Mémoires de cours: Etudes offertes à Agostino Paravicini Bagliani par ses collègues et élèves de l’Université de Lausanne (review)

This volume is a fitting tribute to a distinguished medievalist and Renaissance historian. Because its contributors are his colleagues and students, and most of them have chosen to write on Savoyard history, it has considerable unity. Michel Pastoreau’s “Avant-Propos” is followed by a list of Paravicini Baglionni’s publications, twenty-three articles, an index, and a list of authors and editors.

The book’s first section is devoted to studies of religious and cultural history. Laurent Ripart shows the linkage between the oath of peace of Vienne of about 1030 and the formation of the Savoyard principality. Alexandre Palud writes of a lost act of Rudolph III of Burgundy. Ernst Trempt then gives us a study of “Eine Arengensammlung und Briefstillehre aus dem Zisterzien-serkloster Hauterive (zweite Hälfte des 12. Jahrhunderts).” The Collection of Hauterive is given its place among the early Artes dictandi. Serena Romano presents an examination with illustrations of the medieval frescoes of the chapter room of the basilica of St. Anthony of Padua at Padua, commonly attributed to Giotto or his atelier. She attempts to link the program of this fresco cycle to the historical situation in 1310 and finds a certain ascendancy of emphases dear to the Spiritual Franciscans in the frescoes. Georg Modestin examines a fifteenth-century gift by a Dominican inquisitor to a Dominican house in Lausanne. Ilaria Taddei pursues some of the avenues opened up by interest in the history of childhood, here specifically the history of youth confraternities. Yann Dahhaoui then presents a well-informed study of the election of a young “festival pope” as part of the celebration of the feast of the Holy Innocents at Saint-Etienne at Besançon. Prisca Lehmann studies the fifteenth-century chapel of the Holy Innocents of the cathedral at Lausanne, showing its close connection with the music of the cathedral (the choir boys who were trained here are “holy innocents”). Arthur Bissegger measures the absenteeism of the canons of Lausanne on the eve of the Reformation. Medieval intellectuals’ interest in animals grounds Pierre Dubuis’s essay on cock-clocks—that is, on medieval reflection on roosters as a kind of living timepiece. Catherine Chène closes this section with a study of the excommunication by the bishops of Lausanne of the eels of Lac Leman, part of the history of the excommunication of animals.

The second part of the volume is devoted to the history of the Pays de Vaud and the states of Savoy. Guido Castelnuovo studies the fifteenth-century seigneurial nobility and the princely court in Savoy. Eva Pibiri examines the ascent to power of Pope Felix V and his son, Louis of Savoy, in 1440. Thalia Brero’s subject is Charles II of Savoy’s creation of the ceremony for the feast of the Annunciation as part of his renewal of his house’s knightly Order of the Annunciation. Christine and Jean-Daniel Morerod explore an anti-Savoyard alliance of 1300. Clémence Thévenaz Modestin analyzes a fragment of a bailiff’s account book. Bernard Andenmatten illustrates coseigneurie in a study of the three lines of the Estavayer family. Finally, Franco Morenzoni treats the markets of two late-medieval towns.

The third part of the book, on juridical practices, begins with an article by Jean-François Poudret on excommunication for debt. Denis Tappy portrays betrothal and marriage in Swiss Romand synodal statutes, followed by an article by Kathrin Utz Tremp, Chantal Ammann-Doubliez, and Lionel Dorthe on various aspects of witchcraft.

This volume has many examples of regional history at its best. The authors are aware of the larger frameworks of which...