interpretation

Well fuck yeah a christian monk isn't going to give pagan germanic invaders glowing reviews.

Please, learn2history.

What happened in Britain (That didn't happen anywhere else) was the entire roman ruling class fucking left or were wholesale replaced in a single motion, and with them all writing just went away, so we have almost nothing to go on. People thought all of the Anglo Saxons lived in tiny mud huts until Sutton Hoo, and more recently staffordshire.

Now not only do we know they were using luxury goods in built up centres on a comparable level with the rest of Western Europe, but actually producing them too.

In the past, the ONLY evidence history was drawn on was written accounts and the odd building still standing, as time moves on our view of the past is necessarily getting more democratic and based in reality as archeology and genealogy are the only ways forward.

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>>35741
Right, those pesky muslim Vandals, am I right?

>>35888
The Vandals never reached Egypt, which was the primary source of wheat for Rome and most of Europe. And the Vandals actually traded with Rome after they conquered Africa since they didn't have a mandate from God that said infidels must die.

>>35355
yep, the model that is widely accepted now is one of acculturation. It is likely to me that the 30% a result of elites leaving a disproportionately large genetic footprint, especially given that that study was done on the Y-chromosome

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>>35854
>all that trashy misshapen jewelry
Barbarian Europe was an embarrassment.

>>35217
>The dark ages were created by the arab muslim invasions

How do you reconcile that with: >>35062
>It was just a short period however (400s-700s AD)

Arab conquests only really began nearer the end of that timeframe and even then more confined to former Sassanid and eastern Roman-Byzantine lands. Much of 'western' europe was untouched.

Further the idea that there was a 'dark ages' is a contentious thing in the first place and one long since abandoned by historians in the current age.

You're full of shit and want to propagate a false idea of history to fit with your bias.

Go jack off to Nep 3 which was just released.

>>35224
I hope you're sarcastic.

>>35594
>i'm inclined to believe people like Gildas
Fair enough, but I'm more inclined to believe the archaeology. You see a decline in urbanism and some reduction in overseas trade but 'clusterfuck' is a massive overstatement.

>>35807
>it's not liek Carthage and most of Nortj Africa wasn't razed by the arabs

They weren't. In fact several very successful arab muslim states were set up.

> it's not like coastal cities in Southern Europe were mostly abandoned or de-populated because of constant arab raids.

and colonies in turn.

>>35854

But archaelogy still shows that the urban live dissapears and that the use of potters wheel is lost.
Later, the Anglo Saxon England improved to reach similar Continental standards, but the impact of the dissapear of the Roman State in Britrain can hardly be compared with anywhere in Europe.

>>35974
It's almost as if the Eastern Roman Empire lasted throughout the "Dark Ages" isn't it?

>>35854
Yep. Early excavations on 5th-6th century sites in England were not exactly thorough and they only really identified grubenhause. As it turned out they missed a shitload of post-holes from much larger structures. Unfortunately the mainstream literature still reflects these mistaken early findings, though that is changing

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>>35985
It was discovered in the ground, also the Anglo Saxons apparently smashed all their jewelry to bits when they put it in graves, not entirely sure hy

The Renaissance actually set science back for 300 years because their obsession with the Greeks stopped the advances that were happening in the late Middle Ages towards mechanicism and calculus.

The mathematical approach to physics inaugurated by Gerard of Brussels, Jean Buridan, Walter Burley, Nicole Oresme, Thomas Bradwardine etc, the approach that would kickstart the Scientific and Industrial Revolution, would only be taken up again with Isaac Newton and Leibniz, centuries later. Only because a bunch of Italian faggots were obssessed with the Greeks.

>>36065
>dissapear of the Roman State in Britrain can hardly be compared with anywhere in Europe.

what about Rome itself? Going from a city of a million people to a village of some thousands, with sheep grazing in the colloseum etc

>>36052
>colonies

no,only in spain

>>36065
The collapse of urban life is still exaggerated due to factors like >>36096 says, but yeah, what happened to Roman Britain really doesn't have an analogue anywhere else, which is one of the reasons why "The Dark Ages" is a fucking stupid term to use.

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>The Christian Dark Ages

>>35985
>in the ground for 1500 years
>hurr why is it so misshapen

>>36140
Rome continued to be the largest city in europe throughout that period, m8. That didn't happen.

>>36080
The Eastern Roman Empire had access to the vital trade routes at the Black Sea.

And Asia Minor was the Byzantine breadbasket after they lost Egypt.

>>36119
>The Renaissance actually set science back for 300 years because their obsession with the Greeks stopped the advances that were happening in the late Middle Ages towards mechanicism and calculus.

Like what? also Archimedes had kinda discovered calculus

>>35974

While Egypt was the mos important wheat exporter of the Empire, and also suplied Rome, most of her exports were shiped to Constantinople and the Eastern borders.
Africa was in charge of feeding the Aeternal City (and suply most of the Western Empire of stuff like the much demanded olive oil).

Economics rules so relations between Rome and Vandal Africa were kept. (Even the Muslim Egypt had some trade with the Byzantines).
But Rome was forced to rely more in Sicily.

>>34737
Once again, the term "Dark Ages" doesn't refer to people of that timebeing stupid or unenlightned or whatever, it refers to are general lack of knowledge about the events that happened in western Europe following the collapse of Western Rome.

Societal progress happened here
>Implying rome wasn't stagnant and unrepresentative of most areas under its control.

The barbarian kingdoms and later kingdoms were more representative and more effective in running their territory

>>34891
It's called the Dark Ages because of lack of documents and sources, mate. Granted, there was a crisis because the socioeconomic structure centered around the palace fell intro a crisis, but that doesn't mean that civilization collapsed.

>>36211

I hope you're joking.

>>36211
This is a stupid thing to believe desu

Nothing was set back 1000 years, society needed a change from a big empire, especially in an era with limited communication

>>36211
Go back to tumblr with your shitty historical revisionism faggot

Anyone who thinks Europe didn't experience a Dark Age should try to read Gregory of Tours' Historia Francorum without laughing/weeping:

http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/gregory-hist.asp

My favorite passage:
"The Huns were again endeavoring to make an entrance into the Gauls. Sigibert marched against them with his army, leading a great number of brave men. And when they were about to fight, the Huns, who were versed in magic arts, caused false appearances of various sorts to come before them and defeated them decisively. Sigibert's army fled, but he himself was taken by the Huns and would have remained a prisoner if he had not overcome by his skill in making presents the men whom he could not conquer in battle. He was a man of fine appearance and good address He gave gifts and entered into an agreement with their king that all the days of their lives they should fight no battles with one another. And this incident is rightly believed to be more to his credit than otherwise. The king of the Huns also gave many gifts to king Sigibert. He was called Gaganus. All the kings of that people are called by this name."

>>36231
>but that doesn't mean that civilization collapsed
It did though, all the Palaces were abandoned and people were left destitute, and people lived in small farming villages for hundreds of years.

>>36140

But the urban live continued. The urban model changed, but they remained alive (well, not all of them, but Late Antiquity has cities as the center of their world).

>>36189
http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/renaissance.html

>The scientists of the Merton School, at Oxford in the 1330s and 1340s, wrote at length on the "intension and remission of forms", that is, the changes of any quantities which could vary continuously. The topic covered the motion of bodies, the gradual change from hot to cold, the variation in brightness over a surface and, according to one of the school, the "intension and remission of certainty with respect to doubt". Their crucial achievement was to distinguish between speed and acceleration, and then between uniform and non-uniform acceleration. They were able to devise what we would express by an equation of uniformly accelerated motion. All this requires mathematical talent of a high order.

>The next (and, as it proved, final), steps taken in this direction were the accomplishments of the last and greatest of the medieval scientists, Nicole Oresme [...] He was the first to perform calculations involving probability. He had a good grasp of the relativity of motion, and argued correctly that there was no way to distinguish by observation between the theory then held that the heavens revolve around the earth once a day, and the theory that the heavens are at rest and the earth spins once a day. He was apparently the first to compare the workings of the universe to a clock, an image much repeated in later ages. Many of his more technical achievements have also been admired by the experts.

>Then everything came to a stop. Given the scientific and mathematical works of Descartes and Galileo, but no chronological information, one might suppose the authors were students of Oresme. Galileo's work on moving bodies is the next step after Oresme's physics; Cartesian geometry follows immediately on Oresme's work on graphs. But we know that the actual chronological gap was 250 years, during which nothing whatever happened in these fields.

Meanwhile Italians were collectively masturbating over old Greek texts.

>>36283
>I want a hugbox where I am free to stroke the pope unopposed
It is a fact that Christianity attacked scientist for proving your fairy tales wrong.

>>36211
Christianity kept Europe held together as much as it did, and helped establish a secondary European identity.

If there had been no central church, Europe may have fallen apart completely.

>>34750
Agriculture was reduce to sustenance after the urbanized societies of Italy were destroyed by the Gothic War.

>>36348
Interesting f.am

>>36299
I don't think anyone says there wasn't a Dark Age in Western Europe. But it lasted from around the 5th century (collapse of Roman civilisation) to the 8th (Carolingian Renaissance).

It most certainly didn't last for the entire Middle Ages, and the Gothic Era (12th to 15th centuries) was one of unprecedented brilliance and achievement during which the West surpassed even the most accomplished civilisations.

>>36367
Wrong, overall it was Charles Martell and the franks that saved Europe, not any church. Charlemagne just tried to use the Church as an extra faucet for expression of their power over nobility.

>>34737
>implying the dark ages happened

>>36367
>If there had been no central church...
Europe wouldn't have fallen apart in the first place. Also Christians were not united, just look at what the Catholics did to the orthodox/heretical sects.

>>36444
>Implying they didn't
How so senpai?

>>36187
Right..the Western Roman Empire collapsed after the vandals took Carthage and the supply of grain to Rome, you do know that right? Like, that is what actually happened.

And in the east, the Byzantines never fully recovered after losing Egypt, though they did a great job of downsizing and doing more with less, but the levels of urbanisation never ever returned to their classical/Late Antiquity highs.

>>35217
This is fast becoming the new Dark Ages meme of our time, mostly because of a modern misunderstanding of Henri Pirenne (and subsequent ignorance of the proceeding archaeology). Pirenne's original idea was that the European city comes not from Roman imperial civics but from early Medieval mercantile trade unions, and that they came about because of a shift away from the Mediterranean and into the North Sea because of Arab domination of the Mediterranean.

And that was a good thing to him, as Charlemagne and the new Medieval order that sprang from his empire was the foundation of Western European economic domination, whereas the more Classical cities of the East could never match the merchants of Venice, Genoa, or the Hansa.

Since then archaeology has tweaked this thesis to show that the economic links between Gaul and the Mediterranean had collapsed before Muhammad was even born, while the return of Gaul to the international trade circuit came much earlier at the end of Charlemagne's reign and through the Abbasids. But the main argument is that the Medieval merchant republic was a break from the Classical city-state, and that they developed because of the collapse of the Mediterranean, something which has been happening for centuries before the Arabs and which in fact stopped and reversed after them.

>>36451
How do you blame Christendom for the fall of the Roman Empire?

The Roman Empire fell because Italy has always been critically retarded regarding its military. Allowing Generals to control their own armies is what sank Rome. It's what killed the Republic, and it's what killed the Empire.

>>36299
Another dumb cunt who reads histories at face value, jesus fuck where do you guys come from?

Also what in that passage suggests a "Dark Ages"?

>>36299
The question has been much discussed whether sixthcentury education in Gaul included a knowledge of the liberal arts. Gregory gives us no definite information on the point. It is true that he is explicit as to his own case. He says, " I was not trained in grammar or instructed in the finished style of the heathen writers, but the influence of the blessed father Avitus, bishop of Auvergne, turned me solely to the writings of the church." [note: Vitae Patrum, II, Pref. ] Gregory does indeed mention Martianus Capella's work on the seven liberal arts and seems to have had some notion of the scope of each one, [note: See p. 240. (i.e. Book X.16)] but in the face of his repeated confessions of ignorance of the most elementary of them as well as the actual proof of ignorance which he constantly gives, the conclusion must be that they were not included in his education. As to the general situation the only evidence is furnished by Gregory's famous preface in which he declares that "liberal learning is declining or rather perishing in the Gallic cities," and no one could be found sufficiently versed in the liberal arts to write the History of the Franks as it ought to be written. We may feel certain that Gregory's idea of the qualifications for historical writing were not high; correct spelling, knowledge of the rules of grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic as laid down in the textbooks would be sufficient. But, as he tells us, no person so qualified could be found to undertake the task. Again we hear of bishops who were illiterate. It is plain that the trend of the evidence is all in one direction, namely that in Gaul by this time the liberal arts had disappeared from education.

>>36517
Gregory's Latin presents many problems. Its relation to sixth-century linguistic development is not well understood although it has been closely scrutinized. Gregory's vocabulary does not show the decadence that might be expected. It is extremely rich and varied and contains a moderate number of Celtic, Germanic, and Hunnish additions. Old Latin words, however, often have new and unexpected meanings. In the field of grammar the situation is different. Judged by anything like a classical standard Gregory is guilty of almost every conceivable barbarity. He spells incorrectly, blunders in the use of the inflections, confuses genders, and often uses the wrong case with the preposition. In addition he is very awkward in handling the Latin verb: the different voices, tenses, and modes are apt to look alike to him. His constructions too, are frequently incorrect. In all this he seems very erratic, he may use the correct form ten times and then give us something entirely different. No method has so far been traced in his vagaries.
Gregory's literary style is as peculiar as his language. It is often vigorous and direct, giving realistic and picturesque delineations of events. Within his limitations he well understood the complexity of human motives and actions, and now and then he shows a trace of humor. However, offending elements often appear; sometimes his realism verges on a brutal plainness. He is also by no means free from literary affectation; indeed by his choice of expressions, his repetitions and unnatural arrangement of words, he is almost always striving for effect. In his day the tradition of literary workmanship was quite dead but it would seem as if its ghost tortured Gregory. On the whole his literary style is uncouth, awkward, and full of rude surprises.

>>36366
trying too hard/10

>>36464
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_time_hypothesis

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Both views ("there was a 1000 years old Dark Ages where Christians prohibited science!" and "there were no Dark Ages, everything was just normal in 600AD as it was in 100AD") are retarded.

The Roman Empire collapsed, and it wasn't pretty. Infrastructure took a hit, learned culture pretty much disappeared from most places. That's not even controversial, there is plenty of archeological evidence of that decline happening. So the question is: why did it happen? Was it Christianity.

I don't believe so. First, the decline predates the political influence of Christianity, already in the Third Century you had a military anarchy, barbarian invasions and a decline in intellectual culture. For example, the Fayum mummy portraits ceased to be painted somewhere during the Third Century, not because Christianity didn't allow it, but because society was already collapsing.

Other evidence that Christianity didn't cause the Dark Ages, but the collapse of the Roman Empire did, is that the only Christian region outside the former Empire was Ireland, which not only "escaped" the Dark Ages, but experienced a sort of Golden Age during the same period, where it was the intellectual and cultural center of Europe. In fact, when Charlemagne decided to revive classical learning in his Empire, it was in Christian monasteries of Ireland that he went after his teachers (see Eurigena for example, a neo-platonist philosopher completely outside the Mediterranean world).

But right when Europe was coming back in track the Vikings appeared to sack monasteries.

>>36408

Its not like Odo the Great had defeated the Moors before.

>>34737
I had some poo in the loo teacher that called them the dork ages

>>36514
I wouldn't dream of taking that passage at face value.

>>36408
Not really, no. Francia was under no threat of invasion.

>>36302
>and people lived in small farming villages for hundreds of years

...like they did before and after that?

although the collapse did put an end to the palace bureaucracy. commerce suffered a lot too. greek society soon turned intro a bunch of chiefdoms centered around the figure of the basileus. also, the fact that the population drastically fell is being questioned.

>>36408
Please, Martel didn't "save" shit. He stopped a raiding party from the already badly overextended arab invaders in Iberia. These periodic raids had been going on for a fairly long time, martel didn't "stop" them, he stopped one, there were many before that and ones that came after. The arabs were always badly outnumbered in Iberia, they weren't getting a steady flow of new arabs or berbers either, because no one in their right mind wanted to go to iberia unless they were an utter outcast.

>>36509
>always been critically retarded
Nah, it's just that Christianity made them weak.

>>36599
OI, fuck off Gibbons.

>>35974
>The Vandals never reached Egypt, which was the primary source of wheat for Rome and most of Europe

Egypt supplied Constantinople. Carthage supplied Rome, and it stopped doing that after the Vandals. Roman Mediterranean economy revolved around state redistribution of taxes and tributes, and that stopped the moment North Africa was lost, then persisted when Italy was lost as well.

>>36583
This. Martel and his successors are mostly famous in Southern France for burning most of the cities to the ground.

>>36583
>>36632
Fuck yeah the historians are here.

>>36580
>..like they did before and after that?

Therewere cittadels and palaces all over mycenean greece and crete, sure they weren't on the level of greek poleis but some steps above simple villages.

>>36408
The Byzantines would laugh at the retarded raiding party that was the moslems into France.

>>36189
The mathematical function and its graphical representation (the basis of calculus) were invented by Nicolas Oresme. He and Jean Buridan also laid the foundation of modern Physics and the concepts of force and momentum, as well as inertia and even the Earth's revolution, basically everything that was later attributed to Galileo.

These were all 14th century thinkers, and part of a movement centered on the University of Paris which started questioning the laws of Aristotle. This had started with the Paris condemnation of 1277 in which the bishop of Paris declared that God could not be limited by any of the laws of Aristotle, which freed up entirely new paths of thinking. As examples, Aristotle believed that objects could only move as long as something was pushing them, that something thrown could only move in a straight line and then fall straight down, that something heavy falls faster than something light... Before the 13th century, all this had been accepted as unquestionable fact because of Aristotle's authority, but then it all changed the the seeds of the Scientific Revolution were planted.

But then came Renaissance Humanism, which rejected all this as the product of the "Dark Ages", and wanted to return to the "more civilised" time of ancient Greeks and Romans. Medieval science books were literally burned, and for several centuries teaching returned to the worship of Aristotle.

>>36599
>it's just that Christianity made them weak.

>muh decadent Christian empire
>muh manly virtue

>>36540
Other meme is that the strenght of the Pope was at fault for the Dark Ages, but that's also wrong. If you look closely at the history of the Papacy as a institution, you will see that the moments where it was stronger were also the moments where Europe was stronger, and the moments where it was weaker was when Europe also suffered.

During the height of the real Dark Ages, from 400AD to 800AD, the Pope was merely the Bishop of Rome, a vassal of the Byzantine Empire subjected to the whims of not even the Emperor in Constantinople, but of his subordinate, the Exarch in Ravenna. Then he stroke an alliance with the Frankish king and increased his power, that was exactly the period of the Carolingian Renaissance.

Later the Carolingian Empire collapsed and the Papacy became the plaything of Roman aristocratic families, this period is also marked in Europe by decline and foreign invasion, which was later reversed when the Pope regained it's power during the Investitute Controversy and just as he got stronger, the Renaissance of the 12th century happened.

>>35166
>literal barbarians
Well, they didn't speak Greek, if that's what you mean.

>>36580
Before they were a literate people who lived in an globalized society in farming villages surrounding great palace structures ruled by a Wanax who was connected to the great powers of the Mediterranean.

They reverted to simple, illiterate chiefdoms ruled by simple, rural chiefs.

>>36599
Roman world was already experiencing profound changes by the beginning of the IV century, the old Graeco-Roman pantheon was largely gone and new eastern cults were gaining popularity, Mithraism, cult of Sol-Invictus, were the most famous ones.

If Christianity hadn't filled the gap, some other cult or religion would. The fact that Christianity was not a revolutionary religion that preached a secular revolution and rebellion is also important. Christianity was compatible with the Roman state and that become evident during the course of the IV century.

With this question, I have a problem, how do we interpret it? Destroyed Rome in what regard? Roman state, Roman culture or Roman religion? Latter two were already transforming and traditional Roman religion was a thing of the past.

As for Roman state and Roman culture, Christianity didn't destroy them in any way, in fact it brought new life to Graeco-Roman world and helped transform it.

You just need to look at Eastern Roman Empire, Hellenistic philosophy, Roman law and statehood and Christian religion formed a new kind of culture, which served as a model for the rest of Europe during the Early Middle Ages, even Western Europe was under this influence.

>>36583
Nice revisionism you get here, the truth is that the parties that conquered the entire Arab Empire, including Spain, were also a "raiding parties", they always are until the raid turn so successful that they establish themselves as rulers.

Denying that Charles Martel saved Europe is the kind of Marxist bullshit that passes as "academic history" nowadays. So hellbent on using praxis theory to change the world according to their revolutionary designs that they feel compelled to change the past according to their own interpretation of a revolutionary communist future.

>>36599
Yeah and all those weak, non-martially minded Christian emperors like Maurice, Heraclius, Basil I, Romanos I Lekepanos and Nikephoros I and Nikephoros II.

All utter effeminate losers right?

>>36645
>But then came Renaissance Humanism, which rejected all this as the product of the "Dark Ages", and wanted to return to the "more civilised" time of ancient Greeks and Romans. Medieval science books were literally burned, and for several centuries teaching returned to the worship of Aristotle.

Jesus fuck you are actually retarded, that is the opposite of what happened. The scientific revolution of the renaissance as EXPLICITLY a move away from Aristotelian scholasticism, rejecting his authority and instead looking to discover new first principles.

>>35528
religion had nothing to do with the dark ages

>>36731
That's only because the concept of the Renaissance was expanded to include the 16th century, when they realized how embarassingly bad the 15th century was in anything outside painting.

>>36725
>All utter effeminate losers right?
To be fair, they were nothing like their genuine Roman counterparts.

>>36788
I mean, for all the talk about how the Renaissance encouraged science and learning, the prime intellectual figures of the movement where mystical hacks such as Pico della Mirandola, Paracelsus and Marsilio Ficino.

>>36788
Well we are talking about Descartes, Newton and co right?

>>36366
"it is a fact that christianity attacked people, tt opposed them openly and subverted its influence"
wether or not the earth revolves around the sun wasnt important for most things, much less for the daily life of the peasants
having a common worrldview, that can unite you in times of strife on the other hand is very usefull.

>>36632
>muh vandals

http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/journal_of_late_antiquity/v005/5.2.linn.html

>>36723
>muh Marxist boogeymen
Charles Martel is overrated, deal with it:

"Modern historians have constructed a myth presenting this victory as having saved Christian Europe from the Muslims. Edward Gibbon, for example, called Charles Martel the savior of Christendom and the battle near Poitiers an encounter that changed the history of the world... This myth has survived well into our own times... Contemporaries of the battle, however, did not overstate its significance. The continuators of Fredegar's chronicle, who probably wrote in the mid-eighth century, pictured the battle as just one of many military encounters between Christians and Saracens—moreover, as only one in a series of wars fought by Frankish princes for booty and territory... One of Fredegar's continuators presented the battle of Poitiers as what it really was: an episode in the struggle between Christian princes as the Carolingians strove to bring Aquitaine under their rule."

This is by Alessandro Barbero, a relatively famous war historian and author of "Charlemagne: Father of a Continent"

>>36723
>Nice revisionism you get here

There is nothing wrong with revisionism. Sometimes historical "truths" are based on outdated and incomplete scholarship.

>that conquered the entire Arab Empire

Yes, partially true, they got lucky and invaded an area with a healthy administration that had just suffered through a series of absolutely devastating wars and internal conflicts that left them incredibly exhausted. and in disarray.

The situation is profoundly different in the far west though. The arab conquerors here are NOWHERE near as numerous in Iberia, they were estimated to be about ten thousand at their peak. They were even forced to just ignore christian kingdoms in the north and even ask for their aid in the unending internal conflicts against each other.

>marxist

What the fuck are you smoking? This isn't even VAGUELY Marxist.

>>36817
This.

>>36833
These are not Renaissance figures, they come up much later, Renaissance scientists were those >>36817

A bunch of alchemist, astrologers and occultists. When I said that the Renaissance only looks good if you include the 16th century, I was thinking of Andreas Vesalius.

>>36788
outside of painting, sculpture and architecture you mean.

>>36723

What Martel did was re-establish a united Frankish hegemon centered on the Seine and Low Countries that set the precedent for domination of the more Romanized Southern France and Northern Italy.

Charles wasn't remembered for saving Europe from the Moors, not until the 18th century. He got his name and other accolades in his own time for crushing the Pope's enemies in Italy.

>>36731
You seem to have your dates mixed up.

There was no Scientific Revolution in the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution started in the 17th century when 14th century science was being rediscovered. Intellectually the Renaissance was dominated by Humanism. Humanism meant the study of the humanities, meaning ancient Greek and Roman books, and humanists believed that the ancients were right about everything. Scientifically the Renaissance was a complete standstill and even worse since it returned to early medieval type worship of Aristotle.

When Galileo argued against Aristotleans, those Aristotleans were Renaissance Humanists who dominated the thinking of the time, and Galileo was simply defending the findings of 14th century natural philosophy. It's once Renaissance thinking was killed off that the Scientific Revolution began.

>>36882

We are in 4chan, people dont know what Maxist history means.

>>36731
wow you don't know what the fuck you're talking about please shut the fuck up

>>36865
Err, actually, that's a quote from Tomaž Mastnak (another war historian), though Barbero has a similar opinion.

>>36863
>it furthermore contends that the Vandals were in fact sending grain to Rome during this time, even if in lesser amounts than what North Africa had been shipping previously. It also postulates that the empire’s demand on grain had fallen substantially since the fourth century because of a shrinking Roman army and a reduction in the city of Rome’s population. Finally, it is suggested that after 442 the western empire still possessed sufficient grain producing lands to meet the needs of Rome’s urban population.

The Arabs shipped grain to Italy, too.

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>>36788
And even in painting, they were only following the steps laid by their Medieval forebears. So the only part of the Renaissance that didn't suck was also the only part where they didn't try to break with tradition to worship Greek cock.

>>36921
I always thought the Renaissance stagnation was because of a neoclassicist attempt to Roman-wash everything Medieval Latin or Arabic, but things went a little too far.

>>36847
>much less for the daily life of the peasants
Exactly, Christianity was a way to keep the poor in the mud while the elite profited of their hard work. Science could have been their way out into a life of education, but we gotta keep them united.

>>36984
The irony is that the fall of the Abbasid golden age is regularly blamed on not sucking enough Greek cock, when it was their skepticism that let them get that far in the first place.

>>36833
See >>36921

Descartes and Newton are 17th century.

Quick chronology:

1277: Paris condemnations, beginning of extensive scientific progress in the West
ca 1350: Age or Oresme and Buridan, also the Merton calculators
ca 1400: France devastated by the Hundred Years War, centre of Western thought shifts to Italy which is dominated by Humanism, scientific progress comes to a stop, Renaissance begins
1615: Galileo rediscovers 14th century science and makes experimental demonstrations of it
1637: Descartes writes his Discourse on the Method, end of the Renaissance and beginning of Enlightenment

>>36366
Name one case where a scientist was in any way harmed by the Catholic Church for doing science.

inb4 Giordano Bruno, he was an insane relapsing heretic cult leader, his execution had nothing to do with science.
inb4 Galileo, he was just forced to recant because he personally and repeatedly and very publicly insulted the Pope and because he was just kind of a douche, nobody else was bothered for defending the Copernican model.

>>36897
Confusingly, Renaissance philosophy lags behind arts a bit, Descartes is very much renaissance, which is where the confusion comes from.

>>37051
One little-discussed influence/trigger for the Enlightenment was increased contact with the East and early Orientalism (specifically China-boos) during the 16th-18th centuries.

>>37225
I've never really seen anything that would indicate that as a cause, could you elaborate?

>>37277
I'd like to hear it as well. Personally though I think it was probably a consequence and not the cause of Europeans beginning to think there was more to life than pretending to be Romans.

>>37176
>disagreeing with me is heresy
>the truth hurts my fragile pope ego
Michael Servetus, but you'll probably call him just another filthy heretic.

>>37225
Considering how it were the Chinese who gained most from their cultural contact with the Jesuits, I fail to see how that could have happened.

>>37351
>Servetus
>harmed by the Catholic Church

>>37176
So you're saying Galileo was harmed by the Church for shitposting while doing science

>>37393
He wasn't killed by them but he sure as fuck was suffering from Catholic persecution. It doesn't matter anyway, all you Christians are alike.

>>37351
The times when heresy was left unchecked it almost destroyed Western civilisation. Real scientists just did science without any need to talk about religion.

And Servetus was burned by Jean Calvin in Geneva. Protestants are the only people who did this type of shit.

>>37531
So I will lay upon you the deaths of Antoine Lavoisier, Luigi Galvani and Nikolai Vavilov, all scientists who suffered persecution and even death under secular regimes, because "all you atheists are alike".

>>36366
He was supported by the church. He believed heliocentrism. The church wasn't happy not that his book proposed heliocentrism when it was discovered after his death but that it was was proposing it as truth. The ban on it was lifted if copies were made that said these were hypothetical ideas. No one made copies like that, though.

At the same time, Copernicus had good reason to not release his book besides the modern day assumption that he didn't out of fear by the church: He could not refute the main issue against the notion of heliocentrism at the time which was the parallax of the stars. We would need better materials and a greater understanding of just how far away the stars were for that and the latter didn't even begin to come until later in Galileo's life.

>>37584
meant for, btw
>>37482

>>37277
>>37332
Here is a rather short article on it, if you can ignore the Church-bashing:
http://www.learn.columbia.edu/nanxuntu/html/state/ideas.pdf
There are more in-depth (and hyperbolic) books like "The Eastern Origins of Western Civilization", the concept is fairly well-known.

Though you're correct to point out that it's a chicken and egg question: if Europeans weren't already getting more pragmatic and open-minded they wouldn't have turned to Eastern pagans for wisdom and knowledge, but it seems "Confucian" influences did precipitate the Enlightenment once they made their way into Europe.

>>37356
One does not prevent the other.

>>37531
>It doesn't matter anyway, all you Christians are alike.
But anon, the scientists were also Christians.

>>37482
Yes, exactly.

He wrote a book which is a dialogue between two characters, one representing himself, and another called "Simplicio" who is a total idiot and whom he constantly proves wrong. And then he had Simplicio say exactly what the Pope had said to him, in particular a theory the Pope had about how we can't know the exact truth of nature but only create scientific models that approximate it (which ironically is what a lot of scientists believe today). This made this whole thing into a personal conflict between Galileo and the Pope.

>>37663
>He wrote a book which is a dialogue between two characters, one representing himself, and another called "Simplicio" who is a total idiot and whom he constantly proves wrong. And then he had Simplicio say exactly what the Pope had said to him
Based desu

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>>37663
>He wrote a book which is a dialogue between two characters, one representing himself, and another called "Simplicio" who is a total idiot and whom he constantly proves wrong.

So he basically wrote a political cartoon.

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>>37685
Galileo basically made the written equivalent of pic related.

>>37629
Only in name, like our founding fathers. Anything else would have meant ridicule and death.

>>34737
>Renaissance art reaction images

I can tell I'm going to like this board desu.

>>37762
>>37769
lel

>>37769
>>37762
But he wasn't using strawman arguments like most of those types of comics, he was using things the pope actually said.

>>34737
We Masoc/his/ts now

>>38333
trips settles it i guess

>>36382
not for centuries though, and that only gave more clout to Merovingian Gaul.

>>1

>If anything, Christianity saved the Roman Empire XDDD

The Dark Ages are neither myth nor truthful.

There's always two sides to this argument and both of them are pretty incorrect. They are

1. That the Dark ages were a period of total suffering where nothing happened, possibly caused by Christianity and comprised most of the medieval period.

2. The reactionary argument born out of the first, that the Dark Ages were a myth, it was a period of great advancement and knowledge.

Both are wrong, the reactionary one is almost worse because even though its more truthful the only reason people say it is to be contrarian.

The real truth the Dark ages is that it was a slump, it was worse than the period before it, and worse than the period that followed it. Not much was written compared to other times. The obvious main reason is the collapse of Western Rome and the huge number of migrants and social changes. It was a fairly shitty period to live in. Perhaps we should call it the shitty ages?

>>35166
>I'm english
doesn't mean you have a clue what you're talking about. You really think they'd made nothing of themselves in the era of Cuthbert and Bede?

>>38547
>if I put emoticons that suggest I am a dumb teenager behind this quoted argument, it's instantly invalidated
I have no stock in this argument, I just wanted to tell you that you're dumb.

>>38945
>I am unable to understand that some arguments are so laughably weak they deserve nothing more than to be made fun of via ironically pairing them with dumb teenager emoticons
Not him, and I get where you're coming from, but it's just a joke mate.

>>38754
>The obvious main reason is the collapse of Western Rome
I have to take issue with this. If we look at the full spectrum of evidence, Rome effectively transitioned from an antique to a medieval society when Diocletian established the dominate. Public buildings in cities become craft production centres and the rural landscape starts to resemble later feudal estates. Noblemen no longer provide patronage to public works and instead make their villas larger and more lavish than they were before. Trade networks begin to localise (amphora shape in the northern provinces changes to favour transport by wagon rather than ship). So the change to medieval systems begins nearly 200 years before the collapse of the WRE

>>38945
You have no argument

>>39161
My argument is that reframing the opposition's argument to make them appear childish is not a valid argument.

>>39149
I think you're underestimating how important the feeling of political unity is though. Knowing you're part of a large empire going from east to west. But it's not so much that Rome falling left a lack of infrastructure in fact most places continued on with the same pattern of administration. It was the petty kingdoms that rose up and the huge migrations and invasions which fucked everything, which was allowed to happen as a consequence of Romes fall.

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>>34737
The only real Dark Age is the Bronze Age Collapse. That was some rough fucking shit. Multiple civilizations succumbing to sudden violent deaths overnight.