The Real Reason the Middle Ages Were Called the Dark Ages

The Middle Ages spanned a thousand years and forged a timeline filled with pivotal events: the establishment of new kingdoms, the exploration of faraway lands, the rise of Catholicism, the emergence of Gothic architecture, the catastrophic toll of the Black Plague, and the grueling Hundred Years' War.

Historians divide the Middle Ages into three periods: the Early Middle Ages, the High Middle Ages, and the Late Middle Ages (also known as Medieval times). The Early Middle Ages, roughly 500 to 1000 AD, were also called the “Dark Ages,” a term first introduced by 14th-century scholar Petrarch. He used it to contrast this era with the Classical Period of Rome and Greece, which he believed to be superior in many ways.

So, how did the first part of the Middle Ages come to be recognized as the "Dark Ages"? Let’s venture into the past to see how this label originated and what it really said about the era.

A RENAISSANCE SCHOLAR'S VIEW OF THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES

Petrarch, an Italian scholar living in the late medieval period, was the first to use the term "Dark Ages" to describe the Early Middle Ages. According to EBSCO, he coined the phrase in the 1330s. Petrarch dreamed of a revival of the art and literature of the early civilizations of Greece and Rome (the Classical Period), and he lived to witness the rise of the Italian Renaissance, a movement representing the transition from the Middle Ages to modern times. 

In his article “Petrarch's Conception of the 'Dark Ages',” Author Theodor Mommsen pointed out that the term also appeared in the American Cyclopedia of 1883, which included an entire excerpt describing the Early Middle Ages as the Dark Ages:

"The Dark Ages is a term applied in its widest sense to that period of intellectual depression in the history of Europe from the establishment of the Barbarian supremacy in the fifth century to the revival of learning about the beginning of the fifteenth, thus nearly corresponding in extent with the Middle Ages."

Mommsen also referenced Samuel Maitland’s book, The Dark Ages; a compilation of essays that highlight the supposed cultural drought of the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries. 

The term "Dark Ages" persisted for generations and is still used today, though scholars are attempting to phase it out. 

THE 'DARK AGES' TODAY

We know where the term came from, but why, specifically, was it called the "Dark Ages"? Metaphorically, the phrase signified a time identified by a "decline in intellectual, spiritual, and cultural progress after the collapse of the Roman Empire in the fifth century." There was a decrease in written records, a lack of social stability, and a surge in religious and political conflicts. 

Renaissance scholars, infatuated with the Classical Period, believed that few significant works of art and literature were produced during this era compared to the period before the fall of the Roman Empire. Their admiration for the classics led them to shade the Early Middle Ages as a time of creative inactivity, the label "dark" purposefully negating the advances made in exploration, education, infrastructure, agriculture, and technology. 

In 2026, historians challenge the idea of a comprehensive cultural "decline" and consider the Early Middle Ages to be more complex than the term "dark" suggests. Modern scholars generally avoid the broad characterization, recognizing the era’s contributions and giving it a bit more credit than Petrarch and other Renaissance scholars did. 

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