The catalyst of modern scholarly medievalism was Alice Chandler's book A Dream of Order (1970), a work whose influence continues to grow and which has

Transcription

1 MEDIEVALISM TODAY The catalyst of odern scholarly edievalis was Alice Chandler's book A Drea of Order (1970), a work whose influence continues to grow and which has deonstrably interested any younger scholars in edievalis. The acadeic establishent of edievalis in North Aerica began with a single session at the Tenth International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University in 1976,which has grown into an annual ulti-session progra at the Congress. The reason for the rearkable neglect up to this tie of what is clearly a ajor tract of odern cultural history lies in the coplex relations of the ters edievalis and roanticis, which I have dealt with in a lengthy study.' Other sessions besides our own have since appeared at the Congress every year, and there have been any sessions elsewhere, particularly at eetings of the Modern Language Association. Since 1976soe entire conferences have been given to edievalis, notably the Eighteenth Annual Conference of the Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies at the State University of New York at Binghaton in 1984,devoted to "Medievalisin AericanCulture." The First Annual General Conference on Medievalis, organized by SIM,was held at the University of Notre Dae in 1986.Subsequent annual Conferences have been held at universities across the country and in England and Austria. Our forthcoing Conference (August 13 16, 1997)will be in Canterbury, England. I now think of edievalis as the continuing process of creating the Middle Ages. Nobody, I think, would now disagree with this very siple definition, and it could well be asked why I have not offered it before instead of the ore rhetorical definitions which I have given in the pages of Studies in Medievalis fro tie to tie. One reason certainly is that twenty years ago, when I set about launching Studies in Medievalis, the word process was not in y critical vocabulary and hardly, I think, in anybody else's: we thought in ters of conclusions or consensus. About Studies in Medievalis A nuber of probles postponed the appearance of Studies in Medievalis until 1979.At the tie when I founded SIM the distinction between edieval studies and edievalis was iportant because of the confusion and scholarly distrust which surrounded the word edievalis. At the sae tie, since our introduction of edievalis as a scholarly topic began and has continued in the context of edieval conferences, it scarcely seeed necessary to ephasize their utual dependence. I thought that edievalis, exploring the context, the processes of thought and iagination, the biases and prejudices which deterined the conclusions of scholars, would enrich our understanding of

2 edieval studies. This was an early recognition of the iportance of what we now call "process." In 1992,y editorial noted that as a very sall journal creating in effect an entirely new field, we were still constrained by what we were offered, and I rearked on the continuing indifference of edieval scholars to edievalis; I except of course the few, such as Otto Griindler, Paul Szarach, and Noran Cantor, and those contributors who had the vision and iagination to support our activities. I now first dared to challenge the vast edifice of edieval studies, quoting Ernst Curtius to the effect that "the Middle Ages for which I had been searching did not exist". In our 1993volue (S1M V), I noted that edievalis was still a new field in which the basic exploration reained to be done before we could adopt "a real critical and philosophical appreciation." By 1995(S1M VII), however, I felt that "previous volues have established a fraework for the historical consideration of edievalis and we ay now turn to different questions. The theory, ethod, and philosophy of edievalis are long overdue for exploration," and this will indeed be a focus of future publication. Beginning with Volue IV in 1992, Studies in Medievalis has been an annual volue published by Boydell and Brewer; the volues of The Year's Work in Medievalis are now beginning to appear. Two volues have so far appeared in an occasional series of onographs, texts, and papers, one of the the posthuous first publication of a volue by the pioneer woan scholar Jessie Weston." In the Editorial to the first issue of Studies inmedievalis (1979) I proposed cautiously that "it is tie to begin the interdisciplinary study of edievalis as a coprehensive cultural phenoenon analogous to classicis or roanticis." This view was based in part on the realization, not wholly original, that the "Middle Ages" we inherit was very largely a nineteenth-century invention, based, to be sure, on sixteenth-century huanist propaganda, seventeenthcentury antiquarian scholarship, and eighteenth-century fantasy, and that this understanding was dangerously neglected by conteporary scholars. Noran Cantor's Inventing themiddle Ages(1991) has since doneuch to correct this, although it deals only with twentieth-century scholarship. To have given edievalis a local habitation and a nae ay see a odest achieveent copared, for exaple, with the progress of Arthurian studies over the sae tie period, or the aazing growth of edieval studies theselves, but a respectable achieveent if we consider the probles of "networking" a totally new field; a siple lack of resources which has seriously affected our ability to proote edievalis and to ake it truly interdisciplinary; and, until recently, the qualified receptivity of the acadeic world in Aerica to the whole idea of edievalis. Unfortunately, the continuing focus on the art and

3 literature of the nineteenth century provides a handle for those who prefer even today to disiss edievalisas a Victorian fantasy. This is one reason why Studies in Medievalis has adopted as an epigraph the coprehensive stateent of Lord Acton: Two great principles divide the world, and contend for the astery, antiquity and the iddle ages. These are the two civilizations that have preceded us, the two eleents of which ours is coposed. All political as well as religious questions reduce theselves practically to this. This is the great dualis that runs through our society." No one besides ourselves has approached the study of the Middle Ages in the light of this stateent, and we have barely begun. Since 1976,other centers of edievalis have eerged, all of which fall within but do not extend our own ters of reference. There is first the Mittelalter Rezeption Syposiu directed by Professor Ulrich Muller of the University of Salzburg. This, as its nae suggests, originates in the Reception theory associated with Hans Robert [auss, although it has oved in the direction of a broader interpretation siilar to our own. There is the Takaiya Seinar at Keio University, which takes an historical approach like ours but has so far liited itself to the nineteenthcentury, and is training excellent scholars in the field. Meanwhile, in 1994,after we had been publishing and conducting a very active progra of conference activity for fifteen years without apparent effect, everybody suddenly discovered edievalis. Conferences sprang up, there were graduate courses, books on edievalhistoriography to which Noran Cantor had given a lead, and there began to be increasing debate on the future of edieval studies, a natural part of our province in which we have been actively engaged.' In the course of these changes we have progressively abandoned our view of edievalis as a odest ancillary to edieval studies. We now see the as clearly reciprocal, or as I rearked in a recent book review, quotingyeats, "how do you separate the dancer fro the dance?" Critical scholarship in general, having reeled back on the very brink of deconstruction, has supplied aong other things an unistakable ephasis on process: and the natural developent of our own work has siilarly led us to ephasize the process of creating the Middle Ages, which is edievalis. The attitude of Studies in Medievalis to feinist scholarship is a far easier atter to deal with. There isn't one, except that we would like to be offered ore of it.5 It follows fro our very broad ters of reference that our attitude is pragatic, eclectic, and I hope objective, and whatever works for the author and for the subject is fine with us.

4 Distinctions between Medievalis and Medieval Studies I will now offer a few coents or cautions to those conteplating scholarship on edievalis as distinct fro edieval studies. First, and ost obviously, you will in effect be addressing two cultures: one, the tie of your chosen text, seventeenth or eighteenth century or whatever, and second, the Middle Ages as you see the now. It is thus ore than ever necessary then to cultivate the historical iagination. Consider for exaple Warton or Walpole on edieval poetry, or consider the consequences (very irritating to e at least) of Kenneth Branagh's producing the sixteenth-century play MuchAdoabout Nothing in an apparently eighteenth-century setting with twentieth-century anners and usical coedy costues. A great part of the scholarship, particularly the editions of texts, on which we still base uch of our own work on the Middle Ages, is nineteenth-century. Now the nineteenth century standslike a pervasive refractive and distorting ediu between us and the past. The anners and orals of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro would have been intelligible to Shakespeare, Moliere, or Chaucer, or Petronius: those of La Traviata I think would not. Nineteenth-century respectability is a fog between us and the whole European past. I ephasize this proble because of course those whose studies have been concentrated on the Middle Ages theselves ay well overlook it. So scholars have always to juggle with two patterns of culture besides their own, not to ention of course the differences between several edieval cultures. And of course I need not ention that everything you read, of whatever century, has the biases of a ale-oriented society. Finally, there is a problenot particularly related to feinis, but of which as an historian I a particularly conscious, and this is a dangerous ephasis today on literature rather than history as the source of our views about the past. Medievalis then invites us to explore the circustances which have produced the scholarship of the Middle Ages fro 1500to the present but particularly in the nineteenth century when this interest becoes a ajor focus of conteporary concern: and it follows that practically everything in the nineteenth century, a tie of profound and soeties violent social change, falls potentially within our ters of reference. I will refer however to two subjects in particular which clai our attention. One is chivalry. Despite the very considerable literature which has recently grown up around this subject, I a still not sure how uch of itis truly edieval and how uch is nineteenth century. The other is social justice, by which I ean a coplex of atters fro industrial legislation to the position of woen in law. Both these areas in fact involve the changing position of woen in society, and both are atters in which the nineteenthcentury and the edieval reflect uponeach other.

5 Another subject insufficiently studied is nineteenth-century edieval scholars theselves, who coe before us in every posture fro dedicated to unusual to eccentric to stark, staring ravers. One thinks for exaple of Carlyle or Ruskin. It sees to e that feinist scholarship is advancing steadily, and I for one hope only to see ore of it. The progress of edievalis has been very different, and uch ore odest, and I have described what I think we need to do now. For both undertakings, the future is a bright one." Leslie J. Workan Editor, Studies in Medievalis NOTES 'Leslie J. Workan, "Medievalis and Roanticis," Medievalis and Roanticis , ed. Leslie J. Workan, Poetica39-40 (special issues for 1993): 'Jessie L. Weston, The Roance 01Pertesvaus, ed. Janet Grayson, Studies in Medievalis Monographs and Texts 1,1988. 'Written c. 1859; first published in Herbert Butterfield, Man On His Past (Cabridge: Cabridge University Press, 1955),212. 'See the ost recent issue of Arthuriana for reviews by Richard Utz and by e of Medievalis and the Modernist Teper, ed. R. Howard Bloch and Stephen G. Nichols (Baltiore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996). 'Articles recently published include Robin Blaetz, "Cecil B. DeMille's Joan the Wornarl' (SIMVI, 1994); Kyberly N. Pinder, ''The Reception of Toby E. Rosenthal's [painting) Elaine: Medievalis in San Francisco" (SIM VI. 1994); Karen Hodder, "Elizabeth Barrett and the Middle Ages' Woeful Queens" (SIM VII, 1995); Marilynn Lincoln Board, "Modernizing the Grall Quest: Gender, Theology, and Allegory in the Iconography of G. F. Watts" (SIMVII, 1995); Suzy Beeer, "Asceticis, Masochis, and Feaie Autonoy: Catherine of Siena and The StOI}' 010' (SIMVIII, 1996, forthcoing). 'See the final pages of Cantor's Inventing the Middle Ages. SHARED INTERESTS OF SIM AND MFN (VOLS. 22 AND 23) Soe of the ways our work already parallels MFN's project are suggested in MFN No. 22 (Fall 1996), the issue on Gender and Medievalis, which covers topics that SIM too has addressed in soe for: conteporary fiction about the Middle Ages, odern constructions of edieval woen like Joan of Arc, the influence of proinent edievalists like Tolkien, the recuperation of edieval art fors like stained glass. Indeed, if "edievalis" as we define it denotes the whole range of postedieval engageent with the Middle Ages, then "edieval studies" theselves ust be considered a facet of edievalis rather than the other way around. Where can one confidently draw a boundary between the two? To what extent, we ight ask, did "edievalis" both instigate and infor the acadeic study of the Middle Ages in the early decades of the discipline? Ralph Adas Cra, for exaple, sees to have odulated naturally fro the ultra-roanticis of his short-lived periodical The Knight Errant to the