Francis by Patrick J. Marrin for March 16, 2023

Believe it or not, the Arabs weren’t having a Dark Age, and neither were the Jews.

I wonder what the difference was…

Notice Leo’s futbol magazine. Wonder how much time he and Papa spend talking sports?

In real history, it was the Arab world that preserved science and culture while Europe was sleeping off its hangover known as the Dark Ages.

The also brought us new ideas like the science of optics and those squiggly things we call Arabic Numbers (which they picked up in trade with India) and a thing called zero which was the greatest thing since Pi according to most mathematicians.

So, are the Catholic bishops again going to allow eating corned beef on a Lenten Friday, despite the abstinence?

after consuming all that and doing all that, I think hurling will come last

For further details: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25669.How_the_Irish_Saved_Civilization

Different strokes for different folks!

People often talk of the “dark ages” as if it happened in a vacuum. No one looks at what led up to that period.

As Emiesty said, there are entire scholarships built up around the past (my specialty as well) and too much to go into here but a tongue in cheek Cliff Notes is: the immediate cause was the collapse of the corrupted Roman Empire, and what left with it: 900 years of government structure, and educational and trade systems that mixed all the legal, technology, and scientific knowledge from around the world into European Roman culture and education. Now, course, the Roman “civilized” system was created through global colonization, slave labor, religious persecution, exploitation and pillaging of distant resources, and a river of wealth that flowed into Rome’s upper class, and only trickled back out, etc.

In Europe, with an economy based on exploitation of the rest of the world, the collapse led to a period of “mucking about” with warring factions and invaders trying to fill the gap, and figuring out how to replace all the food, goods, and laws people had grown to rely on. The absence of governmental structure and free flowing resources compounded by occasional hoards of folks swarming in to grab what they could from the peasant plots and posh villas was tough. Imagine those empty pandemic shelves lasting centuries.

And, of course, the Romans grew their model out of the Greek and Egyptian civilizations with the same “modus operandi.” You can keep tracing the thread back thru the Etruscans to the first people deciding to gather together in small groups, domesticating plants and animals to keep near, rather than hunting and foraging. This led to practicing agriculture and goods-making for trade, rather than personal consumption. More trade, more wealth, more wealth more power, and it all spirals into the the rise and fall of empires.

So the TLDR: the “Dark Ages” was caused by planting wheat. And we all know how troubling gluten can be. :)

James Burke (Connections and The Day the Universe Changed) said Christian Monasticism for holding Europe together during the Dark Ages. After all this time, I don’t remember the details. As best as I can recall, it was something about the need for monasteries to communicate each other.

About 2 decades ago, I read a book by David Keys: Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World. He claimed the Dark Ages began with a literal dark period, that is, a dimming of the Sun and global climate change. That was in 536 C.E. Dealing with the climate change caused the fall of some societies and rise of others. But, he seems to have failed to convince historians and others.

Gabby is so right. Blarney it is.

The Church had a monopoly on literacy, after runes were banned as dæmonic.

They’re all right.

And then the Norsemen came and destroyed much of their work.

The followers of Islam did it too. Why the dark age has a silver lining.

Nothing having anything to do with christianity can be called ‘civilized’. Not one thing. Christians are as about as uncivilized as them come.

Asked how Irish step dancing became so popular. An Irishman replied. Step dancing used to be performed by 12 year old girls. We replaced them with 18 year old girls and kept the same skirts.