Let me yap about time periods in fantasy
Okay, I have seen this also in a lot of other fandoms, and given that it is a topic that comes up generally a lot, let me be the history nerd again.
With pretty much anything High Fantasy, a very common assumption within the fandom is that it is set "in medieval times". And whenever people complain about something being "unrealistic" in one way, they usually also reference some idea of the "medieval times".
Only that... most fantasy worlds are not medieval.
Partially, because they have magic and dragons and monsters, which the real middle ages did not have. Duh.
But also because the culture and technology we observe in those worlds are largely not at in line with the actually middle ages.
I have talked about this before, but long story short: a lot of people being able to read makes it likely not medieval. There being a lot of merchants having big merchant networks makes it likely not medieval. The world at large being known makes it likely not medieval. People questioning whatever religious institution there is makes it likely not medieval. Schools being a widely applied concept makes it likely not medieval. Stuff like that.
The main issue people get this mixed up is... well, people forget that for the most part - outside of those things mentioned above - the 16th to 18th century were not all that different. So, lemme go through some fantasy worlds.
Dragon Age is 18th Century
I start with Thedas I have written about Dragon Age a good bit more than the others here. And Thedas is very clearly a world that is more comparable with Europe in the mid-18th century, just before the revolutions started to get going.
This is largely based on the fact that the economy works clearly by largely mercantilist rules, with some feudal rules still applying though, but the mercantilism clearly allowing for a very specific kind of social mobility that is not common, but does exist.
More notably though: there is a printing press, and people have figured out printing so well that printing of smut serials and crime serials are clearly common. Literacy is so widely spread that even in the poorest parts of town you will find people selling newspapers and get information from pamphlets put on a board. I can once more not emphasis enough that the fact that we basically have an equivalent to penny dreadfuls in this world is telling us a lot about how non-medieval this setting actually is.
Generally of course there is still a lot of feudal economics going on - though the way this feudal system is organized differs, with some of the places being a lot more mercantile (Antiva) or oligarchic (Free Marches), while some others are a lot more feudal (Orlais and Ferelden).
Due to literacy being widespread people actually can read the religious texts, and while the Chantry is very powerful, disagreeing with it for the most part might gets you some flag, but not criminal punishment. The Chantry is tied closely to nobility though, especially in Orlais, which in this specific way actually tracks very well with pre-revolutionary France. (I cannot stretch enough how much Orlais looks specifically like 1750s/1760s France.)
For more on this: I have written more detailed thoughts on here.
Middle-Earth is a bit of a weird one in this. Because we know that the Shire was explicitly based on late 19th century countryside. Which means in this case: no steam trains, no printing, but for some reason an insanely high literacy rate. This also does show in the way how majors here seem to be largely elected, and the country folk mostly just doing their thing. This is clearly meant to echo a very specific place and time, but does feel anachronistic with the rest of Middle Earth.
Meanwhile in the rest of Middle Earth people do largely seem to live in a more early medieval state. There is feudalism, of course, but the parts of the major realms we know about (Rohan and Gondor) seem to be more loosely aligned. Gondor seems to be a bit more tightly organized than Rohan, but both nations are still somewhat loose in their self-definition. There are Lords of sorts governing their areas, and it seems that for the most part royal succession is based from some legendary (though apparently real) ancestors to the two main royal lines. Though there is no religious institution supporting the claims to any thrones.
For the most part the human realms of Middle Earth actually feel more early medieval - so not even high medieval. A lot of it feels like specifically Europe somewhere around the 7th century, with Gondor arguably in this case filling the role of the Byzantine Empire. This is of course further enhanced given that the Middle Earth we experience in Lord of the Rings is sort of post-apocalyptic - kinda how early Medieval Europe would have felt like after Rome split. Only, of course, that the collapse of Rome happen fairly recently for Medieval Europe, while in Middle-Earth the fall of the elven empires was quite a bit ago.
Admittedly, pinning it down is made harder by the fact that we see very little of normal people outside of the Shire, with most central characters being in some way noble or royal.
Westeros is fairly easy to place
Okay, here is the thing: I famously do not like Game of Thrones/Song of Ice and Fire and anything associated with it. Largely because of how Marting treats sexual violence in his books and how it relates to gender. A lot of grimdark stuff going on there that is not actually historically realistic, no matter how he frames it.
However, from a general technological level and some societal aspects Westeros is indeed the easiest to place. The entire conflict is largely inspired by the War of the Roses, which happened between 1455 and 1487. And for the most part the technology and general social hierarchies that we see checks out with it.
There is no printing press yet. While obviously in the real world it was invented around this time (about 1440), it is fine that it is not adapted here. In the real world it also took a bit between the invention and it pushing literacy rates. So this is actually fine.
There is a religious institution, that like so often in Fantasy is somewhat inspired by Catholicism, though it notably does not validate any claims for the throne.
And other than that: there is not much in terms of schools, though the Citadel does serve some purposes comparable to the medieval university. And the hierarchies and feudal system are largely what we would expect from the 15th century. So, yeah. Most of this checks out.
While I now could go on and on about how all those parallels do not make sense given the climate of the world that makes it very unlkely for culture to develop comparable to our world... But I am not gonna do that. Largely Westeros checks out as 15th century Europe.
It should be noted though, at the same time, that despite how Martin tends to self-glorify himself for his "realism", it is quite notable in this series that he does not know a lot about history. Especially in regards to how he portrays race, class, and gender politics is just fully anachronistic. Which is before you even get into this idea that somehow the world developed into medieval Europe despite one of the more central factors of what made human history do its thing being very different (the climate). But... that is for another day, I guess.
And then there is the other big one. Faerûn, or rather Toril. The world in which many Dungeons & Dragons Campaign are set, as well as the movie from 2023, BG3, and also a bunch of the older DnD based games like Neverwinter Nights.
And Faerûn is... very much not medieval.
A lot of people have spilled a lot of ink on how the worldbuilding in Faerûn is often just "whatever the plot demands", which is true. It is more an adventure setting than an actual place where normal people live. This is a world for adventurers to adventure in, and for NPCs to be pretty in the background. And that is okay.
It just is noticeable that all in all the world of Faerûn is a lot more like the late 19th century, but weird.
Generally: we have printing, we have high literacy, people are at large not particularly religious (though that is also because the religious worldbuilding is so weird here), we have universities, and actually not a whole lot of traditional hierarchies. Which does not mean that there is no hierarchies. There clearly are. But those hierarchies are largely not based in noble bloodlines, even though those exist, but more in other things.
We have several rulers who came to the position by quite literally buying into it - successful merchants that just bought themselves political power. Lord Neverember is probably the best example. But Waterdeep (with its masked council) and Baldur's Gate also count, being run by an oligarchic rather than feudal system. Generally there does not seem to be a lot of feudalism going on, though we obviously see very little of the rural populations are rural villages are largely places any story travels through and mostly exists as a place for inns, and maybe for some farmer to give main character some plot relevant information or a little side quests of killing the monsters going after their cattle.
Additionally Toril is fairly well mapped, with people being somewhat aware of how the world at large looks, what other continents exists, including some stereotypical ideas of what those continents look like.
We also have firearms being maybe not insanely common, but also not massively rare. And we have steam power, even though these are often just used in some sort of machinations and at times on ships. It should be noted, though, that one can argue that the existence of teleportation spots in pretty much all big cities also kinda makes building a railway system pointless, especially given that a rail network would probably also have to deal with monster attacks all the time. So it is arguably more sensible to just teleport where you want to go.
Generally speaking there is also other stuff where modern abilities are available largely due to magic. You can basically exchange messages in real times due to it, and magic seems to be fairly common.
Religion here is once more "whatever" though. I and many others have spoken a lot about how Faerûn is just religiously a hotchpotch and the worldbuilding does not make a whole lot of sense given that gods are undeniably real but also kinda dickheads. lol
The world of the Witcher is possibly one of the more interesting ones to discuss in this regard. Because it is one of the worlds that is once more a lot more medieval in any way we would expect: literacy rates are fairly low, there is a feudal system working with inheritance, there is for the most part little social mobility, with magic being one of the only things that allows you some mobility - but even then you might gain more influence, but still will be an outsider and marginalized person for the most part (the Witchers more so than the Sorcerers). The way we know schooling works (private tutors for noble children, some trade schools in big cities that you can buy your way in, and some universities that again largely favor noble-born folks) tracks with what we would expect to see in the Late Medieval period, especially in eastern Europe.
While we do have some places where there is a bit of mobility in terms of a mercantile class existing in some of the cities, this is not yet white spread in this continent. Which would once more put us in the cultural area of the very late medieval period, or the Rennaissance.
We also do have some religious schisms and religion being used as a tool to oppress people, in a way that largely tracks with the late 15th, and even more the general 16th century. (This is the moment to remind you that the witch hunts did not happen in the middle ages, but just when the middle ages ended!) The Eternal Flame is also used to proclaim the right of some nobles/kings, which again is still very much tracking with feudal cities.
We also do not have a printing press yet.
The one thing where this culture does put us into a bit different time is a specifical cultural aspect of it: the colonialism. The world of the Witcher was obviously colonized by humans, with the different fantasy races largely being a somewhat analogous stand-in for some real cultures. Which obviously would track more with the 17th century.
But overall, I think at large this world does rather well fit with the 16th century in Eastern Europe. Not quite medieval anymore, but also not too far removed from it.
The Kingkiller Chronicles
Lastly, while writing this stuff, I was reminded of the fact that there was one other fantasy series that I do remember well, and that is actually kind of interesting to look at in this way: the world of the Kingkiller Chronicles. (The last book is still not out, is it? I at some point gave up on checking.)
The Kingkiller Chronicles once more do us the favor of properly making one thing clear: there is a printing press. Kvothe and his friends do, at one point in the story, use a printing press to print flyers. So we know: printing is an option, and reading is spread far enough that it makes sense to use it.
Since a lot of the story is focused so much on the university, it is somewhat hard to say how wide the ability to read is spread. It does not seem to be super rare, but also rare enough as that it is a viable question to ask if someone can read.
Though one of the other quite interesting aspects here is this: the very explicit separation of religion from the education system. The fact that the university is not under the juristiction of the church is a central plot point, and that is actually quite interesting, because in the real world this largely did not happen before the late 19th or early 20th century.
Yet, this is the only aspect of the world that would set the the worldbuilding into an area that is more comparable to a fairly modern period. In general, the Kingkiller Chronicles do otherwise feature a general setting that would be more comparable with the late 17th and early 18th century - quite comparable to Dragon Age.
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