Who hasn’t written a “to-do list”? Lists are used to organize, to class, and to structure, but also to remember and to save information about people or things, and to tell stories about their connections. The Listology blog (www.listologyblog.com) has noted how little attention researchers have devoted to exploring lists and points out that lists were already a common phenomenon in the Middle Ages, with all sorts of inventories and records made in the form of lists. Le pouvoir des listes au Moyen Âge: II. Listes d’objets / listes de personnes, edited by Étienne Anheim, Laurent Feller, Madeleine Jeay, and Giuliano Milani, demonstrates the “enormous power” of medieval listology, to use the words of L. Dolezolova, The Charm of a List: From Sumerians to Computerised Data Processing (2009), and aims to open up new perspectives by studying lists from the Middle Ages. This book is the second volume stemming from the ANR project POLIMA (http://polima.huma-num.fr/) developed in Paris (2014-2017) under the leadership of Pierre Chastang of the Université Versailles-Saint-Quentin. The first volume, published in 2019 (Le pouvoir des listes au Moyen Âge: I. Écritures de la liste, edited by Claire Angotti, Pierre Chastang, Vincent Debiais, and Laura Kendrick, Paris: Éditions de la Sorbonne, pp. 272, 10 papers), focused on the practice of writing lists, while this second volume is centred on analyzing lists of objects and of persons. According to the introduction (signed by the four editors, pp. 5-18), the book investigates and explores lists as sources reflecting the relationship between humans and the world (“les listes d’objets sont un laboratoire dans lequel se fabrique un trait essential de nos sociétés,” p. 15).

Twelve papers explore an unexpected variety of case-studies ranging from lists of citizens, nobles, or taxpayers (D. Chamboduc de Saint Pulgent, “Les listes de population lucquoises des années 1370-1372,” pp. 21-44), to lists of colors of urine used to detect moods and to guide medicine for diagnostic purposes (L. Moulinier-Brogi, “La logique des listes dans les traités de médecine,” pp. 45-60), to “macabre lists” of persons inserted into literary works about death to demonstrate how humans of different social levels are equal in the face of death (K. Becker, “La liste dans la danse macabre / La danse macabre comme liste,” pp. 61-82). Speaking of death, necrologies or obituaries are medieval inventions containing lists of names that make it possible to imagine and reconstruct past communities. Three necrologies from the monastery of San Isidoro de Léon constitute an important source for the cult of Isidore of Séville, but they allow us to see how these lists of the dead evolved over time. The majority of associated donations were made for the commemoration of the donor’s soul (pro anima), and the lists are structured according to the social positions of the deceased, as is demonstrated by Carlos M. Reglero de la Ruente (“Listes de défunts. Les nécrologes de San Isidoro de Léon,” pp. 155-176).

The book lists of the Library of the Dukes of Burgundy, one of the most interesting collections of the fifteenth century, reveal transformations in the manner of ranging and classifying objects. The paper of Hanno Wijsman (“Listes de livres à la cour de Bourgogne (XVe-XVIe siècle),” pp. 83-104) convincingly shows how the typology of this type of list changed over time. For example, starting in 1500 we find that the books were arranged on shelves and no longer kept in boxes that travelled with the court. Through notable transformations such as this, these lists become a significant object of study for a better understanding of the history of medieval libraries.

The main focus of the volume is on lists of objects. Episcopal biographies for Rome and Auxerre are illuminating for the study of the nature of liturgical objects and permit us to trace the presence of antique domestic silverware during the early Middle Ages (E. Magnani, “Des res en série au haut Moyen Âge. Les listes dans le Liber pontificalis et les Gesta pontificum autissiodorensium,” pp. 107-154). For the pleasure of the gourmand, the contribution of B. Laurioux (“Manger par le menu. Fonctions et formes des listes de mets aux XIVe et XVe siècles,” pp. 177-194) analyzes lists of menus from coronations or royal visits. Literature represents a rich source for lists of persons, as is shown by J.-C. Mühlethaler (“Victimes de Fortune, victimes d’Amour: la liste entre littérarité et subjectivité,” pp. 195-224), who lists the names of persons in different writings of Eustache Deschamps, Michault Taillevent, M. le Franc, and Villon. An illustrative case-study of listing names of persons is Nicolas Schroeder’s contribution (“Production et reproduction des listes d’hommes et de femmes assujettis au monastère (entre Seine et Rhin, IXe-XIIe siècle),” pp. 227-250) on the cartulary of the monastery of Saint-Troud, which abounds in information about mancipia (people bound to and under the protection of a monastery with labor obligations). Inventories of household objects and utensils written in testaments are another valuable source for investigating not only the history of such items but also their physical location in people’s dwellings (Philippe Bernardi, “La transmission des outils et leur mise en liste. Quelques réflexions à partir d’exemples provençaux des XVe et XVIe siècles,” pp. 251-270).

For M. Jeay, both words and objects tell stories by their capacity of expression as nomen utensilium(Madeleine Jeay, “Poésie de la marchandise. La mise en liste littéraire des objets,”pp. 271-291). The volume ends with a reflection on the status of objects from an anthropological point of view (Thierry Bonnot, “Commercer avec les objets et les choses: perspectives anthropologiques,” pp. 293-314).

Unlike the first volume, the second unfortunately has no indices of names and of manuscripts or a final table of figures. Occasionally the variety of topics, periods, and sources investigated can be distracting, leaving the reader a bit lost, especially when faced with such a diversity of approaches and methodologies. Nevertheless, the volume succeeds in showing that lists of persons and things are fascinating objects of study for medievalists.