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H A G I O L O G I A
3 (1997)
Publié et diffusé par les Éditions Brepols
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2. Sofia Boesch Gajano, Les recherches en hagiographie en Italie. Recherches et perspectives.
3. Jeroen Deploige, The database Narrative Sources and its possibilities for hagiographic research.
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Litterae Hagiologicae est édité par Hagiologia. Atelier belge d'études sur la sainteté. Belgische Werkgroep voor Hagiologisch Onderzoek Président : Paul Bertrand (Quai Mativa, 24, Bte 14 B-4020 Liège Tél./Fax +32 (0)4 343 64 34). Secrétariat : François De Vriendt et Michel Trigalet (Facultés universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix, Faculté de philosophie et lettres, Rue de Bruxelles, 61 B-5000 Namur - Tél. +32 (0)81 72 40 10 - Fax +32 (0)81 72 42 03 - email philo-ha@fundp.ac.be). Comité de rédaction : Jeroen Deploige, Katrien Heene, Anne-Marie Helvétius, Xavier Hermand. |
On trouvera ici les résumés de conférences données lors des séances de travail organisées par Hagiologia le 6 novembre 1996 à l'Université de Liège et le 25 avril 1997 à l'Université Catholique de Louvain.
L'importance de l'hagiographie au sens le plus large du terme et ses relations avec l'histoire de l'art et l'archéologie ont été soulignées à travers 3 dossiers mosans récemment traités :
celui des châsses de saint Domitien et de saint Mengold à Huy ; celui de la sainte croix de Liège ; et celui de la clé de saint Hubert. De nombreux dossiers en cours d'examen ont été très brièvement évoqués, notamment celui des textiles de haute époque et de certains trésors d'églises du pays mosan. L'aspect informatique ne fut pas négligé ainsi qu'en témoignent les activités actuellement en cours à l'Université de Liège.
L'exposé fut suivi par une visite guidée de la cathédrale de Liège et de son trésor sous la conduite du conférencier, qui en est le conservateur.
S.B.G. a rappelé tout d'abord de grandes tendances de fond : 1) le parcours qui va d'une histoire critique de l'hagiographie, dans la tradition bollandienne, à une hagiographie pour l'histoire, qui use des textes hagiographiques comme sources historiques, et à une hagiographie dans l'histoire, avec un intérêt plus profond pour l'histoire de la sainteté et du culte des saints dans ses multiples dimensions et ses interactions avec l'histoire des sociétés ; 2) l'influence de travaux importants (Brown, Vauchez, Philippart...), l'ouverture et l'internationalisation de la recherche (la nouvelle revue Hagiographica) ; 3) un processus de laïcisation confirmé par la création de chaires d'hagiographie dans les universités d'État, et récemment d'un doctorat de recherche en hagiographie aux universités de Rome " Tor Vergata ", Rome III, Florence et Naples, avec pour coordinateur Francesco Scorza Barcellona ; 4) le développement de la diachronie, avec une augmentation des recherches d'hagiographie consacrées aux époques modernes et contemporaines.
En ce qui concerne la production liée à la sainteté et au culte, S.B.G. a souligné : 1) l'intérêt persistant pour les sources hagiographiques écrites ; 2) l'attention renouvelée pour le problème des genres littéraires et de leurs interrelations (travaux de Giannarelli, Luongo, Zarri, Baroffio) ; 3) les recherches sur des types de sources particuliers comme les collections de Vies de saints, du bas moyen âge à l'époque contemporaine, considérées dans leurs rapports avec l'érudition ecclésiastique et les finalités pastorales : groupe de recherche CNR ; 4) le développement des études d'iconographie en rapport avec l'histoire de la sainteté et du culte des saints (Frugoni).
Parmi les thèmes les plus présents : 1) le rapport entre expériences religieuses et production hagiographique, avec le problème connexe des modèles, religieux et littéraires (Leonardi) ; 2) le rapport sainteté, cultes et institutions, avec un intérêt particulier pour le thème - traditionnel en Italie - du rapport saint-cité (Orselli, Golinelli, Benvenuti, Tomea, Savigni) et pour les articulations géopolitiques du culte des saints (recherche CNR " Geografia e storia della santità ", sous la coordination de Roberto Rusconi) ; 3) rapport entre choix spirituels/formes de la vie religieuse et contextes naturels (espaces de la sainteté) ; 4) religiosité laïque et sainteté féminine (Consolino, Benvenuti, Zarri, Cabibbo-Modica, Scaraffia, Fattorini), domaine qui s'est particulièrement développé sous l'impulsion du mouvement féministe et de l'histoire des femmes ; 5) la sainteté pontificale (les congrès de l'Aquila sur Célestin v) ; 6) intérêt ininterrompu pour les ordres mendiants, avec l'anomalie que constitue la " question franciscaine " (Chiara Frugoni innove ici de façon décisive).
Quant aux perspectives, S.B.G. a signalé les sujets de recherche suivants, jugés centraux dans le cadre de sa réflexion personnelle : la construction de la sainteté à partir du parcours de sainteté géré par le saint lui-même (autoconstruction de la sainteté) ; le rapport entre expérience religieuse (pas seulement des saints, mais aussi des bénéficiaires de la sainteté et des manifestations du sacré), mémoire individuelle et collective, fixation et perpétuation de la mémoire (littéraire, iconographique, liturgique, monumentale) ; les formes de " construction " du miracle, c'est-à-dire, les modalités par lesquelles un événement acquiert les caractères de l'exceptionnalité et de la " supranaturalité " (acteurs, bénéficiaires, public, intervention ecclésiastique, notariale, scientifique, etc.), afin de récupérer définitivement le miracle en tant qu'objet d'analyse historique - et non seulement ses fonctions ecclésiastiques, sociales, politiques - selon l'enseignement de Marc Bloch.
Narrative Sources, a database accessible by the Internet, constitutes the result of a scientific project of the departments of medieval history at the universities of Gent and Leuven. The aim of Narrative Sources is to give an exhaustive and critical survey of all the medieval primary sources from the Southern Low Countries, which have been written in order to describe the past in a narrative way : annals, chronicles, letters, diaries, poems, saint's lives, genealogies,... Narrative Sources shows similarities with M. Carasso-Kok's Repertorium van de verhalende historische bronnen uit de Middeleeuwen (The Hague, 1981) for the Northern Netherlands but its scope is larger and its information much richer due to the pre-eminence of the Southern Low Countries in the Middle Ages. It does not duplicate L. Genicot and P. Tombeur's Index scriptorum operumque Latino-Belgicorum Medii Aevi (Brussels, 1973-1979) either. Other types of information are given, vernacular texts are also treated and, moreover, the whole of the Middle Ages is covered.
A survey of this type is never finished or definitive. The scientific committee of this project therefore considers an electronic database to be the most adequate way to publish the information : new data can continuously be added, and the existing data be adapted and corrected, and thus kept up-to-date. At this stage, Narrative Sources contains approximately 1400 records. Although all hagiographic material from the Southern Low Countries has not yet been inventoried, more than 400 of these records describe vitae, miracula, translationes... But records of other types of sources might also be of great importance for hagiographic research : they can be written by the authors of saint's lives (e. g. the chronicles of Sigebert of Gembloux) or they can contain information on local saints (e. g. the chronicles of Villers). The database-system of Narrative Sources allows to search for the record of one specific text or to organize a complex query by combining different searches : one can find the record of the Vita Popponis as well as all records describing Latin hagiographic texts, written by Cistercians between the 12th and the 14th century.
Regular updates of Narrative Sources are planned. We hope to increase the database not only by new research within the existing project-structure, but also by record submissions from the users of the database.
Internet : http://sfxserv.rug.ac.be/ or, with additional information on the project : http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~jdploige/sources/
F.D. a débuté son séminaire par l'examen de la tradition manuscrite de la V. Ursmari de Rathier : 15 ms. conservés et 11 perdus. Le meilleur témoin est l'Egerton 2797 (xie s., Marchiennes). La diffusion est régionale.
L'attribution à Rathier est fondée sur une lettre servant de préface figurant dans 6 ms. F.D. a montré que l'étude du texte lui-même confirme l'attribution : usage des sources, parentés stylistiques, lexicales et surtout thématiques avec d'autres oeuvres de Rathier.
Puis, F.D. a situé le texte dans le dossier littéraire du saint, remettant en cause l'état des connaissances. Il a mis en évidence les procédés de remaniement dont use Rathier par rapport à sa source principale, la V. Ursmari d'Anson (BHL 8416) : léger raccourcissement global (masqué par l'addition d'un ex cursus), niveau de langue plus élevé, simplification des difficultés du récit. L'oeuvre de Rathier, sans la préface ni le développement sur le " diable menteur ", paraît avoir été la version la plus répandue. Néanmoins, elle a pu être jugée insuffisante sur le plan local, ce qui expliquerait l'ajout d'interpolations à caractère historique et économique (recensio interpolata non numérotée dans la BHL). F.D. y voit la main de Folcuin (abbé de Lobbes, 965-971/972-990) : vers la fin de son abbatiat, il aurait créé un ensemble associant la Vie interpolée et ses Miracula (BHL 8420), dont témoignent 3 ms. (Paris BNF lat. 11773 ; 2 ms. lobbains perdus). La V. metrica Ursmari (BHL 8419), contrairement aux conclusions de K. Strecker, s'inspirerait du récit de Folcuin.
La discussion a été marquée e.a. par les interventions de MM. Tombeur (instruments lexicologiques du CETEDOC à Louvain-la-Neuve), Denooz (outils d'analyse linguistique du latin du LASLA à Liège) et Dierkens (dossiers hagiographiques lobbains).
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How was knowledge preserved and transmitted in the past ? What was the status of the written and the oral traditions and how did they function and interact ? These are questions belonging to a field of investigation which in the last few years greatly fascinates not just students of cultural history or anthropologists but also linguists concerned with what Michel Banniard calls " socio-linguistique rétrospective ". Also the Early Middle Ages and more specifically the Carolingian period are amply discussed in recent studies on orality and its relation to written culture.
After the fall of the Roman Empire the early medieval society developed from a civilization based on written communication into one mainly based on oral communication. Yet, when the Carolingians acceded to power, writing was reestablished in many respects. In the view of Carolingian religious and secular rulers, clerics can properly perform their duties concerning worship and predication only if they have been adequately educated and morally trained. They should also have at their disposal texts which correctly render the Christian message, both formally and as regards the content. Therefore, raising the moral and intellectual level of the clergy and establishing a corpus of correctly written sacred texts belong to the primary aims of the Carolingian Renaissance, or maybe rather the Carolingian reform.
However, recent research has also shown that in Carolingian society writing was increasingly used by the authorities in legal and administrative matters and that among the (Franco-Gaulish) nobility a kind of literacy was coming up as well, which at the beginning was mainly of a practical nature. Not only they increasingly relied on written texts rather than on living memory for their daily needs, they also regarded literacy as one of the essential characteristics of a civilized christian society and of its aristocratic elite.
Both the increasing use of writing and the need for and reliance on correctly written texts is also apparent in the hagiographic production of the time. Quite a number of older texts are actually revised linguistically as well as to the style. Moreover, the pious life and miracles of certain Merovingian saints are now for the first time committed to writing.
From the outset the clerical authorities, particularly bishops, played a role in promoting and officializing the (popular or monastic) worship of saints, therefore relying on oral as well as on written information. However, it was as late as under Charlemagne that a preceding investigation and possibly also a written proof became necessary - at least if the statements made at the councils of Frankfurt in 794 and of Mainz in 813 are interpreted in this sense - in order to obtain an official canonization by elevating the saint's relics.
The requirement for irrefutable proofs of sanctity fits in with what Mikoletzky calls the Carolingian " Aufklärung ". Marc Van Uytfanghe recently demonstrated that the attitude of both the secular and religious authorities was not as " enlightened " as Mikoletzky suggested a few decades ago. He nevertheless confirms that the authorities opposed excesses in the cult of saints and in the belief in miracles and that within the scope of the iconoclastic controversy, one even finds a certain - marginal - reserve towards the veneration of saints as such among intellectuals.
Thaumaturgical gifts, and failing these, miracula post mortem are anyway indispensable for a saint to be successful among broad layers of the population. Yet, miracles are important not just for popular worship. The church authorities also see miracles - especially those which take place posthumously - as an important criterion in the canonization process and a quasi-indispensable condition of sanctity throughout the Middle Ages.
Against this general background I shall here enter into the information given by Carolingian hagiographers on the value of the written fixation of miracles and also investigate the contribution of information derived from the memory and from oral tradition, how it was assimilated and assessed. The evidence comes from saint's lives and from reports on the translation of their relics as well as from single collections of miracles, which become very frequent as from the beginning of the 9th century.
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It is well known that there may be various concrete reasons for composing a vita or a collection of miracles and that writings of this type, next to having a liturgical function, can play an important role as pieces of propaganda. Particularly for places of cult this means that they also can bring economic advantage. Hagiographers themselves primarily point to religious and moral motives : by their writings they want to praise God for the wonders he works through the saints and try to instigate others to such praise and to incite them to a more virtuous life. Yet, the authors also point to the specific function of their text within the framework of the transmission of information. Registrating a saint's life and miracles is explicitly seen as a form of handing down to the collective memory : memoriae tradere, memoriae commendare or mandare are fixed expressions. Hagiographers likewise call their own text a memoriale, a commemorative text for the benefit of future generations. They regard the litterae - a word meaning either " letters ", " pieces of writing " or " literature " - as an aid to the memory and they use this term almost as a synonym for memoria : committing virtues and miracles to writing is to save them from oblivion (oblivio). The excess value of a written document also appears from the fact that the authors, when writing or revising a text, always point out when they have written sources at their disposal, e. g. an older version or occasional notes by contemporaries. Moreover, they also like to mention that there once was a written document, which was, however, lost in a fire or a war.
Fixation in writing is regarded as a duty both to the faithful and to the saint. As a matter of fact the number of miracles can decrease when there is too little respect for the saint, because his earlier miraculous deeds have been forgotten owing to the fact that they were not recorded. Current miracles are actually of vital importance for the success of a cult. The authors therefore regularly prove that the saint's sanctifying power is still active by mentioning that they are not only writing down recent miracles, but also miracles occurring at the very moment of writing. Within the same perspective, in the act of revising an older Vita, the miracles can be brought up to date by means of a new collection, as is the case with the V. Richarii and the V. et mir. Goaris. That updating is regarded as a continuous process can be deduced from the fact that Wandelbert of Prüm, the author of the latter text, adds to his work a number of empty pages. Into these, so he says, the monks of the monastery can enter all future miracles. In various texts past generations are blamed for having been careless and negligent in recording the saint's deeds. Wandelbert also mentions that in the past information was frequently lost to the knowledge of future generations (scientia posterorum), because it was not committed to writing. Yet, he finds it much worse that this still happens at that time (AD 848). After the efforts of the authorities in the field of education one cannot any more explain such an error by a lack of teaching and training, as was the case in the (Merovingian) past : it is entirely caused by indifference due to an all too worldly mentality (caducibus rebus intenti parum haec et leviter contuemur) or to intellectual idleness (animi disidia).
In spite of the fact that in their view written tradition is more reliable than living human memory, hagiographers are often forced to use information derived from their own recollections or those of other people. In his Translatio Marcellini et Petri Einhard amply discusses that problem. He explains that he will not only relate miracles he has witnessed himself but mainly the ones he knows from hearsay. Among his informants are e. g. members of the royal court but Einhard states that he attaches as much importance to evidence about miracles coming from persons with whom he is not or hardly acquainted. He considers the fact that he himself saw similar miraculous things as a sufficient guarantee of truth. For a certain number of miracles Einhard can use written evidence in the form of libelli but he does not set great store by these.
Still, the latter situation is rather exceptional : most hagiographers can only describe miracles of which they were neither witnesses nor beneficiaries, using oral information obtained from - preferably numerous - reliable (eye) witnesses. As to the miracles in vita of recent saints, information often comes from persons who have known the saint, who not rarely belong to his spiritual circle. Biographies of saints from a remote past do not seem to mention any eyewitnesses for the description of miracles in vita. However, things are different when hagiographers describe miracula post mortem, regardless of whether these are found in the vita or in a separate collection of miracles, or whether they relate to a recent saint or a saint from the past. In that case they frequently point out that they are registering what eyewitnesses - in so far as their memory allows them to do so - have told them, or what they heard from people who have been cured by the saint or through his relics. Insiders like monks and nuns of the monastery where the saint's shrine is kept are also obvious sources of information. But hagiographers equally incorporate information procured by inhabitants of the region where the saint is venerated, even when the stories relate about holy persons of earlier date and have been kept alive in the oral tradition stricto sensu, i.e. the stories so far had been transmitted only orally, from generation to generation (sola relatione seniorum iunioribus).
If the events described are situated in a more remote past, not rarely the advanced age of the ones recalling the events is referred to. Although such utterances can be topoi, there is no reason why they a priori should be seen as such. In my materials all references to aged or otherwise eyewitnesses and to oral information seem in any case to be trustworthy.
The hagiographers are well aware in any case of the fact that in cases of second-hand information they depend on the reliability of their sources. They keep repeating that they are recording stories which in their opinion have really taken place. The authors also realize that they - partly together with their patron - are responsible for the contents of their writings. They try to wipe out any doubt about their " personal " honesty. The author of the Mir. Otmari e. g. explicitly states that it is not his ambition to relate any dubious nor fictitious matters out of love for the saint. Wolfhard, who has written down the Mir. Waldburgis, says he is not an inventor of miracles but a reliable receiver of reports on them. Ermenrich of Ellwangen finally points out that there are still many people alive who can confirm that what he did was to describe a limited number of genuine miracles, not a mass of invented ones.
A topos closely linked to the above remark is the statement that there have been far too many miracles in order to enumerate them all. The author of the Mir. Opportunae precisely considers this abundance as evidence proving the truth of what he tells, but most authors invoke this argument to justify their being selective, e. g. for reasons of conciseness. They also often mention that they exclusively note down what according to them is worth remembering (clarum ac memorabile ; digna memoriae). Some hagiographers may just give a random enumeration of the miracles they can remember themselves but others select those which they consider to be the most important or the least traditional ones. In this context too Carolingian hagiographers demonstrate a certain amount of critical sense by mentioning that they only describe the most credible miracles e. g. precisely because they have been confirmed by a large amount or oral evidence.
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In conclusion, I think it can be stated that although a written text to the Carolingian hagiographers clearly has a surplus value, they regard oral evidence as an essential and even highly valued source of information. The Carolingian descriptions of miracles illustrate, at least as far as the limited subject of the present study is concerned, Vitz's thesis that an inseparable link between the written component and the oral one is characteristic of the hagiographical genre. Since in Künzel's view the Carolingian period was anyhow open to oral tradition, an investigation of saints' lives in a period less favourable for oral tradition (e. g. the 11th c) could perhaps clarify whether indeed a genre-linked phenomenon is involved here.
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Nous sommes malheureusement contraints de reporter cette rubrique à la prochaine livraison de Litterae Hagiologicae, en raison du manque d'espace. Veuillez nous en excuser.
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Hagiologia organisera sa sixième journée d'études le 8 avril 1998 à la Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Elle aura pour thème la canonisation. Pour l'heure, seule l'intervention de M. J. Art (Universiteit Gent) sur son approche psycho-historique de dossiers de canonisation du XIXe s. est confirmée. Le programme complet sera disponible avant la fin de l'année. Renseignements : Michel Trigalet, Facultés universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix, département d'histoire, rue de Bruxelles, 61, B-5000 Namur, T. +32 (0)81 72 40 10, email : philo-ha@fundp.ac.be ou michel.trigalet@fundp.ac.be.
La Société Belge d'Études Byzantines / Belgisch Genootschap voor Byzantijnse Studies organise une conférence-débat le 31 janvier 1998, à 15 h., au Palais des Académies de Bruxelles, salle de conférence du 1er étage :
Patricia Karlin-Hayter, L'hagiographie byzantine de l'époque macédonienne (9e-11e siècles).
Les participants peuvent obtenir à l'avance un sommaire qui servira de base pour la discussion, ainsi qu'une liste des thèmes et problèmes qui seront abordés. S'adresser au secrétaire de la Société : José Declerck, Vaderlandstraat 30, 9000 Gent, T. +32 (0)9 221 35 66.
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Responsable de la page : Michel
Trigalet