The humanists of the Renaissance were very successful in denigrating everything that existed between their self-aggrandizing zenith and the height of the Roman Empire. A time when the so-called lamps of learning and civilization were supposedly extinguished, the "Dark Ages" was - for them - metaphoric, not literal. For centuries, it was convenient to tag everything in "pre-enlightened" Northern Europe as worthless and devoid of any real culture. Be that as it may, archaeological finds have tended to show otherwise.
As for actual physical darkness, I won't speculate. No doubt life was dim enough under the mud and thatch, but life has been "nasty, short, and brutish" for most of the planet, most of the time.
All the while in Byzantium....90% of the population could read and write and had quite a flourishing and advanced civilization.
The humanists of the Renaissance were very successful in denigrating everything that existed between their self-aggrandizing zenith and the height of the Roman Empire. A time when the so-called lamps of learning and civilization were supposedly extinguished, the "Dark Ages" was - for them - metaphoric, not literal.I believe the original meaning of the term "Dark Ages" was in reference to the amount of written records available from the period. There are indeed very few records from about 500 to 1000. Therefore, that period is "dark" to historians. Doesn't necessarily mean that everybody was living a primitive lifestyle, they just weren't writing much down. :)