Livro nº 11 da coleção teorema Advertência na capa: O presente volume agrupa um certo número de artigos precedentemente publicados sob o título Hommes et Structures du Moyen Âge pela Escola dos Altos Estudos de Ciências Sociias (EHESS) de Paris em 1979. Esta edição Portuguesa é tradução de uma edição Francesa de Flammarion de 1988
Na copntracapa: Diversa e imensa era a França medieval. De uma região a outra, apenas as enormes dimensões dos domínios senhoriais constituíram o traço fundamental unificador da economia rural. No conjunto de textos reunidos neste livro, Georges Duby revela, interpreta e aprofunda a vida desses grandes domínios assim como nos burgos franceses da Idade Média. A leitura do presente volume deverá ser completada pela de A sociedade cavaleiresca. Os dois volumes foram inicialmente publicados sob o título Hommes et structures au moyen âge.
I'm continuing my journey in Duby's works and I'm getting more and more convinced that for every medievalist, his works are absolute must-reads. This slim Hungarian volume from 1978 contains only a few essays from him, it does not even seem to be a full book for some reason, other editions I see here are double the page-count. Anyway, we get 5 essays from Duby, focusing on agriculture, the monks and abbeys, demographic trends, the appearance of knighthood and lastly about medieval societies as a whole. All of his works are based on decades of research into medieval manuscripts from the early medieval / late antiquity up until the 15th century on the territories that eventually became France. His style is therefore very scientific, to my great joy - includes typical latin words and expressions and explains them too. Some of the concepts, like the history of mentalities are a little off in Hungarian translation, but overall it can be understood well today.
The last essay I would like to put on a pedestal here about medieval societies. It was prepared when he took one of his professorships and it can really be considered as his ars poetica. I adore the work of all French 20th century historians from Bloch or Febvre to Duby or Braudel. They have created a necessary new view to look at historical research, medieval societies in general and opened our eyes to long-time-horizon changes that germinate for centuries before some major change happens in world history. For this, I absolutely recommend reading Duby as he was part of this great current that changed the way we look at the so called 'Middle-Ages'.