The name given by earlier historians to the period in European history from the fall of Rome in 576 to the Renaissance in the 16th Cent ('medieval' is the adjective for referring to this period). Often understood, as the moniker 'Dark Ages' suggests, as a period of intellectual and cultural stagnancy, modern historians are re-discovering that it was, in fact, "a period of enormous advances in science, technology, and culture" (James Hannam).
The name 'Middle Ages' and 'Dark Ages' were terms coined by men of the Renaissance. When they compared their own era (which they believed to be one of great learning and discovery), that of the Roman reign (which they perceived also to be a time of great cultural innovations) they saw the period between them as the "dark" ages when learning and cultural development stagnated, or—less derogatively—the "middle" ages. These prejudices grew, and in the 18th Cent, e.g., the French writer Voltaire would speak of medieval philosophy and learning as the "bastard daughter of Aristotle's philosophy badly translated and understood" that has "caused more error for reason and good education than the Huns and the Vandals."
In recent years, however, historians have begun to review the history of this period, and they now suggest that the Middle Ages were other than 'dark.' The learning and discoveries of this period, they suggest, in fact, prepared the necessary foundation for the rise of modern science in the West.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
James Hannam, The Genesis of Science. How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2011.
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