Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T19:54:53.192Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2023

Get access

Summary

It was like a country remembering its history: the past was never just the past, it was what made the present able to live with itself.

You would have to turn over a few stones to find the medievalist who has not noticed that the Middle Ages are highly political these days. Many medievalists have, in fact, written insightfully about this. However, in focusing on far-right and white supremacist ‘abuses’, the conversation has often been about the floats bobbing on the surface. This leaves considerable room for exploration of the deeper cultural currents, which I attempt in this book. National Medievalism argues that a greater underlying shift back towards national referents is underway in contemporary medievalism: that, after an extended period of abeyance, the link forged in the nineteenth century between the Middle Ages and national identity is reasserting itself once more at the interface of culture and politics. In response to rapid change brought on by the social, economic, political and cultural effects of globalisation and international integration, and in spite of the growth of an ‘international’ Middle Ages over the past decades, the period is increasingly being used again to imagine pedigrees of national distinctiveness and exceptionalism for European societies.

This book offers a comparative analysis of contemporary British and Swiss medievalism to exemplify this return to stories of national exceptionalism. Such stories will, ironically enough, often rhyme with those of other nations – as they do in this case. The idea of the nation rests on the belief in a community's persistence through time. Because of this, looking back at the Middle Ages – which many suppose to be the point of origin of nations as we know them4 – is a powerful way for the national community to reassure itself of its own identity and legitimacy. Switzerland and Britain have produced distinctive but equally powerful cultural traditions or mythologies in which continuity with the medieval past is writ large. The new national medievalism that comes into view in this comparison runs the gamut of politicisation and critical awareness, ranging from broad ideas of belonging and heritage expressed in cultural and social practice to particularist and separatist political propaganda. At the same time, medievalist representations increasingly reconsider critically the ways in which national identities have relied on excluding gendered, racial and migrant ‘Others’ in favour of uncomplicated group cohesion.

Type
Chapter
Information
National Medievalism in the Twenty-First Century
Switzerland and Britain
, pp. 1 - 31
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Introduction
  • Matthias D. Berger
  • Book: National Medievalism in the Twenty-First Century
  • Online publication: 17 December 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781805430629.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Introduction
  • Matthias D. Berger
  • Book: National Medievalism in the Twenty-First Century
  • Online publication: 17 December 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781805430629.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Matthias D. Berger
  • Book: National Medievalism in the Twenty-First Century
  • Online publication: 17 December 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781805430629.001
Available formats
×