Within twocenturiesof its [scil. the Nicene Creed’s] promulgation, the Græco-Roman world had descended into the great hollow which is roughly called the Middle Ages, extending from the fifth to the fifteenth century, a hollow in which many great, beautiful and heroic things were done and created, but in which knowledge, as we understand it, and as Aristotle understood it, had no place.
2001, Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl (Artemis Fowl; book 1 of 8), Viking, →ISBN, →OCLC, page52: