M edieval knights used to joust on warhorses with wooden lances, but this week in east London , two men jousted on Lime bikes with PVC pipes. This contemporary spin on a medieval spectacle is just one example of the spirit of the middle ages erupting into the zeitgeist.

As part of Frieze art fair, the artist Corbin Shaw staged a show called Feast of Fools. The “‘anti-Frieze” Frieze show took inspiration from a medieval festival where, as Shaw put it to GQ , “the peasant class could insult the rich”. In the video for Troye Sivan’s latest song, Party, the Australian pop star postures as a medieval knight.

A model wears chainmail at the Chopova Lowena spring/summer 2026 fashion show in London. Photograph: Victor Virgile/Gamma-Rapho/Getty

On catwalks at Givenchy, Louis Vuitton and Max Mara , from wimples to chainmail, it’s been called “medievalcore”. In the new film The Uprising, actor Andrew Garfield has been leading the rabble in Paul Greengrass’s retelling of the Peasants’ Revolt.…