| Sumario: | The end of Antiquity saw the construction of a collective Christian "we" in the context of the shaping of universal history by authors such as Eusebius of Caesarea and Orosius. During the early Middle Ages, this collective Christian "we" did not prevent the development of particularistic "we’s", enabling various groups to write "our history", although this was limited to the contemporary period and did not challenge the preponderance of the collective "we" of Christians on their way to the Parousia. From the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries, we see a break between universal history, which is still very much alive, and the emergence of a ‘national’ history that makes the ‘national’ community a full player in history. Another collective "we" could then assert itself as a decisive actor in history, in competition with the Christian "we" at work in universal history. But it was not until the modern era that historians truly emphasised this national "we" and made it the decisive actor in the history they were telling.
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