Response to an education minister who regards history as irrelevant

The UK's Education Secretary, Charles Clarke, was recently quoted as describing medieval historians as ‘ornaments’ and suggested that the state should no longer pay for their activities. As attacks on liberal education go, his particular utilitarian and anti-cultural point was not unusual. But was it justified? Here, Michael Asselmeyer, a medieval historian himself, takes issue and argues the case for teaching humanities to architects.