The not so "dark" ages

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Arturo_Ortiz

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Hey I just wanted to share an article I wrote. I was wondering what you guys think. I didn’t know where else to put this. It is historical so I guess here is fine. Please move this if it goes elsewhere.

God Bless

The article is quite lengthy so I will just put the link and a small bit of the article with a continue here for those who want to continue reading it
walkinginthedesert.com/2013/08/24/the-not-so-dark-ages/

A Reassessment of the Medieval Times

The Medieval era is perhaps one, if not the most misunderstood times in history. Ask people what they know of the medieval times, and most will tell you that they were a time of mere superstition, rampant barbarism and wars, oppression of women and minorities, scientific ignorance, totalitarianism, and a host of many other things.

Nothing could be further from the truth, not in an era were reasonable thinking with scholasticism and Thomism were present, or the development of education, including that of the university system. An era were scientific development was starting out, and were women were treated almost as equal as men. The problem is that many of these things go unnoticed. The Medieval times I tell people half-jokingly are not the so called “dark” ages. No the dark ages are the times we live in now. Times were people cannot even think logically anymore. They are times were modernism has both distorted art and culture. Instead of the beautiful arts of Michelangelo, you get the so called “masterpieces” like that of the infamous **** Christ. Now it is not uncommon for unwanted children to be simply aborted; a thing almost unheard of in the medieval times. Rather those times held heavy prices for such a crime.

Medieval Society

Where better to start than by describing medieval society, and the lives of the common medieval man. 1The Catholic “Age of faith” when monks, priests, farmers, merchants, kings, bishops, and knights created the dynamic civilization- the admixture of Classical, Catholic, and Germanic culture- that is the West. Even in his humblest estate, as a peasant, medieval man was not Taliban man. His assumptions were wildly different. He believed in a suffering Christ who came into the world as a helpless babe and died on the cross, rather than in a conquering prophet who thought it blasphemous to believe God would lower Himself to such indignities.

Another scholar Morris Bishop states that medieval society was one where people knew the value of work, and at the same time knew how to retire from the day and periodically enjoy life 2“ While medieval man loved feasts, celebrations, gay colors, and merrymaking, he also believed that service, labor, and commerce were honorable; that self-improvement and progress were possible; and that God had created a world that every man could understand through reason”. This type of medieval living and mindset is similar in a way to that of the early pilgrims, which lived more medieval than modern.3“ An American pioneer of the last century, setting out with oxcart, axe, plow, and spade to clear a forest farm, was closer to the Middle Ages than to modern times. He was self-sufficient, doctoring himself and his family with herbs, raising his own food, pounding his own grain, bartering with rare peddlers, rejoicing in occasional barn dances for all the world like medieval “karoles” This type of pilgrim living once again was not too different from the medieval lifestyle. That lifestyle of agrarianism which was predominant in the first half of the United States.

continue reading
 
Good article.
You make several interesting points. When I was in school they taught us that Columbus was opposed because they believed the world was flat and that he would fall off.
 
Glad you like my article:)

I wrote it specifically for that, to clear up a lot of misinformation that many people have about the Medieval times, but specifically Catholic history in general.

There is a lot that needs to be cleared up and hopefully by writing these articles and people reading them, people can know the truth.

Well hope you will keep looking at the website for other articles.

God Bless
Arturo
 
I’ve wondered about this same topic myself and have come to the conclusion that we live under a “culture of critique”, a phrase coined by Dr. Kevin McDonald to explain the negative view of western civilization (Christendom) by western man himself.
Just for an example take the infamy directed at the Spanish Inquisition following the Gothic expulsion of the Moors in Spain. Most conquerors would engage in a purge of suspect or disloyal elements within their realms, fabulously cruel and unjust persecutions are fairly common in history. The reason that the relatively small scale and on some levels justified purge has earned such unique infamy is because the Jews, the target of most of the Inquisition, in modern times have great access to our educational systems and media.
 
Hi,
Interesting post. Although, my impression is that the Anti-Catholic bias is spread far and wide across demographic lines. I think Catholic truth hits their conscience and so they react that way. I am curious as to what others think of this article.

** The Spanish Inquisition
**The Full Story

Peace,
John
 
It’s sad that people still think this way and that this view is still taught in schools. In one of my classes, the teacher brought up how people in the “Dark Ages” regressed in knowledge and how everyone believed Earth was flat and how there were no advancements in anything during 500~1100 AD. He then went on to bash Medieval art, sculptures, and icons – comparing them with Renaissance paintings. He would say stuff like, “People are pretty. [Renaissance painting]. People are creepy. [Medieval painting].” Today’s class was filled with gems such as, “indulgences were ways you could buy your way into Heaven” and how Martin Luther saved the Church from going into complete and total chaos. Oh! He also brought up the myth {though he treated it as fact} of how the scholastics argued over how many angels could sit on the head of a pin. He then talked about how the Church condemned Galileo for saying that the planets revolved around the sun. It was basically, “Catholic Church Bashing 101.” :rolleyes:

The whole time I’m just thinking about this article, which I had just read a few days before. What’s even greater is that I went home that day and found a whole bunch of other stuff from the Early Medieval Period I didn’t know about. For instance, I had no idea who St. Gildas was, but I found his work On the Ruin of Britain to be a great read. 👍

So, basically, I really enjoyed the article! 😃
 
JohnR77, Very informative links, a must read for anyone wondering about the inquisition. Thankyou!
 
Kopratic said:
It’s sad that people still think this way and that this view is still taught in schools. In one of my classes, the teacher brought up how people in the “Dark Ages” regressed in knowledge and how everyone believed Earth was flat and how there were no advancements in anything during 500~1100 AD. He then went on to bash Medieval art, sculptures, and icons – comparing them with Renaissance paintings. He would say stuff like, “People are pretty. [Renaissance painting]. People are creepy. [Medieval painting].” Today’s class was filled with gems such as, “indulgences were ways you could buy your way into Heaven” and how Martin Luther saved the Church from going into complete and total chaos. Oh! He also brought up the myth {though he treated it as fact} of how the scholastics argued over how many angels could sit on the head of a pin. He then talked about how the Church condemned Galileo for saying that the planets revolved around the sun. It was basically, “Catholic Church Bashing 101.” :rolleyes:

The whole time I’m just thinking about this article, which I had just read a few days before. What’s even greater is that I went home that day and found a whole bunch of other stuff from the Early Medieval Period I didn’t know about. For instance, I had no idea who St. Gildas was, but I found his work On the Ruin of Britain to be a great read. 👍
U
So, basically, I really enjoyed the article! 😃
Click to expand...
Ouch.

Guess repeating the lowest-common-denominator myth is more important than actual teaching these days.
 
**Thanks Dandingo,
Great Video.
**
** Video Dr. Thomas Woods was called to deliver the convocation adress at Benedictine College (Kansas)
.
**
 
The “Dark Ages” were an age of light when it comes to Faith. This is the most important consideration. There is, however, a more basic reason they’re called Dark - and not by Protestants or by Enlightenment-era secularists.

We call them the Dark Ages firstly because of people like Petrarch and other Renaissance-era Catholics who considered it to be a darkening of art, architecture, poetry, rhetoric, and literature. Being Catholics, they did not believe the theology, philosophy, or academics had been darkened. It was about the arts and education. A single glance at Romanesque architecture can tell you that it’s a pygmy version of classical Roman style. Comparison of Medieval Latin with Classical Latin shows the degeneracy of the former. Virgil’s grasp of form and sonority totally overwhelm Aquinas or Bernard of Clairvaux.

Maybe this is subjective, but overall, “Dark Ages” versions of concrete arts are simply crude, primitive, and unfinished in comparison with the ancient ideals. That much is not subjective. It’s just clear. A poor version of a good thing makes it “dark”. This is what the original, faithful, Catholic men meant when they coined the term “Dark Ages”. I agree with them, not with the Protestant who terms them dark because of their superstition, nor with the Enlightenment-era man who terms them dark because of their faith.

Distinctions, distinctions, distinctions… 😉
 
The article seems very interesting, I bookmarked it and I’ll read it later. Thank you!
 
Classicist said:
It was about the arts and education.
Click to expand...
Thanks Aurturo for the link. Small excerpt below.cathedral schools established under Charlemagne. But even if the monasteries’ contribution to education had been merely to teach their own how to read and write, that would have been no small accomplishment. When the Mycenaean Greeks suffered a catastrophe (the nature of which is still disputed by scholars) in the twelfth century B.C., the result was three centuries of illiteracy that students of classical antiquity refer to as the Greek Dark Ages. Writing simply disappeared amid the chaos and disorder. The monks’ commitment to reading, writing, and education ensured that in their own dark age, when barbarian invasions and the collapse of civilized order portended complete cultural collapse, the same terrible fate that had befallen the Mycenaean Greeks in a similar situation would not be visited upon Europeans.
But they did much more than simply preserve literacy. Even an unsympathetic scholar could write of the monks, "They not only established the schools, and were the schoolmasters in them, but also laid the foundations for the universities.

My Favorite forms of art from this “dark” period is the Lindisfarne Gospels.

defendingthebride.com/bb/manuscripts2.html

John
 
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