Prince Arthur is a huge dick

[captcalhoun]

Though the Vikings and the Normans were abroad...

well they can bloody well stay there! coming over here, raping our wimmin, pillaging our villages and trying to nick our throne! damn foreigners!

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I was under the impression it started off in the DarkAges.

Battle of Badon Hill was attributed to Arthur. That was around 500. Some early acco8unts don't mention Arthur.

Aren't Middle ages, Dark ages, and Medieval synonymous?

To me, Dark Ages is from the fall of the Roman Empire to, well, the Renaissance, maybe a little earlier.

Middle Ages/Mediaeval, is from 1000-1100 or so to around 1600.

The Dark Ages are actually only 'dark' because they're so poorly documented. Archaeological evidence recently shows that the time wasn't all out war barbarian plundering as once thought. Though the Vikings and the Normans were abroad...

The Middle Ages, when documentation and records and the like appeared, also advanced medicine and science significantly, to say nothing of Shakespeare and Cervantes.

For all of the above, YMMV. That's what I was taught back in the Dark Ages.

Guess I always thought of Post-Roman - House of Tudor as those 3 terms...