In 1859, the historian Lord John Acton asserted: 'two great principles divide the world, and contend for the mastery, antiquity and the middle ages'. The influence on Victorian culture of the 'Middle Ages' (broadly understood then as the centuries between the Roman Empire and the Renaissance) was both pervasive and multi-faceted. This 'medievalism' led, for instance, to the rituals and ornament of the Medieval Catholic church being reintroduced to Anglicanism. It led to the Saxon Witan being celebrated as a prototypical representative parliament. It resulted in Viking raiders being acclaimed as the forefathers of the British navy. And it encouraged innumerable nineteenth-century men to cultivate the superlative beards we now think of as typically 'Victorian'EDin an attempt to emulate their Anglo-Saxon forefathers.
Different facets of medieval life, and different periods before the Renaissance, were utilized in nineteenth-century Britain for divergent political and cultural agendas. Medievalism also became a dominant mode in Victorian art and architecture, with 75 per cent of churches in England built on a Gothic rather than a classical model. And it was pervasive in a wide variety of literary forms, from translated sagas to pseudo-medieval devotional verse to triple-decker novels. Medievalism even transformed nineteenth-century domesticity: while only a minority added moats and portcullises to their homes, the medieval-style textiles produced by Morris and Co. decorated many affluent drawing rooms. The Oxford Handbook of Victorian Medievalism is the first work to examine in full the fascinating phenomenon of 'medievalism' in Victorian Britain. Covering art, architecture, religion, literature, politics, music, and social reform, the Handbook also surveys earlier forms of antiquarianism that established the groundwork for Victorian movements. In addition, this collection addresses the international context, by mapping the spread of medievalism across Europe, South America, and India, amongst other places.
Joanne Parker and Corinna Wagner: Introduction Part One: Medievalism before 1750 1: Philip Schwyzer: King Arthur and the Tudor Dynasty 2: Timothy Graham: Old English and Old Norse Studies to the Eighteenth Century 3: Graham Parry: Validating the English Church 4: Clare Simmons: The Diggers and the Norman Yoke Part Two: Romantic Period Medievalism 5: David Matthews: The Ballad Revival and the Rise of Literary History 6: Jack Lynch: Medieval Forgery 7: Kirsten Wolf: Grimur Thorkelin, Rasmus Rask, and the Origins of Philology 8: Joseph Crawford: The Romantic Gothic Imagination 9: Tom Duggett: Gothic Ruins and Revivals: The Lake Poet's Architecture of the Past 10: Jim Watt: Sir Walter Scott and the Medievalist Novel Part Three: Sources 11: Jane Toswell: The Study of Anglo-Saxon Poetry in the Victorian Period 12: Richard Utz: Chaucer Among the Victorians 13: Jane Hawkes: The Later Victorian Recovery of Anglo-Saxon Sculpture: George Forrest Brown (1833-1930), Proctor, Professor, Bishop and Anglo-Saxonist 14: Huw Pryce: The Irish and Welsh Middle Ages in the Victorian Period 15: Sarah Dunnigan and Gerard Carruthers: Scottish Neomedievalism 16: Eleonora Sasso: The Lure of Boccaccio's Medievalism 17: Carl Phelpstead: Eddas, Sagas, and Victorians 18: Francis Gentry: Medievalism as an Instrument of Political Renewal in 19th-Century Germany 19: Elizabeth Emery and Janet T. Marquardt: The Influences of French Medievalism on Victorian Britain Part Four: Social, Political, and Religious Praxis 20: Will Abberley: Philology, Anglo-Saxonism, and National Identity 21: Richard Gaunt: Toryism and the Young England Movement 22: Dominic Janes: The Oxford Movement, Asceticism and Sexual Desire 23: Ian Haywood: Illuminating Propaganda: Radical Medievalism and Utopia in the Chartist Era 24: Corinna Wagner: Bodies and Buildings: Materialist Medievalism 25: Kathleen Davis and Nadia Altschul: Medievalism and Colonialism: Orientalizing Chile and India in the Age of British Militarized Mercantilism Part Five: Arts and Architecture 26: William Whyte: Ecclesiastical Gothic Revivalism 27: Jim Cheshire: Victorian Medievalism and Secular Design 28: Alex Bremner: The Gothic Revival Beyond Europe 29: Ayla Lepine: The Pre-Raphaelites: Medievalism and Victorian Visual Culture 30: Jan Marsh: William Morris and Medievalism 31: Rosie Ibbotson: Revisiting the medievalism of the British Arts and Crafts Movement 32: John Haines: Medievalist Music and Dance Part Six: Literature 33: Elizabeth Helsinger: Pre-Raphaelite Poetry: Medieval Modernism 34: Clare Broome Saunders: Women Writers and the Medieval 35: Marcus Waithe: Building Utopia: The Structural Medievalism of William Morris's News from Nowhere 36: Antony H. Harrison: Mid-to-Late Victorian Medievalist Poetry 37: Heather O'Donoghue: Re-presenting Icelandic Saga Narrative for Victorian Readers 38: Joanne Parker: Anglo-Saxonism and the Victorian Novel 39: Inga Bryden: Tennyson and the Return of King Arthur
Joanne Parker is Associate Professor of Victorian Literature and Culture at the University of Exeter. Her previous publications include England's Darling: The Victorian Cult of Alfred the Great (Manchester University Press, 2007) and Britannia Obscura: Mapping Hidden Britain (Jonathan Cape, 2014), which was one of 12 books long-listed for the Thwaites Wainwright Prize, 2014. She has also published on the Victorian legends of Robin Hood and King Arthur, on the nineteenth-century reception of prehistoric megaliths, on the Victorians and the Battle of Brunanburgh, and on the late nineteenth-century obsession with live gibbetting. Corinna Wagner is Professor of Visual and Literary Arts at the University of Exeter. Her publications on the subject of medicine and the arts include Pathological Bodies: Medicine and Political Culture (University of California, 2013) and A Body of Work: An Anthology of Poetry and Medicine (Bloomsbury, 2016). More recently, she has contributed chapters to Literature and the History of Medicine (Cambridge, 2019), The Cambridge History of the Gothic (2019), and The Anatomy of the Image: Perspectives on the (Bio)medical Body in Science, Literature, Culture and Politics (Brill, 2020). She has also published on gothic revival architecture, and the relationship between science, the gothic, and medievalism.
Reviews for The Oxford Handbook of Victorian Medievalism
This edition is a thorough and valuable contribution to the study of medievalism, for both specialist and introductory readers alike...the ambition of this volume is undeniable and its scope is laudable. * Alana White, Mythlore * Parker and Wagner's impressive volume, then, will prove to be an invaluable resource for scholars of both the Middle Ages and the nineteenth century. * Veronica Alfano, Review 19 * ...the Handbook presents some welcome reassessments, updating the scholarship in this area to good effect. * Jacqueline Banerjee, The Victorian Web * An invaluable and accessible resource * Kevin J. Harty, Arthuriana * monumental * Tim Lustig, Henry James Review * Reshapes the field of Victorian Medievalism * Nat Reeve, Journal of Victorian Culture * The volume succeeds in demonstrating the pervasiveness, the influence, and the evolution of Victorian medievalisms. * Ann F. Howey, Victorian Studies Vol 64.4 *
