L'Agenda des Médiévistes

Calculating Ethics in the Fourteenth Century addresses a moment in the history of ethics, when discoveries in natural philosophy blurred the boundary between the possible and the impossible, and made the impossible a preferred territory in discussions on practical reason. The volume studies the onset and expansion of a new movement in constructing ethics, as the methods, arguments, and cases adopted from logic and natural philosophy came to be extensively applied at Oxford and swiftly disseminated among other Oxonians eventually making their way outside Oxford. It shows how the Oxford Calculators triggered a unique and durable transformation in ethics.

Contributors are Pascale Bermon, Valeria Buffon, Michael W. Dunne, Marek Gensler, Simon Kemp, Edit A. Lukács, Monika Michałowska, and Andrea Nannini.

Edit Anna Lukács, Ph.D. (2008), is Academy Scientist at the Institute for Medieval Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Her most recent book is titled Immovable Truth. Divine Knowledge and the Bible at the University of Vienna (1384-1419) (Brill, 2024).

Monika Michałowska, Ph.D. (2007), is Professor at the Medical University of Łódź. Her research focuses on late medieval ethics and theology. She has critically edited Richard Kilvington’s Quaestiones super libros Ethicorum and Quaestiones super libros Sententiarum (Brill, 2016, 2021, 2023).

Table des matières : ici

Informations pratiques :

Calculating Ethics in the Fourteenth Century, éd. Edit Anna Lukács, Monika Michałowska, Boston–Leyde, Brill, 2024 ; 1 vol., X–241 p. (Investigating Medieval Philosophy, 22). ISBN : 978-90-04-69648-8. Prix : € 140,00.

Source : Brill

As the Roman Empire in the west crumbled over the course of the fifth century, new polities, ruled by ‘barbarian’ elites, arose in Gaul, Hispania, Italy, and Africa. This political order occurred in tandem with growing fissures within Christianity, as the faithful divided over two doctrines, Nicene and Homoian, that were a legacy of the fourth-century controversy over the nature of the Trinity. In this book, Marta Szada offers a new perspective on early medieval Christianity by exploring how interplays between religious diversity and politics shaped post-Roman Europe. Interrogating the ecclesiastical competition between Nicene and Homoian factions, she provides a nuanced interpretation of religious dissent and the actions of Christians in successor kingdoms as they manifested themselves in politics and social practices. Szada’s study reveals the variety of approaches that can be applied to understanding the conflict and coexistence between Nicenes and Homoians, showing how religious divisions shaped early medieval Christian culture.

Marta Szada is Assistant Professor at the Department of Classical Studies at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. Her research in the fields of late antique church history has been published in Journal of Early Christian Studies, Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum, and Revue des Études Augustiniennes et Patristiques.

Table des matières :

Introduction

1. Religious controversy and conversion in Vandal Africa
2. Building the Christian kingdom: Nicene-Homoian competition in Vandal Africa
3. The Vandal Wars and conversion in East Roman Africa
4. Nicene-Homoian conversion in Ostrogothic Italy
5. Nicene-Homoian conversions in Lombard Italy
6. The religious controversies in Gaul and Hispania
7. Family life and conversion in Gaul, Hispania, and Italy
8. Converting the kings: Bishops, saints and royal conversions
9. Converting the kingdom: politics and conversion in Gaul and Hispania
   Conclusion.

Informations pratiques :

Marta Szada, Conversion and the Contest of Creeds in Early Medieval Christianity, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2024 ; 1 vol., 376 p. ISBN : 9781009426442. Prix : GBP 105,00.

Source : Cambridge University Press

Maïmonide a marqué de sa présence emblématique les trois cultures, arabes, juives et chrétiennes, qui ont cohabité en al‑Andalus il y a près d’un millénaire. Tout au long d’une vie d’exil forcé, il a étendu l’influence de son intellect dans les domaines du droit, de la philosophie et de la médecine.

Son recours à la pensée aristotélicienne pour structurer de nouveaux systèmes d’exploration intellectuelle a changé la manière dont la philosophie judéo-chrétienne était considérée. Thomas d’Aquin, Albertus Magnus, Vincent de Beauvais, Duns Scot, Pic de la Mirandole, tous ont reconnu Maïmonide comme l’un de leurs maîtres essentiels.

La foi profonde de Maïmonide dans la capacité de l’esprit humain à saisir ce qui semble insaisissable, et sa tentative d’enrichir le langage de la théologie avec ceux de la science, du droit et de la logique, peuvent peut-être nous aider à restaurer aujourd’hui le prestige perdu de l’acte intellectuel.

Alberto Manguel est un écrivain, traducteur et éditeur qui se définit lui-même comme lecteur. Mais quel lecteur ! Il est l’auteur d’une célèbre Histoire de la lecture et d’une trentaine d’autres ouvrages (tous traduits en français) où se déploient son immense érudition et un humour mus par une curiosité encyclopédique.

Table des matières :

Préface

1. La figure de Maïmonide
2. Al-Andalus
3. Afrique du Nord et Palestine
4. En Égypte
5. Maïmonide médecin
6. Maïmonide lettré
7. Maïmonide philosophe
8. Maïmonide croyant
9. Comment se comporter dans l’adversité ?
10. Les leçons de l’Exode
11. Le Talmud
12. La Loi
13. Le Mishneh Torah
14. Le Guide des perplexes
15. Qu’est-ce que la vertu ?
16. Lire Maïmonide
    Conclusion
    Principales oeuvres de Maïmonide
    Remerciements

Informations pratiques :

Alberto Manguel, Maïmonide. La foi dans la Raison, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2024 ; 1 vol., 264 p. (Le Goût de l’Histoire). ISBN : 978-2-25145-601-0. Prix : € 15,50.

Source : Les Belles Lettres

Queen of Sorrows takes an original approach to both late-medieval Italian history and the history of Christianity, using quantitative and qualitative analyses of a remarkable archive of 1,904 testaments to determine patterns in giving to the Virgin of Loreto shrine in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. Bianca M. Lopez argues that in central Italy, as elsewhere, the cult of the Virgin Mary gained new prominence at this time of unprecedented mortality. Individuals gave to Santa Maria di Loreto, which houses the structure in which Mary is believed to have lived, as an expression of their grief in the hope of strengthening family lineages beyond death and to care for loved ones believed to be languishing in purgatory.

Lopez establishes statistical correlations between different social groups and their donations to Loreto over time, uncovering informative new historical patterns such as the prominence of widow and migrant donors in the notarial record. The testaments also provide a social history of Recanati, revealing how its denizens venerated Mary as a saint with unrivaled spiritual power and uniquely sympathetic to grief, having lost her own son, Jesus. In the fourteenth century, plague survivors transformed their anguish into Marian devotion. The devastation of the plague brought the Virgin out of noble courts and monasteries and onto city streets. As Queen of Sorrows details, however, the popularity and growing wealth of Loreto’s Marian shrine attracted the attention of the papacy and peninsular seigneurial lords, who eventually brought Santa Maria di Loreto under the control of the Church.

Bianca M. Lopez is W. R. Nicholson Endowed Assistant Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Studies Southern Methodist University.

Informations pratiques :

Bianca M. Lopez, Queen of Sorrows. Plague, Piety, and Power in Late Medieval Italy, Ithaca (NY), Cornell University Press, 2024 ; 1 vol., 228 p. ISBN : 978-1-50177-591-8. Prix : USD 56,95.

Source : Cornell University Press

French came into contact with many other languages in the Middle Ages: not just English, Italian and Latin, but also Arabic, Dutch, German, Greek, Hebrew, Irish, Occitan, Sicilian, Spanish and Welsh. Its movement was impelled by trade, pilgrimage, crusade, migration, colonisation and conquest, and its contact zones included Muslim, Jewish and Christian communities, among others. Writers in these contact zones often expressed themselves and their worlds in French; but other languages and cultural settings could also challenge, reframe or even ignore French-users’ prestige and self-understanding.

The essays collected here offer cross-disciplinary perspectives on the use of French in the medieval world, moving away from canonical texts, well-known controversies and conventional framings. Whether considering theories of the vernacular in Outremer, Marco Polo and the global Middle Ages, or the literary patronage of aristocrats and urban patricians, their interlocutions throw new light on connected and contested literary cultures in Europe and beyond.

THOMAS O’DONNELL is Associate Professor of English and Medieval Studies at Fordham University, New York, USA.

JANE GILBERT is Professor of Medieval Literature and Critical Theory at University College London, UK.

BRIAN J. REILLY is Associate Professor of French at Fordham University, New York, USA.

Table des matières :

List of Illustrations
Contributors
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations

Introduction – Thomas O’Donnell, Jane Gilbert and Brian J. Reilly

1. Our Language and the Others: Old French Glosses in Berekhiah Ha-Naqdan’s Uncle and Nephew and Commentary on the Book of Job – Ruth Nisse
2. From Liutprand of Cremona to Robert de Clari: Wonder and the Translation of Knowledge Before and After the Crusader Conquest of Constantinople – Teresa Shawcross
3. Mixed Metaphors, Mixed Forms: Across Medieval Hebrew and French Prosimetra – Isabelle Levy
4. Deeds and Dialogue from a French-Irish Medieval Cultural Sphere – Máire Ní Mhaonaigh
5. The Presence of French in German Courtly Literature c.1200 – Mark Chinca
6. Marco Polo and the Multilingual Middle Ages – Sharon Kinoshita
7. Romancing Allegory: Theories of the Vernacular in Outremer – Uri Zvi Shachar
8. ‘Dize en la estoria francesca’: The Circulation of Francophone Matter of Antiquity in Medieval Castile (c.1200-1369) – Clara Pascual-Argente
9. Anxiety in the Contact Zone: The Debate of the Body and the Soul in late-medieval French and Occitan poetry – Catherine Léglu
10. The Uses of French in Medieval Wales – Georgia Henley
11. In Between Dutch and French: Multilingual Literary Patronage of the Flemish Nobility in the Fifteenth Century – Bart Besamusca and Lisa Demets
12. Sicilian Multilingualism and Cosmopolitan French – Karla Mallette

Bibliography
Index

Informations pratiques :

Medieval French Interlocutions. Shifting Perspectives on a Language in Contact, éd. Thomas O’Donnell, Jane Gilbert, Brian J. Reilly, Woodbridge, York Medieval Press, 2024 ; 1 vol., 368 p. ISBN : 9781914049149. Prix : GBP 90,00.

Source : Boydell and Brewer

The essays collected in this volume are dedicated to the pragmatic dimension of the writing of history in 12th-century Italy. All the contributions can be read by following a few guiding questions: why and by whom were chronicles written? In what spheres and with what objectives did they circulate? How were they used in the political arena? Through an innovative comparative perspective, which holds southern and central-northern Italy together, the main objective of the volume is to problematise, by means of concrete case studies, social and political significance of history writing in 12th-century Italy.

Alberto Cotza
University of Pisa, Italy – ORCID: 0000-0001-7834-8013

Markus Krumm
University of Munich Ludwig Maximilian, Germany – ORCID: 0009-0005-1553-7008

Table des matières : ici

Informations pratiques :

Storiografie italiane del XII secolo. Contesti di scrittura, elaborazione e uso in una prospettiva comparata« , éd. Alberto Cotza, Markus Krumm, Florence, Firenze University Press, 2024 ; 1 vol., 354 p. (Reti Medievali E-Book). DOI : 10.36253/979-12-215-0403-3

Source : Firenze University Press

In Bounded Wilderness, Kathryn Jasper focuses on the innovations undertaken at the hermitage of Fonte Avellana in central Italy during the eleventh century by its prior, Peter Damian (d. 1072). The congregation of Fonte Avellana experimented with reforming practices that led to new ways of managing property and relations among clergy, nobles, and the laity.

Jasper charts how Damian’s notion of monastic reform took advantage of the surrounding topography and geography to amplify the sensory aspects of ascetic experiences. By focusing on monastic landscapes and land ownership, Jasper demonstrates that reform extended beyond abstract ideas. Rather, reform circulated locally through monastic networks and addressed practical concerns such as property boundaries and rights over water, orchards, pastures, and mills. Putting new sources, both documentary and archaeological, into conversation with monastic charters and Damian’s letters, Bounded Wilderness reveals the interrelationship of economic practices, religious traditions, and the natural environment in the idea and implementation of reform.

Kathryn Jasper is Associate Professor of History and Director of European Studies at Illinois State University.

Informations pratiques :

Kathryn Jasper, Bounded Wilderness. Land and Reform at the Hermitage of Fonte Avellana, ca. 1035-1072, Ithaca (NY), Cornell University Press, 2024 ; 1 vol., 288 p. ISBN : 978-1-501-77760-8. Prix : € 54,95.

Source : Cornell University Press

Medieval Westerners accepted killing for religion and praised the outcome of the First Crusade (1096-1099). At the same time, their attitude to violence was ambivalent. Theologians shunned the practical use of force, while the warrior aristocracy valued the capacity for physical destruction. In the absence of theological doctrine on the practicalities of holy warfare, the first crusaders draw their ideas about killing from diverse and sometimes conflicting traditions. This book answers questions about how religious violence was described, justified and remembered in the sources of the First Crusade. What was the relation between faith, convention, and action?

Sini Kangas, Ph.D (1973), Tampere University, is a Researcher of the Crusades and Christian ideological warfare. She has published many articles on the history of the Crusades and edited monographs, including Authorities in the Middle Ages: Influence, Legitimacy, and Power in Medieval Society (with Mia Korpiola and Tuija Ainonen, Walter deGruyter, 2013).

Table des matières : ici

Informations pratiques :

Sini Kangas, Cover War and Violence in the Western Sources for the First Crusade War and Violence in the Western Sources for the First Crusade, Boston-Leyde, Brill, 2024 ; 1 vol., 480 p. (History of Warfare, 143). ISBN : 978-90-04-69033-2. Prix :€ 145,00.

Source : Brill

Through an extensive series of extracts and accompanying interpretative and contextual essays, this volume showcases the expertise in classical learning that flourished in medieval Gaelic Ireland. Providing translations of all excerpts, it situates better known ‘antiquity sagas’ in the Middle Irish language, such as Togail Troí (The Siege of Troy, based on Dares Phrygius), Imtheachta Aeniasa (The Wanderings of Aeneas, based on Virgil’s Aeneid), In Cath Catharda (The Civil War, based on Lucan) and Togail na Tebe (The Siege of Thebes, based on Statius), within the broader constellation of medieval Irish literature that references and engages with classical antiquity.

Included are synchronistic poetry and world chronologies; lesser-known Irish poetry and prose recounting episodes from Graeco-Roman mythography and featuring, for instance, Jason and the Argonauts, Ulysses and Penelope, Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, Daedalus and the Minotaur; linguistic and metaphysical tracts; place-name lore; and medieval historiographies of Alexander the Great, Hercules, and warriors of Irish legend recast as classical heroes. Creating access to this body of texts and revealing the marked influences of classical concepts on the imaginative resources of medieval Ireland fills a conspicuous lacuna in our knowledge of classical reception in European literatures.

Table des matières :

List of Illustrations
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements
A Guide to Editorial Practices for Middle Irish Texts, Michael Clarke (University of Galway, Ireland)

I. INTRODUCTION

1. The Culture of the Book and Classical Learning in the Gaelic Middle Ages, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh (University of Cambridge, UK) and Michael Clarke (University of Galway, Ireland)
2. The Irish Antiquity Sagas in Context, Ralph O’Connor (University of Aberdeen, UK)

II. CHRONOLOGY AND CORRELATION

3. The First Fragment of the Annals of Tigernach, Patrick Wadden (Belmont Abbey College, USA)
4. Gilla Cóemáin’s Annálad anall uile ‘All the annals heretofore…’, Peadar Mac Gabhann (Ulster University, UK)
5. Flann Mainistrech’s Flaithius Rómán ríge glonn ‘The sovereignty of the Romans was a kingship of feats of prowess’, Peadar Mac Gabhann (Ulster University, UK)

III. THE TROJAN WAR

6. Luid Iasón ina luing lóir ‘Jason went in his ample ship’, Michael Clarke (University of Galway, Ireland)
7. Togail Troí ‘The Siege of Troy’, Recension 1, Brent Miles (University of Toronto, Canada)
8. Togail Troí ‘The Siege of Troy’, Recension 2 from the Book of Leinster, Michael Clarke (University of Galway, Ireland)
9. Togail Troí ‘The Siege of Troy’, Recension 3, Michael Clarke (University of Galway, Ireland)
10. Don Tres Troí ‘On the Third Troy’, Brent Miles (University of Toronto, Canada)

IV. ADAPTATION OF LATIN EPIC

11. Togail na Tebe ‘The Siege of Thebes’, Mariamne Briggs (Independent Scholar, UK)
12. Riss in Mundtuirc ‘The Tale of the Necklace’, Brent Miles (University of Toronto, Canada)
13. Imtheachta Aeniasa ‘The Wanderings of Aeneas’, Erich Poppe (University of Marburg, Germany)
14. In Cath Catharda ‘The Civil War’: The Prologue, Brigid Ehrmantraut (University of Cambridge, UK)
15. In Cath Catharda ‘The Civil War’: Literary Techniques, Maio Nagashima (University of Cambridge, UK)
16. In Cath Catharda ‘The Civil War’: The Influence of Scholia, Cillian O’Hogan (University of Toronto, Canada)

V. MYTHOGRAPHY AND PSEUDOHISTORY

17. ‘How Samson Slew the Gesteda’, Brigid Ehrmantraut (University of Cambridge, UK)
18. Merugud Uilixis meic Leirtis ‘The Wandering of Ulysses son of Laertes’, Barbara Hillers (Indiana University, USA)
19. Fingal Chlainne Tanntail ‘The Kin-Slaying of the Family of Tantalus’, Robert Crampton (Independent Scholar, UK)
20. Sgél in Mínaduir ‘The Story of the Minotaur’, Barbara Hillers (Indiana University, USA)
21. Scéla Alaxandair ‘The Saga of Alexander’, Cameron Wachowich (University of Toronto, Canada)
22. Stair Ercuil ocus a Bás ‘The History of Hercules and his Death’, Gregory R. Darwin (Uppsala University, Sweden)

VI. WORLD KNOWLEDGE AND INDIGENOUS TRADITION

23. Auraicept na nÉces ‘The Scholars’ Primer’, Nicolai Egjar Engesland (University of Oslo, Norway)
24. Clann Ollaman uaisle Emna ‘The nobles of Emain Macha are Ollam’s descendants’, Michael Clarke (University of Galway, Ireland)
25. Cogadh Gáedhel re Gallaibh ‘The War of the Irish against the Foreigners’, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh (University of Cambridge, UK)
26. Lebor Gabála Érenn ‘The Book of Invasions of Ireland’, John Carey (University College Cork, Ireland)
27. Dindshenchas Érend ‘Knowledge of Ireland’s Notable Places’: The River Boyne, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh (University of Cambridge, UK)
28. Dindshenchas Érend ‘Knowledge of Ireland’s Notable Places’: The Origins of Tara, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf (University of Cambridge, UK)
29. Suidiugud Tellaig Temra ‘The Establishment of Tara’s Dominion’, Daniel Watson (Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies)
30. Scéla na Esérgi ‘Treatise on the Resurrection’, Elizabeth Boyle (National University of Ireland Maynooth, Ireland)

VII. EPILOGUE

31. Classical Reception and Medieval Irish Texts, Isabelle Torrance (Aarhus University, Denmark)
32. Table of the Principal Manuscript Sources Used, Michael Clarke (University of Galway, Ireland)

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Informations pratiques :

Classical Antiquity and Medieval Ireland. An Anthology of Medieval Irish Texts and Interpretations, éd. Michael Clarke, Erich Poppe, Isabelle Torrance, Londres, Bloomsbury Academic, 2024 ; 1 vol., 480 p. (Bloomsbury Studies in Classical Reception). ISBN : 978-1-35033-327-7. Prix : GBP 90,00.

Source : Bloomsbury