Dissing the Middle Ages: It's a Rant; You've Been Warned.
The husband of one of my colleagues, who has, over the years, listened to many discussions of aspects of the middle ages, often conducted at his kitchen table over pizza, has concluded that there is a common subtext to ALL academic works concerning the middle ages, and it is: "they weren't idiots! Shut up!"
Yes, true. So that's why I adore Got Medieval, whose author has made it his business to unearth current references to the middle ages, and bring them into the light, that we who are medievalists may therefore see them better, so as to make fun of them and then get all hot under the collar whilst discussing them over pizza. This morning I'd like to send you over to his earlier entry, "Christopher Hitchens Hates The Middle Ages, " wherein he lists, after having found them with the help of Google, various ways in which Mr. Hitchens has abused the middle ages. (My favorite: a quote describing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as someone who wants to "turn Islamic society into a medieval but still-lethal dust bowl," about which Going Medieval comments, "A novel distinction. Medieval dust bowls must usually be nonlethal."
He had a lovely entry concerning Angela Jolie and the plot of Beowulf, a couple of weeks ago. Too bad he has to spend so much time doing his graduate work. I could use more of this. And I'm glad there's somebody out there pulling all this together.
I'm reminded of a conversation in the Medieval Literature class the last time I taught it; we must have been reading "Sir Orfeo," and one of the students wanted to know if it was true that in the Middle Ages people used to send insane people out into the woods in order to fend for themselves.
I'm sure, I said, that at some point somebody, in the hundreds of years that made up the Middle Ages sent an insane person into the woods to get rid of him or her. And I'm willing to believe that there might have been communities that made a practice of it, at least for some period of time, though I've never heard of them. Where did you hear this?
Turns out it was some book somewhere. Even better, the same student, whilst researching her term paper, which was indeed on "Sir Orfeo," discovered the culprit! It was a scholarly tome, which delivered this information, and then in the foot note referenced one of the romances!
THIS, I explained to my class, would be like deciding that suburban Americans, in the late 20th century, suffered in large numbers from amnesia, which fact you would have discovered from watching the soap operas! Stop it!
Oh, and once the medievalists get started -- there's no end to our ire.
Yes, they did too love their children. Stop it.
No, the church did not run every aspect of their lives whether they liked it or not, and also, let me just mention for the four thousandth time, no, medieval drama did not escape from the church and then run out celebrating into the market place, having a great old time until it ran into the fourth wall. Stop it.
No, they did not eat rotten meat, whether or not they had covered it with cinnamon, except in times of horrendous grief, when the cinnamon would be missing anyway. Stop it.
Here's the deal: medievalists don't romanticize the Middle Ages, neither for bad or good. We're fascinated by them. We respect them. We like to think about them. We want to know as much as we can about them.
But on the other hand, we don't want to live in them. Humans in the European Middle Ages weren't any more idiotic than the rest of the humans in general, and neither are we.
I think Going Medieval can speak for all of us:
My discipline happens to be Medieval Studies. When I tell people this, they usually say something like, "Oh, you must really love Medieval Times/the Renaissance Festival/SCA." For the record, I don't. I study the Middle Ages because I think Chaucer is funny and middle English is interesting. I have no desire to put on fake chain mail or eat with my hands.
Right on. Everybody just stop it.
(And you! Mr. Going Medieval! Less work on the dissertation, more time on Google! Forget whatever your director is telling you. What about the rest of us!)
Yes, true. So that's why I adore Got Medieval, whose author has made it his business to unearth current references to the middle ages, and bring them into the light, that we who are medievalists may therefore see them better, so as to make fun of them and then get all hot under the collar whilst discussing them over pizza. This morning I'd like to send you over to his earlier entry, "Christopher Hitchens Hates The Middle Ages, " wherein he lists, after having found them with the help of Google, various ways in which Mr. Hitchens has abused the middle ages. (My favorite: a quote describing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as someone who wants to "turn Islamic society into a medieval but still-lethal dust bowl," about which Going Medieval comments, "A novel distinction. Medieval dust bowls must usually be nonlethal."
He had a lovely entry concerning Angela Jolie and the plot of Beowulf, a couple of weeks ago. Too bad he has to spend so much time doing his graduate work. I could use more of this. And I'm glad there's somebody out there pulling all this together.
I'm reminded of a conversation in the Medieval Literature class the last time I taught it; we must have been reading "Sir Orfeo," and one of the students wanted to know if it was true that in the Middle Ages people used to send insane people out into the woods in order to fend for themselves.
I'm sure, I said, that at some point somebody, in the hundreds of years that made up the Middle Ages sent an insane person into the woods to get rid of him or her. And I'm willing to believe that there might have been communities that made a practice of it, at least for some period of time, though I've never heard of them. Where did you hear this?
Turns out it was some book somewhere. Even better, the same student, whilst researching her term paper, which was indeed on "Sir Orfeo," discovered the culprit! It was a scholarly tome, which delivered this information, and then in the foot note referenced one of the romances!
THIS, I explained to my class, would be like deciding that suburban Americans, in the late 20th century, suffered in large numbers from amnesia, which fact you would have discovered from watching the soap operas! Stop it!
Oh, and once the medievalists get started -- there's no end to our ire.
Yes, they did too love their children. Stop it.
No, the church did not run every aspect of their lives whether they liked it or not, and also, let me just mention for the four thousandth time, no, medieval drama did not escape from the church and then run out celebrating into the market place, having a great old time until it ran into the fourth wall. Stop it.
No, they did not eat rotten meat, whether or not they had covered it with cinnamon, except in times of horrendous grief, when the cinnamon would be missing anyway. Stop it.
Here's the deal: medievalists don't romanticize the Middle Ages, neither for bad or good. We're fascinated by them. We respect them. We like to think about them. We want to know as much as we can about them.
But on the other hand, we don't want to live in them. Humans in the European Middle Ages weren't any more idiotic than the rest of the humans in general, and neither are we.
I think Going Medieval can speak for all of us:
My discipline happens to be Medieval Studies. When I tell people this, they usually say something like, "Oh, you must really love Medieval Times/the Renaissance Festival/SCA." For the record, I don't. I study the Middle Ages because I think Chaucer is funny and middle English is interesting. I have no desire to put on fake chain mail or eat with my hands.
Right on. Everybody just stop it.
(And you! Mr. Going Medieval! Less work on the dissertation, more time on Google! Forget whatever your director is telling you. What about the rest of us!)
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