Welcome to Modern Medieval
on newsletters and elephants
Modern Medieval
by David M. Perry and Matthew Gabriele
If you’re reading this…
Welcome! If you’re reading this in your inbox, you’d earlier signed up for either David’s Patreon or Matt’s short-lived Revue (which Twitter is killing, along with itself, slowly).
For a while now, David and I have talked about starting a medieval-themed newsletter. We’ve published pieces on this before in places like The Washington Post, and Smithsonian Magazine, and The Daily Beast, and CNN. Plus, we wrote a whole book together, are currently writing another one, and even have more ideas for the future. So, at Modern Medieval we’re going to try to bring this all together.
You can expect once/ week (at least) pieces written by David, Matt, or us both. We’ll be trying to highlight some interesting stories from the European Middle Ages, some of the amazing scholarship that’s being done on the period right now, and our own analysis of how the ghosts of that period continue to haunt us today. We’ll do some interviews, some book reviews, maybe some videos, and of course share some of our own work (and upcoming events).
Thanks for joining us in, we hope, a conversation about the enduring complexity and humanity - both its horror and its wonder - of the European Middle Ages.
There was, once, a beast that walked the fields of western Germany, a time when in the words of a chronicler from the 820s CE “everyone in the kingdom of the Franks saw an elephant during the reign of the emperor Charles.” That elephant helps us understand a permeable Europe that linked Europe, Asia, and Africa, but also helps us understand the violence of empire. Those stories are just some of those we hope to share in the coming weeks, months, years.
We hope you’ll join us.
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