The Dark Ages is a term commonly used to characterize the European Middle Ages, a period roughly between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance. It was a time of feudalism, the Black Death pandemic, and widespread poverty for most people. The name indicates a brutal and above all unenlightened period of human history. But in an article in the English-language edition of the newspaper El País, we learn of a group of more than 70 Spanish academics who seek to shine new light on this much-maligned period.
They point out that major advances in human history such as the printing press, paper bills, and in the case of Spain, the establishment of public institutions such as the Cortes, a parliamentary body that would prove a world pioneer, were made during the period. Many everyday objects that we take for granted, such as the fork, eye glasses, and mechanical clocks first came about in the so-called Dark Ages. And several modern languages, including Castilian Spanish, emerged. Moreover, without medieval scholars, mankind would not have preserved classic learning passed on from Antiquity as manuscripts would have been lost had they not been painstakingly copied by monks in monasteries.
We hope you will find this article interesting: Plagues, famine, torture: historians try to set the record straight on the Middle Ages.
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