The Humanist View of History

The Humanist View of History Humanists thought that they were restoring ‘true civilisation’ after centuries of darkness, for they believed that a ‘dark age’ had set in after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Following them, later scholars unquestioningly assumed that a ‘new age’ had begun in Europe from the fourteenth century. The term ‘Middle Ages’/‘medieval period’ was Florence, a sketch made in . Giotto’s painting of the child Jesus, Assissi, Italy. used for the millennium (thousand years) after the fall of Rome. In the ‘Middle Ages’, they argued, the Church had had such complete control over men’s minds that all the learning of the Greeks and Romans had been blotted out. The humanists used the word ‘modern’ for the period from the fifteenth century. Periodisation used by humanists and by later scholars 5th–14th century The Middle Ages 5th–9th century The Dark Ages 9th–11th century The Early Middle Ages 11th–14th century The Late Middle Ages 15th century onwards The Modern Age Recently, historians have questioned this division. With more research being done and more being found out about Europe in this period, scholars are increasingly reluctant to make sharp divisions between centuries in terms of being culturally vibrant or otherwise. It seems unfair to label any period as the ‘Dark Ages’.