El nuevo medievalismo y la interpretación de los textos históricos

Abstract

Since the 1970s, historiography has been subject to new tendencies that can generally be grouped under the multifaceted concept of «postmodernism». This article explores the influx of these new trends in medievalism and, more specificly, in the intepretation of historical texts. The first part of the article describes the theoretical positions of the socalled «new medievalism». In the second part, the author analyzes the results of its application to the study of medieval historiography, using examples from French, Catalan and Castilian chronicles and genealogies. Specifically, he looks at the following key aspects of reconsidering medieval historiography in the context of postmodernism and the new medievalism: the historical text as a literary artefact; the social logic of the historical text; the function of genealogies; the relationship between past, present and future and the idea of presentism; the connection between social mutations and literary transformations; the prosification and the vernacularization of the chronicles; and the political function of historiography.