Lucretius

Unless you postulate that the "emancipated slaves" were all somehow killed en massethen the numbers of people after the end of the Western Roman Empire should have remained fairly constant .
However what did happen was that all classes of inhabitants were reduced due to war, famine or disease.
Again if this decline in population due to those reasons is not a sign of a "Dark Age" then I honestly don't know what is.

James Hannam

1) The population did drop a lot. Much of this was due to the great plague of the sixth century.

2) Smaller political units does not mean less civilised in itself. It does mean individual leaders can command less manpower.

Best wishes

James

James Hannam

Oh and by the way, no one suggested that lots of ancient literature has not been lost. It is the idea that Christians deliberately destroyed that cannot stand.

Best wishes

James

Ray Moscow

Why not? Is it the lack of evidence for intentional destruction, or evidence that they actually intended to preserve the literature (but failed)?

Ray

Lucretius

That was the possibly erroneous conclusion I got from Antipope Innocent II's post

And as you can see I did amend my post to include the at best accidental or at least unintentional destruction of certain works due to ignorance.
But I still maintain that this ignorance or apathy (though I do feel apathy is too weak a term) to the preservation of these texts is indeed a sign of a Dark Age.
Yes of course not all works were "burned on bonfires" though some undoubtedly were but the INaction in preserving them is almost as bad.
IT is still cultural vandalism

James Hannam

Well, thank God for Christianity then. If it had not preserved and then spread Latin literacy we would have NOTHING from ancient Rome.

By the way, agree that there was a serious decline in material culture after the fall of the western empire, as the OP made clear. But, I don't think Dark Ages is useful term because it denigrates and makes no allowances for the fact that after the initial fall, the trajectory was usually upwards.

Ray, this essay might answer your question: http://jameshannam.com/literature.htm

Best wishes

James

David B

While I'm finding all that I'm reading about the Dark Ages here, and in Pryor's book most interesting, I can't help but feel that a consilient approach to understanding what really went on in the Dark Ages has to take on board the tree ring record.

Someone once said that we live by geological consent (or something like that) and that is surely the case.

There seems to be some controversy whether the effect on climate in the years around 540 was of tectonic or meteoric origin, but that there was a very significant event (or series of events in the period of the mid 530s to mid 540s seems, from where I'm sitting, clear cut.

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/impacts97/pdf/6019.pdf

http://redwoodreader.blogspot.com/20...69-540-ad.html

http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/MarkTwain40627.htm

I read that Justinian's plague is attributed to 541, in the middle of that period.

I have come across elsewhere (forget where) that outbreaks of plague can be associated with extreme weather events, driving plague carrying animals down from the (as I recall) Ethiopan highlands down into areas populated by people, with disastrous results.

I note that the Plague of London 1665 fits in with one of the downturns of the little ice age, as does the Black Death.

I don't think that these ideas are at all silly, and hence I suspect that historians should start taking climate changes resultant on major volcanic and or meteoric activity, quite seriously as a means to the better understanding of history.

David B

Lucretius

While undoubtedly 10 % is better than 0% the very fact that so much was still lost under the "custodianship" of Christianity is a fact very much to be deplored .

While as you say the trajectory was upwards two things spring to mind first of all the cliche that the only way was up and secondly the fact that it was not just a halt in the advancement civilisation, technology, call it what you will, but in fact was a reverse the extent of this reverse is of course debatable but a reverse it was.

Ray Moscow

James, thanks for the link.

This doesn't necessary apply to the "Middle" or "Dark" Ages, but I thought this quote from Pagels -- and which just popped on our II host page -- was interesting:

It appears that destruction of heterodox "Christian" literature was pretty thorough, so one wonders whether "pagan" literature met the same intentional fate.

James Hannam

As a rule, I find Pagels a rather shoddy scholar. But in this case, we do know that heretical literature was destroyed because the sources occasionally say so. But most of it was probably just not copied which has the same effect in the end.

I agree that we have probably lost quite a lot of pagan religious literature and anti-Christian polemic (although a surprising amount of the latter survives). From the pagan religious works we do have, the Corpus Hermeticum for instance, I find it quite hard to regret the passing of the rest. Evidence for the deliberate ideological destruction of anything you or I are likely to want to read (i.e. of historical, scientific or artistic merit) is nil.

This is Roger's area of expertise so I'll leave any more comments to him, in case I say something stupid.

Best wishes

James