Of Monks and Medievalists
24th May 2019
Encore’s decision to feature a Dominican on its cover is a typical attempt at using the unexpected otherness of a young man wearing a medieval religious habit to attract readers to its pages and ads. Thus, the magazine partakes in one of the known attractions of medievalia in the 21st century, its otherness, in the same way that we casually associate cathedrals, castles, and chivalry with the medieval past. At the same time, Reisenauer’s presence signals that the cover photo is more than a mainstream medievalist meme without any link to a historical reality. In fact, like the existence of the Cistercian and Monastic Studies Center, his picture reminds us of the manifold real cultural continuities between the medieval and our own world.
For the record, I might note that Dominicans are friars, not monks; although readers of Medievalists.net surely know that, outsiders might not.