Were the Dark Ages Really That Dark?

Fun fact: the Ye in Ye olde is actually The. The Y represents a no longer used letter called a thorn which made one of two TH sounds.

About the door opening: you're actually only partially correct. I mean, you show exactly why it's NOT always about heating because windows right next to it (single glazed medieval windows!) were much taller than the doors! One of the big reasons for smaller door openings is simply a way of crowd control in the event of a castle siege or riots. It would slow down invaders and force them to bend their heads when going through doorways making it a lot easier to defend room by room.

It depends on the location when it comes to how dark the "dark ages" were.

Wasn’t it “dark” because everyone was illiterate and there were no books and nobody recorded anything much other than religious clerics.

And nobody expected the inquisition! 😮

I call middle school my 'Dork Ages'.

Were they really that dark? It depends who you were. The peasants had it hard, the nobility had it easy. Some were born to sweet delight, some were born to endless night, as Blake said. They were called the dark ages only in the modern era. And that was not so much due to there being more hardship but due to the fact that this time period was the aftermath of the fall of Europe's great civilisations, and it went into a period of social and cultural stagnation and adjustment. Some places even going backwards once Rome finally fizzled out and was diluted by peoples with less advanced civilisations. But life still went on. People still created beautiful things and art. Just not in as organised an effort as was the case in Rome, for example. It was a time of consolidation and redistribution of power, wealth and land. Tumultuous times, but not necessarily dark. There had been much darker times in the past and there were also darker times to come in the future. It just depends who you were and where you lived.

I feel like Simon Whistler should be quoted in this saying “the past was the worst…” somewhere

Did the term "Dark Ages" extend to other countries on the Globe back then? Because, whenever the "The Dark Ages" is mentioned, it's usually Eurpoe that's depicted. How did Asia, Africa, The America's etc. feared during "The Dark Ages"?

The times are dark in area that is ruled by any religious fundamentalists.

Your voice is perfect for this channel. Please never leave me? lol

Only the time period between the fall of rome in 476 to about 1100 is considered as the "dark ages" according to most modern historians. However people like ptrarch, dante allegriari and others writing in the 1300s often used the term to refer to their own time period as well due to the nature of the time and the closer resemblance to the early ages. Niccolo machiaveli also used it to refer to the same time as i said at first.

The movie Idiocracy is a warning of the coming modern era dark ages.

People took baths but the streets were dirtier. As for ethnic perception, it depends on the region. England and the North was probably mostly or all white. The Mediterranean...not do much

The Catholic Church sponsored quite a few scientific experiments 😐

Fun fact: The European intellectual elite in the medieval era were well aware that the Earth was spherical. There were even books that explained why the Earth was spherical and not flat, so any literate European living during the era would have known. Even Dante Alighieri's classic 'The Divine Comedy' even briefly explore the affects of gravity at the center of the Earth as Dante travelled through Hell in a spherical Earth.

01:20. Not only that. Noble women and abbesses had coats of arms and territorial rights. They were equal to feudal lords except in that they didn't combat, but were represented by a champion.

I watched a video made by historia civilis showed that medieval workers had a far better work life balance than we do today.

There are misleading inaccuracies. The non White in Medieval Europe, outside of Southern Spain that was occupied by an Arab Army, black people were a small number, about 200 people in England during the middle ages or 1 in 20000 people. Height was shorter it was about 10cm-20cm shorter than today but it varied in good times the average height for a man was 1.70 cm born in good times and 1.60cm born in bad times of famine. People did live shorter lives lots of women died in childbirth, 1/3 of men would receive a violent death and whilst it's true that if a person lived to 18 would expect to live to their 50s or 60s its not like 75-80 like in Europe today. The crusades were religious in nature but also there were a lot of young men who were second born and not inheriting land and needed to fight for lands. The Popes thought if people were fighting Muslims it would spare Europe from an invasion and it worked. Once Constantinople fell in 1453, South west Europe was invaded and occupied for 450 years by Turkish forces.

5:11 it is absolutely true that many people in centuries past lived for decades beyond 30 yrs of age. I’ve been working on my family tree and am back to the early 1200s and both sides have a VAST number of people that lived into their 80s and even 90s.