Also important to note - the term "Dark Ages" was coined by Protestant propagandists trying to discredit the Catholic Church which governed much of society during that time period. It was not, in fact, a dark age.
That is not the origination of the term. The term "Dark Ages" was conceived 200 years before Protestantism. The reason it was called the Dark Ages was in contrast to the Roman and Greek era. And yes comparatively speaking, it was a dark age. (At least in western Europe.)
The concept of a "Dark Age" as a historiographical periodization originated in the 1330s with the Italian scholar Petrarch, who regarded the post-Roman centuries as "dark" compared to the "light" of classical antiquity.
My apologies, you are correct that the term predates Protestantism. It was, however, used by Protestants to deride that era and the Church of the time which is likely how it became so widely used. This is from the same Wikipedia article you linked, for the interested:
During the Reformations of the 16th and 17th centuries, Protestants generally had a similar view to Renaissance humanists such as Petrarch, but also added an anti-catholic perspective. They saw classical antiquity as a golden time not only because of its Latin literature but also because it witnessed the beginnings of Christianity. They promoted the idea that the 'Middle Age' was a time of darkness also because of corruption within the Catholic Church such as popes ruling as kings, veneration of saint's relics, a licentious priesthood and institutionalized moral hypocrisy.
Importantly, today, historians tend to discourage the use of "Dark Ages" to refer to that period of history as it is not an accurate way to describe the time period.
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u/questron64 1d ago
We understood eclipses in the dark ages.