Les cieux ouverts : les anges et leurs images dans le christianisme médiéval (XIe-XIIIe siècle) : étude d'anthropologie et d'iconographie religieuse
Institution:
Paris, EHESSDisciplines:
Directors:
Abstract EN:
Cette these etudie les rapports entre l'ange et l'homme dans le christianisme latin pendant le moyen-age central. La perspective de recherche releve de l'anthropologie historique; il s'agit de degager la coherence d'un systeme de representation et son evolution, et de les expliquer. L'examen des sources utilisees (recit de visions, miniatures) revele l'existence d'un "systeme angelophanique", fonde sur la dimension mythique de l'ange, sur ses fonctions d'ordonnateur, de modele et d'initiateur, dans le cadre de la culture monastique dominante, qui definit les contours d'une "anthropologie angelique". Mais le systeme de representation se modifie et se tranforme graduellement : l'emergence de l'ange gardien individuel, l'influence du pseudo-denys, l'augmentation du nombre des anges, leur humanisation, l'evolution des codes symboliques qont les indices d'une individualisation progressive de la relation a l'ange, d'un approfondissement de la notion de hierarchie spirituelle, mais aussi d'un affaiblissement du sens theophanique de l'ange. A la fin du moyen-age, l'ange divient une figure decorative et deconnectee du substrat biblique.
Abstract FR:
The aim of this thesis is the study of the relationship between angels and men during the middle ages, in the latin christianism. This research is commanded by anthropological history. The purpose is to show the coherency of this system of representation and to explain it. The most important documents come from visionary literature, lives of saints and pictures from illuminated manuscripts. This study reveals an "angelophanic system", based on the mythic sense of angelology. The angels possess abilities in disposing, they are considered as models and initiators in the monastic culture, which designs the features of the "angelic anthropology". But this system gets somehow altered by degrees. For instance, the character of the guardian angel makes his apearance, the number of angels increases, their features get more humanlike. Here are some important marks of a more tightened link between the angel and the man, marks of a deeper understanding of hierarchy. But we also notice as well the lessening of the angel's theophanic meaning. At the end of the middle ages, the angel became a motive of decorative theme, disconnected from its biblical origin.