TY - BOOK AU - Bulman,Jan K. TI - The court book of Mende and the secular lordship of the bishop: recollecting the past in thirteenth-century Gévaudan SN - 9781442687752 AV - BX1532.M46 B85 2007eb U1 - 282/.4481 PY - 2008/// CY - Toronto [Ont.] PB - University of Toronto Press KW - Catholic Church KW - Diocese of Mende (France) KW - History KW - 13th century KW - fast KW - Court records KW - France KW - Gévaudan KW - Bishops KW - Temporal power KW - Church and state KW - Collective memory KW - Tribunaux KW - Dossiers KW - Histoire KW - 13e siècle KW - Évêques KW - Pouvoir temporel KW - Église et État KW - Église catholique KW - Mémoire collective KW - RELIGION KW - Christianity KW - Catholic KW - bisacsh KW - HISTORY KW - Europe N1 - Includes bibliographical references and index; List of the Bishops of Mende -- Map of the Gevaudan -- 1. Gevaudan to about 1200: Laying the Foundations of Remembrance -- 2. Course of Secular Lordship -- 3. Court Book and the Bishop's Court -- 4. Memoire relatif au pareage and Historical Memory N2 - Mende is a diocese in south-central France where, in the 1260s, scribes of Bishop Odilon de Mercoeur created an extensive court book or register of litigated cases. Their intention was to develop an archive for the use of the chancery as well as to preserve the causae of the episcopal court. These records would later be used by Guillaume Durand the Younger to construct a version of the past which verified episcopal secular lordship and sovereignty in response to mounting intrusion by the king of France. For all of its importance to the history of religion in France, the court book of Mende has received little attention by historians and medieval scholars. In this study, Jan K. Bulman examines the interrelationships between the written records of the ecclesiastical court, the preservation of historical memory, and the defense of episcopal seigneurial rights. Bulman shows how the bishops of Mende followed a singular strategy to defend against loss of autonomy, one that was unique in its reliance on archival records, ancient charters, and narrative hagiography. Richly presented and comprehensively researched, this will be an indispensable work for scholars of religion and the history of medieval France UR - https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&AN=468804 ER -