The growth of the human civilization can be categorized in to different times. Each of these time periods refer to a certain major development which characterized the growth of the individuals. For instance, since the beginning of the human society, at first the people nt used to live in formal communities and society. With the changes in times, they began to give themselves a more developed character whereby they found it more convenient to interact with one another. In this manner, one of such periods that the entire world witnessed was that of the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages is also known as the Dark Ages.

The Middle Ages Since times immemorial, the only objective of the human society was to develop and improve upon itself. In this manner, it can be noticed that there were many cultural, societal and economic development among the human kind. In the ancient time period, people learnt how to hunt and feed themselves. They then realized the significance of cultivation and started to consume more processed food. This in turn, contributed to the growth of the economy of the place as the food that was cultivated could be traded with other territories of the world. As a result, it can be observed that the ancient time period of the human history witnessed several ground breaking and significant discoveries which all aimed to make the lives of the people easier.

A major development however, that characterized the growth of the human race was that of the birth of religion. Religion came to occupy one of the most important places within the lives of the individuals as they started to have faith in a super natural power. This blind faith in something intangible brought about some serious development in the society where by people started to misuse the faith of the people. In the ancient time period, human beings still had the power to rationalize their choices, especially in the continent of Europe.

However, there soon came a time where all these different cultural developments and economic trade came to a halt. This age is known as the Middle Ages. It began in the 1300s and was characterized by the stagnation in the religious spirit of the people. In other words, the freedom that people had in the expression of their religious sentiments, was no longer there. Petrarch, an Italian scholar, stated that the period of the Roman civilization was more glorious and developed as than the 1300s of the human history.

The Middle Ages refer to the time period between the 5^th century AD to the 14^th century AD. During this period, there were no major and negligible changes in the cultural development and scientific development of the society. It was Francesco Petrarch who first coined the term “Dark Ages”. This referred to the Middle Ages of human civilization. The term “dark ages” meant to refer to the slow growth in the literary value of the people and the loss in their power of curiosity. One of the major disappointments of the Dark Ages was the preponderant control of the priests and the religious clergy on the life of the individuals. In other words, the people no longer had the freedom to follow their own choices and had to depend on the dictates of their priests. This was disastrous for the human history because they were restricted from the pursuance of science and technical developments.

However, the Dark Ages was not only credited with the negative developments of the human history.  People of this time was characterized as unsophisticated and non-rational in nature. The Middle Ages, rather showed an increase in the activities of the Christian missionaries. The religion of Christianity began to gain a strong foot hold over most of the countries in the world, especially that of the European continent. As a result of this, the priests and the missionaries had the important task and responsibility of propagating their faith around the world so that their followers would increase in number.

In conclusion, it can be seen that it was this rapid spread of the religious doctrines which made the rational people fear about the stagnancy in the thought process of the human society. People started to have more faith in their religious doctrines and therefore, stopped questioning the illogical things that occurred in the world. As a result of this, the Middle Ages got the name of “Dark Ages”.