The Mediaeval Journal

This article studies Pippin as a modern American performative reincarnation of the Carolingian period, specifically of the Charlemagne legend, intended to address political-military events in 1970s and 2010s America. It argues that Pippin’s creators employed romantic and grotesque visions of the Middle Ages, as well as comic medievalism, to critique modern American society and its military-industrial complex. Moreover, the musical’s re-envisioning of the Charlemagne legend inverts the central messages of the legend’s earlier, post-Carolingian incarnations to criticize nationalist, imperialist, and militarist ideologies. Thus, Pippin becomes an American medievalism that is a ‘resource for resistance’.

When Simon de Montfort was killed at the Battle of Evesham on 4 August 1265, it set in motion the collapse of the reform movement he had led; yet, in its aftermath, laypeople and ecclesiastics of all ranks honoured him as a saint, not only ascribing miracles to his intercession but also praising him in prose and poetry. Latin and Anglo-Norman liturgical and non-liturgical songs survive in a range of manuscripts, but have been dismissed by historians as a mass of tropes. The present contribution argues that in fact these works afford unique windows onto the veneration of this unlikely ‘soldier-martyr’, demonstrating how de Montfort’s supporters depicted him as a miles Christi: honourable not merely for having suffered violence in a just cause, but for having used violence righteously.

This article explores how St Birgitta of Sweden’s life experiences and views on gender, birth, sexuality, marriage, and politics are represented through the lens of visual culture. Imagery associated with the publication of her Revelations, devotional images produced in relation to her Birgittine Order, and paintings of the Nativity and Crucifixion inspired by her visions, provide a visual representation of aspects of Birgitta’s intriguing life as a visionary and widow. Drawing upon interpretations of St Birgitta’s significance in historical, theological, cultural and art historical dimensions, the discussion illustrates how Birgitta’s personal, spiritual, and public persona are conveyed and interpreted in art works.

This essay articulates a vision for a ‘book history of the Hundred Years War’ that proceeds from a recognition of the deep cultural entanglement that characterized the relationship between England and France in the late medieval period. Through case studies on the manuscripts of Charles d’Orléans, Jean d’Angoulême, and Jean Froissart, it emphasizes the utility and value of understanding book production in terms that are not strictly ‘English’ or ‘French’ but rather ‘cross-Channel’ in this wartime context. In conclusion, it affirms that manuscript study has much to offer scholarship concerned with the interconnectedness of the medieval world.