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À l’aube du IXe siècle, les Carolingiens prétendent imposer à l’Occident l’unité dans la foi et le culte. Cet idéal domine les pensées des empereurs qui se conçoivent comme protecteurs, législateurs et juges, mais aussi vicaires du Christ et recteurs de l’Église. De telles ambitions stimulent l’élaboration d’un gouvernement original. Comme les conquêtes avaient composé une vaste mosaïque de populations, de cultures et d’intérêts, la concorde posait un grand défi. Pour y répondre, Charlemagne et Louis le Pieux ont fait des communications leur premier outil politique. Leur inventivité et leur efficience furent appréciables, mais elles n’ont pas suffi à leur gagner toutes les adhésions : la discorde s’est installée là où l’empereur ne parvenait pas à maintenir une relation forte avec les élites régionales. Les distances et les modalités des communications déterminaient la nature de leurs échanges, donc leurs limites et, de ce fait, le destin de l’Empire carolingien. L’enquête aborde un vaste éventail documentaire : actes, capitulaires, correspondances, monnaies... Elle s’intéresse particulièrement aux relations du pouvoir impérial avec les élites du sud-ouest de l’empire. Ses résultats dépendent d’un étayage complexe : dispositifs de représentation du pouvoir, conséquences politico-sociales des distances et des vitesses de déplacement, anthropologie de la rencontre et des relations à distance, étude des réseaux. Au-delà des considérations propres à l’histoire des VIIIe-IXe siècles, elle démontre l’intérêt d’aborder les réalités politiques prémodernes du point de vue des défis que présentent les distances géographiques, les rencontres et les communications. / At the start of the 9th Century, the Carolingians intended to unite Western Europe in the Christian faith and cult. This ideal was central to the emperors’ thoughts, who considered themselves protectors, legislators and judges, even claiming to be the vicars of Christ and rectors of the Church’s institutions. Such ambitions led to the development of an original form of government. Since the conquests had composed a large mosaic of populations, cultures and interests, maintaining concord became a major difficulty for the Carolingian government. In rising to this challenge, Charlemagne and Louis the Pious made communications their foremost political tool. With inventiveness and efficiency they used communications as best they could, but it was not enough to establish long lasting unity : discordances built up where they were unable to maintain strong relations with the regional élite. Distances and means of communications determined the nature and limits of the exchanges between the political center and its peripheries, thus orienting the destiny of the Empire. This study tackles a wide variety of sources, including diplomas, capitularies, correspondences, coins... Among other things, it investigates the relations of the imperial government with the southwestern part of the Empire. The results are supported by a series of inquiries touching on representations of political authority, network studies, sociopolitical consequences of geographical distance and speed of communication, anthropological complexities of encounters and long-distance relations. Beyond the history of the 8th and 9th Centuries, it illustrates the necessity of approaching pre-modern political realities through the lens of geographical distances, meetings and communications.

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Four Middle English Charlemagne Romances are examined with the intention of disproving conventional claims that English romances of the 'Matter of France' are typically undistinguished. The manuscript of the Ashmole Sir Ferumbras is a holograph; preserved with it, on sheets which originally formed the binding, is a portion of the poem's rough draft. Comparison of the draft with the fair copy reveals something of the romancer's translational and compositional method, and illustrates well his enthusiasm for, and ability occasionally to improve upon, his French source. The fragment of The Song of Roland displays some sensitivity to the heroic essence of its famous French model. The poem also displays, however, a free, sensitive, sometimes eloquent and technically complex, adaptation of notable features of that model. The Sege of Melayne has been recognized for its energy; but extensive studies of the poem appear to have been prevented by an inability to account for the poem's lack of known sources and its use of extraordinary episodes and unusual narrative techniques. Analogues and possible influences do, however, exist; and most reveal the poem's remarkable affinity with propagandistic crusading literature. This affinity goes some way toward explaining, and allowing us to appreciate, the poem's unusual features. Rauf Coilyear is unusually described as a competent and straightforwardly humorous tale similar in spirit to its analogues. A closer look, however, shows the humour to be complicated by the seriousness of a social critique; at times the hero's experiences is far from laughable. There is, in fact, some similarity, both of incident and theme, with the best poems of the 'Gawain-group'. That a comparison with such poems (and, indeed, with 'serious' elements in the other Charlemagne romances) can convincingly be made suggests that our expectations of the poem's literary significance should be revised accordingly.

Václav Žůrek Comparison of the Use of Historical Motives in the Monarchical Legitimacy in Kingdoms of France and Bohemia in the Late Middle Ages Abstract Concepts of the past are most important parts in the formation of individual and collective identity. Medieval authors deliberately used the historical narratives as a means of enhancing the cohesion of respective social groups, usually the ruling strata of society. The doctoral thesis focuses on re-interpretations and exploitations of the past in France and Bohemia during the 14th century, on the role of historical narratives in the self-representation of the ruling dynasties Luxembourg and Valois, and on the perception of their own role in the history. Main question of the thesis is the social and literary context of the shaping of an imagination of the past: detailed comparison between the Latin and vernacular historiographical production at the royal courts in France and Bohemia bring also crucial observations as to the ways and means of cultural transfer between the respective centres of power.