What years were known as the Dark Ages?
In historiography, the term Dark Ages or Dark Age most commonly refers to the European Early Middle Ages, the period encompassing (roughly) 476 to 1000. This concept of a dark age was created by the Italian scholar Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) and was originally intended as a sweeping criticism of the character of Late Latin literature. Later historians expanded the term to include not only the lack of Latin literature, but also a lack of contemporary written history and material cultural achievements in general. Popular culture has further expanded on the term as a vehicle to depict the Middle Ages as a time of backwardness, extending its pejorative use and expanding its scope. The rise of archaeology and other specialties in the 20th century has shed much light on the period and offered a more nuanced understanding of its positive developments. Other terms of periodization have come to the fore: Late Antiquity, the Early Middle Ages and the Great Migrations, depending on which aspec
