Editing High Middle Ages (section)

==The Appeal of the High Middle Ages==
How do you like your medieval fantasy? Do you like it more refined and heroic? With beautiful Gothic cathedrals with stained glass windows and mighty castles of stone with fluttering banners full of fat friars and proud knights? Or are scholarly sultans and zealous hashashin more your type of deal? Well, this period is for you. Not that it was all lollipops and sunshine. The nobles were still playing the [[A Song of Ice and Fire|game of thrones]] via dynastic squabbles, wars of succession, and the occasional assassination. There were also the Crusades, Islamic and Mongol marauders, and endless wars over territory, resources, and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avignon_Papacy stupid bullshit like where the pope should live]. The fact that its the point where gunpowder was just barely coming into use also helps mark this as the standard point of development where a [[Medieval Stasis]] work will take place. Being a serf or a Jew in the path of these armies at this time sucked. The mix of [[Bretonnia|medieval splendor and brutality]] makes for a nice contrast. The classical civilizations have fallen, but the dark age of turmoil that resulted is over, and beauty and refinement are on the rise, but the sword is still the rule of the world, if not every day as it used to be.

This period also gave us folk heroes such as Robin Hood. And though King Arthur has his roots in the Dark Age when the native British were fighting against the invading Saxons, his popularity massively took off thanks to Norman literature and adapted by countless countries across Europe.