Contenu du sommaire : Le serment dans les villes du bas Moyen Âge

The oath: an instrument serving the political reconstruction of Lucca in the late 14th century This paper deals with the use of the oath in the political reconstruction of Lucca in the late 14th century. In this article, I endeavour to use the context of reconstruction that Lucca underwent beginning in 1369, date of the end of neighbouring Pisa's domination, and the rediscovery of its political autonomy after a half-century of foreign control, as the starting-point for investigating the role played by oaths in the city's political life. In particular, I intend to focus on how oaths were used by authorities to consolidate the cohesion of the urban community and bring together various urban areas. Thus, the objective will be to focus on the political role of the oath both generally, by analysing its role in rebuilding an urban political community, and individually, by assessing its importance for the personal trajectories of those that took the oath.

Swearing faithfulness and loyalty to a trade: the oath and guilds in London in the late Middle Ages This article proposes to study the role played by the oath in the development and organisation of trade guilds in London in the late Middle Ages, and the ties maintained between such guilds and city officials. While the oath was an effective instrument for creating genuine solidarity and cohesion within a group of tradesmen, it was also a means for creating internal rules that everyone, without exception, swore to uphold. However, this practice had to be reconciled and combined with the various signs of allegiance that united the inhabitants of the city and to be integrated into the city's legal order in order to assert its legitimacy. Thus, the oath was more than a simple ritual marking adherence ; it engaged the honour and respectability of the person taking it. Far from a mere pragmatic symbol lacking real effects, it acted as a genuine sign of recognition, helping define the identity and place of individuals within the various communities that they belonged to.

Giving and taking the oath. The oaths of town clerks (Upper Rhine, 15th-16th centuries) Among the registers that Medieval German towns have passed down to us, books of oaths (Eidbücher) – gathering the oaths taken by officials, councillors, burghers, or town employees – have been neglected by scientific publications. They have been used for the normative information that they contain, but have seldom been studied as a series, because they have the unfortunate reputation of being stereotypical and purely formal materials. Nevertheless, town chancelleries often felt it necessary to produce several successive Eidbücher. Moreover, on a regional level, this type of book was widespread. Thus, this article endeavours to compare, over time (15th to early 16th centuries) and in various places (towns in the Upper Rhine), oaths collected for use by town secretaries, their substitutes, or clerks. These employees proved to be the people most involved in town oaths, overseeing oath-taking ceremonies and maintaining the oaths that were sworn. While these texts cover similar themes in their oaths, a systematic comparison of the texts reveals an infinite variety of phrasing. Such phrasing provides some clues on the circulation of men and administrative knowledge from one town to the next. Lastly, the generalised use of oaths raises the question of whether or not the commitments made were enforceable. The sometimes conflicting relations between the Council and town secretaries reveal why oaths were considered effective in the eyes of the main protagonists of the late Middle Ages.

Serving the prince and keeping the law of the town : officers' oaths in the Southern Burgundian Netherlands (late 14th century – mid-15th century) In the late Medieval Southern Netherlands, the officers of the prince were mostly present in powerful cities that jealously guarded their autonomy. As the bureaucratic network within the Burgundian State became increasingly organised, the administration developed the use of the oath to the prince, while most officers already had to take an oath to the city. The renewal of oath-taking led to a more accurate definition of their office, which was thus placed under the control of bishops who granted the necessary exemptions. This trend also reveals the way the prince delegated to his agents an indivisible power, connected either to justice, administration, or finance, always in accordance with the Christian faith. At the same time, this evolution could not but make the officers duplicitous, since the interests of the prince and the city differed widely.

A merchant's word. Promissory oaths and features of ordeal in the definition of the “good” merchant (14th century) Written in Latin by Jacobus de Cessolis in the late 13th century, the Liber de Moribus hominum et officiis nobilium super ludos scacchorum enjoyed tremendous success, as proven by the numerous translations that flourished as from the early 14th century. The present research is based on the Tuscan translation of this treatise, known nowadays as Volgarizzamento del Libro de' Costumi e degli offizii de' Nobili sopra il giuoco degli scacchi. The objective is to analyse promissory-type systems that governed the relationship between the ideal society, symbolised by a chessboard made up of 64 black and white squares and two rows of pawns, and the fourth pawn, symbolising the merchant trades. A category looked on with particular suspicion given its contact with money and especially deposits of individuals' money, the Merchants and Changers were subject to increased scrutiny, as shown by the implementation of a complex system for verdicts and verification. Our research focuses on formulas used in the text to analyse the relations of faithfulness and usefulness that these categories had with society. It also focuses on how the reputation of the Merchants and Changers was forged, and notably its ties with the risks of disrupting the social and political order.

When a hospital turns into a power: the oath to the master of the Hôpital Comtesse of Lille (1515) Assistance should not only be regarded as a duty for the secular or ecclesiastical urban elites. It could also turn into a real stake for power, and sometimes, assistance can even be considered a form of urban power per se. In 1515, the master of Our Lady's Hospital of Seclin took an oath of submission to the master of the Hôpital Comtesse. Founded in 1237 by Countess Johanna of Constantinople, the so-called Hôpital Comtesse was a very strong economic power with a very unique institutional structure. It maintained close relationships with many charitable houses, not only in the town itself, but also in its castellany. The Hôpital Comtesse's master was often an auditor de officio of those places. He also received the vows of the brothers and sisters of the hospital community. Historiography has often presented hospitals as being characterised by a process of municipalisation at the end of the Middle Ages. On the contrary, in Lille, aldermen were strictly prohibited from interfering with the Hôpital Comtesse's affairs. Moreover, this oath could reveal a desire for the Hôpital Comtesse to be not just a religious authority through vows, but also an urban power, with some well-known attributes. Indeed, this single oath, discovered in the archives of Lille hospitals, offers a new perspective on the links between power and assistance.

Tuberculosis treatment came to the centre of health policy in Greece during the interwar period. By that time in Europe, institutionalisation was enforced as the most suitable treatment, and numerous sanatoria were constructed. The Greek sanatorium was established as an institution in the 1930s, in an attempt to follow the noticeably more technologically and economically advanced paradigms of larger hospitalising institutions of Central Europe, on the medical and architectural levels. Amongst the numerous sanatoria to have operated in mainland Greece and on the islands, two examples in the greater Athens area have been chosen for review, because of their vital relationship with the city's eastern urban development during the interwar period. The first case is a public sanatorium building complex, Sotiria, which had a strategic position in the close periphery of the city of Athens. The second example concerns a number of autonomous private sanatoria that comprised a small-scale medical treatment community in the area of Melissia, on the outskirts of Athens. The two examples are examined in juxtaposition and in combination, in order to discuss issues of placement, design, organisation, operation of the sanatoria, and their relationship with the immediately adjacent urban centres, raising questions about the social and political imperatives that accompany the rules of hygiene