Why Medieval History Gets Used to Support Today’s Political Claims
A Q&A with Villanova historian Rebecca Winer, scholar of Medieval Europe
In an era of resurgent nationalism, medieval history continues to be used by political movements to justify ideologies or claims. Recently, the Lepage Center’s History Communication Fellows, Keeley Tulio and James Lyons, sat down with Villanova historian Rebecca Winer to discuss some of the ways that medieval history gets used in the world today. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Fellows: What led you to focus on medieval history, Dr. Winer?
Winer: When I was an undergraduate at Wellesley College, the college ran a year-long interdisciplinary program for first-year students on a particular time and place — its history, philosophy, literature, music, and art. My freshman year, the program focused on high medieval Europe (ca. 1000–1300 C.E.). We had general lectures from faculty and took courses in two disciplines and a writing class. We all made astrolabes, read Dante’s Divine Comedy and Béroul’s The Romance of Tristan, and examined primary sources drawn from everyday life. My favorites were letters written by ordinary Jewish people from all over the Islamic world and preserved (because they were written in Hebrew characters) in the wall of a Cairo synagogue.
Fellows: Many people may not think of texts preserved in a Cairo synagogue as part of medieval history. How do you feel the general public tends to view the Middle Ages?
Winer: A friend and colleague at UCLA teaching premodern European history asked her students to write down what they think about the Middle Ages. Many just wrote “white.” People inside and outside of Medieval Studies should not see the field that way.
Fellows: So how do you look at the Middle Ages?
Winer: My Middle Ages focuses on the interactions of ordinary Christians, Jews, and Muslims and on questions of gender. During the Middle Ages Jews, Christians and Muslims lived together in the Iberian Peninsula and Italy, although that broke down by the Early Modern period (approximately 1500 C.E.). I’m also interested in the enslavement under Christian rule of Iberian Muslim, African, Asian steppe, Slavic, and Mediterranean women in what is now southern France and Eastern Spain. My recent research centers on wet nursing and childcare within and across faith communities and compares the lives of freeborn and unfree wet nurses.
Fellows: Which elements of the Middle Ages emerge in contemporary politics, including those of the so-called alt-Right?
Winer: The use of the crusaders’ slogan “Deus vult” or “God Wills It” is tied with contemporary Islamophobia. For example, the marchers in Charlottesville in 2017 called on their supporters to defend and protect the U.S. against Islam. They seem to claim that, like medieval crusaders, they are on a mission from God and violence is thus honorable and usable. This perspective reflects a “clash of civilizations” model that ignores all that was achieved in medieval Islamic culture (in terms of advances in math, science, commerce, etc.) as well as the fact that interfaith partnership under Islamic rule made these achievements possible. However, medieval history has fed European nationalism in the past, and that aspect is part of what white supremacists are currently misusing.
Fellows: Can you explain more about the connection between medieval history and European nationalism?
Winer: People marshaled the medieval histories of European countries to support the political claims of regions and nation-states. As an undergraduate, I was introduced to a debate on whether Charlemagne (who died in 814 C.E. and ruled present-day France, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and parts of Austria and Spain) was French or German. It’s an absurd debate. Charlemagne was both and neither. He would have called himself a “Frank.” But it’s not ridiculous if you’re a later-nineteenth-century French or German historian who is thinking about nationalism at a time when the borders of France and Germany were hotly contested. The nationality of Emperor Charlemagne, arguably the greatest ruler medieval Europe ever knew, was politically significant then.
The debate on whether Charlemagne was French or German is absurd. He was both and neither. But at a time when the borders of France and Germany were hotly contested, the nationality of Emperor Charlemagne was politically significant.
Fellows: You mentioned that medieval history was applied to support political claims for regions as well nation-states. Where do you see this happening now?
Winer: Today, the medieval history of Catalonia is very important to Catalans who are seeking independence from Spain. Catalan is a distinct language from Spanish/Castilian and the Catalans preserve their own customs. The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were a political heyday for Catalan political influence, literature and art. The Catalan-speaking lands were partitioned in the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659 with the northern region ceded to France and the south to Spain. The citizens of Barcelona also backed the losing side in the war of the Spanish succession, and their independent institutions were suppressed in 1714. Therefore, the history of medieval political influence, cultural flowering, and independence from Castilian Spain remains important for people in that region — and for the rest of the world who seek to understand their political claims.
Fellows: Does the connection between the origins of medieval history and European nationalism affect how contemporary scholars present the Middle Ages?
Winer: Who we are is often reflected in what we do. That’s true of every historian. When I entered Medieval Studies in the 1990s, there were many scholars in North America interested in Christian, Jewish, and Muslim interactions in Europe and Islamic world, not to mention in Asia and Africa. We came of age in a world more conducive to talking about multiculturalism; I am hoping we are entering another moment in which this kind of attitude experiences a resurgence.
Fellows: How does your teaching contribute to this sort of multicultural approach to the Middle Ages?
Winer: I am currently teaching a graduate survey course of medieval history that focuses on critical race studies, ethnicity and the Middle Ages. I considered the many high school teachers in the class and what they are going to do with it. They need to be able to understand and even rewrite the grand narrative of the Middle Ages that high school textbooks relay. We are working together to see things globally and within Europe through the eyes of religious minorities. In their classes, if they encounter racist views espoused by those trying to twist medieval history for white supremacist causes, these teachers now have tools to answer them.
Rebecca Winer is an Associate Professor of History at Villanova University. Her research examines Christian-Jewish-Muslim relations in High Medieval Iberia, with a particular focus on gender, mothers, and children.
Keeley Tulio (M.A. ’20) and James Lyons (B.A. ’20) are the 2019–2020 History Communication Fellows at the Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest at Villanova University.
