#Early Middle Ages

[memories-of-ancients]

Pendants uncovered near Kent, Anglo-Saxon England, 7th century

from The Metropolitan Museum of Art

[diemelusine]

Mosaic of the Emperor Justinian I from the Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:PetarM

[breathingwithnoheir]

im sorry but edmund ironside, edward the confessor, harthecnut, and harold harefoot all being half brothers of one another in some fucked up daisy chain family situation is so funny to me. why aren't there more period dramas about this era?? i need a sitcom stat

[gwydpolls]

Time Travel Question 34: Medievalish and Earlier 3

These Questions are the result of suggestions from the previous iteration.

This category may include suggestions made too late to fall into the correct earlier time grouping. Basically, I'd already moved on to human history, but I'd periodically get a pre-homin suggestion, hence the occasional random item waaay out of it's time period, rather than reopen the category.

In some cases a culture lasted a really long time and I grouped them by whether it was likely the later or earlier grouping made the most sense with the information I had. (Invention ofs tend to fall in an earlier grouping if it's still open. Ones that imply height of or just before something tend to get grouped later, but not always. Sometimes I'll split two different things from the same culture into different polls because they involve separate research goals or the like).

Please add new suggestions below if you have them for future consideration. All cultures and time periods welcome.

[victusinveritas]

Found in Chester, England.

[scotianostra]

Ancient Scottish Logboat.

This logboat was discovered in 1960 near the shore of Loch Glashan in Argyll near to to a Crannog. The boat hasn't been carbon dated, as far as I can understand, so the gage is quite vague, ranging from the 1st to the 9th century AD

[merovingian-marvels]

Dorestad Key

Keys are a surprising artefact from the Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties. Roman keys are short and rounded and are of high quality. Merovingian keys are longer, thinner and sometimes very weirdly and irregularly shaped.

Carolingian keys become shorter again and are distinguishable by their rounded handles which usually have an openwork cross decoration in them.

Merovingian era keys were in the possession of women, who would wear them from chatelaines down their belts. Wearing keys along with jewelry signified that the woman in question was in charge of the household. She was a free woman and was head of the family house. It would also mean that when the husband left for trade/pillaging, she would be left in complete charge rather than the oldest son or the man’s father.

Keys are closely associated with locks and protecting valuable things from others. Everything a family had: a house, kettle, lands, trade goods, … were under the guard of a woman.

RMO Leiden, the Netherlands

Museum nr: WD 984

Found in Dorestad (Merovingian Era) - Utrecht, The Netherlands

[endythebendy]

New map time! I finished this one today, of the Known World of Nouever :>

Nouever's core premise is of being a low-fantasy Late Antiquity/Early Middle Ages inspired world, where the nascent colonies of a great empire (Anyria) have been suddenly cut off from the metropolis by the appearance of a massive pit in the ocean.

Now, the scattered colonies all must deal with their neighbours, without the commanding authority of Anyria. Many claim to be the true heirs of the Old World. Others wish to tear themselves apart from that legacy. Many want to return to Anyria, whether to resume contact with the Empire or to plunder a fallen civilisation.

[dwellordream]

- Margot Lister, Costume

[lady-wyrd]

I love these lines from the Old English poem The Wanderer:

"Ne mæg weorþan wis wer, ær he age wintra dæl in woruldrice"

"A man may not become wise before he has had his share of winters in the world"

Translation by Eleanor Parker, whose book about anglosaxons, Winters in the World, I highly recommend and it's my favorite non-fiction book:

[memories-of-ancients]

Blue glass drinking horn, Lombardic, 6th-7th century AD

[racefortheironthrone]

Recently read your post about each of the kingdom's fighting style and you said the Ironborn had outdated shield wall techniques. So I guess my question is, what makes it outdated, and is there a difference from an ancient Greek Hoplite phalanx vs a Norman shield wall?

So the issue with the Ironborn relying on shield walls - a military strategy that was characteristic of the Early Midde Ages - is that they are almost entirely made up of melee infantry (mostly spearmen and axemen) and have relatively few archers and no cavalry. The rest of Westeros have moved on to a Late Medieval paradigm of warfare that stresses a combined arms approach which relies on a mix of knightly cavalry, more advanced melee infantry (men-at-arms, pikemen, etc.), and archers who work in concert, with melee infantry protecting archers from cavalry, archers targeting blocks of infantry, and cavalry attempting to break enemy infantry often by attacking from the flanks or rear. A Vikinger-style shieldwall is extremely vulnerable to this Late Medieval army. For one thing, we know that Ironborn don't have the discipline to hold the shieldwall together in the face of a cavalry charge - and when infantry formations break, they can be utterly destroyed as happened at the Battle of Hastings. Moreover, even if the Ironborn could hold their formation, the mere presence of cavalry means they have to stretch their lines to protect their flanks and rear, which means they then have a much thinner line with which to oppose the enemy's infantry.

Likewise, if an army made up entirely of melee infantry shieldwalls come up against large numbers of archers who are supported by knights and/or infantry, they can be absolutely decimated as the archers easily target their slow-moving tightly-packed formations who can't retaliate out of fear of counter-attack from the cavalry, as happened at the Battle of Falkirk.

As to the difference between shieldwalls and phalanxes, I answered that question here.

[rogue-driv3r]

Tumblr is like Rome at the end of Fifth Century: it used to be the most important centre of culture in Western civilization, then was slowly abandoned and lost most of its population, only the name kept alive the ancient glory. But despite that, life among the ruins was still going on...

[gwydpolls]

Time Travel Poll Winner Second Round Match Up 10

These Questions are the winners from the previous iteration.

Please add new suggestions below, if you have them, for future consideration.