The Dark Ages Were Brighter Than You Think

This is a guest post by Jay Schalin, director of policy analysis for the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal in Raleigh. 

An oft-repeated phrase is that “history is written by the winners.” That’s not always true; sometimes, history is written by those who can write the best, even if they were the losers.

That seems to be the case with the historical period that many still call “The Dark Ages,” which supposedly began with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire around 400 AD and lasted until the 800s. The commonly accepted view is based largely on written accounts by Roman or Romanized observers who lamented the collapse of their civilization, according to Peter S. Wells, a University of Minnesota anthropologist, in his 2008 book Barbarians to Angels: The Dark Ages Reconsidered. The non-Roman European world that was in ascendance was largely pre-literate until the so-called Dark Ages were well under way.

In the long-established view, the Dark Ages were depicted as a period of general anarchy, with cities depopulating and the economy grinding to a halt except at a subsistence level. Barbarian invaders swept through the continent from the north and east, ranging from various Germanic tribes to the Huns and Magyars originally from the Central Asia steppes. Bands of roving bandits made even short distances perilous to travel; as did the petty noblemen who charged exorbitant fees to cross their holdings. Literacy and learning declined, kept alive in isolated, self-sustaining monasteries and in the Eastern Roman Empire centered in Byzantium. The level of technology dropped as well, with the Roman manufacturing centers gone, replaced by crude village craftsmen. The people lived in miserable poverty: filthy, malnourished, and ignorant.

Archaeological evidence uncovered in recent years is a major factor changing perceptions about the post-Roman era. Wells, along with other modern historians, suggests that it was a time of advancement, not malaise.

Certainly, there was considerable upheaval. Roman Europe was invaded in this period by less-sophisticated tribes. But even those periods of turmoil did not mean that the continent was more violent than it had been under Rome. It only meant the direction of violence had changed, from Rome attacking the barbarian lands to tribes from outside the boundaries of the Empire attacking inside those boundaries. The sacking of Rome by Visigoths in 410 was not a worse tragedy than the Roman destruction of Sarmizegetusa, the capital of Dacia, around 100 AD—at least, not if you were Dacian.

One example of how archaeological evidence is changing perceptions is the supposed depopulation of London after Roman troops left in 410. Belief in that decline comes from one-sided accounts and visible stone Roman buildings left to ruin. More recent evidence shows that London may have remained heavily populated after the Romans left. Stone buildings were no longer as present in post-Roman London, but a layer of black soil indicated that there had been many buildings made of wood and mud—the preferred building materials of the native Britons. Other major garrison towns on the edge of the Empire, such as Mainz (on the Rhine River) and Regensberg (on the Danube) also retained large populations, according to such new evidence.

“A general decline in cities and towns in the fourth and fifth centuries did not occur,” Wells asserts.² There is increasing evidence that manufacturing and trade did not slow down, either. True, the Roman building of new highways, massive public buildings, and viaducts ceased. But large manufacturing centers have been unearthed in places such as Helgo in central Sweden. Helgo produced a wide variety of metal goods using materials that had to be imported from all over Europe and the Middle East.³

The same goes for Mayen, in Germany, a Dark Ages manufacturing center specializing in sophisticated pottery.⁴ In addition, craftsmen with portable shops travelled the many smaller roads and paths that criss-crossed the European continent—apparently without much fear of bandits.⁵

Excavations of long-gone towns such as Tintagel in England show that ocean-going trade was as vigorous as it had been before the collapse of Rome. Luxury goods from all over the known world—from as far away as India—have shown up in dig sites even in central Scandinavia. Wells wrote:

Trade was an everyday affair and not of major concern to church officials, who were the principal sources of information about this period. But the archaeological evidence for trade is abundant and rich in information.⁶

The increase in manufacturing could have been due to farming advances, especially the invention of the moldboard plow, which enabled farmers to turn richer, deeper soil more efficiently than in the days of the empire. Because less manpower was required to produce the basic foodstuffs to support the population, hands were freed for other endeavors.⁷

Not only that; the period we call the Dark Ages appears to have been an especially healthy one in northern Europe. Height is often an indication of the general nutritional intake of a society. “Skeletal remains in cemeteries in southwestern Germany indicate that the average height of men was about five feet eight inches, for women about five feet four inches” in the post-Roman era, according to Wells. These were “statures well above those of late medieval and early modern times.” Nor were they anomalies, matching similar skeletal evidence elsewhere.

Furthermore, the cultural decline was not as severe as is often suggested. Although Roman buildings were often left to deteriorate—particularly those that honored gods who were no longer worshipped—great advances were made in architecture as well. Wells cites Brandeis University art historian Charles B. McClendon, who wrote that “medieval architecture was born” in this period, with innovations necessary for building the great cathedrals of the later Middle Ages.⁹

The so-called Dark Ages were also important for the development of art. “Illuminated” books created in early monasteries combined northern pagan, classical, and Christian elements and formed the basis for later European painting.

And although literacy may have decreased overall in the areas that were once part of the Empire, its frequency increased in the north throughout the post-Roman period. The Germanic tribes adopted written law codes in this period: the Visigoths in 471, the Alamanni around 500, the Franks in 510, and the Anglo-Saxons in 598.¹⁰

Furthermore, the spread of Catholic monasteries starting in the early sixth century meant that literacy and learning did not disappear entirely. The monasteries initially taught future monks, but eventually some developed into cathedral schools that were the precursors to the earliest universities.

“Is change brought about largely through the actions of leaders, or by the majority of people?” Wells asked.¹¹ It may be, at least in the period under discussion, that the myriad minute decisions of ordinary folk pushed society forward as the elites lost influence. While intellectual and political life may have suffered, and there was no longer a central authority that could build giant projects such as roads, bridges, and aqueducts, the new archaeological evidence suggests there may have been enough stability for economic and artistic innovations to occur, and for ordinary people to live in relative prosperity. In other words, whether the post-Roman era was “dark” or not depends on which evidence you favor and whose perspective you observe.

Notes

1. 1. Peter S. Wells, Barbarians to Angels: The Dark Ages Reconsidered (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co., 2008), 4.
   2. Wells, 85.
   3. Wells, 143-4.
   4. Wells, 148.
   5. Wells, 146-7.
   6. Wells, 154.
   7. Wells, 10-11.
   8. Wells, 139-40.
   9. Wells, 11. C.B. McClendon, The Origins of Medieval Architecture: Building in Europe, A.D. 600-900 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2005) p. 1.
   10. Wells, 140.
   11. Wells, 201.