The Supposed Dark Ages

 When I was younger, I thought history went something like this:

Egyptians

Greeks

Romans

Dark Ages

Medieval/Middle Ages

Renaissance

Now

(In case anyone is wondering, I now possess a college degree in history and know that this outline is...not correct.)

At some point I became aware that Dark Ages = Medieval = Middle Ages.  

Simultaneously, I was fascinated by Robin Hood.  This is probably because of the Disney movie, originally, but as a child I consumed a great deal of Robin Hood retellings.  I did not really care for the Errol Flynn version - what's up with Maid Marion?  Why is she so useless?  I was thrilled when I read The Outlaws of Sherwood by Robin McKinley.  Now here was a Maid Marion!  She could shoot a bow and arrow, find her way through the forest, and generally take care of herself.  

Unfortunately, when I went to college to seek aforementioned degree in history, my school only offered one class in Medieval history and it was, hands down, the worst history class I have ever taken.  It was as if the professor wanted to make us think history is boring.  This has never stopped making me angry and sad.

So, when a clause in my history badge requested that I choose a historical era, read two books about this era and watch one documentary, I quickly settled on The Middle Ages.  (Not coincidentally, I had two books waiting in my LibroFM queue about this era!)  

What I consumed:

Ember of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age

by Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough 

Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife: The Extraordinary Lives of Medieval Women

by Hetta Howes

The Dark Ages: An Age of Light

This was a documentary by Waldemar Januszczak 

 

What I found:

So, yes, Greeks and Romans and people from the eastern part of the world knew a whole bunch of things that people in western Europe took a really long time to figure out.  BUT there were also people creating amazing works of art and architecture.  There were people exploring and pushing boundaries in society.  Maybe it wasn't as many people as during, say, the renaissance, but it also wasn't nobody.  And the folks in the east didn't exactly forget what they knew.  It's more like we forgot they were there and moved the center of the world to England.