The availability of multiple screen versions of the novel further make The Hunchback of Notre Dame an eminently teachable text. This review will highlight some of the “medieval moments” that Hugo and the novel evoke and assess their accuracy and relevance for a modern classroom.

He served on committees dedicated to the preservation of France’s old buildings and wrote public opinion articles lambasting the architectural “vandals” who were tearing down medieval structures across the country in the name of progress and profit. And although Hugo had no formal training in medieval history or literature, he truly ought to be considered something of a medievalist avant la lettre. Leaving aside the tragic love for the beautiful Esmeralda by that most timeless of characters, Quasimodo, the novel is an important gauge of nineteenth-century medievalism and a wonderful point of entry for students coming to the European Middle Ages for the first time. Published just one year after the July Revolution toppled the restoration monarchy of the Bourbon King Charles X, replacing him with the constitutional monarchy of his cousin Louis-Philippe, Hugo’s tale of France’s most iconic medieval edifice has endured even as monarchies have risen and fallen and as allegiances to the Catholic Church has markedly declined. Set in medieval Paris, Victor Hugo’s classic historical romance The Hunchback of Notre Dame has resonated with succeeding generations of readers since its initial publication in 1831.

Hugo the hunchback