[nine_k]

The problem is that (early) Medieval Europe has lost much of that.

Romans built blocks of dwelling houses 5-6 stories high, houses with central heating, and running water delivered to their cities (and wealthier homes) by systems of aqueducts and pipes, etc. These are things that we associate with 19th or even 20th century in large parts of Europe.

Sadly, their social institutions, even as famous as the republic, were also not practiced and even forgotten for long centuries. Much of the Enlightenment was fueled by re-reading and re-understanding of classic Greek and Roman works, which felt fresh and mind-expanding at the time.

[mullingitover]

> Sadly, their social institutions, even as famous as the republic, were also not practiced and even forgotten for long centuries.

I mean, the main social institutions that underpinned all the others in Rome were massive human trafficking and looting operations. The enlightened Greeks weren't any better.

My personal guess is that we would've had the industrial revolution thousands of years earlier if these groups we like to glorify in our history books would've laid off the enslaving, murder, and robbery.

[halJordan]

Its hurts that people like you are here solely to make others throw out the baby with the bathwater. MLK JR was a baptist. Do i have to hate him because of the baptists' pro-life stance? JKF was a kennedy; do i have to hate the civil rights act because of his illgotten wealth?

[mullingitover]

On the one hand, you have a family that smuggled alcohol and a person who has religious views I don't hold. On the other hand you have people who, as a civilization, committed unapologetic genocide, rape, robbery, and founded their economic system on human trafficking . Personally I don't see how these are remotely comparable.

I'm not saying the Greeks and Romans didn't have any merits at all. Can we learn some things from them? Sure. Do we have to call them 'great,' and aspire to be like them? Absolutely not.

[hodgesrm]

I would not undersell the late middle ages. It was a complex society with sophisticated economics and social structures. Just to pick one example European warfare was highly organized by the late 1400s and enabled them to found huge empires overseas.

[nine_k]

Late middle ages / early Enlightenment, say, 14-15 centuries, were very cool in their special way, with very complex social structures. ThInge like the Hanseatic league, the great geographical discoveries and conquests, the beginning of modern science, the flourishing of arts — this all required highly advanced society, compared to, say, what Charlemagne or (imaginary) king Arthur would have.

[inglor_cz]

The very concept of "the Middle Ages" in Europe tends to muddle our thinking.

Life in 700 AD was completely different from life in 1400 AD. Cities, population density, building styles, international trade, weapons and warfare, agricultural methods, secular institutions - almost nothing stayed the same.

People tend to even forget that the official definition of "the Middle Ages" stretches back into the Dark Age, where kings were more like chieftains, castles basically unknown, even most of the clergy struggled to read and write, and a typical member of the elite warrior class looked nothing like a stereotypical knight.