Jacques Le Goff (1924–2014)

Tudom, utálatos ilyet mondani, de: akit érdekel a középkor, annak ezt a könyvet mindenképpen el kell olvasnia. (Bár el tudom képzelni, hogy ezen már túl is van.) Le Goff pont azt csinálja, amit egy ilyen beetetős könyv esetében csinálni kell: röviden és tömören összefoglalja a Római Birodalom bukása és a XV. század között eltelt századokat, mindenről említést tesz, de semmibe sem ragad bele. Így kapunk egy nem terjedelmes könyvecskét, aminek minden bekezdése show more szinte könyörög, hogy az ember beszerezze hozzá a vonatkozó 2500 oldalas szakirodalmat – ami amúgy többnyire le sincs fordítva. Persze ez a munka azért önmagában is kerek és egész, és kivállóan illusztrálja, hogy az ún. sötét középkor jóval több, mint egy nagy lyuk a történelemben, amit csak némi lepra, pestis és máglyán elégetés színesít. Le Goff koncepciója meggyőző: úgy mutatja be ezt az időszakot, mint eleven, mozgalmas periódust, és külön felhívja figyelmünket arra a számtalan elemre, amelyek a középkorban alakultak ki, és a mai napig meghatározzák életünket, gondolkodásunkat. Tartalmas és hiánypótló. show less

Nothing is so frustrating as that moment while reading when the words in front of you float off of the page and directly into your heartbeat, and there is nothing you can do to record the moment for posterity. No amount of highlighting, underlining or copying will ever allow the moment, that specific, knowledge altering moment, to happen in that way again.

This is particularly frustrating when the book in hand belongs to the local library. Underlining is not an option. To address this vexing show more issue, I've taken to copying out passages in a notebook (bibliography and all (citation style is deeply idiosyncratic)). As I read the passages the day after I'd finished this delightful "little book" I noticed that they were entirely about the act of thinking as a job - as work that was done in the urban marketplace in much the same way as shoe-making or fruit-selling.

I am not enough of a romantic to regret the passage of time and the changes that have taken place, but I am enough of an intellectual to see the very real dangers that anti-intellectualism as a cultural reality and a deliberate aim have caused and the havoc that it continues to wreak.

Le Goff writes as someone who is not necessarily enamored of the past, but still admiring; there is no fawning, and no little teasing at the expense of such as Abelard and Heloise (in all fairness, they did name their only child Astrolabe). At the same time, he takes care to develop the historical context of a world in which there was established a street level, marketplace viable relationship between thinkers and urban dwellers, an intimacy which has disappeared. It is easy to read the awe in the narrator's words that this role was embraced and respected for so long. The tragedy of its demise is all the more painful even 800 years later as we all look to our own recent pasts to find the basis for anti-intellectual behavior. We will not find it there. It is laid out in the pages of this wonderful book as an elegy to the arts of thinking and arguing as useful trades in the world market place.

My notebook has become a treasure chest, filled with signposts to the places where my heart stopped and started again and noticed that the world was never going to be the same. Many of those lead me back here. show less

La historia vivida por la sociedad humana y el esfuerzo científico para describirla, para pensarla e interpretarla, son los dos polos entre los que se compendian el concepto mismo de historia, ambiguo y mudable, y la relación entre pasado y presente.
Este libro es una apasionada investigación que une erudición y relato, como es ya habitual en Jacques Le Goff, y que en sus diálogos con otras disciplinas --de la filosofía a la sociología, de la antropología a la biología-- propone show more tanto una historia política, económica y social, como una historia de las representaciones, de las ideologías y de las mentalidades, de lo imaginario y de lo simbólico: en pocas palabras, una historia de la historia.

A prolific medievalist of international renown, Le Goff is sometimes considered the principal heir and continuator of the movement known as Annales School (École des Annales), founded by his intellectual mentor Marc Bloch. Le Goff succeeded Fernand Braudel in 1972 at the head of the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) and was succeeded by François Furet in 1977. Along with Pierre Nora, he was one of the leading figure of New History (Nouvelle histoire) in the 1970s.

Since then, he has dedicated himself to studies on the historical anthropology of Western Europe during medieval times. He is well-known for contesting the very name of "Middle Ages" and its chronology, highlighting achievements of this period and variations inside it, in particular by attracting attention to the Renaissance of the 12th century. show less

El usurero, tan odiado como imprescindible, está asociado con uno de los pecados capitales: la codicia. En la Edad Media cristiana, el usurero se manifiesta como un ladrón de tiempo, ¿Acaso no roba a Dios, en la medida en que el tiempo es un don divino y gratuito, y también a los cristianps, ya que prestar a interés está vedado en una comunidad fraternal? Por esa doble razón el usurero está irremediablemente condenado al infierno.
Pero ¿quién diría que esa figura da lugar a un show more espacio nuevo de ultratumba? En vísperas del auge de los grandes movimientos económicos del capitalismo moderno, la teología medieval salva al usurero del infierno. Inventa para él una morada algo menos funesta: el purgatorio. Así alcanza su doble objetivo: conservar la bolsa sin perder la vida eterna. show less