Here are some thoughts on the Dark Ages. A lot of wild speculation and simplification and no references in this draft:
Historians these days don’t really like the term Dark Ages anymore.The term “Dark Ages” is now out of fashion with Historians. The current term is “Late Antiquity”. The Dark Ages weren’t that dark, and occurred at different times in the East and West, at least for the Roman Empire. Other cultures have experienced their own Dark Ages, although that may just mean that no records survived from those places and eras. In Europe the real Dark Ages lasted from about 500-700 AD. England was the first to go, perhaps since it was only superficially Romanized. The darkness moved eastwards chronologically, with the Eastern Empire (the Byzantines) not having their milder dark ages from about 600-800 AD.
The last Western Roman emperors Romulus Augustus was deposed in 476 AD, but the Roman way of life did not end at that point. The successor Ostrogothic Kingdom preserved Roman culture until it was destroyed by the Eastern Roman Empire in 554. The Byzantines (Eastern Romans) regained their empire, but didn’t have the resources to adequately garrison their territory. The plague during Justinian’s reign and the Extreme Weather Events of 535-536 did not help. Extreme cold caused by volcanic eruptions in the Americas led to famine. The Plague of Justinian resulted in the death of 25-50 million worldwide. Real barbarians, mainly the Lombards, were able to invade Italy and cause real chaos. Earlier, the Huns had destroyed key fortress cities of Italy, including Aquileia, the fortress protecting Italy from northern invasion. Even then, the Byzantines were able to maintain outposts in Italy at ports such as Ravenna and Bari for a while.
However, technology, or at least its resilience, was probably lost when the great libraries of antiquity were destroyed:
The library of Timgad in Algeria was probably destroyed when the Vandals sacked the city in the 5th century.
The Royal Library of Antioch was burned in 363AD by the Christian emperor Jovian.
The Library of Celsus in Ephesus was destroyed by an earthquake in 262 AD, a little early for the Dark Ages.
The great Imperial Library of Constantinople was finally destroyed by Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade in 1204 AD, although a fire in the 400s destroyed many volumes
The Royal Library of Alexandria suffered from fires through the ages, but was probably destroyed by Aurelian in 275 AD
The associated Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria was finally finished off in 391AD by the Christians.
By 1000AD Gondeshapur was in ruins
The Library of Pantainos, Library of Hadrian, (Athens) were destroyed by the Heruli in 267 AD
Forum of Trajan in Rome included important libraries, lasted until the mid 5th century AD
Other temple libraries in Rome may have lasted as long.
Theological Library of Caesarea Maritima was destroyed by the Arabs in 638AD
When the Byzantines triumphed over the Goths in Italy, collateral damage included the destruction of the Roman aqueducts. By that time neither the technology nor the resources existed to repair them. Even the Byzantines were losing some of their technology at this point. Famine and plague at the same time contributed.
Besides the loss of technology, economic collapse was another factor. In the ancient world cities such as Athens and Rome depended on trade to be fed. At its height Rome had a population of nearly one million. In Late Antiquity it dropped to around 30,000. The trade networks that supported everything including grain collapsed due to political instability and monetary collapse. In the late Roman Empire wealth became increasingly concentrated. The rich landowners were able to buy up and consolidate smaller holdings. At the same time the wealth bought the political power to evade taxation. The government lost its tax base and could no longer pay the Legions. As an institution, although they suffered defeats, the Legions, such as the mighty X were not beaten; they drifted into obscurity as unpaid border guards.
As wealth became concentrated, there was less and less money in circulation since money was commodity based. As in modern times, the rich tended to hoard their wealth and not put it back into circulation. Even into modern times hoards of Roman era coins are still being discovered-these were coins that were not in circulation. The latter emperors were continuously debasing the currency. The problem was exacerbated by gold going east on the Silk Road in return for silks. The problem became so bad that the government tried to ban silk. The Byzantines eventually avoided this problem by starting their own silk industry. Trade was difficult without money. Without the import of food, cities could not maintain the population critical mass necessary for maintaining technology bases and learning. The shuttering of pagan centers of learning by the Christian did not help. In Byzantium the Church eventually embraced pagan philosophy and incorporated it into Church theology, allowing some of the classics to survive into the Renaissance to be rediscovered by the West.
The breakdown of trade made papyrus from Egypt inaccessible in the West, which removed a cheap writing medium. More expensive parchment had to be used for writing, limiting opportunities for writing.
We do know that a lot of technology disappeared in the West and eventually in the East. An often cited example is hydraulic concrete, which wasn’t rediscovered until the modern era. When the aqueducts of Rome were destroyed during the Goth Wars, the inhabitants weren’t able to repair them. A loss we didn’t know of until recently was the ability to create complex mechanisms. The Antikythera mechanism demonstrates that there was a whole mechanism technological base (machine shops, tools, designers, artisans) that was lost completely. Plumbing disappeared, maybe partly since the Christians thought bathing was sinful. Knowledge of medicine and anatomy withered partly because of early Church doctrine against dissection of human bodies and rational thought in general. (Eventually the Church would help kickstart modern science.) Specialized manufacturing disappeared. Knowledge of road making, arches, and domes disappeared. The technology of the Legions, tactical and military science, disappeared with the Legions.
While some early Christians burned books, Church monasteries managed to preserve some Classical texts. Physical security was necessary to preserve written knowledge, although the traditions (corresponding human knowledge) was lost as technical communities disappeared.
The Muslim Arabs when they overran Spain and readily adopted and adapted Classical learning and knowledge. Darkness never really came to Spain and North Africa. In fact, this was their golden age. The Arabs preserved key texts that eventually triggered renewed interest in the Classical era in the West. Many stars still have Arabic names.
The Byzantines had their own Dark Age from the mid 600s till about 800. There are almost no writings surviving from this period, so it is a blindspot. This corresponds to the period challenges from the Muslims, Persians, Rus, etc. About a third of its territory was lost to the Arabs in the 700s. However, unlike Rome, the walls of Constantinople were never breached during this period (the Crusaders would do that in 1204). The archives and the Imperial Library survived, along with the government and institutions until the conquest of 1204. Constantinople was in effect served as a giant monastery preserving knowledge. Although its population dropped, the Empire remained economically self-sufficient and the economy improved, with ups and downs, until 1204.
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