This paper was presented on May 11, 2012 at the International Congress of Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan for the Society for the Public Understanding of the Middle Ages 10:00 am panel entitled Growing Up with the Middle Ages: The Influences upon Children’s Ideas about the Medieval World.
The Vikings tell Spongebob that Vikings like to redecorate, which they demonstrate by destroying things. They say that they also like to appropriate, which they demonstrate by throwing the Krusty Krab cash register on to their ship. Finally, Vikings apparently also like to liberate, which they demonstrate by kidnapping Spongebob and Squidward. Spongebob responds with “I can’t believe how much I’m learning.” The episode goes on to introduce every Viking as Olaf, except the leader, who is Gordon.
No medievalist would divide the whole continent and thousand year period into two groups of people, but a cartoon that includes overt and recognizable medievalisms is very rarely trying to teach us about medieval history.
It’s very muddled. But all we have to do is look at the conference program to see that the signifiers of the medieval have become the signifiers of fantasy, not least of all thanks to the work of J.R.R. Tolkien and the ease with which ‘questing’ lends itself to the narrative style of role playing, table top and video games.
Cartoons do nothing to ease the confusion. Deriving their settings from the historical, literary and fantastic Middle Ages that have come before it, animated cartoons often intentionally, and for different purposes, confuse history, literature and fantasy. Take for instance the episode of TeenageMutant Ninja Turtles, 1987-1996, called “Shredder’s New Sword.”
Fast forward to the Scooby Doo Show, 1976-1978. In the episode “Scared a lot in Camelot” the gang visits Shaggy’s uncle, who has brought the Camelot castle stone by stone back from England. So, there is a rational explanation for a castle in the United States, and Velma lends authority to this as an ‘accurate’ depiction of Camelot, calling it a “famous medieval court,” and saying that the inside “looks a lot like Camelot.” The villains dress themselves up as the Black Knight and Merlin. In this series they draw more freely on the same legend (both series make use of the Black Knight). The intent of the medievalisms is still creepiness and rooting the monster in a recognizable legend but the intensity has been increased.
Skip ahead to the Scooby Doo and Scrappy Doo shorts, 1980 – 1982. In “Sir Scooby and the Black Knight,” no longer looking for a mystery, Shaggy and Scooby stumble on the medieval castle that they mistake for their hotel. The Black Knight appears again, but they mistake him for the hotel manager. In this edition of Scooby Doo it really is the Black Knight and spooky things do actually exist. So instead of grounding it in reality, in this case the medieval signifiers help establish a realm where magic may exist. But the images of the castle have not changed much. Likewise, in the episode “Excalibur Scooby” the castle is back, but this time we have the real Merlin, who needs a dog to complete his spell to get Excalibur back. Merlin may be wearing a different colour, but he looks similar to his earlier incarnation.
TheNew Scooby and Scrappy Doo show, 1983 – 1984, has an episode entitled “Wizards and Warlocks.” This time there is no real danger, except that the same imagery is now linked to a gaming world that Scrappy is a part of, supposedly a tribute to Dungeons and Dragons. The show is reflecting how the medieval imagery is used in the world outside of television, so Merlin and the castle mean the world of fantasy gaming, even though the imagery has not changed.
In the 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo, 1985, “Scoobra Kadoobra,” the same imagery is used again, but this time for an entirely fantasy world. The villain is the ‘Dark Ages Warlock’ Maldar the Malevolent, who is one of the fantasy creatures that Scooby, Scrappy, Shaggy and Dahpne have to catch. There is not even attempt to root the imagery in the real world, as there was in the early shows when they offered the explanation that they traveled to Europe or that the castle was brought over.
In What’s New Scooby Doo?, 2002 – 2005, in the episode “Large Dragon at Large” we have the same imagery again, but this time it is at a medieval faire. Velma, our source of authority, tells us that “the Glasburgh renaissance fair is the only fair held at a real medieval castle, it’s totally authentic.” This is a ridiculous statement to medievalists, and also to the animators, who juxtapose this statement with a ‘Chaucer’s Churros’ wagon. There is a tongue in cheek jibe here at our current fascination with the concept of ‘authenticity.’ The world of medieval interpretation offers its own setting for mystery. The images, however, are still similar, but there is a self-reflexivity to their use not seen in the earlier series.
The gang returns to a medieval faire in Scooby Doo, Mystery Incorporated, 2010 – , for “The Grasp of the Gnome.” In one of the cleverest appropriations of medieval imagery, someone is taking out people who have gone to the medieval fair dressed as pirates, instead of knights or damsels, because they are taking away from the historical accuracy of the fair. From my point of view it was a hilarious way to re-appropriate the medieval shorthand that had been used in Scooby Doo cartoons over the last fifty plus years.
Endnotes
International Congress of Medieval Studies: Kalamazoo 2012
The society’s panel at Kalamazoo this year, entitled Growing up with the Middle Ages: The Influences upon Children’s Ideas about the Medieval World turned out to be a great success. I can’t entirely speak without bias, as one of the presenters myself, but I do think that we had some superior papers.
A great thank you to all of those who came to the panel. Part of the appeal of this year’s panel is that, without exception, all adults were children once, and for many medievalists there was something in our childhood which drew us to the study of the Middle Ages later in life. And so we discussed the impact of nostalgia, but also indulged a little in it ourselves.
Much of what we, the panelists, discussed, and the discussion generated after the presentations, focused on how teachers can use these preconceptions in a classroom and where children are actually learning about the Middle Ages.
A special thanks to my fellow panelists for such well thought out and insightful papers.
Many thanks to Whitney A.M. Leeson, from Roanoke College, for her paper “Jousting Knights and Tournament ladies: Children’s Understanding of Reconfigured Gender Relations in the Modern Sport of Jousting.” In fact, as often happens, her research actually took her out of the realm of jousting, as she analyzed, through interviews and freelisting, what a group of children involved in a special program about Middle Ages really thought about that time period. By examining what that group of children considered to be medieval movies, books or video games and through personal interviews she was able to perceive real differences between the way that boys and the way that girls perceive and interact with ‘medieval’ media and things.
Thanks also to Dawn Cunningham from St. Michael’s College and the University of Toronto, for her paper entitled “Kids and Castles: The Moat between Medieval Art and Contemporary Consumption.” Throughout her paper she was able to demonstrate the simplification of the Middle Ages for children by examining ‘medieval’ products aimed at children. By looking at the ‘medieval’ toy and looking at what medieval art was its inspiration we see the removal of much of what would be the medieval context and intention behind the original piece.
My paper was entitled “Saturday Morning Medieval: Medievalism and Children’s Television Programming.” I looked at the use of ‘medievalisms’ in cartoons shown on American television and tried to see how these animated programs constructed and then used ‘the medieval.’ I concluded that to create the ‘medieval’ animators draw on pop culture, literature, history and fantasy, so that when they use the signifiers of the medieval in the context of the cartoon it can simultaneously mean something historical, fantastic or something from literature or pop culture.
Thanks to everyone who attended the business meeting afterwards. The Society for the Public Understanding of the Middle Ages has sent out a call for papers for next years ICMS at Kalamazoo and IMC at Leeds. See below for that Call for Papers. If you have any ideas for blogs please submit them to us, we welcome all contributors.The Society for the Public Understanding of the Middle Ages will continue to bring together scholars, Public History professionals and interested people to discuss the ways that the public understands the Middle Ages and how and why they act on that understanding.
Call for Papers: ICMS and IMC 2013
Here are the calls for papers we have devised for the Society for the Public Understanding of the Middle Ages at the ICMS, Kalamazoo and IMC, Leeds in 2013.
We invite abstracts for the following sessions at the 2013 ICMS and IMC. Abstracts (between 250 and 500 words) should be submitted electronically to publicmiddleages@gmail.com to the attention of Paul Sturtevant and Megan Arnott, and should indicate clearly your mailing address and phone number. If you need special equipment for the talk (digital projector, etc.), let us know when you submit your abstract. All abstract submissions are due by 15th September, 2012.
ICMS Kalamazoo, 2013
The Middle Ages in Modern Politics
What the public does with the medieval past is as important as their understanding of it. One of the many ways that the public’s understanding of the Middle Ages is used is through political discourse. The Middle Ages offers a powerful precedent for a variety of causes—anything from the Anglo-Saxon democratic ideal to the religious conflict of the Crusades can, and has been, used by politicians and political groups in the present to promote their agendas. We invite any papers pertaining to issues where ideas about the Middle Ages have been used to further a political agenda.
IMC Leeds, 2013
The Public Understanding of the Middle Ages Gone Wrong
The public is often said to hold distorted views of the Middle Ages, based on nostalgia, fantasy, or antiquated scholarship. But why does this matter? One answer to this important question is that the Middle Ages can, and has been used for negative purpose in the public sphere. Ideas of the medieval past have been employed to justify atrocities, promote antipathies, give credence to conspiracy theories, encourage divisions and more. The Nazis’ endless fascination with the Middle Ages is the most infamous example, but only one of them. We invite papers addressing any topic where ideas about the Middle Ages have been used to negative purpose in the modern world.
Why study the public’s understanding of the past?
This is a work in progress, and will serve to hash through, in very short form, some thoughts I’ve been working on for the book project I am currently writing. The reason why I bring it here is that it is a large and difficult subject, but speaks to the heart of this society’s existence. This society, and the field it represents, is part of a new(ish) approach to public history. Public history has, in the past, largely addressed questions of how the past is presented to the public. In the UK it is often elided with museum studies, public archaeology or other academic approaches to the heritage industry—though less so in recent years.
What this society is dedicated to is the flip side of that coin; studying how the public understands and receives the past and, ostensibly, what they do with those understandings. Studying the form of instances of public medieval history (whether they be in museums or in the form of Victorian buildings, TV shows, poetry editions, or show-dog-names) is useful and important, but of primary interest here is what those instances do.
Or perhaps, as a better way of looking at it what people do with them. Purely theoretical examinations are good and useful but can sometimes overlook things. A hammer is, theoretically, a tool used for driving and removing nails. But, theoretically, it is also can used as a weapon, a paperweight or a percussive adjustment device for an unruly washing machine. But that is hardly all. Until seeing how hammers are actually used by people, it is impossible to know to what degree the theory applies universally.
Putting aside the hammer metaphor, the past can be approached similarly. History, theoretically, is useful to the public (in which I am including myself along with everyone) in a number of discrete ways, all of which have been explored by scholars before.
History gives us narratives. This is the importance of the ‘story’ in history. On one hand history gives us ripping imaginative fodder which can be didactic or purely entertaining (or, at its best, both). It gives us heroes and villains who engage in epic struggles. And even further, history gives us settings in which to place fictional stories which make them seem more real. Making fiction historical is a powerful tool. Historical settings can be as realistic as a video showing us yesterday or as vague as ‘once upon a time’.
History tells us who we are. History plays a, I would argue, central role in identity formation; it tells us where we come from and what it means to identify ourselves in the way we do. Being American is, on its face, a simple thing: I was born in the United States and hold US citizenship. However what it means to be American is far more complex and loaded with history, both recent and less so. Similarly, what it means to be British. Or Chinese. Or working-class. Or female. History can define how we understand our town, neighbourhood, and family. This is history in the first person. History gives meaning to our identity, no matter how we define it.
History tells us who they are. Similarly, history tells us what it means to be a group that we do not consider ourselves. This can be useful in terms of building understanding and bridging the gaps between ourselves and others, or it can be destructive when used to promote prejudice or validate antipathies.
History can help us build empathy. Related to the two above (but I feel its own category), studying history can allow us to understand people separated from ourselves—whether they by time, space or both. This is one of the most fundamentally important aspects of the humanities: seeking to overcome the gaps between ourselves and others. While it is important not to assume that people from other times and cultures are like us in every way, it is equally important to understand that what separates us is almost exclusively cultural. If done well, this can inform us as much about ourselves as it does about others.
History gives us perspective. When confronted with the great swath of that-which-has-come-before, it is difficult not to feel one’s own life is insignificant. However, when confronted with the stories of the great people who lived before, it reminds us that we do have efficacy, that we can change the world. And history can make us feel less alone—our actions, no matter how small, are part of something far greater than ourselves. Whether that gives our lives meaning is a question for philosophers, but the simple fact is that we are making history every moment we live.
History tells us what (and what not) to do. You all know the George Santayana quote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This is pithy, and in some ways true, and is thus useful at cocktail parties when justifying to hostile combatants why history departments should retain their funding. But using the past as a predictive for future action is problematic in the least. Does the history of World War II mean we should intervene in Syria? What about the history of Somalia? Or the American Civil War? Or Iran? History gives us examples of what to do and what not to do, but I fear that the weight of history has given us too many examples which can be used to justify a host of positions– right or wrong– in the present.
All of these are good and important uses of history. But they do not exist in a moral vacuum. Each can be used for negative purpose, to promote hatreds and divisions, to justify atrocities or apathy in their face. One does not have to look very far into the past to see how history can be manipulated to suit a dangerous political agenda.
The question thus becomes, how is history understood, how do those understandings develop and change, and how are they used? In this very public realm, the historian’s focus can shift from ‘is it accurate or inaccurate?’ to ‘is it for positive or negative effect?’ And moreover, these are only some of the ways history might be used. The list is surely not exhaustive. Nor is it sophisticated—it does not indicate how often it is used, and how actively. Some of these uses may exist purely unconsciously, whereas some motivate us to action (whether that be to take our children to a historical site, watch a particular TV programme or join a revolutionary movement). The only way to understand these questions is to study them, not only with theory and conjecture, but using rigorous empirical methods.
- Note: Apologies for the advertisement which I have only just been informed has taken up residence at the bottom of this page– I will do what I can to remove them, however from a cursory exploration, it seems it will cost on the order of an extra $30 a year to do so.
Dragons, Romanesque and Parliament: Medievalisms at the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as expressions of power
Situated in the heart of Toronto, Queen’s Park has been the site of the Ontario Legislative Assembly since 1893. If you stand in the centre of the park, with the Legislative Building in front of you and the University of Toronto all around you, you find yourself in what is arguably the most medieval-esque area of the city. Medieval-esque is a frightfully vague word, but in its vagueness describes that feeling we get when we sense that something is inexplicably medieval. Then again, maybe it’s not that inexplicable.
A medievalism is a number of things. The way we think about the Middle Ages changes as we change, so even when we study the Medieval period that is a medievalism, because we have to interpret the past through our own eyes and our own version of historical events. However, it is also a medievalism when we use elements of what we think the Middle Ages were to create something new. Likewise, we can also call it a medievalism when elements have continued on from the Middle Ages and we use those elements in our own, modern way. A medievalism is anything where the Middle Ages is being interpreted and transmitted to a more modern audience. All of those versions of medievalisms are present at Queen’s Park.
There was no European Middle Ages that occurred geographically here in Toronto, so the medievalism we encounter all around us in the architecture at Queen’s Park is where people use symbols from the Middle Ages to create something new. We’re next to the Gothic structures of U of T, including the awe inspiring Trinity College.
Gothic and Romanesque are two quintessential Northern European Medieval Architectural styles. At Queen’s Park the central figure is the massive Romanesque Revival structure. So, built in 1893, why did Canadian Victorian society decide to refer to medieval precedents when constructing their civic structures?
In the early Victorian era medieval and not classical elements are sometimes chosen in Canada to emphasize the Britishness of the cultural influence, which is in opposition to their U.S. neighbours, who want to skip Britain and go back to classical or continental roots (see some of the conclusions reached in the project Mapping Medievalism at the Canadian Frontier). That is in play here, especially in the structures of U of T which are referencing the medieval university traditions at places like Oxford, or Cambridge with their Gothic style. But I don’t think that is the whole explanation. I think in this time, approx. 1870-1885, they use a medieval style of architecture only in part to emphasize Britishness, but mostly they see this as an appropriate symbol for power. It can’t be wholly to separate themselves from the United States because this is a uniquely American form of Romanesque.
Richard A. Waite, British-born Buffalo architect, was given the contract to design the building. This was after as a member of the selection committee he had decided that the Gothic design (the other most recognizable medieval architectural style), proposed by Darling and Curry was unsuitable. The architectural style Richardsonian Romanesque was developed by Henry Hobson Richardson , and it was perfected in New England. When they were designing the civic structures in Toronto they favoured this Richardsonian Romanesque style. E.J. Lennox designed Old City Hall in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, and R.A. Waite chose the style for these, the Ontario Parliament Buildings. These buildings are associated with power. So at that time Richardsonian Romanesque, this Medieval style tempered with American influence, was how Torontonians, as well as New Englanders, expressed power through a structure (City Hall, Ontario Legislature).
The carvings on the building reflect the Richardsonian Romanesque style. They are largely floral and whimsical, though there are some allegorical. For instance, the building is covered in gargoyles. Some of them look like they should be spouts,which would have been part of their function on Romanesque cathedrals, but is not their function here. They reflect the medieval tradition of the gargoyle, which adorned medieval Romanesque and gothic structures of power. Gargoyles protect the building, and keep evil from it, while at the same time they are whimsical.
The rose window with the Gothic tracing that can be seen on the southwest corner of the central structure of the building was not part of the original plan. Originally it was supposed to house a clock, but during construction they ran out of funds and so the clock was never built. But the carving around the window reflects the original intent to put in a clock and reflects an homage to medieval traditions. The signs of the zodiac were placed around the circle as they were in medieval calendars. It shows a conscious effort on the part of the architect R.A. Waite and possibly chief carver William McCormack, to build a Romanesque building while referencing the Romanesque roots and time period.
A Romanesque cathedral might have figures of apostles or saints, figures which are meant to lend power to that location, and give that power spatial representation. Here it is no different. On either side of the building are important political figures who, in a very similar way, give power to the activities that go on here. These figures say that Canadian politics is represented here in this building. What they give to the abstract concept of politics is a spatial representation. Politics and civic power has been represented as having monumental importance.
Dragons recur throughout the building, inside and out. Here are the dragons at the base of the pillars on the first floor of the east wing. In the Middle Ages the dragon represented the ‘other.’ The knight defeating the dragon was conquering the other – restoring order. In this case the placement of the dragons at the base of the pillars shows, in a similar way, the wild creatures being subdued. Likewise, the tops of those pillars, on the third floor east wing, have dragons adjacent to the ceiling, so that dragons appear on both ends of the pillars. Not to take away the element of whimsy, but in British culture the dragon has special meaning because of St. George, patron saint of England who slew a dragon, and is it is pervasive as a popular symbol in keeping with the medieval style of the building. The moral is: Victorians like dragons! But there are reasons as to why they like dragons.
For the art and architecture a medieval style was chosen, but when we look at the debts and carry-overs in the parliamentary tradition from the Middle Ages we can see why medieval symbols are appropriate to help represent a British Parliament. For instance, there has been a perceived continuity to the British monarchy since 1066. In fact, our concept of Britain, the nation, as we understand it took shape during the Middle Ages.
The signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 made the King subject to the law and redefined where authority was derived from (that is a basic statement, since as one of the West’s favourite documents it is also one of the most debated, but for arguments sake lets take this classic view). It was signed by King John, but it was King John’s son Henry III who first referred any matter to a ‘parliament,’ meaning he is the first British monarch to also use the word ‘parliament.’ Parliament is related to the French word parlement (remember the French origins of Britain’s rulers since 1066), from the Latin parliamentum. Basically it means discussion. He was also the first king to ask his subjects for regular taxation, as the revenues from Crown lands were no longer enough to run the realm. Many of the first members were barons, who were asked for taxation, but eventually they had to ask for taxes directly from representatives of towns, clergy and counties. Length of sessions were based on need. Most of the time they met in Westminster, but they could meet anywhere. The commons emerged in the 14th century as a group distinct from the barons, but they were still usually knights and burgesses. The parliament was also considered the highest court, as people could bring their issues and petitions that they would like to have answered. (For more information see the BBC’s History of Parliament).
The medieval borrowings in the building and the Legislative Chamber are then really appropriate, because it is from those traditions that our modern form of government has developed. If you look around the Chamber, in addition to inheriting the parliamentary traditions, there is again a conscious use of medieval style.
For instance, there are actual gargoyles around the Chamber being subdued or contained at the base of pillars. We could interpret this as representations of power, in addition to forces of chaos or nature being subdued.
Resting under the Clerk’s table is the Legislative Mace, which is placed on the table when the House is in Session to symbolize Ontario’s Parliament’s authority to make it’s own laws. But, as young grade fives are quick to point out, the mace starts out as a medieval weapon, carried into battle by fighting members of the clergy who are not permitted edged weapons. Its use by important people causes it to be used as a symbol of authority.
By the 1200s, the times of the first real parliaments, the mace is being carried by the sergeants-at-arms who protect the king. In time it comes to stand for the authority of the monarch. All British/Commonwealth parliaments still have them. The mace conveys authority, derived from the monarch, to the parliament.
In the Chamber there are examples of heraldry, standards derived from the Middle Ages. For instance, the Royal Coat of Arms behind the Speaker’s Chair, which includes the three lions of England, the harp of Ireland and the lion of Scotland, is derived from the symbols used during the Middle Ages. For instance, the three lions go back to the symbol used by Richard I and has endured as a symbol of England.
The question is do we still perceive those symbols as something medieval? I do, but I study medieval things. Do most people just see it as tradition, from a non-descript past?
One thing that is striking is that medievalisms at Queen’s Park – the parliament, Romanesque, dragons, the mace – all incorporate the medieval as symbols of power. The parliament is the decision making body, the grandeur of the Romanesque is seen as appropriate to be associated with sites of power, the mace confers authority on the parliament, and the dragons are both a power that has to be subdued and represents the power of Britain. So the sense that we get that we are surrounded by the medieval is because we are, though we are also well aware that this is an interpretation both by Canadian Victorian society as well as by modern society. The medieval elements we decide to use in our culture tell us a lot about how we view the medieval, but they also show how our distant medieval past influences our present.
Arthurian Medievalisms and the Public Understanding of the Past
Guest Blog Entry by Laurie Rizzo, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library
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Studying Arthurian legends is like a labyrinth in which the closer you think you’ve gotten to solving the maze the more you realize that you have so much more to explore. There are several reasons why Arthuriana presents such an enigma. For one, Arthuriana is arguably the largest body of literature revolving around a central character. Secondly, the stories’ origins are ambiguous. Arthurian legends are a complicated, intertwined web of oral tradition, legends and historical facts. Untangling it all is not easy, but that’s what makes it so fascinating to me. Throughout hundreds of years, authors have shaped and molded the legends influenced by their own time, their patrons/patronesses, and their culture. Many medieval authors’ identities are just as mysterious as Arthur’s himself. Arthurian legends are essentially an entire body of works akin to fan fiction, except without a single definitive source.
Arthurian legends are a part of our popular culture, depicted in every contemporary medium, from comic books and video games to television and cinema. There have been more than one hundred Arthurian legend-themed films. Arthuriana has been repeatedly adapted to film since the inception of moving pictures despite the fact that the films rarely do well in the box office. Each time a new film is released there are high expectations both from the filmmakers and from the audiences who go to see the movies. People have high hopes that the next film version will be better than the last and be more well received. The films continually fail because the expectations of how the legends should be portrayed in film have not been met.
Audiences have specific expectations of Arthurian films which can be discerned through the analysis of metatexts. Film reviews act as a metatext to the film. Reviews are often the first point of contact people have with a film, playing a major role in how a film is perceived and interpreted. Thus, it is not the film itself that sets the standards for the subgenre, but rather it is the interpolations of film reviews that influence what audiences come to expect as the paradigm of these types of films. Analyzing film reviews can provide insight as to the reasons behind a film’s appeal.
For a paper I presented at the 2011 International Congress on Medieval Studies I examined the reviews of fourteen Arthurian films, set in medieval times which were produced between 1967 and 2009. I looked for the critical discourse, perception and meaning in the reviews, as opposed to simple binary classification into favorable or unfavorable judgments. By analyzing reviews across these films, I identified several significant trends in expectations and interpretations, which I classify into the following six categories: 1) Primary sources, 2) Missing elements, 3) Character portrayals, 4) Theme, 5) Film medium and 6) Time period.
Readers of this blog may be most interested in the last of these — the film’s representation of the Middle Ages. In assessing the accuracy of the films’ representation of the time period, critics generally focused on four aspects: the scenery, the costumes, the battle scenes and the dialog.
The scenery seemed to be the easiest expectation to satisfy. Often the films major success is that the locations are beautiful, but most critics are in agreement that pretty scenery is not enough to make a good movie. Additionally, in order for the film to be realistic the scenery can’t be too immaculate – as was the case in First Knight (Dir. Jerry Zucker, 1995) which was criticized for Camelot looking like something out of Disneyland.
With costumes there was less of a consensus. Should the costumes reflect a specific time period? Or should it be historically ambiguous? Whatever the choice, the costumes should feel authentic and consistent to the chosen time period. Costumes should not be too silly, too dirty, or too clean-looking. If the costumes are too manicured, it comes across with a ridiculous feel.
Even prior to Braveheart, battle scenes were expected to be epic, exciting, bloody and coherent. However, after Braveheart and Lord of the Rings, the bar has been raised as to what can be accomplished in filming warfare. Too often the battles in Arthurian films are confusing, boring and bloodless. Blood was often considered essential for being able to follow the action as to what is happening and who is being defeated. Too much one on one fighting during warfare such was the case in King Arthur (Dir. Antoine Fuqua, 2004) is considered unrealistic and boring. Additionally, if the audience doesn’t care about the characters or their cause there is no reason to care about what happens during the battle.
The dialog should not sound contemporary, it should feel medieval, not cliché or anachronistic.
Regardless of audience’s level of familiarity with the medieval Arthurian literature or the medieval time period, there are important aspects of the legends that are expected to be maintained. No matter what time period the film is set in, audiences desire consistency in look and feel. Arthurian films do little more than allude to the middle ages, setting their tales in a muddled, indistinct time period rife with anachronisms of time periods and speech, with confusing warfare. In spite of all these flaws in the films, reviews demonstrate the relevance and significance of Arthurian films to our modern culture, regardless of each film’s popularity. It is the discourse that follows a film that dictates how future films within the same genre will be constructed. Thus we see that each director’s cut of the Arthurian legends is fundamentally not an adaptation of the literary sources, but rather a new installment of the timeless tale.
Extended: Call for papers, IMC and ICMS
The final deadline for abstract submissions for our sessions at IMC and ICMS has been extended until Wednesday, 28th of September. Now is your last chance to get involved in what looks to be a great pair of sessions! As ever, details can be found here: http://publicmiddleages.org/calls-for-papers/
SNL, Pop Culture and Popular Medieval Misconceptions
I had a very interesting experience recently where I was reading, for fun, the book Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, edited by Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller. I came across a reference to one of the writers calling the show the ‘Viking Death Ship’ in the early eighties.
The story goes, Michael O’Donoghue, one of the shows most brilliant and tempestuous early writers, was asked to come back to the show in the early eighties as a head writer. He both needed the money and, apparently, hated the way the show was now. He was determined that the show was on its last legs. So he decided that he would act like the show was a burning ship, hence he called it the ‘Viking Death Ship.’
Here are some extracts from the book:
Dick Ebersol: “He wanted to give it a ‘Viking funeral.’”
Bob Tischler: “And he said ‘It’ll be fun, and by the way, the show is just going to go down anyway, so don’t worry about having to be stuck on the show.’ And he actually described it as a ‘death ship.’”
Neil Levy: “So I went and asked Catherine O’Hara. She wasn’t really interested. But I talked to her and she came down. Then she saw the flaming Viking ship going under and she went, ‘Uh-oh, gotta run.’”
Tim Kazurinsky: “He wanted to destroy the show. His motto was ‘Viking Death Ship. Let’s all go down in the Viking Death Ship.’”
Pgs 221-224
I know that the image of a Viking burial by burning boat is one of those pervasive and omnipresent misconceptions about the Vikings, just like the horned helmets and the gruff Viking exterior. This concept is one of the romanticisms about Vikings passed on to us from Victorians. And yet, unlike the horned helmets we do have one reference to a burial at sea in a burning ship. In Ibn Fadlan’s account of a Norse burial, no doubt somewhere in Sweden, he describes a combination of a burning boat funeral and human sacrifice. It is in fact very hard to tell how common or widespread this practice may have been because all archaeological evidence was, well, burned and then sunk.
But it is a very moving image, and it is interesting to see in this reference just how pervasive it is.
But this lead me to another test of the pervasiveness of this image, which was equally intriguing. I did a Google search of Viking burial, as if that would give me an idea of how engrained in pop culture this image was. When I searched the first things that came up seemed to give a fairly accurate description. I must confess to being a little disappointed because I know, I know from references like the one above and from just living in a North American culture, that this flaming burial at sea is an engrained and accepted thing. However, as others have no doubt encountered, it is hard to find sources for things that people ‘just know.’ And yet, on closer examination of those sources, you will find that many of them have to deal with the idea of being burnt at sea, and discuss where that tradition came from because the idea is so omnipresent, somehow.
Perhaps the most telling of popular culture is doing a google image search for ‘viking burial.’ Then you see at first glance the top twenty or so images, as opposed to the top three results for text, and there there is a remarkable presence of burning ships.
I think it is really interesting that O’Donoghue referred to the show as this Viking pyre ship, because I think it reflects the way that people use the medieval as simple descriptive vocabulary as opposed to a reference to an actual historical/medieval fact. I don’t think anyone would care to know that the reference is not necessarily correct, because in these three words we have a popularly accepted image, with cultural weight behind it. The fact that it is medievalism is very interesting to us, the medievalists, but it is secondary to the fact that it is pop culture. It is just interesting to think about how it got that way.
“Viking” North America: The North American Public’s Understanding of Its Norse Heritage (presented at ICMS K’Zoo 2011)
I presented this paper, “Viking” North America: The North American Public’s Understanding of its Norse Heritage at Session 528, 8:30 Sunday Morning in Fetzer 2020 at Western Michigan University for the 2011 International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo for the Society for the Public Understanding of the Middle Ages panel. The conference was, for me, a great success. As I mention in the paper a lot of these ideas I developed in part while working on the article for Mapping Medievalism at the Canadian Frontier at the University of Western Ontario, and some I developed while interning at L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site. In this reproduction all the footnotes are left out, so if you are looking for references please look to the paper I did for Mapping Medievalism at the Canadian Frontier. I have, however, included my bibliography and all my visual aids. Also, check out my personal blog at meganarnott.blogspot.com.
“Viking” North America: The North American Public’s Understanding of Its Norse Heritage
(slide 1)
I would like to start off with a clip. During the 2010 Winter Olympics this ad ran in the province of Ontario nearly once a commercial break. It was part of a larger campaign for Newfoundland and Labrador tourism, though this was the ad they chose to run most frequently. While you watch, take note of the way that North America’s Norse heritage is being presented.
And once again:
And so they came,
five centuries before Columbus,
fearless warriors out to discover a New World,
the Vikings.
While they left behind their mark, they have long since gone …
… so far as we can tell.
Newfoundland and Labrador.
This summer, as part of my internship for my public history degree, I worked at L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site.
(slide 2: images from summer 2010)
What I can identify as public knowledge about North America’s Norse heritage comes from informal discussions with tourists, from the study of the way that promoters of heritage frame the Norse-North American connection in order to appeal to the public and finally from cursorily studying the historiography. From my research and my experiences I can tell you that this advertising campaign was widely successful. Through talking with people I discovered that a great many of them (I would be so bold to say as one out of three people) had seen the advertisement and had decided to visit L’Anse aux Meadows because of it. For many it was a case of “well we always wanted to come and then we saw that advertisement, you know, with the children.” It was so successful amongst North American audiences that tourism numbers, I can say unofficially, were the highest they had ever been, despite the drop off in American tourism that resulted from the closing gap between the two dollars.
The success of the ad campaign is in part from its stunning images of Newfoundland landscape. However, what brought people up to the northernmost parts of Newfoundland was not just the landscape, since this is stunning, but not remarkably more stunning than other, perhaps more easily accessed, parts of the province. The draw was this emphasis on a medieval European past that genuinely belonged to North Americans. If we listen to the words of this advertisement, in it the province is appealing to everything that makes the ‘Vikings’ popular amongst North American audiences. The advertisement is emphasizing and then reasserting exactly what North Americans think about their own Norse heritage.
(slide three)
I argue that the North American public understands their Norse heritage as part of their origins mythology as a settler/invader nation. This is seen through the continuous coupling of Norse explorers such as Leifr Eiríksson with late medieval European explorers, specifically Christopher Columbus. I would also argue that the North American public’s understanding of the Norse culture can be summed up in everything that is meant by the word Viking and, as in the advertisement, is epitomized by the phrase ‘fearless warriors out to discover a new world.’
(slide 4: image of Christopher Columbus)
Nobody thinks that Christopher Columbus was the first European in North America. Granted, if we are talking about the knowledge of tourists who have made their way to L’Anse aux Meadows, likely if they have made it that far off the beaten path they probably already have an inkling as to why that site is important. However, it has been my experience amongst my friends, family, general adult education classes and pretty much everyone I talk to, that no one still thinks that Christopher Columbus was the first. But he persists as the poster boy for European exploration and colonization in North America and he is the common reference point for the discussion about European arrival to this continent.
(slide 5: images of the manuscripts that contain the Vinland Sagas)
The presence of Vikings, or Norse, in North America was speculated about long before any of the archaeological evidence at either L’Anse aux Meadows or Skraeling Island (just off of Ellesmere Island) was found. The two Icelandic sagas, Grœnlendinga saga and Eiríks saga rauða, have been dubbed the Vinland sagas because of their descriptions of voyages to Helluland, Markland and finally Vinland by the likes of Leifr Eiríksson and Thorfinnr Karlsefni, amongst others. The presence of a real Vinland is corroborated by other textual references.
The level of descriptors in the sagas has caused scholars to find the places mentioned in the sagas in North American localities since the first translations into Latin, and then Danish in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Much scholarship since the nineteenth century has been characterized by this desire to find the real places of the sagas, to find the ‘true’ discoverers of America. This is done by locating the ‘real’ Vinland. Some of these attempts have been more nationalistic than others.
One way that the Norse have been used is to indigenize Europeans to the North American landscape, by at the very least giving the Europeans a longer history on the continent, and by at the most appropriating native arts, culture, or artefacts, and attributing them to the Norse instead of to Native cultures. For example, in 1883 Rasmus B. Anderson wrote a new prologue to his book America Not Discovered by Columbus, in which he said of the creation of the “runes” on the Dighton Rock that had been found in the Taunton River:
(slide 6)
I think they were iron implements, and that they were in the hands of a skilled mechanic—a Norseman worthy of the name. I do not know that my opinion on this question is of any consequence, still I have seen work undoubtedly performed by an aboriginal American with flint and stone tools, but the characters were not nicely edged, as these are. I cannot believe they were made by the lazy Indian of Schoolcraft.
Starting in 1940, Reider T. Sherwin wrote eight volumes on The Viking and the Red Man; The Old Norse Origin of the Algonquin Language. In them he went through the Algonquin vocabulary and showed how each word had an Old Norse origin.
In the search for the ‘true’ first Europeans it is typical to view the Vikings and Columbus as foils for each other, and to show that only one can be the real ‘first.’ Take for example, as an extreme, Mary B. Shipley, who, in 1877, wrote one of the more overtly nationalistic works concerning the Norse landings in North America. Her book was entitled The Icelandic Discoverers of America, or, Honor to Whom Honor is Due. In it she stated that the founding of America was one of the greatest achievements in all of world history, and if North America ceased to acknowledge Columbus, but instead acknowledged the Vikings, all the corruption of Catholicism and its most devout followers, the Spanish, would disappear from American culture. In short everything that was good, including the self-determinism and self-government espoused by the Norse, would again be emphasized. That is an extreme, though looking at Vikings in America by Graeme Davis, published in 2009, Davis also saw the “marginalization” of the knowledge of the Icelanders as a plot by Columbus, the papacy, and the Spanish monarchy, and persisted in construing the Norse voyages in terms of the American ideal. He stated that “in the Vikings, America finds its first European settlers. Most fittingly these first European Settlers in America were people searching for what we know today as the American dream of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
(slide 7: Top left corner; 1840s lecture describing Norsemen as first. Bottom right corner; Mary B. Shipley’s book. Centre; Publication accompanying 1992 exhibit at the Canadian museum of Civilization. Bottom left; W.A. Munn. Top right; Helge Ingstad.)
Before the discovery of the archaeological evidence there was a scholarly reaction against taking the sagas as proof of any real place, but that didn’t stop the popular and perhaps amateurish wave of interest in locating the real Vinland. This desire to find the places of the sagas is what lead people like W.A. Munn in 1914, and eventually Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad, to the Straits of Belle Isle to look for evidence of the Norse past. By the end of the 1960s it was agreed that the Norse had been to North America, though we will never all agree as to the locations in the sagas, despite the sometimes fine arguments that are made, because while there are many specific details about geography in the sagas there are too many variables and interpretations possible for those details. Halldór Hermansson’s 1909 Vinland bibliography was ninety pages in length and contained 750 entries. By 1997 Robert Bergersen’s Vinland bibliography, Writings Relating to the Norse in Greenland and America, was 400 closely printed pages. And that was thirteen years ago. I think as well the sheer number of treatises and papers written about this subject, and particularly about the geography of Vinland problematizes this division between scholarly and the public, because I think numbers like this indicate that this subject, possibly because of the traditionally nationalistic overtones, has a wide appeal. In the last thirty years many scholars who work on the Vinland Sagas, and even those who work both with the sagas and with the archaeology, have tried to distance themselves from such nationalistic discussions. In fact many scholars don’t care what personage was first, and see the arrival of these individuals as marking larger trends in technology and in European expansion and colonialism movements from different times. However, if one refers to the corpus of recent publications on Vinland it is evident that about as many analyses were published in 1992, the 500th anniversary of Columbus, as there were in 2000, the supposed 1000th anniversary of Leifr’s settlement. Because scholars approach it from this direction, this nationalistic discourse frames our understanding of the Norse voyages to North America.
And its place in our national mythologies is going to ensure that scholars and the public alike are going to continue to be interested in this particular piece of medieval and North American history.
(slide 8: Leif Eiríksson statue erected in 1887 in Boston)
The knowledge about the Viking arrival, “five centuries before Columbus,” as it states in the advertisement, may have trickled in from scholarly (or less than scholarly) work into the general education. However, this Columbus/Leifr Eiriksson debate has occasionally, throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century, become very public. With the erection of any new public history site, from the Leifr Eiríksson statue erected in Boston 1887 to the recognition of L’Anse aux Meadows as a Norse site in 1960.
(slide 9: Vinland Map, Yale University)
The Vinland map, discovered in the Yale library in 1965, was unveiled a few days before Columbus day and was viewed by some as unseating Columbus once and for all. The map was supposedly from the year 1470, twenty-two years before Columbus’s first voyage. The last time I delivered some of these ideas, someone told me afterwards that one of the people who was really upset by this was Frank Sinatra, who was among those who viewed this as an attack on Italian/American heritage. The map is know largely regarded as a fake, but regardless the existence of a physical map shouldn’t be that different from the oral map that exists in the sagas, though this is a more modern opinion and perhaps a more scholarly one. Inga Dóra Björnsdóttir talks about how the juxtaposition of Leifr and Columbus is politically charged because of the importance of both to the chronology of the North American founding myth, and also because of the importance of having a symbol of unity representative of the Anglo-Saxon race and not of Catholic origin. Leifr Eiriksson day is October 9th. This date was chosen because the ship the Restauration arrived on October 9th, 1825, bringing the first Scandinavian immigrants to the New York harbour from Stavanger, Norway. What is interesting is that Leifr Eiríksson day pre-empts Columbus Day, on 12 October, by three days. The choice of dates is legitimate but also political.
(slide 10: Top left; Runestone museum in Alexandria. Bottom left; Yarmouth Runestone, Nova Scotia. Bottom right; Recreation group at Norstead in L’Anse aux Meadows. Top right; L’Anse aux Meadows.)
So the public understands this Columbus/Viking dichotomy. We can look then at the way that heritage/tourism industries appeal to this sense of ‘who was first.’
There are several locations in North America that celebrate North America’s Norse heritage. L’Anse aux Meadows has the most legitimacy because of the presence of the archaeological site. The arctic sites are important to heritage, but the lack of the tourist gaze in that area of the world has resulted in very little commemoration. Therefore, in that area no one is concerned about marketing the area’s medieval heritage in terms of the public’s interests and understanding. Some heritage/tourism sites gain a form of legitimacy by claiming to be an interpretation of what could have been or are museums to the culture as opposed to any specific events, like Norstead, the living history museum across from the official site at L’Anse aux Meadows. Some institutions house artefacts that could be Norse, and might not be, like the runestone at the Yarmouth museum, and allow visitors to make up their own mind. What is really interesting is that the meagre set of evidence has resulted in the proliferation of interpretation sites all the way from Minnesota and Ohio to the edge of Newfoundland. This helps to represent the place that this history holds in the minds of the public, in that there is an audience for this wide range of sites.
(slide 11: sign erected by tourism association on road into St. Anthony/ L’Anse aux Meadows)
One interesting thing I came across during my time at L’Anse aux Meadows was this sign, which has been placed by the Northern Peninsula tourism association along the road into St. Anthony and L’Anse aux Meadows. The interesting story that I heard, as it was told to me, is that the consultant had suggested putting a sign there that said ‘Is this Vinland?’ Instead, the tourism association were the ones who decided that now was no longer the time to question. The sixties is when they questioned, now was when they marketed this very real and very tangible connection to the medieval.
(slide 12: signs marking the major route, the Viking trail, through the northern peninsula)
The whole landscape of the Northern Peninsula now reflects this rebranding and this reinterpreting in terms of the connection to the medieval, because this is a part of history that continues to resonate with people.
Whether Norse or Viking is a more appropriate term to describe the culture of culture of 750-1100 CE Scandinavia is an ongoing debate. Viking is a word that conjures up images of brutal raiders and pirates, as well it should as the Old Norse word vikingr and the Anglo Saxon wicingas refers to basically pirates. Viking is a reflection of Victorian imaginations of romantic brutality. This is not to deny the brutal aspect of the culture, but it is only one aspect of this largely agrarian and mercantile society. Here a division between scholars and public is a bit more defined, as scholars like the word Norse better. The public has never heard this word. L’Anse aux Meadows archaeologist Birgitta Wallace has this to say about the continuing debate between the use of the two words.
(slide 13)
Historians have substituted the words “Viking” and “Vikings” with Norse, which is a more comprehensive term, corresponding to the Scandinavian norroen, and referring to all Scandinavians of the Viking and Medieval periods. Historians have tended to insist on this more correct term, but references to “Vikings” and “Viking Age” has [sic] become so successful in the promotion of heritage and tourism that most historians now accept these terms.
Like many nineteenth century romantic medievalisms, the term Viking and all that it evokes has proved so durable a concept, that it is counter productive to disregard this word as a term for that culture. Without it we discard the basic building block for the public’s understanding of this culture. The word Viking carries basic images with it. Likewise, the use of certain symbols in pop culture, for better or worse, can stand in for a description of Vikings. One has only to give a character a horned helmet for the audience to understand that he is meant to be a Viking.
(slide 14: Top; How to Train your Dragon. Bottom left; Hagar the Horrible. Bottom right; Commercial for Capital One. Bottom centre; Commercial for Volkswagen minis.)
I would say that films, like How to Train your Dragon, and popular culture, credit card commercials, continue to use this image not because they are ignorant and because they don’t know any better per se, but because they can skip a lot of exposition about who one is trying to depict by just giving them the helmet. So much is implied by these images because it is assumed that the public understands and has seen these images before. They draw on the public understanding and continue to foster it, misconceptions and all.
(slide 15: images from L’anse aux meadows summer 2010)
Telling visitors that there was no evidence of horned helmets, and that the concept had come instead from Wagnerian opera, was one of the most interesting interpretation tools at the disposal of the L’Anse aux Meadows staff, because in some ways it is challenging the one thing that most of the public believes they know about the Vikings.
(slide 16)
In conclusion, the North American public understands this not as Norse, but as Viking heritage. The culture is known for its violence and its raiding; for being one of ‘fearless warriors.’ And yet, it also gives it a place of primacy in the history of North America. It will continue to be a favourite subject amongst people who write popular histories, because of the emotional and romantic place accorded to these events and to the arrival of these so-called ‘first’ Europeans. Talking with tourists I was able to confirm that the way that the Norse heritage in North America is marketed by institutions like Newfoundland and Labrador tourism both reflects and in turn is further constructing the way the heritage is understood by the North American public.
(slide 17: images from the Mapping Medievalism at the Canadian Frontier project)
Many of these ideas are versions of ones that I put forth in my paper “Putting the Vikings on the Canadian Map,” which was published as part of the UWO project and exhibition Mapping Medievalism at the Canadian Frontier. A copy of this version of my paper I am going to put up on my blog, but for a more in depth discussion look to this original paper, published by Museum London.
Thank you
(slide 18)
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Society Call For Papers, IMS and ICMS 2012
Below, find the call for the Society’s panel sessions for 2012– please post it to your departments and pass it to any colleagues you may have who may be interested in the topic!
Society for the Public Understanding of the Middle Ages Call for Papers 2012
We invite abstracts for the following sessions at the 2012 ICMS and IMC. Abstracts (between 250 and 500 words) should be submitted electronically to publicmiddleages@gmail.com to the attention of Paul Sturtevant, and should indicate clearly your mailing address and phone number. If you need special equipment for the talk (digital projector, etc.), let us know when you submit your abstract. All abstract submissions are due by 15th September, 2011.
ICMS Kalamazoo, 2012
Growing Up with the Middle Ages: The Influences upon Children’s Ideas about the Medieval World
Children are bombarded with images of the Middle Ages every day— whether in school, in the popular media, in books, toys or play. But what impact do these childhood medievalisms have upon our children? And children grow up; how do the ideas about the Middle Ages formulated in childhood persist in adulthood?
Abstracts are invited for any subject pertaining to this topic, including medievalisms in media directed towards children, teaching the Middle Ages to children, or the ways in which the Middle Ages have become our collective default fairy-tale playground. Abstracts are particularly encouraged from practitioners in the fields of public history, educators, or medievalist mums and dads.
IMC Leeds, 2012
A Holiday to the Middle Ages: Medieval Public History Today
Contrary to popular belief, the Middle Ages is big business. The heritage industry in the UK contributes £20.6 billion to the British economy each year. A significant proportion of this is generated from countless trips to countryside castles, ruined abbeys, days out at a re-enactment, a museum or a living-history site which depicts the Middle Ages.
In recent years there have been significant developments in the ways in which the Middle Ages are interpreted and presented to the public through the heritage industry. This session invites abstracts pertaining to the presentation of the Middle Ages to the public today and its potential to influence the public knowledge of the Middle Ages. It particularly welcomes abstracts from any academics and professionals working in the heritage industry.
