BOB2023MOME

L'exemplum antique est l'un des héritages les plus importants de l'Antiquité au Moyen Âge. Les anecdotes tirées des œuvres d'historiens latins tels que Tite-Live, Suétone, Valère Maxim et même de traités tels que Sénèque et Cicéron étaient diffusées sous la forme d'un récit bref. Mais l'Antiquité n'a pas transmis au Moyen Âge qu'une collection d'histoires. Ils étaient porteurs d'une idéologie, le mos maiorum, c'est-à-dire une série de vertus qui avaient constitué la base de l'Empire romain et que le Moyen Âge souhaitait appliquer à la chevalerie. Cette forme d'exemplum avait une longue tradition en Espagne. Dès le xii e siècle, des auteurs tels que Pedro Alfonso de Huesca s'en servent. Au xiv e siècle, il a été revalorisé et a commencé à faire partie du discours politique des ‘miroirs des princes’. Mais son moment de diffusion le plus important se situe au xv e siècle, au point que cette période peut être caractérisée comme une aetas valeriana.

The Institutiones humanarum litterarum - that is, the second book of Cassiodorus’ masterpiece, devoted to secular learning - have come down to us in three different textual forms: the ‘authentic’ recension Ω, corresponding to Cassiodorus’ final wishes, and two subsequent recensions, designated as Φ and Δ. In these two recensions, later interpolations were added on the basis of an earlier authorial draft, providing modern readers with valuable information both about Cassiodorus’ progressive revisions and about the early fortune of his work.

This volume provides a full commentary to the first critical edition of the interpolated recensions Φ and Δ (CC SL 99A). In doing so, it conveys a full picture of the complex history of the Institutiones saeculares, from their first appearance in the monastery of Vivarium to the Carolingian Renaissance, at which time they knew their greatest success and circulation.

Quand la musique européenne a commencé à buter sur les limites du système tonal dans lequel elle s’était progressivement enfermée, c’est auprès du plain-chant et des mélodies populaires, voire exotiques, qu’elle est venue mendier un regain d’inspiration. Au cours de la seconde moitié du xix e siècle, la musique dite « modale » apparaît aux yeux de certains compositeurs comme une opportunité de rajeunissement : pentaphonismes de réputation orientale, gammes par tons entiers ou avec quarte augmentée s’intègrent dans le paysage musical occidental. De telles turqueries ne sont pas franchement nouvelles, mais la situation est inédite. En effet, au même moment, la redécouverte du chant médiéval et de ses traités dans un contexte fortement idéalisé propulse les vieux modes ecclésiastiques, porteurs de noms chatoyants des provinces de la Grèce antique, sur le devant de la scène.

En 1447, Antonio Malfante, un marchand génois, adresse une lettre en latin depuis Tamentit dans l’oasis saharienne du Touat (actuelle Algérie). Il y décrit la région et livre des informations sur le Sahara et l’Afrique subsaharienne. Dans une perspective d’histoire globale, ce livre explore tous les aspects d’une source exceptionnelle qui relie trois mondes interconnectés : celui des marchands italiens rayonnant en Méditerranée occidentale ; celui des routes sahariennes, du Maghreb à Tombouctou ; celui des royaumes, sociétés et cités de l’Afrique subsaharienne. Une approche interdisciplinaire revisite ce texte fameux. L’analyse philologique corrige nombre d’erreurs présentes depuis la première édition-traduction (La Roncière, 1919), et présente les interactions linguistiques (latin, italien, arabe…). La contextualisation dans l’histoire du commerce transcontinental du xve siècle renouvelle la compréhension de la démarche de Malfante et de ses relais africains. L’analyse africaniste de sa description du Sahara et de l’Afrique subsaharienne lève un voile sur le Nord-Ouest de l’Afrique à une époque de raréfaction des sources écrites. Enfin, une lecture historiographique du texte met en relief les présupposés colonialistes qui ont accompagné sa découverte. Combinant histoire textuelle, commerciale et africaine, cette relecture du « voyage de Malfante » présente une histoire globale euro-africaine, entre christianisme, islam et animisme, entre recherche de profit, description anthropologique et construction d’une image de l’autre.

Peter of Ireland (Petrus de Ybernia) was born sometime around the beginning of the thirteenth century in Ireland, probably of a Norman family. He probably left Ireland aged around age 15 to pursue his studies abroad. His interest in medical and scientific questions would suggest a stay at Oxford, whereas his approach to logic would suggest a Parisian influence. By the middle of the century he was Professor of Logic and Natural Philosophy at the University at Naples. Peter is perhaps one of the best known of medieval Irish thinkers on the continent owing to the fact that he was held to be the teacher of the young Thomas Aquinas at Naples University from 1239-44. As such, it would be he who, in all likelihood, first introduced Thomas to the study of Aristotle and perhaps also to the commentaries of Avicenna and Averroes. The works presented here date from at least a decade later, and relate to lectures given at Naples in the 1250s and 1260s. The extent to which he was held in respect by his contemporaries is to be seen in his solution (determinatio) to the disputed question on the origin of the design of an animal’s body which was held before King Manfred around 1260. It was, perhaps the culmination of a famous scholarly career.

This book explores the legend of Adam’s Contract with Satan that was made after the expulsion from the Garden of Eden.This legend was current in the Eastern Orthodox churches of SE Europe as well as in the Caucasus. Unknown forms of the legend have been found in two traditions, the Romanian and the Armenian, and are investigated here. Notably this legend has found its way into folk stories and sometimes into folk music, showing how widely it was accepted and distributed. This legend also inspired images in both traditions. In Romania the most striking illustrations are to be found in Bukovina province, in frescos on the famous painted churches of that region, as well as in manuscripts. In Armenia features of this story are incorporated into the iconography of the Baptism of Christ in the River Jordan.

The landscape around us is largely the result of man-made transformations. It consists of villages, farmsteads, cities, fields, ditches, and roads. This book examines how the landscape of the Mediterranean country of Catalonia was created and transformed. Although Catalonia’s history goes back before the Middle Ages, it was during the medieval period that it saw significant development, which has continued ever since. Understanding the landscape helps us understand political, social, economic, and cultural changes. In this book we discover how the settlements built around a castle or a church were created, and what the open villages and new towns were like, both in Catalonia and in neighbouring territories. The book also explores the formation of cities and towns as well as the significance of hamlets and farmsteads, based on data provided by written documents and archaeological excavations. It also explores the formation of fields, ditches, and irrigated areas, and shows the importance of understanding the boundaries and demarcations that enclose valleys, villages, castles, and parishes. Finally, special attention is devoted to place names and cartography, as these shed light on numerous historical realities.

Desde 1469, año en el que vio la luz la editio princeps del Bellum Ciuile en Roma, el poema de Lucano se imprimió íntegramente en diecisiete ocasiones en el siglo XV y en dieciocho en los primeros veinte años del siglo XVI. Así, su difusión y lectura durante el Renacimiento fue profusa. En muy poco tiempo, los ejemplares impresos, procedentes de diferentes talleres de imprenta europeos, sobre todo italianos, circularon por la Península Ibérica.

En el presente volumen se aborda, en primer lugar, el estudio filológico del texto transmitido por las ediciones incunables y postincunables del Bellum Ciuile. Durante estos primeros años de tradición impresa, se establecieron diferentes formas textuales del poemay finalmente se configuró la vulgata del texto. El análisis filológico del texto de Lucano transmitido en estas ediciones incunables y postincunables ha permitido precisar las relaciones de filiación entre ediciones, reconocer las diferentes familias textuales que convivieron en los primeros años de tradición impresa y dar los primeros pasos en la descripción de su relación con la tradición manuscrita, así como en la identificación de la intervención de los editores sobre el texto. Todo ello contribuye, desde el estudio de una tradición determinada, al conocimiento del trabajo editorial realizado en el Renacimiento sobre textos latinos antiguos.

Igualmente, se presenta el corpus de ejemplares conservados en bibliotecas españolas, atendiendo a las huellas de lectura y a los poseedores que han dejado su rastro en este valioso patrimonio bibliográfico del que somos herederos.

This is the first book-length study in decades to offer in-depth readings of a variety of late medieval poems across Gower’s trilingual corpus. Identifying Gower’s rhetorical cornerstones in Aristotelian pathos, the theology of the Word, and the execution of a plain style, it provides fresh interpretations of poems in Latin, French, and Middle English that arise from an enhanced understanding of Gower’s literary methods. It explores the classical and medieval rhetorical traditions that informed Gower’s craft, the biblical personae through which the poet achieved his rhetorical aims, and the Renaissance publishers and authors who valued and imitated his strategies for composition. Gower adapted his rhetorical theory from the principles of Aristotelian texts, Augustinian theology, exemplars of Ciceronian style, and the dictates of various artes poetriae; from the latter, John of Garland’s Parisiana Poetria is especially important for outlining practices of Marian rhetoric. Modelling virtuous female speakers on the Virgin and prophetic narrators on John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, Gower gave extra-scriptural voice to members of the extended Holy Family and in so doing, achieved unimpeachable expressions inside classically informed structures of discourse. The epistolary structure, proceeding from Ciceronian rhetoric and the artes dictaminis, is one among Gower’s favoured rhetorical forms for projecting singular voices. His straightforward, reiterative style in Middle English and his virginal speakers compelled Renaissance publisher Thomas Berthelette and celebrated authors Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare to praise Gower’s rhetoric in prefaces and imitate it on the stage.

Les perles ordonnées est un petit traité inédit de 45 folios, un unicum, sans doute autographe,conservé à la Bibliothèque nationale de Berlin. Dédié au sultan mamelouk Barqūq (784-801/1382-99), il ressort d’une littérature panégyrique généralement connue sous le nom de manāqib (vertus, qualités), c’est-à-dire une littérature à caractère laudatif destinée à faire l’éloge du sujet décrit. Le but de l’auteur, en chantant les louanges de Barqūq, était surtout de légitimer sa prise de pouvoir en le replaçant dans une longue lignée de sultans mamelouks, tout en profitant de cette occasion pour se rapprocher du sultan et lui faire valoir ses propres compétences de juriste. L’ouvrage est composé d’une préface et de trois chapitres. Le premier est un bref résumé des règnes des sultans mamelouks bahrites, de l’avènement de la dynastie en 648/1250 à la prise de pouvoir par Barqūq en 784/1382 ; le deuxième comprend une suite de trente-deux questions et réponses juridiques sur des sujets variés qui concernent aussi bien des piliers de l’islam (prière, aumône légale, jeûne, pèlerinage) que les questions de témoignage en justice, achats de biens, héritage, femmes, esclaves, divorce ou chasse, le but étant d’aider le sultan à « tester » les connaissances des juristes qui l’entourent ; le troisième chapitre fait l’éloge des vertus de Barqūq.

Au travers de ce traité transparaissent quelques événements marquants du début du règne de ce sultan - notamment la célébration de certaines fêtes égyptiennes y compris chrétiennes -, mais aussi et surtout un discours de légitimation d’un pouvoir acquis par la force. L’image qui se dégage est celle d’un souverain investi par le calife, épris de justice et de religion, capable d’assurer protection et prospérité à ses sujets, sachant s’entourer des conseils avisés des oulémas, en général, et des juristes, en particulier.

This is a novel, interdisciplinary study of the Mongol military campaign in Eastern Europe (1241–1242) — the North, as thirteenth-century Europeans saw the region — in the works of contemporary English chronicler, Matthew Paris of St Albans Monastery. Tracing the journey of his sources, the volume explores thirteenth-century information networks against the backdrop of the struggle between Emperor Frederick II and Pope Innocent IV.

Parallel to the history of information, the subject of the study is the Chronica majora and its afterlife, Matthew’s chronicle world where the sometimes fictitious (and often very real) episodes of the Mongol story unfold. Tracing major landmarks in the meta-history of the Chronica majora, the author wishes to emancipate Matthew Paris as a historian — one in the series of a multitude of others who continue to write and rewrite the history of the Mongol invasion across centuries of historiography.

The volume is a handy companion both to scholars of English historiography and those who want to read critically the oft-cited primary sources of the history of the Mongol military operations in Europe.

Les œuvres en vers les plus célèbres d’Abélard sont ces poèmes d’amour composés pour Héloïse au temps qu’il la séduisait ; mais ils sont perdus, et c’est en vain qu’on les cherche. La célébrité de ces textes inconnus a laissé dans l’ombre d’autres poèmes qui, eux, sont bien parvenus jusqu’à nous. Eux aussi ont été composés pour Héloïse, d’une certaine manière ; eux aussi sont, d’une certaine manière, des produits de l’amour, et même des poèmes d’amour. Il s’agit des hymnes que, dans les années 1130, Abélard composa pour le monastère dont Héloïse était la supérieure, le Paraclet. Leur série, presque complète, constitue au fil de l’année liturgique un itinéraire spirituel et intellectuel d’une cohérence inégalée. Ces hymnes ne sont pas seulement des témoins d’une tentative quasiment inouïe dans l’histoire du christianisme de réformer la totalité de la liturgie : ils sont aussi la pensée d’un théologien exceptionnel coulée dans les vers d’un poète génial. L’Hymnaire du Paraclet mérite bien ainsi, à de multiples titres, d'être appelé un monument de la culture occidentale. Ce volume offre à la fois le texte latin original, entièrement établi et contrôlé sur les manuscrits, et, en regard, l'une des premières traductions complètes de l'Hymnaire, et la première en français.

What anxieties did medieval missionaries and crusaders face and what role did the sense of risk play in their community-building? To what extent did crusaders and Christian colonists empathize with the local populations they set out to conquer? Who were the hosts and who were the guests during the confrontations with the pagan societies on the Baltic Rim? And how were the uncertainties of the conversion process addressed in concrete encounters and in the accounts of Christian authors?

This book explores emotional bonding as well as practices and discourses of hospitality as uncertain means of evangelization, interaction, and socialization across cultural divides on the Baltic Rim, c. 1000-1300. It focuses on interactions between local populations and missionary communities, as well as crusader frontier societies. By applying tools of historical anthropology to the study of host-guest relations, spaces of hospitality, emotional communities, and empathy on the fronts of Christianization, this book offers fresh insights and approaches to the manner in which missionaries and crusaders reflexively engaged with the groups targeted by Christianization in terms of practice, ethics, and identity.

Visible English recovers for the first time the experience of reading and writing the English language in the medieval period through the perspectives of littera pedagogy, the basis of medieval learning and teaching of literate skills in Latin. Littera is at the heart of the set of theories and practices that constitute the ‘graphic culture’ of the book’s title. The book shows for the first time that littera pedagogy was an ‘us and them’ discourse that functioned as a vehicle for identity formation. Using littera pedagogy as a framework for understanding the medieval English-language corpus from the point of view of the readers and writers who produced it, Visible English offers new insights on experiences of writing and reading English in communities ranging from those first in contact with Latin literacy to those where print was an alternative to manuscript. Discussing a broad range of materials from so-called ‘pen-trials’ and graffiti to key literary manuscripts, Visible English provides new perspectives on the ways that the alphabet was understood, on genres such as alphabet poems, riddles, and scribal signatures, and on the different ways in which scribes copied Old and Middle English texts. It argues that the graphic culture underpinned and transmitted by littera pedagogy provided frameworks for the development and understanding of English-language literacy practices and new ways of experiencing social belonging and difference. To be literate in English, it proposes, was to inhabit identities marked by Anglophone literate practices.

At the heart of any story of metamorphosis lies the issue of identity, and the tales of the werwulf (lit. ‘man-wolf’) are just as much about the wolf as about the man. What are the constituents of the human in general? What symbolic significance do they hold? How do they differ for different types of human? How would it affect the individual if one or more of these elements were to be subtracted?

Focusing on a group of Old Norse-Icelandic werewolf narratives, many of which have hitherto been little studied, this insightful book sets out to answer these questions by exploring how these texts understood and conceptualized what it means to be human. At the heart of this investigation are five factors key to the werewolf existence - skin, clothing, food, landscape, and purpose - and these are innovatively examined through a cross-disciplinary approach that carefully teases apart the interaction between two polarizations: the external and social, and the interior and psychological. Through this approach, the volume presents a comprehensive new look at the werewolf not only as a supernatural creature and a literary motif, but also as a metaphor that bears on the relationship between human and non-human, between Self and Other, and that is able to situate the Old-Norse texts into a broader intellectual discourse that extends beyond medieval Iceland and Norway.