EMISCS99

In medieval Europe, cultural, political, and linguistic identities rarely coincided with modern national borders. As early as the end of the twelfth century, French rose to prominence as a lingua franca that could facilitate communication between people, regardless of their origin, background, or community. Between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, literary works were written or translated into French not only in France but also across Europe, from England and the Low Countries to as far afield as Italy, Cyprus, and the Holy Land. Many of these texts had a broad European circulation and for well over three hundred years they were transmitted, read, studied, imitated, and translated.

Drawing on the results of the AHRC-funded research project Medieval Francophone Literary Culture Outside France, this volume aims to reassess medieval literary culture and explore it in a European and Mediterranean setting. The book, incorporating nineteen papers by international scholars, explores the circulation and production of francophone texts outside of France along two major axes of transmission: one stretching from England and Normandy across to Flanders and Burgundy, and the other running across the Pyrenees and Alps from the Iberian Peninsula to the Levant. In doing so, it offers new insights into how francophone literature forged a place for itself, both in medieval textual culture and, more generally, in Western cultural spheres.

Fondée à la fin du x e siècle, Montpellier connut une expansion fulgurante à partir du xii e, à la faveur du développement d’échanges culturels et économiques, vers la Méditerranée ou le nord de l’Europe. Cette expansion était le fruit de politiques menées par les Guilhem et confirmée lors du passage de la seigneurie sous l’autorité des rois d’Aragon et de Majorque après 1204, quand la ville obtint un gouvernement consulaire. Devenue une communauté urbaine d’importance au xiii e siècle, Montpellier était habitée par une population cosmopolite. Dans et hors les murs se croisaient grands marchands, changeurs et simples revendeurs, universitaires et intellectuels de renom, artisans et agriculteurs. L’attractivité et le rayonnement de Montpellier en faisaient l’une des principales villes du Bas-Languedoc. Pourtant, son histoire médiévale n’a bénéficié que d’une attention inégale de la part des chercheurs. Cet ouvrage procède d’un colloque international réuni à Montpellier en 2013 et rassemble des articles réalisés par les principaux contributeurs et principales contributrices à l’histoire et à l’archéologie de la ville. Basées sur des archives originales ou sur la réinterprétation de données connues, les recherches proposées ici, tout en présentant un bilan des travaux passés, empruntent des voies nouvelles démontrant les promesses des études historiques et archéologiques sur Montpellier.

Mirrors have always fascinated humankind. They collapse ordinary distinctions, making visible what is normally invisible, and promising access to hidden realities. Yet, these liminal objects also point to the limitations of human perception, knowledge, and wisdom. In this interdisciplinary volume, specialists in medieval and early modern science, cultural and political history, as well as art history, philosophy, and literature come together to explore the intersections between material and metaphysical mirrors in Europe and the Islamic world. During the time periods studied here, various technologies were transforming the looking glass as an optical device, scientific instrument, and aesthetic object, making it clearer and more readily available, though it remained a rare and precious commodity. While technical innovations spawned new discoveries and ways of seeing, belief systems were slower to change, as expressed in the natural sciences, mystical writings, literature, and visual culture. Mirror metaphors based on analogies established in the ancient world still retained significant power and authority, perhaps especially when related to Aristotelian science, the medieval speculum tradition, religious iconography, secular imagery, Renaissance Neoplatonism, or spectacular Baroque engineering, artistry, and self-fashioning. Mirror effects created through myths, metaphors, rhetorical strategies, or other devices could invite self-contemplation and evoke abstract or paradoxical concepts. Whether faithful or deforming, specular reflections often turn out to be ambivalent and contradictory: sometimes sources of illusion, sometimes reflections of divine truth, mirrors compel us to question the very nature of representation.