At the time of writing this book there is a dangerous undercurrent to medieval studies, as the period is increasingly hijacked by the far right to promote extreme ideologies on race, ethnicity and immigration.32 Among the individuals who stormed the US Capitol in January 2020, the ‘Q-Shaman’, as he’s come to be known, was covered with Norse tattoos. The perpetrator of the Christchurch terrorist attack in 2019, who killed 51 and injured 40, had covered his weapons with medieval symbols of a crusader knight renowned for killing Muslims.33 And the so-called ‘War on Terror’ has exacerbated
...more
