Only a mediaevalist can understand the present
13 May 2009
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Dan Jones says that our own era of disease, superstition, disorder and economic chaos is best explained by those who understand the Middle Ages
‘It was an age of apocalypse. People across the world lived in fear of a new pandemic disease that leapt with ease from animals to humans, which spread on the breath and moved across borders with alarming freedom. Howls of protest carried through the smashed streets of Europe’s cities as they fell to popular rioting, the citizens and rabble alike provoked to violence by economic catastrophe and widespread political disenchantment. Long and wearisome wars weakened the finances of the world’s most powerful countries, their societies already threatened by global climate change and an unstable food supply. If people did not quite think they were living in the Last Days, there was at least a common feeling that the end of the world was not ever so far beyond the horizon.’
That’s my fantasy blurb for a book about the popular worldview in the 14th century. I know, I know: writing fantasy blurbs for the back of unwritten history books is weird and possibly a bit sad. It smacks a little of John Kennedy Toole’s character Ignatius J. Reilly in A Confederacy of Dunces sitting in his squalid bedroom, picking his toes and dreaming of a time before the ghastly machinery of the modern world. But I’m doing it here to illustrate a valuable historical lesson. For the paragraph above could, with just a pinch of melodrama, be describing the early 21st century.
The past repeating itself is manna to the professional historian. A good modern parallel not only gives him a sense of self-importance; it also improves his book sales. The past fortnight has seen popular ire at our nose-in-trough politicians reach what one blogger described as ‘1381 levels of anger, at which the only sensible investment would be pitchfork futures’. Considering that this story followed hard on the heels of flu apologists predicting pandemic disease with the potential for a 40 per cent mortality rate, I hope you’ll forgive a poor mediaeval history boy his moment of self-indulgence.
Just imagine. Swine flu, you say? A new strain of a killer disease? One that leaps from animals to humans? One that (might... just...) kill loads of us? Hallelujah! The pestilence is here! It’s the new Black Death! The smirking mediaevalist nods sagely as Fortuna, with a loud belch, spins her wheel and taunts us with the horrors of a world before vaccines, sanitation, Lemsip or those silly blue face-masks. He stands, claps his hand to his breast, and thanks the gods of history for smiling upon him: Thank you Herodotus! Thank you Gibbon! Thank you (especially you) Marx! Then he runs, faster than he has ever run before, to check his last book’s Amazon ranking.
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terence patrick hewett
May 14th, 2009 9:25am Report this commentI'm a professional engineer. When I tell people I read Chaucer in Middle English, I get the same look. Most amusing.
Julianlzb87
May 14th, 2009 11:54am Report this commentThis book...
http://www.econlib.org/library/Mackay/macEx.html
should be on a national curriculum.
N
May 14th, 2009 4:25pm Report this commentI only have a copy of Boethius, i lack a deerstalker, butI have a copy of Chaucer, could that be a substitute for a deerstalker? Can i still join?
Thom
May 14th, 2009 9:11pm Report this commentI get that look too whenever I tell people I took Medieval Studies at university. I always assumed it was the 'studies' that did it, throwing images of Mickey Mouse into their thoughts, so I now tend to go with "I took Medieval History". I didn't realise the first word was actually the one inflicting mental injury. Either way all I usually get from anyone once they've recovered is a supercilious "why?"
I would still join your club.
Tom
May 15th, 2009 12:21pm Report this commentCount me in - as long as those of us here in Wales do not have to be outside the city gate before nightfall.
James Hannam
May 15th, 2009 4:38pm Report this commentIf you find mediaeval history a enough hard sell, you should try mediaeval science. Still, the book is out in August.
http://jameshannam.com
Pauli
May 15th, 2009 6:15pm Report this commentPuuuhhllleeeezzeee:
Medieval Studies is Greta Garbo compared to North African Hellenistic Prose. As the hostess of a party said to me, after introductions: "That is so cute!"
R Fitch
May 15th, 2009 8:27pm Report this commentCan I join as an associate? My interest is chiefly in 5th BC Athens but Medieval runs a v. close second and I loved the article.
J
May 16th, 2009 3:57am Report this commentNo deerstalker - I think they're unfeminine. If women can join, though, I have copies of Boethius, Beowulf, Chaucer, Malory - et al. even.
Sandeep Murthy
May 16th, 2009 9:55am Report this commentTo understand medieval doom and gloom read Huizinga's 'Waning of the Middle Ages' (also called 'Autumn of the Middle Ages'). A gloomy book which strangely enough makes you almost want to go back to those days.
terence patrick hewett
May 17th, 2009 8:46am Report this commentI do hope Dan Jones is not joking about the formation of the Ignatius J. Reilly Society, since I need to know the answer to a question that has been puzzling me for a number of years. It concerns the Luttrell Psalter. If the illustration of the Ploughman, featured in the Psalter, is accessed using Google, it will be noticed that the Ploughman has his John Cleese type, Robin hood type, pointy hat on back to front, baseball cap style. Is this to stop it blowing off in a high wind or is he a Really Cool Dude?
Bavardess
May 18th, 2009 6:31am Report this commentCount me in. And I can bring Thomas a Kempis, Jean de Meun and Margery Kempe.
donald fraser
May 19th, 2009 4:25am Report this commentWhile I studied modern history at university, I find my A-level in medieval in history useful. The exploitation of gunpowder (physical containment) is worth comparing to the nuclear propulsion arguments. The Chinese invented something, kept the recipe secret and failed to exploit it. It was exploited in the medieval period by Europeans. What is the probability of reaching the stars by harnessing our discovery? Project Orion (1957-65) illustrates the basic scientific idea to it.
Why did a Columbus figure not set sail before 1492? Did it require the Black Death to shake-up the theological certainties? Are we trapped by our thinking rather than our technology? Is the need to vehemently discredit “faster than light” science akin to the fierce heretical laws defending “flat earth” theories in the medieval period? Could medieval history help renew interest in space travel at faster than light speeds as an alternative to climate control? If not, must heretical, nuclear crackpots wait a catastrophe equivalent to the Black Death before our ships to America can sail?
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