The Dark Ages
Etymology
The “dark” metaphor implies a lack of learning and surviving records — a gap of shadow between classical antiquity and the later medieval revival. It was coined by Renaissance humanists such as Petrarch to disparage the centuries separating them from the ancients. Modern historians largely reject the term as unfair and inaccurate, preferring “Early Middle Ages.”
noun · /dahrk AY-jiz/
A now-disputed label for the early medieval period in Europe, roughly the 5th to 10th centuries, cast as a time of decline after Rome’s fall.
What it names
Both a supposed era and a cautionary example of how a biased label can outlive the evidence it was based on.
Example
Calling the whole era the Dark Ages, the guide admitted, is a habit historians have mostly dropped.
Related idea
Distinguish it from medieval, the neutral term for the entire Middle Ages — “Dark Ages” is a value-laden slice of it that scholarship has largely abandoned.