The Dark Ages are a time period surrounding the first and following several hundred years around 1000AD.
A time where Cities went quiet, farms and fallows over grew, music and art seemed to stop in its tracks, and history failed to be written.
They’re dubbed by historians as a tumultuous era of Cultural and Economic decline all over Western Europe.
Were they right to say this?
As a long time lover of history, especially that of the Roman kind; which seems to eclipse with its magnitude that of so many others, I cannot speak against the affects of the Empire’s splitting in two, its falling, or if one can even call the remainders ‘Empires’.
East and West?
More like Least and Best.
…Go Charlemagne!
Just kidding. I don’t take sides. But had I the choice I would’ve rather resided in the Eastern Empire.
…Constantinople Baby!
…Which later became the melting pot of all civilizations.
They called themselves Romans their whole lives, even living 1700 some years after the first legend of King Romulus; but earned the named Byzantines to lessen confusion and so separate the peoples, historically, after their official fall in 1453 to Mehmed the Second of The Ottoman Empire,
But in all the darkness that came with Rome’s fall, there’s one place that comes to mind in Europe; just beginning to light its candles.
That place was Scandinavia…
A rugged land of rocky peaks and frigid fjords. The land was hard to farm, and grew ever harder with the climate change scientists now theorize occured around that time.
They say the Swedes even had vineyards in 800AD!
But with hard times comes hard decisions. And it’s around this time we see the first Viking settlements start to appear in Iceland, and then Greenland, and later even Canada (which didn’t last very long).
And even more southern parts such as Sicily and The Middle-East.
One band of Vikings that sailed into the Mediterranean even found employment as Bodyguards for a royal subject when the man saw how large these people were. Now how about that?
They Came.
They Saw.
They Found a Job…?
Britain also began to emerge in the Dark Ages. As a land left behind by Rome, it seemed now only to be sold to the highest bidder. Which was really the highest Statesman, as there wasn’t quite yet a globally accepted currency…
The remains of Roman Britain can still testify today as to the scale of Order that left the world, and the Chaos that departure undoubtedly ensued. But the untamed forests and wildwoods of Europe would later spawn the new tales of Knights and Lore, Witches and Wizards, Dungeons and Dragons, the Middle-Ages are today so well-loved for. And seem to light up our Western society in every dark corner.
Thanks for reading!
Cheers,
Mackenzie Andres
Founder | Writer
THE BLOCK BARD