How much is actually dark, "Dark Ages"?

How much is actually dark, "Dark Ages"?

So how dark was the period of the early Middle Ages (c. 400AD-c.1000AD)? There are two schools of thought, depending on whether the historian explores the Middle Ages or the classical period.

Most historians of the early Middle Ages is considered that the period was not at all gloomy. Referred to the beautiful objects found at Sutton Hoou, the Ravenna mosaics of the church, the cathedral in Aachen, a multitude of legal law, the spread of literacy and the formation of territory that would one day become a European nation-state. You can point to the top of the Byzantine civilization under Basil II. in the 9th century, the fact that the Frankish warlord Charles finally stopped the Muslim advance this rapid assimilation of new technologies such as the plow, stirrups, collars for horses, horseshoes and a mill.

Historians classical period tend to claim that the early Middle Ages was a dark, at least in comparison with the Roman Empire. Referred to ruin any control in the West because of the barbaric attack, the decline of literacy and the loss of Greece, the reduction of trade, a major decline in population density and a large amount of senseless destruction by various tribes who invaded the Empire. Vandals are not accidentally left his name in the memory.

None of the parties does not agree with Gibbon and do not blame Christianity for the "dark ages". In fact, Christianity is considered the most important form in which the late antique culture survived. It also had a decisive influence in the dissemination of culture in the area of ​​north-eastern Europe where the Romans had never been.

Both sides are partly right. The Roman Empire has suffered from a decline which led to a serious deterioration of the material and intellectual culture. But the Empire was supposed to fall if we wanted to develop a modern Europe. Roman society was sclerotic, tyrannical and very conservative. Without innovation. Much of the technology that revolutionized agriculture in the period from the fifth to the thirteenth century was available and Romans, but was not used. They had no desire to expand its borders and bring civilization to the Germans and Scandinavians. Part of the pressure on the imperial borders was because the surrounding tribes trying to enter the Kingdom.

So early Middle Ages began as a dark period with a great plague, barbarian invasions and the loss of culture, but then began to develop at a faster rate than the Romans succeeded for centuries. We could call the decline of the Roman Empire episode of creative destruction.