Natural Disasters in the Middle Ages.
CNRS| N° d'inventaire | 23175 |
| Format | 13 x 19 |
| Détails | 350 p., paperback. |
| Publication | Paris, 2020 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782271135056 |
How can we understand the notion of natural disaster in medieval thought? Astonishment, power, terror, purifying function, shock of consciences... With all the fantasies they draw in their wake and the stupor they produce on minds, these "accidents of nature" open a fascinating window on the history of representations in the Middle Ages. Revisiting the texts of the chroniclers who attempted to account for them, Thomas Labbé shows that the narrative of the extreme phenomenon always favors the distortion of lived reality. The catastrophe appears as a way of giving meaning to the extraordinary, as evidenced by the accounts of the collapse of Mount Granier in 1248, the flooding of the Arno in 1333, or the earthquake in Naples in 1456. The resulting process of "eventization" operates more through the imagination and sensitivity of society than through its rational capacities for objectification. A major study at the crossroads of social history and the history of emotions in the West. Preface by Jacques Berlioz. Augustin Thierry Prize of the City of Paris 2017.
How can we understand the notion of natural disaster in medieval thought? Astonishment, power, terror, purifying function, shock of consciences... With all the fantasies they draw in their wake and the stupor they produce on minds, these "accidents of nature" open a fascinating window on the history of representations in the Middle Ages. Revisiting the texts of the chroniclers who attempted to account for them, Thomas Labbé shows that the narrative of the extreme phenomenon always favors the distortion of lived reality. The catastrophe appears as a way of giving meaning to the extraordinary, as evidenced by the accounts of the collapse of Mount Granier in 1248, the flooding of the Arno in 1333, or the earthquake in Naples in 1456. The resulting process of "eventization" operates more through the imagination and sensitivity of society than through its rational capacities for objectification. A major study at the crossroads of social history and the history of emotions in the West. Preface by Jacques Berlioz. Augustin Thierry Prize of the City of Paris 2017.