Contenu du sommaire

The chronicle of Richard of San Germano for the year 1214 presents a text that forms the report that would have been addressed to Pope Innocent III by the patriarch of Jerusalem. This was a statement on the organization of the Ayyubid confederation at the beginning of the 13th century, at which time it had been placed under the authority of the Sultan Al-Adil, and on the situation in the Middle East. An analysis of this short document, as well as a translation, are also provided, bearing the name Narratio patriarcae or Relatio tripartita ad Innocentium de viribus Agaranorum inmodern scholarship. We decided, firstly, to return to the origin and the nature of this document, reporting on a peace proposition that came about between Christians and Muslims on the initiative of the sultan. All aspects of this text, which provides a very incomplete picture of the Middle Eastern world of the 1200s, raise questions. These uncertainties relate to the identity of its author, the veracity of the information contained within the report, and the meaning that might be attributed to it. In any case, it would have chimed well with certain aspects of the pope's eastern policy before the Fourth Crusade. Secondly, we wish to emphasize that the great influence that this document went on to have is undeniable. It features in no less than 60 manuscripts that span the xiii
th to the 16th centuries. It was most often associated with pieces of musicfrom nearby or even from far away.

Of the 4,300 verses that form Book I of Ovide moralisé, a little over a third – 1,600 verses, around 37% – comprise the translation of Book I of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Thus, the majority of the book is original or comes from other sources. In our study, we concluded that a proportion of around 43–45% of Book I can be linked to Ovid's gloss, embodied by the Latin commentary on Metamorphoses. We have found, for example, that many glosses to Book I coincide with those of the Vulgate commentar. In order to complete the translation and interpretation beyond the gloss, the author of Ovide moralisé included contents taken from the mythographers, which in Book I coincides to a significant degree with the third Vatican Mythographer. Lastly, information taken from the New Testament and other works from the Christian doctrine (12%) and historiographic sources such as the Historia scholastica of Petrus Comestor or the Old Testament (8%) complete the sources potentially used by the author.

In the second half of the XIIth century, the canonist Rufin devised a legal distinction between jugglers and minstrels, as a result of which the former were not considered evildoers since they did not behave like the latter. This distinction would be brought up again by theologians around twenty years after Rufin's death, in a different context. While the canonist made use of the distinction in order to allow honest jugglers to make accusations in ecclesiastic trials, theologians depicted this as belonging within the casuistry of sins. However, in both cases, this distinction appears to be of a legal and ethical nature. We show that the legal rehabilitation of certain jugglers formed part of a much broader endeavor to redefine evildoers in relation to the procedural transformations that accompanied it. Far from seeking to construct the conditions for social exclusion due to villainous acts, the canonists invented a repertoire of flexible norms capable of adapting themselves to each type of situation. The legal rehabilitation of jugglers cannot be understood without taking into account their moral rehabilitation within the casuistry of sins, since this also enabled those who paid them to be exonerated from a grave sin.

Sallust is one of the classical authors whose work had the most enduring influence in the centuries that followed the end of the Roman Empire. His reception is today enriched by the discovery of an hitherto unknown adaptation of Bellum Jugurthinum, which happens to be the only medieval French translation of the classical Latin text. This abridged version is contained within a universal chronicle dating from the end of the thirteenth century, the Chronique dite de Baudouin d'Avesnes (Chronicle Attributed to Baudouin d'Avesnes). The present contribution sketches the outlines of this version, clarifying the identity of its author, its adaptation techniques, as well as the methods for interweaving sources that preside over the construction of the fabric of particular passages from the abridged work. We also provide the edition of several significant extracts from this French translation.