Fencing Bear at Prayer

"An overarching conception of medieval culture has fallen into place since the late nineteenth century, which I will call the diminutive Middle Ages (DMA).  DMA is the internalized and sublimated scholarly consensus of a generation of titanic post-romantic and anti-romantic medievalist scholars, a model that has seeped into and saturated current thinking about the Middle Ages, not only in specialized scholarship.  Like embedded levels of software programs, this model sets and limits what can be thought and claimed about medieval culture, and occasionally overrides empirical observation... "Viewed through the lens of DMA, the Middle Ages is a period of small, quaint things and people, of miniatures, humble, little, overshadowed by its big neighbors--antiquity in its past and the Renaissance in its future--a conduit between the two; full of ingenious people and little intricate objects; a curiosity cabinet full to overflowing; a treasure trove of folklore, superstition, and w...

I can't.  I'm too tired.  I have nothing to say.  No, as usual, that's not quite true.  Thanks to the reading I've been doing these past four or so weeks , I have much, too much to say.  If only I knew where to start.  If only. I am tired.  Truly.  It's the second week of term, and I'm teaching a wholly new course on education in the Middle Ages.  I know, I know, it was the Dark Ages, they didn't have any education.  Which, of course, isn't true.  They had loads.  Only--and here's the embarrassing thing--even we medievalists don't spend enough time thinking about what medieval people (i.e. school children) learned in school.  In particular, we don't spend enough time thinking about grammar.  And logic.  And rhetoric.  A.k.a. the trivium . I know I don't.  I'm embarrassed that my Latin isn't stronger than it is.  Even after almost a full year of working on my translation of John of Garland ....

I always wonder what people hope I will say when they ask me this question. Do they imagine that I had some great revelation when I was (I don't know) six that studying the Middle Ages was to be the purpose of my life? Maybe the Virgin Mary appeared to me when I was ten and told me that she wanted me to serve her by studying the history of her cult. Or maybe I spent my childhood reading nothing but books on history, certain that I would dedicate my life to unraveling the mysteries of causation and chronology, by the by rescuing the Middle Ages from its modernist critique. If only. I can't tell you how often I've wished that there were a clear-cut, easily-narrated justification for my interest. Typically, when asked The Question, I dodge, mumbling something about having taken Latin in high school or having gone on an ALSG trip to Europe when I was 16. "I really liked Europe," I might say. Or, "I was so impressed with the Gothic cathedrals," I migh...

I've been mulling over this list for some time, but spending four days this past week reading applications to our graduate program in history has catalyzed it somewhat. I think it's complete. At least, I can't think of any other reasons now. 1. Affinity . Seeing something in the Middle Ages that one wants in one's own life. For Catholics and other Christians, this might be an image of faith or practice that seems to have been lost or compromised in the present. For members of the SCA, this might be a way of life centered on craftsmanship and chivalry, alternate clothing styles and being outdoors (e.g. at tournaments). Almost all of the work done on the history of Christianity in the Middle Ages prior to about 1960 that wasn't explicitly Protestant tended to be done in this mode. Think Jacques Paul Migne and his steam presses reprinting the works of the medieval Catholic past or Kenelm Henry Digby and his multi-volume Broadstone of Honour, or Rules for the ...