Why anthropocentrism disappears during the Dark Ages

Reason 1

The Dark Ages was a period in which all of society revolved around self-contained agriculture, with the land being owned by the three upper classes (the nobility, the clergy, and, so to speak, the "Crown"). It was based upon a very strict hierarchy, with mobility reduced to a minimum. Those at the top could not maintain this de facto state without an ideology, the effect of which is lending legitimacy. This ideology consisted mainly of the notion that they, personally, were ordained by Heaven to rule mankind. This notion was the only thing they lacked - the other, the monopoly on the use of violence, they already possessed, given that they formed a class of professional warriors, and could very simply crush a peasant rebellion. The idea that God worked only for a few handful of men turned Him away from the larger part of society, losing thus connection with the bulk of mankind. Thus, in my opinion, anthropocentrism disappears in the Dark Ages, only to resurface in the Late Middle Ages, when, not coincidentally, town life flourished and the old patriarchal order was seriously challenged. I don't think, however, that anthropocentrism is a good denomination, because it was not so much a question of man slipping in the background, as that of the masses doing so. It was not so much a question of God becoming paramount, as that of Him becoming so for a select few.

L.E. At the heart of the matter lies the fact that Art, however much we like to agree or not, was, back then, the reflection of the mentality of the powerful. Given the fact that Power was profoundly personal in nature in those times, it could not have been helped that Art itself was reflecting this pathologically elitist view of the Universe. The notion of ruler responsibility, which meant, to a certain degree, an equivalence between ruler and masses, necessarily disappeared with the dissolution of the Roman State. With it also disappeared any hope of artistic workings concerning mankind at large.

L.E.2 I was just reading this morning some of Rostovtzeffs history of Rome, and the following fragment caught my attention, in view of the topic of this thread:

"But in the nature of that power itself there was a radical alteration. The emperor was no longer merely one among Roman citizens, the First Citizen or Princeps: he became once and for all 'lord and god'. This is clear from the external ceremonial with which he was surrounded. The devotion paid to the Sassanian kings was reproduced almost exactly for the Roman emperors: all who were admitted to the sacred presence had even to fall on their faces and kiss the hem of royal raiment."

He is speaking of Diocletian, under the rule of which Western Europe made some of the most important steps towards the Dark Ages. Notice how when Power is estranged from the masses, when it can no longer strengthen its claim through democratic arguments, it drifts, not accidentally, towards the higher fora of the world - God and the Heavens. It seeks to form and ideological alliance with supernatural elements. This is inherent, I think, to all private systems of power.

L.E.3

Reason 2

Due to the backwardness of the economy, human life was very precarious and uncertain, which encouraged people turning towards God. The threat of starvation constantly loomed over the realm. A slump in agricultural productivity occurred at the onset of the Dark Ages:

"Scattered but consistent evidence indicates that the last centuries of antiquity and the first ones of the early Middle Ages were especially cold and wet. This might not in itself have been disastrous for the normally warm and dry Mediterranean world, but it made the traditional techniques of dry farming less successful and accelerated the already advanced process of erosion." [Roberto Lopez - "The Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages 950-1350"]

And lasted till around 1000 A.D.:

"But even so, after the decades which followed the year 1000 Europe seems to have escaped famines and crises in the food supply serious enough to cause a considerable proportion of the population to starve to death." [Georges Duby - "Rural Economy and Country Life in the Medieval West"]

The fall of the Roman Empire coincided with a "cold and wet pulsation of the climate", a macrohistorical phenomenon which, as mentioned above, sinks agricultural productivity and encourages pestilence. War raged on forever, it's major effect being the destruction not only of labor, but also of capital, which is significant. Moving armies were also the major agent of epidemics, due to their appalling sanitary conditions. Internal wars were coupled with external invasions (Huns, Saracens, Hungarians, Normans, Vikings etc.) Physicians were either completely absent or completely impotent before most of diseases. The lack of concentrated accumulation of capital, which is a result of agrarian, atomised economies, meant impossibility of investing in large-scale, welfare projects. The Church, it is true, was the main purveyor of such activity, but it could not have done more than the Age permitted it. Scientific solutions were also lacking, mainly because, in the lack of economic stimuli, science, even if latent, can't evolve, can't be brought to concrete fruition.

Reason 3

The lack of science automatically means turning to supernatural explanations when trying to understand natural phenomena. Casual relationships and logical reasoning are abandoned leading to a embracing of mysticism. This meant, on the one hand, constantly appealing to God, on the other hand, a belittling of oneself and of oneselfs capacity to penetrate the mysteries of Nature. As I said before, scientific breakthrough is not necessarily the result of intellectual prowess, as the result of adequate economic support. The collapse of the Roman Empire, it is well known, meant a drastic reduction in the extent of the market, which further diminishes the division of labor, without which advanced technologies and know-how's are lost.