- Published: January 10, 2022
- Updated: January 10, 2022
- University / College: University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
- Level: College Admission
- Language: English
- Downloads: 25
Dark Ages in the History of Europe
Various nations across the world go through different phases of evolution before reaching ages of prosperity and becoming welfare states. Hence the times between 400 A. D century and 1100 is commonly termed as Dark ages in the history of Europe (Wickham). They are termed so because of number of factors, these factors include the human rights violation, ignorance, dysfunctional government systems and mass poverty. Internal unrest, external occupations, anarchy were the order of the day during those times.
For the sole reason of containing all those undesired features stated above, these times were are now known by various names originally being the middle ages, and since they included lots of ignorance and turbulence on social level they were termed as days of darkness, this is also called the age of feudalism, medieval era and age of darkness (Burnett). These times were primarily attributed by hunger and starvation and the forceful ones managed to rule and live another day through the oppression of the civil rights of commoners.
This was largely characterized by the political insatiability which resulted from the collapse Roman Empire (Hazen). This collapse resulted in invitation of various other social decays and economic crunches. Destruction, chaos, staleness were few of the features that were highly characteristic of this era and hence for this reason this period in history is termed as the Dark Age. The era of turbulence can be stretched to the mid 13th and 14th century where sanity started to prevail in form of the Age of Discovery and Renaissance.
Works Cited
Burnett, Eric. Middle Ages for the Classroom: Plays, Fairy Tales and Resources for the Classroom Teacher. iUniverse, 2002.
Hazen, Walter. Middle Ages. Good Year Books, 2005.
Maitland, Samuel Roffey. The dark ages: a series of essays intended to illustrate the state of religion and literature in the ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries. J. G. F. & J. Rivington, 1844.
Wickham, Chris. The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages, 400-1000. Penguin Books, 2010.
