Ask A Historian

[Jenny A]

Do you think the dark ages were really dark or do you think it's an historical period like any other with ups, downs and averages? Do you agree that specialists and the common citizen overreact on the bad side of the dark ages?

"Dark" refers to the lack of information compared to the time periods immediately before and after.  It was a fall into general illiteracy with few literate people interested in writing history.

That's one of the reasons most historians have moved to the term Middle Ages instead.  It's the period between the Roman Empire and the Renaissance.  Technological advancement did happen, the windmill for example.   And universities were founded.  But there were the plagues.  And Christians suppressed much from ancient Greece and Rome.  Given the current situation it's ironic that much learning was preserved in the Middle East though burned in Europe.