In nomine patris... Elements for a semantics of medieval paternity
Nicolas Perreaux
This article examines medieval concepts of paternity and father-son
relationships through the digital analysis of medieval textual corpora.
Although historians have access to enormous digital collections in 2023, they
have rarely fully exploited these resources. The author proposes a historical
semantic approach to this theme, using modeling tools and text mining in
general, to analyze the evolution of terms related to paternity. The study
proposes three conclusions: 1. a semantic break occurred in the semantic field
of paternity at the turn of Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. The meaning of
pater and its derivatives changed radically over the course of the 4th-6th
centuries, particularly as a result of the influence of the dogma of the
Christian Trinity. Medieval fatherhood was multidimensional, encompassing both
biological and spiritual aspects, in other words, complex relationships between
multiple carnal and spiritual (i.e. divine) fathers. 2. The role of spiritual
kinship is crucial to understanding medieval fatherhood, as the work of Anita
Guerreau-Jalabert and J{\'e}r{\^o}me Baschet has already shown. Initially
attributed to God, this ''ideal paternity'' (paternitas) gradually extended to
members of the Church (popes, bishops, abbots), underlining at the same time
the growing importance of spiritual kinship over biological kinship over the
centuries studied. 3. To reveal these structures, invisible to the naked eye,
an interdisciplinary approach is rigorously required. Complementary
investigations into the lemmas mater, filia, frater and other family terms are
required. The use of digital tools and historical semantic analysis opens up
new perspectives for researchers in history, anthropology, linguistics and data
mining, enabling them to explore the representation systems of ancient
societies in depth and with nuance.