Medievalist: the Job Description

This may come as a shock, but there are some people out there who don't know what a medievalist does. More accurately, they don't know what I could possibly do with a degree in medieval studies (yes, friends and family, you know who you are. . .) Well, for your benefit here is a job description and career list for medievalists. So the next time the ladies at church ask Gramma what I'm doing with all that book-learning, she'll have an answer.

Job Requirements:

-- Wasted seven years and many federal dollars on an advanced degree at a university with a medievalish name (eg. Oxford, Yale, Notre Dame)

-- Possesses the ability to decipher dates by the ecumenical calendar in 3 seconds or less

-- Can swear in Latin, Middle English and Occitan

-- Has laughed at the character references in Dante's Inferno

-- Has read Dante's Inferno

-- Able to recite the popes, in order, from Benedict IV to Nicholas V

-- Has critiqued the veracity of at least 5 medieval period movies

-- Knows that J.R.R. Tolkien was not just the author of The Lord of the Rings

-- Has spent at least one drunken weekend trying to build a trebuchet out of scrap timber

-- Has memorized the introduction to The Canterbury Tales. . . in Middle English

-- Has used the words 'fief', 'viscount', and 'barbican' in conversation in the past month

-- Able to recite the script of Monty Python's Holy Grail verbatim

-- Cringes when the word 'medieval' is used as a synonym for 'backward' or 'cruel'

And by popular demand . . .

The Medievalist Career List

-- least favorite history professor on campus

-- author of books and articles that will be circulated amongst a readership of six people worldwide

-- tour guide at the Vatican

-- historical consultant for Medieval Times restaurant

-- King or Queen of the local chapter of the SCA

-- Head archivist of an incunabula collection that only God Himself is allowed to view, if he stands behind glass and wears white gloves

-- the smartest waiter/waitress at Chili's