We place the trilogy identity, memory and ideology at the centre of a project to better understand medieval society. We can analyse the multiplicity of personal identities, the ways in which these were expressed within particular social structures (such as feudalism), and their evolution into formal expressions of collective identity (municipalities, guilds, nations, and so on). A specific legacy of such developments was that by the end of the Middle Ages a sense of national identity, supported by theological, philosophical, and political thought, defined society. Thus, people in medieval societies shared an identity, based on commonly held memories. Religions, rulers, and even cities and nations justified their existence and their status and cohesion through stories that guaranteed their deep and unbroken historical roots. For this reason memory was always maintained and promoted as strategy for social power, as well as guided by a specific ideology. In this sense, we can define the Church in the West as a framing ideology of the Middle Ages because Christianity supplied a coherent narrative providing people with security through its integrated explanation of physical surroundings, social order and spiritual hope.

About the author: Flocel Sabaté is professor of Medieval History at the University of Lleida and Doctor honoris causa by the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. He earned the main research prizes in Catalonia (Distinció, 2000, ICREA Acadèmia, 2015, 2020) and participated in different University Agencies, being member of the Governing Board of the Catalan University Quality Assurance Agency (AQU). He directed the journal Imago Temporis. Medium Aevum and served in many universities as invited professor (Cambridge, Concepción, JSPS-Tokyo, Lisboa, Paris-1, Poitiers, TIIAME-Tashkent, UNAM-México, Yale, etc.).  He has published around five hundred research articles and chapters, edited one hundred collective books and written more than twenty books. Among them, we can underline Lo senyor rei és mort (Lleida, 1994), El territori de la Catalunya medieval (Barcelona, 1997), La feudalización de la sociedad catalana (Granada, 2007), Fin del mundo y Nuevo mundo (México, 2011) and The Death Penalty in Late Medieval Catalonia (London-New York, 2020).

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