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Medieval, Manufactured? Uses and Reuses of the Middle Ages

Module description

It's difficult to escape the Middle Ages. From Game of Thrones to 'bardcore' covers of pop songs on YouTube, the period between 500 and 1500 -- or, perhaps, an imagined version of it -- is omnipresent in popular culture. It has also been invoked in the political sphere, whether as a shorthand for cruelty and savagery or (more insidiously) as a reference to an idealized and mythologized inheritance. In this module, you will will explore investigate the long afterlife of the medieval world in the post-medieval West, asking how and why it has been used (and misused) in cultural productions from the 19th century to the present day.

No prior knowledge of the medieval period is required, and this module is suitable for both single- and joint-honours students in History as well as for interdisciplinary pathways.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module is based around the concept of medievalism, or 'the ongoing and broad cultural phenomenon of reinventing, remembering, recreating, and re-enacting the Middle Ages'. While you will acquire a broad swathe of knowledge on a variety of topics in medieval history, the aim of the module as a whole is more focused on understanding and interpreting how and why the medieval past has influenced subsequent centuries, and how ideas of the 'medieval' have served as foils, touchstones or shibboleths for more contemporary concerns. More broadly, the module will equip you with a range of skills for analysing non-traditional sources, and for placing sources in their historical contexts.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Understand and assess continuing significance of the medieval period to the present day;
• 2. Work critically with a range of written and visual sources relating to elements of how the ‘medieval’ have been appropriated in modern contexts;

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Identify the problems of using historical sources, e.g. utility, limitations, etc., and compare the validity of different types of sources
• 4. Present historical arguments and answer questions orally

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Conduct independent study and group work, including the presentation of material for group discussion, developed through the mode of learning
• 6. Digest, select, and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument, developed through the mode of assessment
• 7. Write to a tight word-limit

Syllabus plan

The precise topics covered as part of the module will likely vary from year to year. Broad topics to be explored, however, will include the following:

• When were the ‘Middle Ages’? How do geographical and other perspectives shape definitions of ‘medieval’?
• Approaches to thinking about the medieval past: the ‘imagined’ and ‘real’ Middle Ages;
• The reception and reuse of specific figures, such as Robin Hood, Hereward the Wake, and King Arthur;
• Political medievalisms, including constructions of a medieval past, and the relationship between the ‘medieval’ and the ‘alt-right’
• Medievalism across media: film, television, and commercial appropriations of the ‘medieval’;
• Medievalism through time: distinctions between 19^th-, 20^th-, and 21^st-century appropriations of a medieval past.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

The resources listed below range from and have been chosen to highlight the range of critical approaches and focuses that the study of medievalism offers. If you would like to read a single item on the list below, the first chapter Matthews’ Critical History offers an engaging introduction to many of the concepts that we’ll explore in the first weeks of the course. The three examples of ‘medievalism in action’ below are included to invite you to engage from the outset with primary source material; as you watch them, try to think about which aspects of the ‘Middle Ages’ are being deployed, how they are used, and to what end they are included.

General Introductions

• d'Arcens, Louise (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Medievalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016)
• Elliott, Andrew B. R., Medievalism, Politics and Mass Media: Appropriating the Middle Ages in the Twenty-First Century (Boydell and Brewer, 2017)
• Emery, Elizabeth, and Richard Utz (eds.), Medievalism: Key Critical Terms (Boydell and Brewer, 2014)
• Fugelso, Karl (ed.), Studies in Medievalism, 31 vols.(Boydell and Brewer, 1990 -)
• Matthews, David, Medievalism: A Critical History (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2015)
• Utz, Richard, Medievalism: A Manifesto (Kalamazoo: Arc Humanities Press, 2017)

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

Medievalism in Action

• W. Gordon and James Aikman, An Account of the Tournament at Eglinton (Hugh Paton, Carver and Gilder, 1839) [https://archive.org/details/accountoftournam00gord]
• Robert Hylton / Tomas Skoging (dir.), ‘That’s better. That’s Tetley.’ [TV advertisement] (2016) [https://vimeo.com/138295089]
• ‘Gameday at Medieval Times | TV Commercial’ (2014) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utnODrb6mFM]

Key words search

Medievalism, Middle Ages, Reception