Juggling the Middle Ages explores a story from thirteenth-century France and its reception since its rediscovery in 1873. The many reimaginings of this one narrative reveal the boundlessness of human creativity and demonstrate the rich possibilities for recreation and reinterpretation. The Juggler of Notre Dame started out almost eight hundred years ago. After disappearing in the Reformation, it returned in the late nineteenth century. From scholarship, it entered into literature and bookmaking, opera and ballet, radio and recordings, television and film, and painting and sculpture. For many decades it formed a staple of Christmastime entertainment. More recently, it has become a fixture of children’s literature.
