Me, seeing this saying “medieval people” and realizing it means “a slice of the world’s population that lived in this (probably western European), but I guess fuck the rest and they don’t count”
Fair point, but that doesn’t stop people using “bronze age” and others (often forgetting that the chacolithic is even a thing) within Europe and a bit beyond without acknowledging that the dates for that (and the “iron age” for that matter) can vary a great deal.
“Bronze Age” and “Iron Age” are not regional in the same way that “Medieval” is. They can be used as global or developmental terms (ie ‘The Bronze Age world’, or ‘A Bronze Age society’), but medieval, by contrast, refers to a specific period of time, and, by origin and usage, generally a specific region - Europe. It would be like complaining that Italy is never mentioned as being part of the Sengoku Jidai in the 15th and 16th centuries AD.
Me, seeing this saying “medieval people” and realizing it means “a slice of the world’s population that lived in this (probably western European), but I guess fuck the rest and they don’t count”
‘Medieval’ to refer to societies outside of Europe remains a very contested usage.
Fair point, but that doesn’t stop people using “bronze age” and others (often forgetting that the chacolithic is even a thing) within Europe and a bit beyond without acknowledging that the dates for that (and the “iron age” for that matter) can vary a great deal.
“Bronze Age” and “Iron Age” are not regional in the same way that “Medieval” is. They can be used as global or developmental terms (ie ‘The Bronze Age world’, or ‘A Bronze Age society’), but medieval, by contrast, refers to a specific period of time, and, by origin and usage, generally a specific region - Europe. It would be like complaining that Italy is never mentioned as being part of the Sengoku Jidai in the 15th and 16th centuries AD.