Middle Ages

If men should arise and return to the noise and time of the tourney,
The name and fame of the tabard, the tangle of gules and gold,
Would these things stand and suffice for the bourne of a backward journey,
A light on our days returning, as it was in the days of old?

Nay, there is none rides back to pick up a glove or a feather,
Though the gauntlet rang with honour or the plume was more than a crown:
And hushed is the holy trumpet that called the nations together
When under the Horns of Hattin the hope of the world went down.

(from) Medievalism, G. K. Chesterton

Basic Information

The Middle Ages are generally considered to be the period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Renaissance. The beginning of this period is sometimes known as the Dark Ages, although this term is in decline, not least because it is inexact - traditionally the dark ages stretched from the first sack of Rome to at least the seventh century AD¹, but different authorities have applied different boundaries and the modern form is to roll the whole era into the Middle Ages.

Some character ideas can be gleaned from the List of Medieval European Professions.

Sources

Bibliography

1. A Medieval Atlas - map resources

2. Wikipedia entry

Game and Story Use

• The Middle Ages are one of the historic time periods most familiar to gamers, and many fantasy settings are based on them.
• One of the great delights of the medieval period is the fact that it's considered quite normal to have multiple overlapping power centres with no firm position on which has precedence … not least because none of them really has the resources or infrastructure to get anything done with any great degree of competence.
  • An example - a hypothetical legal case - a man has been arrested for purchasing goods with fake coinage. He's currently sitting in the gaol of the castle attached to the town in which he committed the crime, which happens to be the seat of the Sheriff whose men arrested him. Unfortunately the town has a royal charter which states that it may administer its own justice and the Sheriff has no jurisdiction in the town - so the prisoner should be tried by the Burgheral court of the town, except that the charter granted to the Guild Merchant whose member was defrauded states that they have the right to try people for fraud against their members and someone has just pointed out that faking coinage is a crime which should be tried before the Royal Justices in the Eyre court … if it comes near the town this year. Also, the man is literate and claims benefit of clergy … he's patently not a cleric and the case has nothing to do with canon law, but he can read from the scriptures and the Bishop is jealous of his rights to court fees. Perhaps it would be easier to let the wretched man escape …

Footnotes

1. This is meant to correspond - roughly - to the gap between the 'barbarian races' of the volkswanderung period destroying Roman civilisation and the rise of the new civilisations that would define the Medieval Period proper. This is the sort of era in which the Saxons migrated to Britain, carved England out from the whole and were invaded in turn by the Norse, before the combined civilisation eventually metamorhposed into the Early English. Likwise the Franks settling in Gaul and their accomodation with the post-Roman population and with the Norsemen who would later become the Normans.