"Tolkien's Rohan...= Carolingians?" Topic

I used to know stuff like this like the back 'o' me hand,
but my 'Geek Cred' has shifted into other arenas of speciality:

Does anyone know who Tolkien's Riders of Rohan were based on,
historically speaking?

Seeing Magister's new Carolingian line
TMP link
leads me to suspect that it was they (them?),
but that doesn't seem to 'jibe' with my half-remembered
teen-age geeky presumptions very well…

Thoughts?

Specifically speaking, I believe that they were Normans.

I can't remember where they were from, maybe Westerness, and had migrated down into the area that became known as Rohan. They were mounted vikings and thus, most closely related to Normans.

They came from the North, but yes Normans is the general view.

Gothic. Eomir, Theodin, Theodred…all Gothic names. The parallels to the 5th century AD are rather uncanny. Gondor is a dieing empire similar to Western Rome. Rohan was an old enemy turned ally to Gondor. The Gothic names continue to point to Goths. Orcs are similar to Huns and subject tribes. Warg riders are like Atilas army…like Hunnic cavalry…

Of course, this is all open to interpretation.

I believe that Tolkein used Byzantium for Gondor, not the Western Roman Empire.

Arnor was Western Rome.

Ostrogoths… The same letter that describes Gondor as Byzantium, and Arnor as Western Rome (and Carolingians for some of the successor states to Arnor) descibes Rohan as being Ostrogoths.

acarhj,

Where does JRRT ever say that the Rohirrim were an old enemy turned ally?

They are originally derived from the Northmen of Rhovanion, who were always allied to Gondor. Gondor wasn't always the best of friends to the N.Men of Rhovanion, but the Northmen were always pretty loyal to Gondor. Gondor even sent up troops to help fight off the Wain-Riders and Easterlings that had invaded Rhovanion, and would later be displaced to the Area of Khand.

The Rhovaion then fled (mostly) to the area in the far north of the Anduin river. These were the people who became known as the Éorlingas. Still allied to Gondor, but mostly only in name. They did nothing to help Gondor for many, many years, until Gondor, in a moment of desperation called out "Help! We're being fed our behinds!" (That is a paraphrase of course).

Éorl, at that moment, being a very young ruler, said "Let's hit it. Gondor needs help, and we have ignored them for too long. It's time we got over loosing our lands in Rhovanion because Gondor wouldn't back up its word. Let's show them that we are better than they."

So, 10,000 Éorlingas answered the summons of Cirion, Steward of Gondor, and Rode down as a massed body of riders. They kicked-butt and saved the Gondorindrim… Thus, Cirion said: "Here, have this land of Calenardhon as a gift.. Call it ' The land of the gift' or, Rohan has a nice sound to it." Éoerl said "Way cool! Let's party a few days in celebration, and then swear an oath of allegiance." Cirion said "I have just the place for that.".

So, they partied, and then got all dressed up, went through this poorly prepared path that had been cut into a scary forest in the north of Gondor, climbed a well hidden stair, and came out upon the top of a very well maintained and seemingly hallowed hill. Éorl takes a look around, and sees a stone with a word carved on it and says "SNAP! This is the grave of Elendil!"

And the two swear to be BFF over Elendil's Hallowed grave that is supposed to mark the center of Gondor …

Éorl then says "I gotta go get the rest of my peeps." and rides off to tell his wife and Kids "Honey, we got new digs down south were it isn't so cold, and we'll have enough grazing lands to raise more horse-meat than you could veer eat." (I assume that since they didn't raise cows that they eat the horses too. JRRT never refuted this, but never really confirmed it either, saying that their diet was supplemented by other meats as well by hunting, but that little other livestock existed in Rohan)

So… That's the short version of the history of Gondor and Rohan… No animosity there save for the short period of cold-shoulder that Gondor got after the creation of the East-Bight in Greenwood that eventually caused the Northmen to move to the head of the Anduin.

Carolingians for some of the successor states to Arnor

Oh, Even Better!

I now have a Whole New Army for 10mm Tolkien!!

Thanks, Judy!!!

(…so: anybody know any of the names of the Arnorian successor states,
and which books reference them? I presume they are in Christopher Tolkien's
'History of Middle Earth' series, and perhaps the Silmarillion…?)

Where does JRRT ever say that the Rohirrim were an old enemy turned ally?

I think it was more like the centuries old alliance went stale so Gondor was not sure Rohan would show if the beacon was lit.

Here is a pretty good article/timeline on Rohan. Lots of gaming fodder to be had.

tuckborough.net/rohan.html

BTW, the name originally given is Northmen. That could be Viking (Norsemen) or Normen as in the Dark Age horsemen. The names and language are clearly Gothic and the organization/culture seems to mostly mimic Anglo-Saxon England.

I thought they were Tolkien's way of rewriting English history. Didn't he feel that the Anglo Saxons would've been able to resist the Normans if they'd used cavalry (yes, I know it's now widely believed that they sometimes did)? So I reckon they're mounted Anglo Saxons.

I thought they were Tolkien's way of rewriting English history.

A lot of folks try to match up Tolkien events with real historical events. I don't think any of the races really match one for one. My Rohan example above shows this pretty well.

Judas says Gondor=Byzantium. That's fine. It does not match up one for one but it works well. But so does Western Rome. So if Minus Morgul is Rome, then Minus Tirith must be Byzantium right? So that makes the Mordor Orcs Vandals? All the same, the use of beacons is a western empire thing…specifically in Britannia. So, maybe Gondor is Rome then? They did gift Rohan their land and had some sort of alliance not different from Rome vs Atila. Of course, Byzantium gifted Goths land as well. You could go on and on.

Do what you think makes sense. Carolingians is a fine choice for Rohan. Mix and match with the gothic culture and the Anglo-Saxon military organization which is influenced by…the Franks. .

Hehehe

I think we need to have Judas give us a weekly "retelling" of various Tolkein events. That was fun.

Gothic in culture, but "Norman" in appearance. Both are correct according to Letters. Interestingly, Gondor is also Egyptian in culture, e.g. the royal regalia is Egyptian not Byzantine. Tolkien intermixed RL cultures and "look" for his Middle Earth races.

I always thought of them as Lombards but I can't remember why….

Doug

Right. When you borrow from history, you can borrow from disparate sources to create something new. That's what Tolkien did. So Rohan is Anglo-Saxon/Goth/Norse/Norman all mixed together (though the dominate cultural base is clearly Anglo-Saxon: Mead halls, alliterative poetry, etc.. The horses are the big change).

I think they are more Ostrogoth rather than Norman – as the Rohan people use round shields – not the kite shields of the Normans. Just my thoughts though – no real position on the whole thing.

"Ostrogoths… The same letter that describes Gondor as Byzantium, and Arnor as Western Rome (and Carolingians for some of the successor states to Arnor) descibes Rohan as being Ostrogoths."

Judas,

I never knew of that letter, but those are the exact same assignments or associations I always had for each of those kingdoms.

Interesting. Very interesting.

CC

I have always thought that the 700 – 800AD Carolingians were the model for Rohan. If you look at Ian Heath's Armies of the Dark Ages, the Carolingians are the best match for Tolkein's descriptions. Also Rohan is a vilage in Britanny. Many of the Carolingian names are very similar to Carolingian Frankish nobles. The Carolingian empire conquered and later united the Lombards and Saxons. It also fought the Pechenegs (Wainriders?) and the Moors (Harad?).

I think that Gondor is the last remnants of post Roman (Visigithic) Spain that was fighting off the Moorish invasion. The Visigoths in this period looked very much like Byzantines.

Saxons on horses,

According to Tolkien's own appendix, Cardinal Hawkwood is dead on.

Many seem to equate Rohan and Gondor with the Normans and Western Romans. Is this because they are much more well known and "cooler" than the Ostrogoths and Byzantines? Gondor, a great walled city lieing at the edge of decaying empire, threatened by the godless hordes of the east and south, is clearly Constantinople of Byzantium.

My idea of Rohan:

picture
picture
picture
picture

Basically, Ostrogoths.

CC

Angus McBride's own version of Rohirrim:

picture

Dave

Dave,

Now that you bring up Angus . . .

TMP link

CC

Angus' view of Middle Earth:

link

CC

For your Rohirrim:

TMP link

CC

They are proto bikers.

I LOVE ME Threads*.

BTW, CC.. That first picture, he would be an early Éotheod (Those who settled by the Anduin – eventually, when I get my head screwed back on, I'll start memorizing the dates). The remaining ones would be a variety of Rohirrim and Éotheod from the time of Éorl onwards…

Angus's views were actually the source of PJ's vision for much of the movies… Only… Focus groups determined that chainmail didn't do as well in test screenings and screen tests (aren't those the same thing.. Need to call agent about that one… Haven't talked to her in a year or so, anyway), which was why you didn't see as much of it as you should have. I hear that Gullermo is insisting on more of it though for the Hobbit (More miniatures!!! Droooolllll!!!)

Funny, when I am bored, and have no work or homework, I have a HUGE folder full of bookmarks of Tolkien sites. I will either just go and read the Encyclopedia or Arda (which I have been reading, one entry at a time in alphabetical order… It makes me feel like I am 11 when I first started doing that with encyclopedias), or the Tuckborogh News, or the War of the Ring site (which one??? Geez, I count four different ones in my folder)

Now, about comparing the ME societies to Earth Societies.

CJRT makes comments several times in tHoME that the correlations are fairly weak.

For instance, it is more Númenórë that was modelled on Ancient Egypt (for the clothing and architecture and much of society), but their military was like that of Republican and Imperial Rome, going rapidly from Early/Mid Republic when The First Númenórëan Armies were raised to help Gil-Gilad Against Sauron to the later fights when Ar-Pharazon went nutso over Sauron and decided that he would march against the gods. Both armies could be said to be modelled after the Elven Armies (Early and Late Númenórëan) as most Human Armies of ME were to some extent after the FA, when Men still had an independent identity of their own, which was not fully recovered until after the fall of Sauron at the end of the TA.

Rohan happens to be the army I am working on right now, and I am killing myself over not having enough time to convert a lot of the GW LotR figures into Chain armored riders, and get rid of the bow on all of them. Although the Ostrogoths are said to have carried bows or javelins on horseback, they were mostly Lancers…

I am trying to get a DBA sized Hoplon/FoG army finished before Historicon, and an equal point Isengard army… If I manage to do so, then they will become part of my Hoplon Demo as well as setting up a FoG game in the large Ancients Hall where they have the Open Gaming so that I can get as many pick-up games as I can in (Actually, I will have that one set up to play with either Hoplon or FoG, as the units are nearly identical in each case)

And, as far as different people's vision of ME… In just a few more years, people will be able to take a virtual figure doll, dress it in what they would like, pose them in as many poses as they would like, and then hit (Buy)† on my web-site to order as many fully customizable plastic, resin or metal (Metal deposition and SLT 3D printer are now as cheap as the plastic/wax 3D printers) figure(s) as they would like… Maybe even fully painted or colored as well…

Matthew

* I don't know if I have mentioned this, but if Ray Kurzweil is right, and we are among the last generations to have to experience death as permanent… Then I am going to get a group together to re-build ME as a full-immersion Virtual Reality and spend time there as Tom Bombadil (which would explian his presence wouldn't it?) or as various forms of the Enternal Soldier, which Tolkein did have in the reincarnating Elendil and his brother (cannot remember his name right now. He sailed off to Valinorë to try to warn the Valar what was going down and plea for them to intervene, but just disappeared and JRRT was pretty nebulous as to his final fate) as representations of in ME (They were invented in a challenge with CS Lewis to write a sci-fi story and the Akallabêth was the result)… We could get the Virutual world set up, and then live in it and watch the history of ME unfold as we participate in it as well…

† This is the recommended Business model for miniatures post 2010, when Scanners and Printers will have become commonplace enough for small businesses and invested IT guys to buy on a whim. Businesses that work with production of 3D models will be in the business of providing either the 3DO files (which could be made to produce n copies of a product), or they would provide a service like I described above that would provide very high detail and color/painted figures – essentially Saint-Petersburg quality in whatever scale is wanted… OH! That was the other thing… They could be in any scale from 2mm up to 200mm. Only how much a person wanted to pay would limit that. If they wanted to pay for a life sized copy of the Chinese Emperors tomb with the clay soldiers, except done as a ME Easterling Army… It could be done…

Anyway, that is what we came up with as a business model at a meeting in Palo Alto a few weeks ago.

I must admit with their slightly different look I have used Carolginians for Men allied to Sauron at the end of the Third AAge, like the horsemen riding out from Minas Morgul that Frodo and Sam see

"Gothic. Eomir, Theodin, Theodred…all Gothic names. "

Actually, these are all Anglo-Saxon names, and are spelled Eomer, Theoden, and Theodred.

The Rohirrim are culturally based on the Anglo-Saxons.

link

Okedoke. So some names may sound Anglo-Saxon.

However, the only Germanic "horse lords" I can think of, who lived in wide open steppes/prairies and lived off the saddle, are still the Goths (particularly right before the collapse of the kingdom of Ermanaric at the hands of the Huns).

After that, the Gepids remain in Eastern Europe, but the displaced Ostrogoths become a cavalry-driven culture within the former borders of the Roman Empires.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohirrim
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostrogoths
link
link
link
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huns

Sorry to burst bubbles guys but, despite all these so-called cultural ties to Britain's past, compared to the Goths of the 4th-6th centuries, the Anglo-Saxons barely knew what a horse was.

However . . . if you want to do the Dark Ages . . .

. . . . then use Late Merovingians/ Early Carolignians as Gondorians, and use Lombards as Rohirrim:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lombards
picture

And then you could use the Arabs/Berbers invading Spain and southern Gaul as the Haradrim.

And then use Avars as Khand:

link

CC

Some confusion here. What they look like and what they *play* like could be two different answers.

"According to Tolkien's own appendix, Cardinal Hawkwood is dead on."
I read that many years ago, actually considering the Prof's day job I am amazed that this discussion happened at all..I should have been a bit more pedantic "Anglo-Saxons on horses"

Seeing Magister's new Carolingian line …
… made me wonder what THEY were historically based on

"However, the only Germanic "horse lords" I can think of, who lived in wide open steppes/prairies and lived off the saddle, are still the Goths (particularly right before the collapse of the kingdom of Ermanaric at the hands of the Huns)."

And did they live in mead halls, refer to nephews as "sister's sons" and craft long alliterative narrative poetry in the Anglo-Saxon style and have Anglo-Saxon root words as parts of their language?

No.

The Rohirrim are Anglo-Saxons… on horses. Anglo-Saxon is the *cultural* inspiration, with the horse bit borrowed from other cultures and woven in.

Now, no you wouldn't use historical Anglo-Saxon miniatures for the Rohirrim, because the real Anglo-Saxons didn't prominently feature cavalry. You wouldn't find the minis you need. You might indeed use Goths or Carolingians or what-have-you for the "look" of Rohan… but that's not the same thing as saying that Tolkien used these cultures as his primary source when he himself stated otherwise.

Their language has a lot of Anglo-saxon elements but their warstyle is all Norman.

The above topic was riddled with two competing understandings of influence; cultural influence and military influence. What is the military analogy for Rohan? I go with the Goths. Cultural influence, more complicated.

I like what I found on the Tolkien Gateway.

Several aspects of Rohan's culture and history seem to be inspired by both Goths, Scandinavians and the medieval Anglo-Saxons.

Just like the Germanic Ostrogoths, Rohirric culture was a mounted culture. It had separated from the Northmen, moved south, and had settled in close proximity with a civilization. In the Goths' case it was the Byzantine Empire and in the case of the Rohirrim, it was Gondor.

Especially Hervarar saga, with its Mirkwood, Gothic horsemen and shieldmaidens, appears to have inspired Tolkien when creating the Rohirrim, although he exchanged the Gothic tongue with the Anglo-Saxon.