On December 9 and 10 of this year, the “Cultures i Societats de l'Edat Mitjana” (CiSEM) research group, led by Dr. Antoni Furió, professor of medieval history at the University of Valencia, will hold a conference with the title: Imagined Identities and Imagined Communities in the Late Middle Ages.  Far from being strictly contemporary creations, nations, the most elaborated product of imagined communities, had their relevance throughout the medieval centuries. The most recent historiography has tried to establish the mechanisms that contributed to building this type of imaginary in which, according to some anthropologists, sociologists and political scientists, collective identities are taking an increasingly prominent role in international geopolitics. For this reason, this process is presented as a great opportunity to discuss the most recent historiographical contributions, and to try to shed more light on a transcendental historical phenomenon on the evolution of human societies.

Presentation

As it can be deduced from the title, the meeting will focus on the construction of collective identities in the late Middle Ages with the aim of reflecting and debating from various perspectives. That is why it will count on the participation of leading specialists on the subject, from different geographical areas: from the United States, through Scandinavia and Central Europe, to the Mediterranean countries, such as Portugal or Spain. This will allow us to share and confront different perspectives of study, methodologies, documentary sources and social contexts, thus contributing to advancing the knowledge of national collective identities in premodern Europe.

Far from being strictly contemporary creations, nations, the most elaborated product of imagined communities, had their relevance throughout the medieval centuries. The most recent historiography has tried to establish the mechanisms that contributed to building this type of imaginary, its internal dynamics, its nature, its social limits, its validity, in short, its raison d'être, in a historical context completely different from the current one, in which, according to some anthropologists, sociologists and political scientists, collective identities are taking an increasingly prominent role in international geopolitics. For this reason, this process is presented as a great opportunity to discuss the most recent historiographical contributions, and to try to shed more light on a transcendental historical phenomenon on the evolution of human societies.

Programme

Monday, 9 December

• 10.00 h Opening by Antoni Furió and Javier Fajardo

SESSION 1.

• 10.30 h Antoni Furió (Universitat de València): Dynastic, ethnic and polítical nations. Imagining and shaping the national identity in the late Middle Ages. 
• 11.00 h Claire Weeda (Leiden University): Imagining the Nation: Catalogues of Stereotypes 900-1300.
• 11.30 h Coffee break
• 12.00 h Javier Peña (Universidad de Burgos): Hegemonía y mitos: Castilla en el siglo XIII.
• 12.30 h Patrick Wadden (Belmont Abbey College): Ireland and the Irish in the Later Middle Ages: Adaptable Concepts and Identities. 
• 13.00 h  Discussion

SESSION 2. 

• 16.00 h Covadonga Valdaliso (Universidad de Lisboa): Los orígenes medievales de la nación portuguesa en la historiografía del periodo y en la contemporánea.
• 16.30 h Robert Stein (Leiden University): Towns are key. On the development of imagined communities in the Netherlands during the late Middle Ages. 
• 17.00 h Coffe break
• 17.30 h Flocel Sabaté (Universitat de Lleida): Catalan Collective Identity in Late Middle Ages. 
• 18.00 h Discussion

Tuesday, 10 December

SESSION 3.

• 10.30 h Erik Ophsal (Norwegian University of Science and Technology): An Imagined Norwegian Identity in the Late Middle Ages. 
• 11.00 h Andrzej Pleszczyński (Instytut Historii UMCS): Gente Ruthenus, natione Polonus - dual identity of the elites of the Polish-Lithuanian state in the late Middle Ages and in the early modern time. 
• 11.30 h Coffee break
• 12.00 h  Pau Viciano (Universitat de València): The dried bush: Valencian particularism and hispanic integration, 15th-16th centuries. 
• 12.30 h Jon Andoni Fernández de Larrea (Universidad del País Vasco/EHU): La construcción de las identidades comunitarias en los territories vascos de la corona de Castilla desde finales de la Edad Media. 
• 13.00 h Discussion

SESSION 4.

• 16.00 h Antoni Mas (Universitat de les Illes Balears): Imaginant i perfilant identitats: l'evolució de les consciències col·lectives a l'antiga "natio catalanorum", particularment en el Regne de Mallorca.
• 16.30 h Juan Antonio Barrio (Universitat d’Alacant): Identidades confrontadas: Inquisición, conversos de judío y cristianos viejos en la Valencia bajomedieval.
• 17.00 h Coffee break
• 17.30 h Javier Fajardo (Universitat de València): Making nations: Dynastic nation and others in the context of interregnum (1410-1412).
• 18.00 h Discussion
• 18.30 h Conference conclusions