There are differing opinions on when the Dark Ages ended. Everyone pretty much agrees they started with the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The Dark Ages ended, according to who's telling the story, with Charlemagne, or with the Norman Invasion, or last Thursday around 2:30. Even worse, there are many people who expect them to come back, any time now. But the best scholarly opinion is that the dark ages officially ended when people started shaving and getting haircuts again. You might think of this period as a Bad Hair Epoch.

Even though the Western Roman Empire fell to a tiresome procession of Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, Avars, Huns, Gepids, Franks, Shriners and Telemarketers, Civilization's flame was kept alive in the Eastern Empire under judicious, wiley emperors such as Justinian. Up until just before the time of Columbus the Byzantines used to sit around scratching their heads and saying, "Fall of the Roman Empire? What the hell are we? Chopped liver?" Then the Turks showed up and they stopped saying that.

Alfred the Great and Charlemagne were great rulers of their respective nations but they were -- how shall we say this? -- hairy. They were probably too busy fighting off Viking invasions and such to spend a lot of time on kingly grooming. It was Charlemagne who founded the Holy Roman Empire which, as we now know, was neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire. But it did collect taxes, which made it a great scam.

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