Now it should be obvious, no matter what you know or don't know about the Middle Ages, or about history in general, that life in 400 was not the same as life in 1517.
In the field of English literature, in the very beginning of the medieval period it did not exist. One of the earliest example of Old English (Anglo-Saxon) is Caedmon's Hymn, from the mid 7th century.
- nu scylun hergan hefaenricaes uard
- metudæs maecti end his modgidanc
- uerc uuldurfadur swe he uundra gihwaes
- eci dryctin or astelidæ
- he aerist scop aelda barnum
- heben til hrofe haleg scepen.
- tha middungeard moncynnæs uard
- eci dryctin æfter tiadæ
- firum foldu frea allmectig
This is, as I'm sure you can tell, virtually unrecognizable to a contemporary English speaker.
Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur, from the end of the 15th century, is also medieval literature, and though it is very late-medieval, I don't know of anyone who would categorize Malory as anything but a medieval writer. But his writing is much closer to what we read now. Here is a passage wherein Malory complains about the fickleness of the English, as they rebel against King Arthur:
Lo, ye, all Englysshemen, se ye nat what a myschyff here was? For he that was the moste kynge and nobelyst knyght of the worlde, and moste loved the felyshyp of noble knyghtes--and by hym they all were upholdyn--and yet myght nat thes Englyshemen holde them contente with hym. Lo, tus was the olde custom and usayges of thys londe; and men say that we of thys londe have nat yet loste that custom. Alas, thys ys a greate defaughte of us Englyshemen, for there may no thynge us please no terme. And so fared the peple at that tyme.
Now Malory would not have had an easier time of reading Caedmon than we do. He did read older English than his own, but it would have been practically a foreign language to him, as it is to us.
For comparison's sake, Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis was written and published only a little more than 100 years after Malory.
Because of the way most academic departments think about history, I, who am studying Malory and Spenser, am catagorized as a medievalist, and so is my advisor, who studies Beowulf. I'm not complaining about him or about my department--my advisor is a great scholar and editor who is certainly helping me craft a better thesis. In fact I'm not complaining at all. But to say that because someone has specialized in Beowulf is in the same era as someone who is specializing in Malory is like saying that someone who specialized in Shakespeare is in the same era as someone specializing in Toni Morrison.
And I don't have any idea why Toni Morrison is always my go-to example of contemporary literature. But she is very popular this century.
My only point, really, is that the Middle Ages were very very long.
Nobody characterizes Shakespeare as a medieval writer (nor should they), yet he lived so near in time to Malory that an unusually long-lived-person may have met both.Even as the sun with purple-colour'd face
Had ta'en his last leave of the weeping morn,
Rose-cheek'd Adonis tried him to the chase;
Hunting he lov'd, but love he laugh'd to scorn;
Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him,
And like a bold-fac'd suitor 'gins to woo him.
Because of the way most academic departments think about history, I, who am studying Malory and Spenser, am catagorized as a medievalist, and so is my advisor, who studies Beowulf. I'm not complaining about him or about my department--my advisor is a great scholar and editor who is certainly helping me craft a better thesis. In fact I'm not complaining at all. But to say that because someone has specialized in Beowulf is in the same era as someone who is specializing in Malory is like saying that someone who specialized in Shakespeare is in the same era as someone specializing in Toni Morrison.
And I don't have any idea why Toni Morrison is always my go-to example of contemporary literature. But she is very popular this century.
My only point, really, is that the Middle Ages were very very long.
