Qualipu Mi’kmaw scholar Christopher Crocker has examined how fascination with Norse contact dominates Newfoundland tourism at the expense of pre-colonial Indigenous studies and representation. L’Anse-Aux-Meadow National Historic Site in northern Newfoundland.
(Shutterstock)
Indigenous and critical race approaches to narratives of the Middle Ages help reveal more accurate histories, and combat the misuses of ‘the medieval’ for hate.
St Benedict delivering his rule to the monks of his order.
WikiCommons
Monks who failed to factor in the leap day placed spring equinox on the wrong day, which meant Ash Wednesday, Lent, Holy Week and Pentecost were also marked on the wrong day.
A miniature of the Erythrean Sibyl, writing.
British Library, Royal 16 G V f. 23.
Meg Leja, Binghamton University, State University of New York
Your doctor’s MD emerged from the Dark Ages, where practicing rational “human medicine” was seen as an expression of faith and maintaining one’s health a religious duty.
Knights travel to battle in an illustration from a Medieval manuscript.
British Library
This illustrated health manual dating back to the 13th century provides a glimpse of daily life in aristocratic households during the Middle Ages.
An Instacart worker loads groceries into her car for home delivery. There is a strong argument to be made that gig work is false self-employment, meaning that workers are not actually freelance.
(AP Photo/Ben Margot)
Feudalism has been replaced by capitalism, and the new villeiny — or neo-villeiny — has emerged to reflect a relationship between a worker and an organization.
Ever since players tweaked the game to reflect the medieval social order, poets and writers have used chess as an allegory for love, duty, conflict and accomplishment.
Woodcut, circa 1400. A witch, a demon and a warlock fly toward a peasant woman.
Hulton Archive /Handout via Getty Images
The idea of organized satanic witchcraft was invented in 15th-century Europe by church and state authorities, who at first had a hard time convincing regular folks it was real.