Reconciliation of Cultures in the Third Republic: Émile Mâle (1862-1954)

Abstract

RECONCILIATION OF CULTURES IN THE THIRD REPUBLIC: EMILE MALE (1862-1954) Joseph F. Byrnes* The Lost Catholic Patrimony1 When Emile Mâle deciphered the art programs of the French medieval cathedrals, and, in fact, religious art from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries, he rediscovered a culture2—clerical, artistic, and popular—that had been expressed in the art.3 "Mr.Byrnes is professor ofmodern European history in Oklahoma State University,Stillwater . He wishes to acknowledge gratefully the help of Gilberte Émile-Mâle, daughter of the historian; Annick Adam, librarian and archivist at the Bibliothèque de l'Institut; and Daniel Moulinet, Francis-Noël Thomas, and Elizabeth Williams. A brief version of this article was presented at the annual meeting ofthe Western Society for French History in October of 1994.¦André Chastel glosses the term "patrimony" as "an artistic and architectural (monumental ) heritage in which one can recognize oneself." See "Le Patrimoine,"in Pierre Nora (ed.), Les Lieux de mémoire:II La Nation ** (Paris, 1984-1992), p. 420. This volume is one of a series of seven.The first is entitled La République; the second, third, and fourth volumes are bear the title // La Nation, each successive volume indicated by one, two, three asterisks; the fifth, sixth, and seventh volumes all bear the title IIILes France, each successive volume indicated by arabic numerals and subtitles. Readers of these volumes should consult Steven Englund's masterly criticism oftheir analytical framework. See"The Ghost of Nation Past,"Journal ofModern History, 64 (1992), 299-320, and "History in a Late Age: A Review Essay of Pierra Nora, ed., Les France" French Politics and Society, 14 (1996), 68-79- Englund argues forcefully that "nation" and "France" are ideological constructs subject to historical and critical analysis. Taking my cue from Englund, I hold that Male's achievement must be understood as part ofa continuum: a major step in the scholarly clarification of medieval culture and a major step in the development of one principal definition of French national consciousness. Philip Schlesinger says that "national cultures are not simple repositories of shared symbols to which the entire population stands in identical fashion." Rather they are to be approached as sites of contestation in which competition over definitions takes place. See "On National Identity: Some Conceptions and Misconceptions Criticized," Social Science Information, 26 (1987), 260-261; I am grateful to Steven Englund for pointing out this reference. 2"Culture" has been defined by the anthropologist Clifford Geertz as an "historically transmitted pattern ofmeanings embodied in symbols, a system ofinherited conceptions 401 402RECONCILIATION OF CULTURES INTHE THIRD REPUBUC: EMILE MÂLE (1862-1954) Over a period of thirty-four years Mâle published four great syntheses of religious art history. Each synthesis was effected in a different manner , depending upon the sources used to explain the subject matter and the media employed by the artists. In LArt religieux du XIIIe siècle en France (1898), then, it was the Speculum Majus, the encyclopedia of religious thought byVincent ofBeauvais. In LArt religieux de lafin du moyen âge en France (1908), it was the Franciscan theologians of deep religious sentiment; in LArt religieux du XIIF siècle en France (1922), expressed in symbolic forms by means ofwhich men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life." See Clifford Geertz,"Religion as a Cultural System," The Interpretation ofCultures:SelectedEssays (New York, 1973),p.89. In the decades since the appearance of this essay, the concept of culture has become highly politicized. Stefan Collini says that contemporary cultural studies are less concerned with the "plurality of symbolic systems and practices that enable different groups to make various kinds of sense of their lives"; more concerned with the attempt to give voice to minority cultures—"social therapy." See his"Escape from DWEMsville: Is Culture Too Important to be left to Cultural Studies?" Times Literary Supplement, May 27, 1994, pp. 3-4. In my essay I retain the use of the term "culture" in the older, standard anthropological sense established by Geertz. Male's work was, in effect, a study of"culture" as defined by cultural anthropologists from Clyde Kluckholn to Clifford Geertz. Among modern medievalists, those who...