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Traces of Performance in the Jeu d'Adam The Jeu d'Adam contains many metrically irregular lines which have been explained by the Anglo-Norman origin of its author, yet a closer analysis of this work shows that the original text was metrically regular. It therefore appears that the numerous additions or deletions of lexical units are the result of mouvance. This article demonstrates that these changes were made by actors who modified their lines in order to improve their parts. The Jeu d'Adam is thus remarkable not only as the first known composition of the French repertoire, but also as a document that reveals how actors worked in the 13th century.

Living on Credit in a City without Banks (Paris, XVth-xvth Century) This paper provides a summary of credit practices in medieval Paris based on a variety of diplomatic and narrative sources. A study of the proceedings of royal justice at the Châtelet extends historical knowledge on the financial habits of the people of Paris, which, because of specific characteristics of documents related to Paris, have sometimes been viewed by historians as inadequate or archaic. Among other subjects, the following are examined : public and private income systems, private loans, collateral-based loans, credit in landlord and tenant relationships and in commercial relationships between wholesalers and retailers. In addition, the paper considers ways of thinking about such a pervasive relationship as credit in Late Middle Ages urban society.

A Commentary on Some Singular Aspects of Manuscript A (BNF 375) of the Roman de Thèbes This paper is based on an outline proposal for a doctoral dissertation by Luca di Sabatino at the University of Siena on the edition of the Roman de Thèbes found in Manuscript A (Paris, BnF, ms. fr. 375). In particular, we examine the following : toponymy, with the names of the seven gates of Thebes, onomatology (characters), encyclopedism (Adrastus' tent and Amphiaraus' chariot), and the work of the rewriter (substitutions and suppressions). The question of the adaptor confronted with the Thebaid is then discussed, as are the questions of written and oral transmission and the relationship between the various editions of the romance.

The “Tragedy” of Judas : The Judas Legend in Manuscript 1275 in the Reims Municipal Library Medievalists are familiar with the Oedipal legend of Judas as it appeared in the Golden Legend by the Dominican monk Jacobus de Voragine. In the Middle Ages, this was one of the best-known versions of the traitor's Vita. From the twelfth century, however, several other accounts circulated through the West. The Vita Jude Scarioth in Manuscript 1275 in Reims (at the end of the XIIIth century) was one of the longest and most elaborate versions of the Judas legend. The originality of this long prose narrative is in its wealth of descriptive and narrative detail. This version may have drawn on a variety of literary and vernacular traditions, and is evidence that Judas developed from an initially ill-defined presence to a fully-realized character, independent of the Gospels. In this text, Judas appears as more tortured than wicked, and his life becomes, in its own terms, a “tragedy”.

Reinventing the Beatitudes in Dhuoda's Liber manualis (c. 841-843) The aim of this article is to highlight the original way in which Dhuoda uses Christ's Sermo in monte to express her moral teaching for the benefit of her son's religious and political upbringing while hinting at politics of her day. In a section of her moral speculum dedicated to the ways of overcoming vices by remembering the 8 beatitudes and living by them, she boldly reinterprets Christ's sermon while preferring Mathew's version to Luke's. Not only does she suppress two beatitudes and add three culled from other biblical sources but she rewrites others, using both the rhetoric of copia and brevitas, so that her son may fashion his aristocratic self according to Christ. Our duchess comments on Old and New Testament texts in private, thus avoiding Saint Paul's admonishments against women preaching in public. In addition, in a period where earthly happiness is considered inferior to heavenly bliss according to the Augustinian concept of contemptus mundi and contemptus carnis, she appears as a forerunner of the Renaissance where there is room for both.

The War between the Awans and the Waroux. A “Vendetta” in the Hesbaye of Liège (1297 – 1335) (2nd part) The war between the Awans and the Waroux has always been viewed as a prototype of an aristocratic family war in the country around Liège. In fact, with the exception of a few contingents of foot soldiers, cavalry played a dominant role throughout the conflict. The art of war was beginning to involve a much broader range of weapons, and the people of Hesbaye refused to change their style of combat, or their life style, which were expressions of their status. This attachment to tradition and to the old ways was also found in the mechanisms of lineage solidarity affected by this conflict, which, based on a series of very simple ties (between brothers, cousins, uncles and nephews, and brothers-in-law), structured the Hesbaye nobility. Finally, the conflict did not do away, either quantitively or qualitatively, with the nobility in the country of Liège, as many writers have claimed.