Editing Dark Age (section)

==Notes==
* Long story short, the term "Dark Age" has become rather contentious in recent decades among historians and at the very least it has been judged that people from the Renaissance onward overestimated how big an effect the collapse of Rome actually had. Many prefer the far less loaded '''Early Medieval Period''' to describe this period of history. 
* The real reason we call this period the “Dark Age” is due to the relative lack of European writing we have in comparison to the ages coming before and after; the term "Obscure Age" might be more accurate. Between the high levels of political instability and drop in literacy, the only people making books at this time were monks. That’s not to say Europe was a total intellectual vacuum; the university was invented in this time period, and a network of schools were established at this time that would really come into prominence once the Renaissance hit.
* There are other periods of time labeled "Dark Ages", such as the Greek Dark Ages between the Late Bronze Age Collapse and the [[Classical Period]], or basically whenever an advanced civilization noticeably regresses due to general decline or some catastrophe. And like the previous point, we know almost nothing about what happened during these periods, especially so for the Bronze Age.