Medieval Imaginaries in Tourism, Heritage and the Media

Jennifer Frost, Warwick Frost

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9780429655333
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

This book examines the pervading influence of medieval culture, through an exploration of the intersections between tourism, heritage, and imaginaries of the medieval in the media.

Drawing on examples from tourist destinations, heritage sites, fictional literature, television and cinema, the book illustrates how the medieval period has consistently captured the imagination of audiences and has been reinvented for contemporary tastes. Chapters present a range of international examples, from nineteenth century Victorian notions of chivalry, knights in shining armour exemplified by King Arthur, and damsels in distress, to the imagining of the Japanese samurai as medieval knights. Other topics explored include the changing representations of medieval women, the Crusades and the Vikings, and the challenges faced by medieval cathedrals to survive economically and socially.

This book offers multidisciplinary perspectives and will appeal to scholars and students across a variety of disciplines such as cultural studies, history, tourism, heritage studies, historical geography and sociology.

1 The continuing fascination for the medieval

Introduction: Dubrovnik and Game of Thrones

For many of us, Dubrovnik conjures up vivid images of the siege in 1991, when the breakup of Yugoslavia saw the medieval walled city hit by sustained bombing by the Serbian army for three months. It had been designated a World Heritage site by UNESCO just 12 years earlier and was a popular destination for tourists. Sandwiched between Split and Kotor on the Dalmatian Coast, Dubrovnik was the most well-known of the three medieval masterpieces. The majority of the visitors had fled, and international television news broadcasts were filled with searing images of crumbling buildings, sniper attacks and the death of civilians, in what was described by the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague as, ‘wanton destruction’ with, ‘devastation not justified by military necessity’ (Wood, 2001). It had survived an earthquake in 1667, but this level of damage was crippling. The Old Town was placed on UNESCO’s list of endangered sites and removed only in 1998. Its medieval heritage was subsequently restored, and today, it is difficult to find remnants of the war. The restoration work has been sensitively carried out; avoiding a Disney version of the city that looks like it has been newly built, while at the same time not aiming for fake antiquity. The wounds to the physical fabric essentially look like the result of the passage of time and add to the ambience of what is again a premier drawcard for tourists.

Nowadays, visitors pour off cruise boats and head to the walls and streets of the Old Town, whose shops, bars and restaurants largely depend on the constant foot traffic (Figure 1.1). The large number of cruise boats that dock in Dubrovnik’s harbour has been criticised for leading to over-tourism, ‘the excessive growth of visitors leading to overcrowding in areas where residents suffer the consequences of temporary and seasonal tourism peaks, which have caused permanent changes to their lifestyles, denied access to amenities and damaged their general well-being’ (Milano, Novelli and Cheer, 2019: 354). Dubrovnik is often cited as one of the worst examples of this along with other medieval cities such as Venice, Granada, Barcelona and Malta (Milano et al., 2019). The appeal of these hotspots is partly an attractive medieval core such as the winding streets of Barcelona’s Old Town (Ciutat Vella) and Gothic District (Barri Gòtic), and partly iconic medieval architecture like St Mark’s Basilica in Venice and Granada’s Alhambra Royal Palace. The high level of visitation of these destinations reflects a widespread fascination with the heritage of the medieval period.

Figure 1.1Tourists in the Old Town of Dubrovnik.

Source: Jennifer Frost.

Dubrovnik, however, has one further string to its bow. It has been used as the setting for a number of film and television productions in recent years, including Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) and Robin Hood (2018), but is best known as the location for King’s Landing, the capital of the imaginary medieval kingdom of Westeros in Game of Thrones (2011–2019). Based on the book series A Song of Ice and Fire (1996–2011) by George R. R. Martin and set in the fictional world of Westeros and Essos, Game of Thrones is not only a fantasy where knights fight with swords and joust in tournaments and dragons really exist, but additionally, Martin has adapted many historical incidents and themes from medieval history (Larrington, 2016). For a television series, Game of Thrones was distinguished by very high production values, spearheading the modern trend for television productions to aim for a look and feel comparable to cinematic blockbusters. This was in part achieved by the exceptional use of attractive locations in Croatia, Iceland, Northern Ireland and Iceland, all places that have consequently attracted increased tourism flows as a result (Waysdorf and Reijnders, 2017). In the first season, the scenes of King’s Landing were shot in Malta, but after that, production was shifted to Dubrovnik to take advantage of better financial and logistical inducements. In tourism terms, Dubrovnik benefited from a 38% increase in tourist arrivals between 2011 and 2015, a period in which a financial recession meant that most competing destinations were experiencing a decline in visitation (Tkalec, Zilic and Recher, 2017). For fans, the appeal of Dubrovnik as King’s Landing was that:

Most of the characters are linked to this city, and because it is the capital, it is a place of political plots, intrigues and secrets. The medieval-like context of the series highlights Dubrovnik’s most attractive tourist assets such as the rich and preserved historic town center.

(Tkalec et al.,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1: The continuing fascination for the medieval
• Chapter 2: Gazing at the Gothic: Medievalism and tourism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
• Chapter 3: Medieval kingship: Hollow crown or tower of strength?
• Chapter 4: The princess in the tower?: Changing representations of medieval women
• Chapter 5: Medieval knights and chivalry
• Chapter 6: Medieval castles and walled cities
• Chapter 7: Positioning medieval cathedrals in the modern era
• Chapter 8: Robin Hood: Reinterpreting the medieval outlaw
• Chapter 9: The hammer of the gods?: Contested and changing imaginaries of the Vikings
• Chapter 10: Encounters with the ‘Other’: Crusaders and Muslims in medieval narratives
• Chapter 11: Japan and medievalism: The samurai, cinema and cultural appropriation
• Chapter 12: Fictional media and heritage from the medieval perspective: Trends, issues and setting a research agenda
• Filmography
• Index