The Dark Ages: The Fall Of The Dark Ages

The Dark Ages in (400-800 CE) was basically a time when the population of people was decreasing as well as having small amounts of literature and arts. “Dark Ages referred to the period of time ushered in by the fall of the Western Roman Empire. This took place when the last Western emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed by Odoacer, a barbarian. AD 476 was the time of this event.” (3) When the Roman Empire went down, several people just scattered around the land and brought in new languages, which caused much of their chaos. Fights broke out everywhere and the death toll kept rising, totaling to about ½ of the entire population of Europe. It was a very steady decline that lasted over a few hundred years. During the Romanesque Age, cultural

The term “dark” was later generated due the backward ways and practices that seemed to succeed during this time. The Dark Age was definitely a time of religious conflict. Despite the conflict, the men and women still believed in a God, however some sought through Orthodox forms of worship and others through rituals at a Catholic church. An Italian scholar by the name of Francesco Petrarca, also known as, Petrarch found that the use of Latin Literature was wrong. The pressure of the “barbarians” was a huge additive to the crashing of the empire, due to all of the changes and incoming people with different languages and religious beliefs. Other individuals also collaborated on the thought of it and were very frustrated with the lack of literature and other cultural achievements. It didn’t take long for the term “dark ages” to stop being used. Germanic aesthetics, which were also known as “barbarian styles” were big during this time and shown through visual arts, illuminated manuscripts, and sculptures. Celtic metalwork and stone sculpture were a tradition of art that could not be destroyed in the “dark ages”. The Celtic structure had traditional craftsmanship and great carving skills, in which the “Celtic weapons art” was a huge achievement of the Irish art. The Black Death is what sent the middle ages back into a chaos. The “Black Death” was known as a disease that was very

“The term Gothic was coined by classicizing Italian writers of the Renaissance, who attributed the invention (and what to them was the non-classical ugliness) of medieval architecture to the barbarian Gothic tribes that had destroyed the Roman Empire and its classical culture in the 5th century Ad.” (2) The gothic art has really evolved around the Romanesque art. “The Gothic style only became possible with the utter mastery of stone engineering, in which the weight of a vaulted roof was precisely guided through networks of arches, piers, and buttresses.”(4) The architecture was very important during the gothic period and it arose out of the medieval masons. The main issue they ran into was the collapsing of the stonework, because of the heaviness and pressure causing it to fall. The support walls of any building were to be made very thick in order to keep it from thrusting outward. During this time, the ribbed vault was developed which had an intersecting and arching stone ribs that were being supported by vaulted ceilings and stone panels. The art and architecture were produced in a very wealthy area, allowing the artist to sell their work and make a very nice profit. Several types of buildings were constructed during the gothic time. Their artwork was very popular in churches, as well as chapels and cathedrals, which allowed them