"WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH, you got it so wrong.
"Of course the Middle Ages were a time of great prosperity, cultural advances, and general well being, as anybody who has cracked open a history book written in the last century should know, it was Rome that was oppressive to innovation and cultural change."
WHAT !!! WHAT !!! I can understand how Americans wouldn't understand, because America never went throught the DARK AGES, which, by the way, are probably known as that because it WAS NOT pleasant, but because you never had middle ages, there is no evidence left. There are castles and torture devices in Europe we can take a look at on our way to work, they remind us what happened back then. The rich and powerful used religion to control most of europe's population. It's what we call, a feudal society, with feudal lords. They eat and get to live in the castle, the peasants get to suffer, freeze and starve around the castle producing the food and luxuries for the lord. YES, that's how it was.
If you need more evidence, it's rather simple. Look at the black plague, it killed almost all of Europe BECAUSE:
They somehow, magically forgot how to make and maintain aqueducts. The reason the ancient Roman and Greek empires never had this problem with the plague, was because they knew of it and kept their cities clean, but once Christianity started, for some reason, everyone got really stupid and started dying by the truckloads.
DIPSHIT ! "
Too bad you can;t reply to replies here, but this sentimetns--wrong as they are--expressed here seem typical.
Just to address a few points:
1. I don't know what you think Aqueducts had to with the plague; it sbaffling. Thre in fact were serious outbreaks of plague in the Roman Empire under marcus Aurelius and Justinian.
2. The term Dark Ages was coined in the nineteenth century--it is not how people in the Middle Ages thought of their time, nor is it how Medievalsits today thinkg of it.
3. Torture was used in judicial proceedings from the earliest times through the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages, right up until the 18th century. What does that ahve to do with making the Mideival period a 'Dark Ages.' The bit about castles in the same sentnce makes even les sense.
3. Rich and powerful people by definition control society in all periods. In fact, the Church often acted as a check on the nobility (by preventing Jews being massacred for supposedly causing the balck death for instance). But in general Religion and the State always worked ahnd-in-hand fromthe earliest times up untill the Enlightenement, so again, I don't see the point you're making about the Middle Ages.
