# What era in 'history' equates?



## pgt (Mar 3, 2003)

More or less, based on what we know of the civilizations of men in the Lord of the Rings timeframe of later 3rd age, in particular Gondor and Rohan but certainly don't exclude anything from Bree to Harad - about what era in our real (European middle-ages presumably) history does this equate to? Not exactly - maybe a 50 or 100 year window.

And more specifically why? That is, is it the type of swords described? The chain-mail? The warfare techniques used? Cultural or social observations? 

When and why. While I enjoy history - I'm not historian or expert - I'm hoping some of the more historically inclined forum members knowledgeable of European middle ages may pipe up...

thanks,
-T


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## Niniel (Mar 4, 2003)

I don't think LOTR is actually made to fit exactly in one period of earth history. It was meant to have happened in this world, a long time ago (9000 years or so), but of course it doesn't describe the world of that long ago. He described the Third Age as a 'Twilight Age, a Medium Aevum', so that's why he made it look like the Middle Ages. But different parts of Middle-Earth look like different periods; e.g. Rohan describes Anglo-Saxon England (before 1066 that is), while Gondor seems to be later. They had invenete plate armour it seems, so it looks more like 1300 or something. But I don't think you can put exact labels on it as to what time in world history it represents.


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## Theoden_king (Mar 4, 2003)

hmm this is a good question and I look forward to seeing some of the answers, very interesting question indeed


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## Lantarion (Mar 4, 2003)

Good points, Níniel. It's true, the entire language of the Rohirrim is based over 90% on Old English (Unfinished Tales has some interesting info on this subject). 
But I'd say (not being an expert on history, or on time periods such as the Middle-Ages or the Antique) that the kingdom of Gondor was very much alike to Rome; the Guards of the FOuntain remind me of the Praetorian Guards. 
The Wainriders are a lot like the barbaric Huns, also. But apart from these I could tell you little of any possible connections.


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## LadyDernhelm (Mar 4, 2003)

Interesting observations.

But I think that it isn't supposed to "equate" with a real era in real history . . . it's more like supposed to seem like it was its own era! I mean seriously, doesn't it just seem like it is real lore that we somehow skipped over? Hmm, maybe that's why we don't know much about the Dark Ages - because the Light and the Dark were busy duking it out and didn't have time to write it all down.


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## Goldberry (Mar 4, 2003)

I think it is supposed to happen long, long before all of our currently recorded history. So before the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Rome, Greece, and the Middle East. I've always assumed that we were supposed to think this great civilization of ME was lost except for its being recorded in the "red book". The events and people of ME are so far in our past that now they seem more like myth and legend. The cities and peoples of ME eventually disappeared and were replaced by those in our more recent history (or integrated into them).

That they had chain mail and other things that the Romans did not, represents that part of civilization that was "lost", and then rediscovered again later.


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## Maerbenn (Mar 4, 2003)

*Rohirric*



> _Originally posted by Lantarion _
> *It's true, the entire language of the Rohirrim is based over 90% on Old English*


 From Appendix F:


> Having gone so far in my attempt to modernize and make familiar the language and names of Hobbits, I found myself involved in a further process. The Mannish languages that were related to the Westron should, it seemed to me, be turned into forms related to English. The language of Rohan I have accordingly made to resemble ancient English, since it was related both (more distantly) to the Common Speech, and (very closely) to the former tongue of the northern Hobbits, and was in comparison with the Westron archaic. In the Red Book it is noted in several places that when Hobbits heard the speech of Rohan they recognized many words and felt the language to be akin to their own, so that it seemed absurd to leave the recorded names and words of the Rohirrim in a wholly alien style.


 So Tolkien only rendered Rohirric by Old English. He tried to reproduce its archaic flavour in relationship to Westron (which was represented by modern English) for English readers. No genuine Rohirric words can be found in the main text of _The Lord of the Rings_.


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## Eledhwen (Mar 4, 2003)

I like Goldberry's answer. On the minutiae, though; Tolkien said in a radio interview that The Shire represented those things that were dying out in his own childhood. The Rohirrim are basically Saxons, but on horses. Gondor does look a bit Roman in style, but not in morality; it has no slaves and has a 'simbiotic' relationship with Rohan, rather than one of Master and Tributary.


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## pgt (Mar 4, 2003)

I should have phrased the question better.

Just looking at the military aspects such as armor, swords, hierarchy, tactics, attire, etc as described in the books, what 'era' might Gondor, Rohan and other civilizations (Harad? Arnor before it's fall?) fit into militarily? 

I think it's fair to say that each might fit into it's own era or place in history or be a blend of 2 or more.

This was somewhat touched on at least indirectly in another thread or two but darned if I can find any now.

thanks,
-T


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## Lantarion (Mar 6, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Maerbenn_
> No genuine Rohirric words can be found in the main text of The Lord of the Rings.


Well, apart from the relationship between the Hobbitish word _kûduk_ (not sure about the accent there), and the Rohirric _kud-dûkan_ (again not sure about the accentation).. And in Unfinished Tales the name for Aglarond is given as _Glâemscrafu_, with the accent above the dual vowel 'ae' (which I can't produce on this school keyboard ). But yeah.
Welcome to the forum! Judging by your nick and your knowledge of the Rohirric/Old English tongue I'd say you were perhaps from.. Ireland? 
But what I meant with the vague percentage remark was that Rohirric (as is explained in UT) was almost identical to Old English.. But I understand what you mean by the 'flavour'.


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## j0n4th4n (Mar 8, 2003)

like in the real world, each place would have more or less 'technology' than some other place.
so for example in the uk we are in the 21st century but in parts of third-world countries (rural areas) things have remained unchanged more or less since the last century


question: did the romans have armour? what type - chainmail or plate?


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## Eledhwen (Jun 19, 2009)

I am, at this moment, watching "1066 - the battle for Middle-earth". It's a 2-part historical account of William of Normandy's invasion of Britain from the Anglo-Saxon point of view, with a definite Lord of the Rings flavour. The Norman invasion is called "orcish", and the detail is gleaned from the peripheral images of the Bayeux Tapestry, which was, of course, produced from a victor's point of view.


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## Mike (Jun 19, 2009)

I always imagined Gondor as equating early renaissance Italy in terms of armour/weaponry, though Rohan is undoubtedly lifted from Anglo-Saxon England.


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## Eledhwen (Jun 20, 2009)

This is from the Daily Telegraph:


> Hardy and his researchers found this village – [the Sussex village of Crowhurst] situated between the coast and Hastings – in the Domesday Book, which notes that the place was “laid to waste” in 1066. It was just the thing they were looking for: small, involved in the events of the year, and with a population about whom, thanks to a range of 11th-century source material, they could make some educated guesses. Lifting Anglo-Saxon names and sociological details from these sources, they began to characterise the story, centring upon a 14-year-old newlywed called Tofi (played by Mike Bailey), a cowardly farmer called Leofric (Tim Plester) and a fierce warrior called Ordgar (Francis Magee): “a fellowship of ordinary men”, as the promotional blurb has it, “in extraordinary times”.
> 
> The overtones of Lord of the Rings here, and in the film’s subtitle, are hard to miss, and it may sound as if Hardy’s jumping on the Tolkien bandwagon – Hobbiting up his own production to attract a wider audience. But he justifies the Tolkien-ish overtones in academic terms: Tolkien was, after all, Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, and drew much of the language of Lord of the Rings directly from the period. The word “orc”, Hardy explains, is regularly used to describe Normans in Anglo-Saxon works, and “Middle Earth” is a common Anglo-Saxon description of the world. “I hope,” he says, “that we kept throughout the piece the idioms of the time.”


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## Illuin (Jun 20, 2009)

Hmmm, I guess no one has answered yet. Here is a statement from one of Tolkien's letters:



> *Letter #211 - Dear Miss Beare - 1958*
> 
> *"I imagine the gap [between the Fall of Barad-dûr and modern times] to be about 6000 years; that is we are now at the end of the Fifth Age, if the Ages were of about the same length as S.A. and T.A. But they have, I think, quickened; and I imagine we are actually at the end of the Sixth Age, or in the Seventh."*


 
Knowing Tolkien had a religious background, he was probably thinking of the "most accepted" scholarly date of the creation of Adam, which is dated around 4000 - 4010 BC (i.e. 6,000 years ago). Thus, if the Ages were of about the same length as *S.A.* and *T.A.*, the _Fourth Age_ began around 4000 BC (Adam's time) and ended around 1000 BC (King David's time). The _Fifth Age_ began around the time of King David or King Solomon (approx. 1000 BC), and at present, we are roughly at the end of the _Fifth Age_ now, or perhaps the beginning of the _Sixth Age_. Also, Fingolfin's arrival in Beleriand at the rising of the Moon would have occurred around 11,050 BC.


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## Tar-Surion (Jul 3, 2009)

To me LoTR is based very much on the Dark Ages; the 500 years after the Fall of Rome.

Rohan is Anglo-Saxon England with horses. 

Gondor is like Byzantium holding out against the alien hordes of the East.

The Shire is an idealized Medieval English village.

The Elf-refuges of Rivendell and Lorien have the peace and high-mindedness that you might expect to find in a well-run religious house.

Mordor is the Turks and the Industrial Revolution all rolled into one.

It is easy to pick apart the threads of a work like this, but how great was the one who first wove them!


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## Withywindle (Jul 18, 2009)

It is true that Tolkien enjoyed the idea of his tales of ME being an alternative, or parallel pre-history of our own world. Pre-history means pertaining to eras before written accounts were made of events, such that half-remembered facts mingle with pure myth and legend and that means before the 6th century BC in antiquity, or before the 9th century AD in the Middle Ages (the concept of Dark Ages is now generally disregarded by historians) . That is the feel that Tolkien gives to his tales and his histories could fit in anywhere from the dawn of pre-historic civilisation (c. 5000 BC) in some aspects, to the period between the fall of Rome and the Carolignian renaissance in other aspects.

As to identifying historical periods by cultural indicators such as warfare, this will equally lead us to identify different ME cultures with different pre-historic and indeed historical periods. For example:

The Noldor are clearly equated to the the Greek _Hoplites._ The army of Gondolin present in the Fifth Battle is described as a _phallanx._

The Dwarves are related to the Norsemen, fighting exclusivley on foot and using axes.

The Rohirrim are, as has been said, equated to the Saxon horse-warriors. Incidentally the fact that they used stirrups equates them with a period no earlier than the 8th century AD in Europe.

Numenorean naval warfare is equated with that of antiquity. Certainly their ships seem to be more like triremes than galleons. Gondor also has a general feel of ancient Rome. However, the representation of Imrahil and his knights has more in common with the age of chivalry, i.e. 12th to 14th century.

Finally, with Harad Tolkien was clearly thinking of the Moors met in battle by Charles Martel which would place them in the 8th century.

What can we conclude from this? That Tolkien loved and knew well many different historical and pre-historical cultures and wished to incorporate elements from all of them into his work. No single era is represented; _all _eras are represented.


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