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ONTIC STRUCTURES, SOCIAL CONJUNCTURESIMAGES OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS OF A CONTEMPORARY ANTHROPOLOGICAL PROPOSITIONÉlise HaddadPh. D. Student, GAHOM (groupe d’anthropologie historique de l’Occident médiéval), EHESS, Paris

AbstractWe consider structural the implicit rules of thinking of a given cultural frame,

which, following Descola’s theorizaton eforts, I will name «ontology». On theother hand, the historical uses of discourses in socially determined conditons areusually regarded as part of the conjuncture. It is generally admited thatinternalized ontologies conditon social possibilites, but there is also a strongcase for saying that social trajectories inform new ontologies, so how do thosetwo factors interact with each other? I will use the partcular historical situatonof eschatological representatons in the Twelfh Century, classifed by Descola as adistnctly analogical, slowly evolving toward naturalist ontology, as my case studyto investgate this theoretcal queston.

Representaton habits about the End of Times during the Twelfh Centurystand at a juncture: in the decennials before the Last Judgement becomes thenorm of representaton for eschatological visions, we can stll observe a largespectrum of possibilites and ponder which factors, structural or conjuncture-bound, shaped the soon-to-come establishment of a new norm. In partcular, wecan explore the iconographic choice of diferent Apocalyptc stages as in opposedto the Last Judgement, and observe the variatons. Many apocalyptcrepresentatons, contrary to how we would understand it in a modern sense, canbe peaceful contemplatons of God at the End of Times, understood as End ofHardships. Even when they do involve plagues or general destructon, they arediferent from a Judgement in as much as they do not entail a diferentatedtreatment of individual souls with regard to their previous moral behaviour.

We could venture that one of the reasons why the Last Judgement succeeded,was that it was deeply rooted indeed in the analogical thought structure of thetme—the same reason, in fact, why it declined from the Sixteenth Century, asthis ontology declined. Under this one-sided descripton, however, lies a mult-faceted reality, where commonly used representatons retro-act on the currentontology, to the point of tpping collectve Weltanschauungen into anotherontology. Here, social competton and situatons encountered by the Church asinsttuton must be taken in consideraton. We need to assess in whichproportons they contributed to the change from one choice of representaton tothe next, that in its turn took part in the larger momentum toward a newontology.

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IntroductonThere is only litle opportunity within the over-large spectrum of historical

research areas to investgate large-scale questons. The historian, as rooted in herdisciplinary identty, seeks faithfulness to the partcularism of her object. She canbe counted upon to be atentve to slight mutatons and to queston any pretenceof permanence or general statement. It must be said, indeed, that if one takes adetailed enough look at things, there will be very few elements, if any, that trulystays the same throughout tme. If one pushes this paradox to its end, not onlyrivers are Heracliteans.

Yet, what is the purpose of a historical refecton if it cannot lay claim toapproaches of large scale trends, approaches that link the object of our studies tothe present that we share as a common reality? There needs to be a way to thinktogether the immense felds of historical data, a common ground on which toevaluate and compare them, avoiding both oversimplifcaton and dispersion. Therelevance of the present line of thought, though rooted in the past and,hopefully, faithful to its essental otherness, resides in drawing sketches, orrefning understanding of ourselves as humans, that is of the present, or, betersaid, of the presents.

Thus, in the process of making use of the past, of questoning it not only fromthe present, but also for the present – and it is my belief that this is not apartcular choice amongst the branches of historiography, but lucidity with regardto historical praxis – in this process, the necessity arises of a strong theoretcalframe, that makes room, although it might be a provisional room, for the pastobject of this study, as well as for its present context. I searched for a frame thatwould avoid atractng the past to the present, or the present to our image of thepast, a frame that would establish a kind of stable relaton between those twoinstances.

As for the current study, Philippe Descola’s theory of four concurring humanontologies will fulfl this intent. It sets a name to the medieval context of ourobject, that is «analogism», and another to our present mindset: «naturalism». Itdistributes those two distnct «ontologies» within a system based on explicitcriteria, thus stabilizing the essental distance between them, safeguardingagainst both (con)fusion and immeasurability. It extrpates both instances from avertginous vacuity and it situates them within the context of four distnctontological optons. Thus, regaining the ability to measure, we can set to the taskof observing the partcularites of the path that led from instant A to instant B,and the partcularites of era A that presided to the routng toward tme B.

In the context of this radical change of thought paterns, as defned andtheorized by contemporary anthropologist and theorist Philippe Descola, thepresent contributon aims to take part to the pondering of interactons betweenstructural and conjuncture-bound factors, as causes, or at least conditons ofpossibility of the progressive elaboraton and re-routng to a new ontology.

For the sake of this study, we consider structural the implicit rules of thinkingof a given cultural frame, which, following Descola’s theorizaton eforts, wename «ontology». We describe as conjuncture-bound the historical uses of

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discourses in socially determined conditons. It is generally admited thatinternalized ontologies conditon social possibilites, but there is also a strongcase for saying that social trajectories inform new ontologies, so how do thosetwo factors interact with each other? I will use the partcular historical situatonof eschatological representatons in the Twelfh Century, classifed by Descola as adistnctly analogical, slowly evolving toward naturalist ontology, as my case studyto investgate this theoretcal queston.

I will frst lay out the outline and the implicatons of our partcularanthropological model, before diving into the historical material to be submitedto our scrutny, and hopefully emerge from those waters with a contributon tothe understanding of how ontological potentalites and social forces interactedwith each other in setng out one partcular large scale movement.

Descola’s relevancy to questoning central middle ages.Philippe Descola, educated at frst as a philosopher, then turned

anthropologist and built a system grounded on the generalizaton of hisanthropological observatons, and structured by two diferentatng axis defningfour distnct «ontologies». It ofers an artculaton considered useful by manysocial scientsts, anthropologists and philosophers. At the very least, it deservesto be read, that is, writen about and put to the test of one’s partcular corpus.

His own perspectve arises from an ethnographic experience in Amazonia,whose purpose was to queston the relaton of the Achuar people to theirenvironment. He notced that the Achuar maintained a relaton with non-humanpersons around them (what we would call «animals» or «plants») that followedthe same patern as relatons to fellow humans. They perceived individuals ofother species in the same manner as they perceived other human individuals.They relate to their preys as to brothers-in-law, or to an individual cassava plantas a child of their group. They entertain a nearly permanent conversaton in theform of anents (spiritual conversatons included in the thought-stream) with non-human persons. In short, it does not make sense in their cosmology to isolate asociety of humans on one side and what we would call its environment on theother.

Afer a long theoretcal elaboraton, including numerous case studies, this ledhim to propose a model of possible cultural combinatons between two criteria:whether people consider themselves, as human, intrinsically similar or diferentfrom non-humans, with regards on one hand to their inwardness (psychology,cultural structures, thoughts, spirituality…), on the other hand to theiroutwardness (body, materiality, physical functons, mater…). This defnes fourontologies, according to the well-known table: animism, totemism, analogismand naturalism.

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Of those four modalites in the percepton of the world, two are of specifcinterest to the study of Middle Ages. First, Descola nominates analogism,characterized by a discontnuity between both physicalites and inwardnesses, asthe medieval ontology. The identfying and eponymous character of analogism isthe density of analogical weaving between the objects and instances of the worldthat have been fragmented by the ontological discontnuites. It is alsocharacterized by the presence of a specifc visual syntax, such as the widespreaduse of hybrids – animist representatons, as a comparison, centres onmetamorphosis. Let us take a moment to further examine this feature. In this context, afguratve object would be considered metamorphic if it appears to be one beingfrom a frst perspectve, and another being from a second one. It will beconsidered a hybrid if if associates elements from diferent beings into a new one,usually in an intuitvely correct syntax, such as wings being associated by pairsand grafed on shoulders, rather than a single wing grafed on a nose. A culturallyconsistent being however, such as an angel, will not be considered a hybrid foreven early Middle Ages: while it has undergone a process of hybridizaton at anearly stage of its creaton, and it might bear the traces of this consttutve processat an underlying level, it had already stabilized into a consistent and fctonallyexistng being before it was adopted by Christanity, and is to be considered, froma very early stage on, primarily a creature amongst the realm of God. This line ofreasoning needs to be applied to the large category of «monsters» that areactually recognized by medieval thinkers as exotc creatures: grifn just likecamel, and unicorn as much as elephant – although each case, certainly, needs tobe ascertained with regard to the tme of its unifcaton in a proper creature, or,through this translucent surface, the concurrent showing of its compositecharacter.

It pertains to another study (Ditmar, 2010) to evaluate the number, functonand characterizaton of the numerous hybrids in the images of central MiddleAges. As for sculptural representatons, however, which form the core of ourcorpus, one could state that hybrids are quite an early phenomena. They usuallydo not populate central spaces of ostentatous representatons, such as tympani –although the strongest counter-example, the eschatological tympanum of

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Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne, happens to be my pivotal case study. They proliferate,however, in the peripheral spaces and in the capitals of romanesque sculpture.They notably disappear at a relatvely early stage of sculptural ornamentaton,and are seldom to be found in gothic compositons. Their contnued presence inmanuscript sources, though, although they seem to migrate largely from initalsto marginalia from the Thirteenth Century on, must not be discarded. If oneconsiders the producton of pictorial hybrids as a sign of analogism, two verystriking characters indeed seem to be their early migratons to the margins,coupled with a long and prolifc contnued existence, as well as the diferentatedchronology depending on the medium observed.

Another distnct feature of analogism in visual representaton is the actualsyntactc use of its eponymous dispositon: analogy. It is a well known fact, in thecase of medieval analogism, that the ontological propensity to folding the worldon itself has also been exploited as a fguratve mean in the spatal organizatonsof motves and the syntactc weaving of scenes. Types of the New Testamentafronted to ant-types, that is, symmetrical models from the Ancient Testament,signifcant proportons within constructed images... the examples are countless.

But in the perspectve of Descola’s theories, the specifcity of medieval studiesas such, which makes it a unique feld of investgaton, is that it is the only case inthe repertoire of human trajectories leading to the advent of naturalism — thatis, the structural change that is ofen called «occidental modernity». WhatDescola names naturalism is in fact the opton of his model implying a contnuityof physicalites but a discontnuity of inward realites between humans and non-humans. It thus justfes the study of a unifed physical world obeying to the samelaws of physics to which bodies (be it animals or even human bodies) pertain.Inwardness, on the other hand, is atributed as such only to humans. Only humansocietes have a culture. Only human individuals are spontaneously endowedwith a psychology.

It remains to see, of course, whether the study of visual objects is the bestapproach in order to test his theory. In the realm of representatons, naturalismhas historically been characterized in its frst stages by what is usually called a« growing realism », organized in a geometrically-modelled space. It consists,indeed, in a representaton of the realm of physicalites. As a scholar of medievalsculpture, it is temptng, but only a preliminary hypothesis, to consider theRomanesque era as a climax in the exploraton and incorporaton of analogism, aperiod of intense reworking preceding the long term momentum of later MiddleAges. This hypothetcal momentum was in fact interspersed with ruptures,resistances and counter-movements, but resulted in the end in the path tomodernity.

Indeed, Descola’s model interacts with other theories of modernity, some ofthem being more explicitly centred on historical questons. It shares with BrunoLatour’s (1991) and Jean-Marie Schaefer’s (2007) analysis a preoccupaton forthe clef between nature and culture, characteristc of our present ontologicalstage, that we like to call modernity. All of them critcize the partculardisadvantages and blind spots of this modernity, or even try to lead the way out

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and into a reunifcaton of nature and culture. Bruno Latour, however, grounds hisobservaton into a chronological defniton of the emergence of modernity duringthe 17th and 18th Century. His point is the deconstructon of the modernepistemic clef between natural and cultural objects, which he reveals as anartfcial classifcaton, that has never functoned fully as such. The queston of thechronological tpping point, although it might seem at frst anecdotal, isinstrumental in the defniton of what we are talking about, partcularly infguratve representatons, where the intuitve stylistc turning point extends itsaxis between the Southern European Fifeenth century and the NorthernEuropean Sixteenth Century. If we trust Bruno Latour with what he identfes asthe English turning point of Hobbes and Boyle, it remains to be explainedwhether or why the mutatons that we perceive as founding in modernity happencenturies before this date.

Jean-Marie Schaefer problematzes this positon of artstc representatonswithin this movement. Several possibilites emerge: the intuiton we have of thebirth of «pictorial modernity» with the Italian rinascimento and, if one is to openthe Pandora Box, the inventon of perspectve, might simply be misleading. Wedelude ourselves, so Damisch, in thinking of perspectve as an objectverepresentaton of natural space: it is the subjectve and cultural grid that we arestll living in. But then again, if one is to follow Bruno Latour, we have neveractually inhabited a hermetc separaton of nature and humanity. That is to say,perspectve, though not objectve, might indeed be the mark of our modernfguraton of the world. This leads us back to our underlying queston: shall weconsider that artstc representatons leads the way? Did they set the pace, openthe way, or ofered a glimpse of future potentalites with an advance of severalcenturies on the explicit and ratonal establishment of our ontology? It might be.

Whatever the answer to this queston, it defnitely prompts us to use cautonin chronological consideratons based on fgured representatons: there is noreason to believe in a unifed chronology, no more than it is linear, and no insighttaken from the fguratve corpus has the validity to reveal a common truth for thewhole society. It is, however, this reciprocal interacton between actual socialinsttuton, whose discourse was conserved to us, and fguratve representatonsas they were crystallized and advertsed, that I want to queston.

Ontological optons in eschatological representatons during the twelfhCentury.

Indeed, representaton habits about the end of tmes during the TwelfhCentury stand at a juncture. In the decennials before the Last Judgementbecomes the norm of representaton for eschatological visions, numerous otheroptons exist. I will try to examine the afnity of each representatons to theontological alternatves and its positoning within the large movement ofexpanding analogism or transitoning to naturalism. I will base my reasoning hereon three tympani from the frst half of the Twelfh Century, preserved in situ inBeaulieu, Moissac and Conques, as three totally distnct optons. I would like toqueston specifcally their inserton in the analogical scheme as thematc optons,

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as well as the pictorial resources they bring into play, and, since that partcularpoint plays a central role in Descola’s philosophy, their inclusion of non-humanbeings.

The portal of Moissac represents the return of Christ at the end of tmes, notwith regards to his narratve functon as a judge for all and each human beingafer resurrecton, but in the instantaneous glory of his Second Advent on Earth,as his coming back unravels the tes of worldly tme. Thematcally, it is a try for anon-narratve, ideal vision that orders the immediate disorder of the existngworld.

Animals are present in Moissac under two diferent guises: one, symbolical, iscentral in the compositon and occupies a signifcant proporton of the whole: thetetramorph, four animals standing there primarily for the four evangelists. Butmore or less defnite animals also climb the margins of the portal, partcipatng inthe general ascension, and fnding a place in the vision of a harmonious andpeaceful end. Three rows of animals, methodically ordered according to theirkind, climb the sides of the portal, and join the luxuriant foliage of the arches.

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Image 1: The tympanum in Moissac

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Finally, not to be forgoten, certainly but not only ornamental lions intertwine asthe pier, supportng the whole tympanum. As a fnal note, we might observe thatthose numerous animals are characterized with a careful ordinaton, that not onlyassigns them a place within the cosmological representaton, but also puts anemphasis on the concern for ordering reality that is at play along the borders ofthis frst portal. Distnctly analogical features are at play in the concepton of thisfrst portal.

Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne, our second example, happens to be a central objectto my doctoral research.

I have undertaken to demonstrate that it stages important scenes of theApocalypse. It is, nevertheless, very diferent from the one in Moissac regarding

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Image 3: the tympanum in Beaulieu, a general view

Image 2: animalsascending

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its choices of the staged scenes. For sure, it is a less peaceful selecton. The frststriking characteristc of this tympanum with regards to our present queston,though, is the widespread presence of hybrids, frolicking on the two lower levelof the compositon. they are not only animal, but also vegetal hybridizaton(Baschet, Bonne and Ditmar 2012). Several tails turn into foliage, which givesbirth to an animal head again, with an apparent gratuity.

And this is not an isolated choice within the whole monument. But animals inBeaulieu are also largely represented by the numerous lions, nowadays verydamaged by tme, although our observatons made it possible to locate them atthe base of all pillars of the portal, as well as acrobatcally and scenically stagingtheir support of the whole as a pyramid in the lower part of the pier.

There is no space here to document the echoes of those leonine fgureswithin the portal itself and the whole church, but it is clear that their massivepresence is no coincidence. I shall point rapidly to their structural analogy to thenarratvely involved lions represented on the lef sides of the portal within thestory of Daniel, especially because those lions adopt the same striking acrobatcdispositon for building pyramids and sustaining (at least, though maybe notexclusively) each other. Other lions are to be found in the inside of themonument, at strategic positons over doors. And other fguratve ornament putan emphasis on the bases of columns: a rare number of those bases are actuallysculpted and varied throughout the church, and at least two unequivocal capitalsare to be found that depict atlantes. This last motve is common in the regionalchurch sculpture, but it is magnifed at Beaulieu by its culminaton in the humanholders of the tympanum, at the pierglass. Those structural analogiesintertwining the motves of the portal and of the church are many.

As another example of widespread analogical structure, one might observethe syntactc homology between the band’s unravelling on the lef side of themiddle lintel, and the apostles’ arms and gestculaton at the upper right side ofChrist.

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Image 4: a hybrid monster in Beaulieu

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The two motves are not narratvely related to each other, but they bear a visualconnexion by the graphic nexus that each of them exhibit, following analogicalpaterns and successive directons: both present a main band on the foreground,springing upward from the demonic mouth in one case, and formed by the armof Christ from lef to right in the second sequence. Both of them also present,behind this main elements, a deeper layer of intertwined, diagonal elementsessentally akin to the frst (pieces of band in one case, clothed arms in theother), zigzagging transversally, both disconnected from each other, andconnected graphically. Arms belong to distnct bodies, but they are variants of thesame element. The band seems to be one, but the observer doubts the possibilityof following it contnuously from one end to the (putatve!) other.

As becomes apparent, the tympanum and the church in general in Beaulieuexhibits numerous characters crucial to the identfcaton of a representatonwithin the realm of analogism. It is, certainly, an apex of those characteristc forthe present study.

The tympanum in Conques, meanwhile, is one of the early examples of a LastJudgement in such a sculptural form. It represents at large the actual judiciaryprocess and the separaton of good and evil souls in two diferentated spaces:Heaven and Hell, the last one exhibitng diferent kind of punishments. Theanalogical character of this representaton has been sufciently proved as asyntactc process (Bonne, 1985), that is within the graphic constructon andproportons of the whole, that is it not the point here, and would probably defeatthe purpose of the length limits, to go about re-exposing the demonstraton. Letus state that it is the case, and concentrate on our other stated criteria.

As a theme, we could venture that one of the reasons why the LastJudgement succeeded, was that it was, as a whole narratve or fguratve theme,deeply rooted indeed in the analogical thought structure of the tme—the samereason, in fact, why it declined from the Sixteenth Century, as this ontologydeclined. In Philippe Descola’s defniton of four ontologies, the analogicalontology is based on an internal as well as external essental diferentatonbetween beings, resultng in a disparate, discrete structure of the world. Thecultures built on this scheme tend to compensate the discontnuity and disordercreated by this ontology by putng into place analogical order between the

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Images 5 and 6: band and apostles

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essentally diferent beings. The Last Judgement, in its analogical structure to theworld, in its parallel structure to the terrestrial justce, flls those principles. Itcomes onto the world as a supplementary layer that both superposes its mainlines to those of the existng reality, but also complements it with a completenessof sense that is not to be found in the world. It supplements society where itsloopholes would have made it insufcient to a whole and harmonious sense. Itpromises a tme when all will be ordered and fair, where all that cries unfairnessand senselessness in the present will fnally be weaved and composed as acoherent whole.

The Last Judgement is, however, the fgure of a human society renderedwhole on itself, that is, independently of any non human element. Shall weconsider this a pioneer feature toward naturalism? In fact, two animals are to befound on Conques’ tympanum, but none of them is necessary to the constructonof the whole, none of them seems treated for itself. An anecdotal horseaccompanies his knight to Hell, although one may doubt the horses’ own fate inthis scene. And batracians dwell under Hell’s fre, manifestly treated for theirsymbolical value. The scarcity of foliage, plants, any vegetal or animal creaturethat generally populate the periphery and interstces of Romanesquecompositons is striking.

This could easily lead us to the conclusion that ontologies conditonrepresentatons and their possibilites: a variety of analogical solutons areexplored, untl one establishes itself as the most compatble with the ontologicalmovement toward naturalism. The chronology seems frightully early, but thegeneral directon holds. What would then, however, cause the momentum ofsuch a precocious turn to potental naturalism? And if this momentum hasmanifested itself already at that point, then why the delay of the subsequentcenturies? Why so many conjuncture-bound movements, ruptures? It does notseem that a clear, defnite and homogeneous directon is observable at that pointto another ontology. Descola’s analysis, as well as a fair observaton of thehistorical situaton, invite us to look further.

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Image 7: the horse in Conques

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Negotatng the change: factors and instances of decision.Descola himself, indeed, shows an interest for changes from one ontological

structure to another. He observes (2005, pp. 497-532), for example, the transitonfrom animism to analogism in Siberia, accompanying the instalment ofdomestcaton. But he insists on the fact that one can not consider technicalinnovaton as the conjuncture-bound cause of a structural transiton from oneontology to another.

Based on this assessment, one could think that ontologies have their ownautonomous paces, underlying all social potentalites. But this would be asimplifcaton both of Descola’s statement and of reality. While it is clear thatontologies set limits to the culturally possible, one must accept that marginal andliminal practces or representatons, when repeated, push the realm of what isusual untl becoming common and normal. And common practces andcommonly used representatons retro act on the current ontology, to the point oftpping collectve Weltanschauungen into another ontology.

It is my hypothesis that this is what happens to our eschatologicalrepresentatons: one of the optons that were possible in the realm of analogismwas chosen for its worldly argumentatve qualites. But it happened to be a ratherperipheral one, compared to other optons – one that could also expand itsqualites in a less analogical world, or might even, although this remains to bedetermined, have partcipated to the momentum out of analogism.

To sustain this hypothesis, one needs to track other, situatonal, historical,social reasons that led at the tme to the choice of the Last Judgement asprivileged fgure of the End of Times. Here, social competton and situatonsencountered by the Church as Insttuton must be taken in consideraton. Weneed to assess in which proportons they contributed to the change from onechoice of representaton to the next, that in its turn took part in the largermomentum toward a new ontology. This assessment, to the present point of mywork, can only be provisional. But it sets axis of research and lines thrown intothe horizons of thought.

First, the Last Judgement’s success benefts from a silencing about dilaton(Baschet, 1993). It seems that theologian put less emphasis on the long tmebetween death and the resurrecton, and in the same movement, more emphasison individual judgement. Traces of this intent, and how it was a human choiceand not, in fact, a natural, unrefected trend, are to be found in the eschatologicaldisputes of the tme. This point to the main interest that the Church had in the re-iterated and public exhibiton of the Judgement: it stressed their power over eachindividual Soul, that is, the possibility to administrate spirits – that is, as spiritsnever come alone, persons.

One could develop and follow its formulatons, if there were more space andtme, between Gregorian reformism and resistances, between Clunisian thinkersand those confrontng their infuence. It is clear at that point that theproliferaton of Last Judgements is an argument to discipline the Christan peopleinto following the Church’s prescriptons. This would certainly be an interestngline of analysis, and I would like, given the possibility, to expose it.

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ConclusionAs a provisional conclusion, let us go over the whole process: it has become

clear that all alternatve stages of eschatological scenes at the portal of importantchurches in the frst part of the Twelfh Century are grounded on an analogicalontology, underlying the themes chosen, the creatures included and the syntactcprocesses of representaton. However, the Last Judgement, although it isdefnitely one of the potentalites of the underlying ontology, seems moreperipheral in its realizaton of analogical structures and motves of all kinds.

It appears also that the conjuncture-bound causes for choosing this same LastJudgement as the paradigmatc representaton of the End of Time are of a socialnature, and concerns the grip of the church, its power as an insttuton, over thefaithful people – meaning: society.

Regarding our original queston, the interacton between ontology, asdetermining the realm of possibilites, and situatonal realizatons, as potentallyexpanding this realm over its primary borders, has materialized. It seems clearthat contextual choices do contribute to expanding, pushing thought paterns inone directon, and may very well have contributed to redirectng it.

With regard to the larger queston, that we did not pose: “Which are thecriteria that could be specifc to European Middle Ages and bear in them theseeds of a new, unheard of and unique ontology?” let us remark, not as a closingbut as a possible opening, that the Catholic Church in medieval society had aspecifc motvaton to constantly reinforce its own power over people. Contrary tomost sacral insttutons in analogical civilizatons, medieval church was and hadbeen for a long tme independent, that is, concurrent of other, temporal powers.As the instance responsible for many, if not most cosmological representatons,or for the social insttutons in which they were developed, might it be that thispeculiar situaton contributed to shaping a new, unheard of dynamic?

References Baschet, J., 1993, Les justces de l’au-delà, Les représentatons de l’enfer en France et en Italie (XIIe-XVe siècles), Rome: Ecole Française de Rome.

Baschet, J., Bonne, J.-C. and Ditmar, P.-O., 2012, Le monde roman : par-delà lebien et le mal, Paris: arkhê.

Bonne, J.-C., 1985, L’art roman de face et de profl, le tympan de Conques, Paris: Sycomore.

Damisch, H., 1987, L’origine de la perspectve, Paris: Flammarion.Descola, P., 2005, Par-delà nature et culture, Paris: Gallimard.Ditmar, P.-O., unpublished, defended 2010, Naissance de la bestalité, une

anthropologie du rapport homme-animal dans les années 1300, Ph. D., EHESS.Latour, B., 1991, Nous n’avons jamais été modernes, Essai d’anthropologie

symétrique, Paris: La Découverte.Le Gof, J., 2004, Un long Moyen-Âge, Paris: Tallandier éditons.Schaefer, J.-M., 2007, La fn de l’excepton humaine, Paris: Gallimard.

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