Writing Intellectual History of the High and Late Middle Ages

There is at present very little overlap between medieval studies and intellectual history as a self-conscious discipline. While inspiring and influential medieval scholarship relevant to intellectual history is continuously being produced, this scholarship is carried out within more established disciplines such as literary studies, history, and the history of philosophy. Medieval intellectual history as a distinct field of study is therefore more an aspiration than a determinate reality, and a conversation is needed about whether, and if so, how, the methodological basis for intellectual history could be adapted to medieval sources. This article provides some possible starting points for such a conversation. It proceeds in three main stages. First, it discusses problems concerning how intellectual history as a self-conscious discipline is currently defined, what its subject matter is, and to what extent these abstract definitions are applicable to medieval studies. Second, it highlights the main theoretical and methodological traditions within intellectual history more broadly speaking, and identifies problems that would need to be resolved to expand the discipline of intellectual history to integrate medieval studies more fully. Finally, it offers some suggestions as to how the current methodologies of intellectual history could be adapted to meet the specific challenges offered by medieval texts.