ARGUING THAT THE DARK AGES WEREN’T SO DARK. Nick, knowing that I am interested in the transition between the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages, gave me last Christmas BARBARIANS TO ANGELS: The Dark Ages Reconsidered by Peter S. Wells. It seems to me that the chief reason why the Dark Ages are considered dark is that there was not much literacy. The chief texts for the period relate to the church so that there is not much written information about how people lived. Wells is an archaeologist, and he argues that there is an increasing amount of archaeological information which suggests that people in the Dark Ages lived better than is usually portrayed. Measurements on skeletal remains are evidence that people in this period lived well. For example, measurements in southwestern Germany and in Denmark show average heights of 5 feet eight inches or 5 feet nine inches for men and five feet four inches for women. Wells notes that these average heights were not reached again until the twentieth century. Wells stresses the importance of technological improvements during this period and by this he means the moldboard plow: “Of fundamental importance was the development of new technology of agriculture—the moldboard plow—which vastly increased the efficiency of food production beyond anything in Roman times.”
How you evaluate the Dark Ages may depend on the weight you give the material standard of living of the ordinary man against things like literacy.