Middle-Earth is Dark Age Europe

[GreyMouser]

OK, I try and incite with this idea every now and then.

It should be obvious to everyone that Middle-Earth at the end of the Third Age is modelled on Europe circa 900 AD

The Empire has been divided into two; the Western/Northern half has fallen, leaving a desolate waste of forests and marshes where law and order have collapsed, outlaws and worse roam freely, and only a few outposts of an older civilisation remain.
Orcs, trolls= Vikings, Magyars, local marauders
Rivendell, Lorien, Shire, Bree= monasteries and scattered outposts holding onto the legacy of Rome- from a British POV, ties in with Arthur.

Gondor, the Eastern/Southern half of the Empire had expanded and reached new heights of glory, only to fall back under the assaults from the East.

Gondor= Byzantium, Mordor = Islam

PLEASE NOTE!!!!- I am not saying that Tolkien thought Muslims were Evil or Servants of the Dark Lord. Just that his preoccupation with early Medieval times led him to project a vision that very strongly tracks Europe after the Fall of Rome, where Christendom was under attack from a powerful enemy from the South/East