ABSTRACT
On the afternoon of Tuesday 16 April 1957 at Burlington House, Piccadilly, Donald Harden, newly appointed Director of the London Museum, first outlined proposals for what he called a ‘society for Dark Age and Medieval Studies’. With a perversity which only academics can muster, another member of Council then objected to the procedures by which Council was selected, finding them to be plain manipulative. The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies had been formed in 1911, and the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia of 1908 had become the Prehistoric Society in 1935, so this was the third of the period societies to be established. At the April 1957 meeting Harden explained that there was opposition to using the term ‘Dark Ages’ and put forward The Society for Medieval Archaeology and the Society for Historic Archaeology.
