The term Dark Ages is often errantly used to describe the Middle Ages. After all, how can we really call a period dark when its rays of light reach through centuries to impact us today in the form of the Benedictine Rule, which helped preserve culture and art; Thomas Aquinas’ Summa; Thomas Kempis’ Imitation of Christ; and the genus of Dominicans and Franciscans. There was a rise in both scholasticism and piety. Human tendency seems to dictate the previous generations as lacking much merit. In a knee-jerk reaction to the faults of the immediate past, there tends to be an overcorrection. After all, it is always the proceeding age which has the privilege of naming its predecessor. Even within the Middle Ages, there was a constant evolution of Catholic spirituality with emphasis on the intellectual in the 13th century, followed by an overcorrection of sorts emphasizing charismatic mysticism in the 14th century.
Keep in mind, immediately following the Middle Ages, we have the Protestant Reformation, and surely the union of the Catholic Church and the State must have been widely considered an abomination by those leaving the Church in droves for untruths. Although, one must remember the joining of Church and state by Constantine in the 4th century was in response to centuries of Christian persecution. In order for the Church to be able to operate, it needs the city of man (as Augustine call it) to be one of stability and peace. This is why the cardinal virtues are the hinge virtues for man, one must first have a society based on human virtue before it can achieve theological virtue. What better way to bring about peace, they must have thought, than to make the interests of the state and the interests of the Church one? Granted, this also caused many problems with secular rulers having too much sway in Church affairs and Church officials engaging in simony. After all, the Avignon Papacy and the Papal Schism were in large part due to this increasingly tight bond between Church and state.
It is vital to remember that no matter the period in human history, there will be the ever-present battle between fallen human nature and the higher calling of man. There will always be dark patches, but we can’t allow those to make us blind to the good. God is good, and He never abandons His people. To call an age dark that involved the Catholic Church spreading to all the ends of Europe and beyond is to associate the Church with darkness. It is anything but. To call this period dark would be to insinuate that God had somehow been absent, or else that man had ceased to give off the divine spark innate in his nature. Neither of these were true. Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more (Rom 5:20). The deeper humanity plunges itself into darkness, the brighter the Church burned as the only saving light. Perhaps this is why Catholicism was so popular; people knew how much they needed a Savior. Today, pride seems to be boundless as we take our peaceful state for granted. A lack of profound suffering results in a lack of profound understanding of ourselves and our place in the grand scheme of Providence. Suffering is a means of conversion and purgation, for if God could bring no good out of it, He wouldn’t allow the evil at all. We are like little children who want to be independent and let go of our mother’s hand to run and do what we want. The moment we get hurt though, we run to our Mother for healing and consolation.
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| St. Dominic (Photo Source) |
To see the Middle Ages as dark is to completely misunderstand human nature and man’s relationship with God. When we fail to see the spiritual elements at play throughout human history, we fail to see reality. Modern history likes to ignore any good the Church has brought about in the west like public education, hospitals, universities, and charities. They would rather us focus on the evil that has occurred at the hands of man in the Church, which while true, doesn’t nullify the wealth of good that we’ve had because of Her. Since the Middle Ages are in large part a Catholic Age, modern man sees it as his mission to redefine it as a dark one. He insists it is dark because of the Church and not because of the fallen nature of man. But, just take a look at the number of Saints who arose during this period (St. Dominic, St. Francis, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Clare, St. Thomas Aquinas… just to name a few greats). The truth is, while times may have been dark in terms of sin and war, the true followers of Christ in the Church were a always a radiant light. Today’s world is just as dark, but it isn’t without light, just as was the case with the Middle Ages.
References:
New Catholic Encyclopedia
Vol. 13. 2nd ed. Detroit: Gale, 2003. p443-451. COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale, COPYRIGHT 2006 Gale, Cengage Learning
K. KAVANAUGH and M. B. PENNINGTON
John Vidmar, OP. The Catholic Church Through the Ages: A History
Alan Schreck. The Compact History of the Catholic Church
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