Ever since the start of Gothic fiction, a standard topos has revolved around the use of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (often conflated) as a wellspring of the old, the authoritative, and the spooky.  The medieval and Renaissance time period has given  “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” viewers the occasional cursed amulet, a medieval vampire crusade, the usual assortment of  ancient prophecies, and the best mounted armored knight vs. Winnebago chase-and-joust scene in recent cinematic history.

What makes “BTVS” particularly interesting is the skill with which the show handles issues like the place of the old in the modern world, the nature of historical knowledge, and how that knowledge should be used.  Discussions on the nature of knoweldge within the Buffyverse, including Aimee Fifarek’s "Mind and Heart with Spirit Joined": The Buffyverse as an Information System,” Andrew Aberdein’s “Balderdash and Chicanery:  Science and Beyond,” Toby Daspit’s “Buffy Goes to College, Adam Murders to Dissect:  Education and Knowledge in Postmdernity,” and Karen Eileen Overbey and Laghney Preston-Matto’s “Staking in Tongues:  Speech Act as Weapon in Buffy,” have focused primarily on the importance of language as a framework and the development of linguistic versus scientific knowledge systems.[2]  With this paper, I intend to explore the use of medieval and Renaissance history within “BTVS” as source material for both the plots and the paradigms of the show, providing a basis for the dissemination, reception, and use of knowledge. The approach to knowledge itself in “BTVS” is structured in a strongly medieval and Renaissance way, containing a strong belief in the weight of authority and assigning value to something because it is old.  The show’s focus on knowledge acquired through intensive research led William Wandless to comment wryly that “BTVS” was so popular because “nothing pulls them in like an overhead shot of a man in tweed thumbing through a dusty,leather-bound book.”[3]  Giles, the tweed-wearing gentleman in question, has been defined as  “keeper of the texts,”; however, his role goes beyond merely custodial to encompass active use of the books in his keeping.[4]  Through this active engagement with occult textual sources of authority, Giles becomes the very model of the modern Renaissance magus, not only able to access and interpret these texts, but to use them in ways that men like Pico della Mirandola or Johannes Reuchlin only dreamed of.[5]