L'Agenda des Médiévistes

An investigation into how the emotional language in texts intended for solitary women became the foundation for a medieval Christian reading public

Scorn, Shame, and the Simple Reader reveals how a cluster of rarely studied guides to the religious life helped forge a new identity in late medieval England. Lifting passages wholesale from texts originally intended only for holy virgins walled up in cells, these treatises turned Christlike shame and scorn for the world into an emotional language of collective belonging. Their simple readers—people of all genders and from all walks of life, all addressed as a “dear sister” while they read—exemplified a new mode of public spirituality, formed through acts of reading and imagination.

As Spencer Strub demonstrates, these acts of reshaping a life proved fertile ground for experiments in literary invention. Piers Plowman, The Book of Margery Kempe, and the N-Town cycle plays share the same vocabulary, make the same metaphors, and abhor the same sins. They share the simple reader’s scorn and shame, in other words, but they put it to different ends. Dwelling in the impossible space between holiness and the world, these literary works found new ways to narrate the particularities of life as it was actually lived. In rewriting our understanding of gender, emotion, and piety in a period of religious upheaval, Strub provides a new perspective on the efflorescence of vernacular English fiction at the turn of the fifteenth century.

Spencer Strub is Associate Research Scholar in the Humanities Council and Lecturer in English at Princeton University.

Informations pratiques :

Spencer Strub, Scorn, Shame, and the Simple Reader. Lay Piety and Literature in Late Medieval England, Philadelphia, Unievrsity of Pennsylvania Press, 2026 ; 1 vol., 264 p. ISBN : 978-1-51282-938-9. Prix : USD 65,00.

Source : University of Pennsylvania Press

This book honours the achievements of Marco Mostert, professor of Medieval History at Utrecht University. Marco has been one of the main promotors and proponents of the expanding field of studies in medieval literacy and orality. The book celebrates his legacy by focusing on communication and writing in the Middle Ages, themes central to Marco’s interest. It is divided into two sections. Part I covers the early medieval period, focusing on manuscripts and texts, mainly those produced by clerics. Articles in this section include studies on the liturgical hymn Te Deum; Carolingian political hegemony in Frisia; a new Carolingian witness of Suetonius’s Life of Caesars; the Utrecht Psalter and its historical context; monastic socialization; political communication through sermons; manuscript annotations at Fleury-sur-Loire; Ademar of Chabannes’s final years; and the semantic field of communicatio.

Part II shifts focus to written communication in broader societal layers in the later medieval period, when writing became significant for other societal groups like townsfolk and peasants. Articles in this section discuss a case of identifying a thief through written documents; urban literacy in Danish and Hungarian towns; graffiti in Abruzzi churches; the cartulary of Egmond monastery; and literate culture among late medieval countryside inhabitants.

Friends, collaborators, colleagues, and former students of Marco have contributed to this volume, with all authors discussing different aspects of the use of the written word in various parts of the medieval European world. The result is a book with multiple facets, collectively contribute to a deeper understanding of medieval literacy and its societal implications.

Table des matières :

Preface

Contributors

Introduction

Part I. Manuscripts, Texts, and Communities in Early Medieval Europe

1. The Te Deum: Liturgy, Orthodoxy, and Politics in the Early Middle Ages
ROSAMOND MCKITTERICK

2. Educating Frisians in the Eighth Century: The Evidence of the Paenitentiale Oxoniense II
ROB MEENS

3. A New Carolingian Witness to the Text of Suetonius De Vita Caesarum
DAVID GANZ

4. Three of a Kind: Dating the Utrecht Psalter, Ebo Gospels, and Eller Gospels
BART JASKI

5. Intus – Foris: On Monastic Perception and Political Order in the Epitaphium Arsenii
MAYKE DE JONG

6. Sermons hagiographiques et communication politique: Un sermon prononcé en l’honneur de saint Ghislain au xie siecle (BHL 3553)
ANNE-MARIE HELVÉTIUS

7. Reading with the Pen in the Books of Fleury
IRENE VAN RENSWOUDE AND MARIKEN TEEUWEN

8. The Fall From Grace of Ademar of Chabannes (989–1034) — or the ‘Deceits’ of Historiography
AD VAN ELS

9. Communicare memoriae: An Essay on Communication in Medieval Latin Liturgy
ELS ROSE

Part II. Towards a Social History of Writing in Later Medieval Europe

10. Hitting Abraham’s Eye: How to Identify a Thief with the Help of a Hammer (Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries)
CARINE VAN RHIJN

11. ‘Don’t Shoot the Messenger!’ On the Uses and Misuses of the Written Word in Late Medieval Rural Poland
ANNA ADAMSKA

12. Town Books in Late Medieval Denmark
KASPER H. ANDERSEN, JEPPE BÜCHERT NETTERSTRØM, AND BJØRN POULSEN

13. Layers of Literacy in the Cathedral Cities of Medieval Hungary
KATALIN SZENDE AND ANNA KINDE

14. Chronicle Graffiti for a Social History and Geography of Writing: Some Cases from Abruzzo
CARLO TEDESCHI

15. The Cartulary of Egmond Abbey
J. W. J. BURGERS

16. Accountability — From Organized Distrust to Obscure Confusion: A Case Study
BRAM VAN DEN HOVEN VAN GENDEREN

17. Peasants and Charters in Late Medieval Poland
AGNIESZKA BARTOSZEWICZ

18. ‘Oerconde myn hant’: Literate Attitudes of Peasants in Financial Records of Eindhoven and Cranendonck (1532–1547)
MARK VERMEER

Tabula Gratulatoria

Informations pratiques :

Dynamics of Literacy in Medieval Europe. Studies in Honour of Marco Mostert, éd. A.J. van den Hoven van Genderen, Rob Meens, Carine van Rhijn, Turnhout, Brepols, 2026 ; 1 vol., 347 p. (Brepols Collected Essays in European Culture, 9). ISBN : 978-2-503-61064-1. Prix : € 100,00.

Source : Brepols

Dès l’Antiquité tardive, les traités de logique d’Aristote, désignés sous le nom d’Organon, se sont imposés comme des textes fondamentaux dont la maîtrise conditionnait l’accès à l’ensemble du cursus philosophique. Afin d’en faciliter l’intelligibilité, enseignants et érudits entreprirent la rédaction de nombreux commentaires destinés à en éclairer les subtilités. Dans ce contexte, le philosophe néoplatonicien Porphyre de Tyr (234-305) composa l’Isagogè, appelé à devenir une introduction à toute la logique aristotélicienne. Ce corpus forma un dispositif conceptuel à la longévité et à la diffusion remarquables : Grecs, Byzantins, Latins, Syriaques, Arabes et Juifs ont tour à tour traduit, étudié, commenté et transmis ces textes jusqu’aux humanistes italiens.

La présente édition propose la traduction de deux oeuvres d’Averroès (1126-1198), l’un des plus éminents commentateurs d’Aristote : d’une part, l’Épitomé de l’Organon, conservé seulement en judéo-arabe et en hébreu et n’ayant jamais fait l’objet d’une édition ni d’une traduction intégrale, bien qu’il ait profondément marqué la tradition logique juive dès le XIII^e siècle, et ce jusqu’au XVI^e siècle grâce à sa version hébreu-latine due à l’humaniste juif italien Abraham de Balmes (1440-1523) ; d’autre part, le Commentaire moyen de l’Isagogè, conservé uniquement en hébreu, témoignant d’une phase plus mûre de la pensée du philosophe andalou.

La diffusion de ces textes dans le monde juif illustre à la fois l’importance accordée à la logique dans l’apprentissage des sciences et la place centrale qu’Averroès occupa, au Moyen Âge, au sein de divers milieux intellectuels.

Aïcha Belabid, docteure en philosophie (INALCO), est spécialiste de la philosophie arabe et hébraïque.

Table des matières :

Remerciements
L’Organon d’Aristote et la constitution de la tradition logique médiévale : de l’exégèse néoplatonicienne à Ibn Rušd
Chapitre I : Histoire d’un texte
Chapitre II : Taṣawwur et taṣdīq dans l’Épitomé de l’Organon
Chapitre III : La logique comme « adab »
Chapitre IV : La tradition logique juive : obstacles, méthodes et enjeux
Chapitre V : La réception de l’Épitomé de l’Organon
Conclusion
Note à propos de la traduction française
La traduction de l’Épitomé de l’Organon
Le Commentaire moyen de l’Isagogè
Traduction de l’hébreu du Commentaire moyen de l’Isagogè d’Ibn Rušd.
Bibliographie sélective

Informations pratiques :

Averroès, Épitomé de l’Organon d’Aristote, suivi du Commentaire moyen de l’Isagogé de Porphyre, trad. Aïcha Belabid, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2026 ; 1 vol., 420 p. (Sagesses médiévales, 31). ISBN : 978-2-25145-934-9. Prix : € 39,00.

Source : Les Belles Lettres

Loin d’être « deux solitudes », les médiévistes anglophones et francophones entretiennent des liens étroits et féconds. Ce livre renforce ces échanges en proposant la traduction en français de cinq travaux classiques de la médiévistique anglophone, accompagnés de préfaces inédites de leurs auteurs.

Table des matières : ici

Informations pratiques :

Le Moyen Âge de l’autre solitude. Cinq classiques de la médiévistique anglophone, éd. Richard Matthew Pollard, Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2026 ; 1 vol., 397 p. (Recherches littéraires médiévales, 47). ISBN : 978-2-406-18759-2. Prix : € 38,00.

Source : Classiques Garnier

The medieval cultures of Europe (800-1450) produced novel cultural forms related to the human experience of death and dying that merit deep consideration. This volume contributes fresh interpretations and a new synthesis of perspectives on this dynamic cultural horizon informed by breakthrough work in a range of fields, including archaeology, art history, history, literature, and theology. The authors of individual chapters bring to their topics not just expertise in their given fields, but also a sense of major shifts in the way we study death, reflecting on the changing norms, attitudes, and values that drove people’s experience of this crucial last phase of life.

Pushing back against the tired cliches about death in pre-modern culture, the essays detail those features of death culture that persist through time and across cultures-like the preference for burial in churches and churchyards across Europe-while also marking the emergence of novel and distinctive practices and beliefs-like the evolution of Purgatory, with associated impacts on prayers for the dead. While attending to sharp differences between the medieval world and our own, the authors also note uncanny continuities with the present. The cumulative effect is to leave the reader with a profound sense of the cultural contribution of the medieval period to the moral obligation to take ownership of our own deaths, regardless of our belief system, and to honor our relationship to the dead, on whom our cultures are founded.

A Cultural History of Death is part of The Cultural Histories Series. Titles are available as hardcover sets for libraries needing just one subject or preferring a tangible reference for their shelves or as part of a fully-searchable digital library. The digital product is available to institutions by annual subscription or on perpetual access via http://www.bloomsburyculturalhistory.com. Individual volumes are available in print or digitally via http://www.bloomsburycollections.com.

Table des matières :

Introduction
1. Dead and Dying Bodies, Danielle Westerhoff, (Durham University, UK)
2. The Sensory Aesthetics of Death, Elina Gertsman and Sam Truman, (Western Reserve University, USA)
3. Emotions, Mortality and Vitality, Jill Bradley, (Independent scholar)
4. Death’s Ritual-Symbolic Performance, Amy Appleford, (Boston University, USA)
5. Sites, Power and Politics of Death, Victoria Whitworth, (Independent scholar, UK)
6. Gender, Age and Identity, Belle Tuten, (Juniata College, USA)
7. Explaining Death: Belief, Law and Ethics, Bruce Gordon, (Yale University and Divinity School, USA)
8. The Undead and Eternal, Carl Watkins, (Cambridge University, UK)
Bibliography
Notes
Index

Informations pratiques :

A Cultural History of Death in the Middle Ages, éd. Ashby Kinch, Londres, Bloomsbury, 2026 ; 1 vol., 216 p. (The Cultural Histories Series). ISBN : 978-1-47253-751-5. Prix : GBP 75,00.

Source : Bloomsbury