The middle ages remain a prize to be fought for and a territory to control. From early modern times rulers and politicians have sought to ground their legitimacy in ancient tradition - which they have often invented or rewritten for their own purposes. The current issue of Studies in Medievalism/ presents a number of such cases, ranging from the rewriting of Mozart, and Merovingian history, for the King of Bavaria, to the anglicization of the medieval Welsh Mabinogion by the wife of an English ironmaster. Other articles consider the involvement of scholarship with national and professional self-definition, whether in Renaissance Holland or Victorian Britain. And who 'discovered' America, Christopher Columbus or Leif Ericsson? This is an issue of vital importance to many 19th-century Americans, but one created and determined entirely by scholarship. Simple commercial motives for exploiting the middle ages are also represented, whether straightforward forgery for sale, or the giant modern industry of tourism. Professor TOM SHIPPEY teaches in the Department of English at the University of St Louis; Dr MARTIN ARNOLD teaches at University College, Scarborough. Contributors: SOPHIE VAN ROMBURGH, ROLF H. BREMMER JR, BETSY BOWDEN, WERNER WUNDERLICH, JUDITH JOHNSTON, GERALDINE BARNES, RICHARD UTZ, JOHN BLOCK FRIEDMAN, STEVE WATSON.
Why Francis Junius (1591-1677) became An Anglo-Saxonist, or, the Study of Old English for the Elevation of Dutch - Sophie van Romburgh Francis Junius Reads Chaucer: but Why? and How? - Rolf H. Bremmer Transportation to Canterbury: the Rival Envisionings by Stothard and Blake - Betsy Bowden Medieval Mozart: König Garibald and La Clemenza di Tito - W Wunderlich Victorian Appropriations: Lady Charlotte Guest translates The Mabinogion - Judith Johnston The Norse Discovery of America and the American Discovery of Norse (1828-1892) - Geraldine Barnes Enthusiast or Philologist? Professional Discourse and the Medievalism of Frederick James Furnivall - Richard Utz Medievalism and a New Leaf by the Spanish Forger - John B Friedman Touring the Medieval: Tourism, Heritage and Medievalism in Northumbria - Steve Watson
