3 ms·

As a noob asking from a place of curiosity, does “Medieval” mean anything outside of the Europe sphere of influence? Medieval evokes a certain imagery in my min

As a noob asking from a place of curiosity, does “Medieval” mean anything outside of the Europe sphere of influence? Medieval evokes a certain imagery in my mind, rather than a time period. It feels weird and Eurocentric to refer to Asian countries in ~1200 as “Medieval” for example.

senkora 3y ago
The general term is the Post-classical Era. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-classical_history https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-classical_history
nemo 3y ago
"Medieval" can sometimes be applied to places like China or India, but it's not used that way by historians. In general historians don't use the terms "Medieval" or "Dark Ages" much anymore, and if they do it's with qualifiers. For Europe "Post-Classical," "Early Middle Ages" or "Late Antiquity" are more often used refer to the earlier Middle Ages.
- Vt71fcAqt7 3y ago
  "Medieval" is certainly still used.[0] "Dark Age" is no longer used interchangeably with Medieval, however. This is because many now see the period starting from the High Middle Ages in Europe as directly leading to the modern period. Refering to the entire Medieval period as a Dark Age is to take a side in that argument. [0]https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=Medieval&scisbd=1 https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=Medieval&scisbd=1
eesmith 3y ago
When this came up a couple week ago, I found examples of people using "medieval Arabic", "Medieval Africa", and even more specifically "Medieval Somalia". See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35984909 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35984909 for links. These are used in modern scholarly writing, like "The Medieval Archaeology of Somaliland" from 2002 at https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190854584.013.566 https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190854584.013.566 and "China in medieval Indian imagination: “China”-inspired images in medieval South Asia" from 2021 at https://doi.org/10.1017/S1479591421000176 https://doi.org/10.1017/S1479591421000176 . However, as others have commented, just because people do use them isn't enough to say if that's the primary form to refer to that period of time.

senkora 3y ago

The general term is the Post-classical Era. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-classical_history https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-classical_history

nemo 3y ago

"Medieval" can sometimes be applied to places like China or India, but it's not used that way by historians. In general historians don't use the terms "Medieval" or "Dark Ages" much anymore, and if they do it's with qualifiers. For Europe "Post-Classical," "Early Middle Ages" or "Late Antiquity" are more often used refer to the earlier Middle Ages.

Vt71fcAqt7 3y ago
"Medieval" is certainly still used.[0] "Dark Age" is no longer used interchangeably with Medieval, however. This is because many now see the period starting from the High Middle Ages in Europe as directly leading to the modern period. Refering to the entire Medieval period as a Dark Age is to take a side in that argument. [0]https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=Medieval&scisbd=1 https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=Medieval&scisbd=1

eesmith 3y ago

When this came up a couple week ago, I found examples of people using "medieval Arabic", "Medieval Africa", and even more specifically "Medieval Somalia". See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35984909 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35984909 for links. These are used in modern scholarly writing, like "The Medieval Archaeology of Somaliland" from 2002 at https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190854584.013.566 https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190854584.013.566 and "China in medieval Indian imagination: “China”-inspired images in medieval South Asia" from 2021 at https://doi.org/10.1017/S1479591421000176 https://doi.org/10.1017/S1479591421000176 . However, as others have commented, just because people do use them isn't enough to say if that's the primary form to refer to that period of time.