Medieval Stasis: Difference between revisions
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Over the past 250 or so years, technological growth has happened at a rapid pace. Seventy years ago, the first programmable computers were built. They were the size of houses and had a few kilobytes worth of memory. Seventy years before that, there were no airplanes, radios, electric lights or non experimental motorized road vehicles. Seventy years before that there were no trains, ships were driven by sail and firing a gun almost inevitably involved cramming powder and ball down a barrel with a ramrod. Before the Age of Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution, things was on the whole much slower. A peasant's day to day life in 1600 and work would generally be very similar to that of his great great grandfather living in 1500. Even so, if one was to compare either Europe, the Middle East or East Asia between 1500 CE and 1500 BCE, one would soon be aware of the differences. In the earlier times weapons would be made of bronze instead of iron, architecture would typically on a much smaller scale, ships and boats would be far cruder affairs, [[Firearm|firearms]] and other black powder weapons would be absent, literacy would be rarer, cities would be smaller, the roads would be much rougher and less expansive, and fewer areas would have cities. One would notice that there were various, though typically less pronounced improvements in the middle ages between 1000 and 1500, such as the rise of windmills, basic guns, improved construction and plate armor. Even if it's overall effects on the way most people lived were not always noticeable from generation to generation, gradual refinements in tools and methods gradually accumulated as the centuries go by. | Over the past 250 or so years, technological growth has happened at a rapid pace. Seventy years ago, the first programmable computers were built. They were the size of houses and had a few kilobytes worth of memory. Seventy years before that, there were no airplanes, radios, electric lights or non experimental motorized road vehicles. Seventy years before that there were no trains, ships were driven by sail and firing a gun almost inevitably involved cramming powder and ball down a barrel with a ramrod. Before the Age of Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution, things was on the whole much slower. A peasant's day to day life in 1600 and work would generally be very similar to that of his great great grandfather living in 1500. Even so, if one was to compare either Europe, the Middle East or East Asia between 1500 CE and 1500 BCE, one would soon be aware of the differences. In the earlier times weapons would be made of bronze instead of iron, architecture would typically on a much smaller scale, ships and boats would be far cruder affairs, [[Firearm|firearms]] and other black powder weapons would be absent, literacy would be rarer, cities would be smaller, the roads would be much rougher and less expansive, and fewer areas would have cities. One would notice that there were various, though typically less pronounced improvements in the middle ages between 1000 and 1500, such as the rise of windmills, basic guns, improved construction and plate armor. Even if it's overall effects on the way most people lived were not always noticeable from generation to generation, gradual refinements in tools and methods gradually accumulated as the centuries go by and making future refinements possible. | ||
Despite this, most fantasy writers tend to ignore this fact. Usually they settle their lands at a level of development comparable around 1000-1400CE. A Knight's great great great etc, grandfather five thousand years ago fought against Orcs on the back of a great warsteed with sword and lance with in plate and a greathelm, just as he does at present. At most, some groups will be more advanced than others. This sort of thing got started with Tolkien, who was not the keenest person when it came to progress and described Middle Earth as being on the Decline; of course, 90% of other fantasy authors take the superficial elements of this without the [[Fluff|500 pages of background]] explaining why it's the case. | Despite this, most fantasy writers tend to ignore this fact. Usually they settle their lands at a level of development comparable around 1000-1400CE. A Knight's great great great etc, grandfather five thousand years ago fought against Orcs on the back of a great warsteed with sword and lance with in plate and a greathelm, just as he does at present. At most, some groups will be more advanced than others. This sort of thing got started with Tolkien, who was not the keenest person when it came to progress and described Middle Earth as being on the Decline; of course, 90% of other fantasy authors take the superficial elements of this without the [[Fluff|500 pages of background]] explaining why it's the case. | ||
Revision as of 17:06, 23 October 2013
Over the past 250 or so years, technological growth has happened at a rapid pace. Seventy years ago, the first programmable computers were built. They were the size of houses and had a few kilobytes worth of memory. Seventy years before that, there were no airplanes, radios, electric lights or non experimental motorized road vehicles. Seventy years before that there were no trains, ships were driven by sail and firing a gun almost inevitably involved cramming powder and ball down a barrel with a ramrod. Before the Age of Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution, things was on the whole much slower. A peasant's day to day life in 1600 and work would generally be very similar to that of his great great grandfather living in 1500. Even so, if one was to compare either Europe, the Middle East or East Asia between 1500 CE and 1500 BCE, one would soon be aware of the differences. In the earlier times weapons would be made of bronze instead of iron, architecture would typically on a much smaller scale, ships and boats would be far cruder affairs, firearms and other black powder weapons would be absent, literacy would be rarer, cities would be smaller, the roads would be much rougher and less expansive, and fewer areas would have cities. One would notice that there were various, though typically less pronounced improvements in the middle ages between 1000 and 1500, such as the rise of windmills, basic guns, improved construction and plate armor. Even if it's overall effects on the way most people lived were not always noticeable from generation to generation, gradual refinements in tools and methods gradually accumulated as the centuries go by and making future refinements possible.
Despite this, most fantasy writers tend to ignore this fact. Usually they settle their lands at a level of development comparable around 1000-1400CE. A Knight's great great great etc, grandfather five thousand years ago fought against Orcs on the back of a great warsteed with sword and lance with in plate and a greathelm, just as he does at present. At most, some groups will be more advanced than others. This sort of thing got started with Tolkien, who was not the keenest person when it came to progress and described Middle Earth as being on the Decline; of course, 90% of other fantasy authors take the superficial elements of this without the 500 pages of background explaining why it's the case.
Even if an author decides to include magic in the setting as an attempt to explain the slowing of technological development in favor of throwing around spells, it still often makes no sense as to why society decided to stop its progress so firmly in medieval times, as opposed to any other particular period of history, like the Roman empire or ancient Egypt (which was a remarkably conservative society, changing very little between 2000 BCE and 0 BCE), but instead progressed to an arbitrary point , which at its earlier stages actually saw technological regression from Roman times, and then stuck there for the next couple millennia.
But hey, at least we get dudes with pauldrons.
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