sophia_h
28-02-2009, 04:07 PM
`
– 1 –
Did the Early Middle Ages Really Exist?
Dr. Hans-Ulrich Niemitz
Klopstockstr. 18, D-10557 Berlin, Germany
niemitz@r.htwk-leipzig.de
(First version 1995-10-02, second version 1997-10-09,
minor revision 2000-04-03)
Did the early Middle Ages really exist?
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 selfrespectto 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.
Art historians explain and describe artifacts and buildings of this period as anachronistic – but
they never follow up on their assessments. One of the best examples, intensively surveyed, is
the Chapel of Aachen (ca. 800 AD), which seems to come approximately 200 years too early.
The way of constructing an arch shown in this chapel has no predecessor (Adam 1968,7).
Arched aisles are usual only in the 11th century in Speyer. The construction of choirs with
rising arch and also rising barrel vaulting is not resumed until 200 years later at the portal of
Tournus (Hubert 1969,67). The vertical steepness of the interior arches of the Aachen Chapel
is more accentuated than those of churches built two centuries later. One of these is the 1049
AD consecrated Abbey-church of Ottmarsheim. Although missing some details of the early
model, nevertheless it is the “best copy” of Aachen. However, these and many other
arguments implicate that the Chapel of Aachen has to be regarded as a building of the second
part of the 11th century.
– 2 –
Another ‘big’ research-problem is the AD way of counting years. How could 300 phantom
years have crept into the accepted chronology and why didn’t anyone notice it? For
approximately 2000 years people have been counting years correctly, haven’t they?
In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII started the so-called ‘Gregorian calendar’, which is basically a
corrected version of the old Julian calendar of Julius Caesar. The Julian calendar, after being
used for a long time, no longer corresponded with the astronomical situation. The difference,
according to calculations by Pope Gregory, amounted to 10 days. Now please calculate: how
many Julian years does it take to produce an error of 10 days? The answer is 1257 years. The
question – at which date was the Julian calendar correct – can be calculated with the following
amazing result (Illig 1991):
1582 – 1257 = 325
(The year in which the “Gregorian” calendar began minus the years
necessary to produce 10 days of error in the Julian calendar equals
the beginning the Julian calendar.)
It seems, unbelievably, that Caesar introduced his calendar in 325 AD. This is unbelievable
because by then he had already been dead for more than 300 years. If 16 centuries had passed
since Caesar’s introduction of his calendar, the Julian calendar in
Gregory’s time would have
been out of sync with the astronomical situation
by 13 days, not 10.
Some historians have noticed this contradiction, but they solve it this way:
the scholars in
Caesar’s time reckoned a different date for the equinox (the day in spring,
where day and
night have the same length). Yet it can be proved that the Romans used the
same date for the
equinox as we do today, i.e. the 21st of March (Illig 1991 and 1993).
If our thesis of 300 phantom years is right, then the thesis must also be valid for the whole of
Eurasian-African history for the period between 600 AD and 900 AD. In this time period
Byzantium and the new Islamic realms were supposedly fighting each other in the Near East
and the Mediterranean.
Let us look at Byzantium first. Historians acknowledge a special problem for exactly this
period: when did the Empire reform its administration? When and how did this reform –
called by modern historians ‘reform of the themes’ – come into being? How did feudalism
develop? One group of historians pointed out that the essentials for this reform were outlined
in Antiquity and that for the 300 years following 600 AD nothing happened. Thus nothing can
be said about this period, because no historical sources exist for the supposed reform in this
period.
Another group interpolates between the years 600 AD and 900 AD a very slow evolution of
Byzantine society. This evolution was so slow, they say, that the actors themselves hardly
noticed it and thus this evolution didn’t produce any written document (no archaeological
remains, either, by the way!). The discussion of both groups is termed the ‘debate of
continuity’. The gap has to be filled by speculation. Therefore both groups accuse each other
of misinterpreting historical sources in an anachronistic manner (Karayannopulos 1959,15;
Niemitz 1994).
Uwe Topper and Manfred Zeller pointed out how to resolve some important riddles and
research problems of the Islamic and Persian-Arab-Byzantine world using the thesis of the
phantom years. Firdowsis’ well-known epic, the Shahname, written around 1010 AD, ends
with the last Persian king Yazdegird III, who died 651 AD. The epic tells nothing about the
– 3 –
Islamic conquest of Persia and has no allusions to Islam at all. It simply skips 300 years of
Islamic influence as if they had never existed (Topper 1994).
Moreover, the Parsees – the Zarathustra worshipers – in India have been debating their own
chronology furiously since messengers from Iran in the 18th century told them that they made
a mistake in counting the years since their flight from the homeland [this claim/evidence,
however, has been withdrawn in (Topper 1999)]. Even modern encyclopedias vary in their
assertions between the 7th and 10th century for the event (Topper 1994).
A thorough examination of the architecture of the Omayyades – they were the famous first
Arabic dynasty from 661 AD until 750 AD – detects untypical characteristics for an Islamic
dynasty. These unusual characteristics are especially visible in their palaces. We see a
painting (approximately 725 AD) on a wall (in spite of the Islamic prohibition against
portraying human figures!) showing the Persian king Khosrow II, paying homage to the
Omayyade sovereign. But by then this Persian king had been dead for approximately 100
years.
The introduction of Arabic coins organized by the caliph Abd al Malik in 695 AD reveals
some remarkable contradictions. The Arabic coins bear the portrait of the Persian king
Khosrow II who died long time before (Zeller 1993). Manfred Zeller draws the following
conclusion from this and other facts: We have to eliminate two phantom times; the first of
approximately 78 years (from 583 AD until 661 AD) and a second one of approximately 218
years (from 750 until 968). The first phantom time came into being through artificial
separation of the Persian and Omayyade history which in reality was contemporaneous. Thus
Zeller explains the contradictions of the un-Islamic style and the late appearance of Khosrow
II in the Omayyade history. The second phantom time is a time-stretching repetition of the
Persian history from 528 AD until 661 – now in Islamic style and dated from 750 until 968.
Harun al-Rashid is an invention, as is the whole history of his dynasty (Müller 1992).
Probably Islam did not spread until 10 centuries ago.
While this way some riddles and research problem can be solved, others will follow. For
instance the miraculous origin of Islam. It is generally known that historians are astonished by
this ‘miracle’; we can read this in the introduction of Fischer Weltgeschichte, Volume I, Der
Islam I: “Birth and success of Islam seem to be a miracle.” (Cahen 1968,7). A miracle
(“Wunder”) like that is needed for an explanation – this is known to all scientists. Gunter
Lüling has suggested a new scenario (Lüling 1974 and 1981).
The history of the Jews shows centuries of darkness and discontinuity that support the thesis
of the phantom time. One of the important modern works on Jewish history bears the
descriptive title “The Dark Ages. Jews in Christian Europe 711-1096”. Here are two
quotations: “It seemed, that they (the Jews) totally disappeared together with the breakdown of
the Roman Empire. However, we don’t find any evidence of their presence until the
Carolingian period.” (Roth 1966,162). For the Carolingian period historians find only written
sources, whereas material sources like buildings and artifacts exist just for the time after 1000
AD (Jewish quarter in Regensburg between 1006 and 1028 AD, in Cologne between 1056 and
1075 AD, in Worms around 1080 AD, in Speyer around 1084 AD etc.). And for the regions
outside Germany we are told: “Of course we know from inscriptions and other sources about
Jewish societies and single persons in nearly all provinces of the Roman Empire, and we can
reasonably suppose – with or without proof – that there is in fact no district without Jews.
MUCH more:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/volatile/Niemitz-1997.pdf
..
– 1 –
Did the Early Middle Ages Really Exist?
Dr. Hans-Ulrich Niemitz
Klopstockstr. 18, D-10557 Berlin, Germany
niemitz@r.htwk-leipzig.de
(First version 1995-10-02, second version 1997-10-09,
minor revision 2000-04-03)
Did the early Middle Ages really exist?
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 selfrespectto 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.
Art historians explain and describe artifacts and buildings of this period as anachronistic – but
they never follow up on their assessments. One of the best examples, intensively surveyed, is
the Chapel of Aachen (ca. 800 AD), which seems to come approximately 200 years too early.
The way of constructing an arch shown in this chapel has no predecessor (Adam 1968,7).
Arched aisles are usual only in the 11th century in Speyer. The construction of choirs with
rising arch and also rising barrel vaulting is not resumed until 200 years later at the portal of
Tournus (Hubert 1969,67). The vertical steepness of the interior arches of the Aachen Chapel
is more accentuated than those of churches built two centuries later. One of these is the 1049
AD consecrated Abbey-church of Ottmarsheim. Although missing some details of the early
model, nevertheless it is the “best copy” of Aachen. However, these and many other
arguments implicate that the Chapel of Aachen has to be regarded as a building of the second
part of the 11th century.
– 2 –
Another ‘big’ research-problem is the AD way of counting years. How could 300 phantom
years have crept into the accepted chronology and why didn’t anyone notice it? For
approximately 2000 years people have been counting years correctly, haven’t they?
In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII started the so-called ‘Gregorian calendar’, which is basically a
corrected version of the old Julian calendar of Julius Caesar. The Julian calendar, after being
used for a long time, no longer corresponded with the astronomical situation. The difference,
according to calculations by Pope Gregory, amounted to 10 days. Now please calculate: how
many Julian years does it take to produce an error of 10 days? The answer is 1257 years. The
question – at which date was the Julian calendar correct – can be calculated with the following
amazing result (Illig 1991):
1582 – 1257 = 325
(The year in which the “Gregorian” calendar began minus the years
necessary to produce 10 days of error in the Julian calendar equals
the beginning the Julian calendar.)
It seems, unbelievably, that Caesar introduced his calendar in 325 AD. This is unbelievable
because by then he had already been dead for more than 300 years. If 16 centuries had passed
since Caesar’s introduction of his calendar, the Julian calendar in
Gregory’s time would have
been out of sync with the astronomical situation
by 13 days, not 10.
Some historians have noticed this contradiction, but they solve it this way:
the scholars in
Caesar’s time reckoned a different date for the equinox (the day in spring,
where day and
night have the same length). Yet it can be proved that the Romans used the
same date for the
equinox as we do today, i.e. the 21st of March (Illig 1991 and 1993).
If our thesis of 300 phantom years is right, then the thesis must also be valid for the whole of
Eurasian-African history for the period between 600 AD and 900 AD. In this time period
Byzantium and the new Islamic realms were supposedly fighting each other in the Near East
and the Mediterranean.
Let us look at Byzantium first. Historians acknowledge a special problem for exactly this
period: when did the Empire reform its administration? When and how did this reform –
called by modern historians ‘reform of the themes’ – come into being? How did feudalism
develop? One group of historians pointed out that the essentials for this reform were outlined
in Antiquity and that for the 300 years following 600 AD nothing happened. Thus nothing can
be said about this period, because no historical sources exist for the supposed reform in this
period.
Another group interpolates between the years 600 AD and 900 AD a very slow evolution of
Byzantine society. This evolution was so slow, they say, that the actors themselves hardly
noticed it and thus this evolution didn’t produce any written document (no archaeological
remains, either, by the way!). The discussion of both groups is termed the ‘debate of
continuity’. The gap has to be filled by speculation. Therefore both groups accuse each other
of misinterpreting historical sources in an anachronistic manner (Karayannopulos 1959,15;
Niemitz 1994).
Uwe Topper and Manfred Zeller pointed out how to resolve some important riddles and
research problems of the Islamic and Persian-Arab-Byzantine world using the thesis of the
phantom years. Firdowsis’ well-known epic, the Shahname, written around 1010 AD, ends
with the last Persian king Yazdegird III, who died 651 AD. The epic tells nothing about the
– 3 –
Islamic conquest of Persia and has no allusions to Islam at all. It simply skips 300 years of
Islamic influence as if they had never existed (Topper 1994).
Moreover, the Parsees – the Zarathustra worshipers – in India have been debating their own
chronology furiously since messengers from Iran in the 18th century told them that they made
a mistake in counting the years since their flight from the homeland [this claim/evidence,
however, has been withdrawn in (Topper 1999)]. Even modern encyclopedias vary in their
assertions between the 7th and 10th century for the event (Topper 1994).
A thorough examination of the architecture of the Omayyades – they were the famous first
Arabic dynasty from 661 AD until 750 AD – detects untypical characteristics for an Islamic
dynasty. These unusual characteristics are especially visible in their palaces. We see a
painting (approximately 725 AD) on a wall (in spite of the Islamic prohibition against
portraying human figures!) showing the Persian king Khosrow II, paying homage to the
Omayyade sovereign. But by then this Persian king had been dead for approximately 100
years.
The introduction of Arabic coins organized by the caliph Abd al Malik in 695 AD reveals
some remarkable contradictions. The Arabic coins bear the portrait of the Persian king
Khosrow II who died long time before (Zeller 1993). Manfred Zeller draws the following
conclusion from this and other facts: We have to eliminate two phantom times; the first of
approximately 78 years (from 583 AD until 661 AD) and a second one of approximately 218
years (from 750 until 968). The first phantom time came into being through artificial
separation of the Persian and Omayyade history which in reality was contemporaneous. Thus
Zeller explains the contradictions of the un-Islamic style and the late appearance of Khosrow
II in the Omayyade history. The second phantom time is a time-stretching repetition of the
Persian history from 528 AD until 661 – now in Islamic style and dated from 750 until 968.
Harun al-Rashid is an invention, as is the whole history of his dynasty (Müller 1992).
Probably Islam did not spread until 10 centuries ago.
While this way some riddles and research problem can be solved, others will follow. For
instance the miraculous origin of Islam. It is generally known that historians are astonished by
this ‘miracle’; we can read this in the introduction of Fischer Weltgeschichte, Volume I, Der
Islam I: “Birth and success of Islam seem to be a miracle.” (Cahen 1968,7). A miracle
(“Wunder”) like that is needed for an explanation – this is known to all scientists. Gunter
Lüling has suggested a new scenario (Lüling 1974 and 1981).
The history of the Jews shows centuries of darkness and discontinuity that support the thesis
of the phantom time. One of the important modern works on Jewish history bears the
descriptive title “The Dark Ages. Jews in Christian Europe 711-1096”. Here are two
quotations: “It seemed, that they (the Jews) totally disappeared together with the breakdown of
the Roman Empire. However, we don’t find any evidence of their presence until the
Carolingian period.” (Roth 1966,162). For the Carolingian period historians find only written
sources, whereas material sources like buildings and artifacts exist just for the time after 1000
AD (Jewish quarter in Regensburg between 1006 and 1028 AD, in Cologne between 1056 and
1075 AD, in Worms around 1080 AD, in Speyer around 1084 AD etc.). And for the regions
outside Germany we are told: “Of course we know from inscriptions and other sources about
Jewish societies and single persons in nearly all provinces of the Roman Empire, and we can
reasonably suppose – with or without proof – that there is in fact no district without Jews.
MUCH more:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/volatile/Niemitz-1997.pdf
..