Missing 15 centuries?

On Monday I attended the first lecture of my new BTh Christian Worship subject.

To be honest, it was great to sit before a talking head and get away from the hustle of ministry life.

One thing which jumped out, as we discussed the history of worship, was the common places we look for a blueprint of "how things should be."

In the Protestant tradition we normally look in two places. The reformation and the early church. The 16-17th century and the 1st century. Luther/Calvin and Paul.

The trouble?
We ignore the middle 1500 years.
We miss the things they did well. We miss the things they did faithfully and prayerfully. We glance over the things they got wrong and the mistakes they made.

One of the weaknesses of the modern church is this millennia and a half vacuum of knowledge.

We don't learn from their mistakes.
We aren't inspired by their wisdom.

I'm not a church historian guru, but there does seem to be hundreds of years from the church's past which we ignore.