"The past is a foreign country": the Australian Middle Ages

This essay argues that a dialectic of proximity and distance has long been the distinguishing principIe of Australian medievalism. On the one hand, local conditions of distance from Europe have granted Australian medievalism a distinctive interpretive freedom; yet because it is a legacy of British colonialism, this medievalism also reflects Australia's sense of continuity with its medieval European heritage. Tracing this dialectic through a range of more sophisticated and self-consciously 'Australian' engagements with the Middle Ages, this essay also makes a case for examining Australia's throwaway medievalism for what it can tell us about the dominant tastes and ideological concerns that have shaped Australian attitudes to the medieval past.