Contenu du sommaire

Holy Sites, Aromatic Sites ? The Written Accounts by Etheria and the Pilgrim of Piacenza (4th and 6th Centuries)From the end of the 4th century, both in the East and the West, narratives linking saints to sweet aromas abounded. In this context the question arises whether, at a time when the first accounts of pilgrimages to the Holy Land were circulating, the holy sites par excellence were not also linked to extraordinary aromas, Christ literally being the “Anointed/Perfumed One”. This study therefore aims to examine the olfactory aspect –miraculous or not – of pilgrimages to the Holy Land by studying two of the earliest surviving accounts by Western pilgrims : The Pilgrimage of Etheria and the Pilgrim of Piacenza's Itinerary. Although the holy sites presented pilgrims with all kinds of aromas, it appears from these texts that the possibility of sensing miraculous perfumes would have been prohibited by the very nature of these sites, as well as by the “aroma of saintliness” recorded in contemporary hagiographic texts.

Petrarch's De Remediis utriusque Fortunae in Jean Daudin's Translation : Commentary on and Imitation of the OriginalThis paper concentrates on the French version of Petrarch's De Remediis presented to Charles V by Jean Daudin (1378). As evidenced by the prologue to the translation, Daudin had read Petrarch's epistle to Niccolò Acciaiuoli (Familiares, xii, 2) as well as the De Remediis, and probably the Bucolicum Carmen as well. Admiration of Petrarch inspired Daudin to imitate the original's style and to limit the amount of commentary and gloss. However, in contradiction to his declarations in the prologue, but in keeping with medieval practice, Daudin introduced words and syntagms into the translation that were not in the original ; in doing so, he was betraying his initial plan not to add anything of his own to Petrarch's illustrious book. The amount of gloss increased in some manuscripts of the translation, including the edition by Galliot du Pré (1524). This is evidence that Daudin's original edition of the De Remediis seemed too complex for some readers.

“A Specific and Marginal Reality” ? Saracen Piracy on the Gulf of Lion from the 11th to the 13th CenturiesBetween the 9th–10th and the 14th–15th centuries, the two high points of incursions originating from the Dār al-islām, the Gulf of Lion coast seems to have been spared the threat of Saracen raids. Of course, historiography did record some attacks in the 11th and 12th centuries, but saw them as insignificant. A diverse Latin literature – more so than Arab sources – attests to the fact that the threat always remained significant. The summary of expeditions from the power centers arising out of the fragmentation of the Caliphate of Córdoba (mainly the Emirates of Denia and Majorca) shows that they were able to mobilize significant resources and inflict severe damage. Beyond the traditional rhetoric of pagan depredation, the more generic allusions to raids against churches and defenses confirm how much the fear of the Saracens had taken root in people's minds. Captivity was also a constant worry since expeditions essentially aimed to supply the slave trade. Finally, a chronology of these incursions must be linked both to the power struggles of the aristocracy in the South and to diplomatic and commercial relations in the Western Mediterranean.

Performance, trahison, espionnage
Article xv of The Statutes of Kilkenny (1366) prohibits Irish minstrels from performing in English households in Ireland on the grounds that they have been known to act as spies. Although this particular article is rooted in the specific context of late colonial Ireland and English push towards apartheid, the figure of the minstrel-spy is not uncommon in earlier literature in Old French. The role of Johan de Rampaygne in the Anglo-Norman prose romance, Fouke le Fitz Waryn (1325–1340), is examined as an example. Passages from a number of Old French and Occitan texts enable the establishment of a performance repertoire of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Later sections of this study consider the ways in which scribes, inadvertently or by aspects of mise en texte and mise en page, could betray the authors whose texts they transmit, and in which performers, through voice, gesture, and use of props, could potentially manipulate both the work being performed and its audience.

The Confraternities of Mendicant Orders in the Middle Ages : A History Waiting to Be Written
The confraternities have a bad reputation. Their spiritual purpose was ill defined, lying somewhere between requests for intercession, obituary commemorations, and confraternities. In the hands of the mendicants, they seem to have been what indulgences had become in the hands of bishops and the papacy at the end of the Middle Ages : an enticement used without restraint to extort funds from the faithful by holding out the possibility of almost instant access to Paradise. In return, they would seem to have suffered the same fate as indulgences, gradually voided of substance and condemned, even before Luther, as glaring proof of the Roman Church's corruption. Many a summary keeps to this fairly unflattering picture, or makes no mention of them. This paper reveals the reasons behind researchers' lack of interest in these singular associations. Next, it shows the important landmarks made by works devoted to monastic affiliations, and finally, it shows the promising perspectives offered by the surprisingly extensive Hungarian literature on the confraternities of mendicant orders between the 13th and 16th centuries.