L'Agenda des Médiévistes

Flattening the Medieval Earth explores the origin of the ‘flat error’, i.e. the false accusation that ancient and medieval Christians believed in a flat Earth, and what this implies in terms of a conflict between science and Christianity. Engaging with scientific and religious debates, this book includes a reception study of two key figures of the 4^th century AD, Lactantius and Augustine. This study demonstrates that the mistaken ‘dark’ image of medieval scholars as flat-earthers started very early, c. 1600, as an internal Christian debate in the context of new geographical and astronomical views. The author draws on extensive research including many primary and secondary sources from different countries and languages not previously put into conversation. Combining history of science, church history, science and religion, history of navigation, and historiography, this book gives the most updated explanation of the origin of the flat error, finding paradoxes and unexpected answers along the way to understand the past and to reflect on some current approaches in science and religion.

Pablo de Felipe is a researcher and lecturer, with a focus on the relations between science and Christianity, at the Protestant Faculty of Theology SEUT in Madrid (Spain). In the same city he also lectures at the Xavier Zubiri Foundation and is part of the advisory board of the Science, Technology and Religion Chair at the Comillas Pontifical University. He holds a PhD in Molecular Biology from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and a PhD in Religion and Theology from the University of Bristol (UK). He works as Head of Service (Virology) at the Spanish Agency of Medicines and Medical Devices (AEMPS) in Madrid.

Table des matières :

Introduction: Columbus and the flat Earth;
1. Searching for the origins and causes of an error;
2. From the Greek discovery of the spherical Earth to the Medieval debate of the antipodes;
3. Revival and criticism of early Christians’s geographical views in the Early Renaissance (14th and 15th centuries);
4. Old texts and the geographical challenge of the voyages (1434-1522);
5. The early Copernicans and the flat-earthers (1541-1616);
General Conclusions: From the invention of the flat error to the idea of an historical conflict between science and Christianity.

Informations pratiques :

Pablo de Felipe, Flattening the Medieval Earth. Seeking the Early Modern Origins of the Idea of an Historical Conflict between Science and Christianity, Lodnres, Routledge, 2025 ; 1 vol., 280 p. (Routledge Science and Religion Series). ISBN : 978-1-03289-306-8. Prix : GBP 145,00.

Source : Routledge

The bronze doors that survive to this day are the only complex of monumental bronzes from the European Middle Ages that has survived intact. Most of them date from the 11th and 12th centuries and are located in Italy. The doors were crafted from a variety of copper alloys using the lost wax process. They could be cast as a single unit or individual metal fittings could be attached to a wooden support. Some doors feature inlays of various materials, which allowed for the coloured depiction of different biblical scenes or saints. We can now answer questions about the manufacture, the choice of materials and the significance of the materials of all the doors on-site thanks to a complete high-resolution photographic documentation, 3D models and comprehensive material analyses. This book presents the latest research on these extraordinary objects, showcasing new findings and insights.

• First volume in English on the largest complex of medieval monumental bronze doors in Europe
• Presentation of interdisciplinary research on medieval doors

Table des matières : ici

Informations pratiques :

Gates to Paradise. Metal doors of the 11th–12th century, éd. Marianne Mödlinger, Judith Utz, Martin Fera, Heike Schlie, Ratisbonne, Schnell und Steiner, 2025 ; 1 vol., 208 p. (formate – Forschungen zur Materiellen Kultur, 4). ISBN : 978-3-79543-987-3. Prix : € 45,00.

Source : Schnell und Steiner

LOCUS 2 – Le lieu, le sacré, l’espace social au Moyen Âge / LOCUS – Places, sacred and social space in the Middle Ages, éd. Hélène Noizet, Emmanuelle Vagnon, Cahiers de recherches médiévales et humanistes – Journal of Medieval and Humanistic Studies, t. 49, 2025.ISBN : 978-2-406-18802-5. Prix : € 65,00.

Table des matières :

Hélène Noizet, Emmanuelle Vagnon
Avant-propos. Locus – Le lieu, le sacré, l’espace social au Moyen Âge / Foreword. Locus–Places, Sacred and Social Space in the Middle Ages, p. 15.

LE LOCUS : DÉFINITION THÉORIQUE ET APPROCHES GÉO-HISTORIQUES

Didier Méhu
L’église comme « lieu », l’église comme « espace ». Réflexions à partir de travaux récents en langue française / The church as “place”, the church as “space”. Reflections based on recent works in French, p. 27.

Tristan Martine
Entre polylocalité et multipolarisation. Conception et utilisation des lieux et de l’espace par l’aristocratie lotharingienne (IXe-XIe siècle) / Between polylocality and multipolarization.
Conception and usage of sites and space by the Lotharingian aristocracy (9th-11th century), p. 45.

Valérie Theis
La place du lieu dans la géographie administrative de la papauté jusqu’au début du XIIIe siècle / The question of location in the administrative geography of the papacy up to the early 13th century, p. 63.

LE LIEU ET LE SACRÉ : L’APPROCHE ICONOGRAPHIQUE

Mathieu Beaud
La mise en image de l’offrande (XIe-XIIe siècles). Schéma iconographique de la spiritualisation des lieux, des biens et des personnes / The image of the ritual offering (11th-12th centuries). Iconographic schema of the spiritualization of places, material things and persons, p. 87.

Angélique Ferrand
Les duodecim caeli signa et les figures de l’Ecclesia au coeur du lieu ecclésial (XIe-XIIe siècles) / The duodecim caeli signa and the figures of the Ecclesia at the heart of the ecclesial place (11th-12th centuries), p. 111.

LIEUX DE VIE : PRATIQUES SPATIALES

Carole Puig
L’apport de l’aire d’ensilage du village de Taxo-d’Avall (VIIe-XIe siècle) (Pyrénées-Orientales) à notre perception de l’espace médiéval / The contribution of the silage area of the village of Taxo-d’Avall (7th-11th century) (Pyrénées-Orientales) to our perception of medieval space, p. 129.

Caroline Bourlet, Léa Hermenault
Les lieux de l’activité économique à Paris au XIVe siècle, logiques productives et géographiques / Places of economic activity in fourteenth century Paris, production and geographical logics, p. 149.

Ingrid Houssaye-Michienzi, Claire Soussen
Convertir un espace, du « locus Iudeorum » à un « locus conversorum » ? La transformation des quartiers juifs de la couronne d’Aragon après les persécutions de 1391 / Converting a space, from “Locus Iudeorum” to “Locus conversorum”? The transformation of Jewish quarters in the Crown of Aragon after the persecutions of 1391, p. 169.

Source : LAMOP

The history of peacemaking has traditionally been reduced to isolated case studies and seen as the prelude to the presumed ‘universal’ and ‘modern’ international order. Countering this one-dimensional and Eurocentric narrative, this multi-authored volume reconceptualizes peace treaties as a range of successful and failed agreements, settlements, truces, leagues, and other forms of conflict resolution, thus recovering their multilayered history throughout the medieval and early modern period. Rather than a series of ‘great’ treaties, peacemaking is reframed as a flexible phenomenon; a ‘political grammar’, whose complexity is reflected in its variety of forms and sources. Drawing on both diplomatic history and international relations studies, this volume traces the central role that peacemaking has played in the political history of the Western World.

Isabella Lazzarini is Full Professor of Medieval History at the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Turin and a member of the board of the PhD in ‘Historical and Archaeological Sciences’, of the DISCI department of the University of Bologna. Her research interests focus on the political, social, and cultural history of late medieval Italy and the Mediterranean, with an emphasis on Renaissance diplomacy, the growth of different political languages in documentary sources, and gender studies. She is currently working at the EOS project DiplomatiCon: a Connected History of Medieval Mediterranean Diplomacy. The Mamluk Sultanate, Italy, and the Crown of Aragon (14th-15th centuries) (Liège, Antwerpen, Barcelona, Torino/Bologna, 2022-2027).

Luciano Piffanelli is Associate Professor of Early Modern History and Archival Science at the University of Upper Alsace and member of the board of the PhD in ‘European History and Cultures’ at the University of Rome ‘Sapienza’. Spanning from the 15th to the 18th century, his research deals with European politics, cultures, and societies, focusing on diplomatic practices, archival strategies, and intersections between politics, philosophy, and science. He is member of the editorial boards of the journal Legatio and of the book series In margine: Exploring Pre-modern Paratexts, and he has recently been awarded a PIR grant for his project Faire la paix. Édition et textualité des collections diplomatiques de l’époque moderne (XVIIe-XVIIIe s.).

Diego Pirillo is Professor of Italian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where is also affiliated with the History Department. His work focuses on early modern Italy, Europe, and the Atlantic world, with a strong interest in intellectual history, the history of books and reading, refugee studies, colonialism, the history of news and information.

Table des matières :

The Political Grammar of Agreements in the Late Medieval and Early Modern West: An Introduction, Isabella Lazzarini, Luciano Piffanelli, and Diego Pirillo
Prologue: Sources and Text Tradition
1:Diplomatic Sources on Peacemaking in the Late Medieval and Early Modern West (14th-16th Centuries): Letters-Acts-Treaties, Néstor Vigil Montes
2:At the Roots of the History of Diplomacy: Writing, Preserving, and Publishing a Peace Treaty (1454/5-1735), Isabella Lazzarini
Peacekeeping: Political and Confessional Pacts
3:Keeping the Peace and Defending Christendom: The Shaping of the Holy Roman Empire as a Treaty-Based Multilateral Order (14th-16th Centuries), Duncan Hardy
4:Peace and Territory in the Burgundian and Habsburg Low Countries: The Post-Revolt Settlements of 1421-1427 and 1576-1577, Bram De Ridder
5:Giving the Heretics a Stand: The ‘Compacts’ and ‘Concordats’ of Jihlava (Basel) in the Long Struggle for a Peace Agreement between the Roman Church and Bohemian Hussites (1436), Klára Hübner
6:Peacemaking as a Written Work in Progress: Texts and Players (Italy, 15th-16th Centuries), Francesco Senatore
7:Dealing with a Discordant Hydra: Members of the Swiss Confederation in a Constant Struggle for Good Neighbourly Relations, Heinrich Speich
8:Peacemaking in the Context of Religious Violence: The Edict of Nantes and the Fragility of Conflict Resolution, Brian Sandberg
Peacemaking: Foreign Relations and Religious Treaties
9:From Tlemcen to Pisa: Negotiating the Peace in 1358, Mohamed Ouerfelli
10:A Century of Failure? Making Peace in the Hundred Years War, David Green
11:Negotiating for Peace and Trade with the Mamluks: From Truce to Decree, Frédéric Bauden
12:Invisible Treaties: The Governors of Algiers and the Strategic Use of Peace Negotiations during the 16th-Century Ottoman-Habsburg Mediterranean Struggle, Francesco Caprioli
13:On the Diplomatistic Nature of the Treaties of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559): Rule or Exception?, Roseline Claerr
14:On the Failure of Treaties: Bristol 1575, John Watkins
Intersections: Law, Literature, Ethics, Philosophy, and Peacemaking
15:Negotiation, Peacemaking, and Treaties: An Early Medieval Perspective, Jenny Benham
16:Peacemaking in Late Medieval Ius Commune, Dante Fedele
17:Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Ratification, Delay, and the Time of Tragedy, Timothy Hampton
18:The Bridge of Peace: Religious Peace, Oblivion, and the Sovereign’s Clemency, Michaela Valente
19:Peace and Treaties in the Political Thought of Francis Bacon, Samuel Garrett Zeitlin
20:’The Resurrection of a Body Whose Limbs Were Extremely Dispersed’: Reframing Peace and Peace Treaties in Leibniz’s Work (17th-18th Centuries), Luciano Piffanelli
21:Negotiating on the Frontier: Indian Treaties and the Republic of Letters, Diego Pirillo
Epilogue: Afterlives
22:Remembering Westphalia: Rights Talk in Times of ‘Domestic Jurisdiction’, 1648 and 1948, Jane O. Newman

Informations pratiques :

Reframing Treaties in the Late Medieval and Early Modern West, éd. Isabella Lazzarini, Luciano Piffanelli, Diego Pirillo, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2025 ; 1 vol., 512 p. ISBN : 978-0-19895-847-5. Prix : GBP 119,00.

Source : Oxford University Press

Pictorial abstraction in the Middle Ages: an innovative reflection that offers a powerful cross-disciplinary approach to medieval art, under a completely rethought concept of abstraction in close contact with finely analyzed images.

Elina Gertsman is Distinguished University Professor, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities, and Professor of Medieval Art at Case Western Reserve University. She writes on a wide variety of subjects, from image theory to polyfunctionality of objects.

Vincent Debiais is Director of Research at the CNRS and a member of the Centre de recherches historiques (EHESS-CNRS, Paris). He has published on writing, silence and text/image relations in medieval art.

Informations pratiques :

Elina Gertsman, Vincent Debiais, L’hypothèse abstraite. Écart, excès d’image au Moyen Âge, Dijon, Les Presses du Réel, 2025 ; 1 vol., 360 p. ISBN : 978-2-37896-614-0. Prix : € 30,00.

Source : Les Presses du Réel