‘Memeieval’ Times: The Manipulation and Weaponisation of the Reconquista, the Crusades, and the Rurik Dynasty

It has become common practice for the contemporary far right to appropriate and revise historical imagery and disseminate medieval memes that are steeped in ancient and spiritual symbolism. Typically, these popular cultural narratives, and the visual imagery through which they are propagated, direct audiences towards hegemonic ideological positions. The aesthetics of whiteness that dominate Western medievalist meme culture is part of a contemporary framing of the Middle Ages as an overwhelmingly ‘white’ space and the original source of white culture and racial identity. This chapter will examine some of the uses and abuses of the medieval past, and how historical narratives, based loosely and highly selectively on recorded events, are being manipulated and weaponised as a tool for radicalisation. To accomplish this, the chapter analyses specific cases of historical manipulation, including the weaponisation of the Reconquista in Spain, the use of Crusader iconography in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, and the memeification of the Rurik dynasty in Russia, to demonstrate the ways in which popular medievalism—the re-imagining and re-invention of the Middle Ages—is appropriated by the far right in imagery for racist, political, and ideological purposes.