Why Walter Benjamin? A Brief Note on Two Operas

Hélène Aji, University of Paris West Nanterre Why write about Walter Benjamin's life? Why write in the form of the libretto for an opera? Or, what differentiates the poetic activity of writing a text for reading from that of writing a text for singing? What makes poets turn to opera, at specific historical moments, and choose specific topics for their reflections? Why do they experience an aesthetic, and more importantly, an ethical imperative to combine their words with music?

With Michael Heller's Constellations of Waking 1 and Charles Bernstein's Shadowtime 2 , the melancholy at work in both operas effectively undermines the Modernist claim for emotion-free impersonality, as both poets opt for the mode of direct interaction with an audience. However, the operas' respective modalities diverge, and yet they haveone striking point in common: both librettos are based on the life of Walter Benjamin. The question here may have to be, then, whether or not either opera is faithful to Benjamin's Modernist legacy, especially as regards his valorizing of fragmentalism that might, logically at least, preclude literary, even musical, elements in an opera that elicit pathos. This problem (is it a repudiaton of Modernism, of Benjamin, or of both?) becomes all the more interesting since Bernstein's and Heller's ways of unfolding diverge in ways worth our attention in thinking about not only the cultural moment of late Modernism but also the later moment of their creation. At the turn of the millennium, the two operas are crafted and then performed nearly simultaneously-by two poets who are inheritors of the Objectivist poetics, and who are Jewish, and whose respective poetries are seemingly unlike.

What they both sought is arguably, however, to bring out into the open poetry's and music's kinship, and to do that in keeping with Benjamin's memory, and relevance to the present of composition.

We are well aware of the ambiguities and ambivalences of the relationships between poetry and music, starting with the assertion of hierarchies that alternately and contradictorily rank music higher than poetry because music is not language-based, or poetry higher than music because poetry is language-based. Poetry and music seem to compete in the ongoing search for expression, better communication with the public, an efficient transmission of emotions and concepts. A primary moment in this articulation of poetry and music within the context of a normative project, which would define a hierarchy among the arts, is of course Hegelian, quickly reformulated and broadcast by Walter Pater's assertions according to which poetry should "aspire to the condition of music." Yet if one pays attention, for instance, to Pater's conclusions in The Renaissance, there might be the possibility of less dogma, less value-setting and above all lessdual relationship between words and music. Such a relationship would take into account the audience as the recipient of discourses that can come in various forms of expression and above all in hybrid forms of expression that combine the potentialities of several media at once. The postwar practices of the installation and of the happening, and the increasing stress put on performance, testify to this intense commitment to direct expression and interaction. A corollary of this strategic move towards a greater attention paid to reception is that it draws a link between art and life, and attempts to outline the meaningfulness and usefulness of art in life: from Novalis, Pater had already taken over the interrogation about the way we pass through life, unheeding most of the time and unaware of the intensity of experience, and of the aesthetic quality, and philosophical dimension of each passing moment. In this respect, the more recent developments can be understood as a radicalization of these preoccupations rather than as a fundamental innovation. Pater writes that theservice of philosophy, of speculative culture, towards the human spirit, is to rouse, to startle it to a life of constant and eager observation. Every moment some form grows perfect in hand or face; some tone on the hills or the sea is choicer than the rest; some mood of passion or insight or intellectual excitement is irresistibly real and attractive to us,--for that moment only. Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end. A counted number of pulses only is given to us of a variegated, dramatic life.

How may we see in them all that is to be seen in them by the finest senses? How shall we pass most swiftly from point to point, and be present always at the focus where the greatest number of vital forces unite in their purest energy? 3

The intensity of the moment, the awareness of experience, and the more general issue of being present to one's own life motivate the resort to art, "for art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments' sake, and we have an interval, and then our place knows us no more. Some spend this interval in listlessness, some in high passions, the wisest, at least among the children of this world, in art and song." 4 The mention of "song" is symptomatic of the implicit hierarchy of the modes of expression that underpins Pater's reflections, and opens onto the idea that the alliance of music and text results in the conditions of a higher type of life experience. In this perspective, Stéphane Mallarmé's legendary reaction to Claude Debussy's setting of L'Après-midi d'un faune, to its music, does not only remind us of the poetic claim for the musicality of language (why set the poem to music when its words are in themselves a musical composition?) but also of the tendency of music to be aware of itself as a higher art possessing more power to impress than words: it signals the possibility for the competitive relationship between poetry and music to be turned into a cooperative relationship whereby both would gain.

More specifically, the operatic mode can thus be seen as a way of putting poetry on the stage, hence anticipating today's mixed media experiments of many poetic performances. It emerges as a way to address the public directly by turning a silent, invisible, and hypothetical readership into the actuality of an audience that would be physically present to collectively experience the work. This development ties in with the increasingly didactic intention of Modernism as the 20 th century enters the post-WWI era. The combined reaction to the historical contingency at work in the unpredictable outbreak of war in August 1914, and to the unspeakable horrors of a long and deadly conflict, accounts for Ezra Pound's renunciation of the aestheticizing antiques of his pre-war years, and his growing interest in the affairs of the world, economic and political. His 1919 opera, Le Testament de Villon, is not simply a piece of evidence in the narrative of Ezra Pound's interest in music, especially in the music of Igor Stravinsky or George Antheil, and his desire to assert his polymorphous genius by being a composer as well as a poet.

Nor is it to be considered just as part of his more general interest in things European, ancient or medieval, which produced a whole corpus of translations from the Latin or the Provençal. Rather the composition of Le Testament resorts to a type of appropriation, not only of the musical modes that Pound finds in George Antheil's music compositions or in Stravinsky's, but also of the very life of the French medieval poet, in ways that raise issues about the relevance of this life to the poet-cum-composer's present.

In the case of Villon, it seems, the very nature of the text put to music bears witness to Pound's preoccupations concerning the poet's place in the world, and the part to be played by poetry in the shaping of individual and collective destinies. Pound's Villon is a "testament," thereby reenacting an assessment of one's life, its significance, and its errors, with the aim of shaping the way future generations will perceive of one's life and will accordingly behave. The moral and didactic dimension of Villon's autobiographical project asserts the posture of the poet as guide ("psychopomp"), whereas Pound's creation of an opera on this poet's life aims to perform this intention in the fullest sense of the term: as a modern opera, in keeping with the contemporary experiments in musical composition, Pound's Villon stands for the artist's revaluation of his actions once history has denied him the option of dandyish aloofness and ironic distance.

Commitment is compulsory, and each life is in this respect exemplary. As Pound dabbles in opera, he in fact chooses a form and media that unwittingly converge with Bertolt Brecht's objectives in his collaboration with Kurt Weill: the opera becomes a social mode of expression, the combination of text and music contributing to the impact of a message to the masses, the theatrical dimension of operatic performance allowing for the audience's awareness.

The topics chosen for the opera are most often individual lives that become emblematic of collective quandaries-the fact that Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thompson's own opera, Four Saints in Three Acts, rethinks the lives, and the significance of the lives of [Ignace de Loyola and Therese of Avila is in this sense symptomatic. The choice of opera is indeed a strongly individualistic ideological choice, since it also addresses a question lying at the very foundation of the Modernist dynamic, namely the claim for impersonality, the rejection of nostalgia and the general diffidence (though impossible to dismiss) of emotion. Where Pound might have proclaimed in the Imagist manifesto that one is to erase any trace of the "I," and that emotion should be banished from the poem to preserve and convey the integrity of direct sensation, he becomes later preoccupied with the "transmittibility of a conviction," 5 that brings back affect into the poet's work with a vengeance. The aim is not only to generate aesthetic pleasure but also to persuade and win over the addressee's opinion. The implications of Pound's decision to put art in the service of ideology are extremely serious, as one is well aware, and undeniable; his resort to a large number of poetic modes to this effect is well documented, and opera is actually one of them.

But besides the very questionable contents of Pound's project, there lies a seminal interrogation over the means of communication between a poet and his audience, the unavoidable part played by affect, and the consequently tantamount importance of formal decisions. The Poundian operatic experiment thus reverberates in the works of later poets whose own work leads them to reconsider the involved relationship between the poet and the public.

Here we should turn back to Bernstein and Heller. And the main question, then, in this regard, may have to be whether or not either opera, apart from poetic-operatic forbears, is faithful to Benjamin's Modernism that might have been forced by its own premises, in part rejecting the narrativity of Romanticism, to reject voice and pathos. This problem becomes more interesting since Bernstein's and Heller's respective operatic practices diverge or simply manifest as if emerging out of two distinct sets of experiences, partaking of two distinct linguistic, musical and dramaturgical sensibilities. (What this might tell us about Jewish-American, avant-garde perspectives is a matter only to be dealt with in passing.) Arguably, the composition of operas around the figure of Walter Benjamin attests to a shared "radicality of critique" (Hannah Arendt's own words about Benjamin's brand of Marxism), which both poets practice--although in different ways according to whether one considers Michael Heller's work or Charles Bernstein's.

Both are New York poets, but their respective operas diverge in the way they draw the consequences of the Objectivist movement's poetic decisions. Indeed, the rift between the two originates, doubly, in the relationship they establish to the medium of their art (language) and the opposite positions they adopt in the debate over emotion in poetry. As one of the founding poets of the Language school of poetry, Charles Bernstein does indeed posit himself as a strong advocate of diffidence in front of referentiality, and against meaningfulness-insisting on the dangers of what he calls "absorption," another term to define identification and empathetic projection. The poem is not supposed to impose an interpretation on the reader, nor is it to transmit an explicit meaning: it is rather to evidence the way textual practice may undermine or enforce hegemonic modes that would otherwise remain unperceived. Bernstein works on disrupting the mechanisms of meaning production, so as to question the tactics of persuasion whose power lies in their very conventionality.

Differently, as one of the last Objectivists in the line of George Oppen, Michael Heller's commitment (though not necessarily his ideas) is more explicitly conveyed through his poems, and not left almost entirely for the reader to work out for himself: where Bernstein's take on the life of Walter Benjamin seems to stress the aleatoric nature of fate, and the dismantling of causality under the pressure of an absurd war, moreover, Heller's reading redoubles the tragic dimension of Benjamin's demise, the struggle against overpowering forces, and the despair of the witness to the failure of rationality. Heller's text appropriates words from Benjamin's correspondence, whereas Bernstein's tries to establish echoes and parallels between Benjaminian statements and the statements of other major figures. Heller's Benjamin poem is constructed as the long monologue of the dead, forever the object of misunderstanding, and of an obstinate quest for sense and reason; Bernstein's enacts the conflation of competing voices in a virtual cacophony that irredeemably fails to attain stability and coherence. Thus both draw their capability, be it negative in Bernstein, or positive in Heller, from the aporia of remembrance as an epistemological tool.

Consequently, whereas Shadowtime will not shed light on the life of Walter Benjamin, thus making us experience the darkness of his time, and will endlessly postpone understanding, Heller's text will emerge as a response in itself to the radical incomprehension in front of the unspeakable crimes of humanity-as well as the enraging ironies of history (since Benjamin commits suicide when he thinks he won't be able to cross the border into Spain... and that border is reopened to refugees very shortly afterwards). In both cases, then, the fact that the poetic text is a libretto for an opera-either composed for a specific music (by Brian Ferneyhough in the case of Bernstein) or composed along with a specific musical composition (by Ellen Fishman Johnson for Heller)-provides a supplement of information about the poet's intention. Yet, where Ferneyhough's music is often atonal, and difficult, intensifying the rejection of the reader by adding the rejection of the listener to it, Fishman Johnson's music is charged with pathos, underlining the nostalgia and regret that inform the poem.

Actually, the resort to the operatic form forces the emotional response to the thematic dimension of the poem. The focus on the figure of Walter Benjamin, in the early years of the 21 st century, works as a redirection of interpretation that revises the man's historical standing to recontextualize it in the present-a present that existentially is emotional, full of the uncertainties and dogmatic attempts of millennial anxiety, as Heller writes that:

The audience was rapt, each actor made a gesture, turned their feelings into lessons. 6 Perhaps it is because our new millennium fails, to a large extent, to fulfill the expectations of renewal and enlightenment, to look more and more like an irrepressible "katabasis," 7 that these operas on Walter Benjamin in 2000 (Heller) and in 2004 (Bernstein) were inevitable. In her account of Walter Benjamin's life, 8 Hannah Arendt evokes his "bad luck," and recalls the way Benjamin refers to the legend of the little hunchback in his article about Franz Kafka. 9 According to that legend, clumsiness and bad luck are the signs of the failure of attention to the surrounding world, but they are also the consequences of the annoying tricks being played by that invisible, impish little hunchback. According to the poem that so struck Benjamin in his childhood, the creature is the unwanted companion of a number of people. 10 The little hunchback is the engineer of the unexpected events that make one drop something, stumble... or lose all bearings in the world to rush to a tragic and absurd death. "The person," says Benjamin, "that the little hunchback is watching pays attention neither to himself nor to him. He is standing there in awe in front of a heap of rubble." 11 Symptomatically it is retrospection, and the attempt to make sense of our lives, to discern a life's potential for exemplariness and collective meaningfulness, which entail the parallel between legend and personal life. The two narratives merge to inscribe a kind of causality, however irrational and superstitious, that ironically justifies the irrational developments one faces in the present. Thanks to the acknowledgement of the hunchback's so far ignored presence and activities, the present might be revised into a (para)logical moment. Arendt relates this mental process to Benjamin's Marxian, as well as Goethian, interest in what she calls "the superstructure," 12 : a network of correspondences between apparently unrelated objects, events, individuals, which, once explicit, reveals the hidden mechanisms of the world and gives reason to the unreasonable. The textualization of the fragmentary elements of acausal existence lends it causality through re-narrativization. In Bernstein's project, the music reintroduces the aleatoric dimension; in Heller's project, the music underlines the sadness of such artificial linearity.

Thus the operas remind us of the collective fate underpinning Benjamin's personal interest in the very small things in the world, and his plan to seek and evidence the affinities between discrepant artifacts: they proceed from a quest, a deadly quest one is tempted to say, for an archetypal phenomenon in which signification (Bedeutung) and things would coincide. So the respective music but librettos as well are strategically far apart, the one relentlessly atonal, the other equally relentlessly lyrical. The two together nonetheless invite comparison insofar as they enact possible readings into Benjamin, and evidence his work's usefulness and necessity. It is the Benjaminian (rather than Benjamin) that lives again for us only when we contemplate the two together. In both poets' operas it is the renunciation of, and even the rebellion against such belief in the superstructure that motivates the collecting and collaging of statements and citations, that in fact so resembles the original Benjaminian archive project. The diffidence to preconceived structures that cannot but yield preconceived perceptions and thoughts is thus to be found in the discrepant partition of Bernstein's text, as well as in the unsettling double structure of Heller's libretto which unfolds along two parallel, sometimes intersecting, synchronic columns.

As underlined by Hannah Arendt in her biographical essay on Benjamin, some lives follow a trajectory which connects moments according to a teleology that eludes the individual living through them, so that decisions are made unawares and at odds with logic, choices are taken that instead of countering disaster put one on its most direct path, and one's existence appears to one "as a pile of rubble," from which making sense is, to say the least, a challenge.Is it possible that awareness of the millennial turn awakened in all of us a new or renewed sense of the rubble of the twentieth-century, for all its momentous triumphs, as well as its utter depravity and tragedy? If the tragedy is beyond words, Benjamin might allow us to confront the paradox of persistent expression-something Adorno's post-Holocaust declarations about poetry excluded emphatically. In both Heller and Bernstein's work, there is a shared sensibility after all, a common unsettledness, and an obstinacy of communication, calling attention to the defects inherent in our human condition. In a similar fashion to the Proust described by Benjamin, and in a similar fashion to the Benjamin described by Arendt, we are "utterly unable to change the life conditions which destroy [us]." [We will] die from "not knowing how to light a fire, or how to open a window." 13 The insistence on the vital nature of these simple gestures turns them into allegorical representations of our general, collective difficulty of dealing with events, texts and ideologies, sending us back to the contradictions and impossiblities that make us human.

The work remains unpublished to this day, but has been performed, and excerpts can be watched on YouTube, such as the chorus in Act 5 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfu2lyl4fkM last accessed Sept.

29, 2014). 2 Charles Bernstein & Brian Ferneyhough. Shadowtime. London, England NMC Recordings, 2006.


David Carpentier

Edmond Orignac

Measuring overlaps in mesoscopic spin glasses via conductance fluctuations

We consider the electonic transport in a mesoscopic metallic spin glasses. We show that the distribution of overlaps between spin configurations can be inferred from the reduction of the conductance fluctuations by the magnetic impurities. Using this property, we propose new experimental protocols to probe spin glasses directly through their overlaps.

Understanding the physics of glasses remains one of the deepest experimental and theoretical challenge in condensed matter. Considered as the simplest glassy phases, spin glasses have attracted considerable attention both experimental and theoretical during more than thirty years [START_REF] Balian | Ill condensed matter, Les Houches Summer School[END_REF][START_REF] Parisi | Complex Systems, Les Houches Summer School[END_REF]. In spin glasses, magnetic moments occupying random positions in a host lattice get frozen with random orientation below a spin glass transition temperature T SG . The initial theoretical efforts were devoted to the solution of equilibrium lattice models. This culminated with the mean-field solution of the fully connected Sherrington-Kirckpatrick (SK) model [START_REF] Parisi | [END_REF], now proven to provide the exact free energy [4,5]. However, an intense theoretical debate remains around the relevance of the SK model to the thermodynamic properties of three dimensional spin glasses. Although the initial theoretical studies were focused on the thermodynamics, it was long known that spin glass materials drop out of equilibrium below T SG , and never reach a steady state. This has led to the development of various models of nonequilibrium spin glass dynamics including a scaling approach [START_REF] Bray | Heidelberg Colloquium on Glassy Dynamics and Optimization[END_REF][START_REF] Fisher | [END_REF], phenomenological trap models [8], and more recently aging studies of the mean field models (see [START_REF] Cugliandolo | Slow relaxations and nonequilibrium dynamics in condensed matter[END_REF] and ref. therein). In the simplest scaling approach to spin glasses, the thermodynamics below T SG consists, in constrast to mean-field solutions, of a doubly degenerate broken Z 2 symmetry ground state (for Ising spins). All the non-trivial properties of the spin glass state are then assumed to be consequences of the extremely slow relaxation toward this ground state resulting from the slow growth of small domains (droplets) of equilibrium phase, similar to ferromagnet quench.

In view of the current understanding of the spin glass state, it is a worthwhile goal to propose new probes of their properties. A central quantity in current theoretical descriptions of spin glasses is the overlap between two spin configurations defined as (N imp being the number of spins)

Q 12 = 1 N imp Nimp i=1 S (1) i . S (2) i th . (1)
Configurations overlaps gives access to distances between spins configurations, as opposed to conventional probes like spin susceptibility. For configurations corresponding to equilibrium states in the same sample, overlap distribution is the equilibrium order parameter [START_REF] Parisi | Complex Systems, Les Houches Summer School[END_REF]. For configurations taken in the same quench but at different times, overlaps characterize the glass aging [START_REF] Cugliandolo | Slow relaxations and nonequilibrium dynamics in condensed matter[END_REF]. Besides, other physical effects such as temperature or disorder chaos [START_REF] Katzgraber | [END_REF] are described in terms of spins overlaps. It is the purpose of this letter to propose the first experimental probe of these central quantities via the study of conductance fluctuations in mesoscopic metallic spin glasses. The dependance of the average conductance fluctuations on magnetic impurities was first analyzed by Althuler and Spivak [11]. Soon after, Feng et al. [12], building on these results, predicted within the scaling approach a chaotic behavior of conductance as a function of temperature in a spin glass. Parallel to these theoretical developments, experimental measurements of conductance fluctuations in metallic spin glasses by de Vegvar et al. [13] (see also [14]) demonstrated for the first time a clear signature of the spin glass freezing in the time-reversal antisymmetric part of the four terminal conductance. Later, several experiments focused on noise measurements in Cu:Mn [15] and Au:Fe [16] (see also [17] for similar studies in the doped semiconductor).

However, a connection between these theoretical and experimental analyses and spin glass theories was difficult as none of these approaches allowed a simple interpretation within the spin glass theoretical framework. This motivates a reexamination of the description of conductance fluctuations in a spin glass in relation with spin overlaps.

We consider a mesoscopic metallic sample of size L containing magnetic impurities. These impurities provide three different contributions to the scattering potential for the conduction electrons : (i) a scalar potential V (r) = i v o δ(rr i ) where r i denotes the positions of impurities, (ii) a spin coupling V S = J(T ) i=1 S i . σ e , and (iii) a spin-orbit contribution V so ( k 1 , k 2 ) = iV so ( k1 × k2 ). σ s1s2 . The magnetic impurities interact with each other via a RKKY interaction [START_REF] Mydosh | Spin Glasses, An Experimental Introduction[END_REF] i =j J ij S i . S j , and at high enough impurity concentrations, the corresponding spin glass transition temperature T SG is larger the Kondo temperature T K . In this regime, the local moments remain unscreened at T SG and as a result, due to the random signs of the couplings, they freeze into the spin glass state for T < T SG [START_REF] Mydosh | Spin Glasses, An Experimental Introduction[END_REF]. In the spin glass state, the frozen spins act on the conduction electrons just like a classical random magnetic field. In the rest of the letter, we will focus on this regime (T SG > T ≫ T K ) where transport properties simply result from coherent diffusion of electrons by both a classical random magnetic field and the associated scalar potential.

Let us start by recalling known results about the fluctuations of conductance induced by a scalar random potential V (r). We denote by L φ the dephasing or inelastic scattering length, which is considered larger than the sample size L (mesoscopic regime). The associated inelastic scattering rate is γ φ = h/(2τ φ ) = Dh/(2L 2 φ ), D being the diffusion constant in the sample. For the sake of clarity, we focus on the longitudinal G = G xx , although the following discussion extends naturally to other components of the conductance [START_REF]δG αβ δG γδ V = γδ + δαγ δ βδ + δ αδ δ βγ ) F (γ φ )[END_REF]. In this mesoscopic regime, the conductance G is a function of the random scattering potential V (r), and in the weak disorder limit, its distribution is approximately gaussian (see [START_REF] Tsyplyatyev | [END_REF] for a recent discussion). Its average incorporates weak-localization corrections [21,22], and its variance, describing the sample to sample fluctuations, contains contributions from both fluctuations of the diffusion coefficient and of the density of states (see [START_REF] Akkermans | Mesoscopic Physics of electrons and photons[END_REF] for a pedagogical introduction). With only a scalar potential V (r) and in the so-called diffusion limit, the fluctuations of this conductance read for weak disorder :

(δG) 2 V = F (γ φ ) = 6 e 2 D hL 2 2 q Dq 2 + γ φ -2 (2)
where δG = G -G V . For a wire where diffusion takes place in one-dimension (1D) between two absorbing reservoirs, the variance (2) reduces to (δG) 2 V = 8/15(e 2 /h) 2 , the so-called universal conductance fluctuations in the limit L ≪ L φ . In the other case L φ < L, these fluctutations reduce to (δG) 2 V ≃ (e 2 /h) 2 (L φ /L) 4-d with a geometrical factor. How are these results modified in the presence of the random field component V S of the scattering potential ? First, those spins that can flip during the electron diffusion time (either weakly connected or maximally frustrated) will contribute to the enhancement of the inelastic scattering rate γ φ . We assume that the inelastic coherence length of the sample, including the effects of these quasi-free spins, is still larger than the system size at low enough temperatures. The remaining spins are considered as classical random fields, frozen on the electrons diffusion time-scale. These random fields "flip" the electron spin, and thus provide a finite lifetime to different diffusion spin states. Using a semi-classical approach allows us to consider a given realization of spins, without averaging. A diffusion path is labeled by the sequence of encountered impurities, ordered chronologically. At each impurity j, the electron's spin is rotated according to R j = e iJ Sj . σ = cos(JS) + i sin(JS) Ŝ. σ. The end action of the random fields along the path is encoded by the chronological product j R j . Expanding this product in the limit of weak J, and using the central-limit theorem we obtain the typical magnetic dephasing rate of an electron state as γ m = 2πρ 0 n imp J 2 S 2 th , where ρ 0 is the density of state, n imp the concentration of impurities and th means an average over thermal fluctuations. Note that in doing so, we have neglected all spatial spins correlations, a coherent assumption in a spin glass state. Moreover, we have assumed a good impurities sampling by typical diffusion path, approximating the number of impurities along typical path by N imp .

Coming back to the conductance fluctuations, we assume that both sources of disorder V (r) and V S (r) can be treated as independent from each other (the orientation of the frozen moment is not directly correlated with the position of the single impurity). We focus on the average (over V ) correlations between conductances in a given sample V (r) with two different spin configurations {S

(1)

j } and {S (2) j } (∆G) 2 S (1) S (2) = δG V, {S (1)
j } δG V, {S (2)
j } V (3)
where δG(V, {S

j }) = G(V, {S (1)
j }) -G(V, {S j }) V . The weak disorder expression of this average correlation is obtained similarly to (2) using standard diagrammatic techniques (see [START_REF] Akkermans | Mesoscopic Physics of electrons and photons[END_REF]). In doing so, one formally considers the diffusion of the so-called Cooperons and Diffusons. They can be viewed as the coherent propagation of pairs of electrons along a path in the same chronological order (Diffuson), of in reversed orders (Cooperon). In the correlations (3) the two components of the Diffuson or Cooperon see a different spin configuration. The action of the magnetic impurities on their diffusion is j e i(JS) Ŝ (1) j . σ (1) e ±i(JS) Ŝ(2) j . σ (2) ,

where the ± sign depends on the nature of the diffusive object. The Diffuson/Cooperon states cary a pair of spins 1/2, and are naturally decomposed into a singlet and triplet states. In a given spin configuration ( S

= S

(2) j ), only the triplet states couple to these random magnetic fields while for two different spin configurations

{S (1) j }, {S (2)
j }, both the singlet and the triplet states acquire a finite diffusion lifetime. From eq. ( 4), we obtain the typical dephasing rate of these composite Diffusons in the limit of weak J :

γ D,S m = γ m (1 -Q 12 ), γ D,T m = γ m (1 + 1 3 Q 12 )
where Q 12 is defined in [START_REF] Balian | Ill condensed matter, Les Houches Summer School[END_REF]. The scattering rates for the Cooperons follow by Q 12 → -Q 12 . Now plugging these scattering rates back into the diffusion propagators, we obtain the following expression for Temperature, T time t i } in a given sample, labelled by an index n. The correlations δGnδGm B between these spin configurations, and the corresponding overlap Qnm are obtained by application of small magnetic fields after some time tw. Repeating this process gives access to the (non-average) overlap distribution for different waiting time tw.

T SG { S (n) i } { S (n+1) i } T exp 0 B exp B,
the average correlations :

(∆G) 2 = 1 4 F γ D,S m + γ φ + 3 4 F γ D,T m + γ so + γ φ + 1 4 F γ C,S m + γ φ + 3 4 F γ C,T m + γ so + γ φ (5)
where we have included the spin-orbit and inelastic dephasing rates. When (some) magnetic dephasing lengths are smaller than L (< L φ , L so ), the fluctuations are dominated by the smallest dephasing rate (one of the singlets).

For

γ φ ≪ E c ≪ γ m (1 -Q 12 )
, we obtain for D = 2 :

δG({S (1) j })δG({S (2) j }) V ∝ e 2 h 2 E c γ m (1 -Q 12 )
. ( 6)

where E c is the Thouless energy. Crucially, these correlations depends on the quantity Q 12 , which is called the spin overlap and plays a central role in the description of spin glasses. Indeed, the distribution of Q 12 is the spin glass order parameter in the mean-field theory. Before pursuing further into the spin glass considerations, we first discuss the disorder averaging in experiments. In the above analysis, we have carefully avoided to average over spin configurations while at the same time averaging over the scalar potential. However, in experiments, both disorder originates from the same source i.e. the random positions of magnetic impurities. We thus need to propose an experimental setup that simulates an average over a scalar potential while keeping the distribution of spins (quasi-) fixed. Experiments usually rely on the ergodic hypothesis and probe these fluctuations by varying the magnetic field or the Fermi energy. Physically the origin of conductance fluctutations are phasecoherent contributions, encoded into the Cooperon and Diffuson. A change in disorder changes the various diffusion paths, and the corresponding interferences. However, the various phases can also be modified either by the orbital effect of a uniform magnetic field or a change of the Fermi energy, hence the ergodic hypothesis. Averaging over the Fermi energy can be achieved in doped semi-conductor spin glasses by applying a gate potential [17,24] . In metallic spin glasses, one has to resort to the magnetic field sampling and the average in eq. ( 3) is replaced by δG(V, {S

j })δG(V, {S (1)
j }) B defined by 1 B max -B φ Bmax B φ δG(V, {S (2)
j }, B)δG(V, {S (1)
j }, B)dB (2)
The decorrelation field B φ corresponds to two flux quanta through the sample, and for the variance of the conductance, relatively weak field amplitude B max /B φ are necessary for a correct sampling [START_REF] Tsyplyatyev | [END_REF]. Note that with a magnetic field, Cooperons are dephased, and eq. ( 5) simplifies to its first line. A crucial step for spins glasses, is to be able to find a magnetic field B max at low enough temperature such that conductance fluctuations are enough sampled, while at the same time the magnetic response of the spins can be neglected. This SG response effect can be experimentally estimated by applying an in-plane magnetic field, for which orbital effects can be neglected at small fields. According to eq. ( 6), the perturbation of the spin configuration should manifests in the conductance fluctuations through the quantity Q(∆B) = N -1 imp Nimp i=1 S i (B). S i (B + ∆B). The necessary condition for the proposed method is Q(B max ) ≃ 1 with probability of order 1. Although spin glasses are generally believed to show a chaotic magnetic response, to our knowledge current theoretical studies have focused on mean-field models with Ising spins, under fields larger than 0.1T SG [START_REF] Billoire | [END_REF], not directly relevant in the present context.

Having access to overlaps of the spin configurations opens new perspectives in probing the metallic spin glasses that we illustrate here by discussing three possible experimental protocols. A) the distribution of overlaps between spin configurations corresponding to different quench in the same sample can be obtained from the previous ideas, as described in Fig. 1. In the limit of long times t w , this distribution provides information on the phase space structure of the spin glass. Obtaining this quantity for the first time in an experimental spin glass would be of major importance as current theoretical proposals differ on its expected behavior. B) Direct access to spin overlaps at different times allows for an unprecedented analysis of the aging of experimental spin glasses [START_REF] Cugliandolo | Slow relaxations and nonequilibrium dynamics in condensed matter[END_REF]. In a canonical experimental scheme, the sample is cooled down below T SG under a small magnetic field. This field is kept constant for a time t w and then switch off. Magnetic field sweeps provide δG(t w )δG(t w + t) B and thus the overlap Q(t w , t w + t). By repeated cool down, both the average and crucially the statistics of this quantity can be determined. C) a procedure similar to A) allows to probe the temperature chaos of the spin glass [12], and its relation with the rejuvenation (T ′ < T exp ) and memory (T ′ > T exp ) phenomena [26]. The sample is kept at T exp for a time t w before applying a small field sweep. The temperature is then switched to T ′ = T ± ∆T which now remains below T SG . Successive magnetic sweep at times t n = t w + nτ are then applied at T ′ . Conductance correlations provides the overlap Q(T exp , t w ; T ′ , t n ) which characterizes the temperature chaos of the spin glass, and determine in particular the dependance of the overlap length L c on both temperature variation ∆T and time t n . The behavior of L c in relation with predictions from the droplet theory are currently theoretically investigated (see e.g. [START_REF] Katzgraber | [END_REF]26]). The goal is a characterization of low energy excitations of a spin glass state, and their slow evolution.

Let us end by commenting on the dimensionality of a mesoscopic spin glass. To remain in the coherent transport regime, sample size L has to be of the order of (or lower than) the inelastic coherence length L φ [27] Often quantum diffusion takes place in an effective space of dimension D = 1. On the other hand, the dimensionality of the spin glass is determined by the dynamical correlation length. Values of the correlation length ξ SG = N SG .n 1/3 imp (n imp the density of spins) extracted from field change experiments for various spin glasses [28] and extrapolation from recent numerical simulations [29] are of the order of N SG ∼ 30-50 spins after a waiting time t w = 1000s. For samples with transverse dimensions L y , L z larger than ξ SG , the proposed conductance measurements will probe properties of an effective 3D spin glass. Reconsidering the experiments of [13], we obtain approximately ≈ 40 spins in the transverse dimensions L y ≃ 900 Å, implying a 3D spin glass behavior. Moreover, this opens the perspective of studying a possible 3D to 1D crossover for the spin glass dynamics, and possibly determining the associated dynamical correlation length.

To conclude, we have shown how new experimental protocols to determine mesoscopic conductance fluctuations in spin-glasses can provide access to the spin configurations overlaps. We believe that these protocols can open completely new ways of characterizing the spin glass physics, and allowing progress in their understanding.

We aknowledge fruitful and motivating discussions with C. Bäuerle, F. Krzakala, L. Lévy, L. Saminadayar and B. Spivak, and G. Montambaux for a correspondance regarding formula (5). This work was supported by the ANR Mesoglass.

Rev. B 72, 054417 (2005).


Sabrina Mervin

For more developments on the subject, see Laurence Louër, Transnational Shia Politics. 43 The reformists candidates contested the official results of the elections, arguing that there was cheating, and asked for a new poll. Demonstrations were violently repressed and eventually, Ahmedinejad's reelection was confirmed, with the support of the Guide Ali Khamenei.

Introduction

We may assume that the expression "Shi'a worlds" will gain ground in the future. The "Shia crescent", an easy and appealing construction, has made plenty of ink flowprobably too much -but it does not account for a complex and changing reality. There is neither a crescent nor an arch forming a homogeneous block under the direction of the Islamic Republic of Iran, but rather a non-contiguous collection of spaces distributed over a far wider area than just the Middle East. From Africa to China, there are zones hosting minorities and sometimes majorities of Twelver Shi'a, without even counting the diaspora in Europe, the United States and elsewhere. Hence we prefer to speak here of Shi'a worlds, like it is common to speak of Muslim worlds, carefully marked in plural1 , because these worlds belong to different sociolinguistic spheres and are embedded in different local cultures. The researchers that contribute to the present project specialise in the different regions that concern us, but they are also experts on contemporary Shi'a Islam or on Islamic movements in general. The "crescent" will easily be forgotten once we take a closer look at the subject and internalise the idea that "the Shi'a factor" -another fashionable expression these days -has become an issue that needs to be taken into consideration.

It is useful to remember that the expression "the Shi'a crescent" was born out of a fear for what is described as the resurgence or the rise of Shia Islam following the American invasion of Iraq and the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003. In Iraq, but also in the Gulf, Shi'a started demanding that their demographic weight play its proper role in the political balance, provoking reactions from Arab leaders as well as American neo-conservatives. 2 Mahmud Ahmadinejad's rise to power, bringing along his renewed revolutionary and millenarian enthusiasm, populist domestic policies, anti-American foreign outlook, and his firm position on nuclear power, has increased the fear of a return of Iranian influence. While the struggle to export the Islamic Revolution seemed to have ended -in a relative defeat for Iran -a new era of strife started among the major powers in the region -of which Iran claimed to be one. Later, the July 2006 war between the Lebanese Hezbollah and Israel reinforced the axis Tehran-Damascus-Hezbollah, an alliance more political than Shi'i between the three actors of a new front of refusal. 3 With the background of a cold war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, Jordanian king Abdallah's complaints against the "Shia crescent", in 2004, were followed by the repeated accusations of the Egyptian president Husni Mubarak against what he considered the Iran-Hezbollah coalition and its plots. The peak of the crisis was in Spring 2009 when the Egyptians arrested a group of persons and suspected them of being linked with Hezbollah and preparing attacks in the country. At the same time, Morocco cut its diplomatic relations with Iran, accusing the Iranian mission of seeking to spread Shi'ism in the kingdom and to interfere in its internal affairs 4 . So that a certain press spoke about an enlargement of the Shiite crescent and we can guess that this phenomenon is not over 5 .

The idea for this book predated all these events, coming as it did before 2003, when, already, here and there the visibility of Shia Islam increased through its rituals and institutions in various locations, and research on non-Iranian Shi'ism started to expand. Several publications had already carried contributions on various Shi'a communities in different countries. 6 Researchers specialising in the subject began opening up their fields and collaborating around different themes, comparing and relating these geographically remote Shia worlds in an endeavour to account for their similarities and differences via a heuristic approach. 7 With the present collection of essays, we aim to continue in the same direction as well as explore other paths by focusing on the tenuous relations, if any, between these Shia worlds and Iran, where Shi'ism is both the faith of the majority and the state religion. What is the place of Iran, a country which is routinely claimed to occupy a central position among these Shia worlds? Can we envisage its role without reducing it to the export of the revolution? To what extent can we speak of an Iranian model? The present book provides answers to these questions, broadening our knowledge of little-known communities such as the Ironi Shia of Uzbekistan, and refining our understanding of groups that have been studied more extensively, like those in Iraq. Yet we do not want to close the debate or propose a theory -firstly, because the ties between Iran and the Shia worlds have to be 3 A political alliance underpinned, among others, by a religious factor as some of the Alawis have come closer to the Twelver Shi'ites in order to integrate more into the umma. This doctrinal overture started in the early twentieth century, developed in the 1950s and continued under the presidency of Hafez al-Assad. Lebanese as well as Iraqi Shia participated in this movement through the foundation of places of worship and hawzas. Cf Sabrina Mervin, "Quelques jalons pour une histoire', and 'L'"entité alaouite", une création française". About the political alliance between Syria and Iran, see Jubin Goodarzi,Syria and Iran. 4 See http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2009/03/2009370303221419.html. 5 Abir Taleb, "Le croissant chiite s'étend vers l'Ouest", cf. http// hebdo.ahram.org.eg/Arab/Ahram/2009/3/11/marab0.htmSemaine. 6 Cf. Biancamaria Scarcia-Amoretti, Sciiti nel mondo, Jouvence, Rome, 1994; Graham E. Fuller and Rend Rahim Francke, The Arab Shi'a. The Forgotten Muslims, Palgrave, New York, 2001. 7 Two colloquia were organised, one in Freiburg, the other in Geneva, and their proceedings published, cf. Rainer Brunner and Werner Ende, The Twelver Shia, and Alessandro Monsutti, Sylvia Naef and Farian Sabahi, The Other Shiites. considered in the long term 8 , and secondly because many communities are not dealt with here, most importantly the Indian Shia -important for their vast numbers alone, as well as their history -as well as the community in Bangladesh, the diaspora, the small groups found in the Caribbean or the even less numerous and lesser known Shia of Thailand. 9 The Shia dealt with here are Twelver or Imami Shi'a; it is to this group that most contributors refer when they use the term without further specification. 10 The Ismaili, Zaydi and other groups remotely or closely related to branches of Shi'ism are not treated here. 11 The dogma of Twelver Shi'ism acknowledges a succession of twelve Imams from the 'people of the house' (ahl al-bayt) of Muhammad, who are his successors as leaders of the community. First among these is Alî b. Abî Tâlib, cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, followed by his two sons Hasan and then Husayn, the martyr of Karbala. The twelfth and last successor is the Mahdî, the hidden Imam who, according to doctrine, is in occultation since AD 941 and will reappear before the end of times to restore justice on earth; the faithful await him.

Specific Twelvers' rituals derive from the doctrine of the imamate which, contrary to its Sunni counterpart the caliphate, is an integral part of the principles of the religion (usûl al-dîn). They are also related to the specific place occupied by the ahl al-baytthe prophet's descendants -and their history. These Shia practices consist mostly of pious visits (ziyâra) throughout the year to the tombs of the ahl al-bayt, pilgrimages which mark and punctuate the space of the Shia worlds. A special place is occupied by the shrines of the Imams 'Alî in Najaf, Husayn in Karbala and Ridâ/Rezâ in Mashhad.12 Added to this cult of holy figures are the rituals of the month of Muharram in commemoration of the battle of Karbala in 680. These celebrations culminate on the tenth day of the month, the day of Ashura, when the devotees relive the martyrdom of Husayn through public rites, processions and theatrical representations that are sometimes accompanied by spectacular practices of mortification. 13 Satellite channels broadcast the images, as if to illustrate the slogan "Every day is Ashura and the whole world is Karbala". That day, after attending or participating in the rituals of their 8 Which would be easier in a monograph. See for example the very useful publication edited by Houchang Chehabi, who transcends clichés and commonplaces about the relatively recent relations between Iran and Lebanon. Houchang E. Chehabi, Distant relations. See also Juan Cole, Sacred Space, for a collection of essays on both the modern and contemporary periods. 9

Research on India and the Caribbean has concentrated on rituals. See among others David Pinault, Horse of Karbala, and Franck J. Korom, Hosay Trinidad. 10 Among specialists, this distinction is clear, but in vulgarising publications and in the media there is often confusion and erroneous definitions circulate.

11 Nevertheless, we have to stress that the Zaydis revivalists in North Yemen, specially the Huthist rebels of Saada, have been accused of developing religious links with Twelver Shia and receiving support from Iran. See the ICG report, Yemen: Defusing the Saada time bomb. neighbourhood, the devotees watch their fellow believers in Shia worlds spread all over the globe perform the same movements and pronounce the same words. Despite local particularities, the mirroring effect is evident. The other is acknowledged as an individual belonging to a community much larger than that of everyday life, through a common expression of devotion to Husayn and the other imams and through the recitation of a shared history that began with the epos of the "people of the house".

This common history continues throughout successive layers (tabaqât) of religious scholars who elaborated the doctrine and progressively assumed more of the prerogatives of the Imams, thus positioning themselves as guides of the communityspiritual guides who would occasionally extend their authority to the political sphere. 14 This history began in Kufa, the city where 'Alî exercised his imamate, and later branched out to other cities as well as modest villages which for a while became places of Shia scholarship, to reach Safavid Iran in the sixteenth century. When Iran adopted Shia Islam, it had the ambition to become its centre, becoming a "fluid field of interaction, undergoing influence from abroad and in turn exporting its influence to the Arab regions as well as Central and South Asia. 15 The number of Persian ulemas grew at the expense of Arabic ulemas.

Najaf and Qom: competing for centrality

The ancient hawza 16 of Najaf soon became an important centre of Shiism, attracting students and clerics from Iran and elsewhere who came to gain and share knowledge of the religious sciences. This knowledge did not remain unchanged; little by little, it became more rational as the usulî current gained the upper hand over the more literal akhbarî approach. But although the former prevailed, partly through the use of violence in the eighteenth century, polemics and doctrinal divisions between clerics continued to guarantee a degree of plurality in doctrinal approaches. The incessant mingling of populations from remote regions where Shia identities developed, anchored in local cultures and formed through processes specific to each culture, added another level of diversity to this plurality. Thus Najaf and the other "sacred thresholds" ('atabât) of Shi'ism, such as Karbala, Samarra and Kazimiyya, developed a degree of cosmopolitanism which left considerable space for the expression of local particularities and linguistic identities, strengthening ties among those who shared a common origin. Nevertheless, solidarity networks between Shia worlds also developed, creating the embryo of a "Shi'a international", 17 even while animosities between Arabs, Turks and Persians 18 , to mention just a few, began to appear. There was, moreover, also an increasing rivalry between cities (such as Najaf and Karbala), city quarters controlled by gangs linked to certain ulemas (such as the Zugurt and 14 For an overview of the development of this doctrine, see Mohammad-Ali Amir-Moezzi and Christian Jambet, Qu'est-ce que le shî'isme?, p. 181-220, or for a shorter account, Sabrina Mervin, Histoire de l'islam, chapter VII. Shumurt in Najaf) and clerical families eager to increase their control over the management of sacred affairs. Indeed, there was no uniformity in this society of turbaned men in perpetual negotiation, divided by internal discord but nevertheless presenting a united front towards the outside world. The centre -made up of Najaf and her sisters, the other 'atabât -expanded its influence to the very limits of the Shia worlds in order to attract new candidates to perpetuate the group.

From the mid-nineteenth century onwards, Najaf positioned itself as the seat of the marja'iyya which provided Shi'ism with religious authority in the person of the marja', a grand cleric and an institution, with informal appearances certainly, but nevertheless organising clerical hierarchies and relations between believers and the top of this hierarchy. In the early twentieth century, when communications between the centre and the periphery intensified due to the telegraph, Najaf flourished not only on a doctrinal but also on a political level. The Iranian constitutionalist movement (1906-1911) was endorsed by leading Persian clerics living in the holy city, such as Mohammad Kâzem Khorasâni (d. 1911). The ulemas moreover played a decisive role in the fight against the British mandate and the formation of modern Iraq. 19 However, the political defeat which they suffered weakened them, and some were exiled to Iran where they participated in the "re-foundation" of the school of Qom in the 1920s. 20 This marked the beginning of the rivalry between the two centres of Qom and Najaf, who continue to compete until this day for primacy as the sacred source, home of knowledge, centre for the formation of clerics and seat of religious authority "ruling" over all the Shia worlds.

Already before the Iranian revolution, the efforts of Ayatollah Borujerdi (d. 1961), a marja' recognised by all at the time, to modernise the hozeh of Qom had notably undermined the prestige of Najaf and attracted many students. The establishment of the Islamic Republic led to new reforms in Qom, as the objective now became to train clerics who would also be government officials, and to attract foreigners liable to support the Islamic project upon their return to their home countries. Qom had the necessary means to develop a religious education system that was modern and efficient while simultaneously claiming a tradition that attested to the depth of the studies. The city's influence grew to the detriment of Najaf and the holy cities in Iraq which were additionally under attack by Saddam Hussein's baathist regime. Today Qom has around 30,000 students, while Najaf barely has a few thousand. The renewal of the Iraqi hawza expected after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 seems to be postponed sine die due to the chaos submerging the country, which does not allow even for a normal functioning of the schools, even if ambitious new projects are being prepared.

Nevertheless, Najaf remains Qom's rival, particularly as the city hosts four marja', including 'Ali Sistani, to whom the majority of believers not only in Iraq but in all the Shi'a worlds refer. 21 Imam Husayn, whose shrine is located there, is a minor centre, but it has been compensating for the failure of Najaf, especially since the 1980s. Although it is a popular site of pilgrimage (notably for Iranians who visit there on organised tours) and a place where Shia populations mix, no famous marja' resides there. 22 Only the Lebanese Muhammad Husayn Fadlallâh maintains a regular presence, often visiting for lectures.

Najaf and Qom both have their own networks of interaction -which may overlapwith places that function as relay stations as well as local centres with their own characteristics, such as Mashhad in Iran, the southern suburbs of Beirut in Lebanon or Lucknow in India. 23

Marja'iyya and Hawza, the pillars of religious authority

The centrality of the holy cities relies first and foremost on the sacred nature of the locations and their appeal as pilgrimage destinations which entails the movement of populations and the circulation of goods. Mashhad, for example -a phenomenon which unfortunately has not yet received the in-depth study it merits -welcomes over ten million visitors per year. Their centrality is further based on the two interdependent institutions around which the clergy is structured, the hawza and the marja'iyya. These constitute the pillars of religious authority in contemporary Shiism, and an understanding of their functioning is indispensable for the study of the religion. 24 The term hawza refers to a system of teaching, to a religious school where clerics are educated, to a group of schools situated in one city, and to the clerics who make up its students and teachers. Two systems coexist today and tend to complement each other: the classic system and the system of the "reformed" schools, usually called institutes (ma'had). The former is also called the 'free' system, as students can choose the courses they wish to follow and the masters with whom they desire to study. The studies take many years and are divided into three cycles: the first (muqaddimât) aims at acquiring the basics, the second (sutûth) at assimilating the classic works of each 22 Cf. Sabrina Mervin, 'Sayyida Zaynab'; Paulo Pinto, "Pilgrimage, commodities and Religious Objectivation : The Making of Transnational Shiism between Iran and Syria" Fariba Adelkhah, "Économie morale du pèlerinage et société civile en Iran : les voyages religieux, commerciaux et touristiques à Damas".

23

The southern suburbs of Beirut are a recent centre, created by Shia migrating from South Lebanon and the Bekaa valley to the capital; it benefits from taking over the role formerly played by Jabal 'Amil in Shia history. See Mona Harb, "La Dâhiyya de Beyrouth : parcours d'une stigmatisation urbaine, consolidation d'un territoire politique". Lucknow has been a Shia centre since the beginning of the Eighteenth Century.

24

There are many books and articles about these institutions in Arabic and Persian that cannot be referred to here. For the sources available in English and French, the reader can consult Roy Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet; Michael M. J. Fischer, Iran from Religious Dispute to Revolution; Meir Litvak, Shi'i Scholars; Linda Walbridge, The most Learned; Faleh Abdul-Jabar, Ayatollahs, Sufis and Ideologues and The Shi'ite Movement in Iraq; Mehdi Khalaji, "The last Marja'"; and references in the articles of Sabrina Mervin, "La quête du savoir'; 'La hawza à l'épreuve"; and "Les autorités religieuses". discipline, and the third (khârij) trains the clerics-students to the practice of ijtihâd. The subjects studied are the classical Islamic religious sciences 25 . In the institutes of the reformed system, students enroll after their secondary education and take four years to complete the first two cycles. In addition to the classical courses, they take new religious sciences (Islamic economy as laid out by Muhammad Bâqir al-Sadr, compared fiqh, history and philosophy of fiqh, etc.), history (of religions and of Islam) and introductory courses in social sciences (sociology, psychology, etc.). If the students wish to continue their studies, they are required to attend khârij courses, which are always "free", and taught by a renowned mujtahid or even a marja'. Very few hawzas are capable of providing khârij courses, so most students go to Qom or Najaf to complete this cycle, which makes these two cities the breeding-ground of Shia clergy. They are also the places where religious intellectuals and militants are educated who wish to acquire a religious formation in parallel to their university studies. Moreover, most of the books and journals documenting the doctrinal debates engaging the hawza circles are published here.

Qom, with its leading masters in classical fiqh and its modern Islamic universities, offers a wide choice to Iranian students. Foreigners are directed to the International Centre of Islamic Sciences (Markaz jahâni-ye 'olum-e eslâmi) which, after intensive courses of Persian, takes them through the various stages of their education which may last up to fourteen years. Modern methods and techniques as well as reformed sciences are taught there. Around one hundred nationalities are represented in the centre26 : Arabs, Pakistanis, Afghans, Azeris and Indians, but also Chinese -the latter even including Sunnis27 -come to merge in the melting pot of Qom and partake of the spirit that pervades its atmosphere. In addition, an organisation based in Tehran takes care of the founding and the functioning of schools abroad.

What does this "spirit" of Qom, that spreads through the Shia worlds, consist of? It is not just a revolutionary spirit, but also a certain concept of Islamic modernity which all can adapt and apply after returning to their own societies. It means being informed on the debates that scholars engage in, profiting from the cosmopolitan ambience to open up to the world and develop networks, as well as acquainting oneself with the Persian language and culture.

Qom is moreover home to a dozen marja'28 with different opinions concerning the Khomenist theory of velâyat-e faqih and the way it has been implemented since the birth of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is an element of the particular "spirit" of Qom too, since no other place offers such a concentration of grand clerics, although most of them exert only a limited local and national influence. 25 Arabic language, rhetoric, logic, fiqh and usûl al-fiqh, Qur'anic exegesis, hadîth and theology, to which can be added Islamic philosophy and gnosis ('irfân).

The marja' is formed in the hawza and generally goes on to teach there. Some basic rules determine the qualities he is required to possess -the first of which is to be the most knowledgeable among his peers -and govern his relationship with his adepts, i.e. the modalities of "imitation" (taqlîd) -the right way to follow his religious precepts. In addition to these few rules, the marja'iyya is organised according to unwritten manners and customs rather than explicit rules which can be freely consulted, and therefore does not permit external control, while guaranteeing the flexibility of an institution which has, in fact, been subject to continuous redefinition since its creation.

The process of the emergence of a marja' is very subtle as he is not designated or elected by any organ or institution. He is required to rise above the pool of mujtahids and succeed in being recognised as the best among them by the clergy, the hawza masters and advanced students, as well as the financial circles on whose support he will depend. When he has in addition written a practical treaty (risâla 'amaliyya) of fiqh, offering religious advice for his adepts to follow, all believers are free to adopt him as their marja' and pay religious taxes (khums and zakât) to him. This system ensures the plurality of the marja'iyya. In 1989, the succession to Khomeini as marja' and guide (rahbar) of the Islamic Republic of Iran has disrupted this system which elsewhere continues to function. Khomeini was in effect the rival of the grand master of the hawza of Najaf, Abu al-Qâsem Kho'i (d. 1992), who had more followers in Iraq and in the Shia worlds than Khomeini. But Khomeini was also the Guide of the Republic and, before his death, designated as his successor in this double role 'Ali Khamenei, a cleric who at the time was not even recognised as mujtahid. This manoeuvre provoked resistance in Iran, where clerics refused to acknowledge the marja'iyya of Khamenei. The latter suffered a second setback when, in the mid-1990s, he tried to impose himself as marja' of all the Shia worlds. Believers preferred other marja's to him, notably those who defined themselves as successors of Kho'i, that is to say non-political clerics from the school of Najaf, such as 'Ali Sistani. 29 In Lebanon, during the 1990's, Muhammad Husayn Fadlallâh distanced himself from Iran -and from Hezbollah -to emerge as a marja' and resist the hegemonic Iranian claims. 30 Then, his relations with them gradually warmed up and he came back as a political ally during the 2006 Israeli war against Lebanon, but still claims his intellectual, religious and financial independence 31 .

'Ali Khamenei's attempt to monopolise the marja'iyya, which would have resulted in the creation of an Iranian marja'iyya related to the Islamic Republic, thus failed. Over the years, he succeeded to obtain followers out of Iran, positioning himself as a sage and a charismatic arbitrator, especially after the rise to power of Ahmadinejad, 29 Cf. Pierre Martin, "La direction religieuse chiite"; Wilfried Buchta, "Die Islamische Republik Iran" and Who rules Iran?, chapter V; Saskia Gieling, "The marja'iyya in Iran"; Olivier Roy, "The Crisis of Religious Legitimacy". 30 Jamal Sankari, Fadlallah, pp. 256-260; Roschanack Shaery-Eisenlohr, Shi'ite Lebanon: Transnational Religion and the Making of National Identities, which argues that Fadlallâh wanted to construct an Arabic marja'iyya by distinguishing himself through a modernist reformist project. 31 Cf. Mervin, Sabrina "Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, du "guide spirituel" au marja' réformiste", pp.

283.

who played the role of "revolutionary" and "extremist". But his support of Ahmedinejad during the political crisis that occurred after the presidential elections of June 2009 weakened him. The marja'iyya remains plural, divided between Qom, Najaf and other possible poles like Mashhad or Beirut. 'Ali Sistani remains the most widely followed marja'.

Nationalisms and transnationalism

The marja'iyya is essentially supra-statal and transnational, largely because of its economic independence: it is financed by the believers themselves through "the khums money", rather than by any state. Its function is to redistribute these funds through charitable institutions and religious schools that heighten its prestige and ensure the continuity of the group of clerics. Each marja', therefore, stands at the head of a religious enterprise that sometimes handles enormous sums of money, as did Kho'i in the past and Sistani today. 32 The marja'iyya thus implies managing not just matters of spiritual salvation but also very mundane and worldly affairs, which goes some way towards explaining the stakes of the competition hidden beneath the velvet appearance of the clerical circles.

Each marja' has agents (wakîl) to represent him in places where he has following. The agents are charged with the task of, on the one hand, divulging his precepts and on the other, collecting religious taxes, to be used locally or to be transferred to the seat of the marja'iyya. We are in effect talking about a widespread organisation with tentacles stretching across the Shia worlds. In any place with a strong Shia presence, and especially in the holy cities, the marja's offices abound, one next to the other, sometimes several in the same street, as if to mark their territories. Furthermore, nowadays every marja' runs his own website, or even several of them, which eliminates distances and implies a new type of communication between the marja' and his followers. 33 Some even offer the possibility of paying religious taxes online. 34 Shia transnationalism thus relies on the networks formed by clerical circles and resulting from a long history of population movements, especially migrations of ulemas, and marital bonds between different clerical families. While these are not recent phenomena, they are perpetuated, re-negotiated or recreated now. Certain families thus have anchor-points in different countries, which they maintain and renew through alliances and intellectual affinities. The Sadr family is an example in case. Descendants of a lineage from Jabal 'Âmil (now South Lebanon) and present in Lebanon under the name Sharaf al-Dîn, the family has branches in Iraq and Iran that continue to intermarry, thus ensuring group cohesion. Moreover, this family, like many others, has allied itself with political figures and leading clerics. 35 This practice unites 32 According to Mehdi Khalaji, "The Last Marja", p. 10, he manages a fortune of 500 to 700 billion dollars.

33

On this subject, see Stephan Rosiny, "Internet et la marja'iyya". 34 The sites of 'Ali Sistani as well as those of the Kho'i foundation: www.al-khoei.org

35

The Iranian Musa Sadr and the Iraqi Muhammad Bâqir al-Sadr, two figureheads of Islamic movements, were cousins and brothers-in-law, while Muqtadâ al-Sadr married a daughter of Muhammad Bâqir. Cf. Sabrina Mervin, Un réformisme chiite, p. 437, and Houchang E. Chehabi, the ranks, exceeding the political options of each person. It is interesting to notice, for example, the Iranian origins of certain families in Bahrain or Iraq, such as the Shirâzi, who are known as a family from Karbala but, as their name indicates, originated in Iran. The identity representations resulting from this can be astonishing when viewed from the outside: Kho'i and Sistani are in the first place perceived as marja's embodying the school of Najaf, even if they are Iranian. Indeed, Sistani, who even speaks with a Persian accent, is seen as "more Arabic than Iranian" and appeals to Arab nationalists. 36 This transnationalism neither prevents Shia communities from constructing national identities, nor does it stop them from integrating into the states they resort under. While this phenomenon may leave observers perplexed, the actors themselves see no contradiction in it. Returning to the example cited above, Musa Sadr, born in Iran, whose mother tongue is Persian and his culture Iranian, worked for the integration of the Shia in Lebanon where he established himself in 1959 to ensure the continuity of the magisterium of a remote cousin, 'Abd al-Husayn Sharaf al-Dîn (whose son married his sister). In 1963, president Fuad Shihab accorded him Lebanese nationality and ten years later he conflicted with the Shah of Iran, and then lost his Iranian nationality. As if he lived two lives, two very different images of Musa Sadr now exist in Iran and in Lebanon. 37 Without calling it actual contradiction, we nevertheless observe a certain tension between, on the one hand, local or national Shia identities involved in a process of definition and redefinition, and on the other Shia transnationalism on which Iran's claim of hegemony over the Shia worlds has grafted itself. This claim dates back to the foundation of Iranian Shi'ism under the Safavids and could also be observed under the reign of Reza Shah, even though the latter implemented a policy of secularisation. With the arrival of the Islamic Republic, the claim began to be used in a different way. 38 The question of the export of the revolution has been dealt with exhaustively in research published during the 1990s. 39 The historiography of the construction of local identities is currently being undertaken and reveals the particularities of each Shi'a Two research centres are dedicated to him, one in Lebanon and one in Iran. On Musa Sadr in Iran, an aspect which is until now rather neglected in the available publications, we want to mention the excellent article of Houchang E. Chehabi and Majid Tafreshi, "Musa Sadr and Iran". 38 It must be noted that it is difficult to speak of an action taken by 'Iran' as if it is emerging from one entity. The politics of the Islamic Republic are developed through different institutions and organisations, many of which are connected to its Guide, but others to ministers and foundations that are more or less independent -such as the very powerful Astan-e Qods of Mashhad -or even to individuals. On this point the work of Wilfried Bukhta, Who rules Iran?, is very useful. community. 40 However, little attention has been paid to this tension 41 , which is precisely what the five articles opening this volume propose to do, under the title "Export of the revolution and national integrations". After a general overview by Olivier Roy, Alessandro Monsutti presents the case of Afghanistan while Laurence Loüer treats the Gulf states. 42 Two articles deal with the Lebanese Hezbollah: Joseph Alagha studies the evolution of the notion of the Islamic state as developed by the party, while Kinda Chaib approaches the link with Iran through the iconography of martyrs in the Shia regions and quarters of Lebanon.

The second part, "Shiisms under construction", presents analyses of identity inscription processes through particular case studies, showing how the Shi'a emerge and invent themselves as a group. This part also focuses on the role Iran plays in this process through broadcasting religious rituals, scattering a "Shi'a culture" from its institutions (cultural centres, religious schools) or through political activism. Thierry Zarcone writes the contemporary history of the Shia communities of Turkey and discusses the place Iranians occupy in this history and, more recently, the role played in it by Iran. Next we move to Central Asia: Bayram Balci relates the renaissance of Azerbaijani Shi'ism and demonstrates how Iran contributed to this process, while Boris Petric deals with the Shia of Uzbekistan, known as the Ironis. Still further afield, in Africa, the Shi'a of Senegal consist of two groups, Lebanese and local converts, presented here by Mara Leichtman.

Which "Iranian model" is transmitted and how? Is it possible to understand this model while transcending established ideas of direct Iranian influence on this or that contesting party? The third part attempts to shed light on this matter. Two articles on Muqtadâ Sadr, the insurgent cleric, one Pierre-Jean Luizard and the other Peter Harling, explain a phenomenon which, despite its omnipresence in the media, is still poorly understood. The authors illustrate the complex relationship between the revolutionary Iraqi and his Iranian neighbour. What is this Iranian model that no longer -or not exclusively anymore -consist of the political model of revolutionary Islam? Mariam Abou Zahab reveals certain aspects (Islamic feminism, rationalism and the modernity of an education that permits social mobility) by following the voyage of Pakistani women who go and study at the hozeh of Qom. Other elements are treated by Sabrina Mervin, who endeavours to define the influence exerted on intellectual and Islamic Arab circles by the laboratory of religious ideas that is Iran.

As it is a moving process, it is difficult to measure the impact of the internal political crisis in which Iran sank after the presidential elections of June 2009 on the Shi'a worlds, just while the Obama administration loosened pressure on Iran 43 . It was a deep crisis between a more and more autocratic power and an educated, citizen 40 Cf. notably Yitzhak Nakash, Reaching for Power. 41 See, nevertheless, Roschanack Shaery-Eisenlohr, Shi'ite Lebanon: Transnational Religion and the society, that demands a return to republican political practices. Debates about the khomeinist theory of velâyat-e faqih restarted, but more inside Iran than outside, up to now. The plan of the second mandate of Ahmedinejjad to impose a new Cultural Revolution (enqelâb-e farhangi), with a systematic islamization of social sciences in the universities, would certainly provoke its procession of reactions and inform other debates.

At a strictly political level, Iran's neighbors, especially concerned by the maintenance of safety and order in the region, considered this turmoil as an internal question. The same for its ally Hezbollah, whose deputy secretary-general Sheikh Naim Qassem said during the dramatic events that occurred after the poll: "The disagreements between the parties in Iran are affairs that concern essentially the Iranians" 44 . On the other hand, the party claims a wide independence in the conducting of its own affairs inside Lebanon. Towards its allies and the Shia worlds, Iran has implemented a politics of cultural diplomacy and soft power [START_REF]The Case of Iranian Cultural Diplomacy in Syria' and Roschanack Shaery-Eisenlohr, Shi'ite Lebanon: Transnational Religion and the Making of National Identities[END_REF] , a long term, patient work of developing deep cultural ties.

  15JuanCole, Sacred Space and Holy War, p. 2. 16 Technical terms in Arabic and Persian are explained in the glossary.

  17

  Cf. MeirLitvak (Shi'i Scholars, p. 31), who took the expression from Chibli Mallat.18The Turks concerned here are in factAzeris. Ibid., p. 201, note 38.

  Sayyida Zaynab, a suburb of Damascus named after the sister of 19 On this subject, see Pierre-Jean Luizard, La formation de l'Irak contemporain. 20 Qom derives its legitimacy as a holy city from the presence of the shrine of Fâtima, sister of the eighth Imam. 21 The other three are Muhammad Sa'îd al-Hakîm, Ishâq Fayyâd and Bashîr Najafî Pakistanî.

  Distant Relations, p. 140, fig. 6.1. This table shows the relationships established with Mohammad Khatami and Ahmad Khomeini.

	36	According to Mehdi Khalaji, "The last Marja", p. 28.

37

With all necessary precaution, since the aim is not to essentialise but rather to contextualise and account for interrelations. On this subject, see the editorial by Sylvie Denoix, "Des culs-de-sac heuristiques", REMMM,

2004, pp. 7-26. 2 The subject of Sunni-Shia conflicts, susceptible to contribute in reshaping the Middle East, is developed by Vali Nasr in The Shia Revival.

Other Imams, as well as Fâtima, had their shrines in Medina until the Wahhabis relegated them to simple tombs after occupying the city in December 1925.

These practices of mortification have been the object of debates among ulemas since the beginning of the twentieth century; reformists try to forbid them and replace them with blood donations. Sabrina Mervin, Un réformisme chiite, chapter VI.

Interview with the director, sheikh A'rafi, Qom, 18/08/2003.

Oral communication by Elisabeth Allès, specialist of Chinese Islam, Paris, Summer 2006.

It is difficult to find an exhaustive, accurate and up-to-date list in the sources available. We could refer for example to the list of Mehdi Khalaji, "The last Marja'", p. 7, which mentions marja's who are now deceased (such as Javâd Tabrizi or Mohammad Taqi Bahjat) and does not take into account important figures such as Ali Montazeri or Kâzem Ha'eri.


Note sur les tablettes de cire de dijon

Élisabeth lalou

Cette note présente un extrait d'une enquête encore en cours : d'une part parce que les recherches sur ce livre de tablettes de cire menées dans le cadre du gdr « matériaux du livre médiéval » n'ont pas encore livré leurs résultats définitifs ; d'autre part, parce que l'édition du manuscrit dont je vais vous parler n'est pas achevée 1 . mais il importait avant tout que le travail sur les tablettes

desCription aux archives départementales de la Côte-d'or à dijon, sous la cote 11 H 1165*, est conservé dans le fonds des archives de l'abbaye de Cîteaux un livre de comptabilité 2 constitué de feuillets de bois et de cire daté de 1321-1325 (figures 1, 2 et 3).

il est constitué de douze feuillets, onze portent de la cire au recto et au verso, le douzième porte de la cire au recto et son verso est la couverture du volume. il manque le feuillet de couverture du début et probablement un ou deux autres feuillets. on doit les rapprocher de deux autres feuillets pro- venant aussi d'un volume de tablettes de cire de Cîteaux qui sont conservés à londres 3 et à lyon 4 . le registre de cire de dijon et ces deux feuillets sont des tablettes « classiques » du xiv e siècle. Les feuillets mesurent 155 × 360 mm 5 . l'éCriture elle est parallèle au grand côté des tablettes. le registre se tenait donc comme un ordinateur portable. la page comporte trois colonnes. l'écriture est d'un module assez gros. l'écrit est cancellé puisqu'il s'agit de brouillons qui étaient ensuite recopiés sur du parchemin. Ces brouillons sont les comptes du boursier de Cîteaux. nous avons d'ailleurs conservé un registre papier de comptes de l'ordre cistercien (11 H 1160*) mais plus tardif (1337-1402). Ce manuscrit s'ouvre sur des comptes généraux de l'ordre (1337-1347) et se poursuit par les comptes du boursier qui commencent en 1342 (f. 32-245). les autres registres de comptes du boursier sont encore plus tardifs : 1489-1501 pour le puisqu'il s'agit d'un avant-propos à la séance sur la reliure prévue dans ce colloque, je voudrais insister sur la façon dont étaient reliés les livres de tablettes, celui qui nous occupe aujourd'hui, comme les autres volumes que j'ai pu examiner. les feuillets étaient réunis entre eux par des languettes de parchemin de 3 à 4 cm de large : ces languettes étaient insérées dans des fentes ménagées dans la tranche de la planchette. elles maintenaient les feuillets bien serrés les uns contre les autres. souvent un morceau de parchemin recouvrait la tranche du volume 6. une tablette est cotée « mor. » note sur les taBlettes de de diJon et donnait l'aspect d'un registre banal en matériau souple au volume de tablettes 7 . Ce mode de reliure est celui que l'on trouve parfois dans l'antiquité 8 pour rapprocher des feuillets de bois mais il est loin de constituer alors la majorité : en effet les tablettes antiques sont maintenues ensemble le plus souvent par un morceau de ficelle ou encore des sortes de gonds. Je ne crois pas me tromper en identifiant cette reliure des tablettes de Dijon à un modèle de reliure très répandu à l'époque médiévale. signalons aussi que dans ce volume la tranche ne comporte pas de marques utilisées parfois pour faciliter l'alignement et l'ordre des feuillets.

Matériaux

La cire les planchettes sont creusées pour recevoir une couche de cire noire d'environ un millimètre d'épaisseur. la couche de cire est peu épaisse : le registre a déjà été utilisé une ou deux fois avant la date du compte aujourd'hui conservé. on effaçait en effet la cire en l'aplatissant avec l'autre extrémité du stylet qui servait à tracer les lettres. parfois on « recirait » les tablettes : c'est ce que l'on trouve dans les comptes de la ville de senlis 9 .

dans une étude allemande réalisée en 1968 par reinhard bull, ernst moser et Hermann Kuhn 10 , est exposé le résultat des analyses du contenu de la cire d'une trentaine de volumes de tablettes de cire conservés en allemagne. il n'a pas été encore fait d'analyse du contenu de la cire du volume de dijon mais on peut sans doute penser que les résultats de l'étude allemande sont proches de ce que l'on trouvera lors de l'analyse des volumes de tablettes français.

Ce matériau est constitué d'un mélange de cire d'abeille, de résine et de poix. on y ajoutait aussi du noir de fumée pour obtenir la couleur noire. on pouvait rendre le mélange plus épais, en mélangeant différents produits à la cire. la consistance permettait d'écrire plus aisément et d'éviter que le trait ne s'effondre à cause du peu de tenue du produit.

nous avons conservé des recettes antiques 11 permettant d'obtenir ce mélange qui est dans la plupart des cas de couleur noire. d'autres couleurs étaient utilisées : le vert (dans des carnets de petit format qui nous sont parvenus), le rouge (dans des carnets d'ivoire) et parfois le jaune 7. C'est le cas du registre de dijon. toutefois il n'est pas certain que le parchemin soit d'origine. 8. Cf. élisabeth lalou (éd.), Les tablettes à écrire de l'Antiquité à l'époque moderne. Actes du colloque de Paris, octobre 1990, turnhout, 1992 (bibliologia, 12). 9. é. ou plutôt la de la cire vierge, comme dans un carnet du xvii e siècle de la bnF [START_REF]inventaire des tablettes médiévales et présentation générale[END_REF] . il serait d'analyser [START_REF]question posée par martine regert du C2rmF, spécialiste des cires : le bois était-il préparé pour recevoir la cire, était-il strié ? 14. Ce qui n'a pas été fait dans r[END_REF] ces cires de différentes couleurs pour savoir si elles étaient identiques à celles utilisées dans les sceaux. l'analyse de la cire n'était pas prévue dans le projet initial du gdr mais l'idée s'en est imposée peu à peu et reste un des objectifs intéressant de recherche.

Le bois

Nous avions prévu en revanche d'analyser et identifier le bois d'un certain nombre de tablettes de cire 14 . les hypothèses les plus diverses ont été émises sur le bois des tablettes de Jean sarrazin, chambellan de saint-louis, conservées aux archives nationales. natalis de Wailly pensait qu'elles étaient en platane ; j'ai moi-même cru reconnaître du hêtre [START_REF]Les comptes sur tablettes de cire de Jean Sarrazin…, p. 3 ; natalis de WaillY, « mémoire sur les tablettes de cire des archives nationales[END_REF] . Une analyse scientifique a finalement identifié de l'érable.

J'en étais restée là, face à ce résultat inattendu jusqu'à une découverte récente : au début du xiv e siècle, à la même époque que les tablettes de cire de dijon, on fabrique des hanaps ou des manches de couteaux avec de l'érable appelé « madre » [START_REF]Il est difficile de trouver des exemples de hanap de madre. La vaisselle de bois est plus fréquemment mentionnée[END_REF] . l'érable de pontarlier [START_REF] Baron | le mécénat de mahaut d'artois à paris et en artois[END_REF] dans la comté voisine, peu éloignée de Cîteaux, était particulièrement prisé. mahaut comtesse d'artois et de la comté par alliance, achetait en Franche-Comté des objets ou des blocs de madre.

Cette possible relation entre les objets de bois dur et précieux et les tablettes de cire me semble intéressante à suivre et j'ai hâte de pouvoir faire analyser d'autres volumes de tablettes. dans les textes des fabricants de tablettes de cire parisiens étudiés par Caroline bourlet [START_REF] Bourlet | Les tabletiers parisiens à la fin du Moyen Âge[END_REF] , les tabletiers doivent utiliser du « bois blanc » et pour le support de l'écriture, de la cire et non du suif. mais on trouve un peu partout dans la bibliographie un grand nombre de bois [START_REF] Cèdre | Les tabletiers parisiens à la fin du Moyen Âge[END_REF] dont on faisait les tablettes : notamment le buis, bois lui aussi relativement dur.

L'identification du bois est importante pour connaître la place sociale des fabricants de tablettes : s'ils utilisent le madre, ce bois avec lequel on fabrique des hanaps et autres objets de luxe, ils peuvent figurer à juste titre à côté des orfèvres qui fabriquaient les carnets de tablettes d'ivoire dont nous avons conservé quelques feuillets. si la grande majorité des tablettes de cire étaient fabriquées avec bois plus commun, le métier entier des tabletiers perd un cran dans la hiérarchie des parisiens. les deux possibilités d'ailleurs co-exister.

voici donc quelques pistes de recherche sur les matériaux utilisés pour les tablettes de cire. Identifier finement le bois et la cire utilisés devrait permettre de préciser le groupe social des fabricants comme des utilisateurs : on sait déjà que les tablettes de cire étaient d'une utilisation courante et que des milliers furent utilisées. Quoique très répandus, ces registres n'étaient peutêtre pas si humbles que cela. ils étaient réservés à qui savait écrire.

L'identification des matériaux permettra aussi de préciser la relation avec le papier et son adoption -et le remplacement des tablettes de cire par des registres de papier, que je situe au milieu du xiv e siècle pour la France. Je pense ici au prix comparé des tablettes de cire et du papier. Ce qui, étant donné la difficulté pour le Moyen Âge occidental de connaître les prix avec précision, est un projet très ambitieux.

Figure 1 -

 1 Figure 1 -arch. dép. Côté d'or, 11 H 1165 Couverture du volume de tablettes © Cg21/F. petot/2010

Figure 2 -

 2 Figure 2 -arch. dép. Côte d'or, 11 H 1154, f. 5d verso schéma dessiné à l'envers de la page dont on distingue les lignes d'écriture en bas de la photo © Cg21/F. petot/2010

Figure 3 -

 3 Figure 3 -arch. dép. Côte d'or, 11 H 1154, f. 8HJ verso mise en page identique dans tout le volume : trois colonnes. l'écriture a été cancellée après copie sur une feuille de parchemin. noter la fragilité de cette page

  lalou, Les tablettes à écrire de l'Antiquité… ; id., « les tablettes de cire médiévales », Bibliothèque de l'École des chartes 147, 1989, p.123-140 ; id., Les comptes sur tablettes de cire de la chambre aux deniers de Philippe III le Hardi et Philippe IV le Bel (1282-1309), r.-H. Bautier (dir.), paris, 1994 ; id., Les comptes sur tablettes de cire de Jean Sarrazin, chambellan de saint Louis, turnhout, 2003 (monumenta palaeographica medii aevi), 205 p.

10. reinard Bull, ernst Moser, Hermann Kuhn, « Wachs als beschreib-und siegelstoff, Wachsschreibtafeln und ihre verwendung », dans Vom Wachs-Hoechster, Beiträge zur Kenntnis der Wachse, Frankfurt, 1968, p. 785-894. 11. r. Bull, e. Moser, H. Kuhn, « Wachs als beschreib-und siegelstoff… », p. 818 : « recipe tres partes cere, quartam partem picis, et quintam partem cynober et ceram cum pice pone in cacabum… » (recette pour le sceau).


José Marcio Pereira Figueira

The use of offline simulation tools to estimate Ship-Helicopter Operating Limitations

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