Abstrakt
The study attempts to apply characteristic features usually used for defining the term “pulp fiction” to medieval Latin literature. On the one hand, medieval Latin was the language of educated elites and thus, medieval Latin literature is never literature of the masses and cannot be considered in terms of pulp fiction at all. On the other hand, virtually all medieval literature is based on variation rather than innovation, uses clichés, established structures and models, and thus, in this respect, it can be considered pulp fiction as a whole. Between these two extremes it is possible to search for more precise boundaries and relevant types of texts, using further concrete criteria:
1. amusement (there is no clear distinction between texts in Latin usually perceived as serious and dry, and those in vernacular seen as more natural, therefore more entertaining and playful – also within the Christian Latin environment, there are a number of surprisingly amusing texts to be found);
2. material (numerous copies on lower quality paper rather than parchment, i.e., wide circulation within medieval limits);
3. texts that were evaluated (until recently) as of poor literary quality by scholarly authorities;
4. appeal to imagination and escapism. While each of these criteria can be problematized and none of the texts mentioned as fulfilling them would qualify as pulp fiction today, a closer scrutiny of the group of texts that arises from these considerations opens up a new universe of medieval literature which was widely read and enjoyed and which is completely different from our established canon.