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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2023

Magico-religious Marks and Practice in Vernacular Architecture: A French Perspective

Résumé

Over the past three decades or so, a veritable school of British scholarship has emerged within vernacular architecture studies in the area of marks and practices that can be cautiously described as ritual. Researchers such as Timothy Easton, Brian Hoggard, Nick Hill and John Dean have led the way in drawing attention to the presence of marks in buildings that are neither decorative nor directly useful for the use of materials, so that only a magico-religious explanation seems to be able to explain their presence (marks made with a flame, figures drawn with a compass, etc.). Facing the scepticism of a number of academics, these researchers have convincingly gathered evidence in the field, proposed explanations in relation to written sources, and developed scientific methods of collection and analysis that have spread elsewhere in the English-speaking world. My contribution would like to illustrate the potential of this British approach for French rural architecture. In the context and extension of my thesis on the iconography and symbolism of the heart in Franche-Comté region between the end of the Middle Ages and the Revolution (2014), I have in turn begun to gather evidence of the presence of these marks and ritual practices in French vernacular architecture, benefiting not only from the expertise acquired by the British researchers, but also from their direct help, since the four aforementioned researchers did not hesitate to share with me what they had collected in France. It is possible to establish that many of the marks observed are found in France, while a few rare French written sources may contribute to our general understanding of some of these practices.
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Dates et versions

hal-04218556 , version 1 (26-09-2023)

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  • HAL Id : hal-04218556 , version 1

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Nicolas Vernot. Magico-religious Marks and Practice in Vernacular Architecture: A French Perspective. Vernacular Architecture Group Winter conference: Trans-National Connections - Vernacular Architecture in Britain & Beyond, Vernacular Architecture Group, Jan 2023, Leicester (R.-U.), United Kingdom. ⟨hal-04218556⟩
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