The term 'medieval studies' began to be adopted by academics in the opening decades of the twentieth century, initially in the titles of books likeG. G. Coulton'sTen Medieval Studies (1906), to emphasize a more interdisciplinary approach to a historical subject. A major step in institutionalising this field was the foundation of theMediaeval (now Medieval) Academy of America in 1925.[1][2][3] In American and European universities the termmedieval studies provided a coherent identity to centres composed of academics from a variety of disciplines including archaeology, art history, architecture, history, literature and linguistics. The Institute of Mediaeval Studies at St. Michael's College of the University of Toronto became the first centre of this type in 1929;[4] it is now thePontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (PIMS) and is part of theUniversity of Toronto. It was soon followed by theMedieval Institute at theUniversity of Notre Dame in Indiana, which was founded in 1946 but whose roots go back to the establishment of a Program of Medieval Studies in 1933.[5] As with many of the early programs at Roman Catholic institutions, it drew its strengths from the revival of medieval scholastic philosophy by such scholars asÉtienne Gilson andJacques Maritain, both of whom made regular visits to the university in the 1930s and 1940s.
These institutions were preceded in the United Kingdom, in 1927, by the establishment of the idiosyncraticDepartment of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, atthe University of Cambridge. Although Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic was limited geographically (to theBritish Isles andScandinavia) and chronologically (mostly theearly Middle Ages), it promoted the interdisciplinarity characteristic of Medieval Studies and many of its graduates were involved in the later development of Medieval Studies programmes elsewhere in the UK.[6] Around the same time as the first North American Medieval Studies institutions were founded, the UK saw the development of some scholarly societies with a similar remit, including the Oxford Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature (1932) and its offshoot the Manchester Medieval Society (1933).[7]: 112–13
With university expansion in the late 1960s and early 1970s encouraging interdisciplinary cooperation, centres similar to (and partly inspired by) the Toronto Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies were established in England atUniversity of Reading (1965), atUniversity of Leeds (1967) and theUniversity of York (1968), and in the United States atFordham University (1971).[8][7]: 112–13
The term "Middle Ages" first began to be common in English-language history-writing in the early nineteenth century.Henry Hallam's 1818View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages has been seen as a key stage in the promotion of the term, along withRuskin's 1853Lectures on Architecture.[17][18] The termmedievalist was, correspondingly, coined by English-speakers in the mid-nineteenth century.[19]
The concept of the Middle Ages was first developed byRenaissance humanists as a means for them to define their own era as new and different from what came before—whether a renewal of Classical Antiquity (theRenaissance) or what came to be calledmodernity.[9]: 678–79 This gave nineteenth-centuryRomantic scholars, in particular, the intellectual freedom to imagine the Middle Ages as ananti-modernistutopia—whether a place nostalgically to fantasise about a more conservative, religious, and hierarchical past or a more egalitarian, beautiful, and innocent one.[9]: 678–81
European study of the medieval past was characterised in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries byromantic nationalism, as emergentnation-states sought to legitimise new political formations by claiming that they were rooted in the distant past.[20] The most important example of this use of the Middle Ages was the nation-building that surrounded theunification of Germany.[21][22][23] Narratives which presented the nations of Europe as modernizing by building on, yet also developing beyond, their medieval heritage, were also important facets underpinning justifications ofEuropean colonialism andimperialism during theNew Imperialism era. Scholars of the medieval era in theUnited States also used these concepts to justify theirwestward expansion across theNorth American continent. These colonialist and imperialist connections meant that medieval studies during the 19th and 20th centuries played a role in the emergence ofwhite supremacism.[24][25]
However, the early twentieth century also saw the increasing professionalisation of research on the Middle Ages. In this context, researchers tended to resist the idea that the Middle Ages were distinctively different from modernity. Instead they argued the so-called 'continuity thesis' that institutions conventionally associated with modernity in Western historiography like nationalism, the emergence of states, colonialism, scientific thought, art for its own sake, or people's conception of themselves as individuals all had a history stretching back into the Middle Ages, and that understanding their medieval history was important to understanding their character in the twentieth century.[9] Twentieth-century Medieval Studies were influenced by approaches associated with the rise ofsocial sciences such aseconomic history andanthropology, epitomised by the influentialAnnales School. In place of what the Annalistes calledhistoire événementielle, this work favoured study of large questions overlong periods.[26]
In the wake of theSecond World War, the role of medievalism inEuropean nationalism led to greatly diminished enthusiasm for medieval studies within the academy—though nationalist deployments of the Middle Ages still existed and remained powerful.[27] The proportion of medievalists in history and language departments fell,[28] encouraging staff to collaborate across different departments; state funding of and university support for archaeology expanded, bringing new evidence but also new methods, disciplinary perspectives, and research questions forward; and the appeal of interdisciplinarity grew. Accordingly, medieval studies turned increasingly away from producing national histories, towards more complex mosaics of regional approaches that worked towards a European scope, partly correlating with post-WarEuropeanisation.[27] An example from the apogee of this process was the largeEuropean Science Foundation projectThe Transformation of the Roman World that ran from 1993 to 1998.[29][30]
Amidst this process, from the 1980s onwards medieval studies increasingly responded to intellectual agendas set bypostmoderncritical theory andcultural studies, withempiricism andphilology being challenged by or harnessed to topics like thehistory of the body.[31][26] This movement tended to challenge theprogressivist account of the Middle Ages as belonging to a continuum of social development that begat modernity and instead to see the Middle Ages as radicallydifferent from the present.[9] Its recognition that scholars' views are shaped by their own time led to the study ofmedievalism—the post-medieval use and abuse of the Middle Ages—becoming an integral part of Medieval Studies.[32][33]
In the twenty-first century,globalisation led to arguments that post-war Europeanisation had drawn too tight a boundary around medieval studies, this time at the borders of Europe,[34] with Muslim Iberia[35][36] and theOrthodox Christian east[37] seen in western European historiography as having an ambivalent relevance to medieval studies. Thus a range of medievalists have begun working on writingglobal histories of the Middle Ages—while, however, navigating, the risk of imposing Eurocentric terminologies and agendas on the rest of the world.[37][38][39][40][41][42] By 2020, this movement was being characterised as the 'global turn' in Medieval Studies.[43] Correspondingly, theUCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, founded in 1963, changed its name in 2021 to UCLA Center for Early Global Studies.[44]
ManyCentres / Centers for Medieval Studies exist, usually as part of a university or other research and teaching facility. Umberella organisations for these bodies include the Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Etudes Médiévales (FIDEM) (founded 1987) and Co-operative for Advancement of Research through Medieval European Network (CARMEN). Some notable ones include:
TheCentre d'études supérieures de civilisation mediévale or Center of Advanced Studies in Medieval Civilization at theUniversity of Poitiers, France (Official site)
^George R. Coffman, ‘The Mediaeval Academy of America: Historical Background and Prospect’,Speculum, 1 (1926), 5–18.
^William J. Courtenay, 'The Virgin and the Dynamo: The Growth ofMedieval Studies in North America: 1870–1930', inMedieval Studies in North America: Past, Present, and Future, ed. by Francis G. Gentry and Christopher Kleinhenz (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1982), pp. 5–22.
^Luke Wenger, 'The Medieval Academy and Medieval Studies in North America', inMedieval Studies in North America: Past, Present, and Future, ed. by Francis G. Gentry and Christopher Kleinhenz (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1982), pp. 23–40.
^H. Damico, J. B. Zavadil, D. Fennema, and K. Lenz,Medieval Scholarship: Philosophy and the arts: biographical studies on the formation of a discipline (Taylor & Francis, 1995), p. 80.
^Michael Lapidge, 'Introduction: The Study of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic in Cambridge, 1878-1999', inH. M. Chadwick and the Study of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic in Cambridge, ed. by Michael Lapidge (Aberystwyth: Department of Welsh, Aberystwyth University, 2015),ISBN9780955718298, pp. 1-58 [=Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies, 69/70 (2015)].
^abcdAlaric Hall, 'Leeds Studies in English: A History',Leeds Medieval Studies, 2 (2022), 101–39doi:10.57686/256204/24.
^abG. McMullan and D. Matthews,Reading the medieval in early modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 231.
^abcdeFreedman, Paul, and Gabrielle Spiegel, 'Medievalisms Old and New: The Rediscovery of Alterity in North American Medieval Studies',American Historical Review, 103 (1998), 677–704.doi:10.1086/ahr/103.3.677.
^D. Metzger and L. J. Workman,Medievalism and the academy II: cultural studies (Boydell & Brewer, 2000), p. 18.
^Alan Deyermond, 'Introduction', inA Century of British Medieval Studies, ed. by Alan Deyermond (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 1–5.
^W. D. PadenmThe Future of the Middle Ages: medieval literature in the 1990s (University Press of Florida, 1994), p. 23.
^A. Molho, and G. S. Wood,Imagined histories: American historians interpret the past (Princeton University Press, 1998), p. 238.
^Sawyer, Peter (2009). "The Origins of theInternational Medieval Bibliography: Its Unwritten History (as told by its Founder)".Bulletin of International Medieval Research. 14 for 2008:57–61.
^Macartney, Hilary (2007). "LaInternational Medieval Bibliography como herramienta de investigación para la historiografía de ciudades medievales y sus territorios".La Ciudad Medieval y Su Influencia Territorial: Nájera. Encuentros Internacionales del Medievo 3, 2006:439–450.
^Robert I. Moore, 'A Global Middle Ages?', inThe Prospect of Global History, ed. by James Belich, John Darwin, Margret Frenz, and Chris Wickham (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 80-92 (pp. 82-83).
^"medieval, adj. and n.", "middle age, n. and adj." Accessed 5 August 2018. OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2018, www.oed.com/view/Entry/115638; www.oed.com/view/Entry/118142. Accessed 5 August 2018.
^"medievalist, n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2018, www.oed.com/view/Entry/115640. Accessed 5 August 2018.
^Ian Wood, 'Literary Composition and the Early Medieval Historian in the Nineteenth Century', inThe Making of Medieval History, ed. by Graham Loud and Martial Staub (York: York Medieval Press, 2017),ISBN9781903153703, pp. 37-53.
^Bastian Schlüter, 'Barbarossa's Heirs: nation and Medieval History in Nineteenth-cand Twentieth-Century Germany', inThe Making of Medieval History, ed. by Graham Loud and Martial Staub (York: York Medieval Press, 2017),ISBN9781903153703, pp. 87-100.
^Bernhard Jussen, 'Between Ideology and Technology: Depicting Charlemagne in Modern Times', inThe Making of Medieval History, ed. by Graham Loud and Martial Staub (York: York Medieval Press, 2017),ISBN9781903153703, pp. 127-52.
^Christian Lübke, 'Germany's Growth to the East: From the Polabian Marches to Germania Slavica', inThe Making of Medieval History, ed. by Graham Loud and Martial Staub (York: York Medieval Press, 2017),ISBN9781903153703, pp. 167-83.
^Allen J. Frantzen,Desire for Origins: New Language, Old English, and Teaching the Tradition (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1990).
^John M. Ganim,Medievalism and Orientalism: Three Essays on Literature, Architecture and Cultural Identity (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
^abGraham A. Loud and Martial Staub, 'Some Thoughts on the Making of the Middle Ages', inThe Making of Medieval History, ed. by Graham Loud and Martial Staub (York: York Medieval Press, 2017),ISBN9781903153703, pp. 1-13.
^abPatrick Geary, 'European Ethnicities and European as an Ethnicity: Does Europe Have too Much History?', inThe Making of Medieval History, ed. by Graham Loud and Martial Staub (York: York Medieval Press, 2017),ISBN9781903153703, pp. 57-69.
^Robert I. Moore, 'A Global Middle Ages?', inThe Prospect of Global History, ed. by James Belich, John Darwin, Margret Frenz, and Chris Wickham (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 80-92 (pp. 83-84).
^Ian Wood, 'Report: The European Science Foundation's Programme on the Transformation of the Roman World and the Emergence of Early Medieval Europe',Early Medieval Europe, 6 (1997), 217-28.
^Jinty Nelson, 'Why Reinventing Medieval History is a Good Idea', inThe Making of Medieval History, ed. by Graham Loud and Martial Staub (York: York Medieval Press, 2017),ISBN9781903153703, pp. 17-36.
^Caroline Bynum, "Why All the Fuss about the Body? A Medievalist's Perspective",Critical Inquiry 22/1, 1995, pp. 1-33.
^Ulrich Müller, 'Medievalism', inHandbook of Medieval Studies: Terms — Methods — Trends, ed. by Albrecht Classen, 5 vols (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010), pp. 850–65.
^Little, Lester K., 'Cypress Beams, Kufic Script, and Cut Stone: Rebuilding the Master Narrative of European History',Speculum, 79 (2004), 909-28.
^Richard Hitchcock, 'Reflections on the Frontier in Early Medieval Iberia', inThe Making of Medieval History, ed. by Graham Loud and Martial Staub (York: York Medieval Press, 2017),ISBN9781903153703, pp. 155-66
^abMichael Borgolte, 'A Crisis of the Middle Ages? Deconstructing and Constructing European Identities in a Globalized World', inThe Making of Medieval History, ed. by Graham Loud and Martial Staub (York: York Medieval Press, 2017),ISBN9781903153703, pp. 70-84.
^James Belich, John Darwin, and Chris Wickham, 'Introduction: The Prospect of Global History', inThe Prospect of Global History, ed. by James Belich, John Darwin, Margret Frenz, and Chris Wickham (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016),doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198732259.001.0001, pp. 3--22.
^Moore, Robert I., 'A Global Middle Ages?', inThe Prospect of Global History, ed. by James Belich, John Darwin, Margret Frenz, and Chris Wickham (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 80-92.
^Robinson, Francis, 'Global History from an Islamic Angle', inThe Prospect of Global History, ed. by James Belich, John Darwin, Margret Frenz, and Chris Wickham (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 127--45.
^The Global Middle Ages, ed. by Catherine Holmes and Naomi Standen, Past & Present Supplement, 13 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018) (=Past & Present, 238 (November 2018)).
^Michael Borgolte,Die Welten des Mittelalters: Globalgeschichte eines Jahrtausends (Munich: Beck, 2022), ISBN 978-3-406-78446-0.
^On the origins of the department, see Gábor Klaniscay, 'Medieval Origins of Central Europe. An Invention or a Discovery?', in The Paradoxes of Unintended Consequences, ed. by Lord Dahrendorf, Yehuda Elkana, Aryeh Neier, William Newton-Smith, and István Rév (Budapest: CEU Press, 2000), pp. 251-64.
