Strange, the article doesn't really show a lot of concrete evidence contradicting the basic underlying contention/assumption of the "dark ages": that civilization went backwards in terms of governance, institutions, infrastructure, architecture, arts, engineering, and science.<p>It states that cities shrank. It states that secular schools closed and the church "filled the void". It states that infrastructure crumbled and wasn't replaced like aqueducts. It states that documentation and writing decreased to the point that scholars can't get a good view of what was happening.<p>“The idea that’s completely out of fashion these days is that it was dark because it was morally worse,” Ward-Perkins says. But these days, he notes with a touch of dark humor, “everybody pretty much accepts that humans are pretty horrid all the time.”