So my question here is a bit meta and historiographical, but worth asking I think - when did it become common to talk about "the early middle ages" rather than other definitions like "The Dark ages" or "The Viking age"?

I read a comment on another sub saying, as if it needed no further comment, that "Vikings were firmly part of the Medieval era". Which I must confess left me firmly scratching my head because in my mind, and I dont doubt also for many people of my age and of British descent, 1066 is an absolute line in the sand where the elite culture pivoted from Scandinavian to French.

In my mind, and I think reasonably, the period of Alfred and Aethelstan fighting the great heathen army is a completely different context to the post-conquest Angevin empire. Stamford Bridge and Hastings were presented as the last gasp of the old north-sea empire, "viking age" polities, before being replaced by Normans of the "Medieval age" who would soon go on the first crusade.

In Norman England there's not much at all in common in terms of ruling families, language, law, military technology , taxation, administration etc with the old Anglo-Danish kingdom, but a great deal of continuity within the Angevin-Plantagenet era 1066-1485, what I tend to think of as the "Medieval era".

So I ask - is that rupture in 1066 distorting British histography? Do Continental historians not see the end of the north sea raids and the incorporation of England into the Angevin sphere as pivotal turning points?