From Grimdark to Romantic: The Two Faces of Medievalism | Making History

[@Lenno94]

Romantic nationalism is basically scaffolding a mythology from bits of historical facts. For those who are interested, the ''littérature courtoise'' (courtly love), a literary movement from the 11th-12th century (which spawned romances or ''Roman courtois'' literally Courtly novels) informed much of what we would call medievalism or medieval romanticism. Feats of arms, pious knights and fair maidens are all very emblematic of the movement. Great video btw!

[@beththomas6514]

Folklore isn't just the stuff that farmers say. All cultures have folklore and folk tales with which most people in the culture have general familiarity. The study of folklore is one way to learn about a culture and to see common themes. People interested in their family tree are not necessarily nationalists. I've learned a lot about the hardships of immigrants to this country (the US) in the nineteenth century, for instance, by looking into my family tree (one example: a 4th great grandfather who died of smallpox almost immediately after arriving in New York because he didn't get inoculated like his wife and kids before departing from Europe, and his wife finding, through word-of-mouth in New York, a community and support network of other German-speaking Swiss immigrants in a town in Ohio). On architecture, we have many neo-Gothic examples on college campuses in the US, so many that they have a name - collegiate Gothic. The University of Washington campus in Seattle is one example. Neo-gothic was one of many revivalist styles aesthetically popular in the 1920s and 1930s. The use of neo-Gothic was an alternative to the neo-classical and neo-Georgian architectural styles already employed on college campuses and in capital buildings in the US in the 18th and 19th centuries, so the history of emulating European architectural styles here goes back farther than the use of neo-Gothic. As an aesthetic, I'm glad that we have at least some college campuses in the neo-Gothic style as an alternative to drab 1960s modernism and, more specifically, brutalist style buildings of the late 1960s/early 1970s.

[@sd-ch2cq]

Love that you point out that romanticism did not really question the enlightenment prejudices about the middle ages: they just switched on wether it is good or bad to live in a science-based society. That seems to trip up a lot of people when they hear that a movement was critical of the common views of their time.

[@maeianomarengo4316]

Reminds me of a lot of right wingers today sadly..

[@premodernist_history]

It was really funny to hear you dunking on folklorists.

[@makinghistoryYT]

Glad you enjoyed ☺️

[@budterfly3479]

I often fantasize about being a well stocked medieval peasant living in an idyllic cottage… until I remember how that entire vision is built upon my highly individualistic, modern sensibilities and I actually just want a quiet home in the countryside. And not, like, have to share a bed with my entire family like medieval peasants did.

[@the_major]

Great episode! One thing that I would add is that one way to look at how peasants and farmers viewed the pros and cons of the lifestyle is to look at their reaction to industrialism. Many poor farmers left their rural lives to either find new opportunities or to escape rural poverty and hardship but entered a completely different and often alienating world. As people who experienced both lifestyles, reading their reminiscing and recollections about the rural life and their laments about industrial life is an interesting lens to analyze this with (though I'll admit that there can be a lot bias in it.)

[@rumpelRAINS]

this channel is gold

[@jordanmorgan4864]

Love this video! Great analysis!

[@AlgaeNymph]

The Middle Ages as grimdark can be compared to a 12-year-old boy who's never heard of feminism. The Middle Ages as romantic can be compared to a 12-year-old girl who's never heard of feminism. Meanwhile, there's autistic me who's rambling and pontificating just to show off. Based on how this has played out in social media this can be both good and bad, much like the Middle Ages. Well, more like bad and not-as-bad. In my last comment I mentioned Ars Magica, but didn't really go anywhere with it. I will here. It talks about the 1220's matter-of-factly. Peasant toils, and there were a great many, are mentioned alongside their everyday pleasures. While there were constant wars, often religiously motivated, there was also constant progress in both the physical and social sciences. One of the supplements, Triamore, is about a peaceful library in the south of the ever-bickering Duchy of Brabant. My point is I see the Middle Ages as a backdrop rather than a foil. I also see _every_ setting as in great need of physical and social improvement.

[@therecalcitrantseditionist3613]

Edlington inadvertently created the first SCA gathering

[@therealshannonpeoples]

Wow. You’re doing a service to history here. In our age it’s so hard to separate real life from the ‘narrative’. That’s just the daily news. So it makes doubly difficult to persuade others to throw out their cherished ideas about what they think they know about c.1500. Thanx for the tips

[@RussellJones]

I love your channel and you should have more subscribers! The discussion about neo-peasantry reminded me of the famous Murray Bookchin's famous essay "Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm", with the neo-peasants being the lifestyle anarchists. I think a common strand besides the romanticization of the past is the relative privilege and affluence of the adherents of neo-peasantry and lifestyle anarchism. It's easy to imagine this romanticized life of leisure when your house is already paid for and your job has benefits and a pension.

[@thomass9234]

Lots of interesting and thought-provoking discussion in this video. I appreciated your comments towards the end cautioning against an over-simplified view of any past era. We all have our own biases. Well done. Glad I found your channel.

[@Oxtocoatl13]

This was wonderful! Concise and thought-provoking!

[@clepirelli]

Very thought-provoking video, thank you! Especially the part about neo-peasantry made me re-evaluate a few things. To be honest, homesteading has been my preferred brand of Kool-Aid as of late. When growing up, my parents would mostly talk about life in the middle ages as dying of ergotism, famine or war, superstition and religious dogma destroying lives, that kind of stuff. The more romantic vision of it I encountered later on was a breath of fresh air and, frankly, a source of hope about the future as it made our current ecological catastrophe less final than it had seemed. I suppose it's easy then to idealize medieval life and ignore the struggles and complications of the time under the blanket of a "return to simplicity". I certainly did so with the Incas, who seemed to have such a wonderful system of governance in the Mit'a system, until of course I learned of Mitma, their practice of forced relocation and branding of other ethnic groups. I've noticed though that a lot of the homesteaders and neo-peasants actually don't seem to want a return to medieval or ancient peasantry, but rather to a pre-industrial world. Whether it be John Seymour, Sandor Ellis Katz or any other homestead-adjacent authors, they seem to be mourning urbanization and the abandonment of villages and their communities, not the loss of medieval culture. Maybe this is why this idealisation happens nowadays. If industrialization was bad, then it must be that the times before were good.

[@makinghistoryYT]

Yeah, they're my catnip too. A big part of the reason I'm critical of romanticizing approaches to the past is because of how much they appeal to me personally!

[@txoricin]

Loving this channel And I’d totally want a video, or even better, a series contrasting the “enlightenment” with the real state of the areas of knowledge the enlightenment pretends to have brought to life, in the medieval era

[@joanneballance4898]

Loved this episode. Your point that we often gloss over, or neglect to include the unsavoury parts of our past was well taken. Keep this up!!

[@EmethMatthew]

Great analysis!

[@bigwords1000]

I love your videos! Great content :)

[@therecalcitrantseditionist3613]

As someone who studies the high and late middle ages, as well as 18th and 19th centuries, as a hobby. I really enjoyed this video and how you approached this topic. The contrast between enlightenment and romanticism and their effects on european society that we still feel to this day. But i especially liked your discussion of romantic nationalism and neo-pesantry. The romantic nationalism origin stories is something i encounter constantly in my interest in nation states formation as well my own sociopolitical views standing in contrast to them. The neo-peasant thing relates more to a frustration i see in so many friends and others who have very rosy colored romantic views of rural life and the past. Which to me as an urbanite, often seem severely divorced from reality. I think we all as people become better by having realistic views of these topics rather than being manipulated by those falsehoods used to reshape modern thought. If for no other reason to avoid the character assassination of not trying to depict historical people as they actually were. Most certainly will now be a subscriber

[@docholiday7975]

I can't say I care much for the contemporary romanticists (especially the stripe who idealise serfdom of all things). Having done some farm work and having had to split my own firewood to heat my house (in the mild Australian winter) I seriously do not believe these people are giving enough credit to how hard and demanding a life they are idolising compared to the modern one they live. This is not new either with the communes of the 60s and 70s being similar in outlook with regards to agriculture but with many failing; to this end I can't say I have long term hopes for these 'neo-peasants' especially given how marginal and inhospitable the areas they buy their plots of land. Agriculture today requires education, binding a polyglot of disciplines like chemistry, meteorology, biology, etc into one practical degree. Prior to, this was a combination of collective generational experience and hard, risky, trial and error learning. Endeavouring anything beyond hobby farming without such is an ugly prospect with history littered with failed attempts both by individuals and governments.

[@NevisYsbryd]

It is pretty ahistorical, too. Individual farmsteads are such a historical anomaly that they are almost mythical. They really only occurred a few times, and almost temporarily in the wake of depopulation events. Farming is a project that logistically pretty much necessitates collective knowledge and action to be productive, and it still relies on trade for tools (farmers are not knapping flint or mining, refining, or forging metal) and other materials.

[@onceamusician5408]

The construction of Neuschwanstein, the fairy tale castle in Bavaria that you mentioned, was started in 1869 and finished in 1884. It was ordered by the mad king of Bavaria, Ludwig II who was a disciple of the composer Richard Wagner who was very heavily into romantic medievalism which shows in most of his operas, from Tannhauser through the Ring Cycle (4 operas one subject) to Parsifal. romantic medievalism is nice but where would you go if you had toothache? a medieval barber surgeon? I think not

[@piccalillipit9211]

*I AM SO DESPERATE TO KNOW* what life was actually like for ordinary people in the Medieval period - not Grimdark or Romantic but really like. My guess is it was mostly OK. Most people were mostly happy most of the time. They had some good times and celebrations but occasionally very VERY bad things happened, a war, an invasion, a famine, a plague that was life-destroying. Also random death, quite a lot of that.

[@killianmotto2684]

It seems so difficult because there is so much factors that could turn your life to nightmare, you're in good health boom war, no war then an accident, and that's not talking about the daily lives for them. Even if they had "fair" taxes, good harvest they can have problems with their families or the village. Difficult to say on a timelapse of 1000 years.

[@piccalillipit9211]

@@killianmotto2684 And the language is the language they have to describe the time. I now live in ex-communist Bulgaria. They dont have a Bulgarian word for stress, they just use "стрес" which is "Stress". They did not HAVE stress under communism, they had many many things but stress only came with capitalism. Its one of the things they miss along with the solidarity. Anyway - my point is even if we read the reports of medieval life, if they dont have the things we have they wont mention them. So its so hard to know.

[@killianmotto2684]

@@piccalillipit9211 And it doesn't help that the rare direct infos we have about them is usually NOT common like inquisition reports. But if you want voices from people rarely talked about you can try Christine de Pizan since she talk about women. You'll find a lot of things relatable to our era but also medieval mindset blended.

[@piccalillipit9211]

@@killianmotto2684 Oh thanks Il have a look for Christine de Pizan. I'm just reading books from the early to mid-1800s, just because they give me an insight into the world as it was in those days. I am working my way back in time so as to make the language easier for me.

[@booksmith1193]

Very entertaining!

[@thexenoist3493]

I'm a little confused, you said medieval origins of modern nation states was debunked but from what you said it sounds like it is accurate. That's not to say the 'romantic nationalists' are totally correct but it seems like more a clarification than debunking. "Why care" is sort of a weird question because why care about anything. It's just interesting ain't it. Also it seems like there are a couple of steps between "England has it's origins from the Anglo-Saxons" and 'trying to destroy the cultures of indigenous America', the action doesn't naturally follow the idea.

[@makinghistoryYT]

Yeah, this is a much bigger topic that probably needed to be more than just a casual aside. It's really a whole weird and fascinating thing, the way that romantic nationalists turned stories of Anglo Saxons or Visigoths into this whole justification for colonialism and genocide. But even the start of that chain is dubious. It's not as you sensibly say, "England had its origins in the Anglo Saxons", more of a "we ARE Anglo Saxons", claiming this direct unbroken line. That's what I was thinking of by "debunking". But it's such a complicated thing, thanks for the comment and the reminder of how much more there is to this topic!

[@docholiday7975]

​ @makinghistory7619 To add to that, this ethnogenesis line of thinking often glosses over the pre-existing inhabitants of the areas which significantly outnumbered the newcomers or outright dismisses them by claiming the newcomers wiped them out, either totally or close to; such thinking was reflective of contemporary politics and colonialism. There's also the issue that these groups were also much less homogenous and 'racially pure' that is commonly stated. The Visigoths are a good example. Unlike claims that they were formed from the Tervingi and slowly moved over a few decades as a complete people to Aquitaine, the reality is far more muddy as the various tribes of Goths and Alans that moved into the ERE lost their former tribal identities making the group of followers behind Alaric questionable in composition, doubly so when the deserters in the WRE joined him following the deposition of Stilicho. Instead of being a tribe of Goths these were instead a mixed group of people with a Gothic leadership. The same could be said of England and the Jutes, Frisians and Franks whom are commonly sidelined in favour of the Angles and the Saxons. This is of course to say nothing of the locals who were far more intertwined with them than was otherwise given in all cases. The above is but the mere tip of a far larger iceberg that came to a head in the 30s and 40s with a certain group headed by a certain failed Austrian painter. The claims of these 'Germanic' people settling around Europe was used create irredentist claims of ownership over these areas and justify the bloody wars of conquest and extermination against these 'invaders of rightful German lands'. Suffice it say, there was a major step back and re-examination of this leading to a significant change to the point the original idea is far, far more wrong than right.

[@NevisYsbryd]

​@@docholiday7975Eh, that is not entirely accurate at a broader scope. While complete demographic replacement was generally rare in the Migration Period and Middle Ages, specifically, those areas have been subjected to almost to be effectively total replacement at other times. The genetic makeup of the Iberian peninsula is overwhelmingly descended from the Western Anatolian Neolithic farmers with rather little admixture from either the earlier hunter-gatherers or the steppe Proto-Indo-Europeans. The Neolithic farmers in Albion displaced the hunter gatherers by over 90%, who were themselves displaced by over 90% by steppe peoples. Varying levels of admixture or a replacement almost exclusively of the ruling class or caste (as in the case of the Normans) was the predominant outcome during the Middle Ages, yes; effectively total demographic displacements have repeatedly occurred in Europe, though.

[@theimaginarium]

Where would you classify Don Quixote in all this? I realize this is not really a simple question lol

[@makinghistoryYT]

Yeah, the answer to that would be a whole other video, at least 😉 For one thing, I'm not 100% sure about this, but I think Don Quixote was mainly satirizing the post - medieval romance, and even romances that were popular in Cervantes' day. So not as much a reaction to the past or middle ages as what I was talking about here. But it's also true that satire and humour is maybe a third category of medievalism that I didn't really account for in this video. It's something that I have started thinking about, maybe a video in future!

[@theimaginarium]

@@makinghistoryYT Wonderful, I've inspired you to make more videos. DQ mentions romances and "histories" that go quite far back, and of course since it was itself written in the 16th century, that further complicates matters. Even worse is the fact that Cervantes seems to be making a pretty complex statement about such romances. I've not finished the book yet, but on one hand there is all the hilarious shenanigans that DQ gets involved with because he is so delusional and gung-ho, but then at the same time, he has other characters that are not delusional praising many aspects of those very same chivalric romances...so...yeah. You'd need another video to handle that! Great channel, great stuff, thank you.

[@jimbrittain402]

Pre-Raphaelites? Also, you rock.

[@makinghistoryYT]

Ooh, I've been thinking about doing a video about them. I don't know a ton about them through, I'd have to do some research. Thanks!

[@thetalesofrozgardthered7740]

I could greatly profit from video on the origin and purpose of fairy tales.

[@simplyafloatingeyeball.8923]

Im an antyvazzer 😅

[@necromonkey_777]

15:28 people kinda didnt dress like that even wayback when, cos that 'ukranian national garb' is pretty much how the were dressing for the theatre plays, so its very exaggerated