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This photograph shows a path at Blacktoft Sands Nature Reserve, Yorkshire. The path is canopied by tangled tree limbs and green leaves.
Welcome to Virtually Medieval!
This site explores the experience of reading environmental episodes from popular Middle English romances alongside 360-degree recordings of twenty-first-century environments. Photographs and videos were recorded in the summers of 2022 and 2024 at sites within the geographical areas of Britain where these medieval texts were originally written or read. Since the boundaries of those areas are highly conjectural, some recordings from outside those areas have also been paired with romances when relevant.
All recordings were done by Andrew Richmond (me), the author of this site. I have endeavored to make myself visible in most shots.
I am not proposing here any new arguments regarding the origins of the texts discussed, or their historical relationships to specific geographical locations. Instead, this site invites users to consider how modern and historical media contexts influence how we imagine the environments of literary texts.
The actual landscapes of the medieval world have, of course, been significantly altered over the years by forces both human and natural. Consequently, this site also asks users to interrogate how they construct ideas of past environments – and how, in turn, those preconceptions shape their experience of reading medieval texts for ecological details and perspectives.
In sum, I hope that this site helps visitors to begin questioning how the environments – material and digital – in which they read shape their understandings of historical literature and ecology.
Catalog of Romances
Please select the title of a romance listed below to jump directly to that text’s page on the site. “Sources and Further Reading,” meanwhile, leads to a list of editions and scholarly works for the romances discussed.
All of these options can be selected at any time from the menu at the top right of every page.
Directions for Navigating the Site (Click to Expand)
For the best experience, please view this website on the largest screen available. If viewing on a handheld or phone screen, try using it horizontally.
On this website, hyperlinked names of real-life geographic features lead to relevant Google Maps.
The images and videos displayed throughout Virtually Medieval, however, are all 360-degree recordings collected by the site author. They can be spun around by holding down the left mouse button and pulling, or pressing down with one’s finger and dragging it on a touchscreen.
Still images can also be made full-screen by clicking the small square in the upper-left corner; Youtube videos can be made full-screen using the relevant player controls.
Please note that videos include audio; it is also suggested that videos be played in the highest resolution that the user’s equipment allows.
This photograph shows the site author on a rocky beach along the mountain-framed waters of Llyn Idwal, Wales.