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The "Dark Ages" is a concept invented in the early 14th Century by the poet Petrarch who used it to describe the preceding 900 years in Europe, beginning with the fall of the western Roman Empire in 410 through to the renewal embodied in the Renaissance. Before the conceptual term was invented, contemporaries did not see themselves as part of a Dark Age, and to understand why the period is called "Dark", with its negative connotations, it is helpful to know when, how and why the term was invented, how the term has been variously used in the 700 years since its creation.Note: For other labels of the Dark Ages see also Late Antiquity, Early Middle Ages, Great Migrations, Middle Ages and the "Other labels for the Dark Ages" section below. For a general discussion of attempts to categorize or divide historical time into discrete named blocks, see Periodization.
1 Origin and history of Dark Ages concept
"Triumph of Christianity" by Tommaso Laureti ( 1530- 1602), ceiling painting in the Sala di Constantino , Vatican Palace. Images like this one symbolize the destruction of ancient pagan culture and the "victory" of Christianity.
In order to understand the origin of the concept of the Dark Ages it is helpful to understand how the people of the time saw their own place in history. Most scholars of Late Antiquity followed St. Augustine (5th Century) who believed history had 6 stages and that they were living in the sixth and final phase of history in which the end of earthly man was coming after Christ returned to earth, and that the events of Revelation and the "End of Days" could happen at any time. This idea was prevalent for nearly 900 years.
1.1 Origin of the Dark Ages concept
How did the concept of the "Dark Ages" come about and why? It is generally accepted that the term was invented by the 14th Century Italian Renaissance humanist Petrarch in the 1330s. Petrarch, who spent much of his time traveling through Europe rediscovering and re-publishing the classic LatinAlternative meanings: See Latin (disambiguation Latin was the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. It gained great importance as the formal language of the Roman Empire. All Romance languages are descended from Latin, and ma and GreekThe word Greek has a number of meanings relating to Greece, including: Architecture of Ancient Greece Art in Ancient Greece Greek alphabet Greek colonies Cuisine of Greece Ethnic Greek Greco-Turkish relations Greece Hellenes History of Greece History of M texts, desired to restore the classic Latin language, art and culture to the original Roman ways and any changes that had happened since the fall of Rome in 410Events Alaric I deposes Priscus Attalus as Roman Emperor August 24 Visigoths under Alaric sack Rome for three days Ataulf succeeds his brother-in-law Alaric as king of the Visigoths Emperor Honorius tells Britain to look to its own defenses, effectively e was not worth studying. Humanists saw the 900 year period of Classics stagnation as the "Age of Darkness". Humanists saw history not on the religious terms of St. Augustine, but along social ones, through the progressive developments of Classical culture, literature and art. Petrarch wrote history has two periods: the Classic period of the Romans and Greeks, and an "Age of Darkness". Humanists believed one day the Roman Empire would rise again and restore the Classic culture purity. Later in the late 14th and early 15th Century humanists believed they had achieved a new age. A 3rd Modern Age had started and a "Middle Age" logically created. The first use of the term "Middle Age" appears with Flavio Biando in 1410.
"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."--Petrarch
