La influencia de la historiografía católica en el estudio del pasado medieval peninsular (siglos XIX-XXI)

Abstract

Abstract

Within the framework of the liberal State building process, nineteenth-century Spanish scholarship developed a historical narrative deeply reliant on the idea of Catholicism as the backbone of Spanish national identity. One of the major challenges faced by those promoting the exclusively Catholic identity of the nation was the eight-century-long Muslim presence in Iberia. Together with the breaking up of the liberal historiographical tradition, the Francoist period represents the peak moment of so-called National Catholicism. Counter-intuitively, the most vocal representative of this narrative was C. Sánchez-Albornoz, a committed republican and convinced anti-Francoist but, at the same time, a devout Catholic believer. Having lost the leading role it played before the 1978 arrival of democracy, the Catholic narrative, however, remained influential over the last 45 years, not only thanks to the work done by Catholic historians but also because many of the Catholic prejudices and stereotypes are consistently promoted by non-religious academic sectors.

Keywords

Spanish nationalism, national Catholicism, catholic scholarship, Reconquista, christian identity, far right.