The processes of construction of political spaces:

the example of Angevin Europe (13^th-15th centuries)

EUROPANGE 2014-2018

Europange is an ANR program carried out by the mixed research unit (UMR) 8584 LEM-CERCOR of the University of Saint-Étienne, in association with École française de Rome, «Luigi Vanvitelli» University of Campania, University of Bergamo, University of Salerno, the Research centre for the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, University of Moncton (Canada), CERHIO FRE CNRS (University of Angers), UMR 7303 TELEMME (University of Aix-Mareille), EA 4583 CEMM (University of Nîmes) and UMR 5205 LIRIS (Laboratoire d'Informatique en Image et Systèmes d'Information, INSA de Lyon).

Today's Europe reflects on the foundations and methods of its process of political integration, on the basis of a plurality of States and regions. Many questions are raised on the centuries-old processes that shaped our political and administrative cultures, for which the last three centuries of the middle ages were a decisive step; as many as the references to the slow movements of gathering that led not only to the emergence of States during the medieval period, but also to specific modes of political control and speech. The 13^th-15^th centuries are a pivotal period to observe these phenomena, because they were marked by the establishment of institutions, modes of communication, administrative methods and structures, which ensured the first development of national and princely States. The EUROPANGE program focuses on a specific type of political and institutional construction operating at a regional level, that went beyond any cultural and linguistic unity and introduced new challenges for the sovereign and his agents in terms of administration of men and things. The outcome of this construction, fragmented in space, is neither reducible to the imperial model (since it is based on an affirmation of the notion of sovereignty) nor to a process of colonization (which would impose a centre and a periphery) or to simple personal unions. Since such political buildings have not led to the birth of nation-States, in the modern and contemporary periods, they have long been ignored by national historiographies which judged them a priori unsustainable. Yet, they seem to us instead meaningful if we study their capacity for synthesis and innovation, as well as their political and administrative pragmatism. The territories under Angevin domination in the 13^th-15^th centuries provide a well-documented case of study. It is necessary to investigate the emergence of a political and social environment, by analysing the constitution of a body of administrators: the officers, some of which were clerics, with their networks, their training, their skills, in all the lands under Angevin control (Anjou, Maine, Provence, Lorraine, southern Italy and Sicily, Piedmont, Lombardy and Tuscany, Hungary, Poland, Morea, Albania). The Angevin political construction, fragmented in space and discontinuous in time, challenged the capabilities of the political authorities to assemble and administer, and to create a common political discourse. The EUROPANGE prosopographical database provides a fundamental tool for this comparatist reflection, carried out in an international scientific framework.

Collaborators and partners of the program

Other prosopographical and bibliographical research tools on the apparatus of officers

• British History Online, generic research tool.
• Capetian dinasty, TELMA (UPR IRHT and École nationale des chartes), documentary and prosopographical databases related to Capetian political space.
• Deutsche Biographie.
• Dictionnaire des auteurs anglais (1300-1600): Englis authors in the fields of history and politics.
• Italian biographical dictionary.
• Fasti Ecclesiæ Gallicanæ (UMR LAMOP), prosopographical database of cathedral clergy in Fench space.
• Critical glossary of medieval taxation.
• Heloïse. European Network on Digital Academic History, research blog.
• Jostice et Plet, Base de données prosopographiques des officiers et des jurisconsultes de l'entourage de Louis IX (Li livres de jostice et de plet, compilation juridique c. 1260 ; Paris, BnF, ms fr. 2844).
• LEXMAO, Lexikon des Mittelalters Online.
• Onomasticon. Prosopography of Perugia University.
• Opération Charles VI: prosopography of royal entourage (kingdom of France, 1380-1422).
• Prosopographia Burgundica and Prosopographia Curiae Burgundicae (prosopography of the court of the dukes of Burgundy in the 15^th century), studies on the history of Burgundian duchy under the Valois house, carried out by the German historical institute of Paris and the University of Kiel (Werner Paravicini).
• Prosopographie, research blog.
• Prosopography of papal legates in Hungary (11^th13^th centuries).
• Prosopography research, generic research tool.
• Regnum regis, « As inquirições do reinado de Afonso II (1211-1223) », database of the Instituto de Estudos Medievais on the royal enquiries under Alfonso II of Portugal.
• Repertorium Academicum Germanicum.
• Sigilla (UMR CESCM), emblems and sigillography (French space).
• Studium Parisiense: prosopographical database of academics in Paris (12^th16^th centuries).