When I began writing a newsletter (mostly) about the Middle Ages it was never my intention to be sitting here on a Friday lunchtime writing about my children’s favourite pop star. But life is strange, as the Chinese say. And sometimes the point of history is to make it seem less so.
This weekend is the Super Bowl, an event which comprises a big football game with an even bigger pop concert. In many ways the Super Bowl neatly epitomises America’s place in global popular culture: we don’t understand your sports, but we sure as hell dig the tunes.
This year’s Super Bowl has distilled things even further, from the general to the personal. For as you cannot fail to know, one of the most talented burly hunks who will be lobbing the bladder around on Sunday - Travis Kelce - is dating the world’s most famous pop star - Taylor Swift.
For weeks this has been a regular news item all around the world. Sport serves pop. Brawn serves beauty. Travis catches the ball, and we thank him for his service. But all eyes are really in the stands, where his true love watches on.
This is sometimes billed as a very modern celebrity love story. In fact, it is anything but.
In the first decade of the thirteenth century, the well-educated German knight Wolfram von Eschenbach composed his epic Arthurian romance Parzival: a rewrite of Chrétien de Troyes’ wildly popular story Perceval.
It is a tale of knightly questing, love, adventure, chivalry and jousting. It is often cited as the place where we first find reference to the Holy Grail. But Parzival also contains one of the most memorable genre depictions of a medieval tournament. And it is surprisingly similar to the set-up of a big, glitzy celebrity-meets-sporting event today.
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