Talking About The Dark Age

Due to Russell, the dark age of Western Europe is from 6th century A.D. to 10th century A.D. And in a larger view, the so-called Middle Ages are from the falling of the Western Empire until the Renaissance, which last about 1000 years.

During this era, Western Europe suffered from the barbarian invasions from the west and the north, and even the rise of Islam from the south and the east. Civilization was diminished. The Rome law was inherited partly by the papal party, but it banished non-orthodox philosophers, and forbid the teaching of secular knowledge. The persecution on heresies resulted in the spiritual separation among different parts of the former Rome Empire, which benefited the Mohammedans to conquer the small Asian, North Africa, and even Spain.

This is the overview of the dark age. However, there are still many things that I misunderstood before. First, for the rising of the papal power, I used to blame it to the avarice of the popes, whose ambition was to become the new Emperor of the Western Empire. However, due to Russell's talk about that history, the pope of Rome was originally one of the patriarchs of the Rome Empire, with that of Constantinople, Damascus, Alexandria, etc. But it is the only patriarch in the western part. Then in 5th Century A.D., Rome was totally destroyed by Goth. This brought in the time of barbarian invasions to the western Europe, especially the one of Lombard tribes into North Italy. Byzantine army was not able to defend Italy, so the Pope established the alliance with the King of Frank by crowning him as the Emperor of the Holy Rome Empire.

Not very long after that, Lombard was assimilated into Italians, and established the city states in Northern Italy. However, the dispute between Pope and Emperor became more and more severe. And for Lombards, it would be the only hope to be affiliate with Pope if they wanted to secure the freedom of their cities from the Emperor. This caused the Thirty-Year Wars, and Pope side became the ultimate winner. As an offshoot, the papal power reached its zenith.

Second, the persecution towards heretical thoughts at least before 12th Century was not quite severe. People can write their books, and put them into public discussions in order to find the unorthodox portions and recanted them.

Third, the Islam at origin was not quite religious. On the new area they conquered, Muslims didn't oblige other people to become Mohammedans. And those populace can live with peace by submitting a special tribute, which was much less than the tax of the Byzantine Empire. So not only Jews but Christians, especially Arians and Nestorians, welcomed their coming.

Before the reconquering of Spain by Christians, Muslims were quite confident about their religion, and showed their tolerance and appreciation towards secular knowledges, including Persian art and poetry, Greek philosophy and science, Babylonian astrology and alchemy, Indian mathematics and number system, etc. They translated those works into Arabic, and maintained them in colleges and libraries.

Thus, in later time, i.e. 12th Century, when western Europe revived from barbarianism, the scholars started to translate philosophical works from Greek and Arabic into Latin. There were three centers of this translating work -- Constantinople, Palermo, and Toledo. Among them, Toledo in Spain was the most productive one. And since Spain at the time was part of Arab Empire, this work was certainly done by Arabic scholars. In fact, they even established a sort of specific schools doing this job.

So finally, Russell stressed that this era was the fallen time for Western Europe, before which the splendor of Rome Empire and after which the Renaissance. However, both the Arab Empire and Byzantine Empire (i.e. Eastern Empire) conserved the civilization of ancient Greece and Rome, which was transmitted back to Western Europe to be the resource of the resuscitation of civilization. And in a larger sight, China at that time was approximately the Tang and Song Dynasties, which was the zenith of Chinese civilization. And Arab Empire was flourished itself. So the whole world was not that dark actually.

The tragedy is that during the 13th Century, both China and Arab were conquered and destroyed by Mongolian army, leaving Western Europe and Byzantine survived. Arab hasn't recovered from it until now. China was recovered partly, but was not flourished until the communication with western priests in late 16th Century and early 17th Century. This gave the chance for Western Europe to lead the world, and they really achieved.