EUROPANGE

Europe is currently debating the methods and foundations of its own political integration; it is also questioning the role of states and regions in this process. The problems arising from current situations are unsettling the legacy and the secular processes that have shaped both our political and our administrative culture, a culture in which the three last centuries of the Middle Ages have played a crucial role; such problems also force historians to consider and reconsider the slow, constitutive movements that led not only to the emergence of states during the medieval period, but also to a specific mode of control and political discourse for which Michel Foucault coined the term “governmentality”. To grasp the pace and methods of the development of polities requires a similar reflection taking longue durées into consideration. Only then can we assess the specificities of our current political institutions, the deep and ancient patterns that have shaped them, and their capabilities and limitations in face of scale change. The period running from the 13th to the 15th Century represent an ideal moment for observing these phenomena, for this is when organizations, discourses, methods and administrative bodies are established, thus allowing national and princely states to take shape. The specific type of political construction under consideration here will provide an excellent viewpoint for examining these processes, especially the regional-level political constructs that are not restricted by any cultural or linguistic unit. For the sovereign and his agents, they represented a new challenge in administrating humans and objects. These fragmented political constructs, sometimes based on personal unions, precisely did not bring about a permanent legacy with respect to the Nation States that eventually emerged in the modern and contemporary periods. For this reason, they were neglected for a long time by national historiographies that considered them a priori unviable. To the contrary, we believe that their pragmatism and their capabilities to synthesize and make political and administrative innovations provide an ideal approach to the study of the aforementioned processes and situations. The territories under Anjou domination from the 13th to the 15th Century constitute a case in point that is well documented at the continental level. Our project examines one of its most significant aspects, through the emergence of a milieu and a political society, by questioning the constitution of a corps of administrators – the officers – along with their networks, education, and know-how in the diverse territories under Anjou domination: Anjou, Maine, Provence, Lorraine, the South of Italy, Sicily, Piedmont, Lombardy and Tuscany, Hungary, Poland, Morea and the Balkans. This entity, disjointed in space and discontinuous in time, questions the political authorities’ ability to unite, administrate and create a common political discourse, which highlight and make particularly relevant the current reflections on European construction. What is thus also at stake in questioning our shared political past is a way to comprehend this construction through a study of its agents, the officers. A prosopographical database will provide the initial research tool for a reflection to be conducted at the international level.