Consuming the Past

First published in 2003 Consuming the Past covers pilgrimages to popular festivals, from modern spectacles to advertising, from the work of avant-garde painters to the novels of Emile Zola, and explores the complexity of the fin-de-siècle French fascination with the Middle Ages. The authors map the cultural history of the period from the end of the Franco-Prussian war to the 1905 separation of Church and State illuminating the powerful appeal that the medieval past held for a society undergoing the rapid changes of industrialisation.

Laura Morowitz, Elizabeth Emery

Introduction 1. The Middle Ages Belong to France: Nationalist Paradigms of the Medieval 2. Packaging the Primitifs: The Medieval Artist, the Neo-Primitif and the Art Market 3. From the Living Room to the Museum and Back Again: The Institutionalization of Medieval Art 4. The Gothic Cathedral in Fin-De-Siècle France: From Gesamtkunstwerk to 'French genius' 5. From Cathedral to Cabaret: The Popularity of Medieval Stained Glass and Tapestries 6. Marketing the Sacred: Medieval Pilgrimage and the Catholic Revival 7. Feasts, Fools and Festivals: The Popular Middle Ages Conclusion Notes Selected Bibliography Index