Bonita question for a living on her block. And the answer is even better: not exactly. But it is not so great a novelty to say. After all history is any division incomplete, inaccurate unreal. Incomplete because no matter how relevant it is a historical fact alone does not justify a change was never (with the possible exception of an alien invasion.) Things are always the result of a process. Inaccurate, because there will always be doubts about where to set the date. E unreal because people who lived it usually did not realize its relevance: it is a category that we apply in the present. with everything and that they must be made: Although the story is continuous, human beings do not give much, and you have to chop in order to study it. So you end up choosing the lesser evil.
In the case of the Middle Ages, the first call so was the bishop of Alesia, Giovanni Andrea Bussi dei, in a letter dated in 1469. It was a derogatory term. When the Cultureta decided to claim the Renaissance classical antiquity, the humanists considered themselves heirs of the Greeks and Romans, representatives of a culture "superior." And the historiography of the time worked as musical criticism: not enough to get excited about something new, also had to cruelly crush above. What was left between them and the Romans was that ... what was in the "medium", a tunnel of barbarism and darkness. The black legend was already there and since then it would only get fat. During the Enlightenment
the eighteenth century , intellectuals argued that the virtue of reason has been absent from medieval Europe, which dominated the most brutal irrationality. Enlightenment values \u200b\u200bseem great, the very best that Europe has given, but paradoxically, as a people denouncing legends and superstitions had no objection to invent their own, and that is that in the eighteenth century invented a handful of historical myths including the terrors of the year 1000, the hype surrounding the church or the droit de seigneur, of course. Not by chance, these myths were circulated to denounce them to the Old Regime and the nobility and the Church of his time (which I looks great). Nor is it expensive plan to throw it in the poor picture, everyone knows that a disqualification seems more credible if it behind you invent a historical justification, so they were not finding anything.
Then came the Romantic , and this time he became medieval cool. If something freak to the people of
XIX was all that sounded to "national" , and the origin of the Europe of nation states is medieval. There could trace a lot of things. And if not, they are invented, as befits any self-respecting nationalism. This emerged as a tale medieval castles with colorful flags, shining armor, loves that cause tooth decay ... the problem with the XIX with this is that ... so passionately romantic, sweetened and colorful, it was more literary than other thing and once removed there was nothing, myths still persisted with continued strength in part because if something had not changed in the nineteenth, was anti-clericalism. Today it is easy to see that in the collective imagination of two "Middle Ages": on the one side are those who love the romantic, epic, heroic Middle Ages, of which I can tell when I say that yours truly money is spent in a movie theater provided that this has swords and armor. Has a variant, and is the Middle Ages new age, the things as The Mists of Avalon , where everything is magical and Celtic and the Grail is a pagan symbol and female and all that ...
then still the vast majority of people I have the sense given to the phrase Pulp Fiction "I will get medieval with your ass" : images of barbarism, droit de seigneur, people burning at the stake, machismo outrageous and of course, lack of hygiene.
And as always, not bald or three wigs: There was heroism? Yes cultural achievements? Some of the largest in the West (eg University) Technical progress? Contrary to common belief, yes, and fat. What bad things? A baskets ( but not all of which have around ). You could say that "only" was a time more with its lights and shadows. Today trying to spread this (with little success, Dan Brown and company are not very helpful when creating new myths has not been done away with the old ones) this is partly due to the late 90's and early this decade two important medievalists said that the Middle Ages was actually an invention historiographical with clear ideological interests, of rationalist and anti-Catholic, released as a topic very successful. Specifically came two important books:
To end the Middle Ages (1998), Régine Pernoud was a declaration of principles: to end the shameful and obscurantist view of the public. After a lifetime dedicated to the study of original sources disrupts many topics. Check the literary output of the time, his artistic achievements, the role of women, codes of honor and social rituals, and the overlap between the temporal and spiritual. In
Invention Middle Ages (1992), Jacques Heers , Professor of Medieval History at the Sorbonne University says "no more than an abstract notion of purpose forged by various amenities or reasons, which is knowingly applied this kind of shame ". And his commitment is to show the origins and the mechanism for such "intellectual deception" .
notes that the idea of \u200b\u200ba radical break from what has been called Middle Ages and the Renaissance distorts reality. Many of the demonstrations that seem typical of the Renaissance were present in the Middle Ages. The idea of \u200b\u200bthe fracture was the work of Italian humanists eager to assert originality, and reinforced by Protestant historians, bitter against the medieval Church. image of "feudal" , in which the rights of Mr. bulging caused the miserable condition of farmers, is also discussed by Heers. For studies requiring rural specialists today to clarify the hierarchy and mobility in the Middle Ages, without being able to speak of a society divided into two blocks, and petrified. It tells the story
taking a French correspondent in Lebanon who was reporting on the massacres that occurred in that country, and claimed at one point "and we sink further into the Middle Ages" (Although the killings have never been as frequent as in our era) But not often hear the phrase "it seems that we are in the Middle Ages," precisely to address situations more or less outrageous?
If you've got here ... and I thank you that I have not been a post very "medieval", not in "that" makes sense!
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