Why Using Medieval Symbols in Political Movements is Dangerous for the Arts
On Sunday, the 5th of January, Donald Trump Jr. posted a photo of his newly decorated AR-15 assault rifle, sporting an image of Hilary Clinton behind prison bars, as well as the icon of the crusades engraved into the gun. This is not the first occurrence in which medieval icons were adopted for modern political thought and statements. In August of 2017, a mass protest in Charlottesville took place, with hundreds of white supremacists bearing images and slogans of the Klu Klux Klan and Nazi Germany, but also carrying the medieval symbol of the black eagle, an icon first carried by Roman general Saint Maurice, who descended from Africa. This is not the first time right-wing political movements have taken claim to medieval art and literature. During its rise to power, the Nazi Party evoked icons like Odin from Old Norse literature, becoming known as the Volkisch Movement. (Camus 16).
Richard Nokes noted the outrage among such people after a trailer for the charity film Beowulf: Prince of Geats was posted online, as the protagonist Beowulf is played by two black actors, Jayshan Jackson and Damon Lynch III (Nokes 1). All involved with the film were harassed, received death threats and comments on people of colour were left online, with many of these people claiming Beowulf as a piece of their Norse history, despite Beowulf being a poem of English origins, written circa 1000AD by anonymous English monks (Powell 1).
Modern technology has only increased the reach of such ideologies. A Twitter search for “Odin” reveals a dangerous and frightening number of white supremacists, usually hiding behind Norse or other medieval examples of iconography. Despite clear evidence across disciplines that medieval Europe had citizens of colour living and participating within societies, these groups continue to spread a false, rewritten history in which only white people exist. For example, archaeologists have found evidence of people of colour living in Europe in the Middle Ages. To make matters worse, academics are faced with a “haunting spectre” of 19th century scholars whose work agrees with and embedded ideologies based on a strictly white medieval Europe (Ellard 16). Contemporary scholars of colour still struggle to find work within these disciplines due to the deeply embedded racism that has haunted medieval studies. It is only in recent years have academics of medieval history and literature begun to speak out about the increase in alt-right politically inclined figures taking a misguided claim to medieval art, history and literature.
The long-standing silence among academics in these fields have allowed for icons of medieval literature, art and history to become associated with right-wing fascist movements, who take claim to them in order to discriminate against anyone that does not fall into the category of a straight, white, cis-gendered man. It poses a danger for the arts, as well as reflecting the importance of the work those in arts have undertaken. The arts have long stood as a format to scrutinise political movements and the ideologies that stand to endanger large groups of people based on their race, nationality, religion, sexuality and gender. Scholars have their work cut out for them. With the rise of fascist movements globally, much work both academically and politically must be undertaken in order to end the use of medieval art, literature and history as a foundation for discrimination against minorities.
References
Camus, Jean-Yves; Lebourg, Nicolas (20 March 2017). Far-Right Politics in Europe. Harvard University Press. pp. 16–17
Dockray-Miller M. (2017) Anglo-Saxonists as Public Medievalists. In: Public Medievalists, Racism, and Suffrage in the American Women’s College. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Pivot, Cham
Ellard, Donna Beth (2019) OED. ‘Anglo-Saxonist, n.’: professional scholar or anonymous person, Rethinking History, 23:1, 16–33, DOI: 10.1080/13642529.2018.1561809
Elliott, Andrew B.R. “Internet Medievalism And The White Middle Ages.” History Compass 16.3 (2018): 1–10.
Little, Becky. “How Hate Groups Are Hijacking Medieval Symbols While Ignoring The Facts Behind Them.” HISTORY. 2017. Web. 7 Jan. 2020.
Nokes, Richard Scott, “Beowulf: Prince of the Geats, Nazis, and Odinists,” Old English Newsletter 41.3 (2008).
Perry, David M. “Yes, There Were People Of Color In Pre-Modern Europe.” Pacific Standard. 2017. Web. Accessed 7 Jan. 2020.
Powell, Kathryn. “Mediating on Men and Monsters: A Reconsideration of the Thematic Unity of the ‘Beowulf’ Manuscript.” The Review of English Studies, Vol, 57, №228 (2006): 1–15.
