Dark Ages (historiography)
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The Dark Ages is a term for the Early Middle Ages, or occasionally the entire Middle Ages, in Western Europe after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, which characterises it as marked by economic, intellectual, and cultural decline.
Petrarch (1304–1374), who conceived the idea of a European "Dark Age". From Cycle of Famous Men and Women, Andrea di Bartolo di Bargilla, c. 1450
Triumph of Christianity by Tommaso Laureti (1530–1602), ceiling painting in the Sala di Constantino, Vatican Palace. Images like this one celebrate the triumph of Christianity over the paganism of Antiquity.
Medieval artistic illustration of the spherical Earth in a 14th-century copy of L'Image du monde (c. 1246)
Early Middle Ages
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The Early Middle Ages, sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th to the 10th century. They marked the start of the Middle Ages of European history, following the decline of the Western Roman Empire, and preceding the High Middle Ages. The alternative term late antiquity, for the early part of the period, emphasizes elements of continuity with the Roman Empire, while early Middle Ages is used to emphasize developments characteristic of the earlier medieval period.
The jewelled cover of the Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram, c. 870, a Carolingian Gospel book
Replica of the Sutton Hoo helmet; the original was buried with an Anglo-Saxon leader, probably King Rædwald of East Anglia, c. 620–625 CE.
The Mausoleum of Theodoric in Ravenna is the only extant example of Ostrogothic architecture.
A paten from the Treasure of Gourdon, found at Gourdon, Saône-et-Loire, France.