社会调查研究方法 (12).pdfVIP

Ageing Society 29, 2009, 1065–1084. f 2009 Cambridge University Press 1065 doi:10.1017/S0144686 Printed in the United Kingdom Old age in the Dark Ages: the status of old age during the early Middle Ages CHRIS GILLEARD* ABSTRACT This paper reviews the position of old age in the societies of post-Roman Europe, from the fifth to the 10th centuries. Drawing on both primary and secondary literary and material sources of the period, I suggest that living beyond the age of 60 years was an uncommon experience throughout the early Middle Ages. Not only was achieving old age a minority experience, it seems to have been par- ticularly concentrated among the senior clergy. This, together with the growing importance of the Christian Church as the institution that stabilised post-Roman society, the decline of urban living and its attendant culture of leisure and literacy, and the transformation of kinship into a symbolic ‘family under God’ contributed to a more favourable status for old age, or at least one that was particularly favourable for older men. This was based not so much upon the accumulation with age of wealth and privilege, but upon the moral worth of old age as a stage of life. The early Middle Ages, the so-called ‘Dark Ages’, was in this respect a relatively distinctive period in the history of old age. With all around instability and the future uncertain and often threatening, survival into old age was a rare but frequently revered attainment. KEY WORDS – old age, early Middle Ages, Christian Church, life expectancy. Introduction In the history of Western Europe, the period from the demise of the Roman Empire in the fifth century to the ‘transformation of the year 1,000’ was long known as the ‘Dark Ages’, in large part because of the limited docu- mentary sources for the period (Smith 2005). These limitations have made it difficult to reconstruct how everyday life was organis