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This episode concentrates on the Vikings and their inventive craftsmanship, the expansive Carolingians' art of exquisite finesse and richness and the skillful hardworking ingenious Anglo-Saxons. Januszczak shows the Viking skill in making ships and their attacks on Christian centres such as Lindisfarne not only to loot but to defend their own Norse gods.
He visits the Jelling stones that commemorated the Danes' conversion to Christianity. Charles Martel and the Franks belief they were God's chosen people after the defeat of Muslim forces later led to Charlemagne being declared Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope and the creation of the largest empire since the Romans.
Januszczak considers Charlemagne's Palatine Chapel, Aachen, as a brutal and cold attempt to copy the Muslim Mosque of Cordoba. Anglo-Saxon art is represented by the Sutton Hoo hoard. Januszczak concludes that in the Dark Ages it was not the sword but the written word, whether in wood, stone, or what he considers the greatest masterpiece of all art, the Lindisfarne Gospels, that defined the age.
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From The Dark Ages: An Age of Light
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