Welcome to medievalist.com

The articles on this website—written for both the public and scholars—engage directly with medieval literature and culture and with translation and adaptation from the medieval period to the present. Many of the posts will be based on ongoing research projects; others will explore medieval subjects in popular culture, discuss the state of the field of medieval studies and problems in the discipline, or respond to current events and news items.

The Middle Ages continue to permeate the present. From Disney movies to The History Channel, medieval subjects and adaptations of medieval texts feature regularly in popular media. The ways in which the present and other eras engage with and create the Middle Ages encourages critical understanding of how thought is culturally encoded and produced. The study of medieval literature and culture also invites critical thinking about alterity and the familiar. Medieval writers regularly confronted many of the same existential questions that have always preoccupied humanity. The languages, institutions, laws, and societal challenges of the medieval period continue to haunt modernity. Additionally, the consequences of the development of the field of medieval studies in the nineteenth century can be observed in today’s political discourse and the production of popular depictions of medieval life. Through thinking about how medieval people explored the natural world, science, medicine, spirituality and morality, race, gender, economic inequality, political ideology and ethics, climate change, and how they encoded all of this thought in treatises, poetry, romances, hagiography, sermons, and so on, modern readers can arrive at a better understanding of not only history but also their own cultural framework.

If you have a question about the Middle Ages, one of the articles, or the field of medieval studies, please contact me.