ABSTRACT
The nineteenth-century anti-medievalists constructed a pseudo-historical view every bit as partizan, rhetorical and mythical as that of the medievalists; a view frequently designed to glorify the modern age by blackening that which preceded it, and often intended to counter the work of Catholic sympathizers by showing how wicked Catholicism was when given full rein in its heyday. The anti-medievalists were generally united in proclaiming the modern age as an age of common sense, based on reason and Protestant righteousness, an age which constantly progressed by throwing off more and more completely the shackles of the Middle Ages. Anti-medievalism had its fair share of hypocrisy, on the national level, to match the dichotomies of medievalism. The anti-medievalist syndrome lived on into the twentieth century: medievalism failed to change long-held attitudes. The anti-medievalists were united in the belief that there was an anti-medievalist battle to be fought.
