English
The medievalists, as well the anthropologists and the sociologists, have forgotten that “ift/counter-gift” or “gift-exchange” (Gegengabe, Widergabe, Gebentausch), concepts used by Marcel Mauss in his classical “Essai sur le don”, have been forged at the nineteenth century by the historians of the medieval German law and language (Jacob Grimm, Karl von Amira, Richard M. Meyer...), in a context of criticism against the capitalism. Thus, the concepts historicity seems essential to a reasoned use of theory in social sciences.
