Medievalism: some historiographical insights into the mirror and its reflection

Research into ideological applications of the medieval period is well served by the notion of ‘medievalism.’ This concept indicates both the set of post-medieval representations of the Middle Ages and the field of scholarship investigating such representations. This is a burgeoning field of research that stands at the crossroads of different disciplines and is the subject of extensive debate. The first part of the article discusses some of the interpretive hypotheses and proposes a set of six hermeneutic tools from a variety of fields of study, which are usefully applied to medievalism: palimpsest, invented traditions, alterity, entangled history, broadened historiography, regimes of historicity. The second part of the article penetrates deeper into the last of these hermeneutic tools, namely the concept of ‘regime of historicity’ elaborated by François Hartog. Medievalism stands out as a distinct ‘regime of historicity’ which relates to a significant part of various -isms (including cultural, social and political movements) from the 19th century to the first decades of the 21st century, i.e., from romanticism onward. Three applied examples follow: the essay discusses the relationships between medievalism and three -isms of paramount importance for the history of the contemporary age, that are Catholic modernism, socialism, and fascism.