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Memory was vital to the functioning of the medieval world. 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 through stories that guaranteed their deep and unbroken historical roots. The studies in this interdisciplinary collection explore how manifestations of memory can be used by historians as a prism through which to illuminate European medieval thought and value systems. The contributors draw the link between memory and medieval science, management of power, and remembrance of the dead ancestors through examples from southern Europe as a means of enriching and complicating our study of the Middle Ages; this is a region with a large amount of documentation but which to date has not been widely studied.

The increasing prominence of urban life during the Middle Ages is undoubtedly one of the more transcendental and multi-faceted aspects of this era, having an effect on rules and laws, hygiene, and economic organisation. This book brings together contributions from a wide range of scholars who adopt a new approach to medieval urban life, using health, the economy, and regulations and laws as frames of reference for gaining a greater understanding of this historical period. Through these vectors, interesting insights are provided into medieval housing, cures for diseases, the work of artisans and merchants, and the relationship between the town and the wider region in which it was located

The urgent need for the study of exclusive identities in conflict is ever more apparent in a globalizing world in which societies are becoming multicultural and complex and in which inter-cultural contact and the co-existence of languages and cultures comes increasingly to bear on the construction of plural identities. The present book considers perversion in the construction of identity and the perverse usage of identity in areas such as social cohesion - xenophobia, racism, ostracism, rejection, ageism, marginalisation - and the mismanagement of linguistic identity, language groups and ass

La Edad Media está muy pre-sente en la sociedad actual. Es cierto que apenas se estudia en la escuela; pero no es menos cierto que se percibe bien viva en el ambiente: su mención se convierte en un reiterado calificativo para determinadas noticias narradas en periódicos impresos o digitales y comentadas por periodistas y locutores; se identifica con ofertas de ocio familiar para fines de semana; se erige en una atractiva línea de videojuegos para el entretenimiento vía digital; a la vez, aparece insertada en todo tipo de discursos, ya sea a favor del progreso o invocando el reencuentro con identidades arraigadas pero a menudo maltratadas en la actualidad; incluso se convierte en una categorización con que proponer, desde la ciencia política, propuestas para acertar la estructuración adecuada para el mundo actual… De este modo, la Edad Media puede aparecer como una especie de tendencia capaz de calificar una gran gama de situaciones y ofertas (restaurantes, vestidos, objeto de decoración, propuestas lúdicas, etc.), bajo una diversidad de ideologías para, en definitiva, mostrarse como una realidad atemporal. La consolidación de lugares comunes y de referencias desinhibidas y ociosas no debería desorientar la mirada respecto de las significaciones ideológicas que, aunque sea de modo contradictorio, siempre fundamentan el lenguaje. En su diversidad de situaciones, mencionar la Edad Media no deja de ser una invocación histórica incrustada en el presente, pretendiendo, quizás, condicionar el futuro. En todos los casos, hablar de Edad Media abre un abanico muy diverso de sentidos y de significados, que a menudo desarrollan su propia orientación, alejándose, con una reiteración a menudo despreocupada, del período histórico evocado. Por ello, hay que preguntarse por el valor y la significación de la Edad Media ya no en las aulas universitarias o en el gabinete del historiador sino entre los hombres y mujeres que participan con naturalidad de la sociedad que está penetrando en el siglo XXI, sobre todo porque la comprensión situada en este ámbito no sólo es la realmente asumida por la población, sino que puede llegar a condicionar la com-prensión y difusión del relato histórico. ; The Middle Ages are very present in today's society. In spite of being hardly studied at school, it is certain that this period is perceived remarkably alive in the environment. Its mention becomes a reiterated qualifier for certain news narrated in printed or digital newspapers and commented by journalists and announcers. Besides, it is also identified with family leisure offers for weekends and it has gained ground as an attractive and popular genre within digital entertainment as video games. At the same time, it appears inserted in all kinds of discourses, either in favour of progress or invoking the encounter with ingrained but often mistreated identities. Moreover, it has even become a categorization with which to suggest, from political sciences, proposals to achieve the right structure for today's world. In this way, the Middle Ages can appear as a kind of tendency capable of describing a wide range of situations and offers (restaurants, dresses, objects of decoration, proposals for entertainment, etc.), under a variety of ideologies to become a timeless reality. The consolidation of common places and uninhibited and idle references should not disori-ent the view of the ideological meanings in which, even in a contradictory way, language is always grounded. In this diversity of situations, the mention of the Middle Ages still results in a historical invocation embedded in the present which intends, perhaps, to condition the future. In all cases, speaking of the Middle Ages opens a very diverse range of meanings which often develop their own orientation moving away, with an often unconcerned repetition, from the historical period evoked. For this reason, it is necessary to question the value and meaning of this period of time, no longer in university classrooms or in a historian's cabinet, but rather between the men and women who participate naturally in the society entering the 21st century, since the understanding situated in this area is not only the one actually accepted by the population but it could determine the understanding and dissemination of the historical discourse.