The Middle Ages Analysis

The term “Dark Ages” is often used to describe the early Middle Ages, and occasionally the whole Middle Ages, but its usage is controversial due to its implications of backwardness. William Manchester and Gies and Gies provide opposite interpretations of the Middle Ages and on whether they were “dark”. Manchester aggressively criticizes the early Middle Ages as a time of intellectual stagnation and rampant brutality, while Gies and Gies argue that the Middle Ages were not as backwards and “dark” as they are often portrayed. In their analysis of the Middle Ages, Gies and Gies provide opposing viewpoints, acknowledging evidence that challenges their claim. However, Manchester leaves out important opposing evidence in his treatment of technological …show more content…
Roman agricultural treatises were neglected and no new ones written. The techniques of cereal-crop production, the main form of agriculture, remained for a time unchanged. (Gies and Gies 44)
Gies and Gies acknowledge that agricultural technology regressed at the beginning of the Medieval Period. In response to the opposing evidence, Gies and Gies explain that the invention of the plow and an improved animal harness radically improved agricultural technology. Gies and Gies’s approach of presenting and disproving opposing claims is far more convincing than Manchester’s approach of excluding evidence contrary to his claim. In their analysis of the Church’s role in technological advancement, Gies and Gies once again provide both the positive and negative actions of the church in relation to progress, while Manchester only attacks the Church. Gies and Gies argue against the common belief that the Church stifled progress, claiming that the church helped preserve and advance knowledge, and therefore its stance towards technological advancement was ambivalent rather than negative. As evidence, Gies and Gies present various churchmen who made intellectual …show more content…
(Manchester 23)
Manchester’s argument is that the Church suppressed technological progress, yet he does not mention any medieval churchmen who advanced knowledge. Although Gies and Gies’s evidence completely contradicts Manchester’s claim, he gives no reason why it does not disprove his argument. Therefore, Gies and Gies’s argument is more convincing than Manchester’s argument. In their analysis of intellectual stagnation during the Middle Ages, Gies and Gies consistently present evidence contradicting their claim, and logically dismantle any counterarguments that are formed. The same cannot be said of Manchester. He fatally ignores crucial evidence of technological development and Church-driven progress, leaving his argument defenseless against compelling counterarguments. The result is clear: Gies and Gies’s argument is convincing, and Manchester’s argument is