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Medieval culture and mentality according to the new French historiography

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Aaron J. Gurevich
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European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , May 1983 , pp. 167 - 195
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Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1983

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References

(1) The term was first used by Henri Berr in 1930.

(2) Symptomatic of this surely is the fact that while F. Braudel, J. Le Goff, F, Furet and other historians who united around Annales disputed the legitimacy of calling themselves a ‘school’ (see Le Goff, J., Sushchestvovala li frantsuzskaia istoricheskaia shkola Annales ? [Was There an Annales School of French Historians ?], Frantsuzskii ezhegodnik 1968 (Moscow 1970)Google Scholar, now the school actually calls itself such. However, here ‘school’ does not mean a doctrinal orthodoxy or unity of theory, but rather a community of problems, alongside a multiplicity of methods of research and systems of explanation. See Le Goff, Jacques, Chartier, Roger, Revel, Jacques (éds), La nouvelle histoire (Paris, C.E.P.L., 1978), pp. 18,29, passimGoogle Scholar.

(3) Bloch, M., Apologie pour l'histoire ou le méter d'historien (Paris, A. Colin, 1949)Google Scholar.

(4) Febvre, L., Combats pour l'histoire (Paris, A. Colin, 1953)Google Scholar; Id.Pour une hisof toire a part entiire (Paris, S.E.V.P.E.N., 1962).

(5) Braudel, Fernand, Scrits sur Vhistoire (Paris Flammarion, 1969)Google Scholar.

(6) Ladurie, Emmanuel Le Roy, Le territoire de l'historien (Paris, Gallimard, I: 1973, II: 1978)Google Scholar.

(7) Le Goff, Jacques, Paur un autre Moyen Âge. Temps, travail et culture en Occident, 18 essais (Paris, Gallimard, 1977)Google Scholar.

(8) Le Goff, Jacques et Nora, Pierre (eds), Faire de l'histoire (Paris, Gallimard, 1974), 3 tomesGoogle Scholar.

(9) La nouvellt histoire. See n. 2. See also issue of Annales devoted to the fiftieth anniversary of the journal. Annales. E.S.C., XXXIV (1979), No. 6Google Scholar.

(10) La nouvelle histoire, p. 231. Cf. Le Goff, J., Pour un autre Moyen Âge, pp. 338f, 346fGoogle Scholar.

(11) Particularly, the attitude of the ‘new historiography’ towards structuralism as a whole is reserved. The influence of the conceptual methods of structural research on a number of historians of this trend is unquestionable. There has been a special issue of Annales devoted to this subject, ‘Histoire et structure’ (Annales E.S.C., XXVI (1971), No. 4)Google Scholar. But at the same time in Annales opinions against ‘structuralist reaction’, which carries ‘antihistorical terrorism’, have been voiced (Annales E.S.C., XXXIV (1979), 1360–1376)Google Scholar. Almost under the influence of structuralism Le Roy Ladurie put forward his thesis about ‘immobile history’ (l'histoire immobile), as he referred to the four-teenth-eighteenth centuries in France (E. Le Roy Ladurie, Le territoire de l'historien, tome II). However, there are other historians of the same school who do not endorse this point of view and prefer to talk about the history of traditional societies as ‘quasi immobile’, which fundamentally changes the formulation of the question.

(12) J. Le Goff, Pour un autre Moyen Âge, op. cit.

(13) Le Goff, J., La naissance du purgatoire (Paris, Gallimard, 1981)Google Scholar.

(14) Duby, G., Le chevalier, la femme, le prêtre. Le mariage dans la Férance féodale (Paris, Hachette, 1981)Google Scholar.

(15) Duby, G., Les trois ordres ou l'imaginaire du féodalisme (Paris, Gallimard, 1978)Google Scholar. Id. Les trois fonctions indo-européennes, l'historien et l'Europe féodale, Annales E.S.C., XXXIV (1979), No. 6.

(16) Amiès, Philippe, L'homme devant la mort (Paris, Seuil, 1977)Google Scholar. Cp. Tenenti, A., La vie et la mort à trovers l'art du XVe siècle (Paris, Armand Colin, 1952)Google Scholar.

(17) Ariés, Ph., L'enfant et la vie familiale sous l'Ancien Régime (Paris, Plon, 1960)Google Scholar.

(18) Ladurie, E. Le Roy, Montaillou, village occitan de 1294 à 1324 (Paris, Plon, 1975)Google Scholar.

(19) Of course, it should be remembered that the source for this voice is a Latin translation and that we are hearing it as it sounded before the Inquisition's tribunal.

(20) Cf. the very research by Ginzburg, C. in Ginzburg, C. (ed.), Ilformaggio e i vermi. Il cosmo di un mugnaio del '500 (Torino, Einaudi, 1976)Google Scholar.

(21) Braudel, F., La Méditerranée et le méditerranéen à l'époque de Philippe II (Paris, A. Colin, 1949)Google Scholar.

(22) Duby, G., L'économie rurale et la vie des campagnes dans l'Occident médiéval (Paris, Aubier, 1962)Google Scholar. Id.Guerriers et paysans aux VIIe et XIIe slèdes. Premieressor de l'économie européenne (Paris, Gallimard, 1973). Id.Homtnes et structures du Moyen Âge (Paris/La Haye, 1973). Duby, G. et Wallon, H. (eds), Histoire de la France rurale (Paris, Le Seuil, 4 tomes: 1976–1977)Google Scholar.

(23) Schmitt, J.-C. talks about a ‘Copernican revolution’ taking place in historiography during the last one and a half decades. La nouvelle histoire, p. 344Google Scholar.

(24) Vilar, P., Histoire marxiste, histoire en construction. Essai de dialogue avec Althusser, Annales E.S.C., XXVIII (1973), p. 166Google Scholar.

(25) Braudel, F., Histoire et sciences sociales, la longue durée, Annales E.S.C., XIII (1958) No. 4; Écrits sur l'histoire, pp. 41–83Google Scholar.

(26) La nouvelle histoire, pp. 43–44.

(27) In Le Goff, J., Pour un autre Moyen Âge pp. 349–420Google Scholar.

(28) C. Honegger, Geschichte im Entstehen. Notizen zum Werdegang der Annales, in Bloch, M., Braudel, F., Febvre, L. (u.a.), Schrift und Materie der Geschichte. Vorschlage zur systematischen Aneignung historischer Prozesse (Frankfurt am Main 1977), S. 37Google Scholar.

(29) La nouvelle histoire, pp. 12–13, 235–36.

(30) An example is the unprecedented success of E. Le Roy Ladurie's Montaillou. This book has become an example of discussion between professional ethnologists and anthropologists. See Mantaillou in Groningen. Verslag van een inter-disciplinaire studiedag, onder redactie van Papousek, Dick A. (Groningen 1981)Google Scholar.

(31) Stoianovich, T., French Historical Method: the ‘Annales’ paradigm (Ithaca/London, Cornell U.P., 1976)Google Scholar.

(32) Duby, G., Lahdrbau, G., Dialogues (Paris, Flammarion, 1980), p. 38Google Scholar.

(33) Le Goff, J., Pour un outre Moyen Âge, p. 14Google Scholar.

(34) La nouvelle histoire, p. 30.

(35) Cf. Annales E.S.C., XXXIV (1970), p. 1352Google Scholar.

(36) La nouvelle histoire, p. 216.

(37) Ibid. p. 240.

(38) Ibid. p. 548.

(39) Duby, G., Lahdheau, G., Dialogues, p. 39Google Scholar.

(40) Ladurie, E. Le Roy, Paysans du Languedoc (Paris, Flammarion, 1969)Google Scholar.

(41) La nouvelle histoire, pp. 387–88. The dangers inherent in a preference for quantitative methods (illusions of scientism and exactness, paralysis of a critical attitude to conclusions, etc.) are discussed by G. Duby and J. Le Goff.

(42) These declarations usually are made when the historians of the Annales group are confronted by dogmatists and vulgarisers of Marxism. At the same time it is important to underline the fruitful co-operation between representatives of the ‘new historiography’ and distinguished French Marxist historians (P. Vilar, G. Bois, and others), which is by the way reflected both in La nouvelle histoire and in the three volume Faire de l'histoire.

(43) See, for example, Duby, G., Les trots ordres, pp. 186, 189Google Scholar; Schmitt, J.-C., Le saint léavrier. Guinefort, guérisseur d'en-fonts depuis le XIIIe siéck, Paris, Flammarion, 1979, p. 228Google Scholar.

(44) La nouvelle histoire, p. 380. While other representatives of the ‘new historiography’ avoid the notions ‘basis’ and ‘superstructure’, regarding them as inadequate, they can be found in Duby's works along with the concepts ‘productive forces’, ‘classes’, ‘class struggle’ (with provisions about the specific meaning of these concepts when they are used of medieval society). See, for example, Les trois ordres, p. 391; Le temps des cathidrales (Paris, Gallimard, 1976), p. 52Google Scholar; Le chevalier, la femme, le prêtre, p. 23; Dialogues, pp. 120, 125, 135, 156. Cf. Le Goff, J., Pour un autre Moyen Âge, pp. 14, 225Google Scholar.

(45) Duby, G., Lardbeau, G., Dialogues, pp. 118–19, 140Google Scholar.

(46) Duby, G., La féodalité ? Une mentalité médiévale, in Hommes et structures du Moyen Âge (Paris/La Haye, Mouton, 1973), pp. 103–10Google Scholar.

(47) Ariés, Ph., L'homme devant la mort, p. 107Google Scholar.

(48) For further details see Ia Gure-Vich, A., Problemy srednevekovoi narodnoi kultury [Problems of Medieval Popular Culture] (Moscow, Iskusstvo, 1982), ch. IVGoogle Scholar. Id., AU Moyen Âge: conscience individuelle et image de l'au-delà, Annales E.S.C., XXXVII (1982), pp. 255–275.

(49) In contrast to Freud and Ariès, Duby is convinced that the ‘collective unconscious’ (inconscient collectif) does not exist. Duby, G., Lardreau, G., Dialogues, p. 102Google Scholar.

(50) G. Duby, Les trots ordres.

(51) The anticipation of this doctrine can be found in the Anglo-Saxon translation of Boethius' treatise De consolatione philosophiae, at the end of the ninth century.

(52) Les trots ordres, p. 198. Cf. Le Goff, J., Les trots fonctions, p. 1208Google Scholar.

(53) Duby's terminology.

(54) In the ancient Scandinavian ‘Song of Rig’ (Rigspula) we find a peculiar version of the threefold division of society into slaves, free man and nobles. The ranks of these three parts were descended from the deity Rig and represented successive stages in the perfecting of creation. The ‘Song of Rig’ may be classified as ‘mythopoetic sociology’. See la Gurevich, A., Norvexhskoe obshchestvo v ratmee srednevekove. Problemy sotsialnogo strata i kultury [Norwegian Society in the Early Middle Ages. Problems of Social Structure and Culture] (Moscow, Nauka, 1977)Google Scholar.

(55) See Le Goff, J., Pour un autre Moyen Âge, pp. 223ffGoogle Scholar; Schmitt, J.-C., ‘Religion populaire’ et culture folklorique, Annales E.S.C., XXXI (1976), No. 5Google Scholar.

(56) G. Duby, Le temps des cathidrales, op. cit.

(57) Duby, G., La vulgarisation des modèles culturels dans la société féodale, in Hommes et structures du Moyen Âge. Recueil d'articles (Paris/La Haye, Mouton, 1973), pp. 299–308Google Scholar; Duby, G., Lardreau, G., Dialogues, pp. 78–80, 137Google Scholar.

(58) Since the publication of Le Roy Ladurie's Montaillou there seems to be no doubt about this.

(59) Gourevitch, A., Les catégories de la culture médiévale (Paris, Gallimard, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Id.Problemy srednevkovoi narodnoi kultury [Problems of Medieval Popular Culture] (Moscow, Iskusstwo, 1981), pp. 342–43.

(60) In his most interesting work, La naissance du purgatoire, J. Le Goff establishes the correlation not only between the appearance of the idea of Purgatory in Western Christendom and the tendency of the scholastic mind of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries to use triads, but also between this mental tendency and the development of new centres of culture—towns and, correspondingly, new classes of society. It seems to be rather a hypothesis, needing further investigation. I express my doubts in a forthcoming article in the Journal of Medieval History.

(61) Le Goff, J., Les mentalités: une histoire ambiguë, in Faire de l'histoire, III, pp. 76–94Google Scholar.

(62) La nouvelle histoire, p. 325.

(63) Is it not indicative that in La nou-velle histoire there is no article with the title ‘Ideology’ ? Instead we find the word idéologie used only as a reference to the articles about Language, Littérature, Ménoire collective, Mythe, Outillage mentitle tal, Sciences…

(64) Schmitt, J.-C., Le saint lévrier, pp. 223–31, 238–42Google Scholar.

(65) Gourevitch, A., Le comique et le sérieux dans la litérature religieuse du Moyen Âge, Dioglne, XC (1975), 67–89Google Scholar.

(66) Schmitt, J.-C., Le saint lévrier pp. 230–31Google Scholar.

(67) La nouvelle histoire, p. 319. Cp. Vovelle, M., De la cave au grenier (Quebec, Serge Fleury, 1980)Google Scholar.

(68) Le Goff, J., Pour un autre Moyen Age, p. 14Google Scholar.

(69) Bakhtin, M., Voprosy literatury i estetiki (Moscow, Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1975) [Problems of Literature and Aesthetics]Google Scholar; Id.Estetica slovesnogo tvorchestva (Moscow, Iskusstvo, 1979) [Aesthetics of Philological Creation]. Compare, in particular, ‘la longue durée’ of Braudel indicating the rhythms of social and economic change with Bakhtin's ‘great durability’ (or ‘big time’, bolshoe vremja) which implies the changing meaning of great cultural phenomena in the perception of different cultural epochs and the dialogue between cultures resulting from it.

(70) Le Goff, J., IS politics still the backbone of history ?, Daedalus, C (1971), No. 1Google Scholar.

(71) Le Goff quotes in particular the well-known works of P. E. Schramm and E. H. Kantorowicz.

(72) Le Goff, J., La civilisation de l'Occident médiéval (Paris, Arthaud, 1965)Google Scholar.

(73) Duby, G., Le dimanche de Bouvines. 27 juillet 1214 (Paris, Gallimard, 1973)Google Scholar.

(74) Duby, G., Lardreau, G., Dialogues, pp. 63, 87Google Scholar.

(75) Furthermore, on the pages of Annales an attempt has been made to separate event from structure completely. B. Barret-Kriegel maintains that the histo- polirian is in no position to ask the question ‘why’, as he should be limiting himself to the description of fact (i.e. answering the question ‘how’). The real difficulty of explanation in history is replaced by the thesis that explanation is impossible. See Barret-Kbiegel, B., Histoire et polirian tique en l'histoire, science des effets, Annales E.S.C., XXVIII (1973), pp. 1447, 1453ffGoogle Scholar.

(76) Examples of social behaviour apparently contradicting the economic needs of a society are well known. In Europe in the early Middle Ages, as Bloch and Duby have shown, when there were chronic bad harvests and famine, and productive forces had declined in comparison with the late Roman epoch, the knights and elite frequently indulged in unrestrained and irrational extravagance, heedlessly destroying valuables (scattering coins everywhere, setting fire to their stables along with expensive horses, etc.), all with the sole aim of showing their generosity and grandness to those around them. This contrademonstrative waste, dictated by the striving for prestige, is reminiscent of the ‘potlatch’ ritual amongst the Indians of North America, the significance of which in the life of ‘primitive’ societies was long ago pointed out by Marcel Mauss.

(77) In his examination of the problem of mentality as applied to history, Duby noted that Pfister, when he came up against anomalies in the married life of the French King Robert le Pieux (the King was married to a relative) could find no other explanation for them than references to a passionate love and, as a result, lapsed into blatant anti-historicism (Duby, G., Histoire des mentalités, in L'histoire et ses méthodes (Paris, Gallimard, 1961, pp. 938–39)Google Scholar. In his recent book about marriage and the family in feudal times Duby shows that the matrimonial politics of the kings and the elite were dictated by a contrademonstrative dictory system of values, consisting of religious demands as well as material and dynastic interests (G. Duby, Le chevalier, la femme, le prêtre).

(78) See Le Goff, J., Pour un autre Moyen Âge, pp. 346, 348Google Scholar.

(79) May it be permissible for the author of this paper, devoted mainly to the present-day Annales, to make a reference to his articles about their founders: Marc Bloch and ‘Apologie pour l'histoire’, in Bloch, Marc, Apologia istorii Hi remeslo istorica [Apologie pour l'histoire ou Le métier d'historien] (Moscow, Nauka, 1973), pp. 170–208Google Scholar; Prefazione in Febvre, Lucien, Il problema dell'incredulità nel secolo XVI. La religione di Rabelais (Torino, Einaudi, 1978), pp. ix–xxixGoogle Scholar.