Has anyone compiled a database or list of historical documents by
date?  Presumeby not many historical documents exist from the early
middle ages in Europe.  How many do exist?  Is this fewer documents
than exist from ancient Rome?  How long did it take after the early
middle ages for the number of historical documents available to modern
scholars to equal the amount available in Roman times.  I'm sort of
looking for a list of documents catalogued by century so that the
alledged drop in knowledge during the early middle ages can be
quantified.

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Request for Question Clarification by tutuzdad-ga on 09 Feb 2003 13:08 PST

I might be interested in working on your question but the research
required would likley take much longer than the average question of
this price normally takes. Please consider reviewing the pricing guide
and ajdusting your price in order to attract a quality answer:

https://answers.google.com/answers/pricing.html

In addition, while a database of the kind you request might exist, I
doubt that lack of references to archived documents during specific
time period would be indicative of a drop in knowledge. It is more
likley that hudred year long wars, famine, catastrophe, plague and so
forth may well have affected the interest in, or capability of
preserving documents during those periods, accounting for the lack
thereof.

Regards;
tutuzdad-ga

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Clarification of Question by halejrb-ga on 10 Feb 2003 10:19 PST

Actually, this was a rather idle question I dreamed up while surfing
the web.  I don't really need an answer.  I also doubt whether the
kind of database I have in mind currently exists.  I suspect it will
exist someday though, as computing power and historical research
merge.  And I am content to wait until then.  Sorry to waste your
time.

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Request for Question Clarification by tutuzdad-ga on 10 Feb 2003 11:49 PST

No problem. That's what we're here for. It was actually a good
question but I simply hate to see you waste your money on a question
when there is no definite answer. Think up another good one and let's
do it again soon. We'd be happy to try and find an answer for you.

Regards;
tutuzdad-ga

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Request for Question Clarification by politicalguru-ga on 19 Feb 2003 07:31 PST

I am not sure if this answers your question, so I post it as a
clarification. If you find it in the right direction, I'd add more and
post the complete research as an answer:

There are several sources that aim to concentrate most of the
*European* documents from the Middle Ages. One of them is this -
http://150.108.2.20/halsall/sbook.html

However, it should be mentioned that such quantification, except for
being very Europocentric, cannot be accurate or contain all of the
findings of the era. The materials used in the era, and the conditions
they've been through (wars, fires, weather) ensure only partial
preservation.

Although I doubt there's a direct causal relationship, scholars
sometimes as a kind of rule of thumb take the dates of the falls of
the Western and Eastern Roman Empires as the dates that define the
span of the Middle Ages. The western Roman Empire (the original) fell
around 450 AD, and the eastern Roman Empire (centered in
Constantinople) fell around 1450 AD.

Hello again, halejrb!

Like the others who have commented on this question, I do not know of
a central database of documents to draw from.  There is a bit of time
left before your question expires, though, so I may be able to turn
something up by then.  In the interim, you may want to browse the
links at this site, the Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies:
http://orb.rhodes.edu/

It is similar to the site offered earlier by Politicalguru.  There is
also a possibility that someone connected with UNESCO's "Memory of the
World" program would have such a database under construction. 
Unfortunately, UN organizations can be terribly unresponsive, so I
don't fancy my chances of getting a response before your question
expires.  Here then, if you don't already have it, is their link:
http://www.unesco.org/webworld/mdm/en/index_mdm.html

As to the Eurocentric nature of the sites listed above, well...so
what?  The "Dark Ages" is a purely Eurocentric conceit (other
civilizations were flourishing at the time) so it doesn't really
matter.

Regards,

-Chromedome

I've found that books and websites dealing with the 'Dark Ages' tend
to split the source material by region (such as Merovingian europe,
Visigothic Spain) or by era (Merovignian, Carolingian etc.).
Consequently, the chance of finding a single online database of the
required depth is very slim, as the specialist information is likely
to be fragmented, and general sites will include only the more famous
writings.

To make a personal (and unquantified) comment, there are far more
documents for the 'dark age' period than people normally think, but
far fewer famous authors (no Platos or Homers!)

I like your comment robw-ga about "far more documents than people
think".  I suspected as much.  That's why I was interested in seeing
if anyone could quantify the difference between the number of
documents existing from ancient times versus the number existing from
the dark ages.  If the difference is insubstantial, it tends to
reinforce the idea that the "dark ages" is just a label and doesn't
really reflect any major decline in cumulative knowledge.