While "dark ages" does not have a technical meaning, the way it is thrown around to represent times of great tyranny and cruelty is not justified. The period of Bruno and Galileo was the renaissance. And I think the reason this was such a time of inquisition and torture and burning is because scientific inquiry was beginning to be established again, and it meant that people are not going to be blind followers of everything their authorities tell them. The Roman church would lose some of its power over all of Europe if people could successfully oppose it, so the church resolved that it would take all mesure necessary to destroy any such challenges. And it was the same problem for the new protestant churches, though in the opposing chronological direction. They were trying to get established, while the Roman church was trying to stay established. And any excuse could be used to that end; one of the worst being that if a church wanted the wealth and property of an heir or a widow, just accuse that person of witchcraft and take them to the torture chambers, give the tormenters their fun of raping, burning, mutilating, stretching, finally killing, and confiscate their property.
But "dark ages" refers to the times of no progress or any successful challenges. To central Europe, it was the times between the fall of Rome and Charlegmagne's empire, which rather quickly broke up into a new dark age after his death. To English speakers, dark ages is more specific. Following the 'flowering' of Anglo-Saxon culture in the 7th and 8th centuries, when writing was beginning to be encourages and the kingdoms were fairly stable, the Danes invaded and established settlements, "darkening" the lives of the English, and there was again continuous warring and death and burning the centers of learning, until Alfred the Great savd his southern kingdom and the Danes were forced to accept a truce. And then, of course, Anglo-Saxon and Viking cultures gradually melded.
So "dark ages" does not mean just the middle ages, and cetainly not the renaissance.
But "dark ages" refers to the times of no progress or any successful challenges. To central Europe, it was the times between the fall of Rome and Charlegmagne's empire, which rather quickly broke up into a new dark age after his death. To English speakers, dark ages is more specific. Following the 'flowering' of Anglo-Saxon culture in the 7th and 8th centuries, when writing was beginning to be encourages and the kingdoms were fairly stable, the Danes invaded and established settlements, "darkening" the lives of the English, and there was again continuous warring and death and burning the centers of learning, until Alfred the Great savd his southern kingdom and the Danes were forced to accept a truce. And then, of course, Anglo-Saxon and Viking cultures gradually melded.
So "dark ages" does not mean just the middle ages, and cetainly not the renaissance.
