The writings of António Sardinha (1887–1925) have still not generated the interest they deserve in the panorama of studies on Portuguese historiography. A poet, politician, and historian isolated from the main academic circles, Sardinha was the leading doctrinal figure of the movement known as Integralismo Lusitano, founded in 1913 in the aftermath of the attempts to restore the recently deposed Portuguese monarchy. In the doctrine of Integralismo, the medieval period occupied an important place, both as a reference in national and European history and an example for a future political, moral, and spiritual rearrangement.

Sardinha's contrasting views on the Middle Ages and Modernity are essential to an understanding of the political proposals of the Integralists. Having as a basis nineteenth-century Romantic and positivist historiography, Sardinha portrayed the Middle Ages as an epoch of civilizational progress and spiritual improvement, serving as a counterpoint to a decadence represented by Modernity. As we will see, this discourse was adapted to counterrevolutionary purposes in order to vilify liberal thought and its consequences in the political context of Europe since the French Revolution and particularly during the First World War, the interwar period, and the Portuguese First Republic (1910–26). In this essay, we will examine Sardinha's writings between 1914 (the year of the release of Nação Portuguesa, the most important Integralist periodical) and 1925 (the year of Sardinha's death). Our aim will be to uncover how his traditionalist and counter-revolutionary political agenda articulated with his reflections on the political and social system of the Middle Ages and on the deleterious effects of Modernity on Western civilization. We will see that Sardinha's depiction of the medieval period stands at an opposite pole to his portrayal of Modernity, which he saw as fading at that time in his life.

In June 1914, Sardinha published an article in Nação Portuguesa wherein he first confronted his notions of political power in the medieval and postmedieval age. According to him, the aristocratic monarchies of Germanic origin that emerged during the Middle Ages had an “oppressive and seigneurial” conception of power. By embracing Catholicism, they acquired the sense of “collective utility” and “common good”; what is usually defined as the “divine right” of kings, in fact, gave them a profound responsibility towards their people, forming the basis of the “social contract.”