What is the difference between the Middle Ages and the Dark Ages?

The "middle ages" are anything between the collapse of Rome (400 AD) to its re-emergence in Rennaissance Italy (1400). Rennaissance means "rebirth".

The "dark ages" are the period in the middle ages which were relatively undocumented. This would definitely include 400 AD to 700 AD, and some extend it to 900 AD.

The "viking period" is 700 AD to 900 AD. Some authors include that period as the dark ages, others do not.

The "medieval period" is either the time between the dark ages and the Renaissance, 700 AD to 1400 AD, or it is the time between the end of the viking predations and the Renaissance (900-1400 AD), depending on the writer.

The Middle Ages, is a period in World History that, according to the Gregorian Calendar, began in the immediate aftermath of the Roman Empire's collapse in 476 AD/CE-(more specifically, the collapse of the Western Roman Empire), until 1400 AD /CE, with the emergence of the (Northern) Italian Renaissance. It was a lengthy, prolonged period in world history, which is situated in between the Ancient and Modern eras. The Middle Ages, follows the Ancient era, though precedes the Modern era.

The Middle Ages was divided into 2 phases/stages; the Early Middle Ages, followed by the Late Middle Ages. The Early Middle Ages begins in 476 AD/CE and ends at around 1050 AD/CE and the Late Middle Ages begins in 1050 AD/CE and ends at 1400 AD/CE. The Early Middle Ages, was also nicknamed, "The Dark Ages", by the Northern Italian Renaissance Poet, Petrarch, while the Late Middle Ages was also nicknamed, "The Age of Scholasticism"-(I do not know which person(s) or originated the nickname, "Age of Scholasticism").

Petrarch coined the phrase, "Dark Ages" in reaction to the dull, primitive, anti-intellectual, pan-religious atmosphere and environment that engulfed and characterized much of the Italian peninsula-(as well as Northern and Western Europe, though to a lesser extent). Petrarch was a Poet who yearned and pined for the nostalgia, sentimentality and glory of Ancient Greece and Rome-(with an emphasis on the latter). For Petrarch, the magnificence and greatness of Ancient Rome was then culturally overshadowed and intellectually obscured by the near universal presence of Christianity and the Roman Catholic Church, in particular. Such a lengthy and primitive overshadowing, was, (when compared with the enlightened character and intellect of Ancient Greece and Rome), a "Dark Age". The early centuries of Christian Europe-(with an emphasis on the majority of Italy), were, according to Petrarch, the dullest, most anti-intellectual period in recorded history. Petrarch, from what I know, does not express the same level of contempt for the succeeding Late Middle Ages or "Age of Scholasticism", though was quite vocal in his critiquing of Early Medieval Christianity...a.k.a. "The Dark Ages".

Note that "Dark Ages" is a therm with high ideological charge. Is the manichaean historical vision of the "enlightened" ilustrated from the XVIII century that oposses the Middle Ages (supposedly an age of barbarism) to the movement initiated by the french revolution, as if the Ilustrated Movementet had arisen by spontaneous generation.

Dr. Susan Snyder, my medieval and ancient history professor, argued that the term "Dark Age" was inappropriate for the early Middle Ages because we still have some records from it and some innovation took place. If we said "Dark Age" in class, we had to be referring to the Greek Dark Age, a period with some actual gaps in the historic record. We lose track of almost all connection between pre- and post-Dark Age writing forms, almost as though people lost the ability to write during that period. (Linear B disappeared entirely, Linear A influences later writing in Cyprus.)

Regarding the Middle Ages, Snyder is an enthusiastic Medievalist, thus her offense to the term "Dark" in reference to it. But most people probably mean the early Middle Ages when they say it.