Exploring the Middle Ages in the Modern World
Doctoral student Olivia Mathers uncovers medieval history’s surprising connections to contemporary culture through literature, gaming, and fantasy.
Olivia Mathers parlays a passion for the Middle Ages into her doctoral work in English literature by incorporating divergent sources.
From Margery Kempe (1373-1440) an obscure 14th century Christian mystic to Dungeons and Dragons, video game “Pentiment” and “The Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien, Mathers gathers and weaves historical threads to explore and understand medieval history’s resonance in modern culture.
Mathers has a penchant for late medieval English literature and fantasy games. Pentiment is an historical narrative adventure role-playing video game set during the Middle Ages. It’s another rich source for Mathers’s work and imagination.
“It [the medieval period] is not the most popular academic English study, and I think I’m drawn to that because it’s less saturated,” said Mathers, a second year doctoral student.
Her research centers on The Book of Margery Kempe, considered the first autobiography written in English. The text recounts Kempe’s domestic life, holy pilgrimages—unthinkable for a woman of her time—and divine visions, including conversations with God, Jesus, and other religious figures during the height of Roman Catholic influence in medieval Britain. Mathers views her research and scholarly writing as a creative endeavor where she can explore interests.
During a roundtable discussion at the International Congress on Medieval Studies in May, Mathers presented a paper anchored by Kempe and her unconventional views around virginity and medieval culture. The conference was hosted by Western Michigan University.
“Participating in a panel like this will help me find what people are interested in and how it’s depicted in this modern moment,” she said.
“Kempe was a wife and a business woman. She had 14 children and she dictated this autobiography about her spiritual conversion,” Mathers explained.
Kempe’s life was extraordinary for its rejection of societal norms. Born into an upper-class family, she married and had 14 children before experiencing a spiritual conversion. Following this transformation, Kempe declared herself “reborn as a virgin,” convincing her husband to take a vow of chastity—a radical demand for a woman of her era.
“I’m trying to understand how Kempe saw herself as a virgin based on how people around her saw her and what they knew about her,” Mathers explained. “As a woman you could either be a virgin, a wife or a widow and those were the three ways you could be engaged and still get into heaven. Kempe tries to deal with this situation with an unusual approach,” Mathers explained.
Kempe was a disrupter with a regular habit of crying, weeping and screaming –distasteful and objectionable behavior to those around her.
“The people around her we pretty annoyed by her most of the time because she…saw herself as a saint-like figure and was obvious about it with her behavior,” Mathers said.
While Mathers’s fascination with Kempe is recent – and began last year during a Lehigh course about community, identity, and non-conformity – she said Kempe’s life and her mission stands apart, making her unique.
Medieval saints had a stringent set of expectations and Kempe did not fit the stereotype, and she did not let cultural constraints stop her, Mathers said.
“Medieval saint types had to fit into that canon but obviously she had a hard time fitting into that,” Mathers said.
While Kempe lived in more than a millennium ago, Mathers said the literature illustrates similar ideologies to what “we are experiencing today.”
“People have always been diverse and interesting and different. The human race has a history of being different and weird,” Mathers said. “By doing research about Kempe I’m interested in female authorship and the way women were able to define themselves [in that time],” she explained.
"People have always been diverse... The human race has a history of being different and weird. By doing research about Kempe I’m interested in female authorship and the way women were able to define themselves."
She said a call for papers to adapt the medieval period to animation media is another interest area she plans to pursue.
“Pentiment” (2022) is an historical role-playing game set during the Middle Ages.
“The game is set in the fictional medieval town of Tassing, in which the player character uncovers a murder mystery plot,” Mathers said. “It was one of the only [video game] pieces I’ve consumed that I found to be accurate in terms of representing the Middle Ages,” Mathers explained.
The animation looks like medieval manuscripts, and the game explores literate and illiterate characters – for example which person learns to read and write versus those who do not, based on their status, and the norms and customs of the time, she said.
The medieval era is also known as the Middle Ages and the Dark Ages. It spans the period between the fall of the Roman Empire [about 476 A.D.] and the rise of the Ottoman Empire [1450]. It lasted roughly 1,500 years.
“Pentiment” has a time element based on canonical hours from the Roman Catholic Church’s daily prayer schedule during the Middle Ages. Towns are ruled either by a monastery or an abbey.
“That’s part of what is displayed in this video game. As the main character you get to eat different meals, and talk to everyone in the town” and interact as if you are part of their world, she said.
Peasant revolts were common and frequent during the time period. Mathers’s broad interest in this period encourages her exploration of different interests and depictions of the Middle Ages.
“While the peasants barely had money for bread you work [in the game] as an artist in a scriptorium [and experience episodes of] book burning. It’s a really transitional period where printing is coming into play, and religious changes and gender norms are challenged,” she said.
“My work with the video game is an exploration,” she said.
Mathers’s interest in medieval depictions extends beyond games. A recent call for papers on adapting the medieval period to animation is one she plans to explore.
Her academic journey began with bachelor’s and master’s degrees at other institutions, along with a secondary education certification to teach English. Now, her goal is to become a professor and continue researching, writing, and teaching.
“I want to teach,” Mathers said.