Landscape, the Medieval Past and English National Identity, 1800-1914 Seminar

Abstract

As is well known, the medieval past loomed large in nineteenth-century British culture. Engagement with the Middle Ages—imagined in various ways—had a profound impact on literature, art, architecture and much else besides. The extent and nature of this impact has attracted considerable scholarly attention. Strikingly, however, this work has taken little cognisance of the relationship between these medieval(ist) preoccupations and the English landscape, this being true even of many studies concerned with nineteenth-century architecture. This neglect is problematic in itself, but is doubly problematic given the importance of both medievalism and landscape to English national identity. Building on my recent book-length study on the ‘storied ground’ of Englishness, this paper argues that our appreciation of the cultural significance of engagement with the medieval past—particularly its role in the construction of nationhood—is therefore to a significant degree incomplete. The English landscape provided Victorians with perhaps the most compelling evidence of what they saw as the long continuities of English national history, back to Anglo-Saxon times. Thus the presence of the medieval past in the landscape of contemporary England served a vital nationalistic purpose, providing reassurance of the nation’s endurance, and progress, amidst the transformations of modernity.