- This topic has 9 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 8 months ago by
janner.
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08/10/2015 at 14:41 #32236
Lagartija Mike
SpectatorYes, 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.
08/10/2015 at 15:52 #32238Not Connard Sage
ParticipantIf 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.
08/10/2015 at 17:05 #32246Lagartija Mike
Spectator‘Tis true. Wargaming is a magnet for a special phylum of eccentric third-rate “scholars” whose concept of history froze solid sometime around 1953.
09/10/2015 at 09:26 #32281Alvin Molethrottler
ParticipantThe 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.
09/10/2015 at 10:36 #32284Lagartija Mike
SpectatorIt 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).
10/10/2015 at 04:22 #32380paintpig
ParticipantImpossible 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 Flame10/10/2015 at 05:10 #32381kyoteblue
ParticipantI do like it and read the Icelandic Sagas
10/10/2015 at 11:52 #32394Patrice
ParticipantIt 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/14/10/2015 at 00:43 #32645Guy Farrish
ParticipantThis 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.
05/01/2016 at 12:16 #36251janner
ParticipantTo make matters worse, many Skandic historians insist on a Viking Age, which precedes the middles ages!
http://jannersjaunt.blogspot.dk
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