Was meditation not practiced for most of the history of Buddhism?

In a recent Buddhist Geeks podcast the presenter Bodhipaksa stated that by the time the Buddhagosa wrote the commentary Visuddhimagga in the 5th Century CE, meditation had been largely abandoned. He goes on to state that there is good evidence that 500 years previously Buddhist monks had given up meditation and felt the best they could do was to pass down the Buddhist texts to further generations. To what extent is this analysis of Buddhism true? Was meditation really not practiced for a large proportion of Buddhist history? If this is the case then when was meditation 'rediscovered' or at least reinvigorated?