Historical writing evolves. So there are some things that a budding historian should not say, do, or be. I’ll start with words that have gone out of fashion.
“Dark Ages” was a pejorative term historians used (until recently) to describe Europe beginning around 500. Influenced by the Enlightenment, these nineteenth- and twentieth-century historians thought that after Rome “fell” (another term going out of style), Europe had plunged into a benighted age of deteriorating trade, economic stagnation, and ignorance. Europe didn’t get fully back on track until the rediscovery of the ancient civilizations—the Renaissance. The first 500 hundred years were the worst, thus the Dark Ages.
That prejudice is gone. The Middle Ages as a whole are seen as a period of commercial and agricultural vitality. The “fall of Rome” has given way to “late antiquity,” and the “Dark Ages” are now the Early Middle Ages (followed, at least among Anglophone writers) by the High and Late Middle Ages. (By the way, notice that I said “Anglophone,” not “English-speaking.” Trying to sound like an academic.)
And forget about the “barbarian invasions.” Don’t call them barbarians, or even “tribes,” but, rather, ethnic peoples. And while they did make forays into Rome, such as sacking it in 410, many of their relationships with the Roman Empire were not invasions but constructive cooperation at the borders. Even “feudalism” is a disputed term, not because it is negative, but because it means different things to different people.
A second no-no for historians is anachronism, also called present-centeredness—that is, being blinded to historical facts by the categories we apply to activities today. The first attack on anachronism was by Herbert Butterfield in 1931, who noted that many historians of his day had a “whig interpretation of history”—that is, they interpreted historical events as steps in progress toward liberty (with Protestantism part of that progress). While acknowledging that insight, two historians then criticized Butterfield himself for “present-centredness” (they spelled it that way, being British). Even though Butterfield disputed the “whig” version of history, they say, he “remained to a great extent a prisoner of the very tradition he sought to challenge.” [1]
And then there is “antiquarianism.” I must admit that, like Molière’s bourgeois gentilhomme who was thrilled to learn he had been speaking prose all his life, I like the fact that my childhood interest in “anything old” makes me an antiquarian. Modern historians are not antiquarians, however, and even past historians separated themselves from that group.
Antiquarians like very old things, especially archeological artifacts, manuscripts, and artworks. Historians do, too, but antiquarians concentrate on describing facts without tying them to a theory or viewpoint. Today’s historians today try to penetrate the mists of the past to draw a clearer picture. For example, R. W. Southern did not just write about St. Anselm’s manuscripts in the eleventh century; he wrote about how his Aristotelian approach changed the religious experience of Christians, from peasants to intellectuals, for centuries to come.
Speaking of religion, there is also a debate over B.C. and B.C.E. (with an interesting twist) but I’ll leave that for another post.
[1] Adrian Wilson and T. G. Ashplant, “Whig History and Present-Centred History, ” Historical Journal 31, no. 1 (March 1988): 1-16, at 4.
[2] R. W. Southern, The Making of the Middle Ages (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963 (originally 1953).
Is the problem with the term dark ages that they weren’t that dark, or is it that the word dark suggest a racial slur? I used to worry about using the term black market for latter reason since it was typically thought of critically. I starting referring to them as markets that allowed people to efficiently bypass stupid regulations. I made it clear that I had no animus toward them, no matter what color you called them.
I don’t think the problem was with a racial implication but rather that the age was “benighted,” as though everyone was blind and groping around in the dark, just because the serene and elevated era of the Romans had disappeared. I understand the possible interpretation of the term but I don’t think that applies here.