Did the Early Middle Ages Really Exist?
This fascinating exploration of the subject concludes: No.
This question in itself – and more so the answer ‘NO, the early Middle Ages did not exist’ – is surprising, to say the least. It contradicts all basic knowledge and attacks the historian’s selfrespect to such an extreme that the reader of this paper is asked to be patient, benevolent and open to radically new ideas. I shall argue step by step – and, I hope, you will follow. With a group of friends (Müller 1992; Illig 1991; Niemitz 1991; Zeller 1991; Marx 1993; Topper 1994) I have been doing research on this subject since 1990. This is the reason for using ‘we’ or ‘I’ intermittently.
The thesis mainly says, with far-reaching implications and consequences:
Between Antiquity (1 AD) and the Renaissance (1500 AD) historians count approximately 300 years too many in their chronology. In other words: the Roman emperor Augustus really lived 1700 years ago instead of the conventionally assumed 2000 years.
However, the whole well-known historiography of the Middle Ages contradicts this assertion! The easiest way to understand doubts about the accepted chronology and ‘well-known’ history is to seriously systematize the problems of medieval research. This will lead us to detect a pattern which proves my thesis and gives reason to assume that a phantom period of approximately 300 years has been inserted between 600 AD to 900 AD, either by accident, by misinterpretation of documents or by deliberate falsification (Illig 1991). This period and all events that are supposed to have happened therein never existed. Buildings and artifacts ascribed to this period really belong to other periods. To prove this the Carolingian Chapel at Aachen will serve as the first example.
Dr. Hans-Ulrich Niemitz