[sparklite2]

[fidelis]

The "Dark Ages" is term that the Rationalists of the "Enlightenment" period made up to describe the Middle Ages, or Medieval period (sometimes called "The Age of Faith")-- an Age that included such luminaries as Marco Polo, Geoffrey Chaucer, Francis Bacon, Thomas Aquinas, Dante, Boccacio, and others. The Rationalists made up this term to arrogantly differentiate themselves from those that came before them, just as the "Enlightenment" is actually a name they gave to their own time.

It is similar to how some modern atheists refer to themselves as "brights" to imply that if you are not an atheist, you are stupid.

[Cronos]

The “dark ages” is a myth thought up by Gibbon and other 1700 and 1800 authors who blamed christianity for the fall of Rome

They forgot that
1. Scientific discoveries still continued by monks etc. until the Arabic conquests cut off North Africa from Christian civilization
2. The Eastern Empire didn’t fall until 1453 and continued development

There were no “Dark Ages” - there was a slight interregnum between 451 and the Carolingian renaissance in 800 AD but the knowledge was never “lost” - the Eastern Empire kept it. In fact we shouldn’t even call it the “Eastern Empire” - it called itself the Roman Empire

The Western Empire was due to fall under the onslaught of the Germans, but even these Germanic peoples were content to keep the structure below the same and just skim off the top - why kill the golden goose?

The real delay was islam.

Even in the Roman Empire of the 7th and 8th centuries they still were convulsed in philosophical discussions rather than practical science.

The real push for scientific development was the breakdown in the Western world - with competing countries competing with each other for more discoveries.