A Year in Review
A look back and a look forward at our writing (with lots of links)
Modern Medieval
by David M. Perry and Matthew Gabriele
It’s been a busy year for us, so we thought we’d take a few moments to look back at some of the writing - both individually and collectively - that we’re most proud of. Hope you enjoy.
The big thing, of course, is our new book Oathbreakers - on sale now! This took us a couple years but we’re so pleased to see it come to life.
We went through a bunch of ideas about how to follow up The Bright Ages, kicking around ideas about nostalgia as a destructive force in human history, or writing more focused books on other moments in the European medieval past, but nothing felt solid. And before you start a book project, you have to at least believe you know what you’re writing, even though the writing itself always leads you into new spaces.
But then in the summer of 2022, this particular story just hit us like a hammer blow. It’s the story of a medieval empire that falls apart - quite suddenly - at the seams, and after an intense conversation we were off and writing. It’s such a rich story, with copious medieval sources (all with their own agendas), and a compelling cast of characters - brothers fighting brothers, betrayals, witchcraft accusations, kidnapped children, and desperate love for lost children. We wrote about one episode there - about a demon named Wiggo - for Smithsonian Magazine, so you can get a taste. We really hope you enjoy.
In addition, we were (as most of America was!) fascinated and horrified by what was going on on college campuses this past year. But we saw intriguing historical parallels playing out. For CNN, we wrote about the necessity of allowing student protests on campus and how faculty and administrators should follow actual medieval precedent and protect their students from outside political interference. Then, for MSNBC, together we wrote about another instance of outside political meddling - how burning books (or throwing them in the dumpster) is a tactic of fascists that even medieval students and faculty knew was wrong.
And we have more to come in 2025! We have a brief piece on Elon Musk and his crappy history coming (hopefully) soon, and a SECRET BOOK PROJECT as well. Stay tuned.
For Matt: I somehow managed to bring another book project (academic this time) into the world - Between Prophecy and Apocalypse.
This project grew, as most seem to, from my first academic monograph An Empire of Memory. But in this new book, I try to take a step back and consider the larger early Middle Ages (roughly 300-1100) as a whole and think about how European medievals thought about sacred time. It’s a short book, but dense. Essentially:
The 10th and 11th centuries in medieval Europe are commonly seen as a time of uncertainty and loss: an age of lawless aristocrats, of weak political authority, of cultural decline and dissolute monks, and of rampant superstition. It is a period often judged from its margins, compared (mostly negatively) to what came before and what would follow. We impose upon it both a sense of nostalgia and a teleology, as they somehow knowingly foreshadow what is to come. Seeking to complicate this mischaracterisation, which is primarily the invention of 19th and early 20th century historiography, this book maps the movement between two intellectual stances: a shift from prophetic to apocalyptic thinking… Nostalgia entwined with an attentiveness to possible futures and spun together so tightly as to become a double helix.
Or, to put it another way, early medievals became trapped in an intellectual vortex in which they themselves thought they played a vital role in sacred history. This led them to act, to reform religion, to reestablish kingdoms, to fight against the enemies of Christ. Plus I make a really good The Great Gatsby reference in it!
Finally, although it wasn’t a big piece, it was an important one. My undergraduate mentor passed away this year and I was honored to be able to write a piece about him (with another student of his) about what he meant to me.
For David: I spent a lot of the year thinking about D&D as history. This was the 50th anniversary, and not only does it have a specifically midwestern story, but one of the founders - Dave Arneson - has a B.A. in history from the University of Minnesota, the very department where I now advise all the undergraduates.
The result was a Smithsonian article of just 750 words, but written to draw in readers who had never once played an RPG, trying to illuminate how D&D is in fact everywhere, every time to “level up” in hotel loyalty points, for example. I also reviewed two books on D&D history, one of which had the fascinating problem of trying to reprint material from the 1970s that is often pretty racist and sexist. The editor and author Jason Tondro who actually is very nearly a medievalist (depending on whether his literary scholarship is more 15th or 16th century) decided to leave the problematic material as written, because that was the job of the facsimile. But he also wrote a note in the intro talking about the decision and why he thought it was the right one. For what it’s worth, I agree. Content notes preserve access to difficult material that otherwise would be changed or simply put aside, even though the right wing tends to think that content notes = trigger warnings = censorship.
And of course, Elon Musk decided it was censorship and spent a few minutes ranting about the company, then later threatening to buy Hasbro (that owns the game now). I meant to write an essay, or at least a newsletter post, about this. But time slips away.
That brings this year to an end for us. But, of course, it’s not the end end. Much more to come so we hope you stay with us, on this newsletter but also be sure to follow Matt and David on Bluesky.
We wish you and yours a delightful, and restful, holiday season, and hope only good for you in the new year.
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Another fine piece. You say so much in so few words, consistently.