In the past 30 years archeology and good research has of course disproven the myth of the 'Dark Ages'. The idea proffered by the big brains in academia and the media, that the medieval European was a skin wearing savage, self flagellating to the mighty Jesus deity, toothless, witless, and afraid of bathing, is about as relevant a picture of real history as the theories of GlobaloneyWarming are to science. Medieval man was no more pious in general than we are, and certainly in many ways was more grounded in reality than we are today. I doubt that our society could withstand major waves of invasions, the plague, a little ice age, and then develop the accouterments of the modern world. We would whine that government 'has to do something' to stop reality and make the world equal and secure.

The renascences which lasted from the replacement of 'Roman' rule with Visigothic or German, to 1550 or the Baroque era, were really an unending era of European development. The Dark Ages are an ugly myth of course. It is highly unlikely that a 'dark' society produces a Giotto, an Oresmes, an Aquinas, or a Bede. What is dark is our understanding of the post Roman epoch, an empire that had long outlived any usefulness. What is undoubtedly dark are the modern cults around Climate-baloney, pop-culture, Obama-worship and Marxist theological worship.

In 1981 historian Nauert wrote an interesting book contrasting the southern European age of rebirth in the 16^th century with that of northern Europe. Nauert is a man of common sense. His main proposal as far as my little mind can grasp it, is that the northern European states accepted the influence of the Italian renaissance only after it suited their particular social and cultural needs. From this it follows that the northern European extension of medieval cultural rebirth, in the areas of reason, innovation, economic and social transformation, and even war, were likewise geographically and culturally rooted in their own experiences. As with most of history culture determines everything else.

“The North itself would never have accepted Renaissance culture if that culture had not suited its needs. The reorganized, powerful monarchies of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries needed a new ideal for their servants and courtiers, and the emphasis on public service, on personal merit, and on learning provided an attractive substitute...”

Early modern capitalism centered first in northern Italy and then spreading to the Low countries and England was transforming European society. States, individuals, courts and organizations were becoming much wealthier. Capital and trade flows became denser and more fluid. State competition meant that taxation and the heavy impositions of arbitrary rule were becoming relics, though it would take 3 full centuries to finally kill off divine right rule.

“In addition to the monarchs and their courts, other important groups in the North also found humanistic culture attractive. The powerful, self-confident merchant oligarchies that governed the important towns, especially the prospering towns of the Rhine Valley and of south Germany, found in humanism a cultural ideal far more suited to the needs and prejudices of urban magnates than were the chivalric and scholastic traditions of the Middle Ages.”

By 1500 history had moved on. The Catholic Church which saved Europe from Islam and the migrating hordes of Central Asian nomads was by 1500 in need of its own rebirth, which found expression in the doctrines [sometimes the very strange doctrines] of Luther and the biting satire of Europe's first modern writer Erasmus. New capital and new ideas meant a new culture had to be formed. A charter weakness of the 16^th century Renaissance was its vapid mimicking of Rome and Greece. Neither ancient Rome nor Greece were apogees of enlightenment, nor were they perfect models in any sphere of activity. Yet the Renaissance consciously designed itself to follow these ancient societies as if they were the beacons of civilisation. In some areas such as literature and general education this did make sense.

“....the conscious adoption of an idealized Greek and Roman antiquity as the model for reforming literature, education, and the whole ideal of the educated man. Even more than in Italy, Northern humanists enthusiastically looked to the apostolic and patristic age of the Church as a valuable part of the ancient heritage they sought to restore. This emphasis on ancient Christianity, combined with the widespread movements of lay piety that flourished in the lower Rhine Valley and other parts of Northern Europe, explains why humanism north of the Alps directed much of its reformist activity toward reform of the Church and deepening of religious experience.”

Nauert thus presents a dilemma. We are taught that the Renaissance was a rejection of the 'Middle Ages' and the enshrinement of reason. This is not true. It was purification process as much as it was a progressive stage towards more rational discourse and organization. Seen in this light the age of the Renaissance is not a separate epoch at all, but simply a continuation of the many 'renascences' which had been in train since 500 AD. The culture was changing and reforming. There was no decisive 'break' with the past as Voltaire and others believed. The shift from the time of Oresmes and the Scholastics to the 18^th century Enlightenment was gradual and rooted in the past as much as it was formed by reasoning and odes to a bright future. Without Clovis there is no Charlemagne. Without a Giotto there is no Da Vinci.