For a long time in the 20th century, at a time when the discipline was undergoing major epistemological changes, the Collège de France did not have a chair teaching the history of the Western Middle Ages. While the Byzantine East was provided with specialists from 1927 until 2001 (from Gabriel Millet to Gilbert Dagron), Western medieval history remained the poor relation alongside literature, numismatics and philosophy, all of which had their own representatives. The creation of the Chair in the History of Medieval Societies, proposed by Byzantinist Paul Lemerle, was based on the realization that, having established the event and institutional history of the Middle Ages, the time had come to focus on the " complexity and normative organization of human-to-human relationships ", by tackling relatively new fields of study such as rural archaeology, kinship structures and semantics to reflect the global character and diversity of Western medieval societies, with their customs, institutions, beliefs, mentalities, artists, scholars and ideals (report dated November 30 1969).
Georges Duby, in his inaugural lecture on December 4 1970, set out his method, which was in keeping with the dynamic created by Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch, and aimed to seek out " the living man beneath the dust of archives and in the silence of museums ". The general framework is thus established, and structures the whole of his teaching for twenty years, as well as his immense editorial work, both scholarly and popular : without distorting anachronism or naivety in the face of sources, he encourages the development of a social history or history of " mentalités ", which uses the tools of anthropology and semiology (according to a theory already posited in L'Histoire et ses méthodes, 1961). His method encompasses " all of history ", all traces of man in society, and through specific analyses aims to achieve syntheses that will enable us to rediscover " la vie historique ", in Michelet's words, i.e. the articulations and interactions within a globality.
During his teaching years at the Collège de France (1970-1991), Duby adhered to his initial program of a comparative history of the aristocracies of Western Europe between the 10th and 13th centuries, through a sociology of feudal warfare (1971-1973), an analysis of power relations in France and Europe, and an attempt at what he called " an investigation into the economic psychology of the attitude of aristocracies towards the profits of seigneurial exploitation ", i. e. essays on the ideology of the aristocracy and its role in the history of France. e. essays on the ideology and imaginary at work in the society of the three orders (1973-1987). Finally, he paid particular attention to the study of kinship relations and matrimonial practices, illustrating the " private life " of medieval society, and in particular the place of women (1979-1991).
Notice written by Marc Verdure (Collège de France - Institut des Civilisations).
