Rewriting the Middle Ages in the Twentieth Century
Rewriting the Middle Ages in the Twentieth Century
III. Political Theory and Practice
This is the third volume of the series “Rewriting the Middle Ages in the Twentieth Century” focused this time on the medieval political thought.
This book offers an overview of the national and transnational traditions of the historiography and studies the main questions and the background of this discipline in the last century.
Essays for this new volume focus on the subject’s life intellectual and academic training; discuss major works and historiographical heritage; and locate the medievalists who have contributed to the better understanding of medieval political thought through their work in medieval studies. This interdisciplinary resource aims to include medievalists from different fields: history art literature theology among others.
Rewriting the Middle Ages in the Twentieth Century
II, National Traditions.
The first volume of Rewriting the Middle Ages in the Twentieth Century published in 2005 by Brepols gathered twenty profiles of key medievalists of the 20th century and was preceded by an introduction on the evolution and current situation of medieval studies written by Jaume Aurell. Because of the excellent international reception of that volume we continue this historiographical task by collecting in future volumes profiles of other 20th century medievalists.
The second volume of the collection centred on “National Traditions” is focused on eighteen medievalists who have been significant in diverse countries in the development of both medievalism and national identity. Medievalism has been closely united to national traditions since its beginning and this book contributes to our understanding of this phenomenon. Romantic intellectuals’ attraction to the medieval period largely explains the influence of medievalism in the formation of contemporary national identities as from the 19th century medievalists have also functioned as intellectuals present in the public debate. In the 20th century important scholars of the Middle Ages some of whom are studied in this volume had already become authentic “national chroniclers” consolidators of the identities of the countries to which they felt closely linked both intellectually and emotionally. They actively participated in debates that exceeded strictly academic limits delving into a wide range of political and cultural issues.
The range of the cultural and geographical origins of the medievalists profiled in this volume — from England Spain France Germany Russia Portugal Romania Poland Argentina Bulgaria United States Belgium Holland and Turkey — best illustrates the global influence of medievalism in the construction invention and consolidation of national traditions. This focus which perhaps (and apparently) contravenes the actual strength of the process of globalisation is especially fascinating in the field of medievalism because most of the modern nations — specially those in Europe and Asia — have found their justification inspiration and legendary and historical foundations in the Middle Ages. By reading the lives of these medievalists we can better understand the development of intellectual history and our notions of developing cultural traditions.
Rewriting the Middle Ages in the Twentieth Century
Rewriting the Middle Ages in the Twentieth Century offers analytical introductions to the biographical and academic trajectories as well as the scholarly contributions of the most important medievalists of the 20th century privileging the contexts in which their influential texts in modern medieval studies were articulated and their effect on subsequent approaches to the field. The volume pays tribute to the medievalists-historians philologists literary critics philosophers historians of art and science and theologians-whose work effectively forged contemporary academics and acknowledges a debt of gratitude for the trail they blazed in the twentieth century. An introductory essay provides a comprehensive examination of the development of historiographical perspectives on medieval studies as shaped by the subjects of the volume contextualizing the individual chapters and offering a critical reconsideration of the manifold ways in which medievalism has been inscribed. The chapters in the book develop from interdisciplinary and transversal strategies which reflect the kind of originative work enacted by both the subjects of the volume and the scholars who write about them. A concluding essay summarizes the place of the medievalists in relation to their professional identity to the time in which they worked and to the national spaces that marked their scholarly production.