"WOTR " Topic

Bloody barons is listed under "renaissance" on TMP. Not a major issue, but i have some spare time. I would call it as "medieval". Any other opinions out there?? Having said that i would also use the category called dark ages for Arthurian and post Roman empire?? Of course this is euro-centric but them that reflects the majority of the gamers involved.

martin

Agreed.

Whilst freely acknowledging that current scholarly opinion refutes the idea that the fall of the Western Roman Empire resulted in cultural 'darkness' – the term 'Dark Ages' remains convenient shorthand and readily recognisable.

As for the WotR – contemporaneous with the Renaissance, maybe, but everything about it says 'medieval' to me.
In the same way, Kamehameha's war of Hawaiian unification isn't a 'Horse and Musket' campaign merely because it took place in the late 1700's.

I don't think there is such a hard and fast "rule" that separates what is Renaissance and what is Medieval. We call the period post 1500 (or 1350 in Italy, or…) Renaissance, because that's what the people of that time used to differentiate themselves from the Middle Ages. But there was no distinct transition from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern period, and certainly no universal distinction one can point to that is universal in all countries at the time. Medieval institutions continued well after the "end" of the Middle Ages, just as ancient institutions (FREX Roman law codes) continued after the "end" of the Antiquity. So personally whether doing the WotR or the Condotta in Italy, it's all still Medieval to me…

Damon.

The editor has a bit of a blind spot when it comes to periodisation: refusing to see 'Dark Age' in a flexible (ancient to medieval) transitional way.

But this one just looks like an error. WotR is definitely Medieval.

Renaissance is pretty useless term for wragaming/military history. It's a term that only makes sense when applied to Western Art and culture (even then it is pretty dubious these days) … we can keep it but 'Reformation' makes more sense militarily and neither Ren or Ref applies to WorT or Bloody Barons

Hey Ho

Phil

I was always taught that in England at least Renaissance meant post 1485 (Bosworth), whilst in Europe post 1494.

I was taught that the Medieval period in England stopped in 1485. Or failing that, 1914. The latter was perhaps empire-building on the part of the Department of Medieval History.

The Anglo-centric view has traditionally been that Bosworth is the point at which medieval becomes Renaissance. This is, of course, complete tosh. The Renaissance as an artistic and cultural movement began much earlier in fourteenth Century Italy.

In warfare terms, however, it is nearer the mark. I believe that a better term than Renaissance is 'pike and shot'. The rise of guns as mainstream weapons and the beginning of the decline of armour is around the end of the fifteenth Century and the beginning of the sixteenth.

This would make the Wars Of The Roses a medieval conflict. The armies still looked medieval and used predominately medieval weapons.

I feel better now.
So, Bloody Barons Medieval warfare in England

If your Lancastrians have Uruk-hai auxiliaries, you are also in the Renaissance.

Yup