Contenu du sommaire

Historical research on what a just price should be has focused mainly on late medieval theological texts. However, in laic literature too, notions of the just price can be detected without the concept itself being mentioned. Instead of talking about “the just price”, Jan van Boendale asks questions about what a fair profit would be. Just like producing, the buying and selling of goods were a way of labouring that ought to be well rewarded, especially since it was in the common interest of the city. The pursuit of profit and the gathering of richness formed no ethical problem for this fourteenth-century Antwerp city clerk. Problems only arose when the greedy desire to gain more and more started to dominate consciousness and stimulated merchants or guild masters to start cheating. In response, Boendale stressed the stoic virtue of moderation as a remedy against greed. Still, this was not only a matter of achieving an honest profit. One also had to be moderate when giving alms, which was a reaction against popular preachers who overemphasised the state of sinfulness in which people lived.

The codicological study of a medieval manuscript is often confined to the simple formal description of the document. Observing the material support of the document with historical, literary, and linguistic data may lead to a genetic study of the text through the analysis of the volume as a whole. Analyzing the ms. Paris, BnF, fr. 12538 from this perspective permits us to establish the presumed history of the Mystère de saint Vincent of which it remains the sole witness. While the irregularities in the organization of the notebooks and their foliotation instruct us on the manuscript's composition and the writing of the text itself, the use of auxiliary signs – brackets, insertion marks, crosses, and boxes – and the presence of empty spaces for missing portions of the text – words, verses, passages, replies – immerses us in the work of the fatiste. The conclusion of this codicological and genetic study leads us to believe that the mystery conserved in the ms. BnF, fr. 12538 is not that which was presented in Angers in 1467 before King René, but this same text reworked in light of a presentation that could have taken place in Le Lude in 1476.

From the example, in the years 1350, of an open conflict in the heart of the Marseilles oligarchy, brought to light by the funds of royal justice, but which is not mentioned in the sources recorded by the Council of Marseilles, the present article examines the status of municipal written work and reveals the political and legal usage made by the Marseilles assembly of its registers. These so-called “deliberative” registers actually only contain the consensual result of the discussions, in the form of unanimist edicts. Only rare disagreements were recorded, at the express request of one council member or another, without ever calling into question the unity of the City's government. In the destabilizing context of Angevin rule in Provence, the political cohesion of the City Council was constructed in opposition to the royal officers: procedures of protestation and accusations against them of committing enormities, duly registered, had undermined their authority. Thus, through the Written Word and through the Law, the tools of the City's government were forged in the heart of a critical situation.

The ms. Namur, Archives de l'État, Arch. Eccl. 1664, contains the income and expense account of the chapter of the canonesses of noble birth in Moustier-sur-Sambre for the period of August 5, 1563, to August 4, 1564. In the xvith century, a section of this register was protected with three leaves of parchment (one bifolio leaf and one plain leaf) from a manuscript datable to the xiiith century. The bifolio leaf, of which only the central portion remains, contains excerpts from the Roman de Merlin (ed. A. Micha, ch. 76, l. 49–59; ch. 77, l. 1–26; ch. 78, l. 63–70; ch. 79, l. 1–55; ch. 80, l. 58–64; ch. 81, l. 1–26), while the simple leaf, which is better preserved, contains an excerpt from the Suite Vulgate (ed. I. Freire-Nunes, from § 210, l. 11, to § 213, l. 25). The purpose of this paper is to publish this original fragment, describing it in detail, and to provide a linguistic and philological analysis. This discovery opens interesting perspectives on the distribution of Arthurian literature in Wallonia.

This paper is devoted to the problem of the image of the Byzantines in the chronicles of the First Crusade. While we are familiar enough with the portraits proposed by the chroniclers of the crusaders and Muslims, the first generally being accompanied with praise and halos, the second “demonized,” we know very little about the image of the Byzantines, though they were widely represented in the chronicles, because most of the armies chose to travel overland and had to go through Byzantium. Research shows that the Byzantines are represented as Christians, but of an inferior rank to that of the crusaders who benefited from a special status: if conflicts between the two occur, the latter are always right and are assisted by God against the Byzantines.