Catalogne médiévale

A Perpignan, le 25 juin 1450, Johana Descamps, épouse Vésia, s’enfuit du domicile de sa belle-famille où elle vivait depuis six ans avec son époux Bérenguer. Elle y abandonne ses deux fillettes, Constance et Johana. Battue par son mari avec la complicité de son beau-père, Johana revient chez ses parents. Son père, Syméon Descamps, est un notaire influent de la ville. La famille de Johana forme bloc autour d’elle. Syméon et Justa, ses parents, la recueillent, font reconnaître la démence de Johana, rendue folle par les mauvais traitements. Ils engagent une procédure contre la famille Vésia pour récupérer une partie de la dot. Grâce à l’acharnement des Descamps et à leur connaissance du droit, cette affaire est sortie de l’obscurité de l’intime, a laissé des traces qui nous permettent de reconstituer le conflit où s’opposèrent dès lors deux familles entières, puisque la propre sœur de Johana avait, le même jour que sa sœur, épousé Francesc Vésia, le frère de Bérenguer, époux tortionnaire de Johana.
Nous présenterons la riche documentation conservée autour de cette affaire et les aspects principaux de l’affrontement entre les deux clans familiaux, puis nous analyserons les choix effectués par les Descamps en matière de procédure judiciaire, et nous ouvrirons enfin quelques pistes d’interprétation psychologique, sociale et genrée de cette affaire.

Depuis vingt ans, le développement de l’archéologie préventive, des prospections systématiques et une meilleure connaissance des indicateurs chronologiques ont permis d’étudier de nombreuses occupations rurales du début du Moyen Age en Roussillon. Les opérations menées, parfois sur de grandes surfaces, font émerger une archéologie des terroirs, éclairée par la multiplication des études bioarchéologiques et paléoenvironnementales (carpologie, anthracologie, archéozoologie, géomorphologie, etc.).
La dizaine de sites étudiés documente les modes d’implantation et d’organisation de l’habitat, ainsi que certains types d’exploitation du sol et des ressources naturelles. Les campagnes roussillonnaises paraissent maillées par un réseau assez dense d’habitats ruraux polynucléaires, déployés sur de grands espaces. Leur organisation permet d’optimiser la gestion d’une multitude de terroirs, y compris par la réalisation d’importants travaux (enclos, structures de drainage, voire d’arrosage, aires d’ensilage…). Un essai de croisement entre les données de différentes disciplines archéologiques tentera d’éclairer l’histoire rurale du Roussillon, terre de passage, à un moment de réorganisation des campagnes et d’évolution de l’éventail alimentaire et des techniques culturales.

At the beginning of the 14th century, far-reaching political events and social transformations rapidly changed the set-up of the Mediterranean basin and affected the Ordo universalis through which the material and symbolic space of Christianitas had been previously conceived. The essays collected in this volume discuss this historical transition by adopting the lens of “exile”, a long-lasting and intrinsically polysemic notion that experienced a new actuality in those decades. Far beyond the topos of the Avignon papacy as a new Babylonian Captivity, the volume examines practices and representations of exclusion, self-exclusion, and mobility, in their socio-historical as well as cultural and artistic manifestations, as different and yet intertwined attempts to redefine universal, local, and individual identities.

Contents: E. Brilli - L. Fenelli, Introduzione. L’esilio da categoria storiografica a tema-problema della ricerca interdisciplinare. I. EXCLUSION AND SELF-EXCLUSION FROM THE «CIVITAS»: S. Boesch Gajano, Introduzione - F. Ricciardelli, Confini e bandi. Azione politica a Firenze in età comunale - M. Ferrari, «Avaro, traditore». Pittura d’infamia e tradizione figurativa del tradimento politico tra Lombardia e Toscana (1250-1350) - G. Curzi, La «condanna» dei templari. Tracce materiali e memoria negata tra Francia e Italia - I. Bueno, Come estirpare le cattive piante. L’esclusione degli eretici nell’opera esegetica di Jacques Fournier - F. Massaccesi, Da Avignone a Cesena a Ravenna. Immagini e politica - A. Montefusco, Repenser les «spirituels». L’identité dissidente entre réclusion, répression et auto-exclusion dans la tradition monastique et franciscaine - L. Fenelli, Tre storie bolognesi di Sant’Onofrio. Prime note per la ricostruzione del culto per l’eremita intorno alla metà del Trecento. II. DISPLACED PERSONS: A. Fontes Baratto, Introduction - G. Milani, An Ambiguous Sentence. Dante Confronting His Banishment - E. Brilli, The Interplay Between Political and Prophetic Discourse: a Reflection on Dante’s Authorship in Epistles V-VII - D. Blume, Francesco da Barberino. The Experience of Exile and the Allegory of Love - S. Piron, Les exils d’Opicino de Canistris - M. Gagliano, La polemica antiavignonese di Petrarca e il modello di Dante esule e profeta - L. Marcozzi, Petrarca e l’esilio nel tempo. III. AVIGNON: THE MAKING OF A CAPITAL: A. Paravicini Bagliani, Avignon, une autre Rome? - J. Rollo-Koster, Avignon’s Capitalization and the Legitimation of Transciency - B. Bombi, The «Avignon Captivity» as a Means of Success. The circle of the Frescobaldi - X. Barral i Altet, Manifestare l’esilio all’esterno del palazzo? L’entrata monumentale del Palazzo dei Papi ad Avignone - D. Vingtain, Historiographie des peintures murales du Palais des Papes d’Avignon - F. Manzari, Le opportunità offerte dall’esilio. Componenti multiculturali e libertà di innovazione nella miniatura avignonese del Trecento - M. A. Bilotta, Un inedito manoscritto giuridico miniato dalla bottega del Liber visionis Ezechielis, attiva ad Avignone nella prima metà del XIV secolo: l’Urb. lat. 157. IV. EXCHANGING GLANCES: S. Romano, Introduzione - É. Anheim, Simone Martini à Avignon: une histoire en négatif? - C. Bolgia, Images in the City. Presence, Absence and Legitimacy in Rome in the first half of the 14th century - T. Holler, L’Aldilà della Cappella Strozzi. I domenicani, l’esilio di Dante e il ritorno dell’Inferno - F. Pasquale, La costruzione di una capitale. Roberto d’Angiò e la sua corte tra Napoli e Avignone - V. Lucherini, Il «testamento» di Maria d’Ungheria a Napoli un esempio di acculturazione regale. V. MAPPING AVIGNON’S SPACE: M. Laclotte, Introduction - S. Zanke, Imagined Spaces? The Papal Registers in the Pontificate of John XXII (1316-1334) - G. Kerscher, L’ordre de la cour - la hiérarchie - l’aménagement de l’espace du palais des papes d’Avignon - T. Sabater, Intorno all’influenza della corte di Avignone sull’arte la pittura maiorchina del XIV secolo - R. Alcoy, Avignone e la Catalogna dei Bassa - A. Tomei, Opere e artisti in esilio tra Italia e Provenza (con qualche ritorno). Modelli, stili, iconografie - G. Wolf, Immagini e parole in esilio. Una postfazione. Indexes by E. Brilli and L. Fenelli.

As the main city of Catalonia since the Middle Ages, with a population of around thirty thousand inhabitants, Barcelona was a large Iberian port on the Mediterranean sea and the headquarters of the Diputació del General assembly. At the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, the city had to face the consequences of the Catalan civil war. Between 1462 and 1472, Catalonia rejected the king’s power and seceded from the Crown of Aragon. In 1472, as the royalists won the war, Barcelona entered a era of reconstruction and profound modification of its urban power structure. King Ferdinand the Catholic modified the requirements to enter the municipal government and the nobility. He also implanted an Inquisition under royal control in the city.

In this context, bishops and canons sought their place in the political game of the city. Beyond their religious attributions, they were closely involved in the life of the city. Composed of the group of canons who surrounded and assisted the bishop, the cathedral chapter oversaw the cathedral on a daily basis, managed its estate, commanded the clergy of the diocese and supervised the faithful. Nevertheless, the chapter should not be considered solely as an ecclesiastical institution. Foremost, it was a group of individuals of high social rank, each carrying a real weight in the life of the city. Through their social status and their families, the chapter’s members were fully part of the urban ruling elite, but being members of the Church gave them a very specific position. In contact with their counterparts in other cathedrals and with the Pope, they were also integrated in the city and engaged in dialogues with its urban elites. Their power went beyond their functions or wealth : they were personally integrated into the interpersonal networks that structured Barcelona’s oligarchy and municipal political life.

This book aims to shed light on the powers exerted by the Church over the main city of Catalonia. How did the clergy intervene in the politics of a medieval city? Was it independent from the municipal government, or controlled by urban oligarchies? The cathedral is seen here through its connections with the outside world: with the city, its elites, its government. Using the example of Barcelona, this book questions the insertion of a cathedral chapter into the municipal power and its impact on urban society,throwing light on the transformations of Catalan society, just after the crisis of the Catalan civil war.

The book is divided into three parts. First, the cathedral chapter is considered as an institution, in order to highlight its very specific role in municipal politics, particularly in times of tension in the city: during the arrival of the royal Inquisition and at a time of fiscal conflict between the Church and the government of Barcelona over the payment of meat taxes. In a second step, the chapter is analysed as a group of individuals, revealing the specificity of the canons’ place in urban society. This is perceptible through the multiple types of connections they maintain with the socio-political elites of the city: the government’s attempts to control appointments, the symbolic role of the canons to preserve peace in the city or even the links between the economic interests of the canons’ families and those of the cathedral. Finally, the third part of the book deals with canons, no longer as a group, but as individuals. It establishes the modalities of their integration into the personal networks and the informal power that underlined the urban oligarchy.

Beyond the case of Barcelona alone, the book shows that the Church was, in practice, a real actor in the political life of Iberian cities, a notion which is still too often underestimated by historiography. The cathedral clergy, in fact, was not instrumentalized by the urban government. It was not an ordo separate from the secular world, nor can it be systematically described as a fierce opponent of the political elites in the name of ecclesiastical freedoms. On the contrary, the clergy connected local interests (those of the chapter, those of the municipal councillors, those of the families of the canons) and the Church’s power network, which extended throughout Catalonia and went all the way back to Rome, where the canons conducted their careers and protected their interests. Linked to different groups of powers in the city, the chapter acted as an «intergroup».

This research thus tries to understand the interactions between the Church and municipal power. It highlights the informal mechanics of power within medieval urban societies and shows the important role of individuals, outside or inside institutions. Finally, it sheds new light on the Catalan society at the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the early modern period.