part, violent, immoral, and worldly; they were corrupted by the wealth and power that they owed
to the benefactions of the pious. The same thing happened, over and over again, even to the
monastic orders; but reformers, with new zeal, revived their moral force as often as it had
decayed.
Another reason which makes the year 1000 a turning-point is the cessation, at about this time, of
conquest by both Mohammedans and northern barbarians, so far at least as Western Europe is
concerned. Goths, Lombards, Hungarians, and Normans came in successive waves; each horde in
turn was Christianized, but each in turn weakened the civilized tradition. The Western Empire
broke up into many barbarian kingdoms; the kings lost authority over their vassals; there was
universal anarchy, with perpetual violence both on a large and on a small scale. At last all the
races of vigorous northern conquerors had been converted to Christianity, and had acquired settled
habitations. The Normans, who were the last comers, proved peculiarly capable of civilization.
They reconquered Sicily from the Saracens, and made Italy safe from the Mohammedans. They
brought England back into the Roman world, from which the Danes had largely excluded it. Once
settled in Normandy, they allowed France to revive, and helped materially in the process.
Our use of the phrase the "Dark Ages" to cover the period from 600 to 1000 marks our undue
concentration on Western Europe. In China, this period includes the time of the Tang dynasty, the
greatest age of Chinese poetry, and in many other ways a most remarkable epoch. From India to
Spain, the brilliant civilization of Islam flourished. What was lost to Christendom at this time was
not lost to civilization, but quite the contrary. No one could have guessed that Western Europe
would later become dominant, both in power and in culture. To us, it seems that West-European
civilization is civilization, but this is a narrow view. Most of the cultural content of our
civilization comes to us from the Eastern Mediterranean, from Greeks and Jews. As for power:
Western Europe was dominant from the Punic Wars to the fall of Rome-say, roughly, during the
six centuries from 200 B.C. to A.D. 400. After that time, no State in Western Europe could
compare in power with China, Japan, or the Caliphate.
Our superiority since the Renaissance is due partly to science and scientific technique, partly to
political institutions slowly built up