This fascinating collection explores America’s appropriations and fabrications of the Middle Ages, revealing the nation’s complicated love affair with a past it never had, but has created from history and imagination.

IntroductionBuilt in the United States of America: Constructing a Medieval PastTison Pugh and Susan Aronstein Part I: Building the American Middle Ages 1. Translatio Horti: Medievalized Gardens in Boston and CambridgeKathleen Coyne Kelly 2. Bryn Athyn Cathedral and Glencairn – and Philadelphia’s Other Medieval(ist) JewelsKevin J. Harty 3. The Masonic Medievalism of Washington, D.C.Laurie Finke 4. Medieval Chicago: Architecture, Patronage, and Capital at the Fin de Siècle Alfred Thomas Part II: Living in the American Middle Ages 5. Three Vignettes and a White Castle: Knighthood and Race in Modern AtlantaRichard Utz 6. Medieval New York City: A Walk through The Stations of the CrossCandace Barrington 7. Minnesota Medieval: Dragons, Knights, and RunestonesJana K. Schulman 8. “I yearned for a strange land and a people that had the charm of originality”: Searching for Salvation in Medieval AppalachiaAlison Gulley 9. Wounded Landscapes: Topographies of Franciscan Spirituality and Deep Ecology in California Medievalism Lowell Gallagher Part III: Playing in the American Middle Ages 10. Orlando’s Medieval Heritage Project Tison Pugh and Susan Aronstein 11. Saints and Sinners: New Orleans’s MedievalismsUsha Vishnuvajjala and Candace Barrington 12. Sherwood Forest Faire: Evoking Medieval May-Games, Robin Hood Revels, and Twentieth-Century “Pleasure Faires” in Contemporary TexasLorraine Kochanske Stock 13. Las Vegas: Getting Medieval in Sin CityLaurie Finke and Martin Shichtman Notes on Contributors

"This is the rare medievalism-studies collection whose sum is even greater than its parts, each of which is terrific in and of itself. Every one of these essays shines a brilliant light on the many ways the Middle Ages continue to shape the world around us, particularly through lieux d'imagination, through places that invite us to imagine the medieval past in such a way as to confirm our myths about it – and about ourselves."