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Comment by steve19 | Hacker News Reader

Yes but the Dark Age specifically refers to Western Europe, in much the same way the disastrous impact of the Mongol Empire on Islamic scholarship, for example the burning of libraries during or after the Siege of Baghdad, barely touched Western Europe. Chances are the Mongols destroyed some advanced mathematics that took centuries to rediscover.

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The dark ages simply refers to the loss of texts. There are few surviving texts from that period, so it is “dark”. Later the term was re-branded to mean “bad time when no new science was done” but that’s a viewpoint that doesn’t fit the facts.

Source (a very enjoyable read at that!): https://going-medieval.com/2017/05/26/theres-no-such-thing-a...

I mean, there definitely seems to have been a large decline in population, economic output, political cohesion, urbanization, record keeping, trade, etc., in much of the former Roman world following the fifth/sixth century. I suppose it's a value judgement on whether one considers that a "bad time."

Curious if you have any sources? I've never seen a data driven case that such a thing as the "dark ages" ever happened.

This is an excellent read: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/15/were-there-dark-ages/

Well, someone has a bone to pick with the early Middle Ages. What an angry rant to prove that the dark ages really existed. He sometimes has a point but in total it really is a non-historian making some weird arguments to prove that 800AD was terrible (look at the difference in these maps! Just completely ignore any cultural and artistic context that matter why they look the way they do!). I’m surprised he didn’t compare Greek statues with medieval paintings to prove his point.

There's an excellent book on the subject called The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization, by Bryan Ward-Perkins. It includes a detailed overview of the archeological evidence, which shows a very clear and dramatic decline in the economy and living standards -- and some areas of technology -- between circa 350 and 600 in the Western Empire. (And the recovery afterwards took centuries.) The Eastern Empire, interestingly, doesn't show any signs of a similar decline until the 7th Century.

For example, peasant households in Italy at the height of the empire had a wide variety of well-made pottery, some of it originating from production centers hundreds of miles away, along with tiled roofs; after the collapse, the variety and quality of pottery was greatly reduced, and tiled roofs disappear. (Tiled roofs provide better protection against rain, are less flammable, and require less maintenance and rebuilding than wooden shingles or thatch; but they also require large kilns, lots of clay and fuel, and a good transportation network.)

And ice cores from Greenland show extensive metalworking going on in Western Europe (in the form of copper and lead pollution carried through the air) during the Roman Empire; after the collapse of the Western Empire, the pollution levels don't return to Roman-era values until the 16th Century.

Another source, in addition to the one cited by Keysh, is Social Development by Ian Morris which goes into some more depth on the data he used in Why the West Rules--for Now.

http://pzacad.pitzer.edu/~lyamane/ianmorris.pdf

Across a wide set of measures, there was a significant decline of the West after the fall of the Roman Empire.

The dark ages also saw a huge disparity in education between the East and the West.

Until the 15th century less than 5 people in Europe could do long division. For comparison, Aryabhatta discovered calculus in 5th century India and Madhava made large contributions in the 13th century (Newton/Leibniz were wrongly credited for similar work many years later).

The way I heard it, Aryabhatta and those who followed discovered some of the ideas behind calculus and a few useful results, but not calculus itself, neither the basic ideas like derivatives and integrals nor the vast conclusions that followed from those.

> Until the 15th century less than 5 people in Europe could do long division.

That’s wildly inaccurate. Arithmetic was very much a subject at several schools with the addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division all being taught. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrivium

Long division being difficult in Roman numerals is one of the reasons for the switch.

>That’s wildly inaccurate. Arithmetic was very much a subject at several schools...

I'm talking specifically about "long division" in Europe... and have heard this factoid from multiple mathematicians including Nasim Taleb. So I expect there is a basis for the claim...

Let’s be clear, if you mean the modern notation, that was was ‘invented’ after the dark ages. So under that definition it’s ~0 people world wide in the dark ages. Excluding independent discovery.

However, if we are talking about the number of people being able to accurately do 1234 / 56 = 22 r 2. That was regularly taught in the Middle Ages with plenty of examples of such calculations being available.

Well, especially Taleb's claims are worth it to source check. Especially if they are these really juicy stories (like only 5 people in Europe knowing long division).

He has bit of a habit exaggerating and elaborating on stories for the sake of making tasty reading. There was a story in Black Swan about two hospitals and a simple statistical riddle that he claimed professional statisticians would get wrong. It wasn't even a trick question, most people would get it right. I found this hard to believe but I was still sort of surprised when the source spoke of a much harder statistics question that was surveyed at a psychologists convention, not statisticians. That was the first (and the last) source I checked on him. I'd have checked a few more but I don't have the book any more.

But now I guess I can add this one to the list of examples.

> The dark ages simply refers to the loss of texts. There are few surviving texts from that period, so it is “dark”. Later the term was re-branded to mean “bad time when no new science was done” but that’s a viewpoint that doesn’t fit the facts.

Relevant (even though considered as pseudoscience):

> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=New_Chronology_(F...

It is actually the other way around. The original meaning by Petrarch was not about the lack of historical source material. He did mean "bad/ignorant times".

His point is that most Western history lessons completely ignore everything but Western Europe during that time frame and present a view of history that nothing was happening globally of any importance.

That really was my experience growing up in Western education. My understanding was that history focused on the important things and it wasn't until much later in life that I learned there was a lot happening globally after the fall of the Roman empire before the European renaissance.

After the USA was established, US history lessons completely ignore the rest of the globe until the early 20th century. I only learned yesterday that Italy wasn't a country until 1861 and I am almost 40.

>most Western history lessons completely ignore everything but Western Europe

That’s because they’re Western history lessons. I had world history as a separate class in high school.

I had History, American History and World History but never Western History.

Yes, but Rome isn’t Western Europe. So western Europe’s entire history is a “dark age” before the Age of Enlightenment.

(Edit: incorrectly said renaissance instead of Age of Enlightenment... the renaissance wasn’t Western European either)

What's this about "Rome isn’t Western Europe"--have you consulted a map of the Roman empire?

Have you looked at the population spread of the Roman Empire? Rome had people, the rest of the empire was predominantly to the East/South. Rome was Mediterranean, not Western European.

What is your definition of “Western European” precisely?

https://aaron7roberts.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/roman_empi...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empi... also shows larger populations in the “Latin West” than in the “Greek East”.

The first map shows roughly thirteen million people in non-Italy "Western Europe" and roughly twenty two millions in the non Western Europe parts. Wikipedia has an actual population density map[1] that highlights my point. Even in traditional "Western Europe," the population is predominantly Mediterranean. It also has a list of the most populous cities during the peak of the Empire, largely outside of Western Europe.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empi...

edit terrible math on my part.

So about half the roman empire (including Italy) was in Western Europe? Of course the Roman Empire extended further (and longer in other regions), but saying Middle Age's Western Europe doesn't include large regions that were previously part of the Roman Empire seems strange to me.

>but saying Middle Age's Western Europe doesn't include large regions that were previously part of the Roman Empire seems strange to me.

No one said that. The Roman Empire isn't Western Europe, and calling the period the "Dark Ages" is inaccurate.

Novacole said “Rome isn’t Western Europe. So western Europe’s entire history is a “dark age” before the Age of Enlightenment.”

That seems to imply that Rome isn’t part of the history of Western Europe at all (and neither did the Renaissance happen in Western Europe, apparently).

Though I can't make out Novacole's exact point, I would assume it was more about how it is incorrect to say "there was a dark age after Rome" as the dark age only impacted a part of the still existing Roman Empire.

I agree. The part affected was “Western Europe”, as opposed to the part of Europe that remained in the sphere of the Eastern Roman Empire.

I don't know what you mean, but:

1. Roman empire dominion included, but did not limit to what we now refer to as Western Europe...

2... of whose languages are either mostly descended from, or heavily influenced by Latin...

3. ... And where the dominant religion is still the Roman state religion. Which was lorded over by the Roman state church for a thousand years before an angry German monk suggested that this was really weird and could we keep the book and get rid of the pope.

So, when you say Western Europe is not Rome, you need to say how it isn't, since there are quite a few things that link this geographic area culturally very strongly to that ancient empire.

> when you say Western Europe is not Rome

To be fair, they said Rome is not Western Europe, which is true. Rome didn’t have cultural affinity with Western Europeans. Rome’s cultural affinity flowed to the east with the Greeks et al.

Romans culturally ate less meat and frowned upon their Northern Germanic Tribes who almost always ate meat. They were more frugal in their way of life.

The Germanic Tribes were also taller and were acknowledged by Romans as formidable warrior.

Culturally tho, Romans were South Europeans and assimilated what we call South Italy and Greece now.

They also captured parts of middle east but culturally they never became Romans.

>3. ... And where the dominant religion is still the Roman state religion. Which was lorded over by the Roman state church for a thousand years before an angry German monk suggested that this was really weird and could we keep the book and get rid of the pope.

There were other Pagan religions at the time and in middle east Jews didn't accept Roman state religion.

But then again, people born in Roman Empire got Roman citizenship on Birth so it didn't matter what you were culturally or religiously or tribe/ethnicity.

> people born in Roman Empire got Roman citizenship on Birth

I assume 'people' excluded slaves?

Yes that's right.

*I mean the Germanic tribes in North ate meat everyday.

Why the Downvotes? Anyone wants to challenge these facts, please post rebuttal. I'd love to educate myself more.

Heh, I know the feeling!

But then again, you say stuff about how romans vs germanic meat eating, but I don't see any citations for that. They'd be helpful.

Generally folks living closer to the poles eat more meat.

> But then again, people born in Roman Empire got Roman citizenship on Birth

That depends on when you're talking about. Until Caracalla made all free subjects citizens in 212 AD (supposedly so that he could tax them more heavily),[1] Roman citizenship was restricted and highly coveted.

> There were other Pagan religions at the time and in middle east Jews didn't accept Roman state religion.

From the late 300s onwards, pagans were persecuted in the Roman Empire. Nicene Christianity was the state religion. Also, Jews lived throughout the empire, not just in the Middle East. From about the 1st century AD onwards, there were more Jews living outside of the land of Israel than within it.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutio_Antoniniana

For the period being described, the Roman Empire did not include Western Europe, they did not speak Latin nor did they view the Papacy as the head of their religion. Yet they were still the Roman Empire. That's why Western Europe is not Rome.

> renaissance wasn’t Western European

Was it Byzantine?

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