DISTINGUO: a Knowledge Base on "Distinctiones", the Backbones of Medieval Preaching – DISTINGUO

- XML TEI encoding of source data and texts
- close reading for the analysis of source material

Task 1 – Build a publicly available knowledge base on medieval distinctiones in the context of preaching
Tasks 1.a (cover all the main distinctiones collections), 1.b (work at upgrading the indexation) and 1.c (expand the scope of the knowledge base) are running for the duration of the project. We hired a postdoc researcher who has been working for 9 months on the fully detailed indexation and encoding of two major collections of the 13th century. After heavy work on the major collections (Task 1.b) we will concentrate on Task 1.a. Task 1.c is progressing through the preparation of an edition of the Sermones ad status by Guibert de Tournai, forthcoming in 2022: the printed book will send the reader to our DISTINGUO database for the index of distinctions, and index which will in turn point to the corresponding pages in the book.
Task 1.d - amelioration of the digital infrastructure of the knowledge base is of a different nature. It was initially planned for the spring of 2022, but I am now willing to reschedule this part for spring 2023.

Task 2 – scientific meetings
Task 2.a – international conference: our main scientific event, supposed to kickstart the communication about DISTINGUO, was initially scheduled to take place in Prague in 24-25 April 2020. We were able to reformat the event as an online conference in June 2020 (https://distinguo.hypotheses.org/131).
Task 2.b – seminar on distinctions: the first session took place in February 2020, (http://ciham.msh-lse.fr/node/1653). I hope to resume the seminar as normal in 2022.

Task 3 – Scientific publications on the topic of the project
None of the subtasks of Task 3 were scheduled to be delivered within the first 18 months. Task 3.a - monograph on distinctiones in the context of preaching is in progress. Task 3.b - dissemination of the results through journal articles: see the Scientific production section. Task 3.c - Open Access publication of sources texts: in progress.

La principale difficulté rencontrée est, sans surprise, le COVID-19. Ses conséquences ont bien sûr été multiples: impossibilité d'organiser une conférence internationale, impossibilité d'avoir accès à des bibliothèques, difficultés de recrutement, bouleversement des emplois du temps des enseignants-chercheurs, etc.
Heureusement, nous avons pu contourner la plupart de ces difficultés, notamment:
- Reformatage de la conférence internationale vers une série de sessions en ligne;
- Recrutement en travail à distance;
- Réseau d'entraide pour l'échange de documentation.

Malgré les difficultés générales liées au contexte, l’avancement du projet est en conformité avec la plupart des objectifs de départ. Le travail est en cours, une partie des données doit donc encore être acquise et enrichie. Les résultats sont à ce stade partiels, bien évidemment, et vont être progressivement complétés et amplifiés. Les premiers travaux ont permis d'améliorer considérablement la qualité des données sur les principales collections du XIIIe siècle (Nicolas de Gorra, Nicolas de Biar et Maurice de Provins), et de jeter un éclairage nouveau sur la collection d'Arnaud Royard, les Collecta ex distinctionibus Prepositini et les distinctiones de la Summa prelatorum de William de Pagula. La conférence en ligne de juin 2020 a permis d'éveiller l'intérêt d'une communauté de chercheurs autour des distinctions.

1. Sophie Delmas, «Les prologues de recueils de Distinctiones. Le cas du franciscain Arnaud Royard«, dans Etudes franciscaines, n. s. 13, 2020, fasc. 2, p. 235-249.
2. Marjorie Burghart, «Remploi textuel et fluidité de la materia predicabilis. Le cas du Speculum prelatorum de William de Pagula († 1332)«, dans Revue Mabillon, 31 (T. 92)/2020, p. 109-147.
3. Marjorie Burghart, «Les Collecta ex distinctionibus Prepositini. Présentation et édition« dans Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome, 133/1 – 2021, p. 169-198.

The study of medieval preaching – and its main source, the sermon – offers a privileged insight into intellectual work and its techniques. This vast system of mass communication of the Church’s message and its values left a wealth of written traces, bearing witness to the ordinary, daily preaching that was offered throughout all of Christendom. Through this source, we can approach the persuasion strategies and also the tools used by the preachers in their intellectual work. Among those tools was the distinctio. This technique, extremely widespread in the Middle Ages from the late 12th c. onwards, consisted of considering a word according to its various senses, properties or characteristics, and supporting them with biblical citations. Distinctiones were a key ingredient of sermons from the early 13th c. onwards, just like exempla (short narratives used for persuasion), but contrary to the latter, distinctiones have never been studied in depth or even surveyed properly.
The aim of the DISTINGUO project is to bridge this gap, first by developing a knowledge base and finding aid on medieval distinctiones in the context of preaching, laying the necessary foundation for a new field of study, and then by implementing a research programme exploring the use of distinctiones, their circulation, their link with exegesis, their mnemotechnic utilization, etc.