Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index



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  • Title: God Speed
  • Creator: Leighton, Edmund Blair
  • Description:

    This scene painted in 1900 celebrated a romantic view of courtly love and knighthood. The young woman ties her favor around the departing knight's arm as a pledge of love and support. Viewers of the painting at the Royal Academy would have felt an immediate connection to the soldiers going to fight in the Boer War. In 2019 this painting appears on the pages of Stormfront and other alt-right websites as evidence of the Middle Ages as a white nation. They identify with a mythical medieval past in which culture centered on Christianity, family and a social order where everyone happily fulfilled their role from birth.

  • Source: Wikimedia Commons
  • Rights: Public domain
  • Subject (See Also): Alt-Right Chivalry Courtly Love Knights Medievalism White Supremacy
  • Geographic Area: British Isles
  • Century: 20
  • Date: 1900
  • Related Work: Edmund Blair Leighton, The Accolade, 1901.
    Edmund Blair Leighton, The Dedication, 1908.
    Edmund Blair Leighton, The End of the Song, 1902. Represents Isolde and Tristan with King Marc overhearing their conversation.
  • Current Location: Private collection
  • Original Location:
  • Artistic Type (Category): Digital images; Paintings
  • Artistic Type (Material/Technique): Canvas; Oil paints;
  • Donor:
  • Height/Width/Length(cm): 63/46/
  • Inscription:
  • Related Resources: Elliott, Andrew B. R. "Internet Medievalism and the White Middle Ages." History Compass 16, 3 (2018): 1-10;
    Sturtevant, Paul B. "Race, Racism, and the Middle Ages: Tearing Down the 'Whites Only' Medieval World." February 7, 2017. Introduction to an ongoing series on the Public Medievalist site;
    Wollenberg, Daniel. Medieval Imagery in Today's Politics. Arc Humanities Press, 2018;
    Yockney, Alfred. "The Art of Edmund Blair Leighton." Art Annual, London, Christmas 1913.