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Les diverses manifestations d'une vaste identité culturelle sont une caractéristique déterminante de l'Europe post-romaine et médiévale et elles continuent de faire l'objet de recherches dont témoigne cet ambitieux ouvrage. Dans le cas de Colomban, l'expression et l'affirmation d'identités collectives distinctes enrichissent chacun des aspects des matériaux linguistiques, historiques et archéologiques qui nous sont parvenus. Celui-ci mit à profit sa formation insulaire (utilisée contre lui en Gaule, comme dans le cas de la tonsure de ses moines et de la datation singulière des fêtes de Pâques), mais il ne perdit jamais de vue l'influence unificatrice et toujours plus puissante de l'Église chrétienne. Il ne se contenta donc pas d'intégrer deux identités, mais il les revendiqua, donnant ainsi un important aperçu du canon intellectuel de l'Église irlandaise médiévale.

Quels sont les auteurs qui ont influencé l'éducation intellectuelle de Colomban, et par conséquent l'Église irlandaise du haut Moyen Âge ? Qu'ont mis au jour les travaux de fouilles et recherches archéologiques sur le site monastique irlandais qui serait le lieu d'éducation de Colomban ? Enfin, qu'en est-il de Colomban et de l'identité sociale de la période médiévale et du problème de la question identitaire à travers des études de cas sur les Francs, les Lombards et les Irlandais, notamment au miroir des propres écrits de Colomban et du témoignage de la Vita Columbani de Jonas de Bobbio ?

L’article porte sur la façon dont les éléments essentiels des fragments tardifs (xvi^e–xvii^e s.) d’un dialogue en vers gallois entre Melwas et Gwenhwyfar sont interprétés et réécrits, à partir d’une comparaison avec d’autres textes-témoins : témoins d’origine galloise (la Vita latine de Saint Gildas par Caradog de Lancarfan et quelques références dans la poésie des xiv^e–xvi^e siècles), Lancelot de Chrétien de Troyes et le Lancelot en prose.

Best known today by the name of Cathars, this medieval dissidence arose across the territories of the Christian West in the mid-twelfth century from present-day Germany and Belgium, to the principalities of northern France (Flanders, Champagne, Burgundy), and south to the Languedoc and Italy. Its followers were known by different names given by their Catholic opponents in the different territories where they appeared. In the more northern parts of Christendom, they were known as Cathars, Piphles, Bougres or Patarins while they are named Arians then Albigensians in southern France. Known to each other simply as the good men/women in Languedoc, and the good Christians in Italy, this name could refer to the moral and religious quality of the followers of this dissidence. This article examines the origins and the evolution of the organization of the Cathar dissidence in the context of its implementation in Languedoc.

Executioner of Languedoc for some, ‘knight of Christ’ for many others, Simon IV de Montfort has often been presented as a simple minor lord of Île de France, fierce and bloodthirsty, taking part in the so-called crusade against the Albigensian for plunder and to conquer southern lands. This simplistic and caricatured view of history is often endorsed by the existing large body of popular literature. The historical reality is somewhat different, and of course more complex. To try to understand de Montfort’s character and the makeup of his entourage, we must rely on the often contradictory contemporary chroniclers. For some, such as his companion, Cistercian monk Peter of Vaux-de-Cernay, de Montfort was saint and martyr while in the work of the anonymous author of the Canso, he is represented as a bloodthirsty and ‘cursed tyrant’. This article aims to examine in full the career and temperament of Simon de Montfort in order to better understand the motivations of this man so inextricably linked to the history of the crusade against the Albigensian and a figure so important in the destinies of Hugh de Lacy in Languedoc.

De nombreuses généalogies des rois d’Angleterre ont été consignées sur des rouleaux pendant les années 1270-1330. L’article se focalise sur les auteurs de généalogies qui, en incorporant à ces documents des matériaux empruntés à l’Historia regum Britannie, ont dû faire face à des écueils de divers ordres. Les efforts qu’ils ont accomplis pour surmonter les difficultés d’une telle entreprise révèlent un changement de perception de l’histoire nationale anglaise.

This article tackles the genealogical roll-chronicles of English kings written in England between 1250 and 1350 and which became very popular during the reigns of Edward I (1272-1307) and Edward II (1307-1327). Mostly written in Anglo-Norman, they incorporate details taken from the Historia regum Britannie. Authors of the time had to deal with the difficulties involved in integrating the history of Breton monarchs into their dynastic account; a process that would ultimately reveal an altered perception of the country’s history.

A native of northern France, in the current department of Yvelines, Pierre de Voisins as much as Hugh II de Lacy is an often overlooked witness to the Albigensian Crusade. This article attempts to illustrate that minor lords such as Pierre de Voisins, although often lost in in the shadow of the major players of the period, deserve to be recognized as crucial actors in the medieval history of Western Europe. Simon IV de Montfort’s lieutenant, Pierre de Voisins, a brave and loyal knight, played an important role in this episode of the history of France. Returning from crusade in Jerusalem, he arrived at Castres, during the winter of 1211, with Guy de Montfort, Simon’s brother, and became a constant presence throughout all of the gains and reverses of the Crusade. He was before the walls of Toulouse in 1218 when Simon de Montfort fell. He returned to the south of France with Louis VIII in 1226, and in 1230, he was one of the last remaining lieutenants of the ‘old guard’ in Occitania. In 1231, the king confirmed his titles for lands lying between Carcassonne and Bugarach. From this point on, Pierre des Voisins would not return to Voisins-le-Bretonneux, his native lands located in Île-de-France, settling permanently in the County of Razes. Planting roots in Occitania, his descendants would go on to give rise to many of the great family names of the locality such as the lords of Limoux, Alzau, Arques and many others.

O. Szerwiniack étudie la « Lettre à Warin le Breton » qu’Henri de Huntingdon intégra à son Historia Anglorum après 1139. Cette adaptation de l’Historia, la première connue, se présente comme un résumé drastique opérant la fusion entre matériaux galfrédiens et sources antérieures.

 Drawing on Epistola ad Warinum, inserted by Henry of Huntingdon in his Historia Anglorum after 1139, O. Szerwiniack shows that this adaptation, the first known example, is a significantly abridged account which made use of Galfridian materials and previous sources.

[FR] La grande Vie de saint Guénolé composée vers 870 par Gurdisten de Landévennec (BHL 8957-58) est à la fois prosimètre et opus geminum ; elle compte un nombre considérable de citations, imitations et échos d’une grande variété d’auteurs profanes et chrétiens, en prose et en vers. Un nouveau bilan de ce régime d’emprunts formels est établi et élargi ; l’influence de la langue biblique et les échos de la Règle bénédictine y apparaissent encore plus nettement que dans les récapitulations effectuées antérieurement. Ce nouvel état des lieux permet de mieux comprendre le processus d’élaboration de l’oeuvre (probablement en plusieurs étapes, ensuite amalgamées) et les intentions de l’auteur en tant qu’abbé. En effet, ce dernier vise avant tout un public monastique ; il entrecoupe son récit biographique d’hymnes et de méditations à l’allure de sermons qui pourraient avoir été composées et utilisées séparément. Cette enquête permet enfin de revisiter la question des rapports entre influences insulaires et influences continentales à Landévennec au troisième quart du IX^e siècle ; les emprunts au monde romano-franc l’emportent de beaucoup sur le monde insulaire. L’influence d’auteurs carolingiens, comme Alcuin ou Smaragde de Saint-Mihiel, avait été sous-estimée jusqu’à présent.

[EN] Intertextuality in the longer Life of St. Winwaloeus of Landévennec. The Vita longior s. Winwaloei composed ca. 870 by Gurdisten of Landévennec (BHL 8957-58) is at the same time a prosimetrum and an opus geminum ; this opus is remarkable for its high frequency of quotations, imitations, and echoes borrowed from a variety of former authors, profane and christian, in prose and in verse. The inventory of those borrowings is revised and expanded, showing an influence of the biblical language and of the Benedictine Rule stronger than previously observed. This new status quaestionis opens perspectives on the process of elaboration of the vita – probably in several steps, finally amalgamated ; it also secures a better understanding of the intentions of the hagiographer, as the head of a monastic community. The intended audience is indeed essentially monastic ; the biography of Guénolé is interrupted several times by hymns and homilies that could have been composed and used separately. This research finally shows how insular and continental influences meet and mix at Landévennec (Finistère) in the third quarter of the IXth century : borrowings from the Franco-Roman world are much more intensive than the Insular ones. The influence of Carolingian authors, like Alcuin or Smaragdus of St. Mihiel, had been underestimated until now.

The legacy of the Celts on the continent is described and the linguistic implications of the term Celtic, as well as of its relatives, are discussed in relation to the people to whom they have been applied in the remote and more recent past. Further, the linguistic and societal outcomes of cultural contacts on the island of Ireland are traced. The influence of Latin and Greek learning on early Ireland is shown and the rise of the English language in Ireland is described in its socio-cultural context. Linguistic and cultural contacts in the modern area are also considered in the discussions of how the Irish and Irish variety of English are perceived in American popular culture, and how multilinguality made use of in James Joyce’s work. Finally, the question is asked how similar or dissimilar Irish English in fact is compared to other international varieties of English.

The present article examines the changes undergone by etymological formulae in the process of translation, in the 13th century, of Honorius Augustodunensis’ 12th century Latin treatise Imago Mundi ‘Image of the World’ into Welsh. In order to make the amount of evidence manageable, the article focuses on a specific feature of the etymological formulae and their translations – the word quasi. Depending on the context, this word is sometimes rendered into Welsh, but more often disappears from the translated text. The aim of the present article is to provide an explanation for this phenomenon. The data is, for the Latin text, taken from Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 66, and for the Welsh text, from Oxford, Jesus College, 111 and Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, Peniarth 17. The article also provides, as background information, a short description of the relationship between the Latin and the Welsh manuscript traditions of this text, which the author intends to publish elsewhere in full. An Appendix provides all of the examples of the etymological use of quasi from the Latin and Welsh texts examined, along with the author’s French translations.