Project description
Uncovering the forgotten chronicles of medieval Europe
Short historical texts written in French before the end of the 13th century helped shape the historical culture and collective memory of medieval elites across Europe. Often overlooked by scholars, these brief chronicles were widely copied and circulated in manuscript form, serving as practical reference tools that transmitted historical knowledge and promoted particular views of the past. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the WHiLES project is producing the first comprehensive study of this neglected body of writing, including an inventory of the texts and new scholarly and digital editions of twenty chronicles. It will reveal how these modest but influential texts contributed to the spread of historical narratives and shared memories across the medieval francophone world.
Objective
WHiLES examines how short historical texts written in French before the end of the 13th century shaped the historical culture of medieval francophone and francophile elites in late medieval Europe. Unpublished and often dismissed as unworthy of attention by historians and literary scholars, short French chronicles were in fact a crucial medium for transmitting knowledge and promoting ideologically driven representations of the past. For the most part, these texts were translated from Latin and conceived less to be read than to be consulted. They take the form of annalistic enumerations of events, royal successions, genealogical lists of biblical figures, and tabular compendia of popes and emperors. Copied into dozens of manuscript books, they circulated widely, from England to the Near East, across the vast area where French functioned as a lingua franca.
WHiLES adopts a philological approach to offer the first comprehensive study of short French chronicles, examining their origins, reception, and circulation in late medieval Europe. The project will produce an exhaustive inventory of these texts and publish the first scholarly and digital editions of twenty chronicles. Reconstructing their manuscript traditions and analysing the collections that preserve them will make it possible to explore their origin and assess their role in the historical culture of late medieval elites. Ultimately, WHiLES will shed light on this significant yet neglected part of French literature and demonstrate how short French chronicles contributed to creating collective memories of the past across Europe.
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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75002 Paris
France
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