Versus, say, the black plague ending and greatly contributing to the Renaissance.
This question is hard to answer because the term 'Dark Ages' is misleading and outdated, so the framing makes a correct answer difficult. Moreover, the term 'Dark Ages' is used ambiguously - you seem to use it to refer to the entire Medieval period, while sometimes it is used to refer only to the Early middle ages (500-1000, or however you define it).