Ever since the term Middle Ages came into use, this historical era has been inextricably bound up with notions of alterity. Beginning in the 14th century, the picture of a dark age was utilized as a foil to set off the ideals of Renaissance enlightenment and humanism; later on, the Romantics pioneered the vision of the Middle Ages as an era unspoiled by advancing industrialization, onto which they projected their longing for a way of life in harmony with nature and spirituality. In the 20th century, thinkers such as Michel ­Foucault and Georges Bataille pointed to social forms of the Middle Ages in order to critique capitalist modernity. The temptation to escape the complex and unsettled present for an allegedly simpler past is also characteristic of references to the Middle Ages in contemporary pop culture and politics. This issue of TEXTE ZUR KUNST counters such simplistic perspectives with a more nuanced portrayal of the Middle Ages that acknowledges historical parallels and continuities as well as contradictions. Rejecting the epoch model that has dominated historical scholarship since the 18th century, many of the contributions take their methodological cue from Marxist and feminist criticism, as well as post­colonial, queer, and trans studies.

In its combination of different forms of representation and ostensibly incompatible perspectives, medieval art itself can serve as a source of inspiration for particular and pluralistic narratives. What we call glitches in AI-generated images bear a peculiar resemblance to inconsistencies in medieval modes of representation that may seem strange to today’s viewers and yet, when seen from this viewpoint, look surprisingly contemporary. Consider the picture we chose for the cover of this issue: a panel from an altar triptych by Simone Martini showing a miraculous healing by the Blessed Agostino Novello, with its simultaneous depiction of a child falling from a balcony and brought back to life at once, may be read as evidence of the concurrency and complexity of historical developments in the global Middle Ages.

How can such an expanded understanding of the historical epoch be made productive for medieval studies? That is the subject of a roundtable discussion between Suzanne Conklin Akbari, Lloyd de Beer, Beate Fricke, and Clovis Maillet, moderated by Eva Schlotheuber. With a view to contemporary art that strategically employs references to the Middle Ages to complicate historical narratives, the medievalists, on the one hand, point out the possibilities that Indigenous iconographies and knowledge-recording methods offer for a critique of the universalist claims of Eurocentric historiography. On the other hand, their close readings of medieval works demonstrate how entrenched interpretations in specific geographic and historical contexts can be ­challenged by a deliberate zooming out.

Nancy Thebaut’s case study of two late medieval depictions of the encounter between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba also probes the ­contingent quality of medieval ­iconography. Examining the nexus between image and text, Thebaut shows that the sort of reflexivity regarding the limits of visual representation often associated with modernism can already be found in medieval art, and, moreover, questions the veracity of depictions of gender.

Hussein Fancy and Wendy Shaw discuss how the concept of the Middle Ages has strategically been used to devalue Islamic artistic and social forms. They counter the schematic contrast between the Christian Middle Ages and the concurrent golden age of the Islamic world with the reality of vibrant cultural and economic exchange in the Mediterranean region. Their ­conversation also focuses on how the modern narrative of progress and the infrastructure of capitalism have shaped the perception of Islamic art.

In current analyses of late capitalism, too, there is an increasing tendency to refer to the Middle Ages in an effort to conceptualize shifts in the Western social order. While Yanis ­Varoufakis popularized the term technofeudalism in his eponymous book published in 2023, Sighard Neckel describes the seemingly ­medieval social forms that emerge in the course of ­capitalist modernization as ­refeudalization – emphasizing that this signifies not an actual regression to feudal times but rather a new form of capitalism that leaves behind its historical ties to bourgeois culture.

Perhaps unexpectedly, Disneyland, the ­epitome of the US entertainment industry, lets visitors experience the original transcendental power of medieval architecture in new ways through counterfactual borrowings, which it has then exported to locations across the world. That is the argument of Roland Betancourt’s essay on the popular theme parks, in which he draws attention to how the Middle Ages become the backdrop for roleplay untethered to any specific time.

Medieval architectures are also the point of departure for Luke Fidler’s contribution, which elaborates on Ashley Hunt’s artistic research on carceral architecture. Drawing on Foucault and comparing historical and contemporary prison buildings, Fidler throws into relief not only the continuities between the Middle Ages and the modern era but also the linkages between ­correctional facilities and cultural institutions – taking Hunt’s abolitionist institutional critique a step further.

Katharina Schilling’s image spread employs formal borrowings from medieval art: Her abstract compositions reprise depictions of floor mosaics in manuscripts – collaboratively realized projects that Schilling extends in her paintings.

If we can learn from the Middle Ages – and our work on this issue has convinced us we can – that learning process presupposes a willingness to unlearn: Medieval sources require methodological openness as well as an awareness that historical meaning is inextricably interwoven with the basic premises implicit in our own perspective. Seen in this light, both medieval studies and medieval art can provide valuable impulses across disciplines and historical divides.

We would like to thank Helmut Draxler and Aden Kumler for their support in developing the concept for this issue; their advice has been ­instrumental in defining the overall argument around which the following contributions coalesce.

Ben Caton, Leonie Huber, and Anna Sinofzik

Translation: Gerrit Jackson