True or false

[Mark G]

The middle ages were a time of constant war.

True
Or
False?

(believe it or not, this is an official question in the current British citizenship test).

[aligern]

It must be true, in the middle ages we have the 100 years war, by 1600 its the thirty years war and by 1700 the seven years war. Thus the duration of wars has gone down over the centuries and must have been greater in the mediaeval period:-))

[Erpingham]

It's a trick question, defining neither the temporal or geographical limits of the term "Middle Ages". It also doesn't say from whose perspective we are talking - a peasant in a field somewhere, a knight, a modern commentator?  To a peasant in Rutland in 1314, his village has been at peace for as long as anyone can remember.  For an English knight in a marsh field in Scotland, this war against the Scots seems never ending. 

It is a bit like saying "The 20th century was a time of constant warfare".

[Duncan Head]

It must be true, in the middle ages we have the 100 years war, by 1600 its the thirty years war and by 1700 the seven years war. Thus the duration of wars has gone down over the centuries and must have been greater in the mediaeval period:-))

Blimey - Seven Weeks' War in 1866, Six Day War in 1967 - it works! At this rate, the nuclear war that obliterates us all in the 2060s will only last a few hours.... 

[Andreas Johansson]

Blimey - Seven Weeks' War in 1866, Six Day War in 1967 - it works! At this rate, the nuclear war that obliterates us all in the 2060s will only last a few hours....

ObOT: Lundwall's science fiction novel 2018 A. D. or the King Kong Blues takes place in a world where most the the Middle East has been turned into radioactive wastelands by the Six Minutes' War.

I once saw a "timeline of war" that showed for every year since about 3000 BC whether the world had been at war or not - defined as there being a war fought somewhere that the compilers had found out about. Needless to say, the peacefulness of an era was inversely proportional to how well documented it is. (And yes, acc'd to this, the 20th century was a period of constant warfare - every single year of it a war was going on somewhere.)

[Mark G]

Time to vote guys.

I'll post the 'correct' answer in a day or two, and we will see who gets to be British or not.

(no uk voters might want to self identify).

Not all the questions are so shoddy, who beat the Vikings (lists Anglo Saxon kings), which part of England did Boudicca come from (east, west, etc), what year was Bosworth.  All reasonable to ask.

But this one ...

[Dave Knight]

No

[Erpingham]

Taking the parameters the modern boundaries of the united kingdom, the time period 500-1500 and the perspective of most people at the time, no it wasn't.  Most wars were localised and often largely involved elites.  Even a period of warfare like The Wars of the Roses contained much more business as usual that active warfare.  Though business as usual was more violent and lawless than many of us would be comfortable with.

[Patrick Waterson]

From the perspective of a United Nations-influenced politically-correct exam question-setter, it probably was.

[aligern]

Ref Erpingham's  business as usual, I am often struck by how reatively stable even periods of great disruption must be, r the peopke concerned would just die out. Of course when armies passed whole dupustricts might be destroyed, gut considering how fragile life is and how we need water every day and food every coupke of weeks and the food cycle is long and fragile it argues that much of society had to be continuing on producing  even whilst the barbarians were invading or armies were passing through or fighting. I think its Victor Davis Hanson who points out that Grrek city states cannot have laid waste the fields surrounding a city in the way that the historians suggest because olive trees take many years to mature and if you burnt them at the levels suggested.the city was doomed,nsame I think with vines. Wheat would hopefully have been gathered in.
Roy

[Patrick Waterson]

Ref Erpingham's  business as usual, I am often struck by how reatively stable even periods of great disruption must be, or the people concerned would just die out. Of course when armies passed whole districts might be destroyed, gut considering how fragile life is and how we need water every day and food every couple of weeks and the food cycle is long and fragile it argues that much of society had to be continuing on producing  even whilst the barbarians were invading or armies were passing through or fighting. I think its Victor Davis Hanson who points out that Greek city states cannot have laid waste the fields surrounding a city in the way that the historians suggest because olive trees take many years to mature and if you burnt them at the levels suggested.the city was doomed, same I think with vines. Wheat would hopefully have been gathered in.

Victor Davis Hanson presumably does not credit Greek city-states with the intelligence and ability to purchase new young trees/vines from neighbours and get them planted, thus saving years on the growth-to-production cycle.  Otherwise yes, and one can understand the inconvenience and distress the Spartan invasions caused Athens in the Peloponnesian War (this incidentally was a Twenty-Five Years' War while the Trojan War was only a Ten Years' War, so back in antiquity wars were getting longer ...).

[valentinianvictor]

According to James Cameron the Nuclear holocaust happened in 1997! The date then moved to 2017 in further films...

I agree, trying to determine if the Middle Ages were a time of constant conflict all depends on where in the world you were living at the time. In the UK some areas were calm for many years, other areas were frequently visited by war. If we take the date of 476AD to say 1600AD then there were lots of invasions/attacks on the UK during that time frame- Angles, Jutes, Saxon's, Normans, Vikings, Vandals, French, Dutch, Spanish, Welsh, Scots, Irish plus others no doubt.

[Erpingham]

If we take the date of 476AD to say 1600AD then there were lots of invasions/attacks on the UK during that time frame- Angles, Jutes, Saxon's, Normans, Vikings, Vandals, French, Dutch, Spanish, Welsh, Scots, Irish plus others no doubt.

Of course, other inhabitants of the present UK would put the English front and centre in the list of invaders   This reminds me of the debate on the title of the appropriate wikipedia page about "Invasions of Britain" - we settled on "Invasions of the British Isles" rather than political entities in the end.

[RichT]

SPOILER ALERT

.
.
.
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http://www.citizenshiptest.org.uk/Read/ShowSection/77

"The period after the Norman Conquest up until about 1485 is called the Middle Ages (or the medieval period). It was a time of almost constant war."

So true. QED.

To be fair you can't expect a nuanced answer in a few hundred word history of the UK. The purpose of the question is to test the applicant has read the set text, not to seek historical truth. (It's stlll quite funny though).

[Erpingham]

"The period after the Norman Conquest up until about 1485 is called the Middle Ages (or the medieval period). It was a time of almost constant war."

So true. QED.

Is it from the section "The Middle Ages and All that"?  Good job we haven't developed a more nuanced understanding understanding of the period in the last 100 years, isn't it?