Era forum

[Carla]

Any chance of a section in the "Era" forums for "Early Medieval" (aka Dark Ages, if you prefer) novels? I know there aren't many, apart from King Arthur, but at least it helps stop the Arthurian novels getting mixed up with the Middle Ages.

Also, would anyone else like the "Ancient" section back?

[boswellbaxter]

Just added them (forgot exactly what we had over at the old forum). What would you call a cut-off date for Early Medieval--1000?

[chuck]

Any chance of a section in the "Era" forums for "Early Medieval" (aka Dark Ages, if you prefer) novels? I know there aren't many, apart from King Arthur, but at least it helps stop the Arthurian novels getting mixed up with the Middle Ages.

Also, would anyone else like the "Ancient" section back?
Yes...I would love to see a discussion thread on the Dark Ages....HF/NF about Romano/Brit/Celts, the Vikings, Irish, the Picts, Anglo-Saxons, the Barbarians...Clovis, Alaric, Attila, etc.....

[Carla]

Just added them (forgot exactly what we had over at the old forum). What would you call a cut-off date for Early Medieval--1000?

Thanks!

Yes, 1000 is as good a date as any. All these eras blend one into the other anyway, so any cut-off date is going to be approximate.

[Carla]

Yes...I would love to see a discussion thread on the Dark Ages....HF/NF about Romano/Brit/Celts, the Vikings, Irish, the Picts, Anglo-Saxons, the Barbarians...Clovis, Alaric, Attila, etc.....

A kindred spirit! You might like to wander by my blog some time - this is my main area of interest.

[Margaret]

I think Early Medieval covers what used to be known as the Dark Ages. Didn't that go from about 500 A.D. (the fall of the Western Roman Empire) to 1066 in England (the end of the Anglo-Saxon period)? I do think it's a useful category, especially since the Medieval period covers so many centuries and there are so many novels set in this period.

[Carla]

I think Early Medieval covers what used to be known as the Dark Ages. Didn't that go from about 500 A.D. (the fall of the Western Roman Empire) to 1066 in England (the end of the Anglo-Saxon period)? I do think it's a useful category, especially since the Medieval period covers so many centuries and there are so many novels set in this period.

In Britain it's conventionally from 410 AD (the date of the Rescript of Honorius telling the British cities to look to their own defences, which can be taken as indicating the formal end of Roman government in Britain) to William's victory at Hastings in 1066. But those dates weren't necessarily important in other countries. And change didn't happen overnight in any case - there's a reasonable case that some aspects of 'Roman Britain' lasted for a century or more after 410 AD.

I'd say roughly the fifth to the eleventh centuries in Europe, and I wouldn't worry about trying to pin it down more closely than within a century or so at either end. My main idea was to separate it from the Middle Ages, which, as you say, is a big category.