Paul GrahamVerified account

Who originally conceived it?

Renaissance humanists trying to justify ignoring the previous thousand years in favor of a restoration of what they thought of as the more secular and intellectual antique period. They also came up with the term "Middle Ages" for the same reason.

I meant, which individual first used the term?

It's usually attributed to Petrarch, at least in concept.

I know he described the (early) medieval period as dark, but what I'm wondering is who first used the term "dark ages" (or the equivalent in another language) as a label for a period of history.

This suggests English writers were the first to use the phrase "dark ages" as a label, but it doesn't say which one. Do you know?

'fraid not. You'd have to do some Oxford English Dictionary kind of "first attested use" research to determine that.