The term “ritual” covers a wide field of medieval activities referring to repeated and often formal behaviour that combine cognitive processes with physical actions. Whether carried out in privacy or in public, medieval rituals invariably had a social function; they were performed for and in interaction with audiences, whose presence may have been tangible or superhuman. The performative aspect involved a shared experience of visible, audible and, in all, sensory practices that gave form to the rituals. The colloquium gathers together specialists from various fields to discuss the theory and practice of rituals in medieval culture.

Presentation

The term “ritual” covers a wide field of medieval activities referring to repeated and often formal behaviour that combine cognitive processes with physical actions. Whether carried out in privacy or in public, medieval rituals invariably had a social function; they were performed for and in interaction with audiences, whose presence may have been tangible or superhuman. The performative aspect involved a shared experience of visible, audible and, in all, sensory practices that gave form to the rituals. The colloquium gathers together specialists from various fields to discuss the theory and practice of rituals in medieval culture including e.g.

• Socio-cultural aspects of religious, legal and military rituals
• Rituals held in public or reserved for private life
• Rituals of coercion, negotiation, and defiance
• The borders of toleration: rituals of belonging and exclusion
• Literary depiction of rituals and ritualized forms of the written word
• Visual and auditive aspects of ritual performance
• Ritual space

Programme

9.00 Welcome

9.10-11.10 Ritual Practice at the Holy Site

• Iris Shagrir (Professeure en histoire médiévale, Open Univ. de Tel Aviv) : Liturgy and Topography in Latin Jerusalem.
• Estelle Ingrand-Varenne (Chargée de recherche CNRS au CESCM/CRFJ de Jérusalem, responsable de l’ERC GRAPH-EAST, Univ. de Poitiers) : Faut-il consacrer les lieux saints ? Un problème soulevé dans l’inscription du Saint-Sépulcre.
• Pierre Levron (Chargé de recherche CNRS en littérature médiévale, CESCM, Univ. de Poitiers) : Rituels de consécration ou de re-consécration d’églises dans les récits de croisades.

11.30-13.00 Legal and Doctrinal Tradition

• Mia Korpiola (Professeure en histoire du droit, Univ. de Turku) : The Ritual of Oathgiving in Medieval Scandinavia.
• Benjamin Weber (Chercheur en histoire des croisades, Univ. de Toulouse) : L’élaboration d’un rituel : les origines médiévales de la bulle In Coena Domini.

15.00-18.00 In the Crossroads of Clerical and Lay Belief

• Martin Aurell (Professeur en histoire médiévale, CESCM, Univ. de Poitiers) : L’impossible adoubement par le prêtre (XII^e-XIV^e siècles).
• Vladimir Agrigoroaei (Chargé de recherche CNRS en littérature médiévale, CESCM, Univ. de Poitiers) : The Odd Case of the Four Old French Prayers in the End of the Winchester Psalter
• Katherine Zieman (Maître de conférence en littérature anglophone, CESCM, Univ. de Poitiers) : Devotion and the Ritualization of Attention.
• Sini Kangas (Chercheuse invitée au CESCM, Univ. de Poitiers/Univ. de Tampere) : Prayers by the Crusader Knights: Adaptations of Ritual Observance.

Conclusions

Information

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