Dark Middle Ages

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The perceived regression of the European Middle Ages is called the dark Middle Ages . The idea of ​​the Dark Ages goes back mainly to tendencies towards demarcation during the Renaissance . The Latin-dominated scholarly world of the 16th and 17th centuries often characterized the Middle Ages as a "dark age", which had to be overcome by returning to ideals from antiquity and the development that began in the early modern times .

Term description

As early as the Renaissance , the epoch between antiquity and the then present was seen as an age in which the knowledge and values ​​of ancient cultures had been forgotten, from which the cultural and intellectual inferiority of the Middle Ages could be derived. This assessment was adopted and expanded in the course of the emerging romanticism in the 19th century , whereby the reception of bygone times was influenced by the Enlightenment , the morality of the Victorian era and by "belief in progress" and reasoning. As a result, a modern reception of the historical Middle Ages emerged in the 19th century, which is still popular today, which is by and large based more on the romantic zeitgeist than on historical sources. Arthur Schopenhauer judged in an aphorism that the Middle Ages "[was] that time when the fists were more practiced than the heads and the priests kept reason in chains".

The term should be used to distinguish it from antiquity. For example, the loss of knowledge should be emphasized (see also Loss of Books in Late Antiquity ) as well as an alleged relapse behind the level of knowledge (based on ancient knowledge) in the Arab world (see also the heyday of Islam ). Under the slogan of the Dark Ages, supposed regression was also emphasized, such as the myth of the flat earth .

In the course of time, ideas of the historical Middle Ages have developed in this way, which have no historical basis and are nevertheless widely known. In modern research, however, the Middle Ages are viewed in a much more differentiated manner, especially since developments in the Middle Ages are still shaping the western world today and many common ideas cannot be substantiated with sources. In this sense, the foundations laid in the early Middle Ages - which has long been considered a prime example of an allegedly dark age - are assessed for later development in the context of the historical development at that time. In this context, the idea of ​​an alleged "dark age" proves to be a construction of a strongly evaluative consideration in the Renaissance and early modern times.

Popular myths, misunderstandings, and historical points of contention

Medieval people believed the earth was flat.

This modern prejudice is not supported by historical sources. The best-known illustration, which is often used as symbolic "proof", is the wood engraving by Flammarion , which, however, dates from 1888 and therefore does not prove anything. The claim that people of the Middle Ages believed that the earth was flat first appears in the first half of the 19th century. Washington Irving in particular contributed significantly to the consolidation of the myth. In his biography of Columbus from 1828 he insinuated that the sailors were afraid of falling off the edge of the "earth disk". The ideas of Aristotle , which were decisive in the Middle Ages, and the Ptolemaic view of the world describe the earth as a kind of spheroid , for the scholars of the High Middle Ages the idea of ​​an "earth disk" was therefore absurd.

People in the Middle Ages were illiterate, backward, and superstitious

Medieval production of manuscripts

This idea applies to large parts of society. The literacy rate in Europe was still only 20 percent in the 16th century (i.e. the beginning of the modern era).

In the Middle Ages, however, important scholars worked, such as Albertus Magnus , Thomas Aquinas , Roger Bacon and Meister Eckhart . According to the historian Karin Schneider-Ferber, the establishment of universities, the expansion of cities, technological advances (e.g. the invention of glasses ) and extensive contemporary traditions contradict the assumption of a “barbaric” Middle Ages.

Arab scholars brought science to Europe

It is disputed among historians how great the influence of the Arab-Islamic world was on the preservation of Greco-Roman science and its return to Europe.

In late antiquity, many of the works of ancient scientists and philosophers were lost . Others only survived in the Arab-Muslim world, which in the course of the Islamic expansion from the 630s onwards spread to previously Roman areas, so that many works e.g. B. of Aristotle and Euclid , who had been lost in Europe and only became known there again in the course of the Reconquista and the Crusades . The West also benefited from the works of Arab philosophers and thinkers, who for centuries had a decisive influence on Western science.

On the other hand, according to other historians, there was extensive education and real educational centers in Europe as early as the 8th century. Above all, the so-called Carolingian Renaissance refutes the idea that Western science was completely taken over from the Orient. Also widespread is the notion that important inventions such as black powder , paper , letterpress , crossbow , compass and telescope were all taken over from China or Persia . The black powder probably came to Europe through the expansion of the Mongol Empire , and the paper has been shown to find its way to Europe along the Silk Road . Most Chinese inventions, however, have European counterparts, which often go as far as Roman-Greek antiquity and do not reveal any Chinese or Persian influence. Today it is assumed that most of these inventions were not copies or acquisitions, but their own parallel developments.

Violence, war and epidemics were omnipresent; life expectancy was short

Although there were numerous wars in Europe between 500 and 1500, there is no evidence that they were waged with greater brutality or ruthlessness than in modern times. In addition, in the period between the 12th and 14th centuries, there was significant population growth and an expansion of the settlement area, which can be attributed to the more favorable climatic conditions. Even the idea that people in the Middle Ages were physically small has largely been refuted today. Research on skeletons in recent decades has shown that medieval people were roughly the same size as Europeans at the beginning of the 20th century. Europe experienced a pronounced warm period in the High Middle Ages , and wine was grown in the south of England. Only in the 14th / 15th In the 19th century, the climate deteriorated during the so-called Little Ice Age ; the associated malnutrition had an impact on average height in the centuries that followed.

Statistical life expectancy was low until the middle of the 19th century, especially because of the high child mortality rate of up to 50%. In addition to the infections that are now being belittled as “ childhood diseases ”, infections caused by infected wounds and subsequent gangrene and sepsis were life-threatening. If a child survived the first few years of life, it had evidently built up a sufficiently high level of immune protection and could reach a relatively old age.

Middle Ages dominated by the plague

The assessment that the Middle Ages were dominated by the plague is absurd . Between the Justinian plague and the late medieval pandemic, there were more than 500 "pestilence-free" years from the 8th to the 14th century. According to the latest findings in genetics, the pathogen that was responsible for the late medieval pandemic 1347–1353 was a newly formed strain of Yersinia pestis at that time . Since the modern Yersinia variants, which are dangerous for animals and humans, derive from this original type (or possibly its variants) and differ only little from one another, it is assumed that the extreme virulence of the medieval Yersinia type is associated with a lack of immunity in the population (which is the case with new and aggressive pathogens is often the case) and the unfavorable social conditions. “Poor hygiene” and “lack of medical knowledge” were therefore not the only causes of the pandemic. The subsequent epidemics were by far not as dramatic because of the immunological adaptation of the population and thanks to medical knowledge. Because it was a hitherto unknown epidemic, the scholars were initially at a loss; their ignorance could only be made up in the course of time. The medieval Yersinia variant in the 13th to 14th centuries probably originated in China and therefore cannot be responsible for epidemics in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages.

Lower classes had to endure constant hunger, cold and inhuman work

Monthly picture - February ( Flanders around 1510)

The image of the battered peasant in ragged clothing became popular primarily through films about the Middle Ages. In fact, the life of the lower classes was less full of privation than is often assumed today (see also food culture in the Middle Ages ). The average meat consumption per capita in the Middle Ages was about seven times as high as in Central Europe in the 19th century and still higher than at the beginning of the 21st century. During the Medieval Warm Period, crop failures were much rarer than later, which enabled social and technological progress and the expansion of settlement areas. In addition, there was a rapid increase in population between the 11th and 13th centuries, which could only take place with sufficient nutrition. Climatic and seasonal fluctuations in the amount of harvest and the availability of food have existed at all times (hunger in late winter), but permanent famine cannot be proven in the High Middle Ages (→  weather anomalies of the 1430s ).

The Ius primae noctis describes the alleged right of a court lord to spend the first night with the bride when two people under his rule marry or to demand a replacement of money (groschen). Whether it ever actually existed is highly controversial. In the age or in the literature of the Enlightenment it was thematized as inhuman and thus feudalism as well as the medieval past was criticized.

Absence of personal hygiene

Numerous bathhouses are archaeologically documented in medieval cities. Contemporary writings admonish extensive personal hygiene and hygiene (e.g. Passionibus Mulierum Curandorum by Trotula , Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum from the school environment of Salerno , Compendium Medicinae by Gilbertus Anglicus ). As at other times and in other countries, hygiene was a personal matter. In northern Europe in particular, wooden bathhouses and steam baths such as those used in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe have been found since the early Middle Ages.

Arbitrariness, torture and executions were the order of the day

The witch hunt only reached its peak in the 16th century. The Sachsenspiegel , an important high medieval legal code, already reveals well-structured legal relationships; large parts of life were regulated. Citizens and peasants were by no means without rights in view of the existing legal systems.

reception

The dark Middle Ages are a popular motif in popular culture.

  • In the comics Hägar the Terrible , the dark Middle Ages are humorously satirized.
  • The film Paracelsus : "Suggestive crowd scenes with hysteria of fear and superstition conjure up a 'dark Middle Ages'."
  • Before Galileo: The Birth of Modern Science in Medieval Europe . Overlook Duckworth, New York City / London 2012, ISBN 978-1-590206072 . In it: Aristotle at Oxford: How the Dark Ages founded modern science . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2014, ISBN 978-3-608-94854-7 .

literature

  • Klaus Arnold: The "dark" Middle Ages On the genesis and phenomenology of a misjudgment. In: Saeculum 32.3 (1981), pp. 287-300.
  • Marcel Beck: Dark or Romantic Middle Ages ?. Zurich 1950.
  • Norbert Brieskorn: Dark Ages? About the lifestyle of an era. M. Grünewald, Mainz 1991.
  • Matthias Meinhardt, Andreas Ranft, Stephan Selzer (Hrsg.): Middle Ages (Oldenbourg history textbook). 2nd edition, Munich 2009.
  • Renovatio et Reformatio. Against the image of the "dark" Middle Ages , edited with Godehard Ruppert , Aschendorff, Münster 1985.
  • Ferdinand Seibt : Splendor and misery of the Middle Ages. A finite story. Siedler, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-88680-279-5 .
  • Georg Scheibelreiter : The barbaric society. Mental history of the European Axial Age 5. – 8. Century. Primus, Darmstadt 1999, ISBN 978-3-89678-217-5 .
  • Karin Schneider-Ferber: Everything is myth! 20 popular misconceptions about the Middle Ages. Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 2009.

Remarks

  1. Gießener Zeitung of February 20, 2013: Middle Ages: A "dark" chapter? Farewell lecture by Prof. Dr. Lutz v. Padberg at the FTH , accessed on October 13, 2014.
  2. Arthur Schopenhauer: Parerga and Paralipomena: small philosophical writings . tape 1 . AW Hayn, Berlin 1851, aphorisms on wisdom: IV. Of what one presents, p. 360 ( online ).
  3. ^ Regine Pernoud: Those Terrible Middle Ages: Debunking the Myths . Ignatius Press, 2000
  4. Cf. among the various recent representations, for example Johannes Fried : The Middle Ages. Munich 2008; Matthias Meinhardt , Andreas Ranft, Stephan Selzer (Hrsg.): Middle Ages (Oldenbourg history textbook). 2nd edition, Munich 2009.
  5. Philip Wolff: How the earth became a disk Spiegel Online, November 2, 2005
  6. Cf. Rudolf Simek: Earth and Cosmos in the Middle Ages: The world view before Columbus. Munich 1992, Chapter 3: The shape of the earth (pp. 37–54).
  7. Eltjo Buringh, Jan Luiten van Zanden: Charting the “Rise of the West”: Manuscripts and Printed Books in Europe, A Long-Term Perspective from the Sixth through Eighteenth Centuries , in: The Journal of Economic History , Vol. 69, No. . 2 (2009), pp. 409–445 (416, plate 1)
  8. Hans-Ulrich Grunder: Literacy. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . January 21, 2015 , accessed June 16, 2019 .
  9. Karin Schneider-Ferber: Everything is myth! 20 popular misconceptions about the Middle Ages. Konrad Theiss Verlag, ISBN 978-3-8062-2237-1 , Stuttgart 2009.
  10. On the transfer of knowledge from ancient times, see for example John Freely : Plato in Baghdad: How ancient knowledge came back to Europe. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2012, ISBN 978-3-608-94766-3 .
  11. Fall in the shadow , Spiegel Geschichte 5/2010: Fall in den Schatten
  12. Institute of Asian Affairs, Hamburg (ed.): Timeline of Chinese-European Cultural Relations (PDF; 164 kB): Tabular chronology of Chinese-European relations (English, 16 pages)
  13. Petra G. Schmidl: Two early Arabic sources on the magnetic compass Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 1, 1997–98 (PDF; 352 kB)
  14. Ewart Oakeshott: A Knight in Battle . Dufour Editions, 1998
  15. Medieval ancestors measured up to our height standards in: British Archeology No 84: 51 September 19, 2005
  16. Press release: Genome of the Black Death completely reconstructed www.uni-tuebingen.de/aktuell (PDF; 861 kB)
  17. ↑ The pathogen of the "Black Death" from 1348 decrypted Deutschlandfunk, October 13, 2011
  18. The genome of the plague pathogen has been decrypted focus.de, October 12, 2011. Peter-Philipp Schmitt: Schwarzer Tod decrypted faz.net, October 13, 2011
  19. Monthly picture from the Breviarium Grimani
  20. ^ Norman F. Cantor: The Civilization of the Middle Ages: A Completely Revised and Expanded Edition of Medieval History. Harper Perennial 1994; Werner Rösener: Farmers in the Middle Ages. 4th, unchanged. Ed., C. H. Beck, Munich 1993.
  21. Massimo Livi Bacci: Europe and its people: a population history. C. H. Beck, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-44700-7 , p. 69. Hans Jürgen Teuteberg, Günter Wiegelmann : Food habits in the industrialization of the 19th century . LIT Verlag Münster, 1995, ISBN 3-8258-2273-7 , p. 99.
  22. Werner Rösener: Farmers in the Middle Ages . 4th, unchanged. Ed., C. H. Beck, Munich 1993, p. 39.
  23. ^ Classen, Albrecht: The medieval chastity belt: a myth-making process . Macmillan, 2007, ISBN 978-1-4039-7558-4 , pp. 151 .
  24. ^ Michael Matheus (ed.): Bathing resorts and bathing trips in antiquity, the Middle Ages and modern times (Mainz lectures 5) Steiner, Stuttgart 2001.
  25. ^ Frances Gies: Life in a Medieval Village . Harper Perennial. New York 1991, ISBN 978-0-06-092046-3 .
  26. Klaus Brüne (Red.): Lexikon des Internationale Films Volume 6, S. 2884. Reinbek near Hamburg 1987.
  27. Raindrops for Theory. In: FAZ . November 15, 2012, p. 9.