1. The imposition of the Trojan War allegedly XIII century BC. e. to the Gothic War allegedly of the VI century AD. e. with an upward shift of 1800 years The general idea of ​​chronological shifts The Trojan War of the 13th century A.D. e. was one of the biggest events in the history of Europe and Asia. It was reflected in many written

So, we stopped at the moment of the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization, which occurred as a result of the invasion of barbarian tribes from the north. This happened to us in the 12th century. After that, the period of the XI - IX centuries begins, which we called the period dark ages, the Homeric period or the prepolis period. Without dwelling on this period for a long time, it is only necessary to note the most important thing that characterizes this time. This is a period of destruction of the foundations of civilization. This is the destruction of the foundations of statehood. This is the destruction of the foundations, first of all, of the palace type of economy. This is a period of oblivion of many cultural values ​​that were created in previous centuries. This is a period of return to tribal relations.

So this period, on the one hand, is characterized as a period of deep decline and regression. And, above all, this is evidenced by the archaeological data that historians have at their disposal. First of all, these data show a very low standard of living, almost no social differentiation: almost all burials of this period are equally poor, this is the absence of luxury items and, above all, items brought from outside. At that time, Greece did not trade with anyone, and there was nothing for it to trade at that time.

This is the period when writing is completely forgotten. Here is what we said about Linear B, in fact, along with the destruction of the palace complexes of Balkan Greece, with the destruction of the palace sector of the economy, there is no need for writing as such. Not because, I repeat, the carriers of this knowledge were destroyed. According to tradition, a certain part of the Mycenaean nobility survived and then will give rise to the future, new aristocracy of Greece in the 1st millennium BC. There was no longer any need for this, in such writing, which fixed, first of all, economic documentation.

Skills in creating high-quality Mycenaean pottery are disappearing. What we have for this time: ceramics is very primitive both in terms of its manufacture and in terms of painting. Moreover, art historians say that at this time, instead of the so-called Mycenaean Koine, a single style that reigned on the territory of the Balkan Greece in the previous period, regardless of the existence of state borders. At that time, there was, as it were, a whole set of dialects, that is, those masters who made this ceramics, who literally often lived 10-15 kilometers from each other, they did not communicate. This is a period of disunity of the population that remained in Greece.

Another terrible indicator of this era is a sharp decline in population. Again, it is proved by archeology that many existing settlements, not to mention the centers, citadels, which were simply destroyed and abandoned, and so ordinary settlements are sharply reduced. Moreover, the reduction occurs several times. For example, in Argolis in the last period of the existence of the Mycenaean civilization there were more than 40 settlements, during the dark ages - no more than 6. Even those settlements that continued to exist, they are sharply reduced in area. That is, in living settlements, the number of living people is becoming much smaller.

The population in Balkan Greece is getting smaller for several reasons. First of all, the destruction of states led to political chaos. Not without reason in the tradition, especially Thucydides, there is a memory of this period, when the Greek tribes “wandered” around Greece. The state “holds” the borders, they give some kind of framework. That's when there are no states, then these tribal groups, which were formed on the basis of aliens, on the basis of the existing Achaean tribes, almost in the period dark ages traveled a lot in this little Greece. The stronger one tried to oust the weaker one from those few convenient territories that are in the Balkan Greece. The absence of statehood, the destruction of state infrastructure led not only to endless military clashes, this cannot be called a war, these were clashes of relatively small groups, but the losses from these endless clashes were large.

Then, as tradition testifies, it was a period when often, for several decades, Greece was devastated by various epidemics and diseases.

The period of the Middle Ages (from lat. media - the middle) occupies a middle position between the time of the Ancient World and the New Age. The transition to it was marked by the Renaissance, the Great geographical discoveries, the industrial revolution and the emergence of a market economy. The chronology of the beginning of the Middle Ages is beyond doubt. It is customary to consider V in n as a starting point. e., more precisely, 476 AD. e., when the leader of the German barbarian tribes, Odacar, deposed the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, Romulus Augustulus. The word "barbarians" comes from "barbaros", as the Greeks called everyone who incomprehensibly chatted in an unknown and dissonant language. This word has become a household word for the destroyers of material and spiritual values. In addition, representatives of the tribes - the conquerors of Rome were at a lower level of general cultural development than the Greeks and Romans.

For all those who study the economic history of mankind, it seems most reasonable to start the starting point of the New Age, following the Middle Ages, with the events of the industrial revolution in England in the 60s. 18th century

Conventionally, the entire Middle Ages can be divided into three stages: the first - the early Middle Ages from the end of the 5th - the beginning of the 6th century. according to IX e.; the second is flourishing. Medieval civilization from the 10th to the 15th centuries; the third - the late Middle Ages - from the end of the 15th to the middle of the 18th century. The third stage will be discussed in the following sections.

So, the duration is set. Location - Europe. This word comes from "Erebus" - "West" (translated from Semitic). Under the Greeks and Romans, Europe was seen as an object for collecting indemnities. It was, as it were, a barbarian periphery, the border of the Roman Empire. From north to south, the continent is located from the Arctic Ocean to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, from west to east - from the Atlantic coast to the Ural Mountains. So, since antiquity, the concept of Europe has been identified with the geographical definition of "West" and opposed to "Asu" (translated from the Semitic "Asia"), or East. For the peoples and countries that already inhabited Europe in those centuries, one can distinguish common features of economic, socio-political and socio-cultural development. The countries of Western Europe have long stood out on the continent: England, France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Scandinavian countries. Here, faster than in Eastern Europe, the processes of feudalization and industrialization took place, achievements in science and technology were more clearly manifested. The Celtic and Germanic tribes were part of the Roman Empire and had the opportunity to get to know and adopt some of the achievements of the advanced for that time ancient civilization. Western European countries with the end of the Great Migration of Peoples established themselves within the state borders. They actively used the advantages and benefits of their geographical position. The seas and rivers surrounding them, crossing the plains and mountains, facilitated trade and primary exchanges of information about various kinds of innovations in material culture.

Eastern Europe has become a place of settlement of Slavic tribes, which turned out to be geographically farther from the seas and the ancient world centers of culture.

A kind of outpost of Europe in the east was Byzantium - the successor of the Eastern Roman Empire.

The main feature of the early Middle Ages was the emergence of feudalism in the young European states. A qualitatively new civilization - Western (European) - is formed precisely in the Middle Ages on the basis of a synthesis of the relations of private property and the colony (lease relations) of antiquity and the communal-collectivist principles of European tribes. The third component of this synthesis of a new civilization was the material and spiritual culture of the Ancient East - the foundation of the entire world civilization. Without taking into account these closely interrelated processes that determined the material basis of European civilization, one cannot understand the features of the progress of the European economy in the Middle Ages, the formation of world economic relations.

By the beginning of the Middle Ages, the productive forces of Ancient Greece and Rome were largely destroyed, the monuments of material and spiritual culture perished in fires during the raids of barbarian tribes, in continuous wars, with the active migration of large masses of the population. Many labor skills were forgotten, the qualifications of artisans were lost. In the early Middle Ages, the development of technology and people's knowledge about the world was at a very low level.

This led to low labor productivity. Manual, handicraft production prevailed. For the successful development of vast new spaces in the north and in the center of Europe, covered with dense forests, the means of communication were primitive. Poor communication between individual regions made it difficult to exchange experience in economic life, which also held back progress. Wars, epidemics of plague and cholera, mass diseases of people and domestic animals greatly undermined the productive forces of society.

But at the same time, the most important process of the formation of modern states was taking place, within the framework of which national economic complexes began to gradually form. Appeared in the 13th century. in England, the Parliament, then the first constitutions in a number of countries legislated the right of private ownership of fixed assets. The works of scientists in chemistry, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, mechanics were used in technical improvements, navigation; rising living standards of the people. The dissemination of knowledge accumulated by mankind was facilitated by printing. 1000 years after the fall of ancient Rome, a galaxy of brilliant thinkers, rightfully headed by Leonardo da Vinci, put the production and cultural experience of antiquity at the service of people. They reached new heights in technology, science, art, often looking far ahead, ahead of their time. The Renaissance was not only the heyday of medieval civilization, but also worthily introduced human society into the New Age, leading it through the Great Geographical Discoveries.

So, there was no smooth transition, progressive movement in the development of productive forces along an ascending line from the era of the Ancient World to the Middle Ages, but there was undoubtedly economic progress, especially characteristic of the third period of the Middle Ages.

It all started with the formation of an agrarian society in Europe.

10. The emergence of the first universities

Classical education (which is still used today in some institutions) was the system used by universities established in the early Middle Ages (for the first time in history). The universities taught arts, law, medicine, and theology (the science of religion). The University of Bologna (established in 1088 AD) could grant a degree for the first time. In addition to the classical structure (based on ancient Greek education), medieval universities also experienced Arab influence. While women were indeed kept out of the universities, women's education did exist. The nunneries of that era trained women who could enter at an early age. One of them (Hildegarde von Bingen) is one of the most famous women of the Middle Ages who had influence on powerful men.

9. The beginning of the development of science

While scientific progress in the West was slow, its achievements were quite stable and reached a high level. The laying of scientific foundations in this era could give rise to the magnificent flowering of science that occurred in the Late Middle Ages. It is safe to say that without the scientific achievements of the Early Middle Ages, we would now be at a much lower level of development.
Ronald Numbers (Professor at the University of Cambridge) said: "The ideas that 'the development of Christianity killed ancient science', 'the medieval Christian Church suppressed the growth of the natural sciences', 'medieval Christians thought the world was flat' and that 'the Church banned autopsies and examinations of corpses" are examples of widespread myths that are still sometimes accepted as true despite not being substantiated by any historical research.

8. Carolingian Renaissance

The Carolingian Renaissance was a period of development in literature, writing, arts, architecture, jurisprudence, liturgical and biblical studies occurring in the late eighth and ninth centuries AD. The Carolingians were kings of the Franks, the most famous of which was Charlemagne. The Carolingian Empire represented a revival of the culture of the Roman Empire. By this time, "Volk Latin" represented the many dialects used in Europe, so the establishment of schools was vital to spread this knowledge among the common people. It was also the birth period of Western classical music.

7. Golden Age of Byzantium

During the reign of Justinian, the Corpus Juris Civilis appeared - a huge compilation of Roman law. Literacy rates were quite high, primary education was widespread (even in rural areas), secondary education was available to many people, and higher education, as mentioned above, was also widely available. It was also a period of mass publication of books - encyclopedias, dictionaries and anthologies. While there have been few innovations, a lot of effort has been made to preserve past achievements for the future.

6. Religious unity

This is a rather controversial topic, but the fact is that during the Early Middle Ages in Europe there was a single Church, an agreed canon of the Bible and a developed philosophical tradition. This led to a long period of peace within the Western nations. This religious unity was associated with an intellectual development hitherto invisible compared to the Roman Empire in its heyday. Despite the fact that Islam was far from the doctrines of the West, but the mutual exchange of information still took place. But this was only the calm before the storm, which was the First Crusade, aimed at the return of Jerusalem and other Christian shrines. After that, the mutual exchange of information between the two civilizations ended.

5. The advent of algebra

Research in the East led to the appearance of the first book on algebra. Al-Khwarizmi (790-840) and the Arabic title of the book gave rise to the word "algebra" "The Book of Completion and Opposition" written by Al-Khwarizmi (790-840). This book gave the first systematic solution of linear and quadratic equations. The word "algorithm" comes from the name of Al-Khwarizmi himself. Later translations of his books also gave the decimal positional system of numbers, which is still used today. Al-Khwarizmi, along with Diophantas, are the "fathers" of algebra.

4. Art and architecture

Throughout the Early Middle Ages architecture was innovative and varied. At this time, the idea of ​​realistic images in art was introduced, which became the basis of Romanesque art, the influence of which penetrated into the Late Middle Ages. During the same period, the introduction of classical forms and concepts into architecture took place. We can say that this period was the first era of high art, and compared to the era of the Great Migration of Nations, it was much more functional and less artistic. We can argue that the Early Middle Ages produced an amazing and beautiful history of art and architecture.

3. Fantastic weather

It may seem trivial, but the weather played a much more significant role in the lives of the inhabitants of the Middle Ages. When we imagine the Middle Ages, we imagine storm, snow, rain and darkness, as we can see in the film The Name of the Rose. It is a fact that in the Early Middle Ages the North Atlantic region warmed up to such an extent that by the beginning of the Late Middle Ages (1100 AD), this area had already lasted for more than a hundred years an era called the “Medieval Warm Period”. During this period, the melting of the glaciers took place, allowing the Vikings to colonize Greenland and other northern lands. Oddly enough, the Protestant Reformation (16th century), as well as the period up to the 19th century, is associated with the period of the Little Ice Age - the Enlightenment period was literally darker and colder than the era of the Dark Ages itself. During this period, reforms and improvements in agricultural knowledge ensured an increase in food supplies.

2. The law becomes fair

The Early Middle Ages had a complex system of laws that were often unrelated, but they were efficient and fair in application. For merchants who traveled the world, there was the Lex Mercatoria (Commercial Code) that evolved over time. This law allowed for the creation of arbitration and encouraged good practice among merchants. At the same time, Anglo-Saxon law was formed with an emphasis on maintaining peace on earth. The early Middle Ages (with its legal system) was the best time to live, because the legal system was flexible and convenient for most. The third important system of law was early Germanic law, which allowed every person to be judged by his own kind.

1. Agricultural boom

If you wanted to die a painful death of starvation, then the Early Middle Ages were not the best times for this. As a consequence of the excellent weather and the expansion of agricultural knowledge, the West has made extraordinary progress. Iron tools were in widespread use in the Byzantine Empire, and feudalism elsewhere provided the opportunity for efficient land management, with large surpluses distributed so that animals lived on grain rather than grass. State security was also provided by the feudal system, and peace and prosperity were available to most people.

Article in the original.

From the Stone Age to the Space Age, every era in human history has been striving for progress. Well, almost every era. The Dark Ages are an exception to the rule - everyone knows that after the fall of Rome, the world stopped developing and "plunged into darkness" that lasted for centuries. It was a period of intellectual and economic darkness, where everyone turned into either a brutal warrior or a dirty ragamuffin.

Yes, maybe you are sitting and want to play an online game on the theme of the Middle Ages and also waiting there for the usual dirt, poverty and devastation, maybe it's just a flash and not a full-fledged 3D game, but just online gaming, but maybe it's all fiction and you better play a fantasy saga? Historical games, like the story itself, in fact, a story that has come down to us in the form of old books, stories of great-great-great-great-great-great-great...great-eyewitnesses... And is it worth believing?

At least that's what we're told. Although the Dark Ages were definitely darker than the modern ones (just like in the Bronze Age, no one knew what a telephone was yet), they were by no means too hopeless, as they are usually made out to be. In order to correct some of the popular misconceptions about this period, let's look at the myths you probably believe.

#1 Society Was Cruel and Living Conditions Abominable

The reasons why this period of time was called the Dark Ages:
The society had very few commodities and virtually no infrastructure. Warlords and barbarians roamed the land, every surface was covered with a layer of mud, and the average life expectancy of the main part of the population was very short.

Meanwhile, the church widely used torture on people in order to make them believe in Christ, and, perhaps even after that, continued to mock them on any occasion. Honestly, try searching for a movie or book about this era and we guarantee you won't find a bunch of smiling kids on any cover.

Reality:

In fact, the standard of living was quite good even if the person was very poor. In fact, at that time, mankind managed to achieve a better level in philanthropy and health care, as well as to introduce a new kind of charity, performed on an almost daily basis.

For example, during the Dark Ages, slavery ceased to be very popular. The Romans are known to have loved some of their slaves, but improvements in farming technology and the introduction of better trained draft animals gradually made forced human labor less necessary. Instead, classes that were probably formerly enslaved became mostly either unpaid laborers or, at worst, serfs. The latter were not yet technically free (they could not leave the land without the permission of their Master), but they enjoyed much more freedom than slaves.

Also, it must be admitted that, despite the large number of cases of burning people at the stake, Christianity began to develop at that time, and there was also a sharp increase in charitable organizations. Almost immediately after the representatives of the church established themselves in Europe, they began to form a widespread system of charitable organizations that distributed food, clothing and money to the needy. It may be no coincidence that the first forms of hospices, hospitals, and shelters for the poor were invented during the Dark Ages, setting the stage for the creation of a public health system.

Don't get us wrong, if you were to go back to the Middle Ages in a time machine, you would hate this time because it would only take the locals five minutes to kill you for witchcraft. But the term "dark ages" is generally not used by scientists, because there is not much evidence that that life was worse than in the periods before or after that age (but more on that later). It has been used because popular culture only remembers the violent parts of it, where it is said that people were going to watch men beat each other with horses just for fun. And while we're on the subject...

#2 Entertainment in the Middle Ages consisted of jousting and sword fighting.

If you have been to a restaurant in medieval times, then you know that when medieval people wanted to relax after a hard day's work of shedding blood, their most preferred form of entertainment was to shed more blood.

Therefore, when Europe was not engulfed in another war, the subjects of various kingdoms found other ways for themselves to satiate their notorious bloodthirstiness and thirst for battle. Naturally, they preferred games that resembled war as much as possible - jousting was obviously the most popular, but various duels and "clubbing" also became widespread.

Reality:

Tournaments (one can mentally imagine what the historical blood sport looked like) in reality simply could not be held during this period. Real knightly stirrups were not yet known in most European countries, so the lack of support for the legs led to the fact that the participants in the battles were easily knocked down (or rather, from horses) like sacks of potatoes with the lightest blows. In fact, jousting tournaments were, in fact, military training until the end of the 11th century.

But the reality is even less amazing: even in the darkest ages of the Middle Ages, there were innocent family fun. Compared to the eras before and after them, the sports and games of the Dark Ages were decidedly less militant. Many of the things that people from the Middle Ages did for fun are very similar to what we still do today (when we don't spend all day on the Internet). In fact archery, boxing and rugby were either invented or perfected during the Dark Ages.

Oh, and how do you like this: in the Scandinavian sagas, starting from the ninth century, they describe terrible Vikings frolicking merrily on ice rinks and participating in ski races. And let's not forget the really popular games of the time like bowling, dancing, tag games and horseshoe tossing. Yes, horseshoe throwing was in vogue in the Middle Ages. Compare this to the gladiatorial slaughter that took place during Roman times or the tournaments that emerged during the late Middle Ages. So which century deserves the nickname "dark"?

No. 3. At this time, cruel wars were constantly going on

The reason the Dark Ages were so named was because then, after the fall of the glorious Roman Empire, the dismal years supposedly began. When the Roman Empire was destroyed by numerous attacks from the barbarian hordes in 476 AD, there was an instant shortage of a nation that could easily evade the attacks of the popular militias. Upon discovering the sudden absence of such a large state, various leaders from all over Europe immediately breathed a sigh of relief and began, in a chaotic manner, to fight against each other.

Soon the entire continent was in an endless state of total war, with princes and warlords vying for control of each other's dominions.

Reality:

Of course, then there was a struggle. It's very possible. But what people tend to forget is the scale of that fighting.
If you compare the battles during the Dark Ages to, say, the Roman Wars, it's like comparing a fight between two toddlers to a gang fight: in both cases, the warriors were trained to fight, but in the first of them, everything looked as if millions of people just argued among themselves.

Let's be clear: Rome was great when it came to large-scale battles. During the first war with Carthage, a Roman fleet of 100,000 men was lost in one day. Rome responded to this catastrophic loss calmly by sending more troops to fight and continuing the war for another decade and a half. During the second Carthaginian War, Rome lost 400,000 soldiers without blinking an eye. The Roman Empire was not interested in outmaneuvering its opponents, it simply held out longer. If Rome had any problems, she sent troops to solve them, and did not withdraw back until they had completed their task.

As the Roman Empire was broken, Europe's economy became more and more localized. Without an intercontinental tax and a sensible division of labor, the gigantic standing army has become an artifact of a bygone era. This sudden lack of financial infrastructure allowed dozens of kings and princes to fill the vacant seats in Roman power with limited funds. Of course, they would probably want to bring a million men with them across the continent, like a legion, but they simply did not have the money to pay for the services of such a huge army.

Most leaders responded to this problem by introducing a feudal system, they divided their land holdings, allocating separate plots of land for military forces. Since very few of them took possession of large tracts of land from the very beginning, this forced them to keep their armies relatively small (even the most massive military forces in the last stages of the era, well, if they numbered 20,000 soldiers). Most of the armies were like big bands. Thus, wars in the Dark Ages took place as short skirmishes between tiny forces. There were no big campaigns, no ten years of fighting, no hellish life in the war-torn lands, just short skirmishes between two gangs of guys who then returned to herd cattle and plow their fields.

But that brings us to another of the most common myths, that...

#4 The Dark Ages Were in the "Intellectual Abyss"

Say what you like, but the Dark Ages would not be so called just because a few barbarians looted their way through Europe. The real reason why this era was devoid of any light is because the people, for the most part, were very illiterate and superstitious as well. Scientists (not to mention people who could read) were few and far between, and any desire for literature was actively suppressed, since it had no use in agricultural work. In fact, writing any story would result in you probably being burned as a witch.

Reality:

The reason why this century was practically erased from the history of mankind is that no one took into account everything that happened during this period. The image of the Middle Ages is no different from the transitional intellectual period. Of course, the general population did not know how to read and write, but such examples can be found in every era up to modern history. On the other hand, scientists were simply having fun in the Dark Ages.

The Carolingian Minuscule became the standard cursive script introduced by Emperor Charlemagne in the eighth century and revolutionized the whole concept of reading and writing. Before the Carolingians, minuscules and the writing of most scribblers were illegible and conducted without any rules. Upper case mixed with lower case and random placement of separating characters were quite common, and some scholars expressed the rules of spelling and alphabet only as a polite suggestion. The standardized, fast, and efficient minuscule of the Carolingians introduced revolutionary concepts such as cases, punctuation, and spaces between words. This greatly speeded up both writing and reading, because it made it faster, because now it was not necessary to peer at absurd squiggles for hours at a time.

The introduction of the Carolingian minuscule made it possible to start producing documents and books. And also, perhaps the most important reason why so many ancient texts survived was that Carolingian scholars and translators found all the incorrectly written books, plays, and documents, carefully corrected the errors in them, copied and reproduced them using their new super handwriting.

In terms of major innovations in the history of information transmission, the writing of documents in a human-readable form and their relatively rapid production should probably be compared to the Gutenberg printing press and the Internet. But no one ever remembers the Carolingian minuscule, because it was in the Dark Ages.
But in the end it leads us to...

In fact, thanks to the workers of the "Dark Time", we sometimes read medieval manuscripts

#5 The Dark Ages Were a Real Thing

Well, maybe there were some unusual events in the Dark Ages, but even in the most terrible eras, there was always something like that. All in all, there must be a very good reason for christening an entire era with that name. So there must have been some good reason for historians to come up with the term "dark ages", right?

Reality:

Ha, of course not! Here's a shocking twist: historians have never had anything to do with the use of the term "Dark Ages", just some of them have been misled into accepting the term. As we mentioned earlier, in those days, medieval historians tried to avoid this name, preferring to use more neutral terms, such as "migration of peoples", "Early Middle Ages" or simply "Middle Ages" depending on what the centuries-old meant "Dark Ages". ".

And all because the Dark Ages never existed. The general notion of them is a complete and utter fabrication, a hackneyed, bewildered writer. The term "Dark Ages" was first used in the 14th century by Petrarch, an Italian poet with a penchant for Roman nostalgia. Petrarch used it to describe just about every event that took place after the fall of Rome. He did not make arguments about the "darkness" that was over hundreds of years of human achievement due to the fact that there was enough historical evidence about any events that happened then. He built all his arguments on the basis of the general opinion that life has become bad since Rome was destroyed.
Petrarch believed that the only way to improve the world was to imitate the ancient Romans and forget about the barbarian years that threw his contemporaries from Rome into the past. Of course, he safely forgot a few more things. Namely, mass slavery, slaughter and over-taxation of the ancient Romans, they cannot be found in his fictional images, as well as the numerous achievements of the “age of darkness”, which he so happily denigrated.

And this is the funniest thing in history. Anyone can rewrite it under certain circumstances, and all it takes is some idiot with a catchy term and his fans to defile an entire era. So when you finally finish building a time machine and want to check the future, don't be surprised if, in a randomly chosen 26th century, fetishists from Victorian England call our time the "Information Age."