Bright Side of Dark Ages
OK, it wasn’t the Renaissance, but if you like religious paintings, decent weather and steady work as a serf it was pretty darn good. But, with a new one quite possibly coming, it’s good to know a lot of fine, or at least useful, and innovative things came from the Dark Ages:
Romanesque, if you care for that sort of thing
Algebra, ditto
Universities
Monks
Beer (see Monks)
Chaucer
Cathedrals
Genghis Khan DNA
Crop rotation
Gunpowder
Voting
Whad'ya Know? 