Mr. Streit's Hawthorne Website

No longer organized around a unified empire, territory was up for grabs, and power was often seizes by despotic rulers and their armies. This downshift in progress left Europeans more susceptible than ever to the ravages of natural disaster and disease. Waves of warfare together with famine, plague, erratic weather patterns and persecution led to a centuries-long era of economic, political, and cultural decline.  By the 5th century, the Roman Empire had conquered a stunning expanse of territories and people throughout Europe. After the empire crumbled from within, unable to sustain its own borders, a power vacuum was left in its wake. With no unified power source to claim these lands, chaos abounded as roaming warlords and violent bands of warriors circulated throughout Europe. No longer organized around a unified empire, territory was up for grabs, and power was often seizes by despotic rulers and their armies. This downshift in progress left Europeans more susceptible than ever to the ravages of natural disaster and disease. Waves of warfare together with famine, plague, erratic weather patterns and persecution led to a centuries-long era of Dark Ages, the early medieval period of western European history. Specifically, the term refers to the time (476–800 B.C.) when there was no Roman (or Holy Roman) emperor in the West; or, more generally, to the period between about 500 and 1000, which was marked by frequent warfare and a virtual disappearance of urban life. It is now rarely used by historians because of the value judgment it implies. Though sometimes taken to derive its meaning from the fact that little was then known about the period, the term’s more usual and pejorative sense is of a period of intellectual darkness and barbarity.