Middle-Earth is Dark Age Europe

[Alcuin]

Originally Posted by CAB

Do you know if anyone ever questioned Tolkien about these similarities?

Well, in the very long Letter 131 to Milton Waldman, probably late 1951, Tolkien wrote,

In the south Gondor rises to a peak of power, almost reflecting Númenor, and then fades slowly to decayed Middle Age, a kind of proud, venerable, but increasingly impotent Byzantium.

As far as I am aware, this is the only comparison.

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

*gives a blueberry muffin to Alcuin*

Delicious! Thank you.

[CAB]

Thank you for your reply Alcuin. I am glad that he apparently didn’t deny such a strong connection between the two. I don’t know much about the inspirations for Tolkien’s works, but now I claim knowledge of at least one.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

I'd forgotten the connection with Byzantium; that is very interesting, indeed. I'd give you another muffin, but it's just past dinner-time, and I'm sure you're full.

[Alcuin]

Ach! Schade! No more muffins!

I would not push the Byzantium correspondence too hard – it might tip over! But it does seem to make sense, and Tolkien seems to have been aware of it himself. Whether he meant Minas Tirith and Gondor to mirror Constantinople and the Byzantine (East Roman) Empire is debatable … but perhaps we are all up for the challenge?

We might begin by pointing out that Tolkien seems to have explicitly considered the Dúnedain of Gondor in terms of the Egyptians: “proud, peculiar, and archaic,” as he put it. I suppose that would be toward the end of the Egyptian Empire, but before their conquest by the Assyrians, when they ceased to be an independent, self-governing entity; even then, Egypt as a nation-state was at least 2,500 years old, on the same order of age as Gondor, and without seemingly deathless Elves to help them remember what had transpired in the past.

There’s no question, though, that Tolkien’s interests in philology – the combination of language, history, and culture – shaped the world he created. By the year 900, Anglo-Saxon England was a very settled, increasingly more peaceful place as the Danish invaders became Christians and the Anglo-Saxon bureaucracy, which eventually became the envy of the Continent in its efficiency and effectiveness, began its ascendancy.

From about 449, when Vortigern (perhaps a name, perhaps a title) invited Hengist and Horsa to help him in his battles (Hengist is the king in Beowulf) until the death of Arthur about 550, the outcome of the war between the Romano-Britons and the invading Germanic Jutes, Angles, and Saxons was very iffy; in fact, it appears that the Romano-Britons were winning. Then something terrible happened in 535: perhaps it was a meteor or comet strike, but it was more likely a volcanic event (I recommend David Keyes’ excellent book, Catastrophe: religions changed, empires fell, and disaster stalked mankind around the globe), and the Romano-Britons never recovered.

Then there is the collapse of the Visigoth Kingdom in 711-714: Tolkien taught himself Gothic from before 1910. (See Letter 272 to Zillah Sherring, 1965, and the transcription he made in a copy of The Fifth Book of Thucydides she had purchased that once that once belonged to him. That would be the fifth book of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, the 27-year war between Athens and Sparta in which Pericles died and the Democracy of Athens fell; at the end of the war, Sparta installed a puppet government, and 5 years later the Athenians executed Socrates for questioning whether the loss was a judgment of the gods against Athens.) Tolkien was interested in the Visigoths because they had the oldest written Germanic language.

The Fall of Arnor is similar in many ways to the collapse of the Anglo-Saxon states under pressure from the invading Norsemen until Alfred the Great united them and beat back the invaders against seemingly insurmountable odds.

Note the similarity between the Tale of Years in “Appendix B” of Return of the King and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle . (You can Google “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle” and get a plethora of wonderful links to the entire work in all its multiplicities (there is more than one version). For a good feel of how the Tale of Years looks like the Chronicle, take a look at just one translated section.)

I could prattle on (too late!), but that might be a start. Not to mention some of the sources and inspirations Tolkien cites himself: the Elder and Younger Eddas, the Völsungasaga, A Voyage to Arcturus by Lindsey, and the Kalevala; not to mention The Marvellous Land of Snergs by Wyke-Smith, which Tolkien credits in Letter 163 to W.H. Auden with an unconscious inspiration for hobbits.

But the single most important inspiration might be Beowulf, which Tolkien loved. I believe I recall that for many years at Oxford, he gave public recitations of Beowulf, beginning with the Anglo-Saxon command to the audience, Quiet! – Hwæt! – which many uninformed listeners mistook for What! Two of Tolkien’s well-known scholarly works are an excellent version of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Beowulf: the Monster and the Critics. Both of these books cover the same basic period – the years 449 to about 550, the years that shaped and put into motion what became Tolkien’s area of study: Anglo-Saxon, English literature, and Welsh, among many others, and the histories and stories they provide.

[Earniel]

Very interesting. You certainly know your history, Alcuin.

[CAB]

Wow Alcuin, that is a lot of information. I would say a lot of very good information, but it will be a while before I can go through it all to make sure. (Just kidding, I have no doubt that it is all very good information.) I will bookmark this post. Thank you very much Alcuin.

[Gordis]

I second that.

Thanks, indeed, Alcuin.

[GreyMouser]

This may be stretching it, but

"The new host that we had tidings of has come first, from over the River by way of Andros, it is said. They are strong: battalions of Orcs of the Eye, and countless companies of Men of a new sort we have not met before. Not tall, but broad and grim, bearded like dwarves, wielding great axes. Out of some savage land in the wide East they come, we deem."

Slavs? ( it fits the stereotype) -who were moving down into the Balkans at the time. Of course, the Slavs were supposedly invited in by the Byzantines to fight the Avars, which gives parallels to Rohan... so, it gets mixed up.

[GreyMouser]

For those interested, a link to Michael Martinez on Rohan and Anglo-Saxons

http://www.merp.com/essays/MichaelMa...01essay26/view

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Great post, Alcuin; I would, however, here point out that, according to Plato's "Apology", Socrates was executed for a series of charges which boil down to corrupting the youth and disbelieving in the city's gods.

Originally Posted by Alcuin

Ach! Schade! No more muffins!

I would not push the Byzantium correspondence too hard – it might tip over! But it does seem to make sense, and Tolkien seems to have been aware of it himself. Whether he meant Minas Tirith and Gondor to mirror Constantinople and the Byzantine (East Roman) Empire is debatable … but perhaps we are all up for the challenge?

We might begin by pointing out that Tolkien seems to have explicitly considered the Dúnedain of Gondor in terms of the Egyptians: “proud, peculiar, and archaic,” as he put it. I suppose that would be toward the end of the Egyptian Empire, but before their conquest by the Assyrians, when they ceased to be an independent, self-governing entity; even then, Egypt as a nation-state was at least 2,500 years old, on the same order of age as Gondor, and without seemingly deathless Elves to help them remember what had transpired in the past.

There’s no question, though, that Tolkien’s interests in philology – the combination of language, history, and culture – shaped the world he created. By the year 900, Anglo-Saxon England was a very settled, increasingly more peaceful place as the Danish invaders became Christians and the Anglo-Saxon bureaucracy, which eventually became the envy of the Continent in its efficiency and effectiveness, began its ascendancy.

From about 449, when Vortigern (perhaps a name, perhaps a title) invited Hengist and Horsa to help him in his battles (Hengist is the king in Beowulf) until the death of Arthur about 550, the outcome of the war between the Romano-Britons and the invading Germanic Jutes, Angles, and Saxons was very iffy; in fact, it appears that the Romano-Britons were winning. Then something terrible happened in 535: perhaps it was a meteor or comet strike, but it was more likely a volcanic event (I recommend David Keyes’ excellent book, Catastrophe: religions changed, empires fell, and disaster stalked mankind around the globe), and the Romano-Britons never recovered.

Then there is the collapse of the Visigoth Kingdom in 711-714: Tolkien taught himself Gothic from before 1910. (See Letter 272 to Zillah Sherring, 1965, and the transcription he made in a copy of The Fifth Book of Thucydides she had purchased that once that once belonged to him. That would be the fifth book of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, the 27-year war between Athens and Sparta in which Pericles died and the Democracy of Athens fell; at the end of the war, Sparta installed a puppet government, and 5 years later the Athenians executed Socrates for questioning whether the loss was a judgment of the gods against Athens.) Tolkien was interested in the Visigoths because they had the oldest written Germanic language.

The Fall of Arnor is similar in many ways to the collapse of the Anglo-Saxon states under pressure from the invading Norsemen until Alfred the Great united them and beat back the invaders against seemingly insurmountable odds.

Note the similarity between the Tale of Years in “Appendix B” of Return of the King and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle . (You can Google “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle” and get a plethora of wonderful links to the entire work in all its multiplicities (there is more than one version). For a good feel of how the Tale of Years looks like the Chronicle, take a look at just one translated section.)

I could prattle on (too late!), but that might be a start. Not to mention some of the sources and inspirations Tolkien cites himself: the Elder and Younger Eddas, the Völsungasaga, A Voyage to Arcturus by Lindsey, and the Kalevala; not to mention The Marvellous Land of Snergs by Wyke-Smith, which Tolkien credits in Letter 163 to W.H. Auden with an unconscious inspiration for hobbits.

But the single most important inspiration might be Beowulf, which Tolkien loved. I believe I recall that for many years at Oxford, he gave public recitations of Beowulf, beginning with the Anglo-Saxon command to the audience, Quiet! – Hwæt! – which many uninformed listeners mistook for What! Two of Tolkien’s well-known scholarly works are an excellent version of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Beowulf: the Monster and the Critics. Both of these books cover the same basic period – the years 449 to about 550, the years that shaped and put into motion what became Tolkien’s area of study: Anglo-Saxon, English literature, and Welsh, among many others, and the histories and stories they provide.

[Gordis]

Originally Posted by GreyMouser

Slavs? ( it fits the stereotype) -who were moving down into the Balkans at the time. Of course, the Slavs were supposedly invited in by the Byzantines to fight the Avars, which gives parallels to Rohan... so, it gets mixed up.

Why not? Slavic lands are supposed to correspond to the area around Rhun, I believe,

[Forkbeard]

Originally Posted by GreyMouser

For those interested, a link to Michael Martinez on Rohan and Anglo-Saxons

http://www.merp.com/essays/MichaelMa...01essay26/view

Hey ho GM! I got a "bad gateway" when I tried the link.

[Forkbeard]

Originally Posted by GreyMouser

I originally started posting about Tolkien on the old White Council site run by Michael Martinez, and Rohan=Anglo-Saxons was one of his pet peeves (along with pointed ears on Elves).

And when MM came down on you, believe me, you scurried for shelter

I'll go with Tom Shippey. Rohan = Anglo-Saxons + horses.
In "The Road to Middle-Earth" he argues that the Rohirrim were JRR's recreation of a hypothetical Old Gothic Indo-European horse culture based in the plains of Hungary (pre-Huns, of course)

Amen! ALthough I disagree with Tom about the Anglo-Saxons and horses, but that's another story.

[Forkbeard]

Alcuinus, es vir qui sequitur cor meum. Bone factum es!

[GreyMouser]

Originally Posted by Forkbeard

Hey ho GM! I got a "bad gateway" when I tried the link.

Me, too
And I can't find the link anywhere- try this one

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/tolkien/26924

Tolkien's Middle-earth doesn't look like Medieval Europe

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Forkbeard

Alcuinus, es vir qui sequitur cor meum. Bone factum es!

Ubine cor tuum ducit?

[Zilbanne]

Originally Posted by GreyMouser

Well, I'm not so revisionist myself- I tend to be a bit of a Classicist and mourn "the glory that was Greece, the grandeur that was Rome".

I do remember from many years ago, European History 120 (Fall of Rome to Renaissance) my prof was an Austrian. The first day he handed us a map labeled "Migrations of the Peoples" (German: Volkswanderung)

I asked what that meant; he replied "the movements of the Germanic peoples to the West'

'Oh, you mean the Barbarian Invasions"

"THEY WERE NOT BARBARIANS!!!"

Had to work really hard in that class.

I thought the Roman citizens just called the various Germanic peoples Barbarians because when Germanic people spoke to Roman ears it sounded like they were saying " Bar! Bar! Bar!" *

Truly I was taught this in a sophmore level history class at University.


* Possibly they were just REALLY thirsty?

[Earniel]

Slightly off topic, but speaking of Barbarians, there's a great series from Terry Jones running on the BBC about that. Very insightful in how the Romans influenced our opinions on them.

[Forkbeard]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Ubine cor tuum ducit?

procedere ulterior sursum et ulterior in!

[Forkbeard]

Originally Posted by Zilbanne

I thought the Roman citizens just called the various Germanic peoples Barbarians because when Germanic people spoke to Roman ears it sounded like they were saying " Bar! Bar! Bar!" *

Truly I was taught this in a sophmore level history class at University.


* Possibly they were just REALLY thirsty?

Well, I don't know about "citizens", but the Romans borrowed the term barbarian from the Greeks (and the Greeks before Rome's rise to power over the Greek penninsula would have called the Romans barbarians.).