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There was a dark age- a time when millions of illiterate,unwashed, toothless, uneducated people lived and died in a few decades in their small towns, and believed the Earth was flat, ate porridge, feared witches and believed leaches had medicinal value. They looked at the ruins of Roman Roads and believed they had been built by a race of long extinct giants- and in a way, they were correct. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Dark Ages? I would hardly call the absence of Roman /Greek based civilization the Dark Ages. The term and point of view are unnecessarily pejorative.

The Roman Conquest collapsed upon itself because of a tragic lapse in Roman morality and dedication to its own ideology.( Many today draw parallels between Western Society and Roman collapse, Western society in its moonbat liberal socialist culture as precursors to a similar collapse.) Those conquered were then freed from the Roman yoke and advanced themselves as best they could, and faired exceedingly well, despite the historic depredations of Rome.

The so called Dark Ages were hardly dark. They were simply disorganized and fraught with change as the Germanic and Celtic tribes of Europe evolved into their modern forms. Not everyone subscribes to the Romanocentric version of history, simply because it is too myopic, in the end reveals scant truth.

A study of any modern language bears this out. We all use the English word "$hit" but the Romanocentric word is defecate.It is from the unwashed that we have a good part of our vocabulary, yet Romanocentric historians would allow only that such words as $hit are merely tolerated, as are the descendants of your so called unwashed today? Not.

One conclusion of such myopic thinking is that plaid cloth was not invented by the Celts until the 16th Century in Scotland, yet 4000 year old caucasian mummies found wearing plaid in the Tarim Basin of China, made of scientifically verified European wool were not Celts? Thats rich indeed!

Typical hoohaw thinking from Romanocentric historical analysis.

I am afraid that the Romanocentric interpretation of history has long been relegated to the heap of no longer useful analysis. We have simply outgrown it.

Many civilizations of Europe held their own high cultural achievements despite the Roman's destruction of them them on the continent. Ireland is one, and one needs look no further than the music of the harp and the compositions of Turlough O'Carolan to know that his ancient musical lineage evolved seperately from anything the Romans could have offered. And it represents high culture indeed.But then you would not want to know that, because it doesn't fit.

Your use of the word Roman Conquest speaks volumes. many nations allied themselves with Rome, and most people in the colonies demanded citizenship. Rome at the time of her demise was less an empire than a centralized beauracracy that had done such a good job building the economies and infrastructure of the provinces that Roman authority was seen as unnecassary and were hardly needed anymore.

The hoary old excuse about the decadence of the Romans caused their demise is simplistic Christian moralizing and in view of the centuries it took for Rome to collapse- amusing to say the least.

Your new-age revisionist history of the "medieval" period is Christian-centric and ignores the historical fact that the average person in 200AD lived better, had access to higher education, surgery and pediatrics, could read and write, could expect to live to 60 or more, had a high level of sanitation, bathed frequently, had a fire department, could travel freely, could enjoy goods from China and India, as well as bank, collect life insurance, obtain a mortgage and VOTE. In short much more than your typical peaseat in medieval Europe.

IMHO not only was Christianity a Roman creation it was an evolution of a multicultural, pluralistic theology that the Romans, cosmopolitan as they were could only have appreciated. The Christians did not throw out the baby with the bath water.