A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance

“Intellectual life had vanished from Europe. Even Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor and the greatest of all medieval rulers, was illiterate.” 

Manchester links intellectual life—and all its attendant forms of progress—to literacy. That a people could be literate and then regress to illiteracy in subsequent generations is one of Manchester’s primary examples of what made the Dark Ages so primitive. 

“Christian churches were built on the foundations of pagan temples, and the names of biblical saints were given to groves which had been considered sacred centuries before the birth of Jesus.” 

Christian missionaries were naive to think that they could simply substitute one set of beliefs for another. Renaming a grove and saying that it was now sacred on behalf of a new God was not enough for pagans who had always believed in multiple gods.

“Medieval astrologers and magicians flourished. Clearly all this met a deep human need, but thoughtful men were troubled.” 

Despite the Christian missionaries’ best efforts, superstitious practices continued even after new converts adopted their message. Manchester does not dismiss these other practices with scorn but recognizes that all rituals at the time seemed to fill a need that the Church could supplement, but not yet replace.