Since the beginning of the twentieth century, it has been a truism that the emergence of Protestantism was the main cause of the development of capitalism. However, a careful analysis of primary sources, especially in Latin countries, shows a quite different reality. Three centuries before the emergence of Protestantism, the Franciscans generated a discourse that made it possible to begin to legitimize the commercial practices that would later enable the emergence of capitalism. Based on these premises, this article aims to explore the discursive and juridical primary sources of medieval Barcelona-especially the testimonies of the Franciscan intellectual Francesc Eiximenis and merchant wills-to provide relevant new data and interpretations of how Franciscan charisma brought about a better understanding and legitimization of mercantile work. I intend to use the concept of charisma to better understand the great paradox of how those who aspired to a life of extreme poverty-the Franciscans-succeeded in legitimizing the work of those who aspired to a comfortable life, namely, the emerging merchant group. The merchants provided the Franciscans with the material capital necessary for their establishment in the city, while the Franciscans granted the merchants symbolic capital that was indispensable for the development of their mercantile work, social recognition, and religious legitimacy.

Este artículo analiza las transformaciones del concepto de carisma desde su uso original por Pablo en el siglo I hasta sus últimas derivaciones postweberianas en el siglo XXI. Defiende la conveniencia de recuperar el concepto originario paulino, para aplicarlo a las realidades históricas, concretamente las referidas a la Europa medieval. Su objetivo es devolver el debate sobre el carisma a las disciplinas históricas y teológicas, más allá de la orientación presentista de las ciencias sociales. En concreto, destaco la distorsión que supone ignorar el origen teológico y espiritual de toda la discusión sobre el carisma, y del propio concepto, para evitar una descontextualización que conduciría a la alienación anticuaria o el solipsismo presentista.

From the 1970s onwards, postmodern, postcolonial and feminist criticism has reactivated the disapproval of the canon. Its academic and pedagogical usefulness remains challenged by historians who have generally been skeptical of its critical worth, its role as an instrument of hierarchization and standard of quality. Both the justification for the existence of the canon in history - which affects its content and function - and the criteria for the selection of an alleged canon of history - which affects its form and is concretized in a list - has been questioned. Nevertheless, in the early 2000s, there were major debates in some northern European countries about the development of historical canons as part of their historical education. These precedents show that the canon has its detractors and generates controversy, but in the end it matters. On the basis of a flexible definition and dynamic application, this article examines the place of the canon in (and of) history, arguing its relevance in historiography: its formation, key turning points, convenience, usefulness, and the desirability of its existence itself. This leads to questions such as: What are the epistemological conditions that make the durability of certain historical works and the discarding of others possible? What determines the systematic inclusion and exclusion of texts in bibliographical lists or in the indexes of the histories of historiographies? Why do the major canonical works usually imply a break with the past but, paradoxically, remain there when later works enter the list?

What is the classic in history? What is a classic in historical writing? Very few historians and critics have addressed these questions, and when they have done so, it has been only in a cursory manner. These are queries that require some explanation regarding historical texts because of their peculiar ambivalence between science and art, content and form, sources and imagination, scientific and narrative language. Based on some examples of the Western historiographical tradition, I discuss in this article to what extent historians should engage the concept of the classic - as has been done for literary texts. If one assumes that the historical text is not only a referential account but also a narrative analogous to literary texts, then the concept of the classic becomes one of the keys for understanding the historical text - and may improve our understanding not only of historiography, but of history itself. I will argue in this article that it is possible to identify a category of the classic text in some historical writings, precisely because of the literarity they possess without losing their specific historical condition. Because of their narrative condition, historical texts share some of the features assigned to literary texts - that is, endurance, timelessness, universal meaningfulness, resistance to historical criticism, susceptibility to multiple interpretations, and ability to function as models. Yet, since historical texts do not construct imaginary worlds but reflect external realities, they also have to achieve some specific features according to this referential content - that is, surplus of meaning, historical use of metaphors, effect of contemporaneity without damaging the pastness of the past, and a certain appropriation of literariness. Without seeking to be normative or systematic, this article focuses on some specific features of the historical classic, offering a series of reflections to open rather than try to close a debate on this complex topic.

Los estereotipos presentan la época medieval como algo grotesco e incluso aterrador. Desde su hondo conocimiento de ese período, el autor propone una visión alternativa, liberadora y luminosa. Porque la vida en la Edad Media tal vez fuera más dura que la nuestra, pero también más bella. Sin omitir los errores, Jaume Aurell enfatiza los valores más sublimes, recurriendo a una estructura teatral en tres Actos: el primero presenta los personajes, desde Constantino a Carlomagno; el segundo, los elementos corales, desde los señores feudales a los mercaderes, y el tercero, los escenarios, desde el infierno de las pandemias al paraíso de los poetas y artistas. El texto, divulgativo y riguroso, enmarca así los siglos que separan a Constantino de Leonardo da Vinci.

This book aims to provide a new perspective on the subject, dealing with the events (historical events and intellectual discourses) connected with the political theology rather than with the imaginary or fictional, and more based on an interdisciplinary approach (from the more theoretical and deductive political philosophy and theology to the more practical and inductive law history, intellectual history, political history, and art history). It thus explores in depth the practices of political theology through history - focusing on philosophical and intellectual discourses, historical gestures, liturgies, art, representations, and symbols.

This book deals with the way historical genres are theorized and practiced in the twenty-first century. In the context of the freedoms inspired by postmodernism and enabled by the development of innovative textual and graphic platforms, new theories of history view genres as flexible living forms that inspire more creative and experimental representations of the past. New ways of articulating history compete with the traditional model of historical prose. Acknowledging the current diversity in theories and practices, and assuming the historicity of historical genres, this book engages the reality of historical genres today and explores new directions in historical practice by examining these new forms of representing the past. Thus, without denying the validity of traditional and conventional forms of history (and arguing that these forms remain valid), this book surveys the production of what might be considered new historical genres practiced today, in which the idea of "practical past" is put in practice. Preceded by the introduction and two theoretical articles on historical genres, some of the new forms of history analysed in this book are: historical re-enactments, gaming history, social media, graphic narratives and first-person narratives of, memoirs of trauma, and film-history. This book was originally published as a special issue of Rethinking History.

Veinte autores glosan, con hondura, el talante personal de José Luis Illanes y su quehacer como intelectual e investigador en Teología. Los capítulos están precedidos de una extensa e interesante entrevista a Illanes en la que repasa su vida y obra con opiniones y recuerdos.

El volumen número 22 de Ideas recoge parte de los frutos del seminario de AEDOS sobre el libro de Jaume Aurell Genealogía de Occidente. Claves históricas del mundo actual. El autor justifica la elaboración de Genealogía de Occidente en la falta de "autoestima" que está presente en muchos occidentales del día de hoy. La cuestión que hay detrás de ello es obvia: sin duda, la importancia de ser veraz consigo mismo -y no sólo con los demás- es un rasgo de la civilización occidental, y eso supone la autocrítica y, sin demasiado esfuerzo, la reflexión sobre si los propios occidentales han sido coherentes en sus hechos con sus razones. En un segundo paso, surge el problema de si el fomento de la reflexión y de la libertad de expresión, tal como se entienden en Occidente, no generan un complejo de culpabilidad respecto a su cultura, que se basa, precisamente, en el alcance que ha supuesto el fenómeno histórico que llamamos "occidentalización".