French Literature Reviews - 2026
C. F. Clamote Carreto, “Contez vous qui savez de nombre…”. Merchant Imaginary and Narrative Economy in the Middle Ages
Medieval and Renaissance Studies
Carlos F. Clamote Carreto, “Contez vous qui savez de nombre…”. Merchant Imaginary and Narrative Economy in the Middle Ages
Paris: Honoré Champion, coll. "Essais sur le Moyen Âge", 2014.
EAN 9782745325990.
376 p.
Price: 70 EUR
Publisher's overview:
A striking kinship seems to link, especially from the 12th century onward, the monetary sign and vernacular fictional writing, the figure of the merchant and that of the poet. By examining the origins and implications of this remarkable resemblance, this essay seeks to understand how the monetary and mercantile imaginary transforms the status and function of the structuring themes and topoi of medieval narrative, and to what extent the presence (whether overt or veiled in metaphor) of a full commercial semiology both weaves subtle dialogic relationships among poems and shapes their underlying logic of operation and meaning.
Carlos F. Clamote Carreto is a professor of French and European literature at the Open University of Lisbon (Portugal). For over twenty years, the core of his research and publications has been devoted to studying the dynamic relationship between the symbolic, cultural, and ideological imaginary of the 12th and 13th centuries and the emerging concepts and practices of fictional narrative cultivated during that period. A researcher at the Centre for Studies on the Literary Imaginary (NOVA University Lisbon), where he serves as deputy director, he is also a member of the editorial board of the interdisciplinary Luso-French journal Sigila and co-director of the Cahiers du CEIL. Revue Pluridisciplinaire d’Études sur l’Imaginaire.
During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the expansion of commercial networks and monetary circulation deeply influenced the cultural and intellectual landscape of Western Europe. The rising presence of commerce and coinage provided new metaphors and structural models that writers could adapt for vernacular literature. This historical period witnessed a growing interaction between economic practices and imaginative expression, as emerging mercantile concepts began to intersect with established symbolic systems, chivalric traditions, and narrative conventions across various literary genres.
Readers interested in the intersections between economic history and medieval vernacular literature may find this study relevant. Carlos F. Carreto is a professor of French and European literature at the Open University of Lisbon, and his research has focused on the dynamic relationship between the symbolic imaginary of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and emerging concepts of fictional narrative.