Books by Jean-François Nieus
Contrairement aux scribes "de bibliothèque", les scribes "d’archives" – l’étiquette désigne ici d... more Contrairement aux scribes "de bibliothèque", les scribes "d’archives" – l’étiquette désigne ici de façon ouverte tous les acteurs de la pratique scripturaire dans le champ foisonnant des sources documentaires – sont très souvent les auteurs intellectuels des textes qu’ils tracent sur le parchemin ou le papier. Pour beaucoup d’entre eux, l’acte quotidien d’écrire n’est donc pas une fin en soi, ni même forcément un aspect prédominant du labeur ; ils exercent une ou plusieurs fonction(s) qui dépasse(nt) parfois très largement le cadre de cette activité technique. La palette de leurs profils socioprofessionnels présente une infinie variété, marquée par d’énormes écarts de statut et de prestige que le seul maniement commun de l’écriture ne saurait gommer. Qui étaient-ils vraiment ? Même si les médiévistes à l’oeuvre dans les archives les côtoient intimement à travers leurs productions écrites, bien peu de recherches leur ont été dédiées : l’historiographie se contente trop souvent d’images d’Épinal qui masquent la complexité et la diversité des situations de terrain. Certes, la plupart des scribes se dérobent à l’historien, frappés d’anonymat. D’autres, cependant, se laissent saisir à la faveur d’une carrière saillante ou d’un dossier loquace : en reconstituant leurs parcours, ce volume collectif vise à jeter les fondements d’une histoire sociale des "scribes d’archives" dans l’Occident latin du second Moyen Âge.
Table of content : http://www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9782503584331-1.
Full text of the conference proceedings: Marc Libert & Jean-François Nieus (eds), Le sceau dans l... more Full text of the conference proceedings: Marc Libert & Jean-François Nieus (eds), Le sceau dans les Pays-Bas méridionaux, Xe-XVIe siècles. Entre contrainte sociale et affirmation de soi. Actes du colloque de Bruxelles et Namur, 27-28 novembre 2014, Brussels, 2017 (Archives et bibliothèques de Belgique. Numéro spécial, 103).
Online version in open access : https://books.openedition.org/apu/1047?lang=fr
Papers by Jean-François Nieus
![Research paper thumbnail of [forthcoming] Aristocratic seal ownership in twelfth-century Flanders: A world in between](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/67489746/thumbnails/1.jpg)
This paper explores the dissemination of seal usage among the Flemish noble elite throughout the ... more This paper explores the dissemination of seal usage among the Flemish noble elite throughout the twelfth century. Aristocratic seal culture in the county of Flanders was impacted by opposing external influences: Flanders enjoyed strong relations with both the Anglo-Norman realm, whose cross-Channel baronage became increasingly familiar with seals from 1100 onwards, and the German Empire, where seal usage remained strictly reserved for to the upper nobility well throughout the twelfth century. The study shows that most leading Flemish aristocrats already owned a seal matrix by 1140–1160, while lesser lords and knights gradually accessed seal ownership between 1180 and 1220/30. Flanders therefore appears to have been heavily influenced by Anglo-Norman attitudes towards seals, although the spreading process was delayed by half a century compared to England and Normandy. This was a regular process of downward social diffusion, that happened along the lines of internal stratification in Flemish aristocratic society. Emulation among peers played a key role, as did the imitation of more elevated members of the ruling elite. This was initiated by the counts of Flanders whose iconographical archetypes tellingly set the tone. By contrast, in some peripheral parts of the county, especially in “Imperial Flanders”, dominant noble families may have used seals to politically challenge comital overlordship.
![Research paper thumbnail of [with Thomas Brunner, Émilie Mineo and Bart Verroken] L’apparition du chirographe échevinal dans le nord de la France. Autour du plus ancien original tournaisien conservé (1218)](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/97993563/thumbnails/1.jpg)
The reassignment of a chirograph issued between December 1217 and April 1218 (Lille, Archives dép... more The reassignment of a chirograph issued between December 1217 and April 1218 (Lille, Archives départementales du Nord, J 362) to the City aldermen (“échevinage de la Cité”) in Tournai sheds new light on the earliest urban chirographs from this town, whose archive was burnt down in 1940. This chirograph appears to be the oldest preserved in original for this jurisdiction, and the first written in French. It records a debt contracted by Mathieu II, lord of Ère in the Tournai area, to two citizens of Douai for the purchase of 80 modii of wheat, which exemplifies the vitality of regional grain trade in the early 13th century. It also offers an opportunity to investigate the dawn of this documentary form distinctive of Northern French and Belgian towns, still a poorly studied issue. The dating of Tournai’s early chirographs needs revision. They show up in Latin shortly before 1200, and switch to French in the second decade of the 13th century. Among other pioneer towns in the use of chirographs, only Saint-Omer also experienced a Latin phase, attested in 1209-1210. In Saint-Quentin and Arras, only vernacular acts are preserved, from 1218 and 1221 onwards. The same is true for Douai, whose inhabitants, as shown by Mathieu of Ère’s debt, were familiar with chirographs before they turned to them in 1224. Urban chirographs appeared in a dynamic, highly urbanized region, with close ties to England, yet also affected by conflicts between the king and the counts of Flanders, which may have fostered the need for written guarantees.
![Research paper thumbnail of [with N. Ruffini-Ronzani et al.] A biocodicological analysis of the medieval library and archive from Orval Abbey, Belgium](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/67489579/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Royal Society Open Science, 2021
Biocodicological analysis of parchments from manuscript books and archives offers unprecedented i... more Biocodicological analysis of parchments from manuscript books and archives offers unprecedented insight into the materiality ofmedieval literacy. Using ZooMS for animal species identification, we explored almost the entire library and all the preserved single leaf charters of a single medieval Cistercian monastery (Orval Abbey, Belgium). Systematic non-invasive sampling of parchment collagen was performed on every charter and on the first bifolium from every quire of the 118 codicological units composing the books (1490 samples intotal). Within the genuine production of the Orval scriptorium (26 units), a balanced use of calfskin (47.1%) and sheepskin (48.5%) was observed, whereas calfskin was less frequent (24.3%) in externally produced units acquired by the monastery (92 units). Calfskin was preferably used for higher quality manuscripts while sheepskin tends to be the standard choice for ‘ordinary’ manuscript book production. This findingis consistent with thirteenth-century parchment accounts from Beaulieu Abbey (England) where calfskin supply was more limited and its price higher. Our study reveals that the making of archival documents does not follow the same pattern as the production of library books. Although the five earliest preserved charters are made of calfskin, from the 1230s onwards, all charters from Orval are written on sheepskin.
![Research paper thumbnail of [with A. Stuckens] Vestiges épistolaires de Marguerite, comtesse de Flandre et de Hainaut : deux collections-formulaires du début des années 1270](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/65603656/thumbnails/1.jpg)
This article provides a study and edition of two letter formularies of Margaret of Constantinople... more This article provides a study and edition of two letter formularies of Margaret of Constantinople, countess of Flanders and Hainault (1244-1278). They are transmitted in two manuscripts, near-contemporary to the copied letters, collections "A" (MS from Bruges) and "B" (MS from Maynooth), which partly overlap while being both fragmentary. They contain a total of 41 letters which originate from the same epistolary pool, and are abridged and anonymized to varying degrees. These are real letters sent by Countess Margaret between 1270 and 1273 (1276 for some additions), and relating to international affairs (Eighth Crusade, relations with the papacy, imperial election, etc.) as well as to the domestic administration of Flanders. The main initiator of both compilations seems to be the comital clerk and provost of St. Peter’s chapter in Cassel Gerard of Vertain († after 1298), who accompanied Count Guy of Dampierre on the Tunis expedition and carried out several embassies in Italy and in the Empire in 1272 and 1273. The idea of compiling these very rare princely formularies was probably inspired by the Flemish administrators’ frequent stays in the Roman Curia, where the major 'summae dictaminis', which were about to spread across European chanceries, were then taking shape. In any case, collections A and B paved the way for the compilation of a more ambitious formulary by another clerk of the Dampierre family around 1290.
Starting from the remarkable late tenth-century mention of one "Sigardus militaris cingulo labori... more Starting from the remarkable late tenth-century mention of one "Sigardus militaris cingulo laboris innexus" in the liber traditionum of St Peters Abbey in Ghent, which seems to acknowledge the early presence of “knightly” profiles in the entourage of Count Arnulf II of Flanders (965‒88), this chapter aims to provide new insight into the Flemish aristocracy and its involvement with warfare during the tenth and eleventh centuries. After discussing the literary and social context of Sigard (I)’s mention in the liber, this case study moves to the identification and characterisation of his eleventh-century descendants, who settled in the Artois region—especially Sigard (III) of Chocques (attested between 1065 and 1096), whose prominent career in Flanders, Hainaut and England can be fairly well reconstructed. By shedding light on Sigard (I)’s descendants, on their achievements, involvement with local lordship, aristocratic networks, princely patronage and, ultimately, the “high politics” of their time, this study also sheds retrospective light on the status of their tenth-century ancestor. This man, considered in previous scholarship to be a lowly individual because of his supposedly subordinate military activities, must in fact have been a very prominent member of the Flemish nobility of his day.
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Books by Jean-François Nieus
Table of content : http://www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9782503584331-1.
Papers by Jean-François Nieus
Table of content : http://www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9782503584331-1.