Editing Dark Ages (historiography) (section)

==Modern scholarly use==
[[File:Gossuin de Metz - L'image du monde - BNF Fr. 574 fo42 - miniature.jpg|thumb|right|Medieval artistic illustration of the [[spherical Earth]] in a 14th-century copy of ''[[Gautier de Metz|L'Image du monde]]'' ({{circa|1246}})]]
{{See also|Medieval studies}}
The term was widely used by 19th-century historians. In 1860, in ''[[The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy]]'', [[Jacob Burckhardt]] delineated the contrast between the medieval 'dark ages' and the more enlightened [[Renaissance]], which had revived the cultural and intellectual achievements of antiquity.<ref>Barber, John (2008). ''The Road from Eden: Studies in Christianity and Culture''. Palo Alto, CA: Academica Press, p. 148, fn 3.</ref> The earliest entry for a capitalized "Dark Ages" in the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' (OED) is a reference in [[Henry Thomas Buckle]]'s ''History of Civilization in England'' in 1857, who wrote: "During these, which are rightly called the Dark Ages, the clergy were supreme." The OED in 1894 defined an uncapitalised "dark ages" as "a term sometimes applied to the period of the Middle Ages to mark the intellectual darkness characteristic of the time".<ref>Buckle, ''History of Civilization in England'', I, ix, p. 558, quoted in ''Oxford English Dictionary, D-Deceit'' (1894), p. 34. The 1989 second edition of the OED retains the 1894 definition and adds "often restricted to the early period of the Middle Ages, between the time of the fall of Rome and the appearance of vernacular written documents".</ref> Since the [[Late Middle Ages]] significantly overlap with the Renaissance, the term 'Dark Ages' became restricted to distinct times and places in [[medieval Europe]]. Thus the 5th and 6th centuries in [[Britain in the Middle Ages|Britain]], at the height of the [[Saxon people|Saxon]] invasions, have been called "the darkest of the Dark Ages".<ref>[[John Cannon (historian)|Cannon, John]] and Griffiths, Ralph (2000). ''The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Monarchy (Oxford Illustrated Histories)'', 2nd Revised edition. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, p. 1. The first chapter opens with the sentence: "In the darkest of the Dark Ages, the fifth and sixth centuries, there were many kings in Britain but no kingdoms."</ref> 

The term "Dark Ages" was increasingly questioned from the mid-twentieth century as archaeological, historical and literary studies led to greater understanding of the period,<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |first=M. R.|last =Rambaran-Olm | publisher =Oxford University Press |location =Oxford, UK | encyclopedia=The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages | title=Dark Ages |pages=484–485|volume=2 |editor-first=Robert|editor-last=Bjork| year =2010 |isbn=978-0-19-866262-4 }}|</ref> In 1977, the historian [[Denys Hay]] spoke ironically of "the lively centuries which we call dark".<!--This quote has also been attributed to A. T. Hatto, and if correct, this would be the more original reference, but but pending a source we must be content with the Hay reference.--><ref>[[Denys Hay|Hay, Denys]] (1977). ''Annalists and Historians''. London: Methuen, p. 50.</ref> More forcefully, a book about the [[history of German literature]] published in 2007 describes "the dark ages" as "a popular if uninformed manner of speaking".<ref>{{cite book |last=Dunphy |first=Graeme |chapter=Literary Transitions, 1300–1500: From Late Mediaeval to Early Modern |date=2007 |editor1-last=Max  |editor1-first=Reinhardt |editor2-last= |editor2-first= |title=Early Modern German Literature (= The Camden House History of German Literature, vol.4) |publisher=Camden |location=Rochester NY & Woodbridge |pages=43-87 |url=https://www.academia.edu/127774563 |isbn=}} The chapter opens: "A popular if uninformed manner of speaking refers to the medieval period as "the dark ages." If there is a dark age in the literary history of Germany, however, it is the one that follows: the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, the time between the Middle High German ''Blütezeit'' and the full blossoming of the Renaissance. It may be called a dark age, not because literary production waned in these decades, but because nineteenth-century aesthetics and twentieth-century university curricula allowed the achievements of that time to fade into obscurity."</ref>

Most modern historians do not use the term "dark ages" and prefer terms such as [[Early Middle Ages]]. However, when used by some historians today, the term "Dark Ages" is meant to describe the economic, political and cultural problems of the era.<ref>Review Article: Travel and Trade in the Dark Ages, Treadgold, Warren, Journal. The International History Review Volume 26, 2004 - Issue 1</ref><ref>Globalisation, Ecological Crisis, and Dark Ages, Sing C. Chew, Journal of Global Society, Volume 16, 2002 - Issue 4</ref>  For others, the term Dark Ages is intended to be neutral, expressing the idea that the events of the period seem 'dark' to us because of the paucity of the [[Recorded history|historical record]].<ref name=dmas/> For example, Robert Sallares, commenting on the lack of sources to establish whether the [[First plague pandemic|plague pandemic of 541 to 750]] reached Northern Europe, opines that "the epithet ''Dark Ages'' is surely still an appropriate description of this period".<ref>{{Cite book |title=Plague and the End of Antiquity|editor-last=Little|editor-first=Lester |chapter= Ecology, Evolution and Epidemiology of Plague|first=Robert |last=Sallares|page=257|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2007 |isbn=978-0-521-84639-4|location=Cambridge, UK}}</ref>

However, from the later 20th century onward, other historians became critical even of this nonjudgmental use of the term for two main reasons.<ref name=dmas/> Firstly, it is questionable whether it is ever possible to use the term in a neutral way: scholars may intend it, but ordinary readers may not understand it so. Secondly, 20th-century scholarship had increased understanding of the history and culture of the period,<ref>Welch, Martin (1993). ''[http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-00894-6.html Discovering Anglo-Saxon England] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101029071511/http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-00894-6.html |date=2010-10-29 }}''. University Park, PA: Penn State Press.</ref> to such an extent that it is no longer really 'dark' to modern viewers.<ref name=dmas/> To avoid the value judgment implied by the expression, many historians now avoid it altogether.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/151663/Dark-Ages Encyclopædia Britannica] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150504132332/http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/151663/Dark-Ages |date=2015-05-04 }} "It is now rarely used by historians because of the value judgment it implies. Though sometimes taken to derive its meaning from the fact that little was then known about the period, the term's more usual and pejorative sense is of a period of intellectual darkness and barbarity."</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire (The Princeton History of the Ancient World) |publisher=Princeton University Press |author=Kyle Harper |year=2017 |page=12 |quote=These used to be called the Dark Ages. That label is best set aside. It is hopelessly redolent of Renaissance and Enlightenment prejudices. It altogether underestimates the impressive cultural vitality and enduring spiritual legacy of the entire period that has come to be known as "late antiquity". At the same time we do not have to euphemize the realities of imperial disintegration, economic collapse and societal disintegration.}}</ref> It was occasionally used up to the 1990s by historians of early medieval Britain, for example in the title of the 1991 book by [[Ann Williams (historian)|Ann Williams]], [[Alfred P. Smyth|Alfred Smyth]] and [[David Peter Kirby|D. P. Kirby]], ''A Biographical Dictionary of Dark Age Britain, England, Scotland and Wales, c.500–c.1050'',<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|year=1991|editor1=Ann Williams |editor2=Alfred P. Smyth |editor3=D. P. Kirby |title=A Biographical Dictionary of Dark Age Britain|publisher= Seaby|isbn=1-85264-047-2}}</ref> and in the comment by [[Richard Abels]] in 1998 that the greatness of [[Alfred the Great]] "was the greatness of a Dark Age king".<ref>{{cite book|first=Richard|last=Abels|title=Alfred the Great: War, Kingship and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England|page=23|year=1998|isbn=0-582-04047-7|publisher=Longman|location=Harlow, UK}}</ref> In 2020, [[John Blair (historian)|John Blair]], Stephen Rippon and Christopher Smart observed that: "The days when archaeologists and historians referred to the fifth to the tenth centuries as the 'Dark Ages' are long gone, and the material culture produced during that period demonstrates a high degree of sophistication."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Blair |first1=John |last2= Rippon|first2=Stephen |last3=Smart |first3= Christopher|authorlink1=John Blair (historian) |title= Planning in the Early Medieval Landscape|publisher=Liverpool University Press|page=3 |location =Liverpool, UK |year=2020|isbn=978-1-78962-116-7}}</ref>