Introduction The fact is that everyone has his own ideas, usually corrupt, of the Middle Ages. Umberto Eco, Reflections on “The Name of the Rose” (1985) The Middle Ages are all around us in the modern world, once you start looking: not the historical Middle Ages but “medieval” as a metaphor for a time and a culture that is related to ours but is clearly not now. This metaphorical Middle Ages is partly shaped by genuine medieval history, but it shapes, in turn, how we study the medieval past. It provides a style, a look, or a setting in books, movies, television shows, and video games that is readily understood. The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Nar- nia, Dungeons & Dragons, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Assassin’s Creed, The Legend of Zelda, Warcraft, and even Star Wars draw on stereotypically “medieval” ideas and imagery and frequently encourage people to learn more about the real Middle Ages. Long before these modern creations, popular views of the Middle Ages were shaped in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by stories of Robin Hood and King Arthur, the chivalric novels of Walter Scott, and the art and literature of the Gothic Revival and Pre-Raphaelites. Their fanciful creations continue to shape our expectations of a properly “medieval” story or history: castles, kings and queens, knights on horseback, feu- dalism, downtrodden peasants, primitive technology, widespread disease and plague, magic and superstition. A typical medieval setting is usually a
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