Les Belles Lettres Research Articles

O Ormianach w Jerozolimie (C. Mutafian, Jérusalem et les Arméniens: jusqu’à la conquête ottomane (1516), Les Belles Lettres, Paris 2022)

ON ARMENIANS IN JERUSALEM (CLAUDE MUTAFIAN, JÉRUSALEM ET LES ARMÉNIENS: JUSQU’À LA CONQUÊTE OTTOMANE (1516), LES BELLES LETTRES, PARIS 2022)
 The review concerns an album publication by Claude Mutafian, a French-Armenian historian, about the Armenian past of Jerusalem until the beginning of the 16th century. The reviewer highly values the author’s research competence and the aesthetic and editorial aspects of the work. He also notes a few Polish accents, including a critique of the claim about German origins of the author of Descriptio Terrae Sanctae (1422), Johannes Poloner.

Book review: Marinette Dambuyant & Anthony Cerulli, Manuel du prince indien: L'Arthashastra de Kautilya, Paris, France: Les Belles Lettres, 2022, 272 pp., ISBN: 9782251455026.

Book review: Marinette Dambuyant &amp; Anthony Cerulli, <i>Manuel du prince indien: L'</i>Arthashastra<i> de Kautilya</i>, Paris, France: Les Belles Lettres, 2022, 272 pp., ISBN: 9782251455026.

Discours. Livres XXXIV, XXXV &amp; XXXVI by Libanios, and: Libanius: Ten Mythological and Historical Declamations by Libanius

Reviewed by: Discours. Livres XXXIV, XXXV & XXXVI by Libanios, and: Libanius: Ten Mythological and Historical Declamations by Libanius Fabrizio Petorella (bio) Libanios, Discours. Livres XXXIV, XXXV & XXXVI, texte établi et traduit par Catherine Bry, Collection des universités de France Série grecque—Collection Budé 550. Paris, FR: Les Belles Lettres, 2020. 278 pp. EAN: 978-2-251-00637-6. Libanius, Libanius: Ten Mythological and Historical Declamations, ed., intro., trans. and notes, Robert J. Penella. Cambridge, GB: Cambridge University Press, 2020. 420 pp. ISBN: 978-1-108-48137-3. Our knowledge of Late Antique rhetorical school practice has been recently enriched by several studies focused on Libanius' works: in the last decades, the Antiochean rhetor has been the subject of key monographs and academic articles on upper-class education in the Later Empire and [End Page 104] many of his writings have been edited and translated into modern languages.1 The two volumes discussed here are part of this upsurge of interest in Libanius's teaching activity. Furthermore, they are meant to lay the foundations for future studies aimed at contributing to the debate on Late Antique paideia. Antiochean school life is at the core of the orations edited and translated by Catherine Bry. Her volume, which is the result of her doctoral research at the École Pratique des Hautes Études of Paris, opens with a brief introduction clarifying why the three Libanian speeches she takes up deserve to be analyzed together: composed in the second half of the 380s, they all stem from problems related to Libanius's role as a teacher. Thus, Orations 34, 35, and 36 provide a vivid testimony about the teaching of Greek rhetoric in the Eastern Empire and the issues that even a renowned sophist might face. These initial remarks are followed by an extremely accurate section devoted to philological aspects. Even though Bry acknowledges the importance of the last edition of the three speeches (published by Richard Foerster in 1906), she considers that work too distant from modern philological conventions.2 As a result of a rigorous re-examination of the whole manuscript tradition, she integrates the descriptions of the sources given by Foerster, Jean Martin, and Pierre-Louis Malosse with her personal observations, thus offering a detailed presentation of all witnesses and a stemma codicum for each of the three orations.3 In this well-ordered preliminary phase, Bry demonstrates a scrupulously honest approach, enabling the reader to access and—if (s)he wishes—to question her philological work. After a list of abbreviations and a bibliography (significantly divided into a section specifically devoted to the edition of the three speeches and a general bibliography), comes the core of the volume. Every oration is preceded by a brief and clear introduction, where the reader finds information on the date and circumstances in which Libanius originally delivered his speech and on the audience he intended to address, as well as a rhetorical analysis of the following text and a list of its previous editions and translations. [End Page 105] In contrast to Foerster, Bry opts for positive apparatuses and avoids mentioning orthographical variants, unless they have some morphological (and, consequently, semantic) value. This approach (which does not prevent her from quoting the conjectures of previous editors when necessary) has the merit of making her edition a very practical tool for the study of the three orations and their textual history. The translation heads in the same direction. It is clear and original and allows the reader to easily grasp the main aspects of Libanius' oratorical performances, accurately transposed into a modern language. In these respects, the volume shows clearly how scholarly accuracy and readability can be combined, thus producing an edition that can be appreciated on several levels. To complete this picture, Bry's commentary is agile, but exhaustive. Her explanatory notes reveal once more a strong interest in the context in which the orations were originally performed and in their rhetorical features. Libanius' words are analyzed in relation to Late Antique rhetorical theories and to their application at school (see, for example, the entry concerning the role of memorization in the learning process at pp. 43–44, n. 55). Particular attention is...

TEXTUAL NOTES ON ACHILLES TATIUS

AbstractThis paper contributes to the textual criticism of Achilles Tatius’ novel Leucippe and Clitophon by proposing a number of alterations to the text of the most recent edition of the complete novel (Les Belles Lettres) (Paris, 1991).

Notícias

Notícias

Les Aventuriers de la mémoire perdue: Léonard, Érasme, Michelet et les autres. Par Jean-Christophe Saladin

Jean-Christophe Saladin, editor-in-chief of the Miroir des humanistes series of editions of Renaissance humanist texts at Les Belles Lettres, brings his wide-ranging erudition to bear upon the protean phenomenon of the European Renaissance. Saladin’s volume promotes a holistic approach to the Renaissance, finding inherent unity in diverse social, cultural, and intellectual currents and products from the fourteenth century to the early seventeenth. The scope of this book, therefore, is necessarily ambitious, taking in the social history of Europe from 1350 to 1650 (Part One, ‘La Comédie de ce monde’), alongside its art history (Part Two, ‘Arts’, which also includes theatre), literature (Part Three, ‘Lettres’), science (Part Four, ‘Sciences et techniques’, which also includes print technology), religion along with philosophy (Part Five, ‘Philosophie et religion’), and politics (Part Six, ‘Politique’). Saladin’s book argues that the creative exploration of the culture of classical antiquity, epitomized in the work of early modern humanists...

The Tale of Genji and Heian Literature: Reception History, Translations, and New Frontiers - Mapping Courtship and Kinship in Classical Japan: The Tale of Genji and Its Predecessors. By Doris G. Bargen. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2015. xix, 372 pp. ISBN: 9780824851545 (cloth, also available in paper and as e-book). - The Tale of Genji: Translation, Canonization, and World

The Tale of Genji and Heian Literature: Reception History, Translations, and New Frontiers - Mapping Courtship and Kinship in Classical Japan: The Tale of Genji and Its Predecessors. By Doris G. Bargen. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2015. xix, 372 pp. ISBN: 9780824851545 (cloth, also available in paper and as e-book). - The Tale of Genji: Translation, Canonization, and World

La Contre‐Revolution Compatible. Ces Chiffres Qui (nous) Gouvernent. FabriceBardet. Les Belles Lettres, Paris, France, 2014. 374 pp. $29.00 (paper)

GovernanceVolume 32, Issue 1 p. 199-200 BOOK REVIEW La Contre-Revolution Compatible. Ces Chiffres Qui (nous) Gouvernent. Bardet, Fabrice. Les Belles Lettres, Paris, France, 2014. 374 pp. $29.00 (paper) Didier Chabanet, IDRAC Business School and Triangle–Ecole Normale Supérieure of LyonSearch for more papers by this author Didier Chabanet, IDRAC Business School and Triangle–Ecole Normale Supérieure of LyonSearch for more papers by this author First published: 21 December 2018 https://doi.org/10.1111/gove.12380Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume32, Issue1January 2019Pages 199-200 RelatedInformation

Barbey d’Aurevilly, Ce qui ne meurt pas. Édition par Marie-Françoise Melmoux-Montaubin

This is the latest offering in Champion’s re-edition of Barbey d’Aurevilly’s Œuvres romanesques complètes. Initially entitled Germaine, it is thought to have been written in 1834–35 and thus represents the young Barbey’s first novel-length work. It also has the distinction of being the last novel he published during his lifetime, as it was only in 1883 that it saw the light of day. As this fifty-year gap might suggest, Barbey had great difficulty finding a publisher for his manuscript, which he referred to in a letter to his friend and confidant Guillaume-Stanislas Trébutien as his ‘belle au bois dormant’ (in Correspondance générale, 9 vols (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1980–89), iii (1983), 216; 23 June 1853). Ce qui ne meurt pas is not as well known as Barbey’s other novels and has attracted less scholarly attention. It nevertheless features many themes and tropes that will be familiar to readers of his work — its Normandy setting, for example, which the author accentuated as he continued to work on his text over the years. The novel’s marshland topography offers a complementary vision to that of the moors, which provide the setting of L’Ensorcelée (1852). The claustrophobic and gothic atmosphere of this story is likewise reminiscent of many other Barbey texts, as are its psycho-sexual thematics. The novel recounts the obsessive love of the young orphan Allan for his protectress, Yseult de Scudémor (initially named Germaine de Valombre). Allan’s attraction for this older woman is due in large part, and somewhat perversely, to her attitude of indifference, which is the result of her youthful erotic excesses. He eventually marries her daughter, Camille, and it is this relationship that forms the basis for Part Two of the novel. The intertwined stories of these three protagonists allow Barbey to explore themes such as adultery, incest, Sapphic love, matricide, and necrophilia — a heady mix that bears the traces of Chateaubriand’s René and George Sand’s Lélia. This edition of the novel features an extensive critical apparatus: an eighty-two-page Introduction, thirty-four pages of manuscript variations, two appendices reproducing the preface that Barbey wrote in 1835 and contemporary reviews of the novel by Octave Mirbeau and Léon Bloy, a useful bibliography, an index, and numerous footnotes on aspects of the text. This scholarly material is erudite and informative, and will undoubtedly make this an indispensable reference work. The sheer volume of commentary offered here, however, invites reflection on the limits that should be imposed on the critical apparatus in such scholarly editions of texts. The Introduction is especially long, and, when we get to the story itself, the number and volume of the footnotes are often a distraction on the page. The end result is a volume of 600 pages costing €100. This will no doubt prove offputting to interested individuals and even university libraries, subjected these days to tight budgets.

Giordane, Getica: «confusiones»

In view of my new critical edition of Jordanes Getica for A.L.M.A. (Les Belles Lettres), I write in this short note about the confusiones locutionum duarum registered in Mommsen’ Lexica et grammatica, 183a. I believe that with more attentive consideration not only of first, but also of second and third family of ms. tradition, it is possible to establish the original text in easier way than the famous german scholar made, in the language of Jordanes about which I wright in other search about Getica.

Leconte de Lisle, Œuvres complètes , v: Œuvres en prose: 1852–1894

This is the fifth and final volume in a new edition of the complete works of Leconte de Lisle. It is a substantially revised and updated version of the Belles Lettres edition of 1976–78, which was also edited by Edgard Pich but is now out of print (reviewed in French Studies, 31 (1977), 469–71). In addition to corrections to detail, this edition includes new introductions, adds extensive commentaries and detailed notes, and re-orders the material in such a way as to underline the coherence of Leconte de Lisle’s project. The prose works are now divided between L’Œuvre romantique (vol. i), and this fifth volume, which includes texts from 1852 onwards. The intervening volumes cover Poèmes antiques (vol. ii), Poèmes barbares (vol. iii), and Poèmes tragiques et derniers poèmes (vol. iv). The short preface to volume v pinpoints 1852 as a turning point and presents the subsequent collection of historical, political, and critical texts as an essential part of Leconte de Lisle’s œuvre. It boldly argues that the 1852 preface to the Poèmes antiques is a preface to all his subsequent writing and affirms a modern conception of poetry analogous to that of contemporaries such as Baudelaire, and also that the dry quality of his prose is stylistically original and reflects the wider experimentation with prose by the likes of the Goncourts and Zola. The prose texts that follow, ranging from brief prefaces and journalistic pieces to extremely long histories, may not all seem to live up to this promise. Many of them were already included in the volume Leconte de Lisle: articles, préfaces, discours, also edited by Pich (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1971), or in the Œuvres diverses volume of the Belles Lettres edition (vol. iv, 1978), but Pich has also added some texts not previously reprinted since the nineteenth century. The volume is dominated by two such texts — ‘Histoire populaire du christianisme’ and ‘Histoire du Moyen-Âge’ — the latter consisting of nearly three hundred pages and attributed to Leconte de Lisle though not originally published under his name. Pich argues that the ironic use of quotation in the first of these texts is similar to Bouvard et Pécuchet and that the second text is a ‘contre-légende des siècles’ (p. 698) in which certain passages read like prose versions of important poems. The prose certainly has a striking clipped quality and reveals the extent to which Leconte de Lisle was reworking sources in his own writing. This complete edition will undoubtedly become the standard work of reference and an invaluable tool for anyone seeking deeper understanding of this poet. With its encyclopaedic notes and detailed contextualization of texts, it is much more substantial than the Classiques Garnier edition, of which the first volume appeared in 2011. Pich’s decades of work on this author have culminated in a resource that will have lasting value.

Pourquoi une cinquième édition d’Interpréter pour traduire de Danica Seleskovitch et Marianne Lederer ?

Résumé La première publication d’Interpréter pour traduire date de 1984. Les textes qui y sont réunis jettent les fondements de la Théorie Interprétative de la Traduction, une théorie cohérente expliquant le processus de l’interprétation et de la traduction. Les avancées des sciences cognitives ont peu à peu confirmé les constatations pragmatiques des auteurs, ce qui justifie cette cinquième édition par les Belles Lettres.

Beyond the Shoah: Charlotte Delbo Confronts the Algerian War

This essay will examine Delbo’s opposition to the Algerian war, with emphasis on Les Belles Lettres and other texts in which she refers to that destructive conflict. Les Belles Lettres was published in 1961, as the Franco-Algerian conflict had reached its peak and the network of suitcase carriers led by Francis Jeanson had been dismantled. Delbo selected letters penned by participants in the debate on the Algerian war and published in the French press between 1959 and 1961. She carefully laid out and annotated these letters so as to reveal the troubling political reality of the time. We will first address the author’s denunciation of the exceptional measures adopted by the French state in order to bring the fight for independence to a halt, as well as the lack of enthusiasm on the part of leftist parties and the general population to oppose them. Subsequently, we will analyze the questions that arose from the French army’s use of torture. We will then seek to understand the bold parallel Delbo makes between crimes committed by the French government and its army during the Algerian conflict and the crimes committed by Nazis against Jews and members of the Resistance during WWII.

Livres de morale révélés par les dieux par Vincent Goossaert (review)

Livres de morale révélés par les dieux. Textes présentés, traduits et annotés par VINCENT GOOSSAERT. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2012. xliii, 200 pp. €29 (pb). ISBN 978-2-251-10011-1 This volume includes Vincent Goossaert’s French translations of eight “morality books” and a concise, but quite substantial, introduction. Morality books since early times have attracted the attention of sinologists, but they still remain understudied in China and abroad, despite their importance for the social, ethical, and religious life of this country from the twelfth century onwards. Livres de morale révélés par les dieux was published by the prestigious French publisher Les Belles Lettres in the series “Chinese Library” that consists of translations of Chinese classics. This book makes an important contribution to this corpus of translated sources, as morality books belong to the sphere of popular religiosity rather than elite literature and philosophy, mostly featured in this series. On the other hand, as morality books combine ethical values and concepts of all three major teachings of China, they contain rich material for the study of religious syncretism . Besides, they constituted an important part of popular religiosity in traditional China, as many these texts were distributed by educated philanthropists in the printed form among the broader public. As stated in the inscription of an illustration of Precious Manuscript of the Jade Registers (Yuli baochao 玉歷寶鈔), printed by Jinzhang Publishers in Shanghai (1920), reproduced in this volume (but not translated), dissemination of morality books was considered to be the supreme act of charity in China, as “distribution of food and clothes will save people only for a short time, while dissemination of morality books can give them salvation in this reincarnation” (p. 182, fig. 24). As noted by Goossaert, “morality books” denote a quite broad category of texts that are considerably different in terms of their form, language, and contents, their common feature being a special emphasis on the law of retribution and divine response to human behavior. This law is defined in the very first sentence of Treatise of the Exalted One on Response and Retribution (Taishang ganying pian 太上感應 篇, ca. eleventh–twelfth centuries), considered to be the earliest and the most often printed morality book: “Disaster and fortune do not appear on their own; they are provoked by men themselves. Retribution for good and bad deeds will follow just as shadows follow the figure” (p. 5). The texts selected by Goossaert for translation are quite varied in period of composition , volume, form, and contents; his goal was obviously to make this selection as representative as possible. These texts are the Treatise of the Exalted One on Response and Retribution; Text on Lord Wenchang’s Invisible Reward (Wenchang dijun yinzhiwen 文昌帝君陰騭文, ca. early seventeenth century); True Scripture of Sage Lord Guan that Awakens the World (Guan sheng dijun jueshi zhenjing 關聖 帝君覺世真經, ca. end of the seventeenth century); Ledger of Merits and Demerits of the Immortal Lord of Great Subtlety (Taiwei xianjun gongguoge 太微仙君功過 格, 1171); Exhortations Bequeathed by the Great Lord of Dark Heaven from Wudang Mountain (Wudangshan xuantian shangdi chui xunwen 武當山玄天上帝 垂訓文, dated to 1302); Text Exhorting the World by the Empress of the Bushel of Perfect Light (Yuanming doudi quanshiwen 圓明斗帝勸世文, ca. end of the seventeenth–early eighteenth century); True Scripture of the Patriarch Lü that Awakens the Heart (Lüzu xingxin zhenjing 呂祖醒心真經, preface dated to 1707); 204 REVIEWS and Precious Manuscript of the Jade Registers. The last text is claimed to be a revelation of the Song dynasty, but was dated to ca. sixteenth–seventeenth century by Japanese scholars; its earliest extant editions date back to the beginning of the nineteenth century (p. 102). The volume includes the original Chinese texts on facing pages, numerous comments, and introductions to each text that summarize the history of their creation, transmission, and social background. In spite of the numerous differences between these texts, there are certain common features that bring all of them together. Firstly, they are claimed to be revealed by popular deities of the Chinese pantheon and represent a common form of communication between deities and humans in Chinese popular religion. These texts contain many details of the cults of these deities. Secondly, there are...

Rendre audible la voix d’une rescapée tutsie : le rôle du paratexte dans Le Livre d’Élise

This article uses trauma theory to show the unique paratextual framing of Tutsi genocide survivor Élise Rida Musomandera’s memoir, Le Livre d’Élise (Les Belles Lettres, 2014). While dozens of survivor accounts from the Tutsi diaspora have been published in the last two decades, Musomandera’s is the first eye-witness memoir written by a Tutsi survivor still living in Rwanda. The vast majority of these testimonial memoirs contain introductions and postfaces which present the text for a Western reader. These paratexts have tended to privilege one of two discourses, comparing the Tutsi survivor’s story either to a moral lesson or to Holocaust testimonies. In contrast, the introduction to Le Livre d’Élise emphasizes the encounter between Musomandera’s authorial voice and the reader. The introduction’s European co-authors suggest that in reading Musomandera’s text, the reader joins a community of attentive interlocutors who are participating in the ongoing process of helping her find agency and social recognition following the devastating impact of genocide.

Notes on Contributors

Notes on Contributors

Notes on Contributors

Notes on Contributors

Jean-Gaspard Deburau: Romantic Pierrot

Jean-Gaspard Deburau was the nineteenth-century mime artist who created a new model for subsequent performers to either imitate or reject, but hardly to ignore. Silent cinema benefited from the nineteenth-century vogue for the mime in general – and the Pierrot character that he did so much to popularize in particular. The most famous mime of the twentieth century, Marcel Marceau, derived his character ‘Bip’ in part from Deburau's Pierrot. And while two of the most influential French mime artists of the twentieth century, Jean-Louis Barrault and Étienne Decroux, sought a radical departure from his Pierrot tradition, they ironically found themselves in the now legendary French film Les Enfants du paradis acting the parts respectively of Deburau and Deburau's father. In this article Edward Nye explores the reasons for Deburau's success from two perspectives: first, by considering Deburau's reputation for clarity of expression, and the absence of critical or public debate over any obscurity; and second, the context of the Romantic movement which primed spectators to appreciate his style of performance. Edward Nye is Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, and University Lecturer in French. He has published on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century subjects in French literature and the arts, notably Mime, Music, and Drama on the Eighteenth-Century Stage: the Ballet d'Action (CUP 2011), Literary and Linguistic Theories in Eighteenth-Century France (OUP, 2000), and on the literary aesthetics of sports writing, in À Bicyclette (Les Belles Lettres, 2000).

ROMAN JUDAEA - (G.) Labbé L'affirmation de la puissance romaine en Judée (63 a.C.–136 p.C.). (Études Anciennes Série Latine 74.) Pp. 671. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2012. Paper, €75. ISBN: 978-2-251-32888-1.

Labbe (G.) L’affirmation de la puissance romaine en Judee (63 a.C.— 136 p.C.). (Etudes Anciennes Serie Latine 74.) Pp. 671. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2012. Paper, €75. ISBN: 978-2-251-32888-1 The step by step expansion of Roman power in the East Mediterranean and the culture of the region have been richly described by Millar and Sartre (The Roman Near East: 31 B.C.--A.D. 337. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993; The Middle East under Rome. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2004). For the sources and account of developments in Roman Palestine, we have the still fundamental first volume of Schurer’s handbook, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, extensively revised by Vermes, Millar, and Black (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1973, pp. 243– Yet, the progress in epigraphic, prosopographical, papyrological discoveries and in their interpretation amply justifies new synthetic studies of this vast, disputed field. Labbe’s massive, enormously impressive, and erudite book on the nature and evolution of the Roman military and administrative organization in Judaea provides one such study. Client kings and Roman officials in Judaea—their titles, functions, means and effectiveness—are presented and analyzed in exhaustive detail on the basis of all the available literary, epigraphic, papyrological, and numismatic evidence. The relevant interpretations found in the considerable modern literature—a little over sixteen hundred titles in the bibliography—are evenhandedly summarized, contextualized, and assessed. The book is organized into three main chronological parts and is further divided into nine chapters. The results of the analysis are summarized at the end of each of each chapter, collected again at the end of each of the three parts, and a general summary concludes the book (493–504). The work includes maps, lists of

Pierre de Jean Olivi. Traité des Contrats by Sylvain Piron

Reviewed by: Pierre de Jean Olivi. Traité des Contrats by Sylvain Piron David Flood, OFM Sylvain Piron, Pierre de Jean Olivi. Traité des Contrats (Bibliothèque Scolastique, Volume 5), Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2012, 7.6 x 5 x 1.3 inches, Pages 439, ISBN 978-2251610054 Sylvain Piron has brought a new manuscript into play in his recent edition of Peter of John Olivi’s contribution to medieval economics. The new manuscript, Oxford, Bodleian Library, cod. Bodley 52, gives us the reworked and developed views of the author. Bodley 52’s version of the treatise allows the editor to fuse the previously known three parts together into one text, A Treatise on Contracts. On the occasion of the new edition, Piron argues its importance as a scholastic text, a treatise on the economics of its time and one of wide influence. He offers us a highly informative study of the text, then, before he gets to an excellent critical edition. The edition is accompanied by a translation of the treatise into French. It is followed by brief references to the text as aid to its study. Piron’s book is an impressive contribution to medieval studies. Piron introduces the treatise by requesting acknowledgement of scholastic economics. The intellectual context of Brother Peter of John’s era differs from the discussions on economics that take place in the Western world in our day. There existed then presuppositions that resulted in an understandable approach to the production and distribution of goods. Following on the Decretum Gratiani (1141) theologians and canonists made explicit that an excess of property obliged the rich to see to the needs of the poor. Wealth was a special burden that the materially lucky bore. Or, in truth, if Christian, were to bear. Moreover, charity as a Christian imperative forbade preying on the poor (as U.S. economics allows; which, when impressively successful, even wins esteem). [End Page 511] Such a simple observation helps us understand sensitivity to usury in the Middle Ages. In our day Amartya Sen (whom Piron references) has spoken clearly about the relation of ethics to economics in a positive fashion. Sen proposes we consider the origin of economics either through concern for ethics or by solutions to practical matters (engineering is Sen’s term). How can we settle down and how can we all settle down. Inevitably, Jesus’ concern for the other and its consequent censure of the wealthy will weigh in heavily on economic reflection in a Christian context. Economic thought in Peter of John’s day was otherwise concerned with people than is economics in our day. His economics was not one early stage towards the complete grasp of economic realities in our advanced day, as many of today’s historians would see it. Once Piron justifies scholastic economics (11-26), he goes on to sketch out the social context of Peter of John’s treatise (27-71). He surfaces historical scenes in which the treatise guides business in the interests of society. Once he has made the treatise come alive historically, he goes on to the technical work of the edition. He explains how he will use what sources. He goes further when he makes a few remarks on his translation of the text. Before Piron begins with the edition and its translation, pages 94-321, Latin to the left, French to the right, he has a few remarks (a page and a half, 91-92) on the text’s passage from Latin into French. He explains where he places himself as regards the text and as regards the reader of the translation. He is sensitive to both. He has a duty to the text and would make it understandable to today’s reader. Once clear on the point, Piron goes into a list of words. He explains how he will handle them, given context. Now languages are different. There is no verbal or syntactical correspondence between them. And an economic treatise is drenched in precise detail. In a way, a translator will never get it right because the two linguistic worlds differ. Yet she or he has to make it work somehow. Piron’s brief explanation of the several...