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Comment by thaumasiotes | Hacker News Reader

> The trade system which maintained large cities broke down for reasons that will be forever debated re: the decline of the Western Roman Empire. But that is the key, and why it probably deserves to be called a Dark Age.

The normal use of the term "dark age" refers to a time period for which historical records are not available. This makes it difficult to see in the dark age.

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Colloquially, "dark age" means an age when the people are unenlightened, backwards, etc

There is no benefit to using it that way; if you try, the only thing that will happen is you'll be hopelessly confused by every historical period that is called a dark age, because they're all called that for the reason I gave above.

It is a problem when professional jargon makes its way into the common lexicon with a different meaning. No amount of history professors telling people that "dark ages" refers to a lack of sources will overcome the association people have in their minds today. And even the "no sources" thing is reevaluated regarding the european "dark ages" ("The Bright Ages" is a recent monograph with a fair amount of chatter pushing hard on this).

The term "dark ages" was coined by Petrarch with an explicitly negative connotation. It has never been a neutral term.

But for a very long time historians assumed knowledge wasn't advancing during the dark ages, setting that association up. Then historians changed their minds, realizing that in some areas such as mining, technology and understanding was advancing during the period.

Yes, I understand. I did mean it like that. My point was that the material capability of the societies in the area of the former Western empire to record things, to write history, the sheer number of literate people with surplus time and access to writing materials, the inclination and ability to preserve existing documents, etc. -- that seems to have sharply contracted during the period in question. Is that not then a Dark Age in the historical records sense?

Yes, writing is significant and its (whole or partial) disappearance coincides with a great deal of societal trauma.

But the trauma isn't why a period deserves to be called a dark age. It's called a dark age because it's hard to see.

Worthwhile point. But we usually have considerable records from civilizations that are cranking along quite well. There is a strong correlation - not perfect but good.

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