Ancient and ArchaeologyÌý permalink
The Dark Ages?
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Message 1.Ìý
Posted by henvell (U1781664) on Monday, 7th September 2009
N Stombolidis[2009] reported that a tomb in the ancient town of Eleutherna in northern Crete contained the remains of a female adult and two adolescents.Among the funerary items were gold necklaces and medallions,which were decorated with lions heads and the forms of ancient gods ca 2.9Ka.
The level of craftship is exceptional,because it is similar to the much later Hellenistic period.Scarabs
amber seals and earthenware were also found in the
2m high burial chamber.These artifacts were made during the Mediterranean "Dark Ages". -
Message 2
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Monday, 7th September 2009
These ages are dark only in the sense that they are hard to reconstruct historically due to the infuriatingly sparse and obscure record that they left. But their denizens would probably be most confused to learn that they would ever b considered by future generations as having inhabited "obscure" times.
Or, as one TV history-head once crudely put it when referring to Europe's more recent "Dark Ages", "dark did not mean dim". -
Message 3
Posted by fimbar (U14054219) on Tuesday, 8th September 2009
Dont suppose you want to hear my view on this..?
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Message 4
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Tuesday, 8th September 2009
Re: message 2.
Hello Nordmann,
As a matter of fact, the Church fathers did find the Dark Ages to be obscure. They used to say that the times had grown old, with which they meant that they expected the end of times soon. And reading Gregory of Tours I really feel that he disapproved of the many inventive ways with which the Frankish Kings used to make short shrift of the opposition.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 5
Posted by Frank Parker (U7843825) on Tuesday, 8th September 2009
Probably not. Just Googled Stanislav Groff (your spelling) from your other thread and found you can't spell his name any better than you can Nordmann's! "Psychonautics" doesn't sound like a relevant subject for a history forum - nor a serious philosophy forum come to that!
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Message 6
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 8th September 2009
Hi Poldertjiger.
The church during the "dark ages" is a fascinating study in itself. As an Irishman I have been subject to the popular view in Ireland that Rome's period then of political and theological inertia opened avenues for the monastic Irish to make huge inroads into what the church considered its territories in Europe. One of those interesting "secret wars" which the church has waged over the centuries was fought towards the end of the period between these two opposing interpretations of apostolic inheritance, both of which produced diametrically opposed political inferences regarding not only how people should live and worship, but how they should be controlled and governed. We know who won, but we are still only piecing together the often ruthless steps which that side take to secure victory. Gloomy they may have been in their theology, but they weren't going to let that stop them stifling the more optimistic opposition. They might have been contemplating the end of the world, but they were going to be damned sure all the same to be the ones running the show when it came! -
Message 7
Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Tuesday, 8th September 2009
The Dark Ages in Europe really were very dark, in the sense of its regression of learning and culture, and wrecking of cities, cultures and peoples.
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Message 8
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 8th September 2009
But they weren't exactly unformative, were they, at least in deciding historically what was to come next? How "dark" were these ages exactly, in other words? While they marked the end of direct Roman intervention in Northern Europe (and therefore robbed us of the standard of account-keeping their predecessors had left) were they all that comparatively insignificant for that? What was destroyed was an old Roman model to which we still owe a great historical debt, but what they created was a dynamic by which modern Europe was largely formed. A challenge to understand, more than a gap in our knowledge, is how I'd put it.
(And the Mediterranean "Dark Age" mounts the same challenge, just harder.) -
Message 9
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Wednesday, 9th September 2009
Re: message 6.
Hello Nordmann,
Thank you for your message. You may be able to help me solve a mystery I happened to come across. The Northern Netherlands were christianized by the Anglo-Saxon missionary Willibrord around 700. Willibrord was educated in the Irish abbey of Rath Melsigi that stuck to Rome, notwithstanding its Irish origins. Can you tell me why this particular Irish abbey took the Roman side in the Celtic-Rome dispute?
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 10
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Wednesday, 9th September 2009
Hi Poldertjiger
We don't know that Rath Mesigi "stuck to Rome" since we don't actually know where it was. If it was outside of Armagh's influence at the time Willibrord was there then its acceptance of the Roman dating of Easter would not have been astonishing. If, as has also been suggested though with no great conviction, it was in Bangor or elsewhere in Ulster then its stance would have been astonishingly maverick. The clue is probably in the fact that Willibrord was a Benedictine, an order that the Roman church had earlier condemned due to its apparently relaxed attitude towards Roman dogma in the past, but was by Willibrord's time openly using as an avenue of influence on "the islands" in its determination to wrest control of the christian community from what it regarded as nothing less than a threat.
Rath Melsigi appears to have been a favourite of English Benedictines, especially those intending to become missionaries. Traditionally the pattern in these events was that the missionary, upon establishing a monastery elsewhere, would link it to the "alma mater" in some way. Another clue that Rome was engaged in heated battle with the Irish is probably that Willibrord, seemingly ignoring any traditionally perceived debt to either the monastery who'd trained him or St Egbert, his mentor, was very quickly subordinated in Frisia into Roman schemes and (voluntarily or from presure) allied his mission's success with the political protection and ambitions of Charles Martel.
The Frisian mission went pear-shaped and very nearly failed, something that hints of its aloofness from what was then a considerable source of support, its "island" monastic colleagues, and probably their aloofness to it. Yet catholic histories rarely allude to any such tension at all - after all Willibrord was "Rome's man" and, though inexpertly, eventually put Rome's plan into operation there.
But that's getting away from your question. No particular monastery in Ireland either stuck with Rome or denounced its plans. At the time of Willibrord the majority, especially those with Benedictine links, had actually conformed on the question of dating Easter. But that had been merely one point lost in a larger struggle over absolute authority, not just of the monasteries but of the populations to which they ministered. The Irish-based missions were still holding out on that bigger question, and Willibrord in how he went about his mission in Frisia, is actually one of the first indications that things were about to get dirty. -
Message 11
Posted by delrick53 (U13797078) on Thursday, 10th September 2009
Nordmann,
I think this sums it up nicely :
Had it not been for North Africa, we would have lost all the great literature, all the advances in medicine, and all scientific progress in the European Christian book-burning. -
Message 12
Posted by Stoggler (U1647829) on Thursday, 10th September 2009
Delrick
How is that graph produced? What is the definition of "Scientific Advancement", and how is that measured? What geographical or political areas does it cover? Does it include China for example?
Seems a little subjective to me -
Message 13
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Thursday, 10th September 2009
How is that graph produced? What is the definition of "Scientific Advancement", and how is that measured? What geographical or political areas does it cover? Does it include China for example?
Seems a little subjective to meÌý
The glib tagline at the bottom doesn't inspire confidence that the data hasn't been selected/invented to fit a predetermined conclusion. The idea that there were no advances in technology during the "dark ages" is plain ignorance. -
Message 14
Posted by Stoggler (U1647829) on Thursday, 10th September 2009
It has NO advances up to 1400AD... Oh dear!!
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Message 15
Posted by delrick53 (U13797078) on Thursday, 10th September 2009
Stoggler,
The graph obviously relates to Europe, and from what I've read about post Roman Empire Europe, when Christianity became the dominant force, progress simply stopped.
The plague brought chaos to European society, and terrified people flocked to the churches where they were told that the plague was God's judgement on a sinful people.
If we look at medicine, all the advances made by the Greeks and Romans were replaced by the church 'cure-all' of 'bleeding'. Any who tried to use other methods were declared heretics and burned.
The same thing happened with education.
Even hygiene and bathing were declared heresy. Europe not only stagnated. It stank !
There were obviously a few areas that resisted the pogroms, but they didn't last long. -
Message 16
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Thursday, 10th September 2009
I think the graph is a joke Stoggler, designed to puncture christian complacency rather than to establish any great historical truth.
I don't agree that "christianity" led to an arrest in the political, cultural and intellectual development of European societies. If such an arrest could be said to have occurred then christianity was a symptom of it, not a cause, and indeed one can argue with tremendous justification that certain agencies of christianity at least facilitated a continuation of intellectual progress being maintained during the so-called Dark Ages. But they did so as an incidental by-product of the christian organisation which had supplanted its historical predecessors, and often despite the dogma of the authorities within that organisation, which is why it is equally fallacious for christian apologist historians to claim the organisation as a whole contributed meaningfully and with organised intent to any general educational or civilising process during the period.
The christian agenda was control and influence, not enlightenment or advancement, and it was a dispute over how these criteria should be interpreted and acted upon which led to Rome's problem with the "island" monasticism of the period. But it would be naive in the extreme to "blame" christianity for the Dark Ages. Like any other power base of the period it too had to trust to luck and ride the storm of political uncertainty which prevailed for a few hundred years. And though it wrote up its successes retrospectively afterwards, an interesting exercise is to pinpoint and list all the areas once under Roman rule which "lost" christianity during the same period, some of which never came back into the fold - not an exercise one sees conducted normally these days but one which was all too real a scenario and necessary an exercise in the years under discussion and which acted as a factor underlying many of the motives for decisions made at the time, both by Rome and the "insulae" christian authorities. -
Message 17
Posted by Stoggler (U1647829) on Thursday, 10th September 2009
It's still a very poor graph Delrick and shouldn't be taken seriously. To suggest that Europe (surely only parts of Europe, Iberia and the Roman Empire did not lose their civilisation?) did not make any scientific progress in the 900 years or so suggested by the chart is laughable. You only need look at the architecture of Europe from the period to see that things did not stand still.
The plague brought chaos to European society, and terrified people flocked to the churches where they were told that the plague was God's judgement on a sinful people.
Ìý
It did bring chaso to Europe, but scientific advances did not cease as a result. In fact, social advances were made during the time.
If we look at medicine, all the advances made by the Greeks and Romans were replaced by the church 'cure-all' of 'bleeding'Ìý
A rather clichéd view of the period of history that is best left being satirised in Blackadder II when everything can be cured by leeches. Although medieval medicine was very limited, it was confined to bloodletting.
Such a view is also historically inaccurate, as such bloodletting was performed by the ancient Greeks, Romans, all the way through European history up to the 19th century - it was an ancient practice inherited by medieval Europe from the ancient civilisations of Europe and continued for centuries. It has nothing to do with the church per se.
Any who tried to use other methods were declared heretics and burned.
Ìý
Really?
If you're referring to witchcraft, then burning of "witches" was exceptionally rare, with most of them being hung. In fact, Western Europe's paranoia with witchcraft coinincided with the late Medieval AND the Renaissance period (Salem was 1693). -
Message 18
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Thursday, 10th September 2009
As others have noted, the Church was often an accidental repository for knowledge which might otherwise have been lost as Roman civilization collapsed.
If we look at medicine, all the advances made by the Greeks and Romans were replaced by the church 'cure-all' of 'bleeding'.Ìý
The "science" behind bloodletting was very much a classical Greek medical tradition. Medieval doctors who performed this did so precisely because it was a respocted technique from antiquity, not because an ignorant church had foisted it on them.
Any who tried to use other methods were declared heretics and burned.
The same thing happened with education.Ìý
If we take the Dark Ages from 500-1500, then burning heretics in Western Europe took place for very little of that time. The full scale wars in the Byzantine Empire over heresy/icons and so forth tended not to spread outside. The Catholic Church itself was fairly lax on many issues until the reforms of Leo IX which sacked illiterate priests with scant knowledge of the Bible or Church doctrine. -
Message 19
Posted by Stoggler (U1647829) on Thursday, 10th September 2009
Although medieval medicine was very limited, it was confined to bloodletting.Ìý
It's amazing the difference the accidental omission of a word can have on a sentence!
What I meant was that it was NOT confined to bloodletting...! -
Message 20
Posted by delrick53 (U13797078) on Thursday, 10th September 2009
Stoggler,
"The church declared Justinian a heretic. It declared the field of Greek and Roman medicine, useless in fighting the plague, to be heresy."
(Charles Panati, 'Extraordinary Endings of Practically Everything', p 225).
"After the plague, the Church dominated the formal discipline of medicine. The most common medical practice between the sixth and sixteenth centuries used for every malady became 'bleeding.'
(Ellerbe, 'The Dark Side of Christian History', p42)
"Christian monks taught that bleeding would prevent toxic imbalances, prevent sexual desire, and restore the humours. By the sixteenth century this practice would kill tens of thousands each year". (Ibid)
"... when the person died died during blood-letting, it was only lamented that the treatment had not been started sooner and performed more aggressively." (Panati, ibid 264/5)
"Technology disappeared as the church became the most cohesive power in Western society ... aqueduct and plumbing systems vanished ... aspects of the flesh should be reviled ... discouraged washing as much as possible. Toilets and indoor plumbing disappeared ... hygiene deteriorated ... towns and villages were decimated by epidemics." (Panati, 'Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things' p201/2)
"The vast network of roads that had enabled transportation and communication also fell into neglect and would remain so until almost the 19th century." ('New Columbia Encyclopedia' p2331, Harris and Levy eds.)
"The losses in science were monumental. In some cases the Christian church's burning of books and repression of intellectual pursuit set humanity back as much as two millenia in it's scientific understanding." (Ellerbe, ibid p44).
The works of Pythagoras, Aristarchus, Erastothenes, Hipparchus, Copernicus etc were burned and declared heretical.
What replaced them ?
"it is impossible there should be inhabitants of the opposite side of the earth, since no such race is recorded by scripture among the descendants of Adam." (St Augustine).
"History was rewritten to become a verification of Christian beliefs. Orthodox Christians thought history necessary only in order to place the events in the Biblical context" (Ellerbe, ibid 45)
"History became a footnote to Orthodoxy." (Daniel J Boorstin, 'The Discoverers', p573)
The church burned the 700,000 rolls in the Alexandrian library. All the books contained in the Gnostic Basilides, everything by Porphyry (36 volumes). 27 Mystery Schools had all their papyrus scrolls burned. The 270,000 documents collected by Ptolemy Philadelphus were destroyed.
(New Columbia Encyclopedia p61, Graham, ' Deceptions and Myths of the Bible' p444, Jeffrey Burton Russel, 'A history of Medaieval Christianity' p103).
When the burning was complete, and the libraries destroyed, St John Chrystostom is recorded as saying :
"Every trace of the old philosophy and literature of the ancient world has vanished from the face of the earth." (Walker, 'The Womans Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets', p208)
Fortunately Chrystostom was wrong.
Pope Gregory I condemned education for anyone but the clergy, forbidding laymen to even read the bible. He also had the library of the Palantine Apollo burned, giving the reason :
"... lest it's secular literature distract the faithful from the contemplation of heaven".
Heresy isn't witchraft. That came later. But heresy was pretty much anything that disagreed with official church policy. We'll never know how many died.
The pogroms against the Jews are fairly well recorded in official church documents and Papal Bulls, and the Albigensian Crusade (and the other 9) is well known.
Their 'crime' was heresy.
There is much more, but it's medication time, followed by a period of deep relaxation. -
Message 21
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Thursday, 10th September 2009
Re: messages 11 and 20.
Hello Delrick53,
I’m glad that my silly prank didn’t make you leave these boards.
The decline of science that was all too real didn’t stem from the Church’ inability to cope with science, but originated from the requirement in the Roman Empire for gentlemen to be versed in rhetoric rather than science. This requirement dates from the second century BC, so it can’t be blamed on the Church that didn’t rise to power until the fourth century AD.
It is true that the Church continued the requirement that gentlemen, viz. men of the cloth and monks, should be versed in rhetoric until the 11th century. But it should be pointed out that the exigency to make an illiterate people understand transubstantiation, made the Church put the education of logic in first place again. It was the education in logic at the monasteries that made the world discover science again.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 22
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Thursday, 10th September 2009
Re: message 10.
Hello Nordmann,
Thank you for your input. It is much appreciated.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 23
Posted by Stoggler (U1647829) on Thursday, 10th September 2009
"After the plague, the Church dominated the formal discipline of medicine. The most common medical practice between the sixth and sixteenth centuries used for every malady became 'bleeding.'
(Ellerbe, 'The Dark Side of Christian History', p42)
"Christian monks taught that bleeding would prevent toxic imbalances, prevent sexual desire, and restore the humours. By the sixteenth century this practice would kill tens of thousands each year". (Ibid)
Ìý
Am rather sceptical that the most common medical practice for every malady was bloodletting (despite the reference). In the 12th century for example, there were a number of universities around Europe that taught medicine where 10 years of study were required - I think 10 years of studying equates to more than just bloodletting!
And bloodletting has a very long tradtion, long before the middle ages and it was one part of the system Europe inherited from the Romans and Greeks.
I take your point though that the Church did determine what was correct medical doctrine and deviations from that were considered heresy.
I do not wish to give the impression that (north-west) Europe remained as technologically advanced as in the Romans Empire's day, far from it in fact. But to say that there was no technological advancement at all is not the case (which was my original point, in reference to the graph presented by yourself). Admittedly, much of that progress was a process of rediscovery of what had been known before, or was still known elsewhere in the world such as in the Arab world, but it was NOT a period of no scientific progression.
"it is impossible there should be inhabitants of the opposite side of the earth, since no such race is recorded by scripture among the descendants of Adam." (St Augustine).Ìý
St Augustine was wrong though, and others in the Middle Ages knew that people lived on the other side of the world (not the Americas, unless you want to include Viking colonisation of Greenland and North America which came into contact with local peoples) - India and China were certainly known about, even King Alfred sent money to Indian monasteries in the late 9th century, so presenting St Augustine as representative of knowledge in Europe in the Middle Ages is flawed.
The rest of your post I agree with, and I'm certainly not disagreeing that Jews were very frequently the target of a lot of persecution (having read a lot on 13th century English history, I am well aware of Edward I's policies towards the Jews in England).
However, the Renaissance did not spring from nothingness and had to be built on some foundations, so I will continue to believe that the Middle Ages was NOT solely a period of ignorance, intransigence, lack of learning and blind faith. -
Message 24
Posted by Noggin the Nog (U195809) on Thursday, 10th September 2009
In post 2 Nordmann said (in reference to the Greek dark age)
<>
To me, this really begs another question - why should this nearly five hundred year period in Greece and Anatolia have left such sparse remains, when before and after left so much more. None of the explanations I have ever seen offered really carry much conviction, or even credibility.
Of course, there are those historians who think this dark age is entirely spurious, an artifact of slavish adherence to Manetho's history.
Noggin -
Message 25
Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Thursday, 10th September 2009
delrick53, I see you are quoting almost entirely from avowedly anti-Christian sources.
<quote>"The church declared Justinian a heretic. It declared the field of Greek and Roman medicine, useless in fighting the plague, to be heresy."
</quote>
When exactly? Any link to confirm this?
<quote>"After the plague, the Church dominated the formal discipline of medicine. The most common medical practice between the sixth and sixteenth centuries used for every malady became 'bleeding.'
(Ellerbe, 'The Dark Side of Christian History', p42)
"Christian monks taught that bleeding would prevent toxic imbalances, prevent sexual desire, and restore the humours. By the sixteenth century this practice would kill tens of thousands each year". (Ibid)
"... when the person died died during blood-letting, it was only lamented that the treatment had not been started sooner and performed more aggressively." (Panati, ibid 264/5)
Yes, the practice of medicine was virtually useless, almost throughout the whole of history up to about 1900. Blood-letting was an ancient practice, and apparently introduced as a treatment by Galen, the famous (and pagan) physician of 2nd century Rome. See .
Your biased Ellerbe is trying to blame Christians for this.
<quote>"Technology disappeared as the church became the most cohesive power in Western society ... aqueduct and plumbing systems vanished ... aspects of the flesh should be reviled ... discouraged washing as much as possible. Toilets and indoor plumbing disappeared ... hygiene deteriorated ... towns and villages were decimated by epidemics." (Panati, 'Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things' p201/2)
"The vast network of roads that had enabled transportation and communication also fell into neglect and would remain so until almost the 19th century." ('New Columbia Encyclopedia' p2331, Harris and Levy eds.)
</quote>
All this is mainly down to, firstly the removal of the Roman government (in the West and Africa) which had previously seen to these works, and the reduction of available resources, as the Roman Empire was reduced to, basically, Turkey. There, the baths, with their plumbing etc, continued - that is why we call the steamy and hot rooms, which are inherited from the Roman practice and continued in Turkey, a "Turkish Bath".
<quote>The losses in science were monumental. In some cases the Christian church's burning of books and repression of intellectual pursuit set humanity back as much as two millenia in it's scientific understanding." (Ellerbe, ibid p44).
</quote>
Ellerbe again. I would like to see the evidence of the book burning.
<quote>The church burned the 700,000 rolls in the Alexandrian library. All the books contained in the Gnostic Basilides, everything by Porphyry (36 volumes). 27 Mystery Schools had all their papyrus scrolls burned. The 270,000 documents collected by Ptolemy Philadelphus were destroyed.
</quote>
The Library of Alexandria, it seems, was mainly destroyed when Caesar invaded the place in 48BC. See
<quote>The works of Pythagoras, Aristarchus, Erastothenes, Hipparchus, Copernicus etc were burned and declared heretical.
What replaced them ?
</quote>
Apart from Copernicus, all these listed are Greeks from pre-2nd century BCE. You cannot blame Christianity for the fact that nothing of greatness was produced after that.
<quote>"it is impossible there should be inhabitants of the opposite side of the earth, since no such race is recorded by scripture among the descendants of Adam." (St Augustine).
</quote>
That is, of course, ignorance and stupidity. I note, however, that Augustine is implying that the Earth is a globe with another side to it - he accepts that the Earth is not flat.
Here is my own view of World history and the Dark Ages.
Humanity has been in a vast Dark Age for most of its history; only in the past couple of hundred years has there been very much substantial produced by way of efficient use of technology, decent medicine, good science.
Over thousands of years, hundreds of generations, people were able to hit upon certain ideas that proved useful, like writing, the wheel and money. A few were quite ingenious. But for most of the time, people were steeped in ignorance, and the vast majority of the population was steeped in poverty. Even the rich were poor in comparison to us, really. They may have had their minstrels but they could not put on a CD of their choosing. At night they had slaves to provide oil lamps, but these gave very poor light, whereas we have that at a flick of a switch. They may have had the best doctors, but even the best doctors, as far as I can tell, had no effective anaesthesia or antibiotics : they were virtually useless.
To emphasise how bad things were throughout most of history, I remind you that life expectancy at the height of (pagan) Roman Empire was much less than it is in Africa today, in fact less than it was in Africa about 1960.
A small but remarkable flickering of enlightenment occured in Ancient Greece around 6th to 3rd centuries BCE (I think because it was a centre of trade, and a variety of cities, which were free and NOT ruled by any Empire, which provided a unique cross-fertilisation of ideas). There seems to have been continuous economic development, and population increase, as the Meditteranean lands became more and more developed, and again the exchange of ideas led to a building up of skills which enabled building of aqueducts and baths etc.
When Rome conquered the East, then took its armies to Western Europe and Africa, these technologies were brought there, and further refined, to some degree.
But it was Ancient, pagan, Rome that sowed the seeds of the Dark Ages, in my opinion. The enlightenment of Greece, though by then past its best, was destroyed by Roman oppression. Consider the murder of Archimedes. But the main dynamic of the repression was economic. To develop you need people with resources. Rome slowly bled to death the economies of Egypt, Greece, and other nations.
The very origin of Christianity can, in my view, be put down to Roman oppression. The Israeli people, oppressed and enslaved for hundreds of years by the huge empires that arose and fell nearby, decided, that they were the people uniquely chosen by God, and therefore God must send someone to throw off their oppressors. The situation in which Roman troops occupied their holy land would have been positively traumatic for any Israeli of any religious sensibility. So thousands of them were earnestly, desperately, looking out for any semblance of any sign from God that would give them hope.
Jesus seems to have been a truly remarkable man. I believe that the Josephan "Slavonic edition" is valid and gives a believable explanation of what Jesus was like. Of course he was taken and crucified, but it does seem to be the case that he arose out of his tomb. Although other people had been known to survive crucifixion, certain of his followers took this as the desperately yearned for sign from God.
Roman oppression, which caused ever more poverty (though the very wealthiest became fantastically wealthy) certainly from the 3rd century anyway, provided fertile ground for such belief. If YOU expected only to live to age 25, would not you focus on the afterlife, instead of this life?
When the Empire became Christian, the Church became like another arm of the state. It adopted the ways of the government, in some respects. It did nothing to protest against the continued oppression of nations, slavery, and poverty. -
Message 26
Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Thursday, 10th September 2009
Obviously something has gone wrong with the way I used the quotation boxes, for which I apologise.
I also wanted to add that, the European Dark Age, which means the period of about 410-600 affecting mainly Western Europe, can be regarded as simply as a return to the normal state of mankind up to about 1500AD ie grinding poverty and almost total ignorance.
The Christian Church held many ancient works in its libraries. -
Message 27
Posted by delrick53 (U13797078) on Thursday, 10th September 2009
Stoggler,
I think we should clarify what we mean by the Dark Ages.
I would argue that the period in question didn't start until the fall of both Roman Empires.
Various invasions came first, with the Western Empire falling first. The Germanic Goths, Huns, and the Visigoths (who I believe were Christian).
African 'Rome' fell to the Vandals.
The Empire was in tatters, but Justinian (527-565) in the east started the recovery. He and his wife, Theodora, oversaw the reintroduction of art, literature, and the codification of Roman Law.
The bubonic plague started in about 540, and the Dark Ages started soon after.
Before that time there were numerous 'heresies', and considerable confusion. However, if we listen to some people talking today, they have the impression that the whole thing started with Constantine, only Christians were persecuted, and that all the bad things that happened had nothing to do with Christianity.
So I maintain that the Dark Ages started in the late 6th century, and ended with the last of the Crusades. The church started to lose some of it's power during the latter period, but there was considerable overlap between various monarchies and the church - more confusion - more 'it wasn't us, it was them'.
I'm not presenting Augustine as someone who has knowledge of anything but church doctrine, but in Europe it was church doctrine that dominated during the Dark Ages.
During this time only the clergy could read, and their reading was restricted to religious books. So I suppose we could say that the monasteries were centres of learning (and many people still do), but it was all theology, doctrine, and dogma. Even if someone outside the monaseries could read (there must have been some), there were no books !
Yes, ancient medicine survived, despite the church's best efforts. If it hadn't, the church would never have felt the need to start the 'witch hunts'.
Paganism also survived, under the noses of the church, as the following letter from Gregory I to St Augustine of Canterbury shows :
"... the people will have no need to change their place of concourse; where of old they were wont to sacrifice cattle to demons, thither let them continue to resort on the day of the Saint to whom the church is dedicated, and slay their beasts, no longer as a sacrifice to demons, but for a social meal in honour of Him whom they now worship." (Joan O'Grady, 'The Prince of Darkness', p62)
We all know that the origin of the various 'Saints Days and Holy Days' are Pagan, and the above confirms this.
The church also stigmatised the lending of money at interest, and there is a 6th century document (The Canons of Gratian) which states :
"Whoever buys a thing in order to sell it intact, no matter what it is, is like the merchant driven from the Temple" (H Daniel-Rops, 'Cathedral and Crusade', p273)
The church also sometimes intervened and freed debtors from their liabilities, and the result was what we see today - people stopped lending money and whatever economy there was collapsed.
The only thing making money was the church itself, and corruption was rife. For some, the only way to make money was to join the church, and that's what happened.
"The church amassed inordinate wealth during the Dark Ages. Patrimonial properties, the church-held lands that were free and clear of of taxes or military obligation to the king, made up between one quarter and one third of Europe." (Russel, 'A History of Medieval Christianity', p92, and Graham, 'Deceptions and Myths of the bible', p470, from Ellerbe, 'The Dark Side of Christian History'.)
As I've said Stoggler, the Dark Ages relates to Europe. Had it not been for North Africa ('Arab'), where many books had been hidden from the fires, the 'rediscovery' as you correctly call it, may not have happened at all.
Finally, the eviction of the Jews from England was nothing to what they found in Europe after their eviction. The thing that saved many of them from the slaughter was their exemption from the Christian church laws concerning the lending of money. They became bankers and money-lenders - despised, persecuted, and reviled, but very necessary. -
Message 28
Posted by delrick53 (U13797078) on Thursday, 10th September 2009
Fascinating,
Without these "avowedly anti Christian" sources the only version would be that of the church.
We may not like it if we discover that a great grandparent was a convicted axe-murderer, or a favoutite grandparent was a wife and childbeater, but that doesn't make it less true.
The church has had a monopoly on church history for many centuries, and it's really only the last 75 years that we see a more 'historical' view expressed.
This may be unpopular with the faithful, but any history that sets out to be popular will invariably be flawed.
The history of religion is no longer 'out of bounds'. The problem is that the church wrote it's own history, and as we can see on the R&E Boards, refusing to accept this history can lead to some extremely nasty posts.
I've lost count of the number of times I've been called a 'Satan Worshipper' for asking awkward questions, or have been told 'You'll burn forever in the everlasting Lake of Fire' for saying that biblical genocide is a bad thing !
I also note that apart from two website references, you offer none. So please don't demand a reference without offering some of your own, preferably not from websites - I find them difficult to read.
And don't forget we can offer our own ideas and opinions here, and no references are required for that.
As far as I can, I use books. More time consuming perhaps, but websites can have 'dubious' origins.
You'll find details of the book burning, destruction of libraries, and the curtailment of education and learning in The New Columbia Encyclopedia, Eisler's 'The Chalice and the Blade, Graham's 'Deceptions and Myths of the Bible', and J B Russel's 'A History of Medieval Christianity.
If these authors are avowedly anti-Christian, could you please let us know ?
My reference to Justinian's 'heresy' comes from my own notes. I'll try and find the reference for you.
Please note that your reference to 'bleeding' in the 2nd century is 400 years before the dates of the Dark Ages. It may have been a part of Greek and Roman medicine, but it was only a part, and not the whole.
I'm pleased you see the difference between the Western (European) Empire, and the Eastern (Justinian) Empire.
This difference became, as you no doubt know, the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.
'Another side' could imply a sphere. But that's not what he said. He said 'opposite', and I believe this implies that he thought the world was flat.
This is irrelevant however. The point I was trying to make was that Augustine believed that all learning should come from the Christian Bible, and nothing else.
Some would like to see that happen today.
Do you have the sources of you life-expectancy claims ? -
Message 29
Posted by delrick53 (U13797078) on Thursday, 10th September 2009
Noggin,
Good point.
The same could be said of other parts of Europe that had been under Roman influence; "Where did history go, and why ?". -
Message 30
Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Friday, 11th September 2009
I also note that apart from two website references, you offer none. So please don't demand a reference without offering some of your own, preferably not from websites - I find them difficult to read.
And don't forget we can offer our own ideas and opinions here, and no references are required for that.
As far as I can, I use books. More time consuming perhaps, but websites can have 'dubious' origins.
Ìý
The great thing about web sites is that they can be accessed instantly. I can't understand what you mean by "difficult to read"; if you can read a book you can read a website surely?
On the nature of evidence in general, I don't think it is enough to simply rely on what is written in a book (or a website), there need to be references right back to the source material, which basically means written accounts by people who were there at the time (or close to the time). So, on the matter of the burning of the Library of Alexandria, for example, the link I gave you makes numerous references to the authors (some pagan, some Christian) who wrote around those times. Ultimately, those ancient authors are the people we have to rely on (assuming there is not going to be definitive archaeological evidence).
If a person writes a book called "Deceptions and Myths of the Bible", then I assume he his anti-Christian, just as the book called "The Bible as History" will probably have been written by a believer. A truly impartial person might write a book called "The Bible and History - Reality and Myth".
The history of religion is no longer 'out of bounds'. The problem is that the church wrote it's own history, and as we can see on the R&E Boards, refusing to accept this history can lead to some extremely nasty postsÌý
You can rest assured that you won't get any of that nonesense from me.
The history of religion has not been out of bounds for a long time now, and in fact the critism of Christian religion is so commonplace that it is getting a bit tiresome now, to me. Certainly some bad things were done and lies told. But many other religions did much the same. The Aztec priests had a practice of hacking out the hearts of hundreds of healthy individuals to appease the Sun god (or whatever). I don't see many weighty tomes condemning that, but many books lauding this 'wonderful' culture.
Ancient medicine was rubbish and so was medieval medicine. -
Message 31
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Friday, 11th September 2009
Hi fascinating,
"Ancient medicine was rubbish.."Ìý
That's bad news for us Hippocrates enthusiasts!
TP -
Message 32
Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Friday, 11th September 2009
TP, if you can list for me a number of the treatments he gave which were wonderfully effective, I would be glad to be proven wrong.
-
Message 33
Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Friday, 11th September 2009
delrick, on Roman life expectancy, see the following link to the text of a book. Scroll down to page 15 of the book.
-
Message 34
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Friday, 11th September 2009
The Hippocratic Bench (or the Scamnum), a forerunner to traction equipment still used in orthaepedics, was accredited to his invention, as were certain specilaised surgery tools.
He was the first physician we know of who prioritised patient confidentiality, as well as diagnosis based on pooled records submitted by all physicians, not to mention the first physician to attribute all ailments to natural, rather than supernatural, causes.
As quacks go, fascinating, he would definitely have been the one I'd have gone to when something went out of whack had I lived at the time. As for his treatments I haven't a clue, except that we know Galen based many of his, which we do know about, on Hippocrates and they seemed effective enough, especially in the use of herbs which actually did what they said on the proverbial tin. -
Message 35
Posted by delrick53 (U13797078) on Friday, 11th September 2009
fascinating,
I'm certainly not the only person here who has difficulty reading websites !
I don't know why, but after a dozen or so lines the words start to meld, glasses or no glasses.
I also have a problem sitting (I am disabled) for long periods, and have to spend most of my waking hours lying down (with a book !).
There are also ongoing discussions about the Google online book thingie, and it won't work for me.
The number of 'anti Christian' books available isn't huge. A quick check with Amazon last night showed that there are many more books available that support the biblical narrative than there are against it.
Where the numbers start to even out is when the authors introduce evidence - checkable, science-based, textual evidence, and there is no doubt that the more objective authors, historians, archaeologists, and theologians hold the high ground here.
Superstition and blind belief are no substitute for scholarship and genuine research.
But we are talking about the Dark Ages, and as has already been said, the historical evidence for this period is thin.
Some of it is faith-based, and is similar to the claim 'it must be true because it's in the bible' type arguement.
Once again, you'll read much of this over on the R&E Boards.
It's often said that it's the victor who writes the history, and the same applies to the history of the Christian Church.
The church controlled literature in Europe for hundreds of years, and if there is any critical writing of the church from that time, it'll be in the Vatican archives. Considering it took the archives 700 years to publish the Templar Trials, in a very limited edition costing £5,000 per book, I doubt if any of us here will be around for the paperback.
There is an additional problem, and that's the titles of books. Invariably the author doesn't choose the title, and it's only recently that Amazon has started offering a brief synopsis of any book on their front page, along with a 'taster' of the contents.
Finally, if a book has a title like '101 Myths of the Bible' (Gary Greenberg), or 'The Bible Unearthed', (Finklestein and Silberman), 'Jesus Interrupted', 'Misquoting Jesus', (Bart D Ehrman), I don't expect a vox-pop volume of tall tales and anti anything. I know these authors, their background, their scholarship, and their qualifications.
I trust them, their sources, and their research, but I would have doubts about the works of Ian Paisley or the Vatican PR Department.
I have read many books by Christian authors, and the things missing in every case are references. They seem to believe that the reader should simply believe. End of story. It's almost as if they don't think that people like me will read these books.
When the Vatican published it's 'War Record' (ADSS) a few years ago, they were shocked when the committee of scholars who had requested it rejected the record out of hand. Too much editing and many crucial documents were missing. It had taken the Vatican many years to produce the record, but it appears that much of that time was spent deciding what should be left out because of the potential damage it may do to church history.
If I want to read about evolution, I read the likes of Dawkins, Shubin, or Gould, but not Kent Hovind or Jerry Falwell
Theoretical physics - Hawking, Gribbons, Davies, Kaku, Feynman, or Penrose, not 'Answers in Genesis' or any theological philosopher.
Comparing the Aztecs with Christianity is wrong.
We know the history of the Aztecs, and the blood and sacrifice was certainly a part of that history, but it's long gone (and you can't have really looked at the books available on the subject !).
Christianity is still with us, and it varies from the thoroughly decent to the dangerously psychotic (like most religions).
What I have a problem with is the number of 'believers' who have never even read the bible (I have, several times, and my KJV is always within reach), and the others who only read what their priest/pastor/minister tells them to read. Others (some on the R&E Boards) only read one book - the bible (very Dark Ages !), and live their lives accordingly.
I've tried to say that knowing the history of Christianity should not affect the faith of the reader (see Bart Ehrman), indeed it could make them better Christians.
Just like all those Scots who believe that 'Braveheart' or the work of Scott is history, knowing the truth, the reality, and the facts, could make them less Anglophobic, but better Scots. -
Message 36
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Friday, 11th September 2009
Hello fascinating,
You write:
But it was Ancient, pagan, Rome that sowed the seeds of the Dark Ages, in my opinionÌý
Of course, you are right. See
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 37
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Friday, 11th September 2009
Re: messages 11 and 20.
Hello Delrick53,
You might want to consider this; from 1300 to 1325 medieval knowledge took a spurt and soon outperformed anything that the Classics had to offer. See This was when the Church was still supreme. If the Church was so harmful to science, why was it that in the period that the Church ruled supreme, science got a boost that it did never before or after? And why were all these scientists either monks or men of the cloth?
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 38
Posted by delrick53 (U13797078) on Friday, 11th September 2009
Poltergeist,
I don't see the connection (or any references).
The Dark Ages didn't start until the second half of the 6th century. -
Message 39
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Friday, 11th September 2009
Hello Noggin,
You write:
To me, this really begs another question - why should this nearly five hundred year period in Greece and Anatolia have left such sparse remains, when before and after left so much more. None of the explanations I have ever seen offered really carry much conviction, or even credibility.Ìý
The explanation is that these two regions were affected severely by the Bronze Age Collapse. See If you compare the Bronze Age Collapse with the meteorite that killed the dinosaurs, than you have to compare the regions of Greece and Anatolia with the dinosaurs that became extinct and Egypt with the birds that have gotten away. But which region, do you ask, has to be compared to the mammals? Why, the Aramaeans of course! It took the inhabitants of Greece and Anatolia 500 years to catch up with the Aramaean countries.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 40
Posted by delrick53 (U13797078) on Friday, 11th September 2009
Poltergeist,
You're actually proving my point, thanks.
All three clergymen were thinkers at the end of the Dark Ages, and I've already said that by that time the church was losing some of it's power.
Two were English, and therefore mostly safe from the long arm of Rome.
As far as I remember, Bacon was arrested by church authorities for thinking outside the doctrine (have a look at the 1210-1277 'Condemnations').
I know little about Oresme, apart from the fact that he spent much of his time thinking outside the church doctrine.
Ockham we all know, thanks to his razor. Like Bacon, he was attacked by the church, for thinking outside church doctrine. He was a reformist, has been described as a religious dissident, was excommunicated, suspected of heresy, and lived much of his life either in exile or hiding from the 'official' church.
It's also significant that all three were clergymen - How do I get an education ? I'll join the church ! The only option for the poor who wanted to learn, or the wealthy who wanted education and power without having to pay for it !
So yes, science got a boost, despite the best efforts of the church. -
Message 41
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Friday, 11th September 2009
Re: message 38.
Hello Delrick53,
I’m in a place were I’m not surrounded by my usual dictionaries that have been my security blanket up till now. But let’s give it a go.
Your theory that religion is the cause of the decline in knowledge that the world has known from 400 AD – 1000 AD is not supported by the evidence.
You seem to think that the Greek and Romans didn’t believe. Nothing could be further from the truth. The faith in the Olympic gods had ceased to exist, but the Athenians had made up their own religion: the rites of the Elysian Fields. Unfortunately, it is not in the Wikipedia, but it is a kind of Deism that was installed by the French during their Revolution for a short while. In fact. the Greek had many religions. One other example is the worship of Dionysus, which is known in literature by the funny tragicomedy that was written by Euripides. Socrates was convicted for atheism, the worst crime one could imagine in those days. If you are interested in the subject you might want to read Jacob Burckhardt’s The Greeks and Greek Civilization, or Nietsche’s The Birth of Tragedy.
In the Roman Republic, it was mandatory for every citizen of a town to worship the Gods of that particular town. A strict obedience of this rule was enforced by the censors.
So you see that in the period from 500 BC to 1800 AD people held to their religious believe. This is one clue that religion can’t be held responsible for the downfall of knowledge that took place from 200 BC – 1000 AD. Nor can you blame Christianity, because Christianity ruled supreme from 300 AD – 1800 AD, so its reign began long after the downfall of knowledge. But what is more, in the 25 year period from 1300 AD – 1325 science was to grow on a scale that is unsurpassed since. This was brought about by men of the Church. If the Church were so harmful for science, why is it that men of the Church have seen to the greatest spurt of growth in human knowledge that man has known?
I take exception to your idea that the breakdown of knowledge dates from the start of the Dark Ages. In fact the pace of scientific progress came to nought soon after the Romans took over the Greek world around 200 BC. The Romans made rhetoric the main subject of the curriculum and it stayed that way until 1000 AD. Rhetoric was the main subject of the curriculum from 200 BC – 1000 AD and that is exactly the period that science ceased to grow. So it is the importance of rhetoric in the curriculum, not religion that is responsible for the breakdown in knowledge.
I like to tell you more about the subject, but I have to do my shopping right now. Maybe you can prepare some issues that we can talk about. Unfortunately, I will not be able to answer you right away, because I’m experiencing problems with internet at home lately
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 42
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Friday, 11th September 2009
I would have to agree with Poldertjiger, at least when he says that one cannot blame the Roman church for the failure of societies in Europe to advance knowledge and its application. It, like many other forms of ignorance and superstition, blossomed in their absence, but that does not make any of them the cause. He is also correct to point out that Roman political domination had also meant that the other Roman trait - a pragmatism rooted so much in exploiting what is known that it actually militated against knowing any more - had become a well established and unfortunate academic norm even before the church inherited what was left of it.
The truth is that the combination of circumstances required to enhance and encourage pursuit of knowledge, rigorous scientific endeavour and the intelligent application of that which is learnt, were pretty rare events throughout history. We marvel at those occasions and those places which managed to achieve it, however fleetingly, more because of their singular rarity than that they ever represented a continuous advancement. They represented advancement, but it was anything but continuous and prone to long periods of stagnation or regression before eventually flourishing again at another time in another place.
Blaming the church for such a period is like blaming hunger itself for the famine which produces it. Moreover, it deftly but egregiously avoids the admittance that it was scribes in the employment of the same church whose collected writings, in the era before printing, who provided the very material on which a society, rediscovering its necessity for repositories of knowledge and the means to disseminate it, relied to a huge extent. Their role in the process may have been complicated by the confusion their participation engendered between actual knowledge and faith-based assertion, but it is still a process which would have been more seriously retarded still if they had had no role at all.
And can we finally nail this "Dark Ages" definition thing? For a start it is not a phrase that most historians even pay lip service to anymore, and it most definitely was never meant to imply a long "gloomy" time for those unfortunate enough to be stuck in it. "Dark" might have negative connotations, but the connotation was used to point to our own ignorance, not theirs. The "Dark Ages" did not begin on any particular day and nor did they end on one. The phrase was coined to indicate only the dearth to the point of absence of knowledge concerning what occurred in Europe over a long period, a dearth which has long ago been addressed and redressed by years of good sound archaeological work. The gaps in our knowledge were always piecemeal and non-uniform in terms of place and time, even when the phrase could be applied with justification. Now there are few such gaps left which merit us calling their contents "dark", merely less well defined than others.
Put simply - the "Dark Ages" are not the opposite to the "Age of Enlightenment", despite the similarity of simile employed, and nor was the phrase ever meant to imply they were. -
Message 43
Posted by delrick53 (U13797078) on Friday, 11th September 2009
Nordman
The title of the thread is 'The Dark Ages', and I've given my dates for that period - late 6th to the medieval.
Rome was effectively finished as an empire, and in Europe it was replaced by the church.
Perhaps we should have a look at the plague and it's effects on Europe to see what the church took over from.
Once again, there is little detail, but I've read that at it's height, in Byzantium (I suspect the Empire) alone, it was claiming 10,000 lives each day.
This is probably an exaggeration, but even at 5,000 a day, it's truly horrific.
Nothing could stop it, and people flocked to the churches where they were told it was 'God's judgement' on sinful man.
We see exactly the same thing today - High profile Evangelical Christian leaders told their millions that Katrina and 9/11 were the result of sin (mostly homosexuality), and the Asian Tsunami happened because 'people weren't Islamic enough'.
And they were believed, in the 21st century, 1500 years after the plague.
Fear, panic, desperation, have always driven people to faith.
Sometimes faith repays that belief.
Sometimes it takes advantage, often because of who's running the show.
Were there any great medical, scientific or mathematital advances between 600 and 1200 BCE ?
There may have been, but where they European ? -
Message 44
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Friday, 11th September 2009
You're missing my point. If you can claim that you have sufficient knowledge of the period in question to analyse and gauge the status (or lack of status) of scientific advancement in Europe during that time (whatever "age" you arbitrarily declare it to be), then it's not "dark". You are supposedly basing your view on fact, and if fact has come to light then the darkness has been dispelled.
You don't seem to understand what the term was coined to mean. You seemingly think it relates to the people and their times in the sense that they were unenlightened compared to previous and later times. It wasn't. It was coined to mean that we in the "modern" age almost hadn't a clue what happened then. That is no longer true, and wasn't even generally true when Petrarch invented it. By insisting that the term retains its subjective, ignorant and quasi-religious connotations you are revealing a religious mindset, not that of an historian. It has been a long time since the term has had any meaning amongst historians other than "paucity of archaeological evidence". And that paucity is no longer true. -
Message 45
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Saturday, 12th September 2009
Hello Delrick53,
It seems to me that the Western European steep decline in knowledge in the fifth century has more to do with the bandit attacks of the German tribes in Gaul that forced the Roman Empire to let the German peoples in control of Gaul territory than with the Church taking over control of Gaul society.
The inhabitants of the Roman cities decided to leave with the Roman legions; quite understandably, after they had been plundered, their houses had been ransacked and their women had been raped by said tribes. With them, Vitruvius’ knowledge of architecture and Galen’s knowledge of medicine left Gaul, not to return for centuries.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 46
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Saturday, 12th September 2009
I am very very sorry to ground you to the reality but I have to do it:
Dark Ages in Europe and stop of science? Where? In western Europe? Eh? Do you actually claim that 700 A.D. France was more backwards and less science producing than 100 A.D. France? Or that Saxons fared worse than ancient Britons? Or really do you think that a Roman outpost in Gaul = civilisation and scientific process? I am sorry but I can hardly find any more scientists in those earlier periods in those lands compared to later (in fact I am yet to find 1...)
I am very sorry to tell you so but actually the period with the less scientific development is not the middle Ages but the... Roman Empire... which inadvertedly brought some negative impact like the destruction of cities, the burning of the Alexandrian library etc. Not that this was the intention of Romans but since their attention was more in how to control the regions and make money all that while having to deal against largely inferior culturally enemies - apart Persians, somehow they did not feel the need to foster knowledge resulting in between 100 B.C. and 400 A.D. having no noticeable development of the rate of gain of knowledge we saw in Hellenistic years - in fact any development is thanks to the only civilisational powerhouse in the Empire, the Greeks. And by the time this Empire becomes Greek we see rapid development in all sectors incuding an amazing literacy level....and here I speak for women (!), state hospitals, universities all which took an unexpected end in 1204 when Italians-Franks invaded and destroyed....
It seems that the only place that really passed "Dark Ages" was central Italy. All other regions simply continued to evolve from their actual state. There was not much in Britain or Gaul to have lost and regained... all that is a terrible (and frankly racist) myth, on of the not so few myths that exist in European history thanks to our beloved Enlightners of the 18th century....
Pseudofriendship with muslims makes many say now that it was thanks to them that civilisation continued in the Middle Ages despite them being always in the 2nd position behind Byzantines and always looking up to them despite themselves having 3 times their size both in population and lands. So much was their complex of cultural inferiority accompanied with a will to conquer Byzantion for so many centuries that they rejoiced all over when in 1453 despite conquering a phantom of a city of a non-existing Empire, a region in complete ruins after the catholic raids and the civil strife that lasted more than 200 years.
I am sorry but some things have to be said dry and hard... -
Message 47
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Saturday, 12th September 2009
Someone, I think Delrick, mentioned no medicine in middle ages... well speak for others cos speaking of Byzantines, they had organised hospitals and formally trained doctors (including women doctors) specialised in medicine categories not far from modern ones, accompanied by nurses.... things we saw only after 19th century.
That is what we know. We do not have their knowledge as everything was lost. But if we take into account the above we cannot imagine that all that expensive organisation was all about bleeding and methods easily performed by your grandmother... quite different we have some bits and parts, hints of medical researches in ... cardiovascular diseases that we started researching post war...
Apparently the fact that no book has been saved apart the ancient books which were naturally copied many more times and were also in the hands of Arabs (as Byzantines hardly passed their research work to foreigners... you just have to take into account the silk production hidden for 500 years and the Greek Fire that we still have no idea of what was and how was stored in vacuum tubes...) means absolutely nothing. Perhaps a black hole for us, certainly not a dark Age back then. -
Message 48
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Saturday, 12th September 2009
Another person who equates the "dark" in "Dark Ages" with intellectual and moral deficiency in society. This is not what it means. It means only a period which is historically difficult to reconstruct or interpret from the record.
You guys are on the wrong messageboard. Over on those which are dedicated to religion you'll find umpteen people at any given moment who make the same basic mistake. And it is not only a basic mistake , but one which attacks not only an understanding of history and how it is recorded, but the value of that study itself.
Petrarch coined the phrase as a reference to the loss of historical knowledge, in his specific area of interest the production and preservation of good literary work. Here is his own summation of his standpoint and why he used the term;
"Each famous author of antiquity whom I recover places a new offence and another cause of dishonor to the charge of earlier generations, who, not satisfied with their own disgraceful barrenness, permitted the fruit of other minds, and the writings that their ancestors had produced by toil and application, to perish through insufferable neglect. Although they had nothing of their own to hand down to those who were to come after, they robbed posterity of its ancestral heritage."
He attributed the gap in the record to negligence on the part of generations of people who did not record things. His lament is for the knowledge thus lost; not an accusation that nothing of worth had been created in that time, but that it had proved ephemeral due to lack of preservation. There is a subtle difference, but a hugely proufound difference, between an accusation of ignorance and that of negligence. Modern historians echo his sentiments, but with a broadly greater understanding of why the gap in the record occurred. In fact they have done much to close that gap significantly. They have even, since the 1300s, recovered many works produced in the period Petrarch to which Petrarch ascribed his "darkness".
I feel Petrarch would have approved of their progress in that regard (he was something of a philological researcher himself and not at all bad at it) - and would have been quite baffled that someone 700 years later would have hijacked his phrase in a manner and with a meaning which he had never intended. -
Message 49
Posted by delrick53 (U13797078) on Saturday, 12th September 2009
Nordmann/Poltertjiger,
Well, I decided to spend a little time with what appears to be the Oracle, or as it's commonly known, Wikipedia.
And what do I find ?
You both know, don't you. Your apparent source of historical knowledge relating to this thread (or so it seems). Please tell me I'm wrong.
What I also discovered is that the Wiki provides evidence supporting both sides of this debate.
For anyone who's interested, please read the following sources :
Yes Nordmann, I know who Petrarch was, and I didn't get that from the wiki. I'm a card-carrying secular humanist, and I read about him many years ago. In a book.
I also now have a problem with term 'historian'. I know that I ain't one, and neither are you. We're people who have an interest in history. My formal education ended when I was 17. Since then I've developed a keen interest in many things - but I'm not an astrophysicist (or any other kind), or a biologist, or a theologian, a musician (although I still try), or anything else you'll find among my 3,000 books. One particular interest reveals over 50 books on the shelves, others a dozen, and this thread will probably add a few more (Eugene A Magevney I think is a certainty).
But it appears that if I use the Wiki, I can be all these things !
To the Wiki links I'll add these :
and
The above is a science blog, and as you can see has links to many science sites, including Bad Science and Bad Astronomy. I've got several books written by the authors of both sites (Ben Goldacre and Phil Plait). But that doesn't make me a geek either.
This site also claims, like the wiki and the Channel 4 links, that the Dark Ages are as and when I described them, although it could be argued that the Dark Ages includes the Early, Middle, and Late Medieval.
My claim is therefore not arbitrary - far from it, and my position that 'Dark' is as I describe it, and is supported by scientists, historians, and the 'always correct' (??) Wikipedia (and Channel 4, the station that produces more 'History of Religion' type documentaries than all others combined).
In a way we're all right, and I respect both of you and your opinions, but if someone takes their information from a website (Wikipedia) and uses it to challenge a series of references from books, then I really think it's doing the decent thing to say so (Poltertijger always does).
And are you really saying that historians (real ones) don't have opinions or beliefs, and that those opinions and beliefs aren't reflected in their work ?
Something else I've noticed, and that's the claim that naming something must be accurate and reflect the subject exactly.
I can't accept this. WW1 and WW2 were not world wars. The Hundred Years War wasn't either, and they're the first things that came into my head.
The accuracy of the name doesn't really matter, does it ? We all know what the name refers to.
I'm off to look for a more recent book on the life and works of Petrarch, and an objective opinion of science in the Dark/Early Middle Ages. -
Message 50
Posted by delrick53 (U13797078) on Saturday, 12th September 2009
E_Nikolas,
I've tried to draw a distinction between the western and eastern empires.
The east thrived, the west stagnated. It was the east that preserved the old books rather than burn them, and once the whole nasty period was over, the books emerged again (many had been hidden in North Africa), and translated from Greek to Latin.
More about women doctors later.
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