Fanuensis ergo mercator ou le petit monde d'un homme d'affaires génois,le juge Guarnerius (1210–1221)

Analysis of thirteenth-century Genoese minute-books frequently offers precise details about Genoese society and the economy of Genoa at that time. By re-grouping the entries relating to a single personage, the judge Guarnerius, one realises that the famous dictum Januensis ergo mercator, “Genoese therefore merchant”, needs reconsideration in the light of the fact that, though all the Genoese were effectively involved in commercial transactions, some were much more engaged than others. Thus Guarnerius, because of the scale of his investments and the role played around him by members of his family or household, appears in the years 1212–1220 as an early example of the Genoese professional merchant. The question arises whether, from the start of the thirteenth century, there was not already at Genoa a group of specialised businessmen from which a truly professional class of merchants was about to evolve. If such a hypothesis is confirmed, some reflections on the origins of Genoese capitalism are called for.     

La Place des femmes dans l’histoire ou les enjeux d’une écriture

The history of women in France has not yet achieved the recognition it deserves. As a category, it is ill identified and remains on the margins of the «other» history. The history of women will remain bordeline unless we reinstate the historicity of the tensions inherent in gender relations, which up to now have been excluded as an object of study in the field of political history, which itself has been conceptualized outside the framework of power relations. A complete renewal of the way in which history is written is thus crucial. What is at stake lies between a linear, continuous history and the historical discontinuities that emerge in its gaps; between representative female individuals, as objects of representation, and the critical subjects who strain against representation as a form of power.     

La mode du ping-pong en France en 1902: une autre façon de questionner les classiques transferts culturels dans le domaine du sport

This study offers to follow the path of a parlour game and allows to seize the cultural transfers of this physical practise and to measure the part of the ambient anglomania in its reconfiguration in France at the beginning of the twentieth century. The ping-pong become a fashion within the French high society in 1902. By joining the bourgeois codes, this parlour game contributes to the perpetuation of the uses of this select population far from the effort of English sport. This fashion seduces because it’s not only perpetuation of the social conventions of elites. It’s also built on the idea of emancipation which the impossible meets between men and women symbolise. Fashion is surprisingly fed with paradox.     

Fanuensis ergo mercator ou le petit monde d'un homme d'affaires génois,le juge Guarnerius (1210–1221)

Analysis of thirteenth-century Genoese minute-books frequently offers precise details about Genoese society and the economy of Genoa at that time. By re-grouping the entries relating to a single personage, the judge Guarnerius, one realises that the famous dictum Januensis ergo mercator, “Genoese therefore merchant”, needs reconsideration in the light of the fact that, though all the Genoese were effectively involved in commercial transactions, some were much more engaged than others. Thus Guarnerius, because of the scale of his investments and the role played around him by members of his family or household, appears in the years 1212–1220 as an early example of the Genoese professional merchant. The question arises whether, from the start of the thirteenth century, there was not already at Genoa a group of specialised businessmen from which a truly professional class of merchants was about to evolve. If such a hypothesis is confirmed, some reflections on the origins of Genoese capitalism are called for.     

La "paix perpétuelle" et l'Europe dans le discours des Lumières

L'article analyse la fac¸on dont les écrivains politiques et les philosophes du siècle des Lumières se sont représenté l'institutionnalisation d'un système de paix en Europe. Le XVIII e siècle voit le devenir-hégémonique d'une pensée qui conc¸oit la paix comme une entiténaturelle et, en tant que telle, catégoriquement opposée à la guerre. La paix, qui sera désormais dotée de l'attribut de justice, est fondée sur la puissance intégratrice spontanée de la société . Ainsi, les projets de paix comme établissement d'un ordre d'une paix juste s'inscrivent dans un triangle théorique unissant la pax , l' ordo et la iustitia qui a été développé par la théologie politique médiévale. Mais alors que pour cette dernière, Dieu était le centre spirituel d'oùémane l'ordre de la paix juste, une certaine conception de la nature humaine prend désormais la place de Dieu.     

La république des « humeurs » : Les querelles dans le dictionnaire de Bayle

Quarrelling is a ‘routine’ activity of the Republic of Letters. This article demonstrates that quarrels played a key role in the field of historical criticism. The contention of this article is twofold. First, it explores the epistemological issues raised by Bayle while reporting the quarrels of the Republic of Letters, and demonstrates their creative potential, thus applying to historiography conclusions drawn by recent research on scientific controversies. It offers a new understanding of scholarly quarrels, here understood as a socially and intellectually structuring activity. Second, this article takes issue with the debate over Bayle’s historical pyrrhonism. As will be shown, the quarrels constitute a key element within a method of writing history that is both conscious of its limits and confident of its investigative powers     

La transposition des dieux souverains mineurs en héros dans le Mahābhārata

Sans résuméConférence faite à l'Université de Copenhague, le 22 novembre 1956. La matière en a été développée dans une série de cours du Collège de France, en 1956–57.     

Des Professionnels de la Chaire dans la France de L’?ge Classique

Starting in the 1630s, in French towns, the rise of sermons gave an increasing group of clerics the possibility to become preachers. This article analyses this process of professionalization. First, it takes a look at a number of long - and sometimes quite profitable - careers of men as preachers. Second, it analyzes the know-how that was then developed for to make and recite the sermon. Finally, the article focuses on the transformations brought about by the increasing importance of written communication during the 18(th) century.     

Chenet,François: Psychogenèse et cosmogonie selon le Yoga-Vāsistha 'Le monde est dans l'âme'

Indo-Iranian Journal -     

«Ridges on the floors of Hell»: traces ou palimpsestes dans le désert de The Dead Heart

The Dead Heart is American author Douglas Kennedy's first novel. It was first translated into French in 1997 as Cul-de-sac. It was this translation that made Kennedy a household name in France and that gave The Dead Heart its identity as a roman noir. In the space of just 20 years the novel has been translated twice into French and adapted twice more, as a film and now as a graphic novel. Elsewhere, we have analyzed this trajectory from the perspective of retranslation and the ostensible differences between the two translation Skopoi, and the use of paratextual branding to target specific reading publics. Focusing on the graphic novel allows us here to go beyond the problematics of translation and to broaden the scope of our study of textual adaptation. It also allows us to reassess the originality of the source text.     

Reseau urbain et diffusion de l'innovation dans la France pre-industrielle: La creation des caisses d'epargne (1818–1848)

This paper discusses the paradigms of European history and of European civilisation defined in the main histories of Europe written from the Enlightenment to Guizot.

Voltaire, Robertson, Gibbon, and Guizot consolidated a model of the history of Europe which has its origins in the fall of the western Roman Empire and the invasions of the Barbarians. The other main steps of this history were the Christianisation, the creation of a vital economic centre in western and northern Europe, the development of the cities, the rediscovery of Roman law, the creation of a complex system of states, the colonial expansion and again the birth of a society of “good manners”.

A common civilisation which did not ignore the differences which existed between one country and another – the “national characters”, discussed by David Hume in 1748. Instead the different national characters – the variety of Europe as Guizot wrote – represented an important element of the European civilisation.     

La critique de l'idolâtrie des jeux scéniques dans le de civitate dei. destinataires et enjeux

Contrairement à son aîné Tertullien, saint Augustin ne consacre pas de longs développements à démontrer l'origine religieuse des jeux antiques. De nombreux passages du De civitate Dei font cependant exception ; l'auteur tente ici d'en rendre compte. Saint Augustin y vise le paganisme que la chute de Rome et la venue en Afrique du cercle sénatorial de Volusien ont rendu plus vivace. L'évêque d'Hippone mêle dans ses attaques une érudition purement livresque et des souvenirs personnels, grâce auxquels il démontre, contre toute évidence, le caractère religieux des jeux offerts par les notables des cités africaines. Le débat n ‘est pourtant pas déjà anachronique car, pour n'être pas religieux, les jeux n'en sont pas moins liés au paganisme du patriotisme urbain qui constitue la véritable cible de saint Augustin. A la cité terrestre comme absolu, il oppose l'idée de la vie comme peregrinatio, sans attaches, en marche dans l'espoir de la cité céleste.