[pessimist]

The writer is far more knowledgeable than me, and it seems he believes there was no major decline related to the fall of Rome, the traditional "Dark Age" story is false, etc. I should take him more seriously since he knows a lot more, but it seems clear that there was a catastrophic fall in science, technology and living standards with the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The effect was felt as far as my ancestral land of South India where there was a massive de-urbanization and fall in trade in the 5th century. I do not understand why it is in fashion to deny this decline, and nothing in this blog makes a compelling case otherwise.

[kybernetikos]

This is the first post in a series, and in this post, he's focusing on culture, literature, language and religion. I would agree that the case he makes is that in these areas the "change and continuity" party seem to mainly carry the day against the "decline and fall" party, but that doesn't mean that there won't be areas where that isn't true. I think we should particularly wait for parts 2 (institutions) and 3 (economics and demographics) before we settle too firmly into our opinions.

From the article:

> As will readily be apparent, that significance of that division of topics will be important because this is one of those questions where what you see depends very much on where you look, with scholars engaging with different topics often coming to wildly divergent conclusions about the impact and experience of the fall of Rome. And there is no way to really discuss that divergence (and my own view of it) without diving into the still active debate and presenting the different scholarly views in a sort of duel. I’ll be providing my own judgements, of course, but I intend here to ‘steelman’ each argument, presenting it in what I view as its strongest form; as will some become evident, I think there is some truth to both of the two major current scholarly streams of thought here.

[wudangmonk]

There is a lot of these "dark ages were not dark" arguments but one can't deny that there is a difference in the world after the fall of the Roman empire.

The author emphasizes people drifting apart and cultural fusions, the natural loss of arts and books due to the medium on which they were written. All of this happens after the fall of any civilization.

Same thing could be said about the Aztecs or any other civilization, their people drifted apart, there was a fusion between cultures and their arts and books were lost due to the medium used to create it (it wasn't fireproof).

The empire didn't fall to any single external force but that is the nature of an empire, unless its conquered by an even stronger empire it always falls from within.

[Sniffnoy]

> The writer is far more knowledgeable than me, and it seems he believes there was no major decline related to the fall of Rome,

He doesn't claim that at all. In the intro he explicitly claims that there was such a decline and fall.

In the body of this first post of the series, he explores the areas where the case against his claim is strongest. That doesn't mean he's suddenly retracted his claims from the intro.

[hnaccount_rng]

How do you figure that deurbanization in India is related to something happening in Western Europe? Back then trade was for valuables and valuables only. There simply wasn’t the capacity to transport things for everyday use of the general population. And there is a large discrepancy between quality of life for the elite/aristocracy and quality of life for the general population.

I would expect the second and third part to answer your questions. And I’m pretty sure there will be some “these parts declined” components

[qwytw]

While you're right about the trade between Europe and India. Rome and Constantinople we famously supplied with grain shipped hundreds of miles from Sicily, North Africa and Egypt. Even in pre Roman times there was extensive international trade, at its hight Athens were relient on grain shipments from the northern Black Sea coast. While pretty much everything besides basic foodstuffs and cheapest cloth was considered a luxury back then there were extensive trade networks between ancient city states.

Arguably the deurbanization both in India and Europe was to a large degree caused by climate change following the end of the Roman Warm Period.

[hnaccount_rng]

The difference there is method of transportation. Yes bulk transport was possible, but only by sea not by caravan. And even then it’s relatively short distances. Which would imply that India should have been “shielded” by the continued existence of the eastern Roman Empire.

And yes definitely there were trade networks. But they consisted of relatively few but high value goods. Most of which populations could do without. However there is the point that cities formed around goods that were traded. So I’m no longer as certain that there is no correlation

[smorgusofborg]

Spices, food oils, mined metals and fabric are all valuables that are brought to coastal cities in organized trade causing urbanization. The existence of many of those cities, their bazaar and their mosque is all to do with the transition to Byzantine and then only Ottoman trade. It would hardly be surprising if there are many ex-cities that had better trade connections with the western empire.

[jcranmer]

> it seems clear that there was a catastrophic fall in science

Name one scientific discovery that was known in Late Antiquity that was not known in the Medieval period.

This is easier to do for technology, but that shouldn't be misconstrued as part of a generalized collapse of civilization. A large part of technology requires passing knowledge from individual to individual via a kind of apprenticeship, so if something stops happening for a few generations, it's easy to be lost. To use a very recent examples: battleships. We can't make battleship-grade steel armor anymore, because no one's been making it for several decades. But that's not because we've somehow "regressed" in technology--it's just that battleship-grade steel armor has no use anymore, so we stopped making it.

The major decline associated with the Roman Empire is the decline in administrative capacity of the state. And yes, this does bring economic depression and deurbanization, and also loss of several civic engineering techniques. You don't see a decline in scientific knowledge--after all, medieval people were using the same textbooks the Romans were. Maybe there's a pause in development of new scientific knowledge, but it also has to be remembered that the Romans themselves weren't all that prolific in science (as compared to technology). As for technology, well, by the 600s, there's already new technologies kicking about that the Romans never had.

And that's why people push back against the kind of claims embodied by the dumb graph (https://goingmedievalblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/worst.... )--it's just not actually borne out by the evidence.

[allturtles]

> Name one scientific discovery that was known in Late Antiquity that was not known in the Medieval period.

I mean that's not hard to do unless your point is that they were rediscovered in the later centuries of the Medieval period. Almost all of Aristotle, all of Ptolemy, all of Archimedes was unknown in the Christian West for centuries.

[Andrew_nenakhov]

Losing some texts by ancient authors doesn't mean some knowledge or technology was lost.

Aristotle is actually quite useless in medieval day to day life, so losing his texts is a big deal for a person studying ancient Greece, but not at all for a 650 AD ruler, blacksmith or trader.

[allturtles]

The people who rediscovered the texts certainly thought they had found something new and astonishing. It wasn't, oh that ptolemy, he's old hat. Aristotle became the centerpiece of philosophy.

Usefulness to daily life is a whole other different metric, and not what gp asked.

[Andrew_nenakhov]

Gp was talking about scientific discoveries, and of those none were lost. Aristotle didn't make any discoveries, he just had some ideas, which were totally useless in the medieval Europe. That uselessness is the reason they were lost: simply nobody cared to preserve them. Metalworking, hydraulics of the time, building methods were all very useful and were preserved. The only 'lost' technology is probably Roman concrete, which required some highly specific ingredient. But that's about it.

[qwytw]

There was a significant decline in certain areas at least in Western Europe both in building methods and metalworking based on archeological evidence. After urban populations collapsed there simple was no demand for large complex buildings, metal statues etc. Of course most the knowledge was preserved in the part of the Roman empire that survived and in other pockets and by the high middle ages Europe had well surpassed it's Roman high economically and technologically.

[allturtles]

You're conflating scientific knowledge and the practical arts. There is lots of scientific knowledge in Aristotle and the other authors I mentioned. e.g. Aristotle's physics. We would now consider it wrong, but those who rediscovered it didn't think so.

Even in the category of practical arts, though, you're mistaken. Check out the writings of Hero of Alexandria or Vitriuvius. Check out the waterwheels at Barbegal. Pick any major civil engineering project like the aqueducts, baths, roads, or arenas of ancient Rome. There is no equivalent until the cathedrals of the later middle ages.

[jahewson]

> Maybe there's a pause in development of new scientific knowledge

Isn't that exactly what the "dumb graph" you link to is showing? The y-axis is labelled scientific "advancement", not knowledge.

[bobthechef]

> it seems clear that there was a catastrophic fall in science, technology and living standards

According to what evidence and causes?

Besides, what's this "great science" of the ancient world? Science did not become a sustained enterprise until much later in Europe. Even Greek natural science was a relatively short-lived affair, pretty much dying with Aristotle (Stanley Jaki used the word "stillborn" to describe all other attempts to give birth to science in all civilizations other than Christian Europe, the differentiating factor being theological). The Middle Ages were a period of intense intellectual activity (the Scholastics) in which the intellectual bedrock for modern science was birthed. The Renaissance was comparably weak in terms of intellectual rigor, the philosophes later on mere pamphleteers. And today, scientism and other weird ideologies threaten to undermine science and intellectualism in general.

We do not give the Middle Ages enough credit. The question isn't why it is a fashion to deny medieval decline, but why the fashion to deny the period's excellence.