Is this graph correct?

[Ecthy]

It's totally futile to talk about European pre-1815 history with most Americans. Exceptions confirm the rule.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Barnabas
Kidicius, the eastern roman empire (and christian) never had a dark age

They didn't have The Renaissance either. What makes you think the graph is about the Eastern Roman Empire? This is about The Dark Ages. Therefore it is about the Roman Catholic Church and the way that it affected Western Civ. That shouldn't be in question.

[DaShi]

The Church was all that was keeping humanity from falling into extinction during the dark ages.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by DaShi
The Church was all that was keeping humanity from falling into extinction during the dark ages.

Any reason to believe that?

[DaShi]

Yes, because I want to.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by DaShi
Yes, because I want to.

Oh, right. Carry on.

[Barnabas]

Originally posted by Kidicious


They didn't have The Renaissance either. What makes you think the graph is about the Eastern Roman Empire? This is about The Dark Ages. Therefore it is about the Roman Catholic Church and the way that it affected Western Civ. That shouldn't be in question.

It is kind of hard to have the renaissance when you are being utterly conquered and destroyed by turks..

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Barnabas


It is kind of hard to have the renaissance when you are being utterly conquered and destroyed by turks..

Yeah, so why are we talking about that civ?

[Odin]

Originally posted by DaShi
The Church was all that was keeping humanity from falling into extinction during the dark ages.

I'm assuming to meant "Europeans" instead of "humanity"...

The monastic community was very important in protecting what remained of the classical tradition in the West and the Church helped in brining some semblance of order to society.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Odin


I'm assuming to meant "Europeans" instead of "humanity"...

The monastic community was very important in protecting what remained of the classical tradition in the West and the Church helped in brining some semblance of order to society.

They largely created their own traditions and order which wasn't a good thing. Would we have been better off with out them? That's hard to say since we don't know how it would have turned out. You can't really say that we would have been doomed. That's pretty silly. We were pretty well ****ed anyway.

[DanS]

Originally posted by Ecthy
Ottonic Germany was a well-run place, so was Merowingian France. So what's the point in all this "dark ages" business? Obviously some infrastructural maintenance got lost after the collapse of Rome, but it took a few generations only for the new empires which represented lower populations and worked with smaller economies to get up their own business. Lack of sources from the time until 1000 was a problem for 19th century historians. Some science was lost from earlier days but things were still progressing, they had just had to start from a lower level than they were before.

A Dark Age as I know it should be measured easily enough. Just look at the level of trade. Much flowed from that. For one, Western/Central Europe couldn't support large cities because of the lack of trade. Without the large cities, there was a dearth of specialists to retain the knowledge of the Western Roman empire.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Kidicious
They didn't have The Renaissance either. What makes you think the graph is about the Eastern Roman Empire? This is about The Dark Ages. Therefore it is about the Roman Catholic Church and the way that it affected Western Civ. That shouldn't be in question.

The graph says clearly "christian dark ages", so it makes a link between dark age and christianity. Since the ERE was christian, just as mentioned not catholic, Barnabas' hint (as I understand it) is that it's dumb to make that link as if it were some automatism that led from christianity to dark ages.

Which is why the graph sucks, it's just a case of "I don't care about history if I can bash those I don't like".

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by DanS

Without the large cities, there was a dearth of specialists to retain the knowledge of the Western Roman empire.

Not strictly true, since the Irish monasteries preserved some of the knowledge of the Graeco-Roman world.

What was really needed was the conversion of large pagan groups and whole states in Ireland, Scotland, England Wales and Continental Europe, which would mean political power and influence for the Church, which had the majority of the specialists.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by BeBro


The graph says clearly "christian dark ages", so it makes a link between dark age and christianity. Since the ERE was christian, just as mentioned not catholic, Barnabas' hint (as I understand it) is that it's dumb to make that link as if it were some automatism that led from christianity to dark ages.

Which is why the graph sucks, it's just a case of "I don't care about history if I can bash those I don't like".

It should say "catholic dark ages," but they still make a valid point.

[BeBMan]

Maybe it would have been valid if they had made an attempt to get facts, dates and terms straight. As the graph looks now they either know jack**** about history, or they're are deliberately distorting it.