International Medievalisms

<b>Identifies and investigates international medievalism through three distinct strands: Internationally Nationalist Someone Else's Past? and Activist Medievalism.</b><br><br>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.<br><br>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.