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Comment by Dalewyn | Hacker News Reader

The Dark Ages is called that because it refers to the power vacuum left behind in the wake of the Western Roman Empire's fall. The regional power that maintained law and order was no more and it was now every man for himself. Economies and cultures can't flourish and will recede when everyone is busy murdering and backstabbing each other, thus called the Dark Ages.

It wasn't until Charlemagne united most of Gaul and created the Frankish Kingdom that some semblance of peace was restored, ushering in the Middle Ages and the return of economic growth and cultural development.

As an aside, everything I read and was taught about the Dark Ages, Middle Ages, and the Renaissance back in my day was deeply intriguing and rich in wisdom and knowledge. It saddens me greatly if it's all been whitewashed down to "Dark Ages wrongspeak, Early Middle Ages rightspeak" and "Middle Ages backwards, Renaissance forwards" today because that is so grossly worthless.

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It's called that pejoratively against the post-roman era because petrarch was, in the fad of his time, a classical antiquity fetishist and considered the romans the "light" against which the darkness was compared.

It isn't used by modern historians because that concept and the light-vs-dark dichotomy isn't useful, as a historical practice. The idea that all local order collapsed with the roman empire is simply mythology, anachronistic veneration of a hierarchical system of power.

The romans were at least as violent as anything that came after. The idea that they provided unique stability in exchange for that violence is the roman justification for it. Vestigial propaganda from 2000 years ago. We are not obligated to accept it and in fact modern historians typically do not.

The facts of history may not change, but our understanding of it develops like any other academic discipline. Maybe don't reject a generation's worth of development in a complex field because your surface-level appraisal makes you sad.

> Do not say, “Why is it that the former days were better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask about this.

> The romans were at least as violent as anything that came after. The idea that they provided unique stability in exchange for that violence is the roman justification for it. Vestigial propaganda from 2000 years ago. We are not obligated to accept it and in fact modern historians typically do not.

Did they not reduce the amount of fighting? Was Pax Romana a myth? There would be less fighting between regions since most of the regions are already under the control of the regional superpower. Those that haven't been annexed would be wise to conserve their strength if they wish to maintain their independence.

These are the sorts of questions historians address, yes. The answers to them aren't simple or settled even now within that discipline.

> The majority of modern scholars avoid the term [Dark Ages] altogether due to its negative connotations, finding it misleading and inaccurate. Despite this, Petrarch's pejorative meaning remains in use, particularly in popular culture, which often simplistically views the Middle Ages as a time of violence and backwardness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_(historiography)

It's named the Dark Ages because 11th century scholars wanted to feel like their time period was enlightened and great compared to the past, not because there was some deep, thoughtful analysis.

> It saddens me greatly if it's all been whitewashed down to "Dark Ages wrongspeak, Early Middle Ages rightspeak" and "Middle Ages backwards, Renaissance forwards" today because that is so grossly worthless.

It always is alarming how often you see people say "smart people don't say X anymore, smart people say Y now," and a large segment of people jumps on board without any critical thought. It's not that criticism of the term is entirely without merit, but such criticism could be applied to all simplistic labels for historical epochs. Yet you don't see people take such issue with terms like "Bronze Age Collapse," because these comments aren't coming from a consistent intellectual framework, but rather from people mindlessly repeating a shibboleth.

> Yet you don't see people take such issue with terms like "Bronze Age Collapse," because these comments aren't coming from a consistent intellectual framework, but rather from people mindlessly repeating a shibboleth.

And because medievalists are personally invested in pushing the relativist notion that the early medieval period was just as sophisticated as the Roman Empire that preceded it.

The Dark Ages were dark for a segment of Europe. The Roman Empire was still going strong in the east. The Bronze Age Collapse happened across a much larger area.

You seem to be confused. The Bronze Age Collapse refers to events mostly centered in the Eastern Mediterranean, even though there were impacts elsewhere. The Dark Ages refers to events mostly centered in the Western Mediterranean as well as Western Europe, even though there were impacts elsewhere.

Bronze Age Collapse includes the Near East all the way to the Caucasus.

Roughly the area of the Bronze Age Collapse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse#/medi...

Roughly the area of the Dark Ages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migration_Period#/media/File:I...

If anything, the area of the Dark Ages looks to be larger than that of the Bronze Age Collapse. But either way, they're both referring to events that happened within a specific geographic area.

Well, the Assyrian Empire was doing better than ever after the Late Bronze Age Collapse.

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