: The most knowledgeable medievalists (including our own Martin) usually acknowledge that Middle-earth is not a pseudo-medieval Europe. Their point of view is that Tolkien created a world similar to that which he would have been familiar with as a professor of Anglo-Saxon studies at Oxford. But my concern where the movie displays this detailed medievalist view is that it will only reinforce the mistaken notion of many fans that Tolkien's stories are really employing somehow medieval lifestyles and technologies. They are not.

: 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.

: : Getting back to the original subject, I have heard that it is
: : actually Gimli who they have chosen to be the "comic relief."
: : Of course, this was in the old, two-movie version which has
: : been well reworked and reworked again. But in that one, he was
: : a bit more crass and off-the-cuff then he appears in the books.
: : Hopefully they've fleshed out his character a bit more.

: Well, Merry was also going to be comic relief. I don't think it's going to be that big a deal. There will be a lot of intensity in the base storyline, which hasn't been altered.

As you say the world portrayed in LOTR is unlike Mediaeval Europe because there is no overt religion, or organised religious practice. It is also, however, unlike any pre-Christian European society for much the same reason, pagan religion and superstition played a huge role in these societies. If you imagine the man-hours put in by what were subsistence farmers in building Stonehenge, and all the other cult sites, it is easy to see what immense importance people gave to religious practice.
In contrast (other than Sauron/Morgoth worship) the world of LOTR had virtually no organised religion. The nearest to this situation I can think of is in the very small world of the highly educated in Classical Greece and Rome, where superstiition was replaced by either a rather formless monotheism or atheism. Though here the parallel is not exact, as nowhere in Tolkien's world is there any true philosophical thought, in the sense of "I think therefore I am" or "What is reality?" Beings who participated in creation, and conversed with Eru (such as Gandalf) were still around and could be questioned directly making such musings irrelevant. In this regard Tolkien's created world is truely unique.