RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL IDENTITY IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE: PURITY OF FAITH AND HERESY

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barbarian peoples; and inwards through the hostes domestici that were the vices resulting from the loss of the old citizen virtues. 7he Romans took the idea of barbarity from the Greeks.The latter lumped together a wide range of people in this category, linked only by not using or the Hellenic language or customs, even including a civilisation as developed as Achaemenid Persia.For Rome, the barbarians were the people who lived beyond the limes.They were simply foreigners, a rather derogatory expression given the high opinion Rome had of itself. 8nother question is that the military and economic requirements of the Empire forced it to resort to people from outside, with which, in an enshrined expression, Rome was becoming barbarised to the same extent the barbarians were being Romanised. 9ver the years, propitiated by the spread of Christianity, the idea of barbarian acquired new profiles.In line with the conception of Optatus of Milevis in the mid fourth century (christianus quia romanus), the barbarian was not so much one who lacked Roman citizenship but more the lack of that faith in Christ that converted one into a member of that mystical Augustinian civitas Dei. 10 The frequent convergence of these two ideas (foreignness and the absence of the true faith) in certain communities converted them into participants in that established double hostility towards Rome and everything that it signified.This situation became more acute with the division of the empire on the death of Theodosium and the Germanic migrations that fragmented its pars occidentis. 11The barbarian continued to be the foreigner but also anyone who had entered recognisable frontiers but who did not profess the faith of Nicea. 12This opened the way for the creation of new identities in which the religious aspect would be dominant.
Church-both of which, erected as defenders of the purity of the faith, recognised the need for higher guiding power.
From when could these projects be considered frustrated?In the field of spiritual power, the desideratum defended from the Christian east of a pentarchy as the guiding force against papal absolutism ultimately proved impossible.The most glaring symbol of that failure would be, from 1054, the Greco-Roman schism whose consequences, not only religious but also political, are still latent. 13he pontifical authority in the West had notable difficulties to impose la doctrine selon laquelle l'Église détient la souveraineté dans les affaires temporelles. 14The outcome came in the early sixteenth century and had a metaphor in the building of the basilica of Saint Peter's in Rome.Begun as a project that would symbolise the universal power of the papacy, by the time of its completion, the popes only ruled over the two Mediterranean peninsulas, with the fate of France in doubt, as was that of a good part of Central Europe. 15rom the viewpoint of political power -the imperium-certain more or less universalist myths have persisted; in a leading position, that of Charlemagne after his imperial coronation at Christmas 800. 16However, as is well known, his project suffered seriously under the reign of his successor Louis. 17The empire survived in name alone and, in practice, it was mortally wounded in the Treaty of Verdun in 843 signed by the founder's grandchildren after their clash in the bloody Battle of Fontenoy, 18 seen by some as the first European civil war.
Something similar should be said about the other attempt at imperial restoration: the Ottonians in 962 carried this out in a more limited territorial framework than the Carolingians. 19In the early fourteenth century, and against those who defended that "each king is the emperor in his kingdom", Dante still sustained the idea of a monarchy or empire, Roman in nature, as a necessity for the world. 20This principle would lose political and ideological force until the eighteenth century, when Voltaire stated that the so-called Holy Roman Empire was neither an empire, nor holy or Roman.It can seem like a witticism applicable to the political situation this entity found itself in during the Age of Enlightenment. 21However, it is no less true that the solemnity of the formula hardly managed to hide many weaknesses of this political construction over the years, from its medieval genesis to its official disappearance at the start of the nineteenth century, which went almost unnoticed. 22

From uniqueness to plurality: the so-called feudal monarchies
In an excessively generalising pamphlet, Edgar Morin wrote that esta invención europea, la nación, se construyó entonces (en la Edad Moderna) sobre la base de una purificación religiosa. 23This observation could be a complement to another earlier rather bitter one vented by J. Benda shortly after the Second World War, el destino de Europa no es su unidad sino el crear naciones que acaban enfrentándose entre ellas. 24owever, could the origin of this process not be made to date back to the epoch of the barbarian kingdoms at the start of the Middle Ages, preamble to the socalled feudal monarchies? 25 To what extent did these entities use the defence of the righteous doctrinal opinion (orthodoxy) as an instrument of internal cohesion against the forces considered dissolvent: the heresies, the schism, Judaic or Islamic contaminations -sometimes identified with heresy itself-26 or the pure and simple persistence of pagan traditions identified with superstitions? 27 In short, a small scale application of the Theodosian ideal of 380.A well-known author popularised an expression: micro-Christianities that would correspond, grosso modo in their political dimension, to the kingdoms that arose after the dissolution of the Western Empire. 28.Quoted by Nöel, Jean François.Le Saint-Empire.Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1976: 66-67.22.In contrast, Chateaubriand recalled the shock of the execution of Louis XVI some years earlier and which caused a tremendous comotion among the crowned heads of Europe.Chateaubriand, François-René.Memorias de ultratumba, eds.Marc Fumaroli, Jean Claude Berchet, José Ramón Monreal.Barcelona: Acantilado, 2004: 989-990.23."This European invention, the nation, was built then (in the Modern Age) on the base of religious purification".Morin, Edgar.Breve historia de la barbarie.Barcelona: Paidós, 2005: 25.Given its elemental nature, it is not precisely among this author's most notable works.24."the fate of Europe is not its unity but rather the creation of nations that end up clashing with each other".Benda, Julien."La conciencia de la unidad europea", El espíritu europeo, ed.Julián Marías.Madrid: Guadarrama, 1957: 30-31.25.An expression of the "feudal monarchy" that, while its terms might irritate some, is sufficiently consecrated, at least, since the publication of a work that has become a classic: Petit-Dutaillis, Charles.La monarchie féodale en France et en Angleterre (X-XII siècle).Paris: La Renaissance du livre, 1933.While now dated in many of its approaches, it has fortunately been republished on various occasions with the consequent bibliographic addendae.For an application of the principle beyond the Anglo-French setting, see Pascual Echegaray, Esther.Guerra y pacto en el siglo XII.La consolidación de un sistema de reinos en Europa occidental.Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1996.26.See Mitre Fernández, Emilio.Los credos medievales… 27.Schmitt, Jean Claude.Historia de la superstición.Barcelona: Crítica, 1992: 9. 28.Brown, Peter.El primer milenio de la Cristiandad Occidental.Barcelona: Crítica, 1997: 188 and following.
A reading of the pages written recently by Bruno Dumezil is useful for getting to the roots of the problem.In principle, he defines three levels in this process: a Germanic ruling minority with tendency towards Arianism, the Orthodox provincial elites, and the essentially pagan mass of the population. 29The tensions between these tendencies generated more than a few conflicts before orthodoxy was officially imposed.

The view of 'oneself' as a model of integrity
When defining a political identity with a religious base, one must play with two opposing but complementary images.They may be mere inductions by elites but with there is no doubt about the power of social recruitment: How do I see myself from a feeling of non-contamination in matters of faith or simply of moral rectitude?How do I see "the other" (internal or external) who, in the case of a political confrontation, for example?I stigmatise with certain religious or simply moral defects? 30

Some initial generalisations
In the first of these cases -which we could call positive identity-this is not necessarily a case of a state, country, nation or kingdom with precise frontiers as these are relatively recent creations.We are, in principle, talking about peoples designated by the Romans as nationes or gentes, rather diffuse concepts (sometimes associated with the term barbari) that would have a more political sense in the former case, a more ethnic one in the latter. 31With the passing of time, these expressions took on a positive sense and referred to communities that were seen to display excellent, preferably spiritual, qualities.They contributed to giving shape and political structure to certain areas.This even led to changes in names: Transalpine Gaul became France (and the regnum Francorum became a regnum Franciae identified in the future with the territory of a nationstate), 32 while the Cisalpine was, to a great extent, transformed into Lombardy, or the greater part of Britannia mutated into England.
In contrast, Paulo Orosio recalls an important gesture by the King Ataulf from the start of the fifth century.Convinced of the cultural backwardness of his Visigoths (Arians in those times, to be precise), he refused to change the name of Romania for Gothia and attempted to regenerate the dying forces of the latter with the vitality of the former. 33Hispania would continue to be Hispania/Spain.This would be no obstacle for the notion of regnum gothorum to appear as a successor to the regnum romanorum in an epoch in which the concept of respublica disappeared to be replaced by the new nations. 34he mythification of these gentes would be bigger then expected by who wondered a line of continuity whose origins were lost in the mists of time, and a capacity to overcome all kinds of vicissitudes.The beginnings of the Middle Ages played an important role in legitimation that the later historiography would only reinforce.The French, despite the succession of three different dynasties, created a solid image of continuity: the succession of their kings was great from the Trojans, founders of Paris. 35This continuity was more problematic for the Spanish due to the fall of the promising Gothic monarchy and the caesura produced by the Islamic invasion.Or for the English, who experienced important dynastic changes with successive migratory waves.
However, one tendency would attempt to impose itself through the national histories: the absence of a solution of continuity in the trajectory of the different countries.This rested on a base: national identity absorbed by dynastic identity. 36ith the exaltation of the doctrinal orthodoxy, we can talk about two models for the west as a whole.36.What Jean Marie Moeglin called the "Bavarian model" identified with the Wittelsbach dynasty (national, or if one likes, regional, model) would, in his view, apart from the various myths, be the one imposed in France.Moeglin, Jean Marie."Nation et nationalisme du Moyen Age à l'époque moderne (France-Allemagne)".Revue Historique, 611 (1999): 548-549.

The purity of 'genetic' faith: a people free of any stain
Such a characteristic possibly only occurred in one case that was however enormously representative for all the West: that of the Franks.As stated in the prologue to the Salic Law, they are L'illustre tribu (gens) des Francs, créé par Dieu, courageuse à la guerre, fidèle à ses engagements en temps de paix, sage dans ses décisions, de race noble, saine de nature, blanche de peau, superbe de corps, hardie, prompte et tenace, convertie à la foi catholique, pure de toute hérésie […] Telle est la nation qui secoue le lourd joug des Romains grâce à son courage et à sa ténacité. 37placing Gauls with the Franks (where did ones end and the others begin?) the bishop and historian Gregory of Tours (538-594) echoed a tradition based on the apostolic dimension of the Gauls evangelised by seven bishops ordained by Saint Peter: Gatien of Tours, Trophimus of Arles, Paul of Narbonne, Saturnin of Toulouse, Denis of Paris, Austromoine of Clermont and Martial of Limoges. 38At the end of the tenth century, the monk Richer lavished great praise on the Gauls.

Bien que tous ces peuples fussent originairement barbares, l'histoire rapporte qu'ils ont presque toujours été heureux dans leurs entreprises depuis l'antiquité, même quand ils étaient encore païens. Baptisés ensuite par saint Remi, ils se sont signalés dès leur conversion par une victoire éclatante et célèbre. Leur premier roi chrétien fut, dit-on, Clovis. Après lui leur État a été gouverné par une suite d'empereurs éminents jusqu'à Charles dont le règne marquera le point de départ de notre histoire. 39
This purity of faith would justify a kind of "manifest destiny" identified with the building of a state.This would take shape thanks to the ongoing impulse to unite the North -quintessential Frank-with a Midi was frequently home to people who were unreliable politically, spiritually and morally.The figures of Clovis, Charlemagne or Louis IX would symbolise the three lines of Frankish kings - Merovingians, Carolingians and Capets-defenders of the orthodoxy while also promoting the joining of these two fractions of modern-day France. 40regory of Tours combined three items of his predecessors in the field of historiography in the Gaul of his epoch: The past as a question of immediacy and identity for the present; orthodoxy moulded into a kind of historiographic art and the Church and the State as its host in an important mixture. 41This is the declaration said to have been uttered by the Merovingian Clovis on the eve of his campaign against the Arian Visigoths of the Kingdom of Toulouse (507): C'est avec beaucoup de peine que je supporte que ces Ariens occupent une partie des Gaules.Marchons avec l'aide de Dieu et quand ils auront été vaincus nous soumettrons leus terre à notre domination. 42After some two centuries, the victory of the mayor of the palace, Charles Martel -root for the deuxième race of French monarchs-against the Moors at Poitiers (732) would create a myth: that of the saviour of the West from the enemies of the faith who threatened to swamp it. 43His grandson Charles the Great (the Charlemagne of history and legend) has gone down in the most triumphalist history as a sort of father of Europe. 44s Saint Charlemagne, he would be honoured by being raised to the altars of the Antipope Paschal III in 1166, a decision that enjoyed a certain popular acceptance, although it was not officially homologated.There was an imperialist ideology in favour of this peculiar canonisation: the Holy Empire could have a saint among its holders who would act as a go-between before the Almighty. 45However, the exaltation of Charlemagne also served the interests of a Frankish power that, apart from repulsing Islam, had defended Southern France from the infiltration of the adoptionist heresy from the other side of the Pyrenees. 46ome Capet kings, the troisieme race of French monarchs, also enjoyed a particular aura.Especially Louis IX (Saint Louis after his canonisation in 1297) synthesis of the prudhomme and Christian knight and personification of the ministerial sanctity, as his bio-hagiographer Jean de Joinville presented him. 47The religious purity of this royal lineage and its policies would lead to the struggles by his ancestors against the Arians or Muslims being prolonged in the fight against the Cathars.The French Midi again becoming a battlefield in defence of orthodoxy against the error and ended up converting this duality of lands into a recurrent theme: those of the language of Oil and those of the language of Oc. 48he Chronicle of France, which was drafted in French on instructions from Louis IX and finished in 1274 by the monk Primat, was illustrated with miniatures by Fouquet around 1459.The miracles of God and the protection of Saint Denis are complemented with a collective protagonist, which is the kingdom of France, and the Franks who inhabit it.A circumstance is noted from an early date: the victory at Tolbiac in 496 against the Alemanni was granted by "divine ordinance" not so much by King Clovis as au roi et aus François. 49ccording an idealised vision, the name franco -in its highest sense-designated a kind of chosen people, a sort of substitute for the old Israel.On this base, the figure of the gesta Dei per francos would be created as an expression of the crusades, the first great collective enterprise by the West. 50he self-esteem of the French monarchs as defenders of the purity of the faith led them into serious confrontation even with the pontificate that, in a way, reproduced the clashes that had occurred between the papacy and empire during the War of the Investitures.Extremely serious was the very well-known one that happened around 1300: against Boniface VIII, Phillip IV made use of a group of legal counsellors who backed a certain modern notion of the state and were also responsible for an important chapter in the history of political propaganda. 51From the royal circles, an authoritarian pope was accused of easily forgetting a fact: the Kingdom of France had always been in the vanguard of orthodoxy and had repeatedly sacrificed itself for the interests of the Holy See in defence of Christianity.This had reached the extreme that some of the kings had risked, or even lost, their lives in crusading style operations. 52In this case, it was not a case of reinforcing the religious identity of a state against that of the neighbour, but rather against the supreme authority of the Church culminating in a risky tour de force: the outrage at Anagni and the threat of opening a process against the pontiff placed him in a disagreeable situation. 53

A purity of faith sullied (or lost) and later recovered
From the fifth century and in various countries in the West, a very similar situation arose.The Arianism of some Germanic peoples (with their royal lineages in the front) meant an intermediate step between paganism and the ultimate acceptance of the Nicene faith.Faith rose to an authentic state religion, as we would call it nowadays.

The Hispanic case
In Spain, as in other places in Europe, a set of traditions that talked about its early evangelisation was strengthened: The passage in one of the Pauline Epistles (Rom.15,24), the mythical presence of Santiago or the tradition (similar to the one in Gaul) of Seven Apostolic Men consecrated in Rome by Saint Peter and Saint Paul and contained in some Mozarab calendars: Torquatus, Secundius, Indaletius, Ctesiphon, Euphrasius, Caecilius and Hesychius. 54he entry of the Suebi, Vandals and Alans into the Peninsula was presented by the bishop and chronicler Hydatius of Aquae Flaviae (actual Chaves) in apocalyptic terms: the plagues of the sword, hunger, pestilence and wild beasts lording it over Spain. 55The arraigada perfidia de los suevos 56 oscillating between paganism and Arianism and preying on the Galecia region, was especially highlighted by the prelate.The entry of the Visigoths, theoretically federated to the Empire, in Hispania would add another element of complexity to the already convoluted political game.Although very slowly, the Visigoth monarchs would gradually become identified with a kind of guarantee of stability.Hence, this may seem a calculated ambiguity towards them by the chronicler of the time.
Especially striking for the Hispano-Roman episcopacy was it would end up being this religious duality that took shape: a fides romana (Nicene orthodoxy as the Hispano-Roman province rulers own creed) and a fides gothica -Arianisma characteristic of the ruling political minority.Despite the tensions prior to the abjuration of heresy by the Visigoth monarchy, 57 it is necessary to recall what would be the more official view of this dichotomy, that which recognised the original and ingrained virtues of the gens gothorum and that, while it had been temporarily led to heresy, this was only the fault of a few wayward doctors.This is what Saint Leander pronounced before Reccared and his court. 58From that date on, orthodoxy ended up being strictly militant in some Visigoth monarchs, like Sisebut, a sovereign with theological airs, who encouraged the Lombards (last bastion of Germanic Arianism) to take a step towards Catholicism. 59aint Isidore was author of a Laus Hispaniae, a kind of prologue to his most important historical work, taken exaggeratedly as an expression of a heartfelt Spanish proto-patriotism.There is however, another fragment of the hispalense in this same work, 60 that should not go unnoticed: it refers to the expulsion of the last Byzantine garrisons in the Peninsula by Suintila (621).This Visigoth king, apart from his virtues, would be quien por primera vez logró establecer la monarquía sobre todo Hispania de más acá del océano. 61The authority of a royal lineage thus became identified with a territory with well-defined limits and compactly Catholic as was shown later with the measures against the Jews, the last religious community in the Peninsula outwith the norms of Nicenism. 62he Islamic invasion of 711 that ended the Hispano-Gothic kingdom of Toledo, the "loss of Spain" or "the ruin of Spain", 63 gave rise to a new game of identityotherness.From the Hispano-Christian states, a double image abounded.The followers of Islam were perceived as "barbarians" in line with an early tradition in the Iberian world, 64 and the Muslim faith was equated with a heresy, a mixture of heresies or, at least, presented as a danger similar to the various doctrinal errors that had placed the unity of the Church at risk throughout its history. 65he long process that we know as the Reconquest, often the subject of heated debate among historians, was, for the Christian monarchs, like a great project to restore an old order fractured by the Muslim presence in the Peninsula. 66It is significant that, on the Christian conquest of the Hispano-Muslim cities, there was an immediate conversion of the great mosque into a cathedral.This limpieza de la suciedad de Mahoma meant the recuperación de una pureza original profanada por los musulmanes. 67he Gothic myth would make its royal line (especially the figure of Reccared) into a stamp of glory.The crown of Castile would be particularly receptive to this tradition, considered of singular importance for forging a Hispanic political personality. 68To this myth, the Roman one was also added, which was accepted to a greater or lesser extent by various authors in the Medievo. 69At the end of the fifteenth century, Joan Margarit, bishop of Girona and historian, presented the marriage of Isabella and Ferdinand as a reconstruction of the unity of the old Roman circumscriptions of the Citerior and the Ulterior. 70

The Anglo-Saxon world and its legacy
According to Walter Goffart, at the start of the Medievo, Great Britain had the special fortune of having a historian of the stature of the Venerable Bede.He was the first with an authentically national status if we ignore the figure of Jordanes, who was also like this but in a very different sense. 71Bede, in fact, tells us about a (some) people(s) identified with a perfectly defined geographic setting. 72Angles, Jutes and Saxons evolved into a homogeneous gens anglorum, following the example of Pope Gregory the Great, the great promoter (via Augustine of Canterbury in 596) of their Christianisation under the banner of Romanism. 73his process was not always easy.It came up against the resistance of a persistent paganism, especially in its stronghold in the Kingdom of Mercia until 653, when its king Peada, son of the pagan Penda "accepted the true faith and its sacraments". 74t also clashed with certain Celtic liturgical peculiarities that, tendentiously by the Church, became assimilated ethnically with heresy: this was the case of the different date for Easter to the one imposed in the Council of Nicaea.More serious theologically would be the case of the Pelagianism also considered as a negative Breton identity trait (due to the geographic origins of its promoter) 75 according to the guardians of orthodoxy. 76he defeat (at least official) of liturgical Celtism 77 converted Britannia into a kind of new Promised Land for the Angles and Saxons, now converted and responsible for their sins like, in their time, the Israelites were for theirs. 78Bede's work summarised national history and ecclesiastic history, accepting (as Gregory of Tours and all the historiography of the High Medievo also did) the ideological assumptions of the providentialist historia ecclesiastica popularised from the fourth century by Eusebius of Caesarea. 79ater historians continued to take the emergence of new peoples in the islands (the Danes and in then, the Normans from the other side of the Channel) as a sort of divine punishment for the infidelities of a people. 80Thus, the arrival of William the Conqueror in 1066 and the establishment of a new political power would be the result of the perjury by the last monarch of the Anglo-Saxon line -Harold-who, against all legitimacy, had seized the crown of England, according to a chronicler of the Middle Ages from a Norman family. 81Despite setbacks to his policies, the great architect of the so-called Plantagenet (or Angevine) Empire, Henry II would be a reliably king of his own propaganda.Artistic and literary manifestations present his dynasty under a very favourable prism, among other reasons, as a fighter against the "barbarian" Welsh, Irish and Saracens. 8275.A Breton, although his main intellectual activity was in the Mediterranean world, where he had a strong opponent in Saint Augustine.Among other studies, see the highly appreciated one by Rees, Brinley Roderick.Pelagius.A Reluctant heretic.Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1989.76.For this theme, see Isla Frez, Amancio."El desarrollo del pelagianismo y la cristianización de Inglaterra", De Constantino a Carlomagno; disidentes, heterodoxos, marginados, Francisco Javier Lomas, Federico Devís, eds.Cádiz: Universidad de Cádiz, 1992: 197-210.

Italy: from the Ostrogoths to the Lombards and their legacy
The dethroning of the last Western emperor (Romulus Augustulus) in 476 left Italy at the mercy of successive avatars.These began with a brief reign by the Herulian Odoacer, and continued with the government of the Ostrogoths of Theoderic the Great (493-526).In his Chronica, the scholar Cassiodorus Senator, Theoderic's Magister officiorum, would inspire a kind of Roman-Gothic ideology by including his monarch in the succession of the emperors. 83Then, in De origine actibusque Getarum (c.551), the obscure historian Jordanes would claim that Theoderic's authority spread, either by force or by friendship, to all the kingdoms of the West. 84uch promising perspectives were frustrated with the "reconquest" of Italy by Justinian after a gruelling war of attrition.With the Pragmática sanctio of 554, the restoration of the direct imperial rule in the Peninsula was taken for granted, but the operation degenerated into an authentic fiasco 85 as the destruction of the Ostrogoths opened the way in Italy for a scantly Romanised, while also sincerely Arian people: the Lombards.Italy ended up divided into two fractions: a pars romana, ever smaller and subject to the emperors of Constantinople through his representative, the Exarchate resident in Ravenna; and a pars longobarda, a set of duchies with little cohesion. 86ven the "national" historian of the Lombards, Paul the Deacon, had difficulties (in contrast to other historical narratives) to show their conversion to Catholic orthodoxy up, a confusing process riddled with ups and downs.The furthest he went was to exalt the figure of King Liutprand who definitively ruled as a Catholic: hombre de gran sabiduría, juicio sagaz, muy piadoso, amante de la paz, poderoso en la guerra, clemente con los criminales, casto, púdico, incansable orando, generoso en las limosnas. 87It has been recognised that the amalgam between Romans and Lombards did not lead to the disappearance of the identity of the latter.In the eighth century, the members of the social elite considered themselves Lombards beyond considerations biological. 88This is in contrast with the perception of another author who years ago talked about the "tragedy of the Lombards": their inability to give Italy the needed political unity.That would facilitate their defeat by the Franks and the dethroning of their last national monarch by Charlemagne. 89hat misfortune would be remedied by a certain official similarity in the Chancellery that was established between two peoples, by naming himself the great Carolingian rex francorum et langobardorum (and patricium romanorum) before his imperial coronation in 800. 90The Lombard kingdom would derive into another, part of the trilogy of crowns (Germania-Burgundy-Italy) that gave the "legal epiphenomenon" that was the Holy Empire its character. 91

The Saxons of Germania, quintessence of the Teutonic world
The Saxons had earned fame for the tenacity of their paganism, which Charlemagne had tamed after a ferocious war of conquest that, according to Einhard, lasted over thirty years. 92With time (from 962), we find a radical change: the Saxons would be converted -dynasty of the Ottonians-into receptors of imperial dignity. 93he monk and historian Widukind of Corvey, descendent of the hero of the anti-Carolingian resistance, described an idealised image of this people that would expurgate old traumas.He established a parallelism regarding the enemies defeated: the Franks finished off the Avars who had settled on the middle reaches of the Danube, and at the Battle of Lechfeld (955), the Saxons put an end to the annual raids by the Magyars, supposedly their brother race, and which had been a nightmare for Europe in the first half of the tenth century. 94he emperor considered most Romanist among the early Ottonians (Otto III) would symbolise German pride in the heading of his diplomas by identified himself with the Saxon, Moi, Othon, Romain, Saxon et Italien, serviteur des apôtres, par la grâce divine empereur auguste du monde. 95Eneas Silvio Piccolomini would again recall this association of the Saxon people with the Christian empire at the end of the Medievo when he evoked the discreción exquisita y la grandeza de sus realizaciones of the first three monarchs who earned muchos méritos ante la Iglesia Romana y no me caben dudas de que gracias a ellos se ensancharon las fronteras de Sajonia. 96ver the centuries, it was thought that the imperium, the maximum symbol of political power, should be legitimately wielded by the Germans, whether these were Saxons or Franconians, Salians or Hapsburgs.To the same extent, according to the canon of Cologne, Alexander of Roes, (end of the thirteenth century) the highest level of the sacerdotium (the papacy) should correspond to the Italians; or the studium (intellectual power) to the French, in virtue of the prestige acquired by the University of Paris. 97

The general survival of extra-Christian elements
S. Teillet has highlighted that with Gregory the Great (590-604), the barbarian nationes acquired recognition of their personality in a similar degree to the Empire with his court in Constantinople. 98It is not by chance that this pontiff has been considered the first authentically medieval pope.The anointment received by the monarchs of some countries earned them extra legitimacy by granting them a semisacerdotal status. 99ll this did not avoid that, in countries that had become officially Christian-Catholics, old pagan traditions of identity persisted throughout the Medievo and even beyond its chronological limits.The myth of the defeated Trojans exerted a particular attraction. 100Princes of this origin scattered after the fall of their city would play a significant role in the genealogy of various European countries: Aeneas for the Romans, 101 Pharamond for the Franks, 102 and Brutus for the Britons.romanos, hemos nacido de la misma sangre. 104Nor was there an absolute rejection of the pagan pantheon, some of whose figures appear mixed in the genealogies of kings with those of the Old Testament.This was the case of Alfred the Great whose ancestors included figures like Woden and Geat ("who the pagans considered as a God") with Seth and his father Adam. 105he chronicles of the Hispanic kingdoms are riddled with mythological heroes.This was the case of Tubal, fifth son of Japhet de quien descienden los iberos que también se llaman hispanos, según opinan Isidoro y Jerónimo as Archbishop Jiménez de Rada recalled. 106Lucas de Tuy, who refers to Saint Isidore, remembered the case of Ispán, first king of the Spanish, founder of Hispalis and from whom también España traxo el nonbre, 107 a legend found in the Crónica de San Juan de la Peña, written in the second half of the fourteenth century on orders from Peter the Ceremonious. 108The traditions linked to the figure of Hercules in the creation of the Spanish history and shaping the internal map of Hispania also gave an extraordinary degree of unity. 109n short, mythical characters from the classical world, conceived as human beings in the historiography of the Medievo and the Renaissance, would thus be exalted because of their contributions to humanity in general and a people in particular, in some cases even becoming their eponymous heroes. 110While the filosofía in its widest sense was ancilla theologiae, the mythology, duly instrumentalised, could also become an ancillary element for a political identity boasted purity of faith.

Identity through otherness: a negative view of the 'other'
The excessive pride attributed to a people, proud of their superiority in front to the neighbours, could create broad mistrust.This would be, for example, the case of the French, associated with the superbia gallicana, 111 a circumstance that was even more serious given that pride was considered the worst of the vices, or at least, the root of all these. 112

Otherness and religious faith: the centre and periphery of the West
The proliferation of heretical movements from the start of the second millennium 113 gave new strength to the tendencies of political-religious identity in different countries in the West.
For some in Languedoc, its cities (Albi, Toulouse, Béziers or Narbonne) deserved the opinion as a land prone to heresy, hatred of the French from the North and generally tending towards bad faith. 114Italian cities like Milan, so famous for many reasons, also led the field with their defects: they were the fovea haereticorum. 115he "Lombards" (who, in some case, like the bankers of Asti, were Piedmontese) and the "Cahorsini", appear as usurers, when usury was quite the antithesis of respectability. 116In the form of greed, it competed even with pride as a perversion.The city in general, as a field of experimentation in all kinds of innovations, ended up being seen by the more conservative minds with undisguised suspicion. 117 diffuse "internal" enemy was also facilitated by the places of origin of these routiers; soldiers of fortune identified with Biscayans, Aragonese, Brabançons, Triaverdini and Cotarelli, who the Third Council of the Lateran (1179) considered comparable to heretics for the damage they caused to the assets of the Church.118 For the religious game of purity/impurity played with the ideas of schism, heresy, paganism, phylo-Judaism, etc. and also, the simple formal peculiarities or suspicion of twisted morality as this was appreciated from the hard core of Roman Christianity forged in the norms of Gregorianism.
The precautions taken against a gens, kingdom or country situated near another or on the periphery of Europe were more than anecdotic.
The same happened with Romanist reservations towards insular Celtic communities like the Irish -still poorly assimilated into the political and social guidelines of the West-whom a figure of the stature of Saint Bernard considered Cristianos de nombre, pero paganos de hecho.This implied that from a French, English or Italian mentality, their social order differed from the continental one. 119he Bulgars had a poor religious and moral image, associated with the Bogomil heresy considered the mother of the various Manichaeisms of the Medievo.The demonym Bulgar -bougre-was applied as a synonym of Cathar in particular and heretic in general. 120It even became related to the idea of homosexuality. 121The Balkan world in general would become suspected of "Manichaean" contamination.Thus, the Bosnians would be mala ralea que consideran que hay dos principios en la realidad, el del bien y el del mal, 122 apart from disavowing the primacy of Rome, the consubstantiality of Father and Son, and their monks maintaining not very respectable habits.
The Bohemians, especially in the Germanic world, gained a particularly bad reputation when Juan Hus and his direct or indirect disciples made Bohemia an important focus of religious subversion towards the end of the Medievo, and expelled the Germans from the University of Prague.Hus drew the attention of the nonconformists of half Europe 123 and the hatred of the other half.The neighbouring Moravia did not come out any better, its inhabitants considered a raza fiera y amiga de latrocinios and its barons casi todos contaminados por la herejía husita. 124An image that would contrast with the one the Bohemians had of themselves as defenders of a purity of faith against the corruption ecclesiastic assimilated with simony. 125n Bohemia -under the pro-Hussite monarch George of Poděbrady-a project for European unity against the Turkish threat would even arise, but this was rejected by the papacy. 126fter Middle Ages, Miguel Servet would echo an opinion that was going round the continent: Hungría proporciona el ganado, Baviera los cerdos, Franconia las cebollas y la remolacha, Suabia las prostitutas y Bohemia los herejes. 127In contrast, Hussism as a national myth (the Bohemians as a kind of chosen people according to the most exalted expression) would persist from Hus until Palacky, one of the great historians of the Czech world. 128

A singular Hispanic case? 129
At the end of the nineteenth century, Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo gave birth to a well-known and widely debated work 130 in which he mixed overwhelming erudition, patriotic ardour and profound Catholic militancy. 131Although he considered heresies (and among these especially Protestantism) foreign to the Spanish spirit, the abundance of religious discrepancies (real or supposed) reported in the Iberian world created the impression of a territory perfectly homologous with the rest of Europe. 132he fact that movements like Priscillianism, Arianism, Adoptionism, Islamic influences, various superstitions, etc, developed in the Peninsula allowed Pope Gregory VII to warn in 1074 about the serious spiritual dangers the Hispano-Christian kingdoms faced. 133he particular liturgy known as Mozarab was considered fully orthodox by Pope John X around 924.However, with the years and the effect of the rigid uniformity imposed by Gregorianism, this was branded in certain sectors as a simple superstitio toletana. 134When the Romans norms were finally imposed, there were various different reactions among the Hispanics.In some cases, they fuelled suspicion of opposing the ley y costumbres romanas with the ley toledana.When these were implanted, some said the borradas por completo las tinieblas de la ignorancia (y) empezaron a desarrollarse entre los hispanos las fuerzas de la Santa Iglesia. 135In the opposite case, it was argued that the Hispanic clergy had books that were as good as the Roman ones.Undoubtedly they invoked the theological tradition of the Visigoth monarchy of Toledo. 136he image that was created around the king of Aragon and count of Barcelona, Peter the Catholic from the other side of the Pyrenees was also significant.Killed at Muret defending the philo-Cathar lords in the French Midi against the crusades of Simón de Montfort, he added another negative element to the fame built up around the Hispanics in general on the other side of the Pyrenees. 137If not a heretic (his sobriquet speaks for itself), the monarch would be fautor de herejes, something extremely serious as he was warned about it in an important missive from the papal legate, Arnaldo Amaury. 138ecause of these heretical, Islamic and Judaic contaminations, would this Hispania be judged similarly heretical as these other geographic areas cited? 139eyond of these hypothesis, we can underline that the religious features, independent of their orthodoxy, were a kind of interested game around identity and alterity around the Hispanic society.

The Late Middle Ages in the West: the Hundred Year's War and the accentuation of identities
The great armed struggle at the end of the Middle Ages known as the Hundred Year's War was mainly a conflict (or series of conflicts) between the French and English crowns, although it also affected other western countries. 140Moreover, it overlapped with the serious religious split of the Western Schism, which contributed to poisoning the relations between the sides even more. 141The fact that the schism was considered by some as close to heresy added more fuel to the fire given that both were characterised by the same fault: pertinacity.however, can be given a non-trivial meaning: that of a "national" dignification of a language by a theologian considered a distant precursor of the reform movements of the 1500s.
In the later phases of the Hundred Years War, the fierce fighting in France between the Burgundians (allies of the English for some time) and Armagnacs was frequently marked by this standard accusation of bad Christians. 144Joan of Arc's presence on the battlefields of France (1429-1431) would be the emotional replica of a widespread feeling of impotence.Although an ephemerous phenomenon, it would encourage an elemental political-messianic rhetoric.A good expression of this was in the well-known Letter to the English dated 22 nd of March 1429 to the King of England and his captains urging them to lift the siege of Orleans and leave France.The text was included in the accusation against the heroine in Rouen some months later. 145he drama ended with her execution by burning as a "heretic, idolater, apostate and relapse" a string of invectives which included some technical incompatibilities that, in the heat of the conflict, did not appear to bother her accusers very much. 146

Back to the Hispanic peculiarities
The implications of the generalised war in the Peninsula became autochthonous dynastic conflicts that, on more than one occasion, took on an unequivocal religious hue. 147et us see some examples.The confrontation between Peter I of Castile and his half-brother Henry of Trastámara was heightened by the bad press spewed by the legitimate monarch.These included accusations of bougre [synonym of heretic] y mauvais crestyen [evil Christian] 148 and of collusion with enemies of the Christian faith: the Jews and, on occasions, the Moors in the Kingdom of Granada. 149ears later, the Portuguese war of succession on the death of Ferdinand I, gave rise to a vague Portuguese national feeling that was cloaked in a religious sentiment.The siege of Lisbon by Castilian forces concluded in a failure as related by the chronicler Fernão Lopes in tones that ranged from epic to martyrdom. 150In the courts of Coimbra in 1385, the Portuguese jurist Joao das Regras disqualified John I of Trastámara as candidate-consort to the Portuguese throne.The reason: he and his followers were çismáticos y herejes as militants on the Avignonese papal side.He asked rhetorically, como tomariamos nos taaes pessoas por nossos reis e senhores? 151onths later, and with two setbacks in between (the disaster of Aljubarrota and the invasion by John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster as the pretender to the Castilian throne), 152 John I of Trastámara attempted to raise the spirits of his loyal followers in the courts in Segovia in 1386.Resorting to xenophobia with a marked religious tone, he railed against the English who were always ayudadores e dieron fauor en las çismas que fueron en la Yglesia de Dios fasta oy 153 at a moment when the western Schism had placed the two of them on opposing sides.One of the examples of the perfidiousness of the English was Thomas Becket's murder (1170) at the hands of a group of knights from the entourage of Henry II Plantagenet, induced by imprudent declarations by the king.It was supposed that this left the pretender morally discredited and, thus, his dynastic aspirations delegitimated.

Conclusions
To conclude, it is worth mentioning another interesting outlook that gave some dynasties in the Peninsula a mystical symbolism.It granted them a special messianic ethos that tended to reinforce their political identity.This happened with the royal house of Aragon whose component states were metaphorically compared with a bunch of reeds by the chronicler Muntaner (1265-1336). 154In line with a Joaquinism lato sensu, some of its princes were augured a brilliant destiny. 155s Alain Milhou highlighted, Arnau de Vilanova (c.1240-1311) would be the first author who would transfer to the Aragonese dynasty (James II of Aragon, his brother Fadrique of Sicily) the messianic prophecies about the conquest of Jerusalem or the creation of a universal royalty until then applied to Germany or the French royal family. 156This messianism reinforced what, in principle, had been an expansionist policy of the Crown of Aragon towards the south of the Iberia Peninsula. 157This image would contribute years later to giving a new impulse to the Franciscan Francesc Eiximenis (c.1340-1409) from Girona when he proclaimed about the royal house of Aragon: D'aquesta casa és profetat que deu aconseguir monarchia quasi sobre lo món. 158nd what can one say about the Castilian Trastámara dynasty as the heir to the Hebraic monarchic traditions, 159 or the case of the Portuguese house of Avis as inaugurating a Seventh Age of the World. 160alk about an officialist messianism-millenarianism that neutralised other more or less subversive ones 161 does not seem excessively unreasonable.
29. Dumezil, Bruno.Les racines chrétiennes de l'Europe.Conversión et liberté dans les royaumes barbares (V e -VIII e siècle).Paris: Fayard, 2005.These questions were the themes of two meetings held in the Centro Italiano di Studi Sull'Alto Medioevo in Spoleto: the 14 th , held in 1966 about La conversione al Cristianesimo nell'Europa dell'Alto Medioevo, and the 28 th , in 1980 about Cristianizzacione ed organizzazione eclesiástica delle campagne nell'Alto Medioevo: Espansione e resistenze.The minutes have been published in La conversione al cristianesimo nell'Europa dell'alto Medioevo.Atti (dal 14 al 19 aprile 1966).Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi Sull'Alto Medioevo, 1967; Cristianizzazione ed organizzazione eclesiástica delle campagne nell'Alto Medioevo: Espansione e resistenze.Atti (dal 10 al 16 aprile 1980).Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi Sull'Alto Medioevo, 1982.30.The accusation of heresy against the other was also reinforced with the addition of various vices.The history of vice/sin in the Middle Ages is partly the story of its instrumentalisation: the accusation of the doctrinal opponent of having incurred a series of moral deviations.For the case of the struggle between heretics and orthodoxies, see Mitre Fernández, Emilio."Los pecados desde le herejía: la moral del otro en la Edad Media", Pecar en la Edad Media, Ana Isabel Carrasco Manchado, María del Pilar Rábade Obradó, eds.Madrid: Sílex, 2008: 281-296.This is a preview of a mongraph which is currently being prepared.31.Teillet, Suzanne.Des Goths a la nation gothique.Les origines de l´idée de Nation en Occident du V e au VII e siècle.Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1984: 12, 25.
37. "The illustrious tribe (gens) of the Franks, created by God, valiant in war, loyal to agreements during the pace, prudent in decisions, of noble race, healthy by nature, white of skin, proud of body, valiant, speedy and tenacious, converted to the Catholic faith, clear of all heresy […] this is the nation that shook of the heavy yoke of the Romans thanks to their bravery and tenacity".Prologue to the Lex Salica in Fichtenau, Henri.L'empire carolingien.Paris: Payot, 1981: 27.38.Gregoire de Tours.Histoire des francs, ed.Robert Latouche.Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1963: I, 55. 39. "Although all the peoples were originally barbarians, history recalls that the Gauls have been happy since Antiquity, even when they were still pagans.Baptised by Saint Remigius, they have distinguished themselves since their conversion with a striking and celebrated victory.Their first Christian king is said to be Clovis.The later have been governed by a series of eminent emperors until Charles (the simple) whose reign would mark the starting point for our history".Richer de Reims.Histoire de France (889-995), ed.Robert Latouche.Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1967: I, 11 (this is a bilingual version of a text -originally simply titled Historiae-in which the terms Gaul and Gauls are almost systematically transferred into modern French as France and the French).
the adoptionist heresy and what interests us here, a leading work is still the one by Abadal, Ramon d'.La batalla del adopcionismo en la desintegración de la Iglesia visigoda.Barcelona: Real Academia de Buenas Letras, 1949.47.Full of originality is the biography about him written in recent times by Le Goff, Jacques.Saint Louis.Paris: Gallimard, 1996.48.About the North-South confrontation in the fight against Catharism, there is an abundant bibliography full of numerous novelesque recreations.With a purely essayistic sense but maintaining the minimum levels of historical rigor, see Madaule, Jacques.Le drame albigeoise et l´unité française.Paris: Gallimard, 1973.Much more up to date and excellently documented is the monographic work by Alvira, Martín.12 de septiembre de 1213.El jueves de Muret.Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, 2002.Among the more recent and complete works on Catharism in its various facets, it is worth highlighting the one by Jiménez Sánchez, Pilar.Les catharismes.Módeles dissidents du christianisme médiéval (XII e -XIII e siècles).Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2008.49.Guenée, Bernard."Histoire d'un succés…": 109.The protagonism would shrink in the Late Medievo to a much closer circle: the king, his relatives, his barons and the palace officials.Guenée, Bernard."Histoire d'un succés…": 121.50.The ninth centenary of the beginning of the crusades gave rise to a large number of scientific meetings and a large bibliographic output that was added to the existing rich bibliography.In the ideological and mental aspect of the phenomenon, Dupront published his monumental Dupront, Alphonse.Le mythe de la croisade.Paris: Gallimard, 1997.Flori is the author of an interesting book Flori, Jean.La guerra santa.La formación de la idea de cruzada en el Occidente cristiano.Madrid: Trotta, 2003.An updated panorama for Spain is provided by the useful summary by Ayala, Carlos de.Las cruzadas.Madrid: Sílex, 2004.
51.This dramatic clash has been the subject of abundant bibliography.A useful, though antiquated, dossier is the one by Wood, Charles, ed.Felipe el Hermoso y Bonifacio VIII.Mexico D.F.: Uthea, 1968.Useful for the figure of the French king is the biography by Favier, Jean.Philippe le Bel.Paris: Fayard, 1978.By the same author and for the monarch's collaborators, see Favier, Jean."Les legistes et le gouvernement de Philippe le Bel".Journal des savants, 2 (1969): 92-118.A recent biography about this pontifice is Paravicini Bagliani, Agostino.Boniface VIII: un pape hérétique?Paris: Payot, 2003.About the effects of propaganda at that time, see Nieto Soria, José Manuel."La propaganda política de la teocracia pontificia a las monarquías soberanas", Propaganda y opinión pública en la Historia, José Manuel Nieto Soria, Luis Miguel Enciso Recio, Jean François Botrel, Alejandro Pizarroso Quintero, Amalia Sánchez Sampedro, eds.Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, 2007: 31-32.52.The one undertaken by Louis IX against Tunis in 1270 and the expedition under the banner of the crusade by his son and heir, Phillip III, against the Crown of Aragon (1285) whose monarch, Peter III, had been excommunicated.53.The feeling of superiority of a prince over a pope considered unworthy can be appreciated in a letter sent by Henry IV to Gregory VII in 1076 in which, invectives aside, the monarch considered himself anxious to "preserve the honour of the Apostolic See" which, it was supposed, the papacy had sullied.See the anthology by Gallego Blanco, Enrique.Relaciones entre la Iglesia y el Estado en la Edad Media.Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1973: 149.
77. Bede.A History of the English Church…: 328, referring to the adoption by the monks of Iona of the Roman Paschal dating in 716.78.Brown, Peter.El primer milenio de la cristiandad…: 185.79.Markus, Robert Austin.Bede and the Tradition of Ecclesiastical historiography.Jarrow: St. Paul's Rectory, 1975.80.Following the tradition of the monk Gildas, who wrote a De Excidio et conquestu Britanniae in the sixth century describing the ruin of the country at the hands of the barbarian invaders.81. Henry of Huntingdon.The History of the English People.1000-1154, ed.Diana Greenway.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002: 24.As a counterpart, another writer, Eadmer of Canterbury (who died around 1144), a disciple of Saint Anselm, presented his affection for the Anglo-Saxon world, taking the Normans as the enemies of his people.See the references to English historiography in Heer, Friedrich.El mundo medieval.Europa 1100-1350.Madrid: Guadarrama, 1963: 305-307.82.Aurell, Martin.El imperio Plantagenet (1154-1224).Madrid: Sílex, 2012: 140-155.