Popularising the Middle Ages in Modern Fantasy

Neomedievalism, Video Games, and Vikings
Erscheinungsjahr 2026
ISBN: 978-1-84384-759-5
Verlag: D.S.Brewer

Buch, Englisch, Band 32, 242 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 531 g

Reihe: Medievalism

Examines the development, nature, and significance of gritty (neo)medievalism in popular culture, from Assassins Creed: Valhalla and Berserk to Robert Eggers' The Northman.

Twenty-first-century popular culture has a fascination for the medieval. Its imagery, tropes and settings have become an integral part of the epic fantasy genre across different media, demonstrated by and following the success of such globally acclaimed television shows as Game of Thrones and Vikings. This volume studies this phenomenon, aiming to establish a broader understanding of why the Middle Ages have become so popular in an era of transmedia productions; it argues that concepts of accuracy and "authenticity" are key to this popularity, alongside engagement with contemporary debates about identity, race and gender, and agile responses to fan-community and media critiques.
The essays address a variety of topics, from worldbuilding and narrative structures to female agency and the reception of Vikings, across a wide range of media, including film, television, literature, video games and manga. It also explores how contemporary fantasy engages with both academic knowledge and developments in imagination more widely, responding to ever-changing ideas about how an "authentic" Middle Ages may be created.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Larrington, Carolyne

Velten, Hans Rudolf

Young, Helen

Weitere Mitwirkende

Schwarz, Angela

Larrington, Carolyne

Braun, Charlotte

Velten, Hans Rudolf

Young, Helen

Schrage, Lukas

Weber, Milan

Su, Minjie

Specht, Theresa

Winnerling, Tobias

Pinsker, Tom

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literarische Strömungen & Epochen
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Europäische Literatur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: Popularising the Middle Ages
Carolyne Larrington, Hans Rudolf Velten, Helen Young

Part I: Neomedieval Fantasy in the Twenty-First Century
Worldbuilding in Fantasy: A Neomedieval Grammar - Hans Rudolf Velten
Adventure, Quest, Politics and Gender in Fantasy Literature: On the Popularisation of Medieval Narrative Structures and Their Transformations - Theresa Specht
'The Childbed is our Battlefield'. Female Agency in House of the Dragon - Charlotte Braun / Lukas Schrage
The Hero We Deserve: The Image of Dark Knight as Anti-Utopia in Kentaro Miura's Manga Berserk - Minjie Su

Part II: Contemporary Medievalist Video Games
'Step inside the Middle Ages': Four Decades of Medievalism in Video Games with Historical Settings - Angela Schwarz

The Middle Ages Never End: Fantasy, History, Digital Games and Early Modernity - Tobias Winnerling
The Gritty Middle Ages as a Place of Longing and Demarcation: Gamers' Reception of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015) - Tom Pinsker

Part III: The Vikings Across Different Media
'Pray like a Viking!' Popularising Norse Mythology and Religion in Video Games with Historical Settings: The Case of Assassin's Creed: Valhalla (2020) - Milan Weber
Fantasies of Vinland. Popularising Medieval History - Helen Young
Robert Eggers' The Northman: Imagining and Marketing Vikings in Popular (Anglo-American) Culture - Carolyne Larrington

Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Young, Helen
HELEN YOUNG is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University, Australia where they hold an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship.

Young, Helen
HELEN YOUNG is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University, Australia where they hold an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship.

Larrington, Carolyne
CAROLYNE LARRINGTON is Emerita Professor of medieval European literature at the University of Oxford and Emerita Research Fellow in medieval English literature at St John's College, Oxford.

Larrington, Carolyne
CAROLYNE LARRINGTON is Emerita Professor of medieval European literature at the University of Oxford and Emerita Research Fellow in medieval English literature at St John's College, Oxford.

Velten, Hans Rudolf
HANS RUDOLF VELTEN is a Professor of medieval German language and literature at the University of Siegen.

Su, Minjie
MINJIE SU is a Marie Curie Research Fellow at the Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies at the University of Oslo.

Velten, Hans Rudolf
HANS RUDOLF VELTEN is a Professor of medieval German language and literature at the University of Siegen.