INTERPRETING THE DIFFERENT ways Spanish intellectuals of the first half of the twentieth century used the Middle Ages issue is a risky and selective task, not without some arbitrariness. The first of these regards the extent and intention of who we classify as “Spanish intellectuals” and which temporal boundaries are relevant for the history of thought. Indeed, if it is difficult to define what a European intellectual is (despite the important contributions of authors like François Dosse or Wolf Lepenies), it is much more difficult in the case of Hispanic thought, where the uses of the concept have had no founding myths like the Dreyfus case in France (whose influence dwarfs the scandal of the Process of MontjuïFc) nor apostles as energetic as the Frenchman Julien Benda. The second aspect of arbitrariness consists in reducing the role of these intellectuals to a more or less homogeneous discourse, even though almost all of them contributed to the narrative of the “novel of Spain” (novela de España). And finally, equally arbitrary would be to turn the Middle Ages into the core argument of that discourse.

Nonetheless, let us attempt to approach these concepts with these caveats in mind. Thus, notwithstanding its vagueness, the omnipresence of the term “intellectual” during the period covered confirms its role as a weapon in the battles of culture and war. A weapon which, like all rhetorical devices, has a double edge; thus, Unamuno himself, who was acclaimed by the public attending his lecture at the Zarzuela theatre against the “Law of Jurisdictions” (ley de jurisdicciones) in Catalonia, shouted “Long live the intellectuals!” (¡Vivan los intelectuales!) but was attacked at the end of his life by an audience of legionnaires in the University of Salamanca, shouting “Death to intellectuals!” (¡Mueran los intelectuales!). That double-edged concept was shared by some advocates who liked to oscillate between political disinvolvement and political intervention, sometimes as dramatically as Ramiro de Maeztu did. Ramiro was a particular Hispanic embodiment of a bendiano cleric (after Julien Benda), who dreamed of making journalists “a religious order” (una orden religiosa) that was closed to those who “distort the truth or judgment to serve a cause” (falseen la verdad o el juicio por servir a una causa) but who, at the same time, considered the term “intellectual” “repulsive” (repulsiva), if only because he thought the Russians had coined it.