The "Amazing reality" of a new Middle Ages

Abstract

For decades, Portuguese historiography was marked by a dominant conception that associated History with the nationalist and conservative ideals of the Estado Novo dictatorship (1933-1974). The medieval period deserved special attention in this ideological manipulation, as it was considered to be the “origins of the Nation”. In the 1960s and 1970s occasional signs of renewal began to emerge that sought to incorporate the methodological and conceptual advances of the best practices in international historiography. But it was with the revolution of
25 April 1974, the end of the dictatorship and the establishment of freedoms of thought, expression, discussion, organisation, research and publication that Portugal saw enormous quantitative and qualitative progress in the research and dissemination of a “New Middle Ages”.