The career of Simon of Montfort encompassed the entirety of Western Europe — as well as the Levantine crusade — at the turn of the thirteenth century.  Born and raised in the orbit of the French royal court at Paris, he inherited and was dispossessed of an English earldom and the royal stewardship.  Moreover, he twice took the cross: first to the Holy Land on the ill-fated Fourth Crusade, where he publicly dissented from the diversion to Constantinople, and later against the heretics in the Midi, where he established a semi-independent crusader principality. 

Argument

The career of Simon of Montfort encompassed the entirety of Western Europe—as well as the Levantine crusade—at the turn of the thirteenth century.  Born and raised in the orbit of the French royal court at Paris, he inherited and was dispossessed of an English earldom and the royal stewardship.  Moreover, he twice took the cross: first to the Holy Land on the ill-fated Fourth Crusade, where he publicly dissented from the diversion to Constantinople, and later against the heretics in the Midi, where he established a semi-independent crusader principality.  All this came to an end with his death before the walls of Toulouse eight hundred years ago, yet his life did not fail to leave a mark on his contemporaries nor on posterity.  Most of Christendom hailed him as a pious hero, an ideal miles Christi, both during his lifetime and after his supposed martyrdom, struggling against heretical depravity.  However, in the Midi and Spain his reputation was frequently that of a brigand, a barbarian, a greedy and unscrupulous foreign interloper.  The latter judgement, with some exceptions, has largely been his legacy since the nineteenth century.  But the Simon of Montfort that this conference will seek to discuss is a man of contradictions: the principled crusader to the East who mutilated a defeated garrison in the Languedoc, the victor over the king of Aragon who voluntarily submitted his conquests to the king of France, the man who despoiled legitimate lords in the south while providing legal protections for widows and clergy.  This conference will centre on studying Simon both as a product of his time and an agent who helped to form it, an actor in his lifetime and a cipher for posterity, the successor to a dynasty and the origin of inheritances across Europe, a conqueror and a failure.

Programme

Jeudi 3 mai, de 9 à 12 heures

Martin Aurell, Gregory Lippiatt, Laurent Macé, « Introduction »

Simon et la croisade albigeoise

• Jean-Louis Biget, École Normale Supérieure, « Tenir le pays : Montfort entre villes et châteaux d’Occitanie »
• Gregory Lippiatt, University of East Anglia (Norwich)-CESCM, « The Statutes of Pamiers: Simon and Baronial Reform in Early Thirteenth-Century Europe »
• Martín Alvira, Universidad complutense de Madrid, « Simon et Pierre II d’Aragon : faits et mémoire »
• Damian Smith, Saint Louis University (Missouri), « James I of Aragon, Simon and the Papacy (1211-1218) »

Jeudi 3 mai, de 14 à 18 heures

Simon : le baron, ses hommes et ses représentations

• Christine Chana Keck, Université de Frankfort, « L’entourage de Simon »
• Nicholas Vincent, University of East Anglia (Norwich), « Simon as Earl of Leicester »
• Laurent Macé, Université de Toulouse-Jean Jaurès, « Princeps et monarcha : le sceau de majesté de Simon (1216-1218) »
• Daniel Power, University of Swansea, « La croisade albigeoise après Simon (1218-1224) »

Vendredi 4 mai, de 9 à 12 heures

Les fils de Simon, la Gascogne et l’Angleterre

• Lindy Grant, University of Reading, « Amaury V (d. 1241), his Siblings, and the Capetians »
• Sophie Ambler, University of Lancaster, « Simon VI (†1265) and Montfortian Identity »
• Amicie Pélissié du Rausas, Université de Poitiers-CESCM, « Le gouvernement de Simon VI en Gascogne (1248-1252) »
• Rodolphe Billaud, University of Canterbury, « Simon VI et l’occupation du comté de Chester (1264-1265) »

Vendredi 4 mai, de 14 à 17 heures

La culture des Montfort

• Catalina Girbea, Université de Bucarest-CESCM, « Les Montfort d’Italie, commanditaires de manuscrits arthuriens »
• Björn Weiler, University of Abersystwyth, « Mathew Paris and the Montfort Family »
• Alexis Charansonnet, Université de Lyon II, « Saints ou démons ? L'image posthume des Montfort au XIIIe siècle »
• Martin Aurell, Université de Poitiers-CESCM, « Conclusions »