Contenu du sommaire

The Synodical Constitutions (August 16, 1460) of Andrea Bondumier, Patriarch of Venice. Presentation, Study, and EditionVenetian historiography has long been reluctant to attribute the convocation of the first synodical assembly of the Patriarchate of Venice, founded in 1451, to Patriarch Andrea Bondumier (1460–1464). Yet recent research in the patriarchal archives has enabled us to recover the complete minutes of this synod, which evidently convened on August 16, 1460. Being confronted with the habitual erring ways of both his secular and ordinary clergy, Patriarch Bondumier initiated a series of reforms that subscribed to the legacy of his predecessor, Giustiniani, the first Patriarch. Recovery of control – a blend of traditio, renovatio, and innovation – was both severe and pragmatic, and concentrated on rebuilding Venetian ecclesiastical law, which once applied would then be reinforced by a round of pastoral visits (1461–1463). This paper, linked to the first critical edition of the 53 promulgated statutes, examines the conditions under which the synod was convened, the stages of its development, and the various instruments established to ensure the dissemination and reception of the new rules decreed.

Institutional and geographical origin of the Jeu d'Adam: some hypothesis
The twelfth-century Jeu d'Adam is clearly linked to an ecclesiastical establishment, but it is unclear whether the latter was a monastery or a secular church. This article tries to answer this question by taking into account the contents of the manuscript that transmitted it and concludes that it was probably a large secular church. It also offers a hypothesis about the cathedral of Sens as a possible origin based on a study of the Latin responsoria found in the play and what we know about the festive activities of that establishment.

Petitions of the Flemish towns in the late thirteenth-century and political speeches and practices of the collectivitiesIn the medieval world, petitions formulated by collectivities often directly or indirectly reflected political languages circulating among larger social groups than the elites. As a legal and political tool, petitions implied that justice had to be delivered by rulers, who had to provide remedies when the rights and privileges of individuals or groups were not respected or people could not maintain a decent livelihood. During the last quarter of the thirteenth century, a remarkable series of petitions made up by Flemish city-dwellers has been conserved. They had been made up in the context of a general wave of political and socio-economic unrest which would eventually lead to the Flemish revolt of 1302. This article discusses both the ideological discourses of these texts as their perlocutory effects as “political speech acts”.

Erotic Dreams : humor, sexual desire and anxiety in the fabliaux Li Sohait des Vez and Le Moigne
Both Jean Bodel's Li Sohait des Vez and the anonymous Le Moigne are fabliaux which explore how erotic dreams can somewhat compensate for an intense sexual frustration. Both feature a dream-induced fantasy of autonomous genitalia sold by merchants in specialized sex fairs. However, beyond these shared narrative stock and dream typology, fundamental differences loom large between them: they include differences in the status of the main protagonists (a married woman in the former and a Cluniac monk in the later), but also and more subtly, differences in the narrative tone and in the moral purposes of the fabliaux. After comparing how female and male sexual desires and anxieties are respectively depicted, this study explores how through various fictional and historical contexts medieval audiences may have encountered the notion and even the images of autonomous genitalia, male in particular. Finally, as an additional context for the dreamed sex fairs, I proposed that fertility pilgrimages where sexual wax ex-votos were sold may also have furnished an original point of departure and contribution for these erotic tales.