L'Agenda des Médiévistes

“Loire Poetics is an ambitious study that will be indispensable for all students of European poetry (not just Latin poetry) from the central Middle Ages. It presents bold arguments about the character of a new poetics emergent from the late eleventh century. The author’s claims, while expansive, are built patiently from probing discussion of several dozen individual poems.

By choosing to publish his monumental study in English, the author performs an important additional service, since the impressive artistry of the poets at issue—the giants Hildebert of Lavardin, Marbod of Rennes, and Baudri of Bourgueil, but also less familiar figures, such as Geoffrey of Reims—remains somewhat underserved by  anglophone scholarship. 

Professor Verbaal’s expert guidance should attract new students to these authors through his contextualized close readings and accompanying translations. The latter are often inspired, revealing a rare sensitivity to the idiom, tone, and pace of the originals.”

–Christopher A. Jones (The Ohio State University)

Wim Verbaal is Professor of Latin Language and Literature at Ghent University. His research focuses on Latin poetics in medieval literature, the cosmopolitanism of Latin literature, and the impact of classical paradigms on modern Europe. He also translates from Latin and addresses the challenges of translating cosmopolitan languages.

Table des matières :

Introduction
Status quaestionis and presentation of the poets and the methodology folllowed
1. Philology and Theology
2. ‘Loire’ poets
3. From poem to poet

1. A poem and its world: Mapping poetry
Starting from the poems that are read without immediately presenting the poets, the introduction already gives the general outlines of the entire book.
 1. How to Read a Poem
 2. Preliminary Poetics
 3. Some Poets and some Poems

2. Poets on poets: Poetical criticism
Attention is paid to the way these poets evaluate the work of their peers and what this teaches us about their own approaches to the sense of poetry.
 1. Hildebert of Lavardin: A “Priestly” View
 2. Geoffrey of Reims: An Emulator’s View
 3. Marbod of Rennes: An Existential View
 4. Literary Criticism around 1100

3. Poems to poems: poetical renewal
The chapter analysis the renewal of these poets in comparison to their more traditional peers.
 1. Masters in poetry: models
 2. Masters in poetry: teachers
 3. Masters in poetry: pupils
 4. Masters of poetry: renewal
 5. Masters of poetry: contrasts

4. Poems with a Past: Loire classicism
The problem of the classicism in modern evaluation of the poets and their poetics.
 1. Classical Antiquity at the Loire
 2. Using the Classics: Marbod and Sigebert
 3. Re-writing the Classics
 4. Re-voicing the Classics
 5. Re-viving the Classics
 6. Re-telling the Classics
 7. Conclusion: Being a Classic

5. Poems and Poetry: Toward a Loire Poetics
Attempt to construct the general poetics behind the renewal of these decades.
 1. Deconstruction and interconnection: the writing of verse
 2. Creating consistency: style and genres
 3. Conceiving fictionality: topics and textual realities
 4. Loire poetics: teaching poetry in poetry
 5. Conclusion: A Poetics of the Loire

6. Poems and their Families: Poetic contamination
Analysis of the way the poems are transmitted and what this teaches us about how to approach the mass of anonymous collections.
 1. Books, Booklets, Collections: Baudri
 2. Composing Books: Hildebert
 3. Decomposing books: Marbod
 4. Poetry books
 5. Conclusion

7. Poets and their Worlds: historical background of the new poetics
This chapter wants to put the poets, their poems and the new poetics in their historical frame, showing to what extent some of these poets succeeded in transmitting an image of themselves that is denied by historical factuality.
 1. Colouring poetics
 2. Political Poetics
 3. Silent poetics
 4. Armed poetics
 5. Conclusion

8. Conclusion
Conclusions are drawn from the preceding book as to the meaning of these poets for the following generations. This is illustrated by the writing techniques of Bernard of Clairvaux, Peter Abelard and William IX.
 1. The School and the Monastery
 2. The School and the Schools
 3. The School and the Court
 4. Conclusion: Literature of the Schools
Appendices
1. Overview of commented texts
2. Marbod’s Editio Princeps, Content and Concordance
Bibliography

Informations pratiques :

Wim Verbaal, Loire Poetics. The Schools of 1100 and the Roots of European Fiction, Turnhout, Brepols, 2026 ; 1 vol., 428 p. (Publications of the Journal of Medieval Latin, 20). ISBN : 978-2-503-61973-6. Prix : € 115,00.

Source : Brepols

Si la Hanse est souvent associée à l’histoire de l’Europe septentrionale et baltique, ce réseau de marchands et de villes d’Allemagne du Nord déploya également une activité croissante sur les littoraux atlantiques à la fin du Moyen Âge. La « flotte de la Baie », convoi de plusieurs dizaines de navires qui faisait annuellement ou presque le voyage jusqu’aux ports salicoles français, en est l’illustration la plus célèbre, mais elle cache un monde de relations beaucoup plus complexes entre les Hanséates et les autres nations de gens de mer actives entre l’Angleterre et la péninsule Ibérique. En faisant dialoguer des auteurs de différentes nationalités, les études réunies dans ce volume s’efforcent de poser les bases d’une analyse renouvelée des acteurs et de la spatialité de ces interactions, faites de commerce, de coopération et de conflits. La projection marine des États monarchiques tend à redéfinir les règles de ces interactions à partir du XVe siècle.

Publié avec le soutien de La Rochelle Université

Table des matières :

Le commerce atlantique de la Hanse

• L’Atlantique des Hanséates à la fin du Moyen Âge, vu à travers les Seebücher
• The Hanse southern trade and its goods
• German Hanse Merchants in Portugal’s foreign trade in the late Middle Ages

Acteurs et spatialités des conflits en mer

• Relations entre l’espace hanséatique et la Normandie à la fin du XIVe siècle : éléments de caractérisation
• La neutralité dans les relations franco-hanséatiques autour de 1400
• Risques et aléas de la navigation vers la baie de Bourgneuf. Des Hanséates aux prises avec les retombées judiciaires de l’attaque d’un navire breton par des Danois dans le raz de Saint-Mathieu (1485-1486)
• Off the records. The spatiality of maritime violence and the economics of Hansards South of Bruges

La Hanse à l’épreuve des centralisations étatiques

• Les villes du Zuiderzee et « le Grand Siècle » de la Hanse (c. 1350-c. 1475)
• Des villes pas comme les autres ? Villes hanséatiques, paix et justice vues par les contemporains français
• Le pillage de la nef de la reine Marie (1446) et l’impossible traité entre le royaume de France et la Hanse
• “To make a thieves’ nest of the Zwin”. Jurisdiction, negotiation and convenience in the treatment of Hanseatic and Spanich maritime conflicts in late medieval Flanders

Informations pratiques :

La Hanse et l’Atlantique (1300-1500). Commerce, acteurs, conflits, éd. Tobias Boestad, Philipp Höhn, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2026 ; 1 vol., 244 p. (Histoire). ISBN : 979-1-04130-525-4. Prix : € 24,00.

Source : Presses universitaires de Rennes

The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is an exceptional epigraphic site. A major restoration campaign (2013–2020) and the recent bibliography dedicated to the building allow us to question hundreds of inscriptions and graffiti which appear on the mosaics, paintings, and walls of this shrine built on the presumed birthplace of Christ. The site exhibits a graphic symphony—if not cacophony—in Latin, Greek, Arabic, Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, Slavic, and Rus scripts, made by pilgrims and travellers as well as the authorities and the different religious communities over the centuries.

The goal of this book, which gathers epigraphists from different backgrounds, as well as historians, art historians, and restorers, is to approach those writings from a variety of perspectives. Which typologies of graphic acts are uncovered and can we escape from the labels ‘graffiti’ and ‘inscriptions’? What purpose do they serve? With which materials and using which techniques where they created, and by whom? Where were they located in the complex of the Church, which includes the caves, the cloister, and the monastic buildings?

This study explores the stratigraphy of the writings and offers several plans detailing their distribution, revealing a new chapter in the history of the building, in its use by pilgrims. It highlights the various actors in epigraphic communication and the interactions between these graphic acts in the different writings and languages. All these inscriptions and graffiti enable us to build a comprehensive picture of the rich heritage offered by this unique holy site.

Estelle Ingrand-Varenne is a CNRS researcher at CESCM (Poitiers), expert in medieval epigraphy, and the principal investigator of the ERC GRAPH-EAST Her personal research focuses on the inscriptions of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Clément Dussart is a post-doctoral fellow attached to the ERC GRAPH-EAST project, in charge of the study of Latin graffiti in Egypt in the Middle Ages, after a PhD thesis on pilgrim graffiti in the Holy Land

Table des matières :

Introduction: The Epigraphic Landscape of the Nativity Church Complex in Bethlehem
ESTELLE INGRAND-VARENNE and CLÉMENT DUSSART

The Discovery and the Conservation of Graffiti on the Columns of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem: The Voice of the Restorers
MARCELLO PIACENTI

Part I. Source, Transmission, and Interpretation of the Twelfth-Century Inscriptions

Quotation and Glorification: Bethlehem’s Conciliar Texts in Local Context
MEGAN BOOMER

From Abraham to Christ: A Family Tree on the Scale of the Church and its Epigraphic Exegesis
ESTELLE INGRAND-VARENNE

Typographical Transcription of the Inscriptions from the Holy Land: Francesco Quaresmio and the Publishing Adventure of the Historica, Theologica et Moralis Terræ Sanctæ Elucidatio
DÉLIA PRÉTEUX

Part II. Acts of Writing and Representation

Towards a Periodization of Graffiti (Seventh to Sixteenth Centuries)
CARLO TEDESCHI

How is Graffiti Done? Scratching, Incising, and Engraving Stone in Bethlehem
THIERRY GRÉGOR

Portraits, Graffiti, and Tattoos: Visual Indicators of Individual Piety on the Columns and Walls of the Nativity Church in Bethlehem
MICHELE BACCI

Part III. New Reading and Contextualization of Inscriptions and Graffiti

The Greek Graffiti in the Grotto of the Bathing
RACHAEL HELEN BANES

The Earliest Graffiti in Latin Characters in the Church of the Nativity
CLÉMENT DUSSART

The Arabic Inscriptions of the Basilica of the Nativity: Inventory and Research Perspectives
ANNA LAGARON

Armenian Inscriptions and Graffiti of the Nativity Church in Bethlehem
KHACHIK A. HARUTYUNYAN

Ancient Georgian Inscriptions in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and ‘Bethlehems’ in Georgia
GIORGI GAGOSHIDZE

East Slavic Inscriptions in the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem
YURIY A. ARTAMONOV, ALEXEY A. GIPPIUS, and ILYA V. ZAYTSEV

Conclusion: Between Graphic Symphony and Cacophony
CLÉMENT DUSSART and ESTELLE INGRAND-VARENNE

Informations pratiques :

Writing in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Inscription and Graffiti in a Multilingual and Multigraphic Perspective, éd. Estelle Ingrand-Varenne, Clément Dussart, Turnhout, Brepols, 2026 ; 1 vol., 272 p. (Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, 45). ISBN : 978-2-503-61979-8. Prix : € 120,00.

Source : Brepols

Da circa venticinque anni il magistero di Ernesto Stagni all’Università di Pisa costituisce un punto di riferimento imprescindibile per le nuove generazioni di filologi classici e medievali, coprendo una straordinaria varietà di ambiti di ricerca, dalla grammatica latina alla storia della tradizione manoscritta, alla ricezione e alla fortuna dei classici nel Medioevo e oltre. Un gruppo di allievi rende omaggio al maestro per il suo sessantesimo compleanno con questo volume miscellaneo di studi, che include saggi sulla storia della lingua latina e la teoria grammaticale antica, sulla tradizione di alcuni testi classici (il Satyricon di Petronio, i commenti di Donato a Terenzio) e medievali (l’adespota Expositio totius mundi, la traduzione latina del Corpus Dionysiacum realizzata da Ilduino di Saint-Denis, il De proprietatibus rerum di Bartolomeo Anglico), nonché sui paratesti che ne accompagnarono la lettura, come accessus, vitae, commenti, corpora di glosse (in particolare alle elegie di Tibullo, al Bellum civile di Lucano e alle Etymologiae di Isidoro di Siviglia).

Silverio Franzoni, allievo dell’Università di Pisa e della Scuola Normale Superiore (2011- 2016) e dottore di ricerca della Scuola Normale e dell’École Pratique des Hautes Études (PSL, Parigi) (2022), è attualmente post-dottorando F.R.S. – FNRS all’università di Namur (Belgio).

Elisa Lonati, allieva dell’Università di Pisa e della Scuola Normale Superiore (2011-2016) e dottore di ricerca dell’École Pratique des Hautes Études (PSL, Parigi) e della Scuola Normale (2022), è attualmente post-dottoranda dell’École nationale des chartes (PSL, Parigi).

Adriano Russo, allievo dell’Università di Pisa e della Scuola Normale Superiore (2011-2016), dottore di ricerca dell’Università di Pisa e dell’École Pratique des Hautes Études (PSL, Parigi) (2021), titolare della Claudio Leonardi Fellowship, membro dell’École française de Rome e allievo della Scuola Vaticana di Paleografia Diplomatica e Archivistica, è attualmente assegnista di ricerca dell’Università di Roma Tre.

Informations pratiques :

Mens humilis, studium quaerendi, vita quieta. Studi offerti dagli allievi a Ernesto Stagni, éd. Silverio Franzoni, Elisa Lonati, Adriano Russo, Pise, Edizioni ETS, 2026 ; 1 vol., 272 p. (Testi e studi di cultura classica, 101). ISBN : 978-8-84677-563-4. Prix : € 28,00.

Source : Edizioni ETS

The populist movements of the eleventh century (the Peace of God, Gregorian Reform, and the First Crusade) did not simply mark an important pivot in the greater history of the West. Taken together, they also represent a fascinating phenomenon unto themselves. R. I. Moore characterized them as the products of a ‘bizarre but temporarily effective’ alliance of the clergy and people, while Richard Landes and Thomas Head claimed that they heralded the ‘emergence of the crowd on the stage of European affairs.’ This book is the first comprehensive study to consider the textual records of that alliance/emergence from an intellectual perspective. Through an in-depth analysis of ten eleventh-century writers, the author Jason Macleod argues that a distinctive strand of political thought entwines its way through the textual legacy of these movements.

From relatively obscure monastic hagiographers such as Letaldus of Micy to Pope Gregory VII to ‘best-selling’ crusade chroniclers like Robert the Monk, eleventh-century clergymen framed the populist fervour of their age in discernible patterns for contemporary consumption, while leaving a textual legacy rich with political implications for the future. While optimistic reformers romanticized the empowerment of the Meek and the Many in shades of vox populi, vox Dei, more sceptical observers pragmatically recast such activity as dangerous exemplars of God’s wrath employed to correct elites’ behaviour. Ultimately, this book contends that the body of political thought considered herein represents the earliest textual legitimization of political power for those inherently disempowered by lack of noble birth, wealth, or education in the medieval West.

Jason MacLeod earned his Ph.D. in European History at Boston University in 2024, with a focus on medieval political thought and the history of the medieval church. He earned his master’s degree in military history at Norwich University in 2010.  He is also a twenty-year veteran of the United States Marine Corps. Jason lives in New Hampshire with his wife and five children.

Table des matières :

Introduction

Part I. The Peace of God Literature c. 975–1050

Chapter 1. Letaldus of Micy

Chapter 2. Ademar of Chabannes

Chapter 3. Rodulfus Glaber

Chapter 4. Andrew of Fleury

Part II. The Gregorian Reform Literature c. 1050–1095

Chapter 5. Humbert of Silva Candida

Chapter 6. Gregory VII

Chapter 7. Andrew of Strumi

Part III. The First Crusade Literature c. 1095–1125

Chapter 8. Raymond of Aguilers

Chapter 9. Robert the Monk

Chapter 10. Guibert de Nogent

***

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index

Informations pratiques :

Jason MacLeod, Political Thought and Eleventh-Century Populism. The Meek, the Many, and the Meritorious during the Age of the Gregorian Reform, Turnhout, Brepols, 2026 ; 1 vol., 336 p. (Disputatio, 38). ISBN : 978-2-503-61430-4. Prix : € 95,00.

Source : Brepols

In Vlaanderen en Picardië ontstonden in de late elfde en eerste decennia van de twaalfde eeuw een aantal uitzonderlijke teksten: twee versies van het leven van de heilige Arnulfus, bisschop van Soissons en stichter van het Vlaamse klooster Oudenburg, en de autobiografie van Guibert van Nogent in Picardië. Lisiard van Crépy schreef de eerste versie van het heiligenleven waarvan Hariulf van Saint Riquier een bewerking maakte. Lisiard had Arnulfus persoonlijk gekend en wist samen met Hariulf diens heiligverklaring te bewerkstelligen. Ook met Guibert van Nogent onderhield Lisiard contacten. Deze vier mannen waren rond het midden van de elfde eeuw geboren in machtige adellijke families.

Renée Nip was tot haar pensionering als universitair docent Geschiedenis van de Middeleeuwen verbonden aan de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. Haar specialisaties zijn religieuze cultuur en regionale geschiedenis van de middeleeuwen.

Informations pratiques :

Renée Nip, Vlaanderen en Picardië, ca. 1000–1125. De macht van adel en kerk door de ogen van vier geestelijken, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2026 ; 1 vol., 286 p. ISBN : 9789048574094. Prix : € 27,50.

Source : Amsterdam University Press