Exploring a range of poverty experiences-socioeconomic, moral and spiritual-this collection presents new research by a distinguished group of scholars working in the medieval and early modern periods. Collectively they explore both the assumptions and strategies of those in authority dealing with poverty and the ways in which the poor themselves tried to contribute to, exploit, avoid or challenge the systems for dealing with their situation. The studies demonstrate that poverty was by no means a simple phenomenon. It varied according to gender, age and geographical location; and the way it was depicted in speech, writing and visual images could as much affect how the poor experienced their poverty as how others saw and judged them. Using new sources-and adopting new approaches to known sources-the authors share insights into the management and the self-management of the poor, and search out aspects of the experience of poverty worthy of note, from which can be traced lasting influences on the continuing understanding and experience of poverty in pre-modern Europe.

Le 20e siècle semble traîner derrière lui des valeurs et des réalités qu’il pensait combattre à jamais. Inégalité et pauvreté n’étaient déjà pas, plus, envisageables depuis au moins deux siècles et le Royaume-Uni semblait porter les espoirs de cette ère nouvelle. Depuis 1942, d’aucuns affirment que le procès richesse-inégalité-pauvreté est un des plus stables du pays. Qu’en-est-il au juste ? Le recueil bilingue (anglais-français) apporte sa contribution au débat.

Manuscripts, Market and the Transition to Print in Late Medieval Brittany surveys the production and marketing of non-monastic manuscripts and printed books over 150 years in late medieval Brittany, from the accession of the Montfort family to the ducal crown in 1364 to the duchy's formal assimilation by France in 1532. Brittany, as elsewhere, experienced the shift of manuscript production from monasteries to lay scriptoria and from rural settings to urban centers, as the motivation for copying the word in ink on parchment evolved from divine meditation to personal profit. Through her analysis of the physical aspects of Breton manuscripts and books, parchment and paper, textual layouts, scripts and typography, illumination and illustration, Diane Booton exposes previously unexplored connections between the tangible cultural artifacts and the society that produced, acquired and valued them. Innovatively, Booton's discussion incorporates archival research into the prices, wages and commissions associated with the manufacture of the works under discussion to shed new light on their economic and personal value.

In his book Generations of Sufis, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī (died 1021), the Sufi master of Nishapur and Shafiʿi traditionist and historian, collected the teachings of 105 Sufi masters who lived between the 2nd/8th and the 4th/10th centuries. Sulami gives a short biography of each master with representative quotations from his teachings. He thereby illustrates the numerous approaches to the spiritual path and the unity of its principles. One of the oldest works of the sort, it assembles the doctrinal foundations from which medieval Sufism developed. It is a key reference which influenced all Sufi literature and even historiography. This is the first translation of a work of this type to be published in a European language. Dans Les générations des Soufis Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī (m. 1021), maître soufi de Nishapur, traditionniste šāfiʿite et historien, collecte l’enseignement de cent cinq maîtres soufis qui vécurent entre le 2e/8e et le 4e/10e siècles. Pour chacun d’eux, Sulamī propose une courte notice biographique et un ensemble de citations représentatives de son enseignement. Il rend ainsi compte de la diversité des approches de la voie spirituelle et de l’unité de ses principes. Cet ouvrage, l’un des plus anciens de ce type, rassemble le socle doctrinal sur lequel s’élabora le soufisme médiéval. Référence incontournable, il eut une influence considérable sur toute la littérature du soufisme et même l’historiographie. Cette traduction est la première en langue européenne d’un ouvrage de ce type.