Dark Times

I am feeling low, somewhat restless, a little fearful as I watch the economy sink again, And ponder the futility of my own aspirations. Well, that is what it feels like, true or not, and only the most confident (perhaps stupidly so) look at the future without some element of doubt present.

With these feelings in tow, I was startled when I came across the following passage from D.H. Lawrence's essay on Taos, New Mexico:

To me it is so important to remember that when Rome collapsed, when the great Roman Empire fell into smoking ruins, and bears roamed in the streets of Lyon and wolves howled in the deserted streets of Rome, and Europe really was in a dark ruin, then it was not in castles or manors or cottages that life remained vivid. Then those whose souls were still alive withdrew together and gradually built monasteries, and these monasteries and convents, little communities of quiet labour and courage, isolated, helpless, and yet never overcome in a world flooded with devastation, these alone kept the human spirit from disintegration, from going quite dark, in the Dark Ages.

The world may be on the brink of disaster, or it may not, but I can take comfort in knowing that in the face of Nothing Known, these small groups of men and women produced and reproduced the remaining manuscripts of the previous great age, and made small efforts at their own creative endeavors. I may be irreligious-I can not support the idea that we might turn to a hierarchical belief system that dictates your life here and in the presumed hereafter-but I can hope that as value is reevaluated yet again, we might find small groups in which to redefine what does have value. It may take time, and we may none of us be here to see the outcome, but there is beauty in those Dark Ages, simple, and simply left as a reminder to create no matter how vast the devastation seems.

The Book of Hours, Valencia c.1460, a page from St. Augustine's City of God

Omne Bonum by James le Palmer, c.1360-1375; A dentist with silver forceps and a necklace of large teeth, extracting the tooth of a seated man                                                   

Siege of the Castle of Love, unknown artist. c 1350-1370

The Unicorn in Captivity tapestry, The Cloisters, c. 1495-1505 (really should not be included given its late date)

All my examples appear to come from the late Medieval period but there are some good things produced earlier; The Green Knight is one of my favorite romances (in the traditional sense of the word). I shall seek out some other art and post it in the future.