: : : 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?

: Where Tolkien gives direct descriptions of things then the film producers are on firm ground. The Rohirrim are described as wearing ring-mail and conical helmets, so they will inevitably look somewhat like Norman knights.

: If the producers look at the various styles of armour, weaponry, clothing, architecture etc described loosely in LOTR they will find that all these things have to fit in with the basic premise of LOTR that it is set in a pre-industrial, pre-modern milieu in a temperate area specifically equated with what is now Europe. With these preconditions in mind it would take a positive act on the part of the producers to make things look un-mediaeval. Domestic architecture did not change hugely in Europe fom the Bronze Age until the 1300's, save that in Britain round hovels or larger halls were replaced by rectangular ones. The materials remained the same, the need for a pitched roof remained the same. The same goes for clothing the Iron Age man wore woollen hats, a sleeved tunic, trousers and a cloak in bad weather, his descendant in the 14th century wore much the same.

: If you deviate from these apparently Mediaeval looking things then you deviate from what Tolkien intended. Also if you try to give say an Assyrian, Egyptian, or other tropical or semi-tropical culture look to what you are portraying then you will have placed your buildings' and characters' appearence out of context with the temperate climate setting of the stories.

: In essence if you stick to the feel of the book you will inevitably give the film a superficially Mediaeval appearence, because it is impossible not to do so as the public's main knowledge of pre-industrial, pre-modern temperate societies is limited to that of Mediaeval Europe.

Not being an expert on the dress, armor or of any time period, I can only comment on my common perceptions. On the one hand the film shouldn't look like Ivanhoe or even Excaliber. The characters wear a hodgepodge of boots, trousers, waistcoats or vests, cloaks, and hats along with the chainmail and perhaps some body armor. The Hobbits especially seem to dress in more "modern" styles, though that may have been a leftover from the Hobbit, not to mention the "clock" on Bilbo's mantle. Certainly we have some anachronisms here. But overall the world of Middle-Earth should have a style and feel of it's own, rather than be reminiscent of either the all too familiar medieval style films we've all seen, or the current Hollywoodish sword and sorcery films, such as Conan. There certainly seems to be no hardships in the life of the Hobbits of the Shire, nor in many of the places to which they travel. Until the desolation of Mordor there aren't many places that indicate the kind of hard life and miserable existance we extend to medieval or pre-medieval peasant life in Europe.