ABSTRACT
The emergence of modern conspiracism was an urban phenomenon intrinsically linked, from the beginning, with germs of local forms of a public sphere and was certainly the medieval seedbed for the modern conception of conspiracy theory. The not-proven elements of the conspiracy narrative are mostly adapted to the convictions of a given community of values. A conspiracy theory mostly has an explanatory, an appellative-affective and a denunciation function. Many similar stereotypes and beliefs found in chronicles and homiletic works have been analysed by J. Heil as illustrative of an all-encompassing idea of a Jewish world conspiracy. Sorcery and magic in late medieval times, particularly in the fifteenth century, have also been analysed as forerunners of modern conspiracism. Only the smaller part of enlightened sociability, the secret societies or Freemasonry and its offsprings, might be related to conspiracism. Conspiracy patterns were similarly shaped on the side of the counterrevolutionaries.
