The argument for and against the middle ages (Dark ages)
History is vital in reminiscing the past experiences and storing a documented long-ago event. Previous scholars will connect their skills in the old days through a common reference term. Such terms may be later criticized with time as they face different time challenges. Their appropriateness fade as generations come and pass by. Some critics have found it targeting a certain race, too judgmental or weighty. This paper is an argument for and against the middle ages / Dark ages era as interpreted in different eras
“Arguments for.”
In the ages between the roman empire and renaissance, several activities denote the term “Medieval.” Therefore, it is a symbolic description that indicates a particular culture, way of life, and much more the great human experiences in that era. Thus, the dark stage was not instigated with malice intent. It is there to show up a culture style or technology in that era. According to Bridgette Byrd O’Connor in his article “The Renaissance and Enlightenment view of the Middle Ages,” he described middle age as a perfect match to that era.
Further, he explains it as a source of knowledge and understandability to the transformation processes in Europe. The dark age is informative and quite enlightening in the current history and sociology discipline. Further, allowing diverse opinions from different scholars in the promotion of art, education, and classwork (Byrd-O’Connor, p1). Therefore, the “argument for” on the above explanation connotes from the fact history of art is a subject taught in schools. The middle age era taught as classwork, and we must exercise tolerance as emanating from different class work disciplines.
Secondly, in the so-called “Middle age,” archaeologists, historians, and scholars from different fields have struggled to fill the void in the interpretations’ of the various occurrences during the era. They regard the world of that era as void, which required many interpretations from the study of long-dead skeletons, artifacts, crumbled buildings, and a lot of fiction (Williams, 1). We acquire knowledge from these eras through a studied tangible object linking several activities. Therefore, the recording made of can be interpreted through mythology and philosophy of understanding arts. The records from that age were as dark as the term refers. Archeologists had to pick several items, put them together, and draw a conclusion from them. Much more, the dark side of the Medieval era is directly attributed to the activities and emotive experiences as reading about from ancient Rome (Williams, 1). It is associated with physical concurrence wars that were perennial in that period as they sought power lines in the scramble and partitioning of Europe. The medieval warfare is the light to the above note.
According to Williams, the “the dark age” describes an era portrayed as a harbor of ignorance, superstitions, and barbarisms. The forceful nature of religion, culture, and values dates back to a society whose personal opinions and rationale reasoning were not as independent. The Ancient church and state of the then era were dictatorial and rigid to the community and nearly brainwashed them to the dark route era. According to Edward grant, if rational reasoning were allowed, the revolution would have somehow drawn a different picture from what the current history paints about the age. Therefore, the society was hiding on a shared religious belief that was surely ingrained into so as whatever sacred they knew; however much it may be soiling their future, they will stake onto it. As such, the clergy repressed intellectual progress in favor of religious piety (Byrd-O’Connor, p1).
“Arguments against”
Dark age can be termed as a biased reference to ancient times and experiences back then. Therefore, due to the many disputes of that era, the term would be frequently used by scholars who were biased toward ancient Rome. Further to this, different races were clustered and would fight to conquer the former roman empires. So, the medieval era term would be sparked for interests and driving meaning to a dejected group and a non-liberated lot of that century. Further, the negative view of the so-called “Dark Ages” became famous mainly because most of the written records of the time (including St. Jerome and St. Patrick in the fifth century, Gregory of Tours in the sixth and Bede in the eighth) had a robust Rome-centric bias (Pruitt, 1). Therefore, this argument holds that the “dark age” was not as dark as it appears. The darkened part was instigated to create a wrong impression about ancient Rome.
Secondly, there were great advances in the Islamic states from the fields of mathematics and sciences. It is believed that Muslim societies were innovative and responding significantly towards technological evolvement. These are unsubstantiated facts that would be used to demean Europe of that era. It is also a term that focuses on demeaning or belittling some races. Therefore, in its usage, it wasn’t meant to reflect the actual picture of the era but as a demeaning factor. More so, there was a myth that the roman churches religion had brainwashed the society through suppressing the scientists and halting many of the scientific procedures or methods. This factor made the Islamic world leap ahead and make promising signs of progress. There were many texts translated into Arabic, and much more, development was much visible from this side. This suggests that the term “medieval era” was almost likely with an imputed notion. It had a deeper meaning of demeaning the Europeans of the era.
The last take on the argument against “dark age” stems from the fact that the early middle ages were the boom time for agriculture. During the year, much of the agricultural advancements in technology were invented during that period (Pruitt, 1). The scratch plough was developed in southern Europe. This was later advanced in northern Europe to fit their soils, which were clayish and needed a heavy plough to enable deep farming. Both ploughs were crucial in maintaining European land productivity and also opened doors to other inventions. Other notable innovations of that time were “hoarse collars” placed around the horses’ neck and shoulder (Hughes, 1). These innovations were crucial to revolutionaries experienced in both transport and agricultural sectors. With the favorable agricultural, environmental conditions of that era, there was a boom in European farming in that area.
Work Cited
Byrd-O’Connor, Bridgette. “READ The “Dark Ages” Debate (Article) | Khan Academy.” Khan Academy, 2018, https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/whp-origins/era-4-regional/43-a-dark-age-betaa/a/read-the-dark-ages-debate-beta.
Williams, Thomas. “How Dark Were The Dark Ages?”. Historyextra, 2017, https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/dark-ages-term-what-when-how-obscure/.
PRUITT, SARAH. “6 Reasons The Dark Ages Weren’T So Dark”. HISTORY, 2019, https://www.history.com/news/6-reasons-the-dark-ages-werent-so-dark.
ALI, RABIA UMAR. “Medieval Europe: The Myth of the Dark Ages and the Impact of Islam.” Islamic Studies, vol. 51, no. 2, 2012, pp. 155–168. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23643958. Accessed 27 June 2020.
Hughes, Tristan. “Why Were 900 Years Of European History Labelled ‘The Dark Ages’?”. History Hit, 2018, https://www.historyhit.com/why-were-the-early-middle-ages-called-the-dark-ages/.