Since early 2025, it has been popular to post medieval-aesthetic videos clipped to “Golden Brown,” a song by an English rock band called The Stranglers. To many online users, the song captures the essence of the medieval era, also known as the Middle Ages, due to its rustic and mystical sound. 

This trend, called “medievalcore,” takes historical elements from the medieval time period, such as fashion, art and architecture, and uses them to invoke medieval archetypes. Medievalcore videos depict princesses, knights, reading in flowery meadows, walking in cathedrals and even peasants towing vast fields. They emphasize the beauty of nature with their heavy use of warm colors, such as yellow, red and gold to romanticize the period and portray it as a magical time.

Daniel Morgan is an assistant teaching professor in the history department who teaches The Middle Ages. He explained that the Middle Ages spans from around 500 A.D., after the fall of the Roman Empire, to the beginning of the Renaissance in the 14th century.

“The Middle Ages, by their name, invite the question: ‘The middle of what?’” Morgan said. “It’s not the world of antiquity. And it’s also not modernity. It’s that middle thing that separates the two.” 

While trendy online depictions often stray from historical accuracy, it is difficult to simply dismiss them as inaccurate. Morgan explained that history is a modern interpretation of a past that no longer exists. As a result, we inevitably begin to get various notions that may diverge from facts.

“History is not the past, but rather a meditation on the past. It is always going to require some kind of effort at interpretation and analysis,” Morgan said.

Timothy Stinson, an associate professor in the English department who teaches medieval literature, explained that the current glamorization of medieval aesthetics may also reveal something about present day society.

“Romanticism doesn’t tell you anything about the Middle Ages,” Stinson said. “It tells you what the modern person is longing for.”

What exactly it reveals is open for interpretation, but may have something to do with longing for a more care-free existence.

“People do a rose-colored reading on the Middle Ages because they believe it has some sort of simplicity and clarity that is unlike what we have today,” Stinson said.

However, while vastly different from our own experience, people from the Middle Ages still faced immense conflict. Stinson explained that the Middle Ages was a time period where many people died from war and disease, so interpreting it as a “simpler time” isn’t very accurate.

“We’re talking about a time period where the majority of men died in their 20s in war, and the majority of women died in their 20s in childbirth,” Stinson said.

Ironically, these unfortunate circumstances caused people in the Middle Ages to also long for an idyllic and simple past. 

“It’s funny that people in the Middle Ages would fantasize about this long lost past, and now you see people fantasizing about the Middle Ages in a similar way,” Stinson said. “Fantasizing is really about what you desire that you don’t have in some way.”

On the positive side, Morgan explained how this trend can be a gateway for people to learn more about the Middle Ages. We can use it to draw connections between modern and historical times, and discover a more nuanced understanding of both the past and present.

“You should look into the Middle Ages. It’s like our world, and might be familiar in some ways, but in many ways different,” Morgan said. “You should be sensitive to the things that are resonant and the things that are totally alien, and know that they all came from humans just like you.”

The “Golden Brown” trend can be seen as a simple, fun engagement with historical themes that also functions as a creative outlet. But on a deeper level, the trend reveals a broader pattern within human society. Modern problems are influencing us to yearn for a past in which we believe they would not have existed, but ultimately just lead to a romanticized or idealized version of those times. 

So yes, you might have exams coming up — but at least you don’t have the bubonic plague.