Circling the Square

"Genoese Shipping in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries" and "French Secular Music of the Late Fourteenth Century" are not subjects with wide appeal. Yet, books on these and 54 other similar topics have been emanating from a small Harvard Square office for the past 25 years. It is in the building to the left of the University Theatre, hidden among beauty salons and insurance offices, that one can find "The Medieval Academy of America."

This is the headquarters of Charles R. D. Miller '23, the Academy's Executive Secretary. Miller, who taught modern languages at Harvard for 17 years before the war, is deeply convinced of the importance of his organization's work.

The purpose of the Academy, he explains, is to conduct, encourage, promote and support research, publication, and instruction in mediaeval records, literature, art, archaeology, history, philosophy, science, life and all other aspects of mediaeval civilization. Although the Academy was started in 1926 by a few Harvard professors, it is completely independent of the University and now has 1,200 members from all over the world. They vary from academicians to doctors interested in mediaeval music, to a vice-president of J. P. Morgan.

They are attracted because the Academy is the focus of much research and writing on the Middle Ages. It helps authors publish their manuscripts if it thinks the work is scholarly and shows original research on some aspect of the mediaeval period. It also prints a quarterly called "Speculum," which combines articles on all phases of mediaevalism.

On the front of the magazine, there is a picture of a hand holding up a mirror reflecting medieval civilization. It is the same seal that is engraved on the society's beer mugs, which the executive council uses at its meetings.

The society can offer a significant reason for its interest in the Middle Ages. Perhaps, it speculates, the period from the downfall of the Roman Empire in 476 to the discovery of America in 1492 perfected a social, political, and religious unity that would answer many of our present problems. It had a common political theory based on custom and myth, and a common religion; it had no Hitler nor Mussolini nor Stalin. While "times were far from peaceful, life had more beneficial organizations and more of the elements of constructive happiness than exist in a 'civilized' world where scientific progress has been prevented to the business of killing." Maybe, say the mediaevalists, the twentieth century needs a quick flashback to what it snobbishly calls the Dark Ages.