:For the period itself, see Middle Ages and Early Middle Ages.

In European historiography, the term Dark Age (s) refers to the Early Middle Ages, the period encompassing (roughly) 476 to 1000 AD.

This concept of a Dark Age was created by the Italian scholar Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca) in the 1330s and was originally intended as a sweeping criticism of the character of Late Latin literature. Later historians expanded the term to refer to the transitional period between Classical Roman Antiquity and the High Middle Ages, including not only the lack of Latin literature, but also a lack of contemporary written history, general demographic decline, limited building activity and material cultural achievements in general (for example, as shown in the impoverishment of technologies, such as pottery). Popular culture has further expanded on the term as a vehicle to depict the Middle Ages as a time of backwardness, extending its pejorative use and expanding its scope.

The rise of archaeology and other specialties in the 20th century has shed much light on the period and offered a more nuanced understanding of its positive developments. Other terms of periodization have come to the fore: Late Antiquity, the Early Middle Ages, and the Great Migrations, depending on which aspects of culture are being emphasized.

When modern scholarly study of the Middle Ages arose in the 19th century, the term "Dark Ages" was at first kept, with all its critical overtones. When the term "Dark Ages" is used by historians today, it is intended to be neutral, namely, to express the idea that the events of the period often seem "dark" to us only because of the paucity of historical records, artistic and cultural output compared with later times. William Chester Jordon. Dictionary of the Middle Ages, Supplement 1, 2004. Kathleen Verdun, "Medievalism" pp. 389-397. Sections 'Victorian Medievalism', 'Nineteenth-Century Europe', 'Medievalism in America 1500-1900', 'The 20th Century'. Same volume, Paul Freedman, "Medieval Studies", pp. 383-389.