Researching the Middle Ages Was Mind-bending

“Dark Ages” Is a Misinterpreted, Misused Term

When someone says something is out of the “Dark Ages” or that society is devolving into the “Dark Ages,” they mean that some particular thing, mindset, or behavior is archaic. The phrase is used as a pejorative to indicate the relative enlightenment of the current era in comparison to the Middle Ages. In my research, I learned that the original intent of the phrase “Dark Ages,” was an academic term indicative of the paucity of preserved written artifacts. The Middle Ages are ‘dark’ to modern historians because the written record is scarce.

Miracles Were a Coping Mechanism

The intellectual constructs prevalent in the Middle Ages is alien to my modern mindset. The Scientific Method is my mental model for understanding phenomena, whereas the average person of the Middle Ages used miracles as their mental model. Exceptional events – those which were unique and surprising or frightening – were the focus of thought, not repeatability. My research focused on Europe, where Christianity was the dominant theology. Religious devotion and rites were a way to manage the existential stress of the precarity of life. As someone who is not religious, really immersing myself in this mode of being to write my protagonist was a mental and emotional contortion act.

In The Middle Ages, Community Was More Valued Than Individuality

I am an American and individualism is the norm. The American concept of “community building” would be incomprehensible to a villager from the Middle Ages. Community was the mechanism by which a person lived or died. “It takes a village” was not a quaint phrase: without a village (community), starving to death was a pretty sure outcome. Individualism posed a very real threat to the mere subsistence of a community. My use of the word subsistence is intentional: community was not a means of personal survival but a means to subsist as a group. Individuality was not celebrated, and barely tolerated.

Desert Does Not Mean “Sandy Vistas”

My research focused on Medieval Europe, where there are no extensive deserts. Instead, there were vast forests. The forests were dangerous: wild animals, bandits, and a variety of monsters roamed the forests. To be alone in the forest was to be separated from community, an existential threat on a physical level. It is no wonder, then, that European Christians interpreted the Biblical stories of the desert to mean the forest.

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This post represents a general overview of my reading. A full bibliography for my research is in the appendix of Aulisyn. Email me if you would like citations without purchasing the book.

Do you want to judge my success in adopting the Medieval mindset in Aulisyn? You can purchase a copy at your favorite online bookstore. I’d love to hear your opinion, either via a review, in the comments, or via a one-on-one email discussion.