A crisis in Western civilization from the fifth through the tenth centuries.
First used by Italian scholars in the fifteenth century, the term “Dark Ages” originally referred to the 1,000-year period between the collapse of the Roman empire in the West and the dawn of the Renaissance. Many thinkers looked down on the medium aevum or “Middle Ages” that stretched between the ancient world and their own day as a dark period in which classical learning was ignored. Protestant reformers such as Martin Luther echoed these sentiments, claiming the Catholic Church was a major cause of the darkness of the era. The condemnation of the Middle Ages as a time in which little was accomplished continued during the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. Opinions finally changed with the rise of romanticism in the nineteenth century and the development of better historical methods in the twentieth century. Most historians now consider the Middle Ages to have been a creative and foundational period in the development of Western civilization. They have limited the term “Dark Ages” to mean the period between the collapse of the Roman empire in the West and the beginning of the classical medieval period around 1000 C.E.
Political chaos during the Dark Ages of European history following the fall of the Western Roman empire in the fifth century led to a fall in continent-wide trade. Merchants, like these offering amphorae of wine and oil to the lord of Tintagel Castle in Cornwall, England, were forced to seek the protection of powerful local leaders. (© English Heritage/Topham-HIP/The Image Works)
For the West, the coming of the Dark Ages was well under way in the last days of the Roman empire. The weak imperial structure, frequent attacks from barbarian tribes, and the steady unraveling of the economy marked the fifth century in much of western Europe. After 476 C.E., there was no longer an emperor in the West. Germanic tribes, including the Ostrogoths, Vandals, Franks, and Visigoths, had taken Italy, North Africa, Gaul, and the Iberian Peninsula, respectively. Britain had been completely abandoned by the Roman legions and now faced steady attacks from the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Danes. In many parts of the Western empire, city life had completely disappeared. The surviving Roman nobility and newer barbarian lords held large pieces of land worked by peasants in exchange for protection. Classical learning did not completely disappear. Instead, Catholic monks living under the Rule of Saint Benedict began the long process of copying as many ancient texts as possible to preserve them for a more settled time. The Catholic Church became a bridge between the past, present, and future. In many places, the bishops of the church including the bishop of Rome, known as the pope, provided the only civil authority in a world where Roman military and imperial rule had completely collapsed.
Western Europe struggled to reestablish commercial ties with the Byzantine empire in the late sixth and early seventh centuries. A brisk trade in food, oil, and gold was carried on in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. However, the revival was brought to an end by two major events. In the middle of the seventh century, the Persians attacked the Eastern Roman empire, capturing major trade routes and taking important cities like Damascus. The Arabs united under the new Islamic faith and swept out of the Arabian Peninsula, taking much of the Middle East, North Africa, and even the Iberian Peninsula. The Muslim fleet controlled the Mediterranean and for a time completely cut the West off from Constantinople.
The rise of the Carolingians in the Kingdom of the Franks brought renewed civilization for a time in the midst of the Dark Ages. In 732, Charles Martel turned back the Muslim invaders at the Battle of Poitiers. Martel’s grandson, Charlemagne, ruled an empire that stretched throughout much of Western Europe from 768 to 814. His capital at Aachen became a political and cultural center. Although he spent most of his life fighting the Saxons, Muslims, Avars, and Lombards, Charlemagne worked to create a stable government based on his own laws or capitularies and the work of his administrators known as missi dominici. He also encouraged the development of art, literature, philosophy, education, and the Catholic faith. On Christmas Day 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as emperor.
Despite the accomplishments of Charlemagne, his empire collapsed in the civil wars of his grandsons. Western Europe was again plunged into chaos as three more waves of invaders attacked from all sides. During much of the ninth and tenth centuries, Europe warred against the Vikings in the north and west, the Saracens in the south, and the Magyars in the east. Towns, churches, roads, monasteries, and landed estates lay in ruins. The development of feudalism and the ending of the invasions at the dawn of the new millennium finally brought a stability that allowed western Europe to flourish in the classical Middle Ages.
Mary Stockwell
See also: Roman Empire.
Bautier, Robert-Henri. The Economic Development of Medieval Europe. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1971.