MakingtheMedievalRelevant Das Mittelalter Perspektiven mediävistischer Forschung Beihefte Herausgegeben von Ingrid Baumgärtner, Stephan Conermann und Thomas Honegger Band 6 Making the Medieval Relevant How Medieval Studies Contribute to Improving our Understanding of the Present Edited by Chris Jones, Conor Kostick, and Klaus Oschema ThepublicationofthisbookhasbeengenerouslysupportedbyaBritishAcademyRisingStar EngagementAward,bytheMediävistenverbande.V.,andbyopenaccessgrantsfromthe UniversityofCanterbury(Christchurch,NewZealand)andtheRuhr-UniversityBochum(Germany). ISBN978-3-11-054530-2 e-ISBN(PDF)978-3-11-054631-6 e-ISBN(EPUB)978-3-11-054648-4 ThisworkislicensedunderaCreativeCommonsAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives4.0 InternationalLicense.Fordetailsgotohttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2018958050 BibliographicinformationpublishedbytheDeutscheNationalbibliothek TheDeutscheNationalbibliothekliststhispublicationintheDeutscheNationalbibliografie; detailedbibliographicdataareavailableontheInternetathttp://dnb.dnb.de. ©2020ChrisJones,ConorKostick,KlausOschema,publishedbyWalterdeGruyterGmbH, Berlin/Boston. Thebookispublishedwithopenaccessatwww.degruyter.com. Typesetting:IntegraSoftwareServicesPvt.Ltd. Printingandbinding:CPIbooksGmbH,Leck www.degruyter.com Contents ChrisJones,ConorKostick,andKlausOschema WhyShouldweCareabouttheMiddleAges?PuttingtheCaseforthe RelevanceofStudyingMedievalEurope 1 Science Tobias Kluge and Maximilian Schuh Providing Reliable Data? Combining Scientific and Historical Perspectives on Flooding Events in Medieval and Early Modern Nuremberg (1400–1800) 31 Conor Kostick and Francis Ludlow Medieval History, Explosive Volcanism, and the Geoengineering Debate 45 Jörg Feuchter The Middle Ages in the Genetics Lab 99 Freya Harrison and Erin Connelly Could Medieval Medicine Help the Fight Against Antimicrobial Resistance? 113 Education Julien Demade The Contemporary Delegitimization of (Medieval) History – and of the Traditional University Curriculum as a Whole 135 Chris Jones and Madi Williams Pacific Perspectives: Why study Europe’s Middle Ages in Aotearoa New Zealand? 151 Laura Grazia Di Stefano How to be a Time Traveller: Exploring Venice with a Fifteenth-Century Pilgrimage Guide 171 VI Contents Society Klaus Oschema Heaven Can Tell ... Late Medieval Astrologers as Experts – and what they can Teach us about Contemporary Financial Expertise 191 Elva Johnston Eoin MacNeill’s Early Medieval Ireland: A Scholarship for Politics or a Politics of Scholarship? 211 Hélène Sirantoine What’s in a Word? Naming ‘Muslims’ in Medieval Christian Iberia 225 Niamh Wycherley The Enduring Power of the Cult of Relics – an Irish Perspective 239 Ben Jervis Resilience and Society in Medieval Southampton: An Archaeological Approach to Anticipatory Action, Politics, and Economy 255 Reflections Pierre Monnet Studyingthe MiddleAges: Historical Foodfor Thoughtinthe Present Day 277 NotesonContributors 289 Index 293 ChrisJones, ConorKostick,and KlausOschema Why Should we Care about the Middle Ages? Putting the Case for the Relevance of Studying Medieval Europe Abstract:Thisintroductorychapterputsforwardacaseforthecontinuingimportance of studying the European Middle Ages. The early twenty-first century is witness to a boom in popular interest in the medieval, one which is playing a significant role in shaping both politics and popular culture. Paradoxically, while this boom has led to increasingstudyof‘medievalism’,investmentinthedisciplinesthatinvolvethestudy of the Middle Ages themselves is in relative decline with questions frequently raised about the value of such research. This chapter begins by examining the challenges thatnecessitateadefenceofresearchwhosekeyfocusistheperiodbetweenthefifth and the fifteenth centuries. It goes on to consider the nature of the relationship that hasdeveloped betweenModernityand the Middle Agesandreflectsonthechanging rolethatmedievalscholarshaveplayedinsocietysinceHistoryemergedasaprofes- sionaldisciplineinthenineteenthcentury.Itposestheimportantquestionofwhata focusonthemedievalmightoffercontemporarysociety,arguingthatasignificantdis- tinction should be drawn between ‘usefulness’ and ‘relevance’. It contends that not onlydoesthemedievalremainrelevantbutthatthatrelevanceistobefoundinsur- prising, frequently overlooked, areas that range from advancing modern medical knowledgeandassessingtheimpactofclimatechangetoinformingcontemporarypo- liticalandsocialdiscourse. Keywords: Medieval Studies, historiography, medievalism, History and Society, popularhistory,ideology,contemporaryandmodernnationalisms There is a growing ambivalence concerning the relationship between modern (west- ern)societiesandthemedievalworldfromwhichtheysprang.Theexperienceofthe firstdecadesofthetwenty-firstcenturysuggeststhatattemptsatcriticalreflectionon the state of the study of Europe’s Middle Ages, and on the relationship between the medieval period and contemporary society in particular, often involve paradoxes, ChrisJones,DepartmentofHistory,UniversityofCanterbury,PrivateBag4800,Christchurch 8140,NewZealand,[email protected] ConorKostick,DepartmentofHistory,SchoolofHistory&Humanities,TrinityCollegeDublin, Dublin2,Ireland,[email protected] KlausOschema,GeschichtedesMittelalters(insb.desspätenMittelalters),Ruhr-Universität Bochum,HistorischesInstitut,Universitätsstr.150,44801Bochum,Germany, [email protected] OpenAccess.©2020ChrisJonesetal.,publishedbyDeGruyter. Thisworkislicensedundera CreativeCommonsAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives4.0InternationalLicense. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110546316-001 2 ChrisJones,ConorKostick,andKlausOschema contradictions,andideologicalconflicts.1Thisis,inpart,theresultofanabuseofthe periodbythoseintentonfabricatingamythical‘goldenage’tojustifyabhorrent,rac- istideologies.Tragically,on15March2019,ahorrifyingexampleofsuchabusewas evidentinconnectionwiththemassacreoffifty-onepeopleattendingFridayprayers attwomosquesinChristchurch,NewZealand:theallegedperpetratormadeuseofa cycleofmedievalimagesthatwhitesupremacistshavesoughttoassociatewiththeir repugnant ideology. This dialectic, however, is also a consequence of the way in which the period between the fifth and the fifteenth centuries has proved a fecund source for shaping wider popular culture. The influence of images, concepts, and ideasthatare–correctlyorwrongly–identifiedwith‘theMiddleAges’can,forex- ample, be felt in the pseudo-medieval, pseudo-Shakespearian world constructed by Kenneth BRANAGH for Marvel Studio’s ‘Thor’ (2011). It informs the re-imagining of Aotearoa New Zealand as J. R. R. TOLKIEN’s Middle Earth (2001–2014) by Peter JACKSON. And it strongly marks the dark fantasy that is both George R. R. MARTIN’s novels and their adaptation by HBO as ‘Game of Thrones’ (2011–).2 Without doubt, these latter are less reprehensible than the twisting of history to create a sense of identity for neo-Nazi groups. But even if these creations are clearly fictional, they have the power to convey images and ideas that shape the attitudes and beliefs of theiraudiencesinthe‘real’world. Inrecentyears,therehasbeenamarkedshiftinscholarshiptofocusonpopular culture’sincreasingembraceoftheMiddleAges.Thetrendistermed,byacademicsat 1 See, for example, Peter RAEDTS, Die Entdeckung des Mittelalters. Geschichte einer Illusion, Darmstadt 2016 (Dutch orig. 2011); Tommaso DI CARPEGNA FALCONIERI, Medioevomilitante. La po- liticadi oggi alle prese con barbarie crociati,Turin 2011 (English translation in preparation; we refer to the French translation: Médiéval et militant. Penser le contemporain à travers le Moyen Âge,transl.MichèleGRÉVIN,Paris2015);ValentinGROEBNER,DasMittelalterhörtnichtauf.Überhis- torisches Erzählen, Munich 2008; Jacques LE GOFF, Faut-il vraiment découper l’histoire en tranches?, Paris 2014; K. Patrick FAZIOLI, The Mirror of the Medieval: An Anthropology of the Western Historical Imagination, New York 2017. Inspiring older contributions include: Peter VON MOOS,GefahrendesMittelalterbegriffs.DiagnostischeundpräventiveAspekte,in:JoachimHEINZLE (ed.), Modernes Mittelalter. Neue Bilder einer populären Epoche, Frankfurt, Leipzig 1994, pp.33–63. 2 Foradetailedstudyofthelatter:CarolyneLARRINGTON,WinterisComing.TheMedievalWorldof GameofThrones,London,NewYork2015(Germantransl.byJörgFÜNDLING,Stuttgart2016);Zita ROHR / Lisa BENZ (eds.), Queenship and the Women of Westeros: Female Agency and Advice in GameofThronesandASongofIceandFire,Cham2019(forthcoming).Foramoregeneralperspec- tiveseeAndrewB.R.ELLIOTT,Medievalism,PoliticsandMassMedia.AppropriatingtheMiddle AgesintheTwenty-firstCentury(Medievalism10),Cambridge2017.Furtherstudiesonconstruc- tions of the Middle Ages in popular culture can be found in Tobias ENSELEIT / Christian PETERS (eds.),BildervomMittelalter.VorstellungenvoneinervergangenenEpocheundihreInszenierung inmodernenMedien(WissenschaftlicheSchriftenderWWUMünster.ReiheX,26),Münster2017. WilliamBLANC,WinterisComing.Unebrèvehistoirepolitiquedelafantasy,Montreuil2019,pro- posesaninterpretationofmedievalismsinfantasticliteraturethatunderlinestheintimaterelation withtherespectivepoliticalandsocialenvironmentanditspreoccupations.