L'Agenda des Médiévistes

The Meditations on the Life of Christ was a devotional manual composed for the Order of the Poor Clares in early fourteenth-century Italy. In this book, Renana Bartal offers a comprehensive study of the only known fully illuminated manuscript of the long Latin version of this text, now housed in Corpus Christi College at Oxford University. An interdisciplinary analysis combining the methods of art history, textual studies, and gender studies, her book sheds light on the devotional practices of medieval religious women and enriches current understanding of gendered reception and use of books in the later Middle Ages. Through close analysis of text and images, Bartal reveals how the nuns who read the manuscript used visual and verbal strategies to deepen theological reflection and guide meditative practice. She challenges the view that the Meditations primarily encouraged emotional identification, exploring how it fostered intellectual engagement and exegetical devotion. Bartal’s study also demonstrates how images, texts, and female religious experience intersected in shaping devotional culture.

Table des matières :

• 1. Introduction
• Part I:
• 2. Perugia, the Baglioni, and Santa Maria di Monteluce
• 3. An opus integrum: a book for contemplation
• Part II:
• 4. Monday: conception
• 5. Tuesday: search
• 6. Wednesday: love of neighbor, love of God
• 7. Thursday: the Jews’ blindness
• 8. Friday and Saturday: passion and death
• 9. Sunday: resurrection and ascent

Informations pratiques :

Renana Bartal, Word, Image, and the Spiritual Life of the Poor Clares: Interpreting the ‘Meditations on the Life of Christ’ in Medieval Italy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2026 ; 1 vol., 350 p. ISBN : 978-1-00975-664-8. Prix : GBP 110,00.

Source : Cambridge University Press

Through wide-ranging thematic chapters, this book offers students a comprehensive introduction to the theory and practice of monarchy across Europe in the Middle Ages.

The volume is separated into four themes: Concepts of Rulership, Exercising Authority, Dynasty and Succession, and Ritual and Representation. Each theme has four chapters that give the student an overview of key concepts supported by rich examples taken from monarchies across Europe, both in the text and in the Spotlight and Source Studies. The textbook offers an examination of areas which are frequently overlooked, such as the Balkan region, the Scandinavian kingdoms, and the Crusader States in the Latin East. In addition, a prologue, written by Rutger Kramer, discusses the legacy of the Carolingians on medieval rulership, and an epilogue places the monarchies of medieval Europe in context with their global counterparts. Further reading suggestions at the end of each chapter will help students develop their knowledge of medieval monarchy and the history of rulers and realms of the period.

Exploring Monarchy in Medieval Europe, 1000–1500 is a foundational text for courses on medieval monarchy as well as a useful supplementary text for students of medieval European history.

Elena Woodacre is Reader in Renaissance History at the University of Winchester. She is a specialist in queenship and royal studies and has published extensively in this area.

Lucinda H.S. Dean is Senior Lecturer at the Centre for History, UHI. Her research expertise includes medieval and early modern ritual, ceremony, kingship, material culture, gender, and the life cycle.

Simon Lambe is Associate Fellow of the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, and Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. His academic background is in gentry and royal relations in late medieval and early Tudor England.

Patrik Pastrnak is Associate Professor at Palacký University, Olomouc. He specialises in royal weddings, wedding journeys, queenship, and rulership in late medieval and early modern Central Europe and Italy.

Table des matières :

Introduction

Prologue: Setting Standards, Setting Goals: Kingship in the Early Middle Ages  

Rutger D. Kramer

Theme One: Concepts of Rulership

1.1. Types of Monarchy: Rulers and Frameworks

1.2. Types of Kingdoms: Defining the Boundaries of Medieval Europe

1.3. Types of Rulership: Kingship, Queenship, Co-Rulership and Corporate Monarchy

1.4. Monarchy and Religion

Theme Two: Exercising Authority

2.1. Powers and Prerogatives of the Monarch: Counsel, the Economy and the Law

2.2. The Nobility: Authority, Assemblies and Tensions

2.3. War: Martial Rulership, Chivalry and Rebellion

2.4. Peace: Diplomacy, Ambassadors and Intercession

Theme Three: Dynasty and Succession

3.1. Succession: Law, Custom and Developing Frameworks

3.2. Marriage and Sexuality

3.3. Royal Children and Education

3.4. Illegitimate Children: Issues of Legitimacy and Illegitimacy of Authority

Theme Four: Ritual and Representation

4.1. Ritual and Ceremonial

4.2. Inner Court: People, Protocol, Encounter

4.3. Outer Court: Residences and Itinerancy

4.4. Material Culture: Patronage, Gift-giving, Exchange

Epilogue: Placing Medieval European Monarchy in a Global Context

Informations pratiques :

Exploring Monarchy in Medieval Europe, 1000–1500, éd. Elena Woodacre, Lucinda H.S. Dean, Simon Lambe, Patrik Pastrnak, Londres, Routledge, 2026 ; 1 vol., 386 p. ISBN : 978-1-03241-819-3. Prix : € 41,99.

Source : Routledge

Le présent ouvrage dresse le tableau d’un moment de l’histoire poétique et culturelle des xiie et xiiie siècles au prisme du plaisir littéraire. Délectables et réflexives, les œuvres en vers de Jean Renart et Raoul de Houdenc y sont le point de départ d’une libre circulation dans la littérature vernaculaire du temps mais aussi dans d’autres champs discursifs. Ces textes font en effet entendre le discours dominant de l’Église, entre condamnation virulente et légitimation conditionnelle du plaisir. Ils témoignent aussi de l’épanouissement d’une autre idéologie, aristocratique et profane, qui accorde au deduit littéraire une valeur inédite. Ils reflètent enfin la conception médiévale du Beau littéraire formalisée par les arts poétiques médiolatins. Ce triple discours normatif éclaire la notion de plaisir littéraire et sa revendication au Moyen Âge comme valeur et comme exigence. S’esquisse ainsi la définition d’un objet culturel encore mal conceptualisé : la « littérature ».

Table des matières : ici

Informations pratiques :

Hélène Dupraz-Rochas, La revendication du plaisir littéraire. Autour de Jean Renart et Raoul de Houdenc (XIIe-XIIIe siècles), Genève, Droz, 2026 ; 1 vol., 752 p. (Publications Romanes et Françaises, 288). ISBN : 978-2-600-06702-7. Prix : CHF 85,00.

Source : Droz

Discover why a beaver was said to bite off its own testicles, why the baleen of a right whale was prized by medieval knights or why you should give your crush the gift of a great auk.

Creatures of Story and Song pieces together evocative legends, poems and historical accounts from a thousand years of history to remember fourteen of Britain’s extinct creatures. More than merely charting their demise, this book explores the rich legacy that such creatures as the eagle, boar and wolf left on our cultural landscape, and sheds light on what it was like to live alongside them. As some, like the beaver, look set for a comeback, Lee Raye’s book offers curious readers charming context on these animals’ ancestors.

Informations pratiques :

Lee Raye, Creatures of Story and Song. Tracing Britain’s Lost Species, Londres, Reaktion Books, 2026 ; 1 vol., 320 p. ISBN : 9781836392729. Prix : GBP 16,95.

Source : Reaktion Books

The Great Western Schism (1378-1417) stands as one of the most profound ruptures in the history of the medieval Catholic Church, a crisis that fractured Christendom. This book offers the first comprehensive study of the Roman papacy during this era, a perspective often neglected in existing scholarship. Bringing together political, administrative and religious history, it serves both as an introduction to the Schism and as a detailed study of papal governance in Rome. It explores how the Roman curia, monastic houses and ecclesiastical institutions navigated decades of uncertainty, and how lay devotion in the Eternal City adapted to prolonged turmoil.

Challenging the notion that the Roman popes pursued a clear strategy, this book argues that their actions were shaped by pragmatic, often improvised responses to shifting political and ecclesiastical situations; but that despite these constraints, the Roman papal administration proved remarkably resilient in reconstituting itself after 1378, providing those who had remained loyal with opportunities to advance their ecclesiastical careers.

Table des matières :

List of illustrations
List of contributors
Preface
List of abbreviations
Notes on Terminology

Introduction: The Schism: A Political, Religious and Institutional Conflict
Chapter 1: The Beginning of the Schism and the Battle for Rome (1378-1404)
Chapter 2.The Roman Curia in the Schism: Crisis and Reorganisation (1378-1404)
Chapter 3: The Sanctity of Rome
Chapter 4: The Deployment of Sanctity in Divided Religious Orders
Chapter 5: The Way Towards Pisa (1404-1409)
Chapter 6: The Roman Pope Loses Rome (1409-1417)
Conclusions

Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Bibliography
Index of Persons and Places

Informations pratiques :

Rome and the Great Western Schism, 1378-1417. The History and Aftermath of a Medieval Religious Conflict, éd. Kirsi Salonen, Reima Välimäki, Teemu Immonen, Marika Räsänen, Anni Hella, York, York Medieval Press, 2026 ; 1 vol., 312 p. ISBN : 978-1-91404-939-2. Prix : USD 130,00.

Source : Boydell and Brewer

En abordant le royaume des Lusignan (1192-1474/1489) à travers le prisme de la commande picturale, cet ouvrage propose une lecture inédite d’une société cosmopolite et d’une culture originale du monde des croisades, où se mêlent étroitement éléments d’Orient et d’Occident. Il rassemble, pour la première fois de manière systématique, l’ensemble des peintures murales et sur bois conservant des portraits de donateurs, des inscriptions dédicatoires, votives et commémoratives, ainsi que des blasons armoriés répartis sur l’ensemble du territoire chypriote. Ce corpus, constitué au fil d’une enquête de terrain approfondie, embrasse aussi bien les grandes fondations urbaines que les églises rurales les plus modestes, révélant l’ampleur et la diversité des pratiques de commande à toutes les échelles de la société insulaire.

Ces images, souvent méconnues, mal documentées et endommagées par l’histoire mouvementée de Chypre — occupations successives, iconoclasmes, séismes, restaurations hâtives — ou simplement par les ravages du temps, témoignent de dynamiques sociales et artistiques riches et complexes entre Grecs, Latins et chrétiens orientaux de milieux variés: familles seigneuriales, clergé séculier et régulier, notables urbains, artisans. Leur étude croisée, associant histoire de l’art, épigraphie et héraldique, révèle le rôle central des commanditaires et des peintres dans les échanges culturels et l’émergence de formes iconographiques et stylistiques nouvelles, à la croisée des traditions byzantine, occidentale et levantine.
En interrogeant la place de ces images dans la construction des identités individuelles et collectives, cet ouvrage questionne notre perception des arts de la Méditerranée entre le Moyen Âge et le début de la période moderne, et invite à repenser les catégories trop souvent cloisonnées d’«art byzantin» et d’«art occidental» dans un espace de contacts et d’hybridations permanents.

Informations pratiques :

Geoffrey Meyer-Fernandez, Commanditaires et peintres à Chypre sous les Lusignan (1192-1474/1489). Images d’un royaume multiculturel, Louvain, Peeters, 2026 ; 2 vol., XVI–850 p. (Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, 417). ISBN : 978-2-86958-628-4. Prix : € 120,00.

Source : Peeters

In societies both past and present, oaths appear to be an almost universal phenomenon and an indispensable tool for creating social relations and obligations. In Christianity, however, their use is characterized by a fundamental tension: in the Sermon on the Mount, its founder explicitly forbade the swearing of oaths. Despite Jesus’ prohibition, the period between the fourth and the eleventh centuries witnessed an enormous spread and diversification in the use of oaths. This process generated a great deal of reflection and debates on the swearing of oaths, on their legitimacy, significance, and meaning, and also on their limits.

This volume provides a history of the oath in the West, from classical Rome to the Carolingian era. The contributions deal with the Biblical foundations of and Patristic attitudes towards oath-swearing, before moving to Late Antiquity, when Christianity came to dominate the discourse on the topic. The volume then focuses on the ninth century, when theologians began to regard the oath as a holy sacrament, discussed its relation to other sacraments, and reflected on oath-bound political loyalty — a topic that played a major role in the Investiture Controversy.

In surveying the use and theory of oaths in Christian contexts between the first and eleventh centuries, this volume offers a new perspective on the inner fabric of late antique and early medieval societies and their religiously-shaped conceptions of political loyalty and social cohesion.

Stefan Esders is professor for the history of Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages at Freie Universität Berlin. His work focuses on the types and legal and social functions of oaths in the late antique and early medieval periods.

Gerda Heydemann is professor of the history of Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages at Freie Universität Berlin. Her work focuses on the reception of the Bible and the social functions of biblical exegesis.

Table des matières :

Introduction
STEFAN ESDERS and GERDA HEYDEMANN

I. The Christian Oath in Roman Society

Jesus’ Teachings on Oaths in their Ancient Context
BERND KOLLMANN

The Shape of Early Christian Fidelity: Swearing and Repenting in the Face of Uncertainty
KEVIN UHALDE

II. Redefining Social Relations in an Age of Transition

The Human Condition: Condicio and Origo in Augustine (Letters 10*, 20*, and 24*)
SUSANNA ELM

‘Alien and inappropriate’? Vigilius of Rome, the Council of Constantinople (553), and the Necessity of Swearing Oaths
MICHAEL WUK

Making and Breaking Agreements in Early Medieval Iberia: Oaths, Pacts, and the Failure of Social Consensus
JAMIE WOOD

III. Fidelity and Political Theology

Rethinking the Oath of Fidelity during the Reign of Charlemagne
JENNIFER DAVIS

Oath–Taking and Perjury in the Annals of St. Bertin: Tracing the Political Thought of Hincmar of Reims
HEIKO BEHRMANN

The End of the Carolingian Oath of Loyalty in the Tenth Century
IAN WARD

IV. Framing the Oath in Early Medieval Theology, Exegesis, and Canon Law

Augustine, Wilfrid, and the Priest’s ‘Oath’ in the Laws of Wihtræd
STEFAN JURASINSKI

‘Ego autem dico vobis: nolite omnino iurare’: Carolingian Interpretations of the Prohibition to Swear (Matthew 5. 33–37)
GERDA HEYDEMANN and HEIKO BEHRMANN

Between the Fathers and the Masters: The Centrality of Oaths to the Development of an Episcopal Understanding of Marriage in Carolingian Europe
OWEN PHELAN

Dissolving the Oath (7th–11th centuries)
STEFAN ESDERS

Informations pratiques :

The Oath in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Religious Act, Social Bond, Holy Sacrament, éd. Stefan Esders, Gerda Heydemann, Turnhout, Brepols, 2026 ; 1 vol., 364 p. (Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, 46). ISBN : 978-2-503-62100-5. Prix : € 110,00.

Source : Brepols

Ces études s’emploient à cerner l’esthétique qui se met en place à la fin du Moyen Âge dans l’acte d’écrire de la poésie : mystère des lettres, mystère du chant. Les poètes jouent avec les formes, ballades, rondeaux, et avec leurs regroupements dans des constructions complexes, toujours en instance de composition, voire de recomposition. Travail de l’un et du multiple, de la pièce et du morceau, qui s’illustre dans cet objet étrange, cette somme discontinue, qu’est le dit. Le chant peut construire. Des figures mythiques le disent, telle celle d’Amphion. Les lettres s’aimantent ou se disséminent, créant l’espace même des œuvres. De ce chemin des lettres, de ces voies droites ou obliques, de ces cercles, jaillit le nom même des poètes : Eustache, Christine, François et les autres.

Professeure émérite de Sorbonne Université, Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet a enseigné la littérature médiévale à la Sorbonne, à l’Université de Genève et dans diverses Universités américaines dont Princeton. Sensible aux enjeux des formes poétiques, elle s’est attachée tout particulièrement pour sa recherche aux poètes des XIV^e et XV^e siècles : Guillaume de Machaut, Christine de Pizan et François Villon.

Table des matières : ici

Informations pratiques :

Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet, Écrire au Moyen Âge. Le jeu de la forme, l’enjeu du nom, Paris, Honoré Champion, 2026 ; 1 vol., 336 p. (Essais, Moyen Âge, 80). ISBN : 978-2-74536-471-5. Prix : € 48,00.

Source : Honoré Champion