Members of the heroic, civic-minded Arthurian Generation, which include some of our ancestors, were born between 1433 and 1460; the youngest of that generation left the world's stage about 1540.1 The Arthurian Generation (of the Hero archtype in the Late Medieval Half-Saeculum, or Half-Cycle) grew up during England's demoralizing retreat from France (the inglorious end of the Hundred Years War), an era of rising pessimism and civil disorder. Raised amid elder hopes that they might save the kingdom, the Arthurians came of age with a civil war (the War of the Roses) that did not end until 28-year-old Henry Tudor established his new monarchy. Entering midlife, the Arthurians closed ranks around a manly new era of prosperity (led by wool exports), social discipline (led by busy local magistrates), and strong central government (led by the new Star Chamber). Entering old age, they enclosed fields, printed books, and planned voyages to the New World, securing a reputation for chivalric teamwork immortalized in Morte D'Arthur, their generation's treasured epic.
Their children were either the adaptive Humanist Generation or the first wave of the idealistic Reformation Generation.
Birthyears for the Arthurian Generation
(Linked names are ancestors of ours;
linked "G-" numbers refer to the family generations of those ancestors.)
Notes:
1. The information on this page has been adapted with permission from William Strauss and Neil Howe, The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy (New York: Broadway Books [Bantam-Doubleday-Dell], 1997), p. 127. [Back to your place on this page.]
Other sources
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