Were The Dark Ages Really That Dark? | King Arthur's Britain | Chronicle

Francis Pryor examines the relics of the Dark Ages to build a fuller picture of this much-maligned era. Popular belief has always held that the departure of the Romans led to barbarism in Britain, but archaeological finds have shed light on a cultured, literate society that embraced the growing Romanised Christian religion and embarked on a profitable trading relationship with the Byzantine Empire. With new archaeological evidence Francis discovers a far more interesting story.
Welcome to Chronicle; your home for all things medieval history! With documentaries covering everything from the collapse of the Roman Empire to the beginnings of the Renaissance, from Hastings to Charlemagne, we'll be exploring everything the Middle Ages have to offer.
Subscribe now so you don't miss out!
Chronicle is part of the History Hit Network. To get in touch please email [e-mail].
It's like Netflix for history... 📺 Sign up to History Hit, the world's best history documentary service and get 50% off using the code 'CHRONICLE' 👉 bit.ly/3iVCZNl

[@ChronicleMedieval]

It's like Netflix for history... 📺 Sign up to History Hit, the world's best history documentary service and get 50% off using the code 'CHRONICLE' 👉 bit.ly/3iVCZNl

[@f1s2hg3]

Dark Ages were so dark in the 5th century the sun was darkened and we almost slid back into ice age again.

[@athelstan927]

You mean crap then?!

[@EmilyKinny]

That one bishop who clearly adored his wife.... can we all take a moment to appreciate how lovely and sweet that was oml... "Audeva, a most holy woman, here lies, who was the most beloved wife of Bevatesis. In morals, discipline, and for wisdom, than gold and precious stones this woman was better."

[@amandamccallum6796]

I was taught the Dark Age was called that because we had plenty of sources of written history before and after the dark age but very little information on the dark age. It was dark because it was unknown not because life at that time was somehow worse than ever.

[@ancientseamonster9499]

That's how i understood it too.

[@kevwhufc8640]

Amanda McCallum your absolutely right,

[@Mohawks_and_Tomahawks]

Correct

[@tbz1551]

Wrong… “The 'Dark Ages' were between the 5th and 14th centuries, lasting 900 years. The timeline falls between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance. It has been called the 'Dark Ages' because many suggest that this period saw little scientific and cultural advancement.” Not due to its lack of recorded history, that was simply a result.

[@tbz1551]

@@kevwhufc8640 Not at all correct

[@onemercilessming1342]

It always seemed to me that, after the fall of Rome, the ease of communicating between the various cities and outposts of the Empire was drastically diminished. Learning wasn't dead. Sharing information under the relative safety of Rome's soldiers became less possible with each passing year until the rise of new cities/powers and facilitated by the invention of the Gutenberg press. We today take our communication and ability to be educated for granted. Imagine how long it might take if a comet strike or full-out nuclear exchange took all that out.

[@deanmorgan7011]

Your right on track there.....

[@kimberlyperrotis8962]

I prefer to use the terms “Late Antiquity” and “Early Medieval” for the for “Dark Ages”. Of course, historians don’t agree about the dates covered by these two periods, and, of course, it also depends on place.

[@eamonnclabby7067]

Much more helpful ,Kimberley, best wishes from the wirral, site of the great battle of Brunanburh/Bromborough 937AD,Wirral,namechecked albeit in Welsh in the medieval poem of sir Gawain and the green knight...E

[@mikemccarthy1638]

Do you mean, more or less - - “Late Antiquity” = From around the end of the 4th Century to the “Early Medieval”, and - “Early Medieval” = From “Late Antiquity” to around the end of the 11th Century?

[@fevergaming1]

I refer to the dark ages as The Sexy Time.

[@olewetdog6254]

No matter what term you use I'm pretty sure it was a pretty crappy time to live for most people.

[@MaegnasMw]

Why wonder if tin was a major export of the British Isles in the time after the Romans left Britain? The British Isles were know to Mediterranean traders, Greeks and Phoenicians mostly, as the "Tin Isles" ("Κασσιτερίτιδες Νήσοι" in Greek) as early as the 3rd century BC, possibly even earlier. Pytheas os Massilia, a legendary seaman and explorer, set out to find what was beyond the Tin Isles and was the first Mediterranean who came upon Iceland, at around 280BC, iirc.

[@goodtoGoNow1956]

One certainly never hears of it again until the Crusades.

[@WanderinPat]

I've recently read that Tin was an important component in the making of Bronze. That the Bronze Age ended because of a shortage of Tin. A little simplistic perhaps, but still shows there was a market for Tin.

[@MaegnasMw]

@@WanderinPat more than just a market, tin those days was what oil is today! Weapons, tools, even coins were made of bronze and bronze needed tin to get it.

[@benjaminollis7621]

The local legend is that Jesus came to England as a child with his uncle Joseph of aramethia, who was a merchant.

[@MrDDiRusso]

Why were the Dark Ages so dark? Because there were so many knights.

[@CaptainAMAZINGGG]

The most appropriate take-away.

[@steveo4099]

And they were Black!!!!

[@patriciapalmer1377]

The people in the area, who had lived and worked alongside the Romans didnt become automatically ignorant at the fall of the empire. It would make sense they carried on with a good deal of knowledge less the security of troops and empire goods which may have been diminishing anyway.

[@casteretpollux]

They were not entirely ignorant before the Romans came.

[@fetus2280]

@@casteretpollux Nope, they were not.. But they werent Nearly as advanced as the Romans .

[@casteretpollux]

@@fetus2280 It's hard to imagine what pre-literate societies were like. We know that very advanced knowledge of the movements of the planets and stars was developed. People had to rely on memory and learning by listening and by rote. I've met illiterate people who hold hundreds of song lyrics and tunes in their heads and huge amounts of information on travel routes and the location of specific resources that most of us would have to look up in a written record. Of course the advantage is with those with literacy and written records. The druids knowledge was lost as it was kept arcane and they were eliminated by military power and their science replaced by religion.

[@gryph01]

@@casteretpollux Exactly. Celts were excellent craftspeople. Stone age inhabitants built stone circles that were used as calendars with accuracy. It gets a little tiresome when we come across people that say ancient cultures could not possibly have built Stonehenge, Pyramids etc.

[@Laurelin70]

@@gryph01 Stone age inhabitants were not Celts.

[@michael7324]

Maybe we should stop using the phrase "Dark Ages" and refer to it as the "Post Roman" era.

[@darrylknight2675]

Yes the term dark ages is wrong and people should not using it.

[@meilinchan7314]

I dunno, ever heard of the 536 AD event? If Procopius was right, the dark ages were REALLY dark, especially for Rome, in that year.

[@flamos44]

@@meilinchan7314 but not elsewhere in africa, asia and near east the time was one of flourishing growth and change certainly not "dark"

[@manuelkong10]

there's nothing wrong with the term Dark Ages....this guy just has a hard on in EVERY Video about "IT'S NOT WHAT YOU WERE TAUGHT IT WAS" YAWN

[@aquastar4336]

@@darrylknight2675 i just call it "medieval times"

[@kimberlyperrotis8962]

The Greek “Dark Ages” produced Homer, so why not Arthur in Britain? I believe oral storytelling telling just increased when literacy was low. Most pre-literate societies have strong storytelling traditions.

[@alexkorneev6469]

Homer was born in 750 BC, how is greek dark ages produced him?

[@dorianphilotheates3769]

Kimberly Perrotis - Well said.

[@horror11]

@@alexkorneev6469 because greek had high civilizations centuries before homer, like the mycenean culture in bronze age , where the troyan wars are happening and minoan cultures and by the time of homer the greek civilizations had declined but was reborn in times of classical greece around 500bc and from than on the greek had about 2000 years of high civilization until the fall of constantinople and end of the roman empire then the west got reborn with the renaissance at around 1500ad and the greek had their dark ages which ended after their independence in 1821

[@SkunkApe407]

Seeing as how there's no actual proof that Homer even existed, your analogy falls a bit flat. Beyond that, there's no mention of an Arthur or Artutius anywhere in the records, and he only ever appeared in literally sources around three hundred years after he supposedly lived. It is far more likely that Robin Hood was real than it is that Arthur ever was. Regardless of whether these men actually lived or not, the literature and lore surrounding them has impacted western society in a significant way. They needn't have been real for their stories to have had a very real effect on much of how we perceived morality and honor, which is far more important that whether or not they ever drew breath.

[@stompthedragon4010]

@@SkunkApe407 They may be archetypes

[@historybuff7491]

I love the levels of Latin inscriptions so that even backwards it means something...word games even then.

[@internetexplorer7303]

so i guess being clever is a relatively new thing

[@historybuff7491]

@@internetexplorer7303 I am sorry if I offended. I meant I didn't realize word games go back that far. I know they go back into England's culture to the Anglo-Saxons. I have read them in the original Old English, but I didn't realize they were even older. I am sorry, I did such a poor job at expressing that.

[@phillipstroll7385]

@@historybuff7491 you explained yourself well. Someone is just taking the mic

[@visheshsux]

@@historybuff7491 it's okay dude. people will always be petty, just move on.

[@ImGoingSupersonic]

@@internetexplorer7303 Pleb

[@WanderinPat]

As @Amanda McCallum said, I also have always understood, and still do, that the Dark Ages were called that because there was very little historical record to be found, especially in Britain. Francis Pryor's documentaries, though very interesting, have not convinced me otherwise.

[@sorelyanlie2784]

Exactly. It’s not “misnamed” it’s that people’s preconceptions about the name are inaccurate. I was always taught that it was called dark because we don’t know much about it. But I also think that it greatly serves the evolution agenda to paint the earlier generations as less intellectual/reasonable than present times and that might be part of why that view of the era has become so standardized.

[@RecRoomPlays]

This perception is incorrect, it's just not generally very exciting for the average person because surviving texts are largely legal or clerical. Even if we go with the very England-centric "Dark Ages" term (which scholars often dispute specifically because it focuses on England and ignores the rest of the world; the Eastern Roman [Byzantine] Empire was trucking along just fine, and that's not even getting into the Arabian Peninsula or Asia), we have texts ranging from ~600-900 CE from prominent legal or religious leaders like Ethelbert, King Alfred, Theodore the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Bede, and we need only to cross over to the European mainland to find a multitude of other texts from authors during the reign of Charlemagne in the 8th and 9th centuries, Jordanes writing about the Goths in the 6th century, Gregory of Tours writing about the Franks also in the 6th century, there's a Saint's Life text written in the 7th century, Pope Gregory's Dialogues are from the late 6th-early 7th century, and even the most famous Old English poem, Beowulf, is attested to some time between the 8th and 11th centuries. It's not an overwhelming abundance of textual material, especially in comparison to what we're used to from the modern day or even just following the invention of the printing press, many of the source texts are fragmented or anonymous ledgers or lists of laws, or commonly disseminated liturgical texts. But we don't call the ancient Sumerians part of a "dark age", even though we know far less about them than we do of Europe in the early middle ages.

[@soccerchamp0511]

What about Ireland? St Patrick was beginning his mission there around the same time as the beginning of the "Dark Ages", and there is bountiful evidence of literacy and the production and protection of books in the Emerald Isle and subsequent Celtic Christian outposts, like Iona and Lindisfarne, during the "Dark Ages".

[@eamonnclabby7067]

Quite agree, recommend the Max Adams book,the King in the North about King/Saint Oswald who Tolkein based Aragorn on....cheers /slainte...E

[@frankciccarelli4000]

The Irish were busy saving civilization..

[@KB-di7op]

There’s a great book on this: How the Irish Saved Civilization.

[@psalm2764]

@@eamonnclabby7067 Interesting - in the Bible, the "King of the North" is DAN, Assyria.

[@JonFrumTheFirst]

For sophisticated urbanites, it was a dark age. During the Empire, people could travel freely from North Africa to Iberia to Gaul to Italy to Greece to Egypt. Travel was reasonably safe, and you'd always find people who spoke your language. People didn't go back to foraging for roots and berries, but for the literate classes who could take advantage of the finer things of life, they saw their world get smaller. Imagine what your life would be like if you could never talk to anyone who didn't live in your immediate neighborhood. And you couldn't shop beyond five miles from your house. It's been a long time since anyone took the Dark Ages thing seriously, but the changes certainly were drastic. It took hundreds of years for people to access the old Roman literature, and they were amazed by what they read.

[@janohara6995]

Kind of like Covid19

[@veryestherful]

I love Francis, he was so good in time team as well.

[@michael7324]

True. But in this show he has more than 3 days to shoot the show.

[@ben-jam-in6941]

Ya he is the best!!

[@goodtoGoNow1956]

This show is bogus.

[@CaptainAMAZINGGG]

@@goodtoGoNow1956 no, you

[@goodtoGoNow1956]

@@CaptainAMAZINGGG This show is bogus

[@robsniffen7597]

Love your content…PLEASE POST MORE VIDEOS! I could watch your channel all night.👍🏻

[@ChronicleMedieval]

Thank you! and stay tuned ❤

[@christianvincentcostanilla8428]

Make a video : Dark Ages

[@maryannmacmurray4279]

👏🏻🧑🏻‍🦳

[@urso3000]

A light hanging over history, thanks for sharing.

[@moodist1er]

Writing on monuments isn't evidence of a literate society. There would be more collections of writing as evidence of a literate society. A small liturgic class working for financial elites is not represent a whole society. And those are the only writings we have.

[@FritsGerlich07]

Yes you're right about that, my point exactly. I kept wondering the entire time while watching this (overall very interesting) documentary, why a flourishing post Roman British society with such a high degree of literacy didn't produce any notable writing, except for some poems on a stone slab and the writings of a single Christian Saint!?

[@phillipstroll7385]

That isn't true at all. We have an abundant of things in storage. They are Just waiting to be studied. In most cases we aren't allowed to study them because those which we have delved into process our way of thinking to be wrong. For example: a great many things prove we didn't come out of Africa but traveled into it. We even have massive DNA studies done by the US military that they won't make public. Some of us are allowed to view compartmentalized bits of the DNA, but not all of it all at once. Because the story of our humanity and how long civilizations have been here would be changed forever. These things need to come out slowly.

[@phillipstroll7385]

Also, if people couldn't read no one would have been writing books.

[@Kegan1993]

@@phillipstroll7385 If these studies are hidden from the public, how could you know it all? Did you look them up on Shittypedia? Why would they even hide such major discovery from the public? How could you say that we are not ready for the new information?

[@phillipstroll7385]

@@Kegan1993 I have two PhD's and a JD. Parts are made available for us.

[@user-zk8ed4kd2b]

I love this content. Thank you for presenting this on your Chanel.

[@ALNlemtor]

am glad i found this channel , so much of insights. much love cheers! oh pressed some buttons too ;)

[@johndoubleu5942]

Awesome seeing Francis!

[@Patricia-if5cv]

Fascinating. Wonderful presentation.

[@tonnywildweasel8138]

The myths, the legends, the folktales.. I love that! And then it turns out that the sun also shone in the so-called 'dark ages'. Fantastic vid! Thanks!! Greetings, T.

[@Russwig]

So why is it still referred to as the "dark ages"? Should we not be calling it the "post-roman age"? I would not expect all the "roman occupiers”, who had been living in the UK, raising families and having a local life, to evacuate simply because the center of the Empire was disintegrating, half a world away. Many would have stayed and continued without the support of the Empire. Things do not happen that quickly, especially in a period where it could take months to communicate between major areas.

[@perryclarke9981]

Because I think in almost 200 years after Rome left, we know of about 10 actual individuals who were from that era - we were and are literally 'in the dark' as to what actually happened post Rome.

[@voxfan7403]

Because most of Europe went dark after the fall of Rome. The British Isles seems to have been an exception.

[@goodtoGoNow1956]

Because it was backward.

[@goodtoGoNow1956]

@@sgtbuckwheat The ignorance and backwardness was not supposed. It was real

[@psalm2764]

Because the forces that should not be do not want us to know the effect that the Messiah had upon mankind.

[@p.l.g3190]

So it looks like the Dark Ages only have been dark to our eyes. Nice to know our ancestors didn't merely rot mentally or culturally and just sit around saying, "Dur, dur, dur," at each other, or whatever the local equivalent was.

[@pattiodors8296]

Loved this. It was interesting. Dr. Petra Dark , researching bout the dark ages. 😊🕯️

[@ChronicleMedieval]

Good luck with your research!

[@billn.1318]

Back when history documentaries used to be about history and not some reality show about history that has nothing to do with history.

[@PanglossDr]

typical, nasty KZbin comment

[@angrypossumsx1259]

I hope youre not having a snipe at Time Team

[@fionadowson4550]

Vortigern's Tower and the prediction of Arthur's birth is my favourite story, I really enjoy telling it.

[@gelisgeo1309]

If you read sources about East Rome (Byzantine-Greek empire) you can easily understand the high level of this civilization. With Greek and Roman legacy exist for 1000 years. Architecture medicine Mechanic Stradegy Trade Industry etc.. was amazing back then

[@FLORATOSOTHON]

It is quite understandable, that although Roman administration left, the Roman influence an interaction at the social level remained and did not just disappeared. Also the term "Dark Ages" is a term referring to the period after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. There were no "Dark Ages" in the Eastern Roman Empire that remained intact for about 1100 years. Besides the "Dark Ages" history of Britain, there is also an ancient history. The British Isles were known to the ancient Greeks and as I read, there is some evidence of Tin trade with the British isles, going back to the Aegean Cycladic civilization era.

[@DaRyteJuan]

Sometimes I wonder why all documentaries can’t be this intriguing and well done, but then again it’s the ones like these that make me really appreciate them. 👍🏻

[@CaptainAMAZINGGG]

Because not all documentaries are done by Francis Pryor ;) :p who is AN ABSOLUTE GEM, and so full of life and vigour! As someone with issues paying attention and assimilating information, I effortlessly take in what francis puts down, every time. He's one of my favourite archaeologists, and favourite people tbh. He is lovely. I so appreciate him. :3

[@husshhhussh]

I love love love me some history! I love it even more when someone tells me a great story❤

[@leonbrooks2107]

The more I read about the Romans leaving the more I get the impression that the Britons just said “ok, bye” 🤷‍♂️🤣

[@visheshsux]

great video. love watching this stuff.

[@ChronicleMedieval]

More to come!

[@gryph01]

Ah Francis. One if the best guys to answer that question!

[@johnhopkins4012]

I have a lot of time for this man and his research as he is seeing through all the generations of archaeologists who just wanted to dig the Romans and forget about the important Romano- British levels above. I remember an archaeologist telling us this on one of the digs I was on. He said quite clearly that Romano-British dark age history was being destroyed. Why I ask.

[@JEPATTERSON07]

Was Arthur Clovis' lost elder son? The one who supposedly died in childbirth? Was he the one who inherited The Isles? The legend and the history are curiously similar. A child taken secretly at birth by an elder sage and a nurse, to the nether regions of a remote island kingdom, to protect him from the intrigues of European Royal Court?

[@janicepedroli7403]

I read somewhere the dark ages were considered dark because of cloud of volcanic ash over Europe that made it dark and rainy for many years.

[@Kaptain13Gonzo]

This makes a very compelling argument. The logic is pretty sound. Extrapolating from such limited information is always fraught with difficulty. But, in consideration of people as people, it is emminently reasonable to have continued on in the "old ways" even though the Legions left. this is a story seen throughout history with the local peoples carrying on after the dominant powers have left. The farmers still farm, smiths still make tools and families continue. Well done.

[@jeffyowell]

Excellent work.

[@ChronicleMedieval]

Thank you!

[@gloriapiza8125]

Quite interesting and informative. 🤔🧐😉

[@Alarix246]

For me, the Dark Ages came with a cold period around the 5th century, and continued while Islam ruled the seas. The items that took few weeks to deliver by the sea during the Roman times, suddenly took half a year by foot and cart. Every maritime travel was a chance to become a slave. I wonder that Francis Pryor doesn't see the coincidence between rise of Islam and their demise at the siege of Vienna. It is not politically correct to say it, yet it is so obvious when you look in history. The cold period after volcanic eruptions possibly destroyed Mayan civilization, and had an impact as far as Eastern Asia, and logically also in Europe. Unfortunately the lack of written records from that era (at the onset) is the main problem for our decoding what actually happened.

[@PanglossDr]

How was it only Britain talks about Dark ages, other European countries did fine back then.

[@Alarix246]

@@PanglossDr because you only know British history. It's hard not to call a period "dark", when the maritime trade is made impossible and volcanic eruptions bring failing crops and famine.

[@PanglossDr]

@@Alarix246 What makes you think I only know British history, you are completely wrong.

[@UICeinnselaig]

@@PanglossDr Them other European countries were fighting for control of Britain at that time

[@psalm2764]

@@UICeinnselaig the philistines wanted to destroy the Hebrew Israelites (Jacob, not Esau)

[@savagecub]

This is my favorite period in history.

[@johnlandau7111]

They were indeed dark ages. Barbarian invasions, tribal warfare, famines, abandonment of farmland, abandoned towns and villages, a drastic loss of population, very little literature produced. That’s all pretty dark. Scholars and archeologists are always revising the received histories in order to have something to write their doctoral dissertations and books, which are required for them to obtain academic appointments, tenure and promotions. Earlier generations of scholars had less motivation to misrepresent history.

[@alexkorneev6469]

Well, if by barbarians you meant vikings, they were no more barbarians then the native population

[@goodtoGoNow1956]

Yes. This documentary bugs me. So wrong.

[@glenharrison123]

This is one of the most profound and interesting historical documentaries that I've ever seen. Good work team.

[@dorianphilotheates3769]

3:23 - “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence...”.

[@legolasgreenleaf1961]

The term dark ages is actually a fairly recent idea. To the Britons or Welsh, it was the age of the saints, of great heroic British kings who resisted the coming of the illiterate pagan Saxons and others. Unbelievably the one person's name that echoes out of this period via poetry, records and genealogies is 'Arthur'. Yet no one can find him, or certainly cannot agree if he was real or not, yet the Welsh always knew who he was. Its political and religious manouvering that has obscured the Welsh traditions. Still to this day the likes of Cornwall and Glastonbury have great tourist industries based on King Arthur, yet the one place he is known to have ruled has become a black hole. Arthwyr son of Uthyr(King Meurig) was crowned king of Glamorgan by St Dyfrig( Dubricius) who still lies buried in his tomb in Cardiff, as does St Teilo his 6th century successor and contemporary of Arthwyr. The evidence is there if you know where to look and treat British records with respect instead of disdain. Even Arthur's 'knights' are shown in the family trees.

[@Synthillator]

Very interesting.

[@KickYouInTheThroat]

"Nostalgia for a past that never happened" 9th century Vaporwave

[@therealtoni]

I love these presentations. Thank you for sharing!!

[@julieblackstock8650]

so interesting

[@happytoday333]

In Australia in the 1950s, and especially in the 60s and 70s, the seaman on leave from North America and the UK were especially influential to an Australia that was largely ignored by the rest of the world. Those workers, drinking with the Australian workers, introduced music, fashion even ideology to our shores. The equal rights movement for indigenous Australians even had black panther memberships. Justinian may have organised feasts and whatnot to win over the elites on West England shores, BUT it may have been the everyday workers on the ships just having a good old time with the everyday workers on shore that was the important exchange of ideas and mingling friendships.

[@whathappened2230]

Did anyone notice some of the music sounds like Celtic Frost? From the album To Mega Therion...

[@debbiehall7016]

My STANSALL(various spellings) ancestors most likely go back to the ancient village of Stancil, Tickhill. I have documents saying there was once a Roman villa there. Have you made a documentary about this area? I would appreciate very much, Deborah Stancil Hall, North Carolina, USA

[@Dovietail]

I love the idea of a 13th century tourist trap! 😍🤩🥰

[@sarahhearn-vonfoerster7401]

Ireland was the beacon of light during the Dark Ages; the sought after seats of learning and literacy. Celtic Christianity was tolerant and inclusive of marriage and families within Abbys. St.Patric and Roman Catholicism destroyed all that and led to the destruction of the true Irish heritage.

[@psalm2764]

Philistines, Edomites, Amorites, Moabites and Canaanites all hate the Hebrew, who they seek to extinguish but simply cannot. Reading the Bible helps.

[@Mohawks_and_Tomahawks]

It's called "The Dark Ages" because they didn't have Lightbulbs then. Everyone knows that.

[@K8E666]

Francis from Time Team ! 😊😊

[@tonynorris9139]

...and no 'Baldrick' to piss people off. An excellent documentary illuminating 'the dark'.

[@veronicalogotheti5416]

That is why alfred the great spoke latin and greek They say he went there

[@mikehorton6225]

This is positively amazing.

[@markgarin6355]

Strange, there is little discussion about the period between Roman departure, then how long the Roman buildings and forts were usable, or were they destroyed PRIOR to someone needing to build a structure on these sites. It could have taken years before the original buildings were gone. But what is more interesting is WHY anyone would have built a town on that remote site, other than a religious group trying to escape others. No food no water...no easy access...no way it makes sense.

[@kamon830]

Gildas writes about the departure of the Romans from Britain The British rebellion against Rome how the British raised an army and marched on Rome The destruction of Britain by the Romans after the rebellion The invasion of Britain by the Scots The building of Hadrians wall by the British and not the Romans The jutes , Saxons , Angles how they were invited to defend the island from the invading Scots Gildas is worth a read

[@thesteelworks8088]

We can call them strongly shaded ages. Instead of dark ages if it’s preferable

[@CaptainAMAZINGGG]

Omg :')

[@mariellouise1]

Wonderful shooting and editing by a talented production and post production team.

[@elizabethtaylor9242]

I understood from history that the Dark Ages were the period between the Departure of the Roman Empire and the invasion of the Normans in 1066. It was called dark because the England was divided into warring kingdoms. After the Norman invasion we were in the Middle Ages.

[@auntymar-marjustme]

This was really neat! I do wonder how many of the roman men stayed in britain; cause just as it was in mainland europe many warriors came from the local poeple not every warrior was from italy; after 25/50 yrs of being part of the roman territory the sons of the free local elites were allowed to become solders & stay in their ancestral home lands; & those who were of those long standing free elite families stayed & kept on w/life when the non-british roman solders went back to rome. & the bishops had wives up until the 10th or 11th century when the pope discoverd that the wealth that the bishops collected went to the children of those bishops & not to the catholic church

[@lorrygeewhizzbang9521]

Alot of them. It's believed the original English are now the welsh, and the English are of Roman decent.

[@elena4009]

This is quite a strange position presented here. No one says that as soon as 410 hit the whole country was filled in with dread and darkness fell on earth. The Dark Ages were a slow decay due to the break of rather easy international communication, but people still lived their lives. Europe had a lot of huge beautiful buildings created as well, but knowledge just deteriorated. So the narrator’s approach is a bit too “sensational” to be good.

[@FritsGerlich07]

I believe the narrator is a little bit biased too. The claim that post Roman Britain was the cradle of Western civilization is pretty bold if you ask me. That also applies for the suggestion that the Anglo Saxon invasion never happened as such in the first place. Furthermore I can't help myself to have the feeling that he conveniently tries to establish a connection between some sort of a post Roman British identity and a modern day British identity (imposed by the English though).

[@cherylevans1110]

Gammon and proud 👍🇬🇧💕

[@karaamundson3964]

Your ideas don't seem to be supported by the evidence. Strong communities, trade routes, educational system--maybe the framework was all there pre-410 with Rome, but it is against human nature not to go on doing things more or less as they have done, gradually changing but even then evolving forward

[@FritsGerlich07]

@@karaamundson3964 Just because one claims that an invasion didn't happen because the idea of an of invasion doesn't fit ones beliefs or because one has a very narrow minded definition of an invasion to begin with, doesn't justify to rewrite history based upon very little evidence, which seems hardly enough to prove it. Things didn't change from one day to another. However, they definitely have changed in the longer term. Without the support of the Roman Empire life as it was under Roman rule couldn't be sustained, and therefore it was inevitable that things would have changed over time, and so they did. And after a brief period of time new invaders gradually took control over the country. That's all we know so far.

[@magatism]

Decay you say, From where i stand "Dark Ages" seem particularly bright. 1) Magna carta which forms the foundation of democracy was written during the "dark ages". 2) Dark ages saw the largest agricultural boom in europe before combine harvester arrived. 3) Most of the monuments like Basilica de Notre'dame were built during "dark ages". 4) Universities such as oxford and Cambridge which form the bedrock of modern scientific thought were established during "dark ages". 5) Steel was discovered in west during "dark ages". 6) Western armies developed plated armour, the best armour during its time during "dark ages". 7) Romanesque and Medieval Gothic Art developed during "Dark Ages". 8) Charlmagne was made the first Holy Roman Emperor during "Dark Ages". 9) All major kingdoms and empires accepted the guidance of the Roman Catholic Church. 10) During dark ages, the Roman catholic chutch was the largest religious authority in the world, where even kings were disciplined for misbehaviour. 11) Late "Dark Ages" saw succesful repeal of Islam from Spain, Portugal and succesful defence of Greece and Hungary. 12) Templars developed modern banking during late "Dark Ages".

[@johnmceleny6374]

💒🇺🇸...👍love the content....well.done interesting, nicely presented....think I'll jump abord...thx🇬🇧💒👍😊

[@vaughangarrick]

How can a period of dark age barbarism also produce the greatest folk hero? Easy. A lotus grows in the mud. Arthur would not have been produced out of a Roman civilization

[@venomm4563]

More like, how barbarians defeated a damn Empire lmao

[@willbe5994]

Or actually they weren’t barbarians. That’s just what the Romans called everyone who wasn’t Roman

[@vaughangarrick]

@@venomm4563 I never said they were barbarians. The mud refers to the Roman empire

[@geffreimaudeleyne6041]

There is not contemporary documentation of Arthur. Writings about him were centuries later.

[@elvinjonas5451]

Beautiful photography. Thank you!

[@StephanieElizabethMann]

I wonder if the people who followed as a type of ruling class had to paint the concept of the dark ages so they could say they and their ideas were the enlightenment.

[@danishsailing4630]

There were already Celtic Christians before 597.

[@benjaminollis7621]

England was the first Christian country, the first churches were in the 1st century

[@pattyandbustershow1031]

Francis looks younger here. When was it first aired?

[@nokonu]

I don't know much about uk history yet, but, the way I see that period been called dark ages it's not because there was no culture advance or something like that... but because there was a lack of central power... that allowed for several powerful people to try to take that power.. and that must have been painful for a lot of people, like the Internet this days that everyone can use it, it is a bit messy this is the dark age of Internet... but I think, it will tend to organise itself with time to really became a better structure... some place where the power lasts a long time... you will see that changes are more slow... everything slows down... but if power is lost then everything becomes confusing and everything happens fast, extremes happen... very good things happen but also very bad things... that is for me dark ages, not that it is a bad or good thing... it is just what it is.

[@lorrygeewhizzbang9521]

It was said that it was because of Irish monks that alot of information was saved during the "dark ages". Also Ireland had long established trading with the east and so it would have been obvious to stop in Cornwall and Wales along the way. I imagine the dark ages were kinda like the 80s. Just a boring time where people are trying to find work and get on with life. 😉 Perhaps a decade to think and work in the background. But when you think about what came after that!! The internet and social media etc. I think our timelines are cyclical. There is the addition that usually when a colonial power leaves a country there follows some kind of civil war to get things figured out. This may be literally or perhaps in this case not so obvious.

[@benjaminollis7621]

The Catholics later preserved a lot of 'pagan', alchemical and occult knowledge until the reformation

[@Arthagnou]

It was so bright an age, that almost no one was literate, and there are little to no first person accounts of nearly 300 years after Romans left... Mr Pryor is off his nut.

[@clairehann2681]

"Could tin have been one of Tintagel's major exports?" 😅

[@lzdmglg202612]

If scientists of today wish for information provided by our forebears offering ways to interpret various extant remains, then why should today's investigators not provide a system whereby future finds and excavations of archeologists should be analyzed ? Such science details should be contained in various worldwide locations so that at least one trove may be preserved.

[@SecretSquirrelFun]

Well, the Roman’s left a note for the milkman, snuffed out the lamps (except for one, just for safety), they locked all the doors, put the cat outside, the key under the pot plant and that was that. (It was also apparently, the age of the great scribe strike so nothing much was written down) Obviously 🙄

[@paulzellmer4453]

This is great always thought even from California my research. But it’s hard to keep it honest since were so much twisting by certain religious orders

[@tackyman2011]

Close captioning shows Wroxeter as "Rockstar". What?

[@Pdmc-vu5gj]

Not terribly convincing. In Britain after the Romans left, they stopped building with stone. Petty kings rose throughout the land.

[@michaelmckinnon7314]

The stones with inscription are gravestones of course. Arthur was a religious and military leader

[@XSilver_WaterX]

There were a lot of misunderstanding of the "Dark" Ages due to lack of sophisticated schooling and court-discipline, parts of famous books we read to are still upheld by surviving arrogant houses and tricking us "peasants" into more collateral confusion. Britain, France, Spain, Turkey, India, Korea and the Oceanic Isles had infectious insanity to literal levels! While yes, bandits and barbarians attempted rape & raid town-ships, some were general-ed by some incredible smart and sane people, although attempting to cull the entire human race for a phycological reset was a bit of a stretch? Here in the Americas, we ONLY updated our education board in 190 years to be reduced by 30 years. 30!?!? 160 years still need to update that crap and those "special education" only serve as temporary calmness for the masses until some other maddened scheme is spawned. Humans are collectively naïve. But stupidity can frightingly merge with it?!

[@townview5322]

If coastal erosion is revealing these hearths, how did they become buried?

[@lindamerchant4431]

If so dark ages were how the great cathedrals monasteries universities were engineered

[@luciano9755]

The Dark Ages showed a major decline in written records a technological development all across Europe. We can later discuss if some regions were more affected than others, but to completely dismiss this fact is trying too hard to change our perception of history with the intention of imposing a narrative.

[@gryph01]

I agree, to a point. Western Europe had a decline in written records. Technology development continued elsewhere. Eastern Roman Emlire (Byzantine), the Levant, Muslim nations continued to use Roman records and improve on them. Germania tribes had exposure to Rome and it's technology. The question that should be examined is whether they felt the need to use Roman technology.

[@ronaldchevalier9804]

You are misusing the term “narrative.” Narratives of history are composed of facts. Imposing a narrative is how all history has always been told and learned because history is a series of interconnected events. Having said that, our perception of history is not accurate. The word perception allows for the concept of error. Writing and technology declined but that doesn’t mean that everyone sat around depressed doing nothing. There is beautiful art and storytelling that came from this time period that demonstrated not all was gloom and doom as term “Dark Ages” implies and has often been taught. The point is the term is too wide a paintbrush and many historians and scholars have been arguing for decades a move away from that term.

[@brandyjean7015]

@@ronaldchevalier9804 thank you.

[@goodtoGoNow1956]

The people actually watched Roman structures deteriorate -- helped destroy the in some cases -- all while having no clue at all about how they were actually constructed and so, unable to replace them. If that is not backward, what is? It is like a "dystopian future" seen in the past. This documentary is trash.

[@WanderinPat]

I agree with your point.

[@tommywalker3746]

So when the Romans left they took writing and pottery with them, and everyone just went on about life? Then how is Canterbury better than any building in Rome?

[@thesolitarycyclist9005]

The current Canterbury cathedral was built in the 11th and 12th centuries - by the Normans.

[@blueocean9305]

Dr. Francis, Your work is impeccable. Cheers.

[@goodtoGoNow1956]

its trash

[@annohalloran6020]

Tintagel is so very beautiful

[@kamon830]

Gildas writes about the British rebellion against Rome and how the British were punished for their actions by the Romans along with the invaders of the north .

[@voraciousreader3341]

I love these “thinking person’s” documentaries, and that the work of Thomas Cahill, published in 1995 (!) is now accepted scholarship.

[@JEPATTERSON07]

Technology has turned old evidence into new fact.

[@guardianangel6926]

Cahill writes about the Irish Celts, but Ireland is almost completely missing from this channel. English exceptionalism, perhaps?

[@pobinr]

So pottery continued to be made after the Romans left. Hardly surprising is it? An unwanted government left. So people carried on doing what they always used to anyway Make bread, grow crops, fell trees to make houses etc. Why would these things not continue?

[@SoCoolScience]

the middle ages were not dark in fact they were the best time to live, there was no government regulating every little aspect of living life and you were free to do what ever you wanted

[@WanderinPat]

"much-maligned" era is , I think, exaggeration. The average guy on the street, if asked when the Dark Ages were, has no idea. Frankly, I find THAT more frustrating than a misconception. And I still think of the Dark Ages as a time when there was little historical record. Hence, I have no idea regarding their standard-of-living or agricultural methods or anything else about the time. They could have been extremely advanced, just few people thought to write it down!!!!

[@grahamdugan]

I am left craving more information…

[@JEPATTERSON07]

Betcha there was a Tintangelen Merchant who took tin east and came back with goodies, rather than the other way around.

[@trojanette8345]

The fact that tin was found, traded and had been recognized as a 'hot' commodity shouldn't surprise anyone in that part of the world. Tin trading had purportedly been going on since the time of (young) Jesus. I had heard or read one story that "supposedly" Jesus' uncle, Joseph of Arimathea was a tin trader who used to travel regularly from the Mediterranean Sea to Britain to, trade. That's supposedly how he made his money. 41:07 --Yes, but the question is WHY would you want to read it backwards? What told you that reading it backwards is the way to go? Is it right or wrong to assume that reading it backwards is the was people of Gildas' era would have read it? Lastly, the bishops tribute to his wife is just heart wrenchingly emotional. One can't help but get slightly teary-eyed at his loss. But isn't that the kicker: his mortal loss vicariously becomes our immortal and everlasting legacy of life, love, loss and learning. All neatly 'tiucked' away to be found and subsequently loved by later generations? Gildas wants us to feel what he felt at the moment he felt it.

[@ogeidnomar4601]

The Dark Ages was only a Western European phenomenon, or better yet for those who remembered the Greco-Roman past.

[@danielswing3068]

Electricity hadn’t been discovered yet. Let that sink in before you ask me if was really that dark.