For the longest time I read these lines from Sam Cooke's song “Wonderful World” as a simple set of hyperbolic statements to better celebrate the unique nature of the singer's love (“But I do know that I love you …”). Over the years, based on what I know about the field of Medieval Studies, I have come to understand these lines (as well as those about history, biology, science, and French in the song's first stanza) as a statement about who controls the research, scholarship, and teaching of the medieval past, and how those without academic degrees do not feel ownership of the knowledge-making process controlled by the academy. Consider for a moment Ben Detrick's 2013 article, “Game of Dorks: Inside the World of Medieval LARPing,” published in Maxim, an international men's magazine sold worldwide to several million readers. Detrick surveys the activities of the Society of Creative Anachronism (SCA), an international organization devoted to the reenactment (dress, language, art, dining, combat) of the European Middle Ages, specifically some of its members’ live action role-playing (hence: LARP) games. In these semi-ritualized games, participants physically portray “medieval” characters in a fictional setting, improvising their characters’ speech and movements, and getting medieval on each other in “elaborate suits of armor and vests made from thick overlapping leather scales; others settle for pj bottoms, filthy Ugg boots, and helmets that resemble the reservoir tips on condoms.” The tenor of the article moves from incredulity to condescension, a condescension that culminates in a quoted statement by medievalist Laura Morreale, the associate director of the Center for Medieval Studies at Fordham University: “There is a tension between academic historians and SCA folks. […] It took me 10 years to get my degree, and there's a notion that they just have to go out and live it and it's more real. But from a business perspective, we need people who are passionate about history.”