<P> In response to the Protestants , Catholics developed a counter-image to depict the High Middle Ages in particular as a period of social and religious harmony , and not ' dark ' at all . The most important Catholic reply to the Magdeburg Centuries was the Annales Ecclesiastici by Cardinal Caesar Baronius . Baronius was a trained historian who produced a work that the Encyclopædia Britannica in 1911 described as `` far surpassing anything before '' and that Acton regarded as `` the greatest history of the Church ever written '' . The Annales covered the first twelve centuries of Christianity to 1198 , and was published in twelve volumes between 1588 and 1607 . It was in Volume X that Baronius coined the term `` dark age '' for the period between the end of the Carolingian Empire in 888 and the first stirrings of Gregorian Reform under Pope Clement II in 1046 : </P>
<P> In response to the Protestants , Catholics developed a counter-image to depict the High Middle Ages in particular as a period of social and religious harmony , and not ' dark ' at all . The most important Catholic reply to the Magdeburg Centuries was the Annales Ecclesiastici by Cardinal Caesar Baronius . Baronius was a trained historian who produced a work that the Encyclopædia Britannica in 1911 described as `` far surpassing anything before '' and that Acton regarded as `` the greatest history of the Church ever written '' . The Annales covered the first twelve centuries of Christianity to 1198 , and was published in twelve volumes between 1588 and 1607 . It was in Volume X that Baronius coined the term `` dark age '' for the period between the end of the Carolingian Empire in 888 and the first stirrings of Gregorian Reform under Pope Clement II in 1046 : </P>
when did the dark ages start and finish
when did the dark ages start and finish
between the end of the Carolingian Empire in 888 and the first stirrings of Gregorian Reform under Pope Clement II in 1046
between the end of the Carolingian Empire in 888 and the first stirrings of Gregorian Reform under Pope Clement II in 1046