The debate

Take a look at the images below. Put them in chronological order based on the technique, level of realism, and skill of the artist. Which one is the oldest?

I’m guessing many of you chose the Cantigas de Santa Maria as the oldest. However, the oldest one (by 12 centuries) is “Woman with wax tablets and stylus.” It’s a painting from the Roman town of Pompeii that dates to the first century CE. The Cantigas de Santa Maria, on the other hand, is from the thirteenth century CE. The top image is the “Last Supper.” It was painted by Leonardo da Vinci in the late fifteenth century CE.

Do these three paintings tell us anything about the European Middle Ages?¹ Do they show us that the Middle Ages were “Dark Ages?” Obviously, these are only three paintings. I even might have chosen only these three to convince you the Middle Ages were backward. But historians do this all the time. They choose evidence that supports their claim or worldview. Over the last 500 years, historians have debated whether Europe entered a dark age after the fall of Rome in the 400s CE. They also argue about how long it lasted. Let’s look at this debate from the perspectives of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the modern period.

The Renaissance and Enlightenment view of the Middle Ages

You probably do not enjoy everything your parents or teachers do. You might roll your eyes at their music or laugh at their outfits in old photos. Surely, they came from a strange, backward time. This generational eye-rolling is pretty common. Scholars of new generations often try to separate themselves from those who came before. As European learning and art flourished during the Renaissance, scholars looked back at the funny pictures and bad music of the Middle Ages. Many probably thought, “I’m better than that.”

The Renaissance was a period of European history after the Middle Ages. Renaissance means “rebirth” in French. Renaissance scholars sought to revitalize science and the arts. Francesco Petrarca, better known as “Petrarch,” was a fourteenth-century humanist.² He wrote about the accomplishments of ancient Greece and Rome. Petrarch believed his society was moving backward from those achievements. He described Europe after the fall of Rome as “dark.”

Petrarch and other scholars argued that the intellectual achievements of Greece and Rome were brilliant. He was less complimentary of the Middle Ages. In 1343, he wrote, “there is perhaps a better age in store; this slumber of forgetfulness will not last for ever. After the darkness has been dispelled, our grandsons will be able to walk back into the pure radiance of the past” (Petrarch 453-7). Petrarch believed that the “darkness” of the Middle Ages was coming to an end. Europeans, he felt, would soon reclaim the past greatness of Greece and Rome.

Many later scholars shared Petrarch’s views. One of the most well-known Enlightenment³ historians was British author Edward Gibbon. He wrote The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. This multi-volume work was published between 1776 and 1789. In it, Gibbon blamed the rise of Christianity for the fall of Rome and the loss of Roman achievements. He said that while trying to eliminate “pagan” beliefs from Rome, Catholics also snuffed out Rome’s greatness.

Modern views of the Middle Ages

During the nineteenth century, historians clung to this idea of the “Dark Ages.” By the mid-twentieth century, though, more historians, scholars, and journalists argued that there were no Dark Ages at all. Yet, the term persists in some scholarly circles. English Heritage is an organization of the British government. It manages historic properties in the United Kingdom. In 2016 they published a history of Tintagel Castle, an English ruin from the Middle Ages. In their history, the authors repeatedly referenced the “Dark Ages of Britain.” They defined the time period from the fall of the Roman Empire to the year of the Norman Conquest (c. 400-1066 CE).

The use of “Dark Age” to describe Tintagel fanned the flames of the debate. Some critics said the use of “Dark Ages” was outdated and wrong. But others came to its defense. The historian Alban Gautier wrote that “Dark Ages” can be a useful term. However, he argued that historians should only use it under two conditions: First, it should only refer to two centuries, 410-610 CE. Second, it should not be considered a negative label. Instead, “Dark Ages” should be considered a description of a poorly documented period. For historians who research texts, those centuries left behind few written works to study. In other words, the Dark Ages weren’t dark because they were bad; they were dark because our knowledge of them is limited.

The debate continues

So why does this debate still rage? Scholars in every era have different motives. Renaissance scholars wanted future generations to see them as the people who brought forth a “rebirth” of the classical world. They wrote about Greco-Roman society in glowing terms. It was the bright light of art, literature, and culture. By combining Greco- Roman culture with Christianity, they believed they could create a brighter future. By contrast, Enlightenment scholars tended to be anti-Catholic. The Enlightenment celebrated reason and science. Many of its authors, like Gibbon, were skeptical of organized religion. They viewed the Christian views of the Middle Ages—the Dark Ages— as backward.

Later scholars often accepted the arguments of Petrarch and Gibbon. They continued to romanticize the Romans and Greeks while portraying the Middle Ages as superstitious and violent. They ignored the cultural achievements of the period. Today, the debate continues. More and more scholars, though, argue that the past isn’t so easy to divide up into clear ages.

What do you think? Was there ever a “dark age” of medieval history? Or do you think that the older Roman networks and communities were simply changing into something new during the Middle Ages?

1 The Middle Ages was a period in Europe from the fall of Rome in the fifth century to the beginning of the Renaissance in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

2 Renaissance humanism was a movement that focused on studying classical authors to improve humanity. Some rejected the focus on Christianity and religion during the medieval period while others incorporated aspects of Christianity into their classical studies.

3 You’ll learn more about the Enlightenment later. For now, just know that it was an intellectual movement from the seventeenth to nineteenth century that emerged from the ideas of the Renaissance.