Notice: This is the official website of the All Empires History Community (Reg. 10 Feb 2002)

  FAQ FAQ  Forum Search   Register Register  Login Login

Questioning the So Called Dark Ages?
 Post Reply Post Reply Page  <12
Author
  Share Topic Share Topic  Topic Search Topic Search  Topic Options Topic Options
Aster Thrax Eupator View Drop Down
Suspended
Suspended

Suspended

Joined: 18-Jul-2006
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1929 		  Quote Aster Thrax Eupator Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Questioning the So Called Dark Ages?
    Posted: 02-Jan-2008 at 20:02

...Sorry, you actually believe that England had to carry the banner of "civilisation" in the post-Roman world alone when there were peoples like the new Holy Roman Empire, the Carolingian Frankish Kingdoms, the Abbasid Caliphate and the Byzantine empire? England wasn't cut off from the rest of Europe because...how did the Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Normans and Vikings get there if it was?
Back to Top
Paul View Drop Down
General
General
Avatar
AE Immoderator

Joined: 21-Aug-2004
Location: Hyperborea
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 952 		  Quote Paul Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Jan-2008 at 20:06
Funny, I don't recall saying that...........
Light blue touch paper and stand well back

http://www.maquahuitl.co.uk

http://www.toltecitztli.co.uk
Back to Top
Aster Thrax Eupator View Drop Down
Suspended
Suspended

Suspended

Joined: 18-Jul-2006
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1929 		  Quote Aster Thrax Eupator Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Jan-2008 at 20:33
Originally posted by Aster Thrax Eupator


At school I was taught the dark ages was when England was cut of from contact with the rest of civilisation by a bunch of barbarians running amok in the rest of Europe so had to carry the banner of civilisation alone. Have things changed so much I wonder?

As Aelfgifu stated, this is another example of 19th century histriography.

 
 
Um, no it isn't....
 
This implies that you disagree with my previous statement, which was refuting the 19th century historiography that has more or less created the whole belief of "the dark ages".


Edited by Aster Thrax Eupator - 06-Jan-2008 at 19:31
Back to Top
gcle2003 View Drop Down
King
King

Suspended

Joined: 06-Dec-2004
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 7035 		  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Jan-2008 at 20:47
 
Originally posted by Paul

Originally posted by Aster Thrax Eupator


At school I was taught the dark ages was when England was cut of from contact with the rest of civilisation by a bunch of barbarians running amok in the rest of Europe so had to carry the banner of civilisation alone. Have things changed so much I wonder?

As Aelfgifu stated, this is another example of 19th century histriography.

 
 
Um, no it isn't....
 
On reflection I was taught that the Dark Ages were before England was invented/formed/evolved whatever. It was all still Britain then.
 
I liked your speculation (?) about the tiger economy and the thriving colony of a dying power, which admittedly is new to me. I can add to it that the British (still not the English) did try and come to the help of the remaining civilised part of the continent, not vice versa.
 
 
Back to Top
gcle2003 View Drop Down
King
King

Suspended

Joined: 06-Dec-2004
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 7035 		  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Jan-2008 at 20:56
 
Originally posted by Aster Thrax Eupator

...Sorry, you actually believe that England had to carry the banner of "civilisation" in the post-Roman world alone when there were peoples like the new Holy Roman Empire, the Carolingian Frankish Kingdoms, the Abbasid Caliphate and the Byzantine empire? England wasn't cut off from the rest of Europe because...how did the Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Normans and Vikings get there if it was?

 
I just put in a post pointing out that there wasn't actually an 'England' in the Dark Ages. There weren't any Carolingian kingdoms either, or any Holy Roman Empire, since the Dark Ages were over by the eighth century, let alone the ninth. And of course the Caliphate and Byzantium weren't in Western Europe.
 
England still hadn't solidified. The Normans and Vikings hadn't arrived, and the Angles-Saxons-Jutes were only just settling in.
 
At least that's what I learnt to call the Dark Ages.
Back to Top
Paul View Drop Down
General
General
Avatar
AE Immoderator

Joined: 21-Aug-2004
Location: Hyperborea
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 952 		  Quote Paul Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Jan-2008 at 21:30
Originally posted by Aster Thrax Eupator

Originally posted by Aster Thrax Eupator


At school I was taught the dark ages was when England was cut of from contact with the rest of civilisation by a bunch of barbarians running amok in the rest of Europe so had to carry the banner of civilisation alone. Have things changed so much I wonder?

As Aelfgifu stated, this is another example of 19th century histriography.

 
 
Um, no it isn't....
 
This implies that you disagree with my previous statement, which was refuting the 19th century historiography that has more or less created the whole belief of "the dark ages".
 
Nope, I just don't recall saying the words you say I did.
Light blue touch paper and stand well back

http://www.maquahuitl.co.uk

http://www.toltecitztli.co.uk
Back to Top
Paul View Drop Down
General
General
Avatar
AE Immoderator

Joined: 21-Aug-2004
Location: Hyperborea
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 952 		  Quote Paul Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Jan-2008 at 21:34
Originally posted by gcle2003

 
Originally posted by Paul

Originally posted by Aster Thrax Eupator


At school I was taught the dark ages was when England was cut of from contact with the rest of civilisation by a bunch of barbarians running amok in the rest of Europe so had to carry the banner of civilisation alone. Have things changed so much I wonder?

As Aelfgifu stated, this is another example of 19th century histriography.

 
 
Um, no it isn't....
 
On reflection I was taught that the Dark Ages were before England was invented/formed/evolved whatever. It was all still Britain then.
 
I liked your speculation (?) about the tiger economy and the thriving colony of a dying power, which admittedly is new to me. I can add to it that the British (still not the English) did try and come to the help of the remaining civilised part of the continent, not vice versa.
 
 
 
 
Britain was a fairly successful colony in the late empire. This fact is quite well recorded. However what's often forgotten is when the Romans left, they didn't. The army only went to Gaul, how many of the merchants and settlers stayed is unknown. However all the trading networks remained. Britain continued to export it's good over the channel to Rome exactly the same as before. Only the wealth of the country now went to a new British ruling class, not to a foriegn. These rulers wanted villas and all the trappings of their former Roman rulers.
 
Light blue touch paper and stand well back

http://www.maquahuitl.co.uk

http://www.toltecitztli.co.uk
Back to Top
Aster Thrax Eupator View Drop Down
Suspended
Suspended

Suspended

Joined: 18-Jul-2006
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1929 		  Quote Aster Thrax Eupator Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Jan-2008 at 23:02
Well that's my point - I put many of those points in my large post quite a way above.
Back to Top
Guests View Drop Down
Guest
Guest
  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28-Mar-2008 at 15:11
It was called the dark ages because all of the knowledge of the roman empire drifted away, Europe was technologicaly set back.
Back to Top
red clay View Drop Down
Administrator
Administrator
Avatar
Tomato Master Emeritus

Joined: 14-Jan-2006
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 10226 		  Quote red clay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28-Mar-2008 at 15:50

A very important reality is being ignored-

 

Ancient Global Dimming Linked to Volcanic Eruption

Ker Than
for National Geographic News
March 19, 2008
 
A "dry fog" that muted the sun's rays in A.D. 536 and plunged half the world into a famine-inducing chill was triggered by the eruption of a supervolcano, a new study says.

The cause of the sixth-century global dimming has long been a matter of debate, but a team of international researchers recently discovered acidic sulphate molecules, which are signs of an eruption, in Greenland ice.

This is the first physical evidence for the A.D. 536 event, which according to ancient texts from Mesoamerica, Europe, and Asia brought on a cold darkness that withered crops, sparked wars, and helped spread pestilence.

Scientists had suspected the dry fog was caused by a volcanic eruption or a comet strike, but searches had failed to uncover evidence for either catastropheuntil now.

"There is no need at the moment to invoke a large-scale extraterrestrial event as the cause, because the evidence is conclusive enough to say that it is certainly consistent with it being a large volcano," said study team member Keith Briffa of the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom.

The discovery is detailed in a recent issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Global Ashfall

Tests show the Greenland sulphate molecules were deposited sometime between A.D. 533 and 536. This date correlates well with a sulphate peak found in an Antarctic ice core.

The team suspects the eruption occurred near the Equator, since its ash fell on both ends of the globe.

The Greenland evidence is also consistent with tree-ring data from around the Northern Hemisphere that show reduced growth rates lasting more than a decade starting in A.D. 536.

Curiously, the eruption's cooling effect did not extend to the southern hemisphere, the scientists say.

Together, the tree-ring and acid evidence suggest the sixth-century eruption was even bigger than Indonesia's Mount Tambora eruption of 1815, which also dimmed the sun.

(Related story: "'Lost Kingdom' Discovered on Volcanic Island in Indonesia" [February 26, 2006].)

Not Definitive

Ken Wohletz, a volcanologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, said that while the new evidence strongly supports a large volcanic eruption, a space impact can't be ruled out yet.

"Over two-thirds of Earth's surface is covered with water, and because erosion so quickly wipes away evidence of impacts, the knowledge of when large-scale impacts have occurred in the past is still very incomplete," said Wohletz, who was not involved in the study.

To cement their case, volcano advocates will need to find ash layers deposited by the blast, Wohletz said.

William Ryan, an oceanographer at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York, believes it is only a matter of time until ash layers are found.

"I suspect we haven't searched adequately, but this paper will start a hunt," Ryan said.

Indelible Mark

According to written records, the dry fog lingered for just over a yearleaving an indelible mark on human history.

Chinese historians recorded famine events and summer frosts for years after the event.

It was also around this time that a band of Mongolian nomads called the Avars migrated westward toward Europe, where they would eventually establish an empire.

The group may have left home when grasslands that their horses grazed on withered under the darkened skies, historians say.

More controversially, some historians claim that drought caused by the fog contributed to the decline of the Mesoamerican city of Teotihuacan.



Edited by red clay - 28-Mar-2008 at 15:52
"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
Unknown.
Back to Top
Goban View Drop Down
Colonel
Colonel
Avatar

Joined: 09-Mar-2006
Location: Subterranea
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 581 		  Quote Goban Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28-Mar-2008 at 16:05
Thanks red clay, I was going to mention it but I wasn't sure about hte details...
The sharpest spoon in the drawer.
Back to Top
Aelfgifu View Drop Down
Caliph
Caliph
Avatar

Joined: 25-Jun-2006
Location: Netherlands
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 3387 		  Quote Aelfgifu Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28-Mar-2008 at 16:53
Originally posted by Walraven

It was called the dark ages because all of the knowledge of the roman empire drifted away, Europe was technologicaly set back.
 
Walraven welcome to teh forum, but....I wonder if you actually read the whole preceding discussion before posting this?

Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears.
Back to Top
Guests View Drop Down
Guest
Guest
  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28-Mar-2008 at 17:58
i apologize Ouch
Back to Top
 Post Reply Post Reply Page  <12

Forum Jump Forum Permissions View Drop Down

Bulletin Board Software by Web Wiz Forums® version 9.56a [Free Express Edition]
Copyright ©2001-2009 Web Wiz

This page was generated in 0.125 seconds.