L'Agenda des Médiévistes

In this collection of essays Gérard Gouiran, one of the world’s leading and much-loved scholars of medieval Occitan literature, examines this literature from a primarily historical perspective. Through texts offering hitherto unexplored insights into the history and culture of medieval Europe, he studies topics such as the representation of alterity through female figures and Saracens in opposition to the ideal of the Christian knight; the ways in which the narrating of history can become resistance and propaganda discourse in the clash between the Catholic Church and the French on the one hand, and the Cathar heretics and the people of Occitania on the other; questions of intertextuality and intercultural relations; cultural representations fashioning the West in contact with the East; and Christian dissidence in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Written in an approachable style, the book will be of historical, literary and philological interest to scholars and students, as well as any reader curious about this hitherto little-known Occitan literature.

Gérard Gouiran was born in 1945 at Le Rove, which was then a small village close to Marseille. His parents often spoke Occitan between themselves, but avoided doing so with their children for fear of damaging their education. It was only after studying Classics in Marseille and then Paris that Professor Gouiran rediscovered the Occitan language, and from then on he has devoted himself to medieval literature. Best known for his magisterial edition of the troubadour Bertran de Born, he has written – and spoken – widely on troubadour lyric, epic, and romance.

Table des matières :

Part 1: Women and Saracens in the Occitan chansons de geste

Chapter 1. Silhouettes of women in the Occitan and Old French Roland texts
Chapter 2. Belauda’s garden
Chapter 3. Aude, Iphigenia, Polyxena
Chapter 4. So dis la donna: ‘Oy, bel sira Rollan, mos maritz es en malaür lo gran’: Saracens and the Saracen woman in Rollan a Saragossa
Chapter 5. The Saracen from the depths of Hell to the gates of salvation
Chapter 6. Between Saracens and Christians, or the decapitated horse

Part 2: Aspects of war in Occitan chansons de geste and lyric poetry

Chapter 7. Per las lurs armas devon tostemps cantier: intertextuality effects between Ronsasvals and certain lyric planhz
Chapter 8. The first appearance of the herald in literature and the early war songs of Bertran de Born

Part 3: The Albigensian Crusade

Chapter 9. Drama queen? Worse: a jongleur! – or how to discredit an opponent: the representation of Bishop Fulk of Toulouse, alias Folquet de Marseille, by the anonymous author of the Song of the Albigensian Crusade
Chapter 10. The French against Montfort? The war councils held by Simon de Montfort in the second part of the Song of the Albigensian Crusade
Chapter 11. The good use of rebellion
Chapter 12. The Toulousains cry ‘Toulouse!’, the Gascons ‘Comminges!’ … The Comminges parallels in the Song of the Albigensian Crusade
Chapter 13. The troubadour and the lord: history as viewed by the anonymous author of the Song of the Albigensian Crusade
Chapter 14. Las Novas del heretje, or who benefits from propaganda?

Informations pratiques :

Gérard Gouiran, From Chanson de Geste to Epic Chronicle Medieval Occitan Poetry of War, Routledge, 2020. 236 p. ISBN 9781138493223. Prix : 96 £.

Source : Routledge

Cet ouvrage constitue la première étude d’ensemble de l’œuvre poétique yiddish d’Élia Lévita (1469-1549) et cherche à définir sa place dans la littérature de la Renaissance en analysant les transferts esthétiques et culturels ayant présidé à sa production. Il situe l’œuvre vernaculaire de ce savant hébraïste, proche des humanistes chrétiens, dans les traditions poétiques juives hébraïques et yiddish et dans la logique d’une affirmation du rôle de l’écrivain séculier et de la langue vernaculaire dans la société juive. Il analyse également la portée des modèles extérieurs, chrétiens, en insistant sur l’inscription des romans de chevalerie de Lévita dans l’évolution générale du genre chevaleresque en Italie. L’Arioste, et en particulier son Roland furieux, ont joué un rôle majeur dans le raffinement progressif du projet esthétique du poète yiddish. Par son ampleur et par sa variété, l’œuvre vernaculaire d’Élia Lévita constitue non seulement la première œuvre moderne de la littérature yiddish mais aussi un cas particulièrement évocateur de diffusion des modèles esthétiques de la Renaissance dans des catégories ethniques (les Juifs) et sociales (les classes populaires) que l’on aurait pu croire éloignées de ces mutations culturelles.

Arnaud Bikard, ancien élève de l’École Normale Supérieure (Ulm) et agrégé de Lettres Modernes, a préparé et soutenu une thèse de doctorat en Littérature Comparée à l’Université Paris-Sorbonne en 2014. Il est Maître de Conférences en langue et culture yiddish à l’INALCO.

Table des matières :

Introduction

Chapitre I : La personnalité de Lévita et son insertion dans le cadre de la Renaissance italienne
Chapitre II : La place de Lévita dans la création littéraire juive de la fin du Moyen Âge et de la Renaissance
Chapitre III : Expérimentations chevaleresques en Italie au tournant du XVe et du XVIe siècle
Chapitre IV : L’évolution de l’œuvre chevaleresque de Lévita : du paradigme de Pulci au modèle de l’Arioste
Chapitre V : l’œuvre satirique de Lévita, entre invective burlesque et dérision complice

Conclusion
Annexes
Bibliographie
Index des noms propres (personnalités et œuvres)

Informations pratiques :

Arnaud Bikard, La Renaissance italienne dans les rues du Ghetto. L’œuvre poétique yiddish d’Élia Lévita (1469-1549), Turnhout, Brepols, 2020 (Mediterranean Nexus 1100-1700, 6). 924 p., 4 b/w tables, 156 x 234 mm. ISBN: 978-2-503-56974-1. Prix : 195 euros.

Source : Brepols

The Basilica of Sant’Ambrogio in Milan, originally built under Ambrose (374-397), and radically restructured at the end of the eleventh century, is an extraordinary lieu de mémoire, containing the presence of medieval objects and monuments. Through the study of some of the renowned works conserved in the basilica, among which the chapel of San Vittore in Ciel d’Oro, the golden altar, and the St Ambrose ciborium, this book deals with the interaction between the building’s topology and its objects, the relics around which the basilica was built, and the notion of ‘migrants’. The aim, in other words, is to analyze, over the longue durée, how some objects became a reflection of the relics, and how the material sanctity stemming from them was used as an instrument of exclusion and inclusion in a problematic ethnic context. Dedicated photographic documentation, carried out specifically for this work, offers rich and sumptuous iconographic material underpinning the volume.

Ivan Foletti is professor of art history at Masaryk University, Brno, where he specializes in the study of the historiography of Byzantine studies and in the art of Milan, Rome, and the Caucasus in the late Antique and early medieval period. He is the head of the Center for Early Medieval Studies in Brno, editor-in-chief of Convivium, and director of the Hans Belting Library.

Table des matières :

Objects, relics, and migrants: a few introductory remarks
1. The apse of the Basilica Martyrum and the Milanese relics in the fourth century
Plates
Gervase, Protase and the lost apse
The Milanese relics and the construction of the city

2. The Sacellum of San Vittore in Ciel d’Oro and the birth of the cult of Ambrose
Plates
A controversial edifice
Images and relics
The image in the apse?
Victor’s apotheosis

3. Exile in Genoa, the relics of Ambrose, the Lombards, and the year 600
The Milanese bishops in exile
The cult of the relics of Ambrose in Milan

4. The golden altar and the Carolingians in Milan
Plates
A resplendent reliquary
The Milanese relics and Carolingian Milan

5. The apse narrative: Rome and the Empire
Plates
A martyrised mosaic
A new story for an ancient apse
Ambrose, Martin, and the unity between Lombardy and the Empire
Ambrose’s true face
Conclusion: Ambrose, his body, his image, and ethnic inclusion

6. The Sant’Ambrogio ciborium and the eclipse of Milan
Plates
A decorative palimpsest
An object and its context: the view from the nave
The Milanese saints raised to glory
A royal coronation in Milan?
Conclusion. Ambrose before Barnabas (and after Dario Fo)

Bibliography
Index of names
Index of places

Informations pratiques :

Ivan Foletti, Objects, relics, and migrants. The basilica of Sant’Ambrogio in Milan and the cult of its saints (386-972), I Libri di Viella, 2020 (Between. Images, Words and Objects, 2). pp. 250, ill., col., 21×21 cm, bross. ISBN: 9788867289509. Prix : 45 euros.

Source : I Libri di Viella

Medieval manors have long been the subject of academic study, though the ways in which these houses reflected and shaped – and were shaped by – their occupants to express social authority have not yet been fully explored. This book undertakes a wide-ranging and interdisciplinary examination of them, aiming to provide a fuller account of how concepts of space and domestic place were understood, represented, and used by their occupants in England and Normandy from c. 900 to c. 1200, and how this illuminates aspects of gender and authority in the period. Blending approaches from archaeology and history, it uses evidence from Anglo-Saxon wills, standing and excavated manorial sites in England and Normandy, and a variety of written texts from vitae to history to poetry, in order to delve into, deconstruct and reconstruct gendered notions of authority in the period. This book ultimately challenges ideas of gendered objects and places through the medieval construction of authoritative personae, and the use and representation of medieval manors, focusing on the household as a place and space of performance in the age of the Norman Conquest.

KATHERINE WEIKERT is Senior Lecturer in Early Medieval History at the University of Winchester.

Table des matières :

Introduction: Whys and Wherefores
Chapter One: Acting with Objects
Chapter Two: Experiencing Spaces I – People and Privacy
Chapter Three: Experiencing Spaces II – Buildings and Spaces
Chapter Four: Writing Places
Conclusions: The Curated Space

Informations pratiques :

Katherine Weikert, Authority, Gender and Space in the Anglo-Norman World, 900-1200, Boydell & Brewer, 2020. 2 colour, 1 black and white, 74 line illustrations. 232 pages. 24×17 cm. ISBN : 9781783275120. Prix : 75 £.

Source : Boydell & Brewer

Gregory of Tours was a bishop of late antiquity who was famously devoted to promoting the efficacy of saintly powers. In his writings, both historical and hagiographical, Gregory depicted the saints and reprobates of his age. This book analyses Gregory’s writings about death and the afterlife, thereby illuminating the bishop’s pastoral imperative to save souls and revealing his opinions about the fates of Merovingian royals, among many others he mentions in his voluminous text. The study provides insight into Gallic peoples living at the dawning of the Middle Ages and their hopes and fears about the otherworld. It offers an original, nuanced interpretation of Gregory’s motives for penning his works, particularly the Historiae, which remained unfinished upon the author’s death.

Allen Jones is Professor and Chair of the Department of History and Philosophy at Troy University.

Informations pratiques :

Allen E. Jones, Death and Afterlife in the Pages of Gregory of Tours. Religion and Society in Late Antique Gaul, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2020 (Social Worlds of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages). 324 pages. ISBN : 9789462988040. Prix : 129 euros.

Source : Amsterdam University Press

Commentaries on authoritative texts from Antiquity and the Middle Ages are increasingly being recognized as witnesses to a rich tradition of cultural reception and intellectual engagement. This renewed interest goes hand-in-hand with an increased demand for critical editions of the texts in question. However, the genre of the commentary presents a number of specific challenges to the editor, challenges related to the textual dynamic, the presentation on the page, and the intertwined transmission history of the commentary and the authoritative text that forms its subject. This volume brings together twelve case studies on texts written in Greek and Latin, which range from Antiquity to the Late Middle Ages. Touching upon a variety of fields, including literature, theology, philosophy, medicine, and law, these case studies offer an interdisciplinary perspective on commentaries on authoritative texts and the editors’ challenging work to accurately reconstruct and present them.

Table des matières :

Reflections on Editing Commentaries on Authoritative Texts – Shari Boodts, Pieter De Leemans & Stefan Schorn
Plurality of Redactions and Access to the Original: Editing John of Jandun’s Questions on Aristotle’s Rhetoric – Iacopo Costa
Hippocrates at Montpellier – Michael McVaugh
Textual Features and Editorial Challenges Posed by the Liber glossarum: Some Remarks on the Quotations from Augustine’s De Genesi ad litteram – Marina Giani
Editing Anonymous Voices: The scholia uetera to the Iliad – Fausto Montana
Unlocking the sacra pagina: Editing the Biblical Gloss with the Help of its Medieval Users – Alexander Andrée
Editing the Lemmata of Galen’s Commentary on the Hippocratic Aphorisms, Book 5 – Giulia Ecca
Editing Lemmas in the Second Book of Proclus’ In Timaeum – Lorenzo Ferroni & Gerd Van Riel
Helpful Interactions between Commentary and Text: Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics and Important Manuscripts of this Treatise – Christian Brockmann
Critically Editing a So-Called “Sentences Commentary” – Monica Brînzei & Chris Schabel
The Past, the Others, Himself: The Open Dialogue of a Medieval Legal Author with his Text – Sara Menzinger
The Authority of Being Useful: Servius on and off the Page – James H. Brusuelas
Papyrus Commentaries on the Iliad – Lara Pagani

Index codicum
Index locorum

Informations pratiques :

Sicut dicit: Editing Ancient and Medieval Commentaries on Authoritative Texts, dir. S. Boodts, P. De Leemans †, S. Schorn, Turnhout, Brepols, 2020 (Lectio, 8). 376 p., 6 b/w ill. + 5 colour ill., 156 x 234 mm. ISBN: 978-2-503-58649-6. Prix : 95 euros.

Source : Brepols