Thimothée Guyon

Please tell us about your research project.
I'm a PhD student in medieval history at the Université Paris-Saclay under the supervision of Pierre Chastang (Université Paris-Saclay), Etienne Anheim (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales) and Pauline Lemaigre-Gaffier (Université Versailles-Saint-Quentin). I began my thesis in 2022 and am attached to the DYPAC Laboratory at the UVSQ and the Institut des Sciences Sociales du Politique at ENS Paris-Saclay. My research focuses on the first assemblies of the Estates General, and more specifically on the Vincennes assembly of 1329. I am interested in the reception and political use of this assembly over time, based on the account produced by one of the participants.The assembly of 1329 concerned conflicts between the French royal power and the Church. I am working on the presence of this assembly in political and Gallican culture as regards the construction of relations between Church and State up to the 1905 law on the separation of Church and State in France. My thesis focuses on the history of a text, the narrative of the event, its contexts of production, dissemination and reception, and the issues surrounding documentary materiality. It then looks at the event itself, the assembly of 1329, the way it took place, its causes and its consequences. Finally, it seeks to understand why this event was remobilised in Gallican culture and in political and parliamentary debates until the early twentieth century.

Could you please tell us a bit more about your scholarship/exchange programme?
My DYPAC lab funds my stay at the Maison française in Oxford. It lasts two weeks. It will enable me to consult a number of manuscripts and printed documents in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. These documents contain accounts of the assembly of 1329 that English students copied when they went to study at the University of Paris in the 15th and 16th centuries. They then returned to England with their books. They wrote many annotations by hand around the story of the assembly. This allows me to understand how they interpreted, understood and used the 1329 assembly. It is therefore an essential part of my thesis to understand the ways in which this assembly was disseminated and interpreted over time. It allows me to integrate a European perspective into my work.

First impressions of Oxford/the University?
I'm very impressed by the ease of access to resources, particularly manuscripts. The city is university- and research-oriented, which is pleasant and makes for a very comfortable and stimulating working environment.