GESTURES, WHETHER MEDIEVAL or contemporary, formal, ritualistic, or informal, are socially codified movements of body parts or vocalized sounds that, even in a formal setting, can send a uniquely personal message. Consider the smile: that gesture has held different meanings in different times, in different places, for different individuals, within different social situations. Yet, the written description – or drawing – of a damsel smiling in the Middle Ages is understood by contemporary readers. Context is crucial to the meaning of a particular gesture. Consider the medieval romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: a damsel smiling at a Christmas party in King Arthur's court holds distinct meaning if that smile is maintained as the Green Knight chops off his head. Outside the context of a literary work full of narrative details, it can be difficult to know a smile's meaning; even within the context of a literary work the lack of description (or even mention) of a gesture constitutes a lack of meaning. Thus, knowing who is gesturing and for what reason(s) is crucial information often lacking in medieval literary, performative, and other artistic works.

The word gesture was apparently first used in the sixteenth century, derived from Anglo-French and Medieval Latin, and referred to little more than a sound and/or bodily movement that had not been formally assigned meaning as part of a language. Jody Enders points out, “[f]rom Greco-Roman antiquity to modern (or even postmodern) literary theory, it has been a cultural commonplace to acknowledge the existence of an entity called ‘body language.’” The term language as used in this context, however, does not refer to the strict linguistic definition of a systemized structure of communication; rather, it refers to a broader, more colloquial, conception of patterned communication. Prior to the late twentieth century, the word gesture was applied to any form of non-verbal expression, including visual-physical expressions that had been systematized into (sign)- languages. Non-verbal languages were not recognized officially as languages until the mid-twentieth century. However, even as the term language has broadened to include systemized gestures, thus leading to significantly less biased appreciation for non-verbal languages, gesture is still recognized as distinct from language. Furthermore, gesturing often drove medieval communication and played a grammatical part in a (yet to be discovered) language system of visual-physical signs and as an emphatic marker of communication.

Medieval English morality plays had the same general agenda as contemporary American community theatre has now: to teach values in the face of the challenges of a fundamentally and generally unethical world. In the former, the performance is intended to be more overtly didactic by promoting a particular Christian doctrine of ethics and by working to enforce the development of an ethical soul, all within the further proactive development of an ethical community that has been developed by the Church clergy. In the latter, the performance is more subtle and complex, as it promotes a more general doctrine of ethics and encourages the development of an ethical self, within the proactive development of an ethical community that has been developed by both members and non-members of any number of religious and secular institutions. The specific agenda of a particular medieval morality play and its contemporary adaptation should thus be expected to be different, if only for the reasons of a vast distinction in time, location, and culture.

In the case of the English medieval morality play Everyman, the character Everyman faces the unethical acts of his life as a member of the merchant guild, within the corrosive environment of a growing medieval merchant class that prizes capital investments over spiritual growth.

In recent articles discussing definitions of medievalism(s) and neomedievalism(s), several themes seem to reoccur; one of those themes is the question of the validity of such scholarship. Karl Fugelso, in his Editorial Note to Studies in Medievalism XX, notes that some medievalists consider neomedievalism to be “defending artificial borders that diminish medievalism without establishing valid alternatives” while others question the “validity of neomedievalism.” Whether neomedievalism is a subset of medievalism or something distinctive is still a matter of lively discussion; we hope to further that discussion by addressing four themes that have emerged in recent volumes of Studies in Medievalism and elsewhere. First is the pedagogical use to which we, as academics, put medievalism, including neomedievalism. Second is the effect upon tenure and promotion for those publishing in neomedievalism. Third is a concern over identifying and defining both medievalism and neomedievalism. Finally, there is a question as to further theoretical possibilities.

It is widely acknowledged that medievalism and neomedievalism have had an effect on medievalists' pedagogy. Almost all of us who teach undergraduate medieval studies slip in an occasional film clip or “modernization,” either for comic relief or to advance critical thinking and understanding of the cultural production of images, both in our own time and historically. One could call these overlapping purposes enlivening, enrollment, and enlightening. There is no need to elaborate on enlivening: students respond to references they are familiar with, and we often use those references as scaffold to the less familiar, often difficult work of our courses.