page_title: Rohan (Middle-earth)
section_title: People
hierarchical_section_title: Rohan (Middle-earth) / In Tolkien's works / Culture / People
caption_attribution_description: Layout of the Uffington White Horse as seen from above
context_page_description: Rohan is a kingdom of horsemen, the Rohirrim, in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy setting of Middle-earth. It is mainly a grassland, and provides its ally Gondor with cavalry.
  Rohan is grounded in Anglo-Saxon tradition, poetry, and linguistics, in everything but its use of horses. Tolkien used Old English for the kingdom's language and names, pretending that this was in translation of Rohirric. Meduseld, King Théoden's hall, is modelled on Heorot, the great hall in Beowulf.
  In The Lord of the Rings, Rohan is important in the action, first against the wizard Saruman in the Battle of the Hornburg, and then in the climactic Battle of the Pelennor Fields. There, Théoden leads the Rohirrim to victory against the forces of Mordor; he is killed when his horse falls, but his niece Éowyn kills the leader of the Ringwraiths.
context_section_description: The Dúnedain of Gondor and the Rohirrim are distantly related (having, in-universe, descended from the same place), However, as opposed to the inhabitants of Gondor, who were portrayed as enlightened and highly civilized, the Rohirrim were portrayed as being on a lower level of enlightenment.
  The names and many details of Rohirric culture are derived from Germanic cultures, particularly that of the Anglo-Saxons and their Old English language, towards which Tolkien felt a strong affinity. Anglo-Saxon England was defeated by the cavalry of the Normans at the Battle of Hastings, and some Tolkien scholars have speculated that the Rohirrim are Tolkien's wishful version of an Anglo-Saxon society that retained a "rider culture", and would have been able to resist such an invasion. The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey notes that Tolkien derived the emblem of the House of Éorl, a "white horse upon green", from the Uffington White Horse carved into the grass of the chalk downs in England.
  While Tolkien represents the Rohirrim with Anglo-Saxon culture and language, their ancestors are given Gothic attributes. The names of Rhovanion's royal family, (the ancestors of the Rohirrim), include such names as Vidugavia, Vidumavi and Vinitharya, which are of Gothic origin. Vidugavia specifically has been seen as an synonym for Vitiges, king of the Ostrogoths in Italy from 536 to 540. Tolkien saw this as a parallel with the real-world relationship between Old English and Gothic.
  In response to a query about clothing styles in Middle-earth, Tolkien wrote:
  The Rohirrim were not "medieval", in our sense. The styles of the Bayeux Tapestry (made in England) fit them well enough, if one remembers that the kind of tennis-nets [the] soldiers seem to have on are only a clumsy conventional sign for chainmail of small rings.
caption: The Uffington White Horse, from where the emblem of the House of Éorl – a "white horse upon green" – is derived.[11]
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