Il contributo propone una riflessione storico-letteraria su due testi che presentano uno statuto di genere letterario molto complesso: l’orizzonte agiografico si intreccia con la storiografia, l’epistolografia, i sermoni, la teologia, ecc. I testi analizzati sono la Passio Raginaldi di Pietro di Blois e la Vita Haroldi anonima.
This paper explores the way Hugh of Saint-Victor perceives and interprets the past of the duchy of Normandy in his Chronicon. A didactic work, the Chronicon offers a synthesis, the sources of which are difficult to identify, which leaves little doubt that Hugh considered the conversion of the Normans as a success. By identifying a continuation of this passage in the second half of the twelfth century, the article also raises the question of how this knowledge of the Norman past was updated. Finally, it shows the borrowings made by Robert de Torigni from this passage of the Chronicon.
Après une présentation de la bibliographie existante, des sources et du corpus disponible (empreintes originales, moulages, dessins, simples mentions, etc.), l’article se concentre sur les sceaux des abbés du XIIe au XVIe siècle avant d’évoquer les sceaux de l’abbaye du XIIIe au XVIe siècle. Des comparaisons avec les sceaux des autres établissements bénédictins de la province de Normandie, notamment des diocèses de Rouen et Évreux, seront effectuées. Nous nous attarderons sur un sceau fort méconnu de l’abbaye du Bec : non celui du XIIIe siècle représentant une Vierge à l’enfant assise sur ce qui ressemble à un reliquaire (le tombeau d’Herluin ?), mais sur celui, attesté dès la fin du XIIIe siècle et en usage jusqu’au XVIe siècle, figurant le couronnement de la Vierge. L’étude traite également de l’omniprésence d’Herluin, fondateur de l’abbaye Notre-Dame du Bec, au contre-sceau des sceaux des abbés et de l’abbaye. Les sceaux sont ainsi un des aspects du culte des saints, notamment fondateurs. Par ailleurs, des parallèles entre les sceaux des premiers archevêques normands de Cantorbéry et ceux des premiers abbés du Bec disposant de sceaux sont établis. Enfin, un sceau de l’abbaye connu de nombreux érudits normands et sigillographes, qui fait débat quant à sa datation (XIVe ou XVIe siècle ?) et à son authenticité, est étudié plus longuement. L’objet de la présente étude est de percevoir les aspects originaux des sceaux du Bec jusque vers 1500, période de forte transition du point de vue sigillographique, avec, en ce qui concerne les sceaux des abbés, la disparition des types effigiés et figurés au profit de types intégralement héraldiques.
The building called “Bellechaise”, which has guarded the entrance to the Abbey of Mont Saint-Michel since its construction in the 13th century, has never been satisfactorily explained or dated. The article focuses on the chronology of the work, and on the relationship with the buildings of the “Merveille”, which housed the monastic quarter on the north side of the abbey. While historians of the abbey, from the 17th century unto Édouard Corroyer, Paul Gout and their successors, have seen the work as dating to 1257 and as a separate construction site from the building of the Merveille, the analysis of textual evidence, combined with an examination of the construction techniques and the architectural style, leads us to propose an earlier date, contemporaneous to the work on the Merveille and to the creation of the new portal of the abbey church. These three worksites hence appear to have been functionally linked: they are part of a global project intended to reconfigure the circulation system within the abbey, a project which took shape shortly after the construction of the Merveille began. Redating Bellechaise thus leads to new insights into the restoration of the abbey of Mont Saint-Michel after the fire of 1204.
The study of tabellionage records can reveal the economic and social organisation of medieval industries, such as cloth production in late medieval Rouen. The earliest registers from Rouen, dating from 1360 onwards, preserve acts relating to commerce, but we do not always know the people behind the recorded names, and names are rarely accompanied by professions. Furthermore, from 1415 onwards, commercial matters relating to what is called “meuble” in Middle French disappear from the records. Any investigation is therefore restricted to a narrow period (1360-1415), and professions must be sought by examining craft regulations. Three series of acts reveal the various stages of cloth production: the purchase of the wool, the costs of dyeing, and the rental of facilities for stretching the cloth before sale, the “pentheurs” (large wooden poles), at the beginning and end of the process. According to the Florentine model, the medieval cloth trade was usually dominated by merchant-drapers who bought the wool, organised its manufacture into cloth and sold the finished product. It is unclear, however, whether this model works north of the Alps, and the present study instead reveals a world of small businesses that left little room for great merchant-capitalists. The investigation also reveals the importance of financial and family networks and the roles of mutual aid and a culture of trust. Alongside merchant-entrepreneurs, there were also small artisan-entrepreneurs.
