Editing Dark Ages (historiography) (section)

==Modern non-scholarly use==
{{See also|Medievalism}}
A 2021 lecture by [[Howard Williams (archaeologist)|Howard Williams]] of [[Chester University]] explored how "stereotypes and popular perceptions of the Early Middle Ages&nbsp;– popularly still considered the European 'Dark Ages'&nbsp;– plague popular culture";<ref>{{cite web |title=Digging into the Dark Ages: Early Medieval Fake Histories and How to Combat Them |url=https://www1.chester.ac.uk/events/digging-dark-ages-early-medieval-fake-histories-and-how-combat-them |work=chester.ac.uk |author=Howard Williams |author-link=Howard Williams (archaeologist) |date=16 March 2021 |access-date=27 September 2021 |archive-date=28 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210928030648/https://www1.chester.ac.uk/events/digging-dark-ages-early-medieval-fake-histories-and-how-combat-them |url-status=live }} [https://vimeo.com/565501778 Alt URL]{{cbignore}}{{Webarchive|url=https://conifer.rhizome.org/Germinal/wikipedia/20240310165218/https://vimeo.com/565501778 |date=2024-03-10 }}{{cbignore}}</ref> and finding 'Dark Ages' is "rife outside of academic literature, including in newspaper articles and media debates."<ref name="Williams2020" /> As to why it is used, according to Williams, legends and racial misunderstandings have been revitalized by modern nationalists, colonialists and imperialists around present-day concepts of identity, faith and [[origin myth]]s i.e. appropriating historical myths for modern political ends.<ref name="Williams2020">{{cite book |chapter=The politics and popular culture of the 'Dark Ages' |title=Digging Into the Dark Ages |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DPQQEAAAQBAJ  |publisher=Archaeopress Publishing Limited |author=Howard Williams |author-link=Howard Williams (archaeologist) |year=2020|page=3 |isbn=9781789695281 }} Further sources referenced by Williams: Effros 2003: 1-70; Geary 2001; Sommer 2017</ref>

In a book about medievalisms in [[popular culture]] by Andrew B. R. Elliott (2017), he found "by far" the most common use of 'Dark Ages' is to "signify a general sense of backwardness or lack of technological sophistication", in particular noting how it has become entrenched in daily and political discourse.<ref name="ElliottCh3">{{cite book |title=Medievalism, Politics and Mass Media: Appropriating the Middle Ages in the Twenty-First Century |publisher=[[Boydell & Brewer|D.S.Brewer]] |author=Andrew B. R. Elliott |year=2017 |chapter=Ch. 3: Medievalism, the Dark Ages and the Myth of Progress }}</ref>  Reasons for use, according to Elliott, are often "banal medievalisms", which are "characterized mainly by being unconscious, unwitting and by having little or no intention to refer to the Middle Ages"; for example, referring to an insurance industry still reliant on paper instead of computers as being in the 'Dark Ages'.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Review: Medievalism, Politics and Mass Media |journal=[[Speculum (journal)|Speculum]] |author1=Susanna Throop |date=April 2019 |volume=94 |number=2 |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/702181 |pages=526–528|doi=10.1086/702181 |s2cid=159330716 }}</ref> These banal uses are little more than [[trope (literature)|tropes]] that inherently contain a criticism about lack of progress.<ref name="ElliottCh3" /> Elliott connects 'Dark Ages' to the "[[Myth of Progress]]", also observed by [[Joseph Tainter]], who says, "There is genuine bias against so-called 'Dark Ages'" because of a modern belief that society normally traverses from lesser to greater complexity, and when complexity is reduced during a collapse, this is perceived as out of the ordinary and thus undesirable; he counters that complexity is rare in human history, a costly mode of organization that must be constantly maintained, and periods of less complexity are common and to be expected as part of the overall progression towards greater complexity.<ref name=tainter/>

In [[Peter S. Wells]]'s 2008 book, ''Barbarians to Angels: The Dark Ages Reconsidered'', he writes, "I have tried to show that far from being a period of cultural bleakness and unmitigated violence, the centuries (5th - 9th) known popularly as the Dark Ages were a time of dynamic development, cultural creativity, and long-distance networking".<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/barbarianstoange00well/page/199 |title=Barbarians to Angels: The Dark Ages Reconsidered |publisher=W. W. Norton |author=Peter S. Wells |author-link=Peter S. Wells |year=2008 |pages=199–200 |isbn=9780393060751 }}</ref> He writes that our "popular understanding" of these centuries "depends largely on the picture of barbarian invaders that Edward Gibbon presented more than two hundred years ago," and that this view has been accepted "by many who have read and admire Gibbon's work."<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/barbarianstoange00well/page/n13/mode/2up |title=Barbarians to Angels: The Dark Ages Reconsidered |publisher=W. W. Norton |author=Peter S. Wells |author-link=Peter S. Wells |year=2008 |page=xi-xv |isbn=9780393060751 }}</ref>

[[David C. Lindberg]], a [[Relationship between religion and science|science and religion]] historian, says the 'Dark Ages' are "according to wide-spread popular belief" portrayed as "a time of [[ignorance]], [[Barbarian|barbarism]] and [[superstition]]", for which he asserts "blame is most often laid at the feet of the Christian church".<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ViweK1jfFi4C |chapter=The Medieval Church Encounters the Classical Tradition: Saint Augustine, Roger Bacon, and the Handmaiden Metaphor |title=When Science & Christianity Meet |publisher=University of Chicago Press |location=Chicago |author=David C. Lindberg |author-link=David C. Lindberg |year=2003 |page=7 |isbn=9780226482156 |editor1=David C. Lindberg |editor2=Ronald L. Numbers |quote=According to widespread popular belief, the period of European history known as the Middle Ages was a time of barbarism, ignorance and superstitious. The epithet 'Dark Ages'  often applied to it nicely captures this opinion. As for the ills that threatened literacy, learning, and especially science during the Middle Ages, blame is most often laid at the feet of the Christian church... }}</ref> Medieval historian Matthew Gabriele echoes this view as a myth of popular culture.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/5-myths-about-the-middle-ages/2016/09/22/e56c4150-7f50-11e6-9070-5c4905bf40dc_story.html |title=Five myths about the Middle Ages |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |author=Matthew Gabriele |date=23 September 2016 |access-date=28 September 2021 |archive-date=19 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210819043836/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/5-myths-about-the-middle-ages/2016/09/22/e56c4150-7f50-11e6-9070-5c4905bf40dc_story.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Andrew B. R. Elliott notes the extent to which "Middle Ages/Dark Ages have come to be synonymous with religious persecution, witch hunts and scientific ignorance".<ref>{{cite book |title=Medievalism, Politics and Mass Media: Appropriating the Middle Ages in the Twenty-First Century |publisher=[[Boydell & Brewer|D.S.Brewer]] |author=Andrew B. R. Elliott |year=2017 |page=91 }}</ref>