To the numerous and rich fields of reflection incorporated into medievalist historiography over recent decades, we may add two concepts which, approached in isolation, are problematic. In fact, since the end of the 20th century, and at least by a certain historiographic trend, “heresy” has been considered not as a reality in itself but rather as a creation of the Church within its strategy of institutionalisation and centralisation. “Utopia“, in turn, is almost always abandoned under the argument that medieval man imagined social perfection as possible only in the Beyond, which is why the very word interlinks with the Renaissance and the Thomas More proposal in the early sixteenth century. However, we would maintain that both these approaches need nuancing, if not thoroughly revising. In addition, they clearly need articulating in order to endow the concepts with new comprehensibility and new reach.

Biographical note
Hilário Franco Júnior, a retired professor from the University of São Paulo, is the author of, among others, Ensaios de mitologia medieval (vol. I, 1996; vol. II, 2010) and Cocanha. A história de um país imaginário (1998, Italian translation 2001, French translation 2013). He is currently preparing a book on medieval utopias.

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