The Middle Ages is often liquidated superficially like adark era Because the huge are ignored Cultural and technical progress occurred in this key period for the development of European civilization, daughter of the medieval period rather than classical civilization. The term “medieval” and the “medieval” adjective are often used in the sense derogatorygive the idea of something retrograde, barbaric or antiquated. The conception of the Middle Ages as adark age was processed starting from Renaissancebut above all at the time ofEnlightenmentin the eighteenth century, when historians, looking to the past, began to paint the Middle Ages with dark colors, relegating it to a period of darkness, repression and religious fanaticism. It is an ideological distortion, extremely misleadingwhich was born in response to the political and religious climate of Europe of modern erain relation to issues such as the power of the state and the Church. So superficial thus quickly 1000 years of medieval history were liquidated, which in reality were progress, discoveries And conquests.
Because the Middle Ages is not a dark period as everyone believes
Technological progress
In the long -term medieval period, Europe experienced numerous technological progress of great importance: tools And agricultural structureslike the plows and mills, came improvedincreasing the productivity and supporting a great Increase in the populationespecially between the X and the thirteenth century.
THE’engineering He touched impressive peaks, difficult to achieve in antiquity. Big cathedrals European (both Gothic and Romanesque ones) were for centuries the higher structures in the worldand were erected with architectural solutions ingenious And innovative.
Cultural progress
Try to agree wedding ring And reason It was not a small deal. The great Christian philosophers and thinkers of the Middle Ages, such as Abalardo, Tommaso d’Aquino or Guglielmo di Ockham they threw the Bases of modern western thoughtwhich would have characterized all philosophy until Hegel’s time, at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In the Middle Ages then the university As we know them today, as free research and teaching centers. TO Bolognafounded in 1088, followed Oxford in 1096 and the Sorbona of Paris in 1170, just to mention some of the most prestigious and famous of the time. There literature he reached very high peaks, in Italy with Dante, Petrarch And Boccaccioin England with Chaucherin France with i Provencal troubadours or Christine De Pisan.
There Churchoften painted as a conservative and fanatic, in reality it was essential for the transmission of the great classical culture And it was at the center of numerous cultural innovations. Without the monks who dealt with hand The Greek and Latin texts hardly the knowledge of the ancients could have overcome the stormy upheavals of late antiquity. In addition, dark pages such as the fight against heresies and the witch hunt took place at the end of the Middle Ages and especially in Modern age. The legal knowledge antiquity were integrated with the development of medieval jurisprudence, laying the foundations for our regulations of current laws.
Economic progress
In the Middle Ages the foundations for the great economic development western Europe. The capitalismthe banksthe billsand great international trade they developed in every direction. THE municipalities of central-northern Italy, including Florence And Milanand northern Europe, like Anti And Gandthanks to theirs resourcefulnessbecame very rich And influential. The marine republics Italian (Amalfi, Pisa, Genoa and Venice) founded real commercial empires Throughout the Mediterranean, by circulating goods, culture, people and ideas. The large amount of wealth circulating in Italy but also in Flanders (in the current Belgium) also led to a strong impulse in the arts and scienceswhich in the late Middle Ages laid the foundations for the following Humanism And Renaissance.
