Neo-medievalism (or neomedievalism, new medievalism) is a term with a long history that has acquired specific technical senses in two branches of scholarship. In
political theory about modern
international relations
International relations (IR), sometimes referred to as international studies and international affairs, is the scientific study of interactions between sovereign states. In a broader sense, it concerns all activities between states—such a ...
, where the term is originally associated with
Hedley Bull
Hedley Norman Bull (10 June 1932 – 18 May 1985) was Professor of International Relations at the Australian National University, the London School of Economics and the University of Oxford until his death from cancer in 1985. He was Montague ...
, it sees the
political order
In political science, a political system means the type of political organization that can be recognized, observed or otherwise declared by a state.
It defines the process for making official government decisions. It usually comprizes the govern ...
of a
globalized
Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...
world as analogous to
high-medieval Europe, where neither
states nor the Church, nor other territorial powers, exercised full
sovereignty
Sovereignty is the defining authority within individual consciousness, social construct, or territory. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within the state, as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the perso ...
, but instead participated in complex, overlapping and incomplete sovereignties.
[Stephen J. Kobrin]
"Back to the Future: Neomedievalism and the Postmodern Digital World Economy"
In
literary theory regarding the use and abuse of texts and
tropes from the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
in
postmodernity
Postmodernity (post-modernity or the postmodern condition) is the economic or cultural state or condition of society which is said to exist ''after'' modernity. Some schools of thought hold that modernity ended in the late 20th century – in the ...
, the term ''neomedieval'' was popularized by the Italian medievalist
Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel ''The Name of th ...
in his 1986 essay "Dreaming of the Middle Ages".
Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel ''The Name of th ...
, "Dreaming of the Middle Ages," in ''Travels in Hyperreality'', transl. by W. Weaver, NY: Harcourt Brace, 1986, pp. 61–72.
Political theory
The idea of neomedievalism in political theory was first discussed in 1977 by theorist
Hedley Bull
Hedley Norman Bull (10 June 1932 – 18 May 1985) was Professor of International Relations at the Australian National University, the London School of Economics and the University of Oxford until his death from cancer in 1985. He was Montague ...
in ''
The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics'' to describe the erosion of state
sovereignty
Sovereignty is the defining authority within individual consciousness, social construct, or territory. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within the state, as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the perso ...
in the contemporary globalized world:
It is also conceivable that sovereign states might disappear and be replaced not by a world government but by a modern and secular equivalent of the kind of universal political organisation that existed in Western Christendom in the Middle Ages. In that system no ruler or state was sovereign in the sense of being supreme over a given territory and a given segment of the Christian population; each had to share authority with vassals beneath, and with the Pope and (in Germany and Italy) the Holy Roman Emperor above. The universal political order of Western Christendom represents an alternative to the system of states which does not yet embody universal government.
Thus Bull suggested society might move towards "a new mediaevalism" or a "neo-mediaeval form of universal political order", in which individual notions of rights and a growing sense of a "world common good" were undermining
national
National may refer to:
Common uses
* Nation or country
** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen
Places in the United States
* National, Maryland, c ...
sovereignty
Sovereignty is the defining authority within individual consciousness, social construct, or territory. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within the state, as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the perso ...
. He proposed that such a system might help "avoid the classic dangers of the system of sovereign states by a structure of overlapping structures and cross-cutting loyalties that hold all peoples together in a universal society while at the same time avoiding the concentration inherent in a world government", though "if it were anything like the precedent of Western Christendom, it would contain more ubiquitous and continuous violence and insecurity than does the modern states system".
In this reading,
globalization
Globalization, or globalisation (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), see spelling differences), is the process of foreign relation ...
has resulted in an international system which resembles the medieval one, where political authority was exercised by a range of non-territorial and overlapping agents, such as religious bodies,
principalities
A principality (or sometimes princedom) can either be a monarchical feudatory or a sovereign state, ruled or reigned over by a regnant-monarch with the title of prince and/or princess, or by a monarch with another title considered to fall under ...
,
empires
An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...
and
city-states
A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory. They have existed in many parts of the world since the dawn of history, including cities such as ...
, instead of by a single political authority in the form of a state which has complete sovereignty over its territory. Comparable processes characterising Bull's "new medievalism" include the increasing powers held by regional organisations such as the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...
, as well as the spread of sub-national and devolved governments, such as those of
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...
and
Catalonia
Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a '' nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy.
Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the nort ...
. These challenge the exclusive authority of the state.
Private military companies
A private military company (PMC) or private military and security company (PMSC) is a private company providing armed combat or security services for financial gain. PMCs refer to their personnel as "security contractors" or "private military ...
,
multinational corporations
A multinational company (MNC), also referred to as a multinational enterprise (MNE), a transnational enterprise (TNE), a transnational corporation (TNC), an international corporation or a stateless corporation with subtle but contrasting senses, i ...
and the resurgence of worldwide religious movements (e.g.
political Islam
Political Islam is any interpretation of Islam as a source of political identity and action. It can refer to a wide range of individuals and/or groups who advocate the formation of state and society according to their understanding of Islamic pri ...
) similarly indicate a reduction in the role of the state and a decentralisation of power and authority.
Stephen J. Kobrin in 1998 added the forces of the digital world economy to the picture of neomedievalism. In an article entitled "Back to the Future: Neomedievalism and the Postmodern Digital World Economy" in the ''Journal of International Affairs'',
he argued that the sovereign state as we know itdefined within certain territorial bordersis about to change profoundly, if not to wither away, due in part to the digital world economy created by the Internet, suggesting that cyberspace is a trans-territorial domain operating outside of the jurisdiction of national law.
Anthony Clark Arend
Anthony Clark Arend (born October 24, 1958) is Professor of Government and Foreign Service at Georgetown University. On June 1, 2020, he became Chair of the Department of Government. From August 1, 2015 until July 15, 2018, he served as Senior Ass ...
also argued in his 1999 book ''Legal Rules and International Society'' that the international system is moving toward a "neo-medieval" system. He claimed that the trends that Bull noted in 1977 had become even more pronounced by the end of the twentieth century. Arend argues that the emergence of a "neo-medieval" system would have profound implications for the creation and operation of international law.
Although Bull originally envisioned neomedievalism as a positive trend, it has its critics.
Bruce Holsinger
Bruce W. Holsinger is an American author, novelist, and an academic and literary scholar. Currently, he is professor of English at the University of Virginia.
Academic career
He is considered an expert on the use of parchment in medieval English ...
in ''Neomedievalism,
Neoconservatism
Neoconservatism is a political movement that began in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist foreign policy of the Democratic Party and with the growing New Left and ...
, and the War on Terror'' argues that
neoconservative
Neoconservatism is a political movement that began in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist foreign policy of the Democratic Party and with the growing New Left and count ...
s "have exploited neomedievalism's conceptual slipperiness for their own tactical ends." Similarly, Philip G. Cerny's "Neomedievalism, Civil War and the New Security Dilemma" (1998) also sees neomedievalism as a negative development and claims that the forces of globalization increasingly undermine nation-states and interstate forms of governance "by cross-cutting linkages among different economic sectors and social bonds," calling globalization a "durable disorder" which eventually leads to the emergence of the new security dilemmas that had analogies in the Middle Ages. Cerny identifies six characteristics of a neomedieval world that contribute to this disorder: multiple competing institutions; lack of exogenous territorializing pressures both on sub-national and international levels; uneven consolidation of new spaces, cleavages, conflicts and inequalities; fragmented loyalties and identities; extensive entrenchment of property rights; and spread of the "grey zones" outside the law as well as black economy.
Medieval studies
An early use of the term ''neo-medievalism'' in a sense like Umberto Eco's was in
Isaiah Berlin's 1953 "
The Hedgehog and the Fox
''The Hedgehog and the Fox'' is an essay by philosopher Isaiah Berlin that was published as a book in 1953. It was one of his most popular essays with the general public. However, Berlin said, "I meant it as a kind of enjoyable intellectual gam ...
":
There is no kinship between him Joseph de Maistre
Joseph Marie, comte de Maistre (; 1 April 1753 – 26 February 1821) was a Savoyard philosopher, writer, lawyer, and diplomat who advocated social hierarchy and monarchy in the period immediately following the French Revolution. Despite his clo ...
and those who really did believe in the possibility of some kind of return neo-medievalists from Wackenroder
Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder (13 July 1773 – 13 February 1798) was a German jurist and writer. With Ludwig Tieck and the Schlegel brothers, he has co-founded the German Romanticism.
Life
Wackenroder was born in Berlin. He was a close friend o ...
and Görres and Cobbett Cobbett is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Hilary Dulcie Cobbett (1885–1976), British artist
* William Cobbett (1763–1835), British radical agriculturist and prolific journalist.
* Walter Willson Cobbett
Walter Willson ...
to G. K. Chesterton, and Slavophils and Distributists and Pre-Raphaelites and other nostalgic romantics; for he believed, as Tolstoy
Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...
also did, in the exact opposite: in the "inexorable" power of the present moment: in our inability to do away with the sum of conditions which cumulatively determine our basic categories, an order which we can never fully describe or, otherwise than by some immediate awareness of it, come to know.
Then, in 1986, Umberto Eco said "we are at present witnessing, both in Europe and America, a period of renewed interest in the Middle Ages, with a curious oscillation between fantastic neomedievalism and responsible philological examination".
Recently, the term has been used by various writers such as
medieval historians who see it as the intersection between popular fantasy and
medieval history
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...
as a term describing the
post-modern
Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...
study of medieval history.
The widespread interest in medieval themes in
popular culture
Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a ...
, especially
computer games such as
MMORPGs,
films and
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
,
neo-medieval music
Neo-Medieval music is a modern popular music characterized by elements of Medieval music and early music in general. Music styles within neo-Medieval music vary from authentic performance interpretations of Medieval music (understood as Classical ...
, and popular
literature
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
, has been called ''neomedieval''. Critics have discussed why medieval themes continue to fascinate audiences in a modern, heavily technological world. A possible explanation is the need for a
romanticized historical narrative to clarify the confusing panorama of current political and cultural events.
Intersection of neomedievalism in political theory and medieval studies
Some commentators have used the terminological overlap between Hedley Bull's political theory of 'neomedievalism' and Umberto Eco's postmodernist theory of 'neomedievalism' to discuss how cultural discourses about the Middle Ages are used to political ends in the changing international order of the twenty-first century. A key proponent of this argument was Bruce Holsinger, who studied the use of
orientalist and medievalist language in the discourse of the post-
9/11 'war on terror', arguing that American neoconservatives had harnessed medievalism to win popular support for foreign policy and military actions that undermined state sovereignty and the international rule of law.
[Victoria Elizabeth Cooper,]
Fantasies of the North: Medievalism and Identity in ''The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim''
(unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Leeds, 2016).
Working in Holsinger's wake, others have argued that neomedievalist popular culture, such as the video game ''
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim'', represents and so in turn helps to normalise a neomedievalist political order,
and that states other than the US, for example Iceland, have also used medievalism as a source of
soft power to help secure their place in the shifting post-9/11 world order.
Alaric Hall
Alaric Hall (born 1979) is a British philologist who is an associate professor of English and director of the Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds. He has, since 2009, been the editor of the academic journal '' Leeds Studies ...
,
Útrásarvíkingar! The Literature of the Icelandic Financial Crisis (2008–2014)
' (Earth, Milky Way: punctum, 2020), , .
Studies
* ''Defining Neomedievalism(s) I'', ed. by K. Fugelso, Studies in Medievalism, 19 (Cambridge: Brewer, 2010),
* ''Defining Neomedievalism(s) II'', ed. by K. Fugelso, Studies in Medievalism, 20 (Cambridge: Brewer, 2011),
* ''Neo-Medievalism in the Media: Essays on Film, Television, and Electronic Games'', ed. by Carol L. Robinson (Mellen, 2012),
* ''Comparative Neomedievalisms'', ed. by Daniel Lukes, special issue of ''Postmedieval'', 5.1 (Spring 2014)
* ''Neomedievalism, Popular Culture, and the Academy: From Tolkien to Game of Thrones'', by KellyAnn Fitzpatrick (Cambridge: Brewer, 2019),
See also
*
Westphalian sovereignty
Westphalian sovereignty, or state sovereignty, is a principle in international law that each state has exclusive sovereignty over its territory. The principle underlies the modern international system of sovereign states and is enshrined in the ...
*
Neo-feudalism
Neo-feudalism or new feudalism is the contemporary rebirth of policies of governance, economy, and public life, reminiscent of those which were present in many feudal societies. Such aspects include, but are not limited to: Unequal rights and lega ...
*
Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism (also neo-liberalism) is a term used to signify the late 20th century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism after it fell into decline following the Second World War. A prominent fa ...
*
English school of international relations theory
*
Refeudalization
Notes
External links
''NeoMedievalism'', a collection of links and a general evaluation''Pulling Back from Neo-Medievalism'' a discussion of neo-medievalism in relation to the
Hungarian Status Law
''NeoMedievalism'', academic look at the study of medievalism through a literary criticism lensWhy history matters - and why medieval history also matters* Sutch, P and J Elias, ''International Relations: The Basics'', Routledge, New York, 2007, pp. 102–104
Towards a new Middle Ages?by Roberto Rotondo
Legal Rules and International Societyby Anthony Clark Arend
{{Middle Ages
Political theories
Philosophical theories
Middle Ages in popular culture
International relations theory
Sovereignty
Power (social and political) concepts