Corvus Corax: medieval rock, the minstrel, and cosmopolitanism as anti-nationalism

AbstractThis article explores the German band Corvus Corax and their reinterpretion of the Middle Ages as a creative answer to Germany's problematic history of nationalism. Invoking the community ideals and ideological values of the 1960s and 1970s, which, in the context of the GDR took on even more significance, Corvus Corax borrowed ‘authentic’ medieval texts and melodies, rendering them in acoustic arrangements inspired by medieval performance practices. In short, German ‘folk’ bands invented ‘medieval’ rock to sidestep Nazi connotations with the word ‘folk’. Besides invoking the semantic shift from ‘folk’ to ‘medieval’, I argue that the band adopts the figure of the medieval minstrel and asserts that his multilingual texts, ‘foreign’ instruments and colourful performance practices speak to an inclusive, diverse and cosmopolitan community. Paradoxically, they do so by first positioning the medieval minstrel as a punked-up, marginalised ‘outcast’. The cultural capital of this outcast status helps medieval rock bands like Corvus Corax carve out a space for marginalised voices who, in their new privileged positions, offer a form of retribution for politics of exclusion, racism and authoritarianism.