Were people in the Dark/Middle Ages dumber than other ages?

[Lago PARANOIA]

Sure seems like it sometimes. In interpretations of history and in fiction the only period of time when people seemed stupider was before there was even agriculture--which seems a bit absurd, since the same anti-intellectualism and religious superstition seemed just as bad back then.

[Maxus]

I honestly don't know.

I do know that some kings could be dreadfully stupid (Look up the first and second Bishop's Wars when the King of England decided that Scotland should belong to the Church of England).

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I think that with modern diet and learning capabilities that we are in general smarter and far healthier than our ancestors were back in the day.

[Maj]

If books like Convivencia are to be believed, Christian Europe was stupider.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I think that with modern diet and learning capabilities that we are in general smarter and far healthier than our ancestors were back in the day.

Fair enough, but people living in that time period are actually depicted as being dumber and less cultured than times before that, which seems baffling since Medieval Europe seemed to have many of the same basic problems of society that existed thousands of years ago.

[Maxus]

Ohhhh. That's what you're talking about. Well, the Dark Ages kicked off with the fall of the Roman Empire.

The Greeks and Romans were pretty sophisticated--they picked up an enormous body of knowledge in all sorts of areas, and traveled around and encountered new people and ideas.

They also had a better knack for organization; I may be wrong, but I understand that Roman soldiers all had to have another trade. A group of soldiers could knock up a settlement in fairly short order. I'm pretty sure the farming methods were better, too, which would mean that the Greeks and Romans had a better diet and quality of life than the medieval times.

Hell, the Renaissance was all about a lot of classical knowledge being rediscovered and applied, and that was pretty much the end of the middle ages...

[tzor]

That book is about Medieval Spain so it really shouldn't count.

There are two general tendencies in history. The first is to boost ones own self confidence in the current age by disparaging the age before it. The second is to note the problems in others but not the problems with oneself. Thus it is clear that throughout history most ages are not better or worse than other ages; just different in the "oh my god what were they thinking" lamebrain ideas of the day.

One argument for calling the dark ages "dark" is that during this period there was a supernova that was so bright you could easily observe it in the day. We have recordings of this event from China. Apparently there are none from Europe. Perhaps while not pitch black dark ages, it might have been the mostly overcast ages.

Let's take the notion of a good bath. Yes indeed this was quite the rage in the 13th century ... so popular the only reason why they declined was they burned all the available lumber for the hot water.

Hot baths were very popular and most towns, as late as the mid-1200s had public bathhouses. Wood fires heated the water, but this posed two problems. First, out of control fires could consume several blocks of buildings. And as the forests were depleted, firewood became expensive and the rising costs of heating the water forced most of the bathhouses to close. Some tried burning coal to heat water, but the fumes proved to be unhealthy.

Later ages would suggest that hot baths were a cause of disease. Franklyn speculated that it was cold drafts that was the cause which meant that the only way to avoid drafty cold air was to go out full naked onto the balcony for an "air bath." (And he was a founding father ... sigh)

This sort of stuff happens throughout history. Note also that every age has its ruffians and its Luddites. The glories of Hagia Sophia are marred by the iconoclastic icon smashers. The Renaissance by the witch hunters.

Consider all the marvels made by the men (and women) of the dark ages. Forced to have long length fasting periods where dairy products were prohibited, (and animals that still demanded milking) they perfected the art of milk preservation today known as cheese. Trying to get a reliable system for monastics for the order of the hours when the sun wasn't present (like at night) they developed the basic workings of mechanical clocks.

[Lago PARANOIA]

There are two general tendencies in history. The first is to boost ones own self confidence in the current age by disparaging the age before it. The second is to note the problems in others but not the problems with oneself. Thus it is clear that throughout history most ages are not better or worse than other ages; just different in the "oh my god what were they thinking" lamebrain ideas of the day.

I know, but for some reason this period of time seems to attract a lot more disgust and laughter than times before it; I don't think it's just a 'people today are better than back then' thing, since the eras before then don't attract nearly as much disgust or ridicule.

[PhoneLobster]

The dark ages were genuinely bad. Perhaps Tzor is probably trying to down play it because a major reason dark age Europe was a hell on earth was due to Christianity.

Anyway, there was serious disease, poverty, malnutrition and state and church sponsored oppression and ignorance.

However the main reasons the dark ages are seen so poorly are to do with its context.

Rome was a big deal economically, culturally and technologically. They could build some crazy shit, and it seriously benefited the lives of citizens and subjects across the vast empire. And it was gone. It's replacement ultimately was a Catholic empire that was far more disorganised and less prone to provide any kind of material wealth or support for the peoples within its domains. But it still brought war and purges and witch hunts and crusades and all manner of oppression.

During the dark ages literacy and knowledge in general dwindled, technology was lost, culture was lost, there were few written works of the history of the time compared to prior eras, there were in fact few written works at all. Even construction of infrastructure and public buildings all but ceased. Whole fields of technology were lost, the Romans could do things with wooden engineering and construction we can't reproduce today, hell, screw the crudely heated bath story Tzor oddly focussed on, most of Europe completely lost the art of god damn plumbing for the period, basically everyone in history was better at having clean running water!

Anyway, though a touch off on the era this Carl Sagan clip gives a reasonable idea of the kind of decline that led to the dark ages and what was so dark about them. It's important to note that the oppressive religious fanatics that would go on to rule Europe for the dark centuries made that abalone shell guy a mother fucking saint. It says a lot about Catholicism, and Christianity, and religious regimes and religion in general.


Also Spain, and Sicily certainly don't count due to the Moors. There was some seriously advanced culture out there, indeed the very seeds of the enlightenment and the preservation, and continuation of basically all western culture and technology that had survived the fall of Rome and friends.

Our own culture and technology basically gets handed down through history something like ????, Persia, Greece, Rome, The Moors, The Enlightenment. Most transitions involving war and barbaric tribes looting the cultural spoils. Generally the only reason Europe ever came out of the dark ages was because of some convenient wealth redistribution due to major plagues and the looting of technology, culture, physical wealth and actual scholars in the barbaric conquests of Spain and Sicily (oh, yeah, and the crusades, those were a big plus for Europe loot wise).

[Username17]

The Dark Ages were legitimately stupider than the high days of the Roman Empire. Life Expectancies had fallen by as much as 50%, much technology was lost, people became superstitious, insular, and poorly nourished.

Basically "Saint Paul" ran around organizing book burnings, and then no records were left about how to do things. The Roman aqueducts in many places still stand and still work, but the people in the dark ages couldn't even build bridges.

Acts 19:18. Christians destroyed knowledge and collapsed the standard of living. Europe went on to become the worst place on Earth for a thousand years.

-Username17

[Bigode]

(...) people became superstitious (...)

Do you think even the lower classes were less in Ancient Greece/Rome?

[Lago PARANOIA]

PhoneLobster, I refuse to reply to your post because it flamebaited tzor for no reason.

So let's see what Frank says.

The Dark Ages were legitimately stupider than the high days of the Roman Empire. Life Expectancies had fallen by as much as 50%, much technology was lost, people became superstitious, insular, and poorly nourished.

Basically "Saint Paul" ran around organizing book burnings, and then no records were left about how to do things. The Roman aqueducts in many places still stand and still work, but the people in the dark ages couldn't even build bridges.

Acts 19:18. Christians destroyed knowledge and collapsed the standard of living. Europe went on to become the worst place on Earth for a thousand years.

-Username17

Do go on, Frank, or at least point me in the right direction.

I thought that this was just a myth.

[Crissa]

Ol' Ben Franklin' believed in science and the curative effects of cold, clean air.

You have to remember that most houses of his time had no ventilation, and therefore transmission of disease inside them was strong. And he knew about smoke inhalation and suffocation as possible types of death, and knew that fresh air solved this. That and it made your nose runny.

According to letters, that seriously annoyed his contemporaries; leaving the windows open.

-Crissa

[PhoneLobster]

PhoneLobster, I refuse to reply to your post because it flamebaited tzor for no reason.

It isn't for no reason, Tzor just tried an actual dark ages apologist post. In the context of his other views that puts him firmly in the anti enlightenment lets actually go back to like it was in the dark ages camp.

Now any post about what was really bad about the dark ages, or even just about them in general is going to make Christians look REALLY bad. I mean those fuckers made a saint of a guy who burnt down the greatest collection of knowledge in the world and led a blood thirsty mob to brutally murder the most learned woman of her era by flaying her alive. And they did that sort of shit for like a thousand fucking years. That is what the dark ages were all about.

If I can't post a link to the calm and reasonable tones of Carl Sagan discussing historical fact without offence then I can't do this without insulting Tzor's obvious sensitivities. Hell he beat me too it on expressing those laughable sensitivities with the whole "the dark ages were bath time fun!" thing.

Anyway. If I wanted to bait Tzor for no reason I'd ask him if he still thinks there isn't any economic crisis.

[Username17]

It's not just a myth. First of all, it's historically true. Secondly, it's actually in the bible.

Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds. A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.

-Username17

[Draco_Argentum]

I don't see any flamebaiting, there is no way to explain the dark ages without blaming Christianity. He hardly mentioned Tzor and didn't call him names. You're overreacting. How anyone could confuse reasonable PL from flaming PL is beyond me.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

It's not just a myth. First of all, it's historically true. Secondly, it's actually in the bible.

Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds. A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.

-Username17

While I don't condone book-burning, your quoted passage doesn't clearly demonstrate whether the Christians were burning all scrolls or only a certain subset of scrolls. IIRC, the word "sorcery" in the Bible usually refers to the practices of other religions rather than to "all written works."

Furthermore, all of this stuff happened centuries before the onset of the Dark Ages (generally considered to be somewhere between 400 and 500 AD).

Of course, the biggest problem wasn't even so much the knowledge that was lost, but the fact that what was left tended to be horded in monestaries. As I understand it, quite a few Latin works survived the fall of Rome (Greek works, not so much). It wasn't until the late Middle Ages that some of this stuff started to seep out to secular elites. That's when you started getting writers like Chaucer working in vernacular languages

[Count Arioch the 28th]

How anyone could confuse reasonable PL from flaming PL is beyond me.

Point of order: It is legitimately hard to tell when Phonelobster is flaming to when he's just being himself.

Or to put it another way: I don't think he actually flames anyone, he just posts like that normally.

There were good things about the middle ages. It was less ideal than living under the Roman empire, but for a few centuries there was abundant food and less frequent war between European nations. The Plague came in and changed all that, and after the plague left we got to have the Renaissance, which was a good thing. Christianity in those days was self-destructive, filled with superstition, and violent, but let's be honest: there really wasn't an alternative that was superior in 10th century Europe, because pretty much every belief at that time was the same way due to being written by self-destructive, superstitious, and violent people.

If Europe was pagan during the dark ages, then Germanic Paganism would have held back society and advancement, because people are very good at using their beliefs to justify whatever the hell it is they were going to do anyway. Today, we'd be having protests about how Wotan needs to let people other than the people slain in wars into Valhalla, or whatever.

Pre-plague dark ages Europe isn't on my top ten time periods to live at if I had a choice, but it scores higher than colonial era Brazil, Cambodia under Pol Pot, or India at any point in history.

[Username17]

That's not fair. We don't know a whole lot about the Indus Valley civilization, but we do know that they had running water and closed sewers. That by itself makes them better than any country in the European dark ages.

-Username17

[Count Arioch the 28th]

That's not fair. We don't know a whole lot about the Indus Valley civilization, but we do know that they had running water and closed sewers. That by itself makes them better than any country in the European dark ages.

-Username17

I'll concede that point then, due to lack of info.

[Maj]

Also Spain, and Sicily certainly don't count due to the Moors. There was some seriously advanced culture out there, indeed the very seeds of the enlightenment and the preservation, and continuation of basically all western culture and technology that had survived the fall of Rome and friends.

The book I mentioned previously is is a Jewish account of the Islamic occupation of Spain. The only good thing the book has to say about the Christians who inhabited the area was that they were allowed to draw people in their art, which gave rise to some awesome book illuminations.

The Christians were otherwise described as inbred xenophobic groups of incompetence. They didn't know how to farm or raise livestock efficiently. Their lives sucked it hard - until they saw what the Muslims had, and then they became thieves of culture and technology. They stole just about everything and then booted all the non-Christians out.

If you look at a map, it would seem like - since the bulk of the Islamic empire is east of the Mediterranean - the stuff that the Arabs passed along to Europe (after pilfering it from India and China, then adding to it) would start from the east and go west, reaching Spain last. But things didn't work that way. Knowledge enlightened Europe from the west - up from Africa and through Spain. Some was spread through Italy, too.

Our own culture and technology basically gets handed down through history something like ????, Persia, Greece, Rome, The Moors, The Enlightenment.

Egypt.

[PhoneLobster]

Egypt.

Not so much. They did some impressive stuff they may have scored a few firsts and certainly interacted with the Greeks and the Persians. But if you want to try and simplify it to a direct line Egypt kind of gets left by the way side.

Of course simplifying it to a direct line is kind of questionable but either way Egypt doesn't get in on the punchy one sentence name dropping list.

If Egypt does get in it doesn't get in early, they effectively developed parallel to rather than in series with Persia and Greece and even most of Rome until eventually getting looted by Rome and then looted again later by the great Islamic empire.

The really interesting one/ones on the list is ???? but that isn't Egypt, its one or more of the various extra super ancient cultures that ranged from Turkey, through Iran and into India that predate Egyptian and classic Mesopotamian cultures. These are cultures so old we don't have their names and only have the very foggiest references (if any) to them in the earliest texts from the cultures that came after. We do know they had primitive proto-alphabets, rich trade economies, advanced irrigation, plumbing, agriculture, architecture and other cool shit though. So they all get to be better than dark ages Europe.

[Koumei]

While I don't condone book-burning, your quoted passage doesn't clearly demonstrate whether the Christians were burning all scrolls or only a certain subset of scrolls. IIRC, the word "sorcery" in the Bible usually refers to the practices of other religions rather than to "all written works."

It tended to be used in the same context that "Weeaboo" and "Mary Sue" are used now. That is to say, it meant "something I don't like". Kind of like heresy in the later years of the Inquisition (and made fun of in 40K), where if you don't like something, call it heretical and watch people light bonfires in moments.

So Sorcery could have meant anything at all then, from other religions, to "How to summon daemons to kill my neighbour" to Twilight fanfiction to valuable scientific research or philosophical theories, to someone's cake recipe.

[cthulhu]

The Christians were otherwise described as inbred xenophobic groups of incompetence. They didn't know how to farm or raise livestock efficiently. Their lives sucked it hard - until they saw what the Muslims had, and then they became thieves of culture and technology. They stole just about everything and then booted all the non-Christians out.

This is what always gets me. Islam had this superior technological base, but clearly at some point they just decided to stop innovating and the other guys adapted, adopted and then won out.

What the hell happened?

[angelfromanotherpin]

What the hell happened?

The Ottoman Empire: Because innovations tend to liberate people from a centralized authority.