The uses of the Middle Ages in modern European states : history, nationhood and the search for origins

This is the first collection of its kind, with a broad European coverage and very international team of authors. It shows how modern states and societies have used the history of the Middle Ages to legitimize themselves, and draws on some of the most famous and fascinating medieval themes, from Icelandic sagas, through Switzerland's William Tell and the Czech Hussites, to the Serbian battle of Kosovo. The volume investigates especially the ways in which new and smaller states have invented or reinvented themselves on an imagined medieval base and how rival traditions have interacted with each other. It also shows the often uneasy relation between professional history and popular understandings of history, and some of the highly politicized uses to which the work of historians has been put in many different countries.