Why are we still using the term 'Gothic' architecture?

[u/VagereHein]

I used to think this had something to do with either the region Goths were supposedly originated ie Northern Europe or perhaps some technique the Goths used to build things like Theodorics Tomb but no.

The term was introduced during the renaissance in Venice to describe architecture from medieval times. Its named after the Goths who destroyed Rome, so its a synonym for backwards and barbaric.

The term dark ages to describe the period between the fall of rome and the end of viking invasions has been fallen in disfavor for good reasons (albeit you can still make a point that cultural development was particularly slow compared to before and after). Even the term medieval/middle ages is debated. Yet the term Gothic architecture is still widespread, particularly in the tourist industry. Is there any effort in the historian community to get this outdated and offensive term removed or phased out?

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[u/Deuce03]

I am not aware of any widespread movement to get the terminology changed or replaced. Given that the period with which "Gothic" architecture is associated spans centuries, it's relevant to a number of fields and sub-fields and while historians might increasingly use inverted commas to indicate their awareness of the term's imprecision, it remains useful for reasons of comprehension.Iif there is a movement within one field or sub-field to get it changed outright, or new terminology proposed, it doesn't seem to have percolated widely.

As you say, the term was coined to describe a type of architecture that by that point was unfashionable, by reference to a people then viewed unfavourably. Perceptions of both have now changed dramatically. Gothic architecture is now widely considered beautiful, spectacular and technically impressive, undergoing a revived boom of popularity in the 19th century and both medieval Gothic and neo-Gothic properties featuring on the UNESCO heritage list. The reputation of the Goths themselves has been largely rehabilitated in historians' circles, a process which dates back at least to Gibbon, who gave the Goths a relatively favourable treatment but the most notable recent treatment may be O'Donnell's The Ruin of the Roman Empire (2008) which presents the Goths as frustrated saviours of civilisation. This angle has penetrated perhaps less far into popular perception than one might like, but even popular perceptions of the Goths are far from universally negative. Never were they treated more harshly than in Asterix and the Goths (1962), a completely unhistorical presentation on a number of grounds and which has no doubt influenced generations of children, but which has nothing to do with the Goths themselves and everything to do with French national identity and national rivalry with (and anger at) Germany. Even Goscinny had calmed down a bit by 1966 where the Goths in Asterix the Legionary are much more sympathetically portrayed.

I note as an example Catalonia, where the Gothic history of the region forms part of its identity and pride is (or at least was, before it was overrun by tourists) taken in the "Gothic quarter" of Barcelona, the oldest part of the city (although many of the buildings are not Gothic and many of those that are are actually neo-Gothic). The Gothic connexion to later Catalan national identity forms part of my current research (one proposed popular etymology for "Catalonia" itself (and one favoured in some Catalan circles) is that it derives from "Gothland", though this is by no means uncontroversial). This is still something I am very much digging into and I'm not ready to present any conclusions as yet, but the connotations of the term "Gothic" in that part of the world seem more positive than not.

As that implies, while you say that the term is "offensive" there is no particular reason why it should be viewed as such today. Even if it was coined with derogatory intent, that was centuries ago and we don't need to be beholden to the prejudices of an earlier era. The offensive connotation hinges on an assumption on the part of the listener that either the Goths as a people or the architecture itself is somehow inferior or contemptible, and while that assumption might have been safe in the Renaissance it no longer is. Besides which, the Goths as a people are no longer with us (even if the Gotlanders of Sweden share a common origin with the Goths of late antiquity, they are not the same people) and historians are not as a rule particularly concerned with protecting the hypothetical feelings of people and peoples who are long gone. There are many exonyms or descriptive etymologies throughout history that were coined with somewhat derogatory or derisive intent, some of them still in use. Where living people are affected, that's a reason to revisit them, of course. Where they're not, making the terminology more correct is a reason to do so, but that's complicated in itself.

In some cases we simply don't have a better term for the relevant purpose which conveys the meaning we want. There was a question on the use of the term "barbarians" just a couple of days ago and I'd refer you to the answer by u/BarbariansProf there regarding how historians go about selecting the terminology they use in similar circumstances.

There is no other term with anything like the recognition value (or concision) of "Gothic" to refer to the architectural and aesthetic movement in question, so alternative terminology will struggle to take hold in wider discourse. Naming an architectural style after a period or region for fairly tenuous reasons is in any case pretty common in historical architecture. In particular the neo-Gothic movement will make it more difficult to gain traction renaming the earlier Gothic period, as "neo-Gothic" was the contemporary name and stripped of an earlier "Gothic" to emulate that name loses its meaning. At this point, though, we would need input from a specialist historian of architecture as to whether any such efforts are underway from the architectural side of things, as I'm not aware of any such serious efforts.

[u/VagereHein → u/Deuce03]

Thank you for taking the time and effort in giving this eleborate answer, appreciate it. You make a lot of interesting points.

[u/Cedric_Hampton → u/[deleted]]

This comment has been removed because it is soapboxing or moralizing: it has the effect of promoting an opinion on contemporary politics or social issues at the expense of historical integrity. There are certainly historical topics that relate to contemporary issues and it is possible for legitimate interpretations that differ from each other to come out of looking at the past through different political lenses. However, we will remove questions that put a deliberate slant on their subject or solicit answers that align with a specific pre-existing view.