the Dark Ages

[Lagartija Mike]

Yes, it’s a misnomer but I can’t not love the sound of it. From Justinian’s shrunken, plague-ridden empire, fratricidal Merovingians, arrivist Ostrogoths and Lombards, Charlemagne’s Borgesian palace to North Sea skullsplitting on gore-soaked decks, it has a grand guignol feel other periods just can’t match.

[Not Connard Sage]

If only wargamers would get used to ‘Early Medieval’ beginning ~500 rather than 1066…

Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

[Lagartija Mike]

‘Tis true. Wargaming is a magnet for a special phylum of eccentric third-rate “scholars” whose concept of history froze solid sometime around 1953.

[Alvin Molethrottler]

The Dark Ages is simply a term of convenience, you’ll never stamp it out in favour of Early Medieval because the Romanist perspective won this argument a very long time ago. I too like this period in history and have had the pleasure of working on archaeological excavations that delved right into it. I’m very much fascinated by the whole Alfred vs Guthrum thing and, if I hadn’t have dropped out, was going to make that the subject of my thesis at uni.

[Lagartija Mike]

It has a bleak glamor that’s hard to resist. I came to it as a boy, not via Tolkien’s sentimental, middle class cinder blocks  but through Poul Anderson’s stark Broken Sword and Hrolf Kraaki’s Saga, and Hollanders’ translation of the Poetic Edda (still, I think, the best).

[paintpig]

Impossible to change it and personally I wouldn’t want to, it is the only period other than 18thC to capture my imagination, as far as gaming is concerned, with any real ferocity.

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel
Slowly Over A Low Flame

[kyoteblue]

I do like it and read the Icelandic Sagas

[Patrice]

It depends on the language. In French it’s not understood as Dark, it’s called “le Haut Moyen Âge”, probably because we didn’t have this 1066 overthrow at home.

http://www.argad-bzh.fr/argad/en.html
https://www.anargader.net/

[Guy Farrish]

This is going to confuse monoglot Anglophones no end – ‘The High Middle Ages’ in English runs from the 11th Century to the 14th or possibly even the 15th Century. le Haut Moyen Age of course ends as the English version begins: c1,000AD (or CE if you feel so inclined). I love linguistic false friends.

[janner]

To make matters worse, many Skandic historians insist on a Viking Age, which precedes the middles ages!

http://jannersjaunt.blogspot.dk

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