That’s not that clear, at least when it came to the median European. Amongst other things demographic collapse usually results in higher living standards in agricultural societies due to there being more land per capita.
Very true in that "living standards" is very subjective. When I wrote that I was thinking of London's population loss, not achieving a similar population until the 1300s. And I was thinking of claims that European literacy rates likewise took a long time to recover.
I don't think it is right to say that population loss usually results in higher living standards due to more land per capita. For one, in a pre-industrial society agriculture is labor intensive and the amount of land that can be worked by a person does not scale with land availability. The Black Death [1] economic section works out some of the less than positive impacts.
> not achieving a similar population until the 1300s
That’s not the necessarily best metric either, though. Roman city sizes (especially Rome itself) very inflated due to centralized state redirecting a lot of tax revenue there.
However in premodern times pretty much all cities universally had negative population growth which would imply they weren’t particularly nice places to live if you had better options.
> However in premodern times pretty much all cities universally had negative population growth which would imply they weren’t particularly nice places to live if you had better options.
Your point is well taken although I must point out that for the above to be true the cities could never exist in the first place.
Depending on where you put the cut-off point of "premodern" the contact between precolumbian and European cultures in North America had some notion that people on the European side would sometimes immigrate to Indian culture but not vice versa. "The Down of Everything" by Graeber and Wengrow [0] goes into transcultural impacts at length. A more original source can be found in a letter by Ben Franklin in 1753 [1]:
When an Indian Child has been brought up among us, taught our language and
habituated to our Customs, yet if he goes to see his relations and make one
Indian Ramble with them, there is no perswading him ever to return, and that
this is not natural to them merely as Indians, but as men, is plain from
this, that when white persons of either sex have been taken prisoners young
by the Indians, and lived a while among them, tho’ ransomed by their Friends,
and treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among
the English, yet in a Short time they become disgusted with our manner of
life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the
first good Opportunity of escaping again into the Woods, from whence there is
no reclaiming them.
I’m not sure there necessarily was that much progress before that, though? With some exceptions ancient societies were highly stagnant especially technologically in contrast to high-late medieval Europe.
Also plague, climate change and demographic collapse kind of directly kickstarted the dark ages.
The Roman state was arguably much more modern than the medieval kingdom. It was highly centralized and funded through taxation (most of the plundering was already done by the early imperial period).
Not sure the Huns were the biggest direct threat either (unless we think that they are directly responsible for the Gothic migrations/invasions who were the ones who took over significant parts of the empire).
The "taxation" point is arguable since so much of it occurred in the provinces and basically amounted to plunder. Also, centralization is not much of a marker of modernity: the Ancient Near East had large centralized empires, but they were also similarly vulnerable to collapse for practically the same structural reasons; we just know a lot less about those times and places because the sources are so much more sparse and understudied.
Paradoxically we do know a lot more about some of the ancient Near Eastern societies than most states that preceded or succeeded them. There are still thousands of clay tablets which nobody really had time to read, while pretty much all Roman and Greek texts (and effectively all administrative documents) that weren’t copied during the middle ages are lost.
> provinces and basically amounted to plunder.
Also redistribution. The mid/late Roman state spent had huge taxes and spent almost all of it paying for its professional army almost all of which was stationed in the provinces.
As a consequence the Roman economy was highly monetized, long distance trade was widespread and different regions economically interdependent which again seems rather modern.
Also when talking about “plunder” in the ancient world it's almost entirely slaves not gold/silver or moveable goods. That had mostly dried up during the imperial period.
> social and scientific development almost entirely stopped
Well it did in fact sped to an almost unparalleled pace after 1000 AD or so. How much progress do you think there was before the dark ages? The Roman Empire was rather stagnant (especially technologically and there were significant advances in agriculture, metallurgy and industry in the dark ages even before even before 1000 AD
It was probably the 540s and the subsequent century or so.
> there were NO places in Europe where science or scholarship really flourished.
If you define ~800 AD as the end of the dark ages then yes. By Charlemagne’s time that had already changes.
It wasn’t exactly flourishing in Gaul, and Germany during the Roman times either. Those regions had arguably surpassed their Roman peak by the end of the dark ages.
And of course science and scholarship were preserved in Constantinople during the entire period (of course they had some very dark moments too)
> The Dark Ages started when Christianity spread through most of Europe.
1000-1400s AD was a period of extremely rapid (by historical standards) economic, societal and technological progress. Just compare with the highly stagnant (in relative terms) Roman Empire between 0 AD and 400 AD. It was the opposite of the dark ages…
500-800s AD were not great, but plague, climate change and extreme political instability likely had a bigger impact on that than Christianity…
Well 7-9th centuries were relatively dark in Constantinople as well, it took quite a while to recover from the Islamic invasions. It was just not a good period for Europe and the Mediterranean economically, demographically and politically.
Yet somehow the scientific method as we know it evolved in (and only in) Christian universities.
Of course there were significant regressions but the Roman world wasn’t exactly some pro-science utopia. Where do you think Christians got the idea of burning witches?
Climate change, the plague and extreme political instability (that already was ripping the Roman world apart for centuries) and the resulting societal, economic and demographic collapse pretty much made the dark ages inevitable (and the church was the only thing keeping the lights on however dim they were).
Honestly, we could make a case that witch-hunting and persecutions were pro-science.
Witches and "cunning folk" are people who use metaphysical, occult means of spirituality to influence people and the environment. Witchcraft does not appear, to the dispassionate observer, to be scientific, evidence-based, or empirical at all.
Christendom was in the business of supporting many liberal arts and sciences, in terms of architecture, literacy, mathematics, chemistry/alchemy, exploration, R&D and building of war materiels and sea vessels.
It was the witches who were meddling and using occult means, such as divination, augury, psychological manipulation, and treachery to achieve their ends. It was witchcraft that was chaotic and working against orderly scientific inquiries about the natural world.
The witches were typically working clandestinely, stereotypically in a little hut in the woods, in the shadows. The scientists of Christendom were founding and running universities, seminaries, hospitals, and other institutional centers of learning. They were highly organized and orderly endeavors, and witchcraft threatened the natural and political order of things, which seems to be what science represents, even to the present day.
According to Christian science/theology and worldview witchcraft simple was impossible and belief in it was heretical for most of the middle ages. Witch burnings didn’t become widespread until the early modern period
Necromancy and divination are practices depicted in the Old Testament. Everyone knows they are real, and dangerous.
The fact of practicing occultism or magic is that it may work by summoning/manipulating evil forces. That it may work by messing with things beyond human control and authority.
The Abrahamic religions uniformly forbid superstitions, occultism, witchcraft and all kinds of magic, not because they "are impossible" but because they're uncontrollable and dangerous, for anyone, anytime.
Well during the “dark ages” and much of the middle ages it was certainly the official position of the Catholic church that witchcraft did not and could not exist.
They tried banning it many times (the belief in witchcraft) and it was certainly considered heretical to think you were capable of performing magic or accusing anyone else of that.
Besides the theological arguments, it just wouldn’t have made any sense to legitimize pagan beliefs (which were still widespread at the time) by admitting that they were anything else that superstition.
Of course that kind of changed in the early modern period. Generally the protestants were quite a bit more into these type of superstitions and paranoia but of course the Catholic Church succumbed to it to.
However e.g. the Spanish Inquisition generally continued prosecuting people who believed in witchcraft or accused others of being witches.
> it was certainly the official position of the Catholic church that witchcraft did not and could not exist.
That is definitely not true and it is impossible that an "official position" would be held and revoked later. This is not something that happens with doctrine or dogma.
Supposing that the belief in witchcraft were an idle superstition, it would be strange that the suggestion should nowhere be made that the evil of these practices only lay in the pretending to the possession of powers which did not really exist.
Feel free to cite a refutation. Your assertion means nothing. You've made many assertions about church/European history and you must consider yourself well-read in the topic, so surely you know sources that support your (crazy, unfounded) assertion?
But before you refute anything, I urge you to carefully examine the article I cited, which in turn cites primary sources, and gives a thorough overview of condemnations throughout the "Dark" and "Middle" Ages we're discussing! No impossible or nonexistent practice could be condemned or punished, right?
Christian teaching has always insisted that magic, witchcraft, or occultism was "false" or superstitious and dangerous, but "false" does not mean "nonexistent" or "impossible".
Bottom line. The hostility of science against religion, and the perception of hostility of religion vs. science, is very new. It is completely novel. Christianity (and Islam and Hinduism alike) all encouraged scientific inquiry into the natural world, discover, architecture, engineering, and many projects stood atop the support of church patronage. Many engineering projects in the Middle Ages were accomplished by religious orders (cf. Carmelites built aqueducts in Spain, etc.) and if you ask Wikipedia for a list of scientists who were also clergymen, you'll see just how intertwined were faith and reason for the entire history of religion and science itself.
What can I say.. look up the council of Paderborn and canon law in general during the period.
> impossible that an "official position" would be held and revoked later
You don’t know much about the Catholic church do you? That’s kind of its thing…
> No impossible or nonexistent practice could be condemned or punished, right?
Belief in witchcraft and supernatural was of course widespread.. that’s why the church considered it heresy that they had to crack down on. Since effectively it challenged the legitimacy of Christian faith..
> examine the article I cited
Which you surely did not bother reading yourself.
> does not mean "nonexistent" or "impossible".
Belief in witchcraft is logically incompatible with non Gnostic Christianity, since only God can perform miracles.
> of scientists who were also clergymen
Yes, scientific method as we know it was to a large extent developed by Christian theologians back in those days. Not sure what does that have to do with magic and witchcraft?
Yes, the Catholic Church supports and encourages belief in the supernatural. It is strange, isn't it. In fact it's nearly mandatory!
Paderborn is particularly mentioned in the article I linked.
Paderborn condemned the pagan belief in witches. They condemned the pagan accusations and persecution of witches. They condemned the pagan practices of cremating them and of eating their flesh. Paderborn opposed the view that paganism or occult practices were "efficacious", in other words that they worked for people, doing what it says on the tin, and that they may not be dangerous.
> That’s kind of its thing…
Discipline vs. doctrine and dogma; public policy vs. beliefs and teachings; governance vs. faith and morals.
It is interesting, because you will find Christians and Catholics who insist that pagan gods do not exist. Or that they're not divine. Or that they are "false", or some are demons.
And that was exactly the controversy when Moses (I mean Yahweh) brought plagues on Egypt, and when Elijah went to sacrifice on Mt. Carmel, and when St. Paul preached before the Altar of the Unknown God in Athens. It's more or less a matter of framing, isn't it?
> only God can perform miracles.
This is true. And this is also why the evaluation of alleged "private revelation" or purported "miracles" may hand down a decision called "Constat de non supernaturalitate".
The full source of several compilers being in its training set is somewhat helpful though. It’s not exactly a novel problem and those optimizations and edge cases which it seemingly is struggling are the overwhelming majority of the work anyway.
Do we know it just didn’t shuffle gcc’s source code around a bit?
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