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The Long Waves of Time

	Long Waves of Time
	Chapter I Rise of Christianity
	Chapter II Saeculum Obscurum
	Chapter III Carolingian Reformation
	Chapter IV Age of Byzantium
	Chapter V Crusades
	Chapter VI Renaissance
	Chapter VII Reformation
	Chapter VIII Age of Enlightenment
	Chapter IX Resurgence of Religion
	References

Saeculum Obscurum

Caesar Baronius, head librarian of the Vatican Library, coined the term Saeculum Obscurum in his Annales ecclesiastici (1588). However, these Dark Ages were enlightened at the beginning by Anicius Boethius (480-524) and at the end by Venerable Bede (672-735).

 Seventeen years after Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustulus, Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, invited Odoacer to a banquet where he had him assassinated. Theodoric became Odoacer's successor as a king of Italy.

 Theodoric began to suspect that certain of his nobles were plotting with the emperor in Constantinople to overthrow his government, and Albinus, an ex-consul and friend of Boethius was charged with treason. Boethius, at that time Theodoric's Magister Officiorum, Master of the Palace defended Albinus in court, was himself accused of being part of the plot, imprisoned at Ticinum in northern Italy and later executed. During his imprisonment, Boethius, wrote his Consolation Philosophiae.

 Boethius is often called the last of the Romans, the first of the Scholastics. as he translated Aristotle and Euclid (Geometria Euclidis a Boethio in Latinum translata) into Latin and these translations were used by scholastic philosophers 600 years later..

 As the Roman Empire was disintegrating, Vandals occupied its North Africa provinces, Goths expanded their control to Spain, and Franks settled in Gaul (France) and parts of Germany.