About the group

Contemporary Europe is faced with an increasing level of conflicting political and religious narratives demonstrating the cultural dependency of notions like “time” and “history”.

The research group is interdisciplinary and includes researchers with backgrounds in intellectual history, theology, and art history. We look to medieval time constructions with a contention that the past is a resource of sustainable knowledge.

We propose a richer understanding of how potential pasts and futures were creatively explored in textual and visual media in the Middle Ages, and how such explorations negotiated the present.

These creative processes established authority, informed political and devotional practice, and shaped individual and collective identities. 

Objectives

Contemporary views on time and history reinforce the divide between the modern and the medieval. Scholars like Reinhart Koselleck argue that modernity emerged through secularization, separating the future from the past.

However, to truly understand historical knowledge, we must challenge the idea that medieval concepts of time lacked historical perspective.

The research group contests the notion of "closed" expectations in the Middle Ages. Instead, we emphasize that medieval people constantly created and explored potential pasts and futures.

Twelfth-century Rome is a key place for studying these ideas, and we collaborate with other researchers who work with various materials like documents, literature and art, to examine medieval concepts of time.

Cases and topics

Through case studies and comparisons, we seek to deepen our understanding of medieval Europe, but also to contribute to shed critical light on time constructions in contemporary politics.

We explore salient and multivalent medieval concepts, such as typologia and translatio, which allowed people to imagine different futures and create open-ended stories and identities.

Relevant topics are

  • Reformatio and renovation
  • Perceptions of the Jews in salvation history
  • Prophecies
  • The Apocalypse
  • The crusades
  • The image of Jerusalem
  • Comparative case studies for example in Byzantine history
  • The notion of “Rome” in medieval time constructions
  • Political theologies

By exploring these and similar topics, we aim at a richer understanding of medieval temporalities to challenge modern theories and theories of modernity.