Popular Culture Review Vol. 13, No. 1, January 2002 | Page 115

Between Cultural Studies
and Medieval Studies:
The Medievalism of Jacques Maritain
Academics are not likely to think of Jacques Maritain as a medievalist. A
case in point, the noted medieval historian G.G. Coulton argued that Maritain’s
success could be understood only in terms of Protestant guilt, overcompensation
for a long heritage of Protestant unfairness to the Middle Ages. After all, Coulton
aigued, Maritain’s ‘‘true humanism” is “little more than an old theology refurbished
on a comparatively narrow specialization in medieval metaphysics” (Coulton 416).
Given his numerous generalizations concerning the Middle Ages, his Thomism,
and his efforts to imitate the “creativity” of medieval artisans in stained glass,
Maritain is better left to those working in cultural studies, those who might examine
the popularity of Maritain’s “true humanism” among American and Canadian
intellectuals. Let cultural studies concern itself with this “carefully qualified
nostalgia” which legitimized religious culture for a generation of talented Catholics.
Maritain’s discussions of the authenticity, integrity, and purity of medieval religious
minds in his Hiimanisme Integral (1936) do not fall under the province of history;
rather, they show medievalists—by the efforts of their friends in cultural studies—
how ideology or even literariness is a product of a tainted historical/philological
project.
Such a description of the relationship between medieval studies and
cultural studies will no doubt seem a cartoon-sketch of the matter. However, we do
see something very much like this cartoon when we observe how medievalists
have attempted to respond to the challenges facing medieval studies as North
American universities and colleges move toward the promotion of professional
competence rather than cultural or critical literacy (Readings 47). ‘ Forced to respond
to questions that they have not been trained to consider, medievalists look to the
‘'best people in the field” for an assessment of the field’s future development and
for position papers regarding the ethics of training students when there is little
chance of their gainful employment. And “the best people” suggest, in some oblique
fashion or another, that the Middle Ages is still part of the imaginative economy of
the modem age; they ask us to look to past and present representations of the
Middle Ages (sometimes called ‘'medievalism”) with the goal of selling medieval
studies.^ No doubt, cultural studies (even under the heading o f '‘medievalism”) is
happy for the work, even on these terms. However, students of culture (whether
they identify their object of study as ‘'medievalism” or not) would never assume