Thinking about Formulas

At the wonderful conference ‘La Formule au Moyen Âge‘ (the fourth of the name) recently concluded at the University of Poitiers  Centre d’Etudes Supérieures de Civilisation Médiévale (13-15 June 2018), where I presented a paper (the slides can be accessed here) on the geographical representations of the world in the medieval encyclopaedic texts, the subject of formulas and formulaic expressions was addressed in a delightful variety of contexts, ranging from diplomatic and textual to iconographic and architectural (the abstracts can be accessed here).

The guided tour of two of the many medieval churches of Poitiers, the incredibly ornate Église Notre-Dame la Grande and the UNESCO-listed Église Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand, provided a beautiful context for the conference. Both churches preserve medieval wall paintings. The interior of Notre-Dame la Grande, much of which was re-painted in the 19th century in a pseudo-medieval style, is pictured below (photograph by dr. Natalia Petrovskaia).  

One of the main recurring questions throughout the conference was that of the distinction of formula versus motif and one looks forward to the definitions and solutions that will be offered in the resulting publication, planned for the Brepols ARTeM series. Two of the three previous publications, in the same series, are already available: Elise Louviot, ed., La Formule au Moyen Âge, ARTeM (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012); Isabelle Draelants and Christelle Balouzat-Loubet, ed., La Formule au Moyen Âge II, ARTeM 23 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015).

Post by Natalia Petrovskaia