The election of fringe political parties on the far and extreme right across Europe since spring 2014 has brought the political discourse of "old Europe" and "tradition" to the foreground. Writers and politicians on the right have called for the reclamation, rediscovery, and return of the spirit of national identities rooted in the medieval past. Though the "medieval" is often deployed as a stigmatic symbol of all that is retrograde, against modernity,...