this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2025
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That last bit is the dark ages myth, mostly created in the 19th century.
The middle ages were way better than is commonly suggested. Aside from a couple of major epidemics, but we've recently seen that we're not immune to that.
O yeah and quite a few warmongering autocrats, about territory and religion. We've risen above that too, haven't we?
::: spoiler
We haven't
:::
No.
The Dark Ages myth is separate from the idea that the fall of the Roman Empire negatively impacted Europe in a massive way.
For whom though? For the average citizen in Europe there wouldn't really have been a gibsonian fall.
What's the massive negative impact you're taking about?
Yes, for the average citizen. Pottery in Britain didn't return to pre-Roman standards for 300 years. Farming tools and techniques in Western Europe would not recover for some 500, and even then only with the arrival of Islam in Spain. Kitchen utensils in peasant housing in rural Italy saw a sharp decline that would not recover for 700 years, and the quality of housing itself not for almost 1000. That's not even getting into the non-archeological side of things, questioning the exact impact of trade, security, legal systems, widespread literacy...
It's all a bit reasoned backwards, isn't it. I mean the marvels of Roman technology were grand. But the decline of kitchen utensils and the quality of pottery -like most archeology- is a bit dependant on survival bias.
The only ones that were pining for the Roman era were leaders like Charlemagne, who wanted the title. Literacy wasn't so well spread in Roman times either. One could say that the monestary system did more fore literacy throughout Europe than most Romans did. For most parts we're looking at the very elites of roman civilization housing for the poor was abominable. We only started caring about Roman times when we re-discovered their books in the renaissance, most of which were recovered through the Arab world, which peaked in the Middle ages in terms of enlightenment.
It isn't all civilization-esque, where there is a score kept of who's the most advanced.
But they must've suffered with their underpar crockery for sure...
One of the reasons why pottery is so often cited is because it is very widely used and because it generally survives the ages. We're talking thousands of examples in small regions for a given period of time. Rejecting archeology in examining the past for... pure speculation is insanity.
Lord.
It was widely recognized, by Christian and secular authors, that the fall of Rome had come at a great cost in the immediate centuries following the fall of the Western Empire.
This is absolutely untrue. Roman literacy was very widespread, though far from universal, including amongst the working class.
No. God fucking no. Charlemagne, since we're on the topic, had to search as far afield as Ireland to get decent teachers for the Carolignian court. Being based in France and Germany, may I remind you.
I am specifically talking about finds for rural housing for the poor, not elaborate villas. We can talk about how urban housing for the poor was far superior to the later period as well if you like; we have plenty of examples of insulae to take from.
It was widely understood that there was some form of collapse even hundreds of years after the Empire fell, and the living standards of the Empire had passed out of memory, leaving only the remains of their architecture; the rediscovery of Roman literature by the secular elite in the 13th century onward simply put the standards of the past in sharper relief. Hell, multiple military innovations in the 13th-16th centuries were simply and explicitly taking from Roman literature on how their own military worked, all the way up to Maurice of Nassau.
The Islamic World, for that matter, recognized and highly valued Roman literature for a similar reason - because it was very insightful. The difference is that the Islamic World at the time enjoyed a higher standard of living, having taken from the Byzantines and Sassanids in a more functional manner than the collapse of the Western Empire, and had a robust literate culture before the rediscovery of Roman literature (or rather, had a robust literate culture even when they first encountered Roman literature). The Islamic World absolutely recognized, likewise, that the fall of the Roman Empire was a great loss and that something valuable had been lost with it.
Unironically, yes.
We, in the modern day, take so many things for granted. So many small things that are not so small when you have to live every day of your life without them. To see a formerly robust trade in metal kitchenware and high-grade earthenware reduced to a single cauldron and wooden utensils is a drop in the standard of living - and like I said, that's not even getting into the other uses of pottery, or the houses themselves, or the farming tools, or the non-material benefits of civilization.