L'Agenda des Médiévistes

Based on narrative, iconographical, and liturgical sources, this is the first systematic study to trace the story of the ritual of royal self-coronations from Ancient Persia to the present. Exposing as myth the idea that Napoleon’s act of self-coronation in 1804 was the first extraordinary event to break the secular tradition of kings being crowned by bishops, Jaume Aurell vividly demonstrates that self-coronations were not as transgressive or unconventional as has been imagined. Drawing on numerous examples of royal self-coronations, with a particular focus on European Kings of the Middle Ages, including Frederic II of Germany (1229), Alphonse XI of Castile (1328), Peter IV of Aragon (1332) and Charles III of Navarra (1390), Aurell draws on history, anthropology, ritual studies, liturgy and art history to explore royal self-coronations as privileged sites at which the frontiers and limits between the temporal and spiritual, politics and religion, tradition and innovation are encountered.

Jaume Aurell is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Navarra, Spain. His previous publications include Authoring the Past (2012), Theoretical Perspectives on Historians’ Autobiographies (2015) and, as editor, Rethinking Historical Genres in the Twenty-First Century (2017).

Table des matières :

Introduction

Throughout medieval Europe, for hundreds of years, monarchy was the way that politics worked in most countries. This meant power was in the hands of a family – a dynasty; that politics was family politics; and political life was shaped by the births, marriages and deaths of the ruling family. How did the dynastic system cope with female rule, or pretenders to the throne? How did dynasties use names, the numbering of rulers and the visual display of heraldry to express their identity? And why did some royal families survive and thrive, while others did not? Drawing on a rich and memorable body of sources, this engaging and original history of dynastic power in Latin Christendom and Byzantium explores the role played by family dynamics and family consciousness in the politics of the royal and imperial dynasties of Europe. From royal marriages and the birth of sons, to female sovereigns, mistresses and wicked uncles, Robert Bartlett makes enthralling sense of the complex web of internal rivalries and loyalties of the ruling dynasties and casts fresh light on an essential feature of the medieval world.

Robert Bartlett, CBE, FBA, is Professor Emeritus at the University of St Andrews. His books include The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change 950-1350 (1993), which won the Wolfson Literary Prize for History in 1994, and Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? (2015). He is well-known as the writer and presenter of several BBC documentary series including ‘Inside the Medieval Mind’ (2008), ‘The Normans’ (2010), and ‘The Plantagenets’ (2014).

Table des matières :

Introduction. Royal Families

Part I. The Life Cycle:
Choosing a bride
Waiting for sons to be born
Fathers and sons
Female sovereigns
Mistresses and bastards
Family dynamics

Part II. A Sense of Dynasty:
Names and numbering
Saints, images, heraldry, family trees
Responses to dynastic uncertainty: prophecy and astrology
Pretenders and returners: dynastic imposters in the Middle Ages
New families and new kingdoms
Dynasties and the non-dynastic world

Conclusion
Appendices.

Informations pratiques :

Robert Bartlett, Blood Royal. Dynastic Politics in Medieval Europe, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2020 (The James Lydon Lectures in Medieval History and Culture). 672 p., 235 x 158 x 44 mm. ISBN: 9781108490672. Prix: 24,99 £.

Source : Cambridge University Press

En partant de la « longue et grande guerre d’Italie » (Goro Dati) menée, dans la première moitié du XVe siècle, contre le duc de Milan Philippe Marie Visconti par une coalition changeante de puissances, ce volume étend à l’ensemble du contexte italien l’analyse du conflit militaire et idéologique entre Florence et Milan, dont les racines remontent au siècle précédent. Se fondant sur un riche corpus documentaire et sur une large bibliographie, l’ouvrage s’intéresse également aux retentissements que cette guerre eut sur les changements politiques, diplomatiques et culturels de l’Italie de la Renaissance, et poursuit un double objectif. Tout d’abord, il propose la reconstruction et l’analyse des origines de ces guerres anti-Visconti, qui sont étudiées ici par le biais d’une approche interdisciplinaire et multidisciplinaire. Deuxièmement, le volume souhaite présenter une nouvelle interprétation de ce conflit et une nouvelle façon d’en appréhender les échanges diplomatiques, en clarifiant certaines dynamiques de ce « long Quattrocento » qui se prolongea jusqu’au milieu du XVIe siècle. Dans le sillage de la New Diplomatic History, la perspective adoptée par cette étude est donc chronologiquement et méthodologiquement ample, et permet à l’auteur d’affronter les problèmes posés – et les possibilités offertes – par les recherches contemporaines sur l’histoire diplomatique, tant au niveau narratif qu’épistémologico-disciplinaire.

Partendo dalla «lunga et grande guerra d’Italia» (Goro Dati) condotta nella prima metà del XV secolo da una mutevole coalizione di potentati italiani contro Filippo Maria Visconti, il volume ne approfondisce ragioni e dinamiche spesso risalenti al secolo precedente, e porta all’attenzione le ripercussioni che queste guerre ebbero su alcuni degli importanti cambiamenti politici, diplomatici e culturali intercorsi nell’Italia del Rinascimento tra Quattro e Cinquecento. Incardinato su un ricco corpus documentario e su una folta bibliografia, il lavoro si pone su un piano duplice: da un lato, la ricostruzione e l’analisi degli avvenimenti inerenti alle origini di questo scontro antivisconteo (finora non del tutto studiato, se si eccettua un lavoro del 1888), qui indagato attraverso un approccio interdisciplinare e multidisciplinare che stabilisce intersezioni tra ambiti di ricerca spesso ritenuti non così prossimi tra loro; dall’altro, propone una lettura più dilatata, che permette di cogliere certe dinamiche e caratteristiche del « lungo Quattrocento » italiano, così come le peculiarità di un conflitto militare e ideologico, condotto con gli eserciti ma anche con le armi della retorica. In un jeu d’échelles costantemente dichiarato, lo sguardo è dunque cronologicamente e metodologicamente meno ristretto, e lo studio affronta in filigrana i problemi posti e le possibilità offerte dal fare oggi storia della diplomazia, sul piano tanto narrativo quanto epistemologico-disciplinare. 

Luciano Piffanelli insegna Storia moderna e Archivistica all’Université de Picardie. Membro di diversi centri di ricerca internazionali, la sua attività scientifica si concentra su politica, cultura e società in Italia e in Europa tra XIV e XVIII secolo, da una prospettiva sensibilmente interdisciplinare: semiotica dello spazio e territorialità del potere; archivi, scrittura e cultura scritta; emotional studies; violenza, conflittualità, processi di pacificazione; new diplomatic history. Dal 2019, dirige l’asse di ricerca Archives of peace presso il Medici Archive Project.

Table des matières : ici

Informations pratiques :

Luciano Piffanelli, Politica e diplomazia nell’Italia del primo Rinascimento : per uno studio della guerra « contra et adversus dominum ducem Mediolani », Rome, École française de Rome, 2020 (Collection de l’École française de Rome, 569). 534 p. ISBN : ISBN: 978-2-7283-1440-9. 48 €.

Source : École française de Rome

Meillerie. Un prieuré fortifié de chanoines réguliers (XIIe-XIXe siècle) aux éditions de l’Académie salésienne et dans la collection Mémoires et documents, tome 127. Les non-adhérents qui veulent acquérir cet ouvrage peuvent le faire par courrier pour 32€ + 10€ de frais d’envoi.

Source : Académie salésienne

Weshalb zogen Edelleute und Fürsten nicht nur aus Deutschland und den Niederlanden, sondern auch aus Schottland, England, Frankreich, Spanien und Italien auf langen Ritten oder zu Schiff immer wieder nach Preußen, um dort mit dem Deutschen Orden gegen die Litauer zu kämpfen und für all dies auch noch selbst zu bezahlen? In einem ausgedehnten Durchgang durch die volkssprachige Literatur des spätmittelalterlichen Europas wird gezeigt, wie die kriegerische Aristokratie leben sollte, die oft genug im Solddienst unterwegs war. Ehrenreden und Wappenbücher der Herolde sind dabei eine besonders ergiebige Quelle. Es stellt sich heraus, dass es eine autonome Adelskultur gab, die sich kirchlichen Zumutungen nur unter ihren Bedingungen beugte. Personengeschichtliche Kataloge und rekonstruierte Einzelviten zeigen, dass und wie literarisches Vorbild und tatsächliche Lebensführung einander entsprachen und Königsberg in Preußen ein Jahrhundert lang zum Zentrum des internationalen Rittertums werden konnte.

Why did gentry, nobles and princes, not only from Germany and the Netherlands, but also from Scotland, England, France, Spain and Italy go ever so often on long rides or by ship to Prussia in order to fight with the Teutonic Order against the heathen Lithuanians, and all that on their own cost? A thorough examination of the European vernacular literatures of the later middle ages shows, how the armigerous aristocracy, quite often on the road as mercenaries, was thought to live. “Ehrenreden” and armorials are a most rewarding source in this respect. The result is, that there was an autonomous noble culture, which accepted ecclesiastical prescriptions only as long as they corresponded to secular conditions. Extensive biographical catalogues and reconstructed single lives show that and how literary models and effective livestyles corresponded and Königsberg was able to become for one century the hotspot of international chivalry.

Prof. Dr. Werner Paravicini ist Honorarprofessor am Historischen Seminar der Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel. Von 1993 bis 2007 war er Direktor des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Paris, Frankreich. Er ist Mitglied der Akademien in Göttingen und Brüssel, Belgien, und der Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in Paris.

Informations pratiques :

Werner Paravicini, Adlig leben im 14. Jahrhundert. Weshalb sie fuhren: Die Preußenreisen des europäischen Adels. Teil 3, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2020. 807 Seiten, gebunden. ISBN: 978-3-8471-1128-3. Prix : 79,99 euros.

Source : Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht