How Dark Were the Dark Ages? (Video)

Prager University ^ | 26 Jan 2015 | Anthony Esolen

[Arthur McGowan]

Were the Middle Ages, also known as the Dark Ages, characterized by oppression, ignorance, and backwardness in areas like human rights, science, health, and the arts? Or were they marked by progress and tolerance? Anthony Esolen, an English Literature professor at Providence College, explains.

[camle]

well i for one kinda dig french fries... mushy perdaderz...etc. lol~!

[blam]

Thank Peru. All ~2,000 varieties in the world come from there.
(BTW, the Easter Islanders had sweet potatos from Peru before the Europeans arrived in the Americas)

[BroJoeK]

McGowan: "By the end of the Middle Ages, the rich were sick and tired of subsidizing the feasts and celebrations of the Saints.
One of the results was the relentless propaganda against asking the Saints for their prayers intercession."

Near as I can tell, that is just McGowan's opinion, not the good professor's in the linked video.
As a personal opinion, McGowan's seems oddly out of place on Free Republic, and deserving the same "respect" we hold for caricatures, or satire we might disagree with.

For anyone truly interested in this subject, two books come immediately to mind, one already mentioned by muir_redwoods:

William Manchester: "A World Lit Only By Fire -- The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance - Portrait of an Age"

Barbara Tuchman: "A Distant Mirror -- The Calamitous 14th Century"

[BenLurkin]

"They were so dark...."

[T-Bone Texan]

Re: Motel Mystery:

When I was a youth I read National Lampoon. I did not understand some of it.

But a piece that is seared into my memory was a bit about how hundreds of years from now, archeologists find a skeleton of a lady, in a bathtub, with a shower cap on her head, and a shower curtain around the tub, and they conclude it was all part of an elaborate burial ceremony.

You sparked that memory; It was easily 30 years ago.

[submarinerswife]

save

[Bigg Red]

No, just the Tea Party.

[OneWingedShark]

Ridicule is a powerful weapon.

It is; which is why I've made several brochures ridiculing the statist mindset entrenched in our government.

[Bigg Red]

+1

[Yollopoliuhqui]

THERE WERE NO “DARK AGES”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunnar_Heinsohn

[meowmeow]

bfl

[M Kehoe]

"They were so dark...."

I couldn't see my mace in front of me.

Ok, that was bad.

5.56mm

[frithguild]

There is a Dark Ages Cold Period, which corresponds to decreased trade, capital formation and record keeping. Historians called it “dark” because there was nothing to read that was written during those times. Testing any hypothesis applicable to those time against primary sources is near impossible. So there is a corresponding lack of scholarship.

[AFPhys]

Is this the Jaki article you are referring to?:

http://www.biblicalchristianworldview.net/documents/musingsJaki.pdf

[Kommodor]

Mighty fine craftsmanship there. Some things they really don’t make like they used to.

[Lee'sGhost]

(Plus, you can’t think when you’re dead.)
You think?

[SWAMPSNIPER]

They just took it for granted.

[familyop]

I was considering the historic situation partially in a humorous sense. Consider the point of view of the barbarians. During the Medieval, one man was another man’s barbarian.

Roman: Here they come again, from the north.

Roman propagandist/historian: From the north? Germanic tribes.

Roman, a little later: Here come some other ones, from the north.

Roman propagandist/historian: From the north? Also Germanic tribes.

Roman, a little later yet: Uh...even farther from the north.

Roman propagandist/historian: Yes, Germanic tribes, too.

To the present...

Present-day Roman propagandist/historian: this latest archeological find proves that we’re descended from ancient Nordic peoples.

;-)

[familyop]

The hypothetical discussion was set in the 300s, by the way (Franks, Vandals, Lombards, all). Oh, and most of us probably have some Hun genes...and more.

[SunkenCiv]

“...the Sith looked like Jedi.”