S1E14 - The Phantom Time Hypothesis: Was the Early Middle Ages Invented?

What if nearly 300 years of history were a complete fabrication? Could the entire early Middle Ages—the so-called Dark Ages—be an elaborate fiction inserted into our timeline by a conspiracy of powerful rulers and the Church? This episode dives into one of history’s most audacious claims: that the years 614 through 911 AD never actually happened. We explore the Phantom Time Hypothesis, first proposed by German historian Heribert Illig in the 1990s. The theory suggests this specific period was invented, taking advantage of supposedly fuzzy post-Rome record-keeping. We’ll examine the core argument that this phantom chunk of time was spliced...