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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jester47" data-source="post: 609194" data-attributes="member: 2238">Re: OTWhen I say there were no dark ages, I do not mean that there was not time inbetween the gradual decline of rome and the norman conquests.  What I mean is that they were not uneducated times.  Yes, bar barbarians did sac cities all over but if you look at it, what century has there not been whole sale sacking of cities?  Masonry was not a lost art in the so called dark ages.  Road building was neither.  My argument is supported by the construction of churches and cathedrals durring Charlemagnes time.  Not to mention Constantinople, which Vikings travelled to quite regularly and so would not believe that large constructions were the results of giants.   The Roman church did not get its act together until the 6 or 700's and it was later that it finally was able to reach out and make people listen to the pope.  This is because kingship seemed to be chaning hands almost yearly.  The spread of knowledge was curtailed by the church because the academic knowledge was being used for war.  To stabilise the region and get people back into making art and being happy the church first recognised certain warlords as divinely anointed.  Then they got the engineering manuals out ofthe hands of the enemies of these kings. (keep in mind that in the 12 and 1300's There were catapults that could lob large rocks 5 miles.  And they could be aimed with great accuracy.  (oviously within the line of sight) Once things settled down a bit people started to build churches instead of roads.   The tools and skills were there.  Large constructions are not an indicator of know how, they are an indicator of political stability and wealth.  Both of these were in short supply after 500 Ad because nomadic tribes killed everyone disrupted the political scene and took the wealth away from a civil model to one based on individual rulers.The change in the "Dark Ages was one of priorities.  Rather than civil works (aquaducts and roads) people were building fortresses, improving armor, and emphasising the religious in their constructive works because these things kept your king in power and made things better for you than they were for the previousgenerations of your family.  The number of walls and churches built in Tuscany in 900 is astounding.  No these were people with knowledge and skills,  what is at question was thier priorities.This is why people in the middle ages did not take well to independant thought and alternative religion.  They felt they did not have that luxery.  After things started to calm down about the year 1000 it was time to get some cash.  The only people with wealth to take nearby were the ones that had been making it off the europeans for the past 500 years.  Those people that had become the muslims 5 - 200 years ago.  Thus the first crusades.   The loot from crusading gathered enough wealth to start an early renaisance in italy that spread out through europe.I hopes this helps with visualising what a fantasy based on such times might look like.   Don't mean to hijack the thread.  I tink the art in 3e represents the priorities of the adventureers quite nicely.Aaron.</blockquote>

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