Military orders and powerful women in the Christian Levant

In the Christian East, religious military orders have obviously had interactions with women in leadership roles as queens, princesses and noble women. The relationship between military orders and aristocratic women varies in relation to the power these women actually had in Latin states in the East, the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia and the Latin Empire of Constantinople including Frankish Morea. As such, we must clearly distinguish between women who ran a state or governed a fiefdom by themselves and those under the guardianship of others. This difference influences the attitudes that representatives from the orders displayed towards these noble women. In this study, we are interested in these different types of situations, such as the relationship of the military orders with women in positions of power such as the Queens of Jerusalem Melisende and Sibylla, the Queen Joanna of Naples, who was also Princess of Morea, and other important women. We also examine the very delicate diplomatic intervention by the order of the Hospital concerning the Princess of Tyre, Zapel, sister of the Armenian King, Ochin I and wife to the Governor of Cyprus, Amaury of Tyre, in order to free the King of Cyprus, a prisoner in Armenia. For queens and princesses who were not independent, especially when they were young, we could determine in several cases the level of involvement of military orders in their marriage. The cases examined are representative of the wide range of types of relationships that military orders had with ladies of high social standing in the Christian East.In the Christian East, religious military orders have obviously had interactions with women in leadership roles as queens, princesses and noble women. The relationship between military orders and aristocratic women varies in relation to the power these women actually had in Latin states in the East, the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia and the Latin Empire of Constantinople including Frankish Morea. As such, we must clearly distinguish between women who ran a state or governed a fiefdom by themselves and those under the guardianship of others. This difference influences the attitudes that representatives from the orders displayed towards these noble women. In this study, we are interested in these different types of situations, such as the relationship of the military orders with women in positions of power such as the Queens of Jerusalem Melisende and Sibylla, the Queen Joanna of Naples, who was also Princess of Morea, and other important women. We also examine the very delicate diplomatic intervention by the order of the Hospital concerning the Princess of Tyre, Zapel, sister of the Armenian King, Ochin I and wife to the Governor of Cyprus, Amaury of Tyre, in order to free the King of Cyprus, a prisoner in Armenia. For queens and princesses who were not independent, especially when they were young, we could determine in several cases the level of involvement of military orders in their marriage. The cases examined are representative of the wide range of types of relationships that military orders had with ladies of high social standing in the Christian East

Elizabeth Lapina et Nicholas Morton (éd.), The Uses of the Bible in Crusader Sources

L’utilisation des citations scripturaires dans les sources médiévales fait l’objet d’un intérêt accru dans l’historiographie récente. Il s’agit d’une question relativement nouvelle, longtemps écartée ou assez peu exploitée par les médiévistes. En 2003, Henri Bresc avait entrepris un précieux état des lieux du sujet dans un article sur « Les historiens de la croisade : guerre sainte, justice et paix » (Mélanges de l’École française de Rome. Moyen Âge, 115-2, 2003, p. 727-753). Les éditeurs, El..

Javier Albarran Iruela, El Sueño de al-Quds. Los musulmanes ante la conquista cruzada de Jerusalén (1099-1187)

L’objectif de Javier Albarran Iruela est de retracer les réactions – littéraires, mais surtout militaires et idéologiques –, des élites politiques et religieuses du monde musulman face à la prise de Jérusalem par les chrétiens en 1099 puis à l’établissement d’États latins en Orient dans les années qui suivirent. Il estime que la bibliographie en castillan sur la croisade, considérée du point de vue musulman, est inexistante. Le plan de l’ouvrage s’articule autour des grands moments qui ont co..

Haroutioun Khatchadourian et Michel Basmadjian, L’art des Khatchkars. Les pierres à croix arméniennes d’Ispahan et de Jérusalem

L’origine de la sculpture de croix sur les murs ou autour des églises remonte au ive-ve s. en Arménie. Cependant, l’art du khatchkar tel qu’on le conçoit à l’heure actuelle apparaît dans la seconde moitié du ixe s., sous forme de monolithes sculptés ; le terme de khatchkar est, quant à lui, bien plus tardif, puisqu’on ne le trouve principalement qu’à partir du xxe s. Ce bel et volumineux ouvrage de 442 pages fait suite à une série de publications sur les khatchkars depuis les années 1950, d’a..

L’ordre du Temple en Orient : quelle représentation de la classe chevaleresque ?

L’article s’intéresse aux spécificités de la chevalerie dans l’ordre du Temple en considérant la manière dont les sources rédigées en Orient par des auteurs de toutes confessions complètent utilement la Règle du Temple, non seulement par des informations concrètes, des éléments de contexte, mais aussi à travers la perception plus ou moins sensible des actes accomplis par les frères chevaliers. La visibilité spécifique de la classe des chevaliers au moment de la création de l’Ordre et la réception de cette nouvelle institution auprès de la noblesse sont envisagées. L’évolution de l’Ordre, parallèle à celle de la société, sur les exigences et attentes relatives à l’origine sociale et aux qualités des frères chevaliers est perceptible, de même que l’amplification et la diversification de leur rôle et de leurs missions dans le Levant.This study focuses on the specificities of knighthood in the Templar Order by considering how sources written in the East by authors from all faiths provide useful complements to the Règle du Temple. As well as providing concrete information and contextual elements, these documents also bring us a more or less sensitive perception of the acts performed by the brother knights. The article considers the specific visibility of the class of knights at the time of the creation of the Military Order, and the reception of this new institution by the nobility. Evolutions can be observed in the Military Order, which mirror the evolutions undergone by society as a whole: they affect the social origin and qualities expected from the knight-brothers, as well as the development and the diversification of their role and missions in the Levant

Andrew D. Buck, The Principality of Antioch and its Frontiers in the Twelfth Century

Cet ouvrage est issu de la thèse de doctorat d’Andrew D. Buck soutenue en 2014 à la Queen Mary, Université de Londres. L’a. a adopté une approche thématique plutôt que chronologique pour traiter ce sujet, restreint ici au premier siècle de l’existence de la principauté d’Antioche – dont la capitale fut détruite par les Mamelouks en 1268. Son étude est divisée en sept parties portant successivement sur l’étendue de la principauté, ses dirigeants, la gouvernance centrale et le service militaire..

Introduction

L’étude des relations entre l’espace sacré et l’église médiévale n’est pas un sujet nouveau. Explorés dès les années 1960, entre autres, par les analyses pionnières de Carol Heitz à propos des liens entre architecture et liturgie à l’époque carolingienne, ces actes, issus du colloque tenu à Nanterre en juin 2018, entendent s’inscrire dans la lignée de ces travaux, tout en étendant la réflexion à d’autres supports artistiques tels que la sculpture, la peinture ou encore les objets d’art. Si, e..

Systematic mechanical assessment of consolidants for canvas reinforcement under controlled environment.

In conservation, adhesives are commonly used for the consolidation of canvases, yet their impact upon the canvas longevity has raised some concerns amongst conservators. As such, this study presents a testing protocol developed to assess the performance of commonly-used adhesives (natural animal glue and synthetic Beva® 371) and a newly developed nanocellulose consolidant, nanofibrillated nanocellulose (CNF). This includes their effect on the visual appearance, consolidation, and response of the mechanical properties of the treated canvases to programmed changes in relative humidity (RH). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of animal glue- and Beva® 371-treated canvases revealed the presence of adhesive and consolidant on and in-between cotton fibres. The consolidants form bridges linking and connecting the cotton fibres and holding them together, whereas the CNF treatment, formed a visible continuous and dense surface coating. None of the treatments induced any discernible colour change. Controlled environment mechanical testing was performed in two ways: by applying a linearly increasing static force at fixed RH (Young's modulus) and by applying a dynamic force together with a programmed RH cycling between 20 and 80% (RH dependent viscoelastic properties). CNF gave a higher value of Young's modulus than either of the two commonly-used materials. Measurements at different values of RH (20 and 80%) demonstrated for all the treated canvases that at the lower value (RH 20%) Young's modulus values were higher than at the higher value (RH 80%). Besides, the dynamic mode showed that the rate of response in all cases was rapid and reversible and that the nanofibrillated cellulose treated sample showed the highest variation in storage (or elastic) modulus measured at the end of RH plateaux (20 and 80% RH). Thus CNF appears to be a promising material given its higher mechanical performance. The protocol developed in this study has enabled us to examine and compare candidate materials for the consolidation of canvases systematically, using testing parameters that remained relevant to the field of canvas conservation

RiskFix: Supporting Expert Validation of Predictive Timeseries Models in High-Intensity Settings

Many real-world machine learning workflows exist in longitudinal, interactive machine learning (ML) settings. This longitudinal nature is often due to incremental increasing of data, e.g., in clinical settings, where observations about patients evolve over their care period. Additionally, experts may become a bottleneck in the workflow, as their limited availability, combined with their role as human oracles, often leads to a lack of ground truth data. In such cases where ground truth data is small, the validation of interactive machine learning workflows relies on domain experts. Only those humans can assess the validity of a model prediction, especially in new situations that have been covered only weakly by available training data. Based on our experiences working with domain experts of a pediatric hospital's intensive care unit, we derive requirements for the design of support interfaces for the validation of interactive ML workflows in fast-paced, high-intensity environments. We present RiskFix, a software package optimized for the validation workflow of domain experts of such contexts. RiskFix is adapted to the cognitive resources and needs of domain experts in validating and giving feedback to the model. Also, RiskFix supports data scientists in their model-building work, with appropriate data structuring for the re-calibration (and possible retraining) of ML models

Towards a better understanding of Rift Valley fever epidemiology in the south-west of the Indian Ocean.

International audience: Rift Valley fever virus (Phlebovirus, Bunyaviridae) is an arbovirus causing intermittent epizootics and sporadic epidemics primarily in East Africa. Infection causes severe and often fatal illness in young sheep, goats and cattle. Domestic animals and humans can be contaminated by close contact with infectious tissues or through mosquito infectious bites. Rift Valley fever virus was historically restricted to sub-Saharan countries. The probability of Rift Valley fever emerging in virgin areas is likely to be increasing. Its geographical range has extended over the past years. As a recent example, autochthonous cases of Rift Valley fever were recorded in 2007--2008 in Mayotte in the Indian Ocean. It has been proposed that a single infected animal that enters a naive country is sufficient to initiate a major outbreak before Rift Valley fever virus would ever be detected. Unless vaccines are available and widely used to limit its expansion, Rift Valley fever will continue to be a critical issue for human and animal health in the region of the Indian Ocean