I've been thinking a lot about how in a lot of fanfics that explore pureblood culture, customs and politics, it is often portrayed as very victorian. This makes zero sense to me, because why would ancient, traditional Wizarding families be influenced by such a recent, muggle historical period? I've been looking into history a bit recently, and I wonder if an alternative could be that wizarding culture is influenced by ROMAN culture, politics and traditions. Think about it; spells are in latin, a lot of pureblood families have Roman names. The Roman Republic and Empire is one of the earliest examples of globalisation - I wonder if during this globalisation and Roman rule, Europe became more interconnected and, consequently, a magical community formed during this time. Prior to this, I imagine there would be witches and wizards in small tribes but they would be the minority, so perhaps during Roman rule is when a community started to form and magic started to take a more universal form (latin spells) and become more advanced. I wonder if when Rome became Christian, if that is when the Wizarding World seperated from the muggles. That would mean that their culture would still be old Roman culture, not Christian Roman culture. After Rome became Christian, Europe was pretty much Christian after that, and witchcraft would have been forbidden. Obviously we know that the ancient world evolved into feudalism, and then during the age of enlightenment and the industrial revolution, capitalism. I wonder what evolution the wizarding world would have gone through - and since modernity is such a muggle movement, I doubt that traditional purebloods would deign to align with it. If Rome created the western wizarding world, then to me it would make way more sense for pureblood customs to be Roman instead of Victorian. These are just some thoughts I've had at 3am, I am not a historian so I might be incorrect about some stuff, but I'm interested to know what people think. Maybe some of you know more about this.

 

That’s an interesting take, and it definitely has potential as a dressing for the setting. The dominant cultural dressing is something that is very easy to argue one way or the other, so you could just as easily go for a Druidic/pagan dressing by saying that the Hogwarts founders were locals or somehow opposed to Rome/its traditions.

You could also argue that the WW is Victorian because they just lag behind their Muggle counterparts by an era or so.

 

I think ultimately the idea of Victorian Pure blood culture really comes from Number 12 Grimmauld Places depiction in the movies. It's got this sort of aged 19th century aesthetic and as the home of the most Ancientest and Noblest House of Black it can be identified with contemporary Purebloded culture.

My issue with deriving pureblood culture from the ancient Romans is that they pulled out of Britain in the late 4th century. We've got a few important events that happen between then and the start of Harry Potter.

First, the invasion of William the Conqueror in 1066. We know that he brought the Malfoys with him and elevated them to nobility. Which means he was definitely willing to interfere with the Wizarding World and had some connection with them and the feudal world.

Secondly, the establishment of the Statute of Secrecy in the 18th century. You mention the split being between Wizard and Muggle at the adoption of widespread Christianity but I don't think that that is accurate. Wizards didn't remove themselves from the wider world until the Statute. Plus the existence of knights and the Fat Friar in Hogwarts and Wizarding culture point toward a wizarding culture that is at the least mixed with opinions on Christianity. Also Wizards celebrate Christmas on a large scale as seen in each book. (I think the major selling point against this is that very few wizards have Christian names.)

So between the pull out of the Romans from Britain we have two big-ish interactions between Wizards and Muggles that define their relationship in the UK. I think you are right that there is a great deal of influence from the Romans on British Wizardry but that's definitely reflected in canon with very Latin names like Albus and Draco, and to the Latin derivative spell names.

British Wizard culture is same as British Muggle culture derived from Roman culture given the influence of the Romans themselves until the 4th century and then the emergence of Norman and later French rule of which the Wizards interacted with to them same degree as the average Briton maybe a little less. British Wizards however do seem more in touch with the Roman roots given the apparent Latin descent of most magic.

 

It's also possible that the Wizarding World just liked the Victorians ideals of snobby elitism, classism, slavery, physically torturing children for misbehaving in school, and zero accountability/government oversight for teachers.

I mean, they liked the idea of a train so much they just stole one in the 1830's. I'm sure some pureblood creep Headmaster was like 'Wait wait wait...muggles are allowed to beat children half to death for the most minor of things? Huh, maybe they're on to something.'

 

You know, I was ready to castigate you for a lack of paragraphs, expecting the idea to be just as bad.

But you actually piqued my interest here. I can definitely see how someone could make that work.

My take is that you could credibly make either work, if you wanted to.

Tho tbh I'm not entirely sure what roman culture is. Aside for architecture.

 

I think the fact that the Wizengamot is seemingly an important part of the Wizarding World - appearing to act as some sort of combined high court/legislature - is another good clue as to the historical muggle influences on the magical community in Britain. It's clearly inspired by the Anglo-Saxon Witan (aka the Witenagemot) that was a practice of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms formed after Roman rule in Britain. After the Norman conquest the role of advisory council to the King was known as the curia regis (King's court) which would imply to me that muggle influence on the governance of the British magical community was still strong during times of Anglo-Saxon rule, but had waned by the time of the Norman conquest.