First published in 1993. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Though manifestations of play represent a burgeoning subject area in the study of post-medieval responses to the Middle Ages, they have not always received the respect and attention they deserve. This volume seeks to correct those deficiencies. Though manifestations of play represent a burgeoning subject area in the study of post-medieval responses to the Middle Ages, they have not always received the respect and attention they deserve. This volume seeks to correct those deficiencies via six essays that directly address how the Middle Ages have been put in play with regard to Alice Munro's 1977 short story "The Beggar Maid"; David Lowery's 2021 film The Green Knight; medievalist archaisms in Japanese video games; runic play in Norse-themed digital games; medievalist managerialism in the 2020 video game Crusader Kings III; and neomedieval architectural praxis in the 2014 video game Stronghold: Crusader II. The approaches and conclusions of those essays are then tested in the second section's six essays as they examine "muscular medievalism" in George R. R. Martin's 1996 novel A Game of Thrones; the queering of the Arthurian romance pattern in the 2018-20 television show She-Ra and the Princesses of Power; the interspecies embodiment of dis/ability in the 2010 film How to Train Your Dragon; late-nineteenth and early twentieth-century nationalism in Irish reimaginings of the Fenian Cycle; post-bellum medievalism in poetry of the Confederacy; and the medievalist presentation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's 2020-21 Covid inoculation.

In this first ever book-length treatment, 11 scholars with a variety of backgrounds in medieval studies, film studies, and medievalism discuss how historical and fictional medieval women have been portrayed on film and their connections to the feminist movements of the 20th and 21st centuries. From detailed studies of the portrayal of female desire and sexuality, to explorations of how and when these women gain agency, these essays look at the different ways these women reinforce, defy, and complicate traditional gender roles. Individual essays discuss the complex and sometimes conflicting cinematic treatments of Guinevere, Morgan Le Fay, Isolde, Maid Marian, Lady Godiva, Heloise, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and Joan of Arc. Additional essays discuss the women in Fritz Lang's The Nibelungen, Liv Ullmann's Kristin Lavransdatter, and Bertrand Tavernier's La Passion Beatrice.

Essays on the use, and misuse, of the Middle Ages for political aims. Like its two immediate predecessors, this volume tackles the most pressing and contentious issue in medievalism studies: how the Middle Ages have been subsequently deployed for political ends. The six essays in the first section directly address that concern with regard to Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges's contemporaneous responses to the 1871 Commune; the hypocrisy of the Robinhood App's invocation of their namesake; misunderstood parallels and differences between the Covid-19 pandemic and medieval plagues; Peter Gill's reworking of a major medieval Mystery play in his 2001 The York Realist; celebrations of medieval monks by the American alt-right; and medieval references in twenty-first-century novels by the American neo-Nazi Harold A. Covington. The approaches and conclusions of those essays are then tested in the second section's seven articles as they examine widely discredited alt-right claims that strong kings ruled medieval Finland; Norse medievalism in WWI British and German propaganda; post-war Black appropriation of white jousting tournaments in the Antebellum South; early American references to the Merovingian Dynasty; Rudyard Kipling's deployment of the Middle Ages to defend his beliefs; the reframing of St. Anthony by Agustina Bessa-Luis's 1973 biography of him; and post-medieval Portuguese reworkings of the Goat-Foot-Lady and other medieval legends.

The Holy Grail, the cup from the Last Supper, is among Christianity's most sacred relics. Down through the ages, the quest to find that vessel has down been the inspiration for many intent upon harnessing the power of the Grail for their own purposes. In this first collection of essays to study the long film tradition depicting that quest, seventeen film scholars and cultural critics from Canada, France, Great Britain, and the United States discuss a wide range of American and European films which present a rich assortment of medieval and latter-day Grail knights. Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Fisher King, The Da Vinci Code, The Waterboy, The Road Warrior, The Silver Chalice, Excalibur, and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Undead are just a few of the many films discussed here.

Factual and fanciful tales of the Nordic warriors known as Vikings have proven irresistible to filmmakers for nearly a century. Diverse, prominent actors from Kirk Douglas, Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier to Tim Robbins and John Cleese, and noted directors, including Richard Fleischer, Clive Donner and Terry Jones, have all lent their talents to Viking-related films. These fourteen essays on films dealing with the Viking era discuss American, British and European productions. Analyzed in detail are such films as The Vikings (1958), The Long Ships (1964), Alfred the Great (1969), Erik the Viking (1989) and Outlander (2008), as well as a pair of comic-strip adaptations, the live-action Prince Valiant (1997) and the animated Asterix and the Vikings (2006). A comprehensive filmography is also included.

Those tales of old - King Arthur, Robin Hood, The Crusades, Marco Polo, Joan of Arc - have been told and retold, and the tradition of their telling has been gloriously upheld by filmmaking from its very inception. From the earliest of Georges Melies's films in 1897, to a 1996 animated Hunchback of Notre Dame, film has offered not just fantasy but exploration of these roles so vital to the modern psyche. St. Joan has undergone the transition from peasant girl to self-assured saint, and Camelot has transcended the soundstage to evoke the Kennedys in the White House. Here is the first comprehensive survey of over 900 cinematic depictions of the European Middle Ages - date of production, country of origin, director, production company, cast, and a synopsis and commentary. A bibliography, index, and over 100 stills complete this remarkable work.

The idea of the quest, crucial to Arthurian literature, investigated in texts, manuscripts, and film. The theme of the quest in Arthurian literature - mainly but not exclusively the Grail quest - is explored in the essays presented here, covering French, Dutch, Norse, German, and English texts. A number of the essays trace the relationship, often negative, between Arthurian chivalry and the Grail ethos. Whereas most of the contributors reflect on the popularity of the Grail quest, several examine the comparative rarity of the Grail in certain literatures and define the elaboration of quest motifs severed from the Grail material. An appendix to the volume offers a filmography that includes all the cinematic treatments of the Grail, either as central theme or minor motif. This book will appeal to students, scholars, and general readers fascinated by the Arthurian and Grail legends. CONTRIBUTORS: NORRIS J. LACY, ANTONIO FURTADO, WILL HASTY, RICHARD TRACHSLER, MARIANNE E. KALINKE, MARTINE MEUWESE, DAVID F. JOHNSON, PHILLIP BOARDMAN, CAROLINE D. ECKHARDT, P.J.C. FIELD, JAMES P. CARLEY, RICHARD BARBER, KEVIN J. HARTY

The motif of death and dying traced through over a thousand years of the English Arthurian tradition. It is arguably the tragic end to Arthur's kingdom which gives the myth its exceptional resonance and power. The essays in this volume explore the presentation of death and dying in Arthurian literature and film produced in Englandand America from the middle ages to the modern day. Authors, texts and topics covered include Geoffrey of Monmouth, the chronicle tradition, and the alliterative Morte Arthure; Gawain and the Green Knight, Ywain and Gawain, the stanzaic Morte Arthur, and Malory's Morte Darthur; Tennyson's Idylls, Pyle's retelling of the myth for American children, David Jones, T.H. White, Donald Barthelme, Rosalind Miles and Parke Godwin. Featured films include Knight Rider, Excalibur, First Knight, and King Arthur. CONTRIBUTORS: Sian Echard, Edward Donald Kennedy, Karen Cherewatuk, Michael W. Twomey, K. S. Whetter, Thomas Crofts, MichaelWenthe, Lisa Robeson, Cory James Rushton, Janina P. Traxler, James Noble, Julie Nelson Couch, Samantha Rayner, Kevin J. Harty

Eleven essays bring Arthurian studies into the 21st century, including film and black popular culture. Eleven essays by leading Arthurians lead off with an overview of the field suggesting directions that Arthurian studies must take to remain vital. Other essays contain innovative approaches, overviews of specific areas of Arthurian studies, and suggestions for new ways to approach Arthurian material; they range over Malory, Latin Arthurian literature, Gawain and the Green Knight, Merlin in the twenty-first century, Tennyson's Idylls, Arthur in African-American culture, current trends in criticism, Arthurian fiction, and Arthurian film. Contributors: ROBERT BLANCH, DEREK BREWER, P.J.C. FIELD, SIAN ECHARD, PETER GOODRICH, KEVIN HARTY, NORRIS J. LACY, BARBARATEPA LUPACK, DAVID STAINES, RAYMOND THOMPSON, JULIAN WASSERMAN, BONNIE WHEELER.