**The original historical sense of the “Dark Ages” was the time when the light of civilization was extinguished by the overthrow of the Roman Empire by the Barbarian hordes. ** This would roughly be from the years 450 AD to 800 AD when the Holy Roman Empire was established by Charlemagne, thus ushering in the beginning of the Middle Ages.
The early understanding of an “age” in English was a century.
Hi OP,
The bolded sentence above is important to understand when seeking to discuss the impact of Church power and its effect upon the rest of society. The “Dark Ages” fall under the broader category of historical periods known as the Middle Ages, which is classified (roughly) from the 5th to 15th centuries, and includes sub-catergorical periods such as the medieval, high-middle age, and early renaissance.
Contrary to an often-mistaken belief that what we refer to as the “Dark Ages” is synonymous with the rise of the Christian church, quite the opposite is true: The Catholic Church achieved the height of its power during the *medieval *ages. The medieval period, which lasted from about 1000a.d. and onward, falls also within the category of the Middle Ages, though it was a time period that was markedly different from the actual “Dark” Ages, which was the earlier timeframe in which Europe was ravaged by conquering hordes and little-to-no artistic, intellectual, theological, or scientific progress was made.
In comparison to the Dark Ages, the medieval period birthed many new ideas regarding spirituality, nature, science, medicine, higher learning, and public welfare.
As I know it and raised hearing people talking about .It is time when the church was the political and religious authority, and anyone who hold beliefs that are against the church, was getting killed. So many people was under the church control and no one was able to speak their minds freely, times when the rich people was the friends of the church, while the poor was nothing more than worthless people…etc. Of course this is what I watched in the movies and read about.
Let’s examine these statements a bit more deeply; it’s also important to spot gross exagerrations and embellishments which take isolated and complicated issues and spin them into a sort of “norm” for the times. For example:
- “So many people were under Church control”.
Is this true? Well, yes and no. The medieval period is especially noted for feudalism, and feudalism by its very definition (though I believe some historians offer varying definitions) describes a societal structure in which classes worked for, and were subject to landholders. Medieval kingdoms were not ruled by the Church (ie;, the Pope) - they were ruled by kings and queens. In addition to monarchial control of the nation/region, land was also owned by noblemen (who also had some power to enforce laws) and some clergy (many of whom were themselves from noble families). As the Christian church had great influence over the spiritual matters of the people, the monarchs who governed these people naturally had close connections to church authorities, and submitted to or collaborated with them on many matters.
So while in *essence *one could say that the people were under “Church control”, (if this phrase is meant to be the counterpart to separation of church and state), in *literal *terms they were subject to the direct laws of the reigning monarchs, who in turn happened to be *members *of the Christian church who at times influenced many of their policies. It’s at this point that some “historians” who prefer to cast a negative light upon the Church decide that Church influence was a “bad” thing. I disagree, and we can delve into more detail on that later.
- “No one was able to speak their minds freely”.
It’s a bit hard to respond to that. In the first place, to what are these people referring when they say this? Speaking their minds freely about taxation? The desire for protection? Unfair zoning laws that allowed land to be cleared for the construction of cathedrals? I mean, that’s just such a vague and ambiguous statement to make. Secondly, I would be interested in seeing statistical polls in which the majority of medieval citizens were asked if they felt they had freedom of speech, to which they answered “No”.
It’s kind of silly to make such a generalization using the words “no one” because quite frankly, the majority of the population at the time was illiterate, and I doubt that there was much in the way of public debate.
I would surmise that - as opposed to today’s technological age in which actual labor requirements can be reduced to a fraction of what they used to be and hence modern people have both the time and opportunity/convenience to organize protests and lobbies to appeal to the powers on behalf of their wishes - most medieval citizens were just content to keep a roof over their heads and fill their bellies with food. I doubt there was much contention taking place on a regular basis (by the majority population, at least), until people felt directly and continuously threatened. We’re just used to hearing people whine about every little thing nowadays (myself included
).
Those who like to single-mindedly focus on the Church delving into its coffers to purchase land and finance the Crusades often lose sight of the fact that money was used for other purposes as well, most of them being beneficial to the faithful. Cathedrals were built for the glory of God, so that *all *could worship and seek solace in them. The Church also used its money to build universities, send its clergy into the village to teach the Bible and Latin to the people, maintain its monasteries in which the monks dutifully recorded history by hand, so that the events and accomplishments of the past would not be lost in another barbaric invasion. Not to mention, as another poster notes, the funding of hospitals that tended to the sick, and the hostels that arose to cater to weary travellers.