Neo-medievalism (or neomedievalism, new medievalism) is a term with a long history that has acquired specific technical senses in two branches of scholarship. In

political theory Political philosophy studies the theoretical and conceptual foundations of politics. It examines the nature, scope, and legitimacy of political institutions, such as states. This field investigates different forms of government, ranging from d ...

about modern

international relations International relations (IR, and also referred to as international studies, international politics, or international affairs) is an academic discipline. In a broader sense, the study of IR, in addition to multilateral relations, concerns al ...

, where the term is originally associated with Hedley Bull, it sees the political order of a

globalized Globalization is the process of increasing interdependence and integration among the economies, markets, societies, and cultures of different countries worldwide. This is made possible by the reduction of barriers to international trade, th ...

world as analogous to high-medieval Europe, where neither states nor the Church, nor other territorial powers, exercised full

sovereignty Sovereignty can generally be defined as supreme authority. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within a state as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the person, body or institution that has the ultimate au ...

, but instead participated in complex, overlapping and incomplete sovereignties.Stephen J. Kobrin
"Back to the Future: Neomedievalism and the Postmodern Digital World Economy"
In

literary theory Literary theory is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for literary analysis. Culler 1997, p.1 Since the 19th century, literary scholarship includes literary theory and considerations of intellectual history, m ...

regarding the use and abuse of texts and tropes from the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

in postmodernity, the term ''neomedieval'' was popularized by the Italian medievalist

Umberto Eco Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian Medieval studies, medievalist, philosopher, Semiotics, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular ...

in his 1983 essay "Dreaming of the Middle Ages".

, "Dreaming of the Middle Ages," in ''Travels in Hyperreality'', transl. by W. Weaver, NY: Harcourt Brace, 1986, pp. 61–72.

Political theory

The idea of neomedievalism in political theory was first discussed in 1977 by theorist Hedley Bull in '' The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics'' to describe the erosion of state

in the contemporary globalized world:

It is also conceivable that sovereign states might disappear and be replaced not by a world government but by a modern and secular equivalent of the kind of universal political organisation that existed in Western Christendom in the Middle Ages. In that system no ruler or state was sovereign in the sense of being supreme over a given territory and a given segment of the Christian population; each had to share authority with vassals beneath, and with the Pope and (in Germany and Italy) the Holy Roman Emperor above. The universal political order of Western Christendom represents an alternative to the system of states which does not yet embody universal government.

Thus Bull suggested society might move towards "a new mediaevalism" or a "neo-mediaeval form of universal political order", in which individual notions of rights and a growing sense of a "world common good" were undermining national

. He proposed that such a system might help "avoid the classic dangers of the system of sovereign states by a structure of overlapping structures and cross-cutting loyalties that hold all peoples together in a universal society while at the same time avoiding the concentration inherent in a world government", though "if it were anything like the precedent of Western Christendom, it would contain more ubiquitous and continuous violence and insecurity than does the modern states system". In this reading,

globalization Globalization is the process of increasing interdependence and integration among the economies, markets, societies, and cultures of different countries worldwide. This is made possible by the reduction of barriers to international trade, th ...

has resulted in an international system which resembles the medieval one, where political authority was exercised by a range of non-territorial and overlapping agents, such as religious bodies,

principalities A principality (or sometimes princedom) is a type of monarchical state or feudal territory ruled by a prince or princess. It can be either a sovereign state or a constituent part of a larger political entity. The term "principality" is often ...

empires An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred t ...

and city-states, instead of by a single political authority in the form of a state which has complete sovereignty over its territory. Comparable processes characterising Bull's "new medievalism" include the increasing powers held by regional organisations such as the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

, as well as the spread of sub-national and devolved governments, such as those of

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

and

Catalonia Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationalities and regions of Spain, nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006, Statute of Autonomy. Most of its territory (except the Val d'Aran) is situate ...

. These challenge the exclusive authority of the state. Private military companies,

multinational corporations A multinational corporation (MNC; also called a multinational enterprise (MNE), transnational enterprise (TNE), transnational corporation (TNC), international corporation, or stateless corporation, is a corporate organization that owns and cont ...

and the resurgence of worldwide religious movements (e.g.

political Islam Political Islam is the interpretation of Islam as a source of political identity and action. It advocates the formation of state and society according to (the advocates understanding of) Islamic principles, where Islam serves as a source of poli ...

) similarly indicate a reduction in the role of the state and a decentralisation of power and authority. Stephen J. Kobrin in 1998 added the forces of the digital world economy to the picture of neomedievalism. In an article entitled "Back to the Future: Neomedievalism and the Postmodern Digital World Economy" in the ''Journal of International Affairs'', he argued that the sovereign state as we know itdefined within certain territorial bordersis about to change profoundly, if not to wither away, due in part to the digital world economy created by the Internet, suggesting that cyberspace is a trans-territorial domain operating outside of the jurisdiction of national law. Anthony Clark Arend also argued in his 1999 book ''Legal Rules and International Society'' that the international system is moving toward a "neo-medieval" system. He claimed that the trends that Bull noted in 1977 had become even more pronounced by the end of the twentieth century. Arend argues that the emergence of a "neo-medieval" system would have profound implications for the creation and operation of international law. Although Bull originally envisioned neomedievalism as a positive trend, it has its critics.

Bruce Holsinger Bruce W. Holsinger is an American author, novelist, and an academic and literary scholar. Currently, he is professor of English at the University of Virginia. Academic career He is considered an expert on the use of parchment in medieval English ...

in ''Neomedievalism,

Neoconservatism Neoconservatism (colloquially neocon) is a political movement which began in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist Democratic Party along with the growing New Left and ...

, and the War on Terror'' argues that neoconservatives "have exploited neomedievalism's conceptual slipperiness for their own tactical ends." Similarly, Philip G. Cerny's "Neomedievalism, Civil War and the New Security Dilemma" (1998) also sees neomedievalism as a negative development and claims that the forces of globalization increasingly undermine nation-states and interstate forms of governance "by cross-cutting linkages among different economic sectors and social bonds," calling globalization a "durable disorder" which eventually leads to the emergence of the new security dilemmas that had analogies in the Middle Ages. Cerny identifies six characteristics of a neomedieval world that contribute to this disorder: multiple competing institutions; lack of exogenous territorializing pressures both on sub-national and international levels; uneven consolidation of new spaces, cleavages, conflicts and inequalities; fragmented loyalties and identities; extensive entrenchment of property rights; and spread of the "grey zones" outside the law as well as black economy.

Medieval studies

An early use of the term ''neo-medievalism'' in a sense like Umberto Eco's was in

Isaiah Berlin Sir Isaiah Berlin (6 June 1909 – 5 November 1997) was a Russian-British social and political theorist, philosopher, and historian of ideas. Although he became increasingly averse to writing for publication, his improvised lectures and talks ...

's 1953 " The Hedgehog and the Fox":

There is no kinship between him /nowiki>Joseph de Maistre">Joseph_de_Maistre.html" ;"title="/nowiki>Joseph de Maistre">/nowiki>Joseph de Maistre/nowiki> and those who really did believe in the possibility of some kind of return neo-medievalists from Wackenroder and Görres and William Cobbett">Cobbett to Joseph Görres">Görres and Cobbett to Slavophils and Distributism">Distributists and Pre-Raphaelites and other nostalgic romantics; for he believed, as Leo Tolstoy">Tolstoy also did, in the exact opposite: in the "inexorable" power of the present moment: in our inability to do away with the sum of conditions which cumulatively determine our basic categories, an order which we can never fully describe or, otherwise than by some immediate awareness of it, come to know.

Then, in 1986, Umberto Eco said "we are at present witnessing, both in Europe and America, a period of renewed interest in the Middle Ages, with a curious oscillation between fantastic neomedievalism and responsible philological examination". Recently, the term has been used by various writers such as

medieval historians who see it as the intersection between popular fantasy and Middle Ages">medieval history In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

as a term describing the post-modern study of medieval history. The widespread interest in medieval themes in popular culture, especially computer games such as MMORPGs, films and television, neo-medieval music, and popular

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

, has been called ''neomedieval''. Critics have discussed why medieval themes continue to fascinate audiences in a modern, heavily technological world. A possible explanation is the need for a romanticized historical narrative to clarify the confusing panorama of current political and cultural events.

Intersection of neomedievalism in political theory and medieval studies

Some commentators have used the terminological overlap between Hedley Bull's political theory of 'neomedievalism' and Umberto Eco's postmodernist theory of 'neomedievalism' to discuss how cultural discourses about the Middle Ages are used to political ends in the changing international order of the twenty-first century. A key proponent of this argument was Bruce Holsinger, who studied the use of orientalist and medievalist language in the discourse of the post- 9/11 'war on terror', arguing that American neoconservatives had harnessed medievalism to win popular support for foreign policy and military actions that undermined state sovereignty and the international rule of law.Victoria Elizabeth Cooper,
Fantasies of the North: Medievalism and Identity in ''The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim''
(unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Leeds, 2016). Working in Holsinger's wake, others have argued that neomedievalist popular culture, such as the video game '' The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim'', represents and so in turn helps to normalise a neomedievalist political order, and that states other than the US, for example Iceland, have also used medievalism as a source of

soft power In politics (and particularly in international politics), soft power is the ability to co-option, co-opt rather than coerce (in contrast with hard power). It involves shaping the preferences of others through appeal and attraction. Soft power is ...

to help secure their place in the shifting post-9/11 world order. In 2018 Jorge Majfud published the book ''Neomedievalism. Reflections on the Post-Enlightenment Era'', in which he discussed the political and cultural aspects arising from the economy and finances of Neo-feudalism in the United States.
Neomedievalism. Reflections on the Post-Enlightenment Era
' (University of Valencia Press, 2018), .

Studies

* ''Defining Neomedievalism(s) I'', ed. by K. Fugelso, Studies in Medievalism, 19 (Cambridge: Brewer, 2010), * ''Defining Neomedievalism(s) II'', ed. by K. Fugelso, Studies in Medievalism, 20 (Cambridge: Brewer, 2011), * ''Neo-Medievalism in the Media: Essays on Film, Television, and Electronic Games'', ed. by Carol L. Robinson (Mellen, 2012), * ''Comparative Neomedievalisms'', ed. by Daniel Lukes, special issue of ''Postmedieval'', 5.1 (Spring 2014) * ''Neomedievalism, Popular Culture, and the Academy: From Tolkien to Game of Thrones'', by KellyAnn Fitzpatrick (Cambridge: Brewer, 2019), * ''U.S.-China Rivalry in a Neomedieval World: Security in an Age of Weakening States'', by Timothy R. Heath, Weilong Kong, Alexis Dale-Huang (RAND Corporation, 2023), ,

Notes

External links

''NeoMedievalism'', a collection of links and a general evaluation

''Pulling Back from Neo-Medievalism''
a discussion of neo-medievalism in relation to the Hungarian Status Law
''NeoMedievalism'', academic look at the study of medievalism through a literary criticism lens

Why history matters - and why medieval history also matters
* Sutch, P and J Elias, ''International Relations: The Basics'', Routledge, New York, 2007, pp. 102–104
Towards a new Middle Ages?
by Roberto Rotondo
Legal Rules and International Society
by Anthony Clark Arend {{Middle Ages Political theories Philosophical theories Middle Ages in popular culture International relations theory Sovereignty Power (social and political) concepts