Dark Ages. When it was fashionable to denigrate everything medieval, this term was often applied by way of abuse to the entire millennium called the Middle Ages, which comprises much of the finest culture in Europe, many of the greatest painters, and some of the great thinkers, as well as vivacious spirituality, diligent scholarship, and remarkable technological skill. As such it was inapposite to the point of absurdity. It is nowadays sometimes applied, with more propriety, to the earlier Middle Ages ( c. 500-c. 800), a period during which conditions were primitive, anarchy prevalent, and culture stagnant. Genuine thinkers were rare. The later Middle Ages, especially from the 12th c. till the Renaissance, were anything other than dark.

Geddes MacGregor, Dictionary of Religion and Philosophy, New York: Paragon House, 1989