 |
Reply
| | | From: simon (Original Message) | Sent: 11/20/2003 9:55 AM |
Why is this message board termed the Dark Ages? Historians now accept that this term is really now redundant. They are only Dark Ages in terms of there not being many written sources available to this period. You only have to look at the Lindisfarne Gospels and Sotton Hoo to see the learning and beauty of the age. However i don't know what else we could call it. Has anybody else any ideas? |
|
|
Reply
| | | From: judymar | Sent: 11/29/2003 6:19 AM |
Simon, I really did myself a disservice and you have helped me see this. On my last visit to the British Museum, I did what I did on the other two visits, run thru a few of the exhibitions, and then get to the Egyptology area and the Elgin Marbles to spend most of my viewing time. I really just skimmed thru the Sutton Hoo exhibition, took one picture and back to my comfort zones. The one picture I have looks to be a rather large gold mask. I tried to post it, but have only done that once on another site, and can't remember how I did it, so have to wait for my grandson to come for Christmas to show me again, then I will post it. Is this the famous death mask of the burial, do you think? I feel so silly as I didn't even have the year right for the time of this burial. It was also the 250th year anniversary of the Museum, on the day I was there this last time, and there were some big doings going on, so I am sort of excusing myself... Judy  |
|
Reply
| |
Simon, But you can't really compare a copy of a modern book to that of a book from the dark ages in that modern books are harder to screw up! I mean, lots of mistakes are supposed to have been made because a scribe mistook a word, etc. It happens in modern books too but more often from carelessness than from illegibility. |
|
Reply
| |
There weren't really "Dark Ages", you know. The medieval period is absolutely fascinating, and not remotely an era of stagnation.
____________________________________________________
Sarah Eve Kelly, B.A. History
www.sarahevekelly.blogspot.com
[email protected]
A different kind of tinsel decorates my tree!
A thousand Cheshire cats grin inside of me!
----- Original Message -----
From: hythloday <[email protected]>
Date: Monday, February 16, 2004 7:05 pm
Subject: Re: Dark Ages?
> We attempted to deliver this message to you with HTML formatting.
> However, your e-mail program does not support HTML-enhanced
> messages. Please go to your E-mail Settings for this group and
> change your E-mail Preference to "Text only".
> http://groups.msn.com/allmytudorshistorychat/_emailsettings.msnw
>
> MSN Groups
>
>
|
|
Reply
| |
| So was the period preceding the mediaeval! Why anyone ever applied the term 'dark' to it - as an epithet of opprobrium - eludes me. Among other things, that era saw the flourishing of the Irish scriptoria, and the rise of many capable, even powerful, women. Again, I recommend books - Gerda Lerner on the origins of feminism springs to mind, as does her earlier text on the creation of patriarchy. |
|
Reply
| |
this is a postively great time to merge our love of historiography and the dark ages, is it not? now we can read about the sources that may have been available about the dark ages! remember, read about the sources, not the dark ages themselves. historiography is the study of what is writen about history. important distinction. |
|
Reply
| |
Absolutely not. The "Dark Ages" fall within the medieval period, which stretches broadly from the fall of the Roman Empire to the outset of the Renaissance.
____________________________________________________
Sarah Eve Kelly, B.A. History
www.sarahevekelly.blogspot.com
[email protected]
A different kind of tinsel decorates my tree!
A thousand Cheshire cats grin inside of me!
----- Original Message -----
From: hythloday <[email protected]>
Date: Thursday, February 19, 2004 10:05 pm
Subject: Re: Dark Ages?
> We attempted to deliver this message to you with HTML formatting.
> However, your e-mail program does not support HTML-enhanced
> messages. Please go to your E-mail Settings for this group and
> change your E-mail Preference to "Text only".
> http://groups.msn.com/allmytudorshistorychat/_emailsettings.msnw
>
> MSN Groups
>
>
|
|
Reply
| |
but those two times have so much that distinugishes them that i agree with most historians that they are seperate. how would you lump them together? maybe other disciplines do? i'm curious. autumn |
|
Reply
| | | From: simon | Sent: 2/24/2004 7:31 PM |
I guess that its being pedantic on determing what we call various periods of history. Generally, the Dark Ages is said to be part of the 'Early Medieval' period, but thats not as evocative a label as Dark Ages. Late Antiquity covers the Dark Ages, but is applied to the Mediterranean region. Obviously, this label doesnot really do much to dscribe England! simon |
|
Reply
| |
thats an excellent point, simon! often the generic names we have for different periods are more apt for the continent than in england. thanks for reminding us. autumn |
|
Reply
| |
I have never known "the dark ages" and the "medieval period" to be considered one and the same. With the exception of an exact ending of one and beginning of the other, there may be some overlap between historians. But as a general rule, the dark ages cover the period between the fall of the Roman Empire and about the year 800. That's the "classic" time frame usually accepted for them. The Medieval era then begins about the year 800 and runs through the mid 1400's when the renaissance begins. |
|
Reply
| |
| Depending on whom you read, the 'Dark' Ages may not have been so dark after all. Referring as the term does to the apparent loss of classical text sources until their rediscovery and the rise of humanism - the real beginning of the Renaissance - one can push matters back as far as Petrarch, who was working from a MS of Propertius for his Canzone. In addition, 'revisionist' historians adduce evidence for striking early contributions, such as those of Ireland and women like Hildegarde of Bingen, although she may be considered to fall into the early mediaeval period. But there are many stories yet to be told about this period, many of them about women [see Gerda Lerner's books for the best introductory exposition of which I know on the topic]. I suggest that the term 'Dark Ages' may be of a piece with the kind of patriarchal scholarship which also reduces, among many other women, Henry VIII's wives to stereotypes. |
|
Reply
| |
The "dark ages" is what I would call the earlier medieval period, from approximately the fall of the Roman Empire to the accession of Charlemagne. Some even extend this to the beginning of the Italian Renaissance, at which I am gobsmacked, thinking in England alone of the establishment of one sovereign for the nation, law reform and trial by jury, the beginnings of bureaucracy, the foundation of both houses of Parliament, the development of a sophisticated milling industry - and all of this *before* 1366.
"Dark Ages" is a term coined during the Enlightenment to show contempt for the first real foothold that Christianity got in Europe. There's also an impression that it was a barbaric, illiterate period, an understanding I find staggering, as the clerics who spread Christianity were not illiterate!
In any case, this was the period of the Arthurian legends, and a time when the West was discovering the Arabs' cache of classical Greek scientific knowledge. It was not "dark". The epithet is a human attempt to make history seem like a linear story of progress, because that way it is forced to question itself less. History is anything but linear, and to write off an entire age is ignorant, at *best*.
____________________________________________________
Sarah Eve Kelly, B.A. History
www.sarahevekelly.blogspot.com
[email protected]
A different kind of tinsel decorates my tree!
A thousand Cheshire cats grin inside of me!
----- Original Message -----
From: LadyoftheGlade1 <[email protected]>
Date: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 5:44 am
Subject: Re: Dark Ages?
> We attempted to deliver this message to you with HTML formatting.
> However, your e-mail program does not support HTML-enhanced
> messages. Please go to your E-mail Settings for this group and
> change your E-mail Preference to "Text only".
> http://groups.msn.com/allmytudorshistorychat/_emailsettings.msnw
>
> MSN Groups
>
>
|
|
Reply
| |
I suppose we all have different definitions here! I would never think of including the medieval period in with the dark ages, myself. Also, I think that assuming the term "dark ages" was merely a mocking term is rather narrow. I had always had the impression that it was termed so because of the then lack of written sources documenting the period. That was no mockery but truth for the following ages, at least until recently. Autumn |
|
Reply
| |
Sarah, from post #28: "Dark Ages" is a term coined during the Enlightenment to show contempt for the first real foothold that Christianity got in Europe. There's also an impression that it was a barbaric, illiterate period, an understanding I find staggering, as the clerics who spread Christianity were not illiterate! Annie: The clerics were not illiterate... in LATIN...but they sure were illiterate when it came to the LOCAL written languages. These were deemed, "of the devil" and forbidden. But then the church also forbid ANY but clerics to be literate! There was even a church rule that forbid the reading or preaching of the bible, except by clerics, on penalty of death!! As Christianity took it's foothold, it destroyed as much of the existing beliefs and culture as possible, while assimilating into Christian form, those things which they found they could not erradicate. Sarah, from post #28: In any case, this was the period of the Arthurian legends, and a time when the West was discovering the Arabs' cache of classical Greek scientific knowledge. It was not "dark". The epithet is a human attempt to make history seem like a linear story of progress, because that way it is forced to question itself less. History is anything but linear, and to write off an entire age is ignorant, at *best*. Annie: No one is "writing it off". Linear progress? The era we are talking about was a horrible BACKSLIDING of knowledge! Libraries were burned, knowledge other than what the church approved, was forbidden and people were killed for it! It was NOT the period of Arthurian legends, it was the period in where the Arthurian legends were set. They were not written then, but several centuries later, which is why we have no idea who (or collectively whom or who all) may have served as the basis for these wonderful sagas. While much information has recently been discovered about these times, much is still "in the dark". What classical Greek scientific knowledge?? Not in that era...all that sort of thing was forbidden by the church. Even well after that time, just look how they treated galileo! |
|
|
Free Forum Hosting
Important Announcement
First
Return to The Dark Ages