The Dark Ages

Europe's dark ages was somebody else's best years. Europeans dark ages weren't that bad until the plague came. Medieval Europe had less trade fewer cities and less cultural output than the original roman empire. People in Medieval lived slightly longer, life expectancy was 30. Europe in the middle ages had Feudalism a political system based on reciprocal relationships between lords who owned lots of land and vassals who protected the land. Below the knights were peasants who did the actually work on the land in exchange protection from bandits thief's and other threats. peasants could never work their way up to lords and they almost never left their villages. Europe was dominated by superstition. A majority of Muslims were not Arabian in the dark ages. Hildegard had visions, founded two monasteries, wrote theological, Botanical, and medicinal texts, and invented an alternate Latin alphabet. The Dark Ages were also called the Middle Ages. With fewer powerful governments wars were at least smaller. Feudalism was a economic system with peasants working the land and keeping some of their production to feed them selves while giving the rest to the land owner who's land they worked. when we last left the Muslims they have expanded out of their homeland in Arabia and they have conquered the rich Egyptian provinces of the Byzantines and the entire Sassanian empire. The term "Dark Ages" was originally intended to denote the entire period between the fall of Rome and the renaissance. As an Italian, Petrarch saw the Roman Empire and the classical period as expressions of Italian greatness. In the 19th century scholars began to recognize the accomplishments made during the period, thereby challenging the image of the Middle Ages as a time of darkness and decay. The term is now never used by scholars to refer to the entire medieval period. The small scale, local nature of the feudal system was perfect for a time and place where the threats to peoples' safety were also small scale and local. The Islamic empire relied on more and more on soldiers from the frontier in this case the Turks and slaves pressed it to military service in order be the back bone of their army a strategy that has been used over and over again and worked exactly zero times, which you should remember if your ever going to be an emperor, actually that strategy has worked if you are the mongols. Arabic did not only replace the Greek and the eastern part of the eastern roman empire. Baghdad became the worlds center of scholarship with its house of wisdom and immense library, Muslims scholars translated the work of Greek philosophers including Aristotle, Plato as well as scientific works from Hippocrates, Archimedes and specially this physician named Galen. The Tong Dynasty made great art. The Sung Dynasty was a long dynasty. The Sung Dynasty was great at making Iron. The Chinese invented paper money. Sometimes they call it the dark ages because it was so purportedly unenlightened. Lords were vassals to more important lords. If your a born a peasant then your a peasant your hole life. Muslims made huge stands of medicine. Some Muslims were great engineers. The europeans were less developed than the romans. Chinese invented gunpowder, which contained Saltpeter. Agriculture boomed when iron was invented by the Chinese. At the dark ages, the Chinese had a golden age. Muslim engineer's skills rivaled the Romans skills. Muslims mathematicians and astronomers invented algebra. Thomas Aquinas was an important philosopher in the Dark Ages. There weren't too many deaths in the first part of Medieval Europe. They made important strides of trigonometry to help people understand where to turn when trying to turn to mecca. London and Paris were dirty and kept on catching on fire. The Umayyads tried to keep the Arabs from fraternizing  with non Arab Muslims through out the empire. The Umayyads got over thrown and by a majority of Muslims that weren't Arabs; and got replaced by the Abbasid empire. The Abbasyds took over in 750 and no one could fully defeat the Abbysyds until 1258 when they were conquered by the mongols. The Abbasid's moved their capital to Baghdad. When modern scholarly study of the Middle Ages arose in the 19th century, the term "Dark Ages" was widely used by historians. The medieval period is frequently caricatured as supposedly a "time of ignorance and superstition" which placed "the word of religious authorities over personal experience and rational activity". The concept of a Dark Age originated with the Italian scholar petrach(Francesco Petrarca) in the 1330s, and was originally intended as a sweeping criticism of the character of late Latin literature.