Project description
History, identity, and political memory in the Middle Ages
Historical narratives in medieval times shaped collective identities, legitimising power, and defining the broader political and religious worlds. Examining how historical narratives constructed ideas of universality can reveal new perspectives on the relationship between memory, power, and identity formation in medieval Europe. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the UniHistoria project aims to shed light on how historical narratives were adapted to serve diverse political, religious, and institutional contexts. It will compare texts from England and southern Italy. The project will also provide new insights into the intellectual networks and cultural processes that shaped European historical thought.
Objective
This project offers a transformative reassessment of universal history-writing in High Medieval Europe, exploring its critical, but underexamined, role in shaping identities, political memory, and temporality beyond empires. Universal history has long been recognized as the dominant form of historical thought in the Middle Ages. Traditionally, it has been seen as a coherent ideological project to convey the providential history of universalising institutions such as empires. However, its broader adaptability and ideological function in non-imperial contexts remain largely unexplored. By comparing the writing of universal history in England and southern Italy, the project advances a new framework for understanding how narratives of the past were universalized to reshape sociopolitical identities, royal agency and complex constructions of temporality. Far from being ideologically static, these texts were reinterpreted to address specific political, religious, and institutional identity formations, functioning as vehicles for constructing universal awareness and framing political legitimacy. By integrating temporality studies with tailored digital humanities methods, this project challenges the traditional dichotomy between 'local' and 'universal' history, reveal instead how information networks and shifting conceptions of power shaped medieval historical frameworks. In so doing, the project offers fresh insights into the cultural dynamics entangling identity construction, historical thinking and the perception of the world. Ultimately, the project pioneers a new interdisciplinary approach to medieval historical writing, illuminating the intellectual infrastructure that enabled broader and more complex notions of universality to emerge across Europe in the High Middle Ages.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
95131 Catania
Italy
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.