Despite the name, the "Dark Ages" period of medieval history was not dark at all, far from it. While the old political structures associated with Rome had either collapsed or significantly changed, population grew in some areas, and Roman roads, infrastructure, and laws continued in some form, while new advancements were made, though some things did end up lost. Your challenge is to make the post-Roman period as "dark" as possible, and as conforming to the stereotypes of the medieval period people have OTL.
AHC: Make the "Dark Ages" true?
- Thread starter SunKing105
- Start date
Earlier Black Death? Resurgence of Pagan religions in the former Western Roman Empire, resulting in way more persecutions and massacres?
There would still be Byzantine rump states and former exarchates running around.
Maybe simething akin to the so called Greek Dark Age where 400 years nothing valuable is recorded ?
Have them crushed in some way, maybe the magyarts take over byzantin and the black death comes in, then these post magyar states suffer from a collapse of commerce and are conquered by a rising slavic kingdom in europe while a uralic people takes over anatolia
how do the magyars conquer the byzantine Empire when its at a phase of recovery where they where taking back the initiateve unless you create a post 1025 sittuation for 900s byzantine empire which would be hard
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The problem is that to completely crush Byzantium in this era requires some part of the Caliphate, whether it be Rashidun, Ummayad, or Abbasid, and their control over certain areas will bring a modicum of stabilization of trade routes and influence the European polities, making a full "Dark Age" impossible.
What if the Abbasids take Constantinople, while the western parts of the Empire get overrun by Slavs/stricken with plague. This plague then spreads to western Europe, severely damaging the population and setting back economic and technological development. After this the Vikings show up to kick them while they're down.
Ummayads, because by the time of the Abbasid dynasty the conquest and jihad mythos had worn off somewhat and Byzantium was reinvigorating itself, and Arab raids into Anatolia had decreased.
abbasid so I assume Harun al-Rashid in 782 , the western parts of the byzantine empire get conquered by the slavs? how they would have to get pass by charlegmane
not quite by 782 yes the abassids didnt want to conquer anything yes the byzantines had stablized byzantine didnt regain the initiative till mid 9th century
My knowledge of the dates involved here is a bit fuzzy, this was just what came to mind. Maybe something happens to the Franks, preventing Charlemagne's Renaissance? There's no guarantee someone else won't take his place, but it would certainly help. Maybe there are fewer monasteries to preserve classical texts?
Every time I read about how the dark ages weren't actually dark, the period seems to be damned with faint praise.
What about the Franks? The Carolingians were also a major contributor in the perservation and the advancement of Roman works alongside the Eastern Roman Empire, so if you wanna knock out the Romans then you also have to knock out them as well for a true Dark Age to happen. Same with the Arabs as well.
I think the only way to make this timeline happen is for a pretty devastating Justinian's Plague to happen before...Justinian to throw the entire continent into chaos and have the same conditions that a true Dark Age has, which is thankfully ASB.
I think the only way to make this timeline happen is for a pretty devastating Justinian's Plague to happen before...Justinian to throw the entire continent into chaos and have the same conditions that a true Dark Age has, which is thankfully ASB.
That's already pretty much the case as far as school teaching is concerned, at least in my case. History lessons in 5th grade went from the collapse of the Roman empire straight to the Merovingians with King Merovic converting to Christianity, then skipped all of Merovingian rule fast-forward to King Dagobert the lazy being pushed off the throne by his Court Mayor Pepin the short who then enthroned his own son Charlemagne. That's pretty much 300 years of history glanced over in just one mention.
Then we get something like three afternoons devoted to Charkles' reforms and him dividing his empire between his three grandsons but after that there was another gap of 100 years where 'nothing special happened' ... until the Vikings came.
Well, off course the Dark Ages were dark because they came before the Age of Enlightenment
Duh! They wasted their culture points on piety.
This is a Civ joke I don't actually believe that.
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