” lived in the mid-800s, a time of great upheaval “
An interesting coincidence that will never be pointed out in public school is that the “dark ages” coincide with the period of muslim expansion that ultimately led to the crusades, after which was the renaissance.
Part of the characterization of the dark ages is the surprising lack of historical records and writings. When you see ISIL tearing down and destroying sites and objects from antiquity, you now know why the dark ages had this absence of material.
“When you see ISIL tearing down and destroying sites and objects from antiquity, you now know why the dark ages had this absence of material.”
I agree with the general sentiment of your post, but if we have a dearth of documents from France (for instance) in the “Dark Ages” it’s not because of Islam. The Muslims only got to Southern France. Where are all the documents from Northern France then? This was exactly the time period when France was going through the earliest stages of the Carolingian Renaissance. The real issue was that much of what had been civilized Europe had collapsed into agrarian subsistence farming with the collapse of the Roman Empire. There simple was less formal education for some generations after the collapse. The Vikings (coming from the North) and Magyars (coming from the East) didn’t help either.
Not just the Muslims in the south, but pagan Norse and Danes riding roughshod over the British kingdoms, Ireland, and France, even Italy.