Best history of Europe during the Dark Ages?

I can half answer your question. The author is Barbara Tuchman, and I think the title is something like, "In a World Lit Only by Fire". It's the best I've read.

Shoot -- came in to print out three of four pages of this thread with helpful suggestions and they've gone poof! And the great photos, etc.... Darn!

Avoid Tuchman, and the "world lit only by fire" book, which is not hers, like the plague.

Will do some research. Once, at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts with my late close friend who was an art historian, I stepped from the gallery housing the last days of the classical world to the Medieval galleries. After seeing finely worked, minutely detailed silver jewelry, I was presented with crudely carved wooden statues. I gasped then grabbed MAry's arm and showed her what I had witnessed: the reason why the Dark Ages are called the Dark Ages.

Took an excellent course on the Dark Ages when working on my master's.