Organized by IEM, in collaboration with the Batalha Monastery; Cooperation and Learning Network Training Center (CFRCA) – “Entre Mar e Serra” Competence Center (CCEMS) and CEPAE, the 1st Session of the free course “The Medieval Man” will take place on October 19th, at Batalha Monastery.
The Medieval Man (O Homem Medieval) has captured the imagination of academics and the less specialized public for several decades. Recently, the interest of the general public in their lives, their work, and their daily lives have been renewed due to the growth in the number and dissemination of fairs and historical novels, television series, or films that portray medieval society or, increasingly, imagined worlds with so-called medieval characteristics. Although legitimate in the field of fiction, these narratives present to the general public a simplistic and anachronistic approach to medieval man and the society in which he lived, which contributes to keeping ideas, myths, and misconceptions alive in the general public’s imagination. This led the Institute of Medieval Studies to take as its motto the title of a well-known work by the French medievalist Jacques Le Goff to recover Portuguese medieval man and the society in which he lived through an overall approach and fourteen profiles developed by specialists with the luminosity that the most recent research, interdisciplinary perspectives, and the availability of historical sources allow. Without losing sight of the fact that this is a selective and non-exhaustive approach – other profiles could have been chosen, and women are worth in themselves another course that is intended to be held soon –, the aim is to reflect on the complexity of medieval society, a society hierarchical, deeply marked by belief, which developed its daily lives according to parameters that cannot be approached simplistically, but rather understood in a systemic way.
Organization: Instituto de Estudos Medievais (IEM – NOVA-FCSH); Mosteiro da Batalha / DGPC; Centro de Formação da Rede de Cooperação e Aprendizagem (CFRCA) – Centro de Competência “Entre Mar e Serra” (CCEMS).
Support: Centro de Estudo do Património da Estremadura (CEPAE) / Município de Óbidos.
Organizing Committe: Amélia Aguiar Andrade, António Rodrigues, Gonçalo Melo da Silva, João Luís Inglês Fontes, Joaquim Ruivo.
