The Middle Ages are omnipresent in mass culture: films, TV series, novels, role-playing games and theme parks all convey a certain image of what the world might have been like between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Great Discoveries.
These representations, however dominant they may have become today, maintain a complex relationship with the real medieval sources.
What is sometimes referred to as "medievalism" has strong roots in 19th-century art and historiography, but it also corresponds to the expectations of contemporary societies. The Middle Ages then become a mirror for fears, nostalgia and hopes, a past so distant that it is subject to the most contradictory interpretations.
- Teaching coordinator: Dumézil Bruno