Les pierres du Moyen Âge: anthologie des lapidaires médiévaux

Abstract

The Middle Ages believed in the powers of precious stones: their medicinal and magical virtues were recorded in encyclopedic treatises, otherwise known as lapidaries. This knowledge, inherited from antiquity, remained perennial for centuries: diamond makes one invincible; sapphire rescues prisoners; emerald cures vision problems; amethyst protects from intoxication; hematite stops haemorrhages, etc. The powers attributed to the stones are proceeded by analogies, a mode of thought that prevailed throughout the medieval period. This anthology of the medieval lapidaries proposes for the first time a bilingual edition of these texts long misunderstood and still largely unknown, with a selection of excerpts in the old and middle French accompanied by their translation.