#georges duby

[raisongardee]

"La morale, qui sous-tend les prescriptions carolingiennes, retient des enseignements bibliques ce qui lui permet de s’établir en fonction d’une économie de l’autosuffisance et du don. Elle ne tolère le commerce que pour combler le déficit occasionnel de la production domestique. Pour elle il est une opération exceptionnelle, presque insolite, et ceux qui s’y livrent ne doivent pas, en principe, en tirer un profit supérieur à la juste rétribution de la peine qu’ils se sont donnée."

Georges Duby, Guerriers et paysans. VII-XIIe siècle. Premier essor de l’économie européenne, 1973.

[professeur-stump]

« Je dis je pour prévenir mon lecteur. » Ce qui me touche chez Duby, c’est la volonté de mettre en œuvre dans l’écriture de l’histoire deux projets narratifs simultanés : raconter une histoire et se raconter en train d’avoir du mal à la raconter.

(Vincent Casanova, Patrick Boucheron, L’histoire pour espacer le temps. Entretien avec Patrick Boucheron, 2013)

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[inescutcheon]

"Georges Duby sees the development of the ‘courtly love’ ideal as a symptom of the dissatisfaction of the young nobles who were not allowed to become seniores (married men with their own households), and thus remained juvenes (youths), throughout their lives. The ‘courtly love’ idea supposedly represents these frustrations with young men attempting to engage in a game of seduction to win the favours of their lord’s wife. Duby explains that this game embodies the tensions in feudal society, which decreased marital opportunities for most nobles, while making marriage the cornerstone of lay society. [...]

The story of Tristan and Isolde does fall under the definition of ‘courtly love’ in the sense of being adulterous, which was often the only way love, or more accurately passion, manifested in literature. The idea was that passion could not happen in a marriage, a concept probably influenced by the medieval Church’s distaste for sexual pleasure and the increasingly religious significance of the marriage rite. It is worth noting though, that at least one romance author, Chrétien de Troyes, seemed to see no discrepancy between love and passion and the married state.

Chrétien’s works represented a counter trend to the existing adulterous ‘courtly love’ movement. It seems strange; however, that such an early representative of Arthurian romance literature would already be going against an existing trend. Perhaps the definition of ‘courtly love’ has been interpreted too narrowly, and the adultery aspect was not essential to the representation of passionate love."

Unwanted Husbands and Adultery: Medieval Marriage in the Twelfth-Century Tristan and Isolde Legend by Heli Lähteelä

[dwellordream]

“One should, of course, remember that the poems, songs and romances written in the language of the courts never provided more than a decorative backdrop for a social game whose rules were at that time being formulated; this game served as derisory compensation for the frustrations of knights forced into living unmarried by the constraints of the inheritance system. The game revolved around the most daring of adventures since, transgressing all prohibitions and braving the most cruel revenge, it consisted of winning the lord’s wife, the lady, in spite of the jealousy of other men. This clearly represented an assertion... of the superiority of free love, which was viewed as less continuously lascivious, less ‘adulterous’ than the ardour of husbands who were too enamored of their wives.”

“After 1160 another prevalent feature in secular ideology expressed in courtly literature was the positive value set upon conjugal love. It is at the heart of Erec et Enide and indeed all of the surviving romances of Chretien de Troyes, that is, his most popular works. The anti-feminist mood persisted - and in this area both lay and clerical thought converged once more - and was now transferred to the couple; it was motivated by fear of the wife and by the threefold anxiety that - as people felt and knew - she was at once inconstant, lustful, and a witch. There was still considerable emphasis on respect for marriage and on the emotional riches which it fostered. Thus, although eulogistic literature readily acknowledged the licentiousness of its heroes as long as they remained unmarried, once they married, and their wives were living with them, there were references only to the love which they bore their wives.”

- Georges Duby, “Marriage in Early Medieval Society.” in Love and Marriage in the Middle Ages

[librosclases]

Georges Duby y Michelle Perrot. Historia de las mujeres. 

[raisongardee]

"Une part considérable de la production se trouvait par conséquent entrainée dans une ample circulation des générosités nécessaires. Nombre de redevances et de prestations que les paysans ne pouvaient différer de porter à la maison de leurs maîtres furent très longtemps désignées dans le langage courant comme des cadeaux, eulogiae. Vraisemblablement, elles étaient considérées comme tels par les uns et par les autres […] Toutes ces offrandes cependant devaient être compensées par les largesses de ceux qui les recevaient. Nul riche ne pouvait fermer sa porte aux solliciteurs, renvoyer les affamés qui quêtaient une aumône devant ses greniers, refuser aux malheureux qui leur offraient leurs services de les nourrir et les vêtir, de les prendre dans son patronage."

Georges Duby, Guerriers et paysans. VII-XIIe siècle. Premier essor de l’économie européenne, 1973.

[raisongardee]

“Sous l’influence des hommes d’Eglise qui vivaient dans leur entourage, sous celle principalement des moines qui devint prépondérante au temps de Louis le Pieux, ils s’attachèrent à ce que les activités économiques ne vinssent pas perturber l’ordre voulu par Dieu. Se référant aux prescriptions de l’Ecriture, ils voulurent plus particulièrement moraliser les pratiques du commerce, le maniement de l’argent, toutes les transactions où risquait de se perdre l’esprit de charité […] ils édictèrent des préceptes qui dressaient des interdits et précisaient la distinction entre le pur et l’impur, le licite et l’illicite [...]

La morale, qui sous-tend les prescriptions carolingiennes, retient des enseignements bibliques ce qui lui permet de s’établir en fonction d’une économie de l’autosuffisance et du don. Elle ne tolère le commerce que pour combler le déficit occasionnel de la production domestique. Pour elle il est une opération exceptionnelle, presque insolite, et ceux qui s’y livrent ne doivent pas, en principe, en tirer un profit supérieur à la juste rétribution de la peine qu’ils se sont donnée [...] 

L’une des empreintes les plus durables que laissa l’ordre carolingien fut l’institution d’une éthique appliquée à ce secteur qui très lentement se développait en lisière d’un système économique encadré tout entier par l’organisation domaniale, par les formes nouvelles que revêtait peu à peu la servitude et par les échanges gratuits de biens et de services qu’engendraient la dépendance des humbles et la générosité des grands.”

Georges Duby, Guerriers et paysans. VII-XIIe siècle. Premier essor de l’économie européenne, 1973.

[dwellordream]

“Since inherited wealth increasingly began to resemble a lordship, and since, in the manner of the old honores or fiefs, it became more and more difficult for it to be divided up and placed under the authority of a woman, at first there was a tendency to exclude married daughters from sharing the inheritance by providing them with a dowry. This encouraged noble families to marry off all their daughters if they could. Moreover, this increased the importance of the dowry - which ideally consisted of personal property and, as soon as this was feasible, of money - in relation to what the husband offered. It also meant that the morning gifts given by the husband to his wife after consummation (the sponsalicium, the antefactum and the morgengabe) were succeeded by the dower.”

“The attempt to marry off all the daughters and to ensure that all sons except the eldest remained unmarried naturally meant that the supply of women tended to greatly surpass demand in what one might be tempted to call the marriage market; consequently, the likelihood of finding a better match for the young men of noble families increased. A structure of noble societies was thus reinforced in which, generally speaking, the bride came from a wealthier and more illustrious family background than her husband. This affected behaviour and attitudes, and strengthened, for example, that pride in the specific ‘nobility’ of the maternal ancestry attested in so much genealogical literature. Finally, these circumstances explain why, at marriage ceremonies during the twelfth century, the lord increasingly interceded with the parents and sometimes his decision prevailed over theirs. He felt it was his duty to supply wives for his knights, the sons of his ‘friends’, whom he had fed in his household - that unruly band which accompanied his eldest son as he went from tournament to tournament. He felt it was his duty to - and his right since his own interest was at stake- to provide the daughters of a deceased vassal with a dowry, or else to arrange marriages as he pleased, for the good of the fief, for the widows and orphans of his feudal tenants.”

- Georges Duby, “Marriage in Early Medieval Society.” in Love and Marriage in the Middle Ages.