Visiting the Middle Ages

Abstract

On the island of Gotland, in the middle of the Baltic, a Medieval Week is arranged every year. About 150,000 visitors, many of them dressed in some kind of medieval costume, travel to the island to join the event. Why? A historian would like to believe that they are genuinely interested in the Middle Ages and thus come to Gotland to learn more or to feel the wings of history. In some cases that is also the case. Most visitors, however, have a much wider set of reasons for coming to the island—some even claim to be uninterested in history. So what do people do when they travel to the Middle Ages, and what do they think that the Middle Ages were like?