Friday 3 September 2004

Pic of the day: Castles, forts ... the Middle Ages don't seem like a very peaceful time. But all things are relative. (Screenshot is from the game Morrowind though.)

The Middle Ages

Well, first off: medieval is NOT spelled midevil, or anything else that ends in evil. It is however in older texts spelled mediaeval, and the "medi" part does mean middle, same as in median, mediocre and Mediterranean. It is simply made from the Latin words for "Middle Age". Why the English have decided to vacillate between Latin and English when talking about this topic is beyond me, what with me being a foreigner and all. They do this all the time, though.

Any age will become a middle age, given enough time. But as we use the expression "Middle Ages" today, it generally refers to the period from the fall of Rome to the Renaissance. It is not synonymous with "Dark Ages", which lasted from the collapse of the (western) Roman Empire until the Frankish version of the Roman Empire was established. In centuries, think 400-800 Christian Era. Some count these turbulent years as part of the Middle Ages, while others see them as separate.

The Middle Ages was not a time of absolute stasis, but it was a time of stability compared to the turbulent years that came before and after it. During the Dark Ages, a civilization was torn apart and a new built on its ruins. The Roman civilization had been urban, relying on communication and trade. The Medieval European civilization was rural, agricultural and self-sufficient. Central power was largely an illusion: Kings lived the good life, sure, but they could not quickly raise an army. Each village pretty much ruled itself, or the local minor noble ruled it. War was a slow and ponderous thing, as most of the armies consisted of disoriented farmers and a smaller force of mounted knights who either were nobles or reported directly to the nobles rather than to the king and professional officers. And even after a war, with its unavoidable pillage, rapine and arson ... the local noble still ruled, just possibly under the orders of a different king. The taxes went to somewhere new, but all other things remained the same.

The real changes were technological. Now and then, a new invention made life easier or warfare more efficient. From the horse harness to windmills and crop rotation, the inventions of the Middle Ages were practical and agricultural, or else the design of new and better weapons and armor. Engineering was not a big deal as it had been before and after, since there was little need for roads, bridges or large buildings. Although the castles did show some forethought, but mostly they were fairly simple in principle; the problem was getting enough stone upon stone. In the High Middle Ages, new improvements in architecture made possible the Gothic cathedrals, but tall buildings were not a big requirement in daily life for quite a while.

Contrary to popular belief, witch hunts were unknown in the Middle Ages. They began later, after the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. Their frenzied climax came around the same time as the Industrial Revolution, actually. In the High Middle Ages, it was generally assumed that God had things fairly well in hand, and Satan could not just give random people superpowers whenever he felt like it. In the chaotic years that followed after the Black Death, after the world was found to be much larger and different from what people had thought, and after society was breaking up and forming anew in new patterns, people were willing to believe almost anything.

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I suppose I had a reason for writing all this, but I can't remember now. Which goes to show that I'm getting middle-aged myself, I guess! Perhaps it was just irritation about people talking about going midevil and having no idea what they're talking about. Then again, when has that stopped any of us?