Annual-Report-2019

QUESTIONS ABOUT TIME IN EARLY MEDIEVAL
CULTURE: LITERATURE, THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE
The project further develops recent research about time in the Middle Ages
and deals with the different concepts and representations of time in early
medieval sources. The research corpus is based on manuscripts preserved
mostly in Orléans.
Human & Social Sciences 2019
90
Dr Patrizia Carmassi
LE STUDIUM Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Research Fellow
Smart Loire Valley General Programme
From: Herzog August Bibliothek - DE
In residence at: POuvoirs, LEttres, Normes
(POLEN) - Orléans
Nationality: Italian
Dates: April 2018 to April 2019
Dr Patrizia Carmassi studied at the University
of Pisa and received a PhD in Medieval History
from the University of Münster. In recent years
she worked as a researcher at the Herzog August
Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, and at the Research
Center for Medieval and Early modern period
of the University of Göttingen. Her research
approach is characterized by interdisciplinary
methodology, study of original manuscript
sources and international networking. She has
been curator of manuscript exhibitions in German
cultural institutions and has organized lecture
series and many international conferences of
which she has edited or coedited the volumes
of the proceedings. Her main research interests
are history of medieval culture, medieval liturgy,
Latin philology, text and image relationships,
palaeography, codicology, history of libraries and
book collection in the medieval and the early
modern period.
Prof. Jean-Patrice Boudet
Host scientist
Jean-Patrice Boudet is professor of Medieval
History (University of Orléans) since 2004. He
heads the “Centre d’Etudes Supérieures sur la
Fin du Moyen Âge”, the Medievist team at the
POLEN laboratory. He is also responsible for the
«Sciences of quadrivium» division of the Institut
de Recherches et d’Histoire des Textes, UPR 841
of the CNRS. He is an expert on the cultural and
political history of the late Middle Ages, especially
in astronomy, astrology, divination and magic.
He was awarded by the CNRS bronze medal in
1997. His book, Entre science et nigromance.
Astrologie, divination et magie dans l’Occident
médiéval (XIIe-XVe siècle), Paris, Publications de
la Sorbonne, 2006, was awarded by the premier
prix Gobert of the Académie des Inscriptions et
Belles-Lettres. He is currently pursuing research
on Alfonsine astronomy and the relationship
between astrology and politics in the Middle Ages
and the Renaissance.
The aim is to investigate this corpus in order to understand which ideas
of time were transmitted and how they could probably coexist, function or
interact in a specific period (IX-XI c.) in the Benedictine monastery of Fleury.
This monastery was famous for keeping the relics of Benedict. Due to the
early medieval translation of the relics to Fleury one important aspect of
consideration of time was the understanding of the past events in relation
with the present and the role of actualization for the constitution of a
legitimate identity for the monastic community.
The research during the first period of the fellowship has already shown
that not only the historiographic and hagiographic production in the
monastery are important for the comprehension of the ideas of time in
Fleury, including eternity and the eschatological dimension of time, but also
the codicological strategies which were consciously adopted during the
medieval book production. Moreover, we observe the coexistence of further
traditional systems of theological, natural and liturgical definition and
interpretation of time, which were transmitted in the monastery through
patristic and liturgical literature, later on also through philosophical texts,
already before the time of the well-known computistic studies by Abbo of
Fleury. At the level of the personal and common perception of time, the
strong normative character exerted by the liturgical practices and the
monastic rule, and customary are also to be considered with regard to their
impact on the religious community. The observation of the chosen topic
(time) across heterogeneous sources can contribute to the reconstruction
of the intellectual background of a specific community and to outline
challenges, innovations and dynamics in medieval thought. Furthermore,
up to now there has been no sufficient attention to the manuscript
transmission of contents and their material aspects concerning time in the
manuscripts of Fleury; this kind of analysis will enhance the understanding
of the techniques of acquisition, discussion and development of knowledge
during the Middle Ages.
A second field of investigation about time in the Middle Ages is represented
by the analysis of the encyclopedic work produced by a canon of Saint-Omer
in the 12th century, the so-called Liber Floridus. In this case the different
aspects of time, theories and sources which converged in one work, and
the changes in the traditional views about time and cosmology through the
reception of new scientific texts are examined through a transdisciplinary
and international conference in March 2019. This conference aims to
enrich the methodical debate and to produce new scientific results on an
important medieval text which has not yet been critically edited.