Medieval France. From Regions to Nation

Catalog description

In this workshop, we will examine France during the Middle Ages (500-1500CE), even though historians have been hard put to find that France had a coherent identity prior to the 13th century. Traditional scholarship has stressed the role of kings in achieving unification by imposing statehood upon the territorial lords who had ruled over a society long termed feudal by influential historians (such as Marc Bloch). Modern scholars have challenged the very concept of feudalism, but do acknowledge the need to recognize France’s earlier regional units of rule, culture, and society in re-assessing the transformations of power and of economic and social structures that resulted in the late medieval emergence of France as a state. Also instrumental in this process were ideologies, myths, symbols, linguistic traits, artistic creativity, and attitudes toward those encountered either as neighbors (England, Empire, Iberian Peninsula) or as others (Jews, Muslims, Blacks, Asians), all of which all gradually fostered a self-awareness of national identity.