StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...

The Dark Ages and Some of the Challenges Paople Faced during the Period - Essay Example

Cite this document
Summary
The Dark Ages and some of the challenges people faced during the period The term “Dark Ages” is used to describe the period immediately after the fall of the Roman Empire at the hands of incoming Germanic tribes in 476 AD. It refers to the sudden loss of security and order across Europe which came with the disappearance of Roman troops who built roads and aqueducts, maintained defences against invasion, and generally imposed a civilized way of life in all the lands that had become part of the huge Roman Empire…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER98.7% of users find it useful
The Dark Ages and Some of the Challenges Paople Faced during the Period
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "The Dark Ages and Some of the Challenges Paople Faced during the Period"

Download file to see previous pages

Famine came about because of the breakdown of societal order which the Romans had maintained. The system of trade and tribute had been regulated by the Romans, and the network had been maintained across vast distances to ensure that the Empire could move troops around at will, and sustain mobile armies in the case of any rebellions or invasions. When these networks faltered, communities became more isolated, and the consequences of bad harvests were more severe, since no help was at hand. Plagues arrived from the East and spread through the region, but there were few people who had the knowledge and the wealth that would have enabled them to heal the sick or avoid infection.

Aside from these physical threats from famine and disease, there was also an increase in violent conflict between rival tribes. In the absence of a single overlord, such as the Romans had been, the smaller tribes jostled for position, and engaged in many skirmishes and boundary disputes in an effort to gain control of wealth and resources. This made life very dangerous for ordinary people, since many were slaves, or bound by oath to the service of a chieftain, and they were obliged to take up arms if commanded to do so.

The strict Roman laws gave way to the more fragmented social order of competing tribes. Many leaders were cruel, and there was considerable injustice and chaos. Another factor which presented a huge challenge in the Dark Ages was that of religion. Under Roman rule, Christians and pagans had co-existed, and as time went on, more and more of the Empire adopted Christianity. In the Dark Ages, however, Islam emerged from the East and advanced across North Africa, heading up through Spain and into Gaul, bringing bitter religious warfare to the continent.

Religious persecution increased, and minorities were often robbed and killed in the name of religion. Christianity brought some advantages, in so far as the monasteries served as educational institutions and places where the poor and the sick could hope for some relief. Once again, however, this benefited the wealthy who sent their children there to be educated, but it meant servitude and exploitation for the poorest members of society, who had to labor in the fields or work as lowly tradesmen to provide the raw materials that were needed to sustain monastic communities.

The lack of an effective legal system meant that disputes were solved by violence, and when coupled with the devastating effects of plagues, and poor nutrition, the consequences for population size were very serious. In this period infant mortality was very high, life expectancy was short, and huge numbers of citizens were wiped out due to infection. It would have been very hard for a poor family to bring up children to healthy adulthood. Depopulation meant that communities could no longer find enough workers to take in the harvest, and maintain basic infrastructure.

Skills were lost, and architectural masterpieces just crumbled out of neglect, or were looted to enable poor people to build their own rustic dwellings. In many ways it seemed that civilization was taking a backwards step, and the former glories of Europe were

...Download file to see next pages Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“The Dark Ages and Some of the Challenges Paople Faced during the Essay”, n.d.)
Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/anthropology/1454995-watch-the-dark-ages
(The Dark Ages and Some of the Challenges Paople Faced During the Essay)
https://studentshare.org/anthropology/1454995-watch-the-dark-ages.
“The Dark Ages and Some of the Challenges Paople Faced During the Essay”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/anthropology/1454995-watch-the-dark-ages.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF The Dark Ages and Some of the Challenges Paople Faced during the Period

Global Warming

The term global warming is used to refer to the rise in earth and ocean's average temperature starting from the period of 19th century.... This paper talks about global warming.... Between the 20th century and the 21st century the average temperature of earth elevated at the rate of 0....
8 Pages (2000 words) Research Paper

GERMANY EXERCISE

However, many of the past attempts to create a federation among German states based on common nationhood have always faced numerous difficulties some of which include hostilities and tension between Prussia and the other German speaking lands as well as the Catholic-Protestant divide just to name a few.... In my humble opinion, I would define German a unique people with a rich tied history dating back to the Middle ages....
4 Pages (1000 words) Term Paper

Contemporary Issue in the Chinese Economy

% of the total population, a scenario very identical to what Japan faced in 1990.... However, China is to some degree confronted with a more serious problem than Japan because it is currently still far from qualifying as a developed country.... This research evaluates and presents one-child policy and age demographics; age structure and the economy in China....
12 Pages (3000 words) Essay

Renaissance Literature Period

The European nations had been in the dark ages where religion had much… As time went by, the need to have reforms took a center stage as pressure mounted on the ruling class composed of religious leaders to uphold the individual's dignity.... Similarly, the dark ages gave the... during the Renaissance period, there was a "The Great Chain of Being” which was a hierarchy of superiority.... Poverty among the low class and oppression had been the order of Moreover, Renaissance period can be characterized by learning and discoveries of the new world as well as intellectuals....
7 Pages (1750 words) Essay

Changes in American Family during World War II

Harper also points out that the period after was a time that the nation recovered from the economic depression and that the war changed America, to some extent, for good.... I will use this information to develop a historical coverage of the family changes during the time of the war and to compare the bad and good effects of the war.... Harper starts by expressing the time of World War II as a “… period of large and lasting changes” (7)....
5 Pages (1250 words) Annotated Bibliography

The Historical Evolution of Geography through Various Ages

some of the advocates of geography had authentic scholarly interests.... In Germany, for example, the subject was considerably explored during the Hitler regime that sought to conquer the world (Aber, 2003).... A major advantage of this theory by those authors is that Baghdad, being the capital of Caliphate during the Abbasis Dynasty was situated precisely in the fourth and middle climate.... The paper "The Historical Evolution of Geography through Various ages" describes that space and human behavior are highly interrelated as shown through the analysis of the history of geography through various ages....
5 Pages (1250 words) Essay

Social Work Professional Foundation and Nursing

some of the challenging areas included caring for older people; Aboriginal Australian people, people with diverse culture and language, acute health care settings, mental health care, addictions, homelessness and domestic violence.... While in practicum many students fail to recognize their short comes in some areas thus complicating the situation further....
18 Pages (4500 words) Essay

Aging Population Issue of Hong Kong

This research paper "Aging Population Issue of Hong Kong" sheds some light on Hong Kong that is under the special administration of the People's Republic of China.... It is currently normal for individuals to surpass the ages of 70 and 80 and this has been necessitated calls to ease the retirement limits since individuals in their old age are considered as relatively strong and productive in their senior years (Woo 2013, p....
52 Pages (13000 words) Research Paper
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us