Literary aspects of courtly culture: selected papers from the Seventh Triennial Congress of the International Courtly Literature Society, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA, 27 July-1 August 1992 0859914062, 9780859914062

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International Courtly Literature Society

Literary Aspects

of Courtly Culture Edited by DONALD MADDOX and SARA STURM-MADDOX

Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation

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LITERARY ASPECTS

‘OF ‘COURTLY*CULIURE

LIAL 2 RVAMRO GEsave OILS: (0)8 GOURTEY CULTURE SELECTED PAPERS FROM THE SEVENTH TRIENNIAL CONGRESS OF THE INTERNATIONAL COURTLY LITERATURE SOCIETY

UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS, AMHERST, USA, 27 JULY — 1 AUGUST 1992

Edited by DONALD

MADDOX

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

SARA

STURM-MADDOX

University ofMassachusetts, Amherst

D'SABREWER

© Contributors 1994

All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system,

published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means,

without the prior permission of the copyright owner

First published 1994 D. S. Brewer, Cambridge

ISBN

0 85991 406 2

D. S. Brewer is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK

and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. PO Box 41026, Rochester, NY 14604-4126, USA

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Literary Aspects of Courtly Culture: Selected Papers from the Seventh Triennial Congress of the International Courtly Literature Society, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA, 27 July-1 August 1992

I. Maddox, Donald

Il. Sturm-Maddox, Sara

809.02 ISBN 0-85991—406—2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

International Courtly Literature Society. Congress (7th : 1992 : University of Massachusetts, Amherst) Literary aspects of courtly culture : selected papers from the

Seventh Triennial Congress of the International Courtly Literature Society, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA, 27 July-1 August 1992 / edited by Donald Maddox, Sara Sturm-Maddox.

CIN. Rev. versions of the congress papers; chiefly in English; several papers in French. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-85991-406-2

1. Literature, Medieval — History and criticism — Congresses. 2. Courtly love in literature. -Maddox, Sara.

PN682.C6I58

I. Maddox, Donald.

Il. Sturm

III. Title.

1992

809’.02-dc20

94-6753

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984

Printed in Great Britain by

St Edmundsbury Press Ltd, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

CONTENTS

I. CONFIGURING

THE FEMININE

Whose Voice? The Influence of Women Patrons on Courtly Romances Joan Ferrante (Columbia University)

Debatable Fictions: the Zensos of the Trobairitz Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner (Boston College)

Eve as Adam’s Pareil: Equivalence and Subordination in the Jeu d'Adam Joan Tasker Grimbert (Catholic University ofAmerica)

Nature’s Forge Recast in the Roman de Silence Suzanne Conklin Akbari (Columbia University)

Criseyde’s Honor: Interiority and Public Identity in Chaucer’s Courtly Romance Carolyn P Collette (Mt. Holyoke College)

47

Analogy or Logic; Authority or Experience? Rhetorical Strategies For and Against Women Karen Pratt (Goldsmiths College, University ofLondon)

57

II]. LYRIC VOICE, POETIC STYLE: FROM TO RHETORIQUEURS

TROUBADOURS

Un paradoxe courtois: le chant et la plainte

69

Michel Zink (Université Paris IV, Sorbonne)

Des troubadours italotropes

85

Antoine Tavera (Université de Nice)

Les chansons de croisade: tradition versus subjectivité Cathrynke Th. J. Dijkstra (University of Groningen) Text and Countertexts: Three Anglo-Norman Lyrics Carol J. Harvey (University of Winnipeg) English Dream Poems of the Fifteenth Century and Their French Connections Julia Boffey (Queen Mary & Westfield College, University ofLondon)

Text and Building: Architectural Fictions in the Work of the Rhétoriqueurs David Cowling

95 105 115 123

IH.

AMOR:

ETHOS AND AFFECT

In gentil hertes ay redy to repaire: Dante’s Francesca and Chaucer’s Troilus

135

Piero Boitani (Universita di Roma “La Sapienza’)

Taming the Warrior: Responding to the Charge of Sexual Deviance in Twelfth-Century Vernacular Romance Raymond Cormier (Wilson College) Courtly and Uncourtly Love in the Prose Tristan

153

161

Janina Traxler (Manchester College)

Allegorical Narrative in Philippe de Beaumanoirs Salu d'Amour Leslie C. Brook (University ofBirmingham) Le Court d'Amours de Matthieu le Poirier

LI

179

Hans-Erich Keller (Ohio State University) Amor hereos in Middle Dutch Literature: The Case of Lancelot

of Denmark

189

Bart Besamusca (University of Utrecht) IV.

FICTIONS

OF IDENTITY AND ALTERITY

The Curse of the White Hind and the Cure of the Weasel: Animal Magic in the Lais of Marie de France June Hall McCash (Middle Tennessee State University)

199

The Poetics of Androgyny in the Lais of Marie de France: Yonec, Milun,

211

and the General Prologue Rupert T. Pickens (University ofKentucky) Truth and Deception in the Fables of Marie de France

221

Karen K. Jambeck (Western Connecticut State University)

Specularity in a Formulaic Frame Romance: “The Faithful Greyhound” and the Roman des Sept Sages Mary B. Speer (Rutgers University)

231

The Man on a Horse and the Horse-Man: Constructions of Human and Animal in The Knight of the Parrot

241

Nathaniel Smith (Franklin and Marshall College)

Perspectives on the Quest Motifin Medieval Italian Literature: Comic Elements in Antonio Pucci’s Gismirante

Christopher Kleinhenz (University of Wisconsin, Madison) Chaucerian Romance and the World Beyond Europe John M. Fyler (Tufts University) Image as Reception: Antoine de la Sale’s Le petit Jehan de Saintré Jane H.M. Taylor (St. Hildas College, Oxford)

249

V.

CULTURE

AND

HISTORIOGRAPHY: PERSPECTIVES AND APPRAISALS

A Sign of the Times: The Question of Literacy in Medieval Occitania Wendy Pfeffer (University of Louisville)

283

Monastic History in a Courtly Mode? Author and Audience in Guillaume de Saint-Pairs Roman du Mont Saint-Michel and the Anonymous Histoire de l'abbaye de Fécamp Jean Blacker (Kenyon College) Magister Conradus Presbyter: Pfaffe Conrad at the Court of Henry the Lion Jeffrey Ashcroft (University ofSt. Andrews) The Courtly Authority and Reception of the Iberian Chronicles: Medieval Historiography and Cultural Historicism Roberto Gonzälez-Casanovas (Catholic University ofAmerica) Context and Genesis of Pierre de Langtoft’s Chronicle Thea Summerfield (University of Utrecht) Boek van Zeden: Three Medieval Flemish Courtesy Poems in the Latin Facetus Tradition T. Meder (University of Leiden) Reading Illustrations of Tristan Stephanie Cain Van D'Elden (University ofMinnesota) The End of an Adventure: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde Setsuko Haruta (Japan Women’ University)

291

301

309

321

299

343

353

PREFACE In recent years, the literary heritage of medieval Europe has enjoyed critical and scholarly attention from a richly diverse, interdisciplinary range of perspectives. The thirty-four essays in this volume, while addressing specific areas of research on Latin, French, English, German, Spanish, Dutch and Italian textualities, illustrate a number of the most vigorously and fruitfully investigated of these perspectives as they emerged at the Seventh Triennial Congress of the International Courtly Literature Society, held at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (USA), July 27—August 1, 1992.

The three plenary addresses featured at the Congress, by Joan Ferrante, Michel Zink, and Piero Boitani, respectively introduce the first three Sections of the volume.

The first Section, Configuring the Feminine, attests that the area of Women’s Studies has reopened significant questions concerning early texts, particularly with regard to patronage, sexuality, gender, and public and private identity as reflected in a variety of genres and the cultural milieux from which they emerge. The papers in Section Two, Lyric Voice, Poetic Style: From Troubadours to Rhétoriqueurs, address questions of subjectivity, intertextuality, manuscript evidence and cross-cultural transmission, across four centuries and across boundaries both generic and linguistic. Section Three, Amor: Ethos and Affect, focuses on a central thematic element in much of courtly literature, one that has always figured prominently in collections of papers from the Society’s meetings. Here, however, the spectrum broadens to include topics of new or renewed interest in current medieval studies, including sexual deviance, love sickness, and legal fictions. Fictions of Identity and Alterity are taken up by the papers in Section Four. Among them are new readings of some of the most familiar works of the courtly tradition, as well as investigations that call attention in suggestive ways to lesser-

known texts; this set of papers on English, French, and Italian narratives from the late twelfth through the mid-fifteenth centuries once again demonstrates the elasticity of courtly traditions and their seemingly perdurable susceptibility to thematic and ideological renewal. Finally, Culture and Historiography: Perspectives and Appraisals features essays that deal with most of the major geopolitical areas of the medieval European courtly world. Bringing to prominence questions of literacy, literary production, and reception, they explore in a number of specific cases the interface between literary culture and historiography. The essays here assembled are refereed and revised versions of contributions from

among the one publication has l'Ambassade de the assistance Delacampagne,

hundred and twenty presented at the 1992 ICLS Congress. Their been funded in part by a generous grant from the Services Culturels de France aux Etats-Unis, Consulat de Boston; we are most grateful for of Madame Noélle de Chambrun and Monsieur Christian Attachés Culturels. Donald Maddox Sara Sturm-Maddox University of Massachusetts, Amherst September, 1993

I CONFIGURING

THE

FEMININE

WHOSE VOICE? THE INFLUENCE ON COURTLY ROMANCES

OF WOMEN

PATRONS

Joan Ferrante

The role of women as patrons of courtly literature is not always obvious. Despite addresses to women in lyrics and romances, their patronage has been questioned, even dismissed as a literary topos.! I hope to counter such doubts with some suggestive details from courtly romances that claim to be written for particular women. But there is also evidence ofliterary collaboration between men and women from the beginning of the Middle Ages:? women who inspired men to write scholarly works by asking questions that required tracts to answer them, or by requesting commentaries and explanations; women who inspired poetry from men by their letters, their gifts, or their own poems; as well as women who commissioned histories or romances, or who were perceived as potential patrons, to whom such works might profitably be dedicated. Succeeding centuries often ignored or suppressed traces of the woman role, so we know only of those whose role the men chose to acknowledge, and perhaps not all of them.3 From Jerome and Augustine, who wrote on a variety of religious subjects in response to the women who worked with them or were engaged in related work, through Alcuin, who credits Charlemagne’s sister and daughter with getting him to write a text he had long wanted to do, to Abelard, who began writing lyric poetry to win Heloise’s love, and ended writing a Rule, guidance for studies, answers to theological questions, sermons

and hymns, at her request for her and her nuns, major

1 E, Jane Burns and Roberta L. Krueger raise these questions in their Introduction to Courtly Ideology and Woman Place in Medieval French Literature, Romance Notes, 25 (1985), pp. 205-19. In German courtly literature, William C. McDonald (with Ulrich Goebel, German Medieval Literary Patronage from Charlemagne to Maximilian I [Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1973]) recognizes few women patrons, but Joachim Bumke, Mäzene im Mittelalter, Die Günner und Auftraggeber der Hofischen Literatur in Deutschland, 1150-1300 [München: C.H. Beck, 1979]), devotes a chapter to women patrons. 2 | have been studying women’s correspondence through the Middle Ages (from the 4th to the 13th

century) and finding much more evidence for literary and scholarly collaboration than | had expected. My findings will appear in a book in the Indiana University Series on Women of Letters, where I discuss women’s correspondence, women’s patronage, and women’s writing. This paper is part of that study.

3 Most of the women’s letters are lost, so we know of their requests only when the men mention them; one exception is Alcuin, who includes the letter from Charlemagne’s sister and daughter with the text he wrote for them. Sometimes even dedications disappear, as seems to have been the case with Wace’s Roman de Brut, which we know he dedicated to Eleanor only because Layamon mentions it in his English translation: “A Frenchis cler,/ Wace wes ihoten./ be wel coupe writen/ & he hoe 3ef pare aedelen/ Ælienor pe wes Henries quene/ pes he3es kinges.”

4

Joan Ferrante

religious figures wrote for women. I call all these women “patrons,” in that they caused the works to be written and supported the writer with intellectual, emotional, and sometimes financial help. Other religious men, Fortunatus, Ennodius, Boniface and Lull, Hildebert of Lavardin, Baudri of Bourgeuil, not only wrote for but exchanged poems with women. There seems to be a difference in the nature of the relationship between Latin and vernacular writers and the women for whom they wrote. In the Latin religious writing for women, with the exception of Rules and certain kinds ofspiritual advice, the texts are exchanges between intellectual equals, or colleagues and friends who respect each other, and many of the Latin lyrics are also exchanges between friends whose mutual affection and respect are evident. Vernacular lyrics and romances, on the other hand, seem to be mainly addressed to women whose favor is being sought (whether in love or money), even though debate poems by men and women like the debates in Andreas suggest that a playful kind ofintellectual equality may also have existed in courts, but

little of itremains.‘ Vidas and razos in Provençal suggest that women were particularly interested in the honor they derived from being the subjects of such poems, and encouraged poets in order to enhance their reputations to the envy of other women: a razo for Bertran de Born claims that the duchess of Saxony “for the great desire she had of worth and honor and because she knew that Sir Bertran was a man so valued and worthy that he could greatly exalt her, did him such honor that he considered himself well paid and fell in love with her, so that he began to praise and glorify her” (XI.F.4).5 A razo of Uc de Saint Circ says that a lady Ponsa, “courtly and educated, was so envious of the lady Clara for whom Sir Uc had gained worth and honor, that she took

pains to take

(XXXIII.B.11).6 The

Sir Uc

away

from

his love and

draw

Vidas emphasize the advantage women

him

to _ herself”

patrons take of male

poets, but one of the trobairitz, Isabella, makes the contrary case: when she asks her former lover why his songs have changed, he answers that he praised her not from love, but for the honor and profit he expected from it, as joglars do.’ Of course, even those Latin poets who exchanged metrical epistles with women poets, like Hildebert of Lavardin, Marbod of Reims, or Baudri de Bourgeuil, sometimes wrote seeking favor from a patron. Baudri wrote two poems to Countess Adela of Blois, one an elaborate praise of her erudition and power by way of a fantastic description of her room, the other asking her for a cope that will suit both the giver and the receiver, which will turn her from a countess to a queen for him as his song will spread her fame through the wide world. She has already furnished the matter for 4 There is more tendency now to recognize the possibility that the debate poems are real exchanges, or at least that they reflect a cultural milieu in which such exchanges could and probably did occur. See Angelica Rieger, ed., Trobairitz (Tiibingen: Max Niemeyer, 1991), pp. 82-88.

5“... per la gran voluntat qu’ella avia de pretz e d’onor, e per so qu’ella sabia qu’En Bertrans era tan fort presatz hom e valens e qu’el la podia fort enansar, si’l fetz tant d’onor qu’el s’en tenc fort per pagatz et enamoret se fort de leis, si qu’el la comenset lauzar e grazir.” J. Boutière and A.-H. Schutz, Biographies des Troubadours (Paris: Nizet, 1964).

6 “Mout era cortesa et ensegnada; et ac gran enveja a ma dompna Clara del pretz et de l’henor ge N’Uc li avia facha gasagnar; si se penset et penet con pogues faire q’ella tolgues N’Uc de la soa amistat et traes lo a si.” 7... noll dis per drudaria/ mas per honor e pron q'ieu n’atendia,/ si con ioglars fai de domna prezan,” see Rieger, Trobairitz, no. 10, p. 275.

The Influence of Women Patrons on Courtly Romances

5

the song: “I have taken the matter from the countess:/ you yourself furnish the song to me, you the pen,/ you will give the breath and mouth, you will fill the void;/ you pay the deserved rewards to the poet./ You compel taciturn bards to be loquacious;/ therefore . . . restore, o lady, to the writer, his rewards, the cope.” He describes the cope he expects, implying that her honor rests on its value, that she should adorn it as she does ministers and churches with gold and gems, adding at the very end, “don’t forget the fringe.”® I wonder if Chrétien was echoing this poem in his prologue to Lancelot, where the Countess of Champagne also gives the poet the matter and the meaning of his work. As Baudri says to Adela, “you would be a queen to me from a countess” (“nam regina mihi tu fies ex comitissa,” 4) for her gift of rich cloth and

gems, Chrétien says he will not say that the countess is worth as much in queens as a precious gem in brocades and sardonyx even though it is true (“dirai je: ‘Tant com une jame/ vaut de pailes et de sardines,/ vaut la contesse de reines?’ Naie voir; je n’en dirai rien,/ s’est il voirs maleoit gré mien’ ” 16-20).° In both cases, it is the countess who

wills the poet to speak, who compels the “taciturn bard to be loquacious.” Where Baudri had openly offered flattery in return for the rich gift, Chrétien pretends not to flatter but only to do what she asks; but perhaps the echo of Baudri implies that he too writes this work which made him so uncomfortable only for a rich reward. In the romances dedicated to women as in the histories translated into the vernacular for them, the woman patron is clearly in a socially superior position; her tastes and views are privileged. Some Latin histories were written for women, and probably slanted to please them, like an anonymous history of Canute for his queen, Emma, which attributes a key role in the succession to her, or Hugh of Fleury’s Historia Ecclesiastica for the same Adela of Blois, in which Hugh emphasizes the importance and effectiveness of ancient women rulers, concentrating on the positive and suppressing the negative aspects from his sources.!° But women seem to have played a greater role in the histories they had translated from Latin to French. One of the earliest histories in French, Gaimar’s Estoire des Engleis, was commissioned by a noble woman, Constance Fitzgilbert: “Ceste estorie fist translater’ Dame Custance la gentil” (6430-

31).!! Though the history does not feature powerful women as Hugh’s does, neither does it ignore them: it includes several whose roles are significant, beginning with one who is her father’s only heir, a frequent motif in romances written for women, who motivates her husband Havelock to discover his inheritance, and another whose

8 “,..ex quo materiam mihi sumpsi de comitissa:/ ipsa mihi carmen, calamum mihi suggeris ipsa,/ ipsa dabis flatus, os, ipsa, replebis hiulcum;/ emeritas solvis mercedes

ipsa poetis./ Tu cogis vates

taciturnos esse loquaces;/ ergo . . . refer, o domina, scribenti, praemia, cappam./ . . . et cave ne desit etiam sua fimbria cappae.” M. Teresa Razzoli, ed., Le Epistole Metriche di Baldericus Burguliensis (Milano: Albrigni, 1936), p. 69-70, ll. 10-16, 32.

9 Le Chevalier de la Charrette, ed. Mario Roques (Paris: Champiom, 1958). 10 Kimberly Lo Prete argued this quite persuasively in a talk at the Medieval Academy meeting in Columbus, Ohio, March 20, 1992, “Exemplary Women Rulers in Hugh of Fleury’s Historia ecclesiastica, Written for Adela of Blois.” 11 Gaimar records Constance’ purchase ofa [lost] history of Henry I which she kept in her chamber to

read and her providing the book he needed to do his history; he could not have done the work without her help: “Si sa dame ne li aidast,/ ja a nul jor ne l’achevast.” Geoffrey Gaimar, L'Estoire des Engleis, ed. Alexander Bell (Oxford: Blackwell, 1960), 6439-40.

6

Joan Ferrante

Lucretia-like response to rape causes the rejection of a bad king, as well as two queens who work to procure the throne for their sons. Wace dedicated his French translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, the Roman de Brut, to Eleanor of Aquitaine, although it was probably Henry who commissioned it as he commissioned the history of hisNorman ancestors, the Roman de Rou. The Rou nonetheless includes praise of the queen and her generosity and a brief history of her life, including the significant fact that she was the only direct heir to her lands, |. 32—3.!2 The dedication of the Brut no longer exists, but Layamon, who translated the work into English, says that Wace gave it to Eleanor. Wace adds many courtly (and Ovidian) elements to his translation, presumably for Eleanor’s taste: Uther’s love for Ygerne, which began before he met her, the signs of love he gives her during the banquet, his suffering, and the physical symptoms oflove; Arthur's qualities include the requirement that he be served “curteisement;” Guenever is beautiful, courtly, generous and well-spoken (bone-parliere); when Arthur calls an assembly there is much joy and kissing and recounting of “avantures;” the court includes singers, musicians, and minstrels (chanteors, estrumanteors, tresgiteors) who tell

tales (contes) and fables; the coronation of Arthur and Guenever may be modeled on the coronation of Henry and Eleanor;!3 the story of Mordred’s treachery, his adultery with the queen and his usurping of the crown, is told in much more detail. It is likely that early renditions of classical “histories” into French, the Roman de Troie and the Roman de Thèbes, were also done for Eleanor’s court, if not directly for her, and that her tastes are reflected in them as well. While we cannot really know whether poets slanted the literature they wrote for women because women asked them to, we can trace the recurrence ofcertain motifs in the literature that is at least in part addressed to women who are said to have commissioned, or encouraged, or designed the work or who are specified as the chosen audience for it. Taken together, the motifs suggest a strong pattern of complimenting the lady by enhancing the powers and roles of women characters, and by making the hero vulnerable so that he needs the help of women more than he serves them. A striking number of women in such romances are accepted as the only heirs to their father’s land or are effective rulers or regents; some are so independent they refuse to marry (at first), others are willing to recognize and reward merit where they find it (perhaps a hint at the relation between woman patron and poet). The heroines of such romances are often unusually well educated, which gives them extraordinary, even magic powers; some are able to manipulate the hero’s actions and the events of the story, so they seem to be surrogates for the poet, an identification which at times is virtually explicit. If the poet is writing at the woman suggestion, and so is in some

12 “A Peitiers s'en ala, sun naturel manage;/ N’iout plus prochain heir, qu’el fu de sun lignage.” Maistre Waces Roman de Rou et des Ducs de Normandie, ed. Hugo Andresen (Hilbronn: Gebr. Henninger,

1877), p. 208.

13 Yvonne Rokseth, Polyphonies du XIIIe siècle: Le Manuscrit H 196 de la Faculté de Médecine de

Montpellier, 4v (Paris: l'Oiseau-Lyre, 1935-39), 4.40, cited by Rebessa A. Baltzer, “Music in the Life and Times of Eleanor of Aquitaine,” Eleanor ofAquitaine, ed. William W. Kibler (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 1976), p. 66.

The Influence of Women Patrons on Courtly Romances

Ti

sense her spokesman, then by making his heroine his spokesman, as it were, he is extending and emphasizing their collaborative effort."4 If some heroines of romances composed for women complain that women cannot reveal their love in words (Galeron, Melior [in Partonopeu], Romadanaple, Andrivete),

as if silence had been imposed on them as it was on so many women, all of them are in fact able to act to satisfy their desires. And the men on whom and on whose behalf they act are not the macho heroes ofepic, but vulnerable men whose wounds must be healed, whose lives must be protected or saved, whose confidence must be built; poor knights who must be clothed, armed, and finally raised to positions of power by marrying the heroine who has the power. Most of the themes I have sketched here are not usually found in the romances not specifically directed at women. (I am making a distinction here between those which name a woman as patron or addressee and those which do not, though I assume that all of them were composed in the expectation that women would be in the audience.) The same motifs are not found or rarely found in the poems of Chrétien de Troyes, who complained so about the one romance he admits to writing for a woman, nor in those of Hartmann von Aue. Their heroes do not take their worldly status from the women they marry (Yvain takes over Laudine’s land, but he is the son ofa king, Erec and Arme Heinrich raise their wives considerably in social status — Erec even bestows castles on Enide’s impoverished father, and [in Chrétien] asks his own father to give her half of his lands if he dies). Their heroines do not inherit and rule their own lands (Gregorius’s mother is left to rule as a result of

and in order to cause incest); they are not presented as the only heir carefully educated

to the role. Though Yvain has to be rescued at first by Lunete, it is really only Lancelot, the hero imposed on Chrétien by Marie de Champagne, who is manipulated by a woman, and who finally has to be freed from his tower prison by a woman.

14 E, Jane Burns, in Bodytalk, When Women Speak in Old French Literature (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), speaking of a poet who prefers not to write for women, notes that Chrétien transforms the masculine “conte d’avanture,” “men’s stories,” into a feminine “conjointure,” “women’s stories,” and suggests that instead of replacing male combat with love, he is (temporarily) substituting male coupling in combat with heterosexual union, turning the pleasure of the heroine’s body into the pleasure of the romancer’s text (pp. 161-62, 169-70).

15 June McCash points out that Lancelot, faced with the choice, consistently chooses female over male needs or values. See “Marie de Champagne’s ‘Cuer d’ome et cors de fame’: Aspects of Feminism and

Misogyny in the Twelfth Century,” The Spirit of the Court, Selected Proceedings of the Fourth Congress of the International Courtly Literature Society, ed. Glynn S. Burgess and Robert A. Taylor (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1988), p. 237. In Hugh of Rutland’s /pomedon, not apparently written for a woman, women are presented unfavorably and the Lancelot situation is reversed: the hero chooses to appear a coward rather than fight, and

the heroine (who is the heir to her land) is not admired, but punished for her pride by falling in love with an object of ridicule, whereas Lancelot acts like a coward at the lady’s command and she makes him the object of ridicule to feed her pride and prove his devotion. Hugh Protheselaus, written for a

male patron, focuses on the hero’s knightly deeds. Other romance writers who do not write for women either avoid or play down the motifs that are emphasized in the romances for women. Raoul de Houdenc in Meraugis de Portlesquez presents a heroine who is the heir to her land and who governs well, but she becomes the object of male competition, and has no control over the plot except to establish

when the men will fight for her. Gottfried von Strassburg has an unusually well-educated heroine, who must be the heir to her land, but that is never mentioned, and she has little control over her life — she is

given in marriage to whoever kills the dragon, and given away by her husband to pay a musician.

8

Joan Ferrante

It is likely that the story Marie wanted Chrétien to tell, of aknight inspired purely by love, rescuing a queen imprisoned by the faults and failures of a male world of violence, lust, and a questionable sense of honor, is the story of her mother, Eleanor, imprisoned by her husband Henry 11.16 By rescuing Guenever/Eleanor, with the help of numerous women, Lancelot/Chrétien would also rescue from those false values a good part of Arthur’s/Henry’s circle. That the court of King Arthur in Lancelot is the Anglo-Norman court of Henry and Eleanor is suggested by the reference at the beginning of the romance to the ladies of the English court being eloquent in French (“bien parlant en langue frangoise,” 40). It is possible that Chrétiens Guenever is

modeled on Eleanor not only in her imprisonment in this romance, but throughout Chrétien’s romances. Whether the poet wrote Erec and Cligés for the Anglo-Norman court, or simply had that court in mind as a likely audience (the details about England in Cligés as well as the allusions to contemporary international politics suggest some connection), the notion of his complimenting the current queen of England in his treatment of Arthurs queen — even though he does not slant the story as he might if she were the immediate patron — does not seem far-fetched, at least before she had fallen out with her husband. In the early romances Chrétien’s Guenever acts for social harmony, arranges marriages, advises the king (without much success) against disruptive action; but by the time of Yuain and Lancelot, after Eleanor had been imprisoned by Henry for inciting revolts against him, Guenever becomes more complex, even morally ambiguous, as she presses Calogrenant to tell the tale of his shame, and makes a mockery ofLancelot’s devotion in the tourney of Nouauz. Though she retains some powers in the court — the king tells her Kay will do for her what he will not do for him, and she feels free to give Kay a promise in the name of the king — she also suffers

from, indeed is imprisoned because of Arthur’s recklessness, Kay’s egotism, and Meleagant’s villainy. At the same time, when she has power, as over the hero, she exercises it capriciously and tyrannically. Perhaps Chrétien is sympathetic to women who are victims, trapped by male violence like Laudine in Yvan and Guenever in the first part of Lancelot, but not to those who initiate action in their own interests as Guenever does in the latter part of the romance or as Marie does in imposing an unwanted story on him. It is difficult not to relate Guenever’s treatment of Lancelot to Marie’s treatment of the poet. He tells us at the very beginning that Marie imposed the content and the message of the story on him (matiere et san, 26), and later that he is so uncomfortable

with it he refuses to finish it. It is tantalizing to wonder if Chrétien is not fighting her all through it. Even the dedication, though complimentary, is rather grudging. When Lancelot turns to look at the queen in the tower, and exposes himself to Meleagant's attack, or when he alternates between his best and his worst at her capricious command, is Chrétien suggesting that by following Marie’s commands he exposes himself to criticism and ridicule? When Guenever refuses to speak to Lancelot because of his brief hesitation to get in the cart, and Lancelot attempts suicide, is Chrétien alluding to Maries disfavor because of his rejection of other subjects or his hesitation to 16 On the probable relations between Marie and her mother, as they can be posited from the material

we have, see June McCash, “Marie de Champagne and Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Relationship Reexamined,” Speculum, 54 (1979), pp. 698-711.

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undertake this one, and his own thoughts of giving up poetry altogether? Are Lancelots repeated attempts to find Gawain — who is connected throughout the romance with reason rather than love, a positive value of the male world — a suggestion that Chrétien considered writing non-romances, or even romances like Perceval that he would undertake for a man?!” Chrétiens rebellion against his patron is unusual if not unique among romance writers who write for women. One theme that is not, however, is the use of women characters as spokesmen or surrogates for the poet, if |am not mistaken in seeing hints of it in Chrétien’s poems.'® The possibility of the poet being reflected in one of his women characters arises early in vernacular romance. In Benoît de Sainte-Maure’s Roman de Troie, the poet presents himselfin the opening lines as one who has wisdom and learning, knowledge of the liberal arts; insisting that anyone with such gifts should not be silent, not hesitate to do good or to teach, he will translate the story from Latin to Romance for those who do not understand (1-38).1° The first story he tells is of Jason seeking the golden fleece, which he can get only with the help of Medea. Medea is presented like many heroines of romances for women, as the daughter of a king, his only child and heir (1215), highly educated, learned in the arts

and in magic (“de conjure et de sorcerie . . . astronomie e nigromance”), so that she could make day night or waters run backward. She has had no interest in love before she sees Jason (1283-4), but as soon as she does, she is ready to give herself, first her wisdom, then her body. She teaches him all he needs to know about the dangers of getting to the fleece, and then, when he swears to keep faith with her, she gives him the necessary tools, a protective figure and ring, an ointment against fire, and a written ritual (1667). The author seems to suggest that Medea is doing the right thing by using her knowledge to benefit another, even though he will betray her. (Benoit tells us nothing ofthe subsequent revenge that might put Medea in a worse light.) Much later in his story, Benoit makes an explicit connection between magic and poetry which lends support to the connection between himself and Medea. He describes the Chambre de Labastre, the chamber of alabaster, constructed by three poets, wise doctors, learned in necromancy

(14668-9). They have created images, figures of

women and men that seem to represent the powers of poetry and music: one figure holds a mirror in which people see themselves exactly as they are; one is constantly in action or creating the illusion ofgreat actions (including a ship on the high seas, “nef

siglant par haute mer,” 14731, a metaphor Benoit will shortly use for his own poem, “mout par ai ancore a sigler,/ quar ancor sui en haute mer,” 14943-4); one figure restores and dispels anger or grief with heavenly music of various instruments, and one

17 Perhaps Gawain

represents someone

like Evrat, writing on more serious matters for Marie, but

caught up in her views (McCash, “Cuer d’ome”) and therefore in danger of drowning. As Henderson [cited in McCash] and McCash have shown, Marie did expect men who wrote for her to espouse her views, and Chrétien makes it clear that he would prefer not to. 18 Enide giving voice to her husband’s fault and suffering for it (perhaps like the poet who shows up the faults of the chivalric world); Thessala, the nurse in Cligés, who creates illusions and confuses life and death, dream and reality in the service of her mistress, while her male counterpart, Jehan, only builds an

elaborate but finally vulnerable refuge; perhaps Lunete who, also in the service of her mistress, arranges the marriage and reconciliation of hero and heroine, but is vulnerable to the envy of their court. 19 Le Roman de Troie par BenoitdeSainte-Maure, ed. L. Constans (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1904-12), 6 v.

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scatters flowers, above which an eagle appears, repeatedly attacked by a satyr with a club (satiric verse?). This last image shows people what each of them should do, without others being aware, that is it gives a different and pertinent message to each member of the audience (14863ff). The chamber of alabaster is both stone and

transparent, representing perhaps the power and the mimetic qualities of poetry. Everyone who enters it is kept from villainy while there. Given to Helen, when Paris brought her to Troy, the chamber is where the wounded Hector is taken to be cared for, so it becomes the center of the court, attended by all the ladies and princes and people ofgreatest worth (14611-16).

The Roman de Troie, if it was not written for Eleanor directly, was certainly written with her in mind, the “riche dame de riche rei” to whom the poet apologizes for his remarks about Briseide, and whom he praises for her goodness equal to her position, her “pris e valor/ honesté e sen e honor . . . largece e beauté;” in her all “science abonde” and misdeeds of other women are extinguished by her good (13457ff). It seems very likely to me that Eleanor, who like Helen had been married to a king and carried off with her consent by a prince who placed her at the center of a court filled with poetry and learning, would have seen in Helen’s alabaster chamber of art a compliment to her and her court, particularly since Helen is presented sympathetically.2 At the same time, Benoît may be complimenting a different aspect of Eleanor in his presentation of the wise and long-suffering Hecuba, the actual queen of Troy, described as the mother of five sons and three daughters (Hector, Helenus, Deiphebus, Troilus, Paris, Andromache [who is also listed among her daughters in Dares], Cassandra, Polixena]; Eleanor too had five sons and three daughters (William,

Henry, Matilda, Richard, Geoffrey, Eleanor, Joanna, John).?! Eleanor and her daughter, Marie, are both mentioned in Andreas Cappellanuss De arte honeste amandi, but there is no dedication or proof of patronage and it is impossible to determine whether the roles ascribed to them in the work are fiction or based on fact. It makes little sense, however, to deny either of them a role as patrons of courtly literature, if only because of the number of works associated with their courts. Certainly they provided welcoming atmospheres for courtly poets of lyric and romance. And Marie, we know from the authors’ testimony, directly encouraged at least Chrétien and Gautier d’Arras (as well as Evrat). Gautier says he began Eracle for Thiebaut of Blois and for Marie, Thiebaut’s sister-in-law: “Li quens Tiebauz . . . me

20 In Dares, Benoit’s source, Helen does little to cause the war. Alexander (Paris) is sent to get his aunt back, fails at that, but is attracted to Helen and takes her instead. Though she seems to be attracted to

him as well, she does nothing to abet the kidnapping, grieves and has to be comforted. She grieves later for Alexander, because she had been honorably treated by him. 21 Benoit develops the love stories of ‘Troilus and Briseide and of Achilles and Polixena, and he gives

substantial roles to Andromache and Hecuba in the scenes in Troy, with considerable sympathy for their plight. On Benoîts privileging royal women, particularly Hecuba, see Martine Thiry-Stassin, “Interpellations féminines dans le Roman de Troie de Benoit de Sainte-Maure,” Mélanges de langue et littérature

française du moyen age offerts à Pierre Jonin (Paris: Champion, 1979), pp. 645-60. It is likely that the Roman de Thèbes, the French version of the Aeneid and Thomas's Tristan were also composed for the court of Eleanor and Henry, and they too present notable queens, Jocasta, Dido — an effective ruler until she meets the hero — and Ysolt, who is educated, composes lais and has the medical skills to cure the hero, if she could reach him.

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fist ceste uevre rimoier;/ par lui le fs, . . . et par le contesse autressi,/ Marie, fille Loei,” though he finished it for Baudouin V of Hainaut (Il. 6548—56).”

Eracle is a curiously schizophrenic work, which seems to fluctuate between saints life and romance, between misogyny and philogyny, and could be read as a cautionary tale for suspicious husbands. The nominal hero is conceived with divine help and born to a mother who literally gives away all her wealth for the father’s soul, and finally sells her son, with his enthusiastic agreement,

in order to give more.

The

heroine is brought up by an aunt who protects her from the world, and sends her off to marry the emperor with injunctions to give generously, saying those to whom God gives power should give more. Despite these examples, the author and his hero mouth traditional anti-feminist “truths” and show up a series of women candidates for empress who hide their vices under the appearance of good. When the virtually perfect heroine is found, she becomes a model empress, praised by all, helping any who come to her, aiding churches, caring for orphans and the poor, establishing abbeys; “the Holy Spirit works in her” (“oevre en li sains Esperis,” 2928). Nonetheless, the emperor is afraid to leave her on her own when he goes away; he ignores Eracle’s strong advice to leave her free so she will love the lord from whom her honors come, rather than show her the way to misbehave by punishing her for nothing. As Eracle points out, the emperor is making a serious mistake in ignoring his advice since he has never been wrong, but he closes the empress up in a tower, guarded day and night by twenty-four men. She has impressive monologues on the injustice of her situation, which seem to express the poet’s view, and of course she decides to take a lover. In what might well be a statement about women and courtly culture, the empress, having been wronged by the highest representative of patriarchal power, turns to art for comfort, to a young man who plays the harp beautifully. When the emperor returns and discovers the affair, Eracle tells him it was all his fault and persuades him to give her up, though he is sad to lose “la dame de le millor vie,/ le plus vaillant, le plus senee/ qui onques fust de Rome nee” (5076-78). She goes off happily with her musician-lover (who happens to be the son of a senator), but Rome has lost an exemplary empress. The romance ends with Eracle’s conquering the pagan who has taken the true cross, which had been discovered by another holy empress, Helena; but even the apparently perfect Eracle cannot enter the sepulchre where the cross is buried because of his worldly pride, until he repents and asks God to pardon him as He had pardoned the Magdalene, identifying himself with a woman in his sin. The misogyny that is expressed in the romance is in fact belied by the exemplary actions of the women who frame the story, Eracle’s mother, the empress’s aunt, Helena, even by the empress herself when left to act as she chooses. Nor is it irrelevant that the emperor and the hero both make serious mistakes and the only man who deserves the empress is a Musician. Gautier’s other romance //le et Galeron, which is more conventional in its plot, was

22 Eracle, ed. Guy Raynaud de Lage (Paris: Champion, 1976), p. 102. 23 Ed. Frederick A.G. Cowper (Paris: Picard, 1956). According to Gautier (5805-6), J/l was begun after Eracle, though it may well have been finished earlier; see Cowper, “The New Manuscript of J{le et Galeron,” Modern Philology, 18 (1921), pp. 601-08. Cowper points out differences in the two

manuscripts and suggests that Gautier may have offered somewhat different versions to Beatrice and to

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also begun for a woman, Beatrice of Burgundy, wife of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. Though he finished it for Thiebaut of Blois, Gautier acknowledges Beatrice’s support even at the end: “do you think I would have undertaken this without him or her making me? But the work is well employed whichever of them it is sent to” (“Cuidiés,

si il ne me feist/ et ele ausi, que jel deisse,/ ne em tel painne men meisse? Mais l’uevre est molt bien emploie/ au quel d’ax quel soit envoie” 5821-25). His praise of Beatrice here is brief but strong: “la meldre qui soit née” (5810). At the beginning of the poem

he praises her lavishly as an example to all women: a model of “savoir . . . proéce .. . bonté . . . largece,” counseled from infancy by “cortoisie et proveance” and accompanied by “sapience,” she adorns the court of Germany as she brought honor to Rome where she was crowned; she has power but even greater will, anyone can come before her and she will hear them (like the empress in Æracle).

The story of {lle et Galeron is filled with themes | associate with romances for women. Its hero is vulnerable on many levels: socially, he is inferior to both his wives — raised by the first to a dukedom, by the second to an empire; emotionally, he lacks confidence in himself and therefore in Galeron’s love; and physically, he loses an eye because he tries too hard, and he lacks vision — like the emperor in Eracle, he worries

without cause about the fickleness of women, trusting to theory rather than to his own experience. Both the women he marries are the only heirs to their lands: Ganor as the only child inherits her father’s empire, but Galeron, rather surprisingly, is the chosen heir of her brother’s land; he chooses not to marry so that she will inherit (1395-8), and after her death, her husband divides her land among their three children, two sons and a daughter, reinforcing the importance of female inheritance.

Both women go on quests to find the hero because their lands need his service. It is rather disconcerting that Galeron abandons her land for several years, letting it go to wrack and ruin while she looks for Ille to come back and save it, but Gautier seems to be emphasizing her singleminded devotion — all her companions in the quest die, but

she carries on and succeeds. Both women refuse husbands oftheir own rank in favor of the hero: Galeron rejects counts and dukes, Ganor the emperor of Constantinople, preferring to rule alone if she cannot marry Ille. Ille is the son of count Eliduc, and the story may owe something to the lai of that name by Marie de France, about another man with certain limitations, who is caught between two women, both of whom seem to be too good for him. If ///e was inspired by Eliduc, and there seems no way to prove which way the influence went, if at all, we would have a woman encouraging a poet to write a work based in part at least on the work of awoman poet. Guillaume de Palerne, another romance of the late twelfth century, was composed for Countess Yolande (Yolent) de Pol, the sister of Baudouin V of Hainaut, for whom

Thibaut, abbreviating his praise of the empress, and omitting lovers’ monologues and much of their courtship, as well as the scene in which Galeron’s brother gets his sister to admit her love for Ille.

Cowper bases his edition on the Wollaton MS, but cites the longer praise of Beatrice from the Paris MS in the notes. E. Léseth based his edition (Oeuvres de Gautier d'Arras (Paris: Bouillon, 1890], 2v.) on the Paris MS. A. Fourrier, in Le Courant réaliste dans le roman courtois en France au Moyen age (Paris: Nizet, 1960),

suggests that Gautier edited his praise of Beatrice because he had been criticized for its excesses, perhaps even indirectly by Chrétien in his prologue to Lancelot, whose “Dirai-je tant com une jame/ vaut . . .” may echo Gautier “mout ama Deus honeur de feme/ quant naistre fist si bele geme” (p. 207).

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Gautier finished Eracle.”* Yolande was an aunt by marriage of Philip Augustus, therefore related by marriage to his half-sisters, Marie de Champagne and Alix de Blois, both patrons of romance poets. She was also the mother of two daughters, one of whom inherited her husband’s lands (Fourrier, 118-19). Like Eracle, Guillaume has a

hero who is lower born than the heroine (though not by as much as it appears through most of the story — he is the grandson of the Greek emperor through his mother) and a heroine who is the only heir to the Roman empire as well as a woman who rules a major land on her own. In addition, and this is unusual in romances commissioned by women, it has educated women who misuse their powers, though instead of being punished at the end, as in the prose romances, they are saved. The story according to the poet, is about both Guillaume and his mother, Felise, a good and loyal lady (like the countess Yolent, 9656, 9623), daughter of the emperor of Greece, who puts two educated Greek women in charge of her sons education. Unfortunately, they plot with the king’s brother to murder him and his father, but the child is rescued by a werwolf, himself the son of the king of Spain, whose stepmother caused his transformation, another educated lady (“sage a marveille et bien letree,” 7305) gone astray. The werwolf cares for the child until he is taken into the household of the emperor of Rome, where he and Meliors, the emperor’ daughter and only heir, fall in love. Guillaume, apparently fatherless, thinks the love is impossible; Meliors, under the influence of love, thinks he must be well-born, and gold is gold wherever you find it. To avoid an unwanted marriage, she flees with him, both sewn into bearskins, and cared for once more by the werwolf. Eventually they get to southern Italy, now ruled by Guillaumes mother, a widow, who is fighting off an attack by the king of Spain because she refused to let his son marry her daughter. Unrecognized, Guillaume fights for his mother and sister, saves their land, and using his poverty as an excuse, refuses the queen’s offer of herself and the land. The queen, Felise, presides over the final scenes of reconciliation and resolution. As she makes peace with the king of Spain, the werwolf sheds tears at the king’s feet and the king remembers hearing that his second wife transformed his son. Threatened with burning and the imprisonment of her son, his wife asks the wolf’s forgiveness and turns him back into a man. When he is embarrassed at his nakedness, she throws her mantle over him, a protective gesture that indicates, one assumes, her rehabilitation. Even the women who plotted against Guillaume and his father are pardoned and allowed to retire to a hermitage, while the younger characters are united in marriage, Guillaume’s putting him in line for the empire. Guillaume returns with Meliors to her

24 Charles W. Dunn, The Foundling and the Werwolf. A Literary-Historical Study of “Guillaume de Palerne” (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1960), dates it between 1194 and 1197 (p. 141). Anthime Fourrier notes that Yolande had a translation done from Latin to French of the Pseudo-Turpin, which

her brother Baudouin had left to her and suggests that that may have led the author of Guillaume to say she asked him to translate his story from Latin; see “La ‘Contesse Yolent’ de Guillaume de Palerne,” Etudes de langue et de littérature du Moyen Age offerts à Félix Lecoy (Paris: Champion, 1973), pp. 116-17. 25 It is a small but intriguing detail that when the emperor of Greece receives a letter, he breaks the seal

but has the letter read by a clerc (8450); when a letter arrives in the Spanish court, the queen breaks the seal and reads it to herself. Presumably this underscores the public versus the private aspects of their actions, perhaps even the honorable versus the treacherous, but it also emphasizes the queen’s literacy.

Cf. the evil queen in the Roman de Silence who forges a letter in the king’s name.

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land, while his mother continues to rule as queen of southern Italy. When her son becomes the emperor of Rome and her daughter the queen of Spain, the vision she had ofher destiny is fulfilled. The three other romances

I want to discuss from the late twelfth century, Bel

Inconnu, Partonopeu de Blois, and Florimont, were written for women, according to their authors, and share many ofthe themes I have been tracing, though they purport to be addressed to women the poet was courting rather than to named patrons. Renaut de Beaujeu writes a romance for the lady who, he says, taught or inspired him to write cancons, and he does so with the same object in view, to win her love. He uses the story of the Bel Inconnu to get what he wants in a charmingly direct way, that tells us something about audience involvement with romance. Renaut suspends the story with the hero committed to the wrong women; he gambles that his lady outside the romance has so identified with the heroine that she will be kind to the poet in order to make him restore the hero to the right woman. However clever a ploy, it also suggests that audiences could sometimes influence the outcome of a story, as they did later with serial novels, and it gives support to the sense that a poet might expect a patron to identify with and be complimented by his treatment of a character in his story. The heroine ofthis story, who is simply called the Pucele-as-blances-mains, perhaps to allow more easily for audience identification,Ӣ is a woman ofextraordinary education and talent. Her father was a rich king and she is his only child and heir (4933ff);

he had her taught the seven arts, in which magic replaces music, and much else so that she can read the future and work enchantments. She does, in fact, use her powers to manipulate the hero and the action ofthe story, at least up to the point at which they consummate their love; then her power over him fails, or she refuses to use it, and the hero is free to stay or leave. He would stay, except that he is also committed to chivalry, which is part ofhis attraction for her, not to say his heritage as Gawain son, and the other woman is luring him back with a tourney of which she and her huge land are the prize.”” The other woman is also the only heir to the land, the victim of evil enchanters, who seized her city by illusion and turned her into a dragon by hitting her with a book when she would not marry one of them. I have somewhat facetiously suggested that this might represent the dangers of education for women — “hit them with books and they turn into dragons” — but one might also say it represents the dangers of refusing a literary lover since poets are magicians — “refuse me, and I will make you a monster in my writing.” The hero is again a young and unproven unknown who is drawn through a series of adventures and tests by the heroine's powers; the two women set all the action of the romance in motion, though neither offers him protective magic.”

26 Perhaps to make a comment on the two Isots, the one Tristan married being Isot-as-blances-mains, the one he loved Isot-la-blonde, which Renaut reverses with the Pucele as the hero’s love, the Blonde

Esmeree as the woman he has to marry. Did his lady have a sympathetic feeling for the second Isot, which Renaut is acknowledging in the names he gives his characters, or is it simply another of his many inversions of romance motifs? 27 One wonders if the poet had not also had to make a choice between his lady and a commitment to service in the world. 28 Peter Haidu has suggested, rightly I think, that the heroine might be a surrogate for the poet,

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The magic powers of women in these romances addressed to friends of the poet are positive and perhaps complimentary to the lady to whom they are addressed.2? Like the poet, the women in Bel Inconnu and Partonopeu create action and illusion, but only to help or at the very least to amuse; there is no hint of these heroines misusing their learning for harm. Melior in Partonopeu is the empress, educated to her position as her father’s only heir (so he had been assured by augurs, 4583ff, though in fact she has a sister, who plays an important role in the plot).2° She learned the seven arts thoroughly, then all of medicine (including cures), then religion (divinité, old law and

new), and finally “nigremance et enchantement;” by fifteen she had surpassed all her teachers, and she had had more than two hundred (4573ff). Her powers enabled her

to entertain her father by making his chamber grow to encompass the country, fill with light and armed knights who fought and disappeared, or wild beasts, or castles of a thousand people (4635ff); she is able to draw the hero to her, to keep him invisible to all but herself, to entertain him with the deeds ofancient times (1868) by her sweet

words (“douce et soef a le parole,” 1871). She has, in other words, a poet’s powers, which do finally prevail in this romance, although they are countered for a time by the demands of the conventional world in the person ofthe hero’s mother, the sister of the king of France. The mother exerts her own magic powers with a love potion to free the hero from what she thinks is a demonic love, and a lantern to enable him to see his love as she is. The light reveals of course that the heroine is human not demonic, but it also seems to put an end to her magic. Because she is the empress, however, she can still exert some control over the action of the story: she holds a tourney to determine the best of her many suitors, which is interestingly inconclusive, but then she makes the contenders go through a beauty contest, with a distinctly feminist tone. Saying “I care a lot about beauty” (“je tir molt a la belté,” 10388), and telling the men “you shouldn't be surprised, since that’s the way you choose among us” (“si ne vos en mervellies mie,/ car si choisit chascuns de vos/ quant doit prendre une de nos,” 10392-4), Melior has them disarm, and parade in their robes. The hero is embarrassed, but he wins this contest without challenge. Partonopeu is another hero who is manipulated by the women in his life, his love and his mother — one might even say that Melior acts like his mother when he leaves her, giving him money and telling him to help the poor — and he needs the nurturing and plotting of the heroine's sister to bring him back to

controlling the actions of the hero and the events ofthe story (though some of them get away from her),

creating illusions like the hero’s nightmares, though she becomes a victim of the narrative machine. See “Realism, Convention, Fictionality and the Theory of Genres in Le Bel Inconnu,” L'Esprit Créateur, 12

(1972), pp. 37-60. 29 In Florimont, the heros first love has magic powers, while the heroine is simply highly educated. In the other two, the heroine is highly educated and has magic powers as well. 30 It is never explained whether the sister, Uraque, is illegitimate or a half-sister by her mother or whether the prophecy only meant that her father would not have sons. Perhaps the topos of the

educated herione as an only child is so strong it overcomes even the facts of the plot. Perhaps the sister

entered the story because the romance was written for the court of Blois, “very likely at the request of Alix,” according to Hans-Erich Keller (“Literary Patronage in the Time of Philip Augustus,” The Spirit of the Court, p. 197), daughter of Eleanor and Louis VII, younger sister of Marie de Champagne, and

half-sister of Philip Augustus. No patron is, however, named in the romance, which was edited by Joseph Gildea and Leon Smith (Villanova: Villanova Univ. Press, 1967-70), 2v.

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health and to his lady. The poet, whose powers are certainly reflected in the heroine's, claims to identify with the hero, or at least to contrast himself with Partonopeu who is luckier in his love, if not as loyal as the poet. Florimont, the hero of the romance by Aymon (Aimes) de Varenne, is another young hero who must be helped by a series of women: he is nurtured at the beginning by a fairy who gives him a ring that will make people grant what he asks, a protective ointment, and a special sword; another woman gives him a magic ointment at the end

that enables him to get past a gate and lions in order to rescue his father and grandfather; and the heroine raises his status, bringing him the kingdom of Greece. Florimont falls in love with the fairy, heir to the Ile Selee, who heals his wounds after he kills a monster; she offers herself and her land to him, but he is very attached to his parents, afraid they will die ofgrief if heleaves them. She gives him her love secretly as long as he tells no one, but his mother follows him and sees the fairy, who must cut herself off from him or die. This rejection weans the hero from his parents. He gives away everything he has, changes his identity to the “povres perdus,” and leaves them and their land vulnerable to a devastating war. He will come back at the end to rescue and restore them, but he will need the help of another lady and her ointment. Meanwhile, he goes away and serves the heroine’s father, quickly winning her love and eventually the father’s support, despite his poverty, and becomes, through his marriage, heir to the Greek kingdom. The heroine, Romadanaple, who is introduced in the story before the hero, is the

only child of the Greek king who had himself inherited the right to the throne from a woman, his mother.2! He has his daughter taught letters by a woman master from Cyprus, who is “mout bien letree” (1099) because of her “bien letrez” father. At the

hero’s first sight of her, he forgets his fairy love and agrees to serve her father. Romadanaple argues with herself about her feelings, justifying her love both by etymology — her name turned around means “full of love,” “plena d’amor” 7760ff— and by proverbial wisdom and logic, arguments that may well express the poet’s views: a good poor man is better than a bad baron (7887-8), there is no use adding wealth to wealth (7917-18), an apple is a better fruit than an acorn though it comes from a

smaller tree (8975-82); if |marry a king or emperor he would be a lord rather than a friend, this one would be lord and friend (9013-16). It is certainly not coincidental

that shortly after she resolves her doubts and invites Florimont into her bed, the poet digresses about the “fine amor” that existed in their time and the meaning of his own name which like his heroine’s destines him for love — “Aymes,” 9217ff. Like Renaut and the poet of Partonopeu, Aymes claims to write for love of a lady, “Aymes por amour anulli” (8); Hilka interprets anulli as an anagram for Juliane (xcviii). During

his digression on love he adds that he put the story into writing as “fine amors”

31 His men want him to marry since he has no heir, male or female (“quant tu fil ne fille n’as,” 951), recognizing the possibility of a woman inheriting though they hope for a man (900); Aimon von Varennes, Florimont, ed. Alfons Hilka (Gottingen: Gesellschaft fiir Romanische Literatur, 1932). Though this romance is not much read now, apparently it was known to Christine de Pizan, who mentioned it: “Aultres histoire si racomptent assez de choses voirez . . . et Florimont,” according to H. Michelant, ed. Gerard d’Amiens, Escanor, (Tübingen: Literatur Verein im Stuttgart, 1886); the only reference he gives is MS fr.Nr. 1740, 835f.61, f. 24b.

The Influence of Women Patrons on Courtly Romances

17

advised him, a story which came from Greek to Latin, from which he composed the romance for his “amie” Vialine (presumably another anagram for Juliane, 9207-16). The late twelfth century seems to be a high point in women’s patronage of courtly romance, though occasional romances were composed for women in the next centuries.?? One, which was written in the second half of the thirteenth century, should be mentioned because it combines so many of the motifs discussed here. Gerard d'Amiens wrote Escanor “at the command of a noble, lovely, and wise lady . . . the worthiest queen ever born in Spain . . . wife of the King of England” (8—29), that is, Eleanor of Castile, queen of Edward I from 1254-90, himself a descendant of the Eleanor in whose court it all seems to have begun. Gerard says Eleanor gave him, indeed told him the story (“de qui li contes est venus . . . le conte que la gentiex dame m'a dit,” 19, 48-9). He rejoices to follow the will of such a lady, to tell the tale as the “matere” has it (50—60).%3

If Eleanor is responsible for this story, as Chrétien implied Countess Marie was responsible for Lancelot, she has produced an equally unusual hero, though in quite a different way. The main protagonist of the story is Kay, Arthur's senschal, who is a working seneschal throughout the romance, ordering food, organizing meals, returning to court at his lord’s summons, and exchanging the insults he is known for in Arthurian romance: “your tongue should be banished and thrown into the latrine,” Arthur tells him early on (298-99). But in this romance, he falls in love and struggles through most of its almost 26,000 lines to be worthy of the lady. His transformation into courtly lover, both courageous and humble, is very appealing, perhaps because he is constantly struggling with his old self. Inspired by love, he fights well, amazed at the force love has given him — “I wasn’t worth two nuts before” (4274) — but afraid there

are too many good knights for him to be able to win her. Though he is never at a loss for words with others, he cannot bring himself to declare his love to her; he resolves not to bring ridicule on himself any more, but when he thinks he has lost her, the venomous tongue takes over. He wishes the same misery to the king and all who make fun of him, saying “now I see that your courtesy is shit . . . I’ve pissed into the wind” (“or voi bien que devenue/ est vo cortoisie la merde . . . j’ai pissie contre le vent,”

22536-37, 22544). Fortunately, his lady is equally sharp-tongued; as Dynadan notes, they suit each other.34 Andrivete is cultivated and charming enough to delight Gawain, but she is a bit cruel in speech to those she does not like, such as Dynadan, who apparently deserves it for his misogyny. Like Romadanaple in Florimont, she is the first main 32 They too give greater roles to women, but in different ways. In the Roman de Violette, by Gerbert de Montreuil, composed for Marie, countess of Ponthieu in the early thirteenth century, a wounded hero

needs repeated healing by women; his faith in his lady is strong enough for him to stake his land on her constancy, but he is prey to deception and to a love-potion, while she remains absolutely loyal in the

face of all kinds of vicissitudes. Melusine by Jehan d’Arras was composed in the late fouteenth century for the Duc de Berry and his sister, Marie, duchesse de Bar, about a fairy love, who gives wealth, governs well, builds a city, teaches the hero how to deal with all his problems, but is finally betrayed by his

temporary lack of faith. 33 Gerard also says “En escrit truis ci en ceste oevre,/ si con li contes le descuevre” (61—2), which I take to mean “I composed it [le conte] in writing in this work, as the tale reveals it.” 34 “Mais et vous et Kez, ce me samble/ seriez trop bien conjoint ensamble/ car il est | poi mesdisanz/ et

vous restes trop despisanz/ et de parler mal enseingnis:/ si sera bone compaingnie” (11997-12002).

18

Joan Ferrante

character whose story is told in the romance. She is the only heir of the king of Northumberland, well educated, with no interest in marrying, and determined and able to follow her own will. After her father dies, her uncle tries to marry her to someone he can control. When she refuses, he imprisons her, but Andrivete escapes and goes on a quest for aid to Britain. She does not simply ask for aid, but gets it by rescuing Gawain’s brother, Gifflet, therby gaining the gratitude of Gawain and their uncle Arthur. Gifflet’s love-story is a subplot of this romance. He too is a hero with problems, though they are practical rather than personal: he is imprisoned for a good part of the romance until he is rescued by Andrivete. The woman he loves is the queen of Traverse, who shares many of the characteristics of the heroines | have discussed: we are told that she is of much higher rank than Gifflet, a reigning queen, learned, full of honor and good, who has restored her whole country with her goodness; she has no desire to marry until she meets Gifflet. Although she does marry him, she later returns to celibate life, becoming a hermit in grief over her brothers death.* It would seem from this brief survey of romances composed to please specific women, whether patrons or friends, that certain motifs appealed to those women: the vulnerable hero who needs the help of women at least as much as he serves them, in contrast to the overpowering heroes ofepics; the heroine in a position of power and wealth, who controls the action by her superior education and special powers, who has more to give the hero than to receive from him, in magic gifts and/or land. The

vulnerable hero is characteristic of the romance genre, whether written for male or female patrons, but I would suggest that he evolves because ofthe influence of women patrons and audience on the genre. The gifted heroine, on the other hand, is primarily a feature of romances dedicated to specific women, who might identify with and be complimented by such a heroine, and be persuaded to value the poet as the heroine does the hero. Whether the poet expresses his feelings or his patron’s through these impressive heroines is a question I cannot answer, but I think it is not unlikely that their intentions might coincide. It is at least possible that for many poets a world in which women had power to control the political and the cultural scene might have seemed a more welcoming world for them.

35 The sad story of her brother Escanor, the titular hero of the romance, and the deep mutual love

between him and his wife and her early death, is told but very briefly. When the wife dies, Escanor decides to become a hermit, though first he has to find an heir for her land as well as his own, because she is yet another heir to her land.

There are several other women

in the romance with extraordinary powers of one sort or another:

Escanors mother’s cousin knew astronomy and magic and prophesied a great future for Gawain; queen

Esclarmonde made a mechanical bed that sits on lions who seem to be attacking until a viele plays to calm them (15382ff).

DEBATABLE

FICTIONS:

THE

TENSOS OF THE

TROBAIRITZ

Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner

In troubadour lyric the indissoluble link between power, love, and poetry is nowhere more compelling than in the sensos of the trobairitz, and particularly in those between male and female speakers, where the sexual balance of power often functions as the main issue debated, analyzed, and experienced. The question concerning their status as fiction plays a primary role among the many debates raised by the tensos themselves, as scholars repeatedly try to determine which of the debates actually involve two poets (one male and one female) and which involve a fictional debate created by a single poet (who is usually assumed to be a man). Given the nature of troubadour lyric,

which plays back and forth across the boundaries of history and fantasy, the question of fiction in the male/female debates inevitably involves crucial issues related to the question of authorship. The exact determination of how many #robairitz we can identify is as problematic as deciding exactly how many poems to include in their corpus. A number of women troubadours named in tensos, but without vidas to substantiate however slightly their earthly existence, have been declared fictions — a fate which has befallen all the more readily anonymous ladies debating with named poets like Bertran del Pojet, Pistoleta, and Raimon

de las Salas. There is a vida for Elias Cairel, for example, but who is

Isabella, named only by the troubadour in their tenso? Ladies who debate with well-known poets are especially vulnerable to scholars’ speculations that they are simply literary fictions. Thus Alamanda would be the creation of Giraut de Bornelh! and the lady of Amics, en gran cossirier the projection of Raimbaut d’Aurenga. Angelica Rieger has recently offered an argument with supportive historical information for the existence of Alamanda, whose name also appears in poems by Bertran de Born and

Bernart Arnaut.? If we are convinced that Giraut must be the only real poet in the tenso because of his reputation as master or because the song is always recorded in manuscripts among his poems, then Rieger’s demonstration may prove to be unpersuasive. If we are convinced that women, too, can compose good poems — and there are verifiable examples to prove this in the context of Occitanian society — then we may find Rieger’s argument at least plausible. The three manuscripts that contain Amics, en gran cossirier name only Raimbaut, but many modern scholars and readers have followed the suggestion of the Comtessa de Dia’s vida and name her as the female 1 E.g. Alfred Jeanroy, La Poésie Lyrique des troubadours, 2 vols. (Paris: Privat, 1934) vols 2, p.12573 Antoine Tavera, “A la recherche des troubadours maudits,” Senefiance, 5 (1978), pp. 141-2. 2 “Alamanda de Castelnau — Une trobairitz dans l'entourage des comtes de Toulouse?” Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, 107 (1991), pp. 47-57.

20

Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner

speaker: “La Comtessa de Dia si fo moiller d’En Guillem de Peitieus, bella domna e bona. Et enamoret se d’En Rambaut d’Aurenga, e fez de lui mantas bonas cansos.”? Judging by the power of her poetic accomplishments, Jeanroy (2:257) even wonders if she might be the sole author of both voices. Pattison uses certain situational and verbal similarities between this tenso and the Comtessa de Dia’s poems (especially the opening line of Estat ai en greu cossirier) to argue convincingly about the process whereby her biographer may have invented the vida, but he then uses the same kind of stylistic argument to link the #enso to Raimbaut d’Aurengas corpus because both speakers express ideas typical of the troubadour. Judging the lady’s wit to be “more in keeping with Raimbaut’s other works than those of the Countess,”4 Pattison concludes by

giving sole authorship to Raimbaut, although none of his arguments excludes the possibility of afemale poet debating with the troubadour, whether or not she may be identified with the Comtessa de Dia. That some tensos were feigned is well-established: we can readily accept that the poets were putting words in the mouth of their assorted horses, birds, and hearts.‘ That some tensos between troubadours and anonymous ladies were fictional dialogues is indisputable as well. When, for example, Aimeric de Peguilhan’s tenso, “Domna, per vos estanc en greu turmen,” alternates Domna and Senher line by line for three stanzas, we may imagine a real lady speaking, but when Amors and Amics take over the

dialogue for two more stanzas the fiction stands revealed as part of the troubadour’s poetic skill. In the corpus of nine or ten fictional tensos between male and female speakers identified by Marianne Shapiro (292-3, 293 n. 10, 299 n. 10), most of the designations regarding their fictionality seem to be based not on textual or historical evidence, but rather on stylistic evaluations: the popular language and humor (e.g. Guillem Rainol d’Apt’s “Quant aug chantar lo gal sus en l’erbos”), the obscenity of the speakers (e.g. Montan’s “Eu veing vas vos, seigner”), or perhaps the frame supplied by the male poet’s opening or closing stanza (e.g. Pistoletas “Bona Domna, un conseill vos deman” and Guillem Rainol d’Apt’s “Quant aug”). In a more recent evaluation of

debate poems between men and women, Frank Chambers opts for fictional tensos composed by a male poet in sixteen out of twenty-two cases.° When names in manuscript rubrics or poems cannot be substantiated with historical information, these evaluations tend to reflect subjective and culturally-determined assumptions about how “ladies” speak or what kind of humor they indulge in. In our concern to explore the gender question in the #robairitz corpus, it seems to me particularly important to avoid remaining (or falling once again) into the trap of characterizing

“woman,” whether as poet outside the poem or character within it, as some kind of essence that can be neatly defined and delimited. 3 J. Boutière and A.H. Schutz, eds., Biographies des troubadours: Textes provençaux des XIIIe et XIVe siècles (Paris: Nizet, 1964), p. 445. 4 Walter T. Pattison, The Life and Works of the Troubadour Raimbaut d'Orange (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1952), pp. 27-30 (p. 157). >

Marianne Shapiro, “ “Tenson’ et ‘partimen’: La ‘tenson’ fictive,” in X/V Congresso internazionale di

linguistica e filologia romanza: Atti, V, ed. Alberto Värvaro, 5 vols. (Naples: Macchiaroli, 1981), PP. 287-301.

6 “Las trobairitz soiseubudas,” in The Voice ofthe Trobairitz: Perspectives on the Women Troubadours, ed. William D. Paden (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), pp. 45-60.

Debatable Fictions: the Tensos of the Trobairitz

21

If the constructions of gender determined by one’s historical, ideological and sexual identity are as unavoidable for us as they were for the medieval poets and their public, we can nevertheless learn a lot by studying these fictional representations of the female voice. Indeed, despite the vidas’ and razos’ tendency to read them literally — a temptation that has continued well into the twentieth century’ — the personae created by identifiable male poets through the autobiographical claims of the first person are no less constructed as a game that revels in fictional role-playing, even if the fictions frequently cross over and play with historical people, places, and facts. Given that in a significant number of cases, we may not be able to determine if the female speaker is created by a troubadour or a srobairitz, we may at times have no choice but to put aside the question of the poet’s gender and the effect it might have on the kind of fiction created for the female voice. Perhaps it would not change our reading in any striking way, if we think the zenso between Raimbaut and an unidentified domna is by one poet or two. On the other hand, it may not always be so simple to put aside the sex of the poet. Sometimes it does matter if the author behind the fiction ofa female speaker is really a man or a woman. We will read differently if we think a piece is written by a man ora woman, especially in controversial areas that involve the balance of power between the sexes. Consider a set of two partimens from the trobairitz corpus as a demonstration of the way male and female troubadours feel free to take up opposing points of view: judging by the debates between Guillelma de Rosers and Lanfranc Cigala, on the one hand, and Domna H. and Rofin (or Rosin), on the other, neither troubadours nor

trobairitz argue consistently on the sexual balance of power. Whereas Guillelma maintains to Lanfranc that a lover should always obey his lady and serve her first, Domna H. seems to argue just the opposite, when she defends the lover who does not keep his promise to his lady, but lets his passion and desire overwhelm her command to stop at hugging and kissing. Lanfranc initiates his debate with Guillelma and thus sets the formal pattern of their speech, while allowing her to choose which side of the argument she will defend. Which man acted better, the one who obeyed his lady and went straight to see her as promised, or the one who helped some strangers encountered upon the way, who badly needed hospitality on a rainy night? The debate focuses as elsewhere on the relationship between lover and lady, as it relates to the issues of power, loyalty, and

failure. Most interesting for this discussion is the exchange of tornadas at the end. First Lanfranc claims to defer to Guillelma: Domna, poder ai ieu et ardimen,

non contra vos, qe.us venses en iazen, per q’eu fui fols car ab vos pris conten,

mas vencut vuoil que m’aiatz con qe sia.

(Rieger, ed. 228: 49-52)?

7 Cf. Sarah Kay, Subjectivity in Troubadour Poetry (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990), pp. 1-16. | | | 8

The author of the long razo that introduces this tenso in P (Boutière, 571—2) is most interested in

elaborating the narrative situation that precedes and furnishes the question open to debate. 9 All quotations are taken from Angelica Rieger, ed., Trobairitz: Der Beitrag der Frau in der altokzitanischen hüfischen Lyrik; Edition des Gesamtkorpus (Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1991). Page and verse numbers

22

Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner (Lady, I have power and boldness, not against you whom | can vanquish

in my sleep [lit. lying down], for which | was crazy when I began a debate with you — rather I want you to have vanquished me, however it goes.)

Lanfranc’s choice of words and syntax is particularly tongue-in-cheek here, as befits the humorous character of the tenso, however serious the love problems. His claim to power directly responds to Guillelma’s argument that the man who fails to obey his lady will probably suffer failure in a more important setting: “car sai qe ha tan de recrezemen/qu’al maior ops poders li failliria” (47-8). Lanfranc picks up the erotic overtones with his en iazen and attributes to himself plenty of power and the courage to use it, but enough self-control to allow the lady her victory. A cheap victory indeed, since Lanfranc’s claim to passivity depends on his own volition — and Guillelma is quick to reject such a hollow gift: La[n]franc, aitan vos autrei e.us consen

que tant mi sen de cor e d’ardimen c’ab aital geing con domna si defen mi defendri’ al plus ardit que sia.

(53-6)

(Lanfranc, this much I grant you and consent, that | feel in myself so much courage [lit. heart] and boldness that, with the cunning a lady uses to defend herself, |would defend myself against the boldest man there is.)

These two tornadas contrast a male and female construction of power. While Lanfranc’s earlier metaphor had linked the power of the lover to the image of a horse well-trained or abused (37-40), Guillelma locates her own power in terms of cunning and courage. She specifically repeats Lanfranc’s vocabulary, either directly (ardimen) or in reverse (autrei, consen, defen), but links it to the key concept geing, intelligence, ingenuity, talent — ever the tool of the less-muscled members of our species, whether male or female, from Jacob to Renart, by way of Delila and Deborah. Guillelma and Lanfranc’s poetic contest overflows into the age-old battle of the sexes, ever renewed and renewable. Their own lively engagement brings to life the “theoretical” arguments of the case and puts them into direct action in their poetic duel. This passage between general principles and individual engagements is particularly characteristic of those tensos between male and female poets that start out to debate a love question unrelated to the participants, but end by personalizing that debate as it reflects on the speakers’ own relationship with each other. This is precisely what we see when Domna H. invites Rofin, since he is conoissens (Rieger, 292: 2), to choose which

of two lovers acted better. Both are invited by their lady to swear an oath, before entering her bed, that they will do no more than hug and kiss. The one who cares little about oaths does so immediately, the other does not. Rofin chooses the side ofstrict obedience and argues according to the conventional image of the humble lover who obeys his lady, wants only to please her — and anyone who supports the fool who dared to force his lady knows little about love (57). Since the lady has given Rofin the choice

of which side to defend, she is obliged to argue on behalf of the lover who would will be given in the text; italics are in the original unless otherwise indicated. The translations are my own and aim to be as literal as possible to help readers focus on the original language.

Debatable Fictions: the Tensos of the Trobairitz

23

break his oath under the effect of his passion for the lady, and she does so with great

gusto, insisting that the lover's lack of restraint is an appropriate indication ofhis love. In stanzas V and VI the theoretical debate begins to spill over into the situation of the two speakers. Domna H. sets up an analogy between the lovers’ conduct with their lady and the way they would act in battle. She believes weakness leads to defeat, but

boldness knows how to advance valor, “e domna q'aital drut mescre/mal creira cel qui s'en recre” (49-50: a lady who does not believe such a lover will do ill in believing the one who will show himself acoward; emphasis added). The word play sounds a call to battle and challenges Rofin’s own masculine pride. Domna H. herself takes the attack in her tornada: she knows that if Rofin defends the caitiu (miserable one) and blames the fin (the true one), he would likewise do obra caitiva (bad work) (293-4: 61-66).

In his zornada Rofin presents himself as the subject of the verb plivar (67), originally used by Domna H. to describe the actions of the lovers in the case: “it doesn’t matter what | swear, but you can certainly discern the truth, if you want to” (67-8). Are Domna H. and Rofin lovers or do they flirt with those personae as part ofthe poetic game? The question is unanswerable, but the situation reminds us how the game of troubadour poetry coyly suggests — but never verifies — that it tells us something about these speakers’ lives through the stylized representations of the tenso. My teading thus far has more or less taken at face value the gender identifications of the characters involved and assumed they correlate directly with the sex of the poets participating in the exchange, but Sarah Kay has suggested that the partimen between Domna H. and Rofin must be a fiction composed by a man, inasmuch as it expresses in the lady’s position a topos frequently found in misogynistic tradition: women want to say no and then yield to a man’s aggression (Subjectivity, 98-9). Just as feminist discourse has sensitized us to ask questions about rape, even in literature,!°recent trials

and current debates about “date rape” have highlighted the actuality of this partimen and the provocative questions it raises. | believe these are real issues to address in life and in literature (although I believe as well that there is a significant difference

between imagination and act). We can imagine that the points of view expressed by Domna H. and Rofin may have generated heated debate in medieval courts, as we see in vidas and razos or, in a later period, in Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptaméron. In fact, the same question reappears in the temso between Aimeric de Peguilhan and Elias d’Uissel (V'Elias, conseil vos deman). Do we hear the debate differently if it occurs

between two male poets or a male and a female poet? Perhaps some of us do and some of us dont. | am sympathetic to Kay’s analysis of the dangers concealed in masking male aggression with feminine desire, but I am still uncomfortable with a position that denies women the possibility of saying certain things just because they may appear to coincide with misogynistic clichés said by men. In the same vein, but from the opposite point of view, Chambers (49-51) declares three tensos to be fictional only

because the unnamed female speaker appears to share the male point of view, when 10 Kathryn Gravdal, “Camouflaging Rape: The Rhetoric of Sexual Violence in the Medieval Pastourelle,” Romanic Review, 76 (1985), pp. 361-73, and her book Ravishing Maidens: Writing Rape in Medieval French Literature and the Law (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1991). See also William D. Paden’s response to Gravdal’s article: “Rape in the Pastourelle,” Romanic Review, 80 (1989), pp- 331-49.

24

Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner

she affirms her love for the courtly lover who has just described to her his doubts and fears. If we extrapolate from this principle ad absurdum, any female speaker who declares her love in song cannot be connected to a real woman poet (which just about wipes out all the remaining trobairitz!).

It does matter if aman or woman speaks behind or through certain kinds of fiction, but in many cases the undecidability of the poet’s biological sex will not let us reach any firm conclusions about what those effects might be. Such uncertainty should not be construed as an invitation to eliminate all women poets from troubadour lyric, as does Jean-Charles Huchet, for example, who denies the historical reality of the trobairitz in favor of a Lacanian Other.!! In this view, the women poets are reduced to a voice of disagreement and criticism totally contained within the male psyche — and within the male discourse of a poetic tradition emptied of its precious few women exemplars. Tilde Sankovitch has demonstrated how useful the notion of the Other can be for a feminist analyzing the narcissism of the troubadour lover.'? But such analysis does not require us to deny the exceptional existence of these women poets, however problematic it may appear to us. We have everything to gain by analyzing their songs with respect to the Other of the troubadour system; we have too much to lose by denying their historical existence as poets. Their numbers may seem small among the 400 named troubadours, but 20 or so #robairitz composing poetry in Southern France in the late twelfth and early thirteenth century is a truly remarkable fact, especially when we notice an almost complete absence of women poets in the European expansion of troubadour lyric. Rieger's new edition includes twenty-six tensos in the trobairitz corpus — | would estimate that sixteen have a good chance of involving real trobairitz — compared with

eleven cansos and eight others in assorted subgenres. The preponderance of debate poems requires at least brief attention, in order to situate the general character of the

tenso, as well as the women poets’ particular contributions in that format. Frequently modeled on a canso’s form and melody, the senso is a genre that “takes off” from the canso, allows its speakers more freedom from courtly constraint,'> and easily accepts humor and wit among its ordinary attributes (Pattison, 157). The word tenso itself

operates as a general term to describe poetic discussion or debate and includes a variety of subgenres practiced by many personalities who had little in common with professional troubadours (and who may, therefore, express quite different points of view). Charles Camproux emphasizes how the partimen in particular functions as a highly appreciated courtly game, in which the participants can say something different." In some respects we might see the tenso as a demonstration of the lyric system’s

inherently agonistic character — with its role-playing and exaggeration, its jokes and innuendoes, mutual attacks and witty repartee. It is one of the great paradoxes of finamor, as elaborated by troubadours and trobairitz, to have focused on the powerful 11 “Les femmes troubadours ou la voix critique,” Littérature, 51 (1983), pp. 59-90. 12 “Lombarda’s Reluctant Mirror: Speculum of Another Poet,” in Paden, ed., The Voice of the Trobairitz, PPS 13 William D. Paden, Jr., “Utrum copularentur: of Cors,” L'Esprit créateur, 19 (Winter 1979), p. 81. 14 “On the Subject of an Argument between Elias and his Cousin,” in The Interpretation of Medieval Lyric Poetry, ed. W.T.H. Jackson (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1980), p. 78. In the same volume,

cf. Glynnis M. Cropp, “The ‘Partimen’ between Folquet de Marseille and Tostemps,” p. 108.

Debatable Fictions: the Tensos of the Trobairitz

25

and disordering force of love, operating independently of social constraints, and to have elaborated that notion oflove as an emotion that can be channeled into a whole set of socially useful actions (courtliness in the largest sense), an emotion

to be

analyzed and explored with reference to principles of right and wrong (what Maria de

Ventadorn has called in her tenso “los dreitz que tenon l’amador,” Rieger, ed. 257: 8).

If the application of the feudal relationship to that ofthe lovers serves as one ofthe key tools designed to order the basically disordering power of love, so does the form ofthe tenso itself, the debate in which lovers argue and disagree, according to principles

differently understood, but still applicable by general agreement. Hence the importance of the verb dever (should, ought to), invoked over and over again by male and female troubadours. The notion of a standard, rather than any particular standard, allows both for agreement and disagreement in troubadour lyric. Such agreement in disagreement may be just as fundamental to the canso, but the tenso makes it more explicit, foregrounds the contest of rival views and poetic craft. If the system itself did not admit of differing points ofview, there could be no tenso. Where the troubadour’s canso enacts through a single voice the reversed hierarchy of finamor— though with the power still ultimately held by the speaking voice — the tenso asks questions about that balance of power within the mote equal confrontation of the debate form. Huchet has argued that it is the role of the feminine Other to put into question the fundamental givens of the troubadours’ poetic system. I would see this contestation rather as already inscribed in the senso as one of the major lyric genres,

even when it occurs between two male poets. The ¢ensos remind us repeatedly that different points of view and different ideals are as much a part of troubadour lyric as the shared motifs, vocabulary, and themes that make so many songs seem like the same song (at least to the uninitiated public). But I agree with Huchet that the introduction of awoman’s point of view makes that mise en question more striking as it dramatizes and polarizes the male/female contest, aligning it with one of the most crucial issues raised in troubadour lyric: the distribution of power between men and women, the lover and his lady, the domna and her amic. While the canso usually offers only one half of a potential dialogue — sometimes addressed to the beloved, elsewhere to the poet’s public, and most often perhaps to the poet’s own self — the senso realizes that potential in the interplay of debate, disagreement, advice giving and getting. The #ensos remind us that troubadour poetry lives in

performance, in the face to face of songs produced and received in the seignorial courts of the langue doc. The songs show us that women are expected to participate in song as a social activity which claims to translate lived experience, however intimate, into the give-and-take of conventionalized lyric outpourings. In the sixteen tensos | include in my corpus, three are exchanged among female poets only, thirteen between male and female. Of the latter, six are initiated by the #robairitz. If we judge by these statistics, however limited, we may surmise that, unlike the cultural model of the lady afraid to speak out about love, once ladies actually took the leap into song they showed themselves to be more like the unashamedly outspoken lady of the Comtessa de Dia, than the self-conscious persona of Castelloza. We may classify these tensos in a variety of ways, focussing on the identity of the speakers, the type of debate poem or the common themes explored. Rieger has published a useful inventory of the twenty-six debate poems included in her edition to

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Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner

give an idea of the full range available in the representations of the female voice.'> I would like to focus on one last example to illustrate a recurrent theme in the trobairitz’ debate poems: a request usually made on behalf of a lover who has fallen out with his lady. In the tenso between Giraut de Bornelh and Alamanda, the lover himself makes the request to a donzela, and the tendency to “act out,” or project onto the relationship ofthe speakers, the love problems introduced as a subject for discussion, receives a new twist. Giraut seeks Alamandas help, since his lady has withdrawn her love. What we see happening in the course of their exchange is a series of shifts back and forth in the identity of Alamanda, at least insofar as Giraut invokes her first as an intermediary between himself and the lady and then proceeds to quarrel with her — as he did with his lady — until she calls him to order. Giraut then returns to his role as suppliant and acts with the donzela Alamanda as he should with his lady, one whom the razo introducing this tenso also names Alamanda, as if it translated into biographical terms the literary play of the senso itself (see Boutière, 43-4). The spirited way in which Alamanda simultaneously defends herself and speaks for the lady, as she exchanges charges and accusations with Giraut, is worth following through the succession ofstanzas, since it gives a good illustration of the way each ofthe speakers in a tenso responds to and reshapes the other speaker’s words and argument. We should note at the outset that Giraut sets the formal characteristics of their discussion played over eight heterometric stanzas of eight lines with two short rornadas. Since Giraut uses coblas doblas, he can choose a new set of rhyme sounds every time he begins to speak — and he chooses to keep the masculine rhyme unchanging (10a 10a 10a 10a 4b 10a Gb), perhaps a formal reflection of his defense against the lady’s accusation of fickleness. In the opening stanza Giraut presents himself as an om cochatz (Rieger, ed. 185: 2), a tormented man, burning with anger caused by his lady’s accusation that he has abandoned

her command.

What does bell'ami Alamanda (1) advise him? Her first

piece of advice gives him a lesson in loving: lovers’ desires are not all satisfied at once: if one fails he should try to soften up the other, so that the trouble doesn’t spread: E sela.us ditz d’aut puoig que sia landa, vos la.n crezatz. E plassa vos lo bes e.] mals qu’il manda Caissi seretz amatz. (13-16)

(If she tells you that a high mountain is a plain, you believe her: be satisfied with the good and the bad she sends you, and thus you'll be loved.)

Alamanda speaks to Giraut (9) here as the domna herself might, giving him the same

sort of lesson Almuc de Castelnau sends to her lover through Iseut de Capio (Dompna N’Almucs, si.us plagues). In the third stanza, Giraut immediately addresses his complaint to Alamanda’s orguoill (17) and puts into question her credentials as an advisor, since as donzella “a

15 “En conselh no deu hom voler femna: Les dialogues mixtes dans la lyrique troubadouresque,” Perspectives médiévales, 16 (1990), pp. 47-57.

Debatable Fictions: the Tensos of the Trobairitz

27

little sorrow/anger harms you and a little joy overwhelms you” (“pauc d’ira.us notz e paucs iois vos aonda 19). The cauda then develops the metaphor incipient in the onda thymes, in order to put into question the advice itself: Et eu que.m tem fort d’est ira que.m confonda, vos me lauzatz, si.m sent perir, ge.m tenga plus vas l’onda.

Mal cre que.m capdellatz.

(21-4)

(I — who fear strongly that this anger is drowning me — you advise me,

who feel myself perishing, to hold myself further out toward the wave: | believe you're doing a bad job of championing me.)

Not to be outdone, Alamanda picks up the metaphor of the wave and drowning, as she repeats Giraut’s rhymes: his deep reasoning (prionda, 25 — depth comes from the wave itself!) may contrast with her joy, but his accusation of giddiness is turned against Giraut in Alamandas use of judicial language — “vos m’appellatz de leu cor jauzionda” (27: you light-heartedly call me [or: accuse me of being] joyous; emphasis added). She thus anticipates her later statement analyzing Giraut’s complaint against the lady herself: “l’appellatz camjairitz ni leugiera” (42: you accuse her of being changeable and fickle; emphasis added). Alamanda then switches metaphors — preferring to mow her own field (28) — and finally, by repeating his adjective cochatz (32), reminds Giraut that he is the one with the problem, not she. Giraut now goes on the offensive against both women. His lady has lied to him more than five times (other variants give a hundred, but the “precise” figure seems to

fit better into the juridical framework of their argument); if he suffered it further it would seem that he did so for lack of women. If Alamanda shows no concern, he feels like telling her about another friendship. And, in any case, he got better advice from Lady Barengeira! At this point, Giraut has more or less conflated his lady and Alamanda in an all-out attack: the donzela has been refigured as a stand-in for his treacherous lady, rather than an intermediary who can regain the lady’s good will. In the playful exchange Guiraut thus pictures himself as a fickle man, ready to change ladies and confidants — an image that corresponds to the lady’s own charge against him articulated by Alamanda in the next stanza (186: 41-2). In the rest of the #50 Giraut

will work back to his opening stance and try to re-establish the donzela as interme-

diary, rather than object of his complaint. Alamanda herself points the way in the sixth stanza, when she reminds Giraut that blaming is no way to tame a lady. Treated that way, the lady must refuse to forgive him, based on her own sense of merit. Alamanda’s argument recalls Giraut’s in the

previous stanza to the extent that both speak of a sense of self-esteem, which requires a certain kind of conduct, or people will misinterpret. Giraut immediately responds to her argument: he fears to lose her good advice (49), just as he fears to lose his lady (55). This time he asks Alamanda to empathize with his feelings as a lover (instead of disqualifying her as donzella, he addresses her twice as Bella): “s'anc sentitz com leu muda/cor d’amador, bella, e s’anc foz druda,/del plaich pensatz” (524). Now it is the lover’s heart that is easily moved, as Giraut repeats Alamanda’s juridical term (plaich, 29) for the reconciliation he seeks.

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Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner

Alamanda’s last stanza, addressed to Seign'en Giraut, is a formal statement of the lady's complaint caused by his open involvement with another, less worthy woman.

Alamanda offers to help, if he promises to stop messing around. The two short tornadas intertwine each of the three characters in mutual guarantees of trust: Bella,

per Dieu, si de lai n etz crezuda,

per me l’o affiatz! P

,

Ben o farai. Mas, quan vos er renduda samors, non la.us toillatz. (65—8)

(Beautiful one, by God, if you are believed over there [i.e. by the lady], swear it for me to her! I shall certainly do so. But when her love will be returned to you, don’t take it away from yourself.)

Each tornada makes one promise contingent on another, recalls and encapsulates the back and forth movement of the tenso itself, here left open-ended, as the dialogue of Giraut and Alamanda depends on what the absent lady will say. Ifwe want to find out what the usually silent domna does say in her own words, at least as they are filtered through the art of the troubadours, we have to take a look at the trobairitz’ cansos — but that is another paper and another debate.

EVE AS ADAM’S PAREIL: EQUIVALENCE AND SUBORDINATION IN THE JEU D’ADAM Joan Tasker Grimbert

Until about twenty years ago, no one had thought to question the antifeminism of the Jeu d'Adam; it had always been assumed that the earliest extant play in the French vernacular, one moreover whose connections with the Latin liturgy of the Church were so explicitly set forth, could only be understood in the context of the theology of the time.! But in 1972 Jean-Charles Payen suggested that the play was inspired in part by aspects of twelfth-century culture and thought that owed little to exegetical commentary.’ Noting the poet’s obvious sensitivity to the “problème de la femme,” he was struck by the way in which this issue was posed forcefully from the beginning of the play by the presence of the two monologues in which Figura sets forth the “loi de mariage” (22). Payen’s perceptive observations seemed to anticipate the feminist readings of Emilie Kostoroski-Kadish and Thérèse B. Lynn who in two separate articles published in 1975 showed how the poet underscored Eve's strength, and especially her dignity following the Fall. Two years later Edward J. Buckbee was to observe that “conceptual and dramatic qualities in the play’s first scene and its characterization of Eve appear to exceed the requirements of merely dogmatic theatrical production.”4 Like the text it glosses, the Jeu d'Adam is an ideological work, and doubly so in that

its overtly androcentric bias confirms the same bias traditionally found in Genesis. But it has a definite “courtly” dimension, for the author’s playful style, reminiscent ofthat of some of his secular contemporaries, actually invites reflection. Indeed, the works richness and complexity are a function largely of his apparent willingness to explore the spectrum of varied meanings and resonances of recurring key terms like pareil, conseil, saveir, and bon. Such playfulness constitutes a dominant structuring device that seems at times to undermine the play’s ideology, resulting in a highly ambiguous presentation of Eve that recalls not only Augustine’s and Aquinas’ discussions of

1 Larry S. Crist, “Le Jeu d'Adam et l’exégèse de la chute,” Etudes de civilisation médiévale (IXe—XIle s.), Mélanges offerts à Edmond-René Labande (Poitiers: CESCM, 1975), pp. 175-83 (175). 2

“Idéologie et théatralité dans I’Ordo representacionis Adae,” Etudes anglaises, 25 (1972), p. 25.

3

Kostoroski-Kadish, ““Féminisme’ in the Jew d'Adam,” Kentucky Romance Quarterly, 22 (1975), pp.

209-21; Lynn, “Pour une réhabilitation d’Eve,” French Review, 48 (1975), pp. 871-77. For discussion, see Maurice Accarie, “Féminisme et anti-féminisme dans le Jeu d'Adam,” Le Moyen Age, 87 (1981), pp. 207-26.

4 “The ‘Jeu d'Adam’ as ‘Ordo representacionis Evae’: Truth and Dramatic Consequences,” Medioevo Romanzo, 4 (1977), p. 33.

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equivalence and subordination in defining the relation of woman to man,’ but also the modern readings of Genesis that we owe to feminist scholars such as Phyllis Trible and Mieke Bal.° The seeds of this ambivalent presentation of the status not only of Eve, but of Adam as well, are to be found in the biblical account of Genesis, in the fondness of Hebrew writers for wordplay, a trait that many biblical scholars have noted,’ In the present reading, | propose to examine the tensions and ambiguities to which Payen alludes, focusing in particular on two scenes that traditional commentators have used to underscore Eve’s inferior status: (1) Figura’s description of Adam’s and Eve's

relations to each other and to Him; and (2) the temptation. But before beginning my analysis, | would like to summarize the traditional reading of Genesis and the feminist challenge to it. In characterizing the medieval Church’s conception of marriage, Georges Duby sets out four basic propositions based on the second Creation account (Gen. 2:18-24):

1.

“It is not good that man should be alone.” God decreed that the human race should be of two sexes, and that there should be a union between them.

2.

But he created the sexes unequal: “I will make him an help [adjutorium| meet for him [simile sibi).” Man came first, and kept the precedence. He was made in the

image of God, while woman came second, a reflection of his image. Eve’s body was flesh of Adam’s flesh, made from one of his ribs, and thus inferior.

3.

The two bodies were designed to merge into one: “A man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” Marriage led to unity.

4.

But marriage did not do away with inequality. Woman was inferior, weak; it was because of her that man fell and was driven out of Paradise. Henceforth husband and wife were doomed to imperfect couplings, to love that must be mingled with

shame. The woman was awarded an additional share of punishment, having to suffer the domination of man and the pains of childbirth.’

5 See Kari Elisabeth Borresen, Subordination and Equivalence: The Nature and Role of Women in Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, tr. Charles H. Talbot (Washington, D.C.: Univ. Press of America, 1981). 6 Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), ch. 4; Bal, Lethal Love: Feminist Literary Readings of Biblical Love Stories (Indianapolis: Indiana Univ. Press, 1987), ch. 5. Both

analyses focus on the Hebrew text, and although some of the revealing wordplay they discuss is obscured or lost in the passage to Latin, many ofthe tensions and ambiguities implied by such wordplay are preserved in the Vulgate. More important, they permeate the vernacular text, partly because it is

based on the Vulgate, but also, it seems, because ofthe very nature of Old French poetry. Indeed, much of the untranslatable charm and complexity of twelfth-century works by poets such as Chrétien de Troyes and Thomas de Bretagne can be attributed to the presence of whole constellations of words endowed with semantic fields covering a plurality of meanings (some contradictory) which the poet artfully exploits.

7 In addition to the works by Trible and Bal, see Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981) and Meir Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1985). In a paper presented at the 1992 Kentucky Foreign Language Conference (April 23-25), “Translating the Vulgate: Ideology and ‘Geology’ in the

Jeu d'Adam,” | examined the tension between parity and hierarchy in the depiction of Adam’s ambiguous relation to God, attributing it in part to the interplay between the Vulgate and the vernacular. 8 Georges Duby, The Knight, the Lady, and the Priest. The Making ofMarriage in Medieval France, tr. Barbara Bray (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985), p. 24.

Equivalence and Subordination in the Jeu d'Adam

51

The second and fourth propositions are of particular interest here in that they deal with the inequality between the sexes, stressing woman’s inferiority. But they are based on an interpretation of Genesis that some scholars feel is not supported by the text. According to Trible, for example, the first Creation story ends with the creation of ha’-Gdam, a sexually undifferentiated “earth creature” who is taken from the earth [ha ’*dama] (78). Then Yahweh decides to create a “like” creature: the Hebrew term

rendered in the Vulgate as adjutorium simile sibi means “companion” [ézer] “corresponding to it” [&*negdé] and connotes “identity, mutuality, equality,” not inferiority (90). Sexual differentiation of the earth-creature occurs only in the second Creation

account with the creation of woman which, according to the progressive design of Creation, appears as God’s crowning achievement (102). It is only with the creation of woman [#4] that the male sex [’é] even comes into being (Bal, 116). Trible’s

interpretation of the temptation scene also challenges the traditional view of Eve as inferior (and weak). The serpent addresses Eve only who acts as the spokesperson for the couple: her answer to the serpents cunning question is “intelligent, informed, and perceptive” (110). Because she finds convincing the serpent’s interpretation of a duplicitous, jealous God, Eve eats of the fruit which she sees as “physically appealing, aesthetically pleasing, and sapientially transforming”; she neither discusses the matter with man nor asks for his advice, but since he is present, there is no deception

(11212).

Trible, a theologian, seeks to show how centuries of misogynous exegesis of Genesis have distorted the original meaning of the biblical account. While Bal agrees with much of Trible’s interpretation, she sees the text itself as a product of a patriarchal ideology which shows “traces of a problematization of man’s priority and domination” (Bal’s emphasis), distortion by the compilers of the Hebrew Bible seeking to explain and safeguard male domination by “the establishing of a justifying ‘myth oforigin’ ”

(110).°

Similarly, although | believe the Jeu d'Adam may well be an attempt to present Church orthodoxy, it reveals in its playful interaction with the Vulgate traces of the Church’s long struggle to impose a view of woman as naturally subservient and inferior to man on a text whose support of that view is problematic. As a result, in both the “marriage ceremony” and the “temptation,” one detects a fundamental ambivalence with regard to Eve, especially in her relation to Adam, an ambivalence that shows Eve, born ofthe earth creature and in the image of God, striving for parity, not only with her husband, but also with God. The tension between parity and hierarchy present in the Hebrew text and preserved in large part in the Vulgate Genesis is, in the Jeu d'Adam, carried over into the vernacular to become the locus of the poet’s artistry in the Adam and Eve sequence. The playwright, mindful of the twin goals of medieval poets to entertain as well as to instruct, composes — unwittingly? — a subversive subtext that threatens to undermine the overt ideological message. For it is a perilous enterprise indeed to introduce wordplay into the use of a term like pareil which describes how Eve relates to Adam and the couple to God. In the Jeu d'Adam,

9 On Eve's extraordinary pre-history, see John A. Phillips, Eve: the History of an Idea (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984).

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Joan Tasker Grimbert

the meaning of this term and its cognate per varies according to context between “like” and “equal”, and therein — in that very differentiation, the forbidden but attempted deviation of “like” creatures to become “equal” to each other and to God — lies the entire drama that precipitated mankind’s fall from grace. The tension between parity and hierarchy is established at the outset when Figura describes Adam’s origins, which are both humble and exalted: he has been formed from the earth (over which he has dominion) but in the image of God (1-—5),!° to whom he is subordinate (6). When Figura describes Eve’s status, the tension increases

considerably, for she is seen alternately as equal and subordinate to Adam:!! Je vai duné bon cumpainun: Ce est ta femme, Eva a noun.

Ce est ta femme e tun pareil: Tu le devez estre ben fiél. Tu aime lui e ele ame tei, Si serez ben ambedui de moi. Ele soit a tun comandement, E vus ambedeus a mun talent. De ta coste l’ai fourmee, N'est pas estrange, de tei est nee.

Jo la plasmai de ton cors, De tei eissit, non pas de fors. Tu la governe par raison;

N’ait entre vus ja tengon, Mais grant amor, grant conservage: Tel soit la lei de mariage. (9-24)

The first part of the address emphasizes — surprisingly — the notion of equivalence. Figura tells Adam He has given him a good cumpainun (9), a term implying a relation of parity by virtue both ofits etymology (someone with whom one breaks bread) and of its associations with the Germanic relationship of compagnonnage so important in epic and romance literature of the period. As Konrad Schoell emphasizes, the relationship is lateral: it is like the one shared by comrades or partners.'2 One might have expected the author to render the Vulgate adiutorium simile sibi (Gen. 2:18) by a word implying subordination, an equivalent of aide or “helpmate.” But he seems to have been less influenced by the noun than by its modifier. The expression simile sibi denotes both “similarity” (or “correspondence”)

and

“equivalence”, and both meanings are conveyed by the term pareil, a key word which 10 Verse references are to Le Jeu d'Adam, ed. Willem Noomen (Paris: Champion, 1971). Throughout,

any emphasis put on individual words in verses quoted is my own. 11 The tension can be explained in part by St. Paul’s teaching that marriage was meant to regulate somewhat the inequality between the sexes. The husband was to both dominate and cherish his wife (who was expected to obey and revere him), a relationship designed to mirror God’s relation to man and the Savior’s relation to the Church (Duby, 25). 12 In “L'Amour, le vasselage et la solidarité dans le Mystère d'Adam,” Tréteaux: Bulletin de la Société

internationale pour l'étude du théâtre médiéval, section francaise, 3.1 (May 1983), pp. 29-34, Schoell

notes the emphasis on reciprocity and equivalence in the description of the relations that should exist between Adam and Eve: “subordination mutuelle et équivalente” (31). He sees it as evidence of the influence of the increasing preponderance of the bourgeoisie and of urban society which favored mutually-beneficial contractual relationships between persons ofequal rank (32).

Equivalence and Subordination in the Jeu d'Adam

33

first appears in verse 11, where one is tempted to interpret the word as “equivalent” or “equal” because of the concept of parity conveyed by cumpainun in verse 9. This interpretation is confirmed in verses 10-11 where the anaphoric disposition of “Ce est ta femme” establishes a close association between the two verses and, consequently, between Eve’s identity (her name) and her equivalence with Adam. This association clearly recalls the Vulgate account of man’s assertion that this creature born of his own bone and flesh should have a name that reflects that correspondence: “Virago, quoniam de viro sumpta est” (Gen. 2:23; my emphasis). One might argue, of course, that

the Vulgate implies “likeness” rather than “parity”, but in that text, man and woman are seen as equivalent when compared to the other creatures of the earth, for the point of God’s creating woman from man is that none of the other creatures (being lowlier than man) was thought to be a suitable companion for him (Gen. 2:20). The idea of parity is also implied in the order that Adam be faithful to Eve (12) and that they love

each other (13), a reciprocity that is strikingly underscored by the chiasmic construction of the verse. The two spouses appear equal as well in verse 14 where Figura assures them that they will both (ambedui) be loved by Him.

But following these verses, which all underscore reciprocity and seem to imply equivalence between the two sexes, comes finally an assertion (15) that establishes unambiguously for the first time Eve’s subordination to Adam, even as it confirms their equal (ambedeus — 16) duty to obey Figura. In the ensuing verses, the fact that Eve was born of Adam now seems to imply that she must be subordinate to him (21),

just as Adams subordination to Figura (6) was seen as the logical result of his having been born in the divine image and likeness. But then reciprocity, and with it a sense of parity, is again implied in verses 23-24, especially in the assertion that there should be between the two “grant amor, grant conservage.” We have already seen that conjugal love is to be mutual (13), and the grouping of conservage with amor to express an attitude opposite from tengon in verse 22 lends support to Schoell’s belief that this term did not imply subordination, but rather reciprocal service between individuals of the same rank. In this sense, it recalls the relationship implied by cumpainun in verse 9. It is in Figura’s discourse to Eve that woman is forced to relinquish her fragile hold on the “manly” position of bon cumpainun (9) to take up the “womanly” rank of bon adjutoire (39): Co garde tu, nel tenez en vain. Si vos faire ma volenté,

En ton cors garderas bonté. Aim e honor ton creator, E moi reconuis a seignor. A moi servir met ton porpens, Tut ta force e tot tun sens. Adam aime e lui tien chier: Il est marid e tu sa mullier; A lui soies tot tens encline, Nen issir de sa discipline.

Lui serf eaim par bon coraje, Car ço est droiz de mariage. Se tu le fais bon adjutoire Jo te mettrai od lui en gloire.

(26-40)

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Joan Tasker Grimbert

While the idea of conjugal love is echoed in verse 33, there is no emphasis on reciprocity, for amer is paired with servir, a service that connotes Eve's subservience, both to her creator (29-32) and to her husband (33-38).

Eve’s response reveals that she fully understands her place in the hierarchy, for she promises complete compliance with the will of her creator whom she recognizes as her lord, along with Adam: Jol frai, sire, a ton plaisir,

Ja nen voldrai de rien issir. Toi conustrai a seignor,

Lui a paraille e a forzor. Jo lui serrai tot tens feél, De moi avra bon conseil. Le ton pleisir, le ton servise Frai, sire, en tote guise. (41-48)

Eve seems willing to recognize that paraille (44)13 means “similar” but not “equal”; yet, significantly, in defining her relationship to Adam, she does not reiterate the duty to serve and obey him, emphasizing rather the “manly” duties of a vassal: fidelity and good counsel (45-46). (We recall that Adam was also told to be “ben fiél” to Eve

[12].) The word conseil, which appears for in this play, one that participates in the Adam and Eve sequence by the tension expected of both a good vassal and a

the first time in verse 46, is another key word network of relations described throughout the between parity and hierarchy, for bon conseil is bon cumpainun. Eve's failure to provide good

counsel is, of course, at the heart of the couple’s fall from grace, her mistake being to

have followed Diabolus conseil to disobey both her husband and her creator.

Turning now to the temptation scene, we see that Diabolus first approaches Adam, chiding him for his lack of ambition, and holding out the prospect of parity with his lord: “Jo te conseillerai en fei | Que porras estre senz seignor / E seras per del creatur” (188—90).'* Having failed to win over Adam, he tries his luck with Eve, hoping she will reject the notion of subordination with regard not only to God, but to Adam as well. To attain his goal, he must convince her that he is a good and faithful counselor, and he must persuade her to convince Adam in turn that she, too, is one. Diabolus tells Eve that he knows “Toz les conseils de parais” (210). Although the

verse might well be understood as “all the secrets of Paradise,” the use of conseils here is significant, in part because it underscores the devil’s purported function of “good counselor” which goes along as well with his initial claim that he seeks Eve’s pru, her honor (207). The word conseils also reintroduces the concept of saveir, it is a very

special and important piece of knowledge that the devil is willing to share with Eve, and Eve alone: “Nen sache nuls!” (237), he urges.

While Diabolus’ attempt to seduce Eve focuses on her vanity, as many scholars have 13 The retention of the feminine form paraille is surprising, but none of the recent editors have proposed the substitution of pareil made by a few earlier editors, e.g., Paul Studer, Le Mystere d'Adam, An Anglo-Norman Drama of the Twelfth Century (Manchester: Modern Language Texts, 1918, 1928,

1949). 14 See my analysis of Diabolus’ temptation of Adam in “Translating the Vulgate” (n. 7 above).

Equivalence and Subordination in the Jeu d'Adam

35

noted, the qualities he vaunts are not simply physical (227-32), but mental as well. Appealing as best he can to any latent dissatisfaction she might have about being subordinate to both Adam and God, he asserts that she and Adam are poorly matched: she is “plus sage” and has “grant sens” (233-34). By describing Adam as fols (221), dors (223), and serf (224), he is trying to convince Eve that God has ordained an

unreasonable hierarchy and that she has the brains and the power to right this wrong. As in the case of Adam, the concept ofgood is redefined as Diabolus tells her: Le fruit que Deus vus ad doné Nen a en soi gaires bonté,

Cil qu'il vus ad tant defendu, Il ad en soi grant vertu. En celui est grace de vie,

De poëste e de seignorie, De tut saver, bien e mal. (245-51)

The “fruit” that God has given them refers to all of his gifts, all the things they are allowed to do. The parallel construction of verses 245-46 and 247-48 sets up the opposition of ad doné | gaires bonté and tant defendu | grant vertu which makes God’s gifts look shabby indeed. The eating of the forbidden fruit is now seen as the gateway not to death, but to grace de vie, which no longer implies obedience and subservience,

but rather power, lordship, and omniscience. This ultimate good or power (both ideas are contained in the word vertu) would put Eve in a position where she would be virtually on a plane above good and evil. It has often been remarked that Diabolus appeal to the thirst for power and knowledge seems to fall on deaf ears, for Eve responds with a question that supposedly reveals her sensual nature: “Quel savor a?” (252). One might see in the juxtaposition of savor here with saver in the previous verse a reflection of the pervasive conviction that women were driven by the senses and men by reason.!° But, curiously, Diabolus chooses not to emphasize the fruit’s sensual appeal. His answer, “Celestial” (252), continues the play on saver/savor, in that the adjective could well describe the knowledge, as well as the taste, that one might enjoy upon partaking of the fruit. In fact, rather than elaborating on the fruit’s taste in a way that would recognize what is seen traditionally as a particularly “feminine” interest, Diabolus reiterates his appeal to a

latent desire for power that he sees in Eve, picturing her as the queen not just of the world, but also of heaven and hell, and adding: “E seüsez quanque a estre, / Que de tuit fuissez bone maistre” (257-58). Moreover, it is an answer with which Eve seems satisfied when she asks: “Est tel li fruiz?” (259). 15 For a discussion of this gender distinction, see Crist, “Le Jeu d'Adam,” passim, and his sequel to that article, “La Chute de l’homme sur la scène dans la France du XIle et du XVe siècle,” Romania, 99

(1978), pp. 207-19. Both Lynette R. Muir and E. Jane Burns have recognized in the saver/savor juxtaposition an artful and effective play on words, but they arrive at diametrically opposed conclusions as to its purpose. Muir believes that Eve’s question is designed to reinforce the traditional gender divide;

see Liturgy and Drama in the Anglo-Norman Adam (Oxford: Blackwell, 1973), p. 67. Burns, however,

argues that it “calls into question the very terms of the binary pair it seems at first to illustrate” and “boldly conflates the realms of knowledge and pleasure,” rejecting the need to privilege one over the other; see Bodytalk: When Women Speak in Old French Literature (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), pp. 81-82.

36

Joan Tasker Grimbert

The play on savor/saver may therefore indicate less an opposition of two natures (sensual/intellectual) than a logical succession of events. Diabolus tries to convince

Adam, and then Eve (and, through her, Adam), that simply by tasting the fruit (“Guste del fruit!” —

169, 271) they can attain this superior knowledge which

promises parity with God, a status equal to His in goodness and power. The picture he paints of the promised result, both for Adam in 160-69 and for Eve in 263-71 (below), shows how the meaning ofcertain key words has been perverted: doner (and

by implication its cognate don), pareil, conseil, and bonté. Primes le pren e a Adam le done! Del ciel averez sempres corone, Al creator serrez pareil, Ne vus purra celer conseil. Puis que del fruit avrez mangié,

Sempres vus iert le cuer changié. O Deus serrez, sanz faillance, De egal bonté, de egal puissance. Guste del fruit! (263-71)

The greatest difference between Adam and Eve in their exchanges with Diabolus lies in their attitude towards his conseils. Adam is mistrustful, and although he warns Eve that Satan is a traitor (280-81, 288-90) and will make her change her mind (saver

— 284), the warning comes too late.'® She has already been’ convinced that the knowledge God imparted to them was corrupt, that His conseil, motivated by fear, is less bon than simply calculated to keep them from attaining the supreme bien. That Diabolus conseils have made their impression on Adam as well is obvious in the promptness with which he takes the advice that Eve gives where, once again, the constant play on savor/saver (especially in conjunction with the verb guster -296) and

the ambiguous use of bon and bien constitute an artful and irresistible tease: Eva:

Adam: Eva:

16 Noomen

Manjue, Adam! Ne sez que est. Pernum ço bien que nus est prest! Est il tant bon? ‘Tu le saveras. Nel poez saver sin gusteras. (293-96)

follows Henri Chamard, Le Mystère d'Adam, Drame religieux du XIle siècle (Paris: Colin,

1925) and all subsequent editors in their adoption ofS. Etienne’s reading of this passage in his review of Studer’s edition: see “Note sur les vers 279-287 du Jeu d'Adam,” Romania, 48 (1922), pp. 592-95. Erich Auerbach’s interpretation of Eve as a weak, impulsive, and undiscerning individual (in contrast to

Adam) is based on Studer’s attribution of 282a and 283-84 to Eve, and 282b and 285ff. to Adam. See his analysis of the scene and his defense of Studer in “Adam and Eve,” Mimesis. The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, tr. Willard Trask (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1953), pp: 143-51. For

a critique of this interpretation, see Kostoroski-Kadish, pp. 215-16; Lynn, p. 871; and Carl J. Odenkirchen, The Play of Adam (Ordo Representacionis Ade) (Brookline, Mass. and Leyden: Classical Folio Editions, 1976), pp. 149-50. Odenkirchen accepts Etienne’s attribution of the lines but substitutes for 281b: “Car jo l'ai of” and for 285b: “tant que la sai”; in this reading of the single extant manuscript, he relies on Leif Sletsjae, Le Mystère d'Adam, Edition diplomatique accompagnée d'une reproduction photographique du manuscrit de Tours et des lecons des éditions critiques (Paris: Klincksieck, 1968).

Equivalence and Subordination in the Jeu d'Adam

37

The forbidden fruit is now seen as a positive good, but Adam cannot know how good until he has tasted it. Eve earlier query about the fruit (“Quel savor a?” — 252) in the exchange with her bad counselor is echoed here by Adam in verse 295. His use of bon is ambiguous and could well refer to a goodness other than the taste. But after Eve has tasted the fruit and marvelled at its savor (303-05), Adam’s query (“De quel?” — 306), like Eve's

earlier one, seems to focus more narrowly on the actual taste. The parallel is further reinforced by the fact that Eves answer, like Diabolus answer to her question, describes an intellectual rather than a sensual delight: Adam: Eva:

De quel? D'itel nen gusta home. Or sunt mes oil tant cler veant Jo semble Deu, le tuit puissant.

Quanque fu, quanque doit estre Sai jo trestut: bien en sui-maistre.

(306-10)

This reading of the temptation scene suggests that while the playwright might well have intended his play on savor/saver to underscore the difference between man driven by reason and woman driven by her senses, the parallels established in these scenes by the recurrence of these two key words actually work against this idea. They show the spouses to be rather oflike mind, seeking to right the balance, rejecting the hierarchy that God ordained in favor ofthe parity that creation in His likeness and the gift of free will seemed to promise, despite His assertion that the bestowal of both gifts demanded gratitude that translated into obedience. Equal in their desire for parity with God, they are as equals. When Eve urges Adam to taste the fruit, he answers: “Jo ten crerra, tu es ma per” (313), a response that shows

him acting on the counsel of aperson he considers his equal. In the ensuing conversation with Figura, Adam is told he was wrong to have accepted his wife’s counsel over his Lord’s command, but as we have seen, there is ample reason for both Adam and Eve to have been confused. It is in fact the subversive ambiguity of such key words as pareil, conseil, bonté, and don that Adam evokes in a lament alluding directly to the opening scene: “Qui preirai jo ja qui m’ait / Quant ma femme m'a trait / Qui Deus me

dona por pareil? | Ele me dona mal conseil” (353-56). By this point in the play, wordplay that may initially have seemed merely clever has been revealed as an important structuring device that preserves the tension between parity and hierarchy found in the Jewish Bible and largely carried over into the Vulgate. Indeed, in the Jew d'Adam that wordplay and the concomitant tensions are greatly — and strangely — magnified, with results that effectively skew what appears at first blush to be a resolutely antifeminist interpretation. '7

17 | am grateful to Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner and to Mary B. Speer for their respective critiques of the conference version of this paper.

NATURE’S

FORGE

RECAST

IN THE ROMAN DE SILENCE

Suzanne Conklin Akbari

Nature makes her first appearance as a fully developed allegorical personification in the late fourth century.! She is personified as female, partially due to the feminine gender of the Latin word but also evoking Aristotle’s description of nature in his Metaphysics as “the genesis of growing things” in the sense of origin or birth.? Natures fundamental association with birth virtually demands that she be represented as a female figure; and, indeed, throughout the medieval period, she is described as having a female body. However, the work she does — Nature’s role in relation to procreation — is not described in feminine terms. She is said to impose form just as coins are stamped in a mint, or as metal is worked in a forge, both metaphors used to describe the role of the male in conception; she is identified, not with gestation, but with the impression of form upon matter. During the Middle Ages, the prevailing Aristotelian view ofgestation centered on the sperm placing its imprint upon the egg’s undifferentiated material.* The womb was seen as little more than a receptive vessel in which the infant, fully formed in miniature at the time of conception, was nourished. The image of Nature as a feminine persona who performs typically masculine labor appears frequently in medieval Latin and vernacular allegorical writings. In this regard, the Roman de Silence, written by Heldris de Corniialle in the second half of the thirteenth century,‘ represents an unusual case, for in it Nature’s labor is described in explicitly feminine terms. This transformation of the figure of Nature reflects an 1 In his Commentarium in Somnium Scipionis, Macrobius characterizes Nature as craftsman or artifex (I.vi.63.112). For earlier uses of the term in relation to nature which stop short of personification, see F. Solmsen, “Nature as Craftsman in Greek Thought,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 24 (1963), pp. 473-96. 2

Aristotle, Metaphysics 5.4, cited in George D. Economou, The Goddess Natura in Medieval Literature

(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), p. 4. 3 Aristotle, Historia Animalium (On the Generation of Animals), tr. A.L. Peck (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953), 729 A 25-34. For complete descriptions of the Aristotelian view of conception

and the competing Galenic view, see A. Preus, “Science and Philosophy in Aristotle’s Generation of Animals,” Journal of the History ofBiology, 3 (1970), pp. 1-52 and the same authors “Galen’s Criticism of Aristotle’s Conception Theory,” Journal of the History of Biology, 10 (1977), pp. 65-85. For an

account of the dominance of the Aristotelian view in the Middle Ages, see M. Anthony Hewson, Giles of Rome and the Medieval Theory ofConception (London, 1975), especially chapters 3 and 6. 4 Dated by Lewis Thorpe in his edition of the Roman de Silence (Cambridge: W. Heffer, 1972), p. 1.

Thorpe’s work, for many years the only available text of the poem, was originally updated by Félix Lecoy’s editorial emendations (“Le Roman de Silence d'Heldris de Corniialle,” Romania, 99 (1978), pp. 109-25) and has been more recently modified by Sarah Roche-Mahdi in her edition accompanied by a translation: Silence: A Thirteenth-Century French Romance (East Lansing, MI: Colleagues Press, 1992).

40

Suzanne Conklin Akbari

unusual perspective on human reproduction and, more generally, on gender roles. Here, Nature’s forge is transformed into an oven where, instead of forcibly shaping matter, she prepares a concoction which is moulded and baked. Nature is first personified in a literary context in the twelfth century by the philosophers of the school of Chartres. Bernardus Silvestris’ Cosmographia concludes with a description ofthe male genitals, emphasizing their procreative capacity. Female aspects of human reproduction are not mentioned; Nature is linked exclusively with male sexuality and specifically the masculine capacity to generate offspring and determine their attributes. Nature reappears as a much more fully developed allegorical personification in Alanus de Insulis’ De planctu Naturae, where her actions are described in more physical terms. Borrowing an image from Macrobius,° Alanus calls Nature “monetariam,” “the mistress of the mint,” who says ofherself: I, to use a metaphor, striking various coins of things according to the mould of the

exemplar and producing copies of my original by fashioning like out oflike, gave to my imprints the appearance ofthe things imaged.”

Nature creates bodies to house souls by placing an imprint upon undifferentiated matter. No process of growth or development is implied: rather, the material is cut out and pressed to conform to the shape of the mould. The bodies are implicitly homogeneous, for each is said to exactly resemble the exemplar. In Jean de Meun’s continuation ofthe Roman de la Rose, Nature again appears at her forge, stamping out bodies like coins. .. .dedanz sa forge torjorz martele, torjorz forge, Tourjorz ses pieces renovele par generacion novele. .… el leur doune fourmes veroies an quoinz de diverses monoies

While the homogeneity different monies,” some that each coin, impressed The Roman de Silence

(15979-86)$

of form is more limited here, as Nature stamps “coins of degree of homogeneity implicitly remains, for Jean stresses with “true form,” exactly matches its exemplar. is roughly contemporary with Jean’s work, and it has been

suggested that its author, Heldris, may have (like Jean de Meun) relied upon Alanus’

description of Nature.” Despite Simon Gaunt’s objection that “the metaphors associated with Nature in Silence are quite different from those associated with Natura and Nature in the De planctu and the Rose,”!° Heldris’ depiction of Nature’s labor fun5 Bernardus Silvestris, Cosmographia, ed. Peter Dronke (Leiden: Brill, 1978), p. 154, ll. 169-70. 6 Macrobius, Commentarium in Somnium Scipionis, \.vi.63.112, cited in Economou, pl. 7 Alanus de Insulis, “De planctu Naturae,” in The Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets and Epigrammatists of the Twelfth Century, ed. Thomas Wright, 2 vols. (London, 1882; II: 429-522), pp. 469-70, Prosa 4. Trans. James J. Sheridan, Plaint of Nature (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1980), p- 146. 8 Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, Le Roman de la Rose, ed. Félix Lecoy, 3 vols. (Paris:

Champion, 1965-70). 9 R. Howard Bloch, “Silence and Holes: the Roman de Silence and the Art of the Trouvére,” Yale French Studies, 70 (1986), p. 84. 10 Simon Gaunt, “The Significance of Silence,” Paragraph, 13 (1990), p. 215 n. 8.

Nature’ forge Recast in the roman de Silence

41

damentally resembles that of Alanus and Jean: Nature uses moulds to imprint form upon matter. At the same time, however, Heldris significantly modifies the preceding literary tradition, for in the Roman de Silence Nature creates bodies not by impressing a form upon preexisting matter, such as metal in a forge, but by refining flour and pressing the dough into baking moulds. Natures own body is not physically described, as it is in the De planctu Naturae and the Roman de la Rose, but her voice is heard on several occasions in the Roman de Silence, frequently paired with that of her counterpart, Noreture (nurture or environment). This pairing of nature and nurture is derived from a proverbial source which appears in a number of different formulations. In some late proverb collections, the pair appears with nurture in the dominant role. For example, one collection from the sixteenth century states that “Nourriture passe nature”!! and an anecdote survives from the fifteenth century in which one of the ministers to the young Charles VIII recalls that “le vieux proverbe de jadis disoit que la nourriture passe nature” (I: 269). However, it seems likely that his reference to the “vieux proverbe de jadis” may have been ironic, for a number ofearlier proverb collections state the opposite, or at least imply a more equivocal relation. One flatly states that “Nature passe nurture” (II: 479); another, from the thirteenth century, reads “Nature passe nourriture / Et nourriture survainc nature” (II: 352). The twelfth-century “Proverbes au vilain” claims

that Nature le houme preve Itel cum il le treve,

Ne ja pur noreture Li quers feuls et vilains,

Ne al plus ne al meins, N’en perdra sa nature.

(Il: 462)!

These mutations attest to what has been called “la remarquable plasticité du sens du proverbe chez les médiévaux: un même proverbe est susceptible de toutes sortes d interprétations.”'3 At the same time, Gaunt rightly states that “proverbs suggest that what is said is self-evident, giving the impression ofirrefutable consensus” (204). The

formulations which most closely predate the Roman de Silence and would have provided its proverbial context indicate that while nurture may affect an individuals character, in the end nature must finally manifest itself. In the Roman de Silence, the proverbial interrelation of nature and nurture is literalized as the personified Nature and Noreture debate the fate of the character Silence, born a girl but raised as a boy. The dichotomy of nature and nurture is indirectly alluded to in the opening lines of the poem, within the poet’s conventional invective against those ungrateful men (presumably patrons) to whom avarice is both

11 Le Livre des Proverbes Francais, ed. M. Le Roux de Lincy, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Paris, 1859), II: 356.

12 The “Proverbes au vilain” must have been popular at the time the Roman de Silence was written, for

Huot notes that “all six of the manuscripts described by Tobler date from the late 13th [sic] century.” Sylvia Huot, “Medieval Readers of the Roman de la Rose: The Evidence of Marginal Notations,” Romance Philology, 43 (1990), p. 409. 13 Claude Buridant, “Les Proverbes et la Prédication au Moyen Age,” in Richesse du Proverbe, ed. Francois Suard and Claude Buridant, 2 vols. (Lille: Université de Lille, 1984), I: 44.

42

Suzanne Conklin Akbari

“lor dame et lor norice” (1. 40). This allusion foreshadows the dichotomy of Silence’s

nature, determined by the mother who bears her, and her nurture, shaped by her “norice” (1. 2059), the female relative who raises her in the isolation of the woods. The

conflict is emblematized in her name: her father christens her with its masculine form, Scilentiüs, stating that, if her true nature should be discovered, “Nos muerons cest -us en -a, / S’avra a non

Scilencia”

(Il. 2077-78).

There is a play on words

in the

masculine ending “us” and the word “us” in the sense of usage, or how one is reared. The ending “us” represents what Silence does, her nurture; similarly, the “a” (from avoir) represents what she intrinsically possesses, her nature. The debate between Nature and Noreture begins after Silence has been removed from her home to the woods where she is raised as a boy: Before that time, only the influence of Nature upon Silence is described, as Heldris tells how Silence’s body was formed, ascribing to Nature the same role she was assigned in the preceding medieval tradition. Natures words, “Or voel faire ouvre forcible” (1. 1807), echo the forceful

aspect of Natures traditional work, laboring at her forge. However, the expected image is abruptly inverted as Nature picks up, not a hammer, but a sieve. Tolt si com cil qui prent un crible,

U tamis, u un buletiel,

Quant faire violt blanc pain e biel, Si fait Nature, c’est la some,

Quante faire violt un vallant home

‘

(lI. 1808-10; 1825-26)

Heldris describes in minute detail the process of sifting the flour to prepare the loaf, removing the bad elements, or bran, from the good, fine flour. He stresses the separation of these parts, stating that the sifting results in two clearly defined heaps, one used to make noble persons, the other used to make “frapalle” or riff-raff (1. 1834). Nature’s refined material is now “biele et pure” (1. 1865). At this point, the material is referred to using the masculine pronoun (“li matere,” |. 1865). However, Nature makes it “encor plus bele” (1. 1867), for she wishes to create a “puciele” (1. 1868); the

material is then referred to using the feminine pronoun (“la matere,” Il. 1874, 1877).!> It is subsequently placed in “molles” (I. 1887) which give the material its

form. The homogeneity of forms implied in the forging of Alanus or even Jean's Nature is not present here; on the contrary, Heldris emphasizes the diversity of the forms Nature bestows: Molles i a bien .m. milliers

Car s’ele n’eüst forme c'une, La samblance estroit si commune De tolte gent, c’on ne savroit 14 Perret similarly suggests that the -us “représente l’usage” and the -a “son identité sexuelle.” Michèle Perret, “Travesties et Transsexuelles: Yde, Silence, Grisandole, Blanchandine,” Romance Notes, 25

(OS)

255

15 Alternatively, the change in pronoun may be due to the apparently random use of picard and francien feminine pronoun forms (subjective /a or Li, objective a or Le) noted by Thorpe (51)

Natures forge Recast in the roman de Silence

43

Quoi, ne quel non, cascuns avroit. [Nature] a formes grans et petites, Laides, contrefaites, parfites,

Tant mainte forme i a diverse.

(lI. 1887-99)

This corporeal heterogeneity is a more realistic representation of human generation than that found in the twelfth-century allegorists or in the Rose. Similarly, Heldris more accurately describes formation of the body as a gradual process, where the child’s form continues to develop during the period of gestation. Heldris’ representation of gestation is very different from that espoused by the dominant Aristotelian tradition, which holds that the body is fully formed in miniature at the moment of conception, when the masculine imprint is stamped upon undifferentiated matter (Historia Animalium 7.3; 583 B 9-11). The modified view

reflects a medical tradition based on experience rather than authority, derived from a history of practical experience of miscarriage and childbirth presided over by women. During the thirteenth century, the practical aspects of prenatal care were administered by women; only later in the fourteenth century did licensed male doctors replace midwives.'© The association of women with practical medicine is evident in the Roman de Silence, for both instances of medical care in the romance are performed by women:

Eufemie cures Cador (ll. 589-629) and Cadors female cousin attends as

midwife when Eufemie gives birth to Silence (Il. 1789-92). By altering the traditional description of Nature’s labor, Heldris not only feminizes the personification but also restores a practical, female perspective on gestation. The debate between Nature and Noreture is revived near the end of the romance, when Silence, who has successfully passed in society as a man, is sent to capture Merlin. The placement of Nature and Noreture’s second debate is significant, for just as the first debate is sandwiched between an account of Eufemie’s painful labor (Il.

1775-94) and delivery (Il. 1958-63), so the second appears between Silence’s preparation of food to tempt the wild man Merlin (II. 5987-95) and Merlin’s consumption of the food (Il. 6100ff). Heldris’ bracketing of the two debates reinforces the equivalence of the processes of giving birth and preparing food, a relation which was already evident in Nature’s use of sieves and flour to create human bodies. Silence’s act of food preparation is, in a sense, her second birth, for it is by means of this act that she is restored to the female role Nature intended her to have. Because it is said that Merlin “n’estroit pris, n’ensi, nensi . . . Se ne fust par engien de feme” (II. 5801-03), Silence is sent on what the king, believing Silence to be a

man, thinks will be a failed mission. But because she is in fact female, Silence is able to capture Merlin. Significantly, she accomplishes this by offering him food, thus simultaneously restoring herself to the traditionally feminine role of provider and preparer of food. Caroline Walker Bynum calls attention to the importance of the “biological analogy,” that “through lactation, woman is the essential food provider and preparer’; 16 See Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Not of Woman Born: Representations of Caesarian Birth in Medieval and Renaissance Culture (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990) for an account of the effect on childbirth practices that resulted from “the professionalization of medicine” (119).

44

Suzanne Conklin Akbari

she cites the existence of fourteenth-century cookbooks directed at women as evidence that “everyone agreed that the basic social responsibility for food preparation was woman’s.”!7 By offering food, Silence simultaneously restores both Merlin and herself to their “natural” states: Silence resumes a traditionally female role and Merlin assumes the place in society that Nature demands he occupy. Paradoxically, however, Merlin’s “natural” role is to be within civilization, eating cooked meats rather than the fodder he consumes in the wild. Similarly, Silence’s “natural” role is to occupy the place a patriarchal society has designated for women. A parallel between Merlin and Silence is established as both are said to be “noris en bos” (Il. 6003; 2354 “norri en bois”). This state, “soltive et solitaire” (I. 2154), is

potentially dangerous, removed from the civilizing effects of the group. A similar process of resocialization occurs in Chrétien’s Yvain, as the hermit gradually tames the wild man Yvain has become by offering bread and cooked meat to replace Yvains raw venison.!8 The woods frequently represent the antithesis of civilization and, more generally, of order. It is therefore not surprising that the Latin word for forest, silva, is used in the medieval era to mean “chaos.” This realm of silva or chaos, in the woods where the wild man lives, more closely resembles our concept of nature in the modern paradigm of nature and culture. Heldris’ Nature is clearly the servant of culture, for in the Roman de Silence restoration to one’s proper nature means returning to one’s role in society: Merlin’s “natural” place is back in civilization, Silence’s in the socially constructed feminine sphere. The specific foods Silence uses to lure Merlin are significant, eat they are intended to attract Merlin in a particular order, indicating a gradual process ofcivilization as he is restored to his proper nature. The hermit who advises Silence tells her that Merlin first will be attracted by the scent of cooked and salted meat to replace the “Herbe, rachine” (1. 5932) which are his usual fare. Then he will consume the honey, then the milk, and lastly the wine (Il. 5955-72). Both the meat and honey are substances

which animals could be expected to consume, and so are appropriate fare to lure Merlin from his wild state. The milk implies a greater degree of humanity, however, for only young animals drink milk; the only adult animal which consumes milk is man. Finally, the wine renders Merlin most proximate to civilization, for wine is a substance which does not occur naturally: it has to be deliberately made by man. At this point, Nature and Noreture resume their dialogue, as Noreture admits defeat: “Noreture . . . la place li relenqui. / Et Nature . . . le venqui” (Il. 6088-90).

After Merlin returns with Silence to the king’s court, he reveals that she is actually a woman. She is stripped of her clothing to verify this, and the last miniature in the only surviving manuscript of the text shows Silence, “a dim white figure” (Thorpe, 8), standing before the king. The miniature is placed at line 6582, immediately after the king has said that Silence has always been a good chevalier, that there has never been a better one. After the illustration, he states “Nos veüns bien que tu iés feme” (I. 6586). Within the terms of the romance, this leads to a happy ending, one in which Silence '7 Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), p. 190. 18 Chrétien de Troyes, Le Chevalier au Lion (Yvain), ed. Mario Roques (Paris: Champion,

2834fF.

1982), Il.

Nature’ forge Recast in the roman de Silence

45

“does not pay for her male accomplishments by having to renounce a normal life in this world.”1? The king rescinds his order that women may not inherit property, so that Silence can inherit her father’s lands after all; the king even chooses her to be his new queen. Despite this apparent victory of Silence,”° more recent readers have suggested that the work is profoundly misogynistic.?) The poem certainly includes misogynistic passages, and the last manuscript illumination shows Silence in a position of pathetic vulnerability when she is displayed to the court — and to the reader — in her naked, natural state, stripped ofall trappings of her nurture, no longer able to defend herself as she did when she had a masculine identity. Despite the misogyny that can be found generally in the Roman de Silence and specifically in Heldris dichotomy of nature and nurture, however, the fact remains that his personification of Nature is far more “feminine” than that found in the preceding literary tradition, showing her engaged in a conventionally feminine task, making bread rather than hammering metal. Why does Heldris present a feminized version of Nature's labor? An illuminating example of the feminization of a characteristically masculine metaphor can be found in figurative descriptions of the writer’s task. Many medieval writers — perhaps most memorably, Chrétien — use the sowing of seed as a metaphor for that task, the dissemination of knowledge. Female writers are obliged to find another metaphor: for example, in Lavision-Christine, Christine de Pizan likens the labor required to produce books to the labor ofchildbirth.?* The focus is shifted from seed to womb, from conception to gestation, just as in the Roman de Silence Nature’s labor is not the quick stamp of conception but the gradual moulding and baking ofgestation. In this context, it may be worth reconsidering the suggestion, first made by Kathleen Brahney (61), that Heldris may have been a female writer, disguised under a man’s name just as the tale’s heroine is disguised in men’s clothes. “Maistres Heldris” appears to be a pseudonym, perhaps selected from Geoffrey of Monmouth due to the names connection with Cornwall.?3 Louis Thorpe stresses some unusual features of Heldris’ approach: Medical matters interest Heldris considerably, witness the description of Eufemie’s cure ...and the details given of the pains of childbirth. . . . He has what is surely a practical knowledge of bread-making . . . and of the preparation of food over a camp fire. . . . Finally he is intimately acquainted with the life led by wandering jongleurs.

(13-14)

19 Joan M. Ferrante, “Male Fantasy and Female Reality in Courtly Literature,” Women’s Studies, 2

(1984), p. 94. 20 The ending “in terms of the romance .. . is a victory.” Kathleen J. Brahney, “When Silence Was Golden: Female Personae in the Roman de Silence,” in The Spirit of the Court, ed. Glyn S. Burgess and Robert A. Taylor (Cambridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1985), p. 60. 21 Gaunt, 203; Peter L. Allen, “The Ambiguity of Silence: Gender, Writing, and Le Roman de Silence,”

in Sign, Sentence, Discourse: Language in Medieval Thought and Literature, ed. Julian N. Wasserman and Lois Roney (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1989), p. 101. 22 Christine de Pizan, Lavision-Christine, ed. Mary Louis Towner (Washington, D.C.: Catholic Univer-

sity of America, 1932), pp. 163-64. On Christine’s feminization of masculine metaphors of poetic production, see Sylvia J. Huot, “Seduction and Sublimation: Christine de Pizan, Jean de Meun, and Dante,” Romance Notes, 25 (1985), pp. 361-73. 23 Heinrich Gelzer, “Der Silenceroman von Heldris de Corniialle,” Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, 47 (1927), pp. 88-99; cited in Roche-Mahdi, p. ix.

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Suzanne Conklin Akbari

Of course, we will almost certainly never be able to say definitively whether Heldris

was female; but a number of indications within the text at least raise the possibility. The misogyny undoubtedly present in the work is no evidence against female authorship, for misogyny was and is not unique to men. If Heldris was indeed a woman, she may not be an ancestress we can comfortably claim as our own.

CRISEYDE’S HONOR: INTERIORITY AND IN CHAUCER’S COURTLY ROMANCE

PUBLIC IDENTITY

Carolyn P Collette

In a 1978 article entitled “Criseyde: Woman in Medieval Society,” David Aers offered

a reading of the Troilus based on two principles: “moving into closer contact with the actual practices, confusions, and aspirations of late medieval women and men,” and close reading of the text, what he describes as a “scrupulous attention to . . . specific movements of language and feeling” (p. 178). Today I want to enlist Aers’ heuristic principles as guides in a discussion of just what constitutes the essential qualities of Criseyde’s interiority and public identity. This is a subject much discussed, but usually in terms of Criseyde’s “attractiveness” or in terms of her faithlessness. Criseyde is famous for her tender heart, her sliding corage, and her timidity. My question: Are these truly the character traits we assume them to be? Or might these qualities rather have been recognized by a medieval audience as typical responses to a woman life lived under very difficult circumstances? By looking closely at the text and by outlining the general terms of an inquiry into the social circumstances that might well have made Criseyde an intelligible and compelling figure to medieval and Renaissance audiences, we can begin to shape answers to this question. To start, | want to approach the topic of how Chaucer delineates Criseyde’s charac-

ter by focusing on the first thing we learn ofher in the poem, that she is a widow. Left behind by Calkas as he fled to the Greeks, Criseyde is “of hire lif... ful sore in drede . a widewe . . . and allone/Of any frend to whom she dorste hir mone.”? But Criseyde is not just a friendless widow, she is a widow very much concerned with her honour and her estat — with how to preserve both. To his Italian source Chaucer has added a strong, recurrent pattern of verbal imagery centered in the word honour as it applies to Criseyde. This pattern of language and the fact that Criseyde is a widow work together to shape her identity in the public world and to lay the foundation for the self-reflection and interiority that have given rise to the idea that Chaucer was uniquely sympathetic to female consciousness. I would like to thank Professor Harold Garrett-Goodyear of Mount Holyoke College and Dr. Jocelyn Wogan-Browne of the University of Liverpool for help in researching the status of widows in late medieval England. 1 David Aers, “Criseyde: Woman in Medieval Society,” The Chaucer Review, 13, (1978), pp. 177-200. 2 All citations of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde are to The Riverside Chaucer, gen. ed. Larry D. Benson, 3rd ed. (Boston, 1987) (I, 95-97).

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Carolyn P Collette

Everyone who reads the Troilus will remember the frequent citations of the word honour in the text. The word, or some form ofit, occurs throughout the poem; usually it is used in relation to Criseyde or by her in consideration of her situation. Of the appearances of this term, fifteen are clustered in the second book where we see most closely into her thoughts. At first this concentration of the word honour in the figure and situation of a woman seems odd, especially when we consider that from a twentieth-century perspective honor in the late Middle Ages was typically a male quality associated with battle and feats of arms. But apparently the word honour was a protean term in the late Middle Ages. The Middle English Dictionary defines honour in at least 6 main ways: it is the action of showing respect, reverence, allegiance,

homage to someone or something; it is fame, good repute, worldly glory, distinction; it is a state or condition inspiring respect; it is nobleness of character of manner, graciousness, courtesy, honorableness, virtue, moral or spiritual uprightness; it is position, rank, station in life; it is exalted position or high station or rank. As part of the second main definition offame, good repute, we find that it also means feminine repute, reputation for purity. It is this last sub-definition that for modern readers of the poem has tended to obscure all the others. We tend to think of female honor almost exclusively in terms of reputation for chastity, but in doing so we run the risk

of discounting the essential meaning of the term, that which has to do with status and the recognition that status evokes. Chastity and purity matter because the possession or loss of them affects status — a woman's as well as her family’s. : In the poem the word honour is frequently coupled with or found close to the word estat, which also represented several classes of ideas connoting status; they ranged from the condition ofany particular human to descriptions of the various groups of people making up the medieval church. Both words signified ideas about social standing,

about high position or rank in society, and about any individual’s condition with reference to a norm, often ofwelfare, wellbeing, or prosperity. Taken together both words’ meanings intersect in the issue of social identity in an aristocratic world that valued public self-presentation. The fact that Criseyde is a widow makes these two words resonate in a particular way because her position, literally her estate as a widow (and daughter of a traitor), is so precarious. We know from Joel Rosenthal’s work on late medieval English widows

that status and position in society were prime concerns for medieval widows. His most recent work, Patriarchy and Families of Privilege in Fifteenth Century England, treats the lot of the late-medieval widow in detail. Central to all aspects of Rosenthal’s discussion is the issue of female identity. He paints a conflicting and at times selfcontradictory picture of female life in general and widowhood in particular. On the one hand he infers from his research the comparative freedom and independence for widows ofthis class in the late Middle Ages, but on the other hand he finds that most aristocratic widows contracted serial marriages, as did men. While male identity in this class was fixed from birth in that men were individuals in the eyes of the law and 3 Joel T. Rosenthal, Patriarchy and Families of Privilege in Fifteenth Century England (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1991). See also Joel Rosenthal, “Other Victims: Peeresses as War Widows, 1450-1500,” in Upon My Husbands Death: Widows in the Literature and Histories of Medieval Europe, ed. Louise Mirrer (Ann Arbor, Univ. of Michigan Press, 1992), pp. 131-152.

Interiority and Public Identity in Chaucer’s Courtly Romance

49

the culture, and their lives were a “neat progression of unified identity through several predictable stages or in predictable fields,” a noble woman’s life was much more dynamic and her identity — tied to male relatives — fluid (178). Women who chose not to remarry were by and large women who possessed economic security, women who could lay claim to a degree of honour.‘ Thus, while men contracted serial marriages for various reasons largely having to do with progeny and the passing on of estates, women were apt to remarry to preserve or improve their situations. Women even fell into a completely different legal category. At the most basic level, Rosenthal says, “In the eyes of the law she was not the same person through the course of her life” (178): To the members and kin of each family that she passed through — a member, for a while at least, because of marriage — her identity as one of them might have seemed the operative identity. But from our perspective we can say that the view of each set of beholders was but a segment of the total reality of her life; her life was both a subject and an object, an internal reality to her and an external or objective fact to a great many others. (185)

He goes on to elaborate this idea, making the important point that such women were not only dependent on others, but isolated as well, from other women who might be disposed to be natural allies or mentors: Who, indeed, was she? Which name was her real name, which self her real self? Furthermore, the lives of her mother and older sisters were not apt to be models she could

follow, as they too had scattered, and now belonged, to some extent, to other families and other webs of kinship and reciprocity. (207)

For many women

of this class their identites and their marriages were “dependent

variables” (205), governed by wishes of fathers, husbands, brothers, guardians, their

lives lived among families not their own. Basic to Rosenthal’s discussion is the importance of the family unit in this culture. Female children in particular, but male children, too, were regarded as players in the all-important game of advancing the family. Individual lives, wishes, and happiness were as nothing in comparison to the importance ofextending the social prominence, power, wealth of the family unit. This attitude extended even to the gentry, as we can see in the Paston family’s reaction when their daughter Margery independently contracted a marriage (1469), apparently on the basis of affection, with the family steward, Richard Calle. The family eventually forgave Calle and reemployed him on family business, because he was a good steward. They never forgave their daughter who, in marrying for affection and on her own initiative, had removed herself from

the family’s reach as a piece to be played in their continual game of advancing the Paston family fortune. But while a woman life and identity were generally at the disposal of male members ofher family (and if she were wealthy enough, at the disposal of the king), 4 While Rosenthal’s work focuses on records of aristocratic families, Judith Bennett’s work examines the lives of non-aristocratic women. For the wide variety of circumstances and accomodations English society provided for widows see, in addition to Rosenthal, Bennett's Women in the Medieval English Countryside (New York and Oxford, 1987), and “Widows in the Medieval English Countryside,” in

Mirrer, ed., Upon My Husband’ Death, pp. 69-1 14.

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Carolyn P Collette

there was one state of life in which a woman might potentially find a degree of autonomy, as well as danger: widowhood. For the gentry widowhood offered a kind of liminal status for women, a position in which a woman could be part of the system, and yet be outside of it; Rosenthal describes it as “the screen on which we can get our

clearest images of the multiple identities of the woman and of the complexities of her life line”, a state in which women could come closest to an “identity determined and shaped by their view of identity” (177). But this is not to say that a widow’s life was easy, or uncomplicated . Depending on her wealth and the strategic importance of her lands, as well as the power and number of male relatives she possessed, she might be vulnerable to a number ofdifficulties: loss of income, loss of lands, loss of contro! over her children.’ Records show countless widows pleading at law for rights, status, and inheritance rightfully theirs yet denied by powerful male members of their families. In effect, these widows were suing for their identities, identities that were to be found in land and income, and often in male support. Yet for all this, the records Rosenthal has examined indicate that in spite of their vulnerabilities, many widows preferred to remain unmarried. Secure in their income and possessions, they frequently established dowager housholds that “. . . served as headquarters for socialization and acculturation for the third generation and for offspring and cadets of the horizontal

family . . .” (231). Records exist of many

substantial, open households that dispensed both charity and hospitality on a lavish scale. Widows ofthis level of wealth were the ones who often gave liberally to religious establishments. Widowhood, then, depending on circumstances, was a complicated state. Widows could be wealthy, dependent, vulnerable, secure (239). In the stories

Rosenthal recounts, their security appears almost invariably to derive, however, from strong male protection, from a secure and steady source of wealth, and from their ability to claim rank and status. To be a widow was to live a life balancing independence and dependence. In writing the story of Troilus and Criseyde Chaucer focuses attention on Criseyde’s status as a widow and makes her quite self-consciously aware ofthat status throughout the story. Criseyde first appears to the reader/listener at the very beginning ofthe story as the widowed daughter of a traitor to the city, begging Ector for his protection and his recognition that she is not part of her father’s crime (1.109-112). In effect she is

enlisting Ector’s aid in giving her her identity, as well as his protection. The first act of the poem is the establishment of Criseyde’s autonomy, He separates her from her father’s treason, allows her al th'onour that men may don yow have,/As ferforth shul have, and youre body shal men save,/As fer as

albeit under Ector’s protection. to dwell in Troy, and says, “And as youre fader dwelled here, /Ye | may ought enquere or here”

(1.120-123). Criseyde returns home, And in hire hous she abood with swich meyne As til hire honour nede was to holde;

5

Rosenthal tells the story of how Anne, widow of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, lost her own

estates to “undutiful sons-in-law”, possibly suffered house arrest in the mid-1470s, and finally recovered her “rightful lands” only in 1487, through an act of Parliament (Patriarchy, pp. 194-5). He concludes that, “.. . of all society's vulnerable groups, widows could be among those with the fewest safe resources

and the fewest reliable friends” (p. 195).

Interiority and Public Identity in Chaucer's Courtly Romance

51

And whil she was dwellynge in that cite,

Kepte hir estat, and both ofyonge and olde Ful wel biloved, and wel men of hir tolde. But wheither that she children hadde or noon, I rede it naught, therfore | late it goon. (1.127-133)

In this stanza we see that she establishes the sort of wealthy dowager household common to widows of status; there are hints of her charity here as well as of hospitality. The stanza may well have been much more suggestive to Chaucer’s late medieval and Renaissance audience than it is to us, because they would have understood it as a description of a style of life they knew well. Certainly the reference to the children, which has puzzled modern critics or at the least seemed odd, makes sense within this aristocratic culture: it’s not clear whether she had children, whether they were wards of the king, or whether they were allowed to live with her (often husbands’ wills dictated the terms of widows’ and childrens’ living arrangements as well as inheritance).

Criseyde’s status, who she is, how she comports herself are central, too, in the very beginning of the love story. When Troilus first sees Criseyde he is struck by her beauty and the “pure wise of hire mevynge” that indicated her “Honour, estat, and wommanly noblesse” (1.285-287). This passage is followed by Chaucers famous description of her “mevynge and hire chere,” attractive to Troilus partially because they are “somdel deignous . . . for she let falle/Hire look a lite aside, in swich manere/ Ascaunces, ‘What, may | nat stonden here?’ ” (1.289-292). She is clearly independent and self-possessed at this point. When Pandarus approaches Criseyde on the subject of Troilus’ love, one ofthe first things he swears is that he [Pandarus] loves her “honour and renoun” (II, 297). Once

the possibility of a love affair is broached, however, the issue of Criseyde’s honor is seriously complicated. The relative autonomy it connoted in Criseyde’s life is encroached upon. She now sees herself in relation to others; her honor is subject to increase or diminution depending on Pandarus and Troilus. Both it and her estat— her status, her wealth, literally her place in Troy — are opposed in Criseyde’s thought to her uncle’s needs and her unrecognized lover's needs: For myn estat lith in a jupartie,

And ek myn emes lif is in balaunce; But natheles, with Goddes governaunce,

I shal so doon, myn honour shal I kepe, And ek his lif... (II, 465-469) ‘Of harmes two, the lesse is for to chese; Yet have I levere maken hym good chere

In honour, than myn emes lyf to lese.’ (II, 470-472)

She promises “Myn honour sauf” to “plese hym [Troilus] fro day to day” (II, 480). Criseyde’s thoughts in this second book of the poem, particularly her musing about her honor, have earlier in this century given rise to the idea that the poem is the first great precursor to the novel and its interest in interiority. And indeed Chaucer pays a great deal of attention to Criseyde’s musings, describing her thoughts repeatedly throughout the book. Taken as a whole, however, her musings revolve around a single topic — her honour and her estat — and how to preserve each if she accepts and gives

52

Carolyn P Collette

love outside the normally sanctioned bounds of public relationships. At times she concentrates on the benefits she might accrue from a platonic relationship which publicly marked her as a favorite of Troilus’: ... Al were it nat to doone

To graunte hym love, yet, for his worthynesse It were honour with pley and with gladnesse, In honestee with swich a lord to deele, For myn estat, and also for his heele. (II, 703-707)

She goes on to make the obvious calculation a widow in late medieval culture must make, that if she is not receptive to his love, she might suffer loss of protection: “Now were I wis, me hate to purchace,/Withouten need, ther I may stonde in grace?” (II, 712-14).

In the famous stanzas that follow close on these, Criseyde lays out her situation in a clear-headed assessment resonant with issues familiar to a late medieval audience as characteristic of choices facing the widow: ‘lam myn owene womman, wel, at ese — I thank it god — as after myn estat,

Right yong, and stonde unteyde in lusty leese, Withouten jalousie or swich debat: Shal noon housbonde seyn to me, ‘Chek mat!’ For either they ben ful ofjalousie, Or maisterfull, or loven novelrie. ‘What shal I doon? To what fyn lyve I thus? Shal I nat love, in cas if that me leste? What, pardieux! | am naught religious. And though that I myn herte sette at reste Upon this knyght, that is the worthieste,

And kepe alwey myn honour and my name, By alle right, it may do me no shame.’

(II, 750-763)

Criseyde is concerned about the choices open to her, she refers to her honor and her name, and to the possibility of shame that love might open. What I suggest here is that the usual way these lines have been read — as indications of Criseyde’s fears about the loss of reputation or damage to self, as signs of a complex interior personality weighing the moral as well as social consequences of love — ought to be complemented by attention to issues central to late fourteenth-century aristocratic life, issues of how and under what circumstances a woman can maintain independence and status. Once her name is coupled with Troilus’ her status will change, will be subsumed in his. Honor is not a matter of areputation for chastity per se, it is a matter of maintaining

the independence that the widowed state offers a woman.‘ ©

Late medieval guides for widows provided advice on how best to maintain a proper widowed state,

some even going so far as to recommend types of food proper to a widowed state, to prohibit looking out of windows, and to prohibit meeting with men — even men of the widow’s own family, all, as in the

words of The Book of the LyfofWidows, a Middle English translation of a “boke of the lyf of wedows made by frere Hieronimus Savonarole of Ferrare . . .” (p. 188), to support degre and estat with honestee.

I am grateful to Lorna Stevenson of the University of Liverpool for the chance to see the manuscript of

Interiority and Public Identity in Chaucer’ Courtly Romance

53

At virtually every major point in the plot of the poem Criseyde’s honour and estat as a widow are raised. In the second book, as we have seen, Criseyde takes the freedom being a widow grants her and contemplates using it to gratify her own desires. How love and honor, personal desire and public reputation, can be reconciled is her

dilemma as she walks into the garden where the women ofher household are listening to Antigone sing a song about love. When questioned about the story behind the song, Antigone says it is about “. . . the goodlieste mayde/Of gret estat in al the town of Troye,/And let hire lifinmost honour and joye” (II, 880-82). Here at last Criseyde has the reassurance she needs: love, estat and honour are compatible, at least according to the history of Troy. It is possible to indulge in love without necessarily losing status.

There is still the battle to be fought with her uncle over just what form this love affair will take; their exchange is framed within a discourse of honour and estat. He persists in urging her into situations where she knows she will be asked to compromise her status. In stanzas 162 and 163 of the second book, she pleads with her uncle, “to myn estat have more reward, | preye/Than to his lust . . . now were it covenable/To myn estat, by God and by youre trouthe, /To taken it [the letter], or to han of hym routhe,/ In harmyng of myself, or in repreve?” (II, 1133-1141). The very plot moves forward on the strength ofthe logic of circumstances implicit in Criseyde’s widowhood. In order to provide a place for the lovers to meet, Pandarus approaches Deiphebus under cover of what is clearly intended to be a plausible lie, enlisting his help to protect Criseyde’s property, citing “. . . some men wolden don oppressioun,/And wrongfully han hire possessioun;/ Wherefore | of youre lordship yow biseche/To ben oure frend . . .” (II, 1418-1421). Deiphebus speaks “of Criseyde swich honour,” that he leaps at the chance of publicly associating himself with her by inviting her to a feast where he does her party “grete honour” (II, 1569).

Even in the midst ofthe love affair the third book treats the topic of honor, showing to some degree the effect of love on male and female status. No longer merely on the brink of decision, Criseyde moves into the world of love, still worried about her honor, her sense of self and her hard-won but precarious position in the world ofTroy. Pandarus assures Criseyde that Troilus “. . . wol nothing yerne/But your honour. . .” (III, 152-153) and Criseyde, as usual, qualifies her intent, saying “myn honour sauf” she will receive him to her service, trusting that he will keep her honour “with wit and bisynesse” (III, 165). Just before the climactic love scene she tells her uncle that “. . .

syn al my trist/Is on yow two, and ye ben bothe wise,/So werketh now in so discret a wise,/That I honour may have, and he pleasaunce” (III, 941-944). It’s clear that she

worries about the nature of the trade-off: she has wanted nothing but honor, that is, status, reputation, independence. Once their love is consummated, it’s notable that Troilus reaps “honour” and “gladnesse” because of the ennobling effects of love on her forthcoming edition of this work contained in BL MS Harley 554 (H). This text is interesting for a number of reasons, not the least of which is its possible association with Syon Abbey; like the Del Reggimento e Costumi di Donna by Francesco da Barberino and the Livre des Trois Vertus by Christine de Pisan, this work reveals the breadth and scope of social expectations

centered in the public and private comportment of widows. For a discussion of the latter two works see

Liliane Dulac “Mystical Inspiration and Political Knowledge: Advice to Widows from Francesco da Barberino and Christine de Pizan,” tr. Thelma Fenster, in Mirrer, ed., Upon My Hustands Death, pp. 223-258.

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Carolyn P Collette

him (III, 1724, 1726); he is famed “thoroughout the world, of honour and largesse”

(III, 1724). In contrast, in order merely to keep her honor, Criseyde has had to agree to a series of private, secret meetings in the back rooms and enclosed spaces of her world. It is significant that she lives in a “paleys” of her own, but that her love is consummated in the dark in a chamber in her Uncle’s house. The lovers’ happiness is shortlived. Soon the exchange of Criseyde for Antenor is proposed and the world she has built for and around herself collapses on Criseyde. Returned to her father, she, like the women in Rosenthal’s research, must put on a new identity. Her most recent, secret identity, the one she has after much pain chosen for herself— lover of Troilus — cannot figure in her calculations, except as a source of sorrow at what is lost. She enters a new world, but one where the same stakes are played for as in Troy. One ofthe first things Diomede says to her when he meets her is “~. . Iwis, we Grekis kan have joie/To honouren

yow as wel as folk of Troie” (V,

118-119). In effect he offers her precisely that which she has been worried about throughout the poem, status and service. Unfortunately this is not the sort of honor and respect she enjoyed in Troy. Chaucer makes clear that Diomede is not so much anxious to protect and support Criseyde as intrigued to learn whether he can seduce her from the love he suspects still ties her to Troy. Diomede, “of tonge large” (V, 804),

speaks to her constantly, offering her just the protection he calculates she needs and will respond to. He offers first “.to ben youre frend” (V, 128); in the next stanza he

urges Criseyde “that ye me wolde as youre brother trete” (V, 134); in the very next stanza he professes himself her lover, “. . . ther kan no wyght yow serve/That half so loth your wratthe wolde disserve” (V, 146-147). In the next two stanzas (within the first 170 lines of the book) he openly urges himself on her as a lover. Criseyde,

half-listening, thanks him, professing that she has loved no one but her husband. Diomede’s suit prospers in direct proportion to Criseydes growing understanding ofthe situation in which she finds herself. Part of Diomede’s relentless assault includes the question of Criseyde’s status and identity; his question “. . . whi hire fader tarieth so longe/To wedden hire unto som worthy wight” (V, 862-63) suggests that she has

returned to the status of woman as object. Lamenting her inability to see the future, Criseyde says that she has always lacked one ofthe three eyes of Prudence, that she can well understand the past and the present, but not what will come. It is this psychology that drives the rest ofthe story, this and the relentless pressure of her circumstances. At the end she decides the inevitable, given her position. It is also arguable that at the end she opts for a degree of subjectivity in choosing Diomede — but she really has very little choice at all: Retornyng in hire soule ay up and down

The wordes ofthis sodeyn Diomede, His grete estat, and peril of the town, And that she was allone and hadde nede Of frendes help; and thus bygan to brede The cause whi, the sothe for to telle,

That she took fully purpos for to dwelle.

(V, 1023-1029)

The similarity of her situation in the Greeks’ camp to her situation at the opening of the poem is underscored by the similar language: in both cases she is “allone” without any “frend”.

Interiority and Public Identity in Chaucers Courtly Romance

55

Such.a reading of the poem produces a Criseyde much more complex, knowing, and aware than what I will refer to as the more romanticized versions of Criseyde as lovely, timid, and indecisive. In particularizing Criseyde as a widow within an aristocractic if anachronistic social structure, Chaucer lays the foundation for her “personality” in her social circumstances. The implications of her concern with honour and estat provide a positive, rational explanation for what has seemed to modern critics her “typically female” instability. Whats more, reading Criseyde as legitimately and actively concerned with maintaining herself and her household as independent units within Trojan society helps to answer a question that accepting her as merely unstable inevitably raises: what is the nature of Troilus’ tragedy? With a weak or foolish Criseyde Troilus’ love is equally foolish, hardly worth it. But at the end of the poem we do not hear Chaucer say that Troilus wasted his love. Rather, Chaucer says this story is a tragedy because Troilus set his love on something -- someone — inconstant, and that inconstancy in general, as well as betrayed trust in love, is the way of the world. Criseyde’s betrayal of Troilus is tragic not because she is casually faithless, or weakly fickle, or even because it is the story of how one person breaks a sacred promise that ties her to another whose life it governs. It is rather that the social and political scene, what Chaucer calls the false world’s brotelnesse, is both the site and the cause of the tragedy. Criseyde’s need for public identity, the female need for support and status dependent on men and their decisions, triumphs over her free choice to love Troilus.

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ANALOGY OR LOGIC; AUTHORITY OR EXPERIENCE? RHETORICAL STRATEGIES FOR AND AGAINST WOMEN Karen Pratt

“If man’s desire for ornament, or for that which is secondary, is analogous to man’s desire for woman, it is because woman is conceived as ornament.” (p. 12) “If clothes are at once sign, the effect, and cause of the Fall, it is because, as artifice, they,

like woman, are secondary, collateral, supplemental.” (p. 13) “If a woman is defined as verbal transgression, indiscretion, and contradiction, then Walter Map, indeed any writer, can only be defined as a woman; and the discourse of

misogyny then becomes a plaint against the self or against writing itself.” (p. 19)!

It was Howard Bloch’s article on medieval misogyny, in which he frequently employs this type of syllogistic reasoning based on analogy, and in which he concludes that “The danger of woman, according to this reading of the phenomenon of misogyny, is that ofliterature itself” (p. 20), that first alerted me to the danger, not of woman, but

of analogy as a weapon in the antifeminist arsenal.” | take analogy to be any rhetorical process which implies equivalence between two different things and will therefore include in my discussion simile, metaphor and allegory. Analogical thought also covers generalizing from the particular, which leads to comments on the nature of women which are essentializing.> This is not a way of arriving at the truth through logical argument; rather, it merely reinforces prejudices already held. As Delany points out

1 R. Howard Bloch, “Medieval Misogyny,” Representations, 20 (1987), pp. 1-24. 2 Although Bloch is well aware of the role played by analogy in mysogynistic discourse, as the

quotations show, he never seems to challenge the analogies which form the basis of these syllogisms. Indeed, his own writings are full of analogical thought and generalizations, and he finds the equation of

woman with language, writing, and deception particularly appealing, hence his essentializing conclusion concerning the danger of woman. Had he examined the analogy more closely though, he would have realized that medieval male writers wielding their phallic pens did not equate their own activity with female speech; nor is it valid to argue that because women are said to talk a great deal they are to be compared to language. It is true that Bloch sets out to show how the contradictions in mysogynistic

discourse ultimately undermine its validity. However, while showing how absurd this syllogistic reasoning is, Bloch repeats unquestioningly many ofits premises and his voice gradually becomes indistinguishable from that of masculine clerical tradition. For a discussion of Bloch’s article see the Medieval Feminist Newsletter, 6 (1988), pp. 2-15 and 7 (1989), pp. 7-12.

3 On the subject ofessentializing generalization see Norris Lacy, “Fabliau Women,” Romance Notes, 25 (1985), pp. 318-27, especially p. 322, where he claims that men are criticized as individuals, whereas women are criticized as representatives of their sex. Bloch too sees that misogynistic discourse, by turning woman into a concept, can lead to both her idealization and her denigration, and traps her “in an ideological entanglement whose ultimate effect is her abstraction from history,” Medieval Misogyny

(Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1991), p. 164.

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when discussing allegory, “its method is circular, for the general truth to which allegory claims to lead must first be accepted if the narrative is to have a didactic effect.2* This paper will examine rhetorical strategies based on analogy in some anti- and profeminist works of the later Middle Ages in order to ascertain whether these works appeal more to logic or to rhetoric, more to real life experience or to the authority of masculine, clerical tradition.» Jean Le Fèvres translation of the antifeminist and antimatrimonial Lamentationes Matheoluli and his supposedly profeminist refutation in the Livre de Leésce (both produced probably in the 1380s) offer us the opportunity to examine both sides of the woman question as treated by a man.° The lawyer Le Fevre’s arguments and rhetoric will then be compared briefly with those of Christine de Pizan to see if any gender differences emerge. Le Févre’s source, the Lamentationes, was a tirade against women and marriage in four books composed in Latin towards the end of the thirteenth century by a bigamous cleric, Matthew of Boulogne. Since we have little external evidence against which to check the “autobiographical” data provided by the first-person narrator, we cannot be sure that Matthew really found himselfin the lamentable state he describes. Suffice it to say that clerical bigamy (in this case the loss of clerical privileges through marrying a widow) gave topical impetus to the age-old tradition of antimatrimonial literature.” Le Fèvre translated Matthews work closely, sometimes amplifying the antifeminist sections, and he readily adopted his predecessor's predilection for analogy to describe women and the wedded state.’ Women are compared to various animals, usually dangerous or lecherous, to unpleasant plants, to sources of constant

noise, clocks,

church bells, storms, to diabolical and monstrous creatures, to merchandise which one ought to try out before buying, to winners in the power games of war or chess, to

4

Sheila Delany, Medieval Literary Politics: Shapes of Ideology (Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press,

1990), chapter 2, “Undoing Substantial Thought,” pp. 19-41 (here 23). 5

Connection:

The

Late Medieval

Attack on Analogical

[use the terms pro- and antifeminist in the traditional sense of for and against women;

I am not

implying that profeminist works were in any way feminist as defined by 20th-century theory. For the clerical tradition of misogyny as well as some responses to it see Woman Defamed and Woman Defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts, ed. Alcuin Blamires with Karen Pratt and C.W. Marx (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1992). 6 Les Lamentations de Matheolus et le Livre de Leesce de Jehan Le Fèvre, de Ressons, 2 vols, ed. A.-G. Van

Hamel (Paris: Bouillon, 1892, 1905). The dating of Le Fèvres works is discussed in Geneviève Hasenohr-Esnos’s edition of his Respit de la Mort (Paris: Picard, 1969), pp. xlviii-lv.

7 Clerical bigamy was a hotly debated issue in the thirteenth century; see Adam de la Halle’s Jeu de la feuillee, a work composed probably a couple of decades before Matthews Lamentationes. 8 To explain the awkward fact that the author of the Leésce and self-appointeded defender of women had expanded or added antifeminist passages in the Lamentations, Van Hamel has recourse to the notion of lacunae in the Utrecht MS, the only Latin MS known to him (see vol. II, pp. liv-lix for a list of possible lacunae). However, these passages are also missing in another 4 MSS (see Matheus von Boulogne: ‘Lamentationes Matheolul:’ (Kommentierte und kritische Edition der beiden ersten Bücher), ed. Alfred Schmitt (Bonn: Bonn Univ. Press, 1974), and although this fact does not prove that they were absent from the Latin original, I am inclined to believe that we owe these antifeminist elaborations and additions to the translator, whose avowed embarrassment at having to translate mysogynistic statements should not be taken at face value (II,1541—70).

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disease.” Married men on the other hand are serfs, innocent children, victims ofillness and torture, martyrs. Le Fèvres analogies are not built into the sort of syllogistic reasoning found in the patristic writings analyzed by Bloch. Their cumulative effect is, however, to conclude that woman is by nature violent, loquacious, animal-like (especially in her sexuality), mad, and dangerous because of her ability to control, to infect, or to use magic on her male victims. Similar attributes were identified by Benoit Lhoest when he investigated the terms used to denote the female in Middle French.!° From a corpus of 74 nouns he notes that lust was the most commonly expressed quality, followed by frivolity, ugliness, weakness, stupidity, deceit, bestiality, loquaciousness, virginity, magic. An examination of analogy and lexis thus gives us an insight into the misogyny intrinsic to the language and thought ofthe period.!! Le Fèvres other main rhetorical strategy is to cite exempla from the Bible, the Church Fathers, pagan philosophers and medieval clerics in order to generalize about women, a practice he explicitly defends in the Lamentations 11,2659-80.12 Cato (11,627), St. Ambrose (11,785), Solomon (11,703, 2609), Micheas (11,2239), Prolemy’s Almagest (11,2245, also cited in the Rose, 7008, 18542), Ovid (11,2585), Socrates (111,930) and Jean de Meun’s Rose, (1,22) are all mentioned as authorities. Marital

infidelity is “proved” by the story of the Widow of Ephesus, attributed to some anonymous wise man: Prouvé est par le dit d’un sage

Cognoissant des femmes l'usage. Bien sçavoit que leur amour monte. Un tel exemple nous raconte ... (11,457-60)

One frequently finds the words exemples and prouver linked in this text. In a lengthy section on women’s disobedience (11,1287ff) the narrator claims that La femme d’obeir n’a cure,

Ains est de contraire nature; Tout quanqu’on luy deffent veult faire;

Prouvé est par maint exemplaire.

(11,1287-90)

and then proceeds to tell the story of a woman

who drinks poison because her

9 The idea that women like horses should be carefully inspected before the deal is finalized is a topos of misogyny (Bloch, “Misogyny,” 6); see Innocent III, On the Misery of the Human Condition, tr. Margaret Mary Dietz (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969), p. 20, Jerome, Adversus Jovinianum, 383, PL, vol. 23, 277, and Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, Le Roman de la Rose ed. Félix Lecoy, 3 vols.

(Paris: Champion, 1965-70), 8637-47. 10 Benoit Lhoest, “Les dénominations de la femme en Moyen Frangais: approche lexicale et anthropologique,” Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, 107 (1991), pp. 343-62.

11 Though most of the analogies mentioned here imply a negative view of women, some also betray men’s fear of women and their anxiety over the possibility of female superiority. Indeed many of the exempla in the Lamentations illustrate the power of women over men, especially their sexual power. As

Lesley Johnson demonstrates for the fabliau, the narrator may abuse women and place a negative interpretation on their actions, but the text often depicts their superiority; see “Women Antifeminism in the Fabliaux?,” Modern Language Review, 78 (1983), pp. 298-307.

on Top:

12 Much of this defence is based on Raison’s words on the subject of paraboles in the Roman de la Rose, 7123-50.

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husband had told her not to touch the bottle, of Vashti who refuses to obey her husband’s command, of Eve, and of Loth’s wife. Most striking of all is his account of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth (11,1315-36): in his version Orpheus tells his wife not to look back as they leave the Underworld; she naturally disobeys him and has to stay there for ever." Le Fèvres attempts at logical argument rather than rhetorical persuasion are represented by the evidence of etymology: Chascune son espous appelle Mari, c'est a dire, en la mer, Car mariage est trop amer. (11,31 0-12)

Woman, associated with the Greek fos, must burn more ardently than man and femme, derived from femur, is bound to enjoy the thigh game (II,1674—85).'* Moreover, women are not merely tainted with vice, but the daughters of Eve are often vice personified, marrying and thus corrupting the virtues (11,2445-80). There is also an attempt to demonstrate logically that women will not be resurrected at the last judgement because Adam will need his rib back when he is revived. The narrator admits that he has probably gone too far here, and the whole passage turns into a joke (11,1433-55).15 The question is, though, how serious is this joke? The Lamentations and its Latin source appeal to “real-life” experience to verify Matthew’s defamation of women only insofar as the first-person: narrator claims to be a living example of the martyred husband type and refers occasionally to contemporary husbands and wives as further proof. However, in writing about his avowedly personal experiences, Matheolus sets himselfup as both exemplum and authority, thus joining the ranks of those clerics who have for centuries warned men against women and marriage. Similarly, in translating Matheolus and apparently identifying with him, Le Fèvre is providing another example from life while also perpetuating the authoritative misogynistic tradition. In the Livre de Leësce, supposedly written for the ladies of Paris, Le Févre’s method is to quote large chunks of the Lamentations and then to refute them.'° The later work has far fewer analogies than the earlier, there being fewer profeminist topoi available. A notable exception: the creation of woman from the sleeping Adam’s side is compared to the founding of Holy Church on the sacraments issuing out of Christ's side as 13 | am grateful to Mary Speer for pointing out that this version of the myth is to be found in the Sept Sages de Rome and that in mythographical tradition Orpheus represented the soul and Eurydice the body. 14 This argument is to be found in Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae (Blamires, Pratt and Marx, 43).

15 Tt is difficult to interpret retractions and apologies made by writers of antifeminist treatises. This

subject is discussed by Jill Mann in her inaugural lecture, Apologies to Women (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990), where she concludes that apologies to women discourse.

are a ritual part of antifeminist

16 Much of the misogyny is thus repeated. Van Hamel argues that Le Fèvre, in deference to his female audience, suppressed some of the obscenities and simplified the vocabulary when quoting from the Lamentations, a claim which reveals Van Hamel’s own low opinion of the female intellect. In vol II, P238, he notes the change from Lamentations “bourses de bergier” to Leësce, 502 “bourses de cuir” to refer to women’s breasts and says “l’auteur, écrivant pour les parisiennes, a pris un terme plus simple” > while the note for Leësce, 554 reads “Notez labourer (un mot plus simple) remplaçant reverser (1,802).”

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he slept on the cross (1297-1305). Similarly, few authorities, apart from Holy Scripture (1270) and St. Paul (1707-10) are invoked, the latter to refute St. Ambrose’s

views on marriage. Exempla are repeated either to be dismissed as mere stories: “truffes .../pour colourer s’opinion” (668-69), or rejected on the grounds ofimpossiblity or implausibility. Le Fèvre does not point out that there is an alternative (and more

common) version of the Eurydice story which draws a less antifeminist moral; instead, he calls it a “fable de bourde arrousée” (2090) since we all know that people cannot come

back from the dead! Reason

(986), experience and credibility (775-80) are

called upon to disprove Matthews generalizations, and the process of generalizing from the particular is criticized: Il ne puet pas pour ce conclure, Sil veult partie diffamer, Qu'il puist le tout pour ce blasmer.

(800—02)!7

Thus Le Fèvre argues that even if Calphurnia committed a crime, all women should not be punished for it (1115), and in any case women were banned from advocacy not because of her indecent gesture but because men feared women’s competence (1159). Moreover, he is careful to distinguish between woman's nature and her actions, claiming that Eves punishment after the fall “par coulpe advint, non par nature” (1269), i.e. it was because she sinned, not because she was sinful by nature. In the Leésce famous exempla are often reinterpreted and examined logically in order to shift the blame from women onto men. Dame Leésce argues that it was Matthew’s own

fault if, knowing the consequences of bigamy, he still got married (137-60).

Furthermore, it was David not Bathsheba who was responsible for Uriah’s death (1541). Since in any case Solomon was born of this union (262), David’s love for

Bathsheba cannot have been all wrong. Le Fèvre even exploits the ironic fact that poets like Matthew, who denigrate women and lament at length, are guilty of the same loquaciousness they deplore in women (667-73). Indeed the pejorative term rioze, which in the Lamentations denotes the noisy nagging of a wife, in the Leésce (1488, 1510) denotes Matheoluss lamenting. Thus, in refuting Matheolus, Le Fèvre does in fact employ some of the logical and rhetorical strategies used by his predecessor: he comes up with an etymological argument to counter the negative definition of femina (mulier means

consoler, moulier softener, 1241-43,

and “La femme est nommée

virage/Par la vertu de son courage,” 3726-27), and he cites many exempla of virtuous women to disprove the antifeminist generalizations of the Lamentations (Leësce, 1429—

86). What seems to be less appropriate to profeminist discourse, however, is the use of analogy and the citing of written authorities apart from Scripture. Instead we find in the Leésce many logical arguments in favor of women which appear later in the works of Christine de Pizan.!8 For example:

17 Objections to generalization had already been anticipated in the Lamentations, 2589 ff, but in the earlier work the poet claims that he must press on to the logical if extreme conclusion that there is no such thing as a good woman, and supports this with a quotation from Proverbs 31:10. In Book 3 he admits that there is no fidelity in marriage from either men or women (987-91), yet all the examples he cites are of treacherous women. 18 For further examples see Blamires, Pratt and Marx, 278-302.

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Karen Pratt

— Both writers claim (or imply) that if books had been written by women, they would tell a different story (Epistre, 409-11).!° In similar vein Le Fèvre defends Leésce’s

concentration on good women rather than bad by saying that men are just as selective, for in their books they do not mention Catelin, Dennis the tyrant, Nero, Herod and many other villains (3806-19). — They both state that old men denigrate women because they are impotent (Epistre, 338-40), Le Fèvre giving Ovid’s castration as the reason for his misogyny (2707-22). — Both criticize sweeping generalizations (Leésce, 1409-17, Epistre, 347), reinforcing their argument with the analogy of the fallen angels; for although some sinned, God did not punish all of them (Leésce, 1118-29, Epistre, 193-200). — Both use the theological arguments for woman’s superiority (Fenster and Erler, 14): l. e materia — woman was created out of bone not “limon de la terre”, a phrase they share (Leésce, 1212-21, Epistre, 591-99); 2. e loco — woman was created inside not outside paradise (Leésce, 3728-33, Epistre,

600-04); 3. e conceptione — womankind was honored when a woman gave birth to Christ (Leésce, 1232-35, Epistre, 572-84) and more generally, they both argue that in denigrating women men are insulting their own origins (Leésce,1029—30, Epistre, 168-69), Le Fèvre concluding provocatively that if there is no such thing as a chaste woman then all men are “filz de putains” (2776-77). . These arguments all appear in Christine’s Epistre, and although Fenster and Erler think it unlikely that Christine drew on the Leésce since these ideas were fairly commonplace at the time and can be found in Chaucer too, Thundy has shown that Chaucer probably knew Le Fèvres Lamentations, and it is possible that both of the Frenchman’s works, which were often copied together, were widely known.?° Christine's misconception expressed at the beginning of her Cité that Matheolus had written “a la reverence des femmes” may be the result of confusion over his translator's two works.2! She may even have read the Leésce believing it to be by Matheolus, since it came to be known as Le Rebours de Matheolus.?? Moreover her disappointment and disgust could have been aroused by the Leésce itself, which, as we shall see later, is not

unambiguously pro-women. Another feature Christine shares with the Leésce is the inclusion of exemplary women to counter misogynistic exempla. Although she seems to have taken her positive female examples from Boccaccio’s De claris mulieribus or a French translation ofit, many ofthese virtuous women also appear in the Leësce. These include Lucretia

19 References are to the edition of Christine’ Epistre found in Poems of Cupid, God of Love, ed. Thelma S. Fenster and Mary Carpenter Erler (Leiden: Brill, 1990), pp. 34-75. 20 Zacharias P. Thundy, “Matheolus, Chaucer, and the Wife of Bath,” in Chaucerian Problems and Perspectives, ed. E. Vasta and Z. Thundy (Notre Dame: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1979), pp. 24-58. 21 See the edition of Le Livre de la cité des dames by Maureen Curnow (Ph.D. Vanderbilt, 1975), p- 617.

22 The author of the Régles de la Seconde Rhétorique refers to “Jehan Le Fevre, de Paris, lequel fist Matheologue” (see Hasenohr-Esnos, p. liv), which may suggest that his pro- and antifeminist treatises were viewed as one compendious work.

23 See A. Jeanroy, “Boccace et Christine de Pisan. Le De Claris Mulieribus pricipale source du Livre de la Cité des Dames,” Romania, 48 (1922), pp. 93-105 and Susan Noakes, Timely Reading: Between Exegesis

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(1459), Penelope (1474), Judith (1761-76), Saints Catherine of Alexandria, Margaret of Antioch, Ursula and her virgins (2810-38), the nine preuses (3530-95)*4 and learned women like Carmentis, who invented the Latin alphabet (3623-31). Christine also follows Le Fèvre* practice in the Leésce (but not in the Lamentations)

of employing analogy in a limited, but more original way. For example, when she adopts the well-worn metaphor of the castle to represent the woman to be conquered, she uses it ironically, stressing the illogicality of men who claim that women are easily seduced yet who have to devise elaborate plans for storming the castle (Epistre, 379-88). She does not constantly invoke written authority, and in the Debate of the Rose, her letters frequently refer with disrespectful irony to the subtle reasoning of her clerical opponents and predecessors, treating pejoratively the rhetorical sophistication which others admired in Jean de Meun.” Since Le Fèvre in the Leésce also eschewed invoking written authority and explicitly criticized the attractions of rhetoric, it seems that these are strategies determined more by the position adopted by the writers than by their gender.*° Christine does invoke her own experiences as a woman, which are for her more authoritative than any book learning (Débat, p. 19, ll. 250-58, p. 18, |. 210), and her comments in the Epistre on men who vaunt the sexual conquest of women who have in fact rejected them seem to reflect observed reality rather than literary tradition (147-57). However, the other humanists in the debate refer to experience too (Gerson, Débat, p. 75, |. 422), so this does not necessarily indicate a gender difference either.’” In fact a careful study of these different writers leads one to the conclusion that the somewhat masculine binary oppositions I set up in my title are easily deconstructed, especially if one attempts to insert gender into the scheme.?8 However, before concluding, | should like to consider the validity of taking Le Févre’s Leésce as a profeminist work, to discuss how his writings might have been read and to point to some differences in approach between Le Fèvre and Christine which may

after all be attributable to gender. First, whereas in her Epistre Christine refers briefly to the slander spoken about women and then answers the “mesdisants” at length, logically and with counter examples, Le Févre quotes large chunks of Matheolus with considerable relish, and although he has occasionally omitted obscenities, supposedly to please his female

and Interpretation (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1988), chapter 4, “From Boccaccio to Christine de Pizan: Reading the Corpus.” 24 Ann McMillan, “Men's Weapons, Women’s War: The 9 Female Worthies 1400-1640,” Mediaevalia,

5 (1979), pp. 113-39, argues on pp. 124-27 that Le Fevre’s Leésce rather than Boccaccio was probably the source of Deschamps’s ballade 403. 25 See Le Débat sur le ‘Roman de la Rose’, ed. Eric Hicks (Paris: Champion, 1977), p. 6, 32-33 “soubtilz maistres”; p. 8, |. 29 “subtiles raisons”; p. 20, 290-91 “Jehan de Meun moult grant clerc soubtil et bien parlant”; p. 16, l. 138 Geniuss speech is full of “mos sophistez”. 26 See Leésce, 667—69 for a criticism of Matheolus’s rhetoric and 763-64 where lady Leésce appeals instead to reason to support her case. 27 It is interesting though that Gerson appeals also to Seneca and St. Paul, thus aligning himself with

masculine written authority. 28 On binary oppositions and gender see Hélène Cixous, La Jeune Née (en collaboration avec Catherine Clément) (Paris: UGE, 10/18, 1975).

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audience, there is enough misogynistic bawdiness left to produce some offense and to make the Leésce both a pro- and antifeminist text.” Secondly, whereas Christine is careful not to generalize about the faults of men or the virtues of women, the conclusion of the Leésce is that #0 man is to be trusted, despite Le Fèvre’s earlier warnings against generalization:*° Nulle foy ne nulle constance

N'est en masle pour aliance Tenir et garder vers femelle.

(3852-54)

Mais nuls ne tient foy a sa femme.

(3863)

While it is possible that Le Fèvre has here slipped unconsciously into the type of masculine analogical thought usually associated with misogynistic discourse, he may well have deliberately placed untenable generalizations in Leésce’s mouth in order to ridicule her. In this too he differs from Christine, for whereas she in the Epistre uses the male voice of Cupid without ironizing his position, Le Fèvre uses dame Leésce to defend women in such a way that he may be humorously undermining what she says. Indeed, her very name may be ironic, possibly suggested by the Roman de la Rose, in which she appears as one of the personifications in the garden of Deduit. Moreover, the Livre de Leésce echoes ironically the final lines of the Lamentations, which tell any man contemplating marriage that it “De leesce luy clos la sente/ Et luy doins les cles de tristesce” (812-13). Anyone reading the Leésce is thus forewarned.

Van Hamel suggests that Le Fèvre was uncomfortable with his antifeminist work and was genuinely pleased to be able to refute it later. To support this view he points out that already in the Lamentations Le Fèvre intervenes to excuse his virulent attacks on women

on the grounds that he is a mere translator (11,1541-70). We cannot

ignore, however, that in so doing he echoes Jean de Meun, who blames the Ancients for the misogyny in the Rose (15185-212).

It seems that these comments

by both

authors were made tongue-in-cheek, especially as Le Fèvre the translator clearly felt at liberty to omit the section in his source on the mendicant orders (11,1791-97).3! Surprisingly, the Roman de la Rose is cited far more extensively in the Leésce than in the openly misogynistic Lamentations, and this intertextuality may well have produced an

29 Defenders of Le Fèvre, like the defenders of Jean de Meun, could argue that it is justifiable to describe disreputable behavior in great detail or to present a point of view with which one disagrees if one is aiming to convey a moral message via negative exempla. Christine de Pizan counters this view in the Débat, p. 125, using the analogy of the sick person to whom one mentions certain indigestible

foods, thereby making their condition worse; for words of prohibition only serve to inflame the appetite. Interestingly Marshall Leicester makes a similar point about Howard Bloch in the Medieval Feminist Newsletter, 6 (1988): “he is . . . in a citational relation to the texts of misogyny, that is, he is

quoting and respeaking and paraphrasing them with the understanding that he does not agree with what they say . . . What I wonder about is the source and character of the pleasure that speaks in his citing, and the way it spills over into his own style” (p. 9).

30 In the Epistre Christine twice lists crimes and vices of which women are not guilty, thus implying that some men do carry out these actions, but avoiding the generalization that a// men do this (641-47, 681-85).

31 He even refers us to Jean de Meun, who treated the subject so thoroughly in Faux Semblant’s speech that nothing more remains to be said.

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65

ironic undermining of the very position Le Fèvre was claiming to support. For example he lists as his opponents in the debate Mathieu's allies Gallum, Juvenal et Ovide

Et maistre Jehan Clopinel, Au cuer joli, au corps isnel

(Leésce, 747-50)

thus echoing very closely the section of the Rose (10492-536) in which the God of

Love is lamenting the passing of these great authorities on the seduction ofa lady and is looking forward to the assistance Jean de Meun will bring to the project. It is ironic that in appearing to criticize the great exponents of clerical mysogyny Le Fèvre reminds us of a speech that flatters them.%? Moreover, Le Fèvre has Leésce deny that the raven used to be white and was turned black because she was a gossip, adding that this is no more true than that the swan used to be black (1169-76). This analogy echoes humorously the words of Jean de Meun’s jaloux, who, citing Juvenal as his authority, maintains that a virtuous woman is even scarcer than a white raven or a

black swan (8665-76). The context from which the allusion is taken is all important; thus Le Fèvre undermines the words of his supposed champion of women, Leésce. Perhaps his real opinion of women

(or at least his ambivalence towards them) is

revealed when, discussing woman’s inclination to sin, he says that of the two qualities which enable women to come to a decision God gave women less reason and more desire: “Dieu a es femmes planté/ Mains raison et plus voulenté” (Leésce, 2063-64). This would not be Christine’s view, nor does one find in her list of good women a certain La Calabre, who knew which herbs would make a woman’s vagina and breasts shrink after childbirth to a size ready for lovemaking “Pour estre aux hommes plus plaisans” (3778-85). Moreover, it is unlikely that Christine would have approved of Leésce’s logic when she argues that Solomon was not brought down by women, but that God created women and sexual pleasure to ensure the propagation of the species and that Solomon did this particularly successfully with all his wives and concubines (thereby eschewing homosexuality), and wrote lots of books too (826-66). Le Fèvre

may well be making fun of Leésce by giving her an argument more suited to Jean de Meun’s Reason or Genius than to a female defender of Christian marriage. Perhaps,

like Hoccleve, Le Fèvre laughed at women while pretending to defend them. On the other hand, the Livre de Leésce may be no more than a rhetorical exercise in putting the opposite point of view; for Le Fèvre says in the prologue that he is to proceed “par argument de sens contraire” (34).*4 32 Not only does he repeat the flattering description of Jean de Meun but he seems to identify closely

with the man who “clochoit si comme je fais” (751). No doubt Christine had her two predecessors in mind when she wrote amusingly “on ne doit ramentevoir a nature humaine le pié dont elle cloche” (Débat, p. 125, 1. 333). 33 See Diane Bornstein, “Anti-feminism in Thomas Hoccleves Translation of Christine de Pizan’s Epistre au dieu damours,” English Language Notes, 19 (1981), pp. 7-14. Bornstein shows how subtle modifications to style and content allow Hoccleve to “undermine Christine’s argument” and to “laugh at women while ostensibly defending them.” (p. 14) 34 Beatrice Gottlieb suggests that male contributors to the querelle des femmes adopted the same tone

whether writing for or against women and treated the querelle as a literary game in which they could display their rhetorical skills, “The Problem of Feminism in the Fifteenth Century,” in Women of the Medieval World. Essays in Honor of John H. Mundy, ed. Julius Kirshner and Suzanne F. Wemple (New

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Karen Pratt

Whether Le Févre meant his works to be taken seriously or not is difficult to

judge.% We have manuscript evidence that Matthews Lamentationes was used to teach schoolboys Latin (Van Hamel, vol. I, pp. iii-v), a practice Christine deplores in the Epistre (259-66). As for the Leésce, it may well have been perceived as a pro- and antifeminist compendium, hence its transmission at times without the Lamentations. This is the case in MS V (see Van Hamel, vol. II, p. xxxi), which contains illustrations

suggesting that it was seen primarily as a humorous, antifeminist work: there is a wife beating her husband with a distaff, a man holding a distaff while the woman beside him is dressed as a knight, and two women engaged in manual labour. Similarly one of the early printed editions has a domestic scene in which the wife looks as if she is going to hit her husband and he is carrying a basket of household utensils (Van Hamel, vol. II, p.xxxv). Clearly for the illustrators this text, supposedly in defense of women, was comic, since it seemed to them to present a reversal in gender terms of the natural order of things: a case of woman on top and the world upside-down, exemplified in the Lamentations by the story of Aristotle and his lady rider (1,1080— 1252):

To quote Howard Bloch again (for who can resist invoking masculine written authority?) misogyny is a question not only of reading but of who speaks (“Misogyny”, 6-7).% There are gender differences between the profeminist writings of Christine and of Le Fèvre. Christine’s rehabilitation of women is sincere; Le Févre’s may have been. It seems, though, that in the end misogyny triumphed over dame Leësce, whether Le Fèvre intended it to or not.

York/Oxford: Blackwell, 1985), pp. 337-64 (here 357). Jill Mann notes that Nicole Bozon’s La Bonté

des Femmes is to be found in a manuscript along with a misogynistic poem by the same author and argues that this “indicates the entirely conventional nature of both antifeminism and apology” (p. 41, note. 59).

35 Although my main concern here is to question the seriousness of Le Févre’s defence of women, one

should not overlook the possibility that he was making fun of men (the pathetic husband type) in the Lamentations.

36 Michael Camille, The Gothic Idol: Ideology and Image-Making in Medieval Art (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989), pp. 301-02, suggests that a distaff, which is normally a sign of female

subservience, denotes cuckoldry when a man carries one. 37 Thus when Christine refers to herselfas “foible d’entendement” and to her “femmenine ignorance” (Débat, p. 7, ll. 6-7, 26), probably employing a traditional humility topos and repeating ironically prejudices against women, the effect is rather different from that created by Gontier Cols words to her

(“a femme de hault entendement”, p. 23): “Dieux vueille briefment ramener ton cuer et entendement a

vraye lumiere et cognoissance de verité! Car ce seroit dommage se plus demouroies en tel erreur soubz

les tenebres d’ignorance” (p. 24, Il. 35-38).

Il. LYRIC VOICE, POETIC STYLE: FROM TROUBADOURS TO RHETORIQUEURS

UN PARADOXE

COURTOIS:

LE CHANT

ET LA PLAINTE

Michel Zink

Que signifie pour un troubadour ou pour un trouvère la proposition “je chante”? La question ne paraît pas d’une nouveauté bouleversante. Il suffit d’ouvrir I’Essai de poétique médiévale de Paul Zumthor au pages 192-219 pour lui trouver une réponse circonstanciée et profonde qui est depuis vingt ans la doxa de nos études. Cherchant à “dessiner le spectre sémantique de chanter” dans le grand chant courtois, Paul Zumthor distingue cinq acceptions de ce verbe, dont la quatrième est, selon ses relevés, cing à six fois plus fréquente que chacune des autres: 1. “produire une heureuse harmonie sonore, évocatrice de joie et d’amour 2. “exécuter la chanson” 3. “manifester une émotion exaltante 4. “dire la fine amour” € = Qu 1 »] 5. “aimer (transitivement ou absolument) [13

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39

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Il conclut que, par “un déplacement sémique continu de la matérialité à l’idéalité, d’une action corporelle aux affections du cœur,” on aboutit à cette confusion entre ‘aimer et ‘chanter qu'il met en évidence à si juste titre. Dans les contextes qui lui permettent de les repérer, les cing sens de ‘chanter définis par Paul Zumthor s'imposent avec une pertinence parfaite. Il faut bien pourtant qu'une notion fondamentale sous-jacente leur soit commune et justifie, au-delà de la variété des emplois, le recours à un mot unique. Cette notion, Paul Zumthor la découvre dans la valeur performative de “je chante.” Il s’agit toujours de “produire,” d’“exécuter”, de “manifester”, de “dire” (ce sont ses propres termes), l’auto-référence à l'expression poétique servant dans tous les cas à désigner l'expression de l'amour. Une telle interprétation, d’une certaine façon, va de soi. Elle s'inscrit dans la perspective de la définition du lyrisme courtois comme “poésie formelle”, de l’attention portée à la “technique poétique” de ces poètes, entendue comme art de la variation rhétorique, de l’affirmation d’une auto-référentialité du langage littéraire, aspects sur lesquels la critique des années 70 a particulièrement attiré l'attention. Elle est, au demeurant,

constamment justifiée. Tous les exemples la confirment et aucun ne la dément. Unanimité presque inquiétante. Ne serait-ce pas que l’hypothèse est infalsifiable? N'est-ce pas se replier sur une proposition minimale, et du coup peu éclairante, que de

1

P Zumthor, Essai de poétique médiévale (Paris: le Seuil), 1972, p. 212.

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Michel Zink

ne proposer comme valeur commune aux divers emplois de “chanter” que le sens performatif nécessairement présent dans un tel verbe? Je voudrais proposer ici une interprétation, non pas contradictoire, mais dont l’accent serait déplacé. Il va de soi que “chanter” a une valeur performative. Il ne saurait en étre autrement. Mais chanter suppose aussi — métaphoriquement aussi bien

que littéralement — une tonalité de l’expression. A mes yeux, “chanter,” dans les textes médiévaux, signifie d’abord, j’oserais même dire toujours, “chanter de joie,” “manifester sa joie par le chant.” Autrement dit, le premier sens défini par Zumthor me paraît toujours présent, toujours supposé, quelles que soient les nuances que puisse d’autre part prendre le mot dans les différents contextes. S’il est vrai qu’il y a une équivalence entre “j'aime” et “je chante,” il est également vrai qu’il y en a une entre “je chante” et “je suis joyeux.” Renoncer au chant, c’est renoncer à la joie. L'envoi de la chanson de l’alouette de Bernard de Ventadour le dit en ces propres termes: De chantar me gic em recre, E de joi e d’amor m’escon.?

Je m’arrache au chant, j'y renonce, et je cherche refuge contre la joie et l'amour.

Le chant a partie liée avec la joie. Que la chanson courtoise soit souvent un chant triste est pour les troubadours et les trouvères une source d’étonnement toujours renouvelé, un perpétuel paradoxe qu'ils se fixent pour tâche de justifier et d’élucider. Un paradoxe dont l’approfondissement et la réduction sont l’objet même de l’activité poétique.

La joie est la source et le principe du chant. Bernard de Ventadour ne cesse de le répéter: Ab joi mou lo vers el comens.?

La joie me pousse à commencer mon poème.

Ou encore: Que tostems ai joi volunters, Et ab joi comensa mos chans.*

A tout moment je suis ouvert a la joie et c’est la joie qui me fait commencer mon chant.

Inversement, le chant est l'expression de la joie. Sans elle, nul ne saurait chanter. Cette proposition et la contradiction piquante que constitue son énoncé dans une chanson dont l'existence même le dément suffisent à la grâce un peu facile d’un Gillebert de Berneville, dont la prédilection pour les formes à refrain trahit le goût, sinon pour les succès populaires, du moins pour ce que les éditeurs appellent aujourd’hui la grande diffusion: Je fesisse chançons et chans Mieus c’onques mais et plus sovent, Mais il par est si tres chiers tans De merci que n’en truis noient

2 wv. 3 4

Je composerais chansons et chants mieux que jamais et plus souvent si la pitié n'était pas une denrée si rare que je n'en trouve pas une miette

Bernard de Ventadour, Chansons d'amour, éd. Moshé Lazar (Paris: Klincksieck, 1966), chanson SI, 59-60. Bernard de Ventadour, chanson 3, v. 1. Bernard de Ventadour, chanson 10, wv. 6-7.

Un paradoxe courtois: le chant et la plainte Ne ja beaus chans ne fera Ki joie n’avra.°

an

et il ne composera jamais de beaux chants celui qui n'a pas de joie.

Cette joie que l’on “a”, cette joie qui est une possession, c’est, bien entendu, la joie de l'amour, la joie d’être aimé, la joie de l'amour partagé: Jamais ne perdroie maniere

Je n'oublierais plus l’art

De chans ne de chançons trover Se ma tres douce dame chiere Me voloit sanz pluz conmander Que je chantaisse lement. Ce ne li greveroit noient Et si m’avroit mon sens doublé Et toute ma joliveté.6

de composer chants et chansons si ma dame bien-aimée voulait simplement mordonner de chanter joyeusement. Cela ne lui ferait aucun mal, et elle doublerait ainsi mes moyens et mon amoureuse gaité.

Pourtant, que la joie qui fait naître et qui accompagne le chant soit la joie de l'amour ne doit pas ramener sans plus de détours à l’équivalence habituelle entre aimer et chanter. II ne faut voir là qu'une interprétation seconde. La privilégier d’entrée de jeu, c'est brûler les étapes. De façon à la fois plus fondamentale, plus générale et plus concrète, le chant s oppose aux larmes. L'opposition n’est pas nouvelle. Elle apparaît déjà chez le psalmiste qui associe constamment le chant à la joie et l’oppose longuement et explicitement aux larmes dans le psaume 136.7 Il ne s'agit pas là d’une conception esthétique ou idéologique, mais d’une antinomie physique. Celui qui pleure ne peut chanter. Celui qui chante s'oppose à celui qui pleure. “Qui qu’en pleurt ne qui qu’en chant’: l'expression est usuelle, stéréotypée.® Un chant “à guise de pleur” est un paradoxe, que Gace Brulé associe à celui du chant automnal et non pas printanier: Lanque fine fueille et flor, Que voi la froidure entrer,

Quand disparaissent feuille et fleur et que je vois arriver la froidure,

Lors chant a guise de plour,

alors mon chant ressemble à des pleurs,

C’autrement ne puis chanter.”

car je ne puis chanter autrement.

Aimeric de Belenoi le dit plus clairement encore, avec une sorte d’ingénuité: Per so non puesc motz ni sos acordar, Qu’om, quan plora, no pot ges bel chantar.

5

Aussi ne puis-je accorder paroles ni mélodie, car celui qui pleure ne peut bien chanter.'®

Gillebert de Berneville, Les poésies, éd. Karen Fresco (Genève: Droz, 1988), chanson V, wy. 1-8.

6 Jbid., chanson XXIII, wy. 1-8. 7 “Super flumina Babylonis illic sedimus et flevimus cum recordaremur Sion; in salicibus in medio ejus suspendimus organa nostra. Quia illic interrogaverunt nos qui captivos duxerunt nos verba cantionum

et qui abduxerunt nos hymnum: “Cantate nobis de canticis Sion.” Quomodo cantabimus canticum Domini in terra aliena?” (Ps. 136, 1-4). [Au bord des fleuves de Babylone nous étions assis et pleurions au souvenir de Sion; aux saules d’alentour nous avions pendu nos harpes. Et c'est là qu'ils nous

demandèrent nos geôliers, des cantiques, nos ravisseurs, de la joie: “Chantez-nous un cantique de Sion.” Comment chanterions-nous un cantique du Seigneur sur une terre étrangère?]. Cf. Ps. 70, 23; 97, 4. 8 Voir, par exemple, Marie de France, Lanval, v. 437.

9

Holger Petersen Dyggve, Gace Brulé, trouvère champenois (Helsinki: Société Néophilologique de

Helsinki, 1951), chanson XX, wv. 14. 10 Poésies du troubadour Aimeric de Belenoi, éd. et trad. Maria Dumitrescu (Paris: Société des Anciens Textes Français, 1935), chanson XII, wv. 7-8.

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Ce paradoxe, il existe en ancien français un mot qui, sous la forme d’un oxymore, l’exprime en ces propres termes: celui de chantepleure. Ce mot implique en effet que chanter est le contraire de pleurer. Il désigne, on le sait, celui qui est passé de la joie à l’affliction — qui pleure après avoir chanté —, soit qu’il ait été victime de la fortune et de sa roue, comme dans Fauvel (“C'est le gieu de la chantepleure”!'), soit qu'il paye dans l'au-delà son indulgence aux plaisirs du monde comme dans la Lumiere as lais de Pierre de Peckam!? ou dans le poème qui porte précisément le titre de Chantepleure et où se trouve la célèbre formule “Mult vaut miex pleurechante que ne fait chantepleure” (v. 5), reprise plus tard par Nicole Bozon.!3 Mais, hors de ces contextes édifiants, on trouve aussi le mot rapporté à l’expression lyrique. Ainsi dans énigmatique chanson Floires revient seus de Montoire, où Floire, apprenant la mort supposée de Blancheflor, s écrie: “Or puis avoir non Chante-plore qui de duel chante et de tristor.”!4

“Désormais je puis bien m’appeler Chante-pleure, moi qui chante de deuil et de tristesse.”

Il ne s'agit pas ici d’un personnage qui pleure après avoir chanté, mais d’un personnage qui chante de douleur et non pas de joie, situation anormale dont il rend compte en se désignant par l’oxymore Chante-plore. De façon plus caractéristique et plus explicite, le planh occitan En chantan maven a retraire,\5 déploration sur la mort du patriarche d’Aquilée Grégoire de Montlong, se désigne à plusieurs reprises comme un “chan-plor” (v. 57, v. 65) et consacre ses premiers vers à amener et à justifier cette dénomination: En chantan m'aven a retraire Ma gran ira et ma gran dolor; Non chan ges con autre chantaire Que chanta de joi e d’amor;

Il me convient d'exprimer en chantant mon grand chagrin et ma grande douleur; je ne chante nullement comme les autres chanteurs qui chantent la joie et l’amour;

S’eu chan de boca, de cor plor,

si ma bouche chante, mon cœur pleure,

C’a chantar m’es razos contraire,

et en chantant je suis ainsi partagé.

Per que mos chanz a nom “chan-plor”, C’est pourquoi mon chant a pour nom

Que chanz no’m pot de plor estraire.

“chantepleure”: parce que le chant ne peut m/arracher aux pleurs.

(v. 1-8)

Dans le contexte de la poésie amoureuse, la tension entre le chant et les pleurs est

sentie comme contradictoire au point d'en être mortelle. C’est ce que suggèrent, précisément, les derniers vers du Lai mortel d’Iseut dans le Tristan en prose:

Il Le Roman de Fauvel par Gervais du Bus, éd. Arthur Längfors (Paris: Société des Anciens Textes Français, 1914-1919), v. 2774. 12 “C'est dreit le chaunt de chaunt{e]plur / Qui de duel chante et de tristor” (cité par Godefroy II, 57).

13 Les contes moralisés de Nicole Bozon, éd. Lucy Toulmin Smith et Paul Meyer (Paris: Société des Anciens Textes Français, 1889), p. 120 (“Més, sicom dit le franceys: «Mieux vaut ploure chant ge chant ploure»”) et p. 143 (Pur ceo l’em dyt en chauntaunt: «Meux vaut plur chant ge chant plure»”). 14 Altfranzisische Romanzen und Pastourellen, éd. Karl Bartsch, Leipzig, 1870, I, 11, vv. 17-18 (B.N. fr.

20050, f. 40v).

15 PC. 461, 107. Ed. E. Monaci, Testi antichi provenzali, Rome, 1889, col. 101.

Un paradoxe courtois: le chant et la plainte Chant et plour tout en un moment Font de moi le definement. Je chant et plour. Dieus ki ne ment Penst ore de mon sauvement.!6

73

Le chant et les pleurs simultanés causent ma mort. Je chante et je pleure. Que le Dieu de vérité veille désormais à me sauver.

Mais ne quittons pas si vite le planh En chantan maven a retraire. L'auteur de ce chan-plor oppose sa situation paradoxale et douloureuse à celle du chanteur habituel “qui chante la joie et l'amour” (v. 4). Joi et amor sont dans ce vers associés, sont

presque des doublets. Belle découverte! Est-il rien de plus banal que cette association dans la poésie des troubadours? Nous venons d’ailleurs de la rencontrer dans l'envoi de la chanson de l’alouette. Mais sa trivialité même renforce l’étrangeté du chant douloureux en le rendant, dès lors qu’il est un chant d’amour, doublement contradictoire. Le chant est par nature un chant de joie. Lamour par nature participe de la joie. Comment un chant d’amour peut-il être un chant de peine? Cette contradiction paraît avoir été vivement ressentie par les troubadours et les crouvères. Guiraut de Bornelh y voit un signe de la dégénérescence du monde et suppose que jadis régnait un âge d’or où elle était ignorée et où joie et chant n'étaient jamais séparés: Qu’el temps dels ancias

Au temps de nos ancétres,

loys chans ensems eron quo’ palh’ el gras.l” joie et chant étaient unis comme la paille et le grain.

Bernard de Ventadour en fait l’une des antithéses fondamentales sur lesquelles repose sa poésie:!8 Per melhs cobrir lo mal pes e’l cossire

Pour mieux cacher mes pensées douloureuses et

Chan e deport et ai joi e solatz;

je chante et me divertis, je me donne de la joie et de la distraction; je fais des efforts puisque je sais chanter et rire.!?

ma peine,

E fatz esfortz car sai chantar ni rire.

Et ailleurs: Tant n’ai de pezansa Que totz m'en desconort;

J'en éprouve un tel chagrin que je me sens tout à fait désorienté;

Mas no’n fatz semblansa,

mais je ne le laisse pas paraître,

C’ades chant e deport.

car je continue de chanter et de jouer.?°

16 vy, 121-124. 17 Ruth Verity Sharman, The Cansos and Sirventes of the Troubadour Giraut de Borneil: A Critical Edition (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989), Chanson LXVI, wv. 25-26. 18 Pierre 1971, pp. (Orléans: approche

Bec, “L’antithése poétique chez Bernard de Ventadour”, dans Mélanges Jean Boutière, Liège, 107-37, partic. pp. 125-27 (article repris dans Ecrits sur les troubadours et la lyrique médiévale Paradigme, 1972), pp. 201-31, partic. pp. 219-21). Voir aussi du même auteur, avec une plus abstraite et plus formalisée, “La douleur et son univers poétique chez Bernard de

Ventadour. Essai d’analyse systématique,” Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale, 11 (1968), pp. 25-33, repris dans Ecrits sur les troubadourrs, pp. 165-200. 19 Bernard de Ventadour, chanson 21, vv. 1-3. On reproduit ici textuellement la traduction de Moshé

Lazar, comme on le fera pour la plupart des citations ultérieures de Bernard de Ventadour, mais en se permettant parfois de légères variantes. 20 Bernard de Ventadour, chanson 38 (“Lancan vei la folha”), vv. 33-36.

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Mais de cette faille les poètes tirent volontiers le mouvement et le sens de leurs chansons. Bien souvent ils proclament en ouverture, non pas tant comme dans les exemples précédents qu'ils chantent malgré leur peine, mais que leur peine les rend joyeux et peut ainsi les inciter au chant. Puis, par un renversement ou une évolution au cours du poème, la peine prend le dessus. Le poète se voit contraint de reconnaître que l’affirmation initiale d’une joie délibérée, volontariste, entretenue au sein de la frustration, est intenable. Cet aveu même met un terme à la chanson. Le chant s'arrête

dès l'instant où il ne peut plus feindre d’être une émanation de la joie. Cette tension paradoxale se combine de façon privilégiée avec un autre paradoxe, celui du début hivernal prenant le contrepied du début printanier. Ainsi dans les deux pièces illustres que sont Tant ai mo cor ple de joya de Bernard de Ventadour et Er resplan la flors enversa de Raimbaud d'Orange. Si on choisit ici des exemples aussi connus, c'est par paresse, bien entendu, mais aussi pour montrer que cette attitude et cette démarche n’ont rien de rare ni d’excentrique, qu’elles sont au contraire, d’une certaine façon, la norme.

Tant ai mo corple dejoya, / Tot me desnatura (“Mon cœur est si plein de joie que la nature et les choses en sont pour moi toutes changées”), s’écrie Bernard au début de sa

chanson. Mais cette joie a disparu des derniers vers: Messatgers, vai e cor

Va, messager, cours

E dim a la gensor La pena e la dolor

dire a la plus belle la peine et la douleur

Que’n trac, el martire.?!

que je souffre, et mon martyre.

Comment cette chanson, commencée sur le mot joie, peut-elle s'achever sur le mot martyre? Regardons d’abord la première strophe dans sa totalité: Tant ai mo cor ple de joya,

Mon cœur est si plein de joie

Tot me desnatura.

que la nature et les choses en sont pour moi toute changées.

Flor blancha, vermelh’e groya Me par la frejura, C’ab le ven et ab la ploya

Fleur blanche, vermeille et jaune, voila ce que me parait la froidure, car le vent et la pluie

Me creis l’aventura,

acroissent mon bonheur,

Per que mos chans monte poya

grace à quoi mon chant s'élève et culmine,

E mos pretz melhura. Tant ai al cor d’amor, De joi e de doussor, Per quel gels me sembla flor E la neus verdura. (vv. 1-12)

et mon mérite s améliore. Jai au cœur tant d'amour, de joie et de douceur

que le gel me semble fleur et la neige verdure.

La joie de l'amour (wv. 9-10), la joie qui permet au chant de s’élever (v. 7), cette joie transforme aux yeux du poète la blancheur glacée de l'hiver en la chaleur colorée de l’été. Ce renversement des associations habituelles, cet effet contre nature, cette dénaturation (v. 2), sont si complets que le poète ne parvient pas seulement à chanter malgré la pluie et le vent, mais que le vent et la pluie eux-mêmes provoquent son chant. Qu'est-ce à dire, sinon que la joie n’est pas donnée au poète de l'extérieur, par 21 Bernard de Ventadour, chanson 4, wv. 73-76.

Un paradoxe courtois: le chant et la plainte

75

des circonstances heureuses, mais que par une alchimie analogue à celle qui métamorphose sous son regard le givre en fleurs rouges et jaunes, il tire sa joie de circonstances en elles-mêmes défavorables. Autrement dit, sa joie d'amour ne naît pas de la possession, mais de la privation. C’est une situation inverse de celle que l’on trouve, par exemple, dans la chanson 10, chanson de l'amour comblé, où l'harmonie avec la nature est totale et où le chant du rossignol réveille la nuit le poète et l’induit par une sorte d'imitation, presque de confusion, à chanter sa propre joie: Pel douts chan quel rossinhols fai,

Le doux chant du rossignol,

La noih can me sui adormitz,

la nuit quand je suis endormi,

Revelh de joi totz esbaïtz,

me réveille tout ébahi de joie,

D’amor pensius e cossirans: Caisso es mos melher mesters,

songeur et soucieux d'amour; car c’est là ce que j’ai de meilleur.

Que tostems ai joi volunters, Et ab joi comensa mos chans.

A tout moment je mouvre à la joie et la joie me fait commencer mon chant.

(vv. 1-7)

Ici, au contraire, dans la chanson 4, la joie qui permet au chant de s'élever ne repose que sur la volonté délibérée du poète et sur son regard intérieur qui métamorphose le monde alors même que le monde n’a rien à lui offrir. La joie d'amour naît de l'amour qu'il éprouve, non de celui qu’il reçoit. La suite du poème le confirme. Je puis, dit Bernard au début de la seconde strophe, aller nu, car l'amour me protège de la froide bise (vv. 13-16). C’est là une reprise du motif initial de la nature dénaturée, mais dans un registre plus physique, plus proche de la sensualité, puisque les sensations — le chaud et le froid — ont remplacé les perceptions — les couleurs. Une sensualité qui s oppose pourtant à celle de la possession amoureuse, puisque la chaleur de l'amour n’émane que du poète lui-même. C’est que, nous apprend la troisième strophe, cette chanson est une chanson de la séparation. Cette joie de l’amour qui colore et réchauffe l’hiver blanc et glacé, le poète l’éprouve au moment même où sa dame l’éloigne d'elle, où elle le chasse, où elle l'exclut de son amitié: De s’amistat me reciza (m'esraïza):2?

Elle m'éloigne (m'exclut) de son amitié:

Mas be rai fiansa, Que sivals eu n'ai conquiza La bela semblansa. Et ai ne a ma deviza?? Tant de benanansa Que jal jorn que l’aurai viza, Non aurai pezansa. Mo cors ai pres d’Amor, Que l’esperitz lai cor,

mais j'ai confiance d’en avoir conquis du moins la belle apparence. Et je sens au moment de la séparation tant de bonheur que jusqu’au jour où je la reverrai je ne sentirai nulle tristesse. Mon cœur est si près d'Amour que mon esprit y court,

22 La première leçon est celle de Moshé Lazar et de Martin de Riquer: Los trovadores: Historia literaria y textos (Barcelone: Planeta), 1975, t. I, p. 373. La seconde, retenue par Pierre Bec: Anthologie des troubadours (Paris: Union Générale d’Edition

10/18, 1979), p. 137, marque plus nettement encore

l'exclusion. 23 La plupart des traducteurs et des commentateurs ont compris “à mon sens” (Pierre Bec), “à mon idée”. On préfère ici l'interprétation de Martin de Riquer et de Moshé Lazar, fondée sur le sens de devizar, “séparer”, qui est plus riche et plus précise.

76

Michel Zink Mas lo cors es sai, alhor, Lonh de leis, en Fransa.

mais le corps est ailleurs, ici, loin d’elle en France.

(vv. 25-36)

Indifférent à la réalité de l'amour, indifférent à la séparation, le poète prétend ainsi trouver dans son propre amour une joie suffisante pour abolir la peine de l’absence. Point ne lui est besoin d’être proche de l’objet aimé: être proche de l’amour lui suffit (v. 33-34). Pourtant le dernier vers de la strophe est comme l’ébauche d’une plainte.

Cette plainte s'amplifie à partir de la strophe IV. La “bonne espérance” (v. 37) — aveu en elle-même que la joie est incomplète — ne suffit plus à compenser ni à masquer une douleur qui s'exprime désormais sans retenue: Eu rai la bon’esperansa. Mas petit m’aonda, C’atressi’m ten en balansa

J’ai bonne espérance. Mais cela m'avance peu, car elle me fait ballotter

Com la naus en l’onda.

comme le bateau sur les vagues.

Del mal pes que’m desenansa No sai on mesconda. Tota noih me vir’ em lansa

Plus trac pena d’amor

Pour échapper aux tristes pensées qui me dépriment je ne sais où me cacher. Toute la nuit je me tourne et m'agite sur mon lit. Jendure une peine d’amour plus grande

De Tristan l'amador

que Tristan l’amoureux

Que’n sofri manhta dolor Per Izeut la blonda. (vv. 37-48)

qui souffrit maintes douleurs pour Iseut la blonde.

Desobre l’esponda.

Comme le “coeur plein de joie” du vers 1 parait loin! Les deux derniéres strophes ne font quamplifier expression de la douleur amoureuse. La strophe V exploite le motif promis à un si riche avenir, et peut-être répandu dès cette époque, du souhait d’être oiseau pour pouvoir voler vers l’aimée et, en évoquant la mort d'amour, exprime la même crainte que la chanson de l’alouette: Mor sel vostr amaire: / Paor ai quel cors me fonda (“Votre amant se meurt: je crains que mon cœur ne se fonde”). La strophe VI, la

dernière, introduit à nouveau au sein de la peine le motif de la joie en contrepoint, mais avec une valeur et dans un contexte bien particuliers: Quel mon non a nul afaire Don eu tan cossire,

Car il n'y a au monde nulle affaire dont je sois si préoccupé

Can de leis au re retraire,

que, quand j'entends parler d’elle,

Que mo cor no i vire E mo semblan no’m r’esclaire.

mon cœur ne se tourne aussitôt vers elle et mon visage ne s'en illumine,

Que que’m n’aujatz dire,

si bien que toute chose que vous m’en entendriez dire

Si c’ades vos er veyaire C’ai talan de rire. Tant l’am de bon’amor

vous donnerait toujours l’impression que j'ai envie de rire. Je l'aime tant et d’un amour si vrai

Que manhtas vetz en plor Per o que melhor sabor

que maintes fois j'en pleure parce que les soupirs

M'en an li sospire. (vv. 61-72)

ont pour moi une plus douce saveur.

Suit l'envoi déjà cité. Pleurs et soupirs ont une douce saveur (wv. 71-72). Lexcitation d’entendre parler de la femme aimée a l'apparence de la joie (vv. 64-67). Le tout est un “martyre” (v. 76 et dernier). Ainsi, la joie affichée dans la première strophe se révèle au long de la chanson

Un paradoxe courtois: le chant et la plainte

li

pour ce quelle est: d’une part un effort du poète pour se satisfaire de l'amour qu'il éprouve et se persuader qu'il lui est indifférent de n'être pas aimé en retour; d’autre part une sorte d’obsession tendue vers tout ce qui parle de l’objet aimé, avec une nervosité qui peut être prise pour de la joie, avec une complaisance dans la souffrance amoureuse qui procure une forme de plaisir. La métamorphose de l'hiver en été s'applique — on le comprend au cours de la chanson — à ces deux aspects: à la volonté du poète de trouver sa joie dans un amour sans possession et sans réciproque; à l'ambiguïté de ses réactions et de ses sentiments, où se mélent vraie douleur, apparence de la joie, joie réelle au sein de la douleur. Nous voilà loin du chant de joie et du couple antithétique chant / douleur qui en principe nous occupent. Non, pourtant. Car sans cette joie initiale forcée, “contre nature”, “dénaturante”, le chant ne pourrait, on l’a dit, “monter et culminer” (v. 7).

Tout le mouvement de la chanson est pour montrer l’artifice de cette joie, et comment elle recombe, comment elle doit s’avouer vaincue, comment elle doit reconnaître le triomphe et l'empire de la douleur, se laisser repousser pour finir dans le domaine des apparences trompeuses et des marges ambigués. Mais sans l’éclat trompeur de cette joie, sans la métamorphose illusoire de l’hiver en été, il n’y aurait pas de chanson du tout. I] n'y aurait pas au départ cet élan joyeux qui fonde nécessairement le chant. Un chant qui ne s'élève que pour aller vers sa mort, puisque le développement est ensuite occupé par le double paradoxe d’une joie qui n'en est pas une et d’un chant qui doit finir par s’avouer douloureux, et donc s'arrêter alors, se taire, n'être plus que cet objet achevé et mort, détaché du poète, que l’envoi confie au messager qui le portera à la belle. Même les chansons les plus douloureuses ont besoin de cet élan initial, de ce plaisir du chant, de cette association première du chant et de la joie. Même Jaufré Rudel,

quand les jours sont longs en mai, a besoin de trouver d’abord plaisir au chant des oiseaux pour pouvoir dire ensuite son enfermement dans la mélancolie et son indifférence aux chants et aux fleurs du printemps — mais une indifférence seconde, fondée sur le contraste avec une attention initiale. L'analyse qui vient d’être proposée de Tant ai mo cor ple dejoya pourrait à peu de chose près s'appliquer à Er resplan la flors enversa de Raimbaud d'Orange, fce qui n'a rien d'étonnant, car la seconde pièce a quelque chance d’être une variation flamboyante sur le thème de la première. Quand paraît la fleur inverse de la neige, du gel et du givre, qui fait taire dans les branches et les buissons pépiements, cris et sifflements, Joie garde le poète vert e jauzen (‘vert et joyeux”). Il inverse le monde de telle façon qu'il

tient pour fleur le givre et que la tonnerre lui est chant et sifflement d'oiseaux (E7 tro mi son chante siscle), tant il est fermement lié à la joie. Mais bientôt le ton change: Anat ai cum cauz enversa

J'ai erré comme chose inverse,

Sercan ranx, vals e tertres, Marritz cum hom cui conglapis Cocha e mazelh’e trenca,

parcourant rocs, vaux et tertres, triste, en homme que givre tourmente et torture et tronque:

Qu’anc no’m conquis chans ni siscles. . .

chants ni sifflements ne mont conquis. . .

(vv. 33-37)

24 Walter T. Pattison, The Life and Works of the Toubadour Raimbaut d'Orange (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press 1952), chanson XXXIX, p. 199. Martin de Riquer, Los trovadores, t. I, p. 445.

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Pourtant, Joie, grace à Dieu, l’accueille (Mas ar, Dieu lau, malberga joys, v. 39). Mais cette joie méme, encore proclamée dans le premier envoi, disparait dans le second: Jocglar, granre ai menhs dejoys, v. 51 (“Jongleur, j'ai bien moins que de Joie”). Comme Bernard, Raimbaud s'accroche ainsi à une joie qu'il ne tire que de luiméme, a force de volonté — un effort de la volonté exprimé, comme la morsure du

froid, par la rugosité des sonorités, l’âpreté heurtée des monosyllabes. Il parvient ainsi, et d’un même mouvement, à retrouver le chant, alors même que les oiseaux se sont tus, dans le bruit des orages. Mais il lui faut bien convenir a la fin que la tristesse l’emporte et se taire lorsque la joie réduite à rien ne permet plus le chant. Ce qui est explicite dans ces deux poèmes est ailleurs souvent implicite, certes, mais malgré tout presque toujours présent. Le chant ne peut naître que de la joie, et la tension du poème, sa brièveté, son caractère éphémère proviennent de la fragilité de cette joie ou de son caractère illusoire: Pos de chantar m’en pres talentz, Farai un vers don sui dolenz.

Puisque le désir m’a pris de chanter, je ferai un poème sur un sujet qui m/attriste.*°

Le désir de chanter est un élan. Mais le poème qui naît de ce désir porte sur un sujet attristant. Ces deux simples vers sont à eux seuls l’expression d’une aporie et d’un déchirement. La chanson de Guiraut de Bornelh dont on a plus haut cité deux versé est intéressante à cet égard en ce qu'elle associe les problèmes poétiques et amoureux. Son début, qui se place dans le cadre du débat entre trobar clus et trobar leu, joue en même temps du parallélisme et de sa rupture entre joie du chant et succès du chant d’une part, joie d'amour et peine d'amour de l’autre. Dans les premiers vers, Guiraut s'étonne joyeusement, et peut-être ironiquement, du succès de ses poèmes difficiles et arides: De bels digz menutz frays?7 Aver et escudar Non cugerieu trobar.?f

Sobeiras ia fon l’ans! Per so’s passet mos chans En patz iostals aussors. (vv. 1-6)

Avec des mots choisis hachés menu je ne pensais pas obtenir fortune et protection. Quelle année merveilleuse! Car mon chant s’est épanoui sans conteste parmi les meilleurs.

Il se promet de renoncer désormais à ce style heurté et de donner des chansonnettes allègres, simples, faciles, bien éloignées du style heurté, recherché et obscur: Trop volgra mais donar Mos gais sonetz ioyos

Je voudrais désormais offrir mes petits airs gais et joyeux

Ab bels ditz et entiers,2?

avec des mots choisis et épanouis,

25 Alfred Jeanroy éd., Les chansons de Guillaume IX, duc d'Aquitaine (1071-1127) (Paris: Champion, 1927), chanson XI, vv. 1—2. 26 Voir ci-dessus note 16.

27 Voir le commentaire de Ruth Verity Sharman, The Cansos .. . of... Giraut de Borneil, p. 432-33. 28 L'emploi de ce mot dans un tel contexte est probablement plaisant: le poète trouve, non un poème, mais l'argent que le poème lui vaut.

29 Ce mot s'oppose à menutz frays du v. 1, qui s'applique sans doute aux monosyllabes heurtés et aux

Un paradoxe courtois: le chant et la plainte Entendables e plas, Que trop escurs ni sobrestorias.

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compréhensibles et simples, plutôt que trop obscurs et prétentieux.

(vv. 9-13)

Cette première strophe est donc tout entière fondée sur la joie du chant. Le succès inattendu du chant difficile alimente cette joie et lui permet de se répercuter dans le chant à venir, en gais sonetz joyos qui, dans leur euphorie désinvolte, insoucieux désormais des snobismes littéraires, toucheront un public plus large et étendront ainsi davantage encore ce succès. La joie du chant nourrit la gloire, la joie de la gloire nourrit le chant. Mais cette joie est assombrie dans la seconde strophe par la constatation d’une décadence de la vie courtoise. A la joie de chanter ne peut plus répondre une thématique joyeuse du chant: divorce insupportable. Plus de belles mains nues pour accueillir le poète (Bellas mas non per guans, v. 17). Plus d'hôtes nobles et généreux. Plus de fastes, de fêtes ni d’amours: Mas falhitz es bobans

Mais ils ont disparu, les fastes,

E pretz e bon’amors E respiegz de senhors D’acuyilhir e d’onrar. De que puesc doncs chantar? Que’! chan jal fai razos OT noms es messongiers; Qu’el temps dels ancias loys chans esems eron quol palh'el gras.

la gloire, l'amour vrai, l’espoir d’être accueilli et honoré par des seigneurs. Sur quoi puis-je donc chanter? Car c'est le thème qui fait le chant, ou sinon il est mensonger; au temps de nos ancêtres, joie et chant étaient unis comme la paille et le grain.

(vv. 18-26)

On mesure la valeur que prennent, replacés dans leur contexte, ces deux derniers vers. Chanter est une joie, l'élan créateur se nourrit de la joie, et voici que cette joie créatrice ne trouve hors d’elle-même aucune aliment. Faute de thème en harmonie avec elle, elle ne peut être que mensongère (vv. 23-24). Il y a la un mouvement qui, dans une perspective différente, rejoint assez exactement, du point de vue qui nous

intéresse, celui qu'on a vu se dégager du poème de Bernard de Ventadour et de celui de Raimbaud d'Orange. Ainsi, attirer l'attention, comme on le fait ici, sur la qualité première du chant, ou pour mieux dire sur sa nature, qui est d’être joyeux, c'est voir se révéler partout chez les troubadours et les trouvéres, avant toute spéculation herméneutique, au niveau le plus modeste, mais le plus certain, celui du sens premier des mots, la nécessité et la cohérence de la fameuse assimilation entre chanter et aimer et de la non moins fameuse confusion, ou collusion, entre la joie et la souffrance dans le sentiment amoureux. C’est comprendre pourquoi le chant s'élève et pourquoi il s'éteint. Si aimer et chanter vont ensemble, c’est que l’élan joyeux de l'amour est en harmonie avec l’élan joyeux du chant. Il est bien vrai, comme le remarque Paul Zumthor, que chanter signifie le plus souvent chez les trouveurs “dire l'amour courtois.” Mais il faut ajouter

sonorités rugueuses

chers à Raimbaud

exemples (cf. R.V. Sharman, oc. cit.).

d'Orange et dont la poésie de Guiraut offre elle-même

des

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que “dire l'amour courtois” sur le mode du chant, cest le dire sur un mode joyeux. Or il se passe presque toujours que dans le courant du poème, en se développant, en se prolongeant, par le simple fait que “la poésie lyrique est le développement d’un cri,” par le simple jeu rhétorique de l’amplification, le chant en vient à s'interroger et à s'expliquer sur la nature de l'amour: Ai, las! tan cuidava saber

Hélas! je me croyais si savant

D’amor, e tan petit en sai!30

sur l'amour, et j'en sais si peu!

Il en découvre l’angoisse, l’amertume, les frustrations. Il découvre qu’il est condamné a l’aporie, condamné à être une contradiction dans les termes, à être ce monstre non

viable, un chant douloureux, et lorsque son propre développement l’a bien persuadé qu'il ne saurait y avoir d'amour sans souffrance, il se tait. Un survol, à vrai dire très rapide, de l’œuvre de Gace Brulé fait apparaître que lorsque la tonalité du poème est douloureuse de bout en bout, le mot chant n'apparaît pas. A l'inverse, quand il est employé, c'est le plus souvent dans le contexte d’une invitation ou d’un encouragement à la joie, une joie qui sévanouira généralement dans la suite du poème: Quant voi le tans bel et cler Ainz que soit nois ne gelee, Chant pour moi reconforter Car trop ai joie oubliee.>!

Quand je vois le temps clair et beau avant la neige et le gel, je chante pour me réconforter car j'ai trop oublié la joie.

Et bien entendu, on pense d’abord à la célèbre chanson “Les oisillons de mon pays,” où les souvenirs éveillés par le chant des oiseaux sont d’abord agréables et invitent le poéte à chanter lui-même avant que, dans la suite du poème, la nostalgie, le mal du pays et le mal d'amour dont ils sont chargés ne deviennent douloureux: Les oxelés de mon païx

Les oisillons de mon pays,

Ai ois en Bretaigne. A lors chans mest il bien avis K’en la douce Champaigne Les ois jadis, Se n'i ai mespris. Il m'ont en si douls penseir mis K’a chanson faire men seux pris Tant que je perataigne

je les ai entendus en Bretagne. A entendre leur chant, j'ai bien impression que dans la douce Champagne je les ai entendus jadis, et je ne me suis pas trompé. Ils m'ont plongé dans de si douces pensées que je me suis mis à faire une chanson afin d'obtenir

Ceu k’Amors n'ait lonc tens promis.*?

ce qu'Amour m'a longtemps promis.

Revenons un instant pour finir au chantepleure qui nous a occupés au début de cet exposé. Il est bien probable, à mes yeux, que cet oxymore a servi de modèle au fameux chantefable forgé par l’auteur d’Aucassin et Nicolette. Cet auteur est un disciple de Paul

30 Bernard de Ventadour, chanson 31 (Can vei la lauzeta), vv. 9-10.

31 Dyggve, Gace Brulé, p. 216. Chanter mestuet. Songs ofthe Trouvères. Edited by Samuel N. Rosenberg. Music edited by Hans Tischler (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1981), p. 224. 32 Dyggve, Gace Brulé, p. 189. S. Rosenberg et H. Tischler, Chanter m'estuet, p- 212. Pour un commentaire de cette strophe, voir entre autres Roger Dragonetti, La technique poétique des trouvères dans le

grand chant courtois (Bruges: De Tempel, 1960), p. 403.

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81

Zumthor. Il fonde son néologisme sur la valeur performative du mot “chant.” Au type de performance qu'est le chant il oppose et associe tout à la fois cet autre type de performance qu'est le récit. Mais la formation chantepleure dont il s'inspire sans doute, plus ancienne, plus répandue, voit d’abord dans le chant l’expression et le signe d’une disposition d'esprit et d’un sentiment, la joie. Les troubadours et les trouvères montrent, par l’usage qu’ils font de ce chantepleure et par leur emploi du mot chant, que telle est bien leur conception. Des termes comme “disposition d'esprit” ou “sentiment” sont toutefois trop vagues et probablement même mal adaptés. Notre exposé, un peu pointilliste, a dérivé jusqu ici au fil des exemples sans peut-être s'attacher assez à définir les notions. Il avait pour cela une bonne excuse, et même une bonne raison. On sait trop aujourd’hui le danger qu'il y a à vouloir donner une vision unifiée de ce qu'on appelle l'amour courtois et de son expression littéraire, alors que les textes en donnent des images si contradictoires, si morcelées, si peu soucieuses d’une cohérence idéologique, morale ou esthétique, que toute généralisation est entachée d’erreur. Un important article tout récent vient de le rappeler. Mieux vaut donc se pencher cas par cas sur des exemples particuliers et tenter de les comprendre en eux-mêmes. S'agissant cependant du vocabulaire et des notions liés à l’affectivité, à la joie et à la douleur dans la poésie lyrique, des travaux décisifs, au premier rang desquels figure naturellement l’ouvrage de Georges Lavis,** autorisent une vision synthétique qui n’a rien d’aventuré. Il ressort de cette vision que les notions de joie amoureuse et de souffrance amoureuse ne sont pas du même ordre et ne peuvent être symétriquement opposées. La joie, comme l’a bien montré Georges Lavis, est avant tout une valeur, une qualité de l'amour. Elle est à

ce titre objectivée et ne désigne pas nécessairement un sentiment subjectivement éprouvé. Mais il n’en va pas de même de la souffrance, dont l'expression prétend toujours refléter une expérience intime.

Cette analyse éclaire à la fois l'association du chant et de la joie et la dialectique de la joie et de la souffrance que nous avons vue à l’œuvre dans de nombreux poèmes. La confusion harmonique entre le chant des oiseaux et le chant du poète, les résonances harmonieuses qui unissent l'amour universel au sein de la nature printanière et l’amour qu'éprouve le poète: voilà qui fait du chant l'expression et le signe de la qualité objective qui est celle de la joie amoureuse. La joie qui fait naître le chant au cœur d’un hiver métamorphosé en été: voilà qui désigne cette joie comme une valeur plus que comme un affect passivement subi. Le chant est l'élément qui donne au poème sa valeur objective et générale. C’est lui qui confère au poème la possibilité et la per-

mission d'échapper à son auteur, de résonner, de voler de bouche en bouche — comme Abélard le dit de ses propres chansons -, d’être pris à son compte par celui, quel qu'il soit, qui le chante et qui du coup vient se confondre avec le “je” qui s’y exprime, de se donner pour le reflet de l’affectivité de son interprète. Or ce chant, élément d’objectivation

33 Rüdiger Schnell, “Lamour courtois en tant que discours courtois sur l'amour,” Romania, 110 (1989) (parution 1992), pp. 72-126 et pp. 331-363. 34 Georges Lavis, L'expression de laffectivité dans la poésie lyrique française du moyen âge (XIIe — XIIIe siècles); étude sémantique et stylistique du réseau lexical joie — dolor Bibl. de la Faculté des Lettres de l’Université de Liège 200 (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1972). Voir aussi l’article, cité plus haut, de Pierre Bec,

“L'antithèse poétique chez Bernard de Ventadour”.

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de l’expression poétique, est du côté de la joie, valeur objective de l'amour. Lorsque les trouvéres se mettent à dénigrer les strophes printanières, c’est bien, comme j'ai tenté de le montrer ailleurs, au nom du souci de sincérité qui anime cette poésie depuis ses débuts. Mais c'est en même temps une façon de renoncer à cette universalité du chant et de la joie à l’unisson de la nature au profit de la revendication de l’expérience intime d’un amour douloureux: je ne chante pas pour faire plaisir aux vilains, dit Thibaud de Champagne, mais pour égayer un peu mon pauvre cœur. Le chant est toujours perçu comme réjouissant, mais il se replie sur lui-même pour servir à une sorte de cure de ce sentiment personnel et unique qu'est la souffrance amoureuse. Cette attitude, en refusant de voir dans le chant du poète une partition parmi d’autres dans le grand chant symphonique du monde, en niant son intersubjectivité, en interdisant à autrui de se l’approprier, ne met-elle pas la poésie lyrique sur la voie qui la conduira à renoncer au chant? Ne peut-on supposer un lien entre ce renonce-

ment et la place de plus en plus faible faite à la joie d'amour, l’envahissement de la poésie lyrique, devenue poésie personnelle, par l'expression exclusive de la souffrance sous toutes ses formes? Cette nouvelle poésie récitée, cette poésie du dit, rejette avec l’idéalisation généralisatrice du grand chant courtois le chant lui-même, véhicule de la généralisation, et l’enracinement dans la joie quimplique toujours le chant, une joie conçue comme une valeur, donc comme un facteur d’idéalisation, et comme une valeur objective, donc capable de fonder l'expression généralisable du moi. Poésie de la mise en scène du moi, de sa peinture caricaturale, de l’anecdote, des contingences, des circonstances, elle trace les contours d’un moi particulier à partir de l'expérience subjective de la souffrance. Ce trait se vérifie des Congés d'Arras à Villon en passant par le clerc de Vaudois et par Rutebeuf, en passant même, du Bleu chevalier de Froissart à la Belle dame sans merci d Alain Chartier et au nonchaloir de Charles d'Orléans, par les ruines dérisoires et douloureuses de ce qui avait été l’amour courtois. Est-ce un hasard si Machaut, initiateur d’une poétique nouvelle, mais qui est aussi, en un sens, le dernier poète courtois, est à la fois le dernier poète musicien et le dernier, sans doute, à proclamer, comme il le fait dans son Prologue, que la joie est nécessaire à la poésie? Une exaltation joyeuse qui définit à la fois le désir du chant et le désir d’aimer, et qui, à l’unisson avec le chant des oiseaux, emblème de la nature entière, se veut une expérience à la fois idéale et générale. Une tension opposant l'élan du chant et de l'amour à la souffrance d’aimer qui se fait jour à travers l’amplification discursive de la chanson, et qui se résout par le silence, c’est-à-dire par le triomphe de la souffrance qui

met fin au chant. C’est un mouvement qui marque, à l’échelle de leur microcosme, de nombreuses chansons des troubadours et des trouvères, mais qui est aussi, d’une façon

35 Michel Zink, La subjectivité littéraire. Autour du siècle de saint Louis (Paris: Presses Univ. de France,

1985), pp. 52-55. 36

Feuille ne flor ne vaut riens en chantant Que por defaut, sans plus, de rimoier Et pour faire solaz vilaine gent

Feuilles et fleurs ne valent rien dans les chansons. Elles ne sont là qu’à cause de l'incapacité à rimer, rien de plus, et pour divertir les rustres

Qui mauvés moz font souvent aboier. que les paroles misérables font aboyer de joie sans cesse. Je ne chant pas por aus esbanoier, Je ne chante pas pour leur faire plaisir, Mes pour mon cuer fere un peu plus joiant. mais pour égayer un peu mon cœur. (A. Wallensküld, Les chansons de ThibautdeChampagne, roi de Navarre (Paris: SATE, 1925), chanson IV, vv. 1-6).

Un paradoxe courtois: le chant et la plainte

83

globale et dans la perspective de l’histoire littéraire, celui du lyrisme médiéval tout entier dans son cheminement du grand chant courtois à la poésie personnelle, de l’exaltation de la chanson à l’amertume du dit, de l'aspiration vers une joie objective et comme universelle à l’aveu d’une souffrance subjective et particulière. Six strophes ou trois siècles pour venir à bout de ce paradoxe du chant joyeux sur la souffrance d’aimer. Cet exposé a au moins un mérite — le seul, probablement. C’est d’être parvenu à son terme sans avoir cité le vers fameux de Musset que le sujet traité semblait pourtant appeler inévitablement. Est-ce parce que le sentiment romantique que “les chants / Les plus désespérés sont les chants les plus beaux” est en contradiction avec l’association médiévale du chant et de la joie et avec l'opposition du chant aux larmes? Bien au contraire, il les confirme. La formule de Musset n’a de sel et de sens que si elle est paradoxale. Victime peut-être de son propre succès, elle ne l’est plus guère pour nous. Elle l’était à l’évidence pour lui. Le vers suivant (“Et j’en sais d’immortel qui sont de purs sanglots”) le confirme par l'opposition qu'il implique (“immortels bien qu'ils soient de purs sanglots”). Tant il est vrai que nous qui sommes toujours si prompts à vouloir rectifier la vision romantique du Moyen Age, nous nous rendons rarement compte que les sensibilités ont certainement moins évolué du Moyen Age à la première moitié du XIXe siècle qu’elles ne l’ont fait entre cette époque et la nétre.*”

37 Jacques Le Goff parle de “ce long Moyen Age qui a duré depuis le Ile ou le Ile siècle de notre ère pour mourir lentement sous les coups de la révolution industrielle — des révolutions industrielles — entre

le XIXe siècle et nos jours” Pour un autre Moyen Age (Paris: Gallimard, 1977), p. 10.

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DES TROUBADOURS

ITALOTROPES

Antoine Tavera

Dès que je sus lire, j'éprouvai une passion pour la littérature. En revanche je n’en avais guère pour l’histoire, ni pour la géographie. Le sujet que j’aborde m'a contraint à tenter de vaincre ces répugnances. La géographie qu'il implique n’est pas simple. A cette heure, je ne sais toujours pas où les comtes de Savoie avaient leur cour à la fin du XIIe siècle (ils etaient, paraît-il, fort itinérants); qui connaît Casale, assez voisine de Turin

sans doute, où leurs alliés les Montferrat avaient la leur? Qui Auramala, Massa (nous sommes là sur la côte méditérannéenne, au sud de La Spezia) fiefs principaux des Malaspina, qui devaient faire un tel accueil à tant de troubadours “italotropes”! au debut du XIIle siècle, tandis que leurs descendants, à leur tour, hébergeraient, en 1306, le malheureux Dante en quête de refuge? Qui connaît Calaone, voisine de Modène, où les Este, seigneurs de Ferrare à partir de 1209 (nous sommes là dans l’'Emilie) allaient à leur tour les protéger longuement? La plupart des fiefs que je viens de nommer ont disparu des cartes, comme le Saint-Circ où, aux dires de la vida, était né le “pauvre vavasseur” qui donna son nom à cet Uc que je m'en vais bientôt évoquer. C’est là l’un des trois “troubadours italotropes” (les deux autres étant Peire Raimon de Tholosa et Aimeric de Pegulhan) auxquels je m’attacherai ici, choisis en fonction de l’importance des oeuvres, fort bien éditées dans les trois cas;? du peu de bruit qu’elles ont fait jusqu'ici; du rôle considérable en revanche, on le verra, qu'elles ont eu dans la transmission du patrimoine d’oc aux terres de si transalpines.? Parti très certainement du Piémont avec le cas étonnant, et fort documenté (surtout

grâce aux trois letras conservées‘) du troubadour-chevalier Raimbaut de Vaqueyras, allié à partir de 1191, sinon plus tôt, à Boniface de Montferrat, le mécénat, qui s'éteint très tôt dans cette cour avec la mort de ce dernier, devait se propager peu à peu, en 1 Dans “Les troubadours, ‘gens du voyage’,” in Voyage, Quête, Pélerinage dans la Litterature et la Civilisation Médiévales, Sénéfiance I (Aix-en-Provence: CUER-MA, 1976), pp. 433-49, je distinguais, dans les errances des uns et des autres, une première période “hispanotrope” (le XIle siècle) d’une seconde, “italotrope”. 2 A. Jeanroy et J.J. Salverda de Grave, Poésies de Uc de Saint-Circ (Toulouse: Privat, 1913; Johnson Reprint, 1971); A. Cavaliere, Le Poesie di Peire Raimon de Tolosa (Florence: Biblioteca dell’Archivum romanicum, 1935); W.P. Shepard et EM. Chambers, The Poems of Aimeric de Pegulhan (Evanston:

Northwestern Univ. Press, 1950). 3 J’élimine tout ce qui a trait aux problèmes que pose la transmission des vidas et des razos, dont G. Favati, Biografiche trobadoriche (Bologne: Palmaverde, 1961) avait pu croire — un peu témérairement, à mon avis — qu’Uc avait été le compilateur.

4 Pour certains passages saillants de ces letras, qui nous proménent de la Lombardie (1191) à Soissons (1201) en passant par la Sicile (1194), voir l'étude citée à la n. 1, pp. 441-44.

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passant par |’Emilie, vers l’Est, jusqu’à la Vénétie. Vérone, Padoue, Trévise sont, elles, des villes bien connues, qu'il n’y a pas de difficulté à situer. Mais, quant à leur histoire à l'époque, quel imbroglio infernal! Les premières cours, lombardes et émiliennes, que j'ai nommées étaient fort liées: Boniface de Montferrat fut le tuteur du petit Tommaso de Savoie; Alberto de Malaspina était son beau-frère; les liens d'amitié des Malaspina

et des Este sont amplement attestés par les doubles envois qu’on trouve à la fin de cing pièces d’Aimeric de Pegulhan; il y fait tantôt l'éloge de Conrad (une fois) tantôt celui de son frère Guillaume (quatre fois) de Malaspina; vient ensuite un compliment à la

plus fameuse des Béatrice de l’époque — j'en ai compté cinq dans ces diverses cours — Béatrice d’Este, nommée fort heureusement en toutes lettres. Ici quelques “dates certaines”: à la mort d’Alberto de Malaspina en 1210, ses neveux Conrad et Guillaume régnèrent ensemble; mais ce dernier devait mourir dès 1220. C'est là précisément l’année où Béatrice d’Este, après une intense vie “courtoise”, décide, à l’âge de vingtneuf ans, de se retirer au couvent, où elle mourra quelques années plus tard. Aimeric était donc en Italie dès cette date, et sans doute bien avant; tout comme Peire Raimon de Tholosa qui, à la fin de sa chanson XVI, nous dit que “Pretz e valar, beltat, ioi e ioven / Ses faillimen / E totz bos aibs, totas belas faisos / Ha Na Beatrix d’Est.” Cependant, plus on va vers l’est, plus les choses se compliquent. Elles n'étaient déjà pas simples en Piémont, où Raimbaut de Vaqueyras combattit aux côtés de son seigneur contre des communes

rebelles. A partir de Vérone, je renonce à résumer des

situations politiques si précaires, si tourmentées que, même avec l’aide de la précieuse Cronologia de Cappelli,> je n'ai pu m'en faire qu’une assez vague idée. Un exemple? Vérone était guelfe jusqu'à 1204; les gibelins les en chassent alors; les guelfes reviennent au pouvoir deux ans plus tard; entre 1206 et 1207, on a trois chassés-croisés de pouvoir. Avec, en 1220, la descente de Frédéric I] vers Rome pour y revêtir la dignité impériale; avec son excommunication en 1239, les fluctuations politiques ne feront que croître en Vénétie. En témoigne assez la rupture entre les deux frères Ezzelino et Alberico da Romano. Le premier, seigneur de Trévise d’abord, devint podestat (gibelin) de Vérone en 1226; après avoir été renversé par les guelfes, qui mirent à sa place un dominicain de leur parti, il y reprit le pouvoir en 1236; un an après, il était maître de Padoue et de Trévise avec Alberico; mais, lorsque Frédéric est excommunié, Alberico devient guelfe, et donc ennemi de son frère; ils se réconcilieront quelque vingt ans plus tard; après quoi Ezzelino sera déposé. À la vérité, je n'aurais à peu près rien compris à toutes ces vicissitudes historiques sans deux “mises au point” capitales: celle de Jeanroy dans sa Poésie Lyrique des Troubadours, et puis, bien plus récente et bien plus étendue, celle de Gianfranco

Folena, Tradizione e cultura trobadorica nelle corti e nelle città venete Folena comme Jeanroy ont eu des prédécesseurs, des guides italiens nombreux (voir LAnnexe bibliographique). Un fait capital: grace à Dante, et au culte explicite qu'il a porté aux troubadours, le fil na jamais cassé, en Italie, entre nos premiers lyriques et leurs innombrables descendants, tout au contraire de ce qui se passait en France.

> A. Cappelli, Cronologia, Cronografia e Calendario Perpetuo (Milan: Hoepli, 1969).

Des troubadour: italotropes

87

Au niveau de la recherche, il existe de nombreux travaux, mais les lacunes restent énormes concernant ces trois grands troubadours “italotropes”; malgré les nombreuses enquêtes (de caractère historique pour la plupart) rappelées dans l'Annexe, ces poètes vraiment capitaux — en ceci surtout qu'il jouèrent, à l’époque, un rôle de charnière entre deux cultures — n’ont pratiquement fait l’objet d'aucune étude quant au mérite proprement Jittéraire de leur oeuvre,’ mérite qui, dans le cas d’un Aimeric de Pegulhan, avait vivement frappé Dante. Il en va toujours ainsi de Peire Raimon, le premier des trois, semble-t-il, a être venu en Italie, et d’Uc. Il n’en est heureusement plus de même pour Aimeric de Pegulhan, grâce à la remarquable étude de Mario Mancini (voir l'Annexe). Aimeric est un troubadour encore plus important qu'Uc sous le rapport de la quantité (cinquantetrois pièces), de la variété d'inspiration, de la qualité extrême, enfin, de nombre de ses chansons. Dante, parmi les exemples qu’il donne du style “sapidus et venustus etiam et excelsus,”7 cite la cinquantième, Si com l'arbres que per soprecargar (21 manuscrits), un chef-d'oeuvre, tant sur le plan de la structure strophique,® que par la maestria avec laquelle son auteur sait reprendre, reformuler les topoi essentiels de l’art d'envisager l’amour qui s était lentement développé au fil du siècle précédent: aliénation (il imite de près Bernart de Ventadorn lorsqu'il affirme “qu’ieu non ai me mezeis en poder’); folie d'amour, héritée elle aussi de Bernart, mal d'amour, “douce souffrance” sont là entre-tissés, pour qu’explose enfin au milieu de la pièce ce fantastique paradoxe: “No sai nul ‘oc’ per quiieu des vostre ‘no’!” Cependant il n’y a pas ici quart d’exploiter le filon idéologique “courtois”, d’aller aux extrêmes; il y a aussi la manière, le style. Dans cette même pièce, deux éléments nouveaux par rapport à ce qui se faisait au siècle précédent. D’une part, la tendance “bégayante”; je dénomme ainsi un procédé rhétorique proche de l’anaphore, plus subtil, qui consiste a répéter de vers en vers, voire dans le même vers, surtout d’ordi-

naire dans la première strophe, un même mot, ou des dérivés proches. Six exemples dans son oeuvre insistent sur une idée-pivot, dont les excès sont parfois bouffons.? Piero Boitani rappelle ici même le fameux vers que Dante (/nferno, V, 103) met dans la bouche de Francesca da Rimini: “Amor, che a nullo amato amar perdona . . .?” Un excès stylistique antérieur réduit, maîtrisé: c'est là souvent la marque du génie. 6

R.A. Taylor, Bibliographie occitane du Moyen Age (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), ne

signale, pour Uc de Saint-Circ, qu’une exception: N.B. Smith, Romance Philogy, 29 (1975), pp. 501-7, sur la cobla satirique XXVIII. Depuis, voir Elizabeth W. Poe sur le “congé” XVI, “Unravelling a Wooly Text”, Neophilologus, 74 (1990), pp. 527-35; je la remercie de me l’avoir fait parvenir. 7 De Vulgar: eloquentia, W, vi. 8 Istvan Frank, Répertoire Métrique de la Poésie des Troubadours (Paris: Champion, 1966), donne quatre-vingt douze exemples de ce compas. Il a placé en tête Si com larbres, sans doute comme l’un des moins aisément explicables, étant donné ce renouvellement des rimes de strophe en strophe. Pour Dominique Billy, L'architecture lyrique médiévale (Montpellier: Section française de l’Association Inter-

national d'Etudes Occitanes, 1989), p. 107, c'est un exemple de “double concaténation”; il n’en groupe pas plus d’une demi-douzaine sous cette étiquette. 9 Les “bégaiements” de la pièce commentée ici sont relativement modestes (“Si cum l’arbres que, per sobrecargar | frang se meteis et perts son frug e se / ai perduda ma belha domna e me / e mon entier sen

frag, per sobramar”). On en trouvera de plus marqués aux premières strophes de ses chansons IV (variantes sur fol, foldatz, folor, folhia), XV (guerreiar, guerra), XVII (avinen, trahir, fallir), XXI (merce), XXIV (forsa), XLI (chant). C’est en revanche la troisième strophe de la ch. XXVII qui est “bégayante”: variantes, 4 nouveau, sur le theme de la folie.

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Antoine Tavera

Un autre procédé, qui avait fait son apparition dans la lyrique du siècle précédent avec Richart de Berbezilh, et qui devait dès lors avoir un succès considérable, c’est la comparaison amplifiée, généralement introduite par un “Atressi cum . . .” Cependant, tandis que Richart et ses imitateurs immédiats se contentent d’une grande comparaison liminaire, dans cette même pièce (L) Aimeric en place trois: avec l’arbre surchargé

de fruits, avec le basilic fasciné par son propre reflet, avec l'enfant qu’on console d’une piécette. Or des successions de “comparaisons amplifiées”, souvent fort bizarres, seront un des traits saillants des poètes de l’école sicilienne;'° elles ont en fait un grand avenir devant elles, et seront l’une des marques de l’euphuisme et de la préciosité. Nombre d’autres pièces méritent tout aussi bien d’être distinguées, étant donnée

cette exaspération caractéristique qu'on trouve, tout au long de l'oeuvre d’Aimeric, tant des procédés, du “métier”,!! que des idées elles-mêmes, ce qui est tout à fait caractéristique de la plupart des poètes du XIIIe siècle. Désormais ce travail est enfin largement fait. Du “fils de drapier” devenu troubadour familier des Malaspina et des Este, Mancini examine attentivement une vingtaine de pièces, et il met en fort relief limitation (en exadversio) d’une chanson d’Aimeric (XV) par Guittone d’Arezzo, qui

parfois traduit mot pour mot. Cette oeuvre n’a guère de rivale, quant à la variéte des genres, des styles, des idées, que celle d’un Guiraut de Bornelh, d’un Peire Cardenal; encore ce dernier n'est-il guère qu'un satiriste; Aimeric avait toutes les cordes à son arc. Au “livello comico”, de l'oeuvre d’Aimeric (cf. Mancini, 48-49), à côté des deux coblas responsivas (VIIa) d'ambiance tavernière, il y a d’autres “tableaux de genre” du même ordre (IX, XIII). En effet raillerie, vulgarité, contre-courtoisie, absurdités ont

bonne place dans ce qu'Aimeric nous a légué; on pourrait reprendre à son propos l’heureuse formule de Pio Rajna qualifiant Guillaume IX de “trovatore bifronte”.'? “Bifronte”, Uc de Saint-Circ l’est encore bien plus qu’Aimeric; cependant son talent de satiriste s'est surtout manifesté sur le tard, alors qu'il était déjà en Italie; on peut assez nettement distinguer deux “périodes” dans son oeuvre poétique, qui est presque aussi abondante que celle d’Aimeric (quarante-quatre pièces). Ne vont à l'amour qu'une quinzaine de chansons; encore faut-il en exclure trois de ces violents, amers congés dont est assez coutumière la lyrique d’oc: dans l’un (XIII) il souhaite tout le mal

possible à l’ex-aimée; dans l’autre (XVI) il dénonce sa licence. On trouve une bien singulière remarque à la fin de la vida d’Uc: “Cansos fez de fort bonas . . . mas non fez paires de las cansos, quar anc non fo fort enamoratz de neguna;

10 Pour citer un exemple illustre: la longue chanson de Giacomo da Lentini, Madonna, dir vo voglio, ne contient, elle aussi, pas moins de trois de ces comparaisons singulières: avec la salamandre, avec un eczémateux (!), enfin avec un navire dans la tempête. 11 Dans une chanson (XLVII), Aimeric commence par un “art poetique’— où l’on trouve des échos

flagrants de celui d’Arnaut Daniel, En cest sonet coindeleri — et y montre un goût de la surenchère tout à fait caractéristique de l’époque: rimes internes difficiles et torturées (cela va jusqu’au “barbarisme”), rimes dérivatives. Mancini, pp. 69-72, donne divers autres exemples de ces singulières recherches verbales. 12 Dans les coblas responsivas que Mancini mentionne (VIIa) Aimeric se moque de Sordel pour avoir reçu un coup de bouteille sur la tête; il ne dit rien en revanche de deux autres (IX), exactement symétriques pour le compas et les rimes, échangées entre Guilhem Figuiera et Aimeric: cette fois il s’agit d’un “coup de fromage” et d’un coup d'épée; on voit les “têtes”, couvertes de crème, ou d’ecchymoses.

Sur le goût d’Aimeric pour l'absurde et le non-sens, voir Lynn Lawner, “Tot es niens,” Cultura Neolatina, 31 (1971), 155-70, à propos de la “tenso de non-re” avec Albert de Sisteron (VI).

Des troubadours italotropes

89

mas ben se saup feingner enamoratz ad ellas ab son bel parlar. E saup ben dire en las soas Cansos tot so que ill avenia de lor, e ben las saup levar e ben far cazer. Mas pois quel ac moiller non fetz cansos.” En dépit de ces lignes, Jeanroy, à partir du puzzle d'idées diverses qui reviennent dans les chansons d’Uc, a tenté de reconstruire tout un “roman d'amour” pour une seule femme. Ces sortes de fictions (qu’en l’occurrence rien n'étaie, Uc n’usant d’aucun senhal réitéré) sont assez typiques des tendances de la critique à l’époque, et ne servent en rien à mettre en valeur l'oeuvre lyrique en question. Ces chansons d'amour d’Uc, dans l’ensemble, sont moins originales que celles d’Aimeric; il n’a pas sa variété de manière, son goût de la surenchère, du paradoxe frappant, quoique, à l’occasion, on trouve chez lui une suite d’oxymorons qui font, eux aussi, présager les “grands rhétoriqueurs”: Qe | vostr omils francs parvens fai dels cors morts vius gauzens e il mal que datz son ben e pro li dan e lira jois e repaus li affan. (XV, 57-60) Dans certaines de ces pièces (IV, XIII) on trouve des artifices de structure métrique

plus ou moins recherchés; ou de rhétorique: la piece II est anaphorique presque de bout en bout. Il se plaît aussi au tarabiscotage stylistique, qu'il pousse parfois à l’extrême (première strophe de IV, sur le thème du “débat des yeux et du coeur”). Tout

cela, qu’on retrouve aussi bien chez son contemporain Aimeric de Belenoi, fait partie de l’évolution du #robar au fil du XIIIe siecle, qu’on s’en félicite, maintenant que Paul Zumthor a su redonner du lustre à l’art étrange des grands rhétoriqueurs, ou qu’on le déplore. Cependant, si Uc semble trancher sur les autres, c’est par son vigoureux talent de satiriste, qui marque la part ultérieure de son oeuvre: toutes les pièces qui en témoignent furent écrites assurément en Italie. Ses sirventes politiques, résolument guelfes, peu nombreux (XX, XXIII), sont importants, mais ce qui est surtout fascinant dans l’oeuvre d’Uc, c’est la vivacité, la

concision de la satire ad hominem, la véhémence des rancoeurs, la cruelle vigueur des traits lancés. Il rappelle Martial, annonce La Bruyère. La pièce la plus tardive qu'on puisse dater (XIX), diatribe explicitement dirigée contre Manfred II Lanza, podestat

de Milan à partir de 1253, s'inscrit dans la tradition marcabrunienne, tant dans la façon désormais classique de déplorer “la fin de tout” que par le vocabulaire même. Cependant Marcabru, s'il ne cesse de dénoncer la décadence des moeurs, ne s'attaque jamais à personne en particulier. Par contre Uc décrit Manfred ainsi: “Mal acoill e parla e sona / e mal manja e beu e dona / e mal viu / e fai croi semblan chaitiu . . . / et esquiu / lo trobaretz e pensiu.” En quelques vers, il est difficile de faire un portrait plus complet d’un “triste sire”. Cette tendance à la caricature va marquer tout le XIIIe siècle, en Italie comme en France: il ne faut pas oublier que les pratiquants du “Dolce stil novo” ont échangé entre eux des attaques virulentes, parfois obscènes, à commencer par Dante Alighieri et Forese Donati, dans un cycle de six sonetti responsivi.'> En ce genre, on trouve sous la plume d’Uc deux petites pièces remarquables (XXI et XXXII] de l’édition Jeanroy),

qui se font pendant. La première nous présente un Aimeric de Pegulhan vieilli, déchu, 13 Selon la numérotation traditionnelle, il s’agit des compositions LXXITI-LXXVIIT.

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réduit a courtiser une bordeleria. Aux derniers vers voici cette précision du trait réaliste, du “cadrage” cruel qui caractérise sa maniere: E faill li ben pans, vins, sez e maisos

a leis, s’ab si lo colga nis met jos ni abracha sa fronzida pel ranza!

Le “pendant” nous présente une vieille coquette à sa toilette. En vain elle applique sur ses joues le blanc, le vermillon, la glu, l’estefinos. Elle pourra bien faire ce qu'elle voudra; Uc de conclure: ..

mais de vos non venra alegriers

a vostre drut, si no ill davas deniers.

Ainsi apprend-on que l’état de gigolo existait déjà à l’époque. Enfin trois très brèves pièces de satire proprement littéraire ; exception faite pour les deux fameuses “galeries de portraits” de Peire d’Alvernha et du Moine de Montaudon, le genre était inconnu au siècle précédent. Ce qu'il y a de rare dans ces petites pièces, c'est qu'elles dénoncent cette tendance à l’amphigouri, à la “préciosité”, des troubadours de ce temps, y compris Uc lui-même. En ceci ce sont de fort précieux témoignages, qui datent les débuts d’une vogue improbable, héritée qu'elle était d’excentriques tels que Peire d'Auvergne ou Arnaut Daniel, et pourtant destinée au plus grand avenir. Deux

de ces pièces (XXVII, deux coblas; XXIX,

une seule) sont nommément

décochées contre mon troisième “italotrope”, Peire Raimon de Tholoza. Très brèves, elles sont passablement obscures, ce qui semble faire partie du jeu; Peire y est accusé de “parler la bouche pleine”, “qe par c’un sester d’avena / aiatz ades dinz lo cais.” Un autre reproche, qui revient dans les deux moqueries, est plus subtil: Peire serait un “trouveur de syllabe.” Que notre troubadour, lui, peut-il bien entendre par là? Selon Jeanroy, “La plaisanterie sur ‘syllabe’ s’expliquerait par les mots monosyllabiques, plus ou moins rares, qui abondent dans nombre des chansons de Peire Raimon” (p. 204). En effet, Peire Raimon, imitateur décidé d’Arnaut Daniel, aime disposer à la rime des monosyllabes recherchés, de sonorité étrange: ainsi brotz, flocx, pecx (III, wv. 1, 3, 6).

Le troisième exemple de satire littéraire (XXVIII) parodie les non-sens allitératifs d’un certain Guilhem Fabre, qui n’a pu être sûrement identifié. Si l’on en croit Uc,

celui-ci nos fai en brau lignage manz braus broncx brenx brauan de braua guia e rocs e brocs qe met en son cantage e fils e pils e motz de galgarauia e cornz e critz...

I] serait vain de chercher quelque sens que ce soit a ces “lettrismes”. Qu'ils dénoncent une mode caractéristique du déclin, des exaspérations du trobar, je n'en veux pour témoin que ce début d’un échange de coblas entre Rostanh Berenguier de Marselha et un “Borc (bâtard) del rei d'Aragon,” que nous a conservé le ms. f:14 14 P. Meyer, Les derniers troubadours de la Provence (Paris, 1871; Slatkine Reprints, 1973), p. 89;

»

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Quan tot trop tart tost quant plac trop tens m'en car trop torbam trobar ..….

II s’agit là d’une énigme plaisante, et les deux interlocuteurs s'amusent à rivaliser d’amphigouriques sornettes. Les sotties, Rabelais témoigneront de la vitalité d’un genre quon voit se créer ici. Pour terminer par Peire Raimon de Tholosa, c’est un troubadour sans grand génie certes, mais dont le talent n’en tranche pas moins par certains traits fort originaux. Son principal mérite, le plus frappant, c’est d’être un “melting pot.” Son modèle favori, comme Cavaliere l’a remarqué, c'est Arnaut Daniel. Il le plagie parfois, comme il a plagié la fameuse “flor enversa” de Raimbaut d’Aurenga au début de sa chanson III. On trouve un peu partout dans son oeuvre des ressouvenirs de Guillaume IX, de Marcabru, de Jaufré Rudel. Toutes les idées fondatrices de l'amour courtois, il sait les

développer tour à tour, avec “grace et finesse”, comme dit Cavaliere dans sa préface. Je n'en donnerai qu'un seul exemple, pris dans sa chanson X, 17-18: Car amors es tan chauzida caz humilitat s’aizina.

Or ce vif, elégant, limpide énoncé d’un topos fondamental se lit au beau milieu d’une pièce au compas très recherché, où ces deux rimes féminines, dernières de la strophe, sont à la fois estrampas et assonantes, et dont le vocabulaire dru et singulier (“bec d’ascona”, “en far lor truoill”, “qui q'en grona”) rappelle, à l’occasion, Marcabru. Voilà bien le grand paradoxe de l’art particulier à Peire Raimon: forme, vocabulaire, images appartiennent au #robar ric, recherché, difficile; dans sa chanson XII, il consacre les deux premières strophes à son “art poétique” raffiné; mais voici ce qu'il dit aux vers 7-8: e si ben so il mot maestril leu seran d’entendr’a unquec.

Tout au contraire d’Arnaut, son modèle sur le plan formel, Peire Raimon n’est en effet jamais difficile à comprendre; d’un bout à l’autre, son oeuvre est leu. Gracieuses banalités, donc, dans l’ensemble. Sur ce fond se dégage /e chef-d’oeuvre, Atressi cum la

candela. \ci la gageure formelle est incroyablement complexe: il s’agit de faire en sorte que la toute première rime, -ela, estrampa dans la première strophe, trouve son écho seulement à la fin de la dernière. (Dominique Billy l’a expliquée mathématiquement.!5) On ne trouve ici rien de forcé dans l’enchaînement des idées; au contraire,

c'est dans cette chanson peut-être que Peire, sans sortir du registre habituel des topoi, a su mieux développer certains de ceux-ci: aliénation, douleur-joie, et surtout la folie

l’activité de Rostanh Berenguier se situe au début du XIVe siècle. De ces jongleries allitératives insensées on pourrait citer bien d’autres exemples chez les troubadours du siècle précédent. Jeanroy, commentant la cobla d'Uc, suggère qu’il s’'attaquait là soit à Guilhem Ademar, soit à Peire Raimon. N.B. Smith (note 8) analyse les divers procédés parodiés ici. 15 Billy, pp. 154-55. La complexité de l'explication qu'il donne de cette “structure intriquée”, comme il l'appelle, est, pour le profane, terrifiante. De toute façon, c'est là l'unique exemple de “structure intriquée” qu’on trouve, nous dit-il, dans toute la lyrique d’oc ou d’oil.

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d'amour, qui revient ici comme un leitmotiv, avec des formules d’une “frappe” admirable. Evoquons enfin deux aspects de l’art de Peire Raimon qui ont pu plus particulièrement influencer cette lyrique italienne dont l’aurore se situe alors même que divers “troubadours italotropes” résident dans la péninsule.'* Comme Aimeric, Peire Raimon aime à developper des comparaisons singulières et frappantes: il se compare à la salamandre (VII, str. 2); Giacomo da Lentini l’imitera de près aux vers 27-31 de Madonna, dir vo voglio. L'autre apport, plus subtil, plus original, ne concerne pas le style, mais bien l'inspiration même: il s’agit de l'évocation, dans deux de ses pièces, au beau milieu de passages qui seraient, n'était ce ressouvenir, fort banals, du dolz ris de

l’aimée.!7 On le rencontre pour la première fois, ce doux rire, dans une strophe (V, str. 2), de syntaxe passablement contournée, fort banale quant au reste. L'autre passage (XVI, v. 21) est plus frappant: car là — au beau milieu, une fois encore, des lieux communs

les plus ressassés — on voit (l'emploi du verbe concrétise

singulièrement l'évocation) apparaître le visage aimé: Bona domna, vostre ricx pretz saubutz e las faissos e il plazen acuillir e la boca, don tan gen vos vey rir, man tan sobrat que soven deven mutz...

Comment ne pas penser à ce dolce riso, à ce disiato riso qui scande si souvent la montée de Dante vers l’empyrée “. . . che muove il sole e l’altre stelle”? Rien ne se forme jamais sans quelque influence préalable; Dante n’est si grand que parce qu’il avait tant lu, et tant assimilé. Il me plait de penser que, consciemment, directement'® ou non, le dolce riso de celle dont il s'était juré de dire “quello che mai non fue detto d’alcuna” remonte en fait à ce troubadour oublié, Peire Raimon

de

Tholosa.

16 On n’en est sûr ni pour Peire Raimon, ni pour Aimeric; mais c'est chose certaine en ce qui concerne Uc de Saint-Circ, puisqu'on ne peut dater le sirventès XIX avant 1253. K Zufferey, “Un document

relatif à Uc de Saint-Circ à la Bibliothèque Capitulaire de Trevise,” Cultura Neolatina, 34 (1974), pp. 9-14, précise qu’il avait été condamné pour usure en 1257. 17 Bien rares sont les allusions au rire de l’aimée dans la lyrique du XIIe siècle. Un contemporain de

Marcabru, Peire de Valeira, fait exception en parlant de sa dame “. . . ge tant gen ri ez esgarda / q'ell auci jugan rizen.” Plus, tard, on peut citer Folquet de Marseille, VI, v. 32-33: “. . . car sos bels ris ab sa gaia semblansa / mi pais mos huoills”; les vers vraiment frappants (5-6) de la chanson VI de Guilhem de

Cabestanh: “. . . qu’aissi m pauzetz, dompna, el cor l’enveya/ ab un dous ris et ab un simpl’esguar.” 18 En effet, le “dolce riso” de l'aimée avait fait fortune en Italie entre temps. Je citerai en entier, tant ils me semblent

prégnants, les deux tercets du sonnet de Giacomo

da Lentini Lo viso mi fa andare

(“bégayant,” sur viso, pour les deux quatrains): “Chi vide mai cosi begli occhi in viso / né si amorosi fare li sembianti / né bocca con cotanto dolce riso? / Quand’eo li parlo moroli davanti / e paremi chi vada in paradiso / e tegnomi sovrano d’ogn’amanti.” Lanfranc Cigala, vers le même temps sans doute, commen-

çait ainsi, en “bégayant “, une de ses chansons : “Un avinen ris vi l’autrier/ issir d’una boca rizen / e car anc ris tan plazentier / non vi, n’ai al cor ioi plazen.” C’est au milieu d’une des siennes (Jo non pensava che lo cor giammai, v. 37) que Guido Cavalcanti écrit: “. . . pero che trasse del su’ dolce riso / una saetta aguta . . .” Dante n'a donc pas inventé le dolceriso. Il l’a immortalisé. Il y fallait génie, souffrances et tribulations; mais aussi le souvenir de ses lectures.

Des troubadours italotropes

ANNEXE

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BIBLIOGRAPHIQUE

Cavadoni, Delle accoglienze . . . chebbero i trovatori italiani alla corte dei Marchesi d’Este nel

secolo XII] (Modène, 1858). N. Zingarelli, /ntorno a due trovatori (Aimeric de Pegulhan et Uc de Saint-Circ) in Italia (Florence, 1899). FE Torraca, Le donne italiane nella poesia provenzale (Florence, 1901).

G. Bertoni, / trovatori d'Italia (Modène, 1915). V. Crescini ed., Provenza e Italia (Florence, 1930). V. de Bartholomaeis, Poesie provenzali storiche relative all’ Italia (Rome, 1931). A. Jeanroy, La Poésie Lyrique des Troubadours, |, pp. 229-65: “La poésie provençale en Italie”

(Paris, 1934, et Genève, Slatkine Reprints, 1973).

E A. Ugolini, La Poesia provenzale e I’'Italia (Modène, 1939) A. Viscardi, La Poesia trobadorica e l'Italia (Milan, 1948). A. Cavaliere, La Poesia provenzale in Italia (Vurin, 1973). G. Folena, Tradizione e cultura trobadorica nelle corti e nelle citta venete, in Storia della cultura veneta dall origini al trecento, pp. 453-562 (Venise, 1977). G. Bettini Biagini, La Poesia provenzale alla corte estense (Pise, 1981). M. L. Meneghetti et F Zambon (a cura di —), // Medioevo nella Marca, atti del convegno (Trévise, 1991):

— Mario Mancini, “Aimeric de Pegulhan, ‘rhetoriqueur e giullare,” pp. 45-90; — Saverio Guida, “Ricerche sull’attivita biografica di Uc de Saint-Circ a Treviso,”

_ Daa = rite Luisa Meneghetti, “Uc de Saint-Circ tra filologia e divulgazione,” pp. 115-28.

LES CHANSONS DE CROISADE: TRADITION VERSUS SUBJECTIVITE Cathrynke Th. J. Dijkstra

Bannie pendant à peu près deux décennies à la suite de |’Essai de Poétique Médiévale' de Paul Zumthor, ces dernières années la notion de subjectivité a regagné du terrain dans le domaine des études de la lyrique du moyen age.” Dans le présent article je voudrais étudier un genre lyrique, à savoir la chanson de croisade, qui, sans être (auto-) biographique dans le sens fort du mot, se caractérise par un degré de subjectivité

certain. Pour faciliter la discussion je propose une distinction entre ce qu’on pourrait appeler “subjectivité personnelle”, et “subjectivité artistique”. Par “subjectivité personnelle” j'entends la façon dont la persona historique de l’auteur a laissé ses empreintes dans le texte. La notion de “subjectivité artistique” par contre réfère à la façon dont l’auteur en tant quartiste a exploité le matériau poétique traditionnel pour composer un poème dans un style qui lui est propre. La subjectivité artistique peut donc être trouvée même dans la poésie la plus conventionnelle. Par contre, la subjectivité personnelle semble être exclue dans les genres conventionnels. En fait, il est fort difficile de distinguer une subjectivité personnelle dans des textes lyriques construits à partir de règles formelles et thématiques fixées par la tradition. Ceci vaut surtout pour la cansé, genre bien défini et codifié. Zumthor se fait l’avocat d’une interprétation objective excluant toute lecture subjective de ces chansons. Il admet que parfois auteur et sujet grammatical semblent coïncider, mais il serait impossible pour le lecteur moderne de séparer le personnel du non-personnel. C’est que la tradition transforme tout discours poétique en expression purement circulaire et autoréférentielle. Dans une étude récente, Zumthor caractérise encore la poésie des trouvères comme un “discours achronique, circulaire, centripète”.3 Michel Zink arrive, grosso modo, à la même conclusion: le poète-amant est généralisé à tel point qu'on ne saurait l'identifier avec tel ou tel poète individuel (44). La subjectivité personnelle de l’auteur se devinerait seulement par le choix d’un registre déterminé: une fois le registre choisi, le poète pourra seulement exprimer sa subjectivité artistique. L'approche de Zumthor s'oppose à l'attitude adoptée dans le passé à l'égard des 1 Paul Zumthor, Essai de Poétique Médiévale (Paris: Seuil, 1972). 2 A citer ici deux ouvrages récents: Michel Zink, La Subjectivité Littéraire (Paris: PUR 1985), et Sarah Kay, Subjectivity in Troubadour Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990). 3 Paul Zumthor, Parler du Moyen Age (Paris: Minuit, 1980), p. 44.

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textes médiévaux. Lhomogénéité évidente de la lyrique du moyen âge n'a pas toujours empêché la lecture des poèmes comme des expressions poétiques d'émotions vécues par les poètes. Cette attitude a non seulement donné lieu aux vidas (qui ont identifié auteur et sujet grammatical des chansons), elle explique également le phénomène des insertions lyriques dans certains romans qui forment un cadre narratif, parfois prétextant la référentialité biographique, aux chansons. On peut penser ici au Roman du Chatelain de Coucy et de la Dame de Fayel: les chansons du châtelain sont insérées dans un texte qui raconte (ou qui prétend raconter) sa vie et ses aventures personnelles. Pendant des siècles l'interprétation “biographique” a prévalu. En 1940, pour citer un seul exemple, Philipp August Becker considère les poèmes de Conon de Béthune comme des persônliche, lyrische Ausserungen.‘ Une telle interprétation réduit l'influence de la tradition littéraire. Or, il est évident que le poéte a dû se conformer aux conventions littéraires en vigueur. Du moins dans une certaine mesure; sinon, son texte aurait été illisible pour le public médiéval. Zumthor, dont les théories mettent en valeur justement le rôle prédominant de la tradition, le reconnaît. Les idées de Zumthor ont eu un impact énorme. Grâce aux concepts d’autoréférentialité et de tradition, les notions de “subjectivité personnelle” et de “lyrique médiévale” semblaient désormais incompatibles. Pourtant, les chansons de croisade, hautement conventionnelles elles aussi, contiennent des éléments subjectifs. Dans cette perspective-là elles nous posent un problème sérieux. Avant d'entamer l’analyse de ces éléments, il faut préciser qu'il nous reste 35 chansons de croisade en ancien français qui peuvent être rangées en trois catégories. D'abord il y a les chansons exhortatives, qu'on désigne généralement par le terme allemand d’Aufrufslieder. Destinés a susciter de l’enthousiasme pour la causa Dei, ces textes abondent en thèmes et motifs empruntés à la propagande pontificale, parvenus aux poètes surtout par le biais de prédications populaires. La seconde catégorie comprend les poésies de circonstance, chansons inspirées par tel ou tel événement historique isolé, comme par exemple une défaite, ou les hésitations de certains seigneurs séculiers, tels que Philippe-Auguste et Richard Coeur-de-Lion, de partir en croisade. Enfin, il y a les chansons de départie. Les textes à sujet féminin pleurent l’absence de l’ami parti pour la Terre sainte; les textes à sujet masculin chantent la douleur et la tristesse liées à la séparation imminente d’avec la dame aimée.> Afin de tirer au clair le rôle des différents facteurs impliqués (subjectivité person-

nelle et tradition) je me propose d'étudier le problème de la subjectivité dans les chansons de départie. Je me limiterai ici à l'étude des chansons de départie à sujet masculin. Ce choix se motive par deux arguments: (1) il n’y a que deux chansons de départie à sujet féminin contre neufà sujet masculin;é (2) les dernières font montre d'une ressemblance formelle et thématique assez poussée avec la cansé, ce qui

4 Philipp August Becker, Zur Romanischen Literaturgeschichte: ausgewählte Studien und Aufsatze, éd. Martha Ellen Becker (Munich: Francke Verlag, 1967) p. 180.

> A l'exception de la chanson “Douce dame, cui j’aim en bone foi”, qui constitue un dialogue entre le croisé et sa dame, les chansons de départie sont des monologues. Deux ont un sujet féminin, les autres mettent en scène un “je” énonciateur masculin.

6

Pour la délimitation du corpus voir ma thèse Les Chansons de Croisade: étude thématique d'un genre

hybride (à paraître en 1994).

Les Chansons de croisade: tradition versus subjectivité

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permettra, sur la base d’une comparaison entre les deux genres, de démarquer de façon claire la présence d'éléments subjectifs dans ces chansons de croisade. La cansé occitane, elle, ignore presque toute référence extra-textuelle. Les seuls facteurs historiques qui pourraient lui confier une certaine subjectivité sont genre et statut social du poéte.”? Dans les chansons de départie à sujet masculin par contre les influences historiques sont beaucoup plus concrètes. Les chansons contiennent des références explicites 4 une réalité extra-textuelle empiriquement vérifiable ou reconnue. Le “je” énoncé ne pourra donc plus être isolé de son contexte: chaque fois qu'il réfère aux croisades il se situe et dans le temps et dans l’espace. Il va sans dire que les chansons de croisade ont, elles aussi, dû se conformer aux conventions littéraires afin de ne pas s’aliéner un public habitué aux clichés de la cans6. Ce nonobstant le cadre référentiel spécifique individualise les textes, leur confére un certain degré de subjectivité, voire une certaine plausibilité (auto-)biographique. Voila quelque chose qui étonne dans la chanson de départie qui est — et je le répéte — une sous-classe de la cansd.8 Peut-être est-ce en raison de cette parenté étroite avec un genre relativement bien défini que la chanson de départie n’a jamais reçu autant d'attention que les Aufrufslieder et, dans un moindre degré, les poèmes de circonstance. La cansé partage avec la chanson de départie à sujet masculin non seulement la structure formelle, mais aussi les thèmes et motifs: la croisade n’est qu’une des réalisations possibles du motif courtois de l’absence.® L'amant qui accomplit ses devoirs envers Dieu, le Suzerain par excellence, gagne le respect de sa Dame. Il n’est pas étonnant que, surtout dans les chansons composées au XIIIe siècle, le service de Dieu soit souvent identifié avec le service du dieu d'amour: l'unique différence est que l’amant qui sert le Seigneur obtient beaucoup plus que le seul coeur de sa bien-aimée; il sauve également son âme. Il faut admettre qu'il est parfois difficile d'établir une distinction nette entre les deux expressions lyriques: la quantité et/ou la qualité des éléments extra-textuels peuvent flotter énormément. Aussi la critique a-t-elle eu de la peine à décider si un texte doit être considéré comme une chanson de départie ou si c’est tout simplement une cansé contenant une petite et insignifiante référence à l’histoire des croisades. Peut-être est-ce pour cette raison-la que parfois les chansons de départie ont été exclues du corpus des chansons de croisade. Pourtant, malgré les nombreux points communs, il y a une différence essentielle entre la cansé “authentique” et la chanson de départie. D’après Zumthor, la seule référence du texte est la tradition (Essai, 117).

Cette affirmation vaut en effet pour la cansé. La chanson de départie par contre, comme d’ailleurs toute chanson de croisade, contient une ou plusieurs référence(s) aux expéditions en Terre sainte. Cette(s) référence(s) ancre(nt) le texte de façon explicite

dans une extra-textualité spécifique. C’est là un phénomène étranger à la cans qui se réfère à une réalité fictive basée sur des conventions littéraires. Abstraction faite des

7

Dans son étude récente sur la subjectivité dans la poésie des troubadours, Sarah Kay s'intéresse avant

tout à la subjectivité produite par le langage et la rhétorique, mais elle s'arrête également sur des facteurs historiques tels que genre et statut social de l’auteur. 8 Pierre Bec, La Lyrique Francaise au Moyen-Age (XIle—XIIe Siècles) (Paris: Picard, 1977), p. 154.

9 Françoise Bartheau, “Mais à quoi songeaient donc les croisés?” Revue des Langues Romanes, 88:1

(1984), p. 23.

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poèmes de circonstance, il semble n’y avoir qu'un seul autre mode lyrique ayant des liens avec des événements historiques précis situables dans le temps et dans l’espace. Crest le sirventés (Bec, 151). La chanson de départie, qui fait alterner les themes

traditionnels de la fin'amor avec des références aux croisades en Orient, se réfère donc a la fois à la réalité fictive (déterminée par la convention), et à la réalité extra-textuelle (empiriquement vérifiable).

La présence de références au contexte extra-littéraire dans un genre déterminé encore en grande partie par la tradition provoque une certaine tension à l’intérieur du texte. Les thèmes de la fin'amor, qui sont élaborés dans le cadre étroit d’un modèle fixe qui ne laisse au poète qu'un minimum de liberté, sont confrontés maintenant avec une réalité nouvelle aucunement déterminée par des conventions littéraires. Le service d’amour dû à la dame aussi bien que le service du Seigneur ont des exigences spécifiques qui ne sont pas toujours compatibles. Aussi ne faut-il pas s'étonner de ce que la présence d’une référence à une réalité extra-textuelle, même insignifiante, ait des conséquences pour l'élaboration des thèmes traditionnels aussi bien que pour l'interprétation de la chanson entière. Comme Jean-Charles Payen l’a démontré, cela se reflète de façon évidente dans la structure spatio-temporelle même de la chanson de départie:!° dans la cansd, la joie est toujours reportée à un avenir indéterminé, tandis que le hic-et-nunc n'est marqué que par l’angoisse et l’incertitude. Dans les chansons de départie on assiste à un renversement des données traditionnelles: une organisation temporelle impliquant une récompense à long terme a des désavantages pour l'amant qui se voit obligé de partir pour la Terre sainte, territoire lointain et hostile où meurent beaucoup de croisés. L'homme qui s'expose aux périls de la croisade risque donc de manquer aux joies d'amour. Les trouvères reconnaissent ce problème, et de temps en temps ils proposent une solution. Le châtelain de Coucy, qui ne voit qu'un avenir triste lorsqu'il dit à sa Dame: Aventure est que ja maiz vous revoie (|. 44),1 change de perspective. Pour lui la participation à la croisade implique presque automatiquement le renoncement définitifà un amour. Aussi renverse-t-il le plan spatio-temporel de la chanson. Il n'est plus l’amant timide qui, humblement, attend la merci de la dame. Bien au contraire: il a déjà obtenu sa récompense et considère la participation à la croisade comme un moyen de payer pour toux les deduiz qu la] eüs en [sa] vie (1. 26). Cette solution a été

reprise et élaborée par d’autres trouvères. Eux aussi inversent le plan spatio-temporel de leurs chansons et font du présent le lieu et le temps de la joie. Ils évoquent les souvenirs heureux d’un amour épanoui qui doit céder la place à d’autres devoirs. Un bel exemple est le texte anonyme “Por joie avoir perfite en paradis” (Bédier, 283-6), où le poète chante le chagrin qu'il éprouve maintenant qu'il lui faut prendre congé de la femme qui lui a donné . . .tant bien, tante dousour/joie et soulaz, dou tot a [son] plaisir (1.11-12).

Lancrage dans le présent “réel” devient encore mieux visible à un autre niveau. Dans la cansé la femme est souvent désignée par un senhal qui garantit son anonymat; 10 Jean-Charles Payen, “Peregris: De l'amor de lonh au congé courtois,” Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale, 17 (1974), pp. 247-55. 11 “A vous, amant, plus qu'a nule autre gent”, |. 44 dans: Joseph Bédier, Les Chansons de Croisade (avec leurs mélodies publiées par Pierre Aubry), (Paris: Champion, 1909), p. 104.

Les Chansons de croisade: tradition versus subjectivité

5)

pour le reste, le poète se réfère à elle en des termes neutres comme ma dame, elle, ou vous. En général on peut dire que des noms propres ou des titres ne sont mentionnés dans les poèmes que là où il s’agit de la protectrice du poéte.'? Linversion spatio-temporelle libère les amants de l'obligation de vivre l'amour en cachette puisque le départ de l’amant implique déjà la fin de la relation. Aussi l’auteur de “Por joie avoir perfite .” est-il libre de révéler l'identité de sa bien-aimée: la belle Isabel (1. 33). L'emploi d'un nom propre dans une chanson qui rappelle la cansé surprend et crée au moins une illusion d’historicité. Donc de subjectivité personnelle. Lillusion d'authenticité historique est encore renforcée par le fait que le “je” grammatical ne se situe plus dans un cadre atemporel non spécifié permettant à chaque destinataire du poème de s'identifier avec lui. Il fonctionne maintenant dans le contexte historique bien spécifique des croisades, contexte brièvement évoqué à l’aide de mots-cié, mais en des termes que le public de l’époque savait reconnaitre.'3 La mise en scène spécifiée réduit la valeur générale de la chanson et ralentit le processus de dépersonnalisation auquel est soumis le protagoniste. Le texte suggère ce qu'on pourrait nommer une personnalisation virtuelle. Plus d’un trouvère a participé activement à la croisade, ce qui procure encore un argument en faveur d’une interprétation qui, sans être biographique, n'exclut pas à priori la possibilité d’une subjectivité personnelle. En d’autres termes: dans le cas de la chanson de départie à sujet masculin il semble justifiable d'établir un lien, si ténu soit-il, entre l’auteur historique de tel ou tel poème et son sujet grammatical. Un autre argument pour refuser une interprétation trop conventionnelle et, par-

tant, impersonnelle de cette poésie lyrique spécifique du moyen âge est qu'une telle lecture ne tiendrait pas compte de l'attitude médiévale. J'ai mentionné que les vidas présupposent une lecture biographique, et donc subjective, des poèmes. Evidemment, la plupart des vidas ont été composées au XIIIe siècle, par une nouvelle génération de poètes prenant, intentionnellement ou non, leur distance par rapport aux conventions

littéraires des prédécesseurs. Souvent pourtant ce sont les trouvères eux-mêmes qui protestent de leur sincérité et se vantent du fait que leurs chansons traduisent leurs émotions personnelles. Par exemple, Raoul de Soissons (parti avec la première croisade de saint Louis), se défend dans “E! Coens d'Anjou, on dis per felonnie”'4 de n’avoir chanté que pour autrui. Raoul dit que les accusations ne sont vraies que dans le sens qu'il compose ses chansons sur l’ordre d’Amors (I. 7); sans Amor, qu'il sert et servira

toujours, le poète n'aurait même pas envie de chanter. Et Raoul de souligner l’authenticité de ses émotions, et par là donc également la sincérité des textes chantant ces émotions, par des références aux croisades. Il ne faut pas s'étonner, dit Raoul, de ce qu'un amant oublie parfois son amerous desir (1. 29) lorsqu'il est séparé de son amie pendant deux ou trois ans, et parfois même plus, sans savoir s’il la reverra jamais. Les sentiments peuvent cependant être solides: la rude épreuve de sa captivité en Egypte 12 Roger Dragonetti, La Technique Poétique des Trouvères dans la Chanson Courtoise (Bruges: De Tempel,

1960), p. 315. 13 Il faut penser par exemple à des vers comme: Je men irey lay ou Deus mort sofri (7) et En paenime, a la gent mescreant/mestuet ensi por Lamour Deu aleir (35-6) et Se nus morut por leament amer/ne cuit vivre dresk'a havre de meir (39-40) (Bédier).

14 Samuel Rosenberg et Hans Tischler, Chanter mestuet: Songs of the Trouvères (Londres: Faber Music, Ltd., Faber & Faber, Ltd., 1981), pp. 389-92.

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ne lui a pas fait oublier son amour. Raoul affirme donc sa sincérité en tant qu'amant aussi bien qu’en tant que poéte et il authentifie le tout par une référence a la réalité extra-textuelle historique. En ceci il se distingue de ses confrères qui n’écrivent que sur le mode traditionnel, et se démarque comme un individu. Ce qui implique — et on ne peut pas le souligner assez — une lecture subjective. Qui plus est, la référence a sa persona historique met en évidence l’authenticité, non pas seulement de cette chansonci, mais de toutes ses chansons. J'avoue que cette insistance sur la sincérité du poète est un phénomène qu'on rencontre assez souvent dans la poésie des trouvères, et qu'on peut donc supposer qu'elle fait partie du jeu littéraire. En même temps pourtant une (prétendue) revendication de sincérité de la part du poète nous signale que les trouvères eux-mêmes admettent que leurs chansons peuvent donner lieu à certains problèmes d'interprétation. En insistant sur l’authenticité de leurs poèmes ils impliquent que leurs textes sont bien souvent lus comme des expressions poétiques objectivées et impersonnelles. Leurs protestations de sincérité ne font que signaler leur gêne devant un système où lindividuel et le subjectif ne peuvent s'exprimer que de façon traditionnellement objective. Voilà le problème: abstraction faite des aspects ludiques traditionnels, il est clair que les chansons de croisade, et plus spécialement la chanson de départie, véhiculent des revendications d’individualisation qu’il faut prendre au sérieux. Ceci dit, je voudrais, en guise d’exemple, discuter brièvement une chanson de croisade de Conon de Béthune. Ce trouvère répond à tous les critères pour faire l’objet d’une étude sur la subjectivité personnelle dans des textes lyriques. Non seulement nous le connaissons par ses chansons, mais nous sommes également bien informés sur sa vie. Issu d’une famille fort active dans les croisades, Conon a suivi la tradition familiale: chevalier illustre, il participe à la troisième (1189-92) et à la quatrième (1202-4) croisade. Dans la chronique de cette dernière expédition, Villehardouin le caractérise comme un bon chevaliers et sages et bien eloquens.\$ A la fin de sa vie, il est même nommé régent de l’Empire latin. En même temps cependant Conon de Béthune est un trouvère de renom qui nous a légué six chansons. Voilà un cas typique: Conon, croisé lui-même, a écrit des chansons de croisade influencées, bien sûr, par la tradition littéraire de l’époque, mais où, en même temps, il est impossible d’ignorer l’impact de ses aventures individuelles. Conon a composé deux chansons de croisade, qui se réfèrent aux événements précédant l'expédition de 1189. Ce sont “Ahi! Amors, com dure departie”!6, que je voudrais discuter ici, et “Bien me deüsse targier” (Wallenskôld, 8-9). Bien que forte-

ment imprégnés d'éléments propagandistes, les deux textes sont classifiés par Pierre Bec comme des chansons de départie (Bec, 157). Classification sans doute motivée par

le fait que les deux textes débutent par des strophes rappelant la censé. Dans la première strophe de “Ahi! Amors . . .”, par exemple, Conon chante un amour qui touche déjà à sa fin en raison du départ de l’amant pour la Terre sainte où il va servir le Seigneur:

15 Geoffroy de Villehardouin, La Conquête de Constantinople, éd. Edmond Faral (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1961), tome I, pp. 16-17. 16 Axel Wallenskold, Les Chansons de Conon de Béthune (Paris: Champion, 1921), pp. 6-7.

Les Chansons de croisade: tradition versus subjectivité

101

Ahi! Amors, com dure departie Me convenra faire de la millor Ki onques fust amee ne servie! Dieus me ramaint a li par sa douçour Si voirement con j’en part a dolor! Las! k’ai je dit? Ja ne men part je mie! Se li cors va servir Nostre Signor, Mes cuers remaint del tot en sa baillie

(Il. 1-8)

On ne saura jamais dire si c’est là une référence autobiographique aux amours de Conon ou s'il s'agit d’un élément fictif. Peu importe. Ce qui m'intéresse ici c’est que le seul vers Se li cors va servir Nostre Signor (1. 7) situe l’action dans un temps spécifique, à savoir l'époque des croisades. Cette précision rend subjective l'expression poétique parce qu'elle en limite le caractère général. En outre, même si l’on ne peut pas être sûr que Conon fasse allusion ici à ses propres émotions, il est quand-même clair qu’il y a une ressemblance frappante entre la réalité poétique encadrant le protagoniste (peutêtre fictif) et la réalité historique où fonctionne l’auteur du poème. Dans “Ahi! Amors . . .” aussi bien que dans “Bien me deüsse targier”, chanson que je ne peux pas discuter ici, le cadre évoqué est assez spécifique en comparaison avec le cadre atemporel et plutôt neutre entourant le sujet grammatical de la cansé. Le poème contient des allusions à des concepts bien connus comme l’haereditas Domini et l’auteur mentionne des peuples et des lieux qui, grâce à la propagande chrétienne, ont dû être relativement bien connus.!” Il s'arrête également sur la chute de Jérusalem et incorpore des vers faisant écho aux mesures papales qui avaient pour but d'augmenter l'efficacité des armées des croisés.18 C’est ainsi que Conon de Béthune crée un arrière-

fond spécifique que son public a sans doute su identifier sans peine. Dans la deuxième strophe d’“Ahi! Amors, . . .” Conon abandonne son thème initial et continue avec le sujet principal de la chanson, à savoir une exhortation à rejoindre la croisade. Les vers 9 et 10 de la deuxième strophe annoncent la transition entre le particulier de la première strophe et la perspective généralisante du reste du texte. La dame aimée disparaît de la scène et n'est mentionnée qu’à un autre endroit, et cela encore de façon très indirecte, car Conon dit seulement que le croisé qui fait son devoir s'assure le salut éternel en même temps qu’il gagne /amor de samie (|. 16). Ce

vers semble suggérer que le service du Seigneur coincide avec le service d'Amour, idée

17 Por li m'en vois sospirant en Surie, (9) et Quant il fumis ens la crois ke Turc ont. (20) et Dieus est assis en son saint iretaige; (17) (Wallensküld). 18

Car a no tans est perdus li sains lieus Ou Dieus soffri por nos mort angoisseuse.

(Wallenskold, Il. 45-6) Tot li clergié et li home d’eage

Qui ens ausmogne et ens biens fais manront Partiront tot a cest pelerinaige, Et les dames ki chastement vivront Et loiauté feront ceaus ki iront; Et seles font par mal consel folaige,

A lasques gens mauvaises le feront, Car tot li boin iront en cest voiaige. (Wallenskold, Il. 25-32)

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qui revient d’ailleurs dans une autre chanson de Conon: “Bele doce dame chiere” (Wallenskôld, 12). Dans cette chanson le trouvère se plaint de la cruauté de sa dame qui l’a envoyé en Surie (1. 18). En élaborant la même idée dans deux textes différents,

procédé qui sans être forcément autobiographique suggère quand-méme une préoccupation personnelle, Conon nous invite à accepter une interprétation plus subjective. La persona de l’auteur lui-même, chevalier illustre, se reflète de façon moins am-

bigué dans le choix des destinataires. Conon s'adresse aux seuls membres de son ordo, à ceux qui sont sain et jone et riche (|. 23), c'est-à-dire à ceux qui sont capables de se battre et qui ont les moyens financiers pour subvenir à leurs besoins pendant la durée de la croisade. Ces vers font écho aux mesures prises par le pape Alexandre III: seuls les utiles étaient censés rejoindre l’armée des croisés. La carrière militaire de l’auteur a également laissé de fortes traces dans son vocabulaire. L'appel à la croisade adressé aux bellatores se présente comme un jeu sur l’antithèse honte et honneur.\? Ce sont là des conceptions chères aux hommes qui vivent de la guerre. Il semble, du moins à première vue, que la complainte de l’amant qui fait l’objet de la strophe initiale soit plus subjective que l’appel lancé aux bellatores véhiculé par les autres strophes. Le poème débute sur des vers à la première personne, aptes à rendre

des émotions (prétendûment) subjectives. A partir de la deuxième strophe, le “je” grammatical est abandonné en faveur d’une troisième personne, plus objective et donc plus convenable pour exprimer des vérités générales. A dire vrai, on ne peut pas se défaire de l'impression que le thème initial de l'amour n'est là que pour appuyer les thèmes propagandistes formant l’intentio du poème. A côté des motifs empruntés aux sermons destinés aux masses populaires, comme par exemple le concept de l’haereditas Domini, Conon invoque son engagement “personnel” et le chagrin d'amour qui en résulte pour démarquer encore davantage son appel à la croisade. En insistant sur la peine que lui cause son sacrifice émotionnel, il se présente comme un exemple digne à suivre. Ceci est un bel exemple, non pas de subjectivité personnelle mais de subjectivité artistique: le poète exploite un cliché bien connu, à savoir la plainte amoureuse, mais il la revalorise. Que la chanson “Ahi! Amors, . . .” se caractérise pourtant en premier lieu par une forte subjectivité personnelle est corroborée par les informations que nous possédons au sujet de la réception contemporaine de ce poème. Les deux chansons de croisade de Conon de Béthune ont provoqué une réaction poétique qui est généralement attribuée à Huon d’Oisi, l’ancien maître en poésie de Conon. Dans la chanson “Maugré tous sainz et maugré Dieu ausi” (Bédier, 54-63) Huon reproche à Conon de ne pas

tenir les promesses faites dans “Ahi! Amors, . . .” et “Bien me deüsse targier”, chansons que Huon désigne par le terme de preechemans (1. 13). Huon reprend l’antithèse honte

— honneur, exploitée par Conon lui-même, et cite des éléments, presque verbatim, des poèmes de son élève, mais pour les tourner en dérision. Conon, qui était si ... preus . . . de sermouner et de gentpreechier (Il. 17-8), semble être revenu de la Terre sainte à la

première occasion venue, attitude assez décevante de la part d’un homme qui dans ses poèmes prend fait et cause pour la causa Dei.2 19 Voici les mots clé qui se trouvent à la base de ce jeu: honor (15), pris et los (16) honi (21), hontaige (24), lasques gens (31), preus (41), preus (42), honte (43), honteus (44), honteuse (48) (Wallensküld). 20 Si l’on sait que pendant la quatrième croisade Conon s’est montré un vaillant chevalier et qu'il a

Les Chansons de crdisade: tradition versus subjectivité

103

Un détail saute aux yeux: dans la deuxième partie de ses chansons, comme j'ai signalé, Conon abandonne la première personne grammaticale en faveur de la troisième personne, plus objective. Ceci pourtant n’a pas empêché Huon d'établir un lien étroit entre les textes et leur auteur. Il a lu “Ahi! Amors, . . .” et “Bien me deüsse targier’ comme un engagement personnel de la part du trouvère. Cela explique pourquoi il n'a pas hésité à lancer des reproches amers à un trouvère qui ne respectait pas les promesses faites dans sa poésie même. Huon a donc opté pour une lecture subjective, lecture qui étonne puisqu'il s'agit d’une chanson encore fort proche de la cansé traditionnellement clichématique et impersonnelle. Bien qu'on ne puisse pas nier que la lyrique médiévale ne laisse pas beaucoup de place à la subjectivité personnelle, les chansons de croisade — en l'occurrence les chansons de départie à sujet masculin — semblent faire exception. Fortement ancrées dans la réalité empirique, les chansons de croisade mettent en évidence leurs liens avec le monde extra-textuel. Ceci implique qu'on ne peut pas les prendre comme des documents entièrement dominés par les conventions littéraires de l’époque. Bien au contraire: elles donnent aux auteurs l’occasion d’exprimer leur subjectivité personnelle dans des textes à la fois traditionnels et innovateurs. Traditionnels parce qu'ils exploitent encore des structures formelles et des motifs pré-existants, innovateurs parce qu ils confèrent un statut nouveau au sujet grammatical et demandent une interprétation

moins circulaire qu'on ne l'avait proposé.

même été élu bail de l’Empire latin, il est difficile de comprendre pourquoi il aurait déserté pendant la troisième expédition en Terre sainte, expédition qui, à en juger ses chansons, lui tenait à coeur. Joseph Bédier a trouvé une explication qui, bien qu’elle ne soit pas appuyée par des preuves concrètes, ne

semble pas trop recherchée: Conon se serait mis en route dans les premiers mois de 1189. Un accident ou une maladie l'aurait retenu en France ou, s’il avait déjà quitté son pays, forcé de rentrer. Bien que Conon ait éprouvé le vif désir de repartir aussi vite que possible, Huon aurait cru (ou feint de croire) que son ancien élève avait abandonné le projet pour toujours (59). C’est une hypothèse point impossible.

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11 See Meyer, p. 376; M.D. Legge, Anglo-Norman Literature and its Background (Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 1963), pp. 347-8. 12 A troubadour song composed in rimas equivocs contrafachs is discussed by Pierre Bec, Burlesque et

obscénité chez les troubadours (Paris: Stock, 1984), no. 46, pp. 213-217. 13 This reference to a joc (or jeu) parti is rare in Anglo-Norman verse.

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Carol J. Harvey

eyes, he begs love to help him to imprison his lady, and he sends his song to all other prisoners oflove. The topos of courtly love expressed as the “douce maladie d'amour” runs through these three anonymous lyrics from the Anglo-Norman era. All are examples of malecentered discourse from which the lady is virtually absent. She is portrayed only in terms of her attitude towards the “I” persona. The latter aspires to her love but encounters varying degrees of discouragement. The first male voice alludes to the lady only as the one for whom the lover suffers and from whom he hopes against hope to obtain a cure. “Plust a Dieu q’el fust moye,” he exclaims. In the second poem, the attention she pays to another makes her deaf to the lover’s entreaties; the only mercy he can beg of her is that she feign some interest in him. As for the third male voice, despite his passing mention of the lady’s lovely eyes which took him captive, he expresses her negative attitude toward him in the least ambiguous terms: “. . . el me het plus [qe] ren nee.” Despite the thematic similarities between the poems, there are differences too. The first poem is imbued with a somewhat jocular, contradictory spirit, which seems to question some of the poetic and moral precepts offinamor. The formulation of that love would suggest either that it is a mere game, or that it produces in the lover a state of total confusion or even nothingness. On the other hand, “Jeo m’en voys, dame” (the middle poem) captures the courtly ethos with its harmony of theme and form. It details the loyal service, respect and faithfulness which the lover vows to his lady; it expresses the lady’s haughty attitude which has plunged the lover into despair, leaving him love-sick and a stranger to joy. Then in the third poem the voice again seems playful. Despite the many thematic and formal links with the courtly lyric, that indispensable element of mezura (or moderation) is lacking from Rime bon with its

many hyperboles. Verbal folly seems to be more important than loves folly, giving the poem a light-hearted, almost mocking tone (of course the malady oflove is delightful, for its pains are equalled only by its pleasures). The parallel and somewhat parodic voice of the two poems entitled “Autre maner de rimer” and “Ryme bon” implies a certain distancing from the courtly lyric. As I have shown elsewhere, these are not the only Anglo-Norman poems inspired by a ludic spirit.'4 Secular parodies of religious songs are found; intertextual references to hymns are used ironically in secular verse; some bilingual and trilingual poems play upon the contrasting values of the different languages; rhetorical effects may be compounded for the sheer pleasure of playing with words. But as Pierre Bec observes of the counter-texts of troubadour lyrics, any poem ofthis nature is nonetheless firmly anchored in a literary tradition: Il s'installe en effet dans le code littéraire, utilise ses procédés jusqu’à l’exaspération, mais

le dévie fondamentalement de son contenu référentiel . . . Le code textuel endémique reste donc bien l’indispensable référence, fonctionne toujours dans la plénitude de ses moyens mais à contre-courant. (Burlesque et obscenité, 11)

14 “Macaronic Techniques in Anglo-Norman Verse,” L'Esprit créateur, 18 (1978), pp. 70-81; “The

Anglo-Norman Courtly Lyric,” Journal of the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association, vol. 7 (1986), pp. 27-40; “Du sacré au sacrilège: deux poèmes anglo-normands,” l'imprimé (Montréal: Ceres, 1990), pp. 107-117.

in Du manuscrit à

Text and Countertexts: Three Anglo-Norman Lyrics

111

The presentation of “Jeo m’en voys, dame” as the referential text framed between the other two is in itselfatextual commentary, since it establishes a sort of dialogue between text and counter-texts. By their insistence on the primacy of rhyme, the two counter-texts call the courtly content of the middle poem into question. But taken together, the poems create a fictional reality and shape a circular space within which lover and lady act and interact; they re-state in different tones the message that love is both totally unreal and the only reality that matters. Thus, in the last analysis, we should acknowledge the paradoxical modernity of this group of medieval poems. They are modern in their own era by breaking with the contemporary poetic code. But they are modern today, too, with their constant interplay of sound and sign, their circular text, contradictions and ambiguities. For the use of paradox pushes language beyond its accepted limits, to establish new meanings.

APPENDIX I. Autre maner de rimer

5

Malade sui, de joie espris,

Rien ne soi einz qe jeo amasse,

Tant suspire ge ne repos, Jeo ai mon quor en pensé mys,

Més ore covent que jeo sache:

Et si ne senk ne mal ne bien:

De joie est tut mon quor certeyn.

Et amurs, par lour grant vertuz,

Me fount le quer, ou que jeo soi,

Sovent, joyus, sovent esmuz;

E jeo sui tant dolerouse,

Quant jeo voys en la haut voie

Je ne soi pas pM le he 40 Plust a Dieu qe USE MOYE

Jeo sui plus pesant ge le plum, Et plus vist ge le arund, E plus ramage del facun 15 Qe vole par mie tut le mound. ARE Assez sui privé par resoun, . Et si ne soi : ou mon quor meynt;

Pur qui amurs mount si tenu. Amors est de tel maner: Simple, deboner e fer, Et trop sovent de baude chere, ; | haut e jeo suy bas # i‘pot J it 4 ay ty nt or femis 5en te Buy :

De ly attendrei garesoun Pur qui amurs m'ont si enpeynt. 20 Bon amur qe est si: tresbele : : De jour en jour me renovele

Je sui jolifs, So he A D Jeo serve tuz jourz te service. saunz solace Na home et a si bone 5 vieoes É Fa

E me tent en sa cordel. 3:

Suspir, solaz, ris et joie 35

Sages suy, et si ne soi ren

10 Plus jolifs homme rert a nul jourz Qe [moi] n’est ci ne aillors. 2

Bon amur me chace.

Et si enpens de nule chose. Pover sui et de aver pleyn,

Jeo sui fort, feble e faynt, Hardi, pleyn de couardie; 25 E le vis ai pale et teynt,

Neisi jolif' cum jeo face, E si crei ge le mal me occie. En amur ad sen e folie, Honur, hounte et gelusie, Et molt de gent en ount amye.

E rovent quant home me chastie. Trop me plest et si me pleink

De bon amur q’ensi me blesce. Bien sei ge jeo sui destreint, 30 Et si ne senk nule destresce.

v. 1] ms.

ma

12

Carol J. Harvey IL.

Jeo men voys, dame, a Deu vous command,

3.

Succurrez moi, dame, d’un faus semblaunt

Que vous honur et vostre compaignie.

Pur recoverer arer ma sotie.

Ensi me doint ceo qe jeo demand,

Si vous me alez tuz les jourz veir disaunt,

Cum je vous ai servi sanz tricherie

Jeo ai grant pour qe mon sen ne m'occie.

E serviray tuz les jourz de ma vie.

25 Coverez un poi, si [ferez] curteisie,

Més jeo vei bien qil est venu atant Quant me covent languir tut mon vivant. Si ne dis pas qe eiez fait vilennie,

E me lessez languir en attendant; Q'il n’est ren ge jeo desir tant Cum endurer la duce maladie.

Mès par vous est joie de moi partie,

Quant jeo ne puis avoir nul autre eÿe,

Si en remeindra meint chaunson jolie.

30 Ore doint Deus ge mort m’en deslye.

Beus sire Dieus, cum jeo sui mescheaunt

Quant pur le sen ai lessé ma folie.

v. 25 ms. freez

Quant jeo fu fols j’estoie molt joiaunt, Que je quidey ceo qe ne avendra mie. Ore ai perceu meynt dure haschie; Deble d’enfer m’ount fait si entendaunt Qe jeo conoys ceo ge me va grevaunt: C’est amur qi a tort m'en contraillie,

Par gi ma dame aillors se humilie, Si ge devers moy est tut assurdie. III.

Ryme bon

En la sesoune qe l’erbe poynt E reverdist la matinee, E sil oysel chauntent a poynt En temps d’avryl, en la ramee: Lors est ma dolur dublé, Qe jeo sui en si dure poynt Qe ray joie poynt, Tant me greve la destinee.

4. 25 Par Dieu, fou quer, un jou vous part, Ore en pernez l’une partie; De tut revendrez a ma part, Ou tut serrez a sa pattie. Si encuntre moi estis partie, 30 Pur Dieu soiez de ma part, Qe jeo la teng uncore a part Einz ceo qe m’alme seit partie.

D'un duz regard suy si mal poynt

5.

Que jeo m'y murg, més trop m'agree.

Uncore i ad un plus mal poynt: Q’el me het plus [qe] ren nee. Unc rien ai en pensé;

Si une foiz fusse despoynt Jamés ne serei repoynt, Qe cest poynt est trop devee. Murns e pensif m'en part, Qe trop me greve la partie. Si n'en puis aler cele part, Q'el n'eyt a sa partie

De bon voler mon quor pris De ceo q'il fust si haut enpris,

35 D’amer cele ge ad teu pris Que chescun entendant la pris. Ses beals [oilz] firen{t] la prise

Dount jeo suy lié e pris. Amour, par vous sui suspris, 40 Eidez moi q’el soit ma prise. Ma chaunsoun et ma reprise] Envoy a ceux enpris.

E si je ai ren mespris Bien voile q’el soit mesprise.

Mon quor enter saunz partie. E puise q'el ad le men saunz part,

E jeo oy unk de soen part, A moy est dure la partie.

v. 18 ms. me me greve

ENGLISH DREAM POEMS OF THE FIFTEENTH AND THEIR FRENCH CONNECTIONS

CENTURY

Julia Boffey

Well into the sixteenth century, English readers maintained an interest in Le Roman de la Rose. Henry VIII owned several copies, some of which may have been printed editions,! and manuscripts produced at an earlier date continued to circulate and to attract readers such as the members of the Devonshire Courtenay family who added

signatures and family memoranda to Oxford, Bodleian MS e musaeo 65, produced in England in the late fourteenth century.* William Thynne included in his 1532 printed edition of the works of Chaucer three fragments of the poem in an English version which, it is generally agreed, partly represents the otherwise lost translation which Chaucer talks of having made. While the text which Thynne printed seems not to have had a wide prior circulation, since it survives in only Glasgow University Library, MS Hunterian V. 3. 7, which constituted his setting-copy,4 he presumably believed the Roman to be a desirable commodity, perhaps a special novelty in an English version, and an illuminating adjunct to poems such as The Book of the Duchess and The Parliament of Fowls which so clearly make reference to it. His connection of the poem with Chaucers name, its parallel availability in French and English, and the longevity of its appeal prompt certain questions about the range of associations which would have been in the mind of a fifteenth-century reader who perused Chaucer's dream poems and the cluster of related English dits amoureux which came to circulate with them. Would Chaucer’s indebtedness to French sources including the Roman and poems by Froissart and Machaut have been recognizable to his early audience, and

would his readers have had access to these texts outside Chaucer’s reformulations of them? Related to such questions is the wider issue of cultural exchange between

1 Henri Omont, “Les Manuscrits français des rois d’Angleterre au chateau de Richmond,” Etudes romanes dédiées a Gaston Paris (Paris: E. Bouillon, 1891), pp. 1-13, number 91; further copies are listed

in a household inventory of the 1540s, now London, Public Record Office, Augmentation Office, Miscellaneous Books 160, of which London, British Library MS Additional 4729 is an eighteenth-century copy. 2

ee ache and J.J.G. Alexander, [Mluminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, 3 vols.

(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966-73), i, p. 48 (number 612). 3 Geoffrey Chaucer, The Works 1532, intro. D.S. Brewer (Menston: Scolar, 1969); The Riverside

Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benson (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1987), pp. 686-767. All subsequent citations of Chaucer’s works refer to this edition. 4 James E. Blodgett, “Some Printers Copy for William Thynnes Library, 6th series, 1 (1979), pp. 97-113.

1532 Edition of Chaucer,”

The

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Julia Boffey

England and France in the fifteenth century, when the circulation of Chaucer's shorter poems was effectively established. The possible sources which have been suggested for these poems range from lengthy dream visions such as the Roman to shorter dits and lyrics. While the density of allusion to French poems is greatest in The Book of the Duchess and The Prologue to The Legend of Good Women, with The Parliament of Fowls and The House of Fame reflecting more clearly Chaucer's Italian reading, echoes of works such as Machaurs jugement-poems are pervasive. J.I. Wimsatt has extensively documented some of the precise debts, and further explored the possibility that French writers such as Granson in turn creatively adapted Chaucers works.* Early readers quite possibly understood the dream visions to form some kind of generically connécted body of writing, since the surviving manuscripts (listed in Benson,

1136-50 and 1178) tend to preserve

them together, in anthologies where similarities and perhaps shared debts would be easily perceived. Although 7he Parliament of Fowls apparently reached a wider and more disparate audience, it is with the other dream visions most often preserved in anthologies of Chauceriana, such as Cambridge, University Library MS Gg. 4. 27, or of short, courtly poems, such as Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Fairfax 16, an elegantly produced fascicular collection, of metropolitan provenance, which dates from the late 1430s or 1440s.° The items gathered around the dream poems in the first booklet of this latter manuscript illustrate the abundance ofbilingual intertextual reference which seems to characterize the genre of the dit amoureux in later Middle English. Together with The Legend of Good Women, The Parliament ofFowl, The Book ofthe Duchess, The House of Fame, and some Chaucerian lyrics appear Lydgate’s Complaint of the Black Knight and The Temple of Glass; Hoccleve’s Letter of Cupid and Sir John Clanvowe’s Boke of Cupid, and the translation of La Belle Dame sans Merci attributed to Sir Richard Roos. Most of the non-Chaucerian texts here make specific allusion to Chaucer's poems. Hoccleve acknowledges The Legend of Good Women in a reference to “oure legende of martyrs” (I. 316); The Boke of Cupide draws on the debating birds of The Parliament of Fowls; The Complaint of the Black Knight emulates features of the structure and phrasing of The Book of the Duchess, and even the prologue to La Belle Dame sans Merci, although introducing a waking rather than a sleeping scene, vaguely echoes the preludes to Chaucers dreams.” The associations of these later works are by no means solely Chaucerian, however. Just as Chaucer’s own poems point the reader to a body of French connections, with announcements that the birds’ song which concludes the Parliament is to be sung to a tune “imaked . . . in France” (1. 677), and that The Complaint of Venus translates “the curiosite / Of Graunson” (Il. 81-82), so a range of

> James I. Wimsatt, Chaucer and his French Contemporaries: Natural Music in the Fourteenth Century

(Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1991). 6

Geoffrey Chaucer: Poetical Works. A Facsimile of Cambridge, University Library MS Gg. 4. 27, intro.

M.B. Parkes and R. Beadle, 3 vols. (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1979-80); Bodleian MS Fairfax 16, intro. John Norton-Smith (London: Scolar, 1979).

7 See Poems of Cupid, God of Love, ed. Thelma S. Fenster and Mary Carpenter Erler (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1990); The Works of Sir John Clanvowe, ed. V.J. Scattergood (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1975); Chaucerian and Other Pieces: A Supplement to The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, ed. Walter W. Skeat (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1897), pp. 245-65 and 299-326.

English Dream Poems and Their French Connections

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French analogues, both venerable and right up-to-date, lie behind the later English poems. Hoccleves Lerter is of course an adaptation of Christine de Pizan’s Epitre de Cupide; Roo$s La Belle Dame a close translation, with added prologue, of Alain Chartier’s influential text; Clanvowe’s Boke clearly draws on French works such as Jean de Condés La Messe des oiseaus. The writers, and the compilers of the manuscript, seem to have deliberately created a kind of textual dialogue in which certain themes are debated and certain forms subjected to experimentation in ways which move easily in and out ofa whole range of French and English models. It is no accident, | think, that of the poems included in this booklet The Letter ofCupid and La Belle Dame sans Merci are associated with two ofthe most significant literary debates of the period, and stand as miniature English reminders of extensively documented French querelles. The focus on dialogue and debate, both thematic and formal, insistently recalls the

play of dialectic and of intertextual reference in the most influential dits of Froissart and Machaut, or in the Prologue to The Legend of Good Women ot The Parliament of Fowls. Fairfax 16 happens to be one of the earliest and most striking examples of the bringing together of this kind of material, but comparisons could be drawn with a range of further manuscripts: the so-called “Oxford” anthologies, Bodleian, Tanner 346 and Bodley 638, to which it is textually related;? Cambridge, University Library MS Gg. 4 .27, where the Legend and the Parliament are copied along with an anonymous neo-Chaucerian Parliament ofBirds in which each stanza concludes with a line of French;'° Longleat MS 258, which includes The Flower and the Leaf, with its references to courtly games mentioned in the Prologue to The Legend of Good Women and some ofthe poems of Deschamps.!! What is known of the circulation of French love-visions and dits in England, or among English readers, during this period? In the late fourteenth century, copies of Le Roman de la Rose were in the hands of individuals like Richard IT and his one-time tutor Simon Burley.!? Thomas Duke of Gloucesters copy (now London, British Library MS Royal 19. B. xiii) was bought from the executors of another ofthe king’s associates, Sir Richard Stury; and according to Froissart, John Montague, Duke of

Salisbury, was offered a manuscript of the work in France by Charles VI.15 As early as the 1380s, copies were held in the libraries of the Benedictine priory of St Martin at 8 See The Poetical Works of Alain Chartier, ed. J.C. Laidlaw (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1974), pp. 328-60, and Eric Hicks, Le débat sur le roman de la rose (Paris: Champion, 1977). 8 See The Poetical Works of Alain Chartier, ed. J.C. Laidlaw (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1974), pp. 328-60, and Erik Hicks, Le debat sur le roman de la rose (Paris: Honore Champion, 1977). 9 Manuscript Tanner 346: A Facsimile, and MS Bodley 638: A Facsimile, intro. Pamela Robinson (Norman, Oklahoma: Pilgrim Books, 1980).

10 Eleanor Prescott Hammond, “A Parliament of Birds,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 7

(1907-8), pp. 105-109.

11 Eleanor Prescott Hammond, “MS Longleat 258 — A Chaucerian Codex,” Modern Language Notes,

20 (1905), pp. 77-79; The Flower and the Leaf and the Assembly ofLadies, ed. D.A. Pearsall (Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press, 1962).

12 Elizabeth Salter, Fourteenth-Century English Poetry: Contexts and Readings (Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1983), p. 44. 15 VJ. al no “Literary Culture at the Court of Richard II,” English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages, ed. V.J. Scattergood and J.W. Sherborne (London: Duckworth, 1983), pp. 29-43 (pp. 36 and 41), and Pierre-Yves Badel, Le Roman de la Rose au XIVe siècle: étude de la réception de l'oeuvre (Geneva: Droz, 1980), p. 60.

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Dover, and of the Chapel Royal at Windsor.'4 A wider social range of owners can be documented in the fifteenth century: Sir John Fastolf and an anonymous compiler of a booklist added to Balliol College, Oxford, MS 329 recorded their acquaintance with the work, and the survival of acopy such as London, British Library MS Royal 19. B. xii, owned successively by Humphrey Stafford and by Nicholas Upton, precentor of Salisbury, before it reached the Royal Library in the time of Henry VII, suggests that the text was preserved with some care as it passed from reader to reader.'> The single manuscript which preserves the fragmentary translation attributed to Chaucer may have had some connection with Anne Neville, Duchess of Buckingham, Humphrey Stafford’s mother.!6 Traffic in manuscripts between England and France, as has often been pointed out, is not hard to explain in the context of diplomatic negotiation over the course of the Hundred Years’ War, and beyond, into the period when English kings or their consorts sought support across the channel. An early collection of the works of Baudouin de Condé, Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale MS 9411-26, mysteriously bears the names of “herford holand cliffort stury,” men who played significant roles in embassies to France, and were known to Froissart, Chaucer, and individuals like Clanvowe (who

almost certainly knew La Messe des oiseaus of Baudouin’s son Jean).!” Jean de le Mote, Froissart, and Granson all visited England in the fourteenth century (Wimsatt, 46-52,

175-81, 210-14), and Froissart’s importation of copies of his works, such as the volume of poems about love specially copied and decorated for Richard II and presented to him in 1395, is documented (Scattergood, “Literary Culture,” 33). Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale MS f. fr. 831, one of the two major anthologies of Froissart’s poetic works, was certainly in the early fifteenth century in the hands of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and of other English readers whose names appear in it.!8 Although Machaut is not known to have visited England, it seems that his poems were in circulation there by at least 1392, when Isabella of York bequeathed to her son a book called “marchart” (Salter, Fourteenth-Century English Poetry , 35). Furthermore, Jean de Berry’s collection of Machaut’s poems (now Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale f. fr. 9221) was given to Thomas

Duke of Clarence on 22 December

1412, and the

anthology of his poems which is now Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale f. fr. 1584, which

14 Madeleine Blaess, “Les manuscrits français dans les monastères anglais au Moyen Age,” Romania, 94

(1973), pp. 321-58.

15 Eighth Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts: Report and Appendix (Part I)

(London: HMSO, 1881), p. 268; R.A.B. Mynors, Catalogue of theManuscripts of Balliol College, Oxford (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), pp. 339-40; Sir George F. Warner and J. Gilson, Catalogue of the Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and Kings Collections, 4 vols. (London: British Museum, 1921), ii, pp. 327-28.

16 The Epistle of Othea, Translated from the French Text of Christine de Pisan by Stephen Scrope, ed. Curt F. Bühler, with an appendix by A.I. Doyle, Early English Text Society, Ordinary Series 264 (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1970), pp. 126-27.

17 Elizabeth Salter, English and International: Studies in the Literature, Art and Patronage of Medieval England (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1988), pp. 243-44. This manuscript does not contain La Messe des oiseaus. 18 The Lyric Poems of Jehan Froissart, ed. Rob Roy McGregor (Chapel Hill: Univ. Press of North Carolina, 1975), p.18.

English Dream Poems and Their French Connections

17

eventually reached the Burgundian library ofLouis de Gruthuyse, was in England for

some time after about 1430.12 The profitable business of ransom, which led to the establishment of households around

detainees

such

as Jean le Bon

and later Charles

d'Orléans

and Jean

d'Angoulême, clearly facilitated the transporting of personal effects such as books. Some of the volumes recorded in the library of Louis d'Orléans and of Valentina Visconti, parents of Charles and his brother, may plausibly have been brought at some stage to England: Le Roman de la Rose; “vng livre des Epistres du debat sur le Romant de la Rose”; Froissart’s Dit Royal.” Jean d’Angouléme later owned some of the writings of Alain Chartier which may have been introduced to him during his residence in England (Champion, 121). In turn, English captives in France, of whom there were many during the military campaigns of the first half of the fifteenth century, or temporary English residents such as John Montague (and even Lydgate, for a period) presumably acquired books which were to accompany them home. And finally, communication of texts by correspondence clearly made available a range of material; Deschamps writes to Chaucer in a ballade: “pran en gre les euvres d’escolier / Que par Clifford de moy avoir pourras” (Wimsatt, 247-51). Christine de Pizan’s gift of some of her works to Henry IV, in connection with her son’s residence at the English court, may explain Hoccleves apparently speedy access to LEpitre de Cupide, which he translated just over two years after its composition (Fenster and Erler, 171). Particular incidents were responsible for significant influxes of French manuscripts. The most important ofthese was of course the massive acquisition by John of Bedford of the French royal library, and the possibilities for reading and copying new texts which this must have opened up for his family and household.?! Certain manuscripts were sent to particular individuals: gifts to his brother Humphrey of Gloucester are recorded (for example, Le Songe du Vergier, by Philip de Meziéres, made for Charles V in 1378, and now London, British Library MS Royal 19. C. iv; a Livy, now Paris,

Bibliothèque Ste Geneviève 777); others very possibly came the way of Sir John Fastolf, who was grand master of Bedford’s household, and one ofthe executors of his will. From earlier inventories ofthe library, taken in the time of Charles V and Charles VI, we may single out certain relevant titles which almost certainly remained in it when it came into Bedford’s hands: “un livre de parchemin, ou sont escripz aucuns joyaulx”; “Demandez et reponces d’Amour’; “Jugemens d’Amours, en ryme”; “Un papier d’Amours”; and inevitably, several copies of Le Roman de la Rose and of Deguileville’s Pèlerinages (Delisle, numbers 1010, 1077, 1078, 1076, 1183-86, 1155—

59). Bedford’s cultural coup almost certainly played some part in the transfer of the important collection of Christine de Pizans poems

made for Queen Isabeau, “le

manuscrit de la reine” (now London, British Library MS Harley 4431), into English 19 Leopold Delisle, Recherches sur la librairie de Charles V, 2 vols. (Paris: Champion, 1907), ii, p. 268,

numbers 282-83; François Avril, “Les Manuscrits enluminés de Guillaume de Machaut: Essai de Chronologie,” Guillaume de Machaut: colloque — table ronde, Actes et Colloques 23 (Paris: Klincksieck,

1982), pp. 117-33 (p. 127n).

20 Pierre Champion, La Librairie de Charles d'Orléans (Paris: Champion, 1910), pp. 95, 32, 46. 21 Jenny Stratford, “The Manuscripts of John, Duke of Bedford: Library and Chapel,” England in the Fifteenth Century: Proceedings ofthe 1986 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. Daniel Williams (Woodbridge: The

Boydell Press, 1987), pp. 329-50.

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hands at this time; among those whose names appear in it is Jacquetta of Luxembourg, Bedford’s second wife.22 Less than a decade after Bedford’s death, during the years while the library was probably still being dispersed, the negotiations for and eventual celebration of Henry VI’s marriage to Margaret of Anjou brought further embassies and opportunities for gifts and exchanges of books. Most of the manuscripts I have cited were the property ofroyalty, of magnates or of aristocrats, and like Christine de Pizan’s “manuscrit de la reine,” or the Duke of Berry’s Machaut collection, are beautifully executed and sumptuous objets dart. It might properly be objected that the gift and exchange of volumes like these tell us little about more general literary taste, and that anyway the volumes may have been little read or used. But Harley 4431, at least, seems to have been read with great care by Jacquetta of Luxembourg’s son by her second marriage, Anthony Woodville, who translated some of its contents into English. Furthermore, magnates and nobles may well have made their grand volumes accessible to scribes who wished to make humbler copies. It has been suggested, for example, that Sir John Fastolf, as one of Bedford’s executors, was inspired by the manuscripts from the Louvre library which passed through his hands to commission copies and in some cases translations of the texts he read in them, and it certainly seems likely that Richard Beauchamp’s French manuscripts, perhaps his Froissart collection, should have been available to his secretary John Shirley, a prolific scribe and man ofletters connected with the transmission of some of the texts associated with Chaucer’s dream visions; Shirley owned séveral French works, made translations, and included French verse and prose in some of the manuscripts which he copied.*4 Some unspectacular paper copies of French dits and dream poems can at any rate be traced in English hands. London, British Library MS Royal 19. A. iii, for example, preserves La Belle Dame sans Merci and Baudet Herenc’s Accusations against it, copied with Le Debat du cueur et de loeuil, Le Breviaire des nobles, Le Congie damours, Le Pris d'Honneur, le Serviteur sans guerdon, and Les Traitz et esbatementz

d'antre lomme et lafemme; two English lyrics are to be found between the first two items (Warner and Gilson, tii, 317—18).

An earlier and similarly workmanlike anthology, Westminster Abbey MS 21, whose contents and associations have received relatively little attention, is also suggestive. It is a paper manuscript originally kept in a vellum wrapper which now forms its flyleaves, and largely on account of its unprepossessing appearance was dismissed by Paul Meyer in 1875 as of “pas une bien grande valeur.”*> Its contents include a collection of Demandes d'amour and another of Ventes d'amour, an extract from Le Chastiment des 22 C.AJ. Armstrong, “L'Échange culturel entre les cours d'Angleterre et de Bourgogne à l’époque de Charles le Téméraire,” England, France and Burgundy in the Fifteenth Century (London: Hambledon, 1983), pp. 403-17.

23 Timothy Hobbs, “Prosimetrum in Le Livre dit Grace Entiere sur lefait du gouvernement d'un Prince,

the Governance of a Prince treatise in British Library MS Royal 16. E ii,” Littera et Sensus: Essays on Form and Meaning in Medieval French Literature presented to John Fox, ed. David Trotter (Exeter: Exeter

Univ. Press, 1989), pp. 49-62. 24 Julia Boffey and John J. Thompson, “Anthologies and Miscellanies: Production and Choice of Texts,” Book Production and Publishing in Britain 1375-1475, ed. Jeremy Griffiths and Derek Pearsall (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989), pp. 279-315. 25 Paul Meyer, “Notice d’un recueil manuscrit des poésies françaises du XIIIe au XVe siècle, appartenant à Westminster Abbey,” Bulletin de la Societé des Anciens Textes Français (1875), pp. 25-36; see also J.

English Dream Poems and Their French Connections

119

dames by Robert de Blois; Machauts Lay de plour, Christine de Pizan’s Dit de la pastoure and her Epitre de Cupide; an ancient work here called Le Dit de la condicion des femmes (recently edited from another manuscript as Le Blasme des femmes)? and an assortment of“balades amoureuses” and other lyrics, some of which occur in other sources in conjunction with lyrics attributed to Machaut. The focus of so many ofthe contents on questions of love, and particularly on the role of women in amatory relationships, has persuaded the recent editors of Le Blasme des femmes that this collection was compiled for women readers (Fiero et a/,14). It certainly airs many ideas about women’s nature and status in its range of complimentary and derogatory contents. Whatever its origins, it seems to have quickly reached English hands and to have remained in them. Towards the end of the manuscript, on fol. 64v, in some blank space remaining at the end of the Epitre de Cupide, is the elaborately written name “Scales”, with what I take to be a device or motto, “la nonchalant”. On fol. 5v is the English name “Strelley”, and on fol. 8r a long list of further names, beginning with “Wyllyam Cortnay” and including “Jhon Ellyate” and “Tomas hylle”; “Wyllyam cortnay gyntyll men” also appears on fol. 38r. English fifteenth-century hands have added further notes such as (on fol. 27v) “Item for horsemeal / bred / ale / butter /

beefe / mutton,” and the beginning of a letter to “Mystrys Alles . . . praying you to send me word ofthe mather / that I spake to you of...” (we never learn what it was).

The career of the Thomas Lord Scales who seems chronologically most likely to be

the “Scales” whose name appears in the manuscript exemplifies the possibilities for cross-cultural exchange in this period. Scales was one of the lieutenants of John Duke of Bedford, associated also with Bedford’s aide Sir John Fastolf, during the English campaigns in France in the 1420s. He was imprisoned for a time in 1429 and on his release continued to serve alongside John Talbot and William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk. He played an important role in the founding of the university of Caen in 1439 and in the campaigns of the 1440s, and in 1450 was again captured and ransomed.? On his return from France, he was instrumental in the quelling of Jack Cade’s rebellion, before his eventual murder in 1460. His seat in England, Scales Hall, in Middleton, Norfolk, offered proximity to Fastolf’s residence at Caister and of course to other Norfolk families such as the Pastons; he is in fact frequently mentioned in the Paston letters, and some of his own correspondence survives in the collection.?8 Scales, we may perhaps assume, or someone closely connected with him, read or by some means acquired Westminster Abbey MS 21: perhaps in France, or perhaps in England through an intermediary with French contacts similar to his own. Tentative identifications of some ofthe other individuals who have registered their contact with the manuscript suggest a common background of family experience of

Armitage Robinson and Montague Rhodes James, The Manuscripts of Westminster Abbey (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1909), p. 77. 26 Three Medieval Views of Women: La Contenance des Fames; le Bien des Fames; Le Blasme des Femmes, ed. Gloria K. Fiero, Wendy Pfeffer, and Mathe Allain (New Haven and London: Yale Univ. Press, 1989).

27 C.T. Allmand, Lancastrian Normandy, 1415-1450: The History of a Medieval Occupation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), passim; A.J. Pollard, John Talbot and the War in France, 1427—1453 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1983), passim. 28 The Paston Letters, ed. Norman Davis, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971-76).

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the French campaigns of Bedford’s time, and later associations with the household of Henry VI. Sir Philip Courtenay of Powderham in Devon (d.1463) was a king’s knight from 1439-45, having been knighted by Bedford in France, probably in 1426. His son William, knighted some time between 1462 and 1464, was a member of parliament for Somerset, a justice of the peace for Somerset and Devonshire, and originally Lancastrian, although he seems to have turned Yorkist by the reign of Richard 111.2 That this William Courtenay seems likely to be the man whose name appears in Westminster Abbey 21 may be confirmed by the presence in the manuscript of the name of “Thomas Hill.” An individual of this name served as a member of parliament for Plymouth in 1449, having had a chequered career first as a pirate on a vessel called “la Trinite,” sailing from Exmouth, and then as a member of commissions appointed between 1435 and 1445 to suppress piracy (Wedgwood, 455); William Courtenay’s father Sir Philip also commanded a fleet against West Country pirates in 1440, and could well have come across the turncoat Hill. The “Strelley” whose name appears in the manuscript seems likely to be a member of the unusually named family which included a John Strelley and a Sir Robert Strelley, both Lancastrians, who served as members of parliament for Nottinghamshire in the mid-fifteenth century; John Strelley’s son-in-law was Sir William Mering, a member of the king’s household, who could have known Sir Philip Courtenay in his capacity as king’s knight (Wedgwood, 822-23).

The careers and connections of the individuals I have tentatively associated with Westminster Abbey MS 21 can give us a suggestive idea of the areas from which they drew their secular reading matter. These families shared connections at the court of Henry VI, and in the course of military careers many of their members spent lengthy periods of time in northern France. Back home, as in the case of Lord Scales, they were part of social networks which most probably involved the discussion and exchange of manuscripts. Such matters are alluded to in the Paston letters, and indeed John Paston II owned no less than two anthologies which included La Belle Dame sans Merci (presumably in English), alongside works like The Legend of Good Women, The Parliament of Fowls, and The Temple of Glass, one of the books was, at the time of the inventory in which it is listed, “lent Midelton” (Davis, 517—18). John Howard, Duke

of Norfolk, was to take copies of “La belle d. s. mercy” and “Les Acusacions de la d.” with him on an embassy to Scotland in 1481.% It is worth stressing, too, that the sorts of cultural stimulus likely to operate on a Lord Scales, or on a member of the Courtenay or Strelley families, were hardly unusual. Richard Roos, the presumed translator of La Belle Dame sans Merci, and John Stanley, probably the earliest owner of MS Fairfax 16, had similar backgrounds and careers (Seaton, 57-79; NortonSmith, 13). Circumstances conspired to make French texts as easily available as English ones to these readers, and to allow them access to a self-referential, polemical body of secular writing whose concerns clearly came to inform the contents of collections of short secular poems. 29 Josiah C. Wedgwood, History of Parliament: Biographies of Members of the Commons House, 14391509 (London: HMSO,

1936), pp. 229-32.

30 Household Books of John Duke of Norfolk and Thomas Earl of Surrey, Temp. 1481-1490, ed. john Payne Collier (London: Roxburghe Club, 1844), pp. xxvii—viil, 277.

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Of particular interest in both the French and English bodies of material is the manner in which the discussions conducted within the texts, and the patterns of provocation and response played out between them, were emphasized in manuscript anthologies which drew the related works together and invited readers outside the primary audiences to enter into and perhaps extend the debates which were presumably of moment at first only for limited coteries. Collections of French provenance such as London, British Library MS Royal 19. A. iii and Westminster Abbey MS 21, and English anthologies like Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Fairfax 16 and its relations, or the slightly later Longleat MS 258 or Bodleian Library Selden B. 24, seem typical of this kind of compilation. We know virtually nothing about the original compilers or commissioners of these manuscripts, of the nature and physical forms of the exemplars at their disposal, or of their reasons for amalgamating texts in particular configurations. But it seems likely that their activities in accumulating material around Chaucer's dream poems were informed by acquaintance with a range of both French and English texts, and by a lively awareness of current subjects of literary debate.

TEXT AND BUILDING: ARCHITECTURAL THE WORK OF THE RHETORIQUEURS

FICTIONS

IN

David Cowling

This paper will be concerned with two major rhétoriqueur texts which exploit a central architectural metaphor: Le Temple de Bocace by George Chastelain (1464) and Le Temple d'Honneur et de vertus by Jean Lemaire de Belges (1503). In both, the building is foregrounded both in the narrative action and in the title, which proclaims an identification of the text itself with the building it describes and — by implication — asserts the status of the writer as mason and architect. As well as analyzing the functioning of the architectural metaphor, I will attempt to situate both texts in the native tradition through reference to an earlier fiction of the temple in Froissart, Le Temple d'Honneur (c.1363), whose title suggests it as a possible intertext for the rhétoriqueurs. The aim of this paper is to illustrate the way in which rhétoriqueur works that are designed to win or consolidate patronage engage in a dialogue at two levels, both intertextual and intersubjective. The rhétoriqueurs as a group are extremely conscious of their literary forebears and contemporaries, often listing the vernacular writers whom they consider authoritative. This list invariably begins with Jean de Meun, and often includes Froissart and even living contemporaries.! Authoritative intertexts are not sacrosanct, however: they may be continued, updated or rewritten. The relationship of the rhétoriqueurs with their patrons is similarly dialogic, for at the same time as providing consolationes or encomia, these writers participate in setting the ideological agenda and, progressively, engineer the introduction oftheir own material and political concerns into their works.? Architectural allegories have been selected to illustrate these dynamic relationships with intertexts and patrons primarily because of their immense popularity in the period. Virtually every major writer in the generation of Charles VIII and Louis XII wrote a work elaborating an architectural metaphor; some, like Lemaire de Belges, wrote several. One possible explanation for this extraordinary vogue for textual buildings, which had little to do with the production of ekphrases of beautiful structures,

real or imagined, is that architecture offered writers both a convenient frame for 1 See Suzanne Bagoly, “ ‘De mainctz aucteurs une progression’: Un siècle à la recherche du Parnasse

francais,” Le Moyen Français, 17 (nd), pp. 83-123. 2 See Cynthia J. Brown, “The Rise of Literary Consciousness in Late Medieval France: Jean Lemaire de Belges and the Rhétoriqueur Tradition,” Journal ofMedieval and Renaissance Studies, 13, 1 (1983),

pp. 51-74.

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narrative and an indeterminacy of reference that permitted them to pursue several goals in one and the same text. Panegyric and more self-interested polemic may be combined within a frame familiar to, and popular with patrons. Elaboration of a metaphor of architecture also allowed writers to play on the semantic range of the building, which in the period could stand for the human body, the state or noble dynasty, the memory or mind and the literary text itself. This semantic richness, which was programmed into the lexis of French (and many other languages), contributed to

a fruitful polysemy which makes rhétoriqueur buildings complex loci of meaning, as well as privileged and time-honored modes of communication with patrons. Froissarts Le Temple d’Honneur> anticipates later rhétoriqueur allegories of the building both in its title and by the elusiveness ofits allegorical narrative. The novelty which the author himself claims for his text at more than one point must be assessed in comparison with the existing modes of allegorical writing. The building itselfisno longer just one stage on a quest or pilgrimage, but rather the focus of the narrative action.’ The text presents, through the popular fiction of the dream-vision, an allegorical epithalamium celebrating the marriage of Honneurs son Désir with Plaisance within the temple of the title, which functions on the most basic level as scenario for the wedding ceremony. The traditional narrative frame of journey, arrival, introduction and departure, familiar from romance, is telescoped, and the building moves center-stage. The narrators companion, a knight whom he has met in the forest, performs the function of introducing him to the temple and its inhabitants and then fades away, only reappearing at the end of the text to confirm the narrator's identification of the allegorical participants as contemporary figures (Fourrier, Il. 1056-73; the identities are not revealed to the reader).

Froissart’s allegory is not univocal; it anticipates the rhétoriqueurs in tending towards the enigmatic, and in setting its readers, contemporary and modern, a hermeneutic challenge (Fourrier, Il. 52-4). The allegorical marriage of the 7emple is supposed by some to refer to a real historical event with identifiable participants.> Yet the manuscript rubrics which subtitle the piece “dit” or “traitié de moralité” foreground a more general didactic message, contained in Honneurs sermon to the young couple, in which he enumerates the virtues essential to the married state. These competing interpretative claims find their link in the image of the temple, which acts both as setting for the wedding ceremonial and as locus for the spatialization of the didactic content of Honneur’s speech. The focal point of the temple interior is the throne of Honneur, reached by seven steps upon which stand two sets ofpersonified virtues, one set for the bride and one for the groom. These steps are of course, punningly, the

3 Jean Froissart, ‘Dits’ et débats, ed. A. Fourrier (Geneva: Droz, 1979), pp. 91-127. See also Barbara

Kurtz, “The Temple d'Onnour of Jean Froissart,” Modern Philology, 82 (1984-5), pp. 156-66. 4 Authorial claims of novelty: Il. 5562, 285-92. The Temple d'Honneur is the first secular allegory in French to carry an architectural title. Grosseteste’s Château d'amour, ed. J. Murray (Paris: Champion, 1918), whose modern

ttle is based on a reading from a single manuscript, subordinates the castle

allegory to the larger framework of a narration ofsacred history. > Fourrier (23-27) dates the work to May, 1363 on the basis of an identification of the texts allegorical action with the real marriage of Humphrey de Bohun and Jeanne d’Arundel.

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“degrez d'Honneur”: Honneurs throne can only be reached by those who climb each step, and practice each virtue, in the correct order.6 The description of the temple outside and in participates in this indeterminacy of reference; it seems to be situated halfway between real church and fantastic, imagined building:

... droitement en l’agillon D'un terne gratieus et cointe Je perchui seans en le pointe De ce lieu dont je fach exemple, Che me fu vis, un trop biel temple, Bien maçonné, couvert d’escaille. Dou trop parler ent ne me caille, Car il estoit fais a devise,

Ensi q'un biel lieu on avise Entre .II. rivieres seans _ Pour nobles et pour marcéans Et qu'on tient a bonne la marce.

(Fourrier, Il. 158-69)

This building shares with later examples both its almost excessive beauty (“trop biel temple”) and its perfect form (“fais a devise”). Yet its exterior has no hint of the Byzantine exoticism of most allegorical structures, and the interior, with its decoration of tapestries and cloth of gold and its altar and stained glass, suggests a real church as model. Kurtz suggests that the two rivers of this description confirm Froissart’s indebtedness to Claudian, which is further borne out by the general vagueness and “bejeweled lavishness” of the description (157). Given that such features characterize any number of allegorical buildings, it is difficult to make firm identifications of specific sources, and I would prefer to speak of a general repertoire of recurrent features. In this connection it is noteworthy that Froissart’s temple is not decorated with precious stones, which encourages the search for real referents. The vagueness of the description frustrates identification, however. It has been seen that Honneur’s speech, whose allegory reposes upon an architectural pun, relies on the temple location for its metaphorical effectiveness. Using the imaginary space of the temple interior, easily convertible into the ceremonial stage known to his courtly audience, Froissart creates an arrangement of the throne of Honneur, set before the altar, and the seven steps before it, occupied by two sets of seven personified virtues. For this mnemonic image to work within the context ofthe larger narrative, however, it is necessary for the narrator’s companion to explain the names of the participants and their relative positions. These spatial coordinates may not be elaborate (they limit themselves to notations of left and right, above and below), but they do serve to link the allegorical participants in the didactic visualization by fixing their positions relative to one another.’ In addition, the sermon 6

For the importance of puns as generators of narrative structure in allegory, see Maureen Quilligan,

The Language ofAllegory: Defining the Genre (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1979), especially pp. 21-2 and chapter 1, passim. à

7 This novel spatialization was perhaps intended to be memorized according to the classical system of loci and imagines. Honneur repeatedly insists that the couple retain his teaching (1. 394, etc.), and the narrator urges his audience to meditate on the virtues described (lI. 282-4). Honneur’s scarred face (Il.

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compresses the traditional quest narrative, whose trials and stages are replaced by the dynamic process of acquisition of the virtues in strict order (the notion of progression along a path is evoked in Il. 788-805). Both the speech and the spatial arrangement of

the virtues foreground Largesse, who is placed on the highest step on the male side, closest to Honneur. This privileging of a specific virtue may well constitute a veiled financial request on the part of the author.® Froissart’s temple cannot be reduced to a single meaning. It is at once the home of an allegorical abstraction, a stage for courtly ceremonial, a perfect building mirroring literary form? and a convenient frame for an ordered presentation of a body of learning on the virtues. These multiple meanings and the multiple possibilities they offer the writer will be further exploited by the rhétoriqueurs. In their work, the transposition ofa historical given to the allegorical mode vies with the writer's introduction of his own concerns into the text. George Chastelain’s Temple de Bocace (1464) was without doubt one of its writer's

most enduringly popular works, enjoying both a wide manuscript diffusion and a posthumous reprinting by Galliot du Pré in 1517.!° Chastelain evidently considered his continuation of the De casibus virorum illustrium of Boccaccio an important project, for he mentions it already five years earlier in the Exposition sur vérité mal prise of 1459, where he claims that “les matiéres bien traites effaceront toutes recordations anciennes.”!! Given the eminently authoritative status of the Latin works of Boccaccio for the rhétoriqueurs, Chastelain’s project appears all the mote ambitious; indeed, the text’s relatively long period of gestation may reflect Chastelain’s anxiety about supplementing and implicitly challenging such a model. The ostensible impetus for the composition of the Temple de Bocace was provided by the flight to Burgundy of Marguerite d’Anjou, dispossessed queen of England, in July 1463. If the queen, known to Chastelain from his period in the service of Pierre de Brézé, may reasonably be identified with the unnamed noblewoman who petitions the author for “aucun petit traittié de fortune” as a consolation for her own misfortunes at the start ofthe text (Bliggenstorfer, 5), then it is clear that Chastelain seeks to

justify his work of continuation and imitation as the standard response ofa court poet to an aristocratic commission. Standard too is the authors protestation of unworthiness, his “gros rude engin” (ibid.), yet these conventional topoi of commission and humility serve here as a cloak for the writer’s desire to rewrite and implicitly challenge the intertext.!? In Chastelain, as in Froissart, the central metaphor of the temple offers many 305-10) conforms to the vividness that is required of memory images. See Frances Yates, The Art of

Memory (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 19699). 8 Fourrier, ll. 217-26. The author announces that he is recording his dream at the behest of a group of

nobles, who might reasonably be expected to reward such labor financially, Il. 25-51. Fourrier points out that Largesse is the only virtue added to a scheme taken from Cicero, De inventione II (Fourrier,

41). 9 The temple is “bien ordonnés,” |. 187. “Ordonner” forms part of the poet writing process in |. 41.

10 See the critical edition by Susanna Bliggenstorfer (Berne: Franke, 1988), pp. *47-88. 11 Œuvres, ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, 8 vols. (Brussels: Heussner, 1863-66), vol. 7, p. 267. 12 The common rhétoriqueur device of the profession of humility often serves to mask a desire for

self-publicity. See Paul Zumthor, Le masque et la lumière: La poétique des Grands Rhétoriqueurs (Paris: Seuil, 1978), pp. 17-18.

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functional possibilities: it provides the setting for the action of the work, acts as a funeral monument for Boccaccio, whose tomb it contains, and permits the visualisation of the contents of the De casibus in plastic form. Like Froissart’s text, too, Chastelains Temple presents an enigmatic allegory, in which additional levels of signification are made available sequentially and invite retrospective interpretation of previous details. A sequential reading will illustrate this process of progressive hermeneutic enlightenment.!3 The first level is that of physical description of the cemetery and building to which the dreaming narrator is mysteriously transported. The richly decorated tombs of the cemetery, which, the narrator discovers, provide a résumé of world history, are situated in three triangular segments for pagans, Jews and Christians within a circular enclosure. Circular, too, is the temple, which stands at the center of the cemetery: Comme doncques me feusse arresté droit la longuement, penseux et qu’en ruant mes yeux a tous lez ne les peusse asseoir jamés qu'en nouvelleté non veue, m’apercheus comment au droit millieu de ce cimitere avoit ung temple haultement ediffié; et comme l’enchainte du lieu estoit ronde et circulaire en son pourprendre, pareillement ce temple qui faisoit le centre de l’attre estoit de ronde construction aussy pour perfection plus clere.

(Bliggenstorfer, 15—17; my italics)

The emphasis is here placed firmly on the temple’s perfect circular form. Chastelain’s temple, like all rhétoriqueur buildings, is the product of an essentially medieval aes-

thetic. For Thomas Aquinas, for instance, beauty requires three things: integrity or perfection, proportion, and brightness or brilliance ofcolor.'4 Inside, the building is richly decorated with paintings, mosaics and sculptures: j'entray ou temple dont la beauté nul subtil oeil n’eust sceu comprendre, sy non par

poses et intervales souvent reprises dessus, et la ou tout art de painture et de mosaicque ouvrage refflamboient dedens et se moustroient par excellence, pareillement avec pro-

preté d’ediffice qui estoit droit la de main d'homme, sy y avoit il une celeste clarté, ce sembloit, comme par infusion divine et laquele les histoires droit la paintes et sculptes en

luysant porfire faisoit ressambler quasy vives en representation.

(Bliggenstorfer, 21-3)

Of course, such decoration with its encyclopaedic function of recording “histoires” is not an invention of the rhétoriqueurs.\5 What is new is the retrospective reading of the temple and its décor made possible when the narrator, who shares the reader’s impulsion to find a sense in the enigmatic “mistére,” proposes his own gloss ofthe pictures as representing: les vies, les meurs et les mannieres de regner de ceux qui gisoient dedens l’attre soubz les tombeaux et desquelz, affin que la memoire n’en esvanuist, mes demorast en exemple au

13 See Susie Speakman

Sutch, “Comment

lire une allégorie de personnification

séculière,” in Les

Grands Rhétoriqueurs. Actes du Ve colloque international sur le moyen français, vol. 1 (Milan: Universita cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 1985), pp. 49-59, esp. p. 59. 14 Opera omnia, ed. Roberto Busa, vol. 2 (Stuttgart: Frommann—Holzboog, 1980), p. 244. 15 The encyclopedic murals of Christine de Pizan’s Mutacion de Fortune have recently been studied by

Kevin Brownlee, “The Image of History in Christine de Pizan’s Livre de la Mutacion de Fortune,” in Contexts: Style and Values in Medieval Art and Literature, ed. Daniel Poirion and Nancy Freeman Regalado (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1991), pp. 44-56.

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monde, une haulte curieuse main jadis les avoit fait droit la depaindre, leur imposant fin telle comme leur fortune, et tel los a chascun comme il luy duisoit selon sa vertu. En

quoy certes avoit eu dure labeur a tout compiler ensemble et longue traitte de tempz, car commenchant sur le premier homme, Adam, jusques au roy Jehan de France, la ou il

finoit, tout l’entredeux y estoit compris dedens et encore sy treuve.

(Bliggenstorfer,

25)

Here, then, the narrator hints allusively (and he does no more than this) that the

contents of the cemetery and the frescoes of the temple map onto the contents of Boccaccio’s De casibus. The metaphor of the text as monumental structure was widespread in the fifteenth century;!° here, it permits Chastelain first to visualize Boccaccio’s text as a building and then to write his continuation within it in the form of a procession of unfortunates who approach the narrator, bewail their fate and demand inclusion in the building. Yet there is no one-to-one correlation between elements of the temple’s construction and elements of Boccaccio’s text: the metaphorical equation is suggested, but the building retains autonomy as a physical structure within the narrative. In the quotation above, the link between the two readings (physical structure and encyclopaedic book) is fairly tenuous: “une haulte curieuse main” (a metonymic designation for Boccaccio) has created both. What is more, it is

not easy to map specific elements of the construction of the temple onto aspects of the formal structure of the De casibus.\7 This lack of univocity is illustrated by the varied metaphors used by the temple’s visitors to demand inclusion in the building: most request “incorporacion” or “lieu et commemoration,” which tends to foreground the temple as container (27, 29, 35, 37, 39, 41, 45, 59, 65, 67), yet others require that they be added to a written record (“estre mis au registre,” “en record de livre,” 43, 49).

One even requests “mention par lettre et par painture,” as if the temple were conceived of as a kind of illuminated manuscript (53). This process of imitation and continuation of an intertext by architectural addition was subsequently applied to Chastelain’s own text by a certain Antitus, who wrote in 1501 a Portail du temple Bocace, in which Chastelain’s catalogue of the victims of Fortune is itself updated.'® Antitus, with characteristic rhétoriqueur humility, leaves the completion ofthis task of updating, which is identified with the construction ofa porch for the temple, to later generations of writers to finish: literary temples, like human history, are infinitely extensible. Jean Lemaire de Belges Temple d'Honneur et de vertus of 1503! represents perhaps the most self-conscious exploitation of a metaphor of architecture in the pursuit of patronage. The literary career of its author is punctuated at regular intervals by works and projects that put buildings at the center oftheir narrative. The Temple d'Honneur marks the start of Lemaire’s mature career, and was the first of his works to be printed; the Concorde des deux langages of 1511 marshals an enigmatic allegory, featuring the 16 The most striking text-length elaboration of the metaphor is found in Christine de Pizan’s Livre de la Cité des Dames, in which the exempla of female virtue are equated with the building blocks with which the author constructs the city. Modern translation by Earl Jeffrey Richards (New York: Persea Books,

1982).

17 See Bliggenstorfer, *32-3. 18 Antitus, Poésies, ed. Manuela Python (Geneva: Droz, 1992), pp. 49-76. 19 Ed, Henri Hornik (Geneva: Droz, 1957).

Architectural Fictions in the Work of the Rhétoriqueurs

12

temples of Venus and Minerva, in a contribution to the debate on the relative merits of French and Italian culture.?° Between these two texts lies the abandoned project of the Palais d'Honneur féminin, undertaken at the behest of Lemaires patroness Margaret of Austria and probably (given its title at least) a deployment of architectural imagery in the pro-feminine tradition.?! The text is complex both in content and in the history of its composition. The latter fell into three main stages: (i) Lemaire composes a work on the death of his

probable employer, Pierre de Bourbon, soon after October 1503, and offers it to the patron of the arts Louis de Ligny, who admits Lemaire to the inner circle of his retainers; (ii) Ligny himself dies a matter of days later, and Lemaire rededicates his book to Anne de Beaujeu, widow of Pierre de Bourbon, who herself plays a major role in the texts narrative action; (iii) Lemaire is unsuccessful in his bid for patronage, but

is finally accepted into the service of Margaret of Austria on the strength of this text and his lament on the death of Ligny, La Plainte du Désiré. Because of this chain of events, the Zémple d'Honneur has two prefaces, one to Ligny and one to Anne de Beaujeu. In the earlier preface to Ligny, Lemaire lists the portentous events that have marked the year 1503, and includes among them the fires that have destroyed or damaged two noble houses in France, namely the former residence of the dukes of Burgundy in Dijon and Pierre de Bourbon’s own house in Paris. It is tempting to see in the selection of these events a play by the author on the metaphorical status of the noble house, which may stand for the state or a dynasty: the political power of the dukes of Burgundy has been at an end since the disaster at Nancy in 1477,” and Pierre de Bourbon himself has died. Further on in the preface, Lemaire hints repeatedly that he views literary creation as a kind of building-process. First, he develops a metaphor of stone-carving: Il me semble que les nobles escrivains de l’aage present ont matiere assez fertille pour deplorer la triste conjecture du temps futur, voire trop fecunde, pour s’employer à graver en marbre, c’est-à-dire, en perpetuelle cronicque, les merveilleux cas funebres qui adviennent de jour en jour.?

He then expresses the hope that Ligny will receive his “petite oeuvre partant de humble main” as favorably as another prince would greet “ung grant chief d’ceuvre pompeux yssant de riche et superbe miniere.”# In the preface to Anne, Lemaire makes

20 Ed. Jean Frappier (Paris: Droz, 1947). 21 See Pierre Jodogne, Jean Lemaire de Belges: Ecrivain franco-bourguignon

(Brussels:

Palais des

Académies, 1972), pp. 445-6. 22 Jean Molinet, Lemaire’s predecessor as Burgundian indiciaire, develops the metaphor of the “maison

de Bourgogne” in the prologue to his Chroniques, ed. Georges Doutrepont and Omer Jodogne, 3 vols. (Brussels: Palais des Académies, 1935-37), vol. 1, pp. 25-8.

23 Hornik, 48. This metaphor serves to emphasize the monumentality of the products of writing (especially historiography) in the rhétoriqueurs conception. Molinet uses the same metaphor in the second preface to his Chroniques (vol. 2, 593), where recording the history of the house of Burgundy is

likened to “graver en solide memorial.” 24 Hornik, 49. The term ‘ceuvre’/opus is perhaps deliberately ambiguous here: as well as denoting the literary text, it can also stand for the workmanship of a building (see Ovid, Metamorphoses 2.5).

25 Ibid. The semantic field of the building, when metaphorically associated with the literary text and its creation (inventio), includes the quarry. See Jean-Claude Muhlethaler, “Un manifeste poétique de 1463:

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this metaphorical equation between literary text and building explicit: “[je] me mys a bastir ung petit ediffice quant à la structure mais grant quant au subgect dont il est fondé” (Hornik, 44).

These authorial messages to patrons make it clear that the metaphorical links between text and building, already exploited by Chastelain for the purposes ofliterary æmulatio, are to be used by Lemaire to add another level of meaning to the allegory of the Temple d'Honneur. Before discussing the status of the texts central building, however, it is necessary to give a brief summary of the plot, which is tripartite:

(i) a pastoral allegory: seven shepherds representing the fiefs of the Bourbons sing songs in praise of Pierre and Anne, who are referred to as.“Pan’” and “Aurora”. Within this allegory, the duchy is equated with a rich park and a “vergier fertille,” washed by the rivers Saône, Loire and Allier, from which all evil is excluded;7° (ii) a narrative section in terza rima, in which Pan/Pierre’s sickness and death are related. (iii) an allegorical dream-narrative: Aurora/Anne dreams that she is summoned to a

lofty mountain-top where she and her retinue of shepherds behold the exterior of the “Temple d'Honneur et de vertus.” The personified “Entendement” (Understanding) appears and instructs Aurora to stop her mourning for her husband. After describing the “true nature” of the temple and Pierre’s triumphal entry into it, he admits Aurora and her daughter for a brief visit while the shepherds remain outside and carve rustic epitaphs on the outer walls. Entendement then flies to the courts of Europe to spread the news of Pierres enthronement in the temple and finally alights on Mount Fourviére in Lyon to give an edifying address to the young princes of the realm, in which he urges them to follow Pierre’s example. The reader who is curious as to the true nature of Lemaire’s enigmatic temple, and

who has already been alerted by the prefaces to its status as a product of writing, can base his or her knowledge on three aspects of the narrative. First is the description of

the building’s exterior: . en la plaine spacieuse et herbue se monstroit de front ung ediffice sumptueux à merveilles, à maniere d’ung temple anticque en ouvraige mais riche oultremesure en sa façon, lequel donnoit de prime face esbahyssement à l'oeil, tant pour l'excellence de sa beaulté que pour la reflamboyance de l’or et des pierres precieuses dont il estoit garny. (Hornik, 74)

This description, despite its antique veneer,? follows a pattern inherited from Antiquity

Les ‘Enseignes’ des Douze Dames de Rhétorique,” in Les Grands Rhétoriqueurs (reference in note 13), PP. 83-101; here, p. 96. 26 For the metaphor of the Garden of France, bounded by sea and mountains, see Colette Beaune, The Birth of an Ideology: Myths and Symbols of Nation in Late-Medieval France, tr. Susan Ross Huston, ed. Frederic L. Cheyette (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1991), pp. 292-7. 27 Lemaire’s knowledge of ancient ruins is attested both in his reference to the Roman temple of

Fourvière (Hornik, 98) and in the //lustrations de Gaule et singularitez de Troie, Œuvres, ed. J. Stécher, 4 vols. (Geneva: Slatkine, 1969), vol. 2, p. 290. The phrase “anticque en ouvraige mais riche oultremesure

en sa façon” suggests that Lemaire realizes that his temple, with its gilded and bejeweled walls, does not conform to the classical aesthetic.

Architectural Fictions in the Work ofthe Rhétoriqueurs

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and the Bible, current throughout the Middle Ages and well known to the rhétoriqueurs. It is interesting less as an ekphrasis as for the response of surprise, admiration and bewilderment it elicits from the onlookers, who are reminded of the temple of Solomon or that of Diana in Ephesus. Here, Anne and her companions replicate the response of the reader attempting to decode allegorical buildings, dramatizing in dialogue the interpretative doubts and questions that trouble visitors to allegorical buildings. Second, Lemaire introduces a special character, Entendement, whose job it is to explain the “nom” and “qualité” of the temple to Anne (Hornik, 79). This explanation takes the form of a series of similes, all of which are rejected as insufficient to do justice to the temple; as for the site of the building, the earthly paradise, “le jardin de delices” and Elysium fail to measure up, whereas Anne’s own garden in Moulins does seem to figure a small part. The temple itselfisof the spiritual order; despite its name (and Lemaire is the first to draw attention to the classical precedent), it outdoes the

twin temples of Honor and Virtue in ancient Rome, founded by Marcus Marcellus.28 These physical temples, just like the Roman temple at Fourviére (Hornik, 98), have decayed, but Lemaire’s building is imperishable: Mais tel ouvraige transsitoire est esvanouy et tombé en ruyne, quelque materiel qu’il fust, tellement que ores n’en reste aucun vestige là où, au contraire, l’instauration de ce temple est sempiternellement instituée dés la création des hommes, voire par avant, pour y recevoir et inthroniser tous ceulx qui le meritent. Si n’envieillist jamais la structure de ce divin

pourpris

par temporelle

ediffice par nouvelle memoire.

decadence,

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refreschy son

noble

(Hornik, 84)

The third opportunity to decipher the temples true identity for those left unconvinced by Entendement’s similes and parallels is provided by the scene of Pierre's reception and enthronement within the temple. Here the building’s inhabitants are listed: royal relatives of Pierre and a full complement ofbiblical, classical and medieval rulers. Present too are a group of writers, ancient and modern, who perform the function of “ministres et secretaires d'Honneur et de Vertu” and place Pierre, after due deliberation, in the “cathalogue des bienheureux.”?? Lemaire’s temple resists a univocal reading. On one level, it is an encomiastic structure designed to honor, in its outward manifestation of beauty, its immaterial nature and its noble inhabitants, the patron whom it receives.% On another, it functions as a symbol of human collective memory and the perpetuation, in writing, of the great men of the past. Celebration of a patron and the writers claims for attention can coexist, thanks to the inherent flexibility of the architectural metaphor, which can be expanded into a complex locus of meaning where interpretative doubts can be dramatized and the competing claims of patron, audience and writer satisfied. 28 The source is Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta memorabilia 1.8.8. 29 Hornik, 89-90. The inclusion of Pierre in a written record ofcourse recalls Chastelain, although the negative charge of Boccaccio’s temple (a receptacle for the victims of Fortune) is here reversed. 30 The voice that Anne hears at the start of her vision commands the listeners to cease their mourning at Pierres death and “venir veoir son honneur hault et celse” (Hornik, 73). The temple externalizes Pierre’s honor and transposes his own (metaphorical) perfection (“Or, estoit il ung tout en perfection et ung petit monde total en accumulation de biens et de vertus,” Hornik, 80).

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David Cowling

Lemaire exploits to the full the semantic flexibility of the metaphor of the building, drawing out associations with the dynasty of the Bourbons, human memory, and his own text; the status and function of the temple becomes plural, even to the point of confusion and loss of clarity. This overloading of the central image with its full range of metaphorical associations may have contributed to the text’s manifest lack of success as self-advertizement for its author, who failed to secure the patronage of Anne de Beaujeu (despite her central and highly flattering role in the narrative, where she replaces the poet-dreamer and is herself the principal acteur in the intrigue). Another factor that may have reduced the texts success in promoting its authors career as court poet is its bold claim of aesthetic pre-eminence. Entendement, whose role as authoritative (if ultimately frustrating) exegete makes him an authorial surrogate, addresses Anne thus: [il] te fault, à l'exemple de la royne de Carie, la trescaste Arthemise, femme du roy Mausolus, excogiter quelque hault chief d’œuvre miraculeux en nature et surpassant tout

autre duquel, pour ung monument consolatoire, tu honnoureras en tous siecles advenir la memoire illustre de ton feu seigneur et espoux. Et duquel chief d’ceuvre je te mon-

streray presentement, par dehors et par dedans, ung vif pourtrait et patron magistral. (Hornik, 82-3)

Patron is a term borrowed from the visual arts, where it denotes a sketch made by an artist, for instance when directing the work of a sculptor.*! Lemaire demands the translation of his metaphorical temple into reality, and in so doing reverses the normal direction of literary ekphrasis, which takes an object in the real world and attempts to describe it in language. It is a quirk of Lemaire’s biography that he was for a time involved in the project of his patroness Margaret of Austria to build a “monument consolatoire,” in the form ofthe church at Brou (near Bourg-en-Bresse), for her dead

husband Philibert le Beau. If Margaret was influenced by Lemaire’s text (which she must have read), then Lemaires participation gains a new appropriateness.?? Fifty years before the Pléiade’s explicit rivalry with contemporary architects, for which the metaphor of the text-as-building was again marshalled, Lemaire proudly — though perhaps a little over-hastily — proclaims the definitive victory ofthe literary artefact.

31 For Lemaires knowledge of the visual arts and his relationship with the painter Jean Perréal (eulogized in the preface to Ligny as “ung second Appelles en paincture,” Hornik, 49), see the Ph.D dissertation of Denise G. Bacardi, Jean Lemaire de Belges et les beaux-arts, State University of New York at Buffalo, 1987, esp. chapter 2. 32 In a letter to Margaret written from the building-site at Brou, Lemaire plays on the metaphor of

literary creation as building to describe his composition of the Palais d'Honneur féminin (Œuvres, vol. 4, 397);

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IN GENTIL HERTES AY REDY TO REPAIRE: DANTE’S FRANCESCA AND CHAUCER’S TROILUS Piero Boitani

The coupling of Francesca and Troilus is not merely the product of modern — and particularly American — Chaucerian criticism. It is at least as old as Romanticism. At the beginning of Book II of Endymion Keats proclaimed that The woes of Troy, towers smothering o’er their blaze, Stiff-holden shields, far-piercing spears, keen blades,

Struggling, and blood, and shrieks — all dimly fades Into some backward corner of the brain; Yet, in our very souls, we feel amain

The close of Troilus and Cressid sweet.!

Keats had but to read /nferno V in Cary’s version to be plunged into a dream which he called “one of the most delightful enjoyments” he ever had in his life. He described this dream in an extraordinary sonnet which to me is conclusive evidence that the story of Paolo and Francesca, itself precipitated by the reading of a book, in turn becomes the “galeotto” of modern culture, and that the “myth” and “fiction” of courtly literature are there, in history, right at the beginning of modern consciousness: As Hermes once took to his feathers light, When lulléd Argus, baffled, swooned and slept,

So ona Delphic reed, my idle sprite So played, so charmed, so conquered, so bereft The dragon-world of all its hundred eyes;

And seeing it asleep, so fled away — Not to pure Ida with its snow-cold skies,

Nor unto Tempe where Jove grieved that day; But to that second circle ofsad hell,

Where in the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw Of rain and hail-stones, lovers need not tell

1 The notes in this essay are deliberately kept to a minimum. | quote only the secondary material | allude to in my argument. The primary texts | have used are the following: The Poems ofJohn Keats, ed. M. Allott (London, 1970); The Riverside Chaucer, gen. ed. L.D. Benson (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987); Tutte le Opere di Giovanni Boccaccio, gen. ed. V. Branca, vol. | (Milan: Mondadori, 1964); Poeti del Duecento, ed. G. Contini (Milan-Naples: Ricciardi, 1960), for Guinizzelli; La Commedia secondo l'antica volgata, ed. G. Petrocchi (Milan: Mondadori, 1966-67), for Dante’s Divine Comedy; Dante Alighieri, Opere Minori, vols. I, 1; I, i and IT (Milan-Naples: Ricciardi, 1979-88) for all the other works of Dante.

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Piero Boitani Their sorrows. Pale were the sweet lips I saw, Pale were the lips I kissed, and fair the form I floated with, about that melancholy storm.

Keats may not be suspected of knowing anything about “courtly literature” or its more modern version, “courtly neurosis”.? At least seventy years separate “As Hermes took” from Gaston Paris and a hundred-and-sixty from Henry Rey-Flaud, and the poet's reference to Troilus and Cressida clearly shows that he had in mind Shakespeare's

rather than Chaucer’ version. Yet the fascination which the two stories have for Keats is something that, beyond any cultural scheme, we still feel. The cause of that fascination is love, such as Keats himself viewed it when he wrote in Endymion (I, 832-4):

Just so may love, although ’tis understood The mere commingling of passionate breath, Produce more than our searching witnesseth.

Love, “an orbèd drop of light,” is not merely sensual passion, but something which “genders a novel sense, / At which we start and fret, till in the end, / Melting into its »

radiance, we blend, / Mingle, and so become a part ofit” (I, 806-11).

Both Dante and Chaucer, | think, would have understood this, and the present essay tries to explain why and how they did so in their own cultural terms. A fundamental role in this explanation will be played by line 5 of Book III of Chaucer's Troilus, “in gentil hertes ay redy to repaire.” This line forms the first part of my title because it has always intrigued me. Why did Chaucer write it? We know the facts. In Boccaccio’s Filostrato, Troiolo sings a Boethian hymn to Venus after the consummation of his affair with Criseida, at the end of Book III (74-79). Chaucer, who clearly recognizes the source behind that song in the De Consolatione Philosophiae \l, m. 8,

turns one into two. He goes back directly to Boethius for Troilus’s hymn, which will

come at the end of Book III of Troilus and Criseyde with “Love, that of erthe and se hath governaunce.” He moves the song of Boccaccio’s Troiolo to the “Prohemium” or prologue of Book III, where it is pronounced not by a character in the story, but by the authorial or narratorial voice itself. In line 5 ofthe first stanza of Troiolo’s song Chaucer finds the following expression as one ofthe attributes of Venus: “benigna donna d’ogni gentil core” (benign lady of every “gentle”, noble heart). Instead of translating that line, which points to Venus’s beneficent lordship over every noble heart, Chaucer — apparently out of the blue — inserts his translation of the incipit of Guido Guinizzelli’s canzone, “Al cor gentile rempaira sempre amore”: in gentil hertes ay redy to repaire. As usual when he does this kind of thing, Chaucer adds no explanation, and as the line fits in perfectly well with the rest of the stanza we give it no further thought and read on. But it is one thing to say that Venus, the light both “blisful” and “eternal” which adorns the entire third heaven, the sun’s beloved and Jove’s daughter — the goddess, in

other words, as well as the planet — is the “domina” or Lady ofevery noble heart, and another to call her “plesance of love” and “goodly debonaire” and then see her as 2

H. Rey-Flaud, La névrose courtoise (Paris: Navarin, 1983).

Dantes Frantesca and Chaucer’: Troilus

157

always ready to “repaire,” that is to return to the noble heart as to her home. Chaucer's stanza begins, as it were, in the third heaven, and ends in the human heart. Both are, to borrow an expression from the House of Fame, the “kyndely stedes” of Love’ light: one in the cosmos, one in man. The change may seem minor, but I think that in the context of the Troilus it is in fact momentous. To explain why this is so, I will need the full length of this paper. We are going to reach our goal in a tortuous and slightly heretical manner, by reading an intertext which covers the period from the late thirteenth to the end of the fourteenth century —a period I would call the age of “belated” courtoisie. The movement we shall follow is from lyric to narrative and goes through three main stages: first, analogy and metaphysics; second, interpretation, allegory, and metamorphosis; third, reading and back to analogy. The first step to take on this long route obviously is to go back to Guinizzelli’s canzone. As everyone knows, in this famous and beautiful poem the Bolognese writer set out to illustrate the relationship between love and the noble heart — a theme which was central to the general European meditation about courtly love, and particularly to Italian ideas of it. Compared with his predecessors, Guinizzelli frames traditional concepts within a more coherent, logical and “scientific” whole, while at the same time colouring them linguistically and imaginatively in a completely new manner. The result is what people have taken it to be for over six hundred years — a manifesto not so much of a new doctrine, but precisely of a new style, the Stil Nuovo. Yet “style” does not simply mean a way of writing, it clearly implies “approach” as well. And Guinizzelli’s approach is new enough. Andreas Capellanus, that old devil to whom everything pertaining to courtly love seems to go back, had seen “morum probitas” or nobility as the sufficient motivation or basis of love (“acquirit amorem in morum probitate fulgentem”). But Guinizzelli goes one step further. He puts forward a universal law of love, a law which obtains everywhere and always (“sempre” — Chaucer was to render this with “ay redy”). His is indeed a “metaphysics” of love,* and the discourse which illustrates it is appropriately based on analogy: Al cor gentil rempaira sempre amore come l’ausello in selva a la verdura.

[Love always returns home to the noble heart

like a bird to the green leaves in a wood.] Nature did not create love before the noble heart, nor the noble heart before love. As soon as the sun came into being (“fu”), the splendour oflight came into being, nor did

it exist before the sun. And love takes its place (has its “kyndely stede”) in nobility as naturally (“propiamente”) as heat in the clarity, the brightness of fire. The ontology is founded upon an analogy not only with the animal world of everyday experience (the bird that returns to the forest green), but also with the very beginning of things, the “principia rerum”: sun and light. When the Big Bang was, we might paraphrase, love was; simultaneously, the Big Bang’s radiation also was. The “cor gentil” is this radiance

3 A.J. Smith, The Metaphysics ofLove (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1985).

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ab initio. “Love”, wrote Emily Dickinson, “is anterior to Life — / Posterior to Death —

/ Initial of Creation and — / the Exponent ofEarth”. Guinizzelli continues, going through the entire natural world and the four elements — fire, water, earth, air; precious stones, stars, diamonds, “rivera”, mud, sky — and concentrating on images of brightness. For five stanzas he proposes one analogy after the other, each time repeating and varying one or more elements from the preceding comparison. Thus, to quote a few lines that will be useful later on: Foco d’amore in gentil cor s’aprende come vertute in petra preziosa. . .

[The fire of love is kindled in the noble heart like virtue (“potentia’ or “virtual properties”)

in a precious stone. . .]

Amor per tal ragion sta ’n cor gentile per lo qual foco in cima del doplero.. . {Love stands in the noble heart in the same manner as fire at the top of atorch...]

In spite of its apparent static quality, this is an extraordinary tour de force. Along this analogic spiral, in fact, we move only two steps beyond the initial statement: in stanza 3, when we are told that the lady, like a star, “innamora’ the heart elected and made

noble and pure by nature; and in stanza 5, where the theory that nobility comes as family heritage is refuted. This stanza ends with the two wonderful images of the water that “carries”, or lets itself be penetrated by, the ray of light, and the sky that “retains” the unalterable splendour of the stars. Suddenly, then, in stanza 6, the poet leaps, as it were, from sky to heaven, from one “cielo” to another. God the Creator — he writes — shines before the angelic intelligence of heaven more than the sun does to our eyes. That intelligence knows (“intende”) its Creator beyond heaven and, in moving heaven, begins to obey Him. In the manner in which the completion of the act disposed by the just God instantly follows that intuition (“in-tention”), so, truly,

the beautiful lady, when she shines in the eyes of her noble servant, should communicate to him such a desire that he would never want to stop obeying her: Splende ’n la ’ntelligenzia del cielo Deo criator più che [’n] nostr’occhi 1 sole: ella intende suo fattor oltra 1 cielo, e’l ciel volgiando, a Lui obedir tole; e con segue, al primero, del giusto Deo beato compimento, cos} dar dovria, al vero, la bella donna, poi che [’n] gli occhi splende del suo gentil, talento che mai di lei obedir non si disprende.

Clearly, we have gone a step further. At the beginning of the poem, Nature makes the sun, love and the noble heart. Here, we see God as Creator shining in the angelic intelligence — moving, as Aristotle would put it, by being loved. We are, as it were, before the Big Bang, and the metaphysics acquires the hues of religion. Indeed, from

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the beginning we are then immediately brought beyond death, to the last things, to Doomsday. In the last stanza, the poet’s soul stands before God for the final judgement, and God reproaches it: “What have you dared to do? You have passed beyond heaven and come to Me, and yet you took Me only as a simile for vain love (‘e desti in vano amor Me per semblanti’). To Me is praise due, and to the Queen ofthe venerable kingdom, through whom all deception vanishes.” God’s accusation is directed not simply against idolatry, but against its very basis, that analogy which has dominated the poem so far and which, pushed to the extreme, brings the poet to take God Himselfasa mere “semblanti”, a term of comparison, for “vain love.” In other words, the poet stages here the fundamental Christian indictment of courtly love and courtly literature. 1 would go as far as to say that it was this moment of self-consciousness and self-criticism, as well as the poet’s bold, ironical, genial reply that, in Dante’s eyes, saved Guinizzelli from Hell and destined him to Purgatory. “She bore the semblance of an angel belonging to Your kingdom,” he rejoins the Creator, “it was no fault of mine (‘non me fu fallo’) to place my love in her.” The error consisted, the poet seems to say, not in taking God’s “sembianti” for “vain love,” but in a far lesser analogical mistake, that of falling in love with the lady’s angelic “sembianza”. In short, in “Al cor gentil” we have the fascinating dramatization ofawhole culture —and this in two ways, by images and by movement. By way ofimages, we pass from Boethius to courtly literature. For, if the lady’s angelic appearance at the end of the poem is a conceit common enough in the love poetry of the Troubadours and their Italian descendants, the first simile of Guinizzelli’s poem is definitely Boethian. In the Consolatio, Book III, metrum 2, Philosophy decides to “shewe by subtil soong, with slakke and delytable sown of strenges, how that Nature, myghty, enclyneth and

flytteth the governementz of thynges, and by whiche lawes sche, purveiable, kepith the grete world; and how sche, byndynge, restreyneth alle thynges by a boond that may nat be unbownde.” One of the main examples she uses to prove how “alle thynges rejoysen hem of hir retornynge ayen to hir nature” (i.e., of their “repairing” home) is

that ofthe bird which, if imprisoned in a cage, “seketh mornynge oonly the wode, and twytereth desyrynge the wode with hir swete voys”: “come l’ausello in selva a la verdura.”4 As for movement, there are two complementary ones in the poem. Ifone reads it from beginning to end, one finds a progress in nature from the animal world to the sky, and then to heaven; then, beyond death and nature, to God. But if one reads the poem backwards, the movement is from God to the angelic intelligence and hence, analogically, to the lady and the noble heart on the one hand, and to the sky, earth, water, fire — in sum, the natural world — on the other. The agent of this double

movement is love, in its Boethian, cosmic aspect of “amor quo caelum regitur” (of which that love which returns home to the noble heart is an essential feature in the world of men), and in its aspect of love for God, Who moves by being loved (of which

man’s love for a lady is an analogy). 4 Chaucers translation in the Boece. And see V. Moleta, Guinizzelli in Dante (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1980), pp. 53-66; D.S. Avalle, Ai Luoghi di Delizia Pieni (Milan-Naples: Ricciardi,

1977), pp. 17-55.

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No wonder, then, that Dante considered “Al cor gentil” a manifesto of the new poetry and constantly returned to it in his own works. And it is through Dante's versions of Guinizzelli’s poem that we have to go in order to reach Chaucer, the reasons being both strictly philological (Chaucer may have known the first line of the

poem through Dante) and, as we shall see presently, more general and philosophical. Dante uses “Al cor gentil” in three different ways: firstly, he quotes it for purposes of illustration or as an authority; secondly, he adapts it in his treatment ofspecific themes or scenes; thirdly, he echoes it or employs it as an underlying echo to signal key moments in his own development as a poet or, in the Comedy, fundamental stages in his own progress as a character. In the De Vulgari Eloquentia (II, v, 4), for instance, Guinizzelli’s famous incipit is

quoted as an example ofthe “most superb” kind ofverse, the endecasillabo, or eleven syllable line. In Tractate IV of the Convivio (xx, 7) — a part of the work which Chaucer

certainly knew — “Al cor gentile ripara sempre Amore” and the analogy with the precious stone’s “virtual power” find their place in the context of a general discussion of “gentilesse” and in particular of its being “infused” by God into man’s soul. In a sonnet ofthe Vita Nuova (XX, 3), on the other hand, Dante, who had apparently been

asked by Cavalcanti to produce a definition of love, invokes Guinizzelli as an authority, but from the very beginning of the poem goes one small, yet significant step further than his predecessor. Love and the noble heart were distinct, though inseparable, in “Al cor gentil”. In Dante, they become one thing: the one can no more exist without the other than a rational soul without reason (and the analogy is indeed

significant, given Dantes conception of love “as an impulse engaging the higher as well as the lower powers of the soul”): Amore e || cor gentil sono una cosa,

si come il saggio in suo dittare pone, e cos) esser l’un sanza l’altro osa com'alma razional sanza ragione.

Nature — Dante continues — creates love and the noble heart at the same time, “love as the lord and the heart as his mansion,” but love lies asleep in the heart until it is awakened by the lady’s beauty. “The genesis of love,” Foster and Boyde comment, “is this awakening: not something new or extraneous, but a movement from potentia to actus, as Dante himself glosses” a few lines later (XX, 6-7). This is Dante’s “major —

and in spirit very Aristotelian — modification of the views ofearlier theorists.”5 From the very beginning, his poetry (and we are talking of specifically love poetry) takes a philosophical turn. But we must also note a few more features of Dante’s use of “Al cor gentil.” Firstly, in the Vita Nuova this sonnet comes immediately after the great canzone “Donne ch’avete intelletto d’amore,” which marks the opening of awholly new phase of Dante’s poetry, that of Beatrice’s “loda” or praise. And

“Donne ch’avete” contains,

from its very incipit, several echoes of Guinizzelli’s penultimate stanza (“intelligenzia” — “intelletto”). 5

This and the preceding quotation from Dante’ Lyric Poetry, ed. K. Foster and P. Boyde, voi. II

(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), pp. 104-5.

Dante’ Francesca and Chaucer's Troilus

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Secondly, this moment is a very particular one in the narrative of the Vita Nuova — a moment of happiness both personal and poetic, in which, as Dante says ofthe first line of “Donne ch'avete”, his tongue speaks as if moved by itself. Only three chapters later, Dante is ill and dreams of Beatrice’s death, and eight chapters after “Amore e il cor gentil” Beatrice actually dies. Dante, as one critic has recently put it, “sacrifices” Beatrice, killing her to life in order to elevate her to Heaven and internalize her as part of his memory. This momentous murder-cum-translation, this submitting the beloved to death, changes Dante's life and poetry forever by gradually bringing his sighs “oltre la spera che più larga gira,” beyond the ninth heaven, to the Empyrean, to a “new understanding” of love — to an “intelligenza nova” of courtly culture — and to the “mirabile visione” which makes him decide not to speak of the blessed lady until he will be able to say about her things never spoken of any other woman — bringing him, in short, to the end of the Vita Nuova and the beginning of a shadow that will become the Comedy and the germ of the Paradiso. Thirdly, Dante stamps his own mark on Guinizzellian poetry. He does not try to adapt the Bolognese writer's first line, but, following rather the first and third sentences of the third stanza of “Al cor gentil” (“Amor per tal ragion sta ’n cor gentile” and “Amore in gentil cor prende rivera’), he opens his sonnet with the appropriate subject, Love: not “AJ cor gentil rempaira sempre Amore,” but “Amore e il cor gentil sono una cosa.” This emphasis will remain constant throughout Dante’s poetry, in which the anaphoric openings with “Amor” form a beautiful string of para- Guinizzellian lyrics: “Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona’” in Convivio II, “Amor, ch'al cor gentil ratto sapprende” in /nferno V, “Amore, / acceso di virtù, sempre altro accese” in Purgatorio XXII. Moreover, as scholars have convincingly shown,’ the presence in Dante of Guinizzelli’s “Al cor gentil” is even more pervasive. The bird imagery of “come l’ausello in selva a la verdura” is picked up and intensified in /nferno V, in Purgatorio XXIV, and in Purgatorio XXVI, that is to say, whenever in the Comedy Dante speaks about love or poetry or both. Last but not least, Guinizzelli’s fifth stanza (“Splende ’n la ’ntelligenzia del cielo”) clearly inspires two of Dantes most important canzoni, “Donne ch'avete intelletto d’amore” in the Vita Nuova, and “Voi che intendendo il terzo ciel movete” in the second Book of the Convivio. I have no space to deal with each ofthese compositions in detail, but I would like to make three points about them. Firstly, they signal key moments in Dante's development as a man by using substantially the same kind or “style” of poetry, but interpreting it as something different. “Voi che intendendo” is addressed to the angel-spirits that move the heaven of Venus and “describes a conflict in Dante’s heart between the claims on his love of two women.”8 One, Beatrice, “in possession” when the conflict begins; the other, identified by Dante in Convivio II as philosophy, virtually winning when the conflict ends. This is, then, a turning point in the poet’s life. But literarily it

6 FE Ferrucci, // Poema del Desiderio: Poetica e Passione in Dante (Milan: Leonardo, 1990), pp. 7-45.

7 For the reconstruction of this sequence and of the bird imagery, see Moleta, Guinizzelli in Dante, chapters 2 and 3. 8 Foster and Boyde, Dantes Lyric Poetry, II, p. 160. For a full and at times different reconstruction of Dante’s lyrical autocitations in the Comedy see T. Barolini, Dantes Poets, Textuality and Truth in the

“Comedy” (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1984), pp. 31-84.

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is presented to us in a poem which preserves the language and framework of Dante earlier love poetry, yet relies on allegory mente mi ragiona” employs the very same the beauty of Beatrice in the Vita Nuova but the lady celebrated here, as Convivio

to yield its full meaning. “Amor che ne la “praise-style” in which Dante had hymned with “Donne clavete intelletto d’amore,” III explains, is Philosophy, “conceived as a

total dedication of intellect and will to the divine Wisdom revealed in the cosmic order and in man’s own nature” (Foster and Boyde, II, 173) — a figura whose chief sources are Boethius’s Consolatio and the Sapiential books of the Old Testament. I shall quote four lines of this magnificent poem to give an idea of how Dante operates. He is describing the lady’s appearance: Cose appariscon ne lo suo aspetto

che mostran de’ piacer di Paradiso, dico ne li occhi e nel suo dolce riso, che le vi reca Amor com’a suo loco. [In her aspect things appear

that show the joys of Paradise — Ï mean in her eyes and her lovely smile;

for it is there, as to the place which belongs to him, that Love leads them.]

When he starts commenting on this canzone in Convivio III, Dante writes that his

“second love had its beginning, its source, in the merciful ‘sembianza’ of a lady.” In other words, we are witnessing the momentous transformation of Guinizzellian analogy into Dantean allegory. The poetry is still analogical, as the lines I have just quoted show. But the interpretation ofthe poetry — the reading, as it were, of the “sembianza” — is allegorical. However, the two are, particularly in the case of “Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona,” inseparable. Dante, as he himself says at the beginning of the Convivio, does not recant the sweet new style. He simply glosses it, and as a glossator and commentator creates a wholly new literature — a literature which is still courtly, but in which the court itself is moving from the Palace (or the streets of Florence) to the

“schools” ofclerics and philosophers, shortly to become the “court” of Heaven. True, the final part of the Convivio such as we have it indicates a seemingly definitive decision to abandon the “sweet rhymes oflove” and to use new, harsh and subtle verses of rectitudo. But in the Comedy, where the conversion to ethics that underlies the poetic crisis of the Convivio becomes the source itselfof inspiration, the old love poetry comes back once more. In fact, it is quite deliberately rearranged in a sequence which spans from the first circle of Hell, through Purgatory, up into the third heaven. Here is Francesca proclaiming, “Amor, ch’al cor gentil ratto s’'apprende” in Inferno V. Then, Casella sings “Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona” in Purgatorio II. In Purgatorio XXIV, the poet Bonagiunta sees Dante and asks him if he really is the man who created the “new rhymes,” inaugurating the “dolce stil novo” with his “Donne ch’avete intelletto d’amore.” In Purgatorio XXVI Dante meets Guido Guinizzelli himself and celebrates his “dolci detti” and the “uso moderno” as well as the poetry of Arnaut Daniel. Finally, in Paradiso VIII Charles Martel introduces himself and his companions as the spirits who “revolve with the celestial Princes” of the Heaven of Venus whom — he says — Dante had addressed with his “Voi che ’ntendendo il terzo

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ciel movete.” This sequence must have a meaning. And | think the meaning can be summed up in the grandiose metamorphosis and apotheosis which courtly love undergoes in Dante’s hands by way ofa progressive, narrative and contextual sublimation of an earlier lyrical phase through death. The movement completes and fully christianizes the ascending progress of Guinizzelli’s analogies. It saves courtly literature by rereading it, by seeing it as one mode of discourse in the universal langage of eros — of desire, of love: of love between human beings, oflove for knowledge and wisdom, of love for God. Think of the progress in the Comedy: the lustful in Hell; the penitent lustful in Purgatory; then, in Paradise, the spirits of those who, under the influence of Venus, burnt with love on earth. Love is what they all have in common. I know, of course, that as cantos XVII-XVIIT of Purgatorio make clear, there are crucial differences. While “natural love,” i.e. the love by which all things are inclined by nature toward their proper place or goal, is “always without error” — as Virgil tells Dante there — “elective love” or “love of the mind” may indeed err, either by turning to an evil object or by having too much or too little vigour. This kind oflove is subject, then, to free choice, and this means that in Dante’s eyes the direction it takes may ultimately bring man to either Hell or Heaven. Still, love is love, and I think that only in the context of its unity as well as of its diversity can we understand Francesca. Francesca has been taken as an exemplum of carnal sin par excellence, as the paradigm of those “who submit reason to pleasure,” and as both the vindicator and the victim of courtly love and its literature. By having Francesca recount her tragic end and placing her in Hell, critics say, Dante himself expiates her sin and definitively condemns that kind of love and that kind of literature. If it were so, then I do not see why Dante went on quoting Stil Nuovo poetry all the way to Paradise and why he staged the great recognition scene with Beatrice in the Garden of Eden. Francesca, | think, shows us in the first place how love between two human beings of different sexes is born. Here we are, then. We have passed beyond the horrible, snarling Minos who dispatches damned souls to their circle in Hell by turning his tail’s spires. We have, with Keats, entered darkness and the hurricane of winds. The souls of carnal sinners, of those who “subjected reason to desire,” are swept along by the storm like starlings in the cold season, like cranes making long lines in the air and chanting their lays. Here are the shades ofthe ladies and knights of old vanquished by love — pagans like Achilles, Paris and Helen, and Christians like Tristan. Dante, overcome by pity and “quasi smarrito,” spots two souls which, light on the wind, go together led by love, and calls out to them. At his cry, they come closer. And we have a first surprise. For the simile Dante uses to describe the approach of the two shades is basically Virgilian, but also I think undoubtedly reminiscent of Guinizzelli’s “come l’ausello in selva a la verdura” and its antecedent in Boethius’s Consolatio: Quali colombe dal disio chiamate con l’ali alzate e ferme al dolce nido vegnon per l’aere dal voler portate...

The doves are called by desire and are borne by their will through the air to their sweet nest. They “repair” home, to their “kyndely stede.” And the appointed place to which they are drawn by eros is the nest of love. The two souls — the two “gentil hertes” — are

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brought back to the primeval feeling: disio, amor. When one of them, a woman's voice in the silence of wind, starts speaking, it is to that feeling she almost immediately returns. Francesca picks up the Guinizzellian echo of the preceding simile and recounts how love between two human beings explodes in a sudden conflagration, a coup-de-foudre: Amor, clval cor gentil ratto s’apprende, prese costui della bella persona che mi fu tolta; e | modo ancor m'offende. Amor, che a nullo amato amar perdona,

mi prese del costui piacer si forte, che, come vedi, ancor non m’abbandona. Amor condusse noi ad una morte. Caina attende chi a vita ci spense.

Man and his noble heart, the physical beauty of the woman, his love. Love irresistibly returned by the woman with everlasting, strong delight. Note how Francesca subtly changes Guinizzelli by turning not to the first line of his canzone, but to line 11, “Foco d’amor in gentil cor s aprende.” Not love that repairs home to the noble heart, but a fire that is kindled there violently and quickly — ratto. Moreover, this allows no analogy with the virtual power of a precious stone, but rather points to the sudden seizure of the male heart by the female’s “bella persona.” Francesca pushes Guinizzelli to the extreme. She misreads him, turning his analogies into cause-effect relationships, and his metaphysics into a phenomenology. She further misinterprets Guinizzelli by adding to the sudden “aprendere” of one heart the other’s inevitable “rispondere,” for which she seems to draw on Capellanus. It is this “attraction fatale” that Francesca powerfully sketches in with her triple anaphora. It is its inevitability, which kills free choice and from which she is unable to escape even now, that led both — fatally indeed — to death. Not to the trial of

Guinizzelli’s soul before God, nor to Dante’s ritual sacrifice and translation of Beatrice in the Vita Nuova, but to being murdered, judged by Minos and condemned to Hell. Let me point out that, no matter how much | would like to do so, I am not pleading not guilty for Francesca. For Dante, she and Paolo are guilty. They subjected reason to desire, they committed adultery, they are in Hell. What I am defending is

human Jove, the force of which both Dante and each one of us know quite well. The “attraction” I see as vital, its sudden explosion as dangerous, its inevitability as wrong and fatal.

By. justifying love — the feeling that joins two human beings — I save “courtoisie” and courtly literature the way Dante saved them. Francesca, I said, misreads Guinizzelli. It isn’t the only misreading in her story. When, after Dante’s sad meditation on the two lovers’ “sweet thoughts” and “great desire,” Francesca leaves general principles

and gets to the facts, to the manner in which Love granted them actual knowledge of the “dubbiosi disiri” — to what she calls its “first root” — she quotes Boethius (this time correctly; Consolatio I, pr. 4), and then proceeds to relate the famous story of the reading session with Paolo. One day, she says, they were reading of Lancelot’ falling in love. Alone and without any suspicion, they went on, their eyes often brought to meet and their faces deprived of colour by that “lettura”. One point finally overcame them,

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and that was when they read how the “disiato riso,” the desired, smiling lips of Guinevere, were kissed by Lancelot. At that moment Paolo, trembling, kissed Francescas mouth. The book and its author, she adds, were true Galehaults, i.e., true pandars. And, she concludes, that day we read no further in it. The fact is, however, that in the prose Lancelot du Lac to which Francesca is referring it is Guinevere who, persuaded by Galehault, kisses Lancelot, and not the other way around.° Once more, then, Francesca misreads a text — this time, precisely

while reading it — and once more this text is “courtly” literature. She isn’t just, as Contini memorably put it, “un’intellettuale di provincia,” a provincial intellectual.1° Francesca is a dangerous misreader of courtly literature. In a subtle way, Dante himself has pointed this out. For the “disiato riso” of /nferno V he saw — we noticed — on the lips of Philosophy in “Amor che ne la mente mi ragionæ” and in the Convivio, and will see on those of Beatrice in Purgatorio XXXII (1-6): Tant eran li occhi miei fissi e attenti a disbramarsi la decenne sete, che li altri sensi m'eran tutti spenti. Ed essi quinci e quindi avien parete di non caler — cosi lo santo riso a sé traéli con l’antica rete! —

[So fixed and intent were my eyes

in satisfying their ten-year thirst, that every other sense was quenched in me. And they themselves had a wall ofindifference, on one side and on the other, so did the holy smile draw them to itself with the old net.]

Furthermore, in both the canzone and Paradiso XVIII (where Beatrice tells a transfixed

Dante, “non pur ne’ miei occhi é paradiso”), the Lady’s eyes and smile are presented as “figures” ofParadise. But it is up to you to see them as such. If you dont misread, but read the smile analogically, allegorically and poetically, you will be able to understand the continuity and transformation signalled by the “disiato” of /nferno V, the “dolce” of Convivio III, and the “santo” of Purgatorio XXXII, all tied together by the supreme smile of the beloved. If you don’t do this, if you dont look at love as it were from beyond earth and death, you become a victim oflust, of suddenness, of fatalism. You read your books wrongly and end up in Hell. Yet to pursue this sublimation is not at all easy, but in fact painful and lacerating. Dante knows how difficult — indeed for some impossible — it is to grasp the continuity, to create the metamorphosis within oneself. His “pieta” dominates the canto and in the end prompts his swoon at Francesca’s words and Paolo’s tears. In canto II,

he had called his visit to Hell the “war of pity” (“guerra de la pietate”).!! This conflict — the tragic eleos of Aristotle’s Poetics — explodes in the last three lines of Inferno V to 9

See D. Alighieri, Commedia, ed. A.M. Chiavacci Leonardi, vol. I (Milan: Mondadori, 1991), p. 164.

10 G. Contini, “Dante come personaggio-poeta della Commedia,” now in his Un'Idea di Dante (Turin: Einaudi, 1976), p. 42.

11 See A.M. Chiavacci Leonardi, La guerra de la pietate: Saggio per una interpretazione dell Inferno di Dante (Naples: Liquori, 1979), pp. 62-83.

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the point of making Dante the spectator, who falls down

“like a dead body,”

experience a “closing” of the mind (canto VI) and a form of death. Perhaps he is

suggesting that while human pity overcomes us when we hear such beautifully conflicting tales, we should succumb and die in order to “translate” them onto a higher sphere. Now, I think that one of the few people who understood Dante’ reading of the Guinizzellian message and interpreted it with originality was Geoffrey Chaucer. Firstly, Chaucer felt the importance of pity so much that five times in his works he

significantly replaced Francesca’s “amor” with “pitee” in the formulation, “pitee renneth soone in gentil herte.” That this line constitutes a “translation by assonance” from /nferno V, 100 should be beyond doubt. The two sequences, “renneth soone” and “gentil herte” are perfectly, chiastically equivalent to “ratto s’apprende” and “al cor gentil.” Chaucer substitutes “pitee” for “love” not because in the code of courtly love and “gentilesse” they are synonyms, but precisely in order to underline the difference between them, a difference that looks the greater the more one considers the two notions as contiguous. Secondly, Chaucer saw quite clearly the connection between eros and thanatos powerfully suggested by /nferno V. In the Parliament of Fowls he provides us with a list, drawn from both the Zeseida and /nferno V, of people whose destiny was love-and-death. The list includes Semiramis, Cleopatra, Achilles, Helen, Paris, Tristan (thus far following Dante), and then Isolde and Troilus.

In a sense, then, from the very beginning Chaucer sees Troilus in a Dantean perspective. This perspective is widened and deepened in Troilus and Criseyde. On the one hand we have the metaphorical parabola that brings Troilus from looking like a flower opening up before the bright sun in Book II to resembling a tree bare of all its leaves in Book IV — a parabola which begins with the hopeful joy of Dante in /nferno II, and ends with the fatal despair of the damned flocking to Charon’s boat in /nferno [1.2 On the other, we are invited by the initial lines of Troilus Il, which contain a clear echo ofthe opening of the Purgatorio, to read Book II of the poem as a kind of Purgatory, Books I and III being presented more obliquely, through several allusions and the poetic invocations to the infernal Fury, Thesiphone, and to Venus and Calliope, as respectively a Hell and a Paradise. Thirdly, the stories of Paolo and Francesca and of Dante and Beatrice are constantly evoked and counterpointed. Let us look, first, at Troilus’s love for Criseyde. Can anyone find a better description of its beginning than Francesca’s lines, “Amor, cal cor gentil ratto s apprende, prese costui”? Love “renneth” as “soone” as an arrow to the heart of Troilus (“costui”, this man). The word “sodeynly” is repeated twice at the very beginning of Book I (209 and 231), and the laws of Love and Nature resonantly proclaimed immediately afterwards by the Narrator (I, 236-8): For evere it was, and evere it shal byfalle, That Love is he that alle thing may bynde,

For may no man fordon the lawe of kynde. 12 | have analyzed this in The Tragic and the Sublime in Medieval Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989), pp. 75-114.

13 See W. Wetherbee, Chaucer and the Poets: An Essay on Troilus and Criseyde (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1984), pp. 145-78.

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Later in Book I Troilus, following Boccaccio’s Troiolo, will himself echo Francesca’s second terzina, “Amor, ch’a nullo amato amar perdona” (1, 603-4):

Love, ayeins the which whoso defendeth Hymselven most, hym alderlest avaylleth .. . Francesca’s love for, and delight in Paolo never abandon her (“che, come vedi, ancor non mabbandona’). The same is true of Troilus who, at least while alive, cannot “unlove” Criseyde, not even for “a quarter of a day” (V, 1698). In the meantime, we

will have noticed that if, in Dantean terms, Troilus begins by resembling Paolo, in the course of the poem he increasingly becomes like Francesca — an inversion of roles which is significant in the perspective of both the general “feminisation” of the courtly knight noted by Kenelm Foster and the particular “feminisation” of this hero brilliantly described by Jill Mann.'* Accordingly, it is Criseyde who, thus returning to a faithful reading of the Lancelot, kisses Troilus first (III, 182 and 972), the manoeuvres

of Pandarus bringing about the same success that crowns those of Galehault. Does Criseyde in any way fit into this Dantean frame? If Dante Alighieri were reading the Troilus he would certainly be surprised to follow the dialogue between Pandarus and Criseyde one third of the way through Book II. Pandarus is trying to persuade his niece, not to bind herselfto Troilus, but to “make hym bettre chiere” (II, 359-61). Criseyde listens attentively, decides to discover what her uncle means, and asks him, “Well, what would you suggest? What would you advise me to do about this?” (II, 388-9). And Pandarus, unlike his equivalent in the Filostrato, replies (II,

390-2): Certein, best is That ye hym love ayeyn for his lovynge, As love for love is skilful guerdonynge.

Here we are, Dante would think, that’s it! This is my Francesca’s “Amor, ch’a nullo amato amar perdona.” Sure, the romantic fatalism of the original sentence has been replaced by English sense (“best is”), by reasonableness (“skilful”). But the lines have

the unmistakeable ring of courtly love, the stamp as it were of Andreas Capellanus. Yes. However transformed from that inevitable non-sparing (“perdona”) into a reasonable rewarding (“guerdonynge”), the rule is Francescas: “That ye hym love ayeyn for his lovynge.” Well done, Dante would say, enough is kept, enough is changed. This is going to be a Francesca-like story, beautiful and tragic. Yet, he would only have to read two hundred lines further to find that the English poet is of quite a different persuasion. Pandarus seems to assume that the moment Criseyde will belong to Troilus (“whan ye ben his al hool as he is youre,” II, 587) is

drawing near. But she stops him: “Nay, therof spak I nought, ha, ha!” The uncle realizes his slip, asks for forgiveness, gets it, and leaves for home bouncing with 14 K. Foster, Gods Tree (London: Blackfriars, 1957), pp. 150-68, and The Two Dantes (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1977), pp. 15-55; J. Mann, Geoffrey Chaucer (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991), pp. 165-85. The present essay owes much to both these scholars, but my greatest

debt is to Jill Mann, who let me read and use here her 1992 unpublished “Lectura Dantis” on Inferno V. My argument and conclusions are, however, different from hers.

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happiness. Criseyde moves into her closet, sits down “as stylle as any ston,” turns all his words over in her mind, is somewhat astonished “for the newe cas,” but when she fully considers it she finds she has no danger to fear (II, 596-606). At this point

Chaucer gives us his and his heroine’s explanation for Criseyde’s new peace of mind (607-9): For man may love, of possibilite, 50, his herte may tobreste, And she naught love ayein, but ifhire leste. A womman

Now, this is clearly a key moment in Chaucer’s understanding and presentation of Criseyde’s character (the lines have no counterpart in the Filostrato). Criseyde has nothing to fear because she cannot be forced to love Troilus back. In fact, this is also Criseyde’s and Chaucer's answer to Dante’s Francesca, if | may formulate it in my own travesty of Dantes Italian: “Amore all’amato puote perdonare.” Thus, Francescas shadow seems to have disappeared. As if to confirm this, sixty lines later Chaucer feels the need to say in authorial or narratorial voice, and after one of the most enchanting, romantic scenes of the poem (“Who yaf me drynke?”, readers will remember) that if envious people now started accusing Criseyde of loving Troilus “lightly” and “suddenly,” “at first sight,” he would feel constrained to reply that she did not “so sodeynly” give him her love, but that she began to incline to like him first, and “after that,” his manhood and his torments made love “mine” within her (II, 678-9): For which by proces and by good servyse He gat hire love, and in no sodeyn wyse.

Boccaccio’s Criseida, by contrast, “si subitamente presa fue, / che sopra ogni altro bene lui disia” (II, 83, 5-6). In other words, as far as Criseyde is concerned, there is no love

at first glance, no coup-de-foudre. “Amor al cor gentil ratto non s'apprende.” And so Francesca’s first law, her Guinizzellian misreading, goes to the dogs, too. With it, the

solitude of the two lovers also disappears (Troilus and Criseyde are practically never alone). And the book — that Lancelot which women, according to the Nun’s Priest, hold “in full greet reverence” — is tantalizingly present in the consummation scene only as the reflex of aput-on appearance, when Pandarus finally withdraws to the fire,

takes a light, and Criseyde is no Troilus). This is s apprende,” but

finds a “contenaunce, / As for to loke upon an old romaunce.” Francesca (and no Paolo either, in spite of her initiative in kissing one reason why Chaucer did not use “Amor chal cor gentil ratto Guinizzelli’s “Al cor gentile rempaira sempre amore.” He wished to

take two hearts — both the man’s and the woman's — into account. Thus, “in gentil

hertes ay redy to repaire.” In the plural, it could be predicated of both Troilus and Criseyde. Yet this is only a part — and a minor one — of the answer to my initial question. In Chaucer’s Troilus, Criseyde has a powerfully new feminine autonomy, but she is still

the object of Troilus’s love and of the Narrator’s writing. And, to begin with the latter, in his eyes Criseyde looks more like a Beatrice than a Francesca. The author offers us

two portraits of his heroine, one at the beginning and one at the end of the poem. Both exalt her beauty, though the latter provides us with more details and with a

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slightly disturbing trait. In the former, Chaucer seems to go back to the analogy proposed by Guinizzelli in the last stanza of “Al cor gentil,” as well as to Dante's frequent comparisons between Beatrice and an angel (I, 99-105): Criseyde was this lady name al right. As to my doom, in al Troies cite Nas non so fair, forpassynge every wight, So aungelik was hir natif beaute,

That lik a thing immortal semed she, As doth an hevenyssh perfit creature, That down were sent in scornynge ofnature.

One could of course object that these were common conceits in all courtly love poetry so that there would be no need to find a source for this passage in Guinizzelli or Dante. But when the final portrait is presented, precisely mirroring the first so as to frame the entire poem, Chaucer’s recourse to Dante cannot be denied. For this time he concentrates on Criseyde’s eyes and, like the Dante of “Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona” and the Convivio, like the Dante of Paradiso XVIII, he sees them as a mirror of Paradise (V, 815-17):

But for to speken of hire eyen cleere, Lo, trewely, they writen that hire syen

That Paradis stood formed in hire yen.!$

The author, then, seems to understand Dante’s sublimation discourse, but interestingly refrains from allegorical interpretation, placing the burden of the analogy on those writers who have seen Criseyde. For Chaucer, Criseyde is a woman of flesh and blood, and indeed of soul and mind wonderfully feminine — therefore an angel, whose eyes reflect Paradise. She is the paradigm of human changeableness, yet her heavenly beauty shines, immovable, even beyond her “change” — even as she is forsaking Troilus. A fundamental transformation takes place in Troilus, too. The love which at first he experiences as an unbearable Petrarchan conflict of opposed feelings and physical sensations, as Keatss “mere commingling of passionate breath,” he perceives — when reciprocal submission and union with the beloved are achieved — as an aspect of cosmic eros. The process begins in Troilus’s famous hymn to Love-Charite halfway through Book III, and culminates in his Canticus at the end of the same Book. It is a

process rooted in physical pleasure — the “heaven” in which Troilus delights before pronouncing “O Love, O Charite” is Criseyde’s body, which he caresses and kisses — but it is also capable of rising to the higher spheres of Venus and Hymen, of envisaging love as caritas, and of praising it as the “holy bond of thynges” with the words Dante’s St Bernard had used of the Virgin in his prayer to her in Paradiso XXXIII:!°

15 And see E.D. Kirk’s fundamental essay, “ “Paradis Stood Formed in Hire Yen’: Courtly Love and Chaucer’s Re-vision of Dante,” in Acts of Interpretation: Essays on Medieval and Renaissance Literature in Honor of E. Talbot Donaldson, ed. M.J. Carruthers and E.D. Kirk (Norman, Okla.: Pilgrim Books, 1982), pp. 257-77. 16 | have studied this passage in a wider context in The Tragic and the Sublime, pp. 177-222.

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che qual vuol grazia e a te non ricorre sua disianza vuol volar sanz’ali Whoso wol grace and list the nought honouren,

Lo, his desir wol fle withouten wynges. Again, Troiluss Boethian Canticus at the end of Book III is inspired by Criseyde’s

“womanhede” and beauty. But once more, Troilus is able to join the earthly and cosmic sides of eros. In the song Chaucer rearranges metrum VIII of Consolatio Il — a poem which celebrates the “amor quo caelum regitur” — so as to make it begin with the triple anaphora of“Love”: Love, that of erthe and se hath governaunce,

Love, that his hestes hath in hevene hye, Love, that with an holsom alliaunce . ..

“Francesca’s voice is only a whisper,” Karla Taylor has beautifully said about this passage.” That whisper seems about to become Dante's glorious proclamation of “Pamor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.” Troilus does not make this final leap explicitly, yet does see God (who is absent in the Boethian source) as He who wills Love to

“cerclen hertes alle and faste bynde” with its chain. The “auctour of kynde,” the Creator of Nature, initiates the movement of Love that keeps the universe together. Troilus’s most exalted, semi-paradisal vision springs from a pan-erotic feeling inspired by love for a human being, by the happiness of returned eros on earth. Francesca may yet become Beatrice. The Narrator had anticipated this move in his own Prologue to Book III. There, Venus does not appear as the source of “folle amore” whom pagans, according to the

Dante ofParadiso VIII, believed her to be, but rather as the Lucretian “voluptas” of men and gods, the blissful light of the third heaven (the very heaven of Paradiso VIII

and of “Voi che intendendo il terzo ciel movete”), and the “plesance oflove” “in gentil hertes ay redy to repaire”. It is this double aspect of eros that Chaucer’s choice of the Guinizzellian line signals. Love shines from the third heaven (“Splende ’n la ’ntelligen-

zia del cielo,” Guinizzelli had written in his fifth stanza). That is its “kyndely stede” in the cosmos. From there, it is always ready to return to its mansion on earth, in the noble heart, and this movement is both constant and natural. More generally, the “vapour,” the emanation through which the entire universe feels the power oflove is de eterne. » And now comes Chaucer’s fundamental addition to his Boccaccian and Boethian sources: “God loveth, and to love wol nought werne.” At the end of Book III, Troilus will see God as the initiator of love. Here, the author anticipates and complements that vision by looking at love as God’s dominant characteristic. “Deus amat,” “Deus est Amor”: God is the subject, the object and the ultimate “kyndely stede” of human and cosmic eros. “The sexual urge that is the subject of this stanza” thus becomes, as

17 K. Taylor, Chaucer Reads “The Divine Comedy” (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1989), js Mike dolae

whole ofTaylor's discussion is of relevance here.

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Peter Dronke writes, “a counterpart and reflection of the highest love. For a moment it is the Christian God partaking in his own loving creation.”!8 In sum, Chaucer seems to understand the analogies of Guinizzelli’s canzone and to interpret them as a sequence that sketches in a double — downward and upward — movement in a Dantean perspective. Francesca may yet lead to Beatrice. What is still missing from Chaucer's vision is what I have called the view of love from beyond death. Beautifully if obliquely, this emerges at the end of the poem, in the so-called Epilogue. Here, Chaucer is quick to seize on the death of Troilus to leap, unlike the Boccaccio of the Filostrato, beyond it. This journey to the other world is once more double. On the one hand the soul of Troilus ascends, like that of Arcita in the Téseida, to the eighth sphere, contemplates the “pleyn felicite” of heaven and, with “disembodied laughter,”!? despises this wretched world, condemns the “blynde lust, the which that may nat laste,” and is finally led by Mercury Psychopompos to unknown destination. Two points are notable here. Firstly, Troilus’s soul is not condemned to the first circle of Hell where, pagan or no pagan, the Dantean Minos whom he had himself recalled earlier on (IV,

1188) would have destined him. Secondly, Troilus understands now, after death, that

God, Whom he had seen as the initiator of love, should in turn be loved. Human “Just” is now called “blind” because it is short-lived, focussed only on a transient good, whereas we “sholden al our herte on heven caste” — direct our love to its eternal end and source. I would not call this a recantation, but a deeper comprehension. Troiluss vision after death offers the author the opportunity to complete his own discourse about love. He does this by using Troilus’s experience in the other world, but going beyond it to return to earth and re-establish the double heaven-earth, earthheaven movement. “God loveth,” he had proclaimed in the Prologue to Book III. He repeats it now, seeing Christ as he who “right for love /Upon a crois, oure soules for to beye, / First starf, and roos, and sit in hevene above” — in other words placing at the centre of divine love that incarnation which made God suffer a human death in order to redeem mankind, and then that resurrection which finally made the divinity return to its proper mansion in heaven. But he also widens the perspective by going back to God the Creator. When he addresses the “yonge, fresshe folkes,” he is careful to add that in them love grows with their age, and after inviting them to “repeyre hom fro worldly vanite,” he exhorts them to cast their hearts’ eyes to that God who created them in his image, after his likeness. God loves, and His love is reflected, growing with age, in the heart of those creatures which resemble Him. Human love and divine love can, however obliquely, meet. The one is the image of the other. Hence, we must not forget that this world is like a fair and like the transient beauty of flowers, but must appreciate it all the more since God himself created it and suffered death to redeem it. Chaucer has grasped the meaning of Dante’s great metamorphosis by following the movement of Guinizzelli’s canzone beyond death and interpreting it, with originality

18 P Dronke, “Lamor che move il sole e l’altre stelle,” now in his The Medieval Poet and his World (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1984), pp. 439-75, at p. 473. Dronke’s article has strongly influenced my view of the matter. 19 J.M. Steadman, Disembodied Laughter: Troilus and the Apotheosis Tradition (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1972).

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and complexity, in the light of the Divine Comedy. It is significant that his final prayer in the Troilus should be addressed to the Trinity and in particular to the love which its second, incarnated person, Jesus, bore to his Virgin Mother. The first three lines of this prayer (V, 1863-5) are directly translated from the song of praise pronounced by the spirits of the sapientes in Dante’s Heaven of the Sun (Paradiso XIV, 28-30): Thow oon, and two, and thre, eterne on lyve, That regnest ay in thre, and two, and oon, Uncircumscript, and al maist circumscrive. ..

Quell’uno e due e tre che sempre vive e regna sempre in tre e ’n due e’n uno, non circunscritto, e tutto circunscrive . ..

When the chant is over, one of the spirits, Solomon, explains to Dante how che light that enfolds each soul — a light which shines brightly and constantly because it is the manifestation of the blessed soul’s Jove for God — will become infinitely greater after the resurrection, when the flesh shall “dress” the soul again. Solomon's fervid speech prompts such an immediate and “eager” “Amen” from the other spirits that Dante understands how great their desire must be for their dead bodies. As in the Song of Songs, which the Middle Ages attributed to Solomon, divine love and human love are celebrated together. When Dante adds with an extraordinary touch that the sapientes yearn for their body “forse non pur per lor, ma per le mamme,/ per li padri e per li altri che fuor cari / anzi che fosser sempiterne fiamme” (not so much for themselves,

but perhaps for their mothers, their fathers, and all those who were dear to them before they became sempiternal flames), we understand why Chaucer chose those three lines to conclude Troilus and Criseyde. Now, from beyond death, he could fully see why this life is so important. Now, from beyond the Heaven of Venus, he could propose his own vision — a vision I would call not the Allegory, but the Analogy of Love.”°

The love we feel on earth for another human being — Troiluss physical and courtly love for Criseyde — makes us feel the love by which the cosmos is ruled. Apparently, we cannot go beyond this analogy. Yet, as the Prologue to Book III indicates and as Troilus himself feels at the end of that Book, universal eros appertains to, and is initiated by God. And divine love is in turn, as the Epilogue suggests, mirrored in man. This final analogy we can only perceive if we look at things with eyes that have experienced death, when our soul — as in Guinizzelli’s canzone — faces the Absolute. From there, we may see courtly literature as one step in the complex analogical chain which constitutes the human discourse about desire and love — in Keatsian terms, how flowers would not bloom, fruit would not swell to melting pulp, fish would not have bright mail, and the earth its dower of river, wood, and vale, if human souls did never kiss and greet (Endymion 1, 835-42). From there, in short, we can fully comprehend why the blissful light that adorneth all the third heaven fair is “in our gentil hertes ay redy to repaire.”

20 Contra C.S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1936).

TAMING THE WARRIOR: RESPONDING TO THE CHARGE OF SEXUAL DEVIANCE IN TWELFTH-CENTURY VERNACULAR ROMANCE Raymond Cormier

The following pages focus specifically on a single passage in the mid-twelfth century Roman d'Eneas, a free adaptation in Old French of Virgil’s Aeneid. It is the so-called “allusion to sodomy” episode which, far from an easy read, presents, as far as I know, the earliest extant occurrence of homophobia in Western European vernacular literature. Arguing first from a lexicographical position, I will propose a solution to a semantic problem which associates by analogy the Old French term recreant and the Old Testament word abomination. A second question to be addressed involves the paradox of a Phrygian link with the Norman-Angevin crown. In the text of the Aeneid the Trojans are often designated ironically as effeminate and cowardly, and yet the Plantagenet dynasty became connected with these dishonorable founders of the Roman Empire. Lastly, an explanation will be offered as to why Eneas the vernacular hero must suffer the ignominy of these accusations. As we will see, other heroes of Old French narratives may react

differently; but Eneas’ response to the charges of sexual deviance is to abandon the “antecedent order” — what Walter Ong and more recently Simon Gaunt have

1

John Boswell’s Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the

Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1981) merely

alludes to this passage by citing Edmond Faral’s work on the Romances of Antiquity, Recherches sur les sources latines des romans et des contes courtois (Paris: Champion, 1913); nor was Boswell aware of my

One Heart One Mind: The Rebirth of Virgils Hero in Medieval French Romance (University, MS: Romance Monographs, 3, 1973), esp. pp. 216-28. See now Harry J. Kuster and Raymond Cormier, “Old Views and New Trends: Observations on the Problem of Homosexuality in the Middle Ages,”

Studi Medievali, 25 (1984), pp. 587-610. This study is predicated upon a more developed and documented version, which will appear as a chapter in my forthcoming book, tentatively entitled The Genesis of Romance: Studies in Early French Vernacular Narrative. 2 Derrick S. Bailey, Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition (London: Longmans,

1955),

. 84.

5 Faral, Recherches, p. 132, n. 1; cf. J.S.P. Tatlock, The Legendary History of Britain (Berkeley and London: Univ. of California Press, 1950), pp. 351 et seg. See esp. R.R. Bezzola, Les Origines et les sources de la littérature courtoise d'Occident (500-1200), 3 vols. in 5 parts (Paris: Bibl. de l'École des Chartes, 1944-1963), II. 2.531, on the various redactions of the Historia Britonum and connections between Trojan genealogies and the Normans; III. 1.126 et seg., on the Draco Normannicus, a synthesis ofofficial

royal events, which praises the new dynasty with panegyric for Henry II and shows the Trojan origin of the Normans.

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characterized as a Latinate, homosocial, and male warrior ethos — and to embrace, now as a vernacular hero, the new covenant oflove.‘ In his interesting new study of this problem in the Eneas, Gaunt argues that the point at issue in this “magical narrative” is “power within patriarchal structures,” not any valence of respect for women (26, 1). This critic views the episode in part as an example of mid-twelfth-century “gay bashing,” and he writes, ... the Enéas provides a bridge between epic and romance, between two ideologies, enacting a conscious movement towards an ideology in which love and sexuality regulate the bellicose tendencies of the medieval aristocratic male rather than male bonding

within a male brotherhood. (p. 7)

Such ideological matters cannot detain us here directly. Nonetheless, my brief study, which may perhaps provide more subtle questions than quick answers, may at least make clearer that the Eneas romance lays the foundations for a new secular humanism in the context of the birth of vernacular literature in twelfth-century France. First I must explain my title. “Taming the warrior” alludes to Stephen Jaegers description of the Verhéflichung der Krieger, or “guerrier dégriffé” (civilization of the warrior), a process necessary after the First Feudal Age which eventually involved the inculcation of such disciplined characteristics as elegant manners, courtliness, and clemency (elegantia mores, curialitas, mansuetudo).5

Put in the simplest and crudest

terms possible, the romance hero is made courtly and tamed by love. Just how this happens will be examined below. It is not irrelevant first to recall some biblical analogues to the literary conditions. Careful semantic study ofcertain scriptural passages suggests a parallel with linguistic developments in Old French. Not unlike the extended meaning ofthe term “abomination” in the Old Testament (e.g., Lev. 18: 22),° the epithet recreant in twelfth-century French, meaning “cowardly or surrendering,” often connotes as well “treasonous,”

“faith-less,” “heretical,” “peace-loving,” and “deviant.” I suggest that the two semantic spheres overlap — soft recreant and perverted sodomite — best observed in the charges of homosexuality against the main character, Eneas.’ 4

Simon Gaunt, “From

Epic to Romance:

Gender and Sexuality in the Roman d’Enéas,” Romanic

Review, 83 (1992), pp. 1-27; 26, 1. I am grateful to Professor Gaunt for the opportunity to read the galleys of his article in advance of publication. See Donald Maddox, The Arthurian Romances of Chrétien

de Troyes: Once and Future Fictions (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1991), for the notion of “antecedent order.” > C. Stephen Jaeger, The Origins ofCourtliness: Civilizing Trends and the Formation of Courtly Ideals,

939-1210 (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1986); see also his “Cathedral Schools and Humanist

Learning,

950-1150,”

Deutsche

Viertelahrsschrift fir Literaturwissenschaft

und

Geistes-

geschichte, 61 (1987), pp. 569-616; and most especially now “L'Amour des rois: Structure sociale d’une forme de sensibilité aristocratique,” Annales, 46 (1991), pp. 547-71, a brilliant mise au point on, inter alia, Richard Coeur de Lions presumed deviance.

6

Bailey, p. 43; Charles D. Myers’s keynote lecture, “Sexual Identity and Biblical Traditions: Homosex-

uality in the Bible,” Orr Forum on Religion, Wilson College, March 1992, re—affirmed Bailey’s conclusions. Cf. also Anglo-Norman Dictionary-Fasc. D-E, ed. L. Stone, et al. (London: MHRA, 1981),

s.v. erite, erité. | am indebted to Prof. Margaret Burrell for the reminder that erité meaning “sodomite” appears in the thirteenth c. Roman de Silence. 7 Text: Roman d’Eneas, ed. ].-]. Salverda de Grave. 2 vols. (Paris: Champion, 1925-29); cf. also Roman d'Eneas, trans. John A. Yunck (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1974).

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Let us review the homophobic episode in the Roman d'Eneas. It occurs in the context of a second (celebrated) interview with the queen mother (Amata in Virgil,

though she is not named in the Eneas), when Lavine the heroine, cautiously and not without guile, discovers that she loves. After defining her feelings of love — her desire for a caring, intimate and reciprocal relationship — Lavine with great hesitation utters the syllables E-NE-AS, confessing in dread to her mother that she will not have Latin Turnus, but another. The queen is furious, her response virulent:8 “N’as tu oi comfaitement il mena Dido malement? Unques feme rot bien de lui n'en avras tu, si com ge cui, d’un traitor, d’un sodomite. Toz tens te clamera il quite; se il avoit alcun godel, ce li seroit et bon et bel

quel laissasses a ses druz faire; sil lo pooit par toi atraire, nel troveroit ja si estrange qu il ne feist asez tel change,

que il feist son bon de toi por ce qu’il lo sofrist de soi; bien lo lairoit sor toi monter,

s’il repueit sor lui troter; il n'aime pas poil de conin.”

(vv. 8579-605)

This crude passage presents problems for the lexicographer, but the general meaning is clear enough.’ Excluding Levy’s curious early palinode, only Gaunt has recently attempted to meet the whole texts challenge, using it as a basis for an understanding of the way gender plays “a central role in the formation of ideologies”

(2). The queen’s excoriation continues, through amplification, and mentions Turnus’

long-suffering devotion and love, which Lavine should not ignore. Eneas is a stranger and a sodomite, love for whom should be abandoned. But the princess cannot recant, as it was Eneas own brother Cupid who made her love (vv. 8628-31)!10 To summarize briefly the action on the third day ofthis sequence, after a declaratory letter of love has been sent to no avail, Lavine’s anxiety turns to spite, though the audience knows of Eneas’ heartfelt concurrence with the love message. Lavine seems now to believe her mother’s warning, and, by way ofreproach, agrees that the hero in no way values women, only boys’ delights and male whores. “Ce est, fait ele, verité,

que ma mere m'a de lui dit; 8 Cf. Alan of Lille, De planctu naturae — The Plaint of Nature, trans. James J. Sheridan (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1980): “the little cleft of Venus has no charm for him,” Meter 1, pp. 71-72 (such snickering imagery recalls the tone of the queen’s speech). 9 R. Levy, “LAllusion à la sodomie dans Eneas,” PQ, 27 (1948), pp. 372-76. See now Gaunt, p. 16. 10 Gaunt makes the point (p. 11) that it is not Venus (“evil, passionate love,” associated with Dido),

but Cupid (Eneas half-brother) who is blamed for causing Lavine’s love grief.

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Raymond Cormier de feme lui est molt petit,

il voldroit deduit de garçon, n’aime se males putains non. Son Ganimede a avec soi, asez li est or po de moi; il est molt longuement en ruit,

a garcon moine son deduit; quant a mené o als son galt, de nule feme ne li chalt.”

(vv. 9129-39)

Unrequited and unacknowledged, Lavine now echoes and matches her mother’s gross indelicacies. But then Latinus daughter abruptly changes the direction of her thoughts: with a series of conditionals, she reverts to an affirmation of her desire for reciprocity. Unable to hate Eneas, she wishes only that he allow her to love him, as if her love will cure him and transform him into “normalcy”. What is the literary and historical background to such an episode in an early Old French romance? The problematic of homophobia seems to have intensified from the mid-eleventh century on. For Gaunt, it “is an integral part of patriarchy,” and “a necessary component of patriarchy” (18, 19). More pertinent to the present discussion is the revelation by Dares the Phrygian, himself a supposedly biased eye-witness of events at Troy, that Aeneas and Antenor betrayed their own people during the war.!! Old French lexicographers will recognize that recreant, “cowardly, renegade, surrendering,” in Old French comprises a lexical meaning of “weakling”, as well as a secondary

sense of Narcissism and excessive love, as in Chrétien’s Erec et Enide. In a recently post-heroic society, peace lovers and traitors could easily be lumped together with “outlaws”, whether queer or heretical. As suggested at the outset, a similar kind of extension of “abomination” seems to have occurred in the Old Testament, where it came to mean all ethical transgressions which reverse the ordo naturae."? Other incidence of homophobia in Old French literature is limited but salient. The hero’s response to the charges ofsexual deviance is not always like that of Eneas. For the generic mode, two short twelfth-century narratives and then a Middle-High German adaptation of the Roman d'Eneas will be examined briefly.

In a dai by Marie de France, Lanval, King Arthur's queen makes advances to the hero, is summarily rebuffed, then in distress, and in language quite reminiscent of the queen’s charges against Eneas, accuses him of homosexual practices: “T well believe that you do not like this kind ofpleasure. | have been told often enough

that you have no desire for women. You have well-trained young men and enjoy yourself with them. Base coward, wicked recreant, my lord is extremely unfortunate to have suffered you near him...”

It is his pride that forces this knightly loner to deny Guenevere’s charges and scorn her again by describing his mistress, thus revealing Lanval’s secret love and breaking his 11 See The Trojan War: The Chronicles of Dictys of Crete and Dares the Phrygian, trans. R.M. Frazer (Bloomfield and London: Indiana Univ. Press, 1966), pp. 166 et seq. 12 See, e.g., Walter W. Wakefield and Austin P. Evans, eds., Heresies of the High Middle Ages (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1969), p. 109 (Henry of Le Mans). On abomination, see Bailey, p. 43. My remarks here also refer to the lecture by Myers on sexual identity.

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promise to his beloved fairy princess. While Lanval is finally vindicated, another hero of Marie, Guigemar, is at first punished for his indifference to love. His wound oflove can only be healed by another wound, that oflove’s grief and anguish." In another memorable and not dissimilar declaration of love occurring in a short narrative, the pitiful Dané stands naked and beautiful before the proud Narcisus, who knows nothing of love and wishes never to suffer its agonies. Narcisus wrongly takes no pity whatsoever on the maiden: he is not quite characterized as an invert, just as a “hard and wicked heart” (v. 521), whose arrogance will be punished.'4

In the Eneit of Heinrich von Veldeke, the queen’s accusations are muted and much less graphic than in the Old French: she calls Aeneas a disgraceful coward, an evil scoundrel, who “ ‘never loved any woman,” and whose unspeakable relations with men “... explain why he has no desire for women. Ifall men had this vile custom, which seems nothing to the treacherous Trojan, the world would go to ruin in a century. I tell you truly, that would do a great deal of harm, because no more children would be born.”!5

Like her Old French counterpart, Heinrich’s Lavine reiterates these charges after her love declaration and the beloved hero fails to appear before her: “it

must be because of the evil of which my mother accused him. . . . God’s wrath be on him! I wish I had never heard of him! What the devil does he like about men? This is a grave evil, and if] knew for certain that he was guilty of it, [ would not care how much

shame and harm befell him. No enemy of women can remain in this country” (Eneit, wv. 11400 et seg.; 129).

Next we will turn to a problematic issue, that of patronage. The correlation between the Normans or Angevins and effeminate Phrygians provides the kind of paradoxical “tainted mantle of Hercules” that compromises the presumption of courtly patronage for this text.!6 Like the powerful yet ambiguous image of the imperial golden eagle (it also figures in the story of Ganymede’s rape), the Phrygians were at once heroes and scoundrels, exiles and cowards, both putative, bold, and ancient founders of the Roman empire and a “spineless people, fickle and utterly lacking in modesty,” in the words of John of Salisbury.'” Faral’s brief treatment of the queen’s wrathful accusation against Eneas (Recherches, 131 et seq.) traces the source of the conjunction between homosexuality and the 13 Marie de France, The Lais, trans. Glyn S. Burgess and Keith Busby (Harmondsworth and New York: Penguin, 1986), Lanval, p. 76 (“ ‘Lanval,’ fet ele, ‘bien le quit,/ Vuz n’amez gueres cel delit; /Asez le

m’ad hum dit sovent/ Que des femmes n’avez talent./ Vallez avez bien afeitiez,/ Ensemble od eus vus deduiez .. .’” — wv. 277 et seq. in ed. A. Ewert (Oxford: Blackwell, 1944, 1963). 14 “Narcisus et Dané,” vv. 355-670 in Three Ovidian Tales of Love, ed. Raymond J. Cormier (New York: Garland, 1986). 15 Heinrich von Veldeke, Eneit, trans. J.W. Thomas (New York: Garland, 1985), vv. 10634 et seg.; p- 120; see the important review of this translation by H. Wilson, CCM, 31 (1988), pp. 294-95.

16 See the important new study by Lawrence Nees, A Tainted Mantle: Hercules and the Classical Tradition at the Carolingian Court (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1991). 17 John of Salisbury, Policraticus: Of the Frivolities of Courtiers and the Footprints of Philosophers, trans. Cary J. Nederman (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990), p. 11; cf. pp. 184-85.

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Trojans to the catamite Phrygian Ganymede episode of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (XI. 754-56; X. 155-61, which is followed by other stories of unnatural love). Faral lists several twelfth-century references to sodomy, but omits the brief allusions to Ganymede in Aeneid I. 32 or V. 252, as well as other contextual indications that paradoxically conjoin effeminacy, faithlessness, and Trojan mores.!* Perhaps the best known is the speech by Carthages King Iarbas, who angrily prays to Jupiter for intercession in the Dido-Aeneas love affair (IV. 215-17): “and now this second Paris, with eunuchs in attendance and hair dripping with perfume

and Maeonian bonnet tied under his chin, is enjoying what he has stolen . . .”!?

In another scene (Aeneid VII. 357-64), Amata, driven mad by Allecto, compares for Lavinia’s benefit the prospective groom to the faithless Paris who carried off Helen as booty. Amidst the fray in Aeneid IX, Turnus’ brother-in-law, Numanus Remulus irately heckles the front lines, contrasting the rough and hard Latin race with the soft Trojans (IX. 598-620; 614—20):

“But you like your clothes dyed with yellow saffron and the bright juice of purple fish. Your delight is dancing and idleness. You have sleeves to your tunics and ribbons to keep your bonnets on. You are Phrygian women,

not Phrygian men! Leave weapons to the

men. Make way for the iron of our swords.”?°

In Book XII, Turnus himself three times insultingly describes Aeneas, first as an Asiatic deserter (XII. 16); then as an effeminate fighter whose mother protects him with ruses (XII. 53); and lastly, in an heroic address to his spear, he prays (XII. 97-100): “Grant me the power to bring down that effeminate Phrygian, to tear the breastplate off his body and rend it with my bare hands, to foul in the dust the hair he has curled with

hot steel and steeped in myrrh!”?!

Such compromising ambiguity and ambivalence toward the Virgilian hero and his grand civilizing mission pervade the Old French romance: they are even more highly concentrated in the queen’s traducements (for lack of space, we must take up elsewhere the second half of the queen’s excoriation, dealing with a more general, indeed quasi-theological indictment of homesexuality). Though he is not made aware of it, Eneas’ loss of esteem and reputation through the accusation made by both the queen mother and Lavine can be viewed as a reconciliation, just as the romance itself may be viewed as redeeming the error of the

18 Aeneid of Virgil, ed. R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969); Virgil: The Aeneid — A New Prose Translation, David West (London and New York: Penguin, 1990). Metamorphoses of Ovid, ed. and tr. Frank Justus Miller (Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard Univ. Press and Heinemann, 1960). 19 , , .et nunc ille Paris cum semiuiro comitatu,/ Meonia mentum mitra crinemque madentem,/ subnexus, rapto potitur...”. 20 “uobis picta croco et fulgenti murice uestis,/ desidiae cordi, iuuat indulgere choreis,/ et tunicae

manicas et habent redimicula mitrae./ o uere Phrygiae, neque enim Phryges, . . ./ sinite arma uiris et

cedite ferro.” 21%... da sternere corpus/ loricamque manu ualida lacerare reuulsam/ semiuiri Phrygis et foedare in pulvere crinis/ uibratos calido ferro marraque madentis.”

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Trojan prince Paris, as well as reinstating the “law ofthe father” and disintegrating the “pseudo-authority of the mother” (Gaunt, 11, 14). “Homophobia,” writes Gaunt, like misogyny is an inevitable product of patriarchy and . . . is misogynistic not because it represses the feminine in men, but because it contributes towards the oppression of

women. (19)

My conclusion will avoid for now the gender issues and the Gay and Feminist critical approach, following instead the hints of Father Walter Ong in his crucial study of Latin school practices.” From this angle, Eneas may be viewed as the deviant hero par excellence who represents the rebellious, upstart language, the vulgar, family tongue that competes with, then surpasses learned Latin. One might say the hero begins as facing backward to the Virgilian-Augustan citadel of duty and piety, but ends up turned toward the Ovidian tower of love and self-knowledge. The soft and maternal language of everyday experience will supplant the tough, violent, combative, and agonistic language of debate and rhetoric. As Father Ong argues, the latter participates in a “world dominated by male ceremonial contest — fliting, disputation, and formalized debate — and marked by heroic male bonding structures of which the war party was the paradigm” (/nterfaces, 216). Latin evolved in the Middle Ages, until by the sixth century, it was “exclusively a sex-linked, public, male language [which encoded] the agonistic structures of the agora and the academy” (Ong, 216). In educational curricula, Latin became associated

both with physical punishment and with agonistic diplomacy, verbal jousting, and public life; the vernaculars with non-combative practical, business and commercial activities.2?

So that very much like Guigemar, Eneas, perfunctorily depicted as a “stranger” to love — proud and scornful toward Eros — through a series of late, “disciplining” experiences, including imputation of his virility, loses his claws and his close association with the antecedent Latinate order. He is thus purged of wild, homosocial, and unnatural tendencies, because Lavine will love him nevertheless. On the other hand, the net effect of the accusations of sodomy upon this “faithless Trojan,” a tradition well known even outside ofVirgil’s text, transforms the Latin poets crystallization of Roman hopes and ideals, the magnanimous, pious hero, as no anachronism could do:

Eneas is truly de-sacralized in this way. The queen’s reproaches reinforce the divine pronouncements of Roman destiny by countering — in a sense on Turnus’ behalf— with an equally powerful rationale for excluding Eneas from a place in the world. Yet by taming the exile from Ilium, the reproaches at once mitigate his status and humanize him into a believable vernacular hero. Translated to the everyday mother tongue, Eneas becomes a new type of humanistic hero for a nascent secular world.

22 Walter Ong, S.J., Interfaces of the Word: Studies in the Evolution of Consciousness and Culture (Ithaca and London: Cornell Univ. Press, 1977), pp. 216-17. 23 Walter Ong, S.J., Rhetoric, Romance, and Technology: Studies in the Interaction of Expression and Culture (Ithaca and London: Cornell Univ. Press, 1971), pp. 113-41 (“Latin Language Study as a Renaissance Puberty Rite”), esp. pp. 138-39.

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Thus, for Eneas, the “faithless Trojan,” the accusations by the queen-mother, then by the princess Lavine herself, of inversion and effeminacy, become irrelevant, once the hero turns toward and yields to Lavine’s irresistible love declaration, causing a kind of spiritual rebirth. In this way, the Eneas author, painfully aware of the two principal views of Aeneas in the Middle Ages — brave, undaunted Trojan hero of Virgil’s Augustan epic, and effeminate, homosexual, Phrygian coward — endeavors to reconcile them. From such ambivalence and paradox are heroes of romance born.

COURTLY AND

UNCOURTLY

LOVE IN THE PROSE TRISTAN

Janina P Traxler

To discuss courtly and uncourtly love in the Prose Tristan is, admittedly, quite dangerous. There is disagreement on what the Prose Tristan itself is, though for purposes of this article I will rely on manuscripts Vienna 2542 and Carpentras 404.! Furthermore, there is disagreement on what courtly love means, let alone what it means for the Prose Tristan. Some may even, like D.W. Robertson and John F Benton, consider the concept more an obstacle than an aid to the discussion of medieval literature.? Nevertheless,

from beginning to end, the Prose Tristan treats one kind of love or

another — from cupiditas to caritas, from love at first sight to amour à la potion, from the adulterous to the platonic. Given this great variety, it seems appropriate to ask what the main characters themselves feel and say about love. | shall suggest that some of the most important information about the nature of love comes not from Tristan and Iseut but from Palaméde. While they are the central couple — and therefore the most obvious subjects for the study of love in the Tristan — what they actually say about love differs little in this romance from their comments in its verse antecedents. But Palamède, the Saracen newcomer, Tristan’s only serious rival in love and chivalric prowess — Palaméde comments long and loud about love. Careful analysis of his comments and of what actually happens to him reveals that of all the major characters it is he who most clearly sees the complex nature oflove in the Tristan. Since the term “courtly love” is itself problematic, let us first set down some parameters for our use of the term. Though some scholars question the very concept of courtly love, one can at least talk of lyric conventions in love poetry intended for a sophisticated audience at court. In summarizing the broad concepts of courtly love, Theodore Silverstein notes that they reflect an “outlook, a process, and a psychology” 1 Though the Prose Tristan exists in many manuscripts, both complete and fragmentary, references in this paper come from Renée L. Curtis’ edition of Carpentras 404 for the first part of the romance and

the edition of Vienna 2542, which is in progress under the direction of Philippe Ménard. See Renée L. Curtis, Le Roman de Tristan enprose, 3 vols. (vol. 1 — Munich: Max Heuber, 1963; vol. 2 — Leiden: Brill, 1976; vol. 3 — Cambridge: Brewer, 1985), cited hereafter as Curtis I, II, or III, plus the appropriate paragraph number. For references to the Vienna manuscript, see Le Roman de Tristan en prose, vol. I, ed. Philippe Ménard (Geneva: Droz, 1987), cited hereafter as Ménard I, plus the appropriate paragraph number. Citations to material located in the second half of the romance are my own transcriptions from the Vienna manuscript. 2 John FE Benton, “Clio and Venus: An Historical View of Medieval Love,” in The Meaning of Courtly

Love, ed. EX. Newman (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1968), pp. 19-42. Also in the same work see D.W. Robertson, Jr., “The Concept of Courtly Love as an Impediment to the Understanding of Medieval Texts,” pp. 1-18.

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and that at the heart of courtly love are natural attraction for the beloved, a belief that the lover is unworthy ofthe beloved, and a tendency for the characterization of this love to rise above mere carnality to something more spiritual.> We can add more concretely that such love is typically expressed in vocabulary which idealizes the beloved, often using religious terminology to portray the beloved as a deity and the lover as supplicant, or using feudal terminology to portray the beloved as seigneur and the lover as serfor prisoner.‘ Medieval texts frequently suggest that such love results in an illness in which the lover suffers intense physical and psychological upheaval and which can sometimes lead to madness or suicide.> The major characters in the prose Tristan romances feel something which seems in its broad lines to be “courtly” love. In particular, Tristan and Iseut are consumed with thoughts of each other. They frequently speak of their love in terms which go well beyond the carnal to the idealized. In fact, because of the effects of the potion, theirs might be considered a double, almost redundant, courtly love — each is lover as well as beloved, each considers the other to be a God, a sovereign over the lover's heart, and so on. That Tristan and Iseut’s relationship is adulterous places their situation well within the vision of such writers as Ovid and Andreas Capellanus. All of this yields a love story which would be almost too conventional to be interesting, were it not for the fact that other people — Kahedin and Palamède in particular — also love Iseut just as desperately as Tristan does, though Iseut does not care for them in return.° Four major characters in the Prose Tristan comment on love, and their fate in love, at approximately the same time (just before Tristan’s period of madness in Cornwall). The occurrence of these four important expressions of love — three lais and a monologue — all within the same general time frame allows us to compare style and content among the four characters who most frequently talk of love and whose situations are most central to the love story, and to determine to what extent their love is “courtly”. The four statements contain much that is predictable. Not surprisingly, Tristan’s lai, the Lai Mortel (Curtis III, 870), frequently pairs the words “mort” and “amor”: Je muir por amer de cuer fin.”

(st. 6)

“Mort et amor me font finer,/ Ma joie en dolor definer.” “Mort et amor mont acouru.”

“Amor a mort ma mis.”

(st. 8)

(st. 10)

(st. 11)

“Por bien amer a mort demeur.”

(st. 21)

3 Theodore Silverstein, “Guenevere, or the Uses of Courtly Love,” in The Meaning of Courtly Love, pp. 77-90 (here 82).

4 For information on the vocabulary common to courtly poetry see Glynnis M. Cropp, Le Vocabulaire courtois des troubadours de l'époque classique (Geneva: Droz, 1975), and Edmond Faral, Les Arts poétiques

du XIle et du XIIIe siècle; Recherches et documents sur la technique littéraire du moyen âge (Paris: Champion, 1923). 5 For more on this aspect of love see Mary Frances Wack, Lovesickness in the Middle Ages: The “Viaticum” and Its Commentaries (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1990). 6 The portrayal of Iseut as the almost universal object of knights’ admiration is one of the features

which distinguishes the prose from the verse Tristan romances. In the prose romance we periodically

meet yet another person who manifests undying (though platonic) love for Iseut. For example Brunor, the Chevalier a la Cote Mautaillie, comes back into the second half of the romance in this guise.

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Tristan begins by blaming first Iseut for his misery (“Encois m’ocist Yselt l’enrievre,” st. 14) and then love (“Amors m'ocit,” st. 20). He develops his pain and despair,

emphasizing that he has loved better than any other mortal. It is in most ways a conventional love poem, from imagery to form. Shortly after Tristan’s lai the text presents Iseut’s farewell lai to Tristan (Curtis III, 932). Sensual imagery sets the tone for her poem: Li solex luist et clers et biaux, Et j’oi le dolz chant des oissiaux Qui chantent par ces arbroissaus.

(st. 1)

Iseut’s pastoral imagery contrasts sharply with her despair, a technique frequently found in love laments: “Ou monde n’a mais fors que frapaille!/ Bien avom changié grain por paille” (st. 11). Iseut, like many lovers, experiences the whole spectrum of contradictory emotions while at the mercy oflove: Liee, triste, chantant, plorant Vois Amor com Dieu aorant. Tuit amant, venez ¢a corant!

Vez Yselt qui chante en morant. Ge chant mon lay et si le plor.

(st. 5) (st. 6)

After her opening lament, Iseut gives a short recapitulation of the couple’s love, from

Tristan’s victory over her uncle the Morholt, to the couple’s bliss in the forest of Morois. She finishes by announcing her intent to kill herself with Tristan’s sword. While this content distinguishes her lai from the laments of the others, the expression of Iseut’s despair is otherwise fairly typical. Last in the series oflais is Kahedin’s farewell to Iseut (Ménard I, 163), which he sends to her just before he dies of a broken heart. Though he addresses Iseut, he does not blame her for his fate, reserving his anger for love: Dame de valour et de pris,

Toute rien fors que vous despris. Par vous crut mes los et mes pris. Or muir, or n’ainc vers vous ne mespris!

(Il. 9-12)

Hé! Amours, vous m’avés trahi! Morteument m’avés envahi! De moi seront tout esbahi,

Quant pour noiient m/avés hai!

(Il. 57-60)

Like Tristan, Kahedin frequently associates amor and mort, and he frequently uses the oxymoron of sweet death: En morant de si douche mort C’ainc nus si dous morsel ne mort, Me plaing d’icele ki m’a mort:

Ardours d’amours a ce m’amort.

(Il. 1-4)

As in the complaints of Tristan and Iseut, Kahedin’s remarks contain little to surprise

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us; rather they conform to many well-known characteristics of medieval love poetry, in both form and imagery. Because Palaméde’s monologue (Curtis III, 903+) is somewhat different, it merits a

more detailed description. This passage occurs between the laments of Tristan and Iseut and fits within the same time period. Palaméde accuses love of mutability, fickleness, and heartlessness. He notes that his situation is all the more sad because while he suffers mistreatment at loves hands, the only person to whom he can complain is love, regularly personified as female: “Amors, a vos meismes me pleng de vos” (904,18).7 Then he begins a highly metaphorical discussion which underscores

how love tricks the lover, seeming to promise one thing and then giving another. For example, love is like the thorn on the fragrant rose, allowing some to pluck the flower and pricking others: “tot ausi come l’espine qui porte la rose soés odorant, aus uns lesse prendre sa rose et les autres point dusqu’au sanc, l’un point bien et l’autre mal, et l’un done pen et a l’autre pierre, Amor, tot ensi faites vos” (904, 20-23).8 But in the

second part of his monologue he essentially recants. As he begs pardon oflove for his harsh accusations, he recycles each major image used earlier, this time to show how love is really a positive force rather than a negative one, and to admit that he is simply unworthy of loves benefits. If love, the thorn, gives some the flower and others the wound, Palaméde says, that merely demonstrates her power: “Amors, de ce que je dis que vos donez aus uns la rose et les autres poigniez, aus uns donez pain et aus autres pierres, ne dis je se por mostrer non vostre force, vostre pooir, vostre grant sens, vostre mesure” (905, 29—31).?

In many ways these four complaints are typical of courtly love lyric, especially laments. The lover stricken with love sickness appears insane, deeply depressed, preoccupied with his own misery. He even tries to harm himself, seeking death as an end to his suffering. Love is a heartless tyrant and the lover its undeserving victim. Despairing lovers of all times and places imagine that no lover has suffered as much as they have. These various postures and rhetorical devices are then all well known.'° One important aspect of Palaméde’s monologue is vot typical and therefore interests

7 This perhaps symbolizes Palamèdes no-win circumstances, which are an important part of his characterization. He is doomed to love Iseut just as deeply as Tristan does, but there is no chance that

Iseut will ever love him. And since Tristan can always win in battle, Palaméde must assume that he can never simply carry off Iseut. 8 Palaméde also uses the comparisons of love to the weather which is fair at daybreak and stormy at dusk, to the moon which the fool tries to catch by climbing the mountain at whose peak the moon seems to rest, to the candle whose brightness dazzles in darknesss but pales to insignificance in bright daylight.

9 This scene contains further interesting moments which depend on the fact that throughout Palamèdes monologue, Kahedin and Marc (each ignorant of the other’s presence) overhear everything Palamède says. Kahedin finally talks to Palaméde, recycling Palaméde’s imagery to underscore how

hopeless love is for both of them. While this exchange contains much that is worthy of analysis, I have not focused on it here because, again, it is quite conventional in its imagery.

10 Like most writers of the period, the writer of the Prose Tristan was undoubtedly familiar with well-known commentaries on love like Ovid’s Ars amandi and Andreas Capellanus’ De amore. On these

aspects of lyric poetry see Roger Dragonetti, La Technique poétique des trouvères dans la chanson courtoise: Contribution à l'étude de la rhétorique médiévale (Geneva: Slatkine, 1979) and Moshe Lazar, Amour courtois et finamors dans la littérature du XTle siècle (Paris: Klincksieck, 1964), as well as Edmond Faral.

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us: Palaméde completely reverses himself.!! This difference becomes much more apparent when we look at his first monologue together with his second one, which occurs about three-quarters into the romance. Palaméde, traveling incognito as the Silver Knight, delivers himself of adetailed love lament, a second monologue in which he again bemoans his ill fortune as Iseut’s suitor. This passage, overheard by Tristan, is important for what Palamède says about love as well as for how he says it. As the scene begins, Palaméde demonstrates all of the stereotypical symptoms of love sickness, except that here they are much more intense and violent than in the first monologue. In fact, Tristan thinks he has never seen someone so crazy with despair. Palameéde’s opening statement (Vienna 2542: 386c) fits Dragonetti’s description of a classic “interrogation poétique” (41). Palaméde questions love personified, detailing his sufferings under her cruelty. Love, Palaméde says, is “plainne de desloiauté et plainne d’enging et de menchoingnes, plainne de dolours et de painnes, plainne de fiel et d’amertume, plainne de mort” (386c). Worse yet, he adds, love is born of the devil,

the temptor who caused the fall of Adam in the garden: Vous fustes de tempeste nee et engenree de tonnoire. Tous li mondes estoit en dolours et en obscurtés et en tenebres a l’eure que vous fustes nee et concheue. He, Amours, vous fustes conceue et nee pour le destruiement du monde qui vous nourri et alaita et pour chou estes si menchoigniere, car en cele qui vous nourri n’ot onques se menchoigne non. Et toutes ces meismes teces que cis serpens avoit en lui mist ele en vous; tout plainnement de mengoigne et de fauseté vous garni, et puis aprés de decevement et de traison, autresi de biau parler pour decevoir et de pro[mJece sans donner et de mentir au [d] povre et au rice, de faillir en tous couvenens, de dechoivre grans et petis, et de traïir et uns et autres. Amours est ausi conme li serpens qui proumist a n{o]stre [pere] que se il

mengoit de la pome il seroit ausi conme Diex, et crut a la fausse proumesse. Si s’en trouva mort et honni, Amours, qui de celui serpent maintiens adés la coustume, car de li

vient vostre conseil et tout li vostre fait en issent. (Vienna 386c-d)!2

Palaméde concludes this section by observing that before he was struck by love, he was content like Adam was before meeting the serpent: Je estoie en joie et en aise et [f] en deduit et en soulas et estoie nouviaus cevaliers. Je avoie tout mon

voloir car plus ne voloie du monde. Mais or sui faus, avers et caitis, dolans et eslongiés de tout sens et de tous biens, et ce m’a ore mis en la fole sourquidance que Convoitise vint a moi et amena avoec li Envie sa suer carnel. Ces .ii. sereurs traitres si prirent ensamble compaingnie et vinrent a moi pour mot traiir, et me donnerent conseil que je apreisse a voler au ciel. Et voil estre paraus a Dieu quant de la plus bele du

monde, de cele qui plus a de biautés qu’il not onques em paradis, voloie avoir la compaingnie. Adans voloit il plus avoir quant il fu em paradis que je voloie cha en tere?

A Dieu voloit estre paraus, li faus, et je le voloie autresi. (Vienna 386e-f) 11 Two other minor differences are of some note. First, Palaméde normally expresses his sorrow in prose monologue, whereas the others write lais. Second, Palaméde alone ofall the major sympathetic characters does not “send” (whether by letter or lai) his despair to his beloved. The reader learns Palaméde’s pain the way other characters do — by eavesdropping. These two points are perhaps linked: with no

imagined receiver for his thoughts, Palaméde might feel less need to set them to poetry. In addition, because he is not of courtly origin, he has not had the musical training which is so typical of the high-born Tristan and Iseut. 12 The terms in brackets replace prouece and naistre premiere, which are clearly written in the manuscript but are without doubt scribal errors for promece (“promesse”) and nostre pere (“notre père”).

Comparison with another manuscript of the base family, Paris B.N. 336, confirms this.

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As in the first monologue, Palaméde devotes the second part of this monologue to retracting his accusations, begging pardon for the earlier harsh criticism of love and admitting that whatever renown he may have as a knight has come to him because of love, which gives him bravery and power whenever he thinks of his lady: “se on me

tint a cevalier, ce fu par la force d’Amours qui me donne pooir et force et hardement et vigour et prouesce toutes les fois que de ma dame me souvient” (386e). He then revises his comparison of himself to Adam and love to the serpent, noting that like Adam, he earned exile from paradise not because of the serpent but because of his own pride: “Li serpens ne mist pas Adan hors de paradis, ains en mist hors li siens pecies et la suie tres grant folie. N’estoit il faus apertement quant il voloit conme Diex estre?” (386e).

Two aspects of Palamède’s comments are noteworthy. First, his characterization of love is quite unusual in love poetry. Palamède distinguishes himself from all others in the romance as well as from other frustrated lovers by likening his deception to the Fall or the Apocalypse. He asserts that love is born of tempest and bred of thunder, that suffering and darkness covered the world at the hour of her birth, and that she takes after the serpent who nursed her and caused Adams destruction. Palamède thus borrows imagery which in didactic and inspirational literature describes the Last Judgment and the Antichrist. His comparison oflove to Satan, Lucifer, or the serpent in the garden differs significantly from the common poetic device of presenting the beloved as a Virgin figure and characterizing love in religious or mystical terms. When Palamède recants and transforms his previous criticism of love into a self-criticism using many ofthe same images and terms, he acknowledges that the serpent was only indirectly responsible for Adam’s fall and that the real cause was Adam’s pride. Palaméde admits that he fell into the same trap as Adam by thinking that he deserved Iseut and could win her. Convoitise and Envie betrayed him by persuading him that he could “voler au ciel” and become “paraus a Dieu.” A second major distinction between Palamèdes comments and the other love laments is that Palameéde’s pattern in both monologues — rant and recant — is unique in the Prose Tristan, though it occurs in some other love laments (Dragonetti 42). One

might be tempted to attribute the about-face in both monologues to a certain paradox which underlies his portrayal. Palaméde is capable of both hating Tristan (for repeatedly humiliating him in battle, for consistently blocking his access to Iseut) and quite honestly considering him one of the two or three best knights in the world. Similarly, Palamède can be valiant and indomitable one minute, and dissolve the next minute into uncontrollable depression and weeping if Tristan defeats him. But I think Palamèdes complex assessment of love goes beyond these conflicting aspects of his character: his position as the person most frequently and consistently frustrated in love lends him a particularly clear vision of the type of love presented in the Prose Tristan. Rather than leaving us with mutually negating views oflove, Palaméde gives us two different levels of understanding, both of which are important to the romance. Curiously, Palaméde speaks the truth in both halves of his monologue. In accusing love of being the child of the devil, sent to the world to destroy, Palamède is right. The love he and others describe resembles in many ways the fr'zmors which fills the pages of medieval poetry. But the courtly trappings are a veneer for a corrosive force which, like the serpent in the garden, tempts its unsuspecting victims away from their

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obligations to God and society. Love destroys the whole social fabric of this fictional world built upon it. It ruins persons (witness Tristan and Iseut, Kahedin) and kingdoms (both Logres and Cornwall); it overturns the normal order of things, pitting

uncle against nephew, husband against wife and king against queen, popular sympathy against feudal obligations. When Palaméde evokes the story of Adam and Eve, he carries the analysis of love to a level unseen in any other discussion oflove in the Prose Tristan. Blaming love for one’s unhappiness is typical; admitting that one has fallen prey to a deadly temptation is not. Yet Palaméde is also right in acknowledging that love in a sense makes the world go round; love is the core without which the story — Palamede’s fictional world — could not exist. This idealized, noble love, which resembles the caritas or pure love of medieval theological and mystical discussions, the spiritual goal of the pious, is considered by Palaméde and others to be the keystone of chivalry. Palaméde’s monologues underscore a dilemma at the heart of Arthurian chivalry: the same love which inspires chivalric prowess, which provides the spiritual and moral base for prowess, also draws the lover away from the practice of knighthood, a lesson which Chrétiens Erec demonstrates dramatically. In the Prose Tristan this dilemma is most poignant for Palamède because he is the single best rival to Tristan with respect to Iseut: none ofIseut’s other admirers can match Palaméde’s chivalric prowess, and no other knight — including Tristan — can claim a love for Iseut more longstanding and constant than Palaméde’s. As Palamède correctly sees, love makes him the knight he is, yet it keeps him ever at the brink of psychological collapse by continually forcing him into confrontation with Tristan, the person who defines the limits of Palaméde’s love (by prohibiting access to Iseut) and knighthood (by consistently defeating him in battle). In the depth of his despair, Palamède sees that the problem is not love so much as his manner of coping with it. Palamède concludes that he has become too ambitious, that he is trying to “fly too high.” In understanding that he has fallen prey to the same temptation as Adam, he realizes that his problems in life have come from wanting something he was unsuited for: Iseut. To survive, he will have to aim less high, to admit that he cannot have Iseut, to rebalance his life. The link between death and love is well established in this romance, both by the lovers’ own words and by their fates. But how the lovers approach their death reveals also what love meant in their life. Kahedin is the least resilient of the major lovers." Unable to cope with Iseuts rejection of him and Tristan’s assumption of betrayal by Kahedin and Iseut, Kahedin simply withdraws from life and dies of abroken heart; he

disappears from the romance even before Tristan regains his sanity. Palaméde, Tristan, and Iseut all survive to the end, and since the deaths of these three and Galaad occur within the same short period oftime, the reader can examine love one final time as the Grail quest and the central love story conclude. Palamède’s death occurs between the two dramatically different deaths of the main couple and of Galaad. Throughout the romance, Palamède the Saracen had consistently refused to be Christianized despite the conversion of his whole family and despite repeated 13 This discussion has not addressed the case of Lancelot because he does not love Iseut and because his portrait is drawn largely from the Prose Lancelot and the Queste del Saint Graal. His character and fate in these works has already been extensively studied and is less pertinent here.

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encouragement from his Christian peers at Arthurs court. Near the end, however, he changes his mind, is baptised, joins the Round Table, and then leaves to seek the Grail, seeming finally to have given up the quest for Iseut. His death results from an odd pair of events. He is first severely wounded when Lancelot meets him and decides to test Palaméde’s swordsmanship; the fight ends only when Palaméde learns Lancelot’s identity and refuses to fight a fellow of the Round Table. The two part ways, but unfortunately Palaméde soon meets Gauvain and Agravain, who hate him and are in perfect health. Deliberately ignoring several ground rules of chivalric behavior, the brothers defeat Palaméde easily and leave him fatally wounded. Palaméde makes his peace with God and then dies, commending his soul to Gods care (Vienna 2542:497).

Our final image of Palamède is more holy than knightly. He seems to have chosen the high moral path — a pious death as a Grail quester who falls victim to the corrupt, unscrupulous Gauvain — over the pursuit of Iseut or worldly renown. This death suggests that Palaméde evolves from the knight who for most of the romance is trapped between the undying hope that he will one day win his beloved and the continual reminders that he is not quite good enough, between love and disappointment, between Iseut and Tristan. Whether courtly or not, love offered Palamède little more than pain, and in his final adventure he succeeds in breaking out of the cycle of love and despair. Unlike Palamède, Tristan remains mired in the conflicting needs oflove and knighthood, something which we see clearly from his activities during the Grail quest. Against the backdrop of this quest, during which the goal is very different from everyday life in Logres, Tristan does nothing which differs fundamentally from his activities before the quest. He rescues damsels in distress, abolishes an evil custom here and there; when he is not with Iseut, he wants to be, and when he is with her, he soon leaves to go adventuring. Tristan never completely realizes that he cannot conquer “los et pris” from the bed of his beloved, any more than he can really be Iseut’s lover and stay in the saddle. The star of this Arthurian western, Tristan must choose the horse or

the lady, leave one and take the other. Unable either to balance them or choose between them, he is drawn by both toward his death. Marc is able to retrieve his wife

because Tristan is away being a knight; he is able to wound Tristan fatally because Tristan returns to being a lover. And we must not forget that both of these forces drew Tristan away from the Grail Quest: after a year on the quest, Tristan drops out because he has won enough chivalric glory to be respectable and he wants to return to Iseut. Whereas Palamède’s death contains no reference to his former love for Iseut, Tristan’s features a return to the love story so important to the romance. If Palaméde were simply self-contradictory in analyzing love, he would be uninteresting or perhaps comical. But as a Saracen and the most uncultured ofthe major lovers — Palamède himself notes that he is not a prince like Lancelot and Tristan (and even

Kahedin) — he intrigues us by weaving the rhetoric and imagery of courtly love together with a highly Christian vision ofcupiditas. By exposing both facets of the love he feels, Palamède recalls Andreas Capellanus, who teaches us the ways of love and then describes all its dangers. His dual vision is perhaps symbolized by his shield

which features a black and white checkered pattern, the two opposite colors evenly matched. Palaméde’s transformation from frustrated lover to Grail seeker stands in

Courtly and Uncôurtly Love in the Prose Tristan

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contrast to the fate of Tristan and Iseut, who remain caught in the destructive love whose sufferings they detail easily in their courtly diction but who never see love’s other side as Palaméde does. As in courtly love lyric, for Tristan and Iseut (and for Kahedin) amor and mort form a close rhyme, an inseparable couple. When the lovers die in a common embrace, displaying their love before Marc, the courtly cliché amor/mort becomes an uncourtly reality.

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ALLEGORICAL NARRATIVE SALU D'AMOUR

IN PHILIPPE DE BEAUMANOIR’S

Leslie C. Brook

A colloquium held in Beauvais in 1983 and devoted to the study of Philippe de Beaumanoir (or Philippe de Rémi) not only stimulated an interest in and reassessment of his writings, it also brought about a shift in the general view ofthe identity of the author.! A father and son shared the same names, and credit for having written the two romances (La Manekine and Jehan et Blonde) and other short poems contained in

B.N. MS fr. 1588 was formerly normally given to the son (1253-1296), a lawyer and undisputed author of the Coutumes de Beauvaisis, which were completed in 1283.? Bernard Gicquel, however, demonstrated that the two romances could have been written only by the father (died 1266), since a German text, Willehalm von Orlens by Rudolf von Ems, which dates from 1242, clearly draws on La Manekine and Jehan et Blonde. The composition of these two romances is now situated between 1230 and 1240.4 Whereas La Manekine and Jehan et Blonde have benefited from recent studies,‘ the short poem which immediately follows them in B.N. MS fr. 1588 (fos. 97-103),

entitled Salu d’Amours, has so far received little attention. In the recent collective volume devoted to /ehan et Blonde, Jean Dufournet assigns it a date after 1255

(19-20). It is in this same year that a legal document mentions Philippe de Rémi (the

1 See Aspects de la vie au XIIIe siècle. Histoire. Droit. Littérature. Actes du Colloque international Philippe de Beaumanoir et les Coutumes de Beauvaisis (1283-1983), éd. Philippe Bounet-Laborderie (Beauvais: G.E.M.O.B., 1986). 2 Philippe de Beaumanoir, Coutumes de Beauvaisis, éd. Amaury Salmon, 2 vols. (Paris, 1899-1900). For the romances and poems see Hermann Suchier, Philippe de Rémi, sire de Beaumanoir: Oeuvres

poétiques 2 vols. (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1884-85), and Sylvie Lécuyer, Jehan et Blonde de Philippe de Rémi (Paris: Champion, 1984). 3

B. Gicquel, “Rudolf von Ems, adaptateur de Philippe de Rémi,” Actes du Colloque . ., pp. 117-28.

See also his article “Le Jehan et Blonde de Philippe de Rémi, peut-il être source du Willehalm von Orlens?,” Romania, 102 (1981), pp. 306-23. 4 See Jean Dufournet, “Introduction à la lecture de Jehan et Blonde de Philippe de Remy,” in Un Roman à découvrir: Jehan et Blonde” de Philippe de Remy (XIIe siècle), études recueillies par Jean Dufournet, avec la Collaboration de N. Andrieux-Reix, M.M. Castellani, B. Gicquel, J.G. Gouttebroze et Sylvie Lécuyer (Paris: Champion, 1991), pp. 7-49 (p. 10). 5 Apart from the essays in Un Roman à découvrir, there are two recently published theses: MarieMadeleine Castellani, Du Conte populaire à “lexemplum’: “La Manekine” de Philippe de Beaumanoir,

thèse de doctorat de troisième cycle soutenue devant l’Université de Paris III (Lille: Université de Lille III, 1988), and Margaret] Shepherd, Tradition and Re-creation in Thirteenth Century Romance: “La Manekine” and “Jehan et Blonde” by Philippe de Rémi, Faux titre, 48 (Amsterdam-Atlanta: Rodopi, 1990).

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elder) as also “sires de Biaumanoir” (Lécuyer, 10-11; Dufournet, 12), and this is the

name which the poet uses to refer to himself both at the beginning and in the middle of the Salu d’Amours: “Phelippes de Biaumanoir dit / Et tiemoigne que biau voir dit ...” (IL 1-2) and “Phelippe de Biaumanoir mande / Qu'il doit Amours en non d'amende . . .” (Il. 523—24).° In contrast, both of the romances, either at the begin-

ning or end of the text, bear the name Philippe de Rémi, and as both the Salu d'Amours and the Coutumes de Beauvaisis cite Philippe de Beaumanoir as author, Dufournet does not totally rule out the possibility that it was the son who wrote the Salu d’Amours.’ However, a careful comparison of the rhymes of the Salu d'Amours with those of the two romances suggests that the author of all three texts is the same person, despite the differences in poetic register, unless the son studied and absorbed his father’s rhyming habits, which include the use of some unusual, rich or identical rhymes.® Of Southern French origin, the type of poem known as the Salut d'Amour preserved an identity of its own among the various types of the lyric, and appears to have flourished in the North ofFrance in the thirteenth century, though only a handful of such poems now survive.? It is allied to the complainte and chanson, but with the distinctive feature that it consists of a letter, usually in rhyming octosyllabic couplets, addressed by the lover to his lady. In this letter the poet will in desperation inform the lady of his love and his sufferings, in the hope that she will respond favorably and thus, beyond the limits of the poem, assuage his professed torments. That hope is an essential ingredient of the genre can be seen from a salut in which the lady actually appears and replies, refusing to grant her love immediately, and only if the lover can prove that he is fully worthy of her.!° The scope of the salut may appear rather restricted, nevertheless, for this simplified account of its general features perhaps masks its potential complexity as a blend oflyric, narrative and didactic elements. The very word salut finds no ready, adequate equivalent in current English to convey its implications, for as a poetic term it implies at once courteous greeting, respectful acknowledgment of a superior power, a revelation of love (since the poem’s arrival should be unexpected, like a surprise Valentine card!), a request for favored treatment and, by reason of its poetic form and protestation oflove, a double tribute to the lady’s beauty and worth. Philippe de Beaumanoirs Salu d'Amours — a title which he himself gives to the poem in the penultimate line: “Ci fine li Salus d’amour” |. 1047 — is a more 6 All quotations from the Salu d'Amours are from Suchiers edition, vol. 2, pp. 197-229, with occasional modifications, mostly in spelling and punctuation, based on my own study of the MS. The

poet also refers to himself several times in the poem simply as “Phelippe”. 7 “à moins qu'il ne faille l’attribuer au fils dont ce serait le seul essai poétique connu” (p. 19). R.-H. Bautier discounts this possibility, on the grounds that the slighting reference in the poem to the French court would be inappropriate for the son (Actes du Colloque . . ., p. 12); Gicquel agrees (Un Roman à découvrir, p. 96). 8 This point will be elaborated in a further article on Philippe de Beaumanoir's love-poetry.

9 See Paul Meyer, “Le Salut d'Amour dans les littératures provençale et française,” Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Chartes, Ge sér., [IT (1867), pp. 124-70; also Pierre Bec, “Pour un essai de définition du Salut d'Amour: les quatre inflexions sémantiques du terme, À propos du salut anonyme Dompna, vos maves et amors,” Estudis Romanics, 9 (1961), pp. 191-201, and P. Zumthor, Essai de poétique médiévale (Paris: Seuil, 1972), pp. 418-19.

10 See Meyer, pp. 147—49.

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elaborately constructed and longer poem than any of the sauts published in Meyer's study, none of which, unlike Philippe’s poem, use allegory. Several aspects, notably its

social comment and implications, its legal procedures, its relationship to other Saluts d'Amour, and above all its poetic style, are worthy of closer examination; yet after discussing the introductory sections of the poem, the only scholar ever to have analysed the poem in any detail commented that: “Tout le reste de ce petit poème est le développement prolixe des mémes pensées, des mémes sentiments, exprimés, sans enchainement, dans un style inégal, embarrassé, souvent méme barbare, quoique gracieux parfois.”!! For too long this assessment of the poem’s qualities has remained unchallenged. The poet’s optimism is expressed from the outset: Phelippes de Biaumanoir dit

Et tiemoigne que biau voir dit, Qui sont par amours envoiié, Ont main vrai amant ravoiié De mal en bien, de duel en joie.

(Il. 1-5)

Accordingly Amours urges him to send a “salus” to the lady whose beauty has inspired

his love and caused his suffering. He in turn beseeches the lady to read his sa/u and learn how he is caught between the promptings ofdesire and the hesitations of doubt; only she can restore peace to his troubled soul, and he is confident of her good will. Following this general introduction, which occupies the first 46 lines of the poem,

there comes the first of 19 separate sections, which vary between 24 and 130 lines in length, all introduced by the same two lines of stylized greeting: “A tant, bele tres douce amee, / Cent mile fois douce clamee . . .” (Il. 47-8).12 This repeated introductory greeting functions as a unifying refrain, and as a constant reminder of the destinataire and of the poet’s unwavering attitude towards her. The first of these 19 sections is then partly an amplificatio of the sentiments already expressed in the introduction, and partly an indication of the substance of the narratio to begin in the third section, which explains in detail the precise nature of his predicament. The story which he then tells is a mixture of possible fact and allegorical fantasy. Recently (“l’autrier,” 1. 123), he had joined in a courtly dance, as he often did, and was struck by the beauty of the lady to whom the poem is addressed. Immediately Amours shot an arrow through his eye to his heart, an arrow representing aspects of the lady’s beauty which inflame his passion; whereupon Amours sent Orguel and Cointise to lay hold of him, while Traisons accuses him of having unworthily taken the lady’s hand (in the dance, or as an invitation to dance’), a social solecism for which he must answer to Amours. Willingly surrendering to Amours in her garden of flowers, Philippe claims that he meant the lady no harm, but: “.j. de vos dars m'a si navré Que jamais garison n’avré S’en vostre court ne truis.j. mire.”

(Il. 199-201)

11 Ffelix] L{ajard], “Philippe de Beaumanoir, Jurisconsulte,” Histoire littéraire de la France, 20 (1895), pp. 356-408 (p. 396). 12 The opening of the third section is slightly differently worded: “Saciés, bele tres douce amee, / Cent mile fois douce clamee” (Il. 121—22).

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Amours offers him a court ruling on his behaviour, which the lover accepts, giving his heart as a pledge. Meanwhile he is to be kept in the prison of Pensee, guarded by Espoirs. Amours summons all her barons to advise on the case, and the first to respond are the adversaries: Orguel, Cointise, Envie, Felonie, Mesdis and Traisons. A messenger, whose name is Sens or Sapience, announces that Loialtés and her company have been temporarily delayed, then returns to his mistress, refusing to stay. The adversaries conspire to arrange a judgment before Loialtés can arrive, and visiting Philippe in prison, Traisons persuades him to trust her with his case. He is taken before Amours again, and agrees to accept the terms of adocument (“lettre,” !. 491) to

be drawn up by Traïsons and her associates. Traisons reads out their document, which consists of ten penalties: he must remain in Pensee’s prison, and endure constant sighing, doubt, lack of sleep, restless stretching (“estendillier,” 1. 542), yearning to be with his loved one, the torment of a mental picture of her, jealousy of others, feverishness, and finally despair, as he recalls his folly in aspiring to a lady supposedly beyond his reach. Loialtés and her friends then arrive, whereupon Traisons and her band depart for the French court (“Se vinrent en la court de France,” |. 661). Philippe

tearfully acquaints Loialtés, Franchise, Deboinaireté, Sens, Pitié and Esperance with the sentence that has been inflicted upon him. They are all horrified; Sens pleads with Amours to help alleviate the lover’s pain, and Loialtés proposes that an end be put to his suffering when the lady so chooses, and when Pitié can persuade her. Philippe is told to help Pitiés efforts by composing poems and songs to please his lady and touch her heart. He remains in Amours’s court, and sets about the writing of his salu, begging his lady to heed it and be merciful by granting her love. The poem concludes with his waiting patiently for her to end the sentence imposed upon him. The dance, Amours, the garden, the arrow, the heart given as a pledge, the ten

penalties, the use of allegorical figures are all, of course, reminiscent of Guillaume de Lorriss Roman de la Rose; but as Sylvie Lécuyer has shown in relation to Jehan et Blonde, Philippe de Beaumanoir never simply borrows motifs or models, he absorbs and recreates.'> This is perhaps most evident in his use ofallegorical figures representing the experience of falling in love and the difficult progress of that love towards hoped-for union with the beloved. While some of the figures that Philippe de Beaumanoir brings into play are also found in the Roman de la Rose, he uses all of them differently. A major example is Amours, who is not the same as the corresponding figure in the Roman de la Rose. In Guillaume de Lorriss poem Amor is a male figure, the son of Venus. He is introduced as “li dex d’Amors” (1. 864),'4 a phrase repeated several times,

and is often referred to later, after the narrator-dreamer has been struck by the first arrow, simply as “Amors”, and by the pronoun “il” (1. 1733 ff). This maleness is further underlined by references to him as “li archiers” (Il. 1760 and 1780), and by the homage paid to him by Amant as to a feudal overlord. In all he represents for Amant three different things: first the observed, abstract concept, then, after the shooting of 13 Sylvie Lécuyer, “Les Jeux de l’Escriture dans Jehan et Blonde: un art du trompe-l’oeil,” in Un Roman à découvrir, pp. 141-69 (esp. pp. 153-61). 14 All quotations from and line-references to the Roman de la Rose are from the edition by Félix Lecoy, 3 vols. (Paris: Champion, 1965-70).

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the arrows, not only Amants master but also the structured idealization of his feelings. In Philippe de Beaumanoir’s poem, however, it soon becomes apparent that Amours is a female being, for when Philippe is brought before her, he addresses her as “Dame” (I. 187) and “Bele Dame” (1. 195).15 As this representation is in accord with the normal

grammatical gender of the word “amour” in Old French,!° it appears natural that she is referred to as “Bone Amours” (I. 221), and is described as “courtoise” (1. 794) and

“plaine de bonté” (I. 795). But more significantly, as a female entity Amours can be seen to stand directly for the offended lady, who would be supported by all women in love. Orguel explains to Amours why Philippe has been seized: 199

“La raison que nous i avons

E{s]t: pour çou kil prist par le doit Chele qui le los avoir doit De celes de vostre couvent.”

(Il: 190-93)

This hint of a generalized offence is vaguely reminiscent of Marie de Frances Guigemar, in which the wounded hind stands for injured womanhood. On the surface, however, Amours and the lady are clearly separate beings, for Traisons, claiming the right to judge the matter, says to Amours: “II est sur moi de ce mesfait / Que vers vous et vers cele a fait . . .” (Il. 467-68). Amours

remains at the centre of Philippe

narrative; he swears allegiance to her, and at the end begs to be allowed to stay at her court, thus seeking to serve what in abstract and in person she stands for; it is in front of her that all the arguments are voiced and decisions taken, and although, like the lover, she remains curiously passive throughout much of the narrative, in the end it is she who approves the measures proposed by Loialtés, and offers to beg the lady to love only him: “Je meismes l’en prierai,

Et par maintes fois li dirai Qu autrui de vous pour bien amer Ne devra son ami clamer.” (Il. 931-34)

15 She is also apostrophized as “Dame” at ll. 276, 302, 311, 412, 465, 475, 793 and 938, and as “Douce Dame” at |. 725. It is easy to overlook the feminine agreements in the introductory lines of the poem, in which Amours seems to be more of a concept than a personification: “Amours, qui m'est u

cuer fremee / Sans estre jamés deffremee . . .” (Il. 7-8). In the narrative proper, the first mention of Amours occurs when she fires an arrow at Philippe (1. 127 ff) through the eye, and the immediate association with Guillaume de Lorris’s Rose would lead the reader to assume that Amours was the (male)

god of Love. This impression is inadvertently reinforced by Traisons’s first speech to the afflicted lover, when she tells him to surrender to Amours, and twice uses “lui” for “li” (“Ren toi a lui,” |. 171; “Vers lui feras . . .,” |. 173). Even up to the point of being led before Amours, the MS is almost perversely

misleading: “En un jardin jonchié de flours / Le trovames faisant capel” (II. 186-87). “le” is often found in the text for “la” (“le lettre”, 1. 103, “le grace”, 1. 832); when Loialtés and her company greet Amours

later on, we read “Si /e saluerent . . .” (1. 647), but then when Amours bids them sit beside her, the text reads: “Les /i les fist seoir” 1. 650) (cf. also note 18 below). 16 The word “amour” was normally feminine in Old French, in spite of the gender of Latin “amor”,

presumably because it was treated as an abstract noun, many of which were feminine; see Albert Dauzat, Histoire de la Langue Francaise (Paris: Payot, 1930), § 419, Alfred Ewert, The French Language

(London: Faber & Faber, 1933), § 201, and W.D. Elcock, The Romance Languages (London: Faber & Faber, 1960), p. 59. The word became masculine in Middle French under the combined influence of

the gender of the Latin etymon and the use of the word to denote Cupid.

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That Amours is female helps us to make sense of the initial allegory within the narrative, and understand why it is Orguel and Cointise who are sent to Philippe by Amours when the arrow first strikes him, and Traïsons who then accuses him; for Orguel and Cointise, who collectively represent his overweening self-esteem when he is smitten with the lady’s beauty, lead to the act alluded to by Traisons, of taking the lady’s hand in the dance, without having deserved it by any service: “n’ains ne li fesis / Service dont ele se lot” (Il. 168-69). Thus Traïsons here represents Amours betrayed; the rules have not been observed; the lover has taken liberties. Since the act is never described, the reader may wonder whether the holding of the lady’s hand was a deliberate taking advantage of the occasion, or a natural gesture within the accepted framework of the dance, which Philippe was not worthy to join as her partner. Whatever the implication, Philippe tacitly accepts the accusation as valid, and does not attempt to defend himselfby denying it. In being required to surrender to Amours, his loss of freedom is balanced by the promise that he will benefit from such service: “Nus ne si rent qu’il n'en amende” (1. 174); but when he does duly throw himself on her mercy, stating that only in her court can he find a cure, her immediate reaction, before offering him judgment, is to laugh: “A ce mot prist Amours a rire” (1. 202). This is not the cruel laugh of tyrant

over victim, rather the indulgent laugh of knowledge over inexperience, with shades of the ironic stance ofthe narrator in Guillaume de Lorriss Rose. Even so, it is Amours’s prison into which he is placed, a kind of limbo ofinactivity and’ non-contact, except in thought, since Pensee is its name; but as the gaoler’s name is Espoir, the underlying tone is optimistic in relation to his cause.

This initial group or sequence of allegorical figures (Amours, Orguel, Cointise, Traisons, Pensee and Espoirs) forms, in effect, a microcosm of Philippe’s emotional experience and ofthe narrative in which it is couched. The central part of the poem is then given over to the detailed deliberation, involving the “opposants” and “adjuvants”. As we have seen, it is the six adversaries (Orguel, Cointise, Envie, Felonie, Mesdis and Traisons) who respond first to the summons to attend and advise, so that

in so far as they represent the lover’s bad qualities, these are initially to the fore, while Loialtés and her companions, his good qualities, are delayed.!7 However, Philippe does not present these negative qualities as specific to himself, but as generalized attitudes. The most complex among them is undoubtedly Traïsons, by nature never trustworthy, with something of the character that Jean de Meun was later to portray in Faus Semblant: “Par son samblant mout de bien mostre, / Mais de mal a le cuer avoustre” (Il. 267-68). The delay of Loialtés, which allows the adversaries full rein, is for the best of

reasons; it results from a firm sense of priority of commitment, characteristic by definition of loyalty. The messenger Sens explains Loialtés’s absence to Amours: “Et dist: Dame, grant touoill a Loiautés; s’assés tost ne vient,

'7 ‘This situation is vaguely reminiscent of the love-hate duality prior to the fight between Gauvain and Yvain in Chrétien de Troyes’s Chevalier au lion.

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Une besoigne le detient

Que il a pour bien faire emprise.”

(Il. 276-79)18

Traïsons, meanwhile, proves powerful and influential. Taking the lead and profiting from Loialtés’s absence, she will no longer act simply as love betrayed, but will now work also to betray Philippe, as his principal enemy. Two other adversaries also make significant comments: Envie provides a good image of his unworthiness to court such a lady: “Pescier deüst a la menuise, / Non pas a si grosse lamproie” (Il. 376-77), while Mesdis in effect neatly expresses the psychological dominance of the bad qualities within Philippe’s personality at this moment: “Il est mauvais et surcuidiés, / De tous biens est ses cuers vuidiés” (Il. 393-94). All the other adversaries, however, leave the

strategy to the devious Traïsons (“Sur Traison ont mis l’affaire, / Qui mout ot le cuer de mal aire,” Il. 407-08), and she persuades Amours to let her arrange a decision on Philippe’s case without waiting for Loialtés, provided the accused agrees. In her approach to Philippe in prison she is again not unlike the future Faus Semblant: “Et de tant biaus mox m’englua,

Et si me moustra biau sanlant Qu’avis me fu, a mon sanlant,

Qu’ele m’amast plus que riens nee.”

(Il. 442-45)

She wins him over by pretending that she has worked hard to gain for him peace from Amours, and persuades him too to leave the organizing ofa judgment to her. Her deceit takes even Espoir off-guard, and very soon both Amours and Philippe are in her hands. Before consulting with her companions to draw up the document which will contain the penalties imposed on Philippe, Traisons makes him publicly accept her jurisdiction: “Phelippe, en est çou vos acors, Seur vostre cuer, sur vostre cors,

De tenir cou que vaurrai dire? Je respondi plourant, sans ire: Oil, dame; de vo voloir Faire moi ne quit pas doloir.”

(Il. 471-76)

This formal acceptance is important, as it ensures that the changed. Traisons also asks Philippe to give her his heart, touch ofloyalty, he replies that this is not possible, his heart to his lady, unless Traïsons can persuade her to yield it: “Se

judgment cannot later be but with an unconscious having already been given par vostre dit ne le rai” (I.

488). Since he had earlier in the poem offered his heart as a pledge to Amours, there is

here a clear fusion, if not confusion, between Amours and his lady. Fortunately for Philippe, Traisons does not pursue his semi-invitation to retrieve the heart if she can.

After the ten penalties have been inflicted on him, the evil company gloats and laughs at his plight. The reaction of Amours is not recorded, but much is made ofher welcome to the good qualities, Loialtés, Pitié, Franchise, Deboinaireté, Esperance and

Sens. Their choice of Sens to plead with Amours is deliberate, and represents the 18 Compare the use of third-person pronouns in lines 278-79 with note 15 above: Again there is a faint reminiscence of Yvain’s delay for good cause in the Chevalier au lion, prior to his rescuing Lunete.

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appeal ofreason, for once working for a lover and not against his love. The response of Amours is now reasonable and clear-sighted: there was a charge to answer, Philippe should not have trusted Traisons, and legally the judgment must stand, though she invites them to find a way of attenuating its effects. She remains a somewhat neutral figure, seeming invariably dependent upon the advice of others: “Sur Loialté du tout me met” (I. 787).

Loialtés, of course, is the direct opposite of Traïsons, and by nature she is strongly linked to Sens: “Tost fu Loialtés consillié, / Car ele est sage et ensignié” (Il. 801-02).

She also shows respect for the law and what has already been decided. In seeking to set a limit to the lover's suffering, she brings into play others of her company: Pitié, aided by Franchise, are to be ambassadors to the lady to try to elicit a response of these same two qualities in her; Esperance and Deboinaireté are to stimulate Philippe in the writing of poems, and in particular of his salu. Loialtés’s advice is full of ingenuity and common sense. The lover is not allowed merely to brood on his torments, but is to be spurred into action on his own behalf, in order to put an end to his own yearnings. Success is virtually guaranteed: “Et quant ele set son besoing,

Plus tost a amer l’entreprent Par les biaus dis dont ele esprent.”

(ll. 882-84)

Philippe de Beaumanoir here shows great confidence in the power of poetry. With Amours offering to help too, and Pitié asking Jolieté (gaiety) as well as Esperance to assist Philippe in his poetic efforts, the lady is about to be assailed beyond the end of the poem in four ways: his gaiety and hope, which will please and flatter her, his eloquent urging of an end to his torments, the persuasion of Pitié, and the promised assistance of Amours, in whose domain Philippe has now been allowed to dwell. Little wonder that the tone ofthe salu is optimistic! The allegorical figures deployed by Philippe de Beaumanoir in his Salu d’Amours form a rich image ofthe varying attitudes of the lover and of love itself viewed from different angles. In contrast to Guillaume de Lorriss Roman de la Rose, there is no direct contact or conflict with aspects of the emotional responses of the beloved (Honte, Peur, Dangier, or even Bel Acueil); in any case, the lady seems to be a free spirit, superior and remote from the aspiring lover, under no constraint from family or

society. Yet the introduction of Amours as a female figure channels her initial spurning: it is not the lady who objects to the taking of her hand, but Amours, as though the fault were procedural, an infraction of a social rule rather than any personal offence. Yet this social error, for which the lover must pay, is magnified out of all proportion by opportunist injustice. This not merely involves the reader; it will also be used to impress the lady, for it is she, in her own time, who will be able to pronounce an ending to the courts sentence, and thereby decide Philippe’s fate, as well as her own.

LE COURT D'AMOURS

DE MATTHIEU

LE POIRIER

Hans-Erich Keller

Dans le volume VI du Grundriss der romanischen Literaturen des Mittelalters,' Jürg Beyer signale l'existence d’un poème picard acéphale de 4430 vers, intitulé par son

auteur, un certain Matthieu le Poirier, Le Court d'Amours.? En suivant l'argumentation de son éditeur, Terence Scully, à propos d’un autre poème (voir plus loin), on peut indirectement établir comme date la deuxième moitié de la deuxième décennie du XIVe siècle. Beyer est de l’avis que ce poème est le premier d’une trilogie composée par le même auteur,‘ car dans le seul manuscrit survivant il est suivi d’un poème anonyme appelé Le Ju de le capete Martinet, qui occupe les feuillets 33r à 361,6 ainsi que, sans rubriques et immédiatement après Le /u, d’une suite anonyme de Le Court d'Amours. Malgré le grand intérêt que ce dernier texte présente pour l’étude de la fin'amors, nous ne voyons pas qu’on s’y soit vraiment intéressé jusqu'ici; l’occasion offerte par ce congrès est idéale pour faire enfin connaître ce poème, qui est loin d’être un épigone, comme Beyer le caractérise dans le Grundriss (240).

|

La littérature didactique, allégorique et satirique, dir. Hans Robert Jauss, Grundriss der romanischen

Literaturen des Mittelalters, 6/1 (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1968), p. 240.

2 “Explicit le Court d’Amours / que Mahix li Poriiers fist” (vv. 4431-32). 3

‘Le Court d'Amours” de Mahieu le Poirier et la Suite anonyme de la “Court d'Amours”, éd. Terence

Scully (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1976), p. xxii, où Scully date la Suite des environs de 1322; cependant, il ne fait aucun effort pour dater le poème de Matthieu le Poirier. L'édition de M.

Scully est des plus médiocres, voir aussi le compte rendu assez sévère de Sarah Kay dans Romance Philology, 34 (1980-81), pp. 364-66. 4 Il ne fait d’ailleurs que copier ce que Gaston Raynaud dit des trois poèmes (voir plus loin n. 6). 5 Paris, Bibl. nat, Nouv. acq. fr. 1731, 72 feuillets de vélin à deux colonnes d'écriture, rédigés probablement dans le deuxième quart du XIVe siècle. A noter que le comte Guillaume I** de Hainaut est mort en 1337 (voir note 11). 6 Édité par Gaston Raynaud dans Romania, 10 (1881), pp. 519-32, intéressante des trois poèmes contenus dans ce manuscrit.

avec une étude brève mais

7 Op. cit., p. 240. Beyer n’a pas pu voir l'édition de Scully (de la préparation de laquelle il avait pourtant connaissance, cf. Grundriss der romanischen Literaturen des Mittelalters, vol. 6/2, p. 276 no.

4676), qui a paru une dizaine d’années après la rédaction de ses lignes, ce qui explique Le très grand nombre d'erreurs de détail en ce qui concerne le premier et le troisième poème contenus dans ce manuscrit; qu’il nous suffise de signaler ici le fait que, dans le premier poème, par exemple, les sentences

ne sont jamais prononcées par le dieu Amour lui-même mais toujours par son bailli; sur la fonction du bailli comme représentant du roi capétien depuis Philippe Auguste — ou peut-être déjà Louis VII - voir Olivier Guillot, s.v. “Bailli, baillage”, in Lextkon des Mittelalters, vol. 1 (Munich and Zurich: Artemis Verlag, 1980), col. 1354-56; William Chester Jordan, “Bailli”, in Dictionary of the Middle Ages, vol. 2

(New York: Scribner, 1983), pp. 52a-53b.

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Sommes-nous en fait en face d’un triptyque, dont le premier volet serait composé de notre Court d’Amours, signée « Mahix li poriiers », le deuxième de l’anonymeJu de le capete Martinet, qui est suivi sans rupture au même feuillet 36r de la Suite anonyme? Le dernier texte débute ainsi: Selonc che qu’il nous est retrait, un peu aprés che que retrait

eut li Dix d Amours se maisnie,

fut le patouniere amaisnie Envie et dame du castel d'Amours. .. .8

Or, le premier vers “Selonc che qu'il nous est retrait” prouve à lui seul qu'il doit s'agir de la continuation d’une autre œuvre, étant donné la voix passive de retraire précédée de la locution conjonctive selon che que. A cela s'ajoute que le récit est d’un style narratif tout à fait différent” et contient des personnages historiques facilement reconnaissables, des nobles ayant tous vécu autour de 1320 et dont les protagonistes faisaient partie de la famille comtale de Hainaut,!°tandis que, dans Le Court d'Amours, tous les personnages sont emblématiques: “un chevalier,” “une dame,” “un clerc,” etc. En ce qui concerne LeJeu de la chapette de Martinet (litt. le Jeu de colin-maillard),

Beyer y voit une discussion du cas d'amour de Matthieu le Poirier lui-même, mais comme il est anonyme, il peut fort bien s'appliquer à n'importe quel auteur du Hainaut, sans parler du fait que l’auteur soumet son cas lui aussi au bailli du dieu Amour déjà dans Le Court d'Amours (voir ci-dessous), de sorte qu'il n'était nullement

nécessaire de le traiter dans un poème indépendant. Bref, rien ne prouve ni que Matthieu ait été l’auteur des trois textes ni qu'ils forment une sorte de trilogie. Aussi sommes-nous de l'avis que c'était plutôt l’idée du compositeur du manuscrit du deuxième quart du XIVe siècle de combiner ces trois textes. Celui-ci a dû travailler pour le plus illustre de tous les comtes de Hainaut, Guillaume Ier le Bon (1304— 1337),'! et a pu fort bien être lui-même l’auteur du troisième texte, de la soi-disant Suite anonyme de “Le Court d'Amours”, ce qui expliquerait son intérêt pour la noblesse hennuyère des environs de 1320. Cet auteur aurait alors trouvé quelque part dans le Hainaut le poème intitulé Le Court d'Amours et aurait décidé de lui donner une suite, parce que, comme nous verrons, celui-ci se termine par une fuite du bailli du dieu Amour et de sa cour devant les troupes de la comtesse Envie. L'insertion du Jeu de la

8

La Suite anonyme de la Court d'Amours, éd. Terence Scully, op. cit., vv. 1-6.

9

Il est vrai — comme il ressort du glossaire de l’édition Scully (pp. 255-71) — que bien des éléments

lexicaux du premier et du troisième texte sont les mêmes, mais cela n’étonne nullement étant donné le fait que les deux textes ont dû être composés dans la même région pour que l’auteur de la Suite ait eu connaissance de Le Court d'Amours très peu connu, puisqu'il n'existe que dans un seul manuscrit. En ce qui concerne la tournure d'esprit, que Raynaud, dans Romania, 10 (1881), p. 524, dit être la même dans les trois poèmes, nous sommes de l’avis contraire.

10 Scully, op.cit., p. xxiii, est même en mesure d’en dresser un arbre généalogique historiquement réel, tandis que les personnages de Le Court d'Amours sont pratiquement tous d’ordre emblématique. IT Voir EW.N. Hugenholtz, “Graaf Willem III, de ‘Goede’. De geschiedenis van een bijnaam”, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 65 (1952), pp. 138-49. Dans son Dis dou boin conte Willaume, Jean de Condé appelle Guillaume ler (= Guillaume II] de Hollande) “li peres des menestrés”, voir Jean de Condé, Opera, éd. Simonetta Mazzoni Peruzzi, vol. 1, 2e partie (Florence: Leo $. Olschki, 1990), XX, v. 54.

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chapette de Martinet — autre texte à notre avis indépendant mais aussi d’origine hennuyère — servirait donc de sorte d’interlude, comme dans une pièce de théâtre avant l'acte final, qui, dans notre cas, célèbre le triomphe du bailli et dans lequel le chateau et la cour d’Amour resteront pour toujours à la garde d’un duc “qu’il n’aferoit mie a nommer, comme dit l’auteur de la Suite à la fin de son poème, mais qui, pour le public de l’auteur, n’était sans aucun doute autre que Guillaume ler de Hainaut. Nous allons donc négliger les deux autres poèmes et nous concentrer exclusivement sur le texte intitulé Le Court d'Amours. Le début du ms. Bibl. nat., Nouv. Acq. fr. 1731, et donc de Le Court d’Amours, manque. Egidio Gorra, le seul savant qui, à part son éditeur, se soit jamais occupé du poème,!? a calculé que les huit premiers feuillets, c’est-à-dire env. 1000 vers, doivent manquer. L'œuvre de Matthieu comptait donc à l’origine autour de 5.500 vers. En incluant l'introduction perdue, le poème se divise facilement en cinq parties, ce qui nest certainement pas un hasard, car au Moyen Age le chiffre cinq représentait l’homme, comme il ressort, par exemple, de la théorie de ce nombre développée par Hildegarde de Bingen (1098-1179).15 En effet, le traité de Matthieu a comme sujet la description de l’homme dans son entité, bonne, c’est-à-dire l’homme adhérant à l’éthique de la finamors, # et mauvaise, l’homme en tant quenvieux de ceux qui réussissent à observer cette ethique. Le Court d'Amours aura donc contenu, dans une première partie, un exordium plus ou moins développé, puis, dans la deuxième partie, vint-sept casus amandi (wv. 12874). Les jugements d’amour sont suspendus dans la troisième partie, qui voit l’arrivée d’une foule qui entoure dame Envie. Celle-ci avait été expulsée pour avoir insulté le bailli et sa cour et a rassemblé une armée, qui est finalement vaincue par les barons du dieu Amour (vv. 2875-3316). Dans la quatrième partie, le bailli et ses fidèles célèbrent leur victoire. Pendant le banquet, exhortés par le bailli, douze invités font des voeux sur lesquels ils nous faudra encore revenir, avant que le bailli ne

12 Egidio Gorra, “Le Court d'Amours di Mahius li Poriiers,” in Abhandlungen Herrn Prof. Dr. Adolf Tobler zur Feier seiner finfundzwanzigährigen Thätigkeit als ordentlicher Professor an der Universitat

Berlin von dankbaren Schiilern in Ehrerbietung dargebracht (Halle: Niemeyer, 1895), pp. 228-39. 13 Dans son Liber divinorum operum simplicis hominis, Patrologia Latina, 197, col. 739-1038; voir Marie-Madeleine Davy, /nitiation à la symbolique romane (XIIe siècle) (Paris: Flammarion, 1964), p. 170, concernant l'interprétation mystique du nombre cinq par Hildegarde de Bingen: “Ainsi l’homme se divise dans la longueur du sommet de la tête aux pieds en 5 parties égales ; dans la largeur formée par les bras étendus d’une extrémité d’une main à l’autre en 5 parties égales. En tenant compte de ces 5 mesures égales dans sa longueur et de ces 5 mesures égales dans sa largeur, l’homme peut s'inscrire dans un carré parfait (cinq carrés dans la longueur et cinq carrés dans la largeur)” (une figure à la p. 169 illustre cette explication). Voir aussi le Liber nominorum qui in sanctis scripturis occurrunt du PseudoIsidore, Patrologia Latina, 83, col. 184: “Sensus quoque corporis quinque, visus, auditus, gustus et tactus; totidemque habitatorum mundi genera, id est, homines, quadrupedes, vel reptantes, natantes, sive volantes.”

14 Le terme fine amour est employé par Matthieu au v. 1020 (le poème Les Vœux du paon s'en sert également, aux vv. 2594 et 4325; sur les rapports entre les deux poèmes voir plus loin), tandis que, normalement, cet auteur emploie la bonne amour (Les Vœux du paon également, voir, par exemple, v. 2855), à savoir aux vv. 1150, 1241, 1244, 1253, 1266, 1500, 1542, 1745, 1787, 1988, 2002, 2060, 2262, 3142, 3347, 3374, 3428, 3715, 3743, 3975; au v. 2577 il écrit l'amour bonne et au v. 3477 loial amour.

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reprenne ses fonctions et ne juge quatre autres casus amandi (vv. 3317-4391).!° Dans la cinquiéme et derniére partie (vv. 4392-4430), une nouvelle armée rassemblée par

Envie assaille le château d'Amour; cette fois, le bailli et les siens décident de protéger leur cour dans des sphéres supérieures: Et pour che fu le cours tensee d’Amours par grace et translatee de chest siecle au regne des chix. La regne encore li baillieus, et regnera tous sans fin, si que je l'espoir et devin.

(vv. 4403-4408)

La vue d’ensemble que Matthieu le Poirier va nous offrir de l’homme est très bien illustrée dans Le Court d'Amours, même sans la première partie, qui — nous l'avons dit — manque entièrement. Dans la deuxième partie, nous nous trouvons a la cour du

bailli du dieu Amour. A ce sujet, il faut se rappeler que, déja sous Philippe Auguste mais surtout depuis Philippe le Bel (1285-1314), la fonction du bailli est celle de juge au nom du roi.!6 En effet, le bailli est ici en train d’écouter la plainte d’un mari jaloux, qui accuse sa femme d’être infidèle bien qu'il la batte. Et afin que personne ne puisse le blâmer et sache qu'il dit la vérité, il prend à témoin Jean de Meung qui fist le Roumant de le Rose, car selonc chou qu’il en propose,

onques preude fenme ne fu. (vv. 16-18)

Mais le bailli se fache de ces paroles et ordonne au jaloux de quitter sa cour tout en blamant ... cheli qui fit de le Rose, quant il parla tant du jalous, qu’il afruma [‘affirma] par fallasse chu qu'il en dit, (vv. 27-30)

car les amants qui aiment faussement doivent prendre comme exemples les dames qui savent observer la fin'amors et dont on doit exalter les vertus. Puis le poète introduit une suite de cas d’amour, fort bien décrits par Egidio Gorra (229-37). L'auteur tâche d’agrémenter le récit en l’interrompant après le quatrième cas pour nous présenter les douze — nombre symbolique! — jurés de la cour du bailli: Avisés, Perchevans, Amis, Deduiant, Connaissant, Hardis, Cremus, Consilliers, Biaus Parlers, Desirré, Pourfitans et Atraians: Chiaus mist pour faire as amans droit li baillieus en se conpengnie. Moult fu li cours bien enforchie

de conseil et de bonne gent.

(vv. 547-550)

15 Dans son étude du poème, Gorra compte en tout seulement trente casus (229-37), au lieu de trente-deux, mais il s’agit seulement d’une autre répartition du texte. 16 Voir Robert-Henri Bautier, «Bailli, bailliage», col. 1355.

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A ceux-ci il faut ajouter Raissonnable, le nom du bailli lui-même, et celui de l'huissier Bien Besoignant, qui servira a plusieurs reprises de messager. Il va de soi que certains cas ont été inspirés par André le Chapelain, mais notre auteur n'hésite pas à contredire cet auteur. Ainsi, dans le cas XIV (éd. Scully; Gorra cas XIII), un amant demande au bailli sil faut cacher l'amour, même si l’on médit sa

dame (vv. 1444-1497). Dans le cas analogue exposé par André le Chapelain, la comtesse de Champagne déclare que la dame avait tort lorsque, ayant entendu que son amoureux l'avait défendue auprès de médisants, elle l’avait privé de son amour, puisque, en célébrant ses louanges, le chevalier aurait enfreint ses ordres; d’après la comtesse, la défense de la dame par son amant était donc légitime.!7 Matthieu le Poirier, par contre, fait dire au bailli: ... Nennil, voir. Ains est sens de ramentevoir les biens de |’amoureuse vie pour essauchier le signourie

d’Amouts et des biens c’on y prent. car qui les mesdisans porroit faire devenir amoureus

par eus moustrer les vertueus fais d'Amours et de sen pooir...

(vv. 1451-65)

Voici encore — cette fois dans la quatrième partie — le jugement XXIX (Gorra XXVII), longuement développé chez Matthieu et qui repose sur le jugement XVI d'André le Chapelain. Chez celui-ci il s’agit d’un chevalier qui, souffrant pour l'amour d’une dame et n'ayant aucune occasion de lui parler, a recours aux services d’un ami-confident pour faire connaître ses sentiments à sa dame; mais celle-ci et le confident tombent amoureux l’un de l’autre, et la dame s’abandonne à lui en retirant son amour au premier chevalier. Sur ce, la comtesse de Champagne, “assistée de soixante dames,” écoutant ce cas, juge que les deux nouveaux amants sont des fourbes et des scélérats et “que ni l’un ni l’autre ne soit désormais invité à des assemblées ou à des cours de chevaliers, car lui a péché contre la foi de chevalerie, et elle a agi honteusement et contre la pudeur des dames en consentant à l’amour d’un confident” (André le Chapelain, 172-73). Chez Matthieu, le jugement du bailli d’Amour diffère radicalement. Celui-ci cite les nouveaux amants à comparaître en justice, où le premier chevalier accuse son confident de trahison. Mais l’autre se défend en disant que son ami avait tellement loué sa dame que, sans la connaître, il était lui-même tombé amoureux d'elle et qu’elle lui avait accordé son amour de son propre gré. Lorsque le bailli lui demande si les deux amants avaient consulté le dieu Amour, le deuxième

chevalier répond qu'il n'aurait jamais agi de la sorte sans le consentement du dieu. Le bailli veut alors savoir comment cela était possible, puisqu' Amour ne veut blesser personne. Sur ce, le deuxième chevalier répond qu'à ce qu'il sache, Amour ne s’intéresse qu'à la loyauté du cœur. Le bailli se tourne maintenant vers la dame, qui lui

17 André le Chapelain, Traité de l'amour courtois, trad. Claude Buridant (Paris: Klincksieck, 1974), pp. 165-66.

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explique qu'il est vrai que le premier chevalier l'avait aimée, mais il avait toujours douté d’elle, et elle hait la jalousie. C’est à ce point que le premier amant cite — sans en nommer l’auteur — la règle d'amour numéro II d’André le Chapelain, selon laquelle celui qui n’est pas jaloux ne peut aimer (André le Chapelain, 182). Mais cela ne lui

vaut que des réprimandes de la cour et du bailli, qui lui reproche d’avoir parlé “trop folement encontre raison” (vv. 4039-40). Alors le chevalier se fache et jette son gant

aux pieds de l'adversaire, mais le bailli intervient en constatant que les deux chevaliers avaient bien fait leur confession: évidemment, les temps du jugement de Dieu étaient révolus. Et le bailli de prononcer son jugement: le premier chevalier a perdu sa cause parce qu'il a été jaloux, [car en tel liu qu’en cuer d’ami ne doit point manoir Jalousie: si fesistes trop grant folie de tele ostesse herbergier. (vv. 4066-4069)

En effet, Le Court d’Amours est un véritable anti-Chapelain et mérite à ce sujet une étude détaillée. Citons ici seulement comment Matthieu interprète les relations entre la fin’amors et le mariage. La réponse de Matthieu est ambigué, mais il semble néanmoins pencher en faveur du mariage, car tout le casus XII (Gorra XI) est dédié à

cette question épineuse. L'épisode est particulièrement long (135 vers: vv. 1134-1269) à cause de la prolixité du jugement du bailli, qui évidemment a des difficultés à trouver une réponse satisfaisante. Tout d’abord, il est catégorique: C’est amours aussi que paree de nature desordenee,

car il n’ont nul droit a che faire.

Mais c’est pekiés qui leur fait faire tele vie seur toutes riens:

conment qu'il n’en vigne nus biens, che n'est mie Amours droituriere; ains est une quoze doubliere,

sans cause et sans avisement, faite contre raison, conment c’on die que che fache Amours.

(vv. 1155-1165)

Chez les époux qui n’observent pas la raison — n'oublions pas que le nom du bailli est Raisonnable! — naît donc un mal si grand qu’il ne peut plus être réparé. Mais immédiatement après, le bailli atténue son jugement en soulignant qu’il n’a pensé qu'à des mariages mal assortis, dans le cas, par exemple, d’un vieillard qui épouse une jeune fille, car (nous traduisons) “quand un jeune cœur niais est couplé à un vieillard, c'est comme un petit veau qui, quand les sorties ne sont pas gardées de près, s'échappe, descendant les rues au trot: personne qui le suivrait [c'est-à-dire essaierait de profiter

de la circonstance] ne peut être excusé de ce péché. Ainsi ceux qui de cette façon obtiendraient un cœur ne peuvent pas être considérés comme excusés [c’est-à-dire par moi le bailli]” (vv. 1188-99).

A quel point la question du mariage préoccupe Matthieu ressort aussi du fait que l’auteur soumet son propre cas au bailli (casus XXVII; Gorra XXV). Il se plaint que sa dame, qu'il a aimé loyalement pendant quatre ans, et réciproquement, veut maintenant

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mettre fin à leurs rapports, sans aucun motif apparent. Le bailli fait venir la dame, qui lui explique qu’elle a coupé les liens non seulement parce qu’elle est mariée mais aussi parce que le poète avait l'habitude de se vanter de son amour. Mais tandis que, chez André le Chapelain, une cour de dames réunie en Gascogne juge que le chevalier qui divulgua ses intimes affaires de cœur sera désormais frustré de toute espérance d'amour et considéré indigne et méprisable de tous, et de même quelque dame qui aurait l’audace de violer ce jugement en accordant son amour au chevalier (André le Chapelain, 174), le bailli défend à l’auteur de persévérer dans cet amour, [c]ar puis que dame a sen mari, ele ne doit ailleur penser, (vv. 2845-46)

c'est-à-dire, à un autre homme, puisque le dieu Amour veut qu’on aime une seule personne. Voila pourquoi le bailli admoneste aussi la dame en lui disant: “Dame, je vous pri et requier

de porter a vo mari foy.”

(vv. 2861-62)

Le bon vieux temps de la fin’amors est clairement révolu. Comme l'avait déjà préconisé Chrétien de Troyes, malgré Marie de Champagne: on peut aussi aimer dans le cadre du mariage. Cette conception de l’amour semble avoir été générale à l’époque de notre auteur, même encore plus tard, dans la deuxième moitié du siècle, comme en témoigne la femme du chevalier de La Tour Landry, qui dit: “Car, pour certain, une femme [mariée] ne puet avoir deux cuers à amer l’un et I’autre.”!* D'ailleurs, Matthieu a particulièrement Chrétien de Troyes et son Chevalier au lion à l'esprit dans le cas XXV (Gorra XXIII), dans lequel le bailli répond affirmativement à la demande d’une

dame si elle a le droit d’aimer le meurtrier de son amant, tué sous ses yeux (vv.

2284-2389). En général, l’auteur paraît avoir eu de bonnes connaissances littéraires, car il cite à côté de l’histoire classique de Pyrame et Thisbé celle de la châtelaine de Vergy, certainement moins connue. En outre, nous avons constaté qu’il connaît aussi Chrétien de Troyes et André le Chapelain, ce dernier probablement dans la traduction par

Drouart la Vache. Mais c’est surtout la littérature mondaine de la fin du XIIIe et du début du XIVe siècles qui se retrouve dans Le Court d'Amours. Deux exemples doivent suffire. Tout d’abord, le poème est conçu selon les règles du jeu Le roi qui ne ment (ou qui ne ne doit mentir), dans lequel on élit un roi ou une reine à qui on soumet certains cas particuliers de la fin’amors qu'il ou elle juge, mais le roi ou la reine doit ensuite répondre à des questions qui concernent sa propre vie amoureuse. Ce jeu fut souvent incorporé dans la littérature de l’époque depuis, à ce qui semble, Le Tournoi de Chauvency, qu'on date de 1285, jusqu’au Filocolo de Boccace des environs de 1340; dans ce dernier, le jeu est développé le plus amplement à l’intérieur d’une œuvre littéraire.!?Une variante — adaptée à l’atmosphère de la bergerie — se trouve d’ailleurs 18 Le Livre du chevalier de La Tour Landry pour l'enseignement de ses filles, éd. Anatole de Montaiglon (Paris: Jannet, 1854), p. 257. 19 Voir, entre autres, Jacques Bretel, Le Tournoi de Chauvency, éd. Maurice Delbouille (Liège: VaillantCarmanne; Paris: Droz, 1932), vv. 1260-63; Jean de Condé, “Li Sentiers batus”, in Dits et contes de Baudouin de Condé et de son fils Jean de Condé, éd. Auguste Scheler, vol. 3 (Bruxelles: Devaux, 1867), wv.

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déjà dans Le Jeu de Robin et Marion d'Adam de la Hale.?? Mais ce qui fait loriginalité de notre auteur est que tout Le Court d'Amours est un seul Jeu du Roi qui ne ment, avec le bailli du dieu Amour comme “roi,” — sauf qu’il manque la deuxième partie du Jeu, à savoir les questions qui sont adressées à sa propre vie d’amant: cela aurait été

inconcevable étant donné sa fonction de bailli. Ce sont certainement aussi ses réminiscences littéraires qui ont inspiré Matthieu a

insérer dans la quatrième partie de Le Court d'Amours douze vœux faits au dieu Amour, car cette idée lui est clairement venue — comme à bien d’autres après lui — de

la lecture des Vœux du Paon de Jacques de Longuyon,?! ce qui nous donne aussi un terminus post quem, puisque les Vaux étaient achevés en 1313. Qu'on se souvienne

de l’histoire: le roi Clarus, roi suprême des Indes, assiège Éphèse, ville alliée à Alexandre le Grand. Porus, un des plus vaillants chevaliers de l’armée de Clarus, est fait prisonnier par les Éphésiens, qui le traitent fort courtoisement. Se promenant un jour

dans le chateau, il aperçoit un jeune homme qui s'amuse à tirer sur des oiseaux avec un arc d’aubour. Il lui emprunte son arme et abat un paon qui fait la roue sur la chambre de Vénus, c’est-à dire la salle où les jeunes nobles jouent aux jeux courtois. L'oiseau est envoyé à la cuisine et servi à table. Le chef des Éphésiens annonce que, d’après l’usage du pays, les convives doivent prononcer un vœu. Le paon est présenté successivement à chacun des douze chevaliers attablés, qui font des vœux dans lesquels les chevaliers rivalisent de promesses grandioses et où la courtoisie le dispute à la vaillance.?? Matthieu le Poirier, par contre, se sert de l’occasion d’un grand banquet célébrant la victoire sur l’armée de Dame Envie. A la fin, le bailli encourage les amoureux à prononcer des vœux à Amour. Comme dans Les Vœux du Paon, douze vœux sont

prononcés; mais tandis que dans cette dernière œuvre seuls les chevaliers les prononcent, dans Le Court d’Amours les personnages sont variés. Ainsi, il y a aussi cing femmes qui émettent des vœux (à noter cependant le déséquilibre numérique: cinq femmes contre sept hommes). Ensuite, l’état des personnages est fort différent: il y a 20-54; Jacques de Longuyon, “Les Vœux du Paon,” éd. R.L. Graeme Ritchie, in The Butk of Alexander, vol. 2 (Edimbourg et Londres: Blackwood, 1925), wv. 1618-878; Le Chevalier de La Tour Landry, pp.

260-61; “Filocolo”, dans Giovanni Boccaccio, Tutte le opere, éd. Vittore Branca, vol. 1 (Vérone: Mondadori, 1967), pp. 383-454. Cette littérature a eu l’intérêt de plusieurs savants avant et après 1900; citons

seulement Ernest Langlois, “Le Jeu du Roi qui ne ment et le jeu du Roi et de la Reine,” Romanische Forschungen, 23 (1906), pp. 165-73; Eduard Wechssler, “Ein altfranzüsischer Katechismus der Minne: Les vouleurs d'amors [fin XITe s.],” in Philologische und volkskundliche Arbeiten Karl Vollmüller zum 16. Oktober 1908 dargebracht, éd. Karl Reuschel et Karl Gruber (Erlangen: Junge, 1908), pp. 131-39; Ernst

Hoepffner, “Frage- und Antwortspiele in der franzüsischen Literatur des 14. Jahrhunderts,” Zeitschrift

für romanische Philologie, 33 (1909), pp. 695-710 (avec l’édition, aux pp. 697-98, du du roi qui ne ment” dans un manuscrit du XVe siècle mais qui remonte clairement qu'une vue d'ensemble d’Alexander Klein, Die altfranzüsischen Minnefragen. Première der Texte und Geschichte der Gattung (Marburg: Ebel, 1911). 20 Adam de la Hale, Le Jeu de Robin et Marion, éd. Ernest Langlois (Paris: Champion, 495-596.

texte d’un “Jeu au XIVe), ainsi partie: Ausgabe 1924), wv. 442,

21 Sur Jacques de Longuyon, voir Antoine Thomas, “Jacques de Longuyon trouvère,” dans Histoire Littéraire de la France, vol. 36 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1927), pp. 1-35. Pour les œuvres inspirées

par Les Vœux du Paon, voir RichardJ. Carey. éd., Restor du Paon (Genève: Droz, 1966), p. 10, et pour une liste plus complète, indiquant en outre les versions espagnole et moyen—néerlandaise, voir Ritchie, vol. 1, 1925, pp. xlii-iv. 22 Ritchie, op. cit., vol. 3 (1927), “Les Vœux du Paon”, vv. 3948-4357. Nous n’avons pas vu l’édition de Jean-Côme Noguès, Le Vœu [sic] du Paon, Collection Folio junior ([Paris]: Gallimard, [ca. 1987]).

Le Court d’Amours de Matthieu le Poirier

187

trois chevaliers, un écuyer, un jeune gentilhomme, un jeune homme quelconque, un clerc, deux dames, deux demoiselles et même une nonne, qui se voue à la contemplation permanente d'Amour (le deuxième sens de “contemplation” dans ce contexte n’a certainement pas échappé à l’auteur!). Les personnages masculins et féminins alternent en prononçant leur vœu. On constate que le thème a déjà fort évolué par rapport aux Vœux du Paon, et cela d’une façon assez originale. Voilà ce curieux poème, appelé Le Court d'Amours par l’auteur lui-même, titre inspiré évidemment par les vingt-et-un jugements des dames d’André le Chapelain. Cette collection d'opinions en matière de fin'amors est maintenant transformée en véritable tribunal et, avec Le Jugement du povre amoureux banny et sa suite Les Erreurs du Jugement de l'amant banny,* annonce déjà clairement les Arrêts d'Amour de Martial d'Auvergne du siècle suivant. Le Court d'Amours illustre la survie — malgré Jean de Meung — de la préoccupation avec la fin'amers, au moins à la cour de Guillaume ler à Valenciennes, préoccupation qui, dans le Hainaut et la Flandre, va d’ailleurs se perpétuer jusqu’à l'époque de Philippe le Bon de Bourgogne.

23 I] va de soi que l'expression court d'amours n'a pas le sens de ‘cour d'amour tenu par des dames’ tel qu’on l’avait conçu depuis Nostradamus et que déjà Friedrich Diez, Uber die Minnehüfe (Berlin: Reimer, 1825), a brillamment démoli, et après lui Gaston Paris en 1888 dans Le Journal des Savants, pp. 664-75, 727-36, et Pio Rajna, Le Corti d'amore (Milan: Hoepli, 1890). Dans une première partie (pp. 3-26), Rajna discute en outre plusieurs œuvres littéraires qui ont pour sujet une cour du dieu Amour,

dont notamment celle de Jean de Condé. 24 Ces deux textes n'ont pas encore été publiés. Ils se trouvent dans Bibl. Vat., Christ. 1363, aux fos

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we may recall a central principle of medieval moral and ethical systems: prudentia. Unlike the presentday term prudence, associated with self-interest and defined as “caution or circumspection as to danger or risk,” prudentia in ancient and medieval times signified “the virtue of practical intelligence, of knowing how to apply general principles in particular situations.” Differentiated from “the ability to formulate principles intellectually, or to deduce what ought to be done,” prudentia is “the ability to act so that principle [or virtue] will take concrete form . . .”. The “keystone” and “source of all virtue,” prudentia enables one not only to have excellent principles, but also to act on them with the result that “one’s adherence to other virtues is exemplified in one’s actions” (MacIntyre, 74-75). A pervasive medieval concept,'® prudentia appears repeatedly in Latin writings of Marie’s contemporaries; John of Salisbury, for instance, employs the term throughout his Policraticus,'’ and discusses it at length in his Metalogicon. Drawing on predominantly Roman and Christian sources, John defines prudentia, which he likens to the

Greek phronesis,!8 as the “virtue of the conscious soul, a virtue whose object is the

14 Alasdair MacIntyre, A Short History ofEthics (New York: Collier Books, 1966), p. 1.

15 Hans Robert Jauss, “Literary History as Challenge to Literary Theory,” in Toward an Aesthetic of Reception. tr. Timothy Bahti (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1982), p. 22. 16 The concept was transmitted through such works as Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Cicero’s De Officiis, Macrobius’ Somnium Scipionis, and the Moralium dogma philosophorum attributed to William

of Conches. See Rosamond Tuve, Allegorical Imagery. Some Mediaeval Books and Their Posterity (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1966), pp. 61 ff. 17 On the parallels between the Policraticus and the Fables, see Hans R. Runte, “ ‘Alfred’s Book,’ Marie de France, and the Matron of Ephesus,” Romance Philology, 36 (1983), p. 563; and Karen K. Jambeck,

“The Fables of Marie de France: A Mirror of Princes,” in Jn Quest ofMarie de France: A Twelfth-Century Poet, ed. Chantal A. Maréchal (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1992), pp. 59-106. 18 John’s source is Cicero, who equates the Greek sophia with sapientia, “wisdom, . . . the knowledge of things human and divine,” and the Greek phronesis, with prudentia, “the practical knowledge ofthings

to be sought for and of things to be avoided;” see De Officiis, tr. Walter Miller (Cambridge, MA:

Truth and Deception’in the Fables ofMarie de France

227

investigation, perception, and skillful utilization of the truth” (Metalogicon IV, 12).9 In conformance with the standard medieval definition oftruth as “the correspondence between thought and reality,” John of Salisbury explains that “a thing that is represented in our understanding as it actually is, is true; whereas a thing that is represented otherwise is vain and false” (Metalogicon IV, 36; 262). Truth’s opposites are “emptiness and falsity,” both of which are considered as “nothing, . . . not [even] an object of knowledge” (Metalogicon IV, 34; 257). Indeed, all falseness is “vain,” “empty,” and “illusory,” for “after deluding minds, which it dupes by its false pretensions, it vanishes like a phantasm [of the imagination]” (Metalogicon IV, 35; 258).

Although speech and things may be called false, John stresses that it is really opinion or judgment that is “deceived by falsehood” (Metalogicon IV, 36; 261). Therefore, it can be said that judgment is correct “if our understanding conceives of something as being what it actually is or as not being whatit is not.” Conversely, error results when our understanding is deceived and “it opines that something that really exists, does

not exist, or that something that does not exist, really exists . . .” (Metalogicon IV, 36; 262). In the quest for and investigation of truth, prudentia guards against every kind of deception.?° For example, in the process of forming accurate, trustworthy judgments — those that judge things as they really are — prudentia plays a central role (Metalogicon IV, 14), especially since human judgments are necessarily based upon sensation, which can deceive.2! To illustrate sensation’s vulnerability to deception, John cites Augustine’s well-known example of the “stick in the water [which] seems bent, even to the most keen sighted” (Metalogicon IV, 11; 220-21). Since humans, in their endeavors to

discover truth, are thus “handicapped” by “errors [deriving] from sense perceptions and opinions,” human prudence must be alert. Recognizing that it has “been deceived before,” and that “it can be deceived again,” prudentia exerts “every effort to secure that valid perception and unwavering judgment, which may be called reason [ratio],”

Harvard Univ. Press, 1913), p. 157. In his “Nicomachean Ethics” (VI, 1139a—1142a), Aristotle explains that phronesis, or “practical wisdom,” is a “reasoned and true state of capacity to act with regard to human goods.” It is a “virtue” that is concerned with “practical truth” and “action”; see “Nicomachean Ethics,” tr. W.D. Ross, in Introduction to Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon (New York: Random House,

1947), pp. 425-33. Note also the distinction between “prudence” and “cleverness,” which is “the faculty” that permits us “to do the things that tend towards the mark we have set before ourselves” and which is morally neutral. “Practical knowledge is not the faculty [of cleverness], but it does not exist without this faculty” (“Nichomachean Ethics” VI, 1144a, p. 440). 19 The Metalogicon ofJohn of Salisbury, tr. Daniel D. McGarry (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1971), p.

221 (hereafter cited as McGarry). Subsequent references to this work are cited in the text as Metalogicon followed by the book number (Roman numerals); the chapter number; and the page number from

McGarry’s translation. 20 “Taking care to avoid deception from any and every quarter, prudence looks to the future and forms providence; recalls what has happened in the past and accumulates a treasury of memories; shrewdly appraises what is present, and begets astuteness or discernment; or takes full cognizance of everything [whether past, present, or future], and constitutes circumspection. And when it has ascertained the truth prudence develops into a form ofscientific knowledge” (McGarry, 222).

21 Chapter 11 of the Fourth Book of the Metalogicon, entitled “Also how opinion or sensation may be deceived, and the origin offronesis, which we call prudence,” outlines the stages of forming a judgment, moving from sensation through imagination to opinion (McGarry, 220).

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Karen K. Jambeck

the faculty “effect[ing]

all cognition’?

and

leading ultimately

to knowledge

(scientia) .?3

It is within this contemporaneous moral and ethical framework that Maries fables focus on the sage and sené, common Old French renderings of the Latin prudens,? who guards against deception in quest of truth. The “sages” believes only what is true: “Nuls sages huem ne devreit creire/ parole, s’ele ne fust veire” (FE 83, 47-48). More-

over, the “sages” has the ability to detect a lie: Del menteiir avient suvent,

tut parolt il raisnablement, sil puet li sages entreprendre, sil vuelt asa parole entendre.

(EF 98, 41-44)

And the “sené” does not believe “mal cunseil” or take a lie “pur veire” (F 89, 22-24).

Indeed, the main purpose of education is to inculcate prudence, knowledge, and wisdom (EF. 92, 20-24).

It is within this context that medieval audiences heard or read Marie’s prologue, which summarizes the controlling theme ofthe Fables: guarding against deception. Romulus, ki fu emperere, a son fiz escrist, e manda e par essample li mustra

cum se deiist cuntreguaitier que hum nel peiist engignier.

The opening depicting the ceived by the physical, the

(Pr. 12-16)

fable, “The Cock and the Gem,” ironically establishes this theme by earth- and sense-bound cock, who, like the untutored human, is desenses. Unenlightened by reason and drawn by his animal nature to the cock is unable to appreciate the value of the precious gem (in Latin

22 “Thus perfect prudence needs must contemplate the truth from which nothing can separate it. But as this is not the privilege of man, we weak humans avidly seek to discover the hidden truth. In fact, handicapped as it is by errors begotten by sense perceptions and opinions, human prudence can hardly proceed with entire confidence in its investigation of the truth and can scarcely be [completely] sure as to when it has comprehended the latter. It realises [all too well] that having been deceived before, it can

be deceived again. Accordingly, it bends every effort to secure that valid perception and unwavering judgment, which may be called ‘reason’ ” (Metalogicon IV, 14; 224). See also Metalogicon IV, 39. 23 John of Salisbury uses the term scientia, which he elsewhere distinguishes from sapientia: “In view of the aforesaid, our forefathers used the words ‘prudence’ and ‘science’ with reference to temporal sensible

things, but reserved the terms ‘understanding’ and ‘wisdom’ for the knowledge of spiritual things” (Metalogicon IV, 13; 222). He also preserves the traditional distinction between scientia, associated with action, and sapientia, connected with contemplation (Metalogicon IV, 19).

24 Les Proverbes of Salemon by Sanson de Nantuil, ed. C. Claire Isoz, 2 vols. (London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1988). The Proverbes also translate prudentia with the Old French cointise, although this

term sometimes has a pejorative sense. Regarding the positive definition, compare Marie’s description of the titmouse who discerns the truth about the cuckoo’s true nature, which does not befit a monarch: La mesenge, que mut est sage a parceivré en verité.. . si l’esgarda par grant quointise.

(RK 46, 26-27, 32)

Here, I cite the edition of Brucker (p. 203), who does not emend these lines, but remains faithful to

British Library MS Harley 978, the manuscript selected as a base text by Warnke and all subsequent editors.

Truth and Deception'in the Fables ofMarie de France

229

analogues usually a pearl, the traditional symbol of wisdom and truth). Herein lies the central lesson for the reader or listener: those who cultivate prudentia and reason will recognize the truth — in the case of fables, the underlying “philosophie” in the “fable de folie” (Pr. 23-4). This lesson is reiterated in Fable 37: “c’est a creire dunt hum veit Puevre,/ ki la verité tut descuevre” (F. 37, 63-64).

Maries Fables partake of the “moralité” with which the ancients invested their writing so that “cil amender s'en poïssent” (Pr. 9). In this regard, it is significant to

note that from the medieval perspective, moral and ethical growth depended upon the cultivation of prudentia and reason.*> And as the concluding fable, a companion piece for the first, illustrates, those who fail to accept this responsibility will end as does the hen who cannot change her animal nature or her habits: Par cest essample vuelt mustrer, que plusurs genz pueent trover ” manaie e ceo qu il unt mestier;

mes ils ne pueent pas changier lur nature ne lur usage: tuz jurs avive en lur curage.

(E 102, 21-26)

Maries audience might well conclude that unenlightened by reason, and unaided by prudentia, men and women will behave like the cock and hen: encumbered by their animal nature, all are potential victims of their deceptive senses.”° Given that cultivating prudentia was a matter of concern for medieval aristocrats, ranging from kings and princes “down to the lowest levels of aristocratic society”,?” the topic would undoubtedly have been ofinterest to Marie’s audience — among them Count William. By insisting on vigilance against falseness and deception, Marie’s Fables parallel the writings of John of Salisbury and other contemporaries who focus on ethical concerns. Unified by a consistent moral vision, Marie’s Fables examine truth, deception, and the uses of prudentia.

25 See, for example, Metalogicon I, 1; IV, 14; IV, 40.

26 On the Augustinian notion of man’s animal nature and its relevance for the fable, see John Jacobs, tr., The Fables of Odo of Cheriton (Syracuse: Syracuse Univ. Press, 1985), p. 27. See also the Metalogicon IV, 16 and 39). Also of relevance here is John of Salisbury’s explanation: “A being is a true ‘man’ if this being has true humanity, that is, is conscious of reason and of the capacity to be affected by external things” (Metalogicon IV, 33; 254). 27 Georges Duby, “The Culture of Knightly Class, Audience and Patronage,” in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, ed. Robert L. Benson and Giles Constable (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1982), p. 255.

SPECULARITY IN A FORMULAIC FRAME “THE FAITHFUL GREYHOUND” AND THE ROMAN DES SEPT SAGES

ROMANCE:

Mary B. Speer

For untold generations, story-lovers around the world have welcomed the folktale known variously as “The Faithful Greyhound,” “Llewellyn and His Dog [Gellert],” “The Brahman and the Mongoose,” and, to students of the Seven Sages family of texts, Canis “Dog.”! The basic plot of the story is quite simple: while the master of the house is absent, his loyal pet — usually a mongoose in the East, a greyhound in the West — saves the life of his infant son by killing a wild animal that has attacked the baby. On returning, the master sees the bloody signs of the struggle and infers that the

pet has murdered the child; in a rage he slays the faithful animal, then is overwhelmed with remorse when he discovers his son, alive and happy, in a room littered with the attacker’s remains. Folklorists have long admired the remarkable stability of this pathetic tale and its universal appeal. As Jessie Crosland remarked: “It is a story of any land and any time.”? Despite the fundamental coherence of its narrative core, each retelling of Canis is unique. Significant variables include not only the nature of the animals featured as faithful and savage beasts, but also the identity of the baby’s parents, the reason for the father’s absence, the role of the mother, and, linked to all these factors, the reason(s)

for telling the story — ultimately, its meaning. Even scholars aware of these variations tend, however, to consider them less important than the moral of the story, which they perceive as a constant inherent in the plot. The summation of G.L. Kittredge is typical: “the central point of The Faithful Dog lis] the fatal mistake, the overhasty judgment which prompts the master to strike down his friend and benefactor . . . The Faithful Dog is an exemplum, enforcing the danger of precipitate judgments.” Variations of detail, while providing interesting clues to how the tale was naturalized in 1 Karl Goedeke gave short Latin titles to all the tales in the Seven Sages tradition: “Liber de septem sapientibus,” Orient und Occident, 3 (1866), pp. 385-423. With numerous analogues, Canis appears as type 178A in Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson, The Types of the Folktale: A Classification and Bibliography, 2nd rev. ed. (Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1961). For additional references to

analogues and abundant information on the Seven Sages tradition, see Hans R. Runte, J. Keith Wikeley, and Anthony Farrell, The Seven Sages of Rome and the Book of Sindbdd: An Analytical Bibliography (New York: Garland, 1984).

2

“Dolopathos and the Seven Sages of Rome,” Medium Aevum, 25 (1956), p. 9.

3 “Arthur and Gorlagon: Versions of the Werewolf’s Tale,” [Harvard] Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, 8 (1903), p. 231; rpt. New York: Haskell House, 1966.

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different cultures and useful data for classifying versions into families, are rarely seen as profound modifications ofthe universal tale. Often Canis does function primarily as a cautionary tale illustrating the need to avoid hasty judgments, to reflect before acting. This is the case, notably, in the Panchatantra, the Kalila and Dimnah, the Gesta Romanorum, and, at least ostensibly, the Seven Sages romances. It would be a mistake, however, to assume that all occurrences ofthe tale bear an identical and universal meaning. Among the tales inserted in the Seven Sages frame, Canis occupies a privileged position, for it is the only one to be included in every member ofthat textual family in both Eastern and Western branches. Representatives of Canis within this tradition fall into three groups: a short, simple narrative that appears in each extant remaniement of the Book of Sindibad; a much more elaborate tale that is found in all known versions of the European descendant of the Book of Sindibad, the Seven Sages romance, of which the earliest surviving text is the Old French verse Roman des Sept Sages, composed between 1155 and 11904; and, finally, a distinct, complex reworking of Canis that occurs in the French subfamily constituted by the romance of DolopathosS In the European tradition, Canis is always narrated by the first Sage in order to secure a stay of execution for the prince whose stepmother has accused him — falsely — of trying to rape her; moreover, in nearly all redactions of the Seven Sages proper it follows Arbor,

the first tale told by the treacherous stepmother.° The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the oldest medieval European version of Canis — the one contained in the K redaction of the Old French verse Roman des Sept Sages — is not merely “a story of any land and any time.” I shall be arguing against two conventional suppositions that derive from the folklorists’ attitudes alluded to above and also from Gaston Pariss remarks on the Canis version that appears in the Latin Dolopathos.’ First, the Sept Sages and Dolopathos versions are assumed to be contextually unmarked — that is, not influenced in any way by the frame romances in which they are set. And second, the particulars of plot and characterization that Paris calls “détails oiseux”$ are thought to serve simply as local

4

Canis is preserved only in the K redaction: see Le Roman des Sept Sages de Rome: A Critical Edition of

the Two Verse Redactions ofaTwelfth-Century Romance, ed. Speer (Lexington, KY: French Forum, 1989). The D redaction, a verse text derhymed

into French prose in the fifteenth century, provides some

indirect evidence about the form Canis took in the C verse tradition: Deux Rédactions du Roman des Sept Sages de Rome, ed. Gaston Paris (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1876; rpt. New York: Johnson, 1966). On the affiliations of the verse and prose redactions, see my edition, pp. 13-36.

5 The Latin frame tale composed in the late twelfth century by Johannes de Alta Silva, Dolopathos sive

De rege et septem sapientibus, vol. 2 of Historia Septem Sapientum, ed. Alfons Hilka (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1913), was “translated” into French c.1225 by Herbert as Li Ramans de Dolopathos, ed. Charles

Brunet and Anatole de Montaiglon (Paris: Jannet, 1856; rpt. Nendeln: Kraus, 1977). I plan to extend this study of Canis to include the Dolopathos rewritings. 6 In his edition of the Middle English version, Killis Campbell sores a useful chart of the sequencing of tales in the Seven Sages texts: The Seven Sages of Rome (Boston: Ginn, 1907; rpt. Geneva: Slatkine, 1975). On the queen's role in the Sept Sages and Dolopathos, see Speer, “ Translatio as Inventio: Gaston Paris and “The Treasure of Rhampsinitus’ (Gaza) in the Dolopathos Romances,” forthcoming in Transtextualities: Of Cycles and Cyclicity in Medieval French Literature, ed. Donald Maddox and Sara Sturm-Maddox (Binghamton, NY: MRTS). 7 Rev. of H. Oesterley, ed., Johannis de Alta Silva Dolopathos, Romania, 2 (1873), pp. 481-503.

8 The phrase comes from Pariss proto-structuralist analysis of variants of Gaza: “Le Conte du trésor

“The Faithful Greyhound” and the Roman des Sept Sages

233

color actualizing the story for a medieval French public. Paris believed that the tale inserted into the Sept Sages frame is an “authentic” representative of the classic folktale as it circulated in twelfth-century Europe, while the retelling by Johannes de Alta Silva is both idiosyncratic and gravely inferior (Rev., 487-90).

In the discussion

that

follows, I shall show that the version K is not an elaborate yet neutral form of Canis, but rather a purposeful narrative cannily designed both to reflect the events of the frame narrative and to respond to the preceding tale told by the queen. The poet and/or redactor responsible for K’s Canis exploits the repetitions and echoes that characterize the formulaic style in which the romance is composed so successfully that the specularity of this version expands the meanings normally associated with the tale. In K, Canis is narrated by the Sage Bancillas as a distinct narrative unit of 216 verses (1165-1380). It is not entirely isolated from the romance matrix in which it occurs,

however, since it constitutes in part a response to Arbor. In addition, Canis figures as the major element in a conversation between the Sage, who was hired as a tutor for the prince, and his unhappy employer, the king, here named Vespasian. Throughout the Sept Sages, each tale is framed by dialogues between the narrator and the king, highly stylized exchanges which at first glance seem tedious and repetitive. Yet these preambles and afterwords perform several key hermeneutic functions. In the preamble the narrator anticipates the point of the story and lays out the terms of an active process of reception that I call specular identification; this process will enable the king to participate sympathetically in a particular story which mirrors his own situation in some fashion. By identifying with the assigned character(s), he will be able to “see” the

meaning intended by the narrator. In the afterword, the narrator reiterates the point of the story, often in phrases that echo the preamble. When the redactor handles them with skill, the preambles and afterwords supply an interlocking matrix that links each story to the one that precedes and the one that follows. The Arbor/Canis sequence provides an excellent example of the interpretive value of these interstitial exchanges. In Arbor a duke prizes a tall tree that stands in his courtyard; he holds his court in the shade of this “royal pine,” which by metonymy comes to represent his ducal power. Nevertheless, one day he spies beneath the parent tree a seedling that activates

his nurturing instincts. He builds a special enclosure to guard the sapling; to give it space for growth, he has the mature tree pruned repeatedly and eventually orders it cut down. The moral drawn by the queen is that the tall tree is injured, then destroyed by its offspring. By implication, the king’s irrational sympathy for his son can lead only to his own overthrow.!° Since the queen encourages her husband to identify with both the powerful duke and the metonymic tree, she offers him a contemporaneous mirror of his mixed feelings toward his son and a prospective mirror of the risk he runs if he fails to eliminate this threat to his own reign. In her afterword, she reminds Vespasian that his son remains silent and suggests that his silence now is a tacit admission of du roi Rhampsinite: étude de mythographie comparée,” Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, 55 (1907), p. 160.

9 In the K manuscript (Paris, B.N. fr. 1553), the Sages name is written as Bancillas and Baucillas. See Speer, Sept Sages, K 305 n. 10 With its jongleresque style, K uses variational repetition in three refrain-like couplets to mark closure for each episode and to state the moral of Arbor, rather indirectly: K 1027-28, 1049-50, 1069-70. On

the jongleresque or formulaic romance style, see Speer, Sept Sages, pp. 56-66.

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guilt. Faced with the prince’s muteness, the king reiterates his belief in the physical evidence he has seen with his own eyes: the bloody scratches on the queen’s face and her torn clothing, which, as the audience knows, she inflicted on herself in order to make her accusation credible: “ “Vous en estes bon garantaige; / je vi sanglant vostre visaige’ ” (Il. 1079-80). The motifs ofsilence and bloody signs set the stage for Canis, which will show that both can be misinterpreted. As the king orders the execution to proceed, Bancillas rides up on his mule. Angrily, the king complains about the prince’s obstinate silence and his alleged assault on the queen: “ ‘Il est malvais / et trop felons et trop engrés!’” (Il. 1123-24). Vespasian’s vituperative denunciation arises from the offence to his honor as father and as sovereign. Committing adultery with the wife of one’s overlord is, after all, a capital crime. Bancillas’s reply supplies several crucial keys for the interpretation of Canis: Dist Baucillas: “Biaus sire roi, desesperé vous voi, par foi.

Se tu le signor de cest regne destruis por le dit d’une femme,

je pria Diu ki ne menti que il Cen avigne autressi commé il fist au chevalier ki a tort occist son levrier

pour guerredon d’un biau servise. Puis ne le volsist il por Frise.”

(II. 1137-46)

In this preamble the Sage makes four important points. First, the prince is not a random seedling like the petit pinel in Arbor, nor a usurper intent on dislodging the established power, but the heir presumptive to the kingdom; his eventual accession to the throne should be the culmination ofhis father’s plans. Second, the testimony of one woman, “le dit d’une femme,” is suspect unless it is guaranteed by other witnesses. Like the queen in Marie’s Lanval and like Lanval himself, this queen has no garant for her charge.'! Here, by emphasizing that the queen alone accuses the prince of rape, Bancillas echoes the skepticism that the bishop of Auberon expressed earlier regarding her unsubstantiated charge and his suspicion that she faked the injuries she claimed were caused by her assailant: Che dist l’evesques d’Auberon: “Molt doutommes del valeton. Vostre femme l’a encoupé. Nus ne li a garant porté

de che qu’el met a l'enfant seure. Femme por nient rit et pleure, et, en sor que tout, sanc de dant en droite court ne valt .i. gant.

11 On the need for guarantors for testimony in medieval law, see Elizabeth A. Francis, “The Trial of

Lanval,” in Studies in French Language and Mediaeval Literature Presented to Professor Mildred K. Pope (Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press, 1939), pp. 115-24; and Jean Rychner, ed., Marie de France, Le Lai de Lanval (Geneva: Droz, 1958), pp. 78-84.

“The Faithful Greyhound” and the Roman des Sept Sages Pour .i. festu el nes fichier se puet l’on bien faire saignier.”

295

(Il. 927—36)!2

If aware of this echo, the entire court will recognize that the queen’s scarified visage and ripped tunic cannot in law guarantee her verbal testimony, that she is persuading the king to condemn his own son without proper evidence — a subtle anticipation of two key factors in the dénouement of Bancillas’s version of Canis. The extradiegetic audience, which knows that the queen has indeed lied and fabricated the bloody evidence, will interpret the echoes in Bancillass preamble as signals for decoding Canis. Third, the Sage emphasizes the greyhound’s loyal service that went unrecognized — intimating, perhaps, that the silent prince is even now faithfully serving his father’s interests. Finally, Bancillas indicates how the king is to practice specular identification in Canis: if Vespasian persists in putting the crown prince to death in response to a woman uncorroborated accusation, he may find himselfin the lamentable situation of the knight who wrongfully killed his faithful greyhound, then wished the deed undone. From the outset the king is to identify with the father and imagine his son as the greyhound. As the tale unfolds, however, the specular identifications in Canis become more complex and involve doubling or tripling for some characters. Now let us consider the specular and hermeneutic value of the details that distinguish K’s Canis from all other versions. In the exposition, Bancillas!3 highlights certain important parallels that link the noble Roman parents of the tale to Vespasian and his first wife, a daughter of the Duke of Carthage. The father in Canis is “.i. molt riche homme” (I. 1166), “frans et cortois” (I. 1179), seneschal of the land (1. 1203). Like

Vespasian, he is a mature administrator who respects the laws ofthe land, not a juvenis nor an immature hothead. His marriage is introduced with the very same verse used in

the frame to present Vespasian’s own marriage: “Femme prist de molt haut parage” (Il. 160 and 1171). To be sure, this is a banal and formulaic line, and one must be wary of claiming too much significance for its recurrence in a jongleresque romance." Yet K’s fondness for verbatim repetition and the specular nature of this context lend support to my suggestion that the echo here may well be deliberate and meaningful. Like the princes mother, this Roman lady leads a virtuous life: “cortoise et sage” (I. 1172), she gives alms to the poor and maintains a cheerful disposition (Il. 1181-84; cf. 257-64). Where the child is concerned, this fairly straightforward mise en abyme develops into a specular magnification. If Vespasian’s wife conceived within the first year of their marriage, the Roman couple grieve during nine long childless years, then rejoice exceedingly over the birth of their son in the tenth year. If Vespasian demonstrated his paternal solicitude by securing a Christian blessing and one noble nurse for his infant son,!5 the Roman seneschal and his wife surpass him by engaging not one, but three 12 In K the bishop repeats these ideas twice in an octosyllabic near-equivalent of the laisses similaires in the chanson de geste; see 1]. 905-42. 13 For the sake of convenience, I refer to Bancillas as narrator and shaper ofthe story although in reality

the extant text has been shaped by both the poet and the K redactor. While the Sages differ in physical appearance and age, I detect no attempt to endow them with individual narrative styles. On the poet and the K redactor, see Speer, Sept Sages, pp. 36-67.

14 The same verse recurs at K 3079, in the exposition of Avis, a tale narrated by the Sage Cathon. 15 On the prince’s unusual blessing and baptism, heretical according to twelfth-century doctrine, see Speer, “The Prince’s Baptism in the Roman des Sept Sages: Formal and Doctrinal Intertexts,” Medievalia

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nurses: one to bathe the baby, one to put him to bed, and one to breastfeed and dress him: Lenfes fu nes; joie en font grant, et l’en li bailla maintenant

trois nouriches por lui servir, por ennourir et por chierir. Lune des trois l’avoit baignié,

et l’autre si l’avoit couchié; la terche sert de l’alaitier

et de lui bien apparillier, car, se Dex li donnoit croisture,

a tort perdroit par noureture.

(Il. 1185-94)

This passage about the three nurses assigned to the long-awaited baby and the different tasks allotted to them has been considered the principal distinguishing characteristic of the Seven Sages version of Canis. It is also, in all likelihood, the most frequently quoted section of the entire romance and one subject to egregious misinterpretation. On the one hand, several scholars who have read romances as mirrors of medieval social customs have cited it as evidence that those noble French families who could afford it hired three nurses for their sons.'° On the other, the folklorist Alexander H. Krappe viewed the nurse trio as a remnant of a lost Oriental archetype of Canis.7 What is lacking in either case is any awareness that this is a literary motif intended to signify the parents’ devotion to their much-wanted son. Such a poetic invention is perfectly in keeping with a jongleresque style which eschews psychological analysis and must therefore rely on amplification to communicate the intensity ofthe parents’ love. In addition, this motif is a specular amplification of the care Vespasian showed for his own son. Structurally, the three nurses multiply the nurturing presence in the tale and allow for a tripartite gradation in the discovery episode at the end. Once the exposition has established these specular relationships, Bancillas’s focus narrows to a single fateful day. On Pentecost, after the great midday feast, a jovene gent beg the seneschal to allow them to bait his bear. Not wishing to spoil their fun, he agrees. They then take the bear to a meadow outside the city walls, where a large crowd gathers to watch the sport. Fierce hunting dogs are brought to bait the bear: “viautres et brahons,

/ chiens a bouchiers

mordans,

felons” (Il. 1213-14).

The

et Humanistica, 14 (1986), pp. 59-80; on the prince’s early upbringing in K, see Madeleine Pelner Cosman, The Education of the Hero in Arthurian Romance (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1966), pp. 147-52. 16 See Léon Gautier, “L'enfance d’un baron,” Revue des questions historiques, 32 (1882), pp. 410-11; Alwin Schultz, Das Hôfische Leben zur Zeit der Minnesinger, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1889; rpt.

Osnabrück: O. Zeller, 1965), vol. 1, pp. 149-51; Ferdinand Fellinger, Schwangerschaft und Geburt in der altfranzisischen Literatur (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1907), pp. 97-126; Doris Desclais Berkvam, Enfance et maternité dans la littérature française des XIIe et XIIe siècles (Paris: Champion,

1981), pp. 46-54. None of these literary/social historians makes any distinction between remarks on the princes upbringing in the romance frame and the nurture of the infant in Canis, an intercalated tale; both are assumed to reflect real life with equal accuracy. On the specular fallacy of reading romances for information on medieval life, see Cosman, p. 158 and Speer, “The Prince's Baptism.” 17 “Studies on the Seven Sages of Rome,” Archivum Romanicum, 11 (1927), pp- 163-67.

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257

seneschal also comes, with his wife; but before leaving his palace that adjoins the city wall, he orders the door closed firmly to keep his one-year-old greyhound from running away. Depicting the greyhound as a puppy is another distinctive trait of K’s Canis: “.i. levrier ot ki molt fu bel, / n’avoit c’un an, jovene chael” (Il. 1217-18). This immature

dog is the near-double of the helpless baby in the cradle, the binary opposite of the vicious “viautres et brahons” that were fetched to bait the bear. In the thirteenthcentury prose Sept Sages, by contrast, the greyhound is a full-grown dog, an experienced hunter that catches all the game it pursues and is loved by the master for its skill: “Li vavasors avoit un levrier bel et grant et isnel, si que à toute riens que il couroit il ateignoit, et tot qant que il ateignoit il prenoit. Li levriers estoit si bons que nus plus; et li chevaliers l’amoit tant que nulle riens née il n’amoit tant.”!8 In this prose Canis, the father is a simple knight, and the entertainment that causes his absence is a tournament in which he participates; consequently, when he returns home, he is already charged with adrenalin and prompt to wield his sword again. Clearly, altering the characterizations of the father and the dog produces a less specular tale, one in which the dog figures as a chivalric beast and emblem of nobility. Killing the greyhound there is tantamount to self-murder, as Jean-Claude Schmitt remarks in his study of the cult of the Holy Greyhound, first reported in the mid-thirteenth century by Etienne de Bourbon: “le chevalier tue l’animal qui incarne son propre système de valeurs, une sorte de double de lui-même, ou de son fils appelé à lui succéder un jour.”!? By contrast, the untrained puppy in K is still so young that the seneschal fears it will wander off if the door is left open; he underestimates its courage, competence, and loyalty, just as Vespasian has jumped to conclusions about his son’s perfidy. Everyone in the seneschal’s household goes to the bearbaiting except the three nurses. Alone in the palace, they bathe and feed the child and put him to bed. After he falls asleep, they climb up on the wall to watch the spectacle. During their absence, “.i. felon serpent, sathanas” (I. 1237), which has lived in the

palace wall for years, emerges from the wall, crawls into the room where the baby is sleeping, and claims the beautiful child for itself. As Schmitt points out (78-79), only in the K redaction is the snake explicitly associated with Satan, an association reinforced by the nouns malfé and avresier that Bancillas applies to the serpent in relating the discovery ofits remains (Il. 1285, 1335, 1368). By the now familiar procedure of echo, these diabolical appellations lead us to see in the snake a mise en abyme of the

18 Le Roman des Sept Sages en prose, ed. Le Roux de Lincy, printed following A. Loiseleur Deslongchamps, Essai sur lesfables indiennes et sur leur introduction en Europe (Paris: Techener, 1838), p. 17. This

quotation comes from the L prose redaction (Paris, B.N. fr. 19166); the version of Canis in the A prose

redaction of Paris, B.N. fr. 2137 is very similar: Les Sept Sages de Rome: Roman en prose du XIIIe siècle (Nancy: Centre de Recherches et d’Applications Linguistiques de l’Univ. de Nancy II, 1981), p. 11. 19 Le saint lévrier: Guinefort, guérisseur d'enfants depuis le XIIIe siècle (Paris: Flammarion, 1979), p. 88. In analyzing the narrative Schmitt usually treats all the Seven Sages texts that he consulted as a uniform group; he seldom singles out traits peculiar to one version. On the characterization of the greyhound,

for example, he generalizes from the prose redactions: “On insiste surtout sur ses qualités de chasseur . .

Toujours est louée la ‘fidélité’ du lévrier, et il est désigné comme ‘le salut et la protection de la

maison’ ” (pp. 77-78). See also his comments on the greyhound as the symbol ofchivalric virtues and occupations (pp. 87-91).

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wicked stepmother. The narrator has told us at the time of Vespasian’s second marriage that he has joined himself to “.i. dyable” (I. 422), a master of deceit who will try to dominate him — the opposite of his first wife, who exemplified domestic feminine virtues. Contributing to the sense of the dual sexual nature of this snake/woman is the combination, by the K redactor or scribe, of masculine (Il. 1271, 1272) and feminine

(ll. 1236, 1244, 1273) markers for serpent, a morphological license justified for a noun that can assume either gender. Moreover, the inception of the snake’s desire, kindled by the sight of the beautiful baby, mirrors the queen’s attraction to the young prince, whose good looks are described in a formal portrait (Il. 743-54) that is echoed by the

queen herselfin the seduction scene (1. 797). Bancillas highlights the possessive quality of this desire by giving the snake the first direct discourse in the story: “ ‘se je puis, vous serois ja mien’ ” (I. 1248).

As soon as the snake attacks the baby, the alert greyhound leaps to defend his master’s child. Although the crib is overturned during the fierce struggle that ensues, the baby sleeps on, oblivious to the mêlée around him. Outmatched, // petis levriers (1. 1269) makes a final desperate charge, seizes the head of the snake, and bites it off, splattering the room with bloody fragments. Then the dog lies down to rest since it cannot right the cradle. This account of the combat emphasizes the greyhound’s watchfulness, courage, and determination against a wilier and stronger opponent — an obvious parallel to the conflict between the prince and his stepmother. Once the bearbaiting is over, the three nurses hasten back to their charge. As they enter the sale, they see the snake’s remains, the upside-down cradle, and the bloodsmeared floor. Terrified, they infer that the dog has killed the baby, so they flee at once. Leaving the city, the nurses encounter the mother, who asks, in great agitation, where her baby is. They explain how they abandoned the baby to watch the bearbaiting and discovered on returning that the dog had killed the baby. The mother faints, but recovers in time to tell her husband why she is grieving: his greyhound has killed her child, the dearest thing in her life. Hearing this news, the seneschal is griefstricken — not enraged, as in some versions, but “Tristres, pensis, et souspirant” (1. 1332). In a passage full of verbatim echoes of the nurses’ discovery, Bancillas tells how the father sees the snake’s remains and the overturned cradle and concludes that the dog has killed the baby. But the greyhound rushes forward to welcome him joyfully; the Sage adds: “et molt volentiers li contast, / mais ne fu drois que il parlast” (Il. 1341-42). Like the prince, the greyhound is compelled to be silent and cannot explain what really happened. Then the lord notices the blood on the greyhound’s face and loses his temper, as Vespasian did when he saw his weeping, bleeding wife (Il. 837-38). “Par maltalent” (1. 1347), he draws his sword

and beheads the dog. Soon the baby awakes and cries out from beneath the cradle. His father rights the cradle and discovers the laughing child in the midst ofbits and pieces of the serpent. Rejoicing, he thanks God for the child’s salvation; then he considers

how unjustly he killed his greyhound and determines to go into exile to do penance just as he would for the murder of aman. One surprising element in Æs handling of the events leading to the slaying of the greyhound is that the threefold discovery motif is presented without the explicit antifeminism found in some other Seven Sages versions, even though the phrase “por le dit d'une femme” in Bancillass preamble seemed to anticipate that kind of

“The Faithful Greyhound” and the Roman des Sept Sages

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moralizing in the dénouement. Having the wife tell her husband that his dog killed the baby is considered a distinguishing feature of Canis in Seven Sages texts,2° and R.M. Lumiansky stresses the strongly antifeminist slant of the Middle English version, which relies on a simple pattern of identifications: “Bausillas equates the Emperor to the knight, Florentine [the prince] to the greyhound, and the Empress to the child’s mother and three nurses, whose erroneous report the knight should not have believed.”?! In K, however, the specular reflections in Bancillas’s narrative engender more complicated identifications. The mother who adores her child, and to a lesser degree the nurses, reflect the king’s virtuous first wife, so their guilt is not emphasized. Although the nurses do jump to conclusions without investigating the evidence before them and the mother unhesitatingly believes their account of what transpired, these women appear fearful and weak, rather than wicked. The snake, by contrast, mirrors the stepmother, cast as an anti-mother, a sensual and selfish creature. In the seneschal, Bancillas offers the king a positive role model right up to the moment ofthe slaying. His interpretation of the fight scene is no doubt shaped by what he has been told, but the narrator scrupulously indicates that he sees the same evidence as the nurses and that grief, not anger, first ruled his emotions. Once he yields to anger, the responsibility for acting is his alone; neither he nor the narrator explicitly blames the women for causing him to murder the greyhound. Like Vespasian, he is a serious adult capable of acknowledging and regretting an unjust action. The greyhound and the baby both reflect the prince; the dual image suggests that although the prince is young and mute and not in full possession of his strength, he is courageous and loyal, well worth protecting against the snake known to dwell in the palace wall. With a little more caution, the seneschal could have averted a tragedy. Even this necessarily brief analysis allows us to draw some general conclusions about the nature of Bancillas’s tale of the greyhound in the K Sept Sages. Far from being a neutral version ofthe story, this Camis is specifically tailored to fit the tale sequence of the K verse romance, whose characters and events it mirrors. Further, the redactor deploys the resources of the formulaic style so cleverly that the tale can be interpreted in several different ways. By offering the king and courtiers a retrospective specular image of what has already happened, Bancillas encourages Vespasian to revise his reading of the past few days; by closing with the prospective image of disaster, the Sage moves from mirror to exemplum. The prince, as Yasmina Foehr-Janssens has suggested, may take comfort from hearing a specular account that acknowledges his fortitude in keeping silent.?? And the extradiegetic audience can both enjoy the insider's hermeneutic pleasure of seeing multiple meanings in the specular tale and profit from the

20 W. A. Clouston, Popular Tales and Fictions: Their Migrations and Transformations (Edinburgh & London: Blackwood, 1887; rpt. Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1968), vol. 2, pp. 177-178; Kittredge, p. PHL

21 “Thematic Antifeminism in the Middle English Seven Sages of Rome,” Tulane Studies in English, 7

(a7) patos 22 “L'Autre voie du roman: Le Dolopathos et la tradition du Roman des sept sages” (Diss. Univ. de

Genève, 1992), esp. pp. 190-92. In this rich study Foehr-Janssens explores many facets of specularity and thematic linkage from a psychoanalytic perspective.

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moral lesson that this tale customarily teaches. Bancillas sums up that moral in a short proverb: “ ‘Malvaise haste ne valt rien’ ” (I. 1387). Yet to read the earliest European

version of “The Faithful Greyhound” as nothing more than a routine illustration of such a simple lesson is to overlook the specular artistry of an unsung poet.

THE MAN ON A HORSE AND THE HORSE-MAN: CONSTRUCTIONS OF HUMAN AND ANIMAL IN THE KNIGHT OF THE PARROT Nathaniel Smith

People have no doubt always been fascinated by the question of where their own humanness ends and other states of being begin. Prehistoric art and artifacts suggest that cave dwellers already pondered what it was that bound them to, and what separated them from, reindeer, mammoths, and wolves. The latest avatar of this old fascination comes in science fiction, which depicts space aliens with strange powers but still very human personalities and means of communication and very earthly — even medieval — hierarchical relationships and insignias of power. The alien is other, yet also is familiar as long as it is we who create or perceive it. In the quest to define ourselves by contrast, animals have played a leading role. In depicting communications or relations between the human and the animal, literature and legend provide three basic scenarios:! (1) Humans learn to communicate or live with animals, like Romulus and Remus

suckled by wolves, Siegfried or St. Francis speaking with the birds, or more recently Mowgli in Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book. A subcategory involves anthropomorphized deities: the once angelic Satan taking on the form of a serpent, or Jove appearing as a bull. (2) Animals act and speak like humans, as in Aesop’s fables and the Roman de Renart, the wounded white hind in Marie de France’s “Guigemar,” much children’s literature, and many printed or animated cartoons.

(3) Contrary to these first two scenarios, in which we are usually aware that people (or gods) are only temporarily acting like animals or vice versa, is the third case, where human and animal intriguingly merge in a single body, as in Pegasus and other winged horses; the sphinx, composed of a lion’s body with wings and the head and upper torso

of awoman; the Minotaur, with a man’s body and bull’s head; an Assyrian carving ofa

1 Numerous variations, many of them relevant to this discussion, have been inventoried by Stith Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1955-58), under the following rubrics:

Beast-men

A 131 Gods with animal features (including one part-man and part-fish), B 20-29

(including centaurs, etc.), B 80 Fish-men (including a South American

half-man and half-fish),

Indian monster

F 81 Mermaid (particularly numerous examples), F 521 Person with unusual

covering (such as shaggy body hair, people of metal, etc.), F 522 Person with wings; F 526 Person with compound body, and F 527 Person with unusual color.

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winged bull with a bearded man’s head;? the Gorgons with wings, golden scales, and snakes for hair; various ancient Egyptian deities; the siren, whose upper part is human and lower part is bird and/or fish:5 and the harpy, part bird and part woman. Similarly, the classical and medieval bestiaries describe beasts like the centaur or onocentaur (half man, half horse; McCulloch, 128, 166-169 and plate VIII, 2) and manticore (human face, lion’s body, and scorpion’s tail; McCulloch, 142-143 and plate VI, 2). Among the Roman de Fauvels talking beasts, the main character is represented in the manuscripts illustrations sometimes as having a man’s head and a beast’s body, and sometimes the contrary combination. In addition, the bestiary tradition brings us composite animals like the griffin (lion’s body, eagle's wings and face), leucrota (with

characteristics of the ass, stag, lion, horse, and more), unicorn (ass, horse, or goat plus rhinoceros), and yale (horse with elephant’s tail and boar’s jaws) (McCulloch,

122,

136, 179, and 190, respectively). Inspired by classical exemplars, the Middle Ages showed a particular interest in constructing a human body with permeable boundaries and with fluid relations to other forms ofexistence, especially animals.* Thus, Marie de France’s Bisclavret spends three days a week as a wolf and four as a man, the bird-knight in her “Yonec” flies to his beloved’s window as a hawk before resuming human form, and the heroine of the Melusine legend alternates between woman and part-woman by spending part of each week in the bath in the form of amermaid. A useful context for this discussion is provided by Mikhail Bakhtin’s treatment of the grotesque.> The grotesque is named after the Italian grotta, referring to late fifteenth-century excavations in which a previously unknown style of Roman ornaments was unearthed (31). These ornaments, Bakhtin says, “impressed the connoisseurs by the extremely fanciful, free, and playful treatment of plant, animal, and

human forms. These forms seemed to be interwoven as if giving birth to each other. The borderlines that divide the kingdoms of nature in the usual picture of the world were boldly infringed. . . . There was no longer the movement of finished forms, vegetable or animal, in a finished and stable world; instead the inner movement of being itself was expressed in the passing of one form into the other . . .” (32). Le Chevalier du Papegau,° written at some point during the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries (Vesce, xi—xiii),” shows a particularly striking example of the grotesque in its

2

From the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II at Nimrud, in Guide to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New

York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1972), p. 49.

3 Florence McCulloch, Mediaeval Latin and French Bestiaries (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1960), pp. 166-169; Physiologus, tr. Michael J. Curley (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 1979), p. 23.

4 Relating humans to another phase of nature, medieval literature represents the connection of human life to vegetal cycles by a green giant figure, most notably in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. We also find alternations between very different forms of human life, as in the theme of the “loathly lady” in Chaucer’s “Wife of Bath’s Tale” and the Middle English Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell. These stories ultimately resolve ambiguity in favor of the female character's “fair” atavar. 5 Rabelais and His World, tr. Helene Iswolsky (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1984). 6 Tr. Thomas E. Vesce (New York and London: Garland, 1986); all quotations are taken from this translation. A somewhat revised and slightly abbreviated version of Vesce’s translation appears in James J. Wilhelm, ed., The Romance ofArthur, III (New York and London: Garland, 1988), pp. 3-53. For the

original text, see Ferdinand Heuckenkamp, ed., Le Chevalier du papegau (Halle: M. Niemeyer, 1896). 7 In the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century, according to Keith Busby in Norris J. Lacy et al.,

Construction of Human and Animal in The Knight of the Parrot

243

amalgamation of the human and non-human. This French prose romance presents a lengthy series of exploits, punctuated by the requisite damsels and dangers, undertaken by a youthful Arthur. The very afternoon ofhis coronation, a damsel arrives at his court to request that he delegate a “fearless and true” knight to succor her lady.

Arthur himself, of course, feels he must rise to the challenge and departs incognito to prove his worth. The stage for interaction of the human and animal is set by a knight known as the Merciless Lion (“Lion sans Mercy”). After defeating this cruel and greedy marauder,

Arthur demonstrates in a long speech (with manifest resonances of Chrétien’s Knight of the Lion) why his enemy does not deserve the name ofthe noblest beast (9). As soon as this particular association of human and animal is unmasked as fraudulent, a parrot belonging to a dwarf in the conquered knight’s retinue announces that Arthur “is he about whom Merlin spoke . . . when he said that the son of the ewe would subdue the Merciless Lion” (10).

Arthur's totem, however, is to be not the ewe but the parrot, which goes on to say: “Sire, why do you not take me? Truly, I am yours; for you are the best knight in all the world .. .” (10). Arthur agrees to be the master of the parrot as well as of the dwarf.

Thereafter, when questioned, Arthur identifies himself by the sobriquet he has earned not by birth but by merit, the Knight of the Parrot. Although occasionally brusque and self-centered, the parrot serves as a comic foil to reveal Arthurs developing qualities, as an encouragement and publicist for the young king’s bravery, and as a role model in courtly song and amorous rhetoric, an area in which Arthur starts out with grave deficiencies. Then comes the episode that I wish to focus on. “. . . [T]hey saw approaching on horseback far off the most hideous and horrible knight in aspect who could ever be seen, causing a commotion all around him as great as any storm. . . . [H]is horse was

as big as an elephant, and the knight was as large as was needed to ride upon it” (14). Boldly reassuring his fearful parrot, Arthur attacks this apparition. Strange to say, the monstrous knight’s helmet, shield, and hauberk bleed when Arthur strikes them. After receiving many fierce blows, Arthur's adversary rides off, ultimately expiring from loss of blood. Death reveals that “the knight, destrier, hauberk, helm, shield, sword, and lance were all one and the same thing” (17).8

The Lady of the Blonde Hair, in whose jurisdiction the adventure occurs, “commanded her seneschal to have the body skinned? and to have the hide brought to the eds., The New Arthurian Encyclopedia (New York and London: Garland, 1991), p. 87; in the late fourteenth century according to Jane H.M. Taylor, “The Fourteenth Century: Context, Text and Intertext,” in Norris J. Lacy et al., eds., The Legacy of Chrétien de Troyes (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1987), vol. 1, p. 269. The sole manuscript is fifteenth-century. 8 This is, to say the least, unusual. A hint of something similar may be found in the Green Knight,

whose green skin, hair, and equipment, trimmed with gold and jewels, blend in with the same features of his horse. See lines 151-195 in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, tr. Marie Borroff (New York: Norton, 1967). Of classical analogues mentioned above, the centaur is the closest to the Fish-Knight; though lacking the built-in inanimate features, centaurs are usually depicted with bow and arrow in hand. 9 One might have expected that the female figure would, like the lady in Marie de Frances “Yonec,”

show empathy for the marginalized union of human and non-human. The Lady of the Blonde Hair, however, in accomplishing the definitive reduction of the Fish-Knight to the animal realm, is more akin

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Amorous City and put in a place where it could always be viewed and known to all as a marvel... . [O]nly one hide was to be had from both horse and knight. Nor was this something to be amazed by, for the body was all of a piece. Anyone, the narrator assures us, may find things like this written in the book known as Mapemundi,'° wherein is described a monster who has its home in the sea and is named the Fish-Knight. . .” (24).!!

Arthur and his hosts duly follow the knight’s trail back to the sea, which is tossed by storm and resounds with moaning. “There were some who said that it was coming from the clan of the Fish-Knight, while others claimed that the noise was made by devils who were exercising their powers” (25).'2 Thus, what first seems a man fitting

perfectly into the mold of knight metamorphoses into man and the supernatural. Since it is not usual for romance, and most ofthose

human adversaries stationed on the path of a questing a composite being who is associated with both the subhu-

a hero to kill individual knightly adversaries in courtly bested by Arthur have the chance to repent and te be sent to court to enhance his glory, it is interesting to see whom or what else Arthur kills in the course ofhis adventures: (1) “Knight-Giant,” who is the son of a giant and carries a shield made ofthe skin of a fish (48-52); (2) a large, poisonous serpent (72); (3) a savage woman who attacks and nearly kills him (76); and (4) an evil marshal who

besieges and intends to marry forcibly Lady Flor de Mont, thus betraying her father’s trust (80). In sum, other than the marshal, whom Arthur pursues off and on for over

half the romance and who clearly deserves his fate, Arthur kills only beings associated in various ways with animals or giants.

Not everything emanating from the domain ofthe grotesque is to be exterminated, however. A hump-backed dwarf and his son the Giant Without A Name turn out to be friendly and helpful, although stupidity and forgetfulness have given the son the undesirable habit of killing all people who venture onto their island (86). Interestingly, he perceives Arthur as similar to the Fish-Knight: “When he spotted the king so fine and beautifully astride his charger, he became afraid of him, for he had never seen such a thing before, and he believed him and his horse to be all one animal” (92). But

Arthur, unlike the Fish-Knight, is able to dissociate his human and apparent animal side, for when he dismounts, the Giant Without A Name understands his error. Hegel’s definition of the grotesque, as cited by Bakhtin, helps us see a structural difference between the Giant and the Fish-Knight. The principal traits of the to Bisclavret’s treacherous wife, who condemns him (or so she thinks) to remain forever in his wolf form.

10 By Pierre de Beauvais, fl.1200—-1220. It is worth noting that the same Pierre’s Bestiaire includes the

composite siren and honocentor, which he represents as partly human and, respectively, partly bird and ass. See Guy R. Mermier, ed. and tr., Le Bestiaire de Pierre de Beauvais (Paris: Nizet, 1977), pp. 43, 68. 11 The name “Fish-Knight” (“Poisson-Chevalier”) applied to a horse-man will surprise us less if we

recall the bestiaries’ frequent confusion of non-human parts, as brought out above: the siren can be part bird or fish, or both, etc. In the Fish-Knights head and helm, “the leather on the outside was black and very much like the skin of asnake” (Vesce, 17), and snake scales are related to fish scales.

12 The author, showing no interest in evaluating these assertions, merely adds that “What one person said was not at all accepted by other persons so that no one really understood where the truth of the matter was to be found” (25), and then returns to the narrative. I have not been able to make the comparison to Pierre de Beauvais’ Mapemonde, for the apparant lack of a printed edition.

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grotesque, according to Hegel, are “the fusion of different natural spheres, immeasurable and exaggerated dimensions, and the multiplication of different members and organs of the human body” (45). The first two criteria apply to the Fish-Knight, but only the second to the Giant.!3 The Giant can be redeemed, but for the Fish-Knight’s more extreme and immutable attributes, no evolution or rehabilitation is possible, and he must perish.!4 Although Bakhtin regards the grotesque approvingly and even enthusiastically as an

emanation of the popular spirit and folk humor, in medieval literature the grotesque has both a bad and a good side. The sinister Fish-Knight — the bad side — is offset by positive exemplars where the grotesque is tempered by the socially acceptable. Thus, both dwarves whom we meet in The Knight of the Parrot have positive roles, and once the Giant Without A Name becomes civilized he abandons his murderous ways and is baptised and dubbed a knight at Arthur's court.!5 In his triumphal procession through the world of the grotesque, the young king sorts out good and evil, destroying what is too inhuman to survive but bringing out the best — the most productively human — in the rest. Western societies have come to resist the idea that nature should be perpetually at human command; we would let the Fish-Knight live as a natural wonder. On

the other hand, tending to favor an orderly segregation of things, we would need to set the surviving Fish-Knight apart from us with a marker — as in a zoo — signifying that “This is not part of our daily lives.”16 The Knight of the Parrot, on the other hand, has the ideological clarity — or perhaps overconfidence — to navigate effectively in a world that tolerates ambivalence. Guided by a bird, consorting with giants and dwarves but

brought up in the courtly tradition, Arthur draws strength from both the human and non-human worlds. In the prototypical knightly posture, he goes on horseback; but he can also change horses, dismount, or make love to the Lady of the Blonde Hair. As a Man on a Horse, capable of separate, complementary functions, he manages subtle transitions in social roles, from field to bower, from warrior to lover, transitions unknown to a Horse-Man, labeled here Fish-Knight, who is condemned to play a single role in life. If we take the Fish-Knight to represent not only an unnatural and unstable compound but also a tendency within “Arthurian” society, that tendency is the danger of the individual becoming too absorbed in his or her function. In the simplified

13 Bakhtin agrees that any “legends of giants” reflect “the grotesque concept of the body” (27, 341-44);

but it should be added that as well as exaggeratedly large dimensions, exaggeratedly small ones, in the form of the dwarves that abound in medieval epic and romance (including The Knight of the Parrot), also partake of the grotesque.

14 Somewhat similarly, once Mélusine’s secret is imprudently discovered by her husband and then made public, she cannot continue her dual role and must take her leave of human life and be condemned to

lasting torment as a serpent or dragon; see Jean d’Arras, Mélusine, tr. Michéle Perret (Paris: Stock, 1979), pp. 230, 247-58. 15 Indeed, the friendly giant is a staple of medieval literature as of Rabelais. In a fine melange of grotesque human and animal elements, The Knight of the Parrot (Vesce, 89) informs us that the Giant

Without A Name owes his size to his having been suckled by a unicorn (his father, suckled as an adult by the same beast, remains, however, a dwarf). 16 Science fiction appears to be something of an exception, as “aliens” and “humans” interact fully, whether as allies or enemies; and like the Fish-Knight, aliens can combine the “human” and “mechan-

ical,” as in visual devices that are parts of their bodies.

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medieval view of society prolonged in the pre-Revolutionary French “estates,” the people till or sell, the nobles “defend” the others (that is, make war), and the clergy pray for all. The Fish-Knight embodies the noble who has become imprisoned in his function as if in his own unwieldy armor, unequipped for anything other than battle, unable even to dismount from a horse that has become part of himself. While the romances of Chrétien de Troyes dwell on the construction of the human mind, the Parrot author appears to be fascinated by the construction of the physical self. The Fish-Knight is a transgressive image, an impossible, temporary joining of opposed elements, unlike the more easily imagined alternations of form found in Maries werewolf and hawk-man, in Chrétiens Yvain and his alter ego the lion. Yet finally, the Parrot author is not all that distant from Chrétien and Marie, because the

physical symbolizes the psychological, and all three authors share a vision of humanity as essentially dual, a union ofopposites. In the Fish-Knight, as in creatures like the sphinx and centaur, the upper part ofthe body is human and the lower part non-human. Bakhtin’s generalization (21) that the

upper part of the body (head, face) is turned toward the heavens and spiritual functions, while the lower parts (belly, genitals, buttocks) are turned toward the earth seems to hold here. Ultimately, in the Fish-Knight, the lower part wins out, since in

death he is treated as animal, not as a man. But what is most original and surprising is that this composite being includes the third, even lower, category of normally inanimate objects, in the form of his weapons and accoutrements. Thèse, together with his equine lower body, carry the Fish-Knight over the boundary into a realm that is both unstable and threatening to the medieval inventory of the distinct levels of existence: mineral, vegetable, animal, spiritual. Chrétien, who thrives on debatable questions, in several of his works asks: can a man be both knight and lover, can a woman be both “femme et amie”? The more physical Parrot author asks: can a knight be associated with a horse, and a king with a bird? In deference to medieval love of ambiguity, his answers, like Chrétien’, are positive, as long as human capacity dominates in the mixture. Like Yvain over the lion,

Arthur is the master over his horse and parrot even while partially merging with them by taking on some of their characteristics.!7 In part, he (like the civilization he represents) triumphs over the Other by assimilating it. Ultimately, the Fish-Knight episode and this romance in general are about ambiguity. The animal qualities of the Fish-Knight connote the primitive aspect in the human race, the aspect that knighthood, by its uplifting vows, is expected to overcome in itself and eradicate in society. Yet here we have a knight — the Fish-Knight is, after all, as much knight as fish or horse — who behaves inhumanly and inhumanely, and whose only lifelong development is not in the increasing self-awareness and wisdom of

Chrétien’s heroes but in emerging from the sea onto the land, in a kind of recapitulation of our remote ancestors’ evolution, reminding us of his — and our own — animal side. Like medieval literature, fairy tales offer frequent examples of human-animal 17 Among other characteristics, the parrot urges Arthur on in love, while the horse is traditionally associated with sexuality (see William IX of Poitou’s “Companho, faray un vers . . . covinen” and numerous other medieval examples).

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duality, notably in the “animal-groom” (or, less frequently, “animal-bride”) motif,!8 in which “the sexual partner [is] first experienced as an animal” (Bettelheim, 283), as in

“Beauty and the Beast” or “The Frog King.” As Bettelheim observes, “fairy tales speak to the inner mental life of the child” (120). Not all monsters are external;!° rather,

Bettelheim says, “the monster a child knows best and is most concerned with [is] the monster he feels or fears himself to be . . .” (120). One of the healing functions ofthe

fairy tale is to allow the child “to get to know his monster better” and “to gain mastery over it” (120). In its cast of characters and its use of fantasy to symbolize reality, medieval romance is not so very different from the fairy tale.2 In medieval romance, the ideal hero challenges and defeats all potential human or supernatural adversaries before returning home with glory and wisdom.?! This description applies to The Knight of the Parrot, where the symbolic and far-reaching nature of Arthur’s initiation rites is emphasized by the fact that the story lasts exactly a year, from one feast of Pentecost to the next (Vesce, 1, 95). “Mircea Eliade . . . and

others suggest that myths and fairy talés were derived from, or give symbolic expression to, initiation rites or other rites de passage — such as a metaphoric death of an old, inadequate self in order to be reborn on a higher plane ofexistence” (Bettelheim, 35). Despite the narrative flaws of The Knight of the Parrot, it exemplifies well this

pattern of initiation and growth.” In fairy tales and most of the medieval examples we have cited, the opposition between human and animal features is generally resolved in favor of the human. We may have our moment of doubt about Arthur, who momentarily descends into brutish violence when he physically beats and verbally berates the Lady of the Blonde Hair (Vesce, 36-37). But Arthur does overcome the lower nature trapped within

himself. When, on the other hand, contrary conditions — human and animal, animate and inanimate — are inseparably joined, such that one cannot be separated from the other, then humanity is lost and the animal wins out. The Fish-Knight, therefore,

becomes a beast, a mere trophy, while the Knight of the Parrot becomes the successful hunter who, in Bettelheim’s terms, overcomes childish “animal phobias”: . . the hunter of fairy tales is not a figure who kills friendly creatures, but one who dominates, controls, and subdues wild, ferocious beasts. On a deeper level, he represents the subjugation of the animal, asocial, violent tendencies in man. Since he seeks out, tracks down, and defeats what are viewed as lower aspects of man — the wolf— the

18 Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses ofEnchantment (New York: Knopf, 1976), pp. 277-309.

19 See, for example, Robin Morgan's poem beginning “Strange, but this castle is not foreign to me,” in Monster (New York: Random

House,

1972), p. 9, which uses resonances

of fairy tales to evoke an

age-old awareness of the layer upon layer of reality within us, while adding the additional layer of a

feminist perspective. 20 As seen,

for example,

in the work

and childhood

memories

of J.R.R. Tolkien,

according to

Bettelheim, 117-18. 21 For the trajectory of the hero, from “the call to adventure” through initiation to a triumphant return, see Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 2d ed. (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1972), Part I. 22 In one respect mentioned by Bettelheim (37), medieval romance is generally closer to fairy tales,

which are “optimistic” and have a “happy outcome,” than to myth, which is “pessimistic.” On the other hand, fairy tales are “about everyman,” whereas “every myth is the story of a particular hero” (Bettelheim, 40), as is the case with medieval romance.

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hunter is an eminently protective figure who can and does save us from the dangers of our violent emotions and those of others. (205)

Blissfully ignorant of the insights of modern psychology, at the end of The Knight of the Parrot the young but now proven hero and hunter returns to court to carry out his mission of bringing together two worlds — the grotesque and animal on one hand, the civilized and human on the other — in the idealized construct which characterizes Arthurian romance. The Arthurian court can, in a way, be seen as symbolized by the Fish-Knight: it is an unstable compound of the higher and lower in human beings which ultimately, in the Vulgate Cycle and Malory’s rendition, falls into degrading

strife and violence and, after magnificent death throes. like the Fish-Knights in the forest, crashes to its doom, yet remains ever on display as an exemplary monument in the museums of cultural history.”

23 For numerous helpful suggestions, | am endebted to Lynette F. McGrath as well as to Charlotte Gross, many ofthe other participants in the Seventh Triennial Congress of the ICLS, and the editors of this volume.

PERSPECTIVES ON THE QUEST MOTIF IN MEDIEVAL ITALIAN LITERATURE: COMIC ELEMENTS IN ANTONIO PUCCPS GISMIRANTE Christopher Kleinhenz

In medieval Italian literature the motif of the quest assumes many forms and functions. It is both comic and serious; secular and religious, and is found in most literary genres. In this essay I will concentrate on a few specific examples of the quest motif, and particularly on its Arthurian dimensions and on its use as a comic device. This study divides into three parts: (1) a brief discussion of how the quest motif is employed incidentally for allusive effect in a literary work, (2) an examination of how it functions as the principal theme in some specific works (Boccaccio’s Decameron, Dante’s Divine Comedy), and (3) a more detailed investigation of the Grail legend in

Italy and the comic dimensions of the quest motif in Antonio Pucci’s cantare, Gismirante. In its incidental role the quest motif generally appears in those extra-referential portions ofthe text: similes, hyperboles, and the like. One such example occurs in the contrasto of Cielo d’Alcamo, “Rosa fresca aulentissima,” one of the best known lyrics from the first decades of the Italian poetic tradition. In it an itinerant jongleur and a woman of the bourgeoisie engage in an amorous debate; the man desires to have sexual intercourse with the woman without benefit of marriage and uses every means possible to counter her arguments and break down her resistance. The entire poem is suffused with erotic innuendoes and sexually nuanced double-entendres, which build to the eventual and mutually satisfying climax. In one strophe, as part of his tactics of persuasion, the would-be seducer speaks in hyperbolic terms of his quest for feminine beauty and courtesy:! “Cercat’aio Calabria, — Toscana e Lombardia, Puglia, Costantinopoli, — Genova, Pisa e Soria,

Lamagna e Babilonïa — e tutta Barberia: donna non ci trovai tanto cortese, per che sovrana di meve te prese.”

(vv. 61-65)

Eleven widely scattered countries, regions, and cities are evoked in the short span of three verses — such full-blown phrases to convince the Sicilian woman of his great desire and tireless quest! 1 The text follows Bruno Panvini, ed., Le rime della scuola siciliana (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1962), pp- 169-76.

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A modified version of this same motif from the feminine perspective appears a few

stanzas later. There, in response to the man’s overtly sexual demand “Dunque vorresti, vitama, — ca per te fosse strutto? Se morto essere deboci — od intagliato tutto, di quaci non mi mosera— se no aio de lo frutto,

lo quale staci ne lo tuo jardino: disiolo la sera e lo matino”

(vv. 81-85)

the woman responds by stressing her desirability: the “fruit of her garden” is, after all, the object of the attention and desire of many high-born men: “Di quello frutto no abbero — conti, né cabalieri;

molto lo disiarono — marchesi e justizieri, avere no nde pottero, — gironde molto feri. Intendi bene cid che bole dire?” (vv. 86-89)

In this poem the quest motif is thus placed at the service of rather ordinary sexual pursuits and gives them a certain chivalric but decidedly comic aura.

At its most fundamental level a quest is the pursuit of any object or ideal which requires that obstacles be overcome and feats performed. Defined in this way, a quest can be almost any sort of adventure in which an individual seeks to obtain by a variety of means what he/she lacks or desires. The quest motif may be viewed as integral to the work’s conception, elaboration, and action insofar as it describes and informs the progressive stages in the search for and pursuit of the goal. The many obscure objects of desire are both the goals and the inspirations ofasmany quests, ordered hierarchically from the earthly — temporal riches, land and property, the affection of another human being — to the metaphysical and spiritual — virtue, salvation, etc. For example, in the Canzoniere, Petrarch speaks of his quest for solitude, for the tranquil place in which he can devote himselfto his various activities: Cercato à sempre solitaria vita (le rive il sanno, et le campagne e i boschi) per fuggir questi ingegni sordi e loschi, che la strada del cielo Anno smarrita.

(CCLIX, wv. 1-4)

The characters in Boccaccio’s Decameron are all, in one way or another, involved in

quests of the lower or higher order. Calandrino’s quest for the heliotrope, that stone whose magical quality will enable him to accumulate great wealth with no physical effort, concludes unsuccessfully (Dec. 8:3). Andreuccio’s journey from Perugia to Naples to buy horses proves to be a bumbling but successful quest: he passes through a series of adventures in which he loses his 500 gold florins, narrowly escapes death three times, and miraculously acquires a valuable ruby ring (Dec. 2:5). Alibech’s quest 2 The text follows the edition of Gianfranco Contini: Francesco Petrarca, Canzoniere (Turin: Giulio Einaudi,

1968). In the Canzoniere Petrarch uses the verb cercare in its many forms no fewer than

forty-one times. Its last occurrence in the Canzoniere is in the final poem, the canzone alla Vergine: “Da poi chi nacqui in su la riva d’Arno, / cercando or questa et or quel’altra parte, / non é stata mia vita

altro ch’affanno” (CCCLXVI, vv. 82-84). In this final usage we note the restless and relentless quality of Petrarch’s “searching” and, as it were, “questing” after a myriad ofearthly goals.

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and burning desire to serve God lead her into the wilderness where she, through the considerate instruction of Rustico, learns to put the devil back into hell and thus reaps both material and spiritual rewards (Dec. 3:10). While Alibech’s initially religious quest takes a decidedly secular, erotic turn, the magnanimous characters of the Decameron’s tenth day are all successful in suppressing their personal desires in order to achieve fame through their altruistic actions. Boccaccio depicts the entire range of human activity, whereby people pursue goals which, both tangible and intangible, remain within the secular sphere. And herein lies the well-known distinction between Boccaccio’s “human comedy” and Dante’s “divine” Comedy which presents the journey of the pilgrim through the three realms of the afterlife and the felicitous conclusion of his quest in the vision of the Trinity, the beginning and end of all human existence and desire. : The quest of Dante the Pilgrim is no small undertaking; indeed, his passage from earth to heaven is marked by a number of adventures and encounters. At certain key points readers may recall the parallels between the events of this quest and those of Dantes Arthurian counterparts. As I have attempted to demonstrate elsewhere, Dante’s changing attitude toward the Arthurian legends and, more generally, toward the notion of the court and courtliness may be viewed in his use of terms such as corte, cortese, and cortesia in his works.3 In the Divine Comedy Dante was actively defining a new sort of cortesia, one that springs from spiritual origins and derives its impetus and characteristics from the right ordering of the soul in accordance with God’s will and divine plan. This new cortesia has its proper home in Heaven, in the “corte del ciel,” and the evolution ofthe noun corte in Dante’s works demonstrates this radical change in concept and perspective — from its designation of the court of Love‘ and earthly courts in general (Convivio I, x, 8) to its almost unanimous use in the Comedy to

describe the spiritual court of Heaven, that one, single, perfect, and incorruptible society, that “beata corte” (Par. 32:98) which draws its animating force from a cortese and munificent God whose cortesia pervades and informs the universe.» This otherworldly quality accords well with what was for the Middle Ages the supreme quest, that of the Holy Grail, known in Italian as the inchiesta del Sangradale. While students and scholars are reasonably familiar with its history and trappings in French and English literature, the Italian tradition is by and large terra incognita. References to and descriptions of the Grail legend in Italian are very few in number; indeed, it is almost a quest in itself to find material on the quest for the Grail!® The

longest and most elaborate account appears toward the end of the lengthy prose romance known as La tavola ritonda o l'istoria di Tristano, and its description there

3 “Dante as Reader and Critic of Courtly Literature,” in Courtly Literature: Culture and Context: Selected Papers from the 5th Triennial Congress of the International Courtly Literature Society, ed. Keith Busby and Erik Kooper (Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1990), pp. 379-93. 4 In Il fiore (Sonnet 87) and the Rime, in “Doglia mi reca ne lo core ardire” (v. 31) and in “Amor, da che convien pur ch'io mi doglia” (v. 71).

5 For a complete survey of the use of the term corte in the Comedy, see my article referred to in note 3 above. 6 In addition to the references in Edmund G. Gardner’s magisterial study, The Arthurian Legend in Italian Literature (London: J.M. Dent, 1930), see his “The Holy Grail in Italian Literature,” Modern

Language Review, 20 (1925), pp. 443-53.

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follows in the main the prose version given in La queste del Saint Graal in the Vulgate Cycle.” In its abbreviated form, the quest episode in the Tavola ritonda provides a generally solemn and respectful version without, however, participating in the deep mysticism of its Old French counterparts. The reasons for this are not clear, but may most likely be sought in the cultural and religious differences between Italy and France in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries.’ Moreover, despite some alleged influences on his works,’ Dante’ virtual silence on the Grail suggests that the Italians conceived their “mysticism” as having “a totally different character and colour” (Gardner, Arthurian Literature, 151), that it was somehow more “intellectual” and less “sacramental” than the French variety (Gardner, “The Holy Grail,” 453).

The Tavola ritonda does include some short but interesting explanations of the symbolism of the Grail and the other apparitions and visions (the stag, lion, pelican, etc.) and of the nature of Grace and the Eucharistic feast (Transubstantiation). The

brevity of treatment given to these religious matters, however, is, in a way, accentuated by the description of Tristan’s rather sudden abandonment of the Grail Quest: Ed essendo in fra due confini, Tristano si diparte da Lancialotto, e Lancialotto da

Tristano; imperd che Tristano lascia la ’mpresa del Sangradale, per ritornare a vedere la bella reina Isotta la bionda. E sie si diparte sanza commiato, imperd che non era allicenziato; ché non era tanto degno, cioé fermo, che, per ricevere la grazia, lasciasse il pensiere del peccato; ed era assai più desideroso de vedere la reina Isotta, che di sedere

alla santa Tavola, si come sedeano i dodici cavalieri ch'erano sanza pensiere di peccato carnale, e sanza odio né superbia; ché peccato d’avarizia non regnava in quel tempo. E sappiate che ‘| pensiere e la volonta di vedere Isotta, tolse a Tristano la grazia di non vedere e di non sentire; e se cid non fosse stato, sarebbe stato, pella sua leanza e cortesia, degli primi a vedere e a gustare la grazia del santo Vasello. (744 rit., chap. CXV. pp. 453-54)

The author of the Zavola ritonda would appear to be attempting, simultaneously, to follow the main lines of his source text(s) and to shape the material in a manner he

believes to be most palatable to his audience. While paying lip service to the Grail Quest, he is much more concerned to relate the continuing adventures ofTristan, the real hero of the romance, and assumes that his readers are more interested in these events as well. Indeed, the author is very supportive of Tristan, to the extent that he

7

La Tavola ritonda o l'istoria di Tristano, ed. Filippo-Luigi Polidori, 2 vols. (Bologna: Romagnoli,

1864-1865). For further information on Arthurian material in Italy, see my entry “Italian Arthurian Literature,” in The New Arthurian Encyclopedia, ed. NorrisJ.Lacy (New York: Garland, 1991), 245-47, and Arturo Graf, “Appunti per la storia del ciclo brettone in Italia,” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, 5 (1885), pp. 80-130. For the Tristan legend in particular, see my “Tristan in Italy: The Death or Rebirth of a Legend,” Studies in Medieval Culture, 5 (1975), pp. 145-58, as well as the following important studies: Daniela Branca, 7 Romanzi italiani di Tristano e la Tavola Ritonda (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1968) and Giuseppe Malavasi, La Materia poetica del ciclo brettone in Italia, in particolare la leggenda di Tristano e quella di Lancillotto (Mirandola: Grilli, 1901).

8 For the French tradition see Etienne Gilson, “La mystique de la grace dans La Queste del Saint Graal,” Romania, 5\ (1925), pp. 321-47.

9 For example, in The Mystic Vision in the Grail Legend and in the Divine Comedy (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1917), L.A. Fisher has proposed that the procession atop the Mountain Purgatory (canto 29) imitates a procession ofthe Blessed Sacrament.

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notes his superiority to all knights, even to Galahad, the hero who achieves the quest in the Old French Graal. E sappiate che la donzella diceva il vero, imperd che Lancialotto avea suo migliore; chè,

per la grazia di Dio, Galasso era lo più grazioso e lo miglior cavaliere del mondo, salvo che messer Tristano. (Za. rit. Chap. CIX, pp. 430-1)

The author further clarifies the distinction between them, referring to the special grace given Galahad by God: . . Iddio diede a Galasso una grazia la quale s’'appella grazia data, per la quale grazia trasse la spada del petrone; e innanci che suo scudo ricevesse colpo, fue appellato lo

migliore cavaliere del mondo, in grazia e in opera data da Dio. E Tristano fue lo più pro’ cavaliere mondano che nascesse in questo mondo, lo più gentile e lo più cortese. (TZau.

rit. Chap. CIX, p. 431)

One small detail found in the Grail episode and common to the French and Italian romances has a curious, but instructive Fortleben. On the feast of Pentecost the court at Camelot returns from church and prepares to eat: “. . . le tavole erano messe, e lo re comanda l’acqua, chè voleva mangiare.” At this point Chieso (Kay) reminds Arthur: “Sire, ancora non si puote desinare, impercid che, per lo di di oggi, noi non abbiamo ancora avuta niuna novella nuova,” to which the king agrees: “Voi dite la veritade” (Tav. rit. Chap. CVIII, p. 428). Immediately thereafter comes a rush of events: the news of the marvellous arrival of the sword in the stone and Galasso’s (Galahad’s)

arrival at court and demonstration of his special election by sitting in the perilous seat and removing the sword from the stone. These wondrous events are crowned bythe sudden and rapturous appearance of the Holy Grail which proceeds to feed the knights with celestial food and then vanishes mysteriously. All thoughts of earthly banqueting are forgotten, and those knights present vow to undertake the high quest for the Holy Grail. The prohibition on eating in Arthur’s court until novelle are brought, found, or heard, is present in the Old French Queste del Saint Graal and in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight with the only deviation being that in these earlier texts this is the practice only on “high” feast days.!° In his two-part cantare,\! Gismirante, Antonio Pucci presents an interesting and

comic variation on this motif, one which | take to be representative of the sort of 10 In La Queste del Saint Graal, ed. Albert Pauphilet (Paris: Champion, 1923) the text reads as follows:

“Et li rois comande que les napes soient mises, car il est tens de mengier, ce li est avis. ‘Sire, fet Kex li seneschaux, se vos asseez ja au disner, il m'est avis que vos enfraindroiz la costime de ceanz. Car non

avons veu toz jorz que vos a haute feste n’asseiez a table devant que aucune aventure fust en vostre cort avenue voiant toz les barons de vostre ostel.’ — ‘Certes, fet li rois, Kex, voi dites voir. Ceste costume ai je

toz jorz tenue et la tendrai tant come je porrai. Mes je avoie si grant joie de Lancelot et de ses cousins qui estoient venu a cort sain et haitié qu'il ne me sovenoit de la costume.’ — ‘Or vos en soviegne,’ fet

Kex” (pp. 4-5). See also Chrétien de Troyes, Perceval, ou le conte du graal, ed. W. Roach (Geneva: Droz, 1959), vv. 2785-2826: At Pentecost, despite Kay’s insistence, Arthur refuses to dine until “novele a ma cort viegne” (2826). 11 Cantari are narrative poems composed in ottava rima (eight hendecasyllables forming individual

stanzas (ottave) with the rhyme scheme ABABABCC) and performed by jongleurs in the piazza. The “standard” length for these poems is between forty and fifty stanzas, long enough to be suitable for a

sustained oral performance, yet short enough to hold the interest of the audience. Longer cantari are often divided into parts (e.g., Gismirante has two parts) which were presented over a period of time.

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playful transformation of Arthurian material and its adaptation to the tastes of the Italian bourgeois audience. Before this matter is discussed in detail, a brief summary of the cantare would seem to be appropriate. Gismirante, the son of Cortese, a knight of the Round Table, is born in Rome. After the death of his father, he travels to Arthur’s court, where he spends a number ofyears. One day a prohibition is placed on eating since no “news” have been brought to the court, and Gismirante vows to save the court. On his initial quest he is aided by a fairy who tells him of the beautiful princess who, once each year on the eve of the feast of St. Martin, walks through the city naked. The fairy then gives Gismirante a coffer with a single golden hair of the princess, and this is the “news” he needs to rescue the court from its self-imposed fast. Gismirante then sets out on the quest to win the princess, and on the way to her city he helps a griffin, an eagle, and a hawk — all of which are placed there by supernatural design. He meets the princess and succeeds in eloping with her, but loses her to a “wild man” (womo selvagio) who imprisons her with 42 other damsels in his castle. Since this adversary is a product of magic, the only way that Gismirante can kill him is to discover where his heart is kept (it is guarded in Rome by a fearsome beast, the “porco troncascino”). With the assistance of the three animals he had helped earlier,

Gismirante succeeds in killing the wild man. He marries the princess, and they live happily ever after. The opening ottave (2-9) of the cantare set the scene and movevequickly through the pre-history and childhood ofthe hero:!? 2

Ben voglio che saciate, buona gente, ch'un, chebe nome il cavalier Cortese,

si diparti per alcuno accidente dal re Artie e di tutto il paese,

e tanto cavalcd continuamente, che giunse a Roma nel nobil paese, e quie ebe un figliuol, che nutricare lo fece e di vantaggio amaestrare. a Quando di quindici anni e fue in etade, più chaltro in trenta era gagliardo e forte. Venendo il padre in grande infermitade, disse: “Figliuolo, ? dubito di morte: pero, s'io muoio in questa contrada, none istar quie, e vattene alla corte, e racomandati a messer Tristano, a Lancelotto ed a messer Calliano.”

4 E poco istante che mori, avante

al suo figliuol nulla non pud più dire. ET damigel, cha nome Gismirante, a grande onore il fece sopellire,

12 The text follows that given in Fiore di leggende: Cantari antichi, ed. Ezio Levi (Bari: Laterza, 1914).

The Quest MotifinMedieval Italian Literature e po’ si diparti a poco istante: andonne in corte sanza ritenire,

e come il padre gli aveva contato, a que’ baron si fue raccomandato.

5 E per amor del suo padre ordinâro tanto che stette in corte per donzello; e serviva si ben, che l’avie caro re Arte sopr ogni damigello, e tutti 1 cavalieri inamorâro,

tanto egli era apariscente e bello; ed insegnârgli giostrare e schermire, si che fu sopra ogr/altro pien d’ardire.

6 Cos) sett’anni fece dimoranza e fe’ in tal tempo molte cose belle, avendo in quella corte per usanza che non vi si mangiava mai cavelle, né sera né mattina per certanza,

se di fuor non venia fresche novelle; avvenne un di che per cotal cagione

non mangiod il re, né niuno suo barone. 7 E, quando fu venuto l’altro giorno,

novelle fresche ancora non venia; e Gismirante, il damigello adorno, andonne a re Artue, e si dicia:

“Fatemi cavalier sanza soggiorno.” E, po’ che fatto fue cid che volia, disse partendo: “Non ci torno mai

che caverd la corte di ta’ guai.” 8

E cavalcando gia pregando Iddio che gli mandasse ventura alle mani, per la qual cosa che di tanto rio possa cavare i cavalier sovrani. Tutto quel giorno cavalcd con disio, e po la notte non trovà ch’ il sani. Po’ la mattina si ebe trovata,

come Iddio volle, una saputa fata.

9 La qual lui salutava, e poi gli disse: “Di stran paese qua venuta sono,

perd ch'io non voleva che perisse cotanta buona gente in abandono: in prima che di là mi dipartisse, i procacciai di recarti un bel dono, che, se tu I porti in corte al re davanti, mangiar potrai co’ cavalieri erranti.”

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When he returns to court, Gismirante finds that everyone has gone to bed without supper — “senza cena / andato s’era a letto ogni persona” (I, 13, 3-4) — and announces in a loud voice what would be the medieval Italian equivalent of “Chow time!” (“Grido: ‘Suso a mangiar, santa corona!” I, 13, 6).

In these initial stanzas Antonio Pucci presents us with a wonderful combination of realistic and fantastic elements drawn from several traditions. The jongleur addresses his audience and moves rapidly through the compact account of the hero’s lineage and enfances. These and other elements in the cantare derive from the romance tradition, as, for example, the decision of ayoung knight to present himself and be knighted at Arthur’s court. Indeed, the abruptness of Gismirante’s request to be made a knight reminds us of Tristan’s similar request to Mark, although the reason in that case (to fight the Morholt in order to liberate Cornwall from the tribute) was of a decidedly

different, and more noble sort (see Zavola ritonda, Chap. XVII, pp. 64-67). The landscape through which Gismirante passes on his quests is populated with supernatural beings and magical objects.'3 But what about the emphasis on food and eating? Before their delivery at the hands of Gismirante, the members of Arthur’s court have observed quite malvolentieri a three-day fast, and if there is one thing that would capture the attention of a fourteenth-century Italian audience, it is precisely that of not being able to eat for an indefinite period of time! While the prohibition on high feast days in Arthurs court in the earlier tradition might be associated with certain fasting rituals necessary to the preparation for receiving the Host, there is no such qualification in the cantare. Indeed, the enforced abstinence is depicted as the most horrible thing that could possibly happen to them: it is to this sort of concern that the noble court has been reduced, at least in the Italian bourgeois mentality! Gismirante’s quest to save Arthur's court has been a success, and is the first in a series of quests and adventures that will culminate in his marriage to the woman to whom belongs the golden hair.'4 Just as Gismirantes quests began on a culinary note, so does his last adventure end with a great banquet (“un gran mangiar,” II, 58, 2) at Arthur's court.

All of Gismirante’s exploits are tinged with humor which makes the narrative more familiar and immediate, more palatable and pleasurable to the audience, both then and now. Quests in medieval Italian literature are numerous and serve many different purposes. They range from the sublime heights of the Grail quest and spiritual nourish-

ment to the popular adaptation of that motif to celebrate the very real and urgent need for material sustenance. As a provisional conclusion to this rapid overview ofthe quest motif, I cannot resist the temptation to incorporate once again the gastronomi-

cal metaphor, noting that, as far as quests are concerned in Italian literature, “tutto fa

brodo,” and the proof of this pudding is not in the eating, but rather in the reading!

13 For example, the three animals (griffin, eagle, and hawk), the princess’ magic wand, the wild man’s metal castle, etc. 14 The device of the golden hair is also reminiscent ofthe Tristan legend.

CHAUCERIAN

ROMANCE

AND

THE WORLD

BEYOND

EUROPE

John M. Fyler

By coincidence, as I was thinking about this paper just before the ICLS Congress, I happened to see the replicas of Columbus’. three ships, which showed up in New London, Connecticut, for a visit after their stay in New York harbor. The stretch required to imagine coastal Connecticut as Hispaniola is not so much greater, at first glance, than the one required for us to think about Chaucer in the context of the events of 1492. For Chaucer is certainly not someone who immediately comes to mind when we think of what J.R.S. Phillips has called “the medieval expansion of Europe,” or of the medieval interest in the wonders of the East, as they have been wonderfully documented by John Block Friedman’s book on The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought.' Or | should say, he does not come to mind except for the Squire’ Tale, which talks of magical wonders and of Tartary. My argument, however, is that the kinds ofissues so much on our minds in 1992 — especially issues of cultural contact and diversity — may also enrich our understanding of Chaucer, and indeed highlight some central Chaucerian concerns. To be sure, the Squires Tale, which so evidently brings such issues to the foreground, at one point pokes fun at diversity as merely a debilitating variousness of opinion: “Diverse folk diversely they demed” (V.202), he says, as the crowd at Cambuskyan’s court speculates on the meaning of the

magic horse.? But overall the Squires Tale is certainly one in praise of exotic otherness, with a startling cultural relativism at its heart. It is especially interesting as part of a group of three tales which consider the world beyond Europe, the others being the tales of the Man of Law and the Prioress: the three illuminate each other, two of them

are explicitly romances, and they also present openly what appears elsewhere in the Canterbury Tales in muted form. Before I turn to them, I would like to begin by talking a bit about the Canterbury Tales as a whole, about romance as one of its dominant genres, and about the bearing a fourteenth-century account of the chivalric ideal (in Froissart) and a twentieth-century account ofthe anthropology of exchange (in Lévi-Strauss) might have on this aspect of Chaucer's work.

I take as a given Marshall Leicester’s description of the Tales as a work which “involves the continual attempt, continually repeated, to see from another's point of 1 J.R.S. Phillips, The Medieval Expansion ofEurope (Oxford and New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1988); John Block Friedman, The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard Univ. Press, 1981). 2 All quotations from the Canterbury Tales are from The Riverside Chaucer, 3rd ed., ed. Larry D.

Benson (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987).

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view, to stretch and extend the self by learning to speak in the voices of others.” His recent book brilliantly shows what such acts of impersonation entail, both in Chaucer's impersonation of other men and of women (notably the Wife of Bath), and

in his characters’ own impersonation of the characters within their tales (notably the Knight). Without generalizing, or sentimentalizing, the result too much, its fair to say that one significant Chaucerian marker for the moral ethos of each pilgrim — or should we say each narrative voice? — is the ability to carry on such impersonations in a disinterested fashion. Chaucer explores, time and again, the constricting boundaries of self-enclosure and self-absorption, as they contrast with a willingness to grant otherness, and an ability to imagine it more or less disinterestedly. Any act of impersonation, as an instance ofacting, of course plays self against other, since the presentation of other can never entirely occlude the presence of self. But Chaucer reveals the ethical nature of his characters by their degree of magnanimity in the ways they people their tales. These acts of impersonation are one of several points of contact between Chaucer and Froissart, who impersonates with great skill the exemplars of fourteenth-century European chivalry. As someone who reads Froissart’s Chronicles from the vantage point of the English fourteenth century, I have always found it interesting to think about Chaucer and Froissart together, even by inserting the historical Chaucer and his fictional characters in their chronicle settings: Chaucer as a teenaged squire, captured in the winter of 1359-60, near the siege of Rheims; Peter of Cyprus traveling from court to court in 1364 to gather recruits, like the Knight, for his campaign at Alexandria; the Bishop of Norwich’s disastrous Crusade in 1383, with the Squire in tow, fighting so as the better “to stonden in his lady grace” (1.88). For a Chaucerian, the massive detail of Froissart’s narrative — its unending series of battles, skirmishes,

sacking of towns, pillaging of the countryside — not only testifies to the turbulence of the fourteenth century, especially in France, but sets off in very interesting ways the distillation of chivalric life in the choice of stories by the Knight and Squire, concerned as they are with distant lands and, for the Knight at least, far-off times. Such reaching after distance is, of course, characteristic of romance; but it appears as well in Froissart’s historical narrative, where the lines of demarcation between the speakers community and the outside also shift, though at a shorter distance from home. Froissart himself, in his guise as narrator, is not only someone from Hainaut, whose interest, especially in the earlier part of the Chronicles, is most engaged by events in Flanders; he is also, as he says, a Frenchman, though one who has some connections and some sympathy with the English. The French and English alternatively gain our support, as they alternatively gain the allegiance of a number of knights, like Enguerrand de Coucy, who have ties to each side (1:438).5 Although Froissart describes the English as being overly haughty (2:284), his xenophobic

3H. Marshall Leicester, Jr., “The Art of Impersonation: A General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales,” PMLA, 95 (1980), p. 221. 4H.

Marshall Leicester, Jr., The Disenchanted Self Representing the Subject in the ‘Canterbury Tales’

(Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: Univ. of California Press, 1990). 5 Jean Froissart, Chronicles, trans. Thomas Johnes, 2 vols. (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1868).

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criticisms are largely reserved for the Gascons, whom he thinks to be treacherous and sycophantic (2:136-37), and the Irish and Scots, who are little better than barbarians (2:35-36). He talks time and again about linguistic barriers, Englishmen being unable to understand French being the most common (e.g., 2:559), though the Chronicles

contain nothing quite so wonderful as the Deschamps ballade about two English soldiers who have detained the poet, and evidently do not understand his reply, “je voy vo queue,” to their barbarous insults, greetings, and commands: “dogue,” “ride,” “Goday,” “commidre.”® The most striking episode of this sort in Froissart is one in which John of Gaunt, receiving a Portuguese ambassador, hears a catalogue of the

Portuguese nobles killed in battle, and bursts into laughter because, he says, the names sound so peculiar (2:164). These barriers are, however striking, nonetheless all within

Europe; Froissart rarely mentions the alien worlds of Africa and Asia, though they occasionally appear: most notably the disastrous defeat at Nicopolis, but also the Tartars, the Barbary pirates, the Russians and Letts, the realm of Prester John. Closer to home, though at the outer boundary of Europe, is the island of Cephalonia, ruled by “ladies and damsels,” who “whenever they please, converse with fairies, and keep them company,” and who send their husbands abroad to market their needlework (2:650). Chaucers Knight and Squire are closer to Froissart as the poet of the interminable Méliador: they choose tales far removed from the Hundred Years’ War and the other displays of fourteenth-century chivalry. This distance may be striking but is not surprising, for the genre they choose, romance, not only fits their class and social

status, but also has built into it an impulse toward distance and the exotic. I have written previously about these opposing impulses, about the “domesticating” of the “exotic,” in the Squires Tale.’ In the Knights Tale these opposing impulses in romance, toward assimilation and distance, are also evident. On the one hand, we note the unreflecting anachronism of the Knight’s finding chivalry in ancient Greece, and his pattern for the chivalric in Theseus; his fusion of his own experience with the narrative of his tale; his abiding sense that “Ther is no newe gyse that it nas old” (1.2125); his slide into alliterative verse at the excitement of describing battle (1.2605ff); and his delighted imagining of such a tournament even now: “To fighte for a lady, benedicitee!/ It were a lusty sighte for to see” (1.2115—16). (In Froissart, interestingly, there are

close analogues to precisely such a tournament. At Smithfield in 1390, the combatant knights are led by their ladies with silver chains to the place of jousting [2:479]; in France, two knights quarrel, not because they serve the same lady, but because they wear the same emblem of a lady in blue [1:132].) But the Knight’ Tale is also careful to

make evident the otherness of the pagan past, with the coliseum-like structure of the arena; the exotic customs of the funeral pyre, “as was that tyme the gyse” (1.2911); the funeral games; and even Emelye’s mysterious rites in Dianas temple (1.2284-85)

(which are given a straightforward exposition in the Teseida). 6 Balade DCCCXCIII, “Récit d’une aventure à Calais,” in Oeuvres Completes de Eustache Deschamps, ed. le marquis de Queux de Saint-Hilaire (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1887), 5:79-80. In another ballade, DCCCLXVIII, “Sur les Anglais” (5:48), the French claim that the English have tails answers the insult that begins the poem: “Franche dogue, dist un Anglois,/ Vous ne faictes que boire vin.” 7 John M. Fyler, “Domesticating the Exotic in the Sguires Tale,” ELH, 55 (1988), pp. 1-26.

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In its placing of otherness in the distant past, the Knights Tale displays a common enough romance motif, and one that appears in other, often wry contexts in the Canterbury Tales, as in the Wife of Bath’s version of romance. This motif often carries with it the implication that the world has declined from a Golden Age: there are no longer women like Griselda around; the Nun’ Priests Tale happened, its narrator belatedly remembers to tell us, when “Beestes and briddes koude speke and synge” (VII.2881). In romance, indeed, this implication is nearly universal; for as Northrop Frye has argued, the genre always plays off identity against alienation, reality against illusion, and its own existence depends on a gap that is not quite closed, indeed, not quite capable of being closed. Identity, the goal of the romantic quest, is also its negation: “all its meanings in romance,” Frye says, “have some connection to a state of existence in which there is nothing to write about. It is existence before ‘once upon a time’ and subsequent to ‘they lived happily ever after’.”® In Renaissance mythmaking, romance nostalgia for the Golden Age gets displaced in the present, and in the New World, as a number of studies have shown.? In Chaucer’s three tales about Asia, the same thing happens: geographical distance is of more consequence than historical distance. The tales of the Man of Law, the Prioress, and the Squire all concern the world outside Christian Europe. Two of the three tales recoil from the otherness of Islam and of medieval Jewry. Only the Squire treats his subject, the Mongols, with toleration and an engaged sympathy: Cambyuskan receives praise as a virtuous pagan — “He kepte his lay, to which that he was sworn” (V.18) — and after dinner, we are told, his court goes “Unto the temple, as reson was” (V.296). All three tales are concerned with issues of

contamination, the risks of confronting the alien, the broad cultural issues of contact, resistance, and assimilation. Looking at the three tales together has one very important result: it confirms, to my mind at least, that the Man of Law and Prioress are to be read ironically, even though such readings have been attacked in some recent Chaucer criticism as reflecting our own inability to take medieval otherness seriously and at face value. These are tales, | think, where xenophobia and resistance to the other mark a parochial and confining self-enclosure. Together, the Prioress, Man of Law, and Squire offer an interesting illustration for the final sentences of Lévi-Strauss’ Elementary Structures ofKinship: To this very day, mankind

has always dreamed of seizing and fixing that fleeting

moment when it was permissible to believe that the law of exchange could be evaded,

that one could gain without losing, enjoy without sharing. At either end of the earth and at both extremes of time, the Sumerian myth ofthe golden age and the Andaman myth ofthe future life correspond, the former placing the end ofprimitive happiness at a time when the confusion oflanguages made words into common property, the latter describing the bliss of the hereafter as a heaven where women will no longer be exchanged, i.e.,

removing to an equally unattainable past or future the joys, eternally denied to social man, of aworld in which one might keep to oneself\0 8 Northrop Frye, The Secular Scripture (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1976), p. 54. 9

Harry Levin, The Myth of the Golden Age in the Renaissance (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1969).

10 Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Elementary Structures of Kinship, tr. James Harle Bell, John Richard von Sturmer, and Rodney Needham, rev. ed. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), pp. 496-97. See Carolyn

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261

For the two “fields of communication” he sums up here, language and “alliance,” are variously emphasized and combined by Chaucer to make several points about confronting the other. At the risk of oversimplification, I would argue that the Prioress’ Tale concerns language, the Man of Law’ Tale “alliance” or exogamy, and the Squires

Tale both together. The Prioress Tale visualizes its setting, despite the abstraction of its being in an unnamed city in Asia, in a startlingly vivid way. The Jews are confined to a ghetto, sustained there by the city’s ruler “For foule usure and lucre of vileynye” (VII.491), for usury as the exchange of money contaminated by the taking of interest. But despite the mix of practical necessity and political corruption implicit here, the pretense remains that uncontaminated separation remains possible. Through the street of the ghetto “men myghte ride or wende,/ For it was free and open at eyther ende” (VII.493—94). Language is what provokes the murder of the “litel clergeon” — indeed,

sacral and not even necessarily comprehensible language. He memorizes the “Alma redemptoris” without understanding its meaning, and learns it from a friend who himself does not understand it; nor is it clear that the Jews understand its words,

though they know its significance. As the Prioress implies, a more worldly silence would have kept him alive. Instead, his innocent, uncomprehending speech provokes the retaliatory attempt at unclean corruption. The disposal of the boy’s body in a common privy is purposely shocking, but as ineffective as the attempt to silence his voice. When he begins to sing again, lying upright with his throat cut in the privy, he is called “This gemme of chastite, this emeraude,” and the “ruby bright” of martyrdom (VII.609-10). The tale ends with a progression of images to restore the visible purity and integrity of what can’t be corrupted in any case: the gem in the privy, the grain that when at last removed can restore the boy’s tongue to silence, the final enclosure of “his litel body sweete” “in a tombe of marbul stones cleere” (VII.681— 82).

The Man of Law’ Tale, itself confined, nonetheless implicitly comments on the Prioress’ extreme narrowness ofvision. The two tales are alike in their xenophobic alarm at the world outside Christian Europe, but they are at least different in the place at which they draw that boundary. The Man of Law, in his effort to mark off the world of Mahound in Syria and paganness in Northumbria, quite comfortably includes the Judaic past within the Christian present. He notes God’s power in saving Jonah (11.486); in keeping the “peple Ebrayk from hir drenchynge,/ With drye feet thurghout the see passynge” (11.489-90); in saving Susannah (11.639); in giving courage to David and Judith (11.935—40). In the Prioress’ Tale, by contrast, the naming of the little clergeon’s mother as “This newe Rachel” (VII.627) is conspicuous, as

many have noted, by its singularity and by its failure to recognize that Rachel, like the mothers of the Holy Innocents whom the tale also praises, has some connection to the race the Prioress so vehemently castigates. That’s to say, the Prioress displaces what is properly close to home, and makes it alien. The Man of Law’ Tale is in other respects, however, much like the Prioress Tale. Like

Dinshaw’s provocative critique of Lévi-Strauss’ assumptions, in Chaucer's Sexual Poetics (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1989), pp. 96-99.

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the clergeon whose passage to his clear marble tomb is uncontaminated, Constance travels to Syria, to Northumbria, and back home as if hermetically sealed against contamination from the outside. She too is bound up in language as exchange: she

comes to the Sultan’s notice because she is the topic of conversation for the merchants, the facilitators of exchange, whose language offers him his first image of her. But the second of Lévi-Strauss’ “fields of communication” is the more important here: Constance is herself the medium of exchange, the woman married exogamously.'! But in Syria, nothing and nobody are given in return for her, since the conversions

intended as recompense, along with “certein gold, | noot what quantitee” (11.242), are nullified by the Sultaness treachery. Constance herself, who for the Man of Law stands against the generality of women, the mothers-in-Iaw as “virago” and “serpent under femynynytee,” is conspicuously inert. The active, ingenious protagonist of Nicholas Trivet’s Chronicle is transformed into a passive homebody, who begs of her father at the end of the tale: “Sende me namoore unto noon hethenesse” (II.1112).

Unlike St. Cecilia, who refuses to be contaminated by compromise, even to the extent of seeing the others point of view, Constance is defined by her passivity: she is an unsullied, indeed, an impermeable vessel. Christ keeps her “unwemmed”

(11.924)

when the rapist attacks her, an odd word to use here because in its other two appearances in Chaucer, in the ABC (91) and the Second Nuns Tale (V111.137; cf. 47),

it refers to virginity, not chastity. And the oddness of its choice is reinforced by the Man of Law’s prurience in disclaiming the events of Constance’s wedding night with Alla:

They goon to bedde, as it was skile and right; For thogh that wyves be ful hooly thynges, They moste take in pacience at nyght Swiche manere necessaries as been plesynges To folk that han ywedded hem with rynges, And leye a lite hir hoolynesse aside, As for the tyme — it may no bet bitide. (11.708-—14)

The Man ofLaw’s prurience here notoriously extends to his defense of Chaucer as a poet who refuses to tell stories about incest. There are several jokes in this defense: the story of Constance herself, in its original form, is centrally about the avoidance of incest; the only two Legends of Good Women the Man of Law doesn’t mention — Cleopatra and Philomela — are in fact about incest; and the incestuous Canacee, whom the Man of Law singles out as a heroine Chaucer does not memorialize, has her double in the Squires Tale, which seems as it breaks offtopromise that she will marry her brother, or at least someone with her brothers name. I have argued that incest here marks the symbolic boundary between self and other, when it defines the exotic as the exogamous (see note 6). In the Squires Tale, it sums up Chaucer’s handling of both “fields of communication.” The tale is obsessively concerned with attempts to assimilate the Other: even the four magic gifts all close gaps, recover unities, pull together 11 My brief comments on the Man of Law’ Tale have several points in common with Dinshaw’s extended, rich analysis in Chaucers Sexual Poetics, pp. 88-112. Also see R.A. Shoaf, “ ‘Unwemmed

Custance’: Circulation, Property, and Incest in the Man of Laws Tale,” Exemplaria, 2 (1990), pp. 287-302.

Chaucerian Romante and the World Beyond Europe

263

what has been dispersed. The magic ring, in particular, makes speech and comprehension possible when Canacee listens to the lovesick falcon’s lament. Nonetheless, we remain aware of the inevitable gaps that cannot be bridged between European and Tartar, between females of different species, between human beings and birds, and — in a comment on the Squire’s own self-interest as a lover — between men and women. The Squires Tale, then, sums up Chaucer’s uses of the world outside Europe. The Squire’s generosity and sympathy contrast with the narrowness of vision in the other two tales about that world. But the Squires Tale also serves as a metaphor for the difficulty of bridging gaps, even versions of otherness that are much less exotic. The self and self-interest finally intrude, just as the exotic resists domestication. | like to think, finally, of two exemplars for what I take to be Chaucer’s point. One is the great anecdote that ends Phillips Medieval Expansion of Europe: the scene of Père Joliet, coming ashore at Green Bay and donning silk robes because he expects to be met by emissaries from Cathay. Instead, he is greeted by something equally exotic but more homely: the friendly though curious Wisconsin Indians. The other is more than an anecdote: it is Froissart’s extended account of his stay at the court of Gaston Fébus, count of Foix (2:68ff), a wonderful place where magic, second sight, and mysterious happenings all serve to remind us that the exotic and the other are often quite close to home.

à k

;

IMAGE AS RECEPTION: ANTOINE LE PETIT JEHAN DE SAINTRE

DE LA SALE’S

Jane H.M. Taylor

To adduce the iconographic programs of manuscripts as evidence of contemporary reception or interpretation is a delicate process, to whose intricacies critics like Alison Stones rightly draw attention:! the exact “administrative” relationship between text and image is often difficult to determine, if only because we are probably still not well

enough informed on the production of secular manuscripts during the Middle Ages. Did artists themselves read? or did they, in the case of some particular work, simply

redeploy a series of model-book motifs? how was the work of an atelier organised? who chose or prescribed the placing and composition of images? what were the respective roles of patron, chef datelier, artist and scribe? Increasingly, scholars are addressing such questions in detailed studies of the interplay between individual text and image.? The paper that follows proposes the study of a dialectic of text and image in a useful cas limite, a text that even after decades of critical attention remains something of a puzzle. From the point of view of studies in text and image, it exists in two manuscripts for each of which it seems incontrovertible that someone — artist, chef d'atelier, patron — has read the narrative, and responded to it with a consistency which may contribute to resolving the puzzle. Antoine de La Sale’s Le Petit Jehan de Saintré? is a curiously hybrid text. Critics have performed procrustean miracles* to demonstrate that the heroine’s transformation 1 First in her unpublished Ph.D. thesis (The Illustrations of the French prose Lancelot (. . .) (London, 1970]), and more recently in a series of articles; see particularly her “Secular Manuscript Illumination in France,” in Medieval Manuscripts and Textual Criticism, ed. Christopher Kleinhenz (Chapel Hill, NC: North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures, Texts, Textual Studies and Translations 4, 1976), pp. 83-102.

2 A preliminary bibliography will be found in Stones, “Secular Manuscript Illumination . . .,” pp. 99-102. Among recent larger studies which show how pictorial interpretation by the artist can add to our understanding of the medieval reading of the literary text are Hugo Buchthal, Historia Troiana:

Studies in the History ofMedieval Secular Illustration (London: The Warburg Institute/Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1971); Stephen G. Nichols, Romanesque Signs: Early Medieval Narrative and Iconography (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1983); Sandra L. Hindman, Christine de Pizan’s ‘Epistre Othéa: Painting and Politics at the Court of Charles VI (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1986). 3 I quote from what remains the standard edition (in spite of its textual drawbacks): that of Jean Misrahi and Charles A. Knudson (Geneva: Droz, 1965). A more recent edition, by Yorio Otaka (Tokyo: Takeuchi, 1967), has never achieved a very wide circulation (and indeed it too is somewhat flawed).

4 A useful summary of the ambiguities of the text will be found in Normand C. Cartier, “ ‘Jehan de Saintré’: The Liberation of Knighthood,” Aquila, 3 (1976), pp. 21-52, and in Emma Mazzariol, Locchio et il

piede: Lettura critica del “Petit Jehan de Saintr€ di Antoine de la Sale (Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 1979).

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from chivalric mentor to coquette may be startling but is not, with hindsight, unmotivated, and that what might seem like ambivalences in the hero (from paragon of knighthood to agent of savage revenge) are actually perfectly justified. Yet we are still left with a sense of faint unease. The prime ambivalence is taxonomic: is this a full-scale romance, or an overblown fabliau? The three major characters of the work constitute a triangle centered on the hero Jehan de Saintré who, when the story opens, is a young page ofthirteen, charming and full of chivalric promise in spite of his slight build. Also at the royal court — indeed it seems a member ofthe royal family ofJean le Bon and Bonne of Luxembourg — is a young widow ofconsiderable wealth, known with careful anonymity only as Madame des Belles Cousines, who combats boredom by turning the boy into ung homme renommé. To this end she offers him prolific advice and increasingly generous amounts of money which finance his magnificent wardrobe, his horses, his manservants, and, as he grows older, the emprises and pas d'armes that she programs for him in a carefully calculated progress culminating in that ultimate chivalric enterprise of the Middle Ages, a successful crusade. Meanwhile, unsurprisingly, they fall in love — a love rigorously secret in the best traditions of romance. And then, suddenly, romance does indeed veer to fabliau and Madame from courtly mentor to vulgar flirt: Jehan, finding his dependence disturbing, invents an emprise of his own. To his dismay, Madame is furious: she retires to her country estates, on the confines of which is a prosperous abbey under the relaxed authority of a certain Damp Abbé. He offers her lavish feasts and vulgar compliments, and in no time at all becomes her lover. By the time that Jehan comes home to lay his latest triumph at his beloved’s feet, Madame is infatuated with her new lover; Jehan is mocked and rejected, and bamboozled into a wrestling match with the brawny Abbé during which he is thrown all over the field. But Jehan gets his revenge: since he has played the Abbés game, wrestling, the latter can hardly refuse the armed combat that is Jehan’s game. And here of course, Jehan wins and takes a startling revenge: he slits the Abbé

tongue and both his cheeks, and later, in a coda at court, shames Madame by publicly revealing her perfidy. After which she disappears from history, while Saintré, says La Sale, goes on to become Le plus vaillant chevalier de France (Saintré, p. 308).

This brief summary, like most summaries ofthe text, takes as center of the narrative scheme the triangle constituted by Saintré himself, Madame des Belles Cousines and Damp Abbé. If we see this triangle alone as providing the dynamic ofthe text, we shall be inclined to consider it as essentially an erotic tale whose sudden shift of tone could be justified by subordinating the narrative to some larger moralistic purpose: as an illustration of the power of woman topos,° or alternatively as an equivalent of popular late-medieval adjudicatory texts like the Débats du clerc et du chevalier® or the Arrêts 5 The most recent treatment of the theme in the medieval context is Rüdiger Schnell, Causa amoris: Liebeskonzeption und Liebesdarstellung in der mittelalterlichen Literatur (Bern: Francke Verlag, 1985), pp. 475-505. 6 See Charles Oulmont, Les Débats du clerc et du chevalier (. . .) (Paris: Champion, 1911); Edmond Faral, Recherches sur les sources latines des contes et romans courtois du moyen âge (Paris: Champion, 1915), pp. 191-303; Erich Kohler, “Zum Begriff des Wissens im héfischen Kulturbild (Klerus und Rittertum),” in Libris et litteris: Festschrift für Hermann Tiemann (. . .), ed. Christian Voigt and Erich Zimmermann (Hamburg: Maximilian Gesellschaft, 1959), pp. 186-201; Jose Vincenzo Molle, “Le monde de l'Antiquité dans la tradition bas-latine et vulgaire des débats du clerc et du chevalier,” in La

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d'Amour, which provide a casus for debate by problematizing the relative amatory merits of the cleric and the knight. But neither of these responses is entirely satisfying, since they involve voiding the text of narrative coherence in favor ofdidactic or eristic content, and while they might motivate Madame’s transformation, they leave Saintré himself—and particularly his sudden unexplained savagery — as something ofacypher. But above all, the summary did not properly respect the balance of the text. It is typical of virtually all modern readings in neglecting what in fact constitutes more than half the text (190 pages out of 309, or about 65%): those long and very detailed descriptions of Jehan de Saintré’s knightly deeds airily summarized above as emprises and chivalric progress. Indeed these latter pages of the romance receive little critical attention except from lexicographers and armorialists, modern predilections being less for tournaments and battles and jousts than for interpersonal relationships. Hence, presumably, our insistence on reading the romance in terms ofJehan’s boyish shyness, Madame’s domineering pedagogy, or the Abbé’s louche compliments.? It will be my contention in this paper, however, that this is a misreading: that to treat the jousting and battle sequences as mere ornament is to fail to see that such sequences not only are a prime focus of writerly and readerly attention for their intrinsic interest, but also, if carefully read, provide a more satisfactory dynamic, given the profound interpenetration of the chivalric and the personal which this text operates. And that this critical reorientation is not anachronistic — is indeed a rectification — is demonstrated convincingly by the evidence of the two surviving illustrated manuscripts of the Le Petit Jehan de Saintré. | propose to show that these two manuscripts concur in their reception of the text, demonstrating by their density of illustration and by the accuracy and immediacy of their aesthetic and imaginative responses that for a fifteenth-century reader, the jousting and fight sequences were narrative nodal points at least as compelling as, and perhaps even more so than, the erotic sequences. | shall then offer just one example to suggest how a refocusing of critical attention on these, rather than on the scenes where

Représentation de lantiquité au moyen age, ed. Danielle Buschinger et André Crépin (Vienna: K.M. Halosar, 1982), pp. 29-38.

7 Cf. Martial d’Auvergne, Les Arrêts d'Amour, ed. Jean Rychner (Paris: A. et J. Picard, 1951); on adjudicatory texts, see introduction, pp. xxiv-xxxi. One is encouraged to see this in particular as one thematic referent of the romance, given the fact that the text finishes with just such an a/tercatio staged

by Jehan before the court (pp. 302-307). 8 See for instance Charles A. Knudson, “The Prussian Expedition in Jehan de Saintré,” in Etudes de langue et de littérature du Moyen Age offertes a Félix Lecoy (.. .) (Paris: Champion, 1973), pp. 271-277, or J.N. de Vaivre, “L'Héraldique dans le roman du Petit Jehan de Saintré d'Antoine de La Salle,” Cahiers

d'Héraldique, 3 (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1977), pp. 65-83. 9

See for instance Patricia Cholakian, “The Two Narrative Styles of Antoine de la Sale,” Romance

Notes, 10 (1969), pp. 362-372; Guy Mermier, “Antoine de la Salle’s Le Petit Jehan de Saintré: a study in motivations,” Michigan Academician, 9 (1977), pp. 469-82; Virginia Crosby, “Ironic Ambiguity in La

Sale’s Petit Jehan de Saintré,” Fifteenth-Century Studies, 1 (1976), pp. 71-82; Helmut Hatzfeld, “La décadence de l’amour courtois dans le Saintré, |Amadis et le Tirant lo blanc,” in Mélanges de littérature du Moyen Age au XXe siecle offerts à Mlle Jeanne Lods (. . .) (Paris: Ecole Normale Supérieure de Jeunes Filles, 1978), I, pp. 339-350; Mazzariol, Locchio e il piede. Some interesting counter-arguments will however be found in Marcia S. Steckler, “The Games of the Text: Joust Sequences and Structural Unity

in Jehan de Saintré’, unpublished thesis, University of Massachusetts, 1983 (DEU 84-01106).

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13 See especially E.P. Spencer, “Dom Louis de Busco’s Psalter,” in U. McCracken, L.M.C. Randall, R.H. Randall Jr., Gatherings in Honor of Dorothy E. Miner (Baltimore: Walters Art Gallery, 1974), pp. 227-240. | have been unable to consult her unpublished doctoral dissertation, The Maitre François and his Atelier (Harvard, 1931). 14 There are also distinct similarities in the borders — the characteristic lozenge shapes, the way that the acanthus shades from blue into gold. But borders of course are not usually the responsibility of the illuminator, and similarities of this sort would merely indicate an identical workshop. 15 See Ross, “A late twelfth-century pattern-book,” and cf. Henry Martin, “Les esquisses des miniatures,” Revue archéologique, 4 (1904), pp. 17—45; Gilbert Ouy, “Une maquette de manuscrits à peintures (Paris, B.N. lat. 14643, ff.269-283v, Honoré Bouvet, Somnium prioris de Sallono super

Antoine de la Sales Le petit Jehan de Saintré

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Figure 3. London, British Library, ms. Cotton Nero D IX, f. 46r. Reproduced by permission of the British Library.

response does not invalidate our conclusions: what matters is that two authorities have made a considered selection ofscenes to be illustrated, and, at least to some extent, of the thematic and narrative balance to be elicited from each of those scenes. We can therefore turn with confidence to the two manuscripts in search of interpretational particularities. First, then, the British Library manuscript. I have roughly tabulated in an appendix the content of the romance, correlated with a list of the miniatures from each of the two manuscripts, and for this manuscript the results are especially striking. One should not be distracted by the curious imbalance, not in fact codicologically unusual (Salter, “Pictorial Illustration,” 104), which means that the earlier part of the text is so

much more fully illustrated than the later part. Leaving that aside, we must still be struck by the prevalence of illustrations attaching to combat sequences rather than to the erotic triangle which is so often read as thematically fundamental. If we were indeed to construe the romance as having a primarily erotic focus, it would be rather surprising that the love-affair should be represented so summarily. Of the ten miniatures, seven are devoted to joust sequences. One could argue, of course, that these are stock, model-book images — except that, once again, they are the product of reading. Figure 3 (folio 46r) is an excellent example, only clearly interpretable in conjunction with the text (pp. 127-8). Enguerrant, wounded in the hand, has dropped his axe: “Et

materia Seismatis, 1394),” in Mélanges d'histoire du livre et des bibliothèques offerts à M. Frantz Calot

(Paris: Librairie d’Argenson, 1960), pp. 43-51; Jean Porcher, “Un amateur de peinture sous Charles VI: Jean Lebégue,” in ibid, pp. 35-41.

Jane H.M. Taylor

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quant il se fut advisié, tout a cop adreça son cop sur la main senestre qui la haiche tenoit, que du point la lui fist cheoir a terre.” Enguerrant is defenceless, the king, comme prince et juge droicturier (pp. 128.2-3) is dropping his verge, his baton, and the guards have been called to separate the combatants: par les gardes furent les champions departis. Alternatively, we might argue that joust sequences have inherently more iconographic potential — but again, the romance offers the potential for court scenes, hunting scenes, feasting scenes, love scenes, all of which lend themselves perfectly to illustration. It is symptomatic that Madame des Belles Cousines, who strikes the modern reader as the apex of the erotic triangle, remains iconographically subordinate to Saintré. She appears only three times, and in only one image, the first, is she dominant: here, in the frontispiece (figure 4), Saintré at 13 appears in his familiar role as the pageboy dominated by women. By the second image, the composite mentioned above, the erotic is subordinated to the homocentric.

The final miniature

(figure 5; BL ms.

f.103r) does of course revert to the erotic triangle, but selects a particular, and significantly homocentric, moment: not the rather shameful wrestling match, but another “combat sequence” where Saintré is triumphant and Madame despairing, signaled by Saintré’s determined and merciless act, complacently detailed and the cynosure ofall lines of sight: on the one hand the frozen figures of the horrified monks and the fainting women, on the other vigorous and contorted movements of the combat between the Abbé and Saintré. I shall return to this point later, but first I should like to look briefly at the balance of the illustrations in the Brussels manuscript. There are 84 illustrations, distributed as the table shows with rather more consistency than is the case in the British Library ms. However, of the 84 illustrations, only 26 show Madame. The heroine is completely absent from the central section of the romance: no tearful farewells, no happy reunions as Saintré comes and goes at court on his increasingly impressive chivalric

progress. Thirteen illustrations form part of the exposition, during which the affair between Madame and Saintré is set up, but even of these, by no means all show Madame herself: on the contrary, they also seem to detail Saintré’s individual successes measured here not just by combat and joust sequences, but by his increasing elegance of dress (with his tailor, Brussels ms. 33v, 361, 47v), and by his rise in the hierarchies of the court (Jehan promoted to écuyer tranchant at the royal court, Brussels ms. f. 44v). Thirty-nine illustrations, however, are devoted to the parade of chivalric pursuits. The artist lingers lovingly over the construction of hourdes, or broken lances as yet another major adversary topples from his horse. He also, like the illuminator ofthe London ms., lingers on the parodic contest between the Abbé and Saintré, savouring especially the contrast between the burly Abbé peacocking in Saintré’s armour (figure 6; Brussels ms. f. 183v), and the moment when Saintré downs the Abbé, raises his visor, and slits the Abbé’s tongue with his dagger (figure 7; Brussels ms. f. 18Gv). Where twentieth-century summaries concentrate on the intimate therefore, the

weight of illustrations in the contemporary codices shifts to the public role of the chivalric hero. The artist’s perspective, in other words, is homocentric, tenaciously oriented towards joust- and combat-related sequences, however parodic, rather than to the erotic component. Now it is not, I think, unreasonable to see the iconographic content of manuscripts

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as heavily illustrated as these as providing what amounts to a programmatic synopsis of the texts to which they are attached. The illustrations are, in some ways, transcriptions of the text, anchoring its meaning in ways which indicate a preferred reading. They cannot, however, be exhaustive, and it is the very fact that their perspective is necessarily selective that makes them valuable indices of reception. The pictorial cycles attached to Antoine de La Sale’s Le Petit Jehan de Saintré are, | consider, especially revelatory. The iconographic clusters around the joust and combat sequences invite us to a re-reading of that neglected 65% of the text that | mentioned above — meticulously detailed, precise renderings of combats and jousts — and hence to the radical reassessment which Antoine invites, surreptitiously, as he himself shifts his perspective from the istoire de madame des Belles Cousines et de Saintré (p. 1) promised in a (probably) holograph!6 rubric given as the title at the beginning ofthe work, to the final title, also his choice: ce livre dit Saintré (p. 309). This text is not, I suggest, to

be read generically either as a romance or as a fabliau, but rather to be related to that variety of chivalric biography represented by the late medieval lives of Boucicaut and Jacques de Lalaing — and it is probably significant that La Sale quotes extensively and textually from the latter,!?7 and that Jehan and Boucicaut become allies and fast friends.'® In this perspective, the jousting sequences have a vital narrative function. One small example will perhaps serve to show how far an analysis based broadly on the chivalric 65% of the text, and locating Saintré’s social identity in his chivalric rather than his amatory and courtly self, produces a much more tightly structured, more coherent reading of the text. As I said at the outset, as readers and critics we are startled when we find the elaborately courteous knight Saintré transformed in the final episodes of the romance into the brutal executioner driving his dagger through the Abbé’s tongue and cheeks, as witness the relish with which the illuminator of the London ms. paints the tortured and terrified Abbé, and a similarly triumphalist image in the Brussels ms. of Saintré forcing back the Abbé’s head to perform the same appalling act. Nothing in the “erotic” content of the romance has prepared us for this transformation, however much it may be excused by a prior and parallel transformation in the focus of Madame. Yet the transformation of Saintré is not in fact unprepared, and an attentive reading of these very joust-related sequences whose importance is transcribed in the illustrations prompts a re-evaluation of Saintré himself. My tabulation calls attention to its paratactic structure: the sequence of chivalric exercises through which Saintrés preeminence is established. It may also have highlighted the carefully contrived rhythm

16 For the argument that ms. F (B.N., n.a.f., 10057) is holograph, see among others P. Champion, Le manuscrit d'auteur du Petit Jehan de Saintré (Paris: Champion, 1926); R Desonay, “Comment un écrivain se corrigeait au XVe siècle,” Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire, 6 (1927), pp. 81-121.

17 For Jacques de Lalaing, see the edition by Kervyn de Lettenhove, in Oeuvres de Georges Chastellain (Brussels: Victor Devaux, 1863-66), VIII. Madame’s admonitions to Jehan (pp. 17 ff) quote directly from this text (pp. 13-25); see Gaston Raynaud, “Un nouveau manuscrit du Petit Jean de Saintré,”

Romania, 31 (1902), pp. 527-556. 18 In particular, Jehan de Saintré’s crusade is a calque of Boucicaut’s (see Le Livre des faisdu bon messire

Jehan le Maingre, dit Bouciquaut(. . .), ed. Denis Lalande (Paris/Genève: Droz, 1985). On the relation

between fictional and “authentic” biography in the later Middle Ages, see Ruth Morse, “Historical Fiction in Fifteenth-Century Burgundy,” Modern Language Review, 75 (1980), pp. 48-64.

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against which the narrative is structured: a quantitatively-produced acceleration where 60 pages are allowed for that first emprise against Enguerrant, 32 for the second against Loisselench, a mere six against the Italian challengers, echoed in the case of both manuscripts by a corresponding diminution in the illustrations. What it will not have made clear, of course, is that this progressive concentration marks a shift in the actual content of the combat-sequences. The early emprises, those against Enguerrant and Loisselench, are described in almost choreographic terms: the writer — echoed here again by his illustrator — is fascinated by skill and touch and elegance, by Saintré’s expertise, by nothing more dramatic than the opponent’ slipping in his saddle or being renversé by a well-placed lance-head. By the last of the emprises, however, the chivalric process too has already become more physical, less balletic. This is less skill than brute force, slipping into something not too far from the grotesque, in which Messire Nicole ends up on his hands and. knees like an animal, and in which — significantly — Saintré himself is only a hairsbreadth away from a most dishonourable act: Lors par la force du bouter messire Nicole tumba des deux mains et genoulz a terre. Alors tout a cop Saintré haulsa son piet pour le ferir au costé et le faire renverser a terre, mais pour

son honneur garder sen detint. (pp. 184.24 — 185.6)

This adversary, it should be remembered, is a purely chivalrous one, venus en grant estat pour faire armes (p.181). We are struck by an echo during the later parodic combat sequence where Saintré just suppresses a similar unchivalrous impulse against Madame:

Lors la prent par le touppet de son atour, haussa la paulme pour l'y donner une coupple de soufflez, mais a cop se retint, aiant memoire des grans biens qu’elle lui avoit faiz, et

qu’il en pourroit estre blasmez; et tout en plorant et comme de dueil pasmee la fist sur le banc seoir que onques ne s’en osa mouvoir. (p. 296.8—14)

What this indicates is interesting. As I suggested earlier, many that the apparent contradictions between Madame as mentor and heroine are subtly undercut, in retrospect, by signs which, properly her second persona. We are less accustomed to the same argument

critics have argued Madame as fabliau read, prepare us for for Saintré, most of

us seeing his career as an uninterrupted, unambiguous upward progress. Invited to a

rereading of the text by the discovery of iconographic clusters favoring the combatsequences over the erotic sequences, we discover — and my small example could be multiplied — that Saintré’s apparently seamless chivalric progress is susceptible of readings much less monolithic that we might initially have supposed. After all, if the illustrators’ care for accuracy is such that he or his patrons can notice in the text that the adversaries are wearing a thistle and a stag’s head as achievements on their helmets,

and paint them in with such scrupulous attention, may we not assume that La Sale could count on readers with an eye just as fastidious and analytic for the textual details of the combat-sequences that, read for significance, provide an otherwise inaccessible coherence? In any case, sixteenth-century publishers seem to have known what constituted either meaning or a selling-point, judging, proportionately, by the focus of the frontispieces, all apparently independent, which they presumably commissioned (or

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redeployed) for Le Petit Jehan de Saintré. Of the four sixteenth-century editions,!? only one, Trepperel’s, which is undated but must originate in 1508-1511, illustrates the erotic content of the work. Michel Le Noirs edition of 1518 is martial: a departure, in full armour, for the Crusade or for an emprise. Philippe Le Noirs also seems martial: the mélée and the remarkably dead-looking warrior on the battlefield also suggest the Crusade. And Jehan Bonfons edition of 1553 seems directly to illustrate the joustingsequence with the Seigneur de Loisselench, where a street in Paris was especially adapted for the joust (Saintré, pp. 152 ff). For the near-contemporary book-buying and book-commissioning public, therefore, it seems incontrovertible that the major selling point and the major thematic focus of the romance is far less Madame and her treachery, the erotic content of the romance, than Jean de Saintré’s ultimate martial triumph over adversaries from Saracen hordes to unscrupulous monks.

12 On the early printed editions, see C.A. Knudson, “Les anciennes éditions du Petit Jehan de Saintré,” in Mélanges de linguistique romane et de philologie médiévale offerts a M. Maurice Delbouille (Gembloux: J. Duculot, 1964), IT, pp. 337-348.

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APPENDIX TENGE

BL COTTON NERO D IX

BRUSSELS 9547

1. Pp. 1-81: Prologue: Madame and Saintré

Ir

ile, She, Gas, alse,

23v, 31v, 33r, 36r, 39v, 42r, 44v, 47v

2. Pp. 81-141: Emprise I: Enguerrant

32v, 401; 46r, 48r, 50r

Deity

TADS)ADAT

59r, 6lr, 63v, 65v, G8v, 711, 77v, 78v,

79r, 81r, 85v, 87v

3. Pp. 141-173: Emprise II: Seigneur de Loisselench

55v, 59v

89v, 91r, 94r, 95v, 97v, 99v, 102r, 104v, 108r

4. Pp. 173-180: 109v, 114v

Pas de Gravelines 5. Pp. 180-186:

Emprise III: the Lombard

knights 6. Pp. 186-227: The Prussian crusade

77v

7. Pp. 227-239, 263-270 Emprise [V: Germany

1229429 134r, 136r, 139r

146v, 149r, 1661, 167r, 168r, 169v

8. Pp. 239-263, 270-302 Madame and the Abbé

142v, 145r, 146v,

149r, 150r, 151r, IS2V1SS T1 Gy, 158r, 159r, 160r,

163r, 164r, 172r,

174r, 180r, 182v

9. Pp. 279-283, 290-299 Saintré v. the Abbé

103r

176r, 177v, 183v, 184v, 185v, 186v, 188v

10. Pp. 302-309 Madame’s punishment

189v, 191v

V

CULTURE AND HISTORIOGRAPHY: PERSPECTIVES AND APPRAISALS

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A SIGN OF THE TIMES: THE QUESTION IN MEDIEVAL OCCITANIA

OF LITERACY

Wendy Pfeffer

Remarkably little historical research has been conducted on the question of literacy and education in Occitania; it is therefore useful and necessary to abstract information about literacy from the literary record. This paper considers the historical and literary evidence available to argue that medieval Occitan audiences had a higher level of literacy than has previously been assumed. Occitania is, in a number of ways, like a great black hole in the field of medieval studies. This is particularly apparent in comparison with studies ofliteracy elsewhere in medieval Europe. Italy has been thoroughly discussed; its notaries are well-documented, and there is the suggestion that all of Florence's children were being schooled in the fourteenth century.! Northern Europe has been covered almost as well. There are the numerous studies of literacy among the burgers of Flanders, beginning with Pirenne.? Germans have investigated the matter with regard to their nation.’ Information on England and on English literacy in the Middle Ages is also readily discovered,‘ concluding with Thomas More’s suggestion that almost half the English people were literate in English in his time.’ Northern France is slightly less well studied, but not ignored (see Pirenne). But in all these discussions, southern France is omitted. When

Pierre Riché writes, “Je limiterai cette enquête [sur l'instruction des laïcs au douzième siècle] à la France septentrionale et éventuellement a l'Allemagne occidentale, car

l'éveil intellectuel des classes laïques s’est produit dans les régions méridionales avant l’époque qui nous intéresse,”® he really means Italy, not what is today southern France. '

See Robert S. Lopez, “The Culture of the Medieval Merchant,” in Medieval and Renaissance Studies,

8 (1979), ed. Dale B.J. Randell, pp. 53-73 (here 56). 2H. Pirenne, “Instruction des marchands au moyen âge,” Annales d'histoire économique et sociale, |

(1929), pp. 13-28.

3

See, inter alia, H. Fromm, “Volkssprache und Schriftkultur,” in The Role of the Book in Medieval

Culture: Proceedings ofthe Oxford International Symposium 26 September-1 October 1982, ed. Peter (Turnhout: Brepols, 1986), vol. 1, pp. 99-108.

Ganz

4 See, inter alia, James Westfall Thompson, The Literacy of the Laity in the Middle Ages. University of California Publications in Education 9; rpt. Burt Franklin Research and Source Works Series 2 (New York: Burt Franklin, 1960).

5

Noted by M.B. Parkes, “The Literacy of the Laity,” in The Medieval World, ed. David Daiches and

Anthony Thorlby (London: Aldus Books, 1973), pp. 555-77 (here 571). Additional support for More’s observation is quoted by C. Arnold Anderson, “Literacy and Schooling on the Developmental Threshold: Some Historical Cases,” in Education and Economic Development, ed. C. Arnold Anderson and Mary Jean Bowman (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co, 1965), pp. 347-62 (here 347-48).

6

Pierre Riché, “LInstruction des laïcs au XIe siècle,” in Mélanges Saint Bernard. XXIVe Congrès de

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What, then, is the situation in southern France? Should Occitania be compared to northern France or to Italy? And what materials do we have to answer the question of literacy in the Occitan-speaking population of France in the Middle Ages? Among the primary materials that can be considered are documents in Occitan from the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the period of this study. These documents include works of literature, lyrics and romances of the troubadours, as well as vernacular charters, records of legal matters, business transactions, gifts and donations.” Although one might expect wills in Latin and in Occitan to be a source of information for personal collections of then valuable books, they are much less useful. For example, as M.B. Parkes observed, “Petrarch is known to have possessed some 300 books, but only one of them is recorded in his will” (568). Other sources of information include

secondary materials such as studies of education throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, although, here again, Occitania tends to be glossed over. Parkes makes a useful distinction between three kinds of literacy: “that of the professional reader, which is the literacy of the scholar or the professional man of letters; that of the cultivated reader, which is the literacy of recreation; and that of the pragmatic reader, which is the literacy of one who has to read or write in the course of transacting any kind of business” (555). Medieval Latin authors applied the term literatus only to those who could read Latin, but the second and third types of literacy could easily encompass a large population capable of dealing with the written word in the vernacular language. Furthermore, although we tend to associate literacy with reading and writing, such was not necessarily the case in the Middle Ages. The absence of individual signatures on medieval documents should not be taken as proof that the signatories could not read, merely that they could not or cared not to handle a pen.® Of course, the existence of troubadour manuscripts and chansonniers is another strong piece of evidence for vernacular literacy in Occitania. The décalage between Brunel’s collection of original charters (which ends at 1200) and the first dates for the

literary manuscripts (circa 1250) is a problem. The probable destruction of countless documents, literary, legal, personal and professional, as a result of the Albigensian crusade or the Wars ofReligion is a further complication. In his analyses of the corpus of troubadour chansonniers, Zufferey considered 40 manuscripts.° Of these, he identified 11 as autochthonous, 2 as coming from Catalonia, 1 from northern France and 26 as being Italian in origin (Zufferey, 12). These numbers tell us that there clearly was an audience for written forms of Occitan literature in Occitania proper, an l'Association bourguignonne des sociétés savantes, Dijon 1953 (Dijon: Association des amis de saint Bernard, 1954), pp. 212-17 (here 212). 7 See Clovis Brunel, Bibliographie des manuscrits littéraires en ancien provençal (Paris: Droz, 1935);

Clovis Brunel, ed., Les plus anciennes chartes en langue provençale. Recueil des pièces originales antérieures au XIIIe siècle (Paris: Auguste Picard, 1926); and Clovis Brunel, ed., Les plus anciennes chartes en langue provençale. Recueil des pièces originales antérieures au XIIIe siècle. Supplément (Paris: A. et J. Picard, 1952). 8 There is at least some historical evidence of writing ability in Occitania. I refer to a donation signed by Sancho of Provence, which closes “Et aquest signe faz eu Saincho ab ma propria ma” (Arch. dép. de la Hte-Garonne, Fonds de Malte, commanderie de Ste-Eulalie, la Salvatage; see Brunel, Supplément, no. 471, pp. 106-7). The “signe” Sancho refers to is described by Brunel as a “signe complexe constitué essentiellement par une croix cantonnée de quatre cercles” (Supplément, p. 107n). Sanche could clearly hold a pen. 9 François Zufferey, Recherches linguistiques sur les chansonniers provençaux (Genève: Droz, 1987), p. 4.

The Question ofLiteracy in Medieval Occitania audience that extended

into Catalonia

(the linguistic division

285 of Occitania and

Catalonia is relatively late in appearing; in the twelfth century Catalonian princes ruled in Montpellier).!° In addition, the nature of these “literary” manuscripts provides us information on their reading public. At least two manuscripts have marginal notations of interest only to a reader, for a performer would have difficulty transmitting such information in the midst of his song. The two manuscripts, both of Italian provenance (P,

Florence, Bibl. Laur. XLI 42 and S, Bodleian, Douce 269), indicate proverbial or aphoristic material by means ofthe abbreviation “N° or “No” in the margin.!! It is interesting to note the lack of geographic overlap between the original charters assembled by Brunel and the literary manuscripts. Troubadour chansonniers from Occitania are localized to the coastal region of Languedoc (Perpignan, Béziers, Narbonne, Montpellier), inland at Toulouse, to the Auvergne, to the Provençal cities of Nimes and Arles (see Zufferey). Brunel’s charters come from almost entirely different regions: large numbers of charters are recorded for the departments of Vienne, Tarn, Aveyron, Tarn-et-Garonne, Lozére. Only in the case of the department of Garonne (préfecture: Toulouse) is there overlap. Two troubadour manuscripts have their roots in the Cantal (B, BN fr. 1592, written near Aurillac, and a, the now-lost

manuscript of Bernart Amoros ofSaint Flour); Brunel found no original charters at all for this department. Holes such as these must be interpreted to mean that we are missing many pieces of evidence, and that we must not rush to hasty conclusions. Brian Stock has proposed an alternative way of looking at literacy, based on a community structure with common goals, aspirations and assumptions.!? I would argue that Stock offers a definition less ofliteracy than of the literate society, what he calls a “textual community,” “a movement based on a literate inner core, a set of written legislation, and a wider, unlettered membership united orally to the same norms” (238). This is not an alternative to traditional notions ofliteracy, but another

dimension, allowing us to explore the connections between the literate and illiterate in the same culture. Stock also states that “what is essential to a textual community was not a written version of a text, although that was sometimes present, but an individual, who, having mastered it, then utilized it for reforming a group’s thought and action” (90). Lastly, he notes that “one of the clearest signs that a group had passed the

threshold ofliteracy was the lack of necessity for the organizing text to be spelt out, interpreted, or reiterated” (91).

Although the textual community that was Occitan society in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries did not have an organizing text of the sort Stock assumes (he uses

the terms primarily with reference to medieval society's dependence on the Bible or 10 Zufferey’s conclusions suggest that the audience for troubadour songs in northern

France was

relatively small, the audience in Italy very large. The size of the Italian audience may have been affected by the migration of troubadour poets to Italy at the time of the Albigensian Crusade, along with the migration of some of the Catharist population of southern France to this more welcoming region of medieval Europe; see Anne Brenon, Le vrai visage du Catharisme (Portet-sur-Garonne: Editions Loubatitres, 1990). 11 William P. Shepard, The Oxford Provençal Chansonnier, Diplomatic Edition of the Manuscript of the Bodleian Library Douce 269 (Princeton, 1927. Rpt. New York: Kraus Reprint Corp., 1965), pp. viii and XV. 12 Brian Stock, The Implications of Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the

Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1983), p. 238.

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the dependence of religious communities on a specific rule), I suggest that the concept of amor can be considered as the organizing “text” for medieval Occitan poets. Cansos and vers extant do not spell out, interpret or reiterate this text; rather they explore its impact on the poetic life of the particular poet. As in Stock’s definition, Occitan society was filled with individuals, a “literate inner core,” troubadours and particularly joglars, who brought the “text” to the general community, Stock’s “unlettered membership united orally to the same norms.” The interaction of the two notions, the traditional notion ofliteracy and that of the literate community, provides a context for the study of Occitan literature. For when we turn to the content of Occitan literary works, the argument for Occitan literacy is further substantiated. The early poets, Guilhem IX and Marcabru, for example, are already speaking to an audience knowledgeable about the subject of love. As the audience grows, so does the number of poets. And this growing audience, if initially unlettered, rapidly learns to appreciate not only the orally-delivered poetry of its times, but also those poems composed earlier and recorded in writing. The increase in “poetic” literacy that can be surmised in Occitan audiences parallels the growth in vernacular literacy of the more traditional sort, seen in the ever increasing numbers of documents collected by Brunel (“six se rangent avant le XIle siècle, 24 de 1100 a 1125, 34 de 1125 à 1150, 140 de 1150 à 1175 et 336 de 1175 à 1200;” Supplément, p. xii).

What other proofs can be drawn from the extant evidence? The romance of Flamenca provides clear statements on the importance of reading and on the availability of books in Occitania.!3 Much is made of the hero’s ability to read, and we are told that he had read all the authors who speak of love: “legit ac toz los auctors / que d’amor parlon” (Il. 1764—5). Thanks to his literacy, Guillem is able to feign a religious

conversion and become an assistant to the local priest, thereby gaining beloved. The heroine is equally well-schooled.'* We know that there are chambers, and we are told that books helped Flamenca survive the imprisonment by her jealous husband. As one of Flamenca’s companions

access to his books in her two years of says:

Negus hom ses letras non val, e trop ne val meins totz rix hom

si non sap letras queacom; e dona es trop melz cabida

ses de letras un pauc garnida. Ara digas, fe que.m deves,

si non saupes tan con sabes ques agras fag ara dos ans qu’aves durat aquestz afanz, morta foras e cruciada.

Mais non seres ja no tan irada quan leges, que l'ira no.s fonda.

(Il. 4808-19)

13 All quotations are from Flamenca: roman occitan du XIIIe siècle, ed. Jean-Charles Huchet (Paris: Christian Bourgois, 1988).

14 The emphasis on Guillem’s education may call attention to its being exceptional; it was common, however, for medieval noblewomen to be able to read.

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A man without schooling is worthless; a lady is all the better for

a bit of culture. What would you have done during your imprisonment if not for books?)

Although there are many elements in this romance that remind us of the oral-aural culture of the Middle Ages, we find characters here whose relationship with books is relatively similar to our own. Flamenca provides, therefore, important evidence regarding literacy in Occitan culture. And we should consider seriously the words of Flamenca’s handmaiden. No man, she observes, has worth without schooling; even money cannot compensate for an absence of learning, and women are not excused from familiarity with the written word. This is the context, then, in which troubadour lyrics are set. There is an evergrowing community ofpeople knowledgeable about amor, familiar with books, with reading and perhaps with writing, particularly in Occitan. Let us add to this argument one more piece of evidence, taken from troubadour lyrics themselves. Proverbs can serve as a real indicator of the interaction between the literate and illiterate members of Occitan society. The use of proverbial material in troubadour poetry seems to coincide with the expansion in wealth, power and prestige of the Occitan economy. Proverbs are not generally used in Occitan literature before 1150. Marcabru, however, incorporates a number of proverbs into his works (at least 85

according to Dinguirard).'> Marcabru’s proverbial material appears to come largely from popular wisdom, although the poet may have had access to written sources for his material as well.!° Marcabru’s proverbs may have been chosen by the poet to exploit two frames of reference on the part of his audience: popular wisdom, available to all, and elementary school texts (Goddard, 66), familiar to those who had received a

modicum of education, since proverbial materials were traditionally used in medieval schools as primers (see Pirenne, 27). Yet, as Harrison has noted, “the populace and imagery of [Marcabru’s] verse are highly domestic and reflect the realia and attitudes

of agrarian life, in small communities.” She suggests that it may be necessary to revise our “image of courtois, to recognize that the so-called courtly setting in which we have customarily situated some troubadours and trouveres was an agrarian one, centered in a rural village, economically and socially, with the preoccupations and interest of that type of environment” (306). In order to appreciate the works of Marcabru, his audience needed to be familiar with the world of amor (to return to the “text” of Occitania) and with books and their contents. With Marcabru, therefore, we

have, at a relatively early date in Occitan literary history, the suggestion that references to written works could be understood by a rural audience.

As more and more troubadours composed poetry, as more and more people became familiar not only with this poetry but also with books and with letters, the nature of troubadour lyric evolved. One example ofthis evolution is a growing consciousness of genre distinctions. It is clear that the early troubadours made no generic distinctions: 15 J.-C. Dinguirard, “So ditz la gens anciana,” Via Domitia, 28:2 (1982), pp. 1-126 (here 119). 16 See R.N.B. Goddard, “Marcabru, Li proverbe au vilain, and the Tradition of Rustic Proverbs,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 88 (1987), pp. 55-70.

17 Ann Tukey Harrison, “Marcabru’s Social World,” Journal of Medieval History, 16 (1990), pp. 301-07 (here 306).

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all was vers.'8 By 1200, however, there are names for specific genres, which could be distinguished one from the other by medieval audiences.!? The nature of proverbs inserted into these lyrics and the method of incorporation of paremiological material also changes with time. Troubadours from 1180-1200 use, proportionally, the most proverbs, and these troubadours take their proverbs as much from written sources as from popular wisdom. Publilius Syrus was a favorite author of Folquet de Marselha,2° who did not hesitate to insert proverbs to reinforce the argument of his poems.?! Bertran de Born uses lines become proverbial that have their roots in Ecclesiastes 4:13. The biblical proverb reads: “Melior est puer pauper et sapiens rege sene et stulto” (Better a poor and wise youth than an old and stupid king). In “Pois Ventedorns e Comborns ab Segur” (PC 80.33)? Bertran converts this verse to language familiar to him and to his audience: “que ab honor pretz mais pauca terreta / q’un gran empier tener ab desonor” (Il. 15—16: I prize a small fief with honor more than a great empire without it; Cnyrim no. 719).?3 Similar lines are repeated by a number of troubadours, including Aimeric de Peguilhan, Gui d’Ussel and Bertran del Pojet. Occitan audiences may have recognized the biblical antecedents; they should have recognized the repetition of the lines by a number of poets. I suspect that 1180-1200 was the highpoint for the use of proverbs because of the confluence of a wealthy and relatively peaceful society and a large and prepared audience. For a further example of the nature of proverbial insertion in Occitan works, consider Guillem de l’Olivier.2* Guillem introduces one proverbial line with the comment, “escrig truep en un nostr'actor” (PC 246.23), a clear indication ofawritten

source for his proverb. I have argued elsewhere that such references to written material are indications that the troubadours themselves had access to the written word.?> Furthermore, such a reference would appear in a lyric only if the audience would appreciate its meaning, reinforcing the valor of the poet who could read. Guillem is a particularly good example, because he uses other cues as well to introduce proverbial

18 See, among the many who have discussed this topic, John H. Marshall, “Le vers au XIIe siècle: genre poétique?” in Actes et mémoires du Ille Congrès international de langue et littérature d'Oc, 2 vols. (Bordeaux: Univ. de Bordeaux, 1965), vol. 2, pp. 55-63. 19 These ideas have been presented by William D. Paden, “The System of the Lyric Genre,” TwentySeventh International Congress on Medieval Studies, The Medieval Institute, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 9, 1992. 20 See Stanislaw Stronski, ed., Le troubadour Folquet de Marseille (Cracovie, 1910; rpt. Genéve: Slatkine, 1968), p. 81. 21 Wendy Pfeffer, “ ‘Ben conosc e sai que merces vol so que razos dechai’: L'emploi du proverbe chez Folquet de Marselha,” in Actes du premier congrès international de l'Association internationale d'études occitanes, ed. Peter T. Ricketts (London: Association internationale d’études occitanes, 1987), PP: 401-08 (here 405). 22 All quotations are from The Poems of the Troubadour Bertran de Born, ed. William D. Paden, Tilde Sankovitch and Patricia H. Stablein (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1986).

23 Occitan proverbs may be identified by the number assigned in Eugen Cnyrim, Sprichwürter, sprichworterliche Redensarten und Sentenzen bei den provenzalischen Lyrikern. Ausgaben und Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiete der romanischen Philologie LXXI (Marburg: N.G. Elwert’sche, 1888). 24 All quotations are from Oskar Schultz-Gora, “Die ‘coblas triadas’ des Guilhem de l’Olivier d’Arle,”

Provenzalische Studien, 1 (Strasbourg: Karl J. Trübner, 1919). 25 Wendy Pfeffer, “When a Proverb Is Not a Proverb,” Twenty-Fourth International Congress on Medieval Studies, The Medieval Institute, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 6, 1989.

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matter. He makes reference to Solomon, for example, as a source, “Salomos nos es recomtans” (PC 246.55) for a proverb found in the Book of Proverbs (13:24): “Que

sel que perdona sas viergas / per sert adzira sos efans” (Spare the rod, spoil the child). There are a number of such direct translations of biblical verses with little change in vocabulary. Given that the books most frequently referred to, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Wisdom of Solomon, are the same books that were used as primers in the Middle Ages, these references provide further support for the access to reading in medieval Occitania. And the reliance of the troubadours on named authors, be they Occitan, Latin or French, leads to the assumption that the troubadour audience recognized such references. Modern scholars glean the materials left of medieval Occitan civilization in an attempt to understand that world. We would be wrong to assume that medieval Occitania was unlettered. Rather, the evidence that remains suggests a highly literate society, capable of conducting its affairs, recording its transactions, and recording its entertainments for a reading public. The troubadours’ audience was an educated audience, educated in the ways of amor and in the conventions of troubadour poetry, educated, too, to read and perhaps to write.

MONASTIC HISTORY IN A COURTLY MODE? AUTHOR AND AUDIENCE IN GUILLAUME DE SAINT-PAIR’S ROMAN DU MONT-SAINT-MICHEL AND THE ANONYMOUS HISTOIRE DE L'ABBAYE DE FECAMP Jean Blacker

In his Histoire littéraire de la France médiévale, Paul Zumthor refers to Guillaume de Saint-Pairs Roman du Mont-Saint-Michel, c.1160, as “la première chronique monastique en langue vulgaire.”' What he does not mention is that this monastic chronicle is also a verse chronicle and one text of agenre made up of only two texts; the other is

the anonymous Histoire de l'abbaye de Fécamp, c.1201.? Little scholarship exists on the Roman du Mont-Saint-Michel and almost none on the Fécamp text. Though little-known, these two Old French verse monastic chronicles, both in Norman dialect, are worthy of attention not only because of their uniqueness as a genre, but also because of a variety of structural and lexicographical features. They are remarkably alike, displaying a homogeneity of purpose and structure reminiscent of the homogeneity of saints’ lives: (1) both are in octosyllabic rhymed couplets and have as their subjects a prominent Norman monastic house; (2) both are more similar in many ways to saints’ lives than to other twelfth-century verse chronicles, four of which are histories of national origins;> (3) both poems are incomplete in the surviving 1 Paul Zumthor, Histoire littéraire de la France médiévale (Paris: Presses Univ. de France, 1954), p. 185; Der Roman du Mont Saint-Michel von Guillaume de S. Paier, ed. Paul Redlich (Marburg: Elwert, 1894).

See also Le Roman du Mont Saint-Michel par Guillaume de Saint-Pair, ed. Francisque Michel (Caen: Hardel, 1856). 2

“Histoire de l’abbaye de Fécamp en vers français du XIIIe siècle,” ed. Arthur Langfors, Annales

Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, B, 22:1 (Helsinki, 1928), pp. 1-282. 3 On the Roman du Mont Saint-Michel, see K. Huber, Ueber di Sprache des Roman du Mont-SaintMichel von Guillaume de Saint Pair (Braunschweig: Westermann, 1886) and René Herval, “Un Moine jongleur au Mont Saint-Michel, Guillaume de Saint-Pair,” in Millénaire monastique du Mont SaintMichel, II, ed. Raymonde Foreville (Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1967), pp. 383-95. On the Histoire de l'abbaye

de Fécamp, see O. Kajava, “Etudes sur deux poèmes relatifs à l’abbaye de Fécamp,” Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, B, 21:5 (Helsinki, 1928) pp. 1-157, and A. Längfors, “De miraculis quae in ecclesia Fiscanensi contigerunt (Bibl. Nat. lat. 10015, fol. 65),” Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, B, 25:1 (Helsinki, 1930), pp. 1-32. Robert Bossuat in the first edition of his Manuel bibliographique de la littérature française du Moyen Age refers to the two studies on the Fécamp chronicle, in addition to Langfors’s edition of the poem (Melun: Librairie d’Argences, 1951, pp. 350-51).

4 As noted by Alison Goddard Elliott, Roads to Paradise: Reading the Lives of the Early Saints (Hanover, Mass.: Univ. Press of New England, 1987), esp. pp. 1-15. 5 The four twelfth-century Old French verse histories of national origins are: L'Etoire des Engleis by Geffrei Gaimar, ed. Alexander Bell (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1960; repr. ed., New York: Johnson

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manuscripts; and (4) both contain many terms that were part of the vocabulary of courtly narrative of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. In fact, there is quite likely a close connection between the courtly vocabulary of these texts and their social function — to increase the renown, and by implication, the prosperity of Mont Saint-Michel and Fécamp. Who would have been the audience of these texts? The intense loyalty on the part of the authors for their respective monasteries suggests that the chronicles were “in-house” productions meant to be heard at the abbey by lay pilgrims or clergy unable to read, or unable to listen with ease to, Latin;6 the works were probably not commissioned by lay patrons, though this is difficult if not impossible to establish. The term “pilgrim” need not necessarily refer to impoverished penitents, however; among the lay pilgrims, it is not inconceivable that there were some wealthy enough to have been patrons ofother vernacular works, or perhaps clergy with connections to wealthy families who might, on the one hand, be familiar with works of “courtly” literature, and on the other hand, be in a position to assist the abbeys with gifts or bequests if so inclined.’ The Roman du Mont-Saint-Michel is extant in two medieval manuscripts: British Library Additional MS 10289, c.1250-80 and British Library Additional MS 26876, c.1340.8 Paul Redlich’s 1894 edition of the poem presents these two manuscripts in parallel format; this article is based on a reading of Redlich’s Additional MS 10289 which appears to be the older and clearer of the two. In Additional 10289, the Roman is bound with eight other Old French works: three on religious topics, one on natural physics, the parodic Roman des Franceis by André de Coutances, a translation of the Disciplina clericalis of Petrus Alphonsus, a Compendium Amoris, and a fabliau (List, 27). Additional 26876 contains the Roman alone (List, 297). The Fécamp chronicle is

extant in one manuscript, Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional MS 9446 from the midReprint Corp., 1971); Le Roman de Brut de Wace, 2 vols., ed. Ivor Arnold (Paris, 1938-40); Le Roman de Rou de Wace, 3 vols., ed. A. J. Holden (Paris, 1970); and La Chronique des Ducs de Normandie par

Benoit de Sainte-Maure, 2 vols., ed. Carin Fahlin (Uppsala: Almqvist and Wiksells, 1951, 1967; vol. 3 published posthumously by Osten Sédergard, Uppsala, 1967). The two other Old French verse chronicles are: Jordan Fantosme, Chronicle, ed. R. C. Johnston (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981) and LEstoire de la Guerre Sainte par Ambroise, ed. Gaston Paris (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1897). 6 On the use of Old French in twelfth-century English Benedictine houses, see Ian Short, “The Patronage of Beneit’s Vie de Thomas Becket,” Medium Aevum, 56 (1987), pp. 239-56. It is difficult,

however, to believe that Old French played less of a role in French Benedictine houses than it did in England, where a significant proportion of the monastic community was at least more aurally literate in Old French than in Latin (even if they were not more ocularly literate in Old French). See also Douglas A. Kibbee, For to Speke Frenche Trewely: Linguistic Relationships and the Teaching of French in England,

1000-1600 (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1991), pp. 1-26, and Joseph J. Duggan, “Performance and Transmission, Aural and Ocular Reception in the Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Vernacular Literature of France,” Romance Philology, 43 (1989), pp. 49-58.

7 On the support of churches through donations, see Penelope Johnson, Prayer, Patronage, and Power: The Abbey of la Trinité, Vendôme, 1032-1187 (New York: New York Univ. Press, 1981); Constance

Brittain Bouchard, Sword, Mitre, and Cloister: Nobility and the Church in Burgundy (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1987); Bennett D. Hill, English Cistercian Monasteries and Their Patrons in the Twelfth Century (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1968); and Maureen C. Miller, “Donors, Their Gifts, and Religious Innovation in Medieval Verona,” Speculum, 66 (1991), pp. 27-42. 8 Redlich, ed., pp. iv—viii, and List of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the years 1836-1840 (London, 1843), p. 27, and List for the years 1854-75 (London, 1878), p. 297.

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thirteenth century (Langfors, ed., 7). According to Paul Meyer, a fifteenth-century note on a leaf following a Life of St. Eustace indicates that there had once been eight, possibly nine works in the codex (all in Old French): a prayer to the Virgin, the Histoire de l'abbaye de Fécamp, Lives of St. John the Evangelist and St. Eustace, a translation of Cato’s Distichs, a romance, now lost, of a British King Laurid and his

beloved, Oriole, daughter of the duke of Burgundy, and three dits.? It is worth noting that in the centuries following their composition, these monastic histories were bound with Latin and French religious and secular texts, but not with other histories, which suggests that they were preserved for their edificatory value, and perhaps as entertainment, but not primarily as historical documents. The later reception of these texts does not imply, however, that their authors or contemporary audience did not perceive them in part as historical documents. Unlike the Fécamp chronicle, which is anonymous and contains no allusions to the identity of the author despite many uses ofthe authorial “I” and “we”, the author of the Mont-Saint-Michel chronicle identifies himself as Guillaume from St.-Pair, a village on the coast north of Mont-Saint-Michel and just south of Granville. In the opening verses of the poem, Guillaume says that while many pilgrims come to the Mount seeking, among other things, to know its history, those who tell the pilgrims the story do not have it well in their memory: “Cil qui lor dient de l’estoire/ Que cil demandent, en memoire/Ne l’unt pas bien” (Il. 5-7). As a consequence, to render it openly (“apertement,” |. 9) for those who do not have learning (“clerzie,” I. 11) the

poet relates that he: oe l'a tornée De latin tote et ordenée Par(s) veirs romiens novelement, Molt en segrei, por son convent,

Un jovencels; moine est del Munt Deus en son reigne part li dunt! Guillelme a non de Seint-Paier, Cen vei escrit en cest quaier, El tens Robeirt de Torignié Fut ci [s] t romanz fait et trové.

(Il. 11—20)

There are no indications in the text to contradict what is told here: that the author was a monk who translated sources (typically, for twelfth-century Old French chroniclers, unnamed sources) into Old French verse during the time of Robert of Torigny, abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel from 1154-86. The phrase “molt en segrei, por son convent” (Il. 14) suggests that Guillaume wrote his history at, and for, the monastery; there is no evidence that he sought the approval — or patronage — of Henry II, duke of Normandy and king of England, as had his peers, Wace and Benoît de Sainte-Maure,!° nor that of

9 Paul Meyer, “Notice du ms. F 149 de la Bibliothèque nationale de Madrid,” Bulletin de la Société des Anciens Textes Français, | (1878), pp. 38-62; here, 38-39. 10 On Henry Plantagenets patronage of Wace and Benoît de Sainte-Maure, see W.F. Schirmer and Ulrich Broich, Studien zum literarischen Patronat im England des 12. Jahrunderts (Cologne: Westdeut-

scher Verlag, 1962), esp. pp. 65-88, and J. Blacker, “ ‘La geste est grande, longue et grieve a translater’: History for Henry II,” Romance Quarterly, 37 (1990), pp. 387-96.

294

Jean Blacker

other powerful secular figures. Guillaume addresses an unnamed archbishop twice in the text, the first time to remind him that he had already heard how the Mount was founded (Il. 3173-74), and the second time to tell him that he (Guillaume) told the

truth when recounting the story of how St. Michael’s sword and shield came to the monastery (Il. 3456-57). René Herval suggests that this archbishop was Gautier de

Coutances, archbishop of Rouen, but he provides no evidence for that conjecture (Herval, 393, n. 16). While it is possible that Guillaume wrote his chronicle at the behest ofthe archbishop, it is also possible that he hoped the prelate would be in his audience, or that the archbishop had been a member of the audience on one or several occasions.

As in the Norman histories of Wace and Benoit de Sainte-Maure, the number of authorial interjections is fairly high in both the Histoire de l'abbaye de Fécamp and the Roman du Mont-Saint-Michel.\\ In the 3781-verse Mont-Saint-Michel chronicle, we find at least six instances of a phrase common in Wace, especially in the Roman de Rou, the “jo ne sai” topos. Guillaume de Saint-Pair also uses this phrase as a truth claim: he doesn’t know the exact truth, so he won't exaggerate or lie by providing spurious information. The majority of the two dozen other authorial interjections involve verbs of telling or hearing. The frequency of references to listening strongly suggests that the primary means oftransmission of the work was at readings for the monastic community as part of the /ectio divina, as Orderic Vitalis’s Historia Ecclesiastica (c.1114-1141) was read in parts to the monks of St.-Evroult at mealtime,'? and for visitors to the monastery or to the surrounding area, perhaps performed to music as Herval implies in the title of his article, “Un Moine jongleur au Mont SaintMichel.”!3 As Guillaume states toward the end ofthe poem: Quer tel mil homme encor orrunt Cez romanz liere, qui au Mont

N’aurunt esté en lor vivant. Si lor iert vis merveille grant,

Quant il orrunt de lor faiture La merveille qui encor dure, E sin vendrunt plus volentiers Le leu veier qui molt est chiers.

(Il. 3508-15)

The miracles!’ at Mont-Saint-Michel, the narrative of which makes up a substantial part of the Roman, are seen to be a significant part of the motivation for writing the

11 On the role of authorial interjections in the historical narratives of Wace and Benoit de SainteMaure, see J. Blacker, The Faces of Time: Portrayal ofthe Past in Old French and Latin Historical Narrative of the Anglo-Norman ‘Regnum’, forthcoming from the Univ. of Texas Press, esp. ch. 1.

12 Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, 6 vols., ed. and tr. Marjorie Chibnall (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969-80), vol. 1, pp. 36-39, and Roger Ray, “Orderic Vitalis and his Readers,” Studia Monastica, 14 (1972), pp. 15-34.

13 On oral performance of saints’ lives, see Evelyn Birge Vitz, “From the Oral to the Written in Medieval and Renaissance Saints’ Lives,” in /mages of Sainthood in Medieval Europe, ed. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Timea Szell (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1991), pp- 97-114. 14 In this passage, and elsewhere in these two texts, “merveille” can also be read as “miracle”, as in

Wace's La Vie de sainte Marguerite, the Anglo-Norman Enfaunces Jesu, and possibly other religious and hagiographic texts of the period.

Monastic History in a Courtly Mode?

295

poem, which was apparently not destined for strictly monastic consumption: hearing the miracles could motivate visitors to come to the abbey and thus, among other things, contribute to their own salvation and possibly to the abbey coffers as well. The attracting of pilgrims to Mont-Saint-Michel and to Fécamp — for spiritual but also economic reasons — was the principle social function of these two chronicles. To that end, both narratives are interspersed with accounts of miracles; in addition, each of the chronicles contains a section dedicated primarily to the recitation of miracles. In the Roman du Mont-Saint-Michel, the first ofits three books (II. 1-1378) is devoted

to the upon advise of St.

history of the founding of the first community on the Mount by Saint Aubert the urging of Archangel Michael, who appears numerous times in visions to Aubert; it also contains an account ofthe transmission of relics from the house Michael at Monte Gargano in Italy to the new community at Mont-SaintMichel, and the installation of twelve canons there in the early eighth century. The

second book (Il. 1379-2469) recounts the arrival of the Normans, including an account ofthe wickedness and general havoc (“la deablie,” 1. 1438) wrought by Rollo (Rou), and a short history of the Norman dukes, with the Mount as the focus of the

narrative. The second book also tells how Duke Richard | attempted to have canons who had become lax removed from the Mount and how his son, Duke Richard II, succeeded in installing a Benedictine monastic community at Mont-Saint-Michel in place of the canons after his father’s death: the Roman provides few dates, but other sources reveal that the monks were established at Mont-Saint-Michel by 966, one of the earliest such installations in Normandy.'> The third book in which St. Aubert and St. Michael are the major characters (Il. 2470 to the end, |. 3781) contains an account of miracles, and is apparently unfinished, breaking off in the middle of a story ofa candle floating strangely before a crucifix. The miracles in the Roman du Mont-Saint-Michel are on the whole more spectacular than those of the Fécamp chronicle — an example is the narrative of awoman who gave birth in the rising tide on her way to the Mount, protected by St. Michael (Il. 3574-3643) — and are occasionally told with humor. Early in the first book St. Aubert, having reacted less than enthusiastically to the Archangel’s first two nocturnal visits (“Trestot le mist en nonchaleir,” |. 169), is poked in the head by St. Michael’s

fingers during the third visit; he awakes the next morning to show his comrades the hole in his forehead and to convey St. Michael’s instructions for building a new community on the Mount (Il. 211-22). At the end ofthe account of the miraculous

slaying of a dragon and the finding of a beautiful shield and sword, St. Michael appears to a bishop to instruct him to have his shield and sword taken to “our” Mount. The bishop, not knowing to which house St. Michael has referred, commissions four men who set offin the direction of Monte Gargano in Italy; due to the ambiguity of his own instructions, St. Michael is forced to reappear to tell the men to reverse direction in order to take the relics to the Mount called Tumbe (Tombe) which had

been

newly

founded

(Il. 3407-11).

The

author

gives the reason

Archangel’s choice:

15 David Bates, Normandy Before 1066 (London: Longman, 1982), p. 274.

for the

296

Jean Blacker Emprof lor dist que molt l’enmout, Souventes feiz le visitout,

Molt amera cels qui irunt

Et qui por lui l’enorerunt.

(Il. 3412-15)

Yet another advertisement for visiting Mont-Saint-Michel. Like the Roman du Mont-Saint-Michel, the Histoire de l'abbaye de Fécamp has miracle accounts interspersed throughout, often set in terms common in courtly narrative. À white stag, seen by the French duke Ansepis, is described in superlative terms reminiscent of descriptions of courtly lords and ladies: “a more beautiful beast no man

had ever seen” (“Tout estoit blans . . ./Plus bele beste ne vit home,” Il.

289-90). Ansegis and his “chevaliers” interpret the animals presence as a symbol of purity and contrition, a sign from God to build a religious house on the site where the stag was seen (Il. 316-364); the sighting itself is referred to as an “aventure bele” (1. 316). Like many other figures in both narratives, Ansegis is described in terms from the chivalric and courtly repertoire: Simples estoit, de bone vie, Et plain de grant chevalerie. De toz bons muers iert entechiez;

Cortois iert et bien affaitiez.

(Il. 229-32)

After Ansegiss death, St. Eulalia appears to St. Waningus to instruct him to build a convent dedicated to the Trinity on the spot where Ansegis had seen the white stag, thus associating the early history of the church of Sainte-Trinité at Fécamp with a symbol found to be suggestive (1) in Asian folklore, of regenerative powers; (2) in

saints’ legends from the West, including those of St. Eustace and St. Hubert, of purity of soul; and (3) in courtly literature — of which the white doe in Marie de Frances

“Guigemar” is a well-known example —'¢ of both sexual and spiritual awakening. The first book of the Fécamp chronicle also includes an account of the destruction of the convent by Hasting, the Norman pirate, and a brief passage on Rollo. The author of the Fécamp chronicle is more insistent upon the corruption of the secular canons, whom Duke Richard I was trying to remove from Fécamp as well as from Mont-Saint-Michel and other houses; as in the case of Mont-Saint-Michel, the Benedictines were installed at Fécamp after Richard’s death, by his son Richard II in 1001 (Bates, 183). In contrast to the corrupt canons who did not feel shame for living

foolishly, “ne honte de folement vivre” (1. 1485), the Fécamp chronicler calls William of Volpiano, abbot of Fécamp 1001-1028, the “flor de religion” (I. 1831), a term reminiscent of the very common appelation of courtly heroes “flor de chevalrie.” Toward the end of the first section, the chronicler also mentions the exemption of Fécamp from all but papal authority (Il. 2088-2214). In his study of Norman institutions before the Conquest, David Bates notes that it was this distinction — freedom from ecclesiastical and ducal authority — that permitted Fécamp to become a “training centre for priests as well as something of a base for evangelisation” (193).

16 Les Lais de Marie de France, ed. Jean Rychner (Paris: Champion, 1973), ll. 90-122.

Monastic History in a Courtly Mode?

297

The Fécamp chronicle could very well have been a late twelfth-century, early thirteenth-century part of this evangelization. Fécamp, which Henri Prentout referred to as the “Saint Denis of the Norman dukes” due to its wide influence and its tombs of Richard I and Richard I1,!7 aspired to be a major pilgrimage site due to a relic of the Precious Blood (le Précieux Sang), whose presence at Fécamp may have first been noted around 1110-1120 by Baudri de Bourgueil, author ofthe Historia Hierosolimitana;'® similar relics of the Precious Blood were venerated at Mantua as early as 553, at Weingarten since 1090, and at Bruges since 1158.!9 The second book of the Fécamp chronicle, Il. 2285-3175, is devoted to a narrative of the origin and transmission to Fécamp of the relic of the Precious Blood (without mention of competing claims), saved on a glove by Isaac, the nephew of Nicodemus, from the wounds ofJesus on the Cross. The chronicler seeks to establish

the truth of his narrative by presenting it as a translation from a Latin scroll read to Richard II by his father’s chaplain; this section on the Precious Blood contains relatively few instances of courtly terminology, perhaps to avoid overt mixing of registers in the description of this relic. The third book begins with a long series of conventional miracle narratives, including the cure of a deaf man and of a lame woman. In a narrative twist, the Fécamp chronicler brings the author of the Latin source to life, so to speak, to recount more miracles including how he himself had been saved from choking on a fishbone (Il.

3933-92). Other miracles follow, plus two references to Henry II of England (1154— 1189) whom the Fécamp chronicler calls “proz et sage,” echoing descriptions of romance and epic heroes, and those of the Norman dukes in the histories of Wace and Benoit de Sainte-Maure. Henry is mentioned as the son of the Empress Maud and the first cousin of the fifth abbot of Fécamp, also named Henry (1142-1188). Henry Ils gift of the Hogues forest — no date provided — to the abbey is mentioned, as is his reinterment of Dukes Richard I and Il at Fécamp (Il. 4994 and 4951-55). The Fécamp chronicler insists on Henry Ils generosity, calling him “li bon roi franc et large” (1. 4964), and depicts him delivering an impassioned speech on the occasion of the reinterment

(Il. 4966-75). Thus the monarch, symbol of wordly power and

courtly sophistication, is linked in a very positive manner to the Church and, in particular, to Fécamp. The theme of the Precious Blood occurs again, underscoring its importance as an object of veneration: the relic had apparently been forgotten since the early years of the church of Sainte-Trinité at Fécamp and was rediscovered in 1171 following a fire (Il. 5050-5411). This time, the Fécamp chronicler gives a date, adding that 1171 was the year of the martyrdom of St. Thomas at Canterbury (Il. 5418—28). It is interesting

17 Henri Prentout, Etude critique sur Dudon de Saint-Quentin (Paris, 1916), p. 326. 18 Baudri of Dol, Historia Hierosolimitana, Recueil des Historiens des Croisades: Historiens Occiden-

taux, 5 vols. (1844—95), vol. 5; see René Herval, “En Marge de la légende du précieux sang — Lucques — Fécamp — Glastonbury,” in L'Abbaye bénédictine de Fécamp, ouvrage scientifique du XIIIe centenaire

658-1958, 3 vols. and supp. (Fécamp: Durand, 1959-63), vol. 1, pp. 104-126 (p. 124). 19 For further references, see the bibliography following the article “Precious Blood, III (Devotion to),” in The New Catholic Encyclopedia, 18 vols. (New York: McGraw Hill, 1967), vol. 11, pp. 707-8.

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Jean Blacker

to note that Henry II is not mentioned in connection with St. Thomas, neither to blame nor to absolve the king. Like the third book of the Roman du Mont SaintMichel, the third book of the Fécamp chronicle ends abruptly in the middle of a miracle, this time about an attempted robbery of the Precious Blood which other sources have dated to 1200-1201

(Längfors, ed., 8). No monarch or public figure,

English or French, is mentioned after Henry II, which suggests that the text was written soon after 1201, rather than closer to the date of the manuscript, mid thirteenth century.2°

The Roman du Mont-Saint-Michel and the Histoire de l'abbaye de Fécamp, \ike other Old French chronicles from the twelfth century, rarely provide dates and almost never cite exact names ofsources. They resemble saints lives primarily in tone and in their inclusion of miracles, but also in that their focus on a monastic house mirrors the focus ona saint in hagiographic texts. The Norman ducal dynasty is present, but is not the principal actor in the drama. The Norman abbeys of Mont-Saint-Michel and Fécamp are in effect the protagonists of these chronicles, which for their religious purpose and tenor contain a surprising number of terms of courtly literature: St. Michael is God’s “druz’ (M-S-M, |. 656), while female characters are “lasse,” “che-

tive,” “belle” and “sage,” adjectives familiar to us from other genres of Old French literature. Perhaps the courtly terms were incorporated to connect the chronicles to works of other genres whose vocabulary might have been familiar to lay pilgrims visiting the monasteries, the white doe of Marie de Frances “Guigemar” being one such possible association. The connections could have been made expressly to please the more affluent pilgrims, perhaps to persuade them to treat the abbeys generously. But more likely still, the courtly terms reflect values which were more widespread than might ordinarily now be believed, ideals of beauty, purity, and piety which could be appreciated by the monastic community, by secular clergy, and by lay pilgrims, without necessarily invoking myths of courtly love in its more sensual guises. The courtly vocabulary of these two chronicles demonstrates a need for a definition of courtliness in Old French narrative, a definition which would cross boundaries of genre, a definition exclusive of the term “courtly love” which is itself, regardless of the existence of monastic chronicles in a courtly mode, in constant need ofdefinition.?! While it is not surprising that two of the most prominent Norman monasteries were the subject of monastic histories in Old French, it is curious that this genre is limited to two texts, especially given the popularity of hagiographic texts, their nottoo-distant relatives. With respect to traditions of historical writing, these texts represent in part a Norman parallel to the Latin chronicles of Glastonbury Abbey, one of the most bold of English monastic houses in its attempts to claim a glorious past

20 Langfors suggests another possibility, that the poem was written at least thirty years after 1200-01, since he finds no internal indication that the events of 1200-01 took place in the poet’s lifetime (ed., p.

8). 21 Especially useful is Glyn S. Burgess's study ofabody of vocabulary he calls pre-courtly, a network of terms demonstrating the lexicaliinterpenetration of epic and other genres of Old French literature prior to the rise of courtly romance in the mid twelfth century; see Contribution à l'étude du vocabulaire pré-courtois (Geneva: Droz, 1970).

Monastic History in a Courtly Mode?

299

through association with St. Dunstan, St. Patrick, and King Arthur.?? With respect to courtly lexicon, the existence of the Roman du Mont Saint-Michel and the Histoire de

l'abbaye de Fécamp attest both to the richness of vernacular literary expression and to the continued interaction of ecclesiastic and secular culture in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.

22 See Herval, “En Marge de la légende du Précieux Sang,” pp. 118-26, and The Early History of

Glastonbury by William of Malmesbury, ed. and tr. John Scott (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1981), pp. 1-33.

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MAGISTER CONRADUS PRESBITER: PFAFFE KONRAD AT THE COURT OF HENRY THE LION

Jeffrey Ashcroft

The identity of the Pfaffe Konrad, author of the Middle High German adaptation of the Old French Song of Roland, has remained an puzzle since Wilhelm Grimm published the first modern text of the Rolandslied in 1838.' It is a question of some literary-historical importance: this is one of the earliest large-scale narrative poems of the major phase of German medieval literature in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries, while the role of clerical authors in the genesis of the courtly ethos and of courtly literature in the vernacular has emerged as a key theme of research in recent years on the origins and nature of curialitas.? The epilogue of the Heidelberg manuscript (P) appears to provide unusually full information about the composition of the Rolandslied. The author tells us his name and status: ich haize der phaffe Chunrat (RL 9079);3 he describes how he obtained and

translated his French source, and how Duke Hainrich and “the noble duchess, child of a mighty king” commissioned this work (RL 9017-25, 9080-85). His fulsome praise

of his patrons and of the duke’s household as nursery of feudal and Christian virtue

testify to Konrad’s apparently close relationship with his “lord” (minem herren, RL 9089).

However the epilogue is unspecific on vital points. The term phaffe tells us as such only that Konrad was not a layman, but a clericus,‘ one of an expanding category of men in the later twelfth century, whose common characteristics were their possession of some measure of Latin education, their clerical habit and their right to justice in ecclesiastical courts.> Pfaffe/clericus says nothing precise about Konrad’s profession and

standing. Wilhelm Grimm drew the conclusion that Konrad must be “a learned man 1 Wilhelm Grimm, Ruolandes liet (Gottingen: Dieterich, 1838).

2 See particularly C. Stephen Jaeger, The Origins of Courtliness: Civilizing Trends and the Formation of Courtly Ideals 939-1210

(Philadelphia:

Pennsylvania Univ. Press, 1985); Joachim

Bumke,

Hôfische

Kultur: Literatur und Gesellschaft im hohen Mittelalter (Munich: dtv, 1986); Curialitas: Studien zu Grundfragen der hofisch-ritterlichen Kultur, ed. Josef Fleckenstein (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990).

3 The Rolandslied (referred to in lines references as RL) is quoted from the edition by Carl Wesle, Das Rolandslied des Pfaffen Konrad, revised by Peter Wapnewski (Tiibingen: Niemeyer, 19672). 4 Anton Wallner, “Pfaffendichtung,” Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur, 43 (1917-18), pp. 181-219; Friedrich Neumann, “Wann entstanden Kaiserchronik und Rolandslied?”

Zeitschrift fiirdeutsches Altertum, 91 (1961-62), pp. 263-329 (see pp. 325-26). 5 See Jean Dunbabin, “From Clerk to Knight: Changing Orders,” in The Ideals and Practice of Medieval Knighthood II, ed. C. Harper-Bill and R. Harvey (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1988), pp. 26-39.

302

Jeffrey Ashcroft

for his time, versed in languages, perhaps chaplain at the ducal court”.° Since Grimm identified Konrad’s patron as Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, this would imply that we should look for Konrad among the court chaplains at Henry the Lion’s palace in Braunschweig. It means that Konrad must have composed the Rolandslied after 1168, when Henry married Mathilda, daughter of Henry II of England; evidence in the epilogue, though far from unequivocal, suggests a dating around 1172, when Henry went on an armed pilgrimage to the Holy Land.’ However Konrad was soon transplanted from Braunschweig to Regensburg. Karl Bartsch in his edition of 18748 rejected Grimm’s dating of the Rolandslied as untenable on the grounds that its language was too archaic for the 1170s. He identified herzog Hainrich as Henry the Proud, father of Henry the Lion, whose wife Gertrude was daughter of the Emperor Lothar II. The terminus ante quem for its composition became 1139, the year Henry the Proud died. Bartsch took the Stra burg manuscript A, whose dialect he diagnosed as Rhenish Franconian with Bavarian elements, as representing Konrad’s own linguistic usage, concluding that Konrad himself hailed from the Franconian Rhineland but composed his poem in Henry the Proud’s duchy of Bavaria. Edward Schrüder in 1883 took this Bavarian localization of the poem and its author a large step further.’ Detailing links between the Rolandslied and the Kaiserchronik, a history of the classical and medieval Roman Empire composed in Regensburg sometime after 1147, Schroder pronounced that Konrad was author of both these works and that the Rolandslied predated the chronicle; Konrad must have lived and worked in Regensburg. In the 1920s Carl Wesle definitively refuted Schréder’s hypothesis that Konrad was also responsible for the Kaiserchronik. Wesle and Martin Lintzel,!®

and

more

recently Dieter Kartschoke

(see note

7) and

Karl Bertau,!!

adduced decisive arguments for Henry the Lion as patron and thus for the dating of the Rolandslied around 1172. Attempts to promote the candidature of yet a third Duke Henry, Heinrich Jasomirgott, Duke of Bavaria from 1139-1156, proved difficult to reconcile with the evidence of Konrad’s epilogue.'? There is a general consensus today that the Rolandslied belongs in the context of

Henry the Lion’s cultural representation of his aggressively expansionist territorial

6 Wilhelm Grimm, “Der Epilog zum Rolandsliede,” Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum, 3 (1843), pp. 281-88 (see p. 284). 7

Dieter Kartschoke, Die Datierung des deutschen Rolandsliedes (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1965).

8 9

Das Rolandslied, ed. Karl Bartsch (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1874), pp. xi-xxii. Edward Schroder, “Die Heimat des deutschen Rolandsliedes,” Zeitschrift fiirdeutsches Altertum, 27

(1883), pp. 70-82.

10 Carl Wesle,

“Kaiserchronik

und

Rolandslied,”

Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen

Sprache und

Literatur, 48 (1924); Martin Lintzel, “Zur Datierung des deutschen Rolandsliedes,” Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie, 51 (1926), pp. 13-33, and “Edward Schrôders Datierung des deutschen Rolandslicdes,” Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie, 54 (1929), pp- 168-74.

11 Karl Bertau, “Das deutsche Rolandslied und die Reprasentationskunst Heinrichs des Lowen,” Der Deutschunterricht, 20, Heft 2 (1968), pp. 4-30. See also Joachim Bumke, Mazene im Mittelalter. Die

Gonner und Auftraggeber der hüfischen Literatur in Deutschland 1150-1300 (Munich: Beck, 1979), pp. 85-91. 12 Neumann,

pp. 316-20; Christian Gellinek, “The Epilogue of Konrad’s Rolandslied: Commission

and Dating,” Modern Language Notes, 83 (1968), pp. 390-405.

Pfaffe Conrad at the Court of Henry the Lion

303

lordship in his main power center of Saxony. Yet — and it is a paradox insufficiently acknowledged by scholars — the hypothesis of Konrad’s Bavarian identity and of the genesis of the poem in Regensburg remains virtually unchallenged. What compels us to locate Konrad in Regensburg? Certainly, no persuasive documentary evidence has ever been adduced for his presence there. Edward Schroder (82)

airily dismisses any attempt to identify a cleric with this all-too-common Christian name.'> Yet it would be odd if a cleric with such close links to the most powerful magnate of his time had disappeared utterly without trace. A pfaffe who belonged to the court personnel of Henry the Lion had excellent chances of being documented: we know the names of a large number of clerics who served in the chancery and in the chapel at Henry’s court. None of them, certainly, had any connection with Regensburg. The frequent assertion that Konrad might have worked in Henry the Lions chancery in Regensburg, moreover, is untenable.!4 Henry had no chancery in Regensburg. His power center lay in Saxony; he visited his duchy of Bavaria infrequently and briefly. When in Regensburg he lodged in the palace, which belonged, however, to the emperor; lordship over the city he shared with bishop and constable; the Welfs held no land in the vicinity of the city. Henry’s court clerics were located in Braunschweig and from there accompanied him on his journeys.!> Nor does Konrad’s acquaintance with the Kaiserchronik enforce the notion that he worked in Regensburg. While it is clear that Konrad knew the chronicle and borrowed thematic and formal-linguistic impulses from it, the extent ofthis indebtedness is now regarded as much less crucial than Schréder once claimed.'6 All the manuscripts of the Kaiserchronik which survive from the later twelfth century have their provenance in South Germany, yet this does not rule out the possibility that it was known and available also in Welf Saxony.'? Regensburg, certainly, was the great center of clerical learning and culture in Henry the Lions lands, while Saxony has no literary tradition before the 1170s; yet it is patently clear that Henry aimed to promote Braunschweig as a new cultural as well as political focus of his quasi-monarchical lordship in the North. The palace of Dankwarderode, the lion statue which symbolizes and proclaims

13 Attempts to identify Pfaffe Konrad with documented clerics of that name in Regensburg have indeed found no assent. See André de Mandach, Naïssance et développement de la Chanson de geste en Europe: 1. La Geste de Charlemagne et Roland (Paris/Geneva: Droz, 1961), p. 206; Romuald Bauerreis,

“Die Siegburger Klosterreform in Regensburg, die Kaiserchronik, das Rolandslied und der Pfaffe Konrad,” Studien und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Benediktinerordens, 82 (1971), pp. 334-43. 14 See, for example, Bumke, Mazene,

p. 89, and Karl Jordan, Heinrich der Léwe: eine Biographie

(Munich: Beck, 19807), pp. 245f.

15 Jordan, pp. 149-64; Johannes Heydel, “Das Itinerar Heinrichs des Lôwen,” Niedersächsisches Jahrbuch, 6 (1929), pp.1-166; Ruth Hildebrand, Der sachsische “Staat” Heinrichs des Lowen (Berlin:

Ebering, 1937), pp. 205-6, 419-20; Andreas Kauf, “Heinrich der Lowe und Bayern,” in Heinrich der Léwe, ed. W.-D. Mohrmann (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980), pp. 151-214; Kurt Reindel, “Bayern vom Zeitalter der Karolinger bis zum Ende der Welfenherrschaft (788—1180),” in Hand-

buch der bayerischen Geschichte, Bd. I, ed. M. Spindler (Munich:

Beck, 1971), pp. 260-67;

Peter

Schmid, Regensburg: Stadt der Konige und Herzüge im Mittelalter (Kallmiinz: Lassleben, 1977), pp. 178, 181, 190. 16 Eberhard Nellmann, “Pfaffe Konrad,” in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, Bd. V (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1984), pp. 116-17. 17 See Edward

Schrüders

introduction

to his edition, Kazserchronik eines Regensburger

(Berlin: Weidmann, 1895), pp. 7-39; Bumke, Mazene, pp. 84f.

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Welf pretensions, the rebuilding of the collegiate church of St. Blasius, the commissioning of the Helmarshausen evangeliary, all testify to this,!8 and entirely consistent with these acts of princely patronage would be the sponsorship of an epic poem which glorifies the Carolingian ancestors on whom Henry based his claim to innate royal status. | More complex is the question of the language and provenance ofthe manuscripts of the Rolandslied. Three of the seven extant sources date from before 1200 and were thus copied no more than 30 years after the poem’s composition. They are characterized by an intricate mixture of dialect features, an intermingling of Bavarian and Alemannic elements with Central and Northern German ones which makes the definition ofthe base dialect and the provenance of the manuscripts highly controversial.!9 Older scholars, Edward Schroder and Carl Wesle notably, presupposed that Konrad’s original text was composed in a Bavarian dialect and that the Central and Northern German elements in the manuscripts were secondary accretions during the process of scribal transmission. Recent research by Thomas Klein and Barbara Gutfleisch has radically challenged this view. Klein? concludes that Wesle underestimated the Northern features ofthe three earliest manuscripts and that these Northern features were present in the common archetype of the manuscripts. Gutfleisch,2! on the basis of palaeographical and codicological analyses, ascribes both the two surviving early manuscripts P and S — the third, A, was destroyed in 1870 and is known only in an eighteenth-century transcript — as well as all the somewhat later fragments T, E, M

and W, to Central and Northern German scribal traditions. The common thrust of these studies is to undermine the reigning assumption that the manuscript transmission supports the Bavarian provenance of Konrad’s original text. There remains no compelling reason to locate Pfaffe Konrad in Regensburg. Indeed my own investigations suggest that it is not the case that Konrad has escaped historical documentation: Wilhelm Grimm apart, we have simply been looking for him in the wrong place. The charters of Henry the Lion,?? our main source of knowledge about the personnel of the ducal household, reveal that in the 1170s Conradus, a Swabian, who is accorded the titles magister and presbiter, was capellanus at the court of Henry in Braunschweig. His name appears on two or three occasions in the witness lists of 18 See Bertau; G. Swarzenski, “Aus dem Kunstkreis Heinrichs des Lowen,” Ssädel-Jahrbuch, 7-8 (1932), pp. 279-397; Hans-Herbert Miller, “Zur Geschichte des Marienaltars im Braunschweiger Dom,” Deutsche Kunst- und Denkmalpflege, 25 (1967), pp. 107-18; Reiner Hausherr, “Zur Datierung des Helmarshausener Evangeliars Heinrichs des Lowen,” Zeitschrift des deutschen Vereins für Kunstwissenschaft, 34 (1980), pp. 3-15; Otto Gerhard Oexle, “Das Evangeliar Heinrichs des Lowen als geschichtliches Denkmal,” in Das Evangeliar Heinrichs des Lowen. Kommentar zum Faksimile, ed. D. Kôwsche (Frankfurt: Insel, 1989), pp. 9-27.

19 See Wilfried Werner, Das Rolandslied des Pfaffen Konrad: Einführung zum Faksimile des Codex Palatinus Germanicus 112 der Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1970), pp. 26-31.

20 Thomas Klein, Untersuchungen zu den mitteldeutschen Literatursprachen des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts, unpublished Habilitationsschrift (University of Bonn, 1982). 21 Barbara Gutfleisch, Die Uberlieferung des Rolandsliedes des Pfaffen Konrad. Stand und Probleme der

Forschung, typescript Magisterarbeit (University of Munich, 1990). I am greatly indebted to Frau Gutfleisch for making a copy of her work available to me and for stimulating discussion of our mutual research interests. 22 Die Urkunden Heinrichs des Lowen, Herzogs von Sachsen und Bayern, ed. K. Jordan (Weimar: Bohlau, 1941/1949).

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305

the duke’s charters. In September 1174 dominus Conradus Sueuus was one of three capellani with Henry’s court at Ering in Bavaria, when the duke issued a charter for the monastery of Kremsmiinster; in 1176 in Braunschweig magister Conradus presbiter witnessed, with two other capellani, a charter in favor of the monastery of Walsrode. In 1171, in a charter for the cathedral chapter of Schwerin, one of the three witnesses named as Conradus is most probably to be understood as belonging together with the immediately preceding witnesses designated capellani.3 Thus we have firm evidence that from at least 1174, probably already in 1171, and until at least 1176, dominus Conradus, a Swabian, who was magister and presbiter, belonged to the staff of clerics who served Henry the Lion’s court in his chancery, his chapel and in diverse administrative functions. We know that a number of these clerics held prebendaries as canons of the church of St. Blasius adjoining Henry’s palace in Braunschweig. The earliest list of canons of the church dates only from 1196. It contains, without additional detail, the name Conradus.24 With such a commonly occurring name it can only-be conjectured that this Konrad might be the same person as the ducal chaplain of twenty years earlier. Equally it cannot be ruled out that the capellanus Konrad was, like a number of Henry’s chaplains (Jordan, Urkunden, xxxvi), simultaneously canon of St. Blasius and remained in that office

after the banishment ofthe duke in 1182 and his death in 1195. On the other hand, there is a strong probability that the Conradus who appears as witness in Duke Henry’s charters is the Pfaffe Konrad of the epilogue of the Rolandslied. He fulfils the essential criteria which have been posited ever since Grimm (“Der Epilog”, 284), most recently confirmed by Joachim Bumke (Mäzene, 332) and Eberhard Nellmann (116): a secular

cleric, perhaps in the ducal chancery, perhaps canon in a collegiate church, possessing a higher education and enjoying a close connection with his patron. This new identification is at odds with the prevailing consensus of literary historians only in that it confirms mounting scepticism about the Bavarian affiliations of poet and epic. This new information about Konrad’s identity does not of course provide us with the material for more than a tentative biography. Yet his functions in the service of Henry the Lion emerge with a degree of precision from the titles and descriptions accorded him by the notaries. Dominus Conradus Sueuus: Here we come closest to a biographical reference. Other Swabians are documented at the court of Braunschweig, most notably the brothers Gerold and, again, Konrad, who appear to have been protégés of Henry the Lions first wife, Clementia of Zähringen, and who became successive bishops of Liibeck.?5 It is more likely that our Konrad derived from Henry’s lands on the borders of Bavaria and Swabia or from the Welf heartlands north of Lake Constance, where

23 Jordan, Urkunden, charters 100, 107, 89, pp. 151, 165, 134. 24 Ernst Doll, Die Kollegiatstifte St. Blasius und St. Cyriacus zu Braunschweig (Braunschweig: Stadtisches

Museum, 1967), pp. 12, 301, 363. 25 Helmold von Bosau, Chronica Slavorum, ed. H. Stoob (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 19732), Chapter LXXX, p. 272; Jordan, Heinrich der Léwe, pp. 57, 92, and Urkunden, p. xxiii.

Hans Ferdinand Massmann, in his edition of Eraclius (Quedlinburg: Basse, 1842) proposed Bishop Konrad as author of the Rolandslied.

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ministerials owed joint fealty to Duke WelfVI and to Henry.* For a son of a knightly family destined for a clerical career,?7 service at the Saxon court, the dynamic center of Welf power in the later twelfth century, may have had a magnetic attraction, felt certainly by men from other, non-Welf areas, such as Abbot Hermann ofthe monastery of St. Egidius in Braunschweig who hailed from Brabant (Hildebrand, 417).

Magister Conradus: Magister denotes the graduate of a higher institution of clerical education. Such men were a growing and increasingly valued group in this period, a meritocracy who found employment in ecclesiastical and secular administration. Of only six men designated magister in Henry’s charters, three are chaplains at the Braunschweig court (Jordan, Urkunden, index, 273). The title was a prestigious one,

denoting men whose education qualified them for an expanding range of professional opportunities.# It cannot be proven, but it is certainly possible that Konrad, like many Germans in the twelfth century, including a sizeable number from Saxony,? acquired his magister status in France (see Bumke, Hofische Kultur, 102). This would

explain his evident theological learning, his acquaintance with reformed piety and crusading commitment in the mould of Bernard of Clairvaux, and not least his ability to understand and translate the French text of the Song of Roland with which his patrons presented him (compare Wallner, 199). Conradus presbiter: Konrad was not merely clericus but ordained priest, perhaps also canon of St. Blasius. The occurrence of the designation presbiter in Henry the Lion’s charters suggests that it also indicates a primary function of Konrad at the ducal court. The witness lists seem to distinguish between those capellani whose main duty was notarial, staffing the ducal chancery, and those who were specifically charged with liturgical and pastoral duties: in no instance are the designations notarius or magister cartularii and the designations presbiter or sacerdos applied to one and the same chaplain, and they appear to be intended as indications of professional functions rather than as titles specific to individuals like magister or dominus (Jordan, Urkunden, indices). This pattern of usage in the charters allows the surmise that Konrad was primarily active in the court chapel properly speaking as priest and preacher. Capellanus ducis Conradus: It is in the later twelfth century that at the courts of the major territorial princes of Germany the court chapel develops, in imitation ofthe much older models ofthe royal and episcopal chapels,*° as the institutional framework for those educated clerics who provided key services in a variety of areas, executive, 26 Giinther Bradler, “Heinrich der Lowe in Oberschwaben: eine antistaufische Position im Herzogtum Schwaben,” Beiträge zur Landeskunde, Beilage zum Staatsanzeiger fir Baden-Wiürttemberg (1978), 2, pp. 1-7; Jordan, Heinrich der Lowe, pp. 150f,, 181-83. 27 ‘Though we can only guess at Konrad’s social status, the title dominus is unlikely to be more than a mark of courtesy to a clericus.

28 See R.W. Southern, “The Schools of Paris and the School of Chartres,” in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, ed. R.L. Benson and G. Constable (Cambridge, Mass./Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1982), pp. 113-37 (see pp. 134f.); John W. Baldwin, “Masters of Paris from 1179-1215. A Social Perspective,” ibid., pp. 138-72 (especially pp. 154-58).

29 Johannes Ehlers, “Deutsche Scholaren in Frankreich während des 12. Jahrhunderts,” in Schulen und Studium im sozialen Wandel des hohen und spaten Mittelalters, ed. J. Fried (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1986), pp. 97-120.

30 On the origins of the royal Hofkapelle, see Josef Fleckenstein, Die Hofkapelle der deutschen Künige, Bd. 1: Grundlegung. Die karolingische Hofkapelle (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1959).

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administrative and cultural! Henry the Lion was at the forefront of this development, the first of the new territorial rulers to establish a chancery and issue charters,?2 exercising quasi-monarchical powers, in terms of legal jurisdiction and power to appoint bishops in his colonial lands east of the Elbe, with an ambitious programme of cultural representation of his unparalleled prestige (Jordan, Heinrich der Lowe, especially chapters 4-6). His chaplains formed an administrative cadre (Hildebrand, 419f), who accompanied him on his journies through his widespread domains, on his military service of the emperor Frederick Barbarossa in Italy, and presumably also on his pilgrimage to Palestine in 1172, though sadly the chronicles remain silent on this: it is intriguing to speculate whether the chaplain Konrad, the first major poet of the crusades in German, set foot in the Holy Land. Henry promoted his court chaplains in a number of cases to high ecclesiastical office: Gerold to bishop of Liibeck, Hartwig to archbishop of Bremen (Jordan, Urkunden, xxiii, xxviii, xxxvi-xxxvii). Konrad was seemingly denied such eminence, if only because by the late 1170s the duke’s prestige was declining; after his trial and banishment in 1178-1182 he was scarcely in a position any longer to exert his patronage in the Saxon church. Even so, to be court chaplain in Braunschweig meant having a key position in the immediate entourage of the ducal family. And there is every reason to suppose that in Braunschweig as at other courts the chaplains played a vital cultural role in the emergence of curialitas, the ideal of a refined mode of life and of more profound Christian attitudes among the lay aristocracy (Bumke, Hôfische Kultur, 446-51).3 The expression of this new ethos in cultural and literary forms was

a key function of court chaplains. At Henry the Lion’s court, they are likely to have had a wide variety of commissions: the conception of the programs of miniatures for the Helmarshausen evangeliary and for the frescoes and liturgical ornaments of Henry’s refounded church of St. Blasius have been attributed to them.*4 Apart from the Rolandslied, the vernacular prose work Lucidarius is attributed in one of the two extant prologues to the corporate labors of the Braunschweig chaplains.* While this identification of Pfaffe Konrad and his localization at the court of Henry the Lion in Braunschweig reinforce contentions ofboth older research and some more recent studies, they nonetheless have new implications for our broader understanding and interpretation of the genesis, themes and intentions ofthe Rolandslied. \f Konrad was indeed so closely associated with his patron, as a member ofthe executive staff of the most powerful magnate of the third quarter of the twelfth century in Germany, then the political and ideological dimensions of his depiction of Christian imperium 31 Hans-Walter Klewitz, “Cancellaria: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des geistlichen Hofdienstes,” Deut-

sches Archiv fiir Geschichte des Mittelalters, | (1937), pp. 44-79.

32 Hildebrand, pp. 417-20; Jordan, Urkunden, pp. xx—xxiii; Fritz Hasenritter, Beiträge zum Urkundenund Kanzleiwesen Heinrichs des Lowen (Greifswald: Bamberg, 1936). 33 See also Josef Fleckenstein, “Miles und clericus am Kônigs- und Fiirstenhof. Bemerkungen zu den Voraussetzungen, zur Entstehung and zur Trägerschaft der hôfisch-ritterlichen Kultur,” in Curialitas, ed. Fleckenstein, pp.302-325. 34 See Renate Kroos, “Die Bilder,” in Das Evangeliar Heinrichs des Lowen. Kommentar zum Faksimile, ed. D. Kützsche, pp. 164-243 (especially pp. 164-70, 241, 243). 35 Compare, however, Georg Steer, “Der deutsche Lucidarius — ein Auftragswerk Heinrichs des Lowen?” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift, 64 (1990), pp. 1-25, who casts doubt on the authenticity of the prologue.

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and crusade take on a new authority and resonance. These are aspects of Konrad’s Rolandslied which go beyond the purview of this essay.56 It may be claimed already, though, that this work, so often regarded as an archaism in its time and as an inferior cousin ofits great French model, must after all be acknowledged as a poem which is in the truest sense a piece of “courtly” literature, a key landmark at the beginning of that great tradition of German narrative before and after 1200 which was generated and fostered at the courts of the major territorial princes of the Empire.

36 See Jeffrey Ashcroft, “Konrad’s Rolandslied, Henry the Lion, and the Northern Crusade,” Forum for

Modern Language Studies, 22 (1986), pp. 184-208, and “Si waren aines muotes: Unanimity in Konrad’s Rolandslied and Otto's and Rahewin’s Gesta Frederici,” in The Ideals and Practice of Medieval Knighthood IV, ed. C. Harper-Bill (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1992), pp. 23-50. I intend to publish in due course an expanded and more fully documented study of the identity of Pfaffe Konrad.

THE COURTLY AUTHORITY AND RECEPTION OF THE IBERIAN CHRONICLES: MEDIEVAL HISTORIOGRAPHY AND CULTURAL HISTORICISM Roberto ]. Gonzdlez-Casanovas

In the thirteenth century vernacular historiography emerges in the royal courts of Iberia (Castile, Aragon, and Portugal). Its development represents a complex cultural and literary phenomenon that combines various popular traditions, clerical arts, social orders, political codes, and religious propaganda into exemplary narrative modes. At the center of this extraordinary historiographic enterprise are found the royal chronicles written at the height of the Christian Reconquest ofIberia from the Moors. They are edited by Alfonso X of Castile (Estoria de Espanna 1270-75 and General estoria 1275-80), Jaume | of Aragon (Libre dels feits 1244-74), and Pedro Afonso, Count Barcelos (Livros das Linhagens 1330-40); the latter, who also directed the Crénica geral (1344), wrote for Dinis I and Afonso IV of Portugal.

The present analysis of the major Iberian chronicles written in the vernacular between 1270 and 1330 focuses on the prologues as interpretative keys to official yet popular historical narratives. A historicist approach to the prologues can serve not only to distinguish the ruling élites perception of their national identity and destiny, but also to question their own understanding of the imaginative and ideological functions of historical writing. Such a hermeneutic exercise and historicist critique has three primary objectives: (1) to disclose the ways in which royal authority, courtly convention, national community, and aristocratic interpretation serve to mediate the reception of these texts as exemplary stories; (2) to recognize the appropriation ofepic and chivalric narrative genres, as well as the adaptation ofclerical historiography and hagiography, into a new historical mythography that fuses the discourse of royal/ 1 J have used the following editions for all quotations: EE = Alfonso X, [Estoria de Espanna, or] Primera crénica general, 2 vols., ed. R. Menéndez Pidal (Madrid: Gredos, 1955, rev. ed.). GE = Alfonso X, General estoria, Part 1, ed. A.G. Solalinde (Madrid: Junta para Ampliacién de Estudios e Investigaciones Cientificas, Centro de Estudios Histéricos, 1930). LF = Jaume I, Llibre dels feits, in Les quatre grans croniques, ed. F. Soldevila (Barcelona: Selecta, 1971). Pedro Afonso, Conde de Barcelos, Livros das Linhagens, in PMH = Portugaliae Monumenta Historica, vol. 1: Scriptores, ed. A. Herculano [1856] (Nendeln, Lichtenstein: Kraus, 1967). See also Pedro Afonso, Conde de Barcelos, Crénica Geral de Espanha, 3 vols., ed. L.E Lindley Cintra (Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional, Casa da Moeda, 1951-61).

2 For examples of cultural historicist critical theory, see the studies in H. Aram Veeser, ed., The New Historicism (New York: Routledge, 1989). See also Hayden White, The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1987). For the relevance of this approach to [beromedieval texts, see Roberto J. Gonzälez-Casanovas, “Text and Context in Alfonsine Studies: Is the New Medievalism for Alfonsistas?,” Exemplaria Hispanica, 1 (1991-92), pp. Vii-XxxIV.

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imperial power with the contexts of particular ethnic/national cultures; and (3) to determine the process through which the rhetorical codes of meaning and action that operate at the courts come to negotiate the relationships between the mythopoetic and sociopolitical orders. This critical exercise, which ultimately calls for an extensive study of the relation of the general prologues to main sections of the narrative, highlights the parallel transformation of Iberian history and historiography in the thirteenth century. All three editors of chronicles, Alfonso X, Jaume I, and Pedro Afonso, as well as the latter's patrons Dinis and Afonso IV, take an active part both in making the history of the Reconquest and in promoting the historiography ofIberia’s medieval renaissance. They share direct relationships of familial ties and literary influence: Jaume I of Aragon is Alfonso X’s father-in-law, as well as one of his models as legislator and chronicler, along with his uncle Frederick I] Hohenstauffen of Sicily (r.1212-50);?

Alfonso X himself is Dinis’ grandfather and the great-grandfather of the legitimate Afonso IV and illegitimate Pedro Afonso, as well as their major historiographical model. Indeed, the Alfonsine Hispanic chronicle and world history in Castilian, and also the Jacobean national chronicle in Catalan, beget their own family of continuations, translations, and adaptations. The understanding of Iberian history that emerges in these chronicles reflects the common experience of the Christian Reconquest ofthe Peninsula, the shared values of the ruling élites of the three kingdoms, the similar rhetorical strategies of redefining contemporary courtly authority, and the related goals of fostering a national or regional reception. At the same time, marked differences should be noted in the particular historical conceptions, literary styles, and ideological codes of the three chroniclers. Alfonso X the Wise (r.1252-84) participates in his father’s (St. Fernando

III’s)

reconquest of Seville in 1248, the major event of the Castilian Reconquest since Toledo’s capture by Alfonso VI in 1085; earlier, he had directed the recapture of Murcia in 1243.5 He is the dynastic and cultural heir of Fernando III's policy of unification in its four aspects ofcristianizacién (overriding rule of faith), castellanizacién (unity of central and local administration), romanizacién (unity of civil law), and 3

See Eugenio Montes, “Federico IT de Sicilia y Alfonso X de Castilla,” Anejo de Revista de Estudios

Politicos, 10 (1943), pp. 1-31; Roberto Sabatino Lépez, “Entre el Medioevo y el Renacimiento: Alfonso X y Federico II,” Revista de Occidente, 43 [extra 11] (1984), pp. 7-14. 4 See Ramén Menéndez Pidal, “Estudio” and “Fuentes,” Primera crénica general, vol. 1: pp. xv—lxxii; Martf de Riquer, “Literatura histdrica,” Historia de la literatura catalana (Barcelona: Ariel, 1964), vol. 1, pp. 373-508; Ferran Soldevila, “Introduccié” and “Prefacis,” in Les quatre grans croniques, pp. 3-126;

Lufs Filipe Lindley Cintra, “Introdugao,” Crénica GeraldeEspanha de 1344, vol. 1, pp. xxiii—dlxxi; and Diego Catalan, De Alfonso X al conde de Barcelos (Madrid: Gredos, 1962). > For general background on Alfonso X, his renaissance, his reign, his aspirations, his court, and his culture, see Robert I. Burns, ed., Emperor of Culture: Alfonso X the Learned of Castile and His ThirteenthCentury Renaissance (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1990); Antonio Ballesteros Beretta, Alfonso el Sabio (Barcelona: Albir, Academia Alfonso X, 1984, 2nd ed.); Cayetano J. Socarrés, AlfonsoX of Castile: A Study on Imperialistic Frustration (Barcelona: Hispam, 1976); J.N. Hillgarth, “Some Figures

of the Age” and “Castile and Granada,

1252-1325,”

The Spanish Kingdoms, 1250-1516 (Oxford:

Clarendon Press, 1976), vol. 1, pp. 215-21 and 287-333; Evelyn S. Procter, Alfonso X of Castile, Patron of Literature and Learning (Oxford: Clarendon, 1951); and Francisco Marquez Villanueva, “The Alfonsine Cultural Concept,” Alfonso X of Castile the Learned King, eds. F. Marquez Villanueva and C. Vega (Cambridge: Harvard Studies in Romance Languages, 1990), pp. 76-109.

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mudejarizacién (synthesis of Oriental and Western culture). Alfonso X sees the need to link his own vision of imperial unity and dignity (as would-be Holy Roman Emperor and emperor ofthe Christian Hispanic kingdoms), the so-called fecho d’Imperio, to the interpretation ofthe history of the Reconquest, the fecho d'Espanna that dominates the Estoria de Espanna, and the interpretation of world history, the grandes fechos of biblical and classical antiquity that define the General estoria. For the Alfonsine chroniclers (those working during three successive reigns from 1250 to 1295 under

the direction of Fernando III, Alfonso X, and Sancho IV), even Iberian history acquires universal dimensions within the general history of Western Christendom and the crusades. In this universalist light, several aspects of the Estoria de Espanna deserve further critical study. The Alfonsine chronicle constitutes a pan-Hispanic historiography on the evolution of all the peoples of the peninsula who are heirs to the RomanoVisigothic eras: “mandamos ayuntar quantos libros pudimos auer de istorias en que alguna cosa contassen de los fechos d’Espanna . . ., compusiemos este libro de todos los fechos que fallar se pudieron della desdel tiempo de Noé fasta el nuestro” (EE, prol.; vol. 1: 4). It promotes a cultural understanding of history (geographic, ethnic,

religious, and political) in which the Iberian or Hispanic people’s deeds, or fechos, are seen more as exemplary processes of formation and transformation than as a series of dramatic moments or events. It also represents an effort to establish a neo-Roman or Romance historiography in political and cultural, as well as linguistic and rhetorical ways. In the Estoria de Espanna the chroniclers claim: “Los sabios antiguos . . . touieron que menguarfen en los fechos et en su lealtad si tan bien no lo quisiessen pora

los que aufen de venir como pora sf mismos o pora los otros que eran en so tiempo; . . . porque no cayessen en oluido mostraron manera por que los sopiessen los que de aufen de uenir empés ellos . . .” (prol.; vol. 1: 4). Similarly, in the General estoria the chroniclers explain: “[T]rabaiaron se los sabios omnes de meter en escripto los fechos que son passados pora auer remembrança dellos, como si estonçes fuessen e quelo sopiessen los que aufen de uenir assf como ellos. E fizieron desto muchos libros, que son llamados estorias e gestas” (Pt. 1, prol.: 3). It seeks to redefine imperial authority in relation to “modern”

(i.e. late-medieval)

contexts

and textualities that call for

multiple levels of translation and translatio.’ The Estoria de Espanna assumes the para-biblical status of a secular scripture,® as it strives to replace the clerical authority of Latin chronicles and at the same time to transcribe and thus transform the oral authority of vernacular epic-verse histories. The

6

James

Burke, “Alfonso

X and Structuring of Spanish

History,” Revista

Canadiense de Estudios

Hispdnicos, 9 (1985), pp. 464-71; Alan Deyermond, “The Death and Rebirth of Visigothic Spain in

the Estoria de Espana,” Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispdnicos, 9 (1985), pp. 345-67. 7 Charles Fraker, “Alfonso X, the Empire, and the Primera crénica,” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 55

(1978), pp. 95-102; Anthony Cardenas,

“The Literary Prologue of Alfonso X: Nexus between

Chancery and Scriptorium,” Thought, 60, 239 (1985), pp. 456-67, and “Alfonso’s Scriptorium and Chancery: The Role of the Prologue in Binding the Translatio Studti to the Translatio Potestatis,” in R.I. Burns, ed., Emperor of Culture, pp. 90-108. 8 See, for example, Northrop Frye, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (New York: Harcourt

Brace Jovanovich, 1982), and Milade Buda, Medieval History and Discourse: Toward a Topography of Textuality (New York: Peter Lang, 1990).

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affirmation of the king’s authority, as interpreter of human history (itselfa revelation of God’s providence) and as arbiter of historiography, manifests itself most clearly in the General estoria:° [PJor todas estas cosas yo don Alfonsso, por la gracia de Dios rey..., después que ove fecho ayuntar muchos escriptos e muchas estorias delos fechos antiguos, escogi dellos los mas uerdaderos e los meiores que y sope; e fiz ende fazer este libro, e mandé y poner todos los fechos sennalados tan bien delas estorias dela Biblia, como delas otras grandes cosas que acahesçieron por el mundo, desde que fue comengado fastal nuestro tiempo.

(GE Pt 1, prol: 3)

However, one should note the common quasi-scriptural authority that emerges from the prologues of both the national chronicle (which assimilates the clerical historio-

graphy in Latin on Hispania of the early-thirteenth-century writers Lucas de Tuy, known as the Tudense, and Rodrigo Ximénez de Rada, archbishop of Toledo, known as the Toledano’) and the world history (which incorporates, translates, and edits the vulgate Old Testament as well as classical histories). We may compare, for example, the following passages from the Estoria de Espanna and from the General estoria: [E]scriuieron los fechos tan bien de los locos cuemo de los sabios, et otrossf daquellos que fueron fieles en la ley de Dios et de los que no, et las leys de los sanctuarios et las de

los pueblos, et los derechos de las clerezias et los de los legos; et escriuieron otrossi las gestas de los principes, tan bien de los que fizieron mal cuemo de los fizieron bien, por

que los que después uiniessen por los fechos de los buenos punnassen en fazer bien, et por los de los malos que se castigassen de fazer mal, et por esto fue enderagado el curso

del mundo de cada una cosa en su orden . . . (EE, prol.; vol. 1: 4)

[C]ontaron delos fechos de Dios, delos prophetas, delos sanctos, et otrosi delos reyes, delos altos omnes, delas cauallerfas, e delos pueblos; e dixieron la uerdat de todas las cosas e non quisieron nada encobrir, tan bien delos que fueron buenos como delos que

fueron malos. E esto fizieron por que delos fechos delos buenos tomassen los omnes exemplo pora fazer bien et delos fechos delos malos reçibiessen castigo por se guardar delo non fazer. (GE, Pt. 1, prol.: 3)

Not only does the Estoria de Espanna stress the national mission in terms of a providential history modeled upon Old Testament narratives, but it also seeks systematically to integrate the biblical, classical, clerical, and epic texts (oral and written) then available into a master text of Christian Hispania’ rise, fall, trials, and restoration which unfolds within the metatext of Christianity’s and Christendom’s own growth,

crises, and transformations.'! This integrationist intention is reinforced by the Wise King’s alleged plans to take up once again the abandoned project of the history of Hispania, as the continuation and culmination (in effect the missing seventh part) of the world history, and extend it to his own ambitious reign. ? See Francisco Rico, Alfonso el Sabioy la “General estoria” (Barcelona: Ariel, 1984).

10 See Lucas de Tuy, Chronicum mundi, in Crénica de España, ed. J. Pujol (Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 1926); and Rodrigo Ximénez de la Rada, De rebus Hispaniae, in Opera, 3 vols., ed. FA. Lorenza (Madrid: Vidua loachimi Ibarra, 1782-93). On Ximénez de Rada or the Toledano, see José Gémez Pérez, “La més antigua traduccién de las Crénicas del Toledano,” Hispania, 87 (1962), pp. 1-17; and Benito Sdnchez Alonso, “Las versiones en romance de las Crénicas del Toledano,” in Homenaje a Menéndez Pidal (Madrid, 1925), vol. 1, pp. 341-54.

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The Alfonsine chronicles function as new epic and didactic narratives on the heroism and virtue of the Hispanic peoples and their leaders: “Esto fiziemos por que fuesse sabudo el comienço de los espannoles et de quäles yentes fuera Espanna maltrecha . . .; cémo fueron los cristianos después cobrando la tierra . . .; después cuémo la ayunté Dios, et por qudles maneras et en qual tiempo, quäles reyes ganaron la tierra fasta el mar Mediterräneo; qué obras fizo cada uno assf cuémo uinieron unos empés otros fastal nuestro tiempo” (EE prol.; I: 4). The literary aspects of Alfonsine historiography go beyond generic or stylistic concerns of narrative to embrace questions of interpretative figuration and signification.!2 The fecho d'Espanna becomes more than a heroic theme or an epic mode: it emerges as the central mythic story, symbolic paradigm, and receptive code ofvalues for the contemporary court. Jaume I the Conqueror (r.1213-76) emerges in his autobiographical chronicle as

protagonist of the Catalan people's expansion along and into the Mediterranean with the conquest of the Balearic islands in 1229-35 and reconquest of Valencia in 1238.15 Indeed, it is the need to interpret the full significance of these two feats that serves as the point of departure for writing the Llibre dels feits. In Jaume’s long and momentous reign the opportunities presented by history, and seized by the Catalan king and nobles, lead to a formative period in the federal crown of Aragon (dominated by Catalonia), as the center of gravity, if not of power, begins to move away from Barcelona and beyond Iberia proper. This formation later culminates, in the fourteenth century, in the Catalan expansion along the Mediterranean from the Balearics to Sicily and Athens, which is chronicled by Ramon Muntaner (1328) and Pere III [IV of Aragon] (1375-89).'4 The Liibre dels feits represents a nationalist and dynastic

historiography designed to foster ethnic identity beyond the Catalan heartland and to

promote federal authority among the various kingdoms incorporated into the Catalan crown ofAragon: this now receives its definitive form with the constitutive kingdoms 11 See Menéndez Pidal, “Estudio,” Primera crénica, vol. 1, pp. xxxiv-lvi; Procter, “Historical Works,” Alfonso X, 78-112; D.G. Pattison, From Legend to Chronicle: The Treatment ofEpic Material in Alphon-

sine Historiography (Oxford: Society for the Study of Mediaeval Languages and Literatures, 1983). Cf.

Roberto J. Gonzälez-Casanovas, “The Function of Epic in Alfonso X’s Estoria de Espanna,” Olifant, 15 (1990), pp. 157-78. 12 See Diego Catalan, “España en su historiografia: De objeto a sujeto de la historia,” the introduction to R. Menéndez Pidal, Los españoles en la historia (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1982), pp. 9-67; Fernando Gémez Redondo, “La funcién del ‘personaje’ en la Estoria de Espanna,” Anuario de Estudios Medievales,

14 (1984), pp. 187-210; José A. Maravall, El concepto de Espana en la Edad Media (Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Polfticos, 1964, 2nd ed.). 13 For general background on Jaume I and his era, see Robert I. Burns, The Crusader Kingdom of

Valencia, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1967), and “The Spiritual Life of James the Conqueror,” Moors and Crusaders in Mediterranean Spain (London: Variorum, 1978), section I, pp. 1-35; Robert I. Burns, ed., The Worlds ofAlfonso the Learned and James the Conqueror: Intellect and Force in the Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1985); T.N. Bisson, “James the Conqueror,” The Medieval Crown of Aragon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), pp. 58-85; and J.N. Hillgarth, “The Crown ofAragon, 1229-1327: A Mediterranean Empire?,” Spanish Kingdoms, vol. 1, pp. 233-86. 14 For texts of Muntaner and Pere III’s chronicles, see Les quatre grans croniques, ed. F. Soldevila, pp. 667-999 and 1003-1225. For criticism, see Riquer, “Ramon Muntaner” and “EI rei Pere el Cere-

moniés,” Historia de literatura catalana, vol. 1, pp. 449-80 and 480-501; Soldevila, “Prefaci a Cronica de Ramon Muntaner” and “Prefaci a Cronica de Pere el Ceremoniés,” Quatre grans croniques, pp. 91-101 and 105-26. Cf. David Viera, “Chronicle of Ramon Muntaner” and “Chronicle of Peter III,”

Medieval Catalan Literature (New York: Twayne, 1988), pp. 48-55 and 56-62.

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of Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, and the Balearics; soon it begins to evolve into the dynastic House of Aragon (with affiliated kingdoms in Sicily and Naples, and a duchy in Athens).

It should be remarked, however, that in Jaume’s case the prologue to the autobiographical, and therefore contemporary, royal chronicle does not, like the other Castilian and Portuguese prologues, offer a full interpretative frame for the historical experience of a nation/people and their leaders as defined by their common culture and language. Rather, it is in the epilogue, the king’s testament to his son and heir, that such a frame is finally constructed. This is proper, since the other prologues are in reality epilogues in that they are usually written after the events chronicled take place, are recorded and evaluated, and are then subjected to compiling and editing. In Jaume’s case, his history is contemporaneous with his mature life (1244-74 for the chronicle and 1213-76 for the reign). The prologue itselfisonly a tentative, generalized

evaluation

of his life that invites

reflection:

“[PJer tal que els homens

coneguessen e sabessen, quan haurfem passada aquesta vida mortal, ço que nds hauriem feit ajudant-nos lo Senyor poderés, en qui és vera trinitat, lleixam aquest libre per memoria, a aquells qui volran oir de les gracies que Nostre Senyor nos ha feites, e per dar exempli a tots los altres homens del mén, que facen ço que nds havem feit de metre sa fe en aquest Senyor qui és tant poderés” (c 1: 26). It is only in the epilogue, then, when at last the king sees the end to his life approaching, as well as the end to his epoch-making conquests, that he can begin to give a closure to his history and impose a historical pattern that represents an interpretative typology. The Liibre dels feits represents a crusade epic in prose in which the military actions of the religious and national heroes acquire a narrative force and symbolic value that is extraordinary in its emphasis on contemporary events: “[Valéncia] és la mellor terra e la pus bella del mén. .. . E no ha vui dejüs Déu tan delités llogar com és la ciutat de València e tot aquell regne . . .; e si Déus vol que aquell conquirats, e volra-ho, la mellor cosa haurets conquesta de delits e de forts castells que sia al mon... . E si aquella prenets, podets ben dir que sots lo mellor Rei del mén, e aquell qui tant ha feit” (c.128-29: 63). These events are seen as part of a great period of trials for the

Catalan peoples, represented by the royal and aristocratic élite, as they stand on the threshold of a historical transformation from a strategic region (the former Spanish Marches of Charlemagne’s empire) into a multinational crown and imperial power. The decisive phase of the Catalan Reconquest is thus contemporaneous with the emergence of a national consciousness and national institutions, as well as a vernacular nationalist historiography, that respond to the challenge of expansion from without and. that reflect the challenge of reform from within." The Catalan chronicle functions as a book of chivalric adventures that follow the king and nobles in the pursuit of honor, justice, and glory. These serve to idealize, in terms of official propaganda and popular narrative, historical developments in the ever-expanding conception of Catalan territory, rule, and power: “[P]er tal que sabessen los cristians que nostra era Valéncia, . . . que metessen nostra senyera en la torre

15 Burns, “Castle of Intellect, Castle of Force,” in Burns, ed., Worlds, pp. 3-22; Bisson, “James the Conqueror,” Medieval Crown of Aragon, pp. 58-85.

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els)

que ara és del Temple . . . [QJuan vim nostra senyera sus en la torre descavalcam del avall, e endreçam-nos vers orient, e ploram de nostres ulls, e besam la terra per la gran mercè que Déus nos havia feita” (c.283: 114). On this imaginative and idealistic

plane, which goes beyond the model of epic historiography,'® the notion offeit itself resonates with nuances of marvelous occurrence, knightly ritual, and courtly recitation that distinguish it from the Alfonsine understanding offecho as a historical phenomenon of restoration (Christian and Hispanic) and an ideological program of unification (national and imperial). Jaume concerns with national unity and legitimacy parallel those of his son-in-law Alfonso X. But the Catalan chronicle differs from the Castilian in the treatment of epic materials and juridical issues. Jaume patterns his exploits, and those of his nobles, upon epic and chivalric models without imitating particular sources (although he may incorporate contemporary epic-like songs about his own deeds):!7 “Co que Déus vol no pot negt desviar ni tolre e plaer-vos ha, e tindrem per bo que vés aquella illa [Mallorca] conquirats per dues raons: la primera que vés ne valrets més e nés, l’altra que sera cosa meravellosa a les gents que oiran aquesta conquesta que prengats terra e regne dins en la mar on Déus lo volc formar. . . . Déus nos ha feita tanta de gracia que ens ha donat regne dins en mar, ço que anc rei dEspanya no poc acabar” (cc 47, 105: 28, 55). Alfonso, meanwhile, continues the practice of early-thirteenth-century Latin chroniclers Lucas de Tuy and Rodrigo Ximénez de Rada of prosifying older Castilian epic verse. Moreover, Jaume stresses the secular legal notion of pactisme, or contractual agreement among ruler, nobles, and people, as the basis for national unity and expansion: “[N]és vos pregam molt carament . . . per Déu [e] per naturalea que nds havem ab vés, que vos ens donets consell e ajuda . . . que n6s puscam nostra terra metre en pau; . . . que nds puscam servir a Nostre Senyor en est viatge que volem fer sobre el regne de Mallorques e les altres illes que pertanyen a aquella; . . . [e] que hajam conseil d’haver en manera que aquest feit puscam complir a honor de Déu” (LF c 48: 29). Alfonso, on the other hand, describes the negative effects of feudal tradi-

tions when they conflict with royal authority, as well as the positive biblical models of a nation’s or people’s covenant with providence and their heroes’ election and commissioning by God (as occurs with Pelayo, Fernan Gonzalez, and even his father, the

saintly Fernando III, who is venerated in his lifetime and after his death, but not canonized until 167118).

The Catalan chronicle offers a paradigm of courtly authority that combines hierarchy with consensus. Jaume’s repeated references to divine grace, royal service, chivalric code, and popular support are recapitulated and integrated into his testament, in effect the epilogue to his chronicle: Dixem [a Pere que]... primerament . . . Nostre Senyor nos havia honrat en aquest segle, e especialment sobre nostres enemics, e en. . . nos havia feit regnar al seu servii pus de

16 Riquer, Historia, vol. 1, pp. 412-18 and 423-25; Viera, Medieval Catalan Literature, pp. 33-36. 17 Riquer, “El Libre dels feyts de Jaume I,” Historia de literatura catalana, vol. 1, pp. 394-429; Soldevila,

“Prefaci a la Cronica de Jaume I,” Quatre grans croniques, pp. 9-64. Cf. Viera, “The Catalan Chronicles and the Chronicle of James I,” Medieval Catalan Literature, pp. 33-40. 18 See Estoria de Espanna, cc 566-77, vol. 2, pp. 321-29 (Pelayo); cc 684-728, vol. 2, pp. 390-426

(Fernän Gonzdlez); and cc 1028-1134, vol. 2, pp. 712- 74 (Fernando III).

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seixanta anys, més que no era en memoria, ne trobava hom que negun rei, de David o de Salomé enga, hagués tant regnat, e que amas sancta Esglèsia; e. . . haviem haiida amore

dileccié generalmenl de tota nostra gent, e com nos érem honrat ab ella. E tot agd reconeixfem que ens era vengut de Nostre Senyor Jesucrist; e car nôs per la major partida nos érem esforgat de seguir la sua carrera e els seus manaments; e ell [Pere III} que degués pendre exemple de nés quant açd, que era via de bé: e que aixf mateix li pendria, ell

complent e faent açd. (LF c 562: 188-89).

What stands out throughout the chronicle is the king’s particular interest in collaborating with aristocratic and civic élites in the development of Catalan consensus and reforms for the good of the whole ofhis expanded realm. His chronicle emphasizes the legal and political authority of the reconquests undertaken by the king, nobles, and municipal oligarchies. In effect, it serves as the narrative and exemplary complement to the juridical documents, the Llibre de usatges (Catalonia’s medieval constitution and magna carta) and Liibre del consolat del mar (Europe’s first maritime law code), that

emerge in the Catalan vernacular from the chancery of the Crown of Aragon in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries under Jaume and his successors.1° Jaume’s chronicle projects a prophetic dimension of historiography by identifying

and idealizing the particular traits of Catalan cultural, social, and political virtues (such as pragmatism, pactisme, federalism). For Jaume, the Catalans are destined to

become the most heroic and authentic representatives of the legendary, mythical identity of Hispania, which is now being translated into a modern history of Aragonese reconquest and expansion: “[N]6s ho fem la primera cosa per Déu, la segona per salvar Espanya, la terça que { nds e vos hajam tan bon preu e tan gran nom

que per nos e per vôs és salvada Espanya. E, fe que devem a Déu, pus aquells de Catalunya, que és lo mellor regne d’Espanya, el pus honrat e el pus noble” (LF c 392: 129). Whether or not this typology ofethnicity (that borders on the stereotypical) and typology of history (that reflects a nation’s manifest destiny) correspond to historical

fact, they do serve as historiographical models for all subsequent Catalan chronicles (Desclot 1283-88, Muntaner 1325-28, and Pere II] 1375-89),2 for they operate as both traditional mentalités and foundational icons for the reception of Catalan history by all present and future Catalan rulers and nobles. Pedro Afonso, Count ofBarcelos (12802-1354), son and brother of the Portuguese kings Dinis | the Generous (r.1279-1325) and Afonso IV the Brave (r.1325-57),

comes to articulate from an insider’s point of view the court’s own understanding of the importance of repopulation, reform, and renaissance in the Iberian Reconquest at the turn of the thirteenth century.’ Himself a military campaigner and major landowning noble who suffered exile in Castile (1317-22) during the civil war between 19 See Bisson, Medieval Crown of Aragon, pp. 50-56, 72-75 (Usatges), 99 (Consolat). 20 For the text of Desclot’s Cronica, see Quatre grans crèniques, ed. F. Soldevila, pp. 403-663. For criticism on Desclot, see Riquer, “La Crônica de Desclot,” Historia de literatura catalana, vol. 1, PP.

429-48, and Soldevila, “Prefaci a la Crônica de Bernat Desclot,” Quatre grans croniques, pp. 67-87. Cf. Viera, “Bernat Desclots Chronicle,” Medieval Catalan Literature, pp. 41-47. For Muntaner and Pere III, see note 14 above.

2! For general background on Pedro Afonso, Count of Barcelos, as well as the political and literary relations of Portugal with Castile, see Cintra, “O conde D. Pedro de Barcelos,” Crénica Geral, vol. 1, pp. cxxvii—cxc; Diego Catalan, “La historiograffa portuguesa anterior a la obra historial de don Pedro de Barcelos” and “Don Pedro de Barcelos y la entrada de la historiograffa alfons{ en Portugal,” De AlfonsoX

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Dinis and his heir, Pedro Afonso sees the need to reeducate the king and nobility about their historical relations as a social institution and ruling class, as part of the exemplary history of the champions of European Christendom, and as the symbolic embodiment of the nation’s identity within Hispania and its mission in the Reconquest. What emerges in Pedro’s Livro das Linhagens, or Nobildrio, as well as in the Crénica geral, is the gradual formulation ofa dynastic and aristocratic historiography. This serves as a bridge between thirteenth-century universal histories of Hispania and fifteenth-century court biographies of particular dynasties, and bridges as well the European preoccupation with feudal and chivalric codes and the Iberian traditions of combining quasi-biblical narratives with political utopias. In the Linhagens, the central organizing structure of Portuguese history evolves into a complex notion of genealogy: “[E]u, comde Dom Pedro, filho do muy nobre Rey Dom Denis, ouve de catar por gram trabalho por muitas terras escripturas que fallavam dos linhageés. E veemdo as escripturas com grande estudo e em como fallavam doutros gramdes fectos, compuge este livro por gaanhar o seu amor e por meter amor e amizade antre os nobres fidallgos da Espanha” (Livro das Linhagens IV, or “Nobilidrio do Conde D. Pedro,” PMH, vol. 1: 230-31). This courtly notion of genealogy replaces the royal annals and the providential cycles of grace, fall, and restoration common to clerical and Alfonsine chroniclers. Unlike Alfonso X’s focus on the fulfillment ofa crusading and civilizing mission (Christian and Roman Hispania

restored) and Jaume’s concern with epic exploits and foundation events (Catalan virtues and contracts), Pedro Afonso’s genealogical interests redefine history, not in terms of the gradual formation ofidentity and transformation of power, but rather in terms of the evolving relationships among rulers and traditional responsibilities of rule. The Portuguese chronicler understands history as genealogy in the strictest as well as broadest senses: lines of descent, series of exemplars, networks of influence, and

bonds of power. This leads him to concentrate on the Iberian and Portuguese versions of feudal society,’ as defined in the rest of Western Europe, in what amounts to a conservative attempt to restore a golden age and renew a privileged status. As continuator of the earlier genealogies, the Livros velhos, and general editor of the series of Livros das Linhagens, the Count of Barcelos is probably responsible for editing the older prologues as well as writing the fourth prologue, which offers the full manifesto of his aristocratic program of restoration. Already in the first prologue, one finds the core of Pedro Afonso’s neofeudalist rationale: Por saberem os homens fidalgos de Portugal de qual linhagem vém e de que coutos,

honras, mosteiros e igrejas sao naturais, e por saberem com sao parentes, fazemos escrever este livro. . . . [DJeste livro se pode seguir muita prole e arredar muito dano: c4 muitos vém de bom linhagem e nao o sabem . . .; se o soubessem, em alguma maneira lhes viria ende bem . . . [:] nado casam como devem .

., so naturais e padroeiros de. . .

al conde de Barcelos, pp. 207-88 and 291-411, and also “La versién portuguesa de la Crénica general,”

Romance Philology, 13 (1959), pp. 67-75. 22 A.H. de Oliveira Marques, “A era feudal,” Histéria de Portugal (Lisboa: Palas, 1985, 12th ed.), vol. 1, pp. 151-233; José Mattoso, “A sociedade senhorial e feudal,” /dentificaçäo de um pats: Ensaio sobre as origens de Portugal, 1096-1325 (Lisboa: Estampa, 1991), vol. 1, pp. 83-290.

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“muitas honras e .. . terras que o perdem.

. .; se fazem naturais de muitos lugares onde o nao sao... . (Livro Velho das Linhagens |, prol.; PMH, vol. 1: 143)

This posture contrasts with Dinis’ own radical measures at reform (liberation of serfs,

promotion of a middle class, formulation of aMagna Carta, restructuring of administration) that bring the king into conflict with the nobility, the church, and his own heir, all of which have parallels in Alfonso X’s programs of reform and his troubled

reign. On the other hand, it brings to mind the contemporaneous figure in Castile of Juan Manuel (1282-1348), nephew ofAlfonso X and co-regent of Alfonso XI, who represents, especially in his Libro de los estados (1327-30, on social orders) and Libro de las armas (1342-45, on his own noble genealogy), a conservative aristocrat’s nostal-

gia for an idealized past of virtue and power that would correspond to a divinely established mission for the nobility.2 The Portuguese counts’ chronicles articulate on behalf of the court an idealistic chivalric code that in effect attempts to achieve a synthesis of West European (especially Anglo-French) and Iberian (particularly Alfonsine, but also Hispano-Arabic) values of aristocracy. On the one hand, chivalry is seen as a dynamic balance of privileges and obligations, especially with respect to the king, that can be summed up in the notion of amistade developed in the fourth prologue, that to the Nobilério. This amistade is the very first reason Pedro cites for writing the work; it is also the prerequisite for a united crusade on the part of all “Hispanic” or Iberian knights and nobles: “por seerem de hud coraçom de averem de seguir os seus emmiigos, que som em estroimento da fe de Jesu Christo” (Livro das Linhagens IV or “Nobilidrio do Conde D. Pedro”; PMH, vol. 1: 230-31). On the other hand, chivalric values, feudal

codes, and aristocratic powers are seen as a historical tradition and envisioned as a historical typology: “[C]ompuge este livro . . . por os Reys averem de conheger aos vivos com merçees por os merecimientos e trabalhos e grandes lazeiras que rreceberom 0$ seus avoos em sse guaanhar esta terra da Espanha per elles. . . . Fallaremos . . . do linhagem dos homeés e dos Reys de Jerusalem, des Adam até a naçença de Jesu Christo[,] . . . dos Reys da Troya e dos Reys de Roma e emperadores e dos Reys da Gram Bretanha” (Livro das Linhagens IV, or “Nobilidrio do Conde D. Pedro”; PMH, vol. 1: 230-31). From these phenomena derives a need to investigate the precise

23 On Dinis, see Sheila R. Ackerlind, King Dinis of Portugal and the Alfonsine Heritage (New York: Peter Lang, 1990). On Alfonso X, see Robert A. Macdonald, “Law and Politics: Alfonso [X]’s Program of Political Reform,” in R.I. Burns, ed., Worlds, pp. 150-202; Joseph F. O’Callaghan, “Image and Reality: The King Creates His Kingdom,” in R.I. Burns, ed., Emperor of Culture, pp. 14-32, and “The Ideology

of Government in the Reign of Alfonso X of Castile,” Exemplaria Hispanica, | (1991-92), pp- 1-17; and Socarrds, Alfonso X.

24 For the texts of Juan Manuel, see Libro de las armas and Libro de los estados, in Obras completas, ed. J.M. Blecua (Madrid: Gredos,

1982), vol. 1, pp. 121-40 and 195-502. For criticism, see José R. Araluce Cuenca, E/ Libro de los Estados: Don Juan Manuel yla sociedad de su tiempo (Madrid: Porrüa Turanzas, 1976); José A. Maravall, “La sociedad estamental castellana y la obra de Juan Manuel,” Estudios de historia del pensamiento espanol, \: Edad Media (Madrid: Cultura Hispanica, 1983, 3rd ed.),

pp- 453-71; Marfa Cecilia Ruiz, Literatura y politica: El “Libro de los estados” y el “Libro de las armas”de don Juan Manuel (Potomac: Scripta Humanistica, 1989). Cf. Ian Macpherson, ed., Juan Manuel Studies (London: Tamesis, 1977).

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origins.and ramifications oflineage, as well as a desire to remind present generations of their ancestors’ example as norm and guide.’ Pedro Afonso’s historiography constitutes a revision, albeit a conservative one, of both European and Alfonsine conceptions of medieval history: “Por esta materea seer mais crara € os nobres fidallgos saberem gram parte dos linhageés dos Reys e emperadores e dos feytos . . . que forom e passarom nas outras terras, do comeco do mundo, hu os seus avoos forom a demamdar suas aventuyras, por que elles gaanharom nome e os que delles deçenderom” (Livro das Linhagens IV, or “Nobilidrio do Conde D. Pedro”; PMH, vol. 1: 231). Now neither the development ofthe crusades (including

the Iberian Reconquest) nor the emergence of nation-states on the way to empire can be said to be as central to the history of Portugal as the proper formation of its rulers and ruling classes. One should note the later redactions of Pedro’s works in the beginning ofthe fourteenth century: they come after the limitations of both Alfonso X’s and Jaume I's (as well as Dinis’) efforts at royal reform and divisions among various

groups (king, nobility, clergy, bourgeois) in the new expanded national kingdoms have become manifest. It is not surprising, then, that the new Livro das Linhagens, or Nobilärio, along with the Crénica geral, emphasizes something much more fundamental and less ambitious in the history of akingdom. Rather than emphasize the greater issues of providential or imperial mission ofa great age of formation and expansion, Pedro devotes his narrative and interpretative skills to the proper cultural traditions, social values, and political training of those who are to rule the commonwealth during the new times of military stalemate, institutional stagnation, dynastic crisis, and civil war.”° A comparison of these texts shows the importance, as courtly propaganda in the

vernacular, of chronicles that transform the kingdoms’ history of expansion into the story of the Christian Reconquest. Where they differ is in the vision of national history as well as in the type of nationalist narrative: the Castilian “scriptural and providential” narrative recounts the trials and restoration of Hispania as the nation of God’s elect; the Catalan “epic and chivalric” autobiography memorializes the deeds of the Conqueror and his nobles as champions and co-rulers of anew empire; and the Portuguese “aristocratic and neofeudalist” variation on Alfonso pan-Hispanic history represents a model for the consolidation of the Christian dynasties and nobilities of Iberia, which serves to revise the more conventionally “feudal” and less idealistically “chivalric” traditions found in earlier genealogies of Livros Velhos das Linhagens. The difference in courtly ideals corresponds to diverse cultural contexts (traditions of authority) and political subtexts (models of enlightenment): Alfonso X relates the

deeds of the fecho d'Espanna to the politics of the fecho d'Imperio within the contexts of Judeo-Christian and Romano-Visigothic history; Jaume I integrates his own feats of valor within the Catalan practice of pactisme or contractual commonwealth as well as 25 See Anténio Soares Amora, © nobilidrio do conde D. Pedro: Sua concepçäo da histdria e sua técnica narrativa (Sao Paulo, 1948). 26 See Marques, “A crise,” Histéria de Portugal, vol. 1, pp. 189-206, and “A cultura,” A sociedade

medieval portuguesa (Lisboa: Identificaçäo de um pats, vol. crepusculo da Idade Média em Livros das linhagens and Pedro

S4 da Costa, 1987; 5th ed.), pp. 173-84; Mattoso, “Os senhores,” 1, pp. 104-234; Anténio José Saraiva, “Valores e critérios de acçäo,” O Portugal (Lisboa: Gradiva, 1990), pp. 151-276, especially pp. 151-61 on Afonso.

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various Mediterranean traditions of marvelous exploits in acquiring a maritime empire; and Pedro Afonso reestablishes the foundation of Portuguese chivalry in the proper understanding, by kings and nobles alike, of genealogy in terms of amistade, as a set of communal and corporate bonds, network of feudal and class relations, courtly system of principles and standards of behavior, and exemplary concept of “good lineage.” Beyond the differences in cultural history and the distinctions in historical interpretation found among the Castilian, Catalan, and Portuguese chronicles, lies a common attempt in all three Iberian kingdoms to translate into a national historiography the court’s own code ofethics and program of action. Applying the methods of the new historicism to the frames of Alfonso X’s, Jaume I’s, and Pedro Afonso’s works, one can analyze the manner in which each royal-aristocratic court becomes protagonist, interpreter, translator, and receptor of heroic myths about its nation’s past, present, and future. One can even establish that the thirteenth-century courts of Castile, Aragon, and Portugal themselves come to recognize the imaginative and ideological functions of historical narrative in the vernacular, as they seek to legitimize their exercise of power in a “modern” world. In the process, they come to transform historiography into a privileged medium for the apology and critique of the ruling order in an age of territorial expansion, cultural renaissance, and political revision. ‘

CONTEXT AND CHRONICLE |

GENESIS OF PIERRE DE LANGTOFT’S

Thea Summerfield

In a book on Saxon and Norman kings, Christopher Brooke remarks that “the study of medieval history . . . is largely detective work, and there is no reason why it should not be widely enjoyed as such.”* Determining the circumstances which gave rise to the writing of Langtoft’s Anglo-Norman Chronicle in verse, the subject of this article, is nothing less than a detective story. We know “whodunnit”: Pierre de Langtoft, an

Augustinian canon from Bridlington in the North of England, at the beginning ofthe fourteenth century. But what we do not know is why he did it. Yet questions with regard to purpose and patronage are of central importance for a proper understanding of this Chronicle and similar historiographical works. As has in recent years been argued with great lucidity by Gabrielle Spiegel, the “social logic” of such texts, which are at one and the same time products of a particular social environment and agents in that environment, should not be neglected. Only by taking into account the social realities prevailing at the time that Pierre de Langtoft wrote his Chronicle is it possible to understand the message which it contains and the purpose which it served. Previous studies of the work have tended to separate the historical and literary aspects of Langtoft’s Chronicle.“ In doing so they mirror the “compartmentalization”

1 The findings presented here are part of my research into the authorial intentions and contemporary

relevance of Pierre de Langtoft’s Chronicle and its translation by Robert Mannyng; provisional title: The Matter of Kings Lives. References are to The Chronicle of Pierre de Langtoft, ed. T. Wright, 2 vols. (London: Longmans, 1866) (vol., page and line number). This edition is based on four MSS and has the text of the complete Chronicle, plus a parallel translation into English. Parallel references by line

number are given to Pierre de Langtoft: Le Règne d'Edouard ler, ed. J.C. Thiolier, vol. 1 (CELIMACréteil, Univ. de Paris XII, 1989) which deals only with the Chronicle from 1272 to 1307. Further volumes are in preparation. Unless otherwise stated, all references are to what Thiolier calls “the second

redaction”. This represents eighteen manuscripts, of which nine are complete or virtually complete Chronicles. Thiolier’s arguments that two fragmentary and textually deviant manuscripts, dealing only

with the reign of Edward I up to c. 1305, represent a redaction of the text very close to Langtoft’s autograph manuscript (Rédaction I), have failed to convince me. See also below, n. 15. Spelling in quotations is according to Wright’s edition.

2 C. Brooke, The Saxon and Norman Kings (Collins, Fontana Paperbacks, 1967; first publ. Batsford 1963),

3

p. 13.

Gabrielle M. Spiegel, Romancing the Past, The Rise of Vernacular Prose Historiography in Thirteenth-

Century France (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1993). See also by the same author “History, Historicism, and the Social Logic of the Text in the Middle Ages,” Speculum, 65 (1990), pp. 59-86. 4 By historians the earlier parts, from Brutus up to the beginning of the reign of Edward I, are

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of modern scholarly practice and scholarly institutions,> but have not so far succeeded in resolving the questions which Langtoft’s Chronicle has raised. A clear view of Langtoft’s Chronicle has further been obscured by the entirely arbitrary tri-partite division imposed upon all verse chronicle by M.D. Legge, who considered them to consist of “a History of the Britons, a History of the English and a History of His [the authors] Own Times.”® The text of Langtoft’s Chronicle, however, shows no interruption at all between the death of Henry III and the accession of Edward I; nor do the manuscripts show any kind ofdivision here.” The only division which we are justified in making is a division into a historia Brittonum and gesta Anglorum, 2 division clearly indicated by the author.® Langtofts Chronicle deals, in chronological order, vit the kings who ruled Britain, from Brutus to the death of Cadwallader in 689 AD, and with subsequent English kings up to the death of Edward I. For his account of the history of the Britons, Langtoft based himself on Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae (HRB). Although he follows Geoffrey closely as far as events and chronology are concerned, passages of a narrative or descriptive nature have been excised so ruthlessly that even his contemporaries complained about the result.? The history of the Britons is con-

cluded by Merlin’s prophecies. It would be a mistake to think that they are an considered “legendary” and “not of much value to the historian today;” the part dealing with the reign of Edward I, on the other hand, is considered “a contemporary account ofevents by an intelligent and

observant writer, [and] an important authority especially for Anglo-Scottish relations.” Antonia Gransden, Historical Writing in England c.550 to c.1307 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974), pp. 476-77. Literary appreciation of the Chronicle has been low; M.D. Legge considered that “the first two parts of his [Langtoft’s] long chronicle are rightly voted tedious.” M.D. Legge, Anglo-Norman in the Cloisters (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Publications, 1950), p. 73. Gilles Roques recently characterized Langtoft as belonging to “cette catégorie d’auteurs, catalogués comme lourds et mauvais versificateurs,

dont la seule évocation fait frémir les lecteurs, même ceux dont l'estomac solide est prêt à digérer le pire,” in his review of Thiolier, Règne, Revue de Linguistique Romane, 55 (1991), pp. 277-78.

5 The term was coined by Elizabeth Salter. Verse chronicles in general have suffered from the fact that they “tend to fall between the departmental organisation of medieval studies,” as was also pointed out

by Lesley Johnson, “Robert Mannyng’s History of Arthurian Literature,” in Church and Chronicle: the Middle Ages; Essays Presented to John Taylor, ed. lan Wood and G.A. Loud (London: The Hambledon Press, 1991), pp. 129-47 (here 147). 6

M.D. Legge, Anglo-Norman Literature and its Background (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1963), p-

277. This idea has been compounded by referring to the Edwardian section of Langtoft’s Chronicle as “the Life of Edward I” (Legge, Cloisters, 73) or “the Reign of Edward I” (Legge, AN Lit., 278), a title

which was subsequently used by Jean Claude Thiolier for volume I of his new edition of Langtoft’s Chronicle, Le Règne d'Edouard ler. 7 À small number of manuscripts have a prologue between the death of Henry III and Edward I, which sums up what went before; see Thiolier, Règne, pp. 37, 77, 122 (descriptions of MSS A, G, S). In the majority, however, there is nothing which separates the two reigns. See Thiolier, Règne, pp. 42 (MS B), 51 (MS C), 57 (MS D), 87 (MS H), 94 (MS J), 99 (MS L), 110 (MS P1-2), 120 (MS U), 136 (MS Y). 8 At the end ofthe history of the Britons, there is an authorial explicit (1 264:1-8). In the Latini incipit

to the subsequent history of the English (“Incipiunt gesta que sunt Anglis manifesta .. .”) Langtoft presents himself as literally passing on information provided by Bede (“Petrus dictabit quad sibi Beda dabit”) (1 278:4 and Thiolier, Règne, pp. 112-13).

9 The scribe of MS BL Royal 20. A. XI (MS B) expresses his preference for Wace’s Roman de Brut: “Le livere Mestre Wace counte plus parfit/E dit tut la lettre que Peres trop salit” (see Thiolier, Règne, p. 12).

Nevertheless, the MS B scribe did not replace Langtoft by Wace; Robert Mannyng, however, who used MS B for his translation, acted on these words. Echoing the MS B scribe’s sentiments, he states that ‘Mayster Wace pe latyn alle rymes / bat Peres ouerhippis many tymes,” and translated Waces Roman de

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“optional extra,” or were added at a later date. They form an integral part of the Chronicle, as Langtoft himself states in the Chronicle proper: “Le Latyn est escriz de sa prophecye/ En la fin del livre, ke l’em ne oblye” (I 114:18-19). When Geoffreys Historia ends, Langtoft switches to various well-known Latin prose histories for his account of kings up to his own time.!° In this part of the Chronicle some kings are dealt with much more extensively than others, in proportions that have little to do with the length of their reign. The account of Richard’s reign, for instance, is as detailed and as long as that of Edward I, even though Richard was King for only eleven years. In the account of the fifty-six-year reign of Henry III (1216-1272), the authors attention is focused almost entirely on the Crown Prince,

the later Edward I, and events from 1258 onwards; we are told little more about Henry II] than that he was prodhome . . . tuz jours, had two sons and two daughters and had building work carried out, at his own expense, at Westminster (II 134:4-24). Clearly time and space devoted to a particular king’s reign are determined by other considerations than the wish to record faithfully important events of that reign. When Langtoft reached the reign of Edward | (1272-1307), a King who was his contempor-

ary, he used “his own observation and hearsay” as well as official documents (Gransden, Hist. Writing, 482-3). Langtoft probably worked for a number ofyears in the royal chancery, and would have had access to documents there."! Scholarly concentration on the part dealing with the reign of Edward I is reflected in the questions which have been voiced in the past with regard to Langtoft’s Chronicle. All these questions concern features of the representation of Edward’s reign: the large number of references to Arthur and Arthurian matter, the striking role played by the Bishop of Durham and the fact that Langtoft’s report of the events of the reign takes on “a bitterer and bitterer” note, as M.D. Legge puts it (AN Lit, 279). Among the reasons advanced to explain these distinctive traits are Edward’s “Arthurian enthusiasm,”!? a series of revisions of the text,'> a resumption at a later date,'4 and, most recently, an amalgam of the revision and resumption theories by Jean Claude Thiolier,

Brut instead of Langtoft’s version of the HRB for British history. See FJ. Furnivall, The Story of England

by Robert Manning of Brunne, AD 1338 (London, Rolls Series, 1887). 10 Langtoft refers his audience to the works of anumber of historians for further information, among them Bede, Gildas, Henry of Huntingdon and William of Malmesbury (Bede: I 258:11/262:12/278:1;

Gildas: I 232:11/248:1; Henry of Huntingdon: | 286:3, 7/290:3; William of Malmesbury: I 430:10). Langtoft also refers to romances and vitae, such as the livre of Guy of Warwick (I 32:6), the romance of Richard (II 122:3) and the yore of St. Thomas Becket (II 8:1—13). 11 M.D. Legge managed to piece together some facts about Langtoft’s life from charters and documents pertaining to Bridlington priory. It appears that Langtoft, who had had some legal training, spent some

time in the South of England (Legge, Cloisters, p. 70). He may have been part of the remarkably mobile group of lawyers who moved between Westminster and Durham. See C.F Fraser, A History ofAntony

Bek (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1957), pp. 100-105 and Gwyn A. Williams, Medieval London: From Commune to Capital (Univ. of London Hist. Studies no. 11: London: Athlone, 1963), pp. 131-35.

Langtoft’s inside knowledge of current political affairs is suggested by phrases like “[banerez sans numbre,] des quels n’ay mencion” (II 340:16; Thiol.2081) (of whom I have no mention), “[ly altre] oy nomer ...” (II 356:5. Thiol.2271) (I heard named . . .) and “novel avoms oy, entre compaygnouns” (II 362:4; Thiol.2343) (we have heard news, among companions). 12 R.S. Loomis, “Edward I, Arthurian Enthusiast,” Speculum, 28 (1953), pp. 114-27.

13 Legge, Cloisters, pp. 73-74 and 74 n.1; A-N Lit., p. 279. 14 Legge, AN Lit., p. 279; Gransden, Hist. Writing, p. 477.

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who also believes that more than one author has been at work.'> I believe that it is possible to find plausible answers to these questions by using an approach which takes into account the interaction between the text and the flux of socio-political circumstances attending and initiating its creation. However, to this end it is absolutely necessary that the text of the Chronicle should be studied as a whole. Langtoft’s Chronicle is governed by a number ofconcepts which pervade it from start to finish, each of which is employed to help make clear the message which his Chronicle was meant to convey. This message, encapsulated in the words of the Chronicle, was generated by the political situation at the time of writing, and was meant to influence that situation through the medium of the exemplary. and typological function of Langtoft’s historiographical poem. To concentrate on one part only is to lose sight of the author’s design. However, as the grand design served a purpose at the time that Langtoft was writing, that is, in, or shortly after, the reign of Edward I, we may seek our first clues in the section devoted to Edward, to show next how structural and thematic aspects of Langtoft’s account of Edward’s reign are also present in the preceding part of his Chronicle. We shall start with Langtoft’s depiction of the relationship between the King and one ofhis most important counsellors, his personal friend Anthony Bek, the Bishop of Durham. Langtoft describes how, in 1294, Edward I, his judgement impaired by his love for the King of Frances sister, entered into a secret treaty with Philip. The treaty was to resolve the conflict over Edward’s homage to Philip.'° The terms of the treaty were such that Edward risked the permanent loss of the duchy of Gascony. In his account, Langtoft points out that “Antoyne ne fu pas à cel ordaynement” (II 198:22; Thiol.350), and exhorts the Bishop in an aside to do his best for the country, as he is the only person capable of repairing the damage: “Ore aidez, Auntoyne, e overez sagement; / En ço cas sanz tay ne gist amendement” (II 200:16-17; Thiol.369-70).

15 It is not possible to give more than the merest outline here of Thiolier’s complex theory. Thiolier adheres to the tri-partite division and believes that writing of Parts I and II stopped around 1272 (i.e. roughly at the same time as the events described). The work was then continued in 1294 (Part III); after

a rapid update of the events of intervening years, an account is given of the years 1294-1296, when writing again stopped. This part of the Chronicle is called by Thiolier “le noyau commun.” The Chronicle was then continued by Langtoft up to 1305; this text survives, according to Thiolier, in the 714 lines of MS Oxf. Bodl. Library, Fairfax XXIV, and its remaniement in MS Coll. of Arms Arundel XIV (2022 ll),

and is presented by Thiolier as Rédaction I. All MSS in which the Chronicle ends with the death of Edward I (nine MSS, all containing the complete Chronicle) are considered to be continuations by others by Thiolier (Réd. //). However, as these “continuations” show a remarkable textual similarity, this seems unlikely; also, the MSS of what Thiolier calls the first redaction display a large number oftextual

peculiarities which are not found in the preceding thousands oflines of text. It seems more likely, as was also concluded by TM. Smallwood, that these two MSS represent “an inferior mind borrowing portions ofan established work;” see “The Text of Langtofts Chronicle,” Medium Ævum, 46 (1977), p227. See Thiolier, “Pierre de Langtoft et le Règne d'Edouard ler,” in Mélanges d'histoire littéraire, de linquistique . . offerts à Charles Rostaing (Liège, 1974), 1107-15; idem, Règne, 9-30, 155-207; idem

“Pierre de Langtoft Historiographe d’Edouard ler,” Anglo-Norman Anniversary Essays, ed. lan Short (London, 1993), pp. 379-94. I should like to thank Prof. Thiolier for sending me an advance copy of this paper.

16 The treaty was a disaster; as Michael Prestwich puts it, it “must rank with the appeasement policies before the Second World War as among the most dismal episodes in English foreign policy.” See Prestwich, Edward I, pp. 376-81 (here 380).

Context and Genesis ofPierre de Langtofis Chronicle

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According to Langtoft, as soon as Edward realises what he has done, he sends for the Bishop and asks for advice. The Bishop then addresses the King in no uncertain terms: “My sir rays, tu n'es pas enfaunce,

Tu ne dais pas fere chose sanz commun ordinance Ke pusse à tun realme turner à grevaunce;

Fa tost par counsayl, si ne averez repentaunce.” (I] 202:3-G; Thiol.381-84)

The King’s reply is contrite and apologetic: “Sir Auntoyn,” dist le rays, “jo face aquitaunce Pur tuz mes privez e À ma noun savaunce; Aretter devez ceste contrariaunce.” (II 202:9-11; Thiol.387—89)

The King, and the fate of the country, are entirely in the hands of the Bishop, who departs at once to secure the help of continental allies. Langtoft’s tone is optimistic. The Bishop is presented not only as a wise counsellor in French affairs, but also as particularly active in Scottish politics. Indeed, his role in bringing about the unification of England and Scotland was so important, according to Langtoft, that it is the Bishop who should be given all the credit for it: Le eveske de Dureme, ke molt fet à loer,

En conqueraunt la terre fut tuz jurs le primer; Ne fussent ses emprises et hardiement de quer, Choses ore chevyes serraint à commencer. (II 260:17—20; Thiol.1115—18)

The unification is celebrated with great exultation by Langtoft at this point in the Chronicle in the so-called ‘political songs’ which have the tail-rhyme meter of the popular songs in English with which they are made to merge. Edward I is depicted here by Langtoft as dependent on the help and advice of his friend the Bishop of Durham, whose actions — indeed, whose very presence — are

presented as being of supreme importance for the well-being of the realm and the unification of England and Scotland in particular. The Bishop, however, cannot avert all evils. In the conflict between the King and the barons and clergy, at the end of 1296, the Bishop begs the King passionately to be reconciled (II 288:14-24; Thiol. 1445-55); the King, however, will not listen, addresses the assembled magnates

haughtily

(Aarougement parlayt),

and

goes

his own

way

(II 290:7-292:12;

Thiol.1462-95). Bek manages to prevent civil war, but fails in his efforts to effect a compromise. Langtoft’s report of this conflict is couched in ambiguous terms. He states that he has openly, overtement, talked about the discord and that he cannot conceal other bad news (II 280:7-15; Thiol.1352-59). Indeed, he says apologetically that he was obliged to relate the controversy: “recorder m'estoyt la controversye” (II 286:8; Thiol.1419). There is little left of the jubilant celebration of English and Scottish unity found earlier. After the ineffective attempt at reconciling King and barons, the Bishop is no longer mentioned. The cause was not his death, which did not occur until 1311, nor

his withdrawal from political activities. The reasons for Langtoft’s silence have to do

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with the relationship between the Bishop and the King in the last decade of Edward’s reign.

In the years 1297-1300 there is evidence of a certain amount ofirritation on the part of the King with his old friend, who seemed to be siding with the recalcitrant barons and clergy. Nevertheless, the Bishop continued to play an important role: he was with Edward in Flanders, and as a personal friend attended Edward’s second marriage in September 1299. He was also present at the battle of Falkirk in 1298, which was a resounding success for the English. Yet even here there had been friction between the two men.!7 After 1300 a new and serious cause of friction was added, which has a direct bearing on the genesis of the Chronicle. To understand it properly, we need to know a little more about the historical Anthony Bek. Bek started his career as a clerk in royal service, and accompanied Edward on crusade. In the Holy Land he became one of Edward’s closest personal friends, and, after their return to England and Edward’s coronation, the King’s main financial and diplomatic counsellor. He was consecrated Bishop of Durham in 1283; as is pointed out by C.M. Fraser, “it says much for the high favour enjoyed by Bek that he had so rich a reward for his service” (Bek, 34). The liberty or franchise of Durham, which the Bishop governed, had an unusual status in the country; it was almost an autonomous state within the state. The Bishop’s steward is recorded as having remarked: “There are two kings in England, namely, the lord king of England wearing a crown as symbol of his regality, and the lord bishop of Durham wearing a mitre in place ofa crown as symbol ofhis regality in the diocese of Durham.”'® Bek’s consecration did not mean that henceforth he limited himself to diocesan activities; he continued to play an active and important role in domestic and foreign politics. He was the King’s spokesman on Scottish questions at home, his ambassador abroad, and his companion in battle. With his election to the see of Durham, however, Bek inherited a long-standing conflict between the Archbishop of York and the bishop, clergy and convent of Durham.!° The conflict escalated out of all proportion in the next few years. Although Edward, in his position as arbitrator in the 17 At Falkirk, which Prestwich deems “the only major battle fought by Edward since his triumph at Evesham in 1265,” Bek was first refused extra supplies by the king; secondly, Edward persisted in antagonizing the earls by refusing to honor the promises he had made the previous autumn, even though Bek had sworn, on the king’s behalf, that the king would do as he had promised. See M. Prestwich, Edward 1(London: Methuen 1988), pp. 479-82 (here 479). 18 Fraser, Bek, p. 98. Fraser cites PR.O., Assize Roll 226m 1d. A similar remark was made by one of

Bek’s knights, who declared that “the bishop was king within his regality just as was the king outside the water of Tyne and Tees,” Fraser, Bek, p. 98, citing Durham, Loc. 7, no. 4, c. 9, an article in a petition of the prior and convent of Durham presented to Edward I, c. 1301. 19 It was an old and long-established problem rising from the claim, or denial of the claim, that the bishop of Durham was also, in effect, abbot of the convent and had visitation rights in that capacity (Fraser, Bek, p. 124). The clergy and convent of Durham argued that the archbishop had no precedent for visitation except during a vacancy (Fraser, Bek, p. 30). It was not the only conflict of this type at the time; the bishop of Winchester in 1297, Walter Langton, the bishop of Coventry and Lichfield in 1298,

and even the monks of Ely in 1302 tried to escape visitation; as Powicke puts it, “it became the fashion for a bishop in the service of the Crown to seek relief from his metropolitan by appealing to the curia.”

M. Powicke, The Thirteenth Century, 1216-1307 (Oxford, 1953), p. 717. 20 In May 1300, the prior of the convent of Durham, Richard de Hoton, refused Bek entry to the convent unless he came unaccompanied; Bek arrived at the convent with a large retinue, among them a

bishop and an archdeacon. The situation deteriorated when the Bishop excommunicated the prior and

0

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327

dispute, at first ruled very much in his old friend’s favor, in the long run the conflict proved disastrous for Bek. It led to years of litigation at the papal court, with judgements being reversed several times, and was resolved only by the prior’s death in 1308, when Bek was able to take custody of the priory without further resistance. Fighting his case in Rome, Bek was absent for long periods at a time, and not available, therefore, either as an adviser or as companion on the many Scottish campaigns,*! while the case also led to papal interference in English affairs — something which Edward detested. Slowly royal irritation eroded away the old friendship. In the summer of 1302 the King confiscated the liberty of Durham. The two men were eventually reconciled, and the liberty was restored to Bek after a year, but in 1305 matters came to a head again and this time Edward was out for the bishop’s blood and his personal humiliation. The northern palatinate which the bishop had created was to be destroyed, and so was the man, by the simultaneous recovery of all outstanding debts. Fortunately for Bek, King Edward died in the summer of 1307 before the confiscation was put into effect. The representation of the Bishop’s activities in Langtoft’s Chronicle ranges, as has been shown, from a tone oftotal confidence in the beneficial effects of the Bishop’s political efforts, to an apologetically worded episode when the Bishop cannot bring about concord between the King and the clergy, earls and barons, to end in complete silence as to the Bishop’s affairs. In Langtoft’s comments on the effects of King Edward’s policies a similar change of tone can be detected, from sanguine expectations to open criticism. This may be illustrated by contrasting two episodes in which King Edward is apostrophized and compared with King Arthur.?? At the time of the union of England and Scotland, Langtoft cannot praise Edward enough; he refers back to Merlin’s prophecies, which had been so explicitly included in the Chronicle, and concludes that Edward has managed to fulfil this prophecy; Edward, indeed, is second to none, and exceeds even Arthur; all that needs to be done now is to recover the lost possessions in Gascony, and then the King will be able to go on crusade: Ha, Deus! Ke Merlyn dist sovent veritez

En ses prophecyes, [si]cum ws les lisez! Rays n’y ad ne prince de tuz les countrez Fors le ray Eduuard, ke ensi les ad joustez;

Arthur ne avayt unkes si plainement les fez. Desore n’y ad ke fere for purver ses alez Sur li ray de Fraunce, conquere ses heritez,

Et pus porter la croyce où Jhesu Cryst fu nez. (II 264:21—2,266:1—6/Thiol.1161—6;1172-7) monks, and besieged them in their own convent, a blockade which lasted, with only two intermissions, into September 1300. See Fraser, Bek, pp. 132-9 and Gesta Dunelmensia AD. MCCC, ed. RK.

Richardson (London: Camden Miscellany, vol. XIII, 1924), a detailed eye-witness account of the blockade. 21 Bek was also unable, as a direct result of the conflict, to supply the usual array of foot soldiers for the Scottish campaign of 1300. See Fraser, Bek, pp. 139-40.

22 The significance of the Arthurian references in Langtofts Chronicle is discussed more fully in my article “The Arthurian references in Pierre de Langtoft’s Chronicle,” Arthurian Yearbook, 5 (1995), ed. Norris J. Lacy (forthcoming).

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After the ambiguously worded episode in which the discord between the King and the barons is recorded, Langtoft compares Edward to Arthur again, but this time in an unfavorable way: En gestes aunciens trovoums-nous escrit

Quels rays et quels realmes ly rays Arthur conquist, Et coment sun purchace largement partyst. Roys suz ly n’avoit ke ly countredist,

Counte, duc e baron, que unques li faillist,

En guere n’e[n] bataille ke chescun ne suyst. Ly rays sir Eduuard ad doné trop petyt; Par quai à sun aler, quant en mer se myst Vers ly roys de Fraunce, fet ly fu despit,

Ke nes un de ses countes of ly le aler emprist. (II 296:13—22/Thiol. 1534-43)

Not only does Edward’s continental enterprise fail as a result of the lack of support shown; the Scots, sensing discord in the enemy camp, attack with renewed vigour. This is harsh criticism, and if, as has been suggested, Langtoft’s Chronicle is an epic written for Edward I — a king renowned for his temper — one wonders how it would have been received, raising not only the question of Langtoft’s purpose, but also that ofthe ultimate addressee of the work. ; The striking structural and thematic devices which are employed by Langroft in his account of Edward’s reign, notably the length at which certain episodes are recorded,” the comparisons with King Arthur and the references to Bishop of Durham, are also used to highlight earlier reigns. William the Conqueror and Richard I in particular are given prominence by Langtoft by these means. Their reigns are recounted at considerable length, both are associated with King Arthur,* and both are connected with the affairs of the Bishops of Durham. William is presented as dependent on the help of the then Bishop of Durham in his struggle against the Scots. Indeed, it is as a result of cooperation between the Conqueror and the Bishop of Durham that the rising in the North is quelled.2 The notion that cooperation between the King of England and the

23 “La commune de Escoz la novele oyst, / Chescun la sue part sur coe se joyst. / La route de raskaylle la guere renoue reprist” (II 296:23-25; Thiol. 1544-46).

24 Within Langtofts account of Edward’s reign, the same unequal distribution of material can be discerned which is typical of the work as a whole. The first twenty years of the reign are practically glossed over; the years 1289, 1290 and 1291, for example, are dealt with in 21, 19 and 21 lines respectively. The years 1294 to 1298 are dealt with extensively; the year 1294 alone numbers 438 lines. After 1298, the Chronicle evens out again; the remaining years of the reign are recounted in episodes of about 70 lines per year. According to Thiolier’s calculations the years 1272-1294 are described in 370

lines of verse, while 1294 to 1307, Edward’s death takes 2221 lines. This averages out at 17 lines per

annum

for the first group, and 170 lines p.a. for the second. Thiolier sees evidence in this for his

resumption theory (Thiolier, Règne, p. 4); he does not comment on the equal distribution of material over the last years of the reign (1298-1307).

25 William the Conqueror is said by Langtoft to have been crowned with Arthur's crown (I 410:16— 19); as far as I know, Langtoft is unique in this. According to Langtoft, Richard was the owner of Arthurs sword Excalibur (II 48:22); Richards ownership of Excalibur is also mentioned in other chronicles. See Bradford B. Broughton, The Legends of King Richard I, Coeur de Lion (The Hague:

Mouton, 1966), pp. 97-99.

26 See I 420:3-426:3 on Williams activities in the North. Richard is connected with Durham by the

Context and Genesis ofPierre de Langtofts Chronicle

529

Bishop of Durham, or, in a broader sense, between the Crown and the Church, has always led to peaceful relations between England and Scotland, and acceptance by the Scots of English overlordship, runs as a /eitmotiv through the Chronicle. It is as a result of unity among the heterogeneous population of England — now, as Langtoft states emphatically, “une gent” — and cooperation between laymen and clerics, that in the Battle of the Standard the Scots are defeated (1 476:12-478:5).277 When Henry Ils quarrel with Thomas Becket has resulted in the latter’s death,?8 the event is presented as having immediate consequences for the stability of the realm: Pur la mort Thomas le ray avaunt nomé,

Henry fiz l'emperyce, est molt angussé. William ray de Escoce de plus est conforté,

Et sur le ray Henry guere ad comencé.

(II 8:21—10:2)

The text of Langtoft’s Chronicle shows that its author was at pains to present a history of his country which provided evidence, by a succession of historical examples, of the beneficial effects of unity, especially in the struggle against the Scots, and the equally beneficial role of past and present Bishops of Durham in this struggle. By

reference to the historical situation at the time that the Chronicle was written, we can now piece together the evidence and make clear precisely what Langtoft’s purpose was, who commissioned the work, and for whom it was intended. In one of the manuscripts of the Chronicle a short prologue to the section on Edward | states that the work was written at the request of a certain Scaffeld: “De noster rays Eduuard Scaffeld li [dan Peres] requist / Recorder la geste, escotez cum il dist” (II 164:5-6; Thiol.25—26).”? Who this person was has long remained a mystery until it was suggested in recent years that this may well have been the Sheriff of Northumberland, John of Sheffield.*° John of Sheffield had worked as a chancery

officer for Edward I and was appointed to the position of Sheriff of Northumberland in 1305. Northumberland was geographically curiously positioned; it was a kind of enclave in the palatinate of Durham. Sheffield was a partisan of the Bishop, who appears to have been a man of great charisma, to such an extent that the sheriff got into serious trouble with the King’s officers for shielding the Bishop from the King’s wrath, even incurring fines for his evasive replies to writs and his general unwillingness

inclusion of a reference to the sale of Sadberge by Richard to the Bishop of Durham, as one of the ways

in which the King raised money for his crusade (II 30:25—26).

27 See also B.C. Keeney, “Military Service and the Development of Nationalism in England, 12721327,” Speculum, 22 (1947), pp. 534-49, esp. 536 n. 7. 28 Langtoft explicitly exculpates Henry II: “Al ray ne devez pas sa mort aretter” (I 6:23). 29 MS BL Cotton Julius A.V.; in MS College of Arms Arundel XIV the name Scaffeld has been replaced by uns amis (See I xx—xxi; Thiol. Red. I, p. 226, |. 24).

30 By a curious coincidence, J.C. Thiolier, Michael Prestwich and I discovered this more or less at the same time. Prof. Prestwich told me in a letter of 7 January, 1991 that he had “once thought ofwriting a short piece pointing out that Scaffeld was probably John de Sheffield! It makes very good sense.” However, J.C. Thiolier was the first to publish the idea; see Règne, p. 165, but note that the year should be 1305, not 1306 (cf. Fraser, Bek, p. 196) and Thiolier, “Langtoft, Historiographe,” p. 5, but note that

Sheffield was appointed sheriff of Northumberland, not sheriff of Durham.

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to carry out the confiscations ordered by Edward. He may have known Langtoft, as both men had worked in the royal chancery at Westminster. It seems likely that Sheffield, acting either independently or as an agent for the Bishop, asked Langtoft to write a Chronicle which would demonstrate, by the course history had taken, that the country had always benefited from the close cooperation between the Bishop of Durham and the King, and that the unification of England and Scotland in particular depended on such a cooperative program. The Chronicle, therefore, had to be written in such a way that it would appeal to the King and to the Bishop at the same time; Langtoft had to reckon with a double perspective. This explains why the affairs of the Bishops of Durham are entwined with the deeds of the English kings; it is also the reason why, for instance, so much attention is paid to Richard I. Richard is used as a model for Edward I, a King who had also spent time in the Holy Land, and who all his life entertained the hope that one day he might return. The bishop, moreover, had been appointed Patriarch of Jerusalem by the Pope in 1305. Besides, the episode served to remind the King ofthe time he had spent, together with his friend Anthony Bek, in the Holy Land. If Sheffield commissioned the Chronicle, writing is not likely to have started until the autumn of 1305. Sheffield had been appointed sheriff of Northumberland in April of that year, and the confiscation of Bek’s temporalities was ordered that summer. The rapid completion of Langtoft’s task was essential: the King had:to be made to change his mind as far as the Bishop of Durham was concerned before the confiscation was put into effect — a confiscation which, as we have seen, Sheffield did his best to delay. The limited time available probably explains why the HRB was so drastically curtailed. But there was another reason why time was ofthe essence. The King was an old man, and in ill health; as time went by, fears that Edward might not live to receive the work must have increased.*! These fears, or Edward’s death, led to a change of focus: from Bek and the old King, to Bek and the new King. Little needed to be changed, for did not the new King stand in need of being reminded also of how indispensable the Bishop of Durham was to King and country? The Bishop’s relations with Prince Edward had always been cordial; the Prince came to stay with him several times, and Bek had more than once acted as go-between when father and son quarrelled, as they regularly did.%? Whenever young Edward is mentioned in the last part of the Chronicle, it is always in highly favorable terms; his name is consistently linked with a

31 Edward was ill in the summer of 1306, and forced to travel in a litter. Even so, he persisted in traveling North when he could in order to pursue the campaign he had decided on. He lay ill at

Lanercost Priory throughout the autumn and winter of 1306-7. It was spring before he was well enough again to move on (see J.R.H. Moorman,

“Edward

I at Lanercost Priory 1307-7,” English

Historical Review, 67 (1952), pp. 161-74 and Prestwich, Edward I, pp. 506-7). At Whitsun he was on his feet again, and full of plans for the future; see C. Bullock-Davies,

Menestrellorum

Multitudo,

Minstrels at a Royal Feast (Cardiff: Univ. of Wales Press, 1978), pp. 182-3. However, the recovery was

temporary; Edward | died on 7 July 1307. Langtoft refers to Edward’s bad health twice: first under the year 1304 (II 358:18/Thiol.2306), secondly in 1306 to record the king’s stay at Lanercost (II 370:4— S/Thiol.2433-34). 32 See Hilda Johnstone, Edward of Carnarvon (Manchester: Publ. of the Univ. of Manchester no. 295, 1946), pp. 96-103.

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331

prayer,# and he, too, is included in the Arthurian references: the festivities after

Edward’s knighting can be compared only, says Langtoft, with the feast at Caerleon, after Arthur's coronation (II 368:204; Thiol.2424-27).

What we have, then, is a chronicle in which the course of English history is subtly reshaped to make it suitable for a particular utilitarian purpose: the reconciliation of the Crown and the Bishop of Durham. To this end the history of the kings of England, and even the history of the King who was contemporaneous with the author, was cleverly restructured. In Langtoft’s Chronicle the likely solution of problematical political issues is linked with the presence or absence of the Bishop of Durham: while he is present, there is a good chance of a satisfactory solution; when he is absent, or when the King refuses to listen, matters take a turn for the worse. The fact that the Chronicle has been organized chronologically, with occasional rubrics stating the years in which the events took place, gives an annalistic impression, as if Langtoft wrote up events year by year, as they happened. This, however, is part of the illusion of documentary verisimilitude which Langtoft is at pains to create. It is important to recognize that the text of the Chronicle is not necessarily a dispassionate, objective record of events as they happened, but may equally well be a representation of affairs which served a particular purpose, written largely with hindsight. That the latter possibility is the more likely is shown by the fact that the argumentation which can be discerned in the part on Edward I, particularly the link between the activities of the Bishop of Durham and the beneficial effects of these activities for the country as a whole, is also an important aspect of the preceding part of the Chronicle. Indeed, until it has been established why the Chronicle was written and at whose instigation — in the process of which all the constituent parts of the work need to be taken into consideration — it is not possible to assess the precise nature ofthe historical information it contains. Whether it was due to the Chronicle cannot be ascertained, but it is a fact that after Edward’s death a new period of triumph began for Anthony Bek. Before the month was out, he did homage to the new King; two months after Edward’s death the administration of the franchise of Durham was restored to him (Fraser, Bek, 211—

212). The Bishop continued his career as one of the young King’s closest advisers, exerting himself especially to avoid discord between the barons and the King, discord which, as Langtoft shows, could lead to such disastrous consequences for the whole country.*4 By regarding Langtoft’s Chronicle at the same time as a literary construct and as a factor generated by and in its turn influencing the socio-political circles with which it

was concerned, a new dimension can be added to the traditional picture of the work as either a historical text, or a not very successful literary effort. Such an approach

33 II] 194:18; Thiol. 299 / II 308:18—-9; Thiol. 1689-90 / II 368:24; Thiol. 2428 / II 376:24; Thiol. 2534. 34 The so-called Boulogne agreement of 31 January, 1308 was drawn up to this end, probably at Bek’s instigation. See J.R. Maddicott, Thomas of Lancaster, 1307-1322 (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1970), p. 73; J.R.S. Phillips, Aymer de Valence, Earl ofPembroke 1307-1324 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), pp. 26-29.

332,

Thea Summerfield

necessitates an investigation of the medieval environment in which the Chronicle originated, close reading of the text, and constant reference from one to the other. When such an approach is adopted, it becomes possible to answer questions with regard to patronage, and the purpose which Langtoft’s Chronicle was to serve — an approach which is, indeed, “largely detective work.”

35 I should like to thank Dr. PJ. Verhoeff and Dr. E.S. Kooper for their helpful comments and encouragement.

BOEK VAN ZEDEN: THREE MEDIEVAL FLEMISH POEMS IN THE LATIN FACETUS TRADITION

COURTESY

T, Meder

This paper focuses on an aspect of courtly codes of conduct and courtly culture in Middle Dutch literature through an examination of courtly didactic literature, where we find the most direct and straightforward medieval accounts of the courtly ethics of socially acceptable behavior. Although there are several Middle Dutch didactic works which could be used to study courtesy, the most obvious starting point would seem to be the Boek van Zeden (Book of Manners). This, the oldest Middle Dutch book of

etiquette known to us, is part of the widespread European tradition of so-called “courtesy books.” So far the Boek van Zeden has received very little scholarly attention, particularly from an international perspective. There are, in fact, three extant Middle Dutch texts which present themselves as Boek van Zeden. Although they differ in certain respects, the most important source of all three is the famous Latin text Facetus, ‘cum nihil utilius.’ This Latin work containing rules of conduct is supposed to have been written in the second half of the twelfth century, and was intended to serve as a supplement to the Disticha Catonis in the teaching of Latin grammar.’ While it seems reasonable to assume that Facetus was translated into Middle Dutch around the middle of the thirteenth century, the oldest copy of the Boek van Zeden that has come down to us consists of fragments dating from about 1290. This text (= ES) is not a literal translation but rather an adaptation of the Latin Facetus, and is part of the so-called “Ename codex,”? named after the abbey of Ename (near the town of Oudenaarde in Flanders), where the manuscript was most probably copied. It mainly contains Middle Dutch religious poems. The Boek van Zeden and De boec van

I would like to thank Arnold J. Kreps and Frank van Meurs for translating this paper into English. My research is part of the project “Nederlandse literatuur en cultuur in de middeleeuwen” [Dutch Literature and Culture in the Middle Ages], directed by Professor EP. van Oostrom (Leiden University),

funded by NWO (the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research). 1

See C. Schroeder, Der deutsche Facetus (Berlin: Mayer & Müller, 1911), pp. 14-23, and j. Morawski,

Le Facet enfrançoys (Poznan: Wydano, 1923), pp. 3-11. 2 See J. Nicholls, The Matter of Courtesy. Medieval Courtesy Books and the Gawain- poet (Suffolk: Brewer, 1985), pp. 16, 45, 65, 146-147. See also Schroeder, pp. 32-33, and Morawski, p. xvi.

3 For an edition and a description of the Ename codex, see M.Gysseling, Corpus van Middelnederlandse teksten (tot en met het jaar 1300) (’s-Gravenhage: Nijhoff, 1980), II-1, pp. 393-500. ES is to be found on pp. 484-497.

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Catone, a Middle Dutch translation of the Disticha Catonis which precedes the Boek van Zeden in the codex, are ethical works of a more secular nature. It is extremely doubtful whether the codex was intended for use by the monks in the Ename monastery. Written in the vernacular, this book appears to have been intended especially to meet the needs of one or more well-to-do laymen.

The other two versions of the Boek van Zeden are found in the so-called “Comburg manuscript,” probably compiled in the Flemish town of Ghent around 1400. The Comburg codex is an important compilation of mainly secular Middle Dutch texts, narrative as well as didactic. Scholars do not fully agree about the readership and function of the manuscript. It may have been intended for a noble patron of the arts, but it has also been suggested that it might have served as an exemplar in a scriptorium.‘ The longest Boek van Zeden in this manuscript, referred to henceforth as BVS, contains some 180 rules of conduct.» BVS and ES are clearly very closely linked: although not every verbal detail nor the order of all the precepts given is identical in the two texts, they run parallel to each other over long stretches of the text, often down to the very wording of the rhyming couplets. It may be assumed, therefore, that BVS and ES go back to the same Middle Dutch source. Hence BVS is not a literal translation of Facetus either. Near the end of the text, the translation becomes increasingly free: more and more lines are added; material from sources other than Facetus is incorporated; the poet seems to add more “personal touches;” and at the end there are a number of new and elaborate precepts, in which, incidentally, the familiar tone which characterizes the beginning ofthe text is lacking. Unlike in the Ename codex, where ES is preceded by De boec van Catone, in the Comburg manuscript a translation of the Disticha Catonis follows BVS. Nearer the end of the Comburg manuscript is a text which nowadays is referred to as Van Zeden (henceforth VZ),° a third version of the Boek van Zeden, consisting of 130 rules of

conduct. Unlike the others, it is a fairly close translation of the Latin Facetus, which probably explains why there are two Boeken van Zeden in a single manuscript. The writer of VZ has closely rendered the Latin distichs into Middle Dutch quatrains. It should be noted that all three Boeken van Zeden were copied in Flanders.” Within the European tradition, they are exceptionally early examples of translations of Facetus occurring as independent texts. The English “courtesy books” all date from the fifteenth century or later, and no English translation of Facetus is known (Nicholls 191-97). The German and French Facetus-texts collected by Schroeder and Morawski

4 For a discussion of the Comburg manuscript, see J.Deschamps, Middelnederlandse handschrifien uit Europese en Amerikaanse bibliotheken (Leiden: Brill, 19722), pp. 73-75; EP. van Oostrom, Reinaert primair, Over het geintendeerde publiek en de oorspronkelijke functie van Van den vos Reinaerde (Utrecht: Hes, 1983), p. 15; J.D. Janssens, “De Comburgse codex,” Literatuur, 8 (1991) 6, pp. 380-381. 5 Edition BVS: Die bouc van seden, Ken Middelnederlandsch zedekundig leerdicht, na Kausler, volgens het Comburger handschrift opnieuw uitgegeven en toegelicht door W.H.D. Suringar (Leiden: Van der Hoek, 1891). 6 Edition VZ: Van zeden, Een tweede Middelnederlandsch zedekundig leerdicht, uit het Comburger

handschrift voor ’t eerst uitgegeven en toegelicht door W.H.D. Suringar (Leiden: Van der Hoek, 1892). 7 Incidentally, Gysseling 1980 assumes that the original translator of the Disticha Catonis and the Boek van Zeden as they appear in the Ename codex was of Limburg extraction: he argues that features characteristic of the Limburg dialect underlie the Flemish used in the present text (pp. 396, 400-401).

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date from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.* Facetus was possibly also translated into French and German as early as the thirteenth century, but it is nevertheless remarkable that in the extensive areas where these languages were current no separate thirteenth-century vernacular version of Facetus can be found, while such texts are extant in the relatively small area where Middle Dutch was used. It is also quite

striking that none of the German and French texts known today were adapted in the same way as the Flemish ES and BVS, as we shall see. Anyone familiar with the precepts in the Latin Facetus or a vernacular translation will recognize many of the rules of conduct presented in the Flemish Boeken van Zeden. The order in which the precepts are presented is not always very coherent, and it is virtually impossible to arrange them all in meaningful sequences. Nevertheless, several categories suggest themselves. The beginning of ES is missing, but BVS and VZ start with religious advice which concerns one’s attitude towards God, Church, faith and clergy. In addition, the Boeken van Zeden provide advice as to what constitutes good manners, as to behavior in company, and in particular as to behavior with respect to one’s superiors. These precepts are closely linked to others on behavior as guest or host. The texts also discuss table manners in considerable detail. Finally, some of the advice is addressed to those in servile positions. To what specifically do the advice and the rules of conduct pertain? According to the Boeken van Zeden, good manners include friendly greetings. Women, the elderly and the wise merit respect, and widows, orphans and the poor should be protected. Courtesy entails reliability and dependability. Readers are repeatedly urged to avoid and prevent friction and conflict within their own social groups, not to stir up trouble, and to be forbearing. Hurting other people’s feelings is to be avoided at all times. A gift, for instance, should always be accepted gratefully. Laughter is impolite when someone falls; wear no spurs indoors; and do not enter without knocking. “Keeping a low profile” in company is always to be recommended: one should not be too reserved and retiring, nor too familiar nor exuberant nor give offence. When in company, know when to be silent and when to speak, and reflect before speaking. Furthermore, whispering or pointing at others in company is taboo, as is laughing by oneself. The Boeken van Zeden repeatedly emphasize that everyone should know his place and respect others, “superiors” in particular. One should, for instance, doff one’s hat to a superior, rise when he approaches, and always let him precede. One is to kneel before distinguished lords. Superiors are always to be obeyed, and may never be interrupted when they are talking. Those in servile positions, messengers, servants,

and domestic helps, are supposed to carry out the orders of their masters in a loyal, swift and impeccable way. practice self-restraint; they According to the Boeken and messengers are also to

If their master or mistress is angry with them, they should are not allowed to respond angrily. van Zeden, hospitality is due to both friends and strangers, be warmly received. A guest should show his host modest

8 See the survey in Schroeder 1911, p. 1 and see Morawski 1923, pp. xxix, xxxi-xxxii, xxxv. Like Schroeder, I do not regard Tannhaiiser’s Hofzucht, which dates from the thirteenth century, as a

translation of Facetus. Hofzucht is based only on a small section of the rules of conduct given in Facetus, and concentrates exclusively on courtly table manners. See J. Siebert, Der Dichter Tannhäuser, Leben, Gedichte, Sage (Halle: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1934), pp. 194-206.

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gratitude. He should not sit down at table before his host has shown him to his seat. Moreover, a civilized person has good table manners. Some examples: one should wash one’s hands before a meal. At table, as a single plate and cup are shared, good manners compel one to be ofservice to one’s partner. One must sit erect, not lean with elbows on the table. Immoderation and soiling the tablecloth or one’s clothes are absolutely forbidden. It is necessary to refrain from unsavory habits such as scratching one’s head or hands, spitting, drinking with one’s mouth full, or confronting table companions with food already touched with one’s mouth. Generally, the Boeken van Zeden provide advice for coping in civilized society, especially in conformity with the rules of etiquette in higher circles. These guidelines focus mainly on acceptable social behavior. Those who do not comply disqualify themselves socially, for if we reverse the rules, we produce the uncivilized “churl” who cares not about God or Christian precepts, does not know his place, is inconsiderate, does not try to avoid conflict, and is ruled only by instincts. During meals, social occasions par excellence, his offensive behavior shows him up for what he really is. The precepts discussed so far are part of the more or less conventional Facetus material, which tends to be associated with courtly etiquette, the courtly standard of behavior ofthe social élite. Emphasis is on self-restraint, control of primary urges and social adjustment,’ elements of which can be found in fiction, especially in Arthurian romances. Traces of bourgeois morals, however, can also be, found in the Middle Dutch versions of Facetus, especially in ES and BVS, and particularly towards the end of these two texts. Most of the advice in ES and BVS relating to these bourgeois morals deals with work and wise financial management. An essential characteristic of bourgeois mentality is a positive attitude towards industriousness. That attitude was lacking among the leisured aristocracy, and while some clergy (the regular clergy in particular) did indeed work, their work ethic was essentially different from the bourgeois “capitalist” motivation. Bourgeois morals required all burghers to sustain themselves and their families by hard work in combination with thrift, prudence, and investment for old age. Closely related is the issue of social mobility: social climbers can use money to get ahead in the world. Such ideas are reflected in Middle Dutch literature, and can be clearly traced in the Low Countries from the fourteenth century onwards;!° the Flemish Boek van Zeden proves that they can even be found in a work antedating 1300. Some examples of bourgeois ethics in ES and BVS are based on or adapted from Facetus. One of its precepts states, for example, that one can make a decent living by buying and selling, provided that one always pays promptly and willingly, and is

9 See N. Elias, Uber den Prozess der Zivilisation. Soziogenetische und psychogenetische Untersuchungen (Bern: France, 19692). See also T. Meder, “Hoofsheid in de Boekjes van Zeden,” Spektator, 21 (1992), pp. 308-326.

10 For a discussion of bourgeois morals, see H. Pleij, Het gilde van de Blauwe Schuit. Literatuur, volksfeest en burgermoraal in de late middeleeuwen (Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 1979); H. Pleij, De sneeuwpoppen van 1511. Literatuur en stadscultuur tussen middeleeuwen en moderne tijd (Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 1988); and H. Pleij et al., Op belofte van profit. Stadsliteratuur en burgermoraal in de Nederlandse letterkunde van de middeleeuwen (Amsterdam: Prometheus, 1991).

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trustworthy or solvent.!! The Flemish BVS discusses solvency only in general terms, stating that it is hovesch [courtly] always to return money owed as soon as possible. He who repays his debt today will be given credit readily tomorrow (vss. 575-580). VZ shows most clearly that this precept may refer especially to the practices of merchants, stating literally that the merchant who pays a fair price in due time can make an honest living from his trade (vss. 391-396).

Facetus states that everyone, to avoid disappointment, should rely on their own purse alone when going to market. Furthermore, it is praiseworthy to be generous with one’s own possessions, but being generous with other people’s goods is dishonorable.!? These precepts are adopted by all three Flemish Boeken van Zeden.'3 While these guidelines could have had some relevance to an aristocratic audience, they gained in importance within the newly developed bourgeois ethos. The burgher should also be careful, Facetus advises, not to squander his money, because before long he will otherwise -be reduced to poverty.'4 One of the terrifying prospects depicted in literary works with a bourgeois orientation is that of having to spend one’s old age in poverty and destitution. The Boeken van Zeden add in mote general terms that incurring large expenses is to be avoided.!> Along the lines of the bourgeois maxim that you should cut your coat according to your cloth, Facetus states — somewhat cryptically — that you should not stretch out your limbs further than the length of your clothes.'° This imagery recurs in all Boeken van Zeden, which add the explanation that you should not spend more than you earn.'? Again, while advice concerning thrift would not be wasted on an aristocratic audience, it is a much more frequent motif in literature directed at a bourgeois audience; aristocratic literature reflects the view that one’s money should be spent. In the examples given so far there is little difference between the Latin original and the vernacular versions. Other guidelines, however, display differences of emphasis: in the vernacular texts, fairly general Latin precepts are modified to suit the views of a bourgeois audience. For example, Facetus urges general caution when travelling abroad: always rest at night, rise early, and try to reach an inn before nightfall.'® In VZ, the latter advice is directed at pilgrims (vss. 343-346), whereas in BVS it is aimed at itinerant clergy and merchants (vss. 697-702). While Facerus states that you should

always behave so as to be loved by your neighbors,!? a view repeated literally in VZ, BVS adds a significant line here: do not bother a craftsman with improper interference.2 The addition suggests the context of a bourgeois mentality in which work occupied a central and highly-valued position. 11 See Facetus (henceforth FCNU), Erfurt version (ed. Schroeder) 84, and FCNU Paris version (ed. Morawski) 90. 12 FCNU (Erfurt) 82 and 32; FCNU (Paris) 88 and 57.

13 ES 15-18, 23-26; BVS 527-530, 535-538; VZ 379-382, 245-248. 14 FCNU (Erfurt) 108 and FCNU (Paris) 51. 15 ES 1-4; BVS 487-490; VZ 221-224.

16 FCNU (Erfurt) 85; FCNU (Paris) 91. 17 ES 19-22; BVS 531-534; VZ 397-400.

18 FCNU (Erfurt) 72 and FCNU (Paris) 78.

19 FCNU (Erfurt) 104. 20 This translation is based on the paraphrase in E. Verwijs and J. Verdam, Middelnederlandsch woordenboek (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1894), vol. 3, col. 2213. See also BVS 555-560; VZ 205-208.

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The guidelines on buying goods in Facetus are fairly general: make an honest estimate of the value of the merchandise; it is not honorable to swear at the price.2! This precept is not necessarily directed at merchants: all who purchase something should practice self-restraint and, if the asking price is in accordance with the estimate they have made, should pay without further ado. VZ simply adopts this idea (vss. 355-358), but in BVS there is again a differerice of emphasis: the buyer is expected to behave in a courtly fashion during negotiations, but he is also expected to haggle over the price in a courtly way (vss. 707-710). “Courtly haggling” may strike us as a contradiction in terms, because we tend to associate courtliness exclusively with the aristocracy, and a nobleman does not haggle in the-market-place. Merchants and servants, however, each within their own sphere, must watch their budgets and housekeeping books. “Always try to drive a hard bargain” is their motto, and haggling

without giving offense is a prerequisite. A final example of adaptation of the Latin text concerns idleness. Originally, idleness, or acedia, was a sin particularly associated with clergymen who neglected their religious duties; later laymen could be regarded as idle if they were slow to partake in the Sacraments. Gradually, idleness came to be seen as a profane vice: those who did not work or want to work to support themselves were called idle, a view bound up with the bourgeois work-ethic. The Latin Facetus does not even mention idleness, stating only that he who spends more than he receives will eventually find himself in dire straits.22 This idea, rendered faithfully in VZ (vss. 401-402), constitutes only a small part of the comment

in ES (vss. 409-420)

and BVS, where

idleness takes pride of place. The message in BVS (vss. 967-984) is: eschew idleness, for it leads to wicked desires, by which you will not be tempted if you work. Idleness arouses desires for drinking in inns, love-making, chasing women, promiscuity, debauchery, and friendship with the wrong people. Those who engage in such behavior foolishly squander their money. Even one who is immensely rich will run out of money completely if he does not make good his losses by earnings: he will be reduced to stealing or begging. Strangely enough, the third option — working — is lacking, which may be taken to imply that the text does not refer to craftsmen, but to merchants: if a merchant has squandered away his money, he has rendered himself unable to ply his trade. This tirade draws on several sources, including Liber Jesu filii Sirach 33:29 and the Disticha Catonis HI, 5 and 21.3 Only ES and BVS explicitly contrast idleness with industriousness. The passages in ES and BVS that have no parallel in Facetus are also the passages that appeal most directly to a bourgeois ethic which stresses industriousness, thrift and frugality. It should be remembered that most of the precepts relating to these values are found at the end ofthe texts. First, it is stated plainly that he who owns nothing is worth nothing. To avoid poverty, work as a craftsman or a merchant and enjoy making money. This will be quite difficult at times, ES and BVS assure us, but without effort nothing can be achieved (vss. 295-300; 835-840). According to a second, related 21 FCNU (Erfurt) 74; FCNU (Paris) 81. 22 FCNU (Erfurt) 174; FCNU (Paris) 91 bis. 23 See Suringar 1891, pp.118-119; Biblia sacra, iuxta vulgatam versionem (Stuttgart: Würtembergische Bibelanstalt, 19752), tomus II, p-1071.

Three Medieval Flemish Courtesy Poems

Ai)

precept from ES and BVS, poverty is a result of generosity or prodigality and a lack of effort; he who exerts himself and economizes can accumulate wealth (vss. 423-426;

985-988). A third precept from ES and BVS urges that one stay at home, with one’s wife and servants; squandering money away from home will only please others, and do nothing for oneself (vss. 233-238; 777-782). In another related piece of advice the

poet professes, in the spirit of Ecclesiastes 10:19, that “money makes the world go round,” that money can buy anything, “Want die penninc, hi es heere” (BVS 845, “for the penny is lord”). This is followed by a list ofall the things money enables one to do: buy goods, make a profit, gain prestige, manipulate a lawsuit through bribery (which, the texts say, is a great shame), liquidate an enemy, bring about a reconciliation with an enemy, marry into a family of higher social status, make friends, and overcome difficulties.*4 The fact that ES and BVS, while containing a series of clearly traditional courtly rules of conduct, make small changes-and incorporate new ideas in the spirit of the new bourgeois ethic — in the case of ES, as early as the thirteenth century — may be explained by reference to the readership and function of the Boeken van Zeden. Facetus, cum nihil utilius’ is known to have been used in grammar schools. After Donatus’ grammar, the Disticha Catonis and Facetus (which, after all, was a “Sup-

plementum Cathonis”*>) were used by the pupils in order to practice the rudiments of Latin grammar. The audience of Facetus therefore consisted of boys who were taught Latin. With the translation of Facetus into the vernacular in the thirteenth century, the emphasis seems to have shifted to the teaching of moral lessons: the size and contents of the extant manuscripts of the Flemish Boeken van Zeden suggest that these manuscripts were certainly not intended for use in schools.2 Nicholls claims that “courtesy poems” in the vernacular did not play an important role in classroom teaching: “Although from the beginning of the educational system on a wide scale in the twelfth century, Latin courtesy poems were a valued part of the school curriculum, it seems that the vernacular poems were not much used in the classroom. When AngloNorman and English poems were used for formal teaching, they were probably more current in the context of individual tutoring” (p. 69). The Boeken van Zeden too may have been used in private tuition, perhaps even as a “refresher course” for adults from aristocratic circles, or as a “crash course” for newcomers, perhaps from a patrician élite. At the same time, there are other indications that the Boeken van Zeden and related “courtesy poems” were used in the classroom. Some prologues allude to use in schools,?7 and school regulations for education in the vernacular have come down to

us (admittedly of a fairly late date) which show that “good manners” were part of the curriculum (Meder 321-22). It should be remembered that, besides grammar schools,

there were so-called “elementary schools” and “writing schools” in the thirteenth century, where children were taught reading, writing and arithmetic in the vernacular. 24 BS 301-316; BVS 841-854. It is not completely impossible, of course, that the passages with clear

bourgeois overtones are based on an as yet unavailable Latin source, which differs from the traditional texts. In that case, the observations made so far should not be taken to refer to the Flemish texts, but to a “deviant” Latin source. 25 Nicholls, p. 65. See also Schroeder, pp. 32-33 and Morawski, p. xvi. 26 See the description of the manuscripts above and the studies mentioned in notes 3-6.

27 See Nicholls, p. 69; Schroeder, pp. 29-30; VZ 173-178 and 525-528.

340

T. Meder

Could translations of the same texts used at the beginning of the Latin curriculum not be used for teaching reading and writing? It has been suggested that the Disticha Catonis was translated for use in teaching in the vernacular,$ and the same may be true in the case of the translation of Facetus. Pirenne claims that in thirteenth-century Flanders instruction in reading and writing in the vernacular was introduced with the express purpose of meeting the educational needs offuture merchants. It became necessary for schools catering to the bourgeoisie to teach pupils to write in the language they spoke in everyday life, which contributed to the introduction of the vernacular into administrative and trade documents. Vigorous trade in the thirteenth-century county of Flanders caused teaching in the vernacular for laymen to spread earlier and on a larger scale than elsewhere.” Following Pirenne’s argument that the Disticha Catonis was translated for these purposes, one may assume that Facetus was also translated into the vernacular to be used in teaching reading and writing to the children of merchants in Flemish municipal schools.% It must be stressed that the forms of address in the Boeken van Zeden almost always refer to an audience of youngsters; the precepts are almost always geared to boys who were destined for a secular career. In certain instances the advice is intended for future prominent noblemen, in others for future successful merchants, and then again for boys who were to serve as messengers, servants or domestic aids (Meder, 323). In other words, the Boeken van Zeden allow for a wide variety of career prospects.>! In summary,

Facetus was translated into Flemish at an early date (before 1300)

because urbanisation,

industrialisation and trade began early in Flanders, which

28 R.R. Post, Scholen en onderwijs in Nederland gedurende de middeleeuwen (Utrecht: Spectrum, 1954),

p. 150. The prologue to De boec van Catone in the Ename codex says that children who go to school must read the Disticha Catonis, either in Latin or in the vernacular. See ed. Gysseling, p. 476, vss.

34-37. The famous thirteenth-century Flemish poet Jacob van Maerlant does not include the Disticha Catonis in his Spiegel Historiael [Mirror of History], even though this was in his source, the Speculum Historiale by Vincent of Beauvais. He says he does so because the Disticha Catonis is widely available in Dutch; Jacob van Maerlant, Spiegel Historiael, ed. M. de Vries and E. Verwijs (Leiden: Brill, 1861— 1879), partie I, boec V, cap. LXXIII, p. 233, vss. 51-54. 29 H. Pirenne, “Linstruction des marchands au moyen âge,” Annales d'histoire économique et sociale, |

(1929), p. 28. See also L. de Rijcker, “Het openbaar onderwijs in Vlaanderen tijdens de middeleeuwen,” Nederlandsch museum,

1881, pp. 270-320, esp. pp. 280-283, 288-289 and 308-310. L.

Thorndike, “Elementary and Secondary Education in the Middle Ages,” Speculum, 15 (1940), pp. 400-408,

describes

the flourishing of “elementary schools” between

the eleventh

and fourteenth

centuries, which reached its zenith in the thirteenth century. 30 The textbooks containing French dialogues with Flemish translations used to learn how to speak, read and write French, which were part of a later phase in the development of Flemish education, were even more clearly geared to the practical needs and the morals ofcraftsmen and merchants. In Flanders,

the ability to use French as a second language was a very useful asset in trade and industry. The oldest textbook known to date is Le livre des mestiers, de Bouc vanden ambachten, dating from ca. 1360. See Het

Brugsche Livre des Mestiers en zijn navolgingen, Vier aloude conversatieboekjes om Fransch te leeren. Nieuwe

uitgave bezorgd en ingeleid door J. Gessler (Brugge: Consortium

der Brugsche meesters

boekdrukkers, 1931), 3e band. 31 Such a diversity of audience can, to a certain extent, be argued to have existed in the case of FCNU. See Thomas Zotz, “Urbanitas. Zur Bedeutung und Funktion einer antiken Wertvorstellung innerhalb

der hôfischen Kultur des hohen Mittelalters,” Curialitas: Studien zu Grundfragen der héfisch-ritterlichen Kultur, ed. J. Fleckenstein (Géttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990), pp. 412-414.

»

Three Medieval Flemish Courtesy Poems

341

subsequently led to a great need for practical schooling in the vernacular (instead of Latin) among the higher bourgeoisie at an early stage. These reasons may in turn explain why aspects of bourgeois morals were embodied in a Boek van Zeden in Flanders even before 1300. At the same time, it is likely that (potential) social climbers

from elitist social circles took a great interest in the prestigious courtly code of conduct represented in the Facetus tradition, as they sought to adopt the “good manners” of the court.

(4

READING

ILLUSTRATIONS

OF TRISTAN

Stephanie Cain Van D'Elden

The story of Tristan and Isolde appears illustrated in manuscripts, on textiles, on wall paintings as well as on other artefacts.! Some have suggested that these illustrations serve as a vehicle for i/literati to “read” the text. Instead of dividing the viewers into literati and illiterati, | suggest that we divide them into those familiar with the story and those unexposed to it. These two groups would necessarily “read” the text differently, whether it be embedded in a manuscript, on a tapestry, on a wall painting, tile, or casket. Indeed, their perceptions ofthe text would not be the same. The literary historian expects the art to match the text. If it does not, then the artist did not understand the text, or he had a faulty text. But are these legitimate expectations? Much scholarly attention has been applied to identifying which version of the Tristan text is depicted on a particular artefact: Eilhart von Oberge (between 11701190), Thomas d’Angleterre (around 1175), Béroul (between 1176 and 1202), Gottfried von StrafSburg (about 1210) and his continuators Ulrich von Türheim (

1235) and Heinrich von Freiberg (1290). Instead, perhaps we should ask about the purpose of the artefact and what message it conveys. In another forum I have examined,” among other artefacts, two of the Wienhausen tapestries from northern Germany, now in Celle near Hannover, from 1300-1310 and c.1330 respectively, and the Erfurt tablecloth from about 1375, which present to the uninitiated a story of courtly love and courtly honor. That they were inspired by

the story of Tristan and Isolde is almost incidental. These works emphasize the basic elements of courtly culture: adventure and the dangers of courtly love; they reduce the story of Tristan and Isolde to the most general schema of a courtly romance. They represent typical bride-winning, Wienhausen | concluding with the love potion, but not its fatal consequences. The Erfurt tablecloth encompasses the bride-winning story and the marriage of Mark and Isolde, but also includes the trysting scene and the punishing of Melot for slandering the queen. The trysting scene was probably inserted as a seminal part ofthe larger Tristan tradition; nevertheless the punishment of Melot

1

Hella Frühmorgen-Voss, “Tristan und Isolde in mittelalterlichen Bildzeugnissen” and “Katalog der

Tristan-Bildzeugnisse. zusammengestellt von Norbert H. Ott,” in Text und Illustration im Mittelalter:

Aufätze zu den Wechselbeziehungen zwischen Literatur und bildender Kunst (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1975), pp. 119-39 and 140-81. 2 “You Can Tell It Is Tristan When . . .”, a paper delivered at the annual meeting of the Medieval

Academy of America, Columbus, Ohio, March 20, 1992.

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Stephanie Cain Van D'Elden

appears to negate the adultery implied in the tryst and to focus instead on the happy ending. This essay examines three additional cycles: a set of manuscript illustrations, from Munich Cgm. 51; the Weinhausen III tapestry; and a series of wall paintings from Runkelstein castle.3 Each of these cycles of illustrations is identifiable by specific scenes, not however by the initial scene. In addition, in each of the cycles there are inscriptions referring to the characters and sometimes to the action portrayed, which serve to identify the many otherwise unrecognizable generic scenes. The Munich Tristan manuscript, Cgm. 51, contains the Tristan of Gottfried von Stra$burg from around 1210 and the continuation composed by Ulrich von Türheim about 1235. The manuscript may have been copied in StrafSburg between 1230 and 1240 under the auspices of Meister Hesse, a notary, the illustrations conceived at a later date (1240—1300).* In her dissertation Julia Walworth questions both the customary dating and the origin of the manuscript and its illustrations. Though her evidence tends to be negative without specific alternatives, she suggests that we might look towards the eastern Upper Rhine (Swabia and the Bodensee) and southern Bavaria rather than Strafburg, while maintaining a general dating of the 1240s to 1250s.° Of the 109 extant folios, 15 are full-page illustrations. The dimensions are approximately 23.5 x 16 cm. There’are from two to six scenes per page, for a total of 84 to 118 scenes (depending upon how one counts them, since it is often difficult to determine the boundaries between scenes). Unlike most illuminated manuscripts, the

illustrations are quite far removed from the corresponding text; only in three instances is the picture leaf approximately in the middle ofthe text it covers. It appears that the scribe and illuminator were not working in close collaboration; in fact the illuminators could have been using an entirely different text (Vorlage) or, perhaps, relying on their memory of an oral version.° Between folios 71 and 72, at least eight leaves (one quire)

are missing with lines 11599-13574; these leaves probably included one leaf of illustrations. And between text folios 100 and 102, lines 461—25848 (i.e., more than half of Ulrich’s continuation) are missing; folio 101r shows illustrations for which

there is no text. Since illustrations pertaining to parts of the text are missing, it may be

3 Illustrations ofall the works discussed here are found in Roger Sherman Loomis and Laura Hibbard Loomis, Arthurian Legends in Medieval Art (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1938; Kraus Repr., 1975).

4

Friedrich Ranke, “Die Uberlieferung von Gottfrieds Tristan,” Zeitschrift firdeutsches Altertum, 55,

NF 43 (1914), pp. 157-278 and 381-438, esp. 405-17;

Tristan und Isold (Munich: FE Bruckmann,

1925);

5 Julia Caroline Walworth, “The Illustrations of the Munich Tristan and Willehalm von Orlens: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Cgm 51 and Cgm 63” (Diss. Yale University, 1991), pp. 270-75. 6

The facsimile edition, Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan und Isolde. Mit der Fortsetzung Ulrichs von

Tiirheim. Faksimile-Ausgabe des Cgm 51 der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek Miinchen (Stuttgart: Miiller and Schindler, 1979), contains an essay by Ulrich Montag describing the contents and state of research (pp. 5-72) and an essay by Paul Gichtel describing the illustrations (pp. 73-144). 7 The line numbering is from Friedrich Ranke, ed., Gottfried von StraRburg,

(Dublin: Weidman, 196914).

8

Tristan und Isold

The line numbering is from Thomas Kerth, ed., Ulrich von Tiirheim, Tristan (Ttibingen: Niemeyer,

1979).

Reading Illustrations of Tristan

345

assumed that they were lost at a very early state, including the important love-potion scene. The illustrations were designed with space for inscriptions.? The inscriptions are in several different hands, none of which are those of the scribes of the text.!° There is annotation in the form of names, animals, or subjects, or four lines in rhyme pairs in German or in Latin. The text of the annotations does not match Gottfried, Ulrich, or Eilhart. Nor does there seem to be a connection between the illuminator and the writer of the inscriptions. Art historians deplore the lack of talent displayed by the artists after the first three illustrated folios (7, 10, and 11).!! After that the project seems to have been taken over by a workshop, providing a number ofartists hands-on experience. Bettina Falkenberg characterizes the program as well thought out, but compromised by lack of talent and overseeing by the designer (178-82). Customarily we think ofepics as delivered orally in front of amixed audience. Later when romances were written down, we might imagine a smaller group oflisteners and a reader or performer reading from a manuscript. The Munich Tristan situation is more ambiguous (Falkenberg, 157-58). It is difficult to imagine a reader pausing in

the midst of his presentation to deal with the illustrations. In other words, it could hardly be merely a matter of holding up the page of text and pointing to the corresponding illustration, because the illustrations are concentrated on full-page folios and grouped together throughout the manuscript. It seems more likely that the illustrations were viewed separately from the written text. If this is so, then they function similarly to a wall painting or tapestry, only with a more limited, possibly more exclusive, audience.!? In this case the “reader” could have been illiterate. The illuminations may thus be considered as entities separate from the written text, keeping in mind, however, that the artists undoubtedly had direct access to a written text, whether or not it was the one into which the illustrations were ultimately interleaved. An inordinate amount ofspace is devoted in these illustrations to the early history and upbringing of Tristan. Why? This is also true of the Chertsey Tiles from about 1270, where, according to Manwaring Shurlock’s ordering,!? more than a third ofthe 9 See

Bettina

Falkenberg,

Die

Bilder

der

Münchener

Tristan-Handschrift

(Frankfurt

am

Main/Bern/New York: Peter Lang, 1986), pp. 172-77, for a good description of how the Spruchbdnder in the early folios neatly incorporate design and meaning.

10 Only Loomis has the peculiar theory that the single artist became careless through hastiness: “The progressive coarsening of the first illustrator’s style can be easily observed. He worked more and more rapidly, with increasing resort to the one- or two-figure type of scene, and in the figures themselves, increasingly careless of modeling or proportions, he continued to accent, almost to the point of caricature, the backward slant of the body, the fashionable protuberant stomach” (p. 134). 11 Alfred Stange, Deutsche Malerei der Gotik (Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1934; Kraus Repr. 1969),

vol. 1, 2:

“.. .doch sind die Unterschiede mehr solche der Qualitat als der Stilistik.” Stange also points

out the relationship between the sculpture ofthe Strasburg cathedral and the Tristan miniatures, which

are somewhat later — especially the Ecclesia and Synagoga and the Wise and Foolish Virgins. See also Gichtel and Falkenberg. i 12 See Falkenberg, p. 182 and Volker Schupp, “Kritische Anmerkungen zur Rezeption des deutschen Artusromans anhand von Hartmanns ‘Iwein’. Theorie-Text-Bildmaterial,” Friihmittelalterliche Studien, 9 (1975), pp. 405-42, esp. 428-29. 13 Manwaring Shurlock, Tiles from Chertsey Abbey, Surrey, representing early romance subjects (London: William Griggs, 1885); see also Elizabeth S. Eames, Catalogue ofMedieval Lead-glazed Earthenware Tiles

346

Stephanie Cain Van D'Elden

tiles deal with Tristan’s background. Is it to establish Tristan’s legitimacy? To point to the importance of ancestors and thus the manuscript owners’ own legitimacy? The early episodes of the written text as well as those of the illustrations are generic. They allude to a pedestrian account of a rather remarkable young man who becomes a knight at his uncle’s court. I find this puzzling: if the artist were trying to tell a story entirely through pictures, one would expect the pictures to be more specific, but the first five or six folios dealing with the early history of Tristan do not include a single specific illustration. Similarly, at the end of the Tristan manuscript, the illustrations on folios 86r, 101v, and 104r are also generic, dealing with incidents probably not widely known, such as Tristan’s encounter with the Giant Urgan, the return of Tristan and Curvenal and Tristan’s revenge against Melot, and Tristan’s killing of Pleherin. Indeed, without the inscriptions the viewer would not be able to tell from the illustrations what was taking place in the story. Perhaps the answer lies in the preponderance ofcertain motifs. For example, Tristan does not receive his sword from King Mark, but rather from a priest, indicating the prominence of the Church. Mark is frequently portrayed in his role as judge, sitting with crossed legs on his throne. The importance of the Church and the court are thus emphasized. During the ordeal episode, Mark sits on his throne with crossed legs consulting his advisors (folio 82r). In the next scene Isolde seems to be agreeing to the trial. After being rescued by Tristan disguised as a pilgrim (folio 82v), she is shown

swearing the oath facing Mark, his right hand in a speaking gesture with his outstretched index finger raised; her right hand is in the form ofan oath gesture stretched upwards; behind Mark stands the bishop with a book in his hand. In the next scene Isolde stands in front of the bishop, he with his arms stretched out before him, she with two fingers stretched out in an oath; the glowing iron is missing. Nevertheless,

Friedrich Ranke (Tristan, 1925, 281) interpreted the scenes as depicting the proof that her hand was not burned by the glowing iron. (Gottfried does not mention the bishop’s role in this scene.) More specifically, Isolde’s clothing symbolizes the course of events: in the first scenes, in which we observe a contrite Isolde, she is wearing appropriately plain clothing, but in the final scene she wears a crown and a red robe as signs of her rewon status. According to Falkenberg (178-79) the pictures are word illustrations that reflect

the abundance of details in the text. The choice of illustrations demonstrates an endeavor to comprehend not only the action ofthe plot but also psychic relationships between the characters (for example, Blancheflur falls in love with and cures Riwalin,

and conceives Tristan). On other occasions the artist skillfully connects two scenes with speech bands (Spruchbdnder) containing texts not found in Gottfried. The artists’

primary tools are gestures and demeanor. Volker Schupp contends that the cycle seems to be less an augmented illustration of the medieval romance than a substitute for those recipients who preferred the picture to the word (428). He suggests that the

pictorial part of the Munich Tristan could be the sample book of a painter (perhaps a copy of such) or a picture book which does not depend upon a text, a sort of secularized Paupers’ Bible. Schupp likens it to a comic book (429). in the Department ofMedieval and Later Antiquities British Museum, 2 vols. (London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1980), pp. 141-71.

Reading Illustrations of Tristan

347

Wienhausen III, the youngest Wienhausen tapestry, dates from about 1360. Its dimensions are about 2.45 x 4.02 meters. During the nineteenth century it was cut into three parts; the research of Marie Schuette' led to its being restored to its original form in 1924. It includes 22 scenes in four registers separated by bands ofinscription. The colors are indigo, pale blue, deep red, straw, rust, pea-green, and white. The renderings of costumes and figures and the colors remind one of Wienhausen II and of the Parzival or Gawan tapestry at Brunswick. The iconography ofthe ship, bed, and banquet scenes is similar to that of Wienhausen I. The tapestry begins with the wooing of Isolde and probably concluded with the deaths of Tristan and Isolde. The last scene (23) is missing; the penultimate scene,

however, depicts Isolde traveling across the sea to the wounded Tristan. The narrative starts with the curious scene of Mark in bed observing two swallows, which does not appear in any extant texts but is similar to Wienhausen II. The inscription reads “King Mark sent forth his nephew for the young lady who had the hair such as . . .”. An

armed figure stands beside the bed, perhaps presaging the fight with Morolt. The brief inscription continues: “. . . He went overseas. There he slew the Morholt, Isalde’s brother. There he slew the dragon and cut out his tongue. The Red Knight . . .”,'$ thus neatly setting the stage for the bride-winning episodes, but not describing the entire cycle of illustrations. Tristan fights Morolt while their white and red horses fight beside them. The next scene shows Tristan cutting out the dragon’s tongue and being revived by the ladies of the court. The following scenes depict the seneschal cutting off the dragon’s head and presenting it before the King and Queen, Isolde, and Brangaene, while Tristan on the other side of the table holds up the dragon’s tongue. The bath scene, which should precede this, follows instead. The love-potion scene is followed by the wedding banquet, and then by Brangaene and Mark in bed, with Isolde wearing a crown standing to the side (this rare scene also appears on the Hermitage | ivory casket produced in Paris around 1325). As in the Runkelstein wall paintings, the attempted murder of Brangaene is shown, including the hound which is killed instead of her and the bloodied robe offered as proof of her death. The next scenes depict Tristan and Isolde in the grotto discovered by Mark (the sword is not between them, but rather on Isolde’s side along with the glove Mark has placed there, following Eilhart more closely than Gottfried),

the trysting scene without a reflection

in the water

(following

Gottfried more closely, where Mark and Melot are recognized by their shadows, not their reflections), Tristan banished and sailing away, Tristan’s marriage to Isolde ofthe

14 Marie Schuette, Gestickte Bildteppiche und Decken des Mittelalters, 2 vols. (Leipzig: Karl W. Hiersemann, 1927 and 1930). Volume one contains colored reproductions of Wienhausen III. 15 “(1st register) KONICH MARKES SANDE VT ZINEN OM NA DER IVNEN VROWEN DE HEDE ALZO DAN HAR ALZ (2nd register) [DE SW] HEDE VORDE MORHOLTE

ISALDE

IN DAT PALAS HE VOR OVER

(3rd register) BROER DO SLOCH

HE DEN WORM

DE ZE DO SLOCH

UN SCNE VOM

HE DOT

EN DE TVCHEN

VT

DE RODE RIDDER|[...]”. See Jürgen Ricklefs, “Der Tristanroman der niedersächsischen und mitteldeutschen Tristanteppiche,” Verein für niederdeutsche Sprachforschung. Jahrbuch 86 (1963), pp. 33-48, esp. 42, for a discussion on the Red Knight in Wienhausen III and the Erfurt tablecloth which seems to point to the French prose romance. Ricklefs includes an excellent color photograph of Wienhausen I and a black and white photograph of Wienhausen III.

348

Stephanie Cain Van D'Elden

White Hands, the wedding banquet, the bridal night, the lighted candles and the lilies indicating that the marriage was not consummated.!¢ In Eilhart’s text, Tristan boasts that Isolde treats her dog Petitcrieu with greater honor than Isolde of the White Hands ever treated Tristan. The scene in Wienhausen III shows the dog carried on a horse litter, with Isolde and Brangaene riding before it. According to Eilhart, Tristan and Kehenis watch the procession from behind a bush, but here a man and two women watch from behind a small hill. Loomis suggests that the artist may have been following a more dramatic version in which Tristan boasted to his wife, not Kehenis, and disclosed to her how precious the hound was to her rival (53). Finally, Isolde, accompanied by Brangaene, the boatman, and possibly the messenger are depicted sailing to the dying Tristan, displaying a white sail. Muriel Whitaker suggests that “unlike Wienhausen I and II, Wienhausen III acknowledges the conflict between the adulterous lovers and society. By portraying the defeat of the latters’ representatives, it condones the love affair.”!” The wall paintings at the Castle Runkelstein in South Tirol include from 14 to 20 scenes depicting the story ofTristan and Isolde. Parts of the castle of Runkelstein date back as far as 1237. In 1385 it was purchased by Niklas and Franz Vintler, who added the so-called Summer House in which the Arthurian paintings are located. It includes an open structure with a gallery and loggia. Along the covered gallery are painted triads of the Nine Worthies including King Arthur, other knights of the Round Table (Parzival, Gawain, and Iwein), the three greatest pairs of lovers (including Tristan and

Isolde), the three best swordsmen, the three greatest giants and giantesses, the three greatest dwarfs, and so on. In the castle proper are scenes of diverse courtly activities. The walls of the so-called Ladies’ Chamber were once completely covered with scenes from Tristan, rendered in grisaille with touches of red and green. In the loggia the adventures of Wigalois by Wirnt von Grafenberg (c.1200) are illustrated; and in the

“Library” are scenes from Garel von dem bliihenden Tal by Der Pleier (1260-1280). Emperor Maximilian acquired the castle and commissioned restorations between 1503 and 1511. In 1868 a section of the north wall collapsed, destroying two Tristan scenes and part of a third, but not before they were sketched by Ignaz Seelos.'® Later in the nineteenth century the castle was restored again, and given to the town of Bolzano by Emperor Franz Josef in 1893. The scenes depicted on the walls at Runkelstein begin with the fight between Tristan and Morolt and conclude with the ordeal. Also depicted, as in the Wienhausen tapestry, are three scenes of Isolde’s attempt to have Brangaene killed in the forest. Whitaker describes it:

16 Doris Fouquet, Wort und Bild in der mittelalterlichen Tristantradition: Der älteste Tristanteppich von oe Wienhausen und die textile Tristanüberlieferung des Mittelalters (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1971), pp3-4. '7 Muriel Whitaker, The Legends of King Arthur in Art (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1990), p. 102.

18 See Ignaz Seelos, “Zeichnungen zum ‘Tristan’ -Zyklus,” in Runkelstein: Die Wandmalereien des eds. Walter Haug, Joachim Heinzle, Dietrich Huschenbett, and Norbert H. Ott

Sommerhauses,

(Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert, 1982), pp. 240-47; Ignaz Vincenz Zingerle and Ignaz Seelos, Fresken-cyklus des Schlosses Runkelstein bei Bozen (Innsbruck: Wagner, 1857).

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The artists’ selectivity has ensured that the climatic moments of achievement are recorded, Tristram’s fatal stroke on Marolt’s skull but not the fight with lances and swords;

his surgery on the dragons tongue but not the vicious battle. Copious splashes of red paint indicate the bloodiness ofthe fray. The scenes flow continuously around the room so that the rocky shore of the island where Tristram beats Marolt to his knees becomes the point of embarkation when the hero, in full armour, departs with a retinue for Ireland. Another stretch of crags and boulder-strewn beach separates that ship from an almost identical one which carries him in the next scene towards the dragon. Isolde discovers the unconscious hero on another rocky shore. His sword lying between them seems to presage the grotto episode, which is not depicted. Set within a triple-arched castle room, the bath scene shows the naked hero, with curly hair and a short beard that

Maximilian’s restorers probably added. Isolde, wearing a magnificently voluminous gown, a crown on her long, loose hair, confronts him while Bragaene grips her right hand to deflect the sword. Next a third ship, complete with trumpeters, embarks from a

precipitous harbour. As the Irish rulers watch from the castle balcony, Tristram in the bag-shaped hood popular in the 1380s passes the princess the fateful goblet. (131)

The next scenes depict the festive wedding of Mark and Isolde, the attempted murder of Brangaene and her reconciliation with Isolde, the discovery of Tristan and Isolde in bed, the trysting scene, and the strewn-flour scene. Another ship scene concludes the cycle showing Isolde about to be carried down the gangplank by a pilgrim. Although wearing a crown, she is plainly dressed and barefoot and shown holding a red-colored hot iron bar. Whitaker describes the officiating bishop as wearing “a most dubious expression!” and maintains that the “concluding episode of the pictorial text affirms that God Himself approves the faithful lovers” (131).

The dangerous minne (courtly love) adventures come to a happy end: Tristan and Isolde’s love based on a violation of the marriage vow is depicted as an ideal minne and is legitimized by defiance of society. All perils of the minne relationship are ignored.!° The legitimacy of the illegitimate adulterous, courtly love-marriage is maintained through a series of happily-ending intrigues directed against Mark. In the final deceit God himselfis implicated as witness of the legitimacy ofthis love challenging society. Why did the artist omit the unhappy ending? Was he unfamiliar with it? What,

indeed, was his purpose in the wall paintings? Since the scenes follow Gottfried’s text so closely, some scholars hypothesize that _ the artist must have followed a lost manuscript with miniatures. There is no proof for this, and the large scale of the paintings and the locale seem to preclude direct influence from a manuscript.”° Moreover, the spirit is quite removed from Gottfried, for the artist does not follow Gottfried’s notion of an endangered courtly-love marriage. Instead he portrays the story of the hero Tristan who defeats Morolt and the

dragon, who engages in love adventures, deceives the king, etc. Gottfried’s love ideology has become a series of adventures and love farces (Schwänke-fabliaux) such as 19 Norbert H. Ott, “Gegliickte Minne-Aventiure. Zur Szenenauswahl literarischer Bildzeugnisse im Mittelalter. Die Beispiele des Rodenecker Jwein, des Runkelsteiner Tristan, des Braunschweiger Gawanund des Frankfurter Wilhelm-von-Orlens-Teppichs,” Jahrbuch der Oswald von Wolkenstein Gesellschaft, 2 (1982/3), pp. 1-32, esp. 14.

20 See Norbert H. Ott, “ ‘Tristan’ auf Runkelstein und die übrigen zyklischen Darstellungen des Tristanstoffes. Textrezeption oder medieninterne Eigengesetzlichkeit der Bildprogramme?” in Runkelstein: Die Wandmalereien des Sommerhauses cited above, pp. 194-239, esp. 199.

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the trysting scene, Tristan springing over the flour into Isolde’s bed, and the ordeal by hot iron. In tenor the artist follows Eilhart’s version more closely (as do most of the

other illustrative Tristan cycles in German-speaking lands). Nevertheless the Runkelstein paintings are distinctive. The painter of the Runkelstein Tristan seems to have fulfilled the expectations of the literary historian: here a piece of literature has been “illustrated” in an attempt to reproduce “literature.” According to Norbert Ott (“Tristan,” 229), the completeness of the cycle and its

agreement with the progress of the text—-not necessarily with the structure of the text—in the sense of acontinuous illustration of the high points of the action, clearly indicate the reception of a literary text as text and no longer, as in prior cyclical Tristan works, as a pictorial representation of models for courtly endeavors. It is clear that these three Tristan cycles depict more than courtly love and bridewinning. The Munich Tristan is remarkable, one of the most extensively illustrated German manuscripts. The designer apparently conceived the illustrations as mnemonic devices for someone who knew the story very well and was prepared to retell the story based on the pictures. Nevertheless the characters are identified in most of the scenes, and without the inscriptions the viewer could easily get lost in the abundant illustrations. The designer does not appear to have a particular stratagem for his program, especially when we compare the manuscript illustrations to the wall paintinngs at Runkelstein. There the Vintlers, the banker family patrons, seem to have nourished archivist-historical aspirations, associated with their own dilettante preoccupation with literature and its production; the Tristan wall paintings must be viewed in conjunction with the program of the entire castle, which includes the illustrations from the romances of Garel and Wigalois, a grand series of triads, as well as numerous scenes of courtly activities. The castle owners seem to be snubbing their noses at society by presenting a favorable view of adultery within the context of a grand pictorial literary history which includes all sorts of exotic behavior. The inscription on the Wienhausen tapestry does not give much information. The “reader” needs to be cognizant ofthe entire story, from the bride-winning to the fatal conclusion. In all three cycles ship scenes provide a visual structure, the connecting links, guiding the “reader” from one episode to the next. It appears, then, that it was necessary for the “readers” of these illustrations of Tristan to be generally familiar with the story (although not necessarily with a specific written text) in order to follow the action depicted. I have suggested some of the different readings they may have presented to their audiences based on these illustrations. These three cycles of illustrations present a rather complete version ofthe story: they all include the various intrigues directed against King Mark in support ofthe love affair of Tristan and Isolde. In the Wienhausen tapestry and the Runkelstein wall paintings the illustrations seem to promote the adulterous relationship; the Munich manuscript depicts the perilous relationship in more detail, while also portraying the lovers sympathically. Was the story of Tristan and Isolde meant to be an exemplum of the wonders of courtly love and courtly behavior, or was it supposed to serve as a bad example of the

results of adulterous love? The written texts seem to support both views. The Runkelstein wall paintings glorify the love story while emphasizing the farcical aspects of the

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351

deception of King Mark. The Munich manuscript concludes and the Wienhausen tapestry probably concluded with the two graves from which grow a rose and a grape vine, thus linking the two lovers even in death. But is this a glorious death, or is it punishment for their sinful lives on earth? The “readers” of the illustrations could choose their interpretation based on their own understanding of the written text or they could tailor their retelling of the story to the expectations oftheir audience.

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THE END OF AN ADVENTURE: SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT AND CHAUCER’S TROILUS AND CRISEYDE Setsuko Haruta

Geoffrey Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde and the anonymous Sir Gawain and the Green Knight are generally considered to be the two outstanding masterpieces of medieval English romance. The differences in their language, metrics, literary traditions and locale, however, tend to dissuade us from making any analytical comparison. Scholars tend to put more emphasis on their differences, but we cannot ignore the fact that Chaucer and the Gawain-Poet were not only contemporary compatriots composing in the same literary genre but that they also lived in the same milieu, sharing the same literary, cultural and social backgrounds. The purpose ofthis paper is to show how the two works reflect these similar backgrounds, especially contemporary attitudes toward chivalry. By the end of the fourteenth century, the heyday of chivalry was already over. On the Continent, the period had already witnessed the beginning of the Renaissance, and romantic ideals were regarded as old-fashioned. In England, however, King Edward III was well known as an ardent devotee of chivalry, holding rich tournaments and founding the Order of the Garter, which he modelled after King Arthur’s Round Table. The deliberate attempts to retain the out-dated ideals, which had already lost their vitality, inevitably resulted in emphasis being placed on the formal and superficial aspects of chivalry, such as rich pageantry and strict adherence to detailed rules of conduct, rather than on attempts at understanding and reviving the spirit which forms their basis. The contemporary English cultural éites, many of whom, like Chaucer himself, spent some time on the Continent and were well aware ofthe “crisis” of the period, were not without “a critical or questioning spirit,” and shared the “new, more critical attitude toward romantic chivalry.”!

1 The quoted phrases are from: Charles Muscatine, Poetry and Crisis in the Age of Chaucer (Notre

Dame: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1972),Merely: 14; George Lyman Kittredge, Chaucer and His Poetry (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1972°), p. 8; and Larry D. Benson, Art and Tradition in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1965), p. 245. See also Johan Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages, tr. FE Hopman (New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1924), especially Ch. VI; Gervase Mathew, “Ideals of Knighthood in Late Fourteenth-Century England” in Studies in Medieval History Presented to Frederick Maurice Powicke, eds. R.W. Hunt, W.A. Pantin, and R.W. Southern (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1948), repr. in Twentieth Century Interpretations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ed. Denton Fox (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1968), p. 72; and Morton W. Bloomfield, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: An Appraisal,” Publications of the Modern Language Association, 76 (1961), p. 19.

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Setsuko Haruta

A chivalric or courtly romance presumably shows certain aristocratic and idealistic principles in operation, mainly with regard to the protagonist’s bellicose and amorous adventures.” Significantly, both Troilus and Criseyde and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight prove themselves very atypical in their treatment of these subjects. The main plot of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight consists of interlocked games, but none of them involves martial exercise. On the contrary, the “beheading game” which frames the narrative requires the recipient of the blow to demonstrate his courage by remaining completely nonresistant. Also, the poet merely informs us in passing that the tournaments are held in Camelot to celebrate the Christmas season (Il. 41-42), but he

neglects to inform the audience whether or not Sir Gawain participates in them, let alone the feats which are naturally expected of him. Similarly, while describing Sir Gawain’s journey in quest of the appointed place of his execution, the poet skips lightly over the knight's fights against “wormez,” “wolues,” “wodwos,” “bullez and berez, and borez,” and “etaynez,” and dwells instead on a very circumstantial description ofhis suffering from extremely cold weather. Similarly, Chaucer refuses to dwell long on the battle scenes in Troilus and Criseyde, although the narrative is cast against the background of the Trojan War, and suggests that those who want martial passages will find them “in Omer, or in Dares, or in Dite.”{ Troilus does join in battles but the audience hardly finds concrete and realistic description of his fighting. Instead, with clichés such as “in the feld he pleyde tho leoun” (I, 1074) and “thousandes his hondes maden deye” (V, 1802), battles are often

reported in brief summaries of results, as in that of Troilus’ death.> The closest we come to a warlike description is the picture of Troilus riding home fresh from the battlefield (11, 624-48). However much his heroic figure appeals to Criseyde, who watches him from the window, it does not alter the fact that the scene involves no belligerent action at all. While the fighting scenes are deliberately understated, “love,” as the other popular subject in romances, fares even worse in the two poems. In Troilus and Criseyde, it constitutes the substance of the protagonist’s adventure. Ironically, however, Troilus, who devotes himselfto chivalric-idealistic love, fails, while Diomede, who maintains a more realistic and pragmatic attitude towards love, wins the lady. While the Trojan knight takes the codes of fin’ amors in deadly earnest, all the other characters regard it more or less as a game. “A ha!” cries Pandarus when he learns that his young friend is in love, “Here bygynneth game” (1, 868). Although Criseyde shares her uncle’s attitude to a certain degree,° her reflection on Troilus’ wooing reveals that she sees the life 2 See Charles Muscatine, Chaucer and the French Tradition: A Study in Style and Meaning (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1957), p. 13; and Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Presentation of Reality in

Western Literature, tr. Willard R. Trask (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1974), p. 140. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, I. 720-32. In this essay, all quotations are from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, eds. J.R.R. Tolkien and E.V. Gordon, revised by Norman Davis (Oxford: Clarendon

3

Press, 1967). 4 Troilus and Criseyde, 1, 141-47. All quotations are from The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benson

(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 19873). 5 V, 1800-6. See also IV, 29-56; V, 1765-71; and C.S. Lewis, “What Chaucer Really Did to Z/ Filostrato,” Essays and Studies, 17 (1932), p. 60.

©

For example, when she is informed of Troilus’ love for her, Criseyde remarks aside: “It nedeth me ful

sleighly for to pleie” (II, 462).

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of a beloved only in its realistic and factual aspects (II, 701-808). Her ultimate breach

of the code oflove is prompted by a similarly unsentimental assessment of Diomede’s

offer (V, 1023-29). It is this difference in the characters attitudes toward love that is

chiefly responsible for the final catastrophe. The view of fin’ amors in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is no less negative than that in Troilus and Criseyde: love is not at all an ennobling force, but “a temptation to be guarded against.”” In the three successive mornings prior to the day appointed for his beheading, Sir Gawain, while he lingers late in bed, is visited by his hostess, the lady of Castle Hautdesert. She apparently considers love as a social game to be enjoyed in her husband’s absence — “I com hider sengel, and sitte / To lerne at yow sum game” (1531-32) — and is puzzled at Sir Gawain’s refusal to participate in it, for she, as well

as other inhabitants ofthe castle, knows the knight’s reputation as the “playboy of the medieval world.”# In fact, the poet may well have chosen Sir Gawain as the protagonist of his narrative precisely because he.is the least likely among the Arthurian knights to resist this kind of temptation. The implicit danger in the situation is reinforced by its implied parallel with the cause of the Trojan War with which the poet chooses to begin and to close his poem. In Troilus and Criseyde, too, Paris elopement with another man’s wife serves as an exemplar ofthe disastrous effects of love and a warning to the protagonist (IV, 547-50, 608-9; V, 890-96). We have seen that, by understating prowess and emphasizing the negative aspects of fin amors, both Chaucer and the Gawain-Poet refuse to include the two principal constituents of adventure of chivalric romance. Where, then, can we seek the central adventure of the two poems in question? Neither do they primarily deal with the psychological conflict of aknight, between love ofhis lady and loyalty to his overlord, as the romances of Lancelot and of Tristan do, nor with a spiritual quest of a higher value, as the Grail romances do. On the other hand, the lack of such important themes in the two poems reveals the fact that both Troilus and Sir Gawain are free from such mental and moral conflicts from the outset, since they are already deeply committed to established aristocratic ideals. Their adventures, then, consist in their struggles to maintain these ideals in the adverse circumstances in which they find themselves as the narratives unfold. In the two works, the protagonists’ adventures thus consist of tests of be to chivalric ideals. Sir Gawain senses rightly that, in each ofthe tests he submits to, he is being tested at the same time in basic loyalty to chivalric ideals, and this is why he is so deeply upset and reacts in a violent manner at the revelation of his minor breach; as the Green Knight points out to him, he was proved to lack “lewté” (2366, 2379-81). These double layers of loyalty exist also in Troilus and Criseyde in that the lovers’ faithfulness to each other will prove their loyalty to the ideals of fin’ amors. Although 7 Dorothy Everett, Essays on Middle English Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), p. 77. 8 See Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 924-27 and 1525-27. The epithet for Sir Gawain is from Walter S. Phelan, “Playboy of the Medieval World: Nationalism and Internationalism in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” Literary Review, 23 (1980), pp. 542-58. See also B.J. Whiting, “Gawain: His Reputation, His Courtesy, and His Appearance in Chaucer's Squires Tale,” Mediaeval Studies, 9 (1947), repr. in Fox, pp. 73-76; A.C. Spearing, The Gawain Poet: A Critical Study (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press,

1970), pp. 198-99; Benson, pp. 103-6; and M. Mills, “Christian Significance and Romance Tradition in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” Modern Language Review, 60 (1965), pp. 491-93.

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he is “trewe as stiel in ech condicioun” (V, 831), Troilus fails, because he has placed his

loyalty on a foundation which cannot sustain it: Criseyde can appreciate the young knight’s “moral vertu, grounded upon trouthe” (IV, 1672), but she herself is of “slydynge of corage” (V, 825) and yields to the first Greek she sees after parting with her lover. The young knight’s desperate cry makes clear that his tragedy is not only the loss of his beloved lady, but also the shattering of the very moral ground on which he stood: “O trust, O feyth, O depe asseuraunce!” (V, 1259).

The difficulties for the protagonists to maintain their ideals are sometimes created by the environment, which cannot allow chivalric principles to operate, but more often by their encounters with characters who represent different value systems. Sir Gawain is matched by the Green Knight who, although he is interpreted differently by critics, is invariably regarded as embodying a non-Arthurian attitude, and who eventually lures the protagonist out of a familiar milieu into the other world: the stark wilderness which affords the setting for his journey and for the intended execution, and the quasi-courtly, but really magical, world of Hautdesert. In Troilus and Criseyde, the harsh reality of war and politics intrudes on the private and ideal world offin’ amors and exposes the discordance within the characters: Troilus’ idealism as opposed to Pandarus’ worldliness, the pragmatism of “sodeyn Diomede” (V, 1024), and Cri-

seyde’s readiness to compromise with circumstances. The encounters with different values not only test the protagonists’ loyalty to chivalric ideals but also put the ideals themselves under scrutiny; once dragged out of their artificial and unrealistic milieu, they can no longer operate as effective guidelines of conduct. Thus both Troilus and Criseyde and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight can be interpreted as anti-romances and criticisms of chivalry,? as stories of man’s quixotic efforts to maintain his idealism in a world which has no place for it. The protagonists’ attempts to be faithful to chivalric ideals indicate conversely that they are not flawless incarnations of chivalry such as we often find in a medieval romance. On the contrary, the poets draw the audience’s attention to their imperfection and weaknesses. Sir Gawain’s heroic stature is gradually diminished as he is caught by timor mortis and Troilus, with his strangely reserved epithet as the knight next to Hector (II, 158, 170-82, 644, 739-40;

III, 1775; V, 1800-4), is found

altogether too innocent and powerless for his own good. Their understanding of chivalric ideals, too, goes little deeper than the observance of rules of conduct: Sir Gawain’s reputation is limited to his “exquisite courtesy” (Everett, 78), and Troilus is “too perfect a courtly lover” (Muscatine, French Tradition, 137-38). Their obsession

with superficial features reflects the chivalry of late-fourteenth-century England, which survived chiefly as etiquette and an exaggerated display ofgallantry. When the protagonists find themselves in an unaccustomed situation or when they 9

Benson emphasizes “the tension between romantic and unromantic elements” in Sir Gawain and the

Green Knight with its plot developing “from pure romance to a gently satiric anti-romance” (pp. 243, 209). For similar views, see Sacvan Bercovitch, “Romance and Anti-Romance in Sir Gawain and the

Green Knight,” Philological Quarterly, 44 (1965), pp. 30-37; Spearing, p. 222; and Charles Moorman, who sees the poem as a “semiallegorical presentation” of the corruption of the Round Table in “Myth and Mediaeval Literature: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” Mediaeval Studies, 18 (1956), pp- 158-72.

Alan T. Gaylord sees Troilus and Criseyde as “a combination of romance and antiromance” in “Friendship in Chaucer's Troilus,” The Chaucer Review, 3 (1968-69), p. 264.

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are confronted by people ofa different mentality, this obsession with the observance of superficial rules prevents them from being flexible and from reacting spontaneously. As a result, they tend to remain inactive and passive when events take an important turn. All members of the Arthurian court, including Sir Gawain, fall into a dead silence when the Green Knight intrudes (241-49), and at difficult moments Troilus retires to his room only to fall back on his bed and commiserate. Sir Gawain is “a

passive, suffering agent”!° and “Troilus, throughout the poem, suffers more than he acts.”'! It is Bertilak, as the Green Knight and lord of Hautdesert, who keeps on proposing one game after another, to which Sir Gawain consents unquestioningly, and it is Pandarus who manipulates intrigues to bring about the lovers’ union while Troilus merely follows his friend’s instructions. The pictures of the two bed-ridden knights symbolize their mental paralysis: Troilus swooning away at the crucial moment before the consummation oflove and being brought to bed with words of ridicule (III, 1098,

1126, 1189-90), and Sir Gawain lingering in bed, trying to refrain from action at the lady’s amorous invitation. The audience, who will have noticed these drawbacks on the part of the protagonists and the odds which are against them, are more or less prepared to find the young and naive knights deeply disillusioned at the end of their adventures by a double failure: their personal failure and the failure of the romantic ideals which they have upheld. Although the protagonists consider the outcome as a disaster, however, it is not a complete failure. Sir Gawain’s repeated self-reproach (2374ff, 2505ff) is modified by the praises uttered by the Green Knight (2362-65) and later by the Arthurian courtiers (2513-21), and Troilus is posthumously given a place in the eighth sphere and then in the pagan heaven (V, 1807-27). Unlike the case in the traditional romances,

the audience’s response toward the protagonists’ achievements is held in a tension between condemnation on one hand, and sympathy and admiration on the other. Most important, however, is a rich ambiguity in the meaning of the protagonists’ adventures created by the introduction of multiple points of view, as they are interpreted and evaluated differently by various characters. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the protagonist himselfisresponsible for two opposing views, since his evaluation of his own adventures undergoes a radical change: first, he assumes that he has achieved complete success but, after the Green Knight’s exposition, gives himself a

totally negative verdict, accusing himself in turn of “cowarddyse,” “couetyse,” “trecherye” and “vntrawpe” (2374-83, 2506-10). While Sir Gawain’s judgment is based on

the simple dualism which is found in many popular romances, the Green Knight introduces a more sophisticated method of evaluation based on relativism: “As perle bi pe quite pese is of prys more, / So is Gawayn, in god fayth, bi ober gay kny3tez” (2364-65). Being well aware of human limitations, he is pleased with Sir Gawain’s

achievement in spite of the fact that the knight “lakked a lyttel” (2366). When the 10 Mills, p. 484. See also Benson, p. 197; and Marie Borroff, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Stylistic and Metrical Study (Hamden, Conn.: Archon, 1973), p. 118. 11 CS. Lewis, The Allegory ofLove: A Study in Medieval Tradition (New York: Oxford, 1936; paperback repr. 1958), p. 194. See also E. Talbot Donaldson, Chaucer's Poetry: An Anthology for the Modern Reader (New York: Ronald,

1958), p. 974; Muscatine, French Tradition, p. 162; Gerry Brenner, “Narrative

Structure in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde,” Annuale Mediaevale, 6 (1965), p. 6; and Joseph S. Salemi, “Playful Fortune and Chaucer's Criseyde,” The Chaucer Review, 15 (1981), p. 220.

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protagonist returns to Camelot, the achievement of the “perle” is praised from the viewpoint of the “pese,” who are willing to share the same weakness by wearing the green girdle as the token of fellowship and honor. Sir Gawain’s groan of self-reproach is submerged in the peal of merry laughter at Camelot. Thus, the ending of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is, as Spearing notices, intentionally enigmatic, “not firmly placed in a perspective of absolute values” (236).

In Troilus and Criseyde, the heroine's betrayal evokes different of the main characters, which often contradict one another and Criseyde’s prediction that she will be an object of blame (V, quickly by the Narrators comment that he wishes to excuse

responses on the part confuse the audience. 1054-68) is followed her “for routhe” (V,

1099). Pandarus’ declaration that he “wol hate hire evermore” (V, 1733) is contrasted with Troilus’ statement that he cannot “unloven” Criseyde (V, 1695-98). Like Sir

Gawain, Troilus radically changes his view on the outcome of his adventure; what overwhelmed him earlier as a tragic catastrophe leads him to the negation of all earthly values from a celestial standpoint. As if he were still dissatisfied with this multiplicity of views, the Narrator condemns from the Christian viewpoint all that he has put much effort in narrating (V, 1835-69). The poet, as he does elsewhere, intends to

present divergent ways of looking at the outcome of the protagonist’s adventure without committing himself to any one of them. Ifwe remember that the two works were composed when chivalry itself had almost run its own adventurous course in the real and fictional worlds of the high Middle Ages, it is significant that the adventures of Troilus and of Sir Gawain end with the failure of the best of knights to realize their chivalric ideals. The ambiguity and seeming lack of confidence, the haunting sense of disillusionment and the multiple points of view about their outcome all seem to indicate a state of mind which no longer feels secure of the ground it stands upon and which, while it is keenly aware of the radical changes which are taking place, cannot yet define the new principles which are to replace the old ones. It is perhaps not too far-fetched to see that, in the final sections of the two poems, the authors have recreated the atmosphere which pervaded the court circles in late-fourteenth-century England. An obvious difference between the two works, however, emerges at the turning point in the plot: while Sir Gawain himself violates the chivalric code, Troilus is responsible only in that he proves himself vulnerable, and it is Criseyde who commits the fatal act. In this sense, the lady takes over the protagonist’s role, to carry on the parallelism between the two works and their common theme of “chivalry proved imperfect.” The poets have prepared both agents carefully for the failure: both the Arthurian knight and the Trojan lady enjoy the life of the sophisticated and worldly courtois milieu in the same way that the fourteenth century courtiers most likely did.!2 Consequently, both reveal their weaknesses when their welfare is threatened: Sir Gawain ultimately fails to keep “lewté” and Criseyde proves herself to be “fals”

12 Criseyde is “very much a worldling” (Donald R. Howard, “Experience, Language, and Conscious-

ness: Troilus and Criseyde, I, 596-936” in Medieval Literature and Folklore Studies: Essays in Honor of Francis Lee Utley, eds. J. Mandel and B.A. Rosenberg [New Brunswick,

N.J.: Rutgers Univ. Press,

1970], p. 186), and Sir Gawain is “notorious” for “weakness for the things of the world” (Benson, p103).

The End of an Adventure

359

because of their strong survival instinct. What Manning says about Sir Gawain is also very much true of Criseyde: “No sin resides in self-preservation, but there is violation of an ideal.”13 The similarity between Sir Gawain and Criseyde becomes more apparent after their violation of chivalric codes, as their reactions run in close parallel to each other. They are first overcome with shame, which chiefly derives, not from deep feeling of guilt or the damage done to others, but from the concern for their own reputation: Sir Gawain repeatedly groans for “schome,” in the presence of the Green Knight and at Camelot (2369-72, 2501-4), and Criseyde grieves for her predictable ill fame (V, 1054-68).

At the same time, they attempt desperately to find an object to blame for their own misconduct. In her lament, Criseyde mourns: “Allas, that swich a cas me sholde falle!” (V, 1064). She chooses to see “cas” as the agent ofevil deed and herself as its victim,

just as her previous speech on “fals felicitee” (III, 813-36) prepared the way to blame Fortune for her own predictable falsehood. Sir Gawain, in his “wild searches for someone or something else to blame for his failing” (Spearing, 221), accuses successively “cowarddyse and couetyse,” the green girdle and “wyles of wymmen,”

and

concludes: “ba3 | be now bigyled, / Me pink me burde be excused” (2374-2428).

Although they thus momentarily refuse to see themselves as the true cause of catastrophe, both Criseyde and Sir Gawain ultimately regain integrity and overcome self-deception. After some wordy speeches, Sir Gawain finally sees himself as a man who lacked “larges and lewté” (2381) and accepts the green girdle as a token of “vntrawbe” (2509), and Criseyde admits that the fault was entirely on her side: “I have falsed oon the gentileste / That evere was, and oon the worthieste!” (V, 1056-57). In

her apostrophe to Troilus, she saves the knight from all possible blame: “gilteles, | woot wel, I yow leve” (V, 1084). By these utterances, the poets manage to show a spark of nobility and heroism within the limited power ofearthly creatures. After their failure and their realization of weaknesses, neither Sir Gawain nor Criseyde hesitate to resume the life of the courtois milieu, as if they had no other choice to make: Sir Gawain as a knight of the Round Table, and Criseyde as the beloved of another knight. Although they seem basically unaltered by their experiences, they express moderate hopes to improve themselves in future in order not to commit a similar error again: Sir Gawain will wear the green girdle as a warning for “pryde” (2430-38), and Criseyde utters to herself, “To Diomede algate I wol be

trewe” (V, 1071). If Criseyde’s words sound pathetic, as they did to C.S. Lewis (Allegory, 189), or tragic and ironical, as they did to Kittredge (30), something similar can be said about Sir Gawain’s resolution; in each case, the audience is given no assurance that the speaker will live up to his or her determination in future. Yet, the audience sees another spark of heroism in the fact that they have chosen to take the only positive attitude they could under the circumstances: in order to survive through the difficult period when all established values seem to be falling apart, the best one can do is to learn from fresh experiences and grope one’s way, adjusting one’s attitude to the changes taking place. If the two contemporaneous English poets have recreated the spiritual and emotional world of court circles trapped between the 13 Stephen Manning, “A Psychological Interpretation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” Criticism, 6 (1964), p. 175.

360

Setsuko Haruta

passing away of chivalric idealism and the establishment of new mores, it is most likely in the characters of Sir Gawain and of Criseyde that they have succeeded in portraying the general mental attitude of their contemporaries. For those who were to live through the period ofradical changes, like the Arthurian knight and the Trojan lady in the two contemporary romances, the end of one adventure marked the beginning of another.

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