Contenu du sommaire

St. MUND, Constitution and diffusion of Western knowledge about the « Russian » world in the Middle Ages (end of the 10th-middle of the 15th centuries) (Part 1). This article is a synthesis of the knowledge about « Russian » culture in Western Europe between the end of the 10th century (when the Kievan Russia converted to christianity and its sovereigns established relationships with other Christian kings) and the middle of the 15th century (just before the Moscovite Russia, which had succeeded Kievan Rus', joined the political and economic Western sphere). It presents a systematic survey of all Western European mediaeval sources about Russia over this long period. These are chronicles, sagas, encyclopaedias, travel narratives, maps, or chivalric literature. These sources are analysed according to a typological approach, i.e. focusing on the authors, their origin and educational background, on the characteristics of the texts and on the information they provide about Russia. This typological approach shows that an image of Russia emerged in medieval Western Europe, however partial and fragmentary it may have been. Not until the late 15th and the early 16th century was Russia really discovered by Western European diplomats and merchants.

Les Gestes des Chiprois is a highly interesting text in terms of the light it sheds on one of the most thriving areas in overseas literary production, namely historiography. The work fuses different writing techniques that belong respectively to annals, chronicles and history in the strictest sense. Such heterogeneity in the kind of writing and the information conveyed is due to the variety of sources used. However, the work is made consistent at a thematic and ideological level, since the perspective used to report overseas events is typical of nobiliary ideology.

Perduring hostility characterised the relationships between the Kingdom of Cyprus and the Mameluk Sultanate in the 15th century : plundering and pirating ventures were invariably followed by reprisals. Such recurring violence handicapped trade relationships between East and West. Yet it ought to be noted that trade and diplomatic contacts between these two neighbouring nations were never interrupted. When they imposed their suzerainty onto Cypriots after 1426, the Mameluks managed to restore a relative stability in the Eastern Mediterranean. This new situation made it possible for Venice, among other maritime republics, to dominate trade in the Levant and to take over the island of Cyprus in 1489.

The integration of the legend around Tristan into the Arthurian prose epic cycle in the 13th century provides an interesting example of thorough revision : the lovers' death, which is the core symbol of the Tristan tradition and the reason for its success, is completely altered. The romances do not provide any reason for the change, and we must turn to the illustration, which was a natural complement to the medieval text to which it was associated in the manuscripts. The book illumination provides another way of perceiving the text and its origins : here the Biblical figure of David can clearly be seen as the foundation of a new representation of Tristan wounded by King Mark, and the lovers' last embrace echoes an image of Pieta, with the Virgin weeping on Christ's body. Medieval illustrations are not mere ornaments ; they must be acknowledged as another form of comment, offering a different perception of the text.