One of the most important works of counterfactual history, an area I have a great deal of interest in as both a student of history and literature, is a book called Lest Darkness Fall, a book which is on my reading list but one I have not yet gotten around to. Nonetheless, the book and its place in history are of great importance in wrestling with a vexed question that I have had much occasion to study indirectly as a student of medieval history, and (as difficult as it may seem) it is a matter of considerable contemporary cultural relevance.

One of the desires of the protagonist (and the author of the novel, L. Sprague de Camp) is to determine a way for the Dark Ages to have been avoided. Of course, the very use of the term “Dark Ages” is itself a very contested term. As a historian, I come across a fair amount of work [1] that shows that among the levels of elite culture that a certain amount of Roman high culture survived among the nobles and clergy of medieval society, being faithfully copied and transmitted from generation to generation to show up in the libraries of lords and ladies and monks in monasteries. Additionally, certain elements of the Roman legal corpus and Roman Catholicism endured as endless barbarian leaders, from Vandals and Goths and Franks and Slavs continually sought to wrap themselves up in the legitimacy of the Roman Empire. Looked at from the level of high culture, it is easy to see that there was in fact no dark age, as despite various setbacks of plague and pagan pillagers, the high culture of the Late Roman Empire continued unhindered throughout the period of the Middle Ages.

Yet there are many ways where the Dark Ages were themselves legitimately dark, and that is taking a look at the life of common people. To be sure, the life of an unfree laborer working on someone else’s plantation is a pretty grim life no matter what the cultural context, and the Roman Empire itself was very savage to its sizable slave underclass, exploited ruthlessly so that their “owners” could purchase luxury goods in a prosperous international economy extending to India and China (and even possibly the Americas, as hard as that is to wrap one’s head around). Yet as difficult as the Roman world was, there was at least some level of urban culture, and it is in urban culture where people who simply do not fit in among the fields can find an honorable life involved in matters of trade and skilled professions and people who aspire to education and civic virtue, the sort of world that I feel relatively comfortable in. It is precisely that world that vanished in the loss of order at the end of the Roman world, to be replaced by far more vulnerable small towns (at least in Europe).

This same phenomenon has occurred at every age that is considered dark. There has often been some sort of elite carryover from one age to the next, even if the rulers change. The world’s leaders in general are fond of having cultured people around them and promoting themselves as the legitimate successors to the elites that came before them. The needs of fortress building and military and political strength will require enough literacy for a class of bureaucrats and tax collectors, as has been the case since the beginning of civilization. So if the elites will try to keep up their elite status with more or less success and the poor and downtrodden will always be among us, as scripture says and as the historical record amply demonstrates, what then allows one age to be differentiated from another?

One of the consistencies of dark ages is the loss of city life, as people flee from the hustle and bustle of urban areas to more isolated rural areas where one can be safe from plague and isolated from the ravages of barbarian hordes skilled at using roads and rivers to speed their plundering efforts. It is the towns and cities that provide the cultural infrastructure of civilization, the schools, the theaters, the political discussion that elevates mankind from mere survival to something that can at its best approach the image of God. Yet this civic culture is immensely fragile, depending on having enough food, enough movement of people and goods, and a delicate combination of freedom and virtue that allow it to avoid exploitation and corruption while being free from domination from rapacious rulers. Time after time, dark ages are the result of those larger systemic problems that destroy the vital infrastructure that civilization depends on, whether in cutting cities off from the food grown and population inflow from their rural hinterlands, or from trade and communication links with other cities, as well as the sources of the raw materials that it needs for its survival, none of which can be taken for granted.

At its best, the relationship between cities and their rural hinterlands is one of mutual reciprocity and appreciation. A good city is a place where bright and ambitious young people from the country go who want more than a farm has to offer, and where such a person can find an honorable trade, education, and personal and professional connections. Likewise, a good rural area is full of solid and virtuous people who may not have any desire to live in the city but who respect a virtuous culture as well as the trade goods that flow through nearby cities and that are full of productive people. Yet this virtuous cycle all too easily breaks down, and cities can become havens for those who do not provide anything to the larger society but demand bread and circuses (as was a major source of strain for imperial Rome), and rural areas can become deeply mistrustful and hostile of cities and cut them off from necessary resources because of disrespect and exploitation or the conquest of those areas by hostile powers. Cities are like fragile hothouse blooms that require a great deal of effort to maintain, but without a robust urban life, there is no escape from the squalor and rigidity and darkness of rural poverty for all but the highest elites.

And ultimately, this is what makes a Dark Age dark, the wide gulf between have and have nots without there being any room in the middle for a sizable group of people who want some alternative to the peasant lifestyle but lack the pedigree and connections for the few escape valves that are left. This darkness cannot be seen if one looks only at the maintenance of elite culture by the privileged few or by the fact that the same grim life is often lived by those on the bottom generation after generation, but rather by the fact that in an age that is (relatively) bright, there is at least some chance for an ordinary person of obscure birth and circumstances to find a place of honor and respect by virtue of his (or her) abilities and character, and in a dark age there is only wasted potential without the infrastructure or opportunity for such talent to be used to better their own lives and their fellow human beings. Given that our own society bears some frightening parallels with the latter Roman Empire in terms of our own corruption and cynicism, let us be careful lest darkness fall on us as well.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/book-review-the-four-books-of-martial-policy-english-translation-of-the-de-re-militari/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/02/22/non-book-review-charlemagnes-early-campaigns-768-777/