The labels we use for historical periods tend to be like the
nicknames of people. Once established, they are almost
impossible to change, even though they may no longer be
suitable. Those who coined the term "Middle Ages" thought of the
entire thousand years from the fifth to the fifteenth century as
an age of darkness, an empty interval between classical
antiquity and its rebirth, the Renaissance in Italy. Since then,
our view of the Middle Ages has changed completely. We no longer
think of the period as "benighted" but as the "Age of Faith."
With the spread of this positive conception, the idea of
darkness has become confined more and more to the early part of
the Middle Ages. A hundred years ago, the "Dark Ages" were
generally thought to extend as far as the twelfth century. They
have been shrinking steadily ever since, so that today the term
covers no more than the 200-year interval between the death of
Justinian and the reign of Charlemagne. Perhaps we ought to pare
down the Dark Ages even further to the