This shit is all through the Chronicle variants. Working with it is literally its own specialized field that we're constantly unpacking to figure out What Actually Fuckin' Happened Back Then and it's a lot of fun, if you find "close line-reading hand-written Old English in antique scripts and micro-comparing them to other ones to track tiny variables and attempt to reconstruct multiple missing texts as a result and discover that Edward the Elder was a ratfink who probably murdered his sister in order to control Mercia and hid all of their conflicts and half her achievements in the version of the Chronicle he controlled via making it seem like he was just randomly out there building/repairing fortresses and she likewise for no reason" to be something that's "fun."
But the crucial thing is that this was the context that Tolkien was so steeped in that it was second nature to him and translates directly into how he wrote Arda once he started taking it seriously (ie as of Lord of the Rings getting heavy on him) and in a lot of ways I don't even think it was Conscious - he was not thinking "Ah, yes, I will Make This Story An Accurate Mediaeval Representation" as such - it was just this was where he lived, what he actually lived and breathed in most of his life and what he actually did care deeply about.
There's this tendency to simplify things with "he made up the stories to explain the languages" which is . . . well I mean it's incorrect flat out (he himself firmly sites the inspiration for Eä and Arda in his and his lost friends' drives to develop a non-Normanized shared mythology and there is so much historical complexity in that ALREADY that people are often very dismissive of but like . . . the Norman invasion, long ago as it was, was also a massive colonial-imperial and culture-destroying even on the island so like . . . . but that's another tangent), but also frames "language" and "history" as being separate and that really, really wasn't how he would have experienced it, given the areas of history he was deeply involved in?
Language and language spread and language change and language history in early-Mediaeval (and late Antiquity) Europe and especially on the Isles . . . is social history. It's not SIMPLISTIC social history (the Mercians were Old English speaking from the first point that we know about them, for example, but it's genuinely arguable how Germanic their overall culture was before . . . honestly tenth century or so, especially OUTSIDE of the royal dynasties . . . ) but it's social history and it's all interconnected.
I don't think it's useful to (even given the localization of using Old English as a shorthand to represent Rohirric for example) say like, "the Rohirrim ARE the Old English", but I think it is super relevant to be like: he was actually extremely aware of how population movements and migrations of culture and so on happened across western Eurasia; how cultures defined by one thing (ie a maritime culture) would migrate to a new area and shift that alignment (into an inland/infantry based culture).
AND STUFF.
Which is related to GRRM's misunderstanding because, well. HE'S ACTUALLY SO IGNORANT he . . . doesn't entirely realize all of what he doesn't know, and so says stupidass things in public. It just cracked me up on one of my post-degree rereads that of course we don't know ARAGORN'S tax policies because we don't see any of his reign on the ground . . . but actually I can tell you some really solid things about what the sociopolitical situation Denethor had to deal with was, because of how well things like "the description of Pippin watching the military forces coming in from the various territories" actually align and make sense . . . . if you know about how societies functioning at this tech and combat level work, and so on.
The portrait of a previously very strong and well-ordered federation* that is seriously on the ropes with regions that are definitely hemming and hawing over how much they're willing to support the centralized government vs retaining enough resources to maybe go it alone, is actually really clear and really consistent! The presence of a money economy that is nonetheless clearly also on the ropes given the givens is ALSO really clear and consistent, and from that I can actually make a lot of really grounded assumptions about how Denethor is running this ship. AND STUFF.
But it's all background; it's all based in assumptions he makes in the background and assumes you're making too (or doesn't even bother to think about); assumptions about how fast people can travel, what they need to travel, what risks there are, how armies WORK, all of these things, but he's not then filling anyone in on it. These are just . . . assumptions. Which makes it a very different thing to read AFTER one picks up enough of the background knowledge that he has to actually catch all the times that he's not ACTUALLY handwaving, or ignoring, a factor: he's just assuming you understand how what he's showing you takes that into account.
*how much it counted as a voluntary federation vs an empire is gonna come down to brass tacks we don't quite have and is a long and complex discussion that, hilariously, based on details in the appendices and the Silm I can have! but would make me run out of space in this comment and probably bore everyone, but tl;dr I would argue by DENETHOR's time it's been a pretty voluntary federation for a while just because Minas Tirith/Anórien as a region really can't . . . enforce shit on anyone, they're under way too much pressure from their actual enemy.
reposting to avoid Rogue Strikeout!
and discover that Edward the Elder was a ratfink who probably murdered his sister in order to control Mercia and hid all of their conflicts and half her achievements in the version of the Chronicle he controlled via making it seem like he was just randomly out there building/repairing fortresses and she likewise for no reason" to be something that's "fun."But the crucial thing is that this was the context that Tolkien was so steeped in that it was second nature to him and translates directly into how he wrote Arda once he started taking it seriously (ie as of Lord of the Rings getting heavy on him) and in a lot of ways I don't even think it was Conscious - he was not thinking "Ah, yes, I will Make This Story An Accurate Mediaeval Representation" as such - it was just this was where he lived, what he actually lived and breathed in most of his life and what he actually did care deeply about.
There's this tendency to simplify things with "he made up the stories to explain the languages" which is . . . well I mean it's incorrect flat out (he himself firmly sites the inspiration for Eä and Arda in his and his lost friends' drives to develop a non-Normanized shared mythology and there is so much historical complexity in that ALREADY that people are often very dismissive of but like . . . the Norman invasion, long ago as it was, was also a massive colonial-imperial and culture-destroying even on the island so like . . . . but that's another tangent), but also frames "language" and "history" as being separate and that really, really wasn't how he would have experienced it, given the areas of history he was deeply involved in?
Language and language spread and language change and language history in early-Mediaeval (and late Antiquity) Europe and especially on the Isles . . . is social history. It's not SIMPLISTIC social history (the Mercians were Old English speaking from the first point that we know about them, for example, but it's genuinely arguable how Germanic their overall culture was before . . . honestly tenth century or so, especially OUTSIDE of the royal dynasties . . . ) but it's social history and it's all interconnected.
I don't think it's useful to (even given the localization of using Old English as a shorthand to represent Rohirric for example) say like, "the Rohirrim ARE the Old English", but I think it is super relevant to be like: he was actually extremely aware of how population movements and migrations of culture and so on happened across western Eurasia; how cultures defined by one thing (ie a maritime culture) would migrate to a new area and shift that alignment (into an inland/infantry based culture).
AND STUFF.
Which is related to GRRM's misunderstanding because, well. HE'S ACTUALLY SO IGNORANT he . . . doesn't entirely realize all of what he doesn't know, and so says stupidass things in public. It just cracked me up on one of my post-degree rereads that of course we don't know ARAGORN'S tax policies because we don't see any of his reign on the ground . . . but actually I can tell you some really solid things about what the sociopolitical situation Denethor had to deal with was, because of how well things like "the description of Pippin watching the military forces coming in from the various territories" actually align and make sense . . . . if you know about how societies functioning at this tech and combat level work, and so on.
The portrait of a previously very strong and well-ordered federation* that is seriously on the ropes with regions that are definitely hemming and hawing over how much they're willing to support the centralized government vs retaining enough resources to maybe go it alone, is actually really clear and really consistent! The presence of a money economy that is nonetheless clearly also on the ropes given the givens is ALSO really clear and consistent, and from that I can actually make a lot of really grounded assumptions about how Denethor is running this ship. AND STUFF.
But it's all background; it's all based in assumptions he makes in the background and assumes you're making too (or doesn't even bother to think about); assumptions about how fast people can travel, what they need to travel, what risks there are, how armies WORK, all of these things, but he's not then filling anyone in on it. These are just . . . assumptions. Which makes it a very different thing to read AFTER one picks up enough of the background knowledge that he has to actually catch all the times that he's not ACTUALLY handwaving, or ignoring, a factor: he's just assuming you understand how what he's showing you takes that into account.
*how much it counted as a voluntary federation vs an empire is gonna come down to brass tacks we don't quite have and is a long and complex discussion that, hilariously, based on details in the appendices and the Silm I can have! but would make me run out of space in this comment and probably bore everyone, but tl;dr I would argue by DENETHOR's time it's been a pretty voluntary federation for a while just because Minas Tirith/Anórien as a region really can't . . . enforce shit on anyone, they're under way too much pressure from their actual enemy.