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Comment by azernik | Hacker News Reader

That is not how the "dark ages" came to be, and that is not how the Church functioned.

The Church didn't think witchcraft worked and saw belief in its existence as heresy! Institutionally-backed witch hunts were mostly an Early Modern phenomenon, not Medieval!

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So I guess you need one? Because the dark ages came upon Europe after the fall of Rome and the following rise of power of the church back in 500-1k AD.

In the time 1100++ the church however started to be a force for progress, and that's the time y'all seem to think about.

The "rise of power of the church" was not the cause of and did not exacerbate the collapse of Roman state power in the Early Medieval period. It was in fact in the Early Medieval that the Church was most instrumental in propagating and preserving knowledge.

Since you seem allergic to sources, here's a pretty good layman-aimed overview of actual up-to-date historical view of the arrival of the "Dark Ages" (i.e. the Early Medieval).

https://acoup.blog/2022/01/14/collections-rome-decline-and-f...

https://acoup.blog/2022/01/28/collections-rome-decline-and-f...

https://acoup.blog/2022/02/11/collections-rome-decline-and-f...

(From the narrative you put forward, I suspect your likely citation would be Gibbon. Who's... um... a bit out of date.)

So you attribute the golden era of Church influence, around the 12th century onwards, as the "not bad medieval era", yet the Church is somehow evil and not the new barbarian kings?

I never said the church was evil? Do you need help? You seem to be hallucinating a lot and making up random shit about strangers you know nothing about. And after throwing a casual glance at your comment history, that seems to be a common theme with you. Seeking help would likely be advisable.

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