Ce travail étudie l’écriture de l’histoire et de la fiction mythologique à la Renaissance, à partir du mythe des origines troyennes des Français. Notre corpus est centré sur les Illustrations de Gaule et singularitez de Troye (1511-1513) de Lemaire de Belges, fresque généalogique qui comprend en son cœur le récit mythologique des amours de Pâris et de la guerre de Troie, que nous avons replacé dans un vaste réseau intertextuel comprenant notamment les œuvres de Bouchet, Thenaud, Helisenne de Crenne et Ronsard. La singularité des Illustrations en fait un observatoire privilégié des relations entre l’histoire et la fiction poétique à la Renaissance, permettant d’analyser les différents degrés d’intégration de la fable dans un discours de nature historiographique, sur les plans poétique, rhétorique et stylistique. Nous avons d’une part retracé l’histoire du mythe troyen entre la fin du Moyen Âge et la fin de la Renaissance, de façon à mesurer le renouvellement auquel a procédé Lemaire et l’influence que son œuvre a exercée au XVIe siècle ; nous avons d’autre part analysé le traitement différencié qu’il réserve à la mythologie à l’intérieur de l’œuvre, montrant que le mythe y est à la fois l’objet d’une quête des origines et un récit vraisemblable qui tend vers la fable ; enfin, étudiant les évolutions rhétoriques et stylistiques entre les différentes parties, nous avons mis en évidence la tension entre l’exigence de propriété du discours historiographique et l’élaboration d’une prose « poétique » nouvelle, haute en « couleurs de rhétorique » et en partie artificielle. L’œuvre nous donne ainsi accès à l’imaginaire historique et poétique de la Renaissance. / This dissertation studies historical writing and mythological fiction in the Renaissance, taking its starting point in the myth of the Trojan origins of the Franks. Although centered upon Lemaire de Belges’s Illustrations de Gaule et singularitez de Troye (1511-1513), a grand genealogical fresco containing the legendary narratives of the loves of Pâris and of the Trojan War, the corpus extends to a vast intertextual network that includes the works of Bouchet, Thenaud, Helisenne de Crenne, and Ronsard. The uniqueness of the Illustrations is such that it allows us to observe and analyze with conspicuous acuity the interactions, at the time of the Renaissance, between history and poetic fiction. In particular, it enables us to measure the extent to which fiction may be merged with historical narrative, and to articulate the distinctive features of the two writing styles from poetic, rhetorical, and stylistic points of view. On the one hand, we consider the history of the Trojan myth from the Middle Ages to the end of the Renaissance. On the other, we analyze the special treatment reserved for mythology within the work, showing that the Trojan myth is both a quest in search of the true origins of a people and a plausible narrative embellished in highly imaginative prose. Finally, observing the differences among the various parts of the work, we shed light on the tension between a neutral and matter-of-fact style of the sort required by historical writing and a newly invented “poetic prose” enriched with rhetorical devices and freshly crafted expressions. The Illustrations is thus seen to open an exceptional window upon the historical and poetic worlds of the Renaissance.

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.