When the Western Empire fell in 476 AD, it was initially still in contact with the Emperor in Constantinople and with civilization in Egypt and North Africa, but that was destroyed by the Islamic conquests. From the 8th century onwards were the real dark ages for the west, cut off from the east and civilization, literacy etc. fell. The only force keeping civilization alive until the 13th century was the Catholic Church
In the east it was a different matter as Constantinople was the light keeping civilization alive, until it too was snuffed out by Izlam.
Now Izlam rules in 4 out of 5 of the first churches (in Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem and Constantinople)
>> The only force keeping civilization alive until the 13th century was the Catholic Church
No doubt.
Islam is a war plan.
Issac Asimov was a brilliant writer and future visionary. His novelist writing career was over what, 40-50 years. I started reading his short story compilations when I was in junior high school and over the decades just kept going back to his work, sometimes rereading something and others stepping into something new. It's much clearer in retrospect that he was weaving over all this time a single story covering 10s of thousand years. This was all tied together in the conclusion of the Foundation novels.
It began with the short stories, brief vignettes of every day life that are at once mundane but dealing with something new that had the slow end effect of diminishing society and humanity downfall was to a something hardly recognizable. The depths of this were the Robot novels. The Foundation novels were kind of out of the blue. No doubt, they were riveting sagas individually and collectively but the conclusion was an explosion of surprise and understanding.
I had not related this to the Catholic Church during that time of civilization crisis but I very much appreciate your bringing up the comparison. I think the comparison is apt. So... Thank you!