Talk:Dark Ages

"Supposedly"?!

On the deletion of "supposedly [experienced by Western Europe]": Is there anything controversial or even speculative about the societal decline in Western Europe after the fall of Rome? If not, this appears to be a classic instance of weasel wording, for which the very first example on that page is a close analog: "allegedly".

OTOH, if the decline was manifestly NOT real, please provide a citation. Jmacwiki (talk) 03:15, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I think the decline was neither manifestly real nor manifestly not-real - it is a question of interpretation. Which is why something like "supposedly" needs to be said as a caveat. One possible interpretation of history (a Rome-centred one) says that there was a decline. Another (the perspective of ancient Celts, for example) might be very different. --Doric Loon (talk) 12:26, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Certainly true. However, that is why I asked what, if anything, was controversial -- not who liked the result. From the Societal_collapse page: "the coupled breakdown of economic, cultural and social institutions". Western Europe (especially outside the Italian peninsula) seems to qualify thoroughly. Do we have primary references to support the thesis that there was NOT an economic breakdown? any that there was NOT a cultural breakdown? How about education & literacy? civil administration? military responsibilities? transportation? engineering?

[Caveat: Personally, I am always hesitant (as I suspect you are) about anyone's claims of "cultural breakdown" -- one man's cultural breakdown is another's innovation -- but articles in top-tier peer-reviewed journals should help there. And my skepticism does NOT apply in economics, education, administration, or most other domains of social organization.]

The Dark Ages term isn't about any contemporary tribe's or society's interpretation. Even if it were, I suspect most inhabitants would have easily noted the difference between, say, (a) the Roman garrisons, which supported each other and never changed the political control of their locale; and (b) the subsequent local chieftains' armies, which fought with each other, generally in order to change that political control. Jmacwiki (talk) 21:19, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, take education. In ancient Rome, who was educated? A tiny priveleged elite. After the fall of Rome, that elite partly disappeared, partly adapted and assimilated to a new priveleged elite that had a different approach to education. Now if you are focussed on the "glories of Rome", the decline of writers like Cicero must seem like societal collapse. But the less literary but nevertheless sophisticated life of a Visigoth court is not inferior, it is just different. And the new church-based centres of literacy were hardly uneducated - they just had different priorities. These gradual changes in the nature of educated culture were a collapse in the eyes of Renaissance observers, but not, I trow, in the eyes of Orosius or Augustine or Bede. And as for the ordinary Roman in the street, I doubt if they would even have noticed. They were illiterate before, they were illiterate after, and they were probably quite happy that way.

Economy I can't comment on, absolutely not my field. But if we are talking about long-term Europe-wide development, I doubt if there was the kind of collapse you are describing. The day after Rome fell to the invading hosts, the economy of the city probably collapsed, but that is true of all wars everywhere. Trade certainly didn't stop, and I know of no records suggesting that Europe was unable to feed its people over longer periods of time. People often talk about the poverty and barbarity of the "dark ages", but the poverty and barbarity of parts of the Roman empire were certainly worse.

Civil administration experienced more continuity than you might think. After the fall of Rome, the old administrative class managed to become the new administrative class, and it must have been a bit like in "Yes Minister". Not that I'm suggesting there was no disruption, but there was no long-term vacuum.

Engineering, I'll grant you - the new rulers were not so interested in big colloseums and the likes. Is that societal collapse? I don't know. But you get my point - there is no absolute here. --Doric Loon (talk) 22:02, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Lest I let this languish too long without responding: [History of] Education is absolutely not my field. My picture, however, is somewhat different, so it would be really nice if we could find an actual, published, scholarly source.

My picture (just my picture!) is that literacy went from maybe 3% to 1%. An insignificant change to the illiterate masses, as you say. But a highly significant one to administration. Instead of every court, every county administration, and every village having at least one person who could record what happened, suddenly (meaning, over a generation or two) most courts, county administrations, and villages had none. That would be a qualitative difference to the scale of transportation, art, government, and military organization.

On barbarity: I did not bring this aspect up. I completely agree that plenty of places in the RE, probably even the most "cultured" locales, had plenty of barbarity. Maybe even worse than in the Dark Ages, if cruelty was somewhat more limited by a loss of technology.

As for the engineering issue: You are right. But I return to the societal-collapse wording: "the coupled breakdown...." It doesn't do much good to want a coliseum (or a flying machine) if there is no prospect of having one. But even if you control, say, a duchy, you have no such prospect, precisely because of a collapse of literacy, and engineering training, and administration, and transportation, and .... So I just see the loss of interest as an accommodation to the loss of capability, not a coincidental effect. Jmacwiki (talk) 03:29, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

The rejection of the term Dark Ages, and this "sophistication" of the Visigoth court, seem like political correctness to me. That is not a basis for sound scholarship, and I would echo the call for sources. I think you are also missing the fact that the learning of the Classical period was rejected and many of the writings as well as the intellectual achievements were lost in this period until they were brought back later. They were lost because they were suppressed and destroyed for reasons of religion. I would have to say that this revisionism represents a whitewashing of history and the relative horrors of the period. Not to say the Romans were very nice, but a lot of technology and medicine was lost until much later, scientific progress came essentially to a halt and was actually moved backward compared to what it was. It may be fashionable today to have an equivalence of cultures, such that the repressive theocratic world of the Taliban is as "valid" as the modern world, and to claim that any opposition of this view is prejudicial, but quite apart from the ridiculousness of that kind of nonsense to ignore the loss of those intellectual achievements represents, as noted before, revisionism. Rifter0x0000 (talk) 06:29, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is ignoring the fact that some things went down as others rose. What is being questioned is whether what was lost was so fundamentally valuable and whether what was new was so insignificant that we can speak of a dark age. This old view has been rejected by those who know. By co-incidence, I heard a lecture yesterday afternoon by a guest professor from Arizona who spoke of the myth of the age of darkness, which he said "nobody" (meaning in academia) believes in any more. That is where expert thinking is at right now. Certainly it has been influenced by a cultural relativism (which you might characterize as political correctness), but it is also backed up with better research than the old-style Renaissance / Victorian / Hollywood medievalisms ever were. If by revisionism you mean that scholarship is constantly re-examining its old assumptions, I don't see what is wrong with that. --Doric Loon (talk) 16:11, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Of course good scholarship requires revising conclusions in the face of evidence. Historical revisionism, however, is a pejorative term applied to people who are revising history based on a political point of view rather than based on facts and evidence. Holocaust deniers or your standard "political correctness" folks on the left removing bits of history they don't like are common examples. I should point out here that the OP was asking for sources which remain unsupplied. I was echoing a call for sources, although I did weigh on with my (academically of no weight of course) opinion since this is kind of a pet peeve of mine. Without sources to explain the assertions one can only guess what is meant by the Dark Ages not being so bad, and my suspicion is that it goes to the idea that hey, the "barbarians" (e.g. Celts, Visigoths, etc) had their own vibrant culture, their own style of sophistication, their own civilization, etc (which is true), and to deny that is to give the Romans undue weight.

The problem is you can also swing too far in this direction. I submit to you that if the Dark Ages did not happen, were a myth, so were the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. Obviously evidence points in the other direction and even if you qualify this with a decrying of the qualitative judgement of culture you still have the problem of science and medicine going into retrograde, evidence of which is actually increasing not decreasing (that is, we continue to rediscover more technology which was destroyed in the coming of the dark ages). So while I can sympathize with the desire not to deride the cultures which enjoyed more dominance in the dark ages, and maybe use a different term for that, I would disagree with the desire to solve it by sweeping the negative bits under the rug. We have been here, before, by the way. It took ages before scholars were willing to confront the actual evidence and restore the conclusion that human sacrifice was an important part of Pre-Columbian life in Central America, having thrown it out for reasons of political correctness. To hear some people talk a human has never been sacrificed anywhere in the world at any time (it's lies! all lies! by people who were prejudiced against culture x). And don't dare allege cannibalism existed, either.

Of course none of this matters; what is important for Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. In which case we come full circle. You assert there is evidence. I am sure there are some kind of papers that could be cited to support this view (in fact I am absolutely certain of it) regardless of whether it is correct. So can we please have them? Rifter0x0000 (talk) 03:32, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

OK, there are two questions here. The more interesting one is whether the early medieval period was "dark", and in what sense, and to what extent. There are different views on this, and the word "supposedly" is intended to indicate that it is one view among many. Given the lively debates we've had about it, I don't think I need to provide citations for the fact that this is a point of contention. I think any fair-minded person would agree on the one hand that the period was not as "dark" as popular depictions like to suggest, but on the other hand it was "dark" enough that most of us would not be very happy if the Weeping Angels were to send us back there. Within those parameters, the field is wide open to discuss just how much was lost when Rome fell and how much the new cultures compensated or failed to compensate for that, and it is a complex discussion because it depends on the region and the decade you are talking about, and whether you are focussed more on the intellectual life of an educated class or on the life of working people, etc. etc. Given that the 20th century saw Stalin and Hitler, how violent does the 8th century have to be before that makes us call it dark? And the field is wide open for a good-going discussion. My own view is that we now know enough about the positive sides of life in that period that to call it dark would be an anachronistic value judgment. But I can't give you verifiable evidence for that, because darkness is a subjective idea. That's why I wouldn't want the article to say there was no decline, but I do want it to say that the idea that this was a decline into darkness is POV. That's why the word "supposedly" is in the text. Maybe it can be expressed better, but since this is only a disambiguation article, we can't have a long spiel here.

The other question is whether the PHRASE Dark Ages is current use. That is much simpler, though slightly boring: the fashion in academic writing is against the phrase. Of course you will find a few random historians who still use it, especially when they are writing for a non-academic public, but nobody has yet been able to cite to me any serious medievalist of the last 40 years who uses the phrase in a considered way, explaining why they use it and arguing specifically that it is helpful. Against this, we have already a whole host of citations for medievalists speaking out against the phrase, and we have statistical evidence that in academic writing the use of the phrase in practice is negligible compared to the alternatives ("Early MA", etc). Here is a new source which has not yet been cited in the Wiki discussions: Last year, the Handbook of Medieval Studies finally appeared, a massive 3-volume survey of the field edited by Albrecht Classen, which gives a broad overview of current trends. If you want to know what medievalists are thinking generally, there isn't a better place to look than this. In the introduction (page xlix) it says "At any rate, the term 'Dark Ages' does not help in any constructive fashion to comprehend the Middle Ages". That is part of a two-paragraph discussion which I will not quote in full, but you might want to look it up if you are interested. I think that that, together with the other evidence we have assembled (in the archives of the talkpage of the historiography article) is verification enough for the statement that most historians do not use this terminology (and that neither should we). --Doric Loon (talk) 18:38, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

That may well be the case, but whereas I am not a medieval historian I do read a lot of history and the first place I ever read that the Dark Ages didn't happen was Wikipedia (specifically in the article on Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire). When I said I was certain you would find sources, it was because I am making the good faith assumption that people aren't just making it up and that given previous trends it would not surprise me that we have apologists for the wonders of the Dark Ages today. However the reason I am asking for sources is twofold. First of all Wikipedia requires sources, and such a sweeping rewrite of history as to undo our entire conception of what it meant to come into the modern era I would think would require them, and second I would like to see where these ideas are coming from and what justification the sources give for rewriting history so blatantly. It's not just about the term Dark Ages not being so useful, although that is what started this particular discussion. It is about Wikipedia claiming that they were so mischaracterized without explaining how or giving sources for that bold assertion. If for no other reason than that the laymen have a very different picture which I will admit can't be expected to be accurate (whereas Wikipedia exists in part to correct inaccurate beliefs in the laity), we should do that much. Besides, I am curious, too. I will definitely look for the book you mentioned. Rifter0x0000 (talk) 19:42, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

OK, so it's not the phrase you are interested in, but the modern assessment of the period. Well first off, I don't think anyone is saying "the Dark Ages never happened" - not if by that you mean that the "bad" things which made people in the past talk about Dark Ages (Vandals sacking Rome, feuding tribalism in northern Europe etc) never happened. They did. It's just that we have learned more about the period, and that has relativized things for us. This is true even more spectacularly of the later Middle Ages, which used to get an equally bad press, but are now recognized as a particularly exciting vibrant period of European history. In fact, the phrase Dark Ages was once used for the whole of the Middle Ages, and was narrowed to mean only the Early Middle Ages because the later period came to be better understood. But a similar process has also taken place for the earlier period. That is easy to source. The handbook I already mentioned would get you started, and any recent history of the period will build on it.

The Middle Ages have certainly been mischaracterized. We used to be told that with the fall of the Roman Empire, the ancient Greek discovery that the world was round was forgotten, and a whole continent thought the world was flat until Columbus rediscovered the truth. We now know that in the whole of the Middle Ages only two or three fringe fanatics ever went on record as believing in a flat earth. If you read the wrong kind of fiction, you will get the impression that the (early) Middle Ages were characterised by witch hunts and chastity belts and ius primae noctis. In fact, witch hunting only began in the early modern period, and those other two institutions are erotic fantasies of, what?, the 17th century? I can easily give you citations for all of that, but I am guessing you are in any case far too well-educated to fall foul of such myths. But for many people the image of the "Dark Ages" is built on precisely such things.

The phrase Dark Ages was first used by Petrarch to indicate that the classical tradition of Latin literature went out of fashion. He was quite right, it did. If that's what you mean by Dark Ages, they totally happened. The question is, who cares? Certainly not the average illiterate 5th century peasant, whose ancestors in the 2nd century were just as illiterate. Petrarch's Dark Ages totally happened, but they were dark only for the tiny privileged élite who had read Cicero in the "light" age. I suppose it is a Socialist insight that you can't call an entire culture dark just because the privileged class is in decline.

Also remember that for historians of the mid-20th century the phrase "Dark Ages" is used with the sense that it is a period we know nothing about. Not that they were dark, but that we are in the dark about them. That just doesn't apply any more because we know so much about them.

So it really depends what "dark" concept you have in mind. Some (like the chastity belts) are just wrong. Some (like the decline in the reading of Cicero) are absolutely spot on, and the question is just whether we still think that is important enough to be a criterion of darkness. Some (like the popular image of lawlessness and violence) have been relativized (as by archeological discoveries showing prosperous communities), leaving the impression that these centuries had their ups and downs like any others.

So you see there are heaps of aspects to this. One of the reasons why the discussion here is so frustrating is that it is a different debate for everyone who asks the question. And since I don't know quite what image YOU have when you think of darkness, I have no idea whether I am saying anything relevant for you or not. Right now I obviously can't go and find specific sources for all of the above. That would just be too much. (But you would find most of these points sourced elsewhere in Wikipedia.) I've given you a general source, and you will find others in the archives on the Dark Ages (historiography) page. Any current introduction to medieval studies or any historical overview of the period will lead you further in the same direction. I suggest you start reading around those ideas, and then if you find anything in particular that you want a source for, I'll try to find one.--Doric Loon (talk) 21:12, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

I think you people need to start reading a little more widely. There was an undoubted demographic collapse in Western Europe that progressively worsened from the time when Rome under Trajan had a population of 1.5 million and in the 7th century had a population of under 15,000. This demonstrates a collapse to me. Other areas went through similar periods of demographic collapse, as a result of a number of features, a compound of general societal collapse, increasing warfare, the Justinian plague and restrictions in trade seeing a disappearance of a monetary economy and a reversion to local subsistence. Hope this helps. John D. Croft (talk) 12:39, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

This disambiguation page really isn't the place for this debate, but perhaps you should read a little more widely if you don't believe that population decline, de-urbanization, and warfare was restricted to the Middle Ages.--Cúchullain ^t/c 13:54, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Nearly every town/city in England became uninhabited after the Roman withdrawal how is this not a dark age? People went back to building with wood rather than stone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.96.14.189 (talk) 15:23, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

EMA and revert of 2/13

It seems ironic that Cuchullain's explanation for removing societal collapse -- presumably the defining discussion (whether or not you agree with Petrarch's interpretation of post-Roman history) -- is that this page is not the place for every possible meaning of the phrase, or (presumably) WP link. Yet all the previous references in pop culture and literature remain. Only the central point, societal collapse, is missing.

Is there a fuller explanation for this removal?

Of course, there is also the previous point, that EMA should appear in the pop-up. This point was not addressed at all. Jmacwiki (talk) 00:43, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Disambiguation pages serve a specific purpose and generally should be formatted in a consistent way; see WP:Disambiguation and WP:MOSDAB. Dab pages are for listing articles articles whose title is ambiguous with those of other articles; in this case articles whose title is "Dark Ages", or which are often known as "Dark Ages". As such, articles distinguished only by the parenthetical disambiguation note, like Dark Ages (1991 video game), and articles whose subject is frequently known by that title, like Middle Ages, are included. Dab pages are not for listing articles connected with a particular subject; a reader looking for "societal collapse" would not be expected to type in or click on "Dark Ages". On your second point, each entry has only one blue link per line. Early Middle Ages has its own entry.--Cúchullain ^t/c 05:42, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

The history of the term is surely not what most readers are looking for when they enter the phrase "Dark Ages". By this reasoning, this dab page should steer the reader firmly AWAY from Dark Ages, which is merely an "article connected with [this] particular subject". (Does the physics page discuss the history of this ancient term, or the meaning it now has?) How do you see the connection, as it would apply to new readers, rather than old warriors like us?

As for "readers looking for 'societal collapse'": This is simply error on your part. Indeed, I got to the D.A. page (and controversy) precisely because I was interested in the matter of societal collapse, and I had no idea what pages might discuss it. (That phrase wasn't one I could guess, back then.) But I was pretty sure that "Dark Ages" would either be such a page or direct me quickly to it.

Societal collapse is one of the (two) most conventional definitions of "D.A.", i.e., it is indeed a "subject [which] is frequently known by that title".

On this basis, I am re-reverting. Feel free to undo, of course, but I hope you will continue the explanations if you do so. I prefer to imagine that we can find something that we both (all) agree will best serve the readers. Jmacwiki (talk) 06:56, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

If you read the style guidelines I directed you to, you'd see that the primary topic goes above the other entries. Dark Ages is currently the article located at the title Dark Ages, so it is the de facto primary topic and goes above the others. Under "Dark Ages may also refer to:" we list the other articles that are either commonly known as "Dark Ages", such as Early Middle Ages, or which are titled "Dark Ages", like Dark Ages (band). Is "societal collapse" commonly also called "dark ages"? I don't think so; if anything it seems like the events that precede a "dark age". At any rate, our article on the subject is too shoddy to tell easily.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:25, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, then, if we are to go by WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, then this dab page clearly violates WP guidelines: Dark Ages is not about the Dark Ages at all (i.e., Early Middle Ages), it is only about the history of those words. When do you plan to address the point that, unlike this article, the article titled physics isn't about the history of that word? The one for company isn't about the history of that word, either. Likewise for spirit -- even though all of these words have substantial history behind them.

For our readers, the primary topic here isn't about Petrarch, and it isn't about historians. It is the "darkness" of Western Europe in the centuries following the collapse of the WRE. I am genuinely curious what resources you can possibly have to believe otherwise about our readers. Jmacwiki (talk) 06:43, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Look, our article on the concept of the "Dark Ages" is currently located at the title Dark Ages, meaning by our guidelines, it is the de facto primary topic of that title right now (and it has been for years). As such, by the WP:MOSDAB guideline I've brought up multiple times, it goes above the entries. If it moves, then we rearrange the disambig page, but until then the page is (relatively) correctly formatted.--Cúchullain ^t/c 13:34, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, Britannica also has its discussion of the "Dark Ages" concept under "Dark Ages"; discussion of the actual history of the period is at Middle Ages and History of Europe.--Cúchullain ^t/c 13:34, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Dark Ages which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RM bot 15:15, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Per the comments below, I'd like to note that the discussed page move has been implemented. After discussion, the page formerly located under the title "Dark Ages" has been moved to Dark Ages (historiography), while the disambiguation page has been moved to Dark Ages.--Cúchullain ^t/c 01:49, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I looked at this page today and WikiMedia has not responded to my concerns.174.45.18.232 (talk) 22:09, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
P.S. No link174.45.18.232 (talk) 22:12, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
After reviewing this, I have come to the conclusion that moving the discussion to another page is not proper. In my post on Wikimedia I said I would wait for a response on this page. Wikimedia believes in transparency. By moving the page, a person initially seeing it on the Wikimedia page may well assume it is solved since it has been moved. This is not the right thing to do. As such, I will continue to watch This page (Talk: dark ages) for a response from WikiMedia until the 26th of April 2011. Any response will have to persist here until the issue is resolved or I will not consider it a response.
You're moving of this discussion, especially with no links to the new page, looks to be more of an attempt to hide the personal attacks against me than an attempt to resolve this issue. As such I cannot agree to any move.174.45.18.232 (talk) 22:45, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I've left a note at the top of this section explaining about the move. I see that several editors have indeed responded to your comments at the talk page now located at Talk:Dark Ages (historiography). BTW folks are unlikely to want to continue responding if you say you'll ignore what they say unless they answer exactly how you want them to. --Cúchullain ^t/c 01:49, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

It may appear that I am being a bit demanding on this issue, and that would be true, I am. The reason I am being demanding is stated in the above paragraph. There may well be people who will not respond because they think I am being unreasonable, but they must consider that openness requires not only discussions, but discussions in the logical place they belong. And that is here at Talk Dark Ages.174.45.18.232 (talk) 18:35, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
I checked the page Talk Dark ages today and found no response.174.45.18.232 (talk) 23:29, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
I checked the page Talk Dark ages today and found no response from Wikimedia.174.45.18.232 (talk) 23:29, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
Been out of internet range for the last several days, but checked Talk Dark ages today and found no response from Wikimedia.174.45.18.232 (talk) 02:44, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

As we've said, the foundation is very unlikely to respond to you here. Additionally, the concerns with your additions have been discussed by a number of editors at the page now titled Talk:Dark Ages (historiography).--Cúchullain ^t/c 13:29, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

It has a long day yesterday, and I missed checking the page Talk Dark Ages for comments, and today I see that yesterday someone commented that remarks had been made elsewhere. I will be out of internet range again for several days. If those comments are brought to this page for all to see I will consider them this weekend when I get back. Otherwise this discussion has produced no comments by Wikimedia and has exceeded a reasonable time limit and as such I will be beginning my next step. That step starts with Filing a FOI request with the IRS for a copy of Wikimedia's tax exempt status.174.45.18.232 (talk) 11:36, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

You'd probably do better to perform an online lookup, since you'd have to pay the copying fees for the FOIA request. WMF Pub 78 entry & Form 990 via Foundation Center and NCCS data. You may want to glimpse at Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act also. I don't imagine that the Foundation is going to reply unless you directly contact them. Have a nice day. Starfallen 13:34, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

uncomfortable historians

"However, historians are generally uncomfortable with the term 'Dark Ages' being applied to any of the above." Did someone determine this by surveying their shrinks? To describe feelings of an entire category of people in the third person omniscient has a certain unencylopedic quality. Kauffner (talk) 14:13, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Kauffner, do you really want to have this discussion again? We have a compromise, let's try to leave it there. To say people are "uncomfortable" with something is a good way of expressing reservations briefly without being dogmatic, and I see the word a lot in academic writing. The sentence you cite also contains the word "generally" and therefore does not describe the feelings of an "entire" category, it expresses the (vast) majority opinion. This has been attested so many times now in our discussions, it is really becoming boring to hear it challenged again. --Doric Loon (talk) 16:45, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I didn't find the "uncomfortable" stuff in Dark Ages (historiography), so it seems to be a new formulation. I supposed that what you want to say is that historians don't use phrase. But since that is demonstrably not true, you've resorted to this odd phrasing. Kauffner (talk) 02:04, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it's a new formulation. If you have a better one, please tell. It's not a new thought - the entire discussion at Dark Ages (historiography) comes down to "uncomfortable". I don't mean to say that no historians ever use it, only that the consensus is against it. But I'm not hung up on the word. If you think this is weasly, we can put it more strongly... --Doric Loon (talk) 21:26, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it is weasely. And yes, the whole painfully long discussion does come down to "uncomfortable". However this controversy goes unmentioned (or devalued) in the article. That is a failure. So that sentence (at a minimum) should be made stronger, more accurate, AND more explicit, AND suggest the reasoning for this fact of disapproval, something like this:

However, many Christian (most Western) historians are generally uncomfortable with the term "Dark Ages" being applied to any of the above, and for obvious reasons.
(Long list of despotic theocratically driven atrocities and intellectual repression including rigid thought-policing over centuries, enforced but real threat of prison, torture, or executions; optional. "I ain't through with you by a damn sight. I'ma get medieval on your ass.")

It's ludicrous, irresponsible, and inaccurate for Wikipedia to continue to devalue this controversy and to thus ignore the root cause of all this controversy. Indeed, if the topics Memory Hole, and history revisionism were not so important, these blatant, screaming, puerile failures would be laughable. Stop pussy-footing around the 800 lb gorilla, BOTH in discussion AND in the article! Else no resolution is possible and a mush-mouthed, imprecise article is probable.
--69.238.90.167 (talk) 17:00, 2 July 2011 (UTC)Doug Bashford

Well, by all means make it stronger then. But keep the word "Christian" out of it because there is no evidence that historians are more likely to follow the modern consensus if they have any particular ideology. "Western" is also misleading, as that would imply that historians in the East DO use the phrase. Does anyone object to the simple statement: "Most historians do not use the term"? However, we shouldn't put a list of reasons in here. This is a disambiguation article now. We do have a full discussion of the question at Dark Ages (historiography), which could use improving, so if you feel like pursuing this, please put your talents to work there. --Doric Loon (talk) 13:49, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this is a disambiguation page now. There's no reason to keep going on and on about the article here. As to the disambiguation page, I think we could remove the caveat about historians entirely, and leave it for the articles themselves.Cúchullain ^t/c 14:01, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, I wouldn't be too happy with that. When we made this a disambig, the deal was that the caveat would be there. The reason is that if we just forward people from "Dark Ages" to "Early Middle Ages" without warning them that the terms are not equally valid, we do them a disservice. And there is nothing to be lost by having this here. --Doric Loon (talk) 19:51, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

supposed

Hi all

I really think the line:

• "the concept of a period of intellectual darkness that supposedly occurred in Europe"

should read (a more precise word needed perhaps in the brackets):

• "the concept of a period of supposed intellectual (decay/decline) that occurred in Europe"

The occurrence in Europe is not supposed, but the intellectual "darkness" was supposed. Chaosdruid (talk) 22:44, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I moved it to say "supposed period", which is really the supposed part. I declined to add a "more precise" word, because "decline" is already used in "decline of the empire", the concept is not particularly precise, and "intellectual darkness" is what appears in the OED.--Cúchullain ^t/c 12:34, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Were the Talk archives destroyed?

quote "uncomfortable historians"

Kauffner, do you really want to have this discussion again? We have a compromise, let's try to leave it there.

Have the Talk archives really been mostly destroyed? If not what is the link?

What is the protocol for moving Talk into the archives, etc? Link? I notice many recent germane arguments missing. Waz Up? Thanks!
--69.238.90.167 (talk) 23:00, 27 June 2011 (UTC)Doug Bashford

The talk pages have been moved to Talk:Dark Ages (historiography), along with the article.Cúchullain ^t/c 23:05, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Please Address these Three 800-lb. Gorillas

It looks like no end in site for this debate. That is, ...unless we stop ignoring the rude 800-lb. gorilla in the room, politely pretending it's not there.
Quote

"....intellectual achievements were lost in this period until they were brought back later. They were lost because they were suppressed and destroyed for reasons of religion."

Quote

"Stop pussy-footing around the 800 lb gorilla, BOTH in discussion AND in the article!"

As Rifter0x0000 implies, one unmentionable 800-lb gorilla is that the Dark Ages coincided almost precisely with rigidly jealous despotic Christian theocracy that punished free thought. (See for examples why Christianity burned William Tyndale at the stake for translating the Bible into English, or why Christianity banned science & philosophy as paganism in 529 AD.) Why isn't this HUGE and perfect theocratic "coincidence" in the article?
(If we are cleverly trapped into debating if the Dark Ages were dark, then the debate; "What caused them" (that darkness,) has been effectively quashed.)

The second ignored 800-lb gorilla is that it's intellectually IMPOSSIBLE for many strong Christians (such as fundamentalists) to EVER see the Dark Ages as the repressive filth pit that everybody else sees. That's logically impossible. Since [Premise] Christianity and Church are nearly 100% Good, it logically follows that any related theocracy was also good and obviously no repressive filth pit. Therefore it's perfectly logical that history (name any and all sources) is somehow in error. Therefore it is every Christian's duty -- no, every Truth-loving human's duty to correct this powerful wrong. The logic is undeniable.
In one sentence: if one knows something, logic says any counter-evidence MUST be false. Therefore I don't see how any intellectually honest Christian could not recuse himself from this debate.

Furthermore, in our context, most historians are Christians. Therefore the statement or implication that most historians find the term Dark Ages as unpleasant or uncomfortable (was that the word used?) is UTTERLY without merit.
BUT WAIT! How can this argument even be presented, since EVERY suggestion that the Dark Ages were caused by Christianity have been removed almost as fast as the Fox-Limbaugh&Co herds attempted scandal to Memory Hole and re-edit Wikipedia a few weeks ago?

This "debate" (with damned scant logic) has dragged on for years. Why no resolution? Because of the third ignored, rude 800-Lb. gorilla in the room. We are being too polite. As long as we continue to pleasantly and politely avoid the unmentionable 1,000-year string of filthy intellectual and physical atrocities against individuals, humanity, and civilization, -- as long as people here here can pretend that the religious chanting and mental regurgitation and scriptural cud-chewing is somehow intellectually equivalent to the science and philosophy they formally banned as paganism, it would appear that no resolution is possible. Why not? Put simply, the reason the Dark Ages were "dark" is NOT polite. A meaningful and polite debate asking if something is truly filthy; is impossible. One can politely point at something filthy. But it can't be debated from that distance. The list of unthinkable atrocities is long and unpleasant and crucial to this argument, and absent here. I now dare to say it. They were Christian atrocities, some unprecedented because they were Christian, most because they were from a despotic, jealous theocracy that by Christian definition overrides the false common decency and false reasoning of despicable humanity, overrides mere sinful and evil humans. Man's natural moral compass in Christianity is false. Man's natural goodness in Christianity is false. No wonder atrocity flowed unquestioned for centuries.

I'm not suggesting we must be rude. Or am I? Is it rude to challenge cheerful happy-talk like; "Christian-oriented art flourished?" Perhaps it is rude. While indeed it "flourished" in the Dark Ages, Christian-oriented art had also regressed to become childish, unnatural and two-dimensional. ...and so on. This fanciful and often subtle happy-talk, often embedded in compound sentences that riddles these arguments needs to be challenged. But we have been trained to ignore and smile when people say ridiculous things in the name of their religion. But this is NOT the venue for that! I just don't see any other way to keep this debate from never ending, continuing into perpetuity, never addressing the actual issues, constantly beating around the bush with vague, too-polite hints and suggestions.

(Here is an example of that mindset. It's an organized Christian propaganda website with history revisionism sanitizing the uncomfortable or unpleasant Truth. As usual, it blames an evil conspiracy or group ("neo-Paganists" in this case) for somehow concocting the historical fact that the intellectually despotic Christian theocracy, the holy Roman emperor Justinian banned philosophy and science as paganism in 529 AD. They wail; "allegedly plunging mankind into darkness, and thus leading it into the ignorance of the Middle Ages" (indeed some historians do mark 529 AD as the start of the Dark Ages). After vilifying that chapter in history as bunk, it is simply tossed down the history censor's Memory Hole. This is the version of reality that many Christians are exposed to in the context of this being more "respectable" than real History, Science, Journalism, etc...more "respectable" than any and all mainstream secular input from reality.)
--69.238.90.167 (talk) 18:34, 3 July 2011 (UTC)Doug Bashford

I really don't have time to have this argument again. Besides, this is the wrong place for it. Go to the historiography article, read the archives, and then put your message there if you honestly think you have something new to say.

The one thing here which possibly is new concerns fundamentalists, so I will just answer that briefly. Fundamentalists are radically Protestant and usually Anti-Catholic. The Early Middle Ages were Catholic. Therefore, Fundamentalists are more likely than anyone else to have a vested interest in talking about Dark Ages. However, what we are concerned with are historians, and they usually have the scholarly distance that if they ARE believers in a particular religion, they will not let it affect their judgment. But actually, they are as likely to be secular as the rest of our society is. I for my part am an atheist. I would not defend the church any more than I would defend the undoubtable atrocities committed by Christians throughout history. But I will defend the diverse cultures of the Middle Ages against your style of blanket cultural prejudice. --Doric Loon (talk) 19:57, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

You misunderstand me. I intend to correct the article, and this here is simply following suggested protocol and I am seeking logical rebuttal or counter facts. I have laid bare and exposed most of my main arguments in good faith. If somebody convincingly destroys them all, obviously I will have no corrections to make. And I intend to defend my corrections against unsupported opinions, and haughty logical fallacies such as your above list, which is typical of every recent Undark-Dark-Ages view of history here on this topic. And I also intend to defend my corrections against logically unsupported reverts that normally come as quickly here as your reply did. (However, I would very much like to avoid that.) Like 30 unanswered requests before me, I seek actual testable evidence, not unsupported opinions and the fallacy of argumentum ad verecundiam like your haughty appeal to authority. Beware, your claim of "scholarly distance," is as vulnerable and silly as it sounds, I suggest for your own dignity not using it again. But do feel free to attempt rebutting my...hello: LOGICAL ARGUMENT on that topic. You also argue historians are as "secular as the rest of our society is." Yup, as I said, indeed they are just as Christian as the rest of Western culture. Finally, your unsupported feelsgood accusation that I attack "diverse cultures of the Middle Ages" is almost the direct opposite of where I lay the blame, which is: absolute power, aka, theocracy.
If you decide to defend that, PLEASE! next time read and try understand my actual words. It will save both of us a great deal of time.
--69.238.90.167 (talk) 23:25, 3 July 2011 (UTC)Doug Bashford

You don't help this rant by bringing in at the start William Tyndale, who lived many centuries after the latest possible end-date for the Dark Ages, from when we have several surviving partial translations of the Bible into Old English, although the majority of all kinds of books were written in Latin. Johnbod (talk) 01:26, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Apart from that, it really is not terribly important whether you or I think the Middle Ages were nice or nasty. Our job is to record what we find in the scholarly literature. If historians are no longer using dark-ages terminology, we must say that, and must also follow that lead by not using it ourselves apart from in an account of the thinking of the older historians who did use it. This is not a place for venting feelings on whether we LIKE the current fashion. If I wanted to do that, I think I would write a blog. --Doric Loon (talk) 13:40, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

This is a disambiguation page. You appear to be trying to contribute to Talk:Dark Ages (historiography). Also, 69.238.90.167, you clearly have no idea about the relation of Christian fundamentalism with regular Christianity. It is also extremely sad to see (self-described) US-American skeptics assuming that the prevalent crackpot bigotry that passes as "Christianity" in much of the US has anything to do with actual Christianity and based on this misconception (understandably) act from a premise that "Chritianity is evil". Why would you buy the definition of "Christianity" from the people you despise? As Doric Loon has just told you, any Christian fundamentalist will be happy to endorse your "filth pit" thing, because that would show how the Roman pagans and papists have corrupted the pure Christianity of the founding days ... which was happily restored only with the Reformation / Anabaptists / Great Awakening / Chick Tracts / Landover Baptists.

So, one "correction" you are resolved to defend against "unsupported opinions" is that "everyone agrees that the Dark Ages were a repressive filth pit". Yeah, I think you will have to rephrase that a little bit. You may also want to base this unsupported opinion of yours on some actual scholarship. Saying "all these scholars are Christians and therefore the opposite of what they say is true" clearly is not something that is going to fly on Wikipedia. --dab (𒁳) 13:57, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks all for your input. First a reply to Johnbod RE William Tyndale's murder:
I disagree. Quote article: "the European Middle Ages (5th to 15th centuries AD)" That fact that the remnants of that despotic tyranny burned Tyndale at the stake some 36 years after the dreaded Dark Ages only suggests how stinking filthy the real deal was. Are you defending theocratic absolute power?

For anybody to suggest that devolving from a republic to despotic multi-layered tyranny in every aspect of freedom in life and thought for 1,000 years with no real, actual downside as the "no-darkness" crowd claims, is arguing that tyranny and absolute power, in real terms, is just as good as representative government. Huh!?
I would expect that argument (or world-view) only from the modern, (largely covert,) pro-theocracy crowds.

To Doric Loon, of course we need to record the facts. But they are a dime a dozen, it's logic and our values that gives them their meaning. RE: We "must also follow that lead by not using [that term] ourselves..." Hogwash. err I mean citation please.

To dab, you say "prevalent crackpot bigotry that passes as "Christianity"." Using the "logic" you use against me, I must ask you; Why do you HATE Christianity!? I don't. What I despise is theocracy and tyranny, two flavors of the same thing. You also argue

"any Christian fundamentalist will be happy to endorse your "filth pit" thing, because that would show how the Roman pagans and papists have corrupted the pure Christianity of the founding days"

Huh!? Can't a near opposite scenario be argued? What am I missing? Didn't the Dark Ages begin AFTER the fall of Western Rome and the papacy? ...And is largely a function of the ascendant Eastern Roman Empire!? "Jeepers, I guess the Pope kept the world civilized!"...for example? Me thinks all you guys are adding things that ain't and missing things that is. But thanks for bringing that misconception and false battle to light. Again, What am I missing? And thanks for your other constructive suggestions.
--69.238.90.167 (talk) 18:16, 4 July 2011 (UTC)Doug Bashford

The "Middle Ages" are not the "Dark Ages", as the articles make clear - those are the Early Middle Ages, which ended several hundreds of years before Tyndale died. Johnbod (talk) 21:19, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh dear. Well, lets start with Christianity, the Romans and the rest of Europe.

The Romans kept pretty good documents and records. What about the rest of Europe that was not Roman or Christian? Did people in Yorkshire, or Ireland, or Norway, or Germany, or Russia write a diary or books between the 5th and 15th century? I do not think so. History has to be either passed down or written down. Yes, some monks kept records and wrote down a few things, but it is not Christianity that prevented it, it was the simple fact that most of the population was illiterate. Not surprising then that the amount of information written by people after the Roman empire fell is sparse, is it?

As Dbachmann says, your arguments are ill-placed here I am afraid. Chaosdruid (talk) 18:52, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

(Roman Empire citizens (male children) were educated in part as preparation for the military. But as I argue, literary output is not particularly relevant to my argument.) What I've argued here and was flushed (and lost?) into the archives along with many other of my (and other's) arguments, I don't buy the definition of that one single historian that the Dark Ages' "Dark," means a paucity of recorded output. As I argued, (with evidence) that appears to be a weak straw man argument selected and elevated to be defeated by the later No-Darkness historians. As the Enlightenment scholars and others have defined/stated/implied, the darkness was about jealous tyranny of thought, as the William Tyndale murder is one example of 1000 regarding the causes of a secondary effect: paucity and degradation of output. Other secondary effects include the long lists of atrocities, and so on. My above example of poor, degraded (two-dimensional) so-called "Christian art" is a bit of a misnomer, it should more properly be called Dark Ages Art or Tyranny Art. Because it is typical of all art produced under thought-control including Nazi Art, and Soviet Art. (Iconography is simply not high art.) But far, far more importantly, as with all my examples, they are typical and set a pattern ...and artifacts imply things.

Is anybody here denying that the Dark Age form of government was largely (loosely) an interdependent dyad of (informal) monarchy and theocracy?
Who executed William Tyndale?...and was there not an international hunt to find him across borders?...and directed by what? Those are important facts. They mean something.
--69.238.90.167 (talk) 21:10, 4 July 2011 (UTC)Doug Bashford

look, if you drop the silly "Christian fundamentalist whitewashing" charge and recognize that you are dealing with educated, well-meaning, mostly secularist people, we can have a meaningful discussion. I tend to agree that the "Dark Ages not so dark after all" point can be overblown, and has been overblown. That's not propaganda, it is a rational reaction to the fact that in the 19th century, the opposite had been the case. Scholarly mainstream tends to yo-yo around a little bit as the generations pass. As long as it yo-yoing takes place around a sane core consensus, this is not really a problem. We still need to portray scholarly mainstream, even if individually, we will tend to moderately disagree.

so yes, I will agree that the Dark Ages were in fact "dark", compared to Late Antiquity. Not compared to the age that produced the Tanum petroglyphs. I do not agree that this has anything whatsoever to do with Christianity. Christianity is "at home" in Late Antiquity. It needed to transform, and it did successfully, to survive in this new "Dark Age", but if you say that medieval Christianity caused the Dark Ages, you are getting your causalities upside down.

What did cause the "darkness" was the overextension of and decadence within the Roman Empire, and the failure of the Roman Army to rise to the challenge of invading armies of illiterate, pagan barbarians, just as you would read in any 19th century history book. So perhaps you could argue that hey, Rome adopted Christianity in 390 and it collapsed by 480. Clearly, Christian turn-the-other-cheek hippie pacifism has weakened the Roman Empire to the point it could be pushed over by a bunch of berserk Vandals. That's an interesting thought, I suppose, but it is also Original Research, and if I want to make the point, I would need to find literature that discusses this line of reasoning. I present this idea tongue-in-cheek, but I do think it has its merits. When did Roman Empire lose its military superiority? Right after it became Christian. During the Christian millennium, Europe could just barely hold on to its own. The crusades were a military disaster. When did Europe shed its backwardness and move on to the Great Divergence? Right after Christianity started to move off center stage and made room for skepticism and even atheism. Coincidence? I am not sure. But I am not spending time putting this in Wikipedia articles because I can differentiate between elaborating my own opinions and writing encyclopedia articles.

I have no idea why you would keep up Willam Tyndale here. If anything, this shows that you haven't given this topic sufficient thought to say anything interesting about it. Tyndale did not live in the Dark Ages, he lived full six centuries after the end of the Dark Ages. If you want to discuss the evil that has been caused by the Reformation, you may be striking closer to Christian fundamentalist sensitivities, but I must ask you why you do this at Talk:Dark Ages and not at Talk:Penguin where it would be at least as relevant. --dab (𒁳) 12:12, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

oh wait, you think that "Dark Ages" is synonymous with Middle Ages. Ha. Interesting that Petrarca should have introduced the term in 1330, obviously implying that the Dark Ages were now behind him, still 200 years before Tyndale was even born. What killed Tyndale was not the Middle Ages, it was the turmoils caused by the forces that ended the Middle Ages. Same goes for the European witchhunts btw. They mark the end, not the beginning of the Christian millennium in Europe. You really have got things upside down here. The actual Dark Ages, in any sensible modern understanding of the term, ended with the Carolingian Renaissance. Perhaps the Dark Age went on until the 12th century in England, but in Continental Europe, and especially in Byzantium the 9th century was a cultural Golden Age, the very opposite of a "Dark Age". The term "Dark Ages" makes sense for the period of political fragmentation after the fall of West Rome, during the 6th, 7th and 8th centuries. Any attempt to strech the term past the 9th, let alone into the 14th or 15th centuries, is imho simply a sign of failing in medieval studies. --dab (𒁳) 12:30, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

DAB, I must say that your speculation on the relationship between Christianity and turns of fortune of the continent is the most interesting thing to come out of this discussion so far. Orignial, clever, striking. I doubt if it can be verified, and I know you don't expect it to be, but it is amusing to mull it over. Ta! --Doric Loon (talk) 19:05, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

It is indeed an interesting theory. It reminds me of Nietzsche's theories on Christianity and its effect on European history and culture, incidentally, among others. Rifter0x0000 (talk) 21:36, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree with much of what dab says. No time right now to respond. Question? I've argued above that the Petrarca argument is bunk. You say: "Interesting that Petrarca should have introduced the term in 1330, obviously implying that the Dark Ages were now behind him,..." Didn't he really say that things were once worse than where he currently was, and presumed it must be behind him? But since when is one's self definition or place taken seriously? For a silly example, most Nazis thought Nazis were Socialist...before the Night of the Long Knives. Because he may have invented the term, he has no rights on it's usage any more than any other term's inventor. (I'm not arguing that the term has not already been defined.) What makes his definition holy in your mind? And in your mind, why is Petrarca accepted and say, Voltaire &CO rejected? And what in your mind is the "dark" in Dark Ages? ...because oddly if you argue it's lack of literary output etc, we agree, that term IS bunk and should be rejected...in favor of the popular definitions I have described and we all know. Will you argue that experts do or should own and define the language, and they do or should quasi-author the dictionaries? Should only one definition be permitted in a dictionary definition? Are you arguing that you have never heard the "Pulp Fiction" definition of Midevil? ...All this in context that you have some good points... Sorry no time now...
--69.238.90.167 (talk) 19:58, 5 July 2011 (UTC)Doug Bashford

Ten days, & no replies? I hope that might mean my questions were seen as rhetorical...self-answering. A quick look at our table of contents and we see evidence of a long standing problem here, many unanswered complaints. How long has this been the case? Long. For example, here the topics include

# 1 "Supposedly"?!,

# 4 uncomfortable historians and

# 5 supposed.

...and the rebuttals to these complaints were mostly unsupported, if not haughty claims. And I suggest that this "non-darkness thing" is a "movement," similar to the Sara Palin - Paul Revere 50-edits a day a few weeks ago. I wanna say this is political, but that's not the right word. So where can we find a clean, highly respected reference?

How about here? http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/151663/Dark-Ages

Dark Ages (European history)

"...the term refers to ... the period between about 500 and 1000, which was marked by frequent warfare and a virtual disappearance of urban life."

and

"the term’s more usual and pejorative sense is of a period of intellectual darkness and barbarity. ... "

Oops. Encyclopedia Britannica. And no "polite" weasel words like "Supposedly," etc. They were called Dark Ages for good reason regardless of current fads and possible ideologically-driven history revisionism. Duh. (And as I (we) argued, dark not for lack of literary output etc.) I intend to make appropriate changes soon, unless met with solid evidence to the contrary.
--69.228.14.23 (talk) 01:27, 16 July 2011 (UTC)Doug Bashford

So your solution is "I am right, you are all wrong, I am going to do it anyway ..." ? Hmm that is a pretty mature attitude, I think I heard that so many times in the past I have selective ADD when I hear it.

I advise you not to make any such changes. I advise you to either put your suggestion for a new piece of text here, or to try and carry on poking with that stick. You do not have consensus, you are likely to be reverted, end up edit warring and be digging a deep hole. If you cannot persuade us by your arguments, then your edits will neither be accepted nor welcome. Wiki policy is WP:BRD. Chaosdruid (talk) 01:54, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Sorry; classic straw man fallacy. (I presume it was merely a product of your passion in this matter.) Again: I will be replacing unsupported claims with referenced facts. (I sited one.) I find your diverting attention away from those facts and source and towards me personally as transparent, and here: tired and overused ad nauseam. For the 100th time in the last few years verifiable references for this article are being requested (and haughtily brushed aside with little more than dressed up; "because I said so!!"). For the 100th time a request is being made to bring this article up to Wikipedia standards. Again one wonders why some of you seemingly have found giving, and now receiving, verifiable highly respected sourced facts as inappropriate? If respected encyclopedias are not good enough for you guys, then what is? Are they not one of the best sources to find tired, old "scientific consensus" and such? These are not rhetorical questions, I need to know what you will find as acceptable evidence to avoid an endless edit war. (Sadly, too many times I have found that question befuddles people. (NOTHING, NO possible evidence could change their minds.))

That said, thanks for your kind advice. However, I will be following Wikipedia:BRD protocol and making the edits first to notify all watchlists and so forth. I have exceeded BRD politeness standards by discussing my objections and intended changes first, − and now it seems indeed, yes that was a mistake.
--68.127.87.182 (talk) 07:44, 26 July 2011 (UTC)Doug Bashford

Go for it. I suggest you keep the total number of changed words small for now, though, so we can be clear what we are defending or opposing. This is well trodden ground, so it will be easy for us to go astray in the mud. Jmacwiki (talk) 07:13, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

No. The purpose of the text on this page is to direct readers to the page they want, not to promote your own personal ideas of what the "dark ages" means to you. It should match the substance of the article introduction fairly closely. The current version does; yours does not. Time to move on.--Cúchullain ^t/c 12:21, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

No. "The purpose of the text on this page to direct readers to the page they want" -- which it still does not, if they are looking for the common understanding of a "dark age": a period of low cultural output, not merely few surviving records of that output. Jmacwiki (talk) 22:09, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

people "looking for the common understanding of a 'dark age'" need to be redirected to Dark Ages (historiography). Nothing more, nothing less. No disambiguation needed. The encyclopedic content of that article is an entirely different question, to be discussed based on academic references. Don't try to resolve content disputes by tweaking disambiguation pages. --dab (𒁳) 09:55, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Can we move on now?

So, we appear to have been bullied into keeping this disambiguation page as awkward as possible by an IP user obsessing over the topic, apparently as a result of emotional issues regarding Christianity.

This should not, of course have any bearing on how disambiguation is handled. Dark Ages (historiography) is clearly the "primary topic" article here, and marginal stuff like the Digital Dark Ages can be listed at Dark Ages (disambiguation). If at all, as strictly speaking the "Digital Dark Age" is not known as "Dark Ages".

The entire question the merit of the term "dark ages" is to be discussed encyclopedically at the article dedicated to the term. What else? We do not make points or express opinions via disambiguation pages. There are clearly enough sane people who have commented on this question to allow us to stick to reason and policy by recourse to WP:3RR, so none of the above prancing around should even have taken place to begin with. --dab (𒁳) 09:51, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Other possible "dark ages"

• The Classic Maya collapse and its aftermath
• The aftermath of the collapse of society on Easter Island
• Post-Cahokia and pre-Europeanization of central North America
• The Gutian dynasty of Sumer
• Am not sure if India actually had any dark ages
• China: Warring States period, Wu Hu period, interregnum between Qing Dynasty and People's Republic of China
• Japan: The Muromachi and Sengoku periods (both of which saw a lot of division; both Japan and China tend towards unification, unlike India, which has historically been divided)

— Rickyrab | Talk 20:41, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

WP:DISAMBIG says that this disambiguation page should list things that are commonly known as "Dark Ages", for the benefit of readers trying to locate an article. It isn't supposed to be an encyclopedic comparison of historical periods that can or could be argued to have "dark" aspects. --dab (𒁳) 09:52, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Extra info in WP links

Hi, OldMoonraker. I believe the extra text I inserted is appropriate. As for whether it should be linked, I checked the WP:MOSDAB first and could not find any recommendation to avoid multiple links in a DAB entry. Can you point me to the right place for that recommendation?

As for confusing readers, it seems unlikely to me: Each entry still starts with a phrase that contains "Dark Age[s]". The text I inserted is explanatory. (For example, if you wonder about multiple Greek Dark Ages, you will see that the Greek Dark Ages link on this page deals with the Bronze-Age Collapse, not with the post-Phocas(?) Byzantine Dark Age.)

The additional link has another purpose: to be more helpful to readers. It gives an easy route to what they may realistically want, instead of merely to what they typed. For example, the Greek Dark Ages article explains that it's becoming less "dark", as better archeological evidence turns up. But most readers likely care much less about whether the evidence is anemic than what the features of that age were: the destruction of the Mycenean palaces, the collapse of the palace-centered economies, the earliest beginnings of the city-states, the possible causes of the collapse, etc. The Bronze Age Collapse article will tell them about that, just as its title promises.

Feel free to re-re-revert, of course, but please discuss here. Jmacwiki (talk) 06:46, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

MOS:DABENTRY reads: "Each entry should have exactly one navigable (blue) link". Any help? --Old Moonraker (talk) 06:59, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Afterthought: I see that Cúchullain has already pointed this out to you, above. Why are you persisting with this? The WP style guide seems quite plain—DAB is to identify which page of the same name is the right one—but if you disagree with it you should be raising the point there, not here. --Old Moonraker (talk) 07:18, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Jmacwiki, you clearly refuse to get the point of Wikipedia disambiguation pages, even after several editors have patiently tried to explain things to you. You should at this point stop worrying about "confused readers" and meditate about the possibility of yourself being confused. A disambiguation page is about terminology. It is not the place to discuss the Bronze Age collapse or any of the other topics you are trying to discuss off the top of your head. Nobody wants to have this discussion with you, and Wikipedia is not a forum. Your comments are welcome as long as they are on topic and verifiably based on reputable publications. Your opinions about the "darkness" of historical periods cannot even begin to be on topic on the talkpage of a disambiguation page. --dab (𒁳) 10:00, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Just caught up with this page again, and implemented a few instances of the MOS:DABENTRY enjoinder "Each entry should have exactly one navigable (blue) link".--Old Moonraker (talk) 10:19, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Shouldn't 'Dark Ages' link to the decline after the Romans?

I would think that most people who search up 'the Dark Ages' would be looking for the period after the Roman Empire.

Shouldn't that link straight to that page, with the link to this disambiguation page here? lril (talk) 09:35, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

The page now titled Dark Ages (historiography) used to be located at Dark Ages. Considering we have multiple pages on the European post-Roman "Dark Ages", on top of articles on several other periods known as the "Dark Ages", I think a disambiguation page is warranted.--Cúchullain ^t/c 13:31, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Early Middle Ages should at least be the featured article on the page. If you google "Dark Ages" -wikipedia, the top hit is the computer game. (This is probably just clever SEO.) But everything else relates to the period of European history. The way its set up now, it's like a little game to keep people from figuring out the common meaning of the word. Kauffner (talk) 02:18, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Bronze Age collapse

The Bronze Age collapse may not have dark age in its title, but it certainly seems like a dark age. Should it be included?108.201.221.204 (talk) 09:02, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Preachy Attitude & unsupported POV, ...Taboo ?

It says:

Note: medieval historians today usually avoid the phrase "Dark Ages" for the above periods, see Dark Ages (historiography) for further discussion.

That is preachy, unsupported, controversial, and irrelevant. Whether or not some medieval historians in their specialized lingo, attitudes, or jargon avoid the phrase "Dark Ages" is irrelevant to anything within this article. (Also moving from "some historians" to "most historians" as is implied is a further unsupported and controversial POV.)

It seems to imply: Usage of "Dark Ages" makes one look gauche or ignorant as if that term and POV were undisputed (by little things like the dictionary). However, the anti-Dark Ages POV is not the dominant paradigm, (as per dictionary, etc) therefore it carries the burden the proof. In fact, it lands only one side of the heated argument that is most of Talk; Dark Ages (historiography). Moving the body of that debate to here is not right. Siding with one side would not be right. I'll remove it.

A heads up: It seems to me that there is an 800 pound Orwellian gorilla hiding in the entire medieval topic where gentle people prefer to remain blind because taboos are involved: Religion.
    It is possible (probable in my mind,) that the Dark Age deniers (such as in: Dark Ages (historiography)) are part of the resurgence of global religious Fundamentalism that's been well documented to have been rapidly rising since the 1970s.
    1) From that rising global fundamentalist movement rises the perfect logic of a self-evident assumption: Since Christianity is perfect, the medieval theocratic rulers must have been perfect, therefore obviously the Dark Ages were not dark. They know that to consider otherwise requires thinking illogically, if not heretically.
   2) Most medieval historians 1)were and 2)are Christians (for two obvious reasons).
    Nevertheless, again: that is not dominant paradigm, therefore our theocratic-defending self-so-called "historians" carry the burden of proof. Beware of the memory hole and the good, well-intended historians from the Ministry of Truth.
--71.138.23.59 (talk) 18:13, 15 February 2014 (UTC)Doug Bashford

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Dark Ages (historiography) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 13:46, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Editor notes in this page

There is an editor note in this page that says, in part, "Including this comment was a condition for consensus on a page move, which was argued out in a very protracted debate (now) at Dark Ages (historiography)."

Well, there are four pages of archives at that talk page spanning 15 years. I have no idea when that editor's note was added to this page or which "protracted" discussion it refers to. If you want to keep that editor's note in there, at least point to a specific thread, provide a date, of something... Otherwise, I'm removing it. Sparkie82 (t•c) 02:39, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

NOT AT ALL HELPFUL!

Why is all of this “information” in bullet points??? This aticle was not at all helpful for my end of quarter assessment!!!! Irishstepdancer2105 (talk) 21:01, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm sorry you did not know how to use Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.15.229.22 (talk) 15:58, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

I think that you should just clam down. It is in bullet points since Wiki doesn't want you to read more than they think you want it! CALM DOWN THEY ARE ACTUALLY HELPING YOU! 😡😡