Making the Medieval Relevant: How Medieval Studies Contribute to Improving Our Understanding of the Present

306 Pages·2020·2.859 MB·English

by  Chris Jones, Conor Kostick, Klaus Oschema (eds.)

MakingtheMedievalRelevant
Das Mittelalter
Perspektiven mediävistischer
Forschung
Beihefte
Herausgegeben von
Ingrid Baumgärtner, Stephan Conermann
und Thomas Honegger
Band 6
Making the Medieval
Relevant
How Medieval Studies Contribute to Improving
our Understanding of the Present
Edited by
Chris Jones, Conor Kostick, and Klaus Oschema
ThepublicationofthisbookhasbeengenerouslysupportedbyaBritishAcademyRisingStar
EngagementAward,bytheMediävistenverbande.V.,andbyopenaccessgrantsfromthe
UniversityofCanterbury(Christchurch,NewZealand)andtheRuhr-UniversityBochum(Germany).
ISBN978-3-11-054530-2
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©2020ChrisJones,ConorKostick,KlausOschema,publishedbyWalterdeGruyterGmbH,
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Contents
ChrisJones,ConorKostick,andKlausOschema
WhyShouldweCareabouttheMiddleAges?PuttingtheCaseforthe
RelevanceofStudyingMedievalEurope 1
Science
Tobias Kluge and Maximilian Schuh
Providing Reliable Data? Combining Scientific and Historical Perspectives on
Flooding Events in Medieval and Early Modern Nuremberg (1400–1800) 31
Conor Kostick and Francis Ludlow
Medieval History, Explosive Volcanism, and the Geoengineering Debate 45
Jörg Feuchter
The Middle Ages in the Genetics Lab 99
Freya Harrison and Erin Connelly
Could Medieval Medicine Help the Fight Against Antimicrobial Resistance? 113
Education
Julien Demade
The Contemporary Delegitimization of (Medieval) History – and of the Traditional
University Curriculum as a Whole 135
Chris Jones and Madi Williams
Pacific Perspectives: Why study Europe’s Middle Ages in Aotearoa New
Zealand? 151
Laura Grazia Di Stefano
How to be a Time Traveller: Exploring Venice with a Fifteenth-Century Pilgrimage
Guide 171
VI Contents
Society
Klaus Oschema
Heaven Can Tell ... Late Medieval Astrologers as Experts – and what they can
Teach us about Contemporary Financial Expertise 191
Elva Johnston
Eoin MacNeill’s Early Medieval Ireland: A Scholarship for Politics or a Politics of
Scholarship? 211
Hélène Sirantoine
What’s in a Word? Naming ‘Muslims’ in Medieval Christian Iberia 225
Niamh Wycherley
The Enduring Power of the Cult of Relics – an Irish Perspective 239
Ben Jervis
Resilience and Society in Medieval Southampton: An Archaeological Approach to
Anticipatory Action, Politics, and Economy 255
Reflections
Pierre Monnet
Studyingthe MiddleAges: Historical Foodfor Thoughtinthe Present Day 277
NotesonContributors 289
Index 293
ChrisJones, ConorKostick,and KlausOschema
Why Should we Care about the Middle Ages?
Putting the Case for the Relevance of
Studying Medieval Europe
Abstract:Thisintroductorychapterputsforwardacaseforthecontinuingimportance
of studying the European Middle Ages. The early twenty-first century is witness to a
boom in popular interest in the medieval, one which is playing a significant role in
shaping both politics and popular culture. Paradoxically, while this boom has led to
increasingstudyof‘medievalism’,investmentinthedisciplinesthatinvolvethestudy
of the Middle Ages themselves is in relative decline with questions frequently raised
about the value of such research. This chapter begins by examining the challenges
thatnecessitateadefenceofresearchwhosekeyfocusistheperiodbetweenthefifth
and the fifteenth centuries. It goes on to consider the nature of the relationship that
hasdeveloped betweenModernityand the Middle Agesandreflectsonthechanging
rolethatmedievalscholarshaveplayedinsocietysinceHistoryemergedasaprofes-
sionaldisciplineinthenineteenthcentury.Itposestheimportantquestionofwhata
focusonthemedievalmightoffercontemporarysociety,arguingthatasignificantdis-
tinction should be drawn between ‘usefulness’ and ‘relevance’. It contends that not
onlydoesthemedievalremainrelevantbutthatthatrelevanceistobefoundinsur-
prising, frequently overlooked, areas that range from advancing modern medical
knowledgeandassessingtheimpactofclimatechangetoinformingcontemporarypo-
liticalandsocialdiscourse.
Keywords: Medieval Studies, historiography, medievalism, History and Society,
popularhistory,ideology,contemporaryandmodernnationalisms
There is a growing ambivalence concerning the relationship between modern (west-
ern)societiesandthemedievalworldfromwhichtheysprang.Theexperienceofthe
firstdecadesofthetwenty-firstcenturysuggeststhatattemptsatcriticalreflectionon
the state of the study of Europe’s Middle Ages, and on the relationship between the
medieval period and contemporary society in particular, often involve paradoxes,
ChrisJones,DepartmentofHistory,UniversityofCanterbury,PrivateBag4800,Christchurch
8140,NewZealand,[email protected]
ConorKostick,DepartmentofHistory,SchoolofHistory&Humanities,TrinityCollegeDublin,
Dublin2,Ireland,[email protected]
KlausOschema,GeschichtedesMittelalters(insb.desspätenMittelalters),Ruhr-Universität
Bochum,HistorischesInstitut,Universitätsstr.150,44801Bochum,Germany,
[email protected]
OpenAccess.©2020ChrisJonesetal.,publishedbyDeGruyter. Thisworkislicensedundera
CreativeCommonsAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives4.0InternationalLicense.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110546316-001
2 ChrisJones,ConorKostick,andKlausOschema
contradictions,andideologicalconflicts.1Thisis,inpart,theresultofanabuseofthe
periodbythoseintentonfabricatingamythical‘goldenage’tojustifyabhorrent,rac-
istideologies.Tragically,on15March2019,ahorrifyingexampleofsuchabusewas
evidentinconnectionwiththemassacreoffifty-onepeopleattendingFridayprayers
attwomosquesinChristchurch,NewZealand:theallegedperpetratormadeuseofa
cycleofmedievalimagesthatwhitesupremacistshavesoughttoassociatewiththeir
repugnant ideology. This dialectic, however, is also a consequence of the way in
which the period between the fifth and the fifteenth centuries has proved a fecund
source for shaping wider popular culture. The influence of images, concepts, and
ideasthatare–correctlyorwrongly–identifiedwith‘theMiddleAges’can,forex-
ample, be felt in the pseudo-medieval, pseudo-Shakespearian world constructed by
Kenneth BRANAGH for Marvel Studio’s ‘Thor’ (2011). It informs the re-imagining of
Aotearoa New Zealand as J. R. R. TOLKIEN’s Middle Earth (2001–2014) by Peter
JACKSON. And it strongly marks the dark fantasy that is both George R. R. MARTIN’s
novels and their adaptation by HBO as ‘Game of Thrones’ (2011–).2 Without doubt,
these latter are less reprehensible than the twisting of history to create a sense of
identity for neo-Nazi groups. But even if these creations are clearly fictional, they
have the power to convey images and ideas that shape the attitudes and beliefs of
theiraudiencesinthe‘real’world.
Inrecentyears,therehasbeenamarkedshiftinscholarshiptofocusonpopular
culture’sincreasingembraceoftheMiddleAges.Thetrendistermed,byacademicsat
1 See, for example, Peter RAEDTS, Die Entdeckung des Mittelalters. Geschichte einer Illusion,
Darmstadt 2016 (Dutch orig. 2011); Tommaso DI CARPEGNA FALCONIERI, Medioevomilitante. La po-
liticadi oggi alle prese con barbarie crociati,Turin 2011 (English translation in preparation; we
refer to the French translation: Médiéval et militant. Penser le contemporain à travers le Moyen
Âge,transl.MichèleGRÉVIN,Paris2015);ValentinGROEBNER,DasMittelalterhörtnichtauf.Überhis-
torisches Erzählen, Munich 2008; Jacques LE GOFF, Faut-il vraiment découper l’histoire en
tranches?, Paris 2014; K. Patrick FAZIOLI, The Mirror of the Medieval: An Anthropology of the
Western Historical Imagination, New York 2017. Inspiring older contributions include: Peter VON
MOOS,GefahrendesMittelalterbegriffs.DiagnostischeundpräventiveAspekte,in:JoachimHEINZLE
(ed.), Modernes Mittelalter. Neue Bilder einer populären Epoche, Frankfurt, Leipzig 1994,
pp.33–63.
2 Foradetailedstudyofthelatter:CarolyneLARRINGTON,WinterisComing.TheMedievalWorldof
GameofThrones,London,NewYork2015(Germantransl.byJörgFÜNDLING,Stuttgart2016);Zita
ROHR / Lisa BENZ (eds.), Queenship and the Women of Westeros: Female Agency and Advice in
GameofThronesandASongofIceandFire,Cham2019(forthcoming).Foramoregeneralperspec-
tiveseeAndrewB.R.ELLIOTT,Medievalism,PoliticsandMassMedia.AppropriatingtheMiddle
AgesintheTwenty-firstCentury(Medievalism10),Cambridge2017.Furtherstudiesonconstruc-
tions of the Middle Ages in popular culture can be found in Tobias ENSELEIT / Christian PETERS
(eds.),BildervomMittelalter.VorstellungenvoneinervergangenenEpocheundihreInszenierung
inmodernenMedien(WissenschaftlicheSchriftenderWWUMünster.ReiheX,26),Münster2017.
WilliamBLANC,WinterisComing.Unebrèvehistoirepolitiquedelafantasy,Montreuil2019,pro-
posesaninterpretationofmedievalismsinfantasticliteraturethatunderlinestheintimaterelation
withtherespectivepoliticalandsocialenvironmentanditspreoccupations.