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cimoreneIn my early posts about William Morris's The Roots of the Mountains I raised issues of anachronisms (here and here) and this led to a conversation with mildred_of_midgard that was really fun about brasilwood and medieval trade! Also, ultimately she made a very good point about my statements relating to dating these novels, namely: they are not exactly meant to be datable, because they aren't really historical fiction in the traditional sense.
My guy William Morris loved loved the middle ages and the history of the germanic peoples, don't get me wrong, and he definitely had a massive amount of knowledge about them! But his writings and his interests are focused on folklore, especially oral folklore - epic poetry and sagas, which are specifically oral folklore, and medieval romances, which for the most part are medieval novelisations (or novel length epic poems) of oral folklore - and in these genres events basically take place in a mythical/legendary Heroic Past. One of the things that makes Morris's writing so charming is his medieval eclectic pastiche style, which positions his novels as fictional entrants in these classes of surviving medieval literature, rather than as modern (ie contemporary with him, late Victorian) novels about the middle ages.
So yes, it's completely legit to observe that dating their events, or identifying contradictions in the dating thereof, is beside the point to the same extent that this is true of medieval romances or epic poetry. However, even though that's true, it doesn't mean that there's no value in investigating the real history behind the folklore. Even if the main value is fun. And in my case, Morris himself had a huge interest in the history of the arts and material culture, especially textiles and clothing, and I have one as well, so I am always interested in understanding where he imagines his setting - in part because this informs the clothing I picture. (I always picture it.) The further back in time we go, of course, the less detail we know about the clothing, and the Goths and germanic tribes of this period are known mostly second hand through Roman sources; they were illiterate. And obviously, it's very rare for garments to survive that long, so our knowledge even of Roman and Byzantine wear from this long ago is not perfect.
So anyway, what CAN be pinned down about the time/setting of HOTW and ROTM?
(Regarding my two posts about anachronisms: if ROTM is intended to be set in Crimea, which is possible, the brasilwood dye is probably fine even as far back as the 200s or 300s CE; but if you want to use the existence of the bowed string instruments to date it the whole thing would have to be pushed forward to around the 10th century CE, when like, almost everyone was converted to Christianity: they established the Archbishopric of Uppsala in Sweden in 1164 and that's the furthest Northwest they had to go. Yeah, I'm not serious about dating it then. Possibly he just didn't care but probably he was just plain wrong about the bowed string instrument.)
I was originally (before looking up a ton of stuff) thinking 5th or 6th century AD might be the intended ballpark target time period, because there were many more Asian incursions into germanic tribal territory in those centuries; but that is actually way too late for them to all be pagans. Of course, Morris might have just kept them pagan because he loved germanic paganism and was a Norse saga fanboy, while still imagining his setting in the 5th or 6th centuries. But on the whole - and this conclusion is definitely pretty much vibes-based -, I am thinking 3rd-4th century CE for ROTM and 1st century BCE or CE for HOTW. To the extent that that is valid. Which is like... maybe roughly 20%.
mildred_of_midgard that was really fun about brasilwood and medieval trade! Also, ultimately she made a very good point about my statements relating to dating these novels, namely: they are not exactly meant to be datable, because they aren't really historical fiction in the traditional sense. My guy William Morris loved loved the middle ages and the history of the germanic peoples, don't get me wrong, and he definitely had a massive amount of knowledge about them! But his writings and his interests are focused on folklore, especially oral folklore - epic poetry and sagas, which are specifically oral folklore, and medieval romances, which for the most part are medieval novelisations (or novel length epic poems) of oral folklore - and in these genres events basically take place in a mythical/legendary Heroic Past. One of the things that makes Morris's writing so charming is his medieval eclectic pastiche style, which positions his novels as fictional entrants in these classes of surviving medieval literature, rather than as modern (ie contemporary with him, late Victorian) novels about the middle ages.
So yes, it's completely legit to observe that dating their events, or identifying contradictions in the dating thereof, is beside the point to the same extent that this is true of medieval romances or epic poetry. However, even though that's true, it doesn't mean that there's no value in investigating the real history behind the folklore. Even if the main value is fun. And in my case, Morris himself had a huge interest in the history of the arts and material culture, especially textiles and clothing, and I have one as well, so I am always interested in understanding where he imagines his setting - in part because this informs the clothing I picture. (I always picture it.) The further back in time we go, of course, the less detail we know about the clothing, and the Goths and germanic tribes of this period are known mostly second hand through Roman sources; they were illiterate. And obviously, it's very rare for garments to survive that long, so our knowledge even of Roman and Byzantine wear from this long ago is not perfect.
So anyway, what CAN be pinned down about the time/setting of HOTW and ROTM?
- HOTW deals with a massive alliance of germanic tribes successfully repelling a Roman invasion from their forest home of Mirkwood, which is definitely somewhere on the continent, but that's all we got. Goths have already joined the Roman army, but this is evidently only a recent development, and these traitor-Goths are responsible for leading the Romans to their homeland. At the beginning of HOTW the Romans are still a distant rumor, basically new to most of the members of these tribes. So it likely takes place quite early in the history of Roman-germanic conflicts, perhaps somewhere between the 2nd century BCE and the 1st century CE.
- All the peoples in HOTW dwell in wooden longhouses, which, accurate. You can read on Wikipedia about how Tolkien just copied Meduseld from HOTW and therefore introduced the word "louvres", which historians later accused Tolkien of being anachronistic for because the word 'louvres' wasn't present in Anglo-Saxon England, lol. Yes okay Wikipedia, point taken. I'm trying not to be quite that silly.
- ROTM takes place many generations, perhaps a few hundred years, after The House of the Wolfings. The tribe of the Wolfings live in the forest, protecting the boundaries of a small settlement of farmers and shepherds in a peaceful valley at the foot of the mountains. The shepherds and farmers are allied germanic tribes and all are still pagan. If Wikipedia is to be believed, the Goths converted to Christianity in the late 4th century AD and were one of the first germanic peoples to do so. This is covered extensively in Jordanes (Morris was certainly familiar with it, and drew on it for these books otherwise, although that's no guarantee he intended to treat it as canon).
- The settled germanic tribes in ROTM still preserve a basically egalitarian society based on seasonal Thing assemblies in a stone circle ("[In] Finland [so-called "court stones"] are found in Eura, Ulvila and Kokemäki. They date typically [to] during the Pre-Roman Iron Age and the Roman Iron Age. In Sweden, they are called Domarringar (judge circles), Domkretsar (judge circles) or Domarsäten (judge seats). In Finland they are called Käräjäkivet (court stones). In some places in [the] Nordic countries they were used [for Thing assemblies] until [the] 17th century"), but they have hereditary chieftains now instead of their former method of elected war leaders from HOTW.
- The society of ROTM have a fortified city with stone houses. I don't think this can be used to date anything though, because as far as I know, there is no stone architecture from pagan germanic tribes currently available to architectural historians. I think this was just Morris letting his fancy run away with him, to be frank.
(Regarding my two posts about anachronisms: if ROTM is intended to be set in Crimea, which is possible, the brasilwood dye is probably fine even as far back as the 200s or 300s CE; but if you want to use the existence of the bowed string instruments to date it the whole thing would have to be pushed forward to around the 10th century CE, when like, almost everyone was converted to Christianity: they established the Archbishopric of Uppsala in Sweden in 1164 and that's the furthest Northwest they had to go. Yeah, I'm not serious about dating it then. Possibly he just didn't care but probably he was just plain wrong about the bowed string instrument.)
I was originally (before looking up a ton of stuff) thinking 5th or 6th century AD might be the intended ballpark target time period, because there were many more Asian incursions into germanic tribal territory in those centuries; but that is actually way too late for them to all be pagans. Of course, Morris might have just kept them pagan because he loved germanic paganism and was a Norse saga fanboy, while still imagining his setting in the 5th or 6th centuries. But on the whole - and this conclusion is definitely pretty much vibes-based -, I am thinking 3rd-4th century CE for ROTM and 1st century BCE or CE for HOTW. To the extent that that is valid. Which is like... maybe roughly 20%.
(no subject)
Date: 1 May 2025 02:33 am (UTC)in these genres events basically take place in a mythical/legendary Heroic Past.
For anyone reading this who missed my original comment, I linked to an online thesis that explores this in some depth.
If Wikipedia is to be believed, the Goths converted to Christianity in the late 4th century AD and were one of the first germanic peoples to do so.
Can confirm; Bishop Wulfila's translation of the Bible into Gothic is the only reason we have a reasonably sized corpus of this language. (I studied Gothic back in the day
Totally unrelated but sparked in my memory by the discussion of Goths: have you read Mary Gentle's Ash?
(no subject)
Date: 1 May 2025 11:19 am (UTC)I've started reading Walter Scott recently, also as part of my quest to better understand everything about Morris's writing and the influences on it... but before that I knew almost NOTHING about the 18th century apart from like, clothing reconstruction info. Which doesn't mean that I wouldn't be fascinated by the discussion, I will certainly check out the links!
I have never heard of that book but will probably read it soon now, so thanks!
(no subject)
Date: 4 May 2025 08:38 am (UTC)I'm glad it was helpful! I can't claim to have read the whole thing even back when I did read part of it, when it first came out, but since I had read a fair bit of medieval Germanic epic, it immediately made a lot of sense to me too.
(My background on poetics and on medieval studies is in a kind of weird in-between place, where they got covered a lot in my undergraduate and graduate studies, but I never did original research on them, so I can't claim to be any kind of expert.)
Which doesn't mean that I wouldn't be fascinated by the discussion, I will certainly check out the links!
Fair warning that the main discussion is now over 4 million words long and is now primarily focused on original historical research, I'm not sure it's outsider friendly as an introduction to the topic! The
I have never heard of that book but will probably read it soon now, so thanks!
Fair warning that it's kind of a weird book--the polite term is sui generis--it's absolutely nothing like William Morris, and it's not historical Goths, it's an explicit AU. But it's in many ways an amazing magnum opus, and you might like it!