This chapter moves from the Greek Dark Ages to the Medieval Dark Ages, where a clear correlation is once again noted: that a steep decline in literacy is concurrent with a return to certain overt stylistic traits in art and a notable retreat from realism. Jack Goody notes the cultural upheaval ‘in early medieval Europe, following the decline of lay literacy with the fall of Rome’ (Goody, The logic of writing and the organization of society, Cambridge University Press, 1986, 17). A huge proportion of the art of this period of Western art is Biblical in theme, originating from illuminated manuscripts and cathedrals, hence the art of this period often being referred to simply as ‘Christian art’. Whilst writing is present—as evidenced through the swathes of manuscripts—the complexity of these writing systems meant for a very different and far less widespread usage; the earlier, ‘decisively literate’ system of Latin used in ancient Rome was replaced by ‘Learned Latin’, which was only utilisable by a specially trained few (Ong, New Literary History 16:1–12, 1984). Following this, scholars have noted certain similarities between medieval and oral Greek methods of memorisation (Carruthers, 1990). This chapter considers the orality-literacy dynamic during this period, alongside the ‘curious mixture’ of aesthetic styles, which often merge elements of the Archaic and the Classical.