I don’t understand why so many people feel the need to say that studying medieval things is useless. Not because I think it’s enormously useful, but because it introduces a concept of ‘utility’ into assessing people’s jobs and interests which is rarely otherwise applied. I’ve never asked anyone what the point of them doing their job is. It just seems a weird starting point, as if everything any of us do has to be existentially justified. There’s the classic story about a fisherman challenging a businessman’s reasoning, for starters. What’s the point of earning money earning money only to generate more money ad infinitum? What’s the point of trying to extend the lives of rich people in an over-populated world? What’s the point of learning that a2+ b2= c2? Why don’t we all just stop?
I imagine there’s probably an economic argument for what I do, given the vast sums generated by international students going to universities known as centres of research. But I don’t want to engage in those discussions. First because I know nothing about them; second because I reject the premise that an economic justification should lie behind everything. The tiniest nub on the International Space Station probably cost more than it would to fund me for my entire career, but we didn’t build it to make money.
I imagine there’s also some form of profound, socio-philosophical argument for what I do. He who controls the past controls the future, and all that. It is, indeed, a simple truth that medieval Europe is grossly misrepresented and used to support all sorts of atrocious things in arguments that could easily be demolished with the tiniest smidgeon of actual knowledge about the actual past. But, first, those are big arguments to make and I don’t feel qualified as a philosopher or social commentator to do so whereas some others most definitely are. And, second, my research into the medieval world doesn’t really focus on questions about whether England functioned alone for thousands of years before the EU, or if everyone in Europe has always been white and Christian, or whichever mad perspective you want to make the medieval hold for you.
I’m not, in fact, aiming or expecting to convince anyone else that my specific project, or the wider work of thinking about and engaging with the medieval world is ‘useful’. I’m simply aiming to push myself to reflect, each week, on what I’ve done and why I’ve done it. You’re welcome to tell me that what I’m doing is useless, but it’d make me happier if you ask me questions or tell me things I don’t know, or to suggest questions I might want to ask. Part of the value of academic study, for me, is trying to open things up, to start conversations, and to recognise that not everything can be wholeheartedly dismissed or adored.