Despite what historiography tends to say, medieval texts (prints and manuscripts) have been constantly read during the Modern Age. What we call “Middle Ages” were part of the cultural background of learned people of the 17th century. Though, Middle Ages have been invisibilized by the official culture imposed by the royal power. My purpose is to understand the tensions between official and individual culture, and the way they shaped the link to the past, and how they contributed to the emergence of a new historical notion: the “Middle Ages”. Despite what historiography tends to say, medieval texts (prints and manuscripts) have been constantly read during the 17th century. What we call “Middle Ages” were part of the cultural background of learned people of this time. Though, Middle Ages have been invisibilized by the official culture imposed by the royal power. My purpose is to understand the tensions between official and individual culture, and the way they shaped the link to the past, and how they contributed to the emergence of a new historical notion: the “Middle Ages”. My paper will be based upon the example of an aristocratic family from Provence, the Gallaup de Chasteuil. Two generations of this family have been loyal supporters of the King of France, but the last one rebelled against Louis XIV who diminished their power as members of the Parliament of Aix. François, Hubert and Pierre have been condemned to death, a sentence commuted to exile. Hubert spent his idle time to enrich his library and to read actively medieval manuscripts. He commented and annotated them, and they have been a basis for a social, cultural and political reflexion. While the monarchy reinforced its power through an official culture based on the classic literature, the rebellious aristocracy found its legitimacy in the Middle Ages. The definition of what we call “Middle Ages” – a notion that emerged during the 17th century – is broadly determined in France by this political struggle, which I will demonstrate through a study of the annotated manuscripts of Hubert Gallaup.