Am I the only one left in the world who still believes that the Dark Ages were dark?? It seems everything I read now asserts how the medieval era was "so...much...more!" They go on to describe the case, and if I had to choose a metaphor it would be coming out of a fine French restaurant fed to satiety and being accosted, hey, this rotten raw carrot, it's not nothing! No. It's not nothing. But it's not much, either.
I think it's all a scam because they ran out of subjects for doctoral theses.
Cycling Stu
in reply to Tarnport • • •Tarnport
in reply to Cycling Stu • • •Max - Poliverso ๐ช๐บ๐ฎ๐น
in reply to Tarnport • •@Tarnport @Cycling Stu
Roman empire was a war machine, they had slavery everywhere, they liked going to the Colosseum to see people killing each other or being eaten by lions, not much about being civilized ๐
I'm in the team "middle age was not darker than many other human periods".
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in reply to Max - Poliverso ๐ช๐บ๐ฎ๐น • • •@max @stufromoz well yes that would bring us to the question of what progress even is. Valid points.
I may just like to have clean water and some imported spices and more leisure fun.
Max - Poliverso ๐ช๐บ๐ฎ๐น
in reply to Tarnport • •@Tarnport
As I probably wrote you some time ago, in Italy we've got a very well known historian, Alessandro Barbero, who's strongly fighting the idea that middle age was somehow "dark".
Funny enough, the only middle age historian I have among my friends told me the same thing 30 years ago, when we met the first time.
Anyway, if you want to go a bit deeper into this topic this is one of the many contributions by A. Barbero.
youtu.be/m8zhSAg04Zg?si=PTMc94โฆ
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Tarnport
in reply to Max - Poliverso ๐ช๐บ๐ฎ๐น • • •Max - Poliverso ๐ช๐บ๐ฎ๐น
in reply to Tarnport • •@Tarnport
Sorry, my English is far worse than your Italian, I can't understand if you're in the team "middle age was dark" or in the team "middle age wasn't dark" ๐
Tarnport
in reply to Max - Poliverso ๐ช๐บ๐ฎ๐น • • •Max - Poliverso ๐ช๐บ๐ฎ๐น
in reply to Tarnport • •@Tarnport
Conosco l'inglese abbastanza bene (almeno la parte scritta mentre sul parlato no, lรฌ non me la cavo per niente bene), non ti preoccupare, era solo per dire che non mi era chiara la tua posizione.
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Max - Poliverso ๐ช๐บ๐ฎ๐น
in reply to Max - Poliverso ๐ช๐บ๐ฎ๐น • •@Tarnport
Just in case you want to go even deeper, here are some podcasts. ๐
Ius primae noctis
dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/aโฆ
The flat Earth
dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/aโฆ
The fear of year 1000
dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/aโฆ
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Tarnport
in reply to Max - Poliverso ๐ช๐บ๐ฎ๐น • • •Deb Nam-Krane
in reply to Tarnport • • •The question for me is which paradigm I'd want to live under. I'm basically with you, but I think it has been oversold how dead and "dark" that period was.
It does read to me like the rule of law, among other things, was a lot more arbitrary and the corruption was enshrined, so to speak.
The thing that I chafe it is all of these people in the here and now wanting to reach back to that period and DIY everything. Trade existed, but it was far more limited. 1/
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Max - Poliverso ๐ช๐บ๐ฎ๐น
in reply to Deb Nam-Krane • •@Deb Nam-Krane @Tarnport
Trade was geographically limited, probably (I'm not so good at history), but I can remember banks were invented in the middle age the same for checks and bills of exchange.
In the middle age the rule of law wasn't arbitrary it was just unbalanced, on the side of nobilty privileges. However, rules were written and there were courts where you could ask for your rights to be respected (if you were so high in the hierarchy to have rights).
Is this a step back with regards to what there was before the "dark age"? Well... roman empire had slavery, if a slave killed his master the family had the right to kill ALL his slaves (men, women and children). At the end of Spartacus's revolt 6000 prisoner's were crucified on the road between Capua (the city were the revolt begun) and Rome.
Saying that civilization went down in the middle age (that's the reason behind being considered a dark age) is risky...
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Ken Milmore
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Max - Poliverso ๐ช๐บ๐ฎ๐น
in reply to Ken Milmore • — (Firenze) •@Ken Milmore @Deb Nam-Krane @Tarnport
Well... actually the shiny plate armour arrived late in the middle age, close to the end.
Armours must be resistant and light (well... as light as an iron suit can be ๐). They need technical skills and tools that took time to discover and master.
At the beginning they just used thick leather covers, then moved to chain mail and only at the end they could build armours.
EDIT: Sorry... I read again your post and maybe you were saying exactly the same thing. But I'm not 100% sure so I'll leave my post.
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Ken Milmore
in reply to Max - Poliverso ๐ช๐บ๐ฎ๐น • • •Tarnport
in reply to Ken Milmore • • •Tarnport
in reply to Tarnport • • •@kbm0 @max @dnkboston
english-heritage.org.uk/castleโฆ
Everything on the internet is so polluted with AI now but this is a pretty trustworthy and brief, if localized, source, going through the evolution of defensive castles from Bailey & Mott til the end of castlebuilding per se, when they diverged into luxury residences and military forts.
Castles Through Time | English Heritage
English HeritageMax - Poliverso ๐ช๐บ๐ฎ๐น
in reply to Ken Milmore • •@Ken Milmore
What do you mean?
Deb Nam-Krane
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in reply to Max - Poliverso ๐ช๐บ๐ฎ๐น • — (Firenze) •@Tarnport @Deb Nam-Krane
I've just found this about trades in middle age which is somehow amusing.
You know about Dante and you probably also know he fell in love with Beatrice Portinari (whose father was a banker).
That girl got married to Simone De' Bardi who was a member of one of the richest family in Florence. They ran a trade company with branches all over Europe, in Africa and Asia too.
We're here around 1300 (not sure the exact week ๐) but that company was probably founded some time before. This also adds to the idea that trades were quite developed in the middle age too.
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Deb Nam-Krane
in reply to Max - Poliverso ๐ช๐บ๐ฎ๐น • • •@max
I don't think you read my whole thread.
People were much more self-sufficient under the manorial system during the Middle Ages out of necessity. Yes, there was trade, but nearly as robust as under the Romans.
I wouldn't build the Roman Empire in a lab as my ideal setting, but if I had to choose between the two, I would live there over Medieval Italy. Freedom of travel was much more limited in most settings, and more people would have had "rights" to me, even if not a slave.
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Deb Nam-Krane
in reply to Deb Nam-Krane • • •And I think there's something to be said for more fluid interchanges with other areas.
BUT there was more intellectual dynamism than the period is given credit for, and--forgive me if I'm repeating myself--their conception of the world as more limited did not mean it was less sophisticated. If you can bear to read me fangirl it up, here's an interview I did with the author of *Galileo's Muse* that talks about that writtenbydeb.blogspot.com/2013โฆ
2/
An interview with Mark Peterson, Author of Galileo's Muse
writtenbydeb.blogspot.comDeb Nam-Krane
in reply to Deb Nam-Krane • • •The TL;DR is that the fact that they saw their world as limited meant that they were, in some way, freer to think through the complications of time and space. They weren't teaching math and science per se, but a lot of it was knit into their arts and, in a fashion, available for many.
3/3
Tarnport
in reply to Deb Nam-Krane • • •Deb Nam-Krane
in reply to Tarnport • • •There was another post a few months ago that started an explosion of comments from all over the Mastodon universe, and it was just as nerdy. That's why I love this place ๐
Thanks for saying you'll read the interview! And even if you don't, I highly recommend the book he wrote.
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Tarnport
in reply to Deb Nam-Krane • • •@dnkboston omg I got to the end of the article before I realized the interviewer was YOU!!!
Yayyyyyy! I forwarded 8 times. Thank you for sharing. So very well done and written.
Deb Nam-Krane
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in reply to Tarnport • • •Kent Navalesi โ๏ธ
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int%rmitt]nt sig^al. ...~!...)
in reply to Tarnport • • •settimwuahahaha! โ.๐ผ๐ ๐ ๐
in reply to Tarnport • • •Sensitive content
From my art history years I vaguely recall "Dark" being used to distinguish from the enlightened years that followed (not to be confused with the Age of Enlightenment). In the Middle Ages, the focus was heavy Christian doctrine, God over reason and science. This was a complete overturn from what the Classics, and Middle Eastern tradition, had taught the Old World. This idea has overtaken the intellectual and cultural accomplishments of the era.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_โฆ
overview about the relationship of science and the Catholic Church
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