FIDEM Annual Meeting 2015

Varieties of Readings of Medieval Sources

William of Conches, in his Glossae super Boethium (Nauta, p. 202, 90-93), states:

…de eadem re secundum diversas considerationes diversae inveniuntur expositiones. Sed non est curandum de diversitate expositionum, immo gaudendum, sed de contrarietate si in expositionibus esset …

What is the nature of the interpretative diversity of medieval sources? Given any character, theological, philosophical, literary, historical, musical or belonging to any other linguistic domain, how do they relate to the text? And do they, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Arab or vernacular, allow the researchers to decipher the meaning the scholars found in the textual sourcein the Middle Ages? Why does the same text inspire different readings? What is the reason whywriting a medieval text is built on sources and why is this habit at the root of an entire tradition of interpretation? These problematics are interdisciplinary and can be identified in all domains of the medieval age. They address each specialist on the texts he studies pertaining to the Middle Ages or to the setting of this era.

The objective of this meeting is to provide an analysis on the variations of these interpretations, on the diffusion of such a conscience and on its importance for the intellectual life of the Middle Ages.

With the support of