Without the steadying force of the Roman government, most of Europe fell into relative anarchy and lawlessness, a state that was relieved by the imposition of religious discipline by the Catholic Church. During the following centuries, Europe was in a state of consolidation; recovering from the barbarian invasions, the loss of a central administrative government, and a series of plagues, famine, and natural disasters.
The ensuing period became known as the Dark Ages, a term that is no longer considered appropriate because learning did not actually stop during these centuries. Monks, scholastics, and others managed to not only keep alive the knowledge of the past, but also made some progress on their own. Unfortunately, education was a rare commodity in those years, and scientific and technical progress in medieval Europe was dramatically slowed. However, this was not the case in all parts of the world.
In particular, the Arab (and later, Islamic) world benefited from the knowledge they had obtained from Greek scholars, as well as from their proximity to the scholarship taking place in the East. Through their contact with the Greeks and Egyptians at the library of Alexandria, the Arabs learned of Greek writings and scientific observations dating back many centuries.
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