L’Église et la terre dans l’Europe atlantique : péninsule Ibérique, France de l’Ouest, îles Britanniques (IXe -XIXe siècle)

The Church was the main landowner in Western Europe in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period, however, with the exception of some isolated and localized studies, the historiography has somewhat ignored this issue. Nonetheless, this is an essential issue as it affords the opportunity to question the Church’s social and regional integration and its place in economic structures. This research programme seeks to discuss existing knowledge and outline new perspectives on this theme. It will cover a long period of time stretching over almost a millennium, from the 9th to the 19th century, and will dedicate a large space to Brittany – of which there is relatively little data in this respect – but will also integrate all of the territories bordering the Atlantic Ocean from Great Britain to Portugal. Our objective is twofold 1: to compile a significant corpus of documents drawn from the Breton archives. This will enable the different facets of these properties (whether they belonged to monasteries, bishoprics, Hospitallers or parishes) to be explored through the prism of a comparative approach and then published online in the form of a digital corpus. 2: to organize three international seminars on the constitution of ecclesiastical domains, their development strategies, and the threats and alienations that affected them, and to arrange the publication of the seminar Acts.