Famille et parenté au Moyen-Age

Résumé : L'ouvrage de Didier Lett comble une lacune dans l'histoire médiévale. Au delà des différences régionales, l'auteur résume nos connaissances sur la parenté, le mariage, la vie de famille du Ve au XVe siècle dans l'ensemble de l'Occident, questions que développent les quatre parties de cet ouvrage. From the book's own synopsis: 'Long neglected, the history of kinship and family represents a serious subject for contemporary study. Heavily influenced by anthropology, medievalists have compounded theses and publications on kinship structures, on the redistribution of goods both material and symbolic, on marriage, on living arrangements or on intra-familial relations. They have brought a new perspective to bear on the medieval family. 'However, no synthesis has been attempted prior to the work at hand. Drawing on a rich primary documentation (laws, council minutes, formularies, capitularies, polyptychs, saints' lives, chronicles, notarized statements, official registers, fiscal documents, literary texts, iconography, archaeological finds), the author extends his research to the whole of Christian Europe from the 5th to the 15th century, taking into account social and geographical differences. 'Are studied and analyzed: kinship structures (grounds for membership in a kin group, length of pedigree, rules of inheritance and succession, name transmission, the role of spiritual parents), marriage (as a family's means of reproduction and as its means of social climbing, as grounds for one lineage to hand over considerable wealth in dowry to another, as a universal sacrament and a source of contention between families and the Church), family structures (the size and composition of households, their modes of life, profit and property), and family life (couples, children, education, familial sentiments and sociability). 'Taking into account the most recent bibliographical research, Lett's book much enhances our understanding of medieval man and th