The medieval paradigm of history
    In medieval Europe prehistoric tumuli and megalithic monuments were objects of local interest and priests occasionally recorded the folk tales that surrounded them. Few of these monuments escaped plundering by lords or peasants who believed them to contain treasure. Ancient buildings were also plundered in search of building material, holy relics, and treasure. The only certain knowledge of past times was thought to be what was recorded in the Bible, the surviving histories of Greece and Rome, and historical records incorporating traditions going back into the Dark Ages. On this basis a medieval Christian view of the past was evolved that in certain ways has continued to influence the interpretation of archaeological data to the present. This view can be summarized in terms of six propositions:

1.  The world was thought to be of recent, supernatural origin and unlikely to last more than a few thousand years. Rabbinical authorities estimated that it had been created about 3700 B.C., while Pope Clement VIII dated the creation to 5199 B.C. and as late as the seventeenth century Archbishop James Ussher was to set it at 4004 B.C. These dates, which were computed from biblical genealogies, agreed that the world was only a few thousand years old. It was also believed that the present world would end with the return of Christ. Although the precise timing of this event was unknown, the earth was generally believed to be in its last days.

2.  The physical world was in an advanced state of degeneration and most natural changes represented the decay of God's original creation. Since the earth was intended to endure for only a few thousand years there was little need for divine provision to counteract depletions resulting from natural processes and human exploitation of its resources. The biblical documentation of greater human longevity in ancient times provided a warrant for believing that human beings as well as the environment had been deteriorating physically and intellectually since their creation. The decay and impoverishment of the physical world also bore witness to humanity of the transience of all material things.
 

3. Humanity was created by God in the Garden of Eden, which was located in the Near East, and spread from there to other parts of the world, first after the expulsion of the original humans from the Garden of Eden and again following Noah's flood. The second dispersal was hastened by the differentiation of languages, which was imposed on humanity as divine retribution for their presumption in building the Tower of Babel. The centre of world history long remained in the Near East, where the Bible chronicled the development of Judaism and from where Christianity was carried to Europe. Scholars sought to link Northern and Western Europe to the recorded history of the Near East and the classical world by constructing fanciful pedigrees that identified biblical personages or individuals known from other historical accounts as the founders of European nations or early kings in that region. These claims, which were often based on folk etymologies, had the Goths descended from Gog, one of Noah's grandsons, and Brutus, a Trojan prince, becoming the first king of Britain after he defeated a race of giants who had previously lived there. Pagan deities were often interpreted as deified mortals who could be identified with minor biblical figures or their descendants. Continuing links were sought with the Near East such as the claim first made by the monks of Glastonbury in A.D.1184 that Joseph of Arimathea had brought the Holy Grail there in A.D. 63.

4.  It was believed to be natural for standards of human conduct to degenerate. The Bible affirmed that Adam and his descendants had been farmers and herdsmen and that iron working had been practiced in the Near East only a few generations later. The earliest humans shared in God's revelation of himself to Adam. Knowledge of God and his wishes was subsequently maintained and elaborated through successive divine revelations made to Hebrew patriarchs and prophets. These, together with the revelations contained in the New Testament, became the property of the Christian Church, which henceforth was responsible for upholding standards of human conduct. On the other hand, groups who had moved away from the Near East and failed to have their faith renewed by divine revelation or Christian teaching, tended to degenerate into polytheism, idolatry, and immorality. The theory of degeneration was also used to account for the primitive technologies of hunter-gatherers and tribal agriculturalists when they were encountered by Europeans. When applied to the spheres of technology and material culture, the concept of degeneration found itself in competition with the alternative view, promoted by Roman historians such as Cornelius Tacitus, that material prosperity encouraged moral depravity. Medieval scholars were primarily concerned with explaining moral and spiritual rather than technological progress and decay.

5.  The history of the world was interpreted as a succession of unique events. Christianity encouraged a historical view of human affairs in the sense that world history was seen as a series of happenings that had cosmic significance. These events were interpreted as the results of God's predetermined interventions, the final one of which would terminate the struggle between good and evil. There was therefore no sense that change or progress was intrinsic to human history or that human beings, unaided by God, were capable of achieving anything of historical significance. Between God's interventions, human affairs continued in a static or cyclical fashion.

6.  Finally, medieval scholars were even less conscious of historical changes in material culture than ancient Greek and Roman ones had been. A few popes and emperors, such as Charlemagne and Frederick Barbarossa, collected ancient gems and coins, reused elements of Roman architecture, and imitated Roman sculpture. Yet, in general, there was no explicit awareness that in classical and biblical times human beings wore clothes or lived in houses that were significantly different from those of the Middle Ages. When statues of pagan deities were discovered, they were often destroyed or mutilated as objects of devil worship or indecency . Almost universally, biblical times were viewed as culturally, socially, and intellectually identical to those of medieval Europe.
 

    During the Middle Ages an interest in the material remains of the past was even more restricted than it had been in classical times; being largely limited to the collection and preservation of holy relics. This did not encourage the development of a systematic study of the material remains of the past. Yet the view of the past that was held at this time formed the conceptual basis on which the study of archaeology was to develop in Europe as social conditions changed.