Identifies and investigates international medievalism through three
distinct strands: "Internationally Nationalist", "Someone Else's Past?",
and "Activist Medievalism".
Medievalism - the reception of the Middle Ages - often invokes a set of
tropes generally considered 'medieval', rather than consciously engaging
with medieval cultures and societies. International medievalism offers
an additional interpretative layer by juxtaposing two or more national
cultures, at least one of which is medieval. 'National' can be
aspirational: it might refer to the area within agreed borders, or to
the people who live there, but it might also describe the people who
understand, or imagine, themselves to constitute a nation. And once
'medieval' becomes simply a collection of ideas, it can be re-formed as
desired, cast as more geographically than historically specific, or
function as a gateway to an even more nebulous past.
This collection explores medievalist media from the textual to the
architectural. Subjects range from The Green Children of Woolpit to
Refugee Tales, and from Viking metal to Joan of Arc. As the contributors
to each section make clear, for centuries the medieval has provided
material for countless competing causes and cannot be contained within
historical, political, or national borders. The essays show how the
medieval is repeatedly co-opted and recreated, formed as much as
formative: inviting us to ask why, and in service of what.
