This thesis examines French and English trade voyages and trade colonies in North American during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and French and English relations with Native Americans. The colonies of Port Royal, Jamestown, and Sagadahoc included members of previous French and English trade voyages and depended on the experience and information gained during trade voyages to formulate their economic objectives and colonial policies. French and English North American activity was intrinsically connected in this era through a plethora of amiable and competitive associations. National, transnational, and regional frameworks are all necessary in explaining Port Royal, Jamestown, and Sagadahoc. French and English interaction with Native American groups during these voyages and colonies was distinctly similar, and the diverse cultures of the native Mi’kmaq, Eastern Abenaki, Powhatans, and Armouchiquois, rather than the divisions between French and English culture, were central in shaping colonist-Native relations in the seventeenth century.

While the benefits of analysing social networks within the wider humanities are becoming more accepted, very little work of this kind has been done in medieval studies. This thesis seeks to begin to fill this lacuna by considering the advantages of examining historical moments through the lens of ‘network’. Focusing on the later medieval world (in particular c.1300-1520), but also drawing on parallel evidence from the modern day, it demonstrates how the paradigm of ‘network’ allows a more nuanced reading of, predominantly literary, historical moments, which in turn reveals a deeper understanding of collective social thinking and behaviour. This new methodological approach is threefold, drawing on analytic tools from various disciplines. It blends historical contextual investigation with literary analysis, and frames the results in the sociological and anthropological theories of belonging, exchange, and play. The thesis is structured around four case studies, each of which demonstrates a particular form of network formation, and also shows how far these networks reflect their respective cultural milieus and influences. Three medieval chapters focus on what I term ‘literary networks’, a concept ripe for network analysis thanks to the highly participatory nature of medieval literature, and thus theoretically comparable to modern networks based around information exchange. Across the thesis, instances of formal, informal, and virtual networks are considered from medieval France and England, as well as the twenty-first century West. This combination of interdisciplinary method and structure allows innovative new readings of underappreciated sources, whilst also highlighting a transhistorical continuum of universal appeals to social networks: namely, the satisfaction of the human need to belong, the facilitation of competitive play, and the opportunity to acquire social capital and build reputations. This investigative synthesis between medieval material and more modern network evidence reveals that, while realised through unrecognisably altered technologies and experiencing some resultant disruptions, these fundamental appeals of social network membership, in part, remain constant between the two periods.

This thesis deals with the fable collection called Mishle Shu'alim, written by the Jewish author Berechiah ben Natronai ha-Nakdan who lived in the 12th/13th century either in France or in England. The aim of this thesis is to introduce the work along with the genre of the fable and its examples in Jewish literature of the Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Bible, Talmud, midrashic literature and a few of medieval scripts). The essential part of the thesis contains information about the author and all his works, characterization and analysis of the collection, and the list of the existing manuscripts, all known editions, and all translations of the collection or those of individual fables. Special attention is being paid to the Prague Jesuit edition of 1661. The thesis furthermore contains a commented translation of three selected fables.

En déplaçant les problématiques traditionnelles - celles des analyses strictement nationales - cette thèse propose d'explorer, à l'aide d'une perspective comparative, l'importance donnée au critère moral par la critique, française et anglaise, lors de sa réception de la peinture victorienne. Le corpus de ce travail s'appuie sur l'étude successive des œuvres anglaises présentées tant aux expositions universelles parisiennes (1855, 1867, 1878 et 1889) qu'à la Royal Academy et des commentaires critiques publiés dans la presse spécialisée ou non. Cette démarche révèle la dynamique des échanges interculturels entre les deux pays autour de la question morale et met en évidence l'existence d'une réception nationaliste de l'art par la critique. Dès lors, le jugement porté sur une œuvre par un critique dépend de sa culture, de son goût, mais aussi plus largement du contexte social et des principes propres à sa société. À ce titre, le climat de compétition entre la France et l'Angleterre se retrouve dans les articles et ouvrages publiés de chaque coté de la Manche. De puissants débats critiques mettent en lumière les processus d'appropriation et de rejet participant à la définition des deux cultures artistiques. Ils réunissent art et morale en interrogeant l'existence d'un « grand genre » victorien, l'exposition comme un espace permettant à la critique de circonscrire un art national et de se définir elle-même, ainsi que l'influence moraliste de John Ruskin (1819-1901) sur la société et son art. L'hétérogénéité de la profession de critique d'art associée à la plasticité du mot « morale » permet donc à ce travail de proposer une définition de la peinture victorienne et de ses acteurs. / By shifting the traditional issues - those of strictly national analyses - this thesis proposes to explore, using a comparative perspective, the importance given to the moral criterion by critics, French and English, when receiving Victorian painting. The corpus of this work is based on the successive study of English paintings presented at the “Expositions universelles” in Paris (1855, 1867, 1878 and 1889) as well as at the Royal Academy, and of the critical comments published in the press specialized or not. This approach reveals the dynamics of intercultural exchanges between the two countries around the moral issue and highlights the existence of a nationalist reception of art by critics. Consequently, a critic's judgment of a painting depends on their culture, their taste, but also more broadly on the social context and the principles specific to their society. As such, the competitive climate between France and England is reflected in the articles and books published on both sides of the English Channel. Powerful critical debates highlight the processes of appropriation and rejection that contribute to the definition of the two artistic cultures in relation to each other. They bring art and morality together by questioning the existence of a Victorian “grand genre”, the exhibition as a place for critics to circumscribe a national art and define themselves, as well as John Ruskin's (1819-1901) moralist influence on society and the art it produces. The heterogeneity of the art criticism profession associated with the plasticity of the word “moral” therefore allows this work to propose a definition of Victorian painting and its actors.

Although Philippe de Mézières (ca 1327-1405) was born into a not very influential gentry family from northern France, his steep career brought him to the Holy Land. As a diplomat and an ardent supporter of the idea of the Crusades, he got to visit the most important European royal courts, thus securing the attention of historians. He consciously reflects the political and social climate in Europe at the time, he explores religious issues and even own experiences - in short, de Mézières vast literary work is one of the most remarkable images of Europe during the late Middle Ages and the thinking of a medieval man of a high social status. Thanks to Philippe de Mézières' presence at the Royal Court of Charles IV in Prague and their likely meeting in Paris in 1378, we can trace evident links to Luxembourg politics in his work, to the Czech Kingdom and even to Charles IV himself, including his son Wenceslas. As a Crusades theoretician, de Mézières got himself involved in the highest levels of European politics, yet he constantly emphasized the need for morality, peace and cohesiveness in the courts. The thesis uses an example of one of de Mézières' later works, his Letter to Richard II (Epistre au roi Richarti, 1395), to explore diplomatic ties in Western Europe in the fourteenth century and pursues...