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Ethnography
A Theoretically Oriented Practice
Edited by
Vincenzo Matera
Angela Biscaldi
Ethnography
Vincenzo Matera · Angela Biscaldi
Editors
Ethnography
A Theoretically Oriented Practice
Editors
Vincenzo Matera Angela Biscaldi
Department of Cultural Heritage Department of Social and Political
University of Bologna Sciences
Ravenna Campus, Italy University of Milan
Milan, Italy
ISBN 978-3-030-51719-9 ISBN 978-3-030-51720-5 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51720-5
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2021
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
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Contents
1 Ethnography: A Theoretically Oriented Practice

Introduction 1
Vincenzo Matera and Angela Biscaldi
Part I Grounds for Sociocultural Anthropology: USA,

UK, FR, IT
2 Ethnography Before Ethnography: Genesis

and Developments of Fieldwork in North America 21
Enzo Vinicio Alliegro
3 Before and After Science: Radcliffe-Brown, British

Social Anthropology, and the Relationship Between
Field Research, Ethnography, and Theory 51
Alessandro Mancuso
4 “Ethnography in France”: Ethnographic Practices

and Theories in Marcel Griaule Between the Empirical
and Rhetorical 81
Angela Biscaldi and Vincenzo Matera
v
vi CONTENTS
5 The Structural Formula of the Team: Reflections

on Ernesto de Martino’s Ethnographic Method 103
Giovanni Pizza
Part II Anthropology (Theory) vs Ethnography

(Fieldwork)
6 Illusion of Immediate Knowledge or Spiritual

Exercise? The Dialogic Exchange and Pierre
Bourdieu’s Ethnography 129
Ferdinando Fava
7 The Bridge and the Dance: Situational Analysis

in Anthropology 159
Marco Gardini and Luca Rimoldi
8 Politics Within Anthropology 181

Vincenzo Matera
9 Stumbling Blocks: The Irruption of the Interpretive

Approach in Twentieth-Century Anthropology 207
Patrizia Resta
Part III Visual, Dialogical, Sensorial, Multi-sited

Ethnography
10 The Anthropologist’s Eye: Ethnography, Visual

Practices, Images 231
Francesco Faeta
11 Dennis and Barbara Tedlock: The Dialogic Turn

in Anthropology 263
Angela Biscaldi
CONTENTS vii
12 Ethnography and Embodiment 277

Ivo Quaranta
13 Exploring Mobility Through Mobility: Some

of the Methodological Challenges of Multi-sited
Ethnography in the Study of Migration 293
Bruno Riccio
Part IV Deconstructions
14 Participant Observation: The Personal Commitment

in Native Life—A Problematic Methodological Topos 313
Gabriella D’Agostino
15 The Weberian Line of Anthropology: George Marcus

from Writing Culture to Design 341
Alessandro Simonicca
16 Making the Invisible Ethnography Visible: The

Peculiar Relationship Between Italian Anthropology
and Feminism 371
Michela Fusaschi
17 Beyond the Field: Ethnography, Theory, and Writing

in Anthropology 395
Fabio Dei
Author Index 417
Subject Index 423

Notes on Contributors
Enzo Vinicio Alliegro (Ph.D.) is Associate Professor of anthropological

disciplines at the University of Naples Federico II. His study interests are
focused on the history of anthropology—both Italian and North Amer-
ican—historical and symbolic anthropology, anthropology of the terri-
tory and the environment in crisis. He is author of the book Terraferma.
Un’altra Basilicata tra stereotipi, identità e [sotto]sviluppo (2019).
Angela Biscaldi (Ph.D.) is Associate Professor at the Department of
Social and Political Sciences, University of Milano. Her research focuses
on ethnography of communication, with particular emphasis on perfor-
mativity, agentivity and indexicality in everyday educational practices. She
is coauthor, with Vincenzo Matera, of the book Antropologia dei social
media (2019).
Gabriella D’Agostino (Ph.D.) is Full Professor of Cultural Anthro-
pology at Palermo University, Dipartimento Culture e Società. She is
author of the book Sous le traces. Anthropologie et contemporanéité (2018),
and Editor of the journal of Human Sciences “Archivio Antropologico
Mediterraneo” https://journals.openedition.org/aam/. http://www.arc
hivioantropologicomediterraneo.it/.
Fabio Dei is Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology in the Univer-
sity of Pisa. He is Editor of the new Journal Rivista di antropologia
contemporanea. He is author of the book Cultura popolare in Italia. Da
Gramsci all’Unesco (2018).
ix
x NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Francesco Faeta is Full Professor of Cultural Anthropology. He has

taught at the University of Calabria and the University of Messina and
now teaches, as an external teacher, at the School of Specialization for the
DEA Cultural Heritage of the University “La Sapienza” of Rome. He is
author of the book La passione secondo Cerveno (2019).
Ferdinando Fava (Ph.D.) is Associate Professor of Cultural and Urban
Anthropology, at the Department of Scienze Storiche, Geografiche e
dell’Antichità of the University of Padova, and “Chercheur Membre
Statutaire” CNRS-UMR 7218 LAVUE (Laboratoire Architecture Ville
Urbanisme Environnement) Équipe LAA. He is author of the book Qui
suis-je pour mes interlocuteurs ? Préface de Marc Augé. Avant-propos de
Monique Selim (2015).
Michela Fusaschi (Ph.D.) is Associate Professor in the Department of
Political Sciences of the University of Roma Tre (Italy). She is one of the
main authors in the anthropology of the FGM/C practices, proposing
an interpretative approach based on the concepts of bio-politics and
moral economy. She is author of the book Corpo non si nasce, si diventa.
Antropologiche di genere nella globalizzazione (2018).
Marco Gardini is enlisted as Researcher at the Department of Political
and Social Sciences at the University of Pavia. He is author of the book
La Terra Contesa. Conflitti fondiari e lavoro agricolo in Togo (2017).
Alessandro Mancuso (Ph.D.) is Assistant Professor at the University of
Palermo (Italy). He did a long fieldwork among the Wayuu people of
Colombian Guajira. He is author of the book Altre persone. Antropologia,
visioni del mondo e ontologie indigene (2018).
Vincenzo Matera is Full Professor of Cultural and Social anthropology
at the University of Bologna, Department of Cultural Heritage (Ravenna
Campus). He also teaches Social history of culture at USI (Università della
Svizzera Italiana), Faculty of Communication, Culture and Society. He is
author of the book Antropologia contemporanea (2017) and editor of the
special issue De-constructing the Field, Archivio Antropologico Mediter-
raneo online, XVI (2013), 15 (2)—http://www.archivioantropologico
mediterraneo.it/.
Giovanni Pizza (Ph.D.) is Associate Professor in Cultural and Medical
Anthropology at the Department of Filosofia, Scienze Sociali, Umane e
della Formazione of the University of Perugia (Italy). He is author of the
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xi
book Il tarantismo oggi. Antropologia, politica, cultura (2015), and Editor

of AM. Rivista della società di antropologia medica—https://www.antrop
ologiamedica.it/am-rivista-della-sicieta-italiana-di-antropologia-medica/.
Ivo Quaranta is Associate Professor in Cultural Anthropology and
Ethnology at the Department of History and Cultures of the University
of Bologna (Italy) and Director of the Research Center in International
and Intercultural Health (CSI) (University of Bologna). He is editor of
the book Assemblages, Transformations and Politics of Care (2019).
Patrizia Resta is Full Professor of Cultural Anthropology at the Depart-
ment of Humanities Studies, Cultural Heritage, Education Science of
the University of Foggia (Italy). Her scientific interests deal with specific
thematic fields such as Legal Anthropology, blood feud and conflict reso-
lution. She is author of the book Pensare il sangue (2002) and Editor
of the book Di terra e di mare. Pratiche di appartenenza a Manfredonia
(2009).
Bruno Riccio (Ph.D.) is Full Professor of Cultural Anthropology and
the director of the research center on Mobility Diversity and social Inclu-
sion (MODI) at the Department of Education of the University of
Bologna (Italy). He is Editor of the book From Internal to Transnational
Mobility (2016), cofounder of the Italian Society for Applied Anthro-
pology and codirector of the journal Antropologia Pubblica https://riv
iste-clueb.online/index.php/anpub.
Luca Rimoldi (Ph.D.) is researcher in Cultural Anthropology at the
Department of Political and Social Science of the University of Catania
(Italy). He conducts ethnographic research in Italy and Senegal, focussing
on memory, work and forms of social exclusion. He is author of the book
Lavorare alla Pirelli-Bicocca. Antropologia delle memorie operaie (2017).
Alessandro Simonicca is Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology
at Sapienza University of Rome and, currently, Director of the Ethnolog-
ical Mission of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs for South America. He is
author of the book Sull’estetico etnografico (2019).
CHAPTER 1
Ethnography: A Theoretically Oriented

Practice Introduction
Vincenzo Matera and Angela Biscaldi
Over the last four decades, ethnography, which had long been imagined as
a self-evident and unproblematic process of data collection, has become a
complicated and tricky issue. This is especially true for anthropologists.
The dense reflection and the vivid discussion about ethnography that
emerged in the 1970–1980s inside the anthropological academic commu-
nity clearly prove it. Ethnographic practice, ethnographic theory, and
ethnographic writing are far from easy, epistemologically straightforward
activities. Nevertheless, as a result of its widespread perception as both
a powerful and easy-to-use tool to gain qualitative research data about a
community, it became a privileged research method for sociologists, and
also for psychologists and, finally, even for interculturally oriented scholars
of any social science and humanities field (such as pedagogy).
V. Matera (B)
Department of Cultural Heritage, University of Bologna, Ravenna Campus,
Italy
e-mail: v.matera@unibo.it
A. Biscaldi
Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milan, Milan, Italy
e-mail: angela.biscaldi@unimi.it
© The Author(s) 2021 1

V. Matera and A. Biscaldi (eds.), Ethnography,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51720-5_1
2 V. MATERA AND A. BISCALDI
With this volume we offer both a historical overview and a critical

reflection on ethnography—how it originated, and how it was concep-
tualized, represented, and discussed by anthropologists.
It is intended as a tool for deepening the conditions that have seen
the emergence of the research practice, the branches it has taken in rela-
tion to particular theoretical needs, the role it played in the construction
of anthropological knowledge and the limits that sometimes affected its
effectiveness.
It is also a “dense” support that is rich in indications and suggestions
for anyone interested in practicing ethnography, studying it, becoming an
anthropologist, or, more in general, doing social research.
Furthermore, it aims to emphasize the particular and innovative char-
acter of the Italian anthropological tradition with reference to an anthro-
pological gaze full of political sensitivity, long unexpectedly overlooked;
it aims to account for the great liveliness that Italian anthropology has
taken on, especially in recent decades, in the critical confrontation with
the international guidelines of the discipline.
The aspect that characterizes the volume is the central idea that
animates it: repositioning ethnography at the core of the anthropolog-
ical tradition and showing the extent to which ethnography is strongly
connected to a sophisticated theoretical reflection and deeply embedded
in cultural and social anthropology. Outside this intellectual endeavor,
ethnography itself has little value, and nor does the knowledge one
may hope to obtain through the naive use of a so-called “ethnographic
method.”
This does not mean to deny that ethnography also exists outside
anthropology, for example in research based on Max Weber’s theory
of social action, in the symbolic interactionism of the Chicago School
or in ethnomethodology, but anthropology is certainly the discipline in
which ethnography originated and which has cultivated it deeper and for
longer. It is the discipline that maintains the most intimate and exclusive
relationship with ethnography.
As a consequence, ethnography can no longer be viewed as the simple
empirical side of anthropology, or as a “practical” mode of research, a kind
of technique; it requires a recognition of its high theoretical value since
the real core of ethnography (and anthropological knowledge) lies in the
way in which it formulates research problems and conceptually defines its
objects.
1 ETHNOGRAPHY: A THEORETICALLY ORIENTED … 3
“Being there” in itself has no value; otherwise, the best ethnographers

would be the missionaries—and there are those who have said this—or
they would be the “natives” themselves—and there are those who have
said this, as well.
So, the common thread of the essays contained in this volume, beyond
the particular perspectives of the individual authors, therefore lies in the
belief that ethnography is a theoretical elaboration tool and, because of
this, it becomes an indispensable part in any production of knowledge on
social and cultural facts.
We think that outside this frame, ethnography is nothing, just as little
knowledge is believed to be able to derive by a “simple use” of the
ethnographic method (that without reference theory does not exist).
In the chapters of the volume, in fact, there are many ethnographic
approaches, aimed at grasping worlds, networks, or flows of meanings,
which both sprang from and are projections of theoretical concepts and
intellectual sensibilities, but there is no “method.”
To confirm what we say, we quote the sentence of a famous British
social anthropologist, suspiciously very critical of the practice he had prac-
ticed for a long time, with intensity and with remarkable results during
his career:
Anyone who is not a complete idiot can do fieldwork, […]. It has been
my woeful experience that many a student comes home from the field to
write just another book about just another people, hardly knowing what
to do with the grain he has been at such pains to garner. (Evans-Pritchard
1973, p. 3)
This statement should not be understood as an absolute criticism of field-

work. Rather, it is an implicit call to those solid foundations of theory
that allow the anthropologist to win the decisive battle, that is not fought
in the field but in the study afterward, Evans-Pritchard said. In fact, theo-
retically oriented ethnography is necessary in order to go beyond the
surface of everyday projects, actions and words, toward those invisible
bonds that bind individuals together and give body to the community
(or communities) to which they belong.
Today (the last couple of decades), communities have opened up and
become porous; the protagonists of primordial myths have been replaced
(or joined) by movie stars or football champions, political leaders, and
rock stars; the “dense” description is being replaced (or flanked) by the
anthropology of global processes (Comaroff and Comaroff 1992; Fabietti

et al. 2020).
Anyway, ethnography is not a simple “global interview.” There is
always something more, there is always another “level” that is not
directly perceptible and that escapes the immediate conceptualization of
the “here”—on the spot—and the “now”—in the present—of empirical
research, of fieldwork.
This “something” is certainly ambiguous, indeterminate, incoherent,
asymmetrical, open to intertwining sometimes inextricable, but never
completely meaningless; moreover, it is always attributable to constraints
(for example, “material conditions of existence”) and to power relation-
ships (for example, “dominant and dominated”); in other words, it is
identifiable.
This means that subjective, personal, and individual action is always
rooted in society, history, and culture (Wright Mills 1961; Ginzburg
1986; Comaroff and Comaroff 1992; Appadurai 1996, 2004). The ways
of this rooting are opaque, and we have the task of trying to make
them as transparent as possible (cfr. Hannerz 2010). Without this projec-
tion in wider frames, toward the wider world of power and meaning,
ethnography loses its potential.
So ethnography emerges in this volume as a fragment—a multiplicity
of fragments—which aims to be reunited with a (partial) totality (Fillitz
2013). How? There is no univocal answer to this crucial theoretical and
methodological question, even if we consider the current enlargement of
the classic ethnographic “field” (Matera 2013).
Instead, there are many. Some of these are outlined in this volume. In
fact, the volume presents both a historical overview of ethnography and a
thematic discussion of its major trends, which have oriented research prac-
tice in the field in different periods. It also presents more marginal—in the
sense that they are undervalued in history of anthropology or introduc-
tory textbooks—modes of ethnographic research (for example feminist
and phenomenological approaches), those that had less impact and reso-
nance inside the academic community, but that nonetheless had a solid
theoretical frame and a range of insights with regard to their effectiveness
as paths to gaining anthropological knowledge.
The volume is divided into four parts.
Part I, Grounds for sociocultural anthropology: USA, UK, FR,
IT, lays the foundations for our discussion. Enzo Vinicio Alliegro,
in Ethnography before ethnography argues that, although anthropologists
are used deconstructing mythological narratives to unveil their under-

lying logic of power and functioning, they themselves contribute and are
victim to them. This is the case in the history of ethnography, which is
often simplistically traced back to the works of Malinowski and Radcliffe-
Brown in the early twentieth century. Through a thorough comparison
with the specialist literature and relying on a large mass of documen-
tary sources, the article deals with the origins of ethnography, focusing
on the pioneering research activities conducted in the United States of
America. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the sensitive and
bloody question of the natives made the study of the so-called “red-
skins” urgent, and led to a methodology based on a long stay in the
field. Even though an ill-concealed guilt has clouded this research period
for a long time, after over a hundred years, it is now possible to go back
to the contribution and brilliant intuitions of such students as Franz H.
Cushing and James Mooney, who, along with colleagues of the Bureau of
American Ethnology, laid the foundations of conscious scientific ethno-
logical methodology, acknowledged as such first by M. Mauss and then by
Claude Lévi-Strauss. Particularly worthy in this sense is the “transforma-
tive spiral” triggered during his fieldwork experience, by which Cushing
changed from an “extraneous unidentified object” into a trustworthy
“subject” according to a dynamic that recalls the anecdote that Clifford
Geertz tells at the beginning of his perhaps most famous essay:
My wife and I were still very much in the gust-of wind stage, a most
frustrating, and even, as you soon begin to doubt whether you are really
real after all, unnerving one, when, ten days or so after our arrival, a large
cockfight was held in the public square to raise money for a new school…
(1973, p. 413)
In the ethnographic cases presented in Alliegro’s essay, the radical impor-

tance of the experience marks the researchers in the body, as well as in
the mind, and it stands out and qualifies their research as ethnographic.
Why then, is the birth of ethnography linked to Malinowski?
Alessandro Mancuso, in Radcliffe-Brown, Evans-Pritchard and the
Issue of the Relationships between Fieldwork Methods, Ethnography and
Theory in British Social Anthropology, analyzes another crucial context for
ethnography, the British one, and focuses on the figure of A. R. Radcliffe-
Brown, who has contributed to the consolidation of the procedures for
the construction of anthropological knowledge.
Mancuso underlines how Radcliffe-Brown’s theoretical social anthro-

pology program as a “natural science of society” empirically founded
on the “comparative method” for generalization purposes on social
phenomena has been seen as a fundamental research tool useful not only
to guarantee reliability scientific work to collect and record ethnographic
documentation, but also to empirically test theoretical hypotheses.
In the first part of the paper, Mancuso exposes some points of debate
inside British Social Anthropology before 1960 on how to organize
fieldwork research and ethnographic monographs by trying to concil-
iate the stress that Radcliffe-Brown puts on the search for the normative
and structural aspects of social life with the Malinowskian imperative of
presenting thorough documentary evidence of every detail of “natives’”
views, beliefs, discourses, and behavior, also taking in account individual
variation. In the second part, he focuses on the new twist to which
these epistemological dilemmas about the aims of fieldwork research and
ethnography were submitted after Evans-Pritchard’s turn to a view of
social anthropology as a discipline which rather deals with the study of
“moral systems” and it is closer to history and humanities than to the
models of natural sciences.
Angela Biscaldi and Vincenzo Matera, in Ethnography in France.
Ethnographic practices and theories in Marcel Griaule explore how
ethnography in France—a relatively neglected scholarly practice till the
late twenties—developed and was actually practiced and conceptualized
during the two world wars up to the late fifties, when Marcel Griaule
published his now classic Méthode de l’Ethnographie (1957), the first
ethnographic handbook available in French. The chapter highlights how
the idea of ethnography of Marcel Griaule was really variable and contin-
gent, going from a documentary ethnography, to a semi dialogical and
exegetical ethnography—as it emerges from the famous Conversation
with Ogotemmeli—, to a new redefinition of ethnography as judiciary
inquiry, as it was strongly expressed in Méthode. On the background of
Griaule’s ethnographic in progress idea, there was the project of the Insti-
tute of Ethnology established by a physical anthropologist (Paul Rivet),
a sociologist of Durheimian obedience (Marcel Mauss), and a socialist,
politically influential academic philosopher (Lucien Lévy-Bruhl) at the
University of Paris in 1925. During the twenties and thirties, the Insti-
tute of Ethnology promoted several “ethnographic expeditions” (among
which the renowned Dakar-Djibouti mission, conducted in 1931–1933
by a research collective led indeed by the young Marcel Griaule), which
contributed to codify ethnography as a specific set of practices which ulti-

mately merged into the general scientific framework offered in Griaule’s
handbook. From this standpoint, Conversations with Ogotemmeli appears
as an exception, even if this exception probably become in the work
of Marcel Griaule’s daughter, Genevieve, the bridge between this first
ethnographic practice in France and the dialogical anthropology of the
80s in the United States. The chapter asks what kind of characteristics
may help to describe a “French ethnographic tradition,” and according
to which kind of features it might be considered specific in comparison
to other relevant anthropological/ethnographic national traditions of the
same time period (USA, UK, Italy). It finally asks to what extent a French
ethnographic tradition contributed to developing a certain anthropolog-
ical style (understood as a set of ethnographic practices and theories
together).
Giovanni Pizza, “The structural formula of the équipe [team].” Reflec-
tions on the historical-ethnographic method of Ernesto de Martino is the last
chapter in Part I. The author proposes some reflections on the ethno-
graphic methodology of Ernesto de Martino (Naples 1908–Rome 1965),
in particular as regards what he himself called “la formula strutturale
dell’équipe.” What is an “ethnographic équipe [team]”? It is the main
question that the essay tries to answer. As he has been considered the
“father” of a specific vein in Italian anthropology, de Martino is really an
original thinker and an anthropologist whose theoretical lines as well as
methodologies are really unique and original. In the chapter, after revis-
iting some of the main ethnographic research carried out by de Martino
and his team in Southern Italy (above all the one in Apulia on taran-
tism), the author goes deep inside what has been considered as an “Italian
style” in ethnography, stressing the advantages and limits of this pecu-
liar scientific practice in the history of global cultural anthropology. The
reinterpretation presented in Pizza’s text becomes the premise to resume
the “Italian ethnographic style” with a somewhat ironic register. Pizza
proposes a rereading of the ethnographer de Martino articulated in three
main points: the role of fieldwork in the production of anthropolog-
ical knowledge; the effects in terms of Italian mimesis of Demartinian
ethnography; the “cognitive blindness” recently observed in the results
of its production, after the southern Italy trilogy. Today, we wonder why
de Martino did not take into consideration the entry of the Italian State
on the southern scene, despite it seeming to be an anachronistic oper-
ation (a bit like criticizing Tristi Tropici for the lack of “ethnographic
acumen”), because it is an important way to trace the foundations (and

also the entanglements) of Italian anthropology from the postwar period
up to now.
Part II, Anthropology (Theory) vs Ethnography (Fieldwork),
opens with the essay by Ferdinando Fava, Illusion of immediate knowledge
(immediacy) or spiritual exercise? The dialogic exchange and Pierre Bour-
dieu’s ethnography. This contribution attempts to locate the ethnographic
practice of Pierre Bourdieu by articulating two perspectives that are
distinct but not separate. First of all, it illustrates the function that ethnog-
raphy assumed in the construction of the central concepts of his “theory
of practice” (habitus, field, temporality, symbolic capital) in his scientific
and biographical trajectory. It then identifies the characteristics of Bour-
dieu contemporary reception and appropriation in socio-anthropological
research contexts.
How to read Bourdieu? This is the question that Fava asks at the begin-
ning of the text to point out the complexity of reading the author’s work
in a nontemporally offset way, so to speak, with respect to the author
himself. Rather, it is a question of bringing out the logic of his research
practice without reducing it to pure methodology.
It follows very similar reasoning to the idea that the basis of an intel-
lectual product is always a process of research, reflection, study, and
thought.
Ethnography is a product that is accessible to any reader. However,
without the elements that can help to reconstruct the process that under-
lies it, it is de-historicized and reified by the writing. There is always a
distance between theoretical statements and empirical practices; in the
case of ethnography, this distance has appeared to be constant since the
time of Malinowski. How is it possible to look closely without losing sight
of the structures that produce what you look at.
Fava tries to answer this question in detail and with strict reference to
Bourdieu’s texts. Accounting for the “total meaning of the experience” is
what he proposes, an outcome that can only be achieved through the
gradual and progressive convergence of different research practices on
the same subject. This is a modus operandi to be continuously reviewed
to escape the “illusion of immediacy”: social relations are not reduced
to interactions between subjectivities animated by intentions and motiva-
tions; rather, they are always stuck in social and economic positions. Here
there is a distrust of an ethnography completely focused on action. A
French and an Algerian, a conversation between a “white” and a “black”
activate a communication between dominant and dominated, imbued

with relationships of strength, colonial history, and politics.
In the final part, Fava’s chapter presents the inversion that characterizes
the way Gerard Althabe takes Bourdieu’s perspective: for Althabe, unlike
Bourdieu, it is the world of the dominant that takes on meaning in the
world of the dominated.
Luca Rimoldi and Marco Gardini present an essay entitled An
Anthropologist on the Bridge. Max Gluckman and his Analysis of Social
Situations. It explores the ethnographic method of the Manchester
school: a method based on the detailed descriptions of particular social
situations, the analysis of different strategies and positioning of the
actors involved, which aims to present the materials that anthropologists
collected in the field, but which uses them not as illustrative examples of
given structural principles, but rather as points of entry for understanding
the dynamism and variability of the contexts under investigation.
Specifically, the chapter explores the methodological contribution of
Max Gluckman in his Analysis of a Social Situation in Modern Zulu-
land (1940–1942; 1958). By analyzing the literature on this essay, it
takes into consideration the communities and innovations that this text
has produced over time.
Although influenced by the structural-functionalist frame, the analysis
that Gluckman carries out in describing the events of January 7, 1938,
builds a bridge to a contemporary public anthropology. The three parts
in which the essay is divided show the complexities of Gluckman’s idea of
ethnography, expressed in the extended case study. Moreover, the ethno-
graphic method proposed by Gluckman and practiced by the researchers
of his Seven-Years-Research-Plan at the Rhodes-Livingston Institute and,
later, by his students at the Manchester School, enriched the context of
ethnographic analysis by bringing in new figures (colonial administrators
and officials, missionaries, mine owners, and trade unionists), new sources
(documents of colonial administrators, censuses, written and oral histor-
ical sources), new roles that groups and individuals play in producing,
reproducing or questioning norms and values.
The chapter highlights the interconnections between ethnographic
practice and a sophisticated theoretical reflection.
Vincenzo Matera, Politics within Cultural and Social Anthropology,
aims to underline the theoretical depth of ethnography, retracing some
significant steps of anthropology in the second half of the twentieth
century. The goal is to trace and highlight the effects of the discovery of
history and consequently of politics (and ethics) within the production of

anthropological knowledge, also, though not only, through ethnography.
In particular, the essay runs through Antonio Gramsci’s intuitions
regarding the political potential of popular culture, and connects them
to the developments of the Italian line of reflection, which are not always
linear and sometimes ambivalent.
It reveals the impossibility of a “neutral” anthropology and the power
of a political sensitivity in the approach, ethnographic or otherwise, to
social and cultural phenomena.
The text also highlights that the Gramscian conceptualization of
popular culture, which had and continues to have a lot of influence on
cultural analysis, inside and outside anthropology, all over the world, has
been elaborated in the enclosure of a cell.
The chapter also focuses on one of the most famous books written
by an Italian anthropologist and translated outside Italy: Vittorio
Lanternari’s, The Religions of the Oppressed. A Study of Modern Messianic
Cults. When Lanternari’s book was published in the American edition
(1963), a great deal of criticism was directed at it. Some of this criticism
was made by specialists in particular areas on the risks of large gener-
alizations. In his reading of this debate, which is significant of the link
between cultural anthropology and ethnography that was prevalent in the
immediate postwar period, Matera would like to point out that omissions
of ethnographic details and misunderstandings of the cultural significance
of a specific element do not always undermine the theoretical, analytical,
and heuristic relevance of the reading of such a large phenomenon as the
one at the center of Lanternari’s analysis. And vice versa, we should also
consider how much even maniacal ethnographic precision, achieved after
years of specific in-depth study in the same “field,” does not ultimately
prove itself to be devoid of any theoretical significance; in short, it is “mis-
sionary knowledge” of very little use for the purposes of anthropological
theory.
The last chapter of Part II is Patrizia Resta Stumbling blocks. The
irruption of the interpretive approach in twentieth century anthropology.
Geertz’s interpretive anthropology has guided the anthropological debate
of the mid-twentieth century, laying the deconstructionist approach foun-
dation privileged by the anthropological discipline at the end of the same
century. In a broader perspective, without attempting to exhaust the
topic, this chapter proposes to relaunch some questions: first, that of
ethnographic practice. Did Geertz’s reflections undermine the authority
of the ethnographic paradigm in its connection with the field as it

had hitherto been known and practiced? Or is it possible to find the
original features that distinguish the epistemological dimension of the
ethnographic paradigm in its theoretical methodological proposal? In
his collected works, do the “parochial facts” allow the emergence of
the “broad principles” in which the possibility of understanding them is
embedded? Or has reflexivity oriented his research to such an extent that
no posthumous diary can allow a different interpretation? Very briefly,
reevaluated at a distance, can we say that the interpretive paradigm has
been truly revolutionary, innovative, alternative or that it must be repo-
sitioned in the discipline’s historical trajectory oriented toward assuming
diversity within the framework of cultural creativity? The author empha-
sizes the critical issues of the interpretative and ethnographic perspectives
that emerged in the twentieth century, in particular research contexts,
such as those in which corruption and organized crime are articulated.
Patrizia Resta highlights the great contradiction present in an ethnog-
raphy that places itself, in the light of a long and settled empirical practice
and theoretical reflection, as an effective tool for understanding the other
with respect to which, however, it turns out to be condemned to the
inscrutable opacity that the other opposes him.
Despite the enormous influence it has exercised on the anthropolog-
ical debate throughout the last century, the interpretative approach and
anthropological writing show all their limitations and they stop in the face
of contexts of unquestionable relevance in the contemporary world that
oppose an unsurpassed impermeability.
Part III, Visual, Dialogical, Sensorial, Multi-sited ethnography,
counts four chapters on specific research approaches in ethnography.
The first is by Francesco Faeta, Seeing means knowing (Zu sehen
bedeutet zu wissen). On visual paradigm in ethnography. Taking as a
matter of fact a specific and complex consideration of ethnography
(authoritatively supported by other writings present in the book), Faeta’s
chapter focuses on the issues of the gaze connected with fieldwork. He
dwells on the critical exiguity of anthropological reflection on the topic,
and on the need to define in theoretical terms, even with the help of
conceptual frameworks tangent the disciplinary field (see, i.e., Maurice
Merleau-Ponty and Pierre Bourdieu), the nature of the ethnographic
gaze, in the perspective of the visual construction of the subject and of the
access of this subject to the awareness of the ethnographic relationship.
In this perspective, Faeta emphasizes the body-gaze and body-world

relationships, on the background of the consideration that visual processes
have had in the construction of knowledge in the contemporary West.
Finally, he tries to focus on the link between ethnography and photog-
raphy (identified as a valuable tool for a critique of the gaze), with atten-
tion to some possibilities of experimental and “conceptual” declination of
this connection.
Faeta points out that it is not important what we look at, but how
we look and he points out that the critical and self-critical effort of each
ethnographer must be based on a systematic analysis of his own, as well
as others’, way of seeing.
Visual ethnography can act as the foundation of the most extensive
research practices as a tool for a critique of the gaze.
Only this perception of reality can lead to the construction of an
ethnography that restores the consistency of the data in front of us in
a non-naive or superficial way.
The second chapter in this section is by Angela Biscaldi. The chapter,
entitled Dennis and Barbara Tedlock: Dialogical Anthropology, discusses
three main aspects of Barbara Tedlock’s and Dennis Tedlock’s fieldwork
and anthropological reflection; poetics, participation, and translation.
According to Barbara and Dennis Tedlock, every act of speech, writing,
or doing has a poetic dimension. They discuss how the categories of a
poetics based in Western literacy tradition require extensive revaluation in
order to improve our comprehension of native arts and our concept of
performance too.
Barbara and Dennis Tedlock were also interested in the personal
encounter of the anthropologist and the informant and in examining
how this encounter serves as the origin of the ethnographic material.
They reflect on and critically engage with their own participation within
the ethnographic frame and on the consequences of thinking and doing
anthropology as dialogue, not only during fieldwork, but in publication
as well. Barbara Tedlock created the concept of “Observation of partic-
ipation.” During participant observation ethnographers attempt to be
both emotionally engaged participants and coolly dispassionate observers.
In the observation of participation, ethnographers both experience and
observe their own and others’ coparticipation within the ethnographic
encounter. The shift from one methodology to the other entails an impor-
tant representational transformation. Finally, translation is the main topic
of Barbara and Dennis Tedlock’s reflection. They proposed the concept
of “dialogical anthropology”—an important epistemological paradigm

turn. Analogical anthropology involves the replacement of one discourse
(the native one) with another (the anthropological one). Analogical
Anthropology is “Talking above,” “talking beyond,” or “talking later”; it
produces a result. Dialogical anthropology is “talking across” or “talking
alternately”; it illustrates processes and changes. Theoretical and method-
ological implications of this shift are relevant, and they are analyzed in the
chapter.
Ivo Quaranta Sensory and Embodied Ethnography presents in a critical
way the paradigm of embodiment that helped to redefine the very way
cultural processes are conceptualized and investigated in social sciences.
By placing the analysis at the level of lived experience, embodiment has
emerged as a powerful way to relate perceptions and sensations to broader
socio-historical dynamics. Such a shift, though, did not focus merely on
the issues of the cultural construction of the body and the senses, it rather
allowed analyses to account for the very process of actors’ engagement in
the production of meaning, i.e., in the practical embodied production of
culture.
If culture is rooted in, and emerges from, social practices and these are
inevitably incorporated, then corporeality is not an accessory segment, a
specialized theme, to rise to a constitutive and unavoidable dimension of
anthropological reflection.
Working through the incorporation paradigm does not require specific
research objects or special data; it means adopting a posture aimed at
grasping the relationship that research themes maintain with corporeality.
The body of the ethnographer therefore should not be understood as a
natural and unmediated tool for data collection, but as a tool for meeting,
negotiating, and cultural production.
Within this broader theoretical scenario, ethnography has been
profoundly reframed as an embodied practice as well. The contribution
aims at reconstructing such a theoretical debate arguing how sensory
ethnography has allowed scholarship to de-intellectualize the interpreta-
tions of social reality, placing intercorporeality as the very lived ground
of that mutual understanding that we represent through ethnographic
writing.
Bruno Riccio, Exploring Mobility through Mobility. The Challenges of
Multi-sited Ethnography from Marcus and Hannerz to nowadays, closes
this Part. With the aim of grasping “glocal” nexuses as much as different
human experiences of movement (migration, tourism, aid, and develop-

ment) within contemporary societies, mobile approaches as multi-sited
research developed, where the field was shaped by following people,
kin, and other social networks, economic and social remittances, political
projects, etc. Drawing on ethnographic examples, Riccio shows how this
methodological perspective is well suited to the analysis of displacement
through space: considering migrants and their families in both the place
of origin and contexts of arrival considerably facilitates the understanding
of a complex and multidimensional process such as migration.
By following migrants’ relationships and practices, Riccio connected
up the different locations and methodological experiences (participant
observation, interviews, archive research, and life stories) by continuously
comparing their life and professional stories (similarities and differences)
while also engaging spatially with the continuous references and compar-
isons between actions and thoughts that surfaced in the different field
research sites.
Simultaneously Riccio considers and discusses critical challenges to
such an extension of the ethnographic field. More than on Space, he
focuses on Time as a crucial variable to be managed in the attempt
to compensate the “centrifugal” dispersion of multi-sited explorations.
In fact, the multi-sited character of migration ethnography may be
appreciated not only in terms of space, but also from a temporal perspec-
tive: ethnography is not only multi-sited but also multi-temporal, thus
addressing the need to adopt a longitudinal perspective and periodically
revisit the field as the years pass.
The last Part is Part IV. Visual, Dialogical, Sensorial, Practical,
Multi-sited ethnography. This Part opens with Gabriella D’Agostino
Participant observation. A problematic methodological topos.
The chapter begins with Malinowski, an author who could not be left
out of a book dedicated to ethnography. While it is well known that the
attribution of the ethnographic primacy to the Polish anthropologist is
a matter of disciplinary tradition rather than of history [cf. Alliegro], the
importance of the Argonauts, and also of the Diaries, remains unquestion-
able for the foundation of the ethnographic practice and for the scientific
status of the knowledge acquired by its means.
Gabriella D’Agostino reads in depth the most significant passages
in this sense of the famous Introduction to the Argonauts, explains and
problematizes the foundational value of a specifically ethnographic epis-
temology. She also reads Malinowski’s Diaries, not as a stone of a scandal
but as a counterpart to a practice that is in itself reflective, ambivalent, and

finally procedural, as the ethnographic one will later reveal in unsuspected
years.
This essay has several purposes: highlighting some issues related to
Malinowski’s theory and practice of research, which are full of impli-
cations not always grasped in their theoretical and methodological
complexity; recalling some criticisms that have been put forward in
the anthropological debate toward the notion of reflexive observation;
discussing some uses and abuses of ethnographic practice in disciplinary
domains other than anthropology.
We leave the reader with the difficult task of determining whether
the pioneering role that disciplinary history attributes to Malinowski is
founded or not.
The second chapter of this part is by Alessandro Simonicca, Marcus
and Clifford, between deconstruction and agency in anthropological field
work. The essay aims to retrace some fundamental phases of the interpre-
tive anthropological currents of the late twentieth century, focusing on
the relationship between the “end of the subject” in philosophical decon-
struction (first French, then American) and “text” as an ethnographic
organization of anthropological discourse.
Referring to authors such as George Marcus and James Clifford, it has
the intention of demonstrating both the usefulness of the notion of text
and the overcoming of the classical antinomies of the relationship between
power/structure and action in ethnography.
The concept of design is introduced here. Design is an analytical repre-
sentation of reality: the researcher connects and groups certain aspects of
reality by providing a category capable of understanding realities without
clear boundaries. Both for logical structure and for theoretical refer-
ences, it is connected to the ideal type of Wax Weber, in the sense of
a conceptual framework that functions as a scheme for a case of the
world. Anthropology, for Marcus, is topological research that focuses on
the practice of connectivity. With it the anthropologist tries to under-
take an ontological, conceptual, and moral commitment with the world;
and this practice places “design” at the center, as an arrangement that
gives access to an understanding of reality. The notion of “design” has
been central in recent decades and continually appeals to how Marcus—
referring to design disciplines such as architecture or art—defines his two
souls: “design practice” and “design studio,” a model for doing and a
model for understanding. The common matrix is the idea of a non-

theory driven practice, but a series of regulatory skills whose structure
is the collaborative cognitive enterprise, which is carried out by means of
invention, learning, and analysis processes.
Michela Fusaschi The theory and practice of gender ethnography: a text-
book case of invisibility. The gender ethnography such as feminist anthro-
pology has a long history, but they are a textbook case of invisibility,
at least in Italy. The contemporary anthropology analysis has focused on
denaturalizations and deconstruction to unveil the mechanisms of power
and the dynamics of social hierarchy. In this sense, cultural anthropology
would have had to acquire the commitment and reflexivity of gender and
feminist ethnography without hiding them or relegating them into “ded-
icated texts.” Why are anthropologists such as Denise Paulme, Germaine
Tillion, Michelle S. Rosaldo, Louise Lamphere, Nicole-Claude Mathieu,
Gayle Rubin, Marilyn Strathern, Henrietta Moore, and Lila Abu-Lughod
less famous than Bronislaw Malinowki, Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard,
Marcel Griaule, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and Clifford Geertz? The author
of this chapter proposes the reconstruction of some of these exemplary
ethnographies to bring them to the heart of the history of anthropology.
The goal is to show how theory, practice, and posture of feminist ethnog-
raphy produce analytical-descriptive elaboration on gender and generation
of how they are multi-located, sexed, and historicized even in the form of
critique politics for the recognition of subjects and subjectivity.
Fabio Dei “Beyond the field: research experience and theoretical elab-
oration in anthropological traditions ” closes Part IV. The centrality of
field research, so strong in mainstream English-speaking anthropology,
sometimes turns unduly into a sort of “mystique of fieldwork,” according
to which anthropological knowledge stems directly from the researcher’s
subjective experience.
If Geertz and the Writing Culture movement insisted on rhetorical-
literary devices filtering field experience, its relationship with the theoret-
ical dimension of anthropological writing is less clear. This aspect can be
explored in two directions: (a) the analysis of anthropological traditions
including forms of empirical research other than fieldwork; (b) the anal-
ysis of “mainstream” authors in which the research/theory relationship is
configured in a less classical way, e.g., with a conspicuous theoretical elab-
oration based on the use of empirical data not directly produced through
fieldwork.
If the attention to the anthropology-literature link has diminished over

time, Fabio Dei underlines how that intellectual season contributed to
accentuate the myth of a fieldwork as a subjective experience, testimony
of participation, of political denunciation, or of anti-hegemonic prac-
tice. It is a conception of research that perhaps still covers part of the
real ethnographic work. But it does not account for a more widespread
reality of empirical research, which does not take place in “other” worlds
but also in “ours” and is no longer divided between a clearly separated
Being there and Being here. It is research that uses multiple methods of
dialogue, documentation, data “collection,” but also of engagement and
involvement of the researcher in the context studied.
In conclusion, the author calls for a different way of character-
izing anthropological research, which arises from a broader comparison
between the different histories and traditions. However, it takes into
account the essential core of ethnography: an endeavor to cautiously and
patiently punctuate the fine grain of social relations, that which gener-
ally escapes grand models and the surface of official and institutional
self-representations.
Finally, a retrospection. In 1997, a book entitled Ethnography. Writings
and representations of anthropology was published in Italy written by Ugo
Fabietti, and one of the two editors of this volume, Vincenzo Matera.
The theoretical core of that volume is the writing, understood as
the engine of any research project aimed at producing knowledge on
social and cultural phenomena. The book emphasized that the strength
of anthropology lies in its ability to construct wide-ranging discourses
on cultural diversity and that this ability is played out in the field of
writing and representation. The anthropologist creates a discursive field,
a way of considering problems, events, conflicts, and values. Whether he
uses fieldwork or other sources to do this, what matters is the power
to engage with the representation he has built. In other words, the speci-
ficity of anthropological knowledge lies in the way it sets problems, thinks
about them, and represents them, not in what, without theoretical open-
ness, is reduced to a mere “technique” of research, nor (even less) in the
“courage” of the intrepid explorer/ethnographer. Today, that position
leads both editors of this volume to reaffirm that “ethnography without
anthropology is nothingness” (Ingold 2007) to express a critique of the
ethnographic “fashion” that has dominated and still dominates the recent
field: a retreat into angles of the world from which few then succeed in
coming out in a convincing way. The ability to persuade is played on a

complexity that has many faces, as emerges in the following chapters.
References
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PART I
Grounds for Sociocultural Anthropology:

USA, UK, FR, IT
CHAPTER 2
Ethnography Before Ethnography: Genesis

and Developments of Fieldwork in North
America
Enzo Vinicio Alliegro
Between Mythopoetic Narrations

and Historiographic Deconstructions
Although anthropologists are accustomed to deconstructing mythopoetic
narratives in order to grasp the apparatuses of power which substantialize
their origin and stabilize their constitution, they may themselves some-
times be dominated by—or even become the architects of—these devices.
This is, in fact, the case with the writing of ethnographic history, simplis-
tically reduced in many historical reconstructions to the singular activity
of Bronislaw Malinowsky.
The Polish scholar, in the guise of a solitary hero, often assumed the
role of super-hero or totemic ancestor who succeeded in the beginning
from nothing and brilliantly and surprisingly becoming the protagonist,
during the early years of the twentieth century, of the foundation of the
research practice. Such a practice has been subsequently taken up as a
E. V. Alliegro (B)
University of Napoli, Naples, Italy
e-mail: enzovinicio.alliegro@unina.it
© The Author(s) 2021 21

V. Matera and A. Biscaldi (eds.), Ethnography,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51720-5_2
22 E. V. ALLIEGRO
lesson in the method and style of the processes of production of anthro-

pological knowledge (Harris 1968; Mercier 1972; Firth 1981; Silverman
1981; Kuper 1996; Rivière 1998; Fabietti 2001; Barnard 2000; Kuklick
2008; Pavanello 2009; Barth et al. 2010; Signorelli 2011).
It is thanks to the eminent George W. Stocking that we have a clear
and determinate distancing from this premise, which depends upon guilty
historiographic omissions that overlooked a series of prior activities. In
the well-known essay, The ethnographer’s: fieldwork in British anthropology
from Tylor to Malinowski (Stocking 1983), Stocking conducted an accu-
rate act of historical revision, demonstrating the presence of an interesting
and well-established ethnographic tradition that preceded Malinowsky.
Through a varied and dense body of documents, the historian highlighted
the degree to which the narration that obscured the nineteenth-century
roots of ethnography is ascribable, on one hand, to Malinowski himself,
who was the architect of an insidious self-celebratory policy sustained
by specific rhetorical strategies of self-representation that made their
way into the noted 1922 monograph (Malinowski 1922) and, on the
other hand, to the posthumous appraisals put forth by James Frazer,
Alfred C. Haddon and Max Gluckman (Stocking 1983, pp. 110–112),
which authoritatively sealed this self-investiture by supporting it with
peremptory judgments.
In the spirit of Stocking’s exemplary essay, and within the framework
of a historiographic field which was never extinguished and which would
warrant being appropriately revitalized, the present work aims to examine
some of the ethnographic experiences of the nineteenth century that took
place in North America, in particular in the United States, taking advan-
tage of the remarkable heuristic value of documentary sources. That is to
say, it makes use of field-notes —diaries, epistolary exchanges, and notes—
that make possible the recovery of a very particular analytic perspective
and the adumbration of the less evident secrets of the experience of field-
work, exactly as occurred with Malinowski’s posthumous publications
(Malinowski 1967).
Preparing to write a history of ethnography before ethnography, that is
to say, a prehistory or an archaeology of ethnography, not only entails the
possibility of reflecting on the sociopolitical, historical, and cultural factors
that facilitate—or impede—the genesis and the development of a kind of
knowledge, but it also makes it possible to highlight the significance of
a research trajectory aimed at delineating an anthropology of disciplinary
memory, or, an ethnography of those retrospective writings which, in
2 ETHNOGRAPHY BEFORE ETHNOGRAPHY: GENESIS … 23
presenting themselves as impartial actions of representation of the past,

actually end up exceeding this by assuming the honor of presenting a kind
of group icon. In fact, employing peremptory judgments framed around
specific genealogical directions, retrospective reconstructions push, in any
case, toward the definition of “traditions” and “scientific schools,” config-
uring “legacies” and intellectual “loans” from the evident symbolic and
identitarian functions. More generally, therefore, dealing with some of
the mechanisms that underlie the reconstruction of the past entails exam-
ining the operations of stabilization and capitalization of memory, which
are always conceivable in terms of the construction of identity (Alliegro
2011), that is, a strategy of research of the traits deemed foundational to,
and constitutive of, the definition of any sort of cultural identity—in this
case, a “disciplinary identity.”
Beginnings
A specific conjuncture of political, social, and cultural variables acted as a
particularly fertile soil for the development of ethnography in the United
States. Within diligently controlled territorial boundaries, beginning with
the scrupulous geographic mapping required for military control of the
terrain, thousands of men from different continents found themselves
compelled to share a close and problematic coexistence. The history of the
“New World,” spanning multiple centuries beginning with the landing
of the first European vessels, made the “Promised Land” a space that
was strongly characterized in multi-ethnic terms and, thus, a fertile soil
for the birth of anthropological studies. Nonetheless, those who evoked
such ethnographic interest were neither western immigrants nor enslaved
African peoples, but rather the native peoples of the North American
continent who, by virtue of their singular and surprising “being-there,”
constituted an obstacle to the politics of expansion—a material and
moral impediment standing in the way of the “conquest of the West”
(Bergamini 2002).
The initial occasional observation of the native peoples and their subse-
quent closer investigation took place in a historico-political context in
which the understanding of cultural difference was not only a matter of
conscience, that is, an expiatory tool in the face of the evident ethnocide
and genocide which was taking place, but also a matter of state—a patri-
otic enterprise serving the pressing demands of “state building”—as well
as a matter of science—a cognitive opportunity to confront the questions
24 E. V. ALLIEGRO
with which the “civilisational” processes were invested and in relation to

which the “autochthonous race” represented both an enormous ques-
tion and an insidious solicitation. Between the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, then, men who often shared a political and ideological orienta-
tion while having diverse and often controversial motivations and varying
degrees of preparation, initiated investigative journeys in which the atten-
tion toward the indigenous peoples increasingly adopted the traits of a
spatiotemporal dislocation which permitted—across borders and “en plein
air”—the encounter, the interaction, and, occasionally, the confrontation
with, alterity (Gruber 1959; Hinsley 1981; Bieder 1986).
If the clergy sought to reach the “savages” in order to redeem them
from “sin” (van del Geest 1990; Abler 1992; Steckley 1992), as in the
case of the Jesuit Latifau who wrote, in 1724, the renowned Moeurs des
sauvages amériquains, comparées aux moeurs des premiers temps, it was
economic motives which motivated explorers and agents of commercial
companies, while romantic and nostalgic expectations were at the root
of the bold striding forward of artists and intellectuals (Eisen 1977;
Gidley 1998; Ronda 2002). Alongside the documentary production of
specialists of the “westernisation of the frontier,” a modality of knowing
that emerged between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that was
less proximate to the canons of the “fortune-seeking professionals” and
aimed to free itself from voyeuristic and frequently radically ethnocentric
observations.
Within the framework of the experiences that had emerged in the
western nations, by the middle of the eighteenth century, the United
States witnessed the emergence of scientific fellowships where the rigid
separation between the different branches of human knowledge had not
yet consolidated. It is within the perimeter of these broad political and
cultural receptacles that the investigative trends which would fall within
the boundaries set by the future anthropology increasingly took shape.
Such is the case of the American Philosophical Society (A.P.S.), founded
in Philadelphia in 1743 and directed by prominent figures in the United
States history (Wissler 1942). The A.P.S. focused a portion of its interest
on indigenous populations, specifying in its charter that its mission should
be the study of “antiquity, changes and present state of the country”
(Wissler 1942, p. 189). It is precisely within the scope of the A.P.S that
Peter S. Du Ponceau acted, writing a text on grammatical systems in
1838, together with John Pickering who, following the examples of the
brothers Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt (Bunzl 1996), gave rise
to a series of investigations in Indian territories.
It is within this primordial atmosphere of the discovery and study of
native populations—in which there was no shortage of in-depth histor-
ical and archaeological analyses like those of Ephraim George Squier
(Barnhart 2005), who, in 1848, opened the publication of Smithsonian
Institution (Hinsley 1981) with the volume Ancient monuments of the
Mississippi Valley, as well as physical-anatomic studies, specifically in cran-
iometry and anthropometry, tied to the 1839 work, Crania Americana,
by Samuel G. Merton (Bieder 1986)—that the need to establish a relevant
ethnological society took shape, giving birth to the “American Ethnolog-
ical Society” (A.E.S.). Founded in 1842, the A.E.S. was directed by Albert
Gallatin, a prominent figure in the political and cultural circles of the time,
who distinguished himself by holding delicate diplomatic missions as well
as by holding the position of Treasury Secretary during the presidency
of Thomas Jefferson. As a collaborator of the Bureau of Indian Affairs ,
the office expressly created within the Ministry of War, Gallatin had the
chance to begin an intense cognitive campaign, from which emerged one
of the first classifications of the thousands of native tribes (Bieder 1986).
Despite its good intentions, the A.E.S did not actually manage to stim-
ulate ethnographic research, which instead found an essential fulcrum in
the government agents, who were those who lived in close contact with
the native peoples in the reserves. Among the figures who stood out in
the context of this “proto-ethnographic paradigm” (Oswalt 1972) we
must surely include Henry R. Schoolcraft (Bremer 1987), who produced,
beginning in 1822, a series of publications based on first-hand knowledge
of native culture, partly thanks to his marriage to an Ojibwa woman.
Lewis Henry Morgan

Ethnographic observation, carried out as an accidental and fleeting digres-
sion from exploratory military, geological or naturalistic missions, or
practiced instrumentally as an apparatus in service of aims that were
not entirely scientific, within the context of political assignments, reli-
gious missions, or artistic adventures, gave birth to a research model
which one can appropriately designate as prehensile, that is to say, a
“predatory paradigm.” In such cases, the interaction with the other was
mainly limited to the gathering of whatever was concretely removable and
collectible, superficially perceptible and observable, as much outside of
26 E. V. ALLIEGRO
any precise schema of research as of any definite methodology and scien-

tific inquiry. In most cases, it was a matter of extemporaneous incursions
aimed at intentionally modifying the sociocultural and political structures
of the native peoples.
Around the middle of the nineteenth century, when there were as yet
no institutions officially in charge of anthropological training and profes-
sionalization, Lewis Henry Morgan, an American lawyer and member
of the American parliament, marked a considerable turning point in the
field (Resek 1960; Moses 2009; Alliegro 2015a, b; 2017a, b). Born on
November 21, 1818 in Aurora (Rochester 1881), New York, into an
influential Presbyterian and masonic family of landowners, politicians, and
army officials, Morgan had the opportunity to come into contact with
native peoples. First as a young secondary school student, and subse-
quently through his work as a lawyer. It was in this context of close
relations within the Indian reservations of Tonawanda and Onondaga—
engaged at the time in a struggle to oppose the land occupation carried
out by the Ogden Land Company—that Morgan, supported by Ely S.
Parker (a young Seneca), gained the trust of the local community (Tooker
1994), which he demonstrated through specific in-depth studies on its
material culture (Morgan 1850) as well as in a publication dedicated to
the Iroquois league (Morgan 1851), considered to be one of the first
monographs to appear within the field of anthropology (Comba 1998).
In Morgan’s vast and diverse pioneering work, the analysis of the
terminological system of kinship assumed a particular relevance. Having
understood that various populations, including the Iroquois and the
Objiva, adopted a system defined as classificatory, Morgan had the distinc-
tion of clearly and coherently defining a specific cognitive problem for his
fieldwork, formalized through the following question: “May this code of
descendancy be employed in an attempt to solve the great problem of the
origin of our Indian race” (Morgan 1858, pp. 139–140).
To confront this question, Morgan set out an articulate and organic
program of investigation that was immensely innovative and complex for
its time (Fortes 1969; Remotti 1986; Trautman 1987). On the one hand,
he activated a network of collaborators to fill in specific questionnaires at a
distance while, on the other, planning to position himself to work directly
with native peoples. Consequently, it was with Lewis Henry Morgan that
fieldwork assumed the value of a “dedicated modality” for the collection
and construction of data strictly connected to a specific anthropological
inquiry (Eggan 1965, p. 272; Fortes 1969, p. 9). Following a clearly
analytical plan premised on clarifying anthropological goals to be estab-

lished well in advance of the outset of any journey, an interlocutory
paradigm to replace the earlier predatory one took shape with Morgan—a
“dialogical paradigm” which demonstrated the degree to which ethnog-
raphy could constitute a patient disclosing of “latent logics” within the
framework of interrelational channels opportunely arrayed in the field,
rather than a coercive excision.
Morgan left Rochester on May 17, 1859 (White 1959; Alliegro
2017a), reaching Nebraska and Arkansas after a difficult journey which
lasted about a month, during which he also traveled on foot. Having
realized the enormous heuristic potentialities implicit in the up-close
knowledge of the tribes of the Southern states, he revisited the tribes
during three different journeys, in 1860, 1861, and 1862. Unlike the first
two (in Arkansas and Nebraska in 1860, and in Wisconsin, Minnesota,
and the Dakotas in 1861), which were brief (the first began on May 25,
1860 and ended on 18th June of the same year, the second began on
July 4, 1861 and ended on approximately August 10, 1861), the inquiry
of 1862, which took place in Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, and
Montana, lasted nearly seventy days.
What were the salient aspects of his venture among the so-called “red-
skins”? How was the research actually carried out? In order to answer
these questions, it is more useful to look into the travel diaries than
the official reports, which intimate the many difficulties faced along with
some of the resolutive strategies adopted and methodological realizations
derived.
As would later become clear, the field is not a closed system within
which the researcher need only cast his or her nets, standing aside and
waiting silently to catch the “prey.” The field of research is open and
opaque, insidious, and problematic. Within its boundaries, artificially
defined as such, the researcher experiments with critical issues of a rela-
tional, linguistic, and political nature, which he or she may unconsciously
determine, forming a complex process of negotiation, which may, in
some cases, itself alter the state of things. Morgan was fully conscious
of the difficulty associated with the ethnographic encounter, as is demon-
strated by some of his reflections concerning the need to identify the
most patient and trustworthy informants as well as to submit the data
to a review process, proceeding by way of repeated feedback and compar-
isons. Despite operating from within a positivist optic, according to which
the document indubitably preexists the researcher, he demonstrated an
28 E. V. ALLIEGRO
awareness of a series of obstacles standing in the way of unveiling, as

well as of the urgency of modeling relational contexts based on trust and
reciprocity. Having begun the study while sharing some of the dominant
positions circulating in the political contexts of the time, which placed
profound faith in the inherent goodness of the (forced) assimilation of the
indigenous peoples, Morgan was compelled to revise some of his points
of view, to the point of reaching conclusions that were, in some ways,
revolutionary and expressing the idea that only a genetic commingling,
through intermarriage, could lead to the desired “Americanisation.” From
a mere aseptic site of removal as it had been reductively conceived in many
preceding experiences, the field of study came to assume the outlines
of a multifaceted ambit, an occasion not just to verify preset formulas,
but one for reflexive considerations on the nature of the research itself
which, in the final pages of the travel diary, is described in clearly posi-
tive terms, precisely with respect to the achievement of the goals of the
inquiry established upon Morgan’s departure:
I have eleven schedules in my pockets in eleven different languages and

have settled the existence of the same system in at least eight or ten others,
beyond any question. I shall return quite satisfied with the general results
of my inquiries, only regretting that I could stay so short a time in each
place. (in White 1959, p. 69)
Bureau of American Ethnology

Starting with an integrated methodological approach expressly devised to
deal with problems and themes of great theoretical value, Morgan wrote
two important monographs during the 1870s. These two books, Systems
of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (Morgan 1871) and
The Ancient Society (Morgan 1877), were adopted by evolutionist theory
as a manifesto. In light of Morgan’s acquired notoriety, the presidency
of the Annual Congress of the National Association for the Progress
of Science was assigned to him in 1879. This constituted an important
acknowledgment for the process of public affirmation of anthropolog-
ical knowledge, which occurred in the same year as the establishment, in
Washington, of a research center exclusively dedicated to native studies,
the Bureau of American Ethnology (B.A.E.)1 (Wallace 1954; Judd 1967;
Woodbury and Woodbury 1999; Alliegro 2014b), whose direction was
entrusted to John Wesley Powell (Aton 2010).
Born in Mount Morris, New York, on March 24, 1834 (

Brooklyn 1902), before taking on the office at the Bureau, Powell was
known for his delicate military activities and for his scientific explorations,
including of the “Little Grand Canyon,” on the Mississippi River. These
expeditions were followed by publications (Powell 1875, 1877) which
did not lack accomplished ethnographic openings. It is precisely the biog-
raphy of Major Powell, a loyal statesman and a devout proponent of the
westernization of the native peoples, that makes the orientation given to
the B.A.E. clear, where analytic research conducted outside the frontier
acquired an increasingly important role. In 1880, only one year after its
inception, the B.A.E. employed around twenty agents on a permanent
basis. By the beginning of the twentieth century it would become the
most important and qualified anthropological research center in the world
(Haddon 1902), where, in addition to philologists, stenographers, and
artists assigned to the work of cataloguing and filing, and to photog-
raphers, many researchers figured who were officially engaged with it
as “ethnographers.” The most important results achieved by the group
directed by Powell were published in the B.A.E.’s “Annual Report.”
These were enormous, elegant volumes often exceeding one thousand
pages, furnished with rich iconographic contributions, which made them
an imposing step forward in the development of visual anthropology.
From 1879 to 1902, the “Annual Reports” made space not only for
analytic treatises about single ethnic groups and comparative analyses
between multiple ones, but also to methodological insights, as shown by
the first volumes, in which essays appeared such as On limitation to the use
of some anthropological data (Powell 1881) and Illustration of the method
of recording Indian Languages (Dorsey et al. 1881).
During the period of time considered here, despite Powell’s imposi-
tion of an outline which was in some respects authoritarian, within the
framework of rigidly evolutionist interpretative schemas, no official, exclu-
sive, or dominant model of research affirmed itself in the B.A.E. Rather,
there was a genuine “methodological pluralism” that never overflowed
into “anarchism.” Among the many authors militating for and collabo-
rating with the B.A.E., giving birth to monographs of unquestionable
value going beyond the documentary,2 it is certainly important to linger
a moment on Frank Hamilton Cushing and James Mooney.
30 E. V. ALLIEGRO
Frank Hamilton Cushing:

“They Love Me, and I Learn”
A modality of investigation that flourished under Powell, who furnished it
with both a full theoretical legitimation and adequate financial resources,
was one focused on a deep study of well-defined and localized ethnic
groups. The research had to be carried out according to at least three
methodological imperatives defined by the B.A.E.: (1) Long permanence
in the field; (2) Acquisition of the language; (3) Sharing of daily life and
ritual practices. Along this line of intervention, the work of the young
autodidact Frank Hamilton Cushing emerged.
Born in a village in Erie County, Pennsylvania, on July 22, 1857 ( ´
Washington 1900), Cushing joined the anthropological milieu with a
background in Morgan’s works, and after having curated (since 1876) the
ethnographic collections of the Smithsonian Institution (Curtis 1981).
His name (Fontana 1963; Green 1990; Alliegro 2014a, 2016b) is indis-
solubly linked to that of the Zuñi “pueblos” of New Mexico (Tiberini
1999; Mcfeely 2001), where he carried out profound research that lasted
almost five years, from September 19, 1879 to April 1884.3
Cushing’s experience among the Zuñi developed as an individual
research project which unfolded in a public, collective, and institutional
framework—that is, individual research project made public, since its
outcomes were published even before it was complete, in numerous arti-
cles appearing in certain renowned newspapers (Cushing 1882a, b, c).
This individual research soon took on the traits of collective research
(though not carried out by a team), as it unfolded in direct contact with
colleagues at the B.A.E. Ultimately, it was institutional, and partly “reg-
ulated,” research that paid particular attention not to slip into “method-
ological idiosyncrasy,” as Cushing constantly received methodological
instructions from his director.
Besides recognizing the high rate of scientific productivity associ-
ated with ethnographic research in this instance, as attested by the
large number of publications that Cushing’s long permanence allowed
(Cushing 1883, 1886, 1892a, b, 1894, 1895, 1896), the investigation
among the Zuñi turns out to be extremely useful in highlighting an effect
induced by experience in the field. Cushing, in fact, underwent a transfor-
mative spiral, during which he changed from an “extraneous unidentified
object” into a trustworthy “subject” in the eyes of the Zuñi. Whereas the
young man had been viewed with suspicion during the first months of
his stay, by the end he had even gained access to their secret societies,
assuming relevant political assignments (Patterson 2006) that eventually
resulted in the destabilization of the community, causing the eruption of
bloody micro-conflictual phenomena (Pandey 1972).
With this “young white man” who made himself an “Indian,” too,
it is the letters and the diaries (Green 1990; Alliegro 2016a) which
offer us access to otherwise undisclosed aspects of the fieldwork, and the
possibility of grasping, for example, the relevance assumed by a series
of reflexive dimensions. These reflections began, with methodological
questions, to interrogate the penetrability of “other worlds,” but transi-
tioned to dealing with epistemological questions concerning the problem
of these worlds’ intelligibility. In December 1880 Cushing wrote:
For many months my suffering and loneliness were dreadful. I neither

understood the Spanish language universally spoken by the whites here,
nor the native Indian. My means were scant, my position – as a prayer into
secret and forbidden rites – precarious. The Indians were all my master, and
with the kindest intentions – those of making me a member of their tribe
– they proved tyrannical. I was forced to adopt their mode of dress and
manner of living, to live with them, and to share their food in common.
By policy and patience, I won, in long months, their confidence (…). (in
Green 1990, p. 137)
In a previous letter, dated October 29, 1879, after having demonstrated

how the Zuñi would modify their rites in the presence of strangers, and
how decisive it was, according to the canons of “urgent anthropology,”
to document customs and traditions in anticipation of their disappear-
ance, the researcher depicted his own peculiar ethnographic method,
synthesisable in the formula “they love me, and I learn.”
The literature on these people, with the exception of one or two recent
brief articles, is utterly worthless; and if again I turn my face to the field, I
shall hardly be faint hearted because an authority tells me he can do more
with books than I can with ears and eyes, and a filibuster says that the tribe
scientifically is “bed ridden”.
I do not count myself a man of as much ability as those possessed who
have preceded me; but my method must succeed. I live among the Indians,
I eat their food, and sleep in their houses. Because I will unhesitatingly
plunge my hand in common with their dusty ones and dirtier children’s
into a great kind of hot, miscellaneous food; will sit close to having neither
32 E. V. ALLIEGRO
vermin nor disease, will fondle and talk sweet Indian to their bright eyed
little babies; will wear the blanket and tie the pania around my long hair;
will look with unfeigned reverence on their beautiful and ancient cere-
monies, never laughing at any absurd observance, they love me, and I
learn. (Green 1990, p. 60)
The research that unfolded according to a model that can be character-

ized as an “experiential and empathic paradigm,” where the “doing” is
oriented by “thinking” a precise scientific problematic, did not provide at
all for a separation between ethnographic and archival research. Rather,
such a model constituted a worthwhile multidisciplinary approach, in the
framework of a continuous comparison of sources and documents.
The work carried out in the field, oscillating between depression
and the feeling of satisfaction, of which Cushing’s diaries retain traces
(Alliegro 2016a), persuaded the young ethnologist to consider the
connection between the different dimensions of social action as funda-
mental to the comprehension of Zuñi life. Their “beliefs,” for example,
were understandable only if read in light of an integrated system,
considering behavioral codes as much expressive ones.
In his study on ceramics (Cushing 1886), this particular way of
proceeding, merging interpretation with a consistent documentary repos-
itory, was further confirmed. Participating for many years in Zuñi daily
life, Cushing discovered that the decorations possessed a symbolic value
tied to their general value system. This emerged from a careful analysis of
objects and myths that demonstrated, for example, that in some artifacts
used for cooking, the decorative lines were left open so that “something”
animating the ceramic, once placed in contact with the flames, could leave
the object, and be safe from the fire.
It is, however, with the text Outlines of Zuñi Creation Myths (Cushing
1896) that Cushing’s knowledge would express its heuristic value to the
highest level of abstraction. Through a patient labor of stitching together
fragments of knowledge assumed in different moments of fieldwork, we
see the anthropologist passing from a single aspect to more general
modeling, pushing finally toward the reconstruction of a complex system
in which the astral, earthly, and social dimensions, reciprocally inter-
twined, reverberate in the belief systems and in ritual practices, proceeding
from specific classificatory patterns.
The ethnographic research, beset with obstacles and rife with
psychophysical uneasiness, results in the young researcher’s narration,
punctuated nonetheless with scientific gratifications capable of providing

relief and compensation for every kind of effort. Where the body suffers,
the intellect rejoices, as Cushing underlines on July 18, 1880, referring
to the ethnographic parenthesis as an indelible human experience, a sort
of master key, destined to leave its signs in the mental, civil, and ethical
arsenal of the man and the scholar:
I can sum up in one sentence what my life here has been – physically, so
far as the appetites are concerned, paralysis; socially, exile; ethically [and]
theoretically, a feast, a peace of mind unapproached in all my previous
experience. And as to results – probably impaired health during life; a
strengthening and development of moral character in every respect, and
aside from a more practical and cosmopolitan view of humanity and its
institutions, I hope and pray (though sometimes dubiously) that it will
make a worker of me. (in Green 1990, p. 117)
What the researcher does in the field is, in Cushing’s case, the product of
a clear programmatic plan. The following program for work demonstrates
this in an unequivocal manner:
First, then, among the objects of extended residence with the Zunis would
be the acquisition of the language, as essential to all the following;
Second, the recording, in the original language and with faithful
translation, of the industrial and art formulae;
Third, [the recording] of the “Ancient Talks” (i-no-ti pe-i.e.-we) or
religious instructions for ceremonies, dances, etc. and of the prayers and
songs;
Fourth, the collecting of a vast amount of material (costumes, altars,
masks, wands, etc. etc.) illustrative of this study;
Fifth, study of the plume sticks with collecting of a series:
Sixth, [study] of the astronomic monuments, structures, etc., with
photographs, plans, etc., illustrative;
Seventh, [study] of the Zuni culture as compared to and illustrative of
the other indigenous civilizations of America;
Eight, [study] of the survivals of gesture language in use among the
Zuni as an accompaniment to an oral speech;
Ninth, [study] of the Zuni system of consanguinity and affinity a.
present, b. primitive, c. geographic origin of the groups (“division”) of
the gens, including the special histories of these groups, etc.
34 E. V. ALLIEGRO
Tenth, [study] of the I -no-te as related to ancient ruins, including the

exploration, planography and photography of and collections from the
scene;
Eleventh, [study] of the primitive condition of the Shy-wi, its culture,
etc., as compared to the present;
Twelfth, [study] of the important origin of certain mythological usages
now in vogue but only [partial] understood… (Green 1990, p. 104)
James Mooney
Thoroughly different from Cushing’s approach is that assumed by James
Mooney (Moses 1984; Alliegro 2019). Between 1890 and 1893, Mooney
conducted demanding and extensive research, focusing on the study of
prophetic movements linked to the “spirit dance,” revitalized before and
after the massacre of Wounded Knee (Bergamini 2002).
Mooney was born in Richmond, Indiana, on February 10, 1861 (
Washington 1921) into a catholic family of modest Irish immigrants.
Attracted, since childhood, to the world of the native peoples, to which
he devoted many years of intense readings centered on Morgan’s and
Schoolcraft’s publications, Mooney initially dedicated himself to jour-
nalism. After applying as a self-taught ethnologist to the B.A.E. for the
first time in 1883, and then again in 1884, he succeeded in his aim of
going directly to Washington in 1885. There, Powell, then director of
the B.A.E., diverted Mooney’s attention from a research trip to Central
America in order to entrust him with various assignments that the young
man carried out in the capacity of a volunteer, to be finally officially
employed in the summer of 1886. Within a few years, Mooney estab-
lished himself as a first-level expert on Western and Great Plains tribes
(Tiberini 1999), introducing photographic devices and gramophones to
ethnographic research as early as the 1890s (Jacknis 1990). In light of
the close relationship that he was able to establish with many different
ethnic groups, among them the Sioux, the Arapaho, and, above all,
the Cheyenne, to which he dedicated many studies (Mooney 1889a, b,
1890a, b, 1891, 1892), the B.A.E. entrusted him with a particularly deli-
cate assignment: to shed light on a “revolt” movement that had erupted
in the reserves, the so-called Ghost Dance (GD).
Mooney began his investigation on December 22, 1890, and ended
it after three years, giving rise to a research plan which was structured,
on one hand, around a phase of accurate consultation of the available
historical and archival documentation and of a systematic examination of

government and press sources and, on the other hand, around a phase
consisting of direct exploration in the field, focused on the recording of
narrations as much as on ethnographic observation.
In the final research report, The Ghost Dance Religion and the Sioux
Outbreak of 1890 (GDR), prepared in 1893 but published only in 1896
by the B.A.E. (Mooney 1896a), Mooney, with a pinch of ostentatious
self-satisfaction, doesn’t fail to note that he remained with the Indians for
twelve months altogether, during which he covered over 32,000 miles by
every means possible, directly reaching no less than twenty tribes. Further-
more, unlike journalists and government agents who had already worked
on the GD, in the GDR volume, Mooney highlighted that he alone
had been able to reach, photograph and interview the prophet Wovoka,
founder of the GD, among the Paiute, in the Mason Valley reserve in
Nevada. In the GDR text there are many expressions such as “I could
see with my own eyes,” “I could hear,” “I took part,” “I was informed,”
modeled on a persuasive narrative style aimed at instilling a prominent
sense of realism by deploying the “ethnographic present” (Matera 2015).
In the text, Mooney lingers over his encounter, in 1892, with Wovoka,
from whom he learned the origins and salient features of the messianic
movement.
If this accurate investigation effectively permitted Mooney to deviate
from some of the conclusions disseminated by the military and journal-
istic apparatuses, demonstrating the validity of a cognitive perspective
based on the close encounter with the “Other,” the emphasis posed on
quantitative data related to the journey highlights the establishment and
the diffusion, in the scientific community, of specific “criteria of validity”
according to which the ethnographic work must be conducted, and the
anthropological work of interpretative synthesis should be evaluated.
During his lengthy survey, Mooney traveled to the western part of
Oklahoma where, in the summer of 1891 in a Kiowa camp, a ritual prac-
tice which was different from the GC, based on the ingestion of a cactus
originating from the Rio Grande valleys of New Mexico, attracted his
attention.
From this accidental encounter, therefore, but also by virtue of an
evident intellectual receptivity that placed him in the position of grasping
what life in the field revealed, emerged the research on Peyote Religion
(Mooney 1896b, 1897). In this context, the ethnologist became the
36 E. V. ALLIEGRO
protagonist of many experiences that allow us to highlight some unex-

pected and unplanned effects associated with the public dimension of the
work.
In the early years of the nineteenth century, the Peyote Religion became
the object of prohibitionist political actions. In this repressive plan, hard
accusations were directed against Mooney who, as an anthropologist
devoted to the documentation of “archaic and savage” rites, was consid-
ered responsible for their conservation and diffusion (Alliegro 2019). As
a scholar of the native culture, therefore, and because of his intimate
knowledge of the ritual practices and of their related symbolic universes,
Mooney participated in the work of the parliamentary commission. There,
he defended with conviction not only freedom of worship, but also the
role of anthropological knowledge. This was based entirely on a non-
mediated knowledge of native culture, and on a very specific cognitive
and moral-ethical intentionality, in the framework of an ethnography that
became “applied ethnography.”
Franz Boas
In the 1888 edition of the B.A.E.’s “Annual Report,” a dense work on the
Inuit of Baffin Island appeared, with the title The Central Eskimo (Boas
1888). It was characterized by a notable attention to material culture,
with broader relevant ethnographic annotations. The work was written
by Franz Boas (Stocking 1974; Darnell 1998, 2001), a young German
student who drew Powell’s attention, precisely on account of his intense
fieldwork in the polar regions.
Born in Minden on July 9, 1858 ( ´ New York 1942), Boas began
his studies in geography, and acquired a doctorate in physics (Cole
1999). In June 1883, he left his hometown to join the “Germany,” the
ship that would take him to the Arctic (Alliegro 2014c). Once among
the Inuits, Boas spent a year conducting geographical and ethnological
research, while keeping a series of epistolary diaries (Alliegro 2014d).
What emerged from his private writings was not just the difficulty of
adaptation—especially concerning climate and food—determined by an
environment that was not particularly conducive to scientific research, but
also, and importantly, the difficulty of intersubjective relations. In fact,
Boas reached villages where no Westerner had yet set foot. Concomi-
tantly with his arrival, the local population was affected by the death of
many children, which was ascribed to the “intruder.”
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le Bel (t. II, p. 130 et 131) et Froissart rapportent le contraire. Il y a lieu de
croire, comme l’ont pensé Bréquigny (Mémoires de l’Académie des
inscriptions, t. L, p. 611 à 614) et Dacier (p. 346 de son édition de Froissart,
note 1) qu’Édouard III dut accepter en principe le défi du roi de France: le
point d’honneur chevaleresque exigeait impérieusement cette acceptation qui
au fond n’engageait à rien le roi anglais, puisqu’il lui restait mille moyens
d’éluder ou de différer le combat, quand on en viendrait à la mise en pratique,
à l’exécution. Il semble, à vrai dire, que le défi n’avait guère été porté plus
sérieusement par Philippe qu’il ne fut accepté par Édouard; et le roi de France
ne proposa sans doute la bataille à son adversaire que pour dérober sa
retraite ou du moins se ménager une explication honorable.
[108] Ces deux légats étaient Annibal Ceccano, évêque de Frascati, et
Étienne Aubert, cardinal prêtre du titre des Saints Jean et Paul. Du reste,
Clément VI n’avait pas cessé, depuis le commencement de la guerre,
d’intervenir pour la conclusion d’une paix entre les deux rois. Il avait même
adressé des reproches assez vifs au roi d’Angleterre, par lettres datées
d’Avignon le 15 janvier 1347, au sujet du peu d’égard que ce prince avait eu à
la médiation des légats du saint-siége. Voyez Robert de Avesbury, p. 146 à
153 et Rymer, vol. III, p. 100 et 101.
[109] Les plénipotentiaires français étaient, d’après la lettre d’Édouard, les
ducs de Bourbon et d’Athènes, le chancelier de France (qui était alors
Guillaume Flotte, sire de Revel), Gui de Nesle, sire d’Offémont, et Geoffroi de
Charny.
[110] D’après la lettre d’Édouard, les plénipotentiaires anglais étaient bien
ceux indiqués par Froissart; il y faut ajouter seulement le marquis de Juliers et
Barthélemy de Burghersh, chambellan du roi anglais. Voyez Robert de
Avesbury, p. 164.
[111] Édouard dit que Philippe de Valois décampa précipitamment le jeudi
(2 août) de grand matin: «.... jeosdi, devaunt le jour.... s’en departi od toutes
ses gentz auxi comme disconfit, et hasterent taunt et hasterent tant qu’ils
arderent lor tentes et graunt partie de lor herneys à lor departir; et noz gentz
lez pursuerent bien près à la cowe: issint, à l’escrivere de cestes, n’estoient ils
mye unqore revenuz....» (Ibid., p. 166). Nous devons dire que la date des
actes émanés de Philippe de Valois, au commencement d’août, s’accorde
bien avec le témoignage du roi anglais. Plusieurs pièces ont été données
devant Calais (JJ68, p. 297) ou près de Sangatte (JJ68, p. 132) «ou mois
d’aoust» c’est-à-dire le 1er août; mais il résulte de deux actes (JJ68, p. 122 et
283) que, dès le 3 août, le roi de France était à Lumbres (Pas-de-Calais, ar.
Saint-Omer, au sud-ouest de cette ville), après avoir passé (JJ68, p. 290) à
Ausques (auj. Nordausques, Pas-de-Calais, ar. Saint-Omer, c. Ardres ou
Zudausques, c. Lumbres), et que le 7 août il était à Hesdin (JJ68, p. 271)
après avoir passé à Fauquembergue (JJ68, p. 292 et 207).
[112] Cet épisode du dévouement des six bourgeois de Calais est
emprunté à Jean le Bel (Chroniques, t. II, p. 135 et 136). Un savant
académicien du dernier siècle, Bréquigny, a élevé des doutes sur l’exactitude
du récit de Froissart dans deux dissertations, l’une relative à des recherches
sur l’histoire de France faites à Londres (Mémoires de l’Académie des
inscriptions, t. XXXVII, p. 538 à 540), l’autre consacrée au siége et à la prise
de Calais par Édouard III (Ibid, t. L, p. 618 à 621). Bréquigny se fonde, pour
mettre en doute le dévouement d’Eustache de Saint-Pierre et de ses
compagnons, sur les quatre actes suivants qu’il avait eu le mérite de
découvrir dans les Archives de Londres et de signaler le premier: 1º Une
concession à vie faite le 24 août 1347 à Philippe, reine d’Angleterre, des
maisons que Jean d’Aire possédait à Calais avec leurs dépendances (Cales.
Rol. pat., an. 21 Ed. III, memb. 2);--2º une pension de 40 marcs sterling
constituée le 8 octobre 1347 au profit d’Eustache de Saint-Pierre «pro bono
servicio nobis pro custodia et bona disposicione ville nostre Calesii
impendendo, pro sustentacione sua.... quousque de statu ejusdem Eustacii
aliter duxerimus providendum.» (Rymer, vol. III, p. 138.)--3º La restitution faite
le 8 octobre 1347 au dit Eustache de Saint-Pierre de quelques-unes des
maisons qu’il possédait à Calais et qui avaient été confisquées «dum tamen
erga nos et heredes nostros [Eustachius et sui heredes] bene et fideliter se
gerant et pro salva custodia et municione dicte ville faciant debite quod
debebunt» (Ibid.);--4º la concession faite à Jean de Gerwadby en date du 29
juillet 1351 des biens situés à Calais qui avaient appartenu à Eustache de
Saint-Pierre et qui avaient été confisqués après sa mort sur ses héritiers «que
per forisfactum heredum ipsius Eustachii, qui adversariis nostris Francie
contra nos adherentes existunt, ad manus nostras devenerunt....» (Rot.
Franc., an. 25 Ed. III, memb. 5). Bréquigny aurait pu ajouter que le jour même
où Édouard restituait à Eustache quelques-uns de ses biens, c’est-à-dire le 8
octobre 1347, il distribuait encore à trois Anglais, à Jean Goldbeter, à Jean
Clerc de Londres, à Jean Dalmaigne, des propriétés qui avaient appartenu à
ce même Eustache de Saint-Pierre. Il suffit de citer les arguments de
Bréquigny pour montrer qu’ils n’infirment nullement le témoignage de Jean le
Bel et de Froissart. Eustache de Saint-Pierre, âgé de soixante ans lors de la
capitulation, puisque dans un acte de 1335, où il figure comme témoin, il
déclare avoir quarante-huit ans, aura voulu mourir dans sa ville natale, dans
cette ville qui lui avait inspiré son dévouement: en quoi cela est-il en
contradiction avec le récit de Froissart? Voyez l’excellent livre de M. Auguste
Lebeau, intitulé: Dissertation sur le dévouement d’Eustache de Saint-Pierre et
de ses compagnons en 1347, Calais, 1839, in-12 de 232 pages.
[113] Comme l’a fait observer Dacier (p. 354 de son éd. de Froissart, note
1), cette date n’est pas tout à fait exacte: c’est une des nombreuses erreurs
empruntées par Froissart à Jean le Bel (t. II, p. 139). La tête de la décollation
de Saint-Jean tombe le 29 août, et le roi d’Angleterre, au rapport de Robert de
Avesbury (Hist. Ed. III, p. 140) n’arriva devant Calais que le 3 septembre.
D’après le même historien (Ibid., p. 166), cette ville se rendit le vendredi 3
août, le lendemain du décampement de Philippe de Valois et de son armée: le
siége avait duré par conséquent juste onze mois.
[114] «Dominus rex, semper misericors et benignus, captis et retentis
paucis de majoribus, communitatem dictæ villæ cum bonis suis omnibus
graciose permisit abire, dictamque villam suo retinuit imperio subjugatam.»
(Robert de Avesbury, p. 167.) D’après Gilles li Muisis, Édouard III laissa à
Calais vingt-deux des plus riches bourgeois «pour rensegnier les hiretages»,
selon l’expression de Froissart. Eustache de Saint-Pierre était désigné par sa
position de fortune et la considération qui l’entourait pour être l’un de ces
vingt-deux; ainsi s’expliquent les faveurs, très-relatives, d’Édouard en faveur
d’Eustache: «.... pro bona dispositione villæ Calesii, quousque de statu
ejusdem Eustachii duxerimus providendum.»
[115] Cette erreur a été empruntée par Froissart à Jean le Bel (t. II, p. 140).
Philippe de Valois, par une ordonnance antérieure au 7 septembre 1347 et qui
fut renouvelée en septembre 1349 (Arch. nat., JJ78, p. 162 et 169) fit don de
toutes les forfaitures qui viendraient à échoir dans le royaume aux habitants
de Calais chassés de leur ville par les Anglais; le 7 septembre 1347, il
accorda aux dits habitants, en considération des pertes que leur avaient fait
éprouver les ennemis, tous les offices dont la nomination lui appartenait ou au
duc de Normandie, son fils aîné (Arch. nat., K187, liasse 2, p. 97; une copie
de cette pièce originale: JJ68, p. 245, est datée d’Amiens le 8 septembre).
Enfin le 10 septembre suivant, il leur octroya, par une nouvelle ordonnance,
un grand nombre de priviléges et franchises qui furent confirmés sous les
règnes suivants (Recueil des Ordonnances, t. IV, p. 606 et suivantes). Ces
promesses ne restèrent pas à l’état de lettre morte; un grand nombre d’actes
authentiques attestent qu’elles furent tenues. En mai 1348, le roi de France
donne une maison sise à Provins à Thomas de Hallangues, bourgeois et
habitant de Calais (JJ76, p. 10); en septembre 1349, il concède les biens
confisqués d’un usurier lombard, sis au bailliage de Vitry, à Colart de
Londeners, jadis bourgeois de Calais, «en consideration de ce qu’il a souffert
au siège de cette ville» (JJ68, p. 390); le 9 mars 1350, il indemnise Mabille,
veuve d’Enguerrand dit Estrecletrop et Marguerite, fille de feu Lenoir, sœurs,
lesquelles avaient perdu leurs biens durant le siége de Calais (JJ80, p. 226).
En juillet 1351, Jean de Boulogne, comte de Montfort, lieutenant du roi Jean,
son neveu ès parties de Picardie et sur les frontières de Flandres, donne à
Jean du Fresne le Jeune, fils de Jean du Fresne, à présent prévôt de
Montreuil, jadis bourgeois de Calais, des biens sis à Bouvines et en la comté
de Guines confisqués sur Gillebert d’Aire qui est allé demeurer à Calais avec
les Anglais. JJ82, p. 271.
[116] Gui de Boulogne n’eut aucune part à ces trêves qui furent conclues le
28 septembre 1347. Les médiateurs furent les cardinaux Annibal Ceccano et
Étienne Aubert. La trêve ne devait durer que quinze jours après la fête de
Saint-Jean-Baptiste de l’année 1348, c’est-à-dire environ dix mois, et non pas
deux ans, comme l’avance le chroniqueur trompé sans doute par les
prolongations accordées à différentes reprises. Froissart se trompe aussi en
disant que la Bretagne fut exceptée de ces trêves. (Rymer, Fœdera, vol. III, p.
136 à 138.) Dacier avait déjà rectifié Froissart sur tous ces points. Voyez son
édit. de Froissart, p. 356, note 2.
[117] C’est Jean de Montgommery, et non Aimeri de Pavie, qui fut nommé
capitaine de Calais, avant le départ du roi d’Angleterre, le 8 octobre 1347
(Rymer, vol. III, p. 138). Jean de Montgommery fut remplacé le 1er décembre
de cette même année par Jean de Chivereston (Ibid., p. 142). C’est
seulement le 24 avril 1348 qu’Édouard nomme son amé Aimeri de Pavie, non
capitaine de Calais, mais capitaine et conduiseur de ses galées et de tous les
arbalétriers et mariniers montant les dites galées (Ibid., p. 159). Aimeri de
Pavie, chargé sans doute comme capitaine des galées de défendre les
approches de Calais du côté de la mer, remplit-il en outre par intérim ou
autrement les fonctions de gouverneur de cette ville? On en est réduit sur ce
point à des suppositions.
[118] Le 12 août 1347, le roi d’Angleterre fit annoncer par tout son royaume
qu’il concéderait des maisons, des rentes et ferait toute sorte d’avantages à
ceux de ses sujets qui voudraient s’établir à Calais avant le 1er septembre
suivant. V. Rymer, vol. III, p. 130.
[119] Le 3 décembre 1347, Édouard confirma les statuts donnés à la ville
de Calais en 1317 par Mahaut, comtesse d’Artois. (Rymer, vol. III, p. 142 à
144.) Les dispositions que le roi avait ajoutées à ces statuts dès le 8 octobre
1347 sont relativement libérales. (Ibid., p. 139.) V. Bréquigny, Mém. de
l’Académie des Inscriptions, t. 50, p. 623 à 627.
[120] Le témoignage de Froissart est contredit par George de Lesnen,
médecin de Charles de Blois, et Olivier de Bignon, son valet de chambre, qui
déclarent, dans l’enquête faite pour la canonisation de ce prince, que les
Anglais le soumirent à une captivité très-dure. V. dom Morice, Hist. de
Bretagne, t. II des Preuves, p. 6 et 7.
[121] Charles de Blois était fils de Marguerite, et Philippe de Hainaut était
fille de Jeanne, toutes deux sœurs de Philippe de Valois.
CHAPITRE LXVII.
[122] Cf. Jean le Bel, Chroniques, t. II, chap. LXXXII, p. 143 à 145.
[123] Les Écossais étaient cependant compris dans ces trêves comme
alliés de la France. V. Arch. Nat., sect. hist., J636, nº 21.
[124] Corrèze, arr. Brive, un peu au nord de cette ville, à peu près à égale
distance des deux rivières de Corrèze et de Vézère. En 1355, le fils de
Guiraud de Ventadour, seigneur de Donzenac, nommé Bernard de Ventadour
et châtelain de Beyssac (auj. château de Saint-Augustin, Corrèze, arr. Tulle, c.
Corrèze) joua un tour du même genre à Pierre de Mulceone, seigneur de Bar
(Corrèze, arr. Tulle, c. Corrèze). Il s’introduisit dans le château de Bar avec
seize hommes armés en disant que les Anglais établis à Beaumont (Corrèze,
arr. Tulle, c. Seilhac) le poursuivaient et y vola deux mille sommées de blé,
soixante lards et six mille cinq cents deniers de bon or à l’ange, au pavillon, à
la chaire, à l’agneau, à l’écu (Arch. nat., X2a 6, fos 416 à 424). Le 15 mars
1362, Guiraud de Ventadour, seigneur de Donzenac, prêta serment de fidélité
au roi d’Angleterre représenté par Jean Chandos, vicomte de Saint-Sauveur,
lieutenant dudit roi; il s’engagea en outre à faire prêter serment à tous ses
tenanciers et à rapporter leurs noms à Chandos ou à son sénéchal. V.
Bardonnet, Procès-verbal à Jean Chandos des places françaises
abandonnées par le traité de Brétigny, Niort, 1870, in-8, p. 115.
[125] Comborn, autrefois siége d’une vicomté, est aujourd’hui un château
ruiné de la commune d’Orgnac, Corrèze, arr. Brive, c. Vigeois; ce château est
situé sur la rive droite de la Vézère. Le 23 octobre 1363, à Poitiers, en l’église
Saint-Maixent, Archambaud, vicomte de Comborn, prêta serment de fidélité,
tant en son nom qu’au nom de Marie sa femme, à Édouard, fils aîné du roi
d’Angleterre, prince d’Aquitaine et de Galles, duc de Cornouaille et comte de
Chester. V. Delpit, Documents français conservés en Angleterre, p. 114.
[126] Ce Bacon est peut-être Jean Bacon, écuyer, fils de Guillaume Bacon,
seigneur du Molay (Calvados, arr. Bayeux, c. Balleroy), exécuté pour crime de
lèse-majesté, au commencement de l’année 1344. Comme les biens de sa
famille avaient été confisqués, Jean Bacon put être plus vivement tenté de
refaire sa fortune par le brigandage; et la guerre en Limousin entre les
partisans de Jeanne de Penthièvre et ceux de Jeanne de Montfort lui en
fournissait l’occasion. Comme il faisait cette guerre de partisan au service ou
du moins sous le couvert de la maison de Blois, le roi de France le combla de
faveurs.
[127] Croquart figure en effet le premier sur la liste des quinze gens
d’armes qui, réunis à sept chevaliers et à huit écuyers, composaient les trente
champions du parti anglais.
CHAPITRE LXVIII.
[128] Geoffroi de Charny, seigneur de Pierre-Perthuis, de Montfort et de
Savoisy, avait servi, en qualité de bachelier, avec six écuyers dans la bataille
de Raoul, comte d’Eu, connétable de France, du 9 mars 1339 au 1er octobre
1340, sur les frontières de Flandre; il était venu de Pierre-Perthuis sous
Vézelay (Yonne, arr. Avallon, c. Vézelay;--De Camps, portef. 83, fº 317, à la
Bibl. nat.). Le 2 août 1346, Geoffroi promu chevalier était au siége devant
Aiguillon où, par acte daté de Port-Sainte-Marie, il donnait quittance de 150
livres sur ses gages et ceux des gens d’armes de sa compagnie (Anselme,
hist. généal., t. VIII, p. 202); le 6 janvier 1352, il était chevalier de l’ordre de
l’Étoile de la première promotion (Pannier, hist. de Saint-Ouen, p. 95 et 96); le
10 septembre 1352, il était à l’abbaye d’Ardres où il faisait payer 50 livres à
Robert de Varennes, capitaine de la bastide de Guines (Anselme, Ibid., p.
203); en octobre 1353, dans un acte où il est qualifié «conseiller du roi», il
obtenait l’amortissement de 62 livres 10 sous tournois pour la dotation d’une
chapelle ou église collégiale dont il avait projeté la fondation dès 1343 dans
son manoir de Lirey (Aube, arr. Troyes, c. Bouilly;--JJ82, p. 28); en juillet 1356
il était gratifié par le roi Jean de deux maisons confisquées sur Joceran de
Mâcon et sises à Paris, l’une en face l’église Saint-Eustache, et l’autre à la
Ville-l’Évêque, et cette donation était confirmée le 21 novembre 1356, à la
requête de Jeanne de Vergy sa veuve, par Charles duc de Normandie, en
faveur de Geoffroi de Charny, fils mineur du dit Geoffroi «tué à la bataille
livrée dernièrement près de Poitiers.» (Arch. nat., JJ84, p. 671.) Geoffroi de
Charny avait été choisi, en effet, le 25 juin 1355, pour porter l’oriflamme, et il
se fit tuer à Poitiers en couvrant le roi Jean de son corps. Comme Boucicaut,
comme le petit sénéchal d’Eu, comme Jean de Saintré et la plupart des
chevaliers de son temps, Geoffroi de Charny était lettré; il est l’auteur d’un
ouvrage en prose intitulé: «Demandes pour le tournoy que je, Geoffroi de
Charni, fais à haut et puissant prince des chevaliers de Nostre Dame de la
Noble Maison.» (Galland, Mém. de l’Acad. des Inscriptions, t. II, p. 739.) M.
Léopold Pannier a bien voulu nous signaler en outre dans le ms. nº 25447 du
fonds français, à la Bibliothèque nationale, une pièce de vers inédite dont
l’auteur est un Geoffroi de Charny.
[129] Cette date, confirmée par les Grandes Chroniques de France (éd. P.
Paris, t. V, p. 491) et par Robert de Avesbury (181), est donnée par vingt
manuscrits de la première rédaction proprement dite (p. 313) qui sont ici plus
exacts que ceux de la première rédaction revisée.
[130] L’affaire fut chaude, et le roi d’Angleterre y fut serré de près, car
quinze jours après cet engagement, le 15 janvier 1350, on le voit donner deux
cents marcs de rente annuelle à Gui de Bryan «considerantes grata et
laudabilia obsequia nobis per dilectum et fidelem nostrum Guidonem de Bryan
a diu multipliciter impensa ac bonum gestum suum, in ultimo conflictu inter
nos et quosdam inimicos nostros Franciæ apud Calesium habito, vexillum
nostrum ibidem contra dictos inimicos nostros prudenter deferendo et illud
erectum sustinendo strenue et potenter....» Rymer, Fœdera, vol. III, p. 195.
[131] Les princes et les grands seigneurs portaient à cette époque de
chapeaux ou chapelets du plus grand luxe. En 1359, le comte d’Étampes,
empruntant de Guillaume Marcel, changeur et bourgeois de Paris, mille
moutons d’or, à raison de quatre cents moutons d’intérêt pour six semaines,
afin de racheter aux Anglais le pays d’Étampes qu’ils occupaient, donne à son
prêteur, en gage du payement de cet intérêt, son «chapeau d’or du pris de
deux cenz moutons». Arch. nat., sect. hist., JJ91, p. 399.
[132] Édouard voulut sans doute se rattraper de cet acte de générosité
chevaleresque sur ses autres prisonniers. Il est certain du moins qu’il soumit
Geoffroi de Charny à une rançon énorme, puisque le roi Jean, pour aider ce
chevalier à la payer, lui fit donner, le 31 juillet 1351, douze mille écus d’or.
Anselme, Hist. gén., t. VIII, p. 201.
[133] Jeanne, fille de Robert II, duc de Bourgogne, mourut le samedi 12
décembre 1349, d’après les Grandes Chroniques de France (éd. de M. P.
Paris, in-12, t. V, p. 490). Les Bénédictins se sont trompés en faisant mourir
cette reine le 12 septembre 1348.
[134] D’après l’épitaphe qu’on voyait sur le tombeau de cette princesse,
dans l’abbaye de Maubuisson, Bonne de Luxembourg mourut le 11
septembre 1349. (Dacier, édit. de Froissart, p. 366, note 2, et L’Art de vérifier
les dates, t. I, p. 600.) Elle serait morte le vendredi 11 août 1349, d’après les
Grandes Chroniques de France (t. V, p. 490).
[135] Le 29 janvier 1350, d’après l’Art de vérifier les dates (t. I, p. 597), le
mardi 11 janvier 1350, d’après les Grandes Chroniques de France (t. V, p.
491), Philippe de Valois se remaria à Blanche, fille de Philippe d’Évreux, roi
de Navarre.
[136] Jean, fils aîné du roi de France, duc de Normandie, se remaria à
Jeanne, comtesse de Boulogne, le mardi 9 février 1350, d’après les Grandes
Chroniques de France (Ibid., p. 492), et non le 19 février 1350, comme on l’a
imprimé par erreur dans l’Art de vérifier les dates, t. I, p. 600.
CHAPITRE LXIX.
[137] Ce chapitre appartient en propre à Froissart et ne se trouve pas dans
les Chroniques de Jean le Bel.
[138] Dès le 17 mai 1347, à Conflans près Paris, Louis de Male élisait
certains procureurs pour traiter de son mariage avec Marguerite, fille de Jean,
duc de Brabant (Arch. nat., Transcripta, JJC, fº 118 vº); à Saint-Quentin, le 6
juin, il promettait d’être le mardi 26 juin à Lewre en Brabant (auj. Leeuw-Saint-
Pierre, prov. Brabant, à 13 kil. de Bruxelles) pour accomplir le dit mariage
(Arch. nat., JJC, fº 135 vº, p. 64), et il assignait à sa femme 6000 livres en
terre sur le comté d’Alost (JJC, fº 128 vº). De son côté, Jean, duc de Brabant,
le 18 mai 1347, à Bruxelles, nommait certains procureurs pour traiter du
mariage entre son fils aîné Henri et Jeanne, fille du duc de Normandie, et
entre son fils Godefroi et Bonne, fille du duc de Bourbon (JJC, fº 123); à
Saint-Quentin, le 2 juin, il s’engageait à rompre le plus tôt possible son
alliance avec les Flamands et le comte de Hainaut (JJC, fº 119); il promettait
au dit Saint-Quentin, le 6 juin, d’aider le comte de Flandre à se faire obéir des
Flamands (JJC, fº 118); il déclarait n’être aucunement l’allié du roi
d’Angleterre (JJC, fº 116); enfin, il signait une alliance avec le roi de France
dans la maison des Frères Prêcheurs (JJC, fº 139 vº). En retour, Philippe de
Valois, par lettres aussi datées de Saint-Quentin, le 6 juin 1347, promettait
que Jeanne de Normandie et Bonne de Bourbon se trouveraient au château
de Vincennes le 19 juin pour leurs mariages avec Henri et Godefroi de
Brabant, et que Louis, comte de Flandre, se trouverait à Leeuw en Brabant le
26 juin pour son mariage avec Marguerite de Brabant (JJC, fº 140 vº).
[139] Par cet acte daté de Saint-Quentin, le 5 février 1347, Philippe de
Valois garantit le comte de Flandre contre l’évêque et le chapitre de Liége au
sujet de Malines cédée par ledit comte à Henri, fils du duc de Brabant, à
l’occasion de son mariage avec Jeanne, fille du duc de Normandie. (Arch.
nat., sect. hist., JJC, fº 133.) Par un autre acte rendu aussi à Saint-Quentin le
5 juin, le roi de Navarre donne au comte de Flandre cinq mille livres de terre
en échange de la cession de Malines à Henri de Brabant (Ibid., fº 131).
Philippe de Valois achève de dédommager Louis de Male en érigeant en
pairie, par lettres patentes du 27 août 1347, les comtés de Nevers, de Rethel
et la baronnie de Donzy. V. Blanchard, Compilation chronologique, col. 105 et
106.
[140] Un traité fut conclu entre le roi d’Angleterre et le comte de Flandre
dans les premiers jours de décembre 1348. Par ce traité, Édouard III et Louis
de Male ratifient les articles arrêtés par leurs députés et renouvellent l’alliance
entre l’Angleterre et la Flandre. Henri, comte de Lancastre, est chargé de
recevoir l’acte d’hommage du comte qui s’engage à pardonner aux villes de
Gand et de Bruges tout ce qu’elles ont fait contre lui pendant leurs rébellions.
Ce traité fut ratifié par Louis de Male, le 4 décembre 1348 (Archives du Nord,
fonds de la Chambre des Comptes de Lille, orig. parch.) et par Édouard III le
10 décembre suivant. V. Rymer, Foedera, vol. III, p. 178 et 179.
CHAPITRE LXX.
[141] Ce chapitre ne se trouve pas dans les Chroniques de Jean le Bel.
[142] Vers la Toussaint, c’est-à-dire au commencement de novembre 1349,
les Espagnols s’étaient emparés, à l’embouchure de la Gironde, de plusieurs
navires anglais qui portaient une cargaison de vin en Angleterre et avaient tué
les équipages. (Robert de Avesbury, Hist. Ed. III, p. 184 et 185.) Édouard se
plaint amèrement des pirateries des Espagnols, dans une lettre adressée le
10 août 1350 à l’archevêque de Cantorbéry pour demander des prières
publiques; on y trouve ce passage: «Jamque in tantam erecti sunt (Hispani)
superbiam quod, immensa classe in partibus Flandriæ per ipsos congregata
et gentibus armatis vallata, nedum se navigium nostrum in totum velle
destruere et mari anglicano dominari jactare præsumunt, sed regnum nostrum
invadere populumque nobis subjectum exterminio subdere velle expresse
comminantur.» V. Rymer, vol. III, p. 202.
[143] Cette bataille navale se livra en vue de Winchelsea, le jour de la fête
de la décollation de Saint-Jean, c’est-à-dire le 29 août 1350. L’armement de la
flotte anglaise s’était fait à Sandwich. V. Robert de Avesbury, p. 185.
[144] D’après Robert de Avesbury (p. 185), les Espagnols perdirent vingt-
quatre vaisseaux à la bataille navale de Winchelsea.
[145] Pas-de-Calais, arr. Boulogne-sur-Mer, c. Calais. Geoffroi de Charny
était encore prisonnier en Angleterre le 20 décembre 1350 (Rymer, vol. III, p.
212); et le parfait payement de sa rançon dut être réglé au mois d’août 1351
au plus tôt (v. plus haut, p. XXXIV, note 1). D’un autre côté, ce chevalier, après
sa mise en liberté, ne fut envoyé de nouveau sur la frontière de Calais qu’en
février 1352 (Bibl. nat., Titres scellés, vol. 29). Par conséquent, si ce fut
Geoffroi qui surprit à Frethun Aimeri de Pavie, cet événement eut lieu sans
doute au commencement de 1352.
CHAPITRE LXXI.
[146] Cf. Jean le Bel, Chroniques, t. II, p. 154.
[147] La peste de 1348 fut un de ces nombreux cas de peste asiatique qui
sont venus à diverses reprises fondre sur l’Europe. «Dicta autem mortalitas,
dit Jean de Venette, inter incredulos inchoavit, deinde ad Italiam venit; postea
montes pertransiens ad Avinionem accessit....» (G. de Nangis, édit. Géraud, t.
II, p. 212.) Simon de Covins, astronome du temps, attribua cette peste à
l’influence des astres (voyez un article de M. Littré, Bibl. de l’École des
Chartes, t. II, p. 208 et suiv.). Dans le nord de la France, la peste sévit d’abord
à Roissy (Seine-et-Oise, arr. Pontoise, c. Gonesse); elle fit périr cinquante
mille personnes à Paris et seize mille à Saint-Denis, et continua ses ravages
pendant un an et demi (Grandes Chroniques, t. V, p. 485 et 486). En
Angleterre comme en France, la peste commença par le sud; elle éclata
d’abord vers le 1er août 1348 dans le comté de Dorset; elle exerça ensuite de
tels ravages à Londres que, de la Purification à Pâques 1349, on enterra deux
cents cadavres par jour dans un nouveau cimetière près de Smiethfield sur
l’emplacement duquel s’élève aujourd’hui l’école-hospice, jadis couvent, de
Charterhouse. De Londres, la peste gagna le nord de l’Angleterre et l’Écosse
où elle ne cessa ses ravages que vers la Saint-Michel 1349 (Robert de
Avesbury, Hist. Ed. III, p. 177 à 179). Comme il arrive toujours, la peste de
1348 frappa surtout les classes nécessiteuses. La plupart des ouvriers et
domestiques étant morts de la peste, ceux qui avaient survécu eurent l’idée
de profiter de leur petit nombre pour se faire donner des gages et des salaires
plus élevés. Édouard III mit bon ordre à ce qu’il considérait comme un abus,
par ordonnance du 18 novembre 1350 (Rymer, vol. III, p. 210 et 211). La
Faculté de Médecine de Paris rédigea en 1349 un mémoire sur la peste de
1348; il est conservé au dép. des mss. de la Bibl. nat., fonds latin, nº 11227.
M. le docteur Michon a publié en 1860 sur cette épidémie un travail capital
intitulé: Documents inédits sur la grande peste de 1348 (consultations de la
Faculté de Paris, d’un médecin de Montpellier, description de G. de Machaut),
par L. A. Joseph Michon, in-8º, 99 p., Paris, J. B. Baillière.
[148] La Hollande, la Flandre et le Brabant furent le berceau de la secte
des flagellants. Cf. Robert de Avesbury, p. 179; Grandes Chroniques, t. V, p.
492 et 493; G. de Nangis, t. II, p. 216 à 218.
[149] Voyez deux chansons des flagellants dans Le Roux de Lincy, Recueil
des chants historiques français, première série, p. 237 et suiv.
CHAPITRE LXXII.
[150] Cf. Jean le Bel, Chroniques, t. II, chap. LXXXV à LXXXVII, LXXXIX, p. 157
à 168, 173 à 175.
[151] Philippe de Valois mourut le dimanche 22 août 1350 à Nogent-le-Roi
près Coulombs (auj. Nogent-Eure-et-Loir, ar. Dreux). Jean II fut couronné à
Reims le dimanche 26 septembre suivant (p. 400 de ce volume). Le château
de Nogent-le-Roi appartenait au roi de Navarre, mais Philippe de Valois
mourut sans doute à l’abbaye de Coulombs d’où le roi Jean a daté des lettres
de rémission du mois d’août 1350 (JJ80, p. 31).
[152] Quelques-uns de nos lecteurs s’étonneront peut-être des
développements que nous donnons à ces notes. C’est que malheureusement
beaucoup des erreurs, même grossières, que nous relevons dans les
Chroniques de Froissart se retrouvent dans les ouvrages les plus estimés. Il
faut bien le dire, l’histoire du quatorzième siècle, dans ses deux parties
essentielles, la chronologie et la géographie, reste encore en grande partie à
faire. Il n’entre pas dans notre plan de signaler les erreurs qui ont pu
échapper à nos prédécesseurs; nous croyons seulement qu’il importe de
donner une fois pour toutes l’idée de ces lacunes dont nous parlons; à ce titre,
nous citerons les lignes suivantes que les auteurs de l’Art de vérifier les dates
(t. I, p. 598) ont consacrées aux deux premières années du règne du roi Jean:
«Nos armes n’avaient aucun succès contre les Anglais. Cette même année
(1351), ils se rendirent maîtres de Guines au mois de septembre par la
trahison de Beaucaurroy, lieutenant de la place, qui expia ce crime par une
mort honteuse. Aimeri de Pavie, commandant de Calais, qui avait séduit
Beaucaurroy, voulut surprendre l’année suivante Saint-Omer où commandait
Charny. Il est pris lui-même dans une embuscade, et Charny le fait écarteler.
Le roi d’Angleterre n’avait pas ainsi traité Charny, comme on l’a vu,
lorsqu’ayant engagé l’an 1348 ce même Aimeri à lui livrer Calais, il fut surpris
au moment où il allait s’emparer de la place. Édouard lui ayant pardonné
généreusement, Charny, par reconnaissance, devait user de la même
générosité.» Les Bénédictins ont commis dans ce peu de lignes presque
autant d’erreurs qu’ils ont avancé de faits. Ce n’est pas au mois de septembre
1351, mais en 1352, entre le 6 et le 22 janvier, que les Anglais s’emparèrent
par surprise du château de Guines. C’est Robert de Herle, et non Aimeri de
Pavie, qui était capitaine de Calais lorsque le Lombard, devenu simple
châtelain de Frethun, fut surpris à son tour par Geoffroi de Charny. Enfin, la
tentative de ce dernier contre Calais eut lieu, non en 1348, mais dans la nuit
du 31 décembre 1349 au 1er janvier 1350.
[153] Le roi Jean se mit en route pour Avignon dans les derniers jours de
novembre 1350. Le dernier jour de novembre, il passait à Chateauneuf-sur-
Loire (Loiret, ar. Orléans); il était arrivé à Villeneuve-lès-Avignon (Gard, arr.
Uzès, sur la droite du Rhône) le 23 décembre (JJ80, p. 867; JJ81, p. 166,
167, 237, 760, 203, 460).
[154] Le roi de France, arrivé de Beaucaire à Montpellier le 7 janvier 1351,
tint le lendemain 8 dans cette ville les états généraux de la province où
avaient été convoqués les prélats, barons et communes des sénéchaussées
de Toulouse, Carcassonne, Beaucaire et Rouergue, les évêques d’Agde,
Béziers, Lodève, Saint-Papoul, Lombez et Comminges (dom Vaissette, Hist.
du Languedoc, t. IV, p. 272). La présence de Jean à Montpellier du 9 au 21
janvier est attestée par divers actes (JJ80, p. 466, 761, 149, 759, 269, 532,
763, 356, 456, 457, 458). Le roi de France fit une excursion à Aigues-Mortes
le 22 janvier et jours suivants (JJ80, p. 463, 459, 749, 771); il était le 26 (JJ80,
p. 318, 455, 476) de retour à Villeneuve, où il donnait un tournoi magnifique et
séjournait de nouveau jusque vers les premiers jours de février (JJ80, p. 476,
472, 587, 568).
[155] Le roi Jean ne se dirigea pas vers le Poitou, mais il regagna
directement Paris, où le rappelaient les états généraux de la Languedoil et de
la Languedoc convoqués pour le 16 février 1351, convocation qui fut, il est
vrai, prorogée au 15 mars suivant. Au retour, il passa par Lyon, où il se
trouvait le 7 février (JJ80, p. 216, 372); il était rentré à Paris le 19 février au
plus tard (JJ80, p. 212).
[156] Froissart a commis une erreur en donnant dès cette époque à Arnoul
d’Audrehem le titre de maréchal de France. Le sire d’Audrehem prit en effet,
comme le dit notre chroniqueur, une part active à la campagne des Français
en Saintonge pendant la première moitié de 1351, mais il n’était alors que
capitaine du comté d’Angoulême pour Charles d’Espagne. Nous avons des
lettres données à Angoulême le 5 janvier 1350 par Arnoul d’Audrehem,
chevalier du roi et capitaine souverain deputé ou comté d’Angoulesme (JJ78,
p. 87), et le 24 avril 1351 par le même Arnoul d’Audrehem, capitaine et
gouverneur du comté d’Angoulesme pour Charles d’Espagne (JJ84, p. 224).
Fait prisonnier au combat de Saintes, Arnoul d’Audrehem fut nommé
maréchal de France après la mort d’Édouard de Beaujeu, entre le 21 et le 30
juin 1351. Il avait été mis en liberté et se trouvait à Paris dès le 25 mai, jour où
dans l’hôtel des hoirs feu Vincent du Castel, près la porte Saint-Honoré, lui et
Jeanne de Hamelincourt sa femme se firent une donation entre vifs de tous
leurs biens meubles et immeubles; il n’est encore qualifié dans cet acte que
noble homme et puissant Mgr Arnoul d’Odeneham, chevalier, seigneur du dit
lieu, et dans la confirmation, en date du 21 juin suivant, de la dite donation, on
l’appelle simplement dilectum et fidelem militem et consiliarium nostrum
(JJ80, p. 495). Mais dans une donation que le roi Jean lui fit à Saint-Ouen au
mois de juin 1351 de la ville et du château de Wassigny (Aisne, ar. Vervins),
on donne déjà à Arnoul d’Audrehem le titre de maréchal de France (JJ81, p.
110). Le P. Anselme s’est donc trompé en faisant dater la promotion d’Arnoul
d’Audrehem comme maréchal de France du mois d’août 1351. V. Hist.
généal., t. VI, p. 751 et 752.
[157] D’après Robert de Avesbury, les forces anglo-gasconnes, envoyées
au secours de Saint-Jean-d’Angély, étaient commandées par le sire d’Albret.
Hist. Ed. III, p. 186.
[158] L’historien du règne d’Édouard III, qui tend à diminuer l’effectif des
forces anglaises, toutes les fois qu’il s’agit d’une affaire où elles ont donné, ne
prête que six cents hommes d’armes au sire d’Albret. Ibid.
[159] Nous avons des lettres de Gui de Nesle, sire de Mello, maréchal de
France, lieutenant du roi en Poitou, Limousin, Saintonge, Angoumois et
Périgord par deçà Dordogne, datées de Niort le 4 novembre 1349 (JJ78, p.
87), le 18 décembre 1350 (JJ80, 577), de Chizé (Deux-Sèvres, arr. Melle, c.
Brioux) le 19 février 1351 (JJ81, p. 118). Par acte daté de Paris le 16 mars
1351 «presente domino constabulario» (Charles d’Espagne), le roi Jean
donne à son amé et féal cher et cer Gui de Nesle, maréchal de France, mille
livres tournois de rente annuelle sur les forfaitures qui viendront à échoir
(JJ83, p. 344).
[160] D’après Robert d’Avesbury, ce combat se livra près de Saintes, le 8
avril 1351, et trois cents chevaliers français y furent faits prisonniers (Hist. Ed.
III, p. 186 et 187). D’après les Grandes Chroniques de France (v. p. 401 de ce
volume), cette affaire eut lieu le 1er avril 1351; et Gui de Nesle, maréchal de
France, Guillaume son frère, Arnoul d’Audrehem tombèrent au pouvoir des
Anglais. Ce qui est certain, c’est que le combat de Saintes eut lieu avant le
mois de juin 1351, puisque Gui de Nesle avait déjà recouvré sa liberté, sous
caution ou autrement, à cette date, comme on le voit par des lettres du roi
Jean données à Paris en juin 1351, presente Guidone de Nigella marescallo
Francie (JJ80, p. 552). On lit dans d’autres lettres datées du Val Coquatrix le
15 juillet 1351 que le roi Jean donne à Gui de Beaumont, pour l’aider à payer
sa rançon, trente huit arpents de bois dans la forêt de Halate «cum prædictus
miles nuper cum dilecto et fideli milite et marescallo nostro Guidone de
Nigella, cujus dictus Guido de Bellomonte marescallus erat, in nostro servicio
in partibus Xantonensibus per regni nostri inimicos captus fuerit et adhuc
eorum prisonarius existat» (JJ80, p. 719). D’un autre côté, ce combat se livra,
comme le dit Robert d’Avesbury, près de Saintes, car nous lisons dans des
lettres de rémission accordées par Gui de Nesle le 24 septembre 1351 à
Renoul de Saint-Pardoulf, écuyer, que le dit Renoul avait été pris
darrainement en la bataille de Sainctes (JJ81, p. 62). Sismondi, M. H. Martin
et tous les historiens contemporains se trompent donc à la suite de Froissart
en plaçant l’affaire de Saintes à l’époque où le roi Jean vint en Poitou et en
Saintonge pour renforcer le siége de Saint-Jean-d’Angély, c’est-à-dire au mois
d’août 1351. V. Sismondi, t. X, p. 392 et 393, et M. H. Martin, éd. de 1839, t.
V, p. 450.
[161] L’affaire de Saintes eut lieu, comme nous venons de le voir, dans les
premiers jours d’avril 1351, et le roi Jean n’était pas alors à Poitiers. Il est
même fort douteux que le siége fût déjà mis devant Saint-Jean-d’Angély à
cette date. La noblesse de la sénéchaussée de Beaucaire, placée sous les
ordres de Guillaume Rolland, sénéchal de ce pays, ne servit en Poitou, sous
Charles d’Espagne, connétable de France, que de la mi-juillet à la mi-
septembre 1351 (dom Vaissette, Hist. du Languedoc, t. IV, p. 274). Nous
avons des lettres de Charles d’Espagne, connétable de France, lieutenant du
roi entre Loire et Dordogne, datées de ses tentes devant Saint-Jean-d’Angély,
le 26 juillet 1351 (JJ81, p. 575), du siége devant Saint-Jean-d’Angély, le 30
août 1351 (JJ82, p. 202).
[162] La dernière pièce, citée dans la note précédente, prouve que la
reddition de Saint-Jean-d’Angély n’a pu avoir lieu le 7 août, puisque Charles
d’Espagne assiégeait encore cette ville le 30 août 1351. Dans tous les cas,
cette reddition n’aurait pu être faite au roi Jean, qui était encore à Chanteloup
(auj. hameau de Saint-Germain-lès-Arpajon, Seine-et-Oise, ar. Corbeil, c.
Arpajon) le 10 août 1351 (JJ81, p. 160). Le roi de France ne dut arriver devant
Saint-Jean-d’Angély qu’à la fin d’août; il délivra des lettres de rémission le 29
août 1351 à Jean de Pontallier, chevallier, in tentis nostris ante Sanctum
Johannem Angeliacensem (JJ81, p. 917). D’après les Grandes Chroniques (v.
p. 401 de ce volume), Saint-Jean-d’Angély se rendit au mois de septembre.
La reddition de cette ville dut avoir lieu entre le 29 août et le 5 septembre; à
cette dernière date, le roi de France avait déjà repris le chemin de Paris,
comme on le voit par des lettres datées de Niort le 5 septembre 1351,
auxquelles Jean fit apposer le sceau de son cousin Charles d’Espagne in
nostrorum magni et secreti absencia (JJ81, p. 145). Jean était de retour à
Paris au plus tard le 17 septembre (JJ81, p. 935).
[163] Jean de Beauchamp était capitaine du château de Calais dès le 19
juillet 1348 (Rymer, vol. III, p. 165). Fait prisonnier à l’affaire d’Ardres, au
commencement de juin 1351, il fut remplacé le 20 de ce mois par Robert de
Herle (Ibid., p. 222).
[164] Édouard, sire de Beaujeu, maréchal de France depuis 1347 par la
démission de Charles, sire de Montmorency, ne fut pas envoyé à Saint-Omer
après la reddition de Saint-Jean-d’Angély, puisque, comme nous le verrons, il
était certainement mort avant le 30 juin 1351.
[165] Ce combat passe pour s’être livré le 27 mars, quatrième dimanche de
carême 1351, sur le territoire de la commune de la Croix-Helléan (Morbihan,
ar. Ploërmel, c. Josselin, à 10 kil. de Ploërmel). Une pyramide de granit a été
élevée en 1823 en remplacement du Chêne de Mivoie, à 150 mètres environ
de l’endroit où se livra le combat. Une croix, reconstruite après la Révolution
avec les débris d’une croix plus ancienne, porte une vieille inscription
commémorative de ce fait d’armes (art. de M. Rosenzweig dans le
Dictionnaire de la France de M. A. Joanne). Le combat des Trente a donné
lieu à un curieux poëme, publié en 1819 par Fréminville, en 1827 par
Crapelet, et enfin par Buchon. V. l’ouvrage intitulé: Le Combat de trente
Bretons contre trente Anglais, d’après les documents originaux des
quatorzième et quinzième siècles, suivi de la biographie et des armes des
combattants, par Pol de Courcy. Saint-Brieuc, 1857, impr. Prud’homme, in-4º,
76 p., 3 pl.
[166] Ce curieux passage est emprunté au ms. B6 dont le texte est très-
corrompu. Peut-être le copiste a-t-il mis un X de trop, et faut-il lire: «XII ans
puissedy» au lieu de: «XXII ans puissedy,» ce qui placerait ce séjour de
Froissart à Paris vers 1364, au lieu de 1374. C’est précisément en cette
année 1364 que, d’après un fragment de compte découvert par M. Caffiaux,
Froissart rapporta de Paris des nouvelles d’un procès de la ville de
Valenciennes pendant devant le Parlement «.... pour yaus moustrer les
nouvielles que Froisars avoit rapportées au prouvost et as jurés dou plait que
li ville a à Paris à l’encontre Monseigneur.» Compte de 1364. V. Nicole de
Dury, par H. Caffiaux, Valenciennes, 1866, in-12, p. 34 et 100.
[167] Sismondi (t. X, p. 398), M. Henri Martin (édit. de 1839, t. V, p. 457) et
tous les historiens placent l’affaire d’Ardres en 1352; c’est une erreur qu’ils ont
empruntée à Froissart (v. p. 115 de ce volume). Un érudit distingué, M. René
de Belleval, s’écarte un peu moins de la vérité en disant que ce combat suivit
immédiatement la reddition de Saint-Jean-d’Angély (La grande guerre, Paris,
Durand, 1862, in-8, p. 48, note 1). Le sire de Beaujeu était certainement mort
avant le 30 juin 1351, puisqu’à cette date l’official de Lyon et le juge ordinaire
de Beaujeu font citer les témoins qui ont souscrit le testament d’Édouard, sire
de Beaujeu, ainsi que les principaux parents et amis du défunt, à comparaître,
le lundi après l’octave de Saint-Pierre et Saint-Paul, à Villefranche, pour
assister à la publication et à l’ouverture du testament dudit Édouard (Arch.
nat., orig. lat. sur parchemin jadis scellé, sect. adm., P1362^2, cote 1498. V.
Huillard-Bréholles, Titres de la maison de Bourbon, t. I, p. 449). Édouard, sire
de Beaujeu, est mentionné comme décédé dans un acte du 8 juillet 1351:
«dilectum et fidelem nostrum Eduardum, dominum de Bellojoco, tunc
viventem.» (JJ80, p. 504). Le combat d’Ardres dut même se livrer avant le 20
juin 1351, car Robert de Herle fut nommé à cette date Capitaine du château
de Calais en remplacement de Jean de Beauchamp, fait prisonnier dans cette
rencontre (Rymer, vol. III, p. 222).
[168] Édouard de Beaujeu était mort depuis trois mois environ lorsque
Saint-Jean-d’Angély se rendit aux Français. Le sire de Beaujeu n’avait
d’ailleurs pris aucune part, quoi qu’en dise Froissart, à la campagne des
Français en Saintonge pendant la première moitié de 1351. Il se tenait
pendant ce temps à Saint-Omer et à Guines en qualité de gardien de la
frontière et de lieutenant du roi ès parties de Picardie, tandis que Pierre, duc
de Bourbon, comte de Clermont et de la Marche, chambrier de France,
résidait au même titre à Arras (JJ80, p. 607).
[169] Auj. Nordausques, Pas-de-Calais, ar. Saint-Omer, c. Ardres et
Zudausques, Pas-de-Calais, ar. Saint-Omer, c. Lumbres, au nord-ouest de
Saint-Omer et au sud-est d’Ardres, sur la route de Saint-Omer à Calais,
passant par Ardres.
[170] Hames fut cédé aux Anglais en 1360 par le traité de Brétigny; et le roi
Jean, par acte daté de Hesdin en novembre 1360, pour indemniser ses amés
et féaux Guillaume, seigneur de Hames, et Enguerrand son frère, leur assigna
cinq cents livrées de terre en rente perpétuelle sur sa recette d’Amiens.
JJ118, p. 92.
[171] Voy. plus haut, p. XIII, note 62.
[172] Voy. plus haut, p. XII, note 56.
Si le combat d’Ardres avait eu lieu en 1352, comme l’avancent tous les
historiens, la garnison de Guines ne serait pas venue au secours des
Français, puisque cette forteresse tomba au pouvoir des Anglais dès le
commencement de janvier de cette année.
[173] Ce fut Jean de Boulogne, qui succéda à Édouard de Beaujeu et fut
envoyé à Saint-Omer dès le mois de juillet 1351 comme lieutenant du roi ès
parties de Picardie et sur les frontières de Flandre (JJ82, p. 276).
[174] Ce ne fut pas Thomas de Beauchamp, comte de Warwick, qui
succéda à Jean de Beauchamp son frère; Robert de Herle fut nommé
capitaine du château de Calais le 20 juin 1351 (Rymer, vol. III, p. 222).
[175] Jean de Beauchamp ne fut pas échangé contre Gui de Nesle; il était
encore prisonnier le 4 décembre 1351 (Rymer, vol. III, p. 236).
[176] Étienne Aubert, ancien évêque de Clermont, cardinal d’Ostie, fut élu
pape sous le nom d’Innocent VI le 18 décembre 1352 en remplacement de
Clément VI mort le 6 décembre précédent.
[177] Une trêve fut en effet conclue, grâce à la médiation du cardinal Gui
de Boulogne, entre le château et la bastide de Guines, le 10 mars 1353 (n.
st.); elle devait durer jusqu’au 1er août suivant (Rymer, vol. III, p. 254).
[178] Raoul de Brienne, comte d’Eu et de Guines, connétable de France,
fait prisonnier à la prise de Caen par les Anglais le 26 juillet 1346, était encore
en Angleterre le 20 octobre 1350, jour où Édouard octroya des lettres de
sauvegarde à quinze personnes envoyées en France pour rassembler l’argent
destiné à la rançon du connétable (Rymer, vol. III, p. 206). Le 8 novembre
1350, Raoul d’Eu était encore dans les bonnes grâces du roi Jean qui
ordonna, par un mandement en date de ce jour, d’exproprier Jean Morier,
changeur, qui avait pris la fuite, emportant quatre cents deniers d’or à l’écu qui
appartenaient à son très cher et féal cousin le connétable de France du fait de
sa charge (JJ80, p. 312). Il dut être exécuté le 18 novembre au matin, car il
est déjà mentionné comme défunt dans un acte de ce jour par lequel le roi
Jean donne à Gautier duc d’Athènes, marié à Jeanne d’Eu, sœur du
connétable, l’hôtel que Raoul d’Eu possédait à Paris dans le quartier Saint-
Paul (JJ80, p. 168). Sauf le château et la châtellenie de Beaurain concédés le
23 décembre 1350 à Robert de Lorris (JJ81, p. 220), le comté d’Eu donné en
février 1351 à Jean d’Artois (JJ81, p. 282) et la reprise en mars 1351 (JJ80, p.
348) par Catherine de Savoie, fille de feu Louis de Savoie et veuve de Raoul
d’Eu, d’un apport dotal de quatre mille florins d’or assis sur la terre de
Sauchay (Seine-Inférieure, arr. Dieppe, c. Envermeu), le reste de la
succession de Raoul passa, en vertu de donations faites par le roi Jean en
février (JJ80, p. 368) le 16 mars (JJ80, p. 659) et le 26 septembre 1351 (JJ80,
p. 464), à Gautier de Brienne-Châtillon, duc d’Athènes, comte de Braisne,
beau-frère, et à Jeanne d’Eu, duchesse d’Athènes, sœur de l’infortuné
connétable. Villani dit (l. II, c. 50) que le roi Jean fit mettre à mort Raoul d’Eu
parce que, n’ayant pu se procurer l’énorme somme exigée pour sa rançon, le
comte de Guines promit de livrer au roi d’Angleterre en échange de sa liberté
le comté et la forteresse de Guines. Ce qui rend la version du chroniqueur
florentin très-vraisemblable, c’est que Jean confisqua au profit de la couronne
et ne donna à personne le comté de Guines.
[179] Cette trêve fut conclue entre Guines et Calais le soir du 11 septembre
1351 et devait durer jusqu’au matin du 12 septembre 1352 (Rymer, vol. III, p.
232). D’après les Grandes Chroniques de France (V. p. 401 de ce volume) et
la Chronique des Valois (p. 24), le château de Guines fut pris par les Anglais
pendant la première fête de l’Étoile à laquelle s’était rendu le sire de
Bouvelinghem, capitaine de ce château. Or cette fête se tint le 6 janvier 1352.
Le rédacteur des Grandes Chroniques rapporte, il est vrai, la fête dont il s’agit
au mois de novembre 1351: mais il aura confondu sans doute l’ordonnance
de fondation en date du 16 novembre 1351 avec la première fête de l’Ordre
qui eut lieu, comme nous venons de le dire, le 6 janvier 1352. D’un autre côté,
Robert de Avesbury place la prise de Guines vers la Saint-Vincent (22 janvier)
1352: tunc instante festo Sancti Vincentii (Hist. Ed. III, p. 188). D’où il suit que
la prise de Guines par les Anglais eut lieu du 6 au 22 janvier 1352. Un archer
anglais, nommé Jean de Dancaster, s’empara-t-il de ce château par surprise,
suivant le témoignage de Robert de Avesbury; ou la forteresse française fut-
elle livrée par la trahison de Guillaume de Beaucaurroy, suivant la version de
la plupart des chroniqueurs français? C’est ce que le silence des actes ne
nous permet pas de décider.
[180] L’ordonnance de fondation est du 16 novembre 1351, et la première
fête se tint le 6 janvier 1352. Du reste, pour tout ce qui concerne l’ordre de
l’Étoile, il nous suffit de renvoyer à l’excellent ouvrage de M. Léopold Pannier,
La Noble Maison de Saint-Ouen, Paris, 1872, in-12, p. 84 à 127.
[181] Froissart désigne ici le combat de Mauron (Morbihan, arr. Ploërmel,
au nord-est de Ploërmel, à l’est de Rennes et de Montfort-sur-Meu), livré le 14
août 1352, où Gautier de Bentley, capitaine pour le roi d’Angleterre en
Bretagne, à la tête de trois cents hommes d’armes et d’un égal nombre
d’archers, battit Gui de Nesle, sire d’Offémont, maréchal de France, qui se fit
tuer ainsi que le sire de Bricquebec et Gui de Nesle, châtelain de Beauvais.
Robert de Avesbury cite en outre parmi les morts, du côté des Français, le
vicomte de Rohan, Jean Frère, les seigneurs de Quintin, de Tinténiac, de
Rochemont, de Montauban, Renaud de Montauban, Robert Raguenel,
Guillaume de Launay, etc., en tout quatre-vingts chevaliers et cinq cents
écuyers. V. Grandes Chroniques, p. 402 de ce volume, et Robert de
Avesbury, p. 189 à 191.
CHAPITRE LXXIII.
[182] Cf. Jean le Bel, Chroniques, t. II, chap. LXXXVIII, p. 169 à 171.
[183] Charles de Castille, dit d’Espagne, fils d’Alphonse de la Cerda,
seigneur de Lunel, fut fait connétable de France en janvier 1351 en
remplacement de Raoul de Brienne, II du nom, comte d’Eu et de Guines,
exécuté le 18 novembre 1350. Dès le 23 décembre 1350, le roi Jean fit don à
Charles d’Espagne, son cousin, du comté d’Angoulême (Arch. nat., sect. hist.,
JJ80, p. 768), et ce don fut renouvelé en octobre 1352 (JJ81, p. 464). En
novembre 1352, Charles d’Espagne est gratifié du château et de la
châtellenie d’Archiac (JJ81, p. 452). En janvier 1353, le roi de France unit
diverses terres à la baronnie de Lunel en faveur de Charles d’Espagne (J166,
nº 28). Le 17 juillet 1353, le roi Jean concède à Charles d’Espagne les ville,
château et châtellenie de la Roche d’Agoux (Puy-de-Dôme, ar. Riom, c.
Poinsat) donnés naguère par Philippe de Valois au connétable Imbert de
Beaujeu, seigneur de Montpensier (JJ81, p. 767).
[184] Charles d’Espagne fut assassiné le 6 janvier 1354. Charles, roi de
Navarre, Philippe et Louis de Navarre, frères du dit roi, instigateurs de cet
assassinat (JJ82, p. 278), eurent pour complices Jean Malet, seigneur de
Graville (JJ82, p. 226), Guillaume de Mainemares, dit Maubue, chev. (JJ82, p.
469), Colard Doublel, écuyer (JJ82, p. 511), Jean dit de Fricamps, chev.
(JJ82, p. 183), le seigneur de Clères (JJ82, p. 477), le seigneur d’Aulnay,
chev. (JJ82, p. 468), Ancel de Villiers, chev. (JJ82, p. 466), le seigneur de
Morbecque, chev. (JJ82, p. 467), Jean de Champgerboust (JJ82, p. 443),
Gillet de Banthelu (JJ82, p. 445), Jean de Belangues (JJ82, p. 446), Jean de
Gramoue (JJ82, p. 447), Henri de Mucy (JJ82, p. 463), Philippe de
Boutanvilliers (JJ82, p. 464), Drouet de Lintot (JJ82, p. 465), Jean Du Quesne
(JJ82, p. 474), Geffroi de Marson (JJ82, p. 475), Henri Du Bois (JJ82, p. 476),
Guillaume de Manteville (JJ82, p. 510), écuyers, qui obtinrent des lettres de
rémission le 4 mars 1354.
Des lettres de rémission, octroyées au roi de Navarre sur le fait du meurtre
du connétable Charles d’Espagne, furent entérinées au parlement, en séance
du roi, le 4 mars 1354. Arch. nat., U524, t. 33, fº 61.
[185] La trêve, conclue ès tentes devant Guines le 6 avril 1354, devait
expirer le 6 avril 1355. Les pleins pouvoirs donnés par Édouard à Guillaume,
évêque de Norwich, à Michel évêque élu de Londres, à Henri duc de
Lancastre, à Richard comte d’Arundel, à Barthélemy de Burghersh,
chambellan du roi, à Gui de Bryan seigneur de Laghern, sont datés de
Westminster le 28 août 1354 (Rymer, vol. III, p. 283). Le roi leur adjoignit des
auxiliaires, le 30 octobre suivant, pour le cas où un traité serait conclu (Ibid.,
p. 289). Les plénipotentiaires du roi de France, Pierre I, duc de Bourbon et
Pierre de la Forêt, archevêque de Rouen, chancelier de France, partirent pour
Avignon dans le courant du mois de novembre 1354. Les négociations, qui
remplirent les mois de janvier et de février 1355, n’eurent d’autre résultat que
la prolongation de la trêve jusqu’au 24 juin suivant.
[186] Jean III, dit le Triomphant, duc de Brabant, mourut le 5 décembre
1355. Il avait épousé en 1314 Marie, seconde fille de Louis comte d’Évreux,
décédée le 30 octobre 1335, après lui avoir donné trois fils morts sans lignée
avant leur père, et trois filles: Jeanne, mariée à Wenceslas de Luxembourg,
qui lui succéda; Marguerite mariée à Louis de Male comte de Flandre; Marie
femme de Renaud duc de Gueldre. Jean laissait, en outre, dix-sept bâtards,
sept garçons et dix filles.
[187] Wenceslas, marié en 1347 à Jeanne de Brabant, veuve de Guillaume
II comte de Hainaut, comte de Luxembourg à la fin de 1353, fait duc par
l’empereur Charles IV son frère le 13 mars 1354, était fils de Jean de
Luxembourg, roi de Bohême, tué à Crécy, et de sa seconde femme, Béatrix,
fille de Louis Ier, duc de Bourbon. Wenceslas se trouvait donc, comme le dit
Froissart, neveu de Jacques de Bourbon, comte de la Marche, frère cadet de
sa mère.
[188] Cette guerre ne dura guère qu’un an et demi, et non trois ans; elle ne
commença qu’en 1356, et fut signalée par la bataille de Scheut près Bruxelles
(auj. écart d’Anderlecht, prov. Brabant, c. Molenbeek-Saint-Jean, à 4 kil. de
Bruxelles), gagnée le 18 août 1356 par les Flamands sur les Brabançons. Le
traité de paix qui mit fin à cette guerre est daté du 3 juillet 1357.
[189] Guillaume III, dit l’Insensé, fils de Louis Ier de Bavière, empereur
d’Allemagne, et de sa seconde femme, Marguerite de Hainaut, succéda à sa
mère dans le comté de Hainaut le 26 février 1357.
CHAPITRE LXXIV.
[190] Cf. Jean le Bel, Chroniques, t. II, chap. XC, p. 177 à 183.
[191] Les actes ne font aucune mention de ce voyage du roi de Navarre et
de son frère en Angleterre. On voit seulement par la déposition en date du 5
mai 1356 de Friquet, gouverneur de Caen pour le roi de Navarre, que le duc
de Lancastre, qui était alors en Flandre, fit offrir à Charles le Mauvais le
secours de son cousin Édouard contre la vengeance du roi Jean, que le roi de
Navarre se réfugia aussitôt auprès du pape à Avignon d’où il se rendit en
Navarre, et que ce fut de là qu’il expédia un de ses agents, nommé Colin
Doublet, en Angleterre pour annoncer au roi qu’il se rendrait par mer avec des
troupes à Cherbourg afin de recouvrer ses places occupées par le roi de
France. Cette déposition de Friquet a été publiée par Secousse, Preuves de
l’histoire de Charles le Mauvais, p. 49 à 57.
[192] Les lettres de sauvegarde données par le roi d’Angleterre à Charles
de Blois pour aller en Bretagne assister au mariage de sa fille Marguerite
avec le connétable Charles d’Espagne et chercher l’argent de sa rançon, sont
datées du 10 novembre 1354 (Rymer, vol. III, p. 290). Des lettres de sauf-
conduit furent aussi délivrées le même jour à seize seigneurs bretons qui,
après avoir accompagné Charles sur le continent, devaient revenir en
Angleterre se constituer otages, en cas de non-payement de la rançon, si
Charles lui-même n’était pas de retour avant le 24 juin 1355. Parmi ces
seigneurs figurent Jean, vicomte de Rohan, banneret, Thibaud, sire de
Rochefort, banneret, Bonabbé de Rougé, sire de Derval, banneret, Jean de
Beaumanoir, Yvain Charuel, Bertrand du Guesclin. En même temps, par acte
daté du 11 novembre 1354, il fut convenu qu’il y aurait trêve en Bretagne
entre les Anglais et les partisans de Charles de Blois jusqu’au 24 juin 1355
(Ibid., p. 290 et 291). Le 8 février 1355, Thomas de Holland avait été nommé
pour un an capitaine et lieutenant en Bretagne (p. 295), mais Édouard lui
notifia, le 14 septembre suivant, qu’il eût à livrer les places fortes à Henri, duc
de Lancastre, appelé à le remplacer dans le commandement de cette
province et des pays adjacents (Ibid., p. 312).
[193] Dès le 27 avril 1355, Édouard donne des ordres pour rassembler la
flotte qui doit transporter en Guienne le prince de Galles et son armée; le 6
mai il fait préparer pour l’expédition de son fils deux mille cinq cents claies et
quinze équipages de ponts (Rymer, vol. III, p. 298 et 299).
[194] Le 1er juin 1355, le roi d’Angleterre demande des prières à
l’archevêque de Cantorbéry, primat du royaume, à l’occasion de la guerre
contre la France qui va recommencer (Ibid., p. 303); le 1er juillet suivant, il
nomme gardiens du royaume pendant son absence Thomas son fils, les
archevêques de Cantorbéry et d’York, l’évêque de Winchester, Richard comte
d’Arundel et Barthélemy de Burghersh (Ibid., p. 305).
[195] Un traité fut conclu à Valognes le 10 septembre 1355 entre Charles II,
roi de Navarre, et le roi Jean; il avait été négocié au nom du roi de France par
Jacques de Bourbon, comte de Ponthieu, connétable de France, et par
Gautier, duc d’Athènes, comte de Braine. Ce traité a été publié par Secousse,
Preuves de l’histoire de Charles le Mauvais, p. 582 à 595.
[196] Ardres-en-Calaisis, Pas-de-Calais, ar. Saint-Omer.
[197] Auj. hameau de Zutkerque, Pas-de-Calais, ar. Saint-Omer, c.
Audruicq.
[198] D’après Robert de Avesbury, Édouard fit crier dans les rues de
Londres le 11 septembre que tous chevaliers, gens d’armes et archers se
tinssent prêts à partir le 29 septembre de Sandwich pour Calais; le 15 et le 26
de ce mois, il défendait de faire sortir des ports aucun navire jusqu’à la Saint-
Michel (Rymer, vol, III, p. 313). Grâce à ces mesures, une armée de plus de
trois mille hommes d’armes, avec deux mille archers à cheval et un grand

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Ethnography: A Theoretically Oriented

Practice Vincenzo Matera

Ethnography: A Theoretically Oriented Practice 1st ed.

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Vincenzo Antonelli: A Dark Mafia Romance (Brutal

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Science Interrupted: Rethinking Research Practice with

Writing Friendship: A Reciprocal Ethnography 1st ed.

Object Oriented Programming_hard_man_v1.pdf Amany Fawzy

ISBN 978-3-030-51719-9 ISBN 978-3-030-51720-5 (eBook)

1 Ethnography: A Theoretically Oriented Practice

Part I Grounds for Sociocultural Anthropology: USA,

2 Ethnography Before Ethnography: Genesis

3 Before and After Science: Radcliffe-Brown, British

4 “Ethnography in France”: Ethnographic Practices

5 The Structural Formula of the Team: Reflections

Part II Anthropology (Theory) vs Ethnography

6 Illusion of Immediate Knowledge or Spiritual

7 The Bridge and the Dance: Situational Analysis

8 Politics Within Anthropology 181

9 Stumbling Blocks: The Irruption of the Interpretive

Part III Visual, Dialogical, Sensorial, Multi-sited

10 The Anthropologist’s Eye: Ethnography, Visual

11 Dennis and Barbara Tedlock: The Dialogic Turn

12 Ethnography and Embodiment 277

13 Exploring Mobility Through Mobility: Some

14 Participant Observation: The Personal Commitment

15 The Weberian Line of Anthropology: George Marcus

16 Making the Invisible Ethnography Visible: The

17 Beyond the Field: Ethnography, Theory, and Writing

Author Index 417

Subject Index 423

Enzo Vinicio Alliegro (Ph.D.) is Associate Professor of anthropological

Francesco Faeta is Full Professor of Cultural Anthropology. He has

book Il tarantismo oggi. Antropologia, politica, cultura (2015), and Editor

Ethnography: A Theoretically Oriented

Vincenzo Matera and Angela Biscaldi

© The Author(s) 2021 1

With this volume we offer both a historical overview and a critical

“Being there” in itself has no value; otherwise, the best ethnographers

This statement should not be understood as an absolute criticism of field-

anthropology of global processes (Comaroff and Comaroff 1992; Fabietti

are used deconstructing mythological narratives to unveil their under-

In the ethnographic cases presented in Alliegro’s essay, the radical impor-

Mancuso underlines how Radcliffe-Brown’s theoretical social anthro-

contributed to codify ethnography as a specific set of practices which ulti-

acumen”), because it is an important way to trace the foundations (and

activate a communication between dominant and dominated, imbued

history and consequently of politics (and ethics) within the production of

of the ethnographic paradigm in its connection with the field as it

In this perspective, Faeta emphasizes the body-gaze and body-world

of “dialogical anthropology”—an important epistemological paradigm

human experiences of movement (migration, tourism, aid, and develop-

but as a counterpart to a practice that is in itself reflective, ambivalent, and

model for understanding. The common matrix is the idea of a non-

If the attention to the anthropology-literature link has diminished over

coming out in a convincing way. The ability to persuade is played on a

Grounds for Sociocultural Anthropology:

Ethnography Before Ethnography: Genesis

Enzo Vinicio Alliegro

Between Mythopoetic Narrations

© The Author(s) 2021 21