I'll third that.
I totally disagree with this one, but I do not really think discussing it has any relevance on an Ars Magica forum. On the other hand, I am quite interested in:
As far as I know, there are essentially no mathematical discoveries from the 4th to the 13th century in the Western (Christian) World. A millennium of almost complete stagnation. If you have counterexamples, I'm seriously interested! Now, it is true that things start taking up speed again in the 13th and 14th centuries and keep accelerating all the way through the renaissance, but the 13th and 14th century can hardly be called representative of the middle ages, and are instead a period of transition for a whole spectrum of aspects (demographic and economic growth, social changes, scientific advances etc.) that opens the way to the Renaissance (just like the 4th and 5th centuries, though technically part of the "Roman period" already show a large number of "symptoms" of the dark ages).
Incidentally, the intuition of integration without a formal notion of limit (you'll have to wait at least Newton and Leibniz for that) dates back at least to Archimedes (3rd century BC) and to a certain extent might be pushed back to Eudoxus and even Democritus (early 4th century BC)
The Twelfth and Thirteenth centuries are the "High Middle Ages, the pinnicle of growth and recovery. The Romans couln't build round towers and they used an inferior two-field feild rotation system of agriculture.
The 14th century, however, is truely a "dark ages". It is the fall of Medieval civilization, from the ashes of which arises the rennaisance. The Black Plague, the Inquisition, and a whole whost of calamaties plagues that era. The rennaisance historians look at the era of their grandfathers, and attibute the whole of history between Rome and the 15th century to be a Dark Age.
Hi,
Well...
14c could be seen as a time of great renewal. The Black Death, a calamity to be sure, also hastened the erosion of cultural features popularly ascribed to the 'Dark Ages.' Emancipation of the unfree accelerated, though not always to their benefit. The importance of towns, likewise.
As for Renaissance historians "looking back" at the 14C and conflating that time with entire post-Roman era, it should be noted that the first documented to do so was Petrarch, during the 14C.
Yes, there were famines and plague, but I am far more likely to have prospered during the Europe of mid-14C than that of mid-20C.
Anyway,
Ken
And how does all this flamewar relate to creating advanced magi AT ALL? 
Hi,
Well, I think the flaming has abated. We tangented (I verbed that!) here as we discussed the influence of the prevailing social environment upon advancement.
Much of the conversation was at best tangential, yet I believe both valuable and salient. I see multiple perspectives, passionately argued, about the nature of society during the post-Roman era, both in real and Mythic Europe, and these perspective have direct and immediate bearing on how magi should advance.
AM5 currently "hard codes" set values for advancement, for study, for the boons offered by Tremere elders (one of the few faults I take with a chapter that ranks among my two or three favorite House write-ups). I'd like to see a more flexible system, that allows an SG to describe aspects of a saga and derive values that make sense for that particular saga, especially since there are so many ideas about how things should work.
Anyway,
Ken
I think there are three origins to the "Dark Ages" concept, melting together until now:
First the monks from the beginning of the middle ages, who saw the fall of the roman empire, the coming of heathens or heretics, as a dark age as opposed to a united Christian empire. This caused the "mundus senescit" concept, an old world when enlightened people were just standing on the shoulders of past giants. Seeing further, but still smaller, seeing the epoch like an old man curbed by years.
Second the late antiquity and medieval history from an Italian point of view is pretty depressive in the 14th century : the city which ruled the world is mostly ruins, the empire has fallen, leaving behind him a bunch of ruins. The Pax Roman has been replaced by a bunch of ennemy cities. Foreigners invaded the Italy and enlisted Italian people in their petty kingdoms. All this advocates for the dark ages concept.
Third some people of the Renaissance, both for personal glory and to praise their lords, had to distinguish themselves from the other people. Is there any better than referencing to the antiquity, the reference for almost all scholars at that time and these people proclaimed ancestors? And then condemning all that took place since the fall of Rome.
It has a catching clause before saying that in some sagas you get more, in some you get less. 
One of the ways to do that is curtailing Original Research. Instead, allow only research as per Ancient Magic and Hedge Magic. The result is that you need to collect the fragmented lore of old (perhaps scattered as a consequence of the smiting of the Tower of Babel?), rather than create new effects willy-nilly.
Edit: P.S., what is the problem with the boons offered by elder magi? I'd just let Tremere magi get 5 Build Points per year or something like that, for simplicity, but I like this idea. Fits the House, and doesn't duly unbalance it (especially given the lack of Magical Focus in the House).
I concurr about the Tremere. If you make a Tremere magus play out his 'duties' it is hadly a boon... It is a pretty heirarchical house and you have to do a lot of work before you get even close to rewards worth having.
Of course, if you create an elder Tremere out of the box then yeah, it is a real advantage, but if I were doing that I would apply some lost seasons or exposure only periods for 'work for the exarch' or whatever.
If you aint on the topslot then you are one of the scmuks making those freebie enchanted items for the top echelons...
At work right now and not enough time to review the entire 5 pages of thread,... so appologies if I cover previously covered material.
My understanding of the propagation of knowledge and books is that this is the particular time when Northern European monks were making copies of what was available in Spain. And this was new and an order of magnitude in terms of access to previous written material and its corresponding knowledge.
youtube.com/watch?v=uHUHodzGOIY
As to the notion of 'having lost 90%' of literature,... it certainly seems to be the case with Northern Europe. That's why Spain was a 're'-discovery of that knowledge. It never left parts of the world, certainly. But I think it can be presumed the flood that comes from Spain is only a flood because of the relative unequal standing that pre-date it. Its not a accident that the liberal arts that were being taught still were hundreds of years old and represented a Roman education.
youtube.com/watch?v=hjmzlv_cpXE (about 3 minutes in)
When you compare that with Spain, it seems to me that education probably developed more in Spain since it can be seen in their architecture and technology. This is probably because the access to all those books meant that education wasn't largely limited to the seven liberal arts of Roman times.
Anyway - my 2 cents.
"Work for the exarch" reads as "story hook" to me 
Working for the exarch does not need to be to distill vis for 2 seasons. That also happens, but when you want to exploit it it is because it offers story potential
Xavi
It quite explicity states that Tremere magi lose approx 1 season per year in work for their betters. That is a helluva drawback. Unless your SG hands out story XP in order of magnitude in excess of what you get from RAW (negligible compared to reading), and you play thorugh every one of these activities, it is going to be a major holdup.
Since noone seems to read the other sources i posted, basics are better than nothing.
And of course we´re seeing so much better contrary sources are we? Im the only one who has added any serious amounts of quotes or sources of any kind anyway.
And lets see, oh yes wiki lists all sources or specifically points out if there are none or questionable ones, meaning that as long as its a matter of basic facts where point of view isnt a big problem, its remarkably reliable overall.
In case you missed it, there have been several tests done to compare wiki with encyclopedias, wiki for example was found to have less errors than encyclopedia britannica among others(less errors than all its been compared to sofar that i know of).
The problem with wikipedia is when you get to "point of view" matters. If you dont even understand that, you have no rights trying to lecture about it.
Disregarding the fact that medieval times added watermills of types that had never existed before.
Simplicity? More like innovation.
You miss the point... There wasnt ever one before that one in Spain... And its the same story in many other places. These places existed in greater numbers in Roman time sure, but they were concentrated to relatively very small geographical areas(ie, vast majority of people didnt have any use for them).
Yes, why do you think i suggested the Terry Jones tv series? Lets see if i can find one of his quotes...
Ah well that wasnt as easy as i hoped. Keep ending up with the movie clip rather than interviews...
Well in short, commenting on his documentaries of recent years he comments about how when they did the "Life of Brian" they really believed all that, and since then he found out that its complete rubbish.
I might add that his recent documentaries have been considered among the most historically accurate ever. So even if its a "primer", its pretty good. Most are also easily available on youtube so i would suggest any and all to take a look.
Ah, well as i have already mentioned a couple of times, this is something that in the last decade or so has come more into question... Classical literacy or latin literacy declined severely yes that is completely true. It may not be quite as true about literacy of any or all forms.
Its already known that books during medieval times tended more commonly to be written in local languages than in the "latin or greek of the scholars".
There have even been suggestions that overall literacy except for in early medieval, may have been greater than in Rome at its "peak", because of how Rome discriminated against women and the "lower castes"...
Sure it has some relevance. And i suggest you look back a page or two to my post with lots of quotes, one link is specifically about the renaissance that really wasnt. The writer is perhaps a little overenthusiastic, but his facts are just fine.
The renaissance managed some nice art and... thats almost it. Technologywise, you´re looking at things invented during the medieval times or much less often things "recovered" from earlier times.
There are one or two examples in my earlier links and the ones i mentioned above. There are some more IIRC.
The interesting thing about it isnt abundance, but that it introduces something previously unknown rather than improving on something that already exists.
Ok, so you´re also going with the myth then?
Renaissance science was mostly a dud, few people really care about the potential poetic and philosophic properties of something when what you really want to know is what it is and how it works in reality.
Renaissance science tended to be something more like "science on drugs".
At best, there was some improvement on earlier knowledge.
Exactly.
1/3 of the population in Europe gets killed just from the plauge. Some of the worst famines ever, quite possibly due to the transition between the medieval warm period to the little ice age.
While the equality between men and women moved seriously backwards(ie the opposite to emancipation).
Yeah, thats probably a good description.
I'm sorry, but I fail to see any! Could you mention explicitly any significant mathematical discovery in the Christian world from the 4th to the (end of the) 13th century?
The one i mentioned was the introduction of an equivalent of distance over time, which apparently was not included in maths before. The others you will have to read the provided links to find, mathematic history isnt exactly my specialty.
Ovarwa is referring to the Holocaust, and he's got a point. For someone who is Jewish, the 20th C was a lot more hazzardous than the 14th C.
However, as a counter claim I would point out that the 20th C saw the restoration of Israel as a nation 
With a 1/3 death rate ONLY from the plague, another 1/4 or so from famine...
And thats leaving out all the manmade deaths of the time.
Statistically, 20th century gives at least twice the chance. And thats still if you´re in the wrong place AND belong to the "wrong" group of people. While a lot nastier, much less danger in total.
And if you want me to comment anything else on that i suggest you find me on one of the forums where politics is part of the normal topics.