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A major medievalist in the first half of the 20th century, professor at the École Pratique des Hautes Etudes and at the Sorbonne, Ferdinand Lot (1866-1952) trained several generations of students in medieval history. He was thus the “master” of the majority of his successors and future French colleagues (Louis Halphen, Marc Bloch, Félix Grat, Charles Edmond Perrin, and many others), as well as of several foreigners. The study of his archives (lecture notes, manuscripts, correspondence) shows how much the seminar functions for Lot as a laboratory for this link from teacher to student. This privileged place is that of the deployment of a particular pedagogy of transmission, and, through this, of the construction of an elective affinity which mixes intellect and affect and ultimately integrates students of both sexes in a fairly egalitarian manner. What happens when the former student becomes a colleague? Four forms of evolution of this relationship will be declined here: competition, loyalty, innovation and friendship.