Short answer: No. During the so-called 'Dark Ages' Charlemagne founded the Palace school where scholars from all over Europe came to study. Great works of literature like The Táin and Beowulf were written down. Ireland for example went through a literary golden age and produced huge amounts of legal tracts, poetry, stories, histories and books on grammar and philosophy, written in medieval Irish and Latin. Ancient Greek was studied in places as remote as Iona. Monastic schools like Clonmacnoise had upwards of 3000 students. Alfred the Great of England was a huge patron of learning and promoted the use of the English language over Latin. The Carolingian renaissance produced beautiful manuscripts. Far from an illiterate continent. Of course the Byzantines continued as an ancient and powerful European civilisation. The greatest university in the world at this time would be the Baghdad house of wisdom.