暗黒時代
暗黒時代（英語: Dark Ages）とは、ローマ帝国の衰退に伴い、西ヨーロッパの人口動態、文化、経済が悪化したことを主張する、伝統的な中世前期または中世を指す歴史時代区分である[1][2]。
この言葉は、伝統的な光と闇のイメージを用いて、この時代の「闇」（記録の欠如）と、それ以前およびそれ以降の「光」（記録の豊富さ）を対比させている[3]。暗黒時代という概念は、1330年代にイタリアの学者ペトラルカが、古典古代の「光」に比べてローマ時代以降の世紀を「闇」とみなしたことに端を発している[3][4]。暗黒時代という言葉は、ラテン語の「saeculum obscurum」に由来し、1602年にカエサル・バロニウスが10世紀から11世紀にかけての激動の時代に適用したのが始まりである[5][6]。この概念は、ローマ崩壊からルネサンスまでの間のヨーロッパにおける知的暗黒の時代である中世全体を指すようになり、特に18世紀の啓蒙主義の時代に広まった[3]。
しかし、19世紀から20世紀にかけて、この時代の業績が理解されるようになると、「暗黒時代」の呼称は中世前期（5世紀から10世紀頃[3][7][8]）に限定されるようになり、現在ではこの時代での使用も否定されている[9]。現代の学者の多くは、この言葉には否定的な意味合いがあり、誤解を招きやすく不正確であるとして、この言葉を完全に避けている[10][11][12]。しかし、ペトラルカが言った侮蔑的な意味は、中世を暴力的で後進的な時代と誤認させるような大衆文化[13][14]の中では、今でも使われている[15][16][17]。
脚注
[編集]- ^ Oxford English Dictionary. 4 (2 ed.). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. (1989). p. 251
- ^ “Definition of DARK AGE”. www.merriam-webster.com. 3/15/2021閲覧。
- ^ a b c d Theodor Ernst Mommsen (1959). “Petrarch's Conception of the 'Dark Ages'”. Medieval And Renaissance Studies. Cornell University Press. pp. 106–129. Reprinted from: Mommsen, Theodore Ernst (1942). “Petrarch's Conception of the 'Dark Ages'”. Speculum (Cambridge MA: Medieval Academy of America) 17 (2): 227–228. doi:10.2307/2856364. JSTOR 2856364.
- ^ Thompson, Bard (1996). Humanists and Reformers: A History of the Renaissance and Reformation. Grand Rapids, MI: Erdmans. p. 13. ISBN 978-0-8028-6348-5. "Petrarch was the very first to speak of the Middle Ages as a 'dark age', one that separated him from the riches and pleasures of classical antiquity and that broke the connection between his own age and the civilization of the Greeks and the Romans."
- ^ Dwyer, John C. (1998). Church History: Twenty Centuries of Catholic Christianity. New York: Paulist Press. p. 155
- ^ Baronius, Caesar. Annales Ecclesiastici, Vol. X. Roma, 1602, p. 647
- ^ Ker, W. P. (1904). The Dark Ages. New York: C. Scribner's Sons. p. 1. "The Dark Ages and the Middle Ages — or the Middle Age — used to be the same; two names for the same period. But they have come to be distinguished, and the Dark Ages are now no more than the first part of the Middle Age, while the term mediaeval is often restricted to the later centuries, about 1100 to 1500, the age of chivalry, the time between the first Crusade and the Renaissance. This was not the old view, and it does not agree with the proper meaning of the name."
- ^ “Were the "Dark Ages" Really Dark?”. Grey Matter. The Co-curricular Journal of Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College (Aligarh Muslim University) 7 (10). (2003).
- ^ Halsall, Guy (2005). Fouracre, Paul. ed. The New Cambridge Medieval History: c.500-c.700. 1. Cambridge University Press. p. 90. "In terms of the sources of information available, this is most certainly not a Dark Age... Over the last century, the sources of evidence have increased dramatically, and the remit of the historian (broadly defined as a student of the past) has expanded correspondingly."
- ^ Snyder, Christopher A. (1998). An Age of Tyrants: Britain and the Britons A.D. 400–600. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. pp. xiii–xiv. ISBN 0-271-01780-5. In explaining his approach to writing the work, Snyder refers to the "so-called Dark Ages", noting that "Historians and archaeologists have never liked the label Dark Ages ... there are numerous indicators that these centuries were neither 'dark' nor 'barbarous' in comparison with other eras."
- ^ Verdun, Kathleen (2004). “Medievalism”. In Jordan, Chester William. Dictionary of the Middle Ages. Supplement 1. Charles Scribner. pp. 389–397; Same volume, Freedman, Paul, "Medieval Studies", pp. 383–389.
- ^ Raico. “The European Miracle”. 14 August 2011閲覧。 "The stereotype of the Middle Ages as 'the Dark Ages' fostered by Renaissance humanists and Enlightenment philosophes has, of course, long since been abandoned by scholars."
- ^ Tainter, Joseph A. (1999). “Post Collapse Societies”. In Barker, Graeme. Companion Encyclopedia of Archaeology. Abingdon, England: Routledge. pp. 988. ISBN 0-415-06448-1
- ^ Nelson, Janet (Spring 2007). “The Dark Ages”. History Workshop Journal 63: 196–98. ISSN 1477-4569.
- ^ Oxford English Dictionary. 4 (2 ed.). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. (1989). p. 251
- ^ “Definition of DARK AGE”. www.merriam-webster.com. 3/15/2021閲覧。
- ^ Franklin, James (1982). “The Renaissance Myth”. Quadrant 26 (11): 51–60.