Return of the Middle Ages?

With collapse of the Roman Empire around 500AD, there followed a medieval era commonly called the ‘Middle Ages’ or the ‘Dark Ages’. This era corresponds roughly with the period of dominance in Eastern Europe and Western Asia of the Byzantine Empire, which lasted until the late 15th Century. Traditionally, historians observe that the Middle Ages ended with The Renaissance, to be followed by the glorious Modern Era, and its philosophical epitome in the 18th Century ‘Enlightenment’ and ‘Age of Reason’. Now, we live in an era of technological and scientific wonder, very much remote from the Middle Ages.

Or do we?

The Middle Ages were feudal times when the rich and powerful were above the law. They were the law. How convincingly has this notion been left behind?

Moreover, for those who could do so, people in the Dark Ages lived behind castle walls guarded by private armies. They ventured out into public space beyond the gates to cultivate fields and engage in commerce during the day, but returned to the safety of castles at night. Anyone living outside of the castle was potentially subjected to the ravages of bandits and depredations of lawlessness.

Today, the thick stone walls of castles are gone but as we increasingly confront gated communities, and fenced, patrolled condominiums, I wonder if the ramparts, drawbridges and castles of yore have simply been replaced by electronic detection devices and cameras, razor wire, boom gates and private security forces? In addition, private security teams have been formed, barriers and fences erected, and the freedom of movement on public streets challenged in order to create new guarded havens within which people can sleep safely at night.

The open, planned boulevards with covered drains of early Roman cities, kept relatively peaceful and safe under the stability and rule of Pax Romani were replaced in the subsequent era of Germanic invaders – Ostrogoths, Franks, Visigoths and Vandals – by the narrow, meandering lanes and congested roads of medieval towns. Today, in many cities, as we navigate along narrow, pot-holed roads with no road-shoulder or footpaths, often constrained to impassable single lanes by double-parked cars or illegal hawker stalls, I wonder to which era our cities belong.

Of course, the question of whether the Middle Ages are returning has been raised before. In the 1980s, the eminent Italian professor of semiotics, Umberto Eco, published two essays, ‘Dreaming of the Middle Ages’ and ‘Living in the New Middle Ages’. In these essays, he notes an obsession with the Middle Ages in popular culture, including examples such as: the light-sabre sword fights between Luke Skywalker and the ‘black knight’ Darth Vader; book titles of Dragonquest, Dragonflight, A World Called Camelot, Dr Who and the Crusaders, and more that mix the Dark Ages and laser beams; “plus scattered items ranging from Celtic sagas, witchcraft, enchanted castles, and haunted dungeons to swords in the stone, unicorns and explicitly neomedieval space operas.”

Is this a dreaming of the long-past Middle Ages as suggested by Umberto Eco, or a reflection that in many respects, human societies have not in practice progressed far beyond the medieval era?

And before we dismiss this possibility on the grounds that the Middle Ages – as the ‘Dark Ages’ – are primitively remote from our present circumstances, we would do well to reflect upon Umberto Eco’s reminder that many of the problems and nascent achievements of the modern world emerged during the Middle Ages:

“Modern languages, merchant cities, capitalistic economy (along with banks, cheques, and prime rate) are inventions of medieval society. In the Middle Ages we witness the rise of modern armies, of the modern concept of the nation state, as well as the idea of a supernatural federation (under the banner of a German Emperor elected by a Diet that functioned like an electoral convention); the struggle between the poor and the rich, the concept of heresy or ideological deviation, even our contemporary notion of love as a devastating unhappy happiness. I could add the conflict between church and state, trade unions,… (and) the technological transformation of labour.”

In the Middle Ages, a period of great peace under the Roman Empire had broken down. It collapsed because “barbarians” crossed its borders, either violently or surreptitiously, bringing new ideas, customs and beliefs.

Some people have drawn a parallel between the fall of Rome and a decline in the era of Pax Americana. Once again, a Great Power has its armies embroiled in territories at the edge of its sphere of influence. Citizens of the Great Power no longer feel secure, and public discourse is dominated by the need to “fight” against “terror”. Medieval travel was unsafe .Travellers would encounter thieves, disease, wild animals and more. Today, travellers are subjected repeatedly to full body scans and extensive security checks, which are palpable reminders that travel in the modern era remains an adventure with an element of insecurity.

People in the Middle Ages, especially in the Tenth Century, also felt fear of apocalyptic destruction. These fears were fed both by superstitious predictions of doom associated with the end of the First Millennium, and the obvious deterioration of Roman roads, postal system and central control. The parallels today are not so much the ephemeral scares of the late Twentieth Century, such as the Y2K computer virus, but the more apocalyptic predictions of world destruction associated with global warming, ocean acidification, unchecked population explosion and Huntington’s clash of civilisations.

Importantly, to a certain extent, the fears of decay and destruction felt in the Middle Ages were justified. Cities and infrastructure did fall into decay and there were great destruction, plague and famine. Equally, today, the data and science on species and habitat depletion, atmospheric carbon concentration, human population numbers, and incidents of racist or culturally inspired violence are genuine reasons for fear.

So, how far has the world moved forward in 500 years since the end of the Middle Ages? After all, in the Middle Ages, there were many who believed that explorers to the Far East would encounter the Kingdom of Prester John where there lived strange beings who jumped about on only one leg and had mouths in their belly. Faced with the unknown, the fanciful imagination of the Middle Ages created mythical monsters and potentially hostile civilisations.

Laughable perhaps, but we might do well in our mirth to remember that today an alarming number of people honestly believe that aliens and people from other dimensions live amongst us. Indeed, since the Roswell UFO incident of 1947, there appears to have grown a popular consensus on what aliens look like (you know, high forehead, triangular head, large sloping almond-shaped eyes, small stature, slim bodies). And few believers in extra-terrestrial beings and UFOs doubt that they pose a threat to our civilisation.

In medicine too we remain surprisingly close to practices of the Middle Ages. The careful and objective approach of earlier Greek medicine was embellished in medieval times with superstition, prayer and hieratic prescriptions. The influence of evil spirits was recognised and effort devoted to driving out demons. The two approaches to medicine existed harmoniously, with patients referred between the practitioners of each as required.

Today, throughout the world, including developed states, there is a crisis of confidence in modern medicine. People frequently turn to faith healers and purveyors of elixirs, potions, pills, meditation, needles, candles and other claimed cures. In many cultures, the witch doctor or shaman remains a respected and legitimate recourse for those who are ill. In his book, ‘Wrong’, David H. Freedman suggests that people have good reason to distrust the accepted truths of science, most of which are subsequently shown to be incorrect and discarded over time.

Another trend of the Middle Ages was to venerate objects of religious significance or other strange curios. Cathedrals, princes and nobles of the time collected artefacts such as pieces of wood said to have come from the crucifixion cross of Jesus, the horn of a unicorn, the skulls of the Magi, the ring of St. Joseph, and even as Umberto Eco amusingly informs us, “the skull of St. John at the age of 12 (sic)”. However, in 2004, a ten-year old grilled cheese sandwich that was said to show the face of the Virgin Mary sold to a casino for $US28,000. Have we really come that far?

Heresy and deviant ideology in the Middle Ages was usually punished by death. In this regard, we can ask again to what extent we have actually moved on from the Middle Ages in practice. In 2011, 12 people, including seven UN staff, were killed in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan when Pastor Terry Jones from the Dove World Outreach Centre in Florida, America inexcusably and provocatively burned a copy of the Holy Quran. Death threats were also made after the Jyllands-Posten publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad pbuh in 2006, and again against the Swedish artist Lars Viks for a similar act in 2007. As in the more primitive era of the Middle Ages, disrespect for religious belief alone appears in many places of the world to be offered as justification for the taking of life.

And as we come to the close of 2014, the London-based rights group Amnesty International reports that women have faced torture, rape, forced marriage and were "sold" or given as "gifts" to "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (ISIL) fighters or their supporters in Iraq and Syria. In October 2014, Iraq's Independent High Commission for Human Rights documented victim testimonies that ISIL fighters sold and traded women and children captured in northern Iraq at slave markets in Ninawa province. In Africa, Fox News reports that "the hundreds of Nigerian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram could face a life of misery, as slaves or child brides sold for a pittance in markets across the globe".

And in USA, also in 2014, the slogan "I can't breathe" has been adopted to express frustration and opposition to the violence perpetrated by police against black people after unarmed Eric Garner, a 43-year-old father of six, was choked to death and a Grand Jury decided not to indict the police officer who killed him. Another Grand Jury also decided not to indict a police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and a post mortem report released only days ago revealed that a 25-year-old black man, Ezell Ford, killed by police in Los Angeles was shot three times, including in the back at close range. How far have we progressed from an earlier era of slavery and the dehumanisation of those we consider to be 'the other'.

We could go on with examples of ways in which societies of today have not progressed in practice all that far from those of the Middle Ages. Despite the intellectual contribution of philosophers such as Voltaire, Montesquieu, Mill, Hobbes, Locke, Paine, and so, so many more, we remain perplexed by the same problems and respond to them in ways that are eerily similar to those of our ancestors in the Dark Ages. Perhaps in the future, the period around the end of the second Millennium will be known as the ‘Second Dark Age’? Is this how we want to be remembered?