: People lived a certain way in Europe for many thousands of years: they farmed, raised livestock, wove their own clothes, took part in what we could call tribal or supertribal communities, and so forth. These traditions began to change during the Middle Ages under the influence of the Church, and that influence is not present in Tolkien's stories. At best only a protomedieval connection is justifiable in some cases.

I think it's clear that ME is not mediaevil 'per se', just as little as the chivalrous deeds of King Arthur and his knights belong in 15th Century England. But to what historical period does ME belong, and how would you represent it accurately? Tolkien himself, with his anglo saxon influences, was probably thinking of pre Christian Anglo Saxon Britain. But that did not exist for very long, and there is no trace of a fallen roman empire in ME (unless you count Numenor, and equate Aragorn to a pagan Charlemaigne recreating the 'holy roman empire' in the shadow of what once was). If you want to go back to a really prolonged period of pagan rule you would have to go back to pre-roman tribalism. This covered most of northern Europe right until the Romans came. Tolkien's linguistic knowledge would not be quite out of depth here, as the ancient Britons must have spoken a language related to modern Welsh, and he may have traded this for English in his 'translation'. In other areas of Europe, related languages were spoken. The ancient Britons, however, seem a shade too ferocious for most of the peoples of ME to me. Making a ME movie in this setting would thus also be a little out of place. So, whatever Jackson does, and whatever design of saddles, architechture, clothing, weaponry etc he decides to adopt, it will be historically wrong. Faced with this dilemma, I don't see why he shouldn't pick late mediaevil. This is just as completely wrong as any other period, but is free of the D&D look earlier periods have when portayed on screen.

Or can our mediaevelists correct me?