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[[File:Abelard and Heloise.jpeg|thumbnail|left|200px|Abelard and Heloise]]Most likely when you learned about the Middle Ages in history you became familiar with it’s dubious nickname: The Dark Ages. This nickname was bestowed upon the years directly following the collapse of the Roman Empire (6th/7th century) up until the beginning of the Renaissance, which eventually bore the Early Modern Period or Enlightenment. So then, the story supposedly goes like this: Western Europe was trapped within the clutch of tradition and religion until a “rebirth” (or renaissance) in which ancient philosophical texts were newly discovered and translated into Latin (making them available for study).

===Conclusions===

Hopefully it has become clear that through investigation into the actual intellectual climate of the Middle Ages that it was a period of intellectual growth and interest, not a period indebted to scholarly barrenness. Monks, scholastic philosophers, and clergymen alike all rendered study as an essential component to growing their faith and devotion to God. Not only was the Bible and the Patristics suitable for study, but also subjects such as logic, grammar, and the classics of the Greco-Roman Period, including Cicero, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. Indeed, there was an obvious synthesis between Christianity and reason that existed during the Medieval period. Reason was thought to shed light on theological questions; it was not viewed as a danger to faith. The dichotomy between faith and reason that many are surely familiar with in today’s political and cultural climate would not be introduced until after the Reformation and grew substantially among fundamentalist reformed movements in America in the seventeenth century.

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