L'Agenda des Médiévistes

À la rareté des mises en scène d’un répertoire proprement médiéval répond le nombre important de pièces, de la fin du XIX^e siècle aux premières années du XXI^e siècle, qui, d’une manière directe ou allusive, entretiennent un rapport avec le Moyen Âge. Cet ensemble constitue l’objet de ce livre.

Car le « Moyen Âge » possède, au sein de la modernité, une plasticité apte à s’adapter aux intentions artistiques et idéologiques aussi opposées que celles d’un Claudel, d’un Copeau ou d’un Jan Fabre, d’un Ghelderode ou d’un Laurent Gaudé, d’un Cocteau ou d’un Dario Fo. La référence médiévale permet les options dramaturgiques et scéniques les plus variées. Celle-ci semble, en effet, une matière qui circule de l’effet de vérité historique à l’anachronisme assumé, de la beauté à la laideur, du hiératique au grotesque, du mystique à la farce. Ce « Moyen Âge » est moins un temps saisi dans sa réalité concrète que fantasmé.

Cet essai propose d’analyser non seulement les choix scéniques et artistiques que prend ce que l’on appellera la figuration médiévale mais encore les modalités de ce choix (personnages médiévaux, figures légendaires, événements historiques) chez tel ou tel dramaturge, le contexte dans lequel le spectacle s’élabore et se produit (choix personnel, commande, festival, commémoration religieuse ou laïque…).

Enfin, le point de vue « médiéval » permet aussi de parcourir en pointillé l’histoire, moderne et contemporaine, des formes théâtrales, de l’esthétique scénique, de leur sens, sujet qui n’a pas été traité dans son ensemble, contrairement à ce qui a été fait pour le cinéma. C’est le pari de cette étude à deux mains.

Michèle Gally, spécialiste de littérature médiévale, travaille aussi sur les relations entre médiévalité et modernité. Elle est l’auteur de plusieurs essais dans l’un et l’autre de ces domaines.

Marie-Claude Hubert est spécialiste du théâtre des XX^e et XXI^e siècles, notamment de Beckett, de Genet, de Ionesco dont elle a édité les œuvres.

Table des matières : ici

Informations pratiques :

Michèle Gally, Marie-Claude Hubert, L’empreinte médiévale dans le théâtre moderne en France, XXe-XXIe siècles, Paris, Honoré Champion, 2026 ; 1vol., 264 p. (Littérature de notre siècle, 86). ISBN : 978-2-74536-485-2. Prix : € 46,00.

Source : Honoré Champion

This book offers a vivid account of women’s religiosity in Italy between 1400 and 1550, a crucial period of spiritual ferment and ecclesiastical change. Rather than focusing solely on institutions, this book brings to light the many ways in which women sought religious authority, pursued holiness, and contributed to broader hopes for renewal within the Church.

It examines the relationship between prophetic and political power in Italian Renaissance courts. Starting from an examination of the “living saints,” charismatic figures venerated by the people for their abstinence and by princes for their prophetic virtues, it considers figures including Elena Duglioli, Margherita da Russi, and Gentile da Ravenna who were perceived as “divine mothers.” It emphasizes women’s active role in spiritual and cultural circles focused on scriptural study and Church reform, often guided by charismatic figures considered saints. The case of the “divine mother” Paola Antonia Negri is not discussed here, since it has already been examined by others, but the intense anger she faced from ecclesiastical and civil authorities exemplifies the change that took place in Italian religious life in the mid-16th century. « Living saints » and « divine mothers » became suspect, and the Council of Trent promoted a new model of holiness and initiated a process of disciplining cults. The volume also paves the way for a European comparative approach, building on the work of Spanish scholars and an initial transalpine perspective proposed by Alessandra Bartolomei Romagnoli.

Clear, engaging, and richly documented, this volume will appeal to scholars and students of early modern history, religious studies, women’s and gender studies, and Italian cultural history, as well as to readers interested in the long history of women’s religious agency.

Gabriella Zarri is an Italian historian and one of the leading scholars of early modern religious culture and female sanctity. She was formerly Professor of Modern History at the University of Florence. Her research explores women’s religious experience, monastic life, devotional practices, and the cultural construction of sainthood between the late Middle Ages and the early modern period. Since 2012 she has been the editor of the journal Archivio italiano per la storia della pietà. Among her best-known works are Le sante vive: Cultura e religiosità femminile nella prima età moderna and Recinti: Donne, clausura e matrimonio nella prima età moderna.

Table des matières :

Bibliographic References

Introduction: Rethinking Early 16th- Century Italian Religiosity—Living Saints, Divine Mothers, and the Agency of Women’s Spiritual Circles

Chapter 1: Living Saints: A Typology of Female Sanctity in the Early 16th Century

Chapter 2: Court Prophets in Renaissance Italy

Chapter 3: The “Mother” of Guglielmo VIII Paleologo: Maddalena Panattieri da Trino, Dominican Penitent (1443-1503)

Chapter 4: A Compendium of Wondrous Deeds of Caterina da Racconigi: Hagiography or Philosophical Treatise?

Chapter 5: A “Noble Way” to Achieve Perfection: The Blessed Elena Duglioli Dall’Olio’s Letter to Anne of Monferrato (1521)

Chapter 6: Suspicions Surrounding Women’s Spiritual Circles: The Court of Mantua and the Cult of Margherita da Russi and Gentile da Ravenna

Conclusion: Women’s Agency in Early 16th-Century Italian Religiosity: from Political Prophecy and Church Reform to the Suspicion of Spiritual Circles—Towards a European Comparative Study

Informations pratiques :

From Living Saints to Divine Mothers. Women’s Religiosity in Italy, 1400–1550, éd. Gabriella Zarri, Londres, Routledge, 2026 ; 1 vol., 234 p. ISBN : 978-1-03293-563-8. Prix : € 210,00.

Source : Routledge

Giovanni de’ Matociis, mansionario della Cattedrale di Verona (m. 1337), è una delle figure più rappresentative dell’ambiente culturale veronese del primo Trecento. Probabilmente nel 1313, in occasione della discesa in Italia di Enrico VII, iniziò a comporre le Ystorie imperiales, che, con i Gesta pontificum Romanorum, dovevano realizzare un ambizioso progetto di storia bipartita della sesta età del mondo. Le Ystorie ricostruiscono la continuità ideale dell’autorità imperiale dall’antichità romana al Medioevo: il racconto si apre con Augusto e ripercorre le vite dei suoi successori, in un arco cronologico che, nelle intenzioni dell’autore, sarebbe dovuto giungere proprio fino a Enrico VII, ma che, nei codici, si interrompe con Carlo il Grosso. Il volume offre l’edizione critica princeps del I libro, che copre il periodo da Augusto alla Tetrarchia, accompagnata dall’edizione di quello che doveva essere il prologo generale delle due storie, pontificale e imperiale. Oltre a un’introduzione storico-letteraria, il libro comprende uno studio della tradizione manoscritta, che conferma l’autografia del ms. Chig. lat. I.VII.259, e propone un’indagine sistematica e approfondita delle fonti..

Informations pratiques :

Giovanni de’ Matociis, Ystorie imperiales (Liber primus), éd. Federico De Dominicis, Laura De Luisa, Michele Vescovo, Florence, SISMEL–Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2026 ; 1 vol., VIII–472 p. (Edizione Nazionale dei Testi Mediolatini d’Italia, 75 ; Serie I, 40). ISBN : 978-88-9290-450-7. Prix : € 82,00.

Source : SISMEL–Edizioni del Galluzzo

Aurélien Chukurian est chargé de recherches FNRS à l’Institut supérieur de Philosophie de l’UCLouvain.

Ueli Zahnd est professeur d’histoire intellectuelle des traditions du protestantisme et directeur de l’Institut d’histoire de la Réformation à l’Univesité de Genève.

Table des matières :

AURELIEN CHUKURIAN et UELI ZAHND, Implications philosophiques et théologiques de l’eucharistie, 11e–18e siècles : introduction
CHRISTIAN BROUWER, La controverse du 11e siècle : Bérenger de Tours entre symbole et réalité
LAURENT CESALLI, Eucharistie et métaphysique au Moyen Âge : quelques points de repère
JOHN SLOTEMAKER, Is Quantity an Absolute Thing? Ockham’s Use of Authorities in Quodlibet 4
FREDERIC GOUBIER, Plus efficace que dans un signe : sémantique et sémiotique de l’eucharistie selon John Wyclif
HANS-CHRISTOPH ASKANI, Qui est en mesure de comprendre la compréhension luthérienne de la Sainte-Cène ?
PIERRICK HILDEBRAND, Entre absence et présence : la doctrine eucharistique d’Ulrich Zwingli
ARTHUR HUIBAN, Théorie du langage ou théologie de la Parole ? Méthode des lieux communs et interprétation de l’eucharistie dans la première théologie de Wittenberg
NATHAN WALLACE, John Calvin’s Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper
UELI ZAHND, La présence cachée du Christ : débats-prétextes dans la philosophie protestante du début du 17e siècle
GIOVANNI GELLERA, « Sed Istud non Capio » : A Scotistic Answer to a Thomistic Problem? Scotism and the Eucharist in the Seventeenth Century
AURELIEN CHUKURIAN, Présences de l’eucharistie dans la philosophie cartésienne. Enjeux des « explications » eucharistiques de Descartes
SIEGRID AGOSTINI, Puissance sacerdotale et puissance divine dans la correspondance eucharistique de Claude Clerselier (1618–1684)
CATHERINE KÖNIG-PRALONG, Des souris et des cannibales. La transsubstantiation dans l’histoire de la philosophie moderne
MAARTEN J.F.M. HOENEN, Enjoying Complexity: A Methodological Perspective on Medieval and Early Modern Eucharistic Debates

Informations pratiques :

L’humain, le réel et le divin. Implications philosophiques et théologiques de l’eucharistie, 11e-18e siècle, éd. Aurélien Chukurian, Ueli Zahnd, Turnhout, Brepols, 2026 ; 1 vol., 380 p. (Textes et Etudes du Moyen Âge, 108). ISBN : 978-2-503-62285-9. Prix : € 65,00.

Source : Brepols

A detailed account of the siege and fall of Constantinople in 1453, a watershed year that closed the book, once and for all, on the Roman Empire and confirmed for Europeans their worst fears about an expanding Ottoman Empire.

Anthony Kaldellis offers a new narrative of the siege and fall of Constantinople in 1453, a watershed year that closed the book, once and for all, on the Roman Empire and confirmed for Europeans their worst fears about an expanding Ottoman Empire.

By the fifteenth century, Constantinople had seen better days, but it was still a vibrant center of learning, worship, commerce, and information. 1453 sketches the tense but exciting shared world of Italians, Turks, and Romans that was thrown into crisis by Mehmed II’s decision to conquer the city. Kaldellis showcases a detailed reconstruction following events on a day-by-day basis, pulling from gripping eye-witness testimonies in Latin, Italian, Greek, Russian, and Turkish. He weighs the strategies of both the attackers and defenders, and proves that, contrary to the fatalism that marks almost all narratives written with hindsight, in reality the defense was hardly a lost cause. The defenders knew exactly what they were doing. They were willing to risk their lives, but it was not their intention to become martyrs. Instead, it was the sultan who was scrambling to neutralize a seemingly impregnable defense. That he did so was a testament to his ingenuity and tenacity.

The final chapters of 1453 trace the fate of the vanquished and their captivity. It also weighs the impact of the city’s fall on the conquerors, the conquered, and on world history. 1453 was not merely a symbol for the passing of the Middle Ages and the onset of early modernity: it changed the very nature of the Ottoman empire and redirected the transmission of cultural legacies, especially those of Greek classical scholarship. The fall of Constantinople is therefore a nexus of converging pathways between east and west, medieval and modern, ends and beginnings.

Anthony Kaldellis is a leading historian and a professor of Classics at the University of Chicago, who specializes in Greek historiography, Plato, and Byzantine Studies. He has published many books and articles on the history, culture, and literature of Byzantium, ranging from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries. He is previous publications include The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium (2023). He is also the host of the podcast « Byzantium & Friends. »

Table des matières :

Preface

1. The Queen of Cities, Still
2. Turks, Romans, and Italians
3. The Outbreak of War
4. The Strategy of the Defenders
5. Mehmed’s Plan of Attack
6. The Defenses Hold
7. Stalemate
8. The Final Assault
9. Conquerors and Slaves
10. The Impact of the Fall

Informations pratiques :

Anthony Kaldellis, 1453. The Conquest and Tragedy of Constantinople, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2026 ; 1 vol., 352 p. ISBN : 978-0-19782-750-5. Prix : GBP 22,99.

Source : Oxford University Press

Convinced that crusade expeditions were failing ‘because of our sins’, Paris-trained reformers targeted ‘corrupt’ clergy and ‘loose women’ (meretrices) in campaigns against prostitution, clerical marriage and concubinage, and lay fornication. Moral theologians tied new forms of participation in crusading to existing and novel forms of lay devotion and promoted crusaders as a new form of ideal penitent to emulate. Rather than cynically employing indulgences to convert devotion into cash for the crusade, many reformers insisted on allowing anyone who wished to ‘take the cross’, and that the effectiveness of any indulgence granted rested on the contrition and true confession of the recipient.

However, reformers became involved in collecting crusade taxes and donations, which potentially damaged their reputations. Reformers also urged secular and religious rulers to clamp down on excessive interest-taking by moneylenders and that any funds derived from this were tainted and must be restored to the moneylenders’ ‘victims’. However, rulers proved reluctant to give up a lucrative tax base traditionally tapped to underwrite crusade participation. Reformers who accompanied crusade armies also had to balance the practical demands of crusade armies with exhortations to maintain the spiritual purity deemed necessary for the success of any crusade campaign. The combination of crusade and reform pioneered by Paris theologians and their allies would result in the mendicant orders’ involvement in both projects and in pastoral care and education. Their conviction that the success of crusading or ‘holy war’ rested on social reform had a profound influence that remains today with ‘crusades’ against drugs, alcohol, gun ownership, ‘crusades’ for civil rights and social justice, and a host of other contemporary reform projects.

Table des matières :

1:Introduction
2:Reforming Networks: Paris Masters and Their Collaborators
3:From Venus’ Daughter to the Virgin Mary’s Son: Crusading and the Reform of Clergy and Women
4:Complications, Compromise, and Criticism: The Dialogic Refashioning of Clerical Reform and Crusade
5:Framing Crusading Devotion
6:Fishers in a Sea of Sinners: Preaching Crusading as Reform
7:Individualizing and Crowdsourcing Salvation: Indulgences and Martyrdom
8:Crowdfunding Crusading: Alms, Taxes, and Vow Redemptions
9:Base Profit or Profiting Souls? Usury (Interest-Taking) and Crusading
10:A Hundredfold Return: Crusading and the Rehabilitation of Usurers
11:Legacies of the Paris Masters: Reformers and the Mendicant Orders

Informations pratiques :

Jessalynn Lea Bird, Crusade and Reform in Latin Christendom. The Paris Masters against Heresy and Corruption, c.1179–c.1254, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2026 ; 1 vol., 464 p. ISBN : 978-0-19879-472-1. Prix : GBP 104,00.

Source : Oxford University Press