Writing as a Religious &lt;i&gt;Lieu de Savoir&lt;/i&gt;

Margriet Hoogvliet,Sabrina Corbellini

doi:10.16995/lefou.92

Abstract

Taking its start from the analysis of the notion savoir-pouvoir in Foucault's philosophical work, the article discusses the applicability of the concept lieux de savoir in the study of writing activities in late medieval France and Italy performed by non-professional vernacular scribes. The act of copying a text is evaluated as an active contribution to the dissemination of religious texts. It is approached as a social act and process, which creates a communication circuit facilitating the flow of information within a textual community created by the very same act of writing. The approach to lieu de savoir as an activity, in which a process-oriented methodology is preferred to a material one, paves the way for new applications of the concept, in which the spaces, the objects and the actors are studied in a continuous exchange and dynamic.

Highlights

Taking its start from the analysis of the notion savoir-pouvoir in Foucault's philosophical work, the article discusses the applicability of the concept lieux de savoir in the study of writing activities in late medieval France and Italy performed by non-professional vernacular scribes
The late medieval attitude resulted in the sharing of religious texts and knowledge among the laity, and often including religious people: reading was often a collective and charitable activity helping those who were still illiterate, books were loaned to other people, and religious knowledge was shared through narrating and admonishing
Many excellent recent studies into the history of books and reading in the Middle Ages and the early modern period are based on a detailed examination of material texts

Summary

INTRODUCTION

When considering Christian Jacob's lieux de savoir in the context of Michel Foucault's. Colinet's decision to insert this poem in particular in the book that he copied himself is highly significant, because it is a reflection on his activity as copyist of the book that the reader is reading and from which he or she is praying the Hours It is a celebration of the activity of writing as a lieu de savoir, for oneself, and for other people. Because of his presence in the prayer book through his handwriting, his name, and his picture, the copyist Colinet Rolet, too, became a lieu de savoir, because it is through him that the readers had access to prayers and religious knowledge This the most important point for our argument, the activity of writing, l'art de l'écriture, is a lieu de savoir as well. The art of writing is here celebrated as a skill and as an activity that functions as a lieu de savoir, facilitating both the storage and the dissemination of knowledge

ITALIAN PERSONAL MISCELLANIES AS RELIGIOUS LIEUX DE SAVOIR

CONCLUSION