Philologies Old and New: Essays in Honor of Peter Florian Dembowski 0970799101, 9780970799104

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The Edward C. Armstrong Monographs on Medieval Literature 12

General

Editors

Michelle A. Freeman Princeton University

Rupert T. Pickens University of Kentucky Karl D. Uitti

Princeton University

For acomplete listing of series titles, see final page of this volume.

MYUOUYYOEL

Vy iY

ESS

3S

PETER

FLORIAN

DEMBOWSKI

Professor Emerddus University

of

Chicago

LLY LOL YL LEY YOYGY

PHILOLOGIES

Essays

IN Honor

OLD

OF

AND

PETER

NEW

FLORIAN

DEMBOWSKI

edited by

Joan Tasker Grimbert

and Carol J. Chase

THE EDWARD C. ARMSTRONG MONOGRAPHS PRINCETON

2001

The volumes in this series are printed on acid-free,

long-life paper and meet the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Materials Z, 39.48-1984.

Copyright © 2001 by The Edward C. Armstrong Monographs, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or parts thereof, in any form, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in reviews. ISBN 0-9707991-0-1

Printed in the United States ofAmerica

CONTENTS

ix Acknowledgments Xi Preface

Xili Michael Murrin, Peter F. Dembowski

xv Keith Busby, Peter F. Dembowski’s Contribution to Medieval Studies XVii

Publications of Peter F. Dembowski

Part I. Saints and Sinners / Old and New Philologies

33 Karl D. Uitti, The Spanish Santiago and Latin Europe 59 Duncan Robertson, What is a Legendary?

‘g' Jerry R. Craddock and Barbara De Marco, The Legend of Saint Mary of Egypt in Petrus Cald’s Legend& de sanctis 85 +Hans-Erich Keller, Le Chansonnier N2 occitan et son rapport avec les chansonniers I et K

93 Barbara Tale(s)

N. Sargent-Baur,

Peregrinatio: Joie, Constance,

and the

Part II. Roland and Charlemagne

Dil Don A. Monson, Le Sort de Roland est-il tragique? 123 EviWilliam D. Paden, Formulaic Diction from Orality to Writing: D Manuscript in Nimes de dence from the Old French Charroi

141 Rupert T. Pickens, Le Sens du terme cortois dans poemes du Cycle de Guillaume d’Orange

les premiers

159 Robert Morrissey, Charlemagne in the Encyclopédie 179 Bernard Guidot, “Des bacons comme s’il en pleuvait...” Le pathétique dans un extrait des Quatre Fils Aymon a la fin du dixneuviéme siécle

191 Evelyn Birge Vitz, Liturgical Citation in French Medieval Epic and Romance

Part III. Tristan and Perceval

213 SunHee Gertz, Wrapping Memory Around the Metaphor in Marie de France’s Chievrefoil 297 Gerard J. Brault, The Birth of the Hero in Thomas’

Tristan

O37 Joan Tasker Grimbert, Chrétien, the Troubadours, and the Tristan

Legend: The Rhetoric of Passionate Love in D'amors, qui ma tolu a mot

vi

291 Jeff Rider, Wild Oats”: The Parable of the Sower in the Prologue to Chrétien de Troyes’ Conte du Graal

Part IV.

Romance

after Chrétien

269 Sylvia Huot, The Chastelaine de Vergi at the Crossroads of Courtly, Moral, and Devotional Literature

281 Norris J. Lacy, Jealousy, Fidelity, and Form in the Livre de Caradoc 291 Carol J. Chase, The Vision of the Grail in the Estoire del saint Graal 307 Michael N. Salda, When Women Romance

Learn to Write in Old French Prose

319 Noel Corbett, Power and Worth in The Knight of the Two Swords 339 Paolo Cherchi, L’Orloge amoureus di Jean Froissart

vii

Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2023 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation

https://archive.org/details/philologiesoldneO000Ounse

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It is a great pleasure to acknowledge the help we received from various individuals and institutions in the course of preparing this volume. In

particular, we would like to thank the friends, colleagues, and former stu-

dents of Peter Dembowski who contributed essays in his honor. We owe a special debt of gratitude to the editors of the Edward C. Armstrong Monographs on Medieval Literature, Karl D. Uitti, Michelle A. Freeman, and Rupert T. Pickens, who provided invaluable support and encouragement throughout the planning and execution of this homage to their dear friend and colleague. Keith Busby, Paolo Cherchi, Norris Lacy, and Robert Morrissey all provided help and good counsel at various stages of the project. Robert J.

Smarz,

Nancy Hall, and K. Sarah-Jane Murray contributed their consider-

able computer expertise. Last but not least, for their generous financial support, we would like to thank the Alfred Foulet Publications Fund (Princeton University), The University of Chicago, The Catholic University of America, and Knox College. J.T.G.and CJ.C.

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PREFACE

the Arthurian Seminar, co-taught with medieval scholars from other depart-

ments (Michael Murrin and Kenneth Northcott). In the pages that follow Michael Murrin provides a biographical essay and Keith Busby an overview of Peter Dembowski’s contributions to the field of medieval studies. The list of publications demonstrates the breadth of Peter’s scholarship, while the articles by friends, colleagues, and former students are indicative of his legacy to the field. There are essays in all the areas in which Peter has achieved particular distinction: epic, hagiography, romance, chronicle, and philology. The studies are organized according to these themes, more or less chronologically within each one. We dedicate this volume to our friend, colleague, and teacher.

J.T.G.andC J.C

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MICHAEL MURRIN

University of Chicago

Peter F. Dembowski

In April 1945, just before the end of World War II, the British forces liberated prisoners, many of them Polish, held in Stalag XB near the Dutch border. Among the prisoners was the twenty-year-old Peter Dembowski, who then weighed just 110 pounds. Both the prisoners and their captors were starving by then. Peter had been nearly fourteen when the Nazis conquered Poland and reduced his hometown of Warsaw to rubble. His maternal grandather and his aunt were killed by the SS in October 1939, in an old people’s home, as useless mouths. Soon afterward they took his mother and sister, sending them to the concentration camp at Ravensbriicke, where they were executed on September 25, 1942. That October Peter joined the Polish resistance, using the code name “Sonny.” On April 7, 1944, the Gestapo suddenly arrested seventy Poles. Most were quickly released, but Peter was one of seven held longer. On May 3a bribe secured his release. His comrades in the resistance then sent him to the country until they had assured themselves that he had not broken under interrogation. They soon called him back to Warsaw, and Peter joined the great uprising which began on August 1, 1944. Initially all went well, but the Russians, now camped across the

Vistula, refused to help, and SS troops came. Peter was among those who surrendered on September 29, but then his fortunes began to turn. The SS commander, Bach-Zalewski, decided to treat the Poles not as rebels but as regular prisoners of war. The Nazi officers knew that the Allies, having conquered France, were looking for war criminals, so Peter went to a Stalag instead of a concentration camp and managed to survive the war. Immediately after his liberation Peter joined the Poles in British service and went to Italy, where he remained from May 1945 to November 1946, serving mostly on the Adriatic near Ancona. The Italians called him Pietro de’ Boschi. Military service brought its own rewards, and Peter went to Canada as a demobilized British soldier on condition that he work ona farm for two years. In this way he reached Alberta and learned how one worked under giant lights through the night to finish the harvest before the short summer season ended. Education followed. Peter earned a B.A. in French and Rus-

xii

Russian phisian at the University of British Columbia (1952), a doctorat in and literages langua e lology at the Sorbonne (1954), and a Ph.D. in Romanc Berkenia, Califor of ity tures, with an emphasis on Old French at the Univers perrg Weinbe d Bernar but ley (1960). The University of Toronto hired him, years few a and 1966, in o suaded him to come to the University of Chicag later he became an American citizen. Peter began his career studying the language and style of Robert de pubClari (1963), the largest of a series of philological studies which he anew to led Clari de Robert lished during the 1950s and 1960s. The work on texts, phase in Peter’s career, however, that of an editor of medieval French with began He on. reputati and it is primarily as an editor that he made his (1969), Age Moyen du Ami et Amile, published in the Classiques Francais Marie followed it with Jourdain de Blaye (1969; rev. ed. 1991), La Vie de sainte

lEgyptienne (1977), Froissart’s Le Paradis d’amour et L’Orloge amoureus (1986), and most recently Chrétien de Troyes’s Erec et Enide for the Bibliothéque de la Pléiade (1994). He recently published hi edition of the EstrifdeFortune et de Vertu of Martin le Franc. Peter did not restrict himself only to editing, but published a critical study of Froissart’s Meliador which has contributed in important ways to a reevaluation of the later Middle Ages. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship for 1970-71, studied at the School of Historical Studies at the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton University (1979-80), and became a Chevalier dans I'Ordre des Palmes Académiques in 1981 and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1990. At Chicago Peter has had a full share of academic duties. He was dean of students during the difficult days of the late 1960s, Senior Fellow and then Resident Master of the undergraduate house Hitchcock-Snell for six years (1973-79), and chair of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures for seven (1976-83). All the while he was a true colleague to those outside his department, collaborating on seminars in Arthurian romance, which generated many dissertations, and willing to teach Provengal in English to accommodate students not pursuing degrees in French, though it meant he had constantly to translate his French notes during class sessions. Observing him made me wonder how many languages he had learned before English and how many people could be as genuinely witty outside their native tongue. Peter is the last of a generation at Chicago, both by his philological training and by his experience of suffering, loss, and resistance during World War II, experience which gave him in his later academic life both resilience and a sense for the fragility of things human. He has our admiration, gratitude, and best wishes for his so-called retirement.

[Note: This essay was first published in Modern Philology 93.2 (Nov. 1995) 139-41.] XIV

KEITH BUSBY

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Peter F. Dembowski’s

Contribution to Medieval

Studies

Peter Dembowski’s scholarship has been an exemplary conjunction of the practical and the analytical, informed by philological and linguistic rigor and by a real sensitivity to medieval mentalities. Peter’spublications

have been devoted primarily to four areas: the chronicle of Robert de Clari,

the epic “ geste de Blaye,” Old French hagiography, and the narrative poetry of Froissart. In three of these areas Peter has produced what are now standard text-editions (Ami et Amile, Jourdain de Blaye; La Vie de sainte Marie

l’Egyptienne; Froissart’s Le Paradis d'amour et |‘Orloge amoureus), while his first major publication, a linguistic and stylistic study of Robert de Clari’s chronicle (1963), remains a necessary preliminary to any reading of the text. The same can be said of the more recent study of Meliador (1983), the only book written to date on Froissart’s Arthurian romance. Throughout his career, Peter has also maintained an interest in Chrétien de Troyes, whose first romance, Erec et Enide, he edited for the Pléiade (Euvres completes, published under the direction of the late Daniel Poirion in 1994. Latterly, Peter has moved into the late Middle Ages with articles on Martin Le Franc, an edition

of whose L’Estrif de Fortune et de Vertu has recently been published by Drozin

the Textes Littéraires Francais series; Jehan de Le Mote’s Li Regret Guillaume

will follow. It is characteristic of Peter Dembowski’s scholarship that, while there is a clear chronological development (Clari—epic— hagiography — Froissart — Martin le Franc), he has consistently returned to earlier interests after a num-

ber of years and reviewed the terrain, as it were. Among the articles that Peter has published in the course of a long and distinguished career, there are a number which stand out as landmarks: I am thinking in particular of the study of monologues in Chrétien de Troyes (1975), on literary problems of the Old French saint's life (1976), and the mise au point of Froissart’s place in literary history (1978). Alongside these, I would also single out some thoughtful meditations on general problems such as intertextuality and textual criticism (1981), the French philological tradition (1993), and the so-called New Philology (1994). In all of these latter publications, Peter has protested the underlying values of traditional philology while remaining aware of —and

XV

it open to — innovation. If he has sometimes been cast as resistant to change, a as protest nt veheme is surely because he has realized the necessity of Peter know who Those means of preserving the legacy of our predecessors. Dembowski will also know the value he places on collegiality, personal loyalty, and the community of scholars. His bio-bibliographical assessments of his teacher, Yakov Malkiel (1969 and 1972), and of his Chicago colleague, Bernard Weinberg (1974 and 1991) are salutory reminders to us all of the importance (and fragility) of the human dimensions of our careers. Through the humanity, as well as the substance, of his scholarship, Peter Dembowski has taught us more than he realizes. And he is not done yet.

xvi

PUBLICATIONS

OF

PETER

F. DEMBOWSKI

BOOKS AND CRITICAL EDITIONS

La Chronique de Robert de Clari: Etude de la langue et du style. Toronto: U of

Toronto P, 1963.

Ami et Amile: Chanson de geste. Classiques Francais du Moyen Age, 97. Paris: Champion. 1969 (critical edition). Rpt. 1987. [Spanish version: Carlos Alvar, Amis y Amiles: Cantar de gesta francés del siglo XIII. Traducci6n, introducion, notas. Bogota: Instituto Caro y Cuervo, 1978; German version: Inge Vielhauer. Amis et Amiles: Geschichte einer Ereu ndschaft am Hofe Karls des Grossen, altfranzésisches Epos... Castrum Peregrini 136-37, Amsterdam: Castrum Peregrini, 1979; English version: Samuel Danan and Samuel N. Rosenberg Ami and Amile. Translated from Old French. York, S.C: French Literature Publication Company, 1981; Modern French version: Joél Blanchard et Michel Quereuil, Ami et Amile: chanson de geste. Traductions de

Classiques Francais Moyen Age, 37. Paris: Champion, 1985.]

Jourdain de Blaye (Jordains de Blaivies): Chanson de geste. Chicago and London: U of Chicago P, 1969 (critical edition); Jourdain de Blaye (Jordains de Blaivies): Chanson de geste, Nouvelle édition entiérement revue et corrigée. Classiques Francais du Moyen Age, 112. Paris: Champion, 1991.

La Vie de sainte Marie I’Egyptienne: Versions en ancien et en moyen francais. Publications Frangaises et Romanes, 144. Geneva and Paris: Droz, 1977 (critical

edition).

Jean Froissart and his Meliador: Context, Craft and Sense. The Edward C. Armstrong Monographs on Medieval Literature, 2. Lexington: French Forum, 1983.

Jean Froissart, Le Paradis d’Amour et l’Orloge amoureus, Edition avec notes, introduction et glossaire. Textes Littéraires Francais, 339. Geneva: Droz, 1986

(critical edition). Chrétien de Troyes, Erec et Enide. In Daniel Poirion, general ed., Chrétien de

Troyes, (Euvres completes. Bibliotheque de la Pléiade. Paris: Gallimard, 1994. 3-169 and 1053-1114 (critical edition and translation into modern French).

xvii

res Francais, Martin Le Franc, L’Estrifde Fortune et de Vertu. Textes Littérai

513. Geneva: Droz, 1999 (critical edition).

ARTICLES OR BOOK CHAPTERS “Julian Tuwim 1894-1953.” Canadian Slavonic Papers 1 (1956) 59-65. “En marge du vocabulaire de Robert de Clari.” Romance Philology 15 (1961)12-18. Lauer.” “Corrections a 1'édition de la Chronique de Robert de Clari, de Ph.

Romania 82 (1961)134-38.

“ \ Propos de I'application de la stylistique a la prose de l’ancien francais.” Actes du Xe Congres de Linguistique et Philologie Romanes. Strasbourg and Paris: Klincksieck, 1965. 579-88.

With D.G. Mowatt. “Linguistics and Literary Study.” Canadian Journal of Linguistics 11 (1965) 40-62. “Septieme Congrés National de la Société Nationale de la Littérature Comparée.” Cahiers de Civilisation Mediévale 8 (1965) 455-57 (rev. art.). “Linguistic and Stylistic Approaches to Historical Syntax.” Romance Philology 20 (1967) 521-30 (rev. art.).

“ Autour de Jourdain de Blaye, aspects structuraux et problémes connexes.” Neophilologus 51 (1967) 238-45.

“La Prétendue geste de Blaye.” Actas de XI Congreso Internacional de Lingtiistica y Filologia Romanicas. Madrid: C.S.LC., 1968. II: 841-51.

“Encore quelques remarques a propos de “teutes” v. 170 du Jeu de St Nicolas de Jehan Bodel.” Vox Romanica 26 (1967) 24-27.

“ Ami’s Crime and Punishment. A Problem of Interpretation.” Essays in Romance Philology from the University of Chicago in Honor of the XII International Congress of Romance Linguistics. Chicago: U of Chicago, Department of Linguistics, 1968. 24-40.

With K.D. Uitti. “An Analytic Bibliography of the Writings of Lucien Foulet.” XVili

Romance Philology 22 (1969) 373-83.

“Nicole Oresme’s Le Livre du ciel et du monde: A Philological View.” Romance Philology 22 (1969) 614-20 (rev. art.). “Le Vers orphelin dans les chansons de geste et son emploi dans la geste de Blaye.” Kentucky Romance Quarterly 17 (1970) 139-48.

“Old French Epic and the Cyclical Treatment.” Modern Philology 67 (1970) 71-75 (rev. art.). “Interprétations des mobiles chez les héros de la chanson de geste.” Actele celui de-al Xll-lea Congres International de Lingvistica si Filologie Romanica. Bucharest: Editions de I’Académie, 1971. II:19-28.

“Yakov Malkiel.” Revue de Linguistique Romane 36 (1972) 163-72 (rev. art.).

“Bernard Weinberg 1909-1973. A Tribute and a Bibliography.” The University of Chicago Library and the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures. Chicago: U of Chicago Library, 1974. 1-10. “Monologue, Author’s Monologue and Related Problems in the Romances of Chrétien de Troyes.” Yale French Studies 51 (1975) 102-14. “Versions frangaises de la Vie de sainte Marie I’Egyptienne.” Actes du XIIIe Congres International de Linguistique et Philologie Romanes... Québec: Presses de I’Université Laval, 1976. 751-62.

“Vocabulary of Old French Courtly Lyrics-Difficulties and Hidden Difficulties.” Critical Inquiry 2 (1976) 763-79. “Les bindmes synonymiques en ancien frangais.” Kwartalnik Neofilologiczny (Hommages Halina Lewicka) 23 (1976) 81-90. “The Syntax of Two-Term Comparative Constructions in Old French.” Romance Philology 30 (1976) 200-10 (rev. art.). “Literary Problems of Hagiography in Old French.” Medievalia et Humanistica ns 7 (1976) 117-30. “Li Orloge amoureus de Froissart.” L’Esprit Créateur 18 (1978) 19-31.

xix

“La Position de Froissart-poéte dans histoire littéraire: bilan provisoire.” Travaux de Linguistique et de Littérature (Mélanges... Jean Rychner) 16 (1978) 131-47.

“Considérations sur Meliador.” Etudes de Philologie Romane et d'Histoire Littéraire Offertes a Jules Horrent... (Liége: n.p., 1980). 123-31. “Romance Historical Syntax.” Trends in Romance Historical Linguistics and Philology. Ed. Rebecca Posner and John N. Green. I. Romance Comparative and Historical Linguistics. The Hague: Mouton, 1980. 157-72 (+ bibliography). “Tntertextualité et critique des textes.” Littérature 41 (1981) 17-29.

“Le Poeme sur la sainte Marie I’ Egy ptienne est-il anglo-normand?” Atti, XIV Congresso Internazionale di Linguistica e Filologia Romanza. Naples: Gaetano Macchiaroli, 1982. V: 445-61.

“Sindon in the Old French Chronicle of Robert de Clari.” Shroud Spectrum International 1:1 (1982) 12-18. “A Propos of “cascuns des venres” in Robert de Clari.” Shroud Spectrum International 1:4 (1982) 37-38. “Lexicology and Stylistics. Vocabulary of Provencal Courtly Lyrics — Introductory Remarks.” Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistic Society. Berkeley: U of California Linguistic Society, 1982. 18-27. “Traits essentiels des récits hagiographiques.” Formation, codification et rayonnement d'un genre littéraire: la nouvelle. Ed. Michelangelo Picone et al. Montreal: Plato Academic P, 1983. 80-88.

“Poeme pieux sur la Vie de saint Sébastien d’apres le ms. Bibl. Nat. fr. 1555. Court chapitre sur la peste noire de 1348-1349.” Medioevo Romanzo 9 (1984) 375-401. “Learned Latin Treatises in French: Inspiration, Plagiarism, and Translation.” Viator 17 (1986) 255-69. “Whom and What Did Galien Restore?” Olifant 10 (1984) 83-98.

“Mesura dans la poésie lyrique de I’ancien provengal.” Studia Occitanica in memoriam Paul Remy. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1986. IT:

XX

269-80.

“Chivalry Ideal and Real in the Narrative Poetry of Jean Froissart.” Medievalia

et Humanistica ns 14 (1986) 1-15.

“Metrics and Textual Criticism: The Example of Froissart’s Decasyl lables.”

L'Esprit Créateur 27 (1987) 90-100.

“Tradition, Dream Literature, and Poetic Craft in Le Paradis d’Amour of Jean

Froissart.” Studies in the Literary Imagination 20 (1987) 99-109; revised version in Chaucer’s French Contemporaries. Ed. R. Barton Palmer, New York: AMS lied 1995. 277-91. “Ami et Amile: une chanson de geste.” Ami et Amile. Une Chanson de geste de l'amitié. Ed. Jean Dufournet. Paris: Champion, 1987. 7-14. “Recent Studies in Old French.” Medievalia et Humanistica ns 15 (1987) 193205.

“Le Faux Semblant et la problématique des masques et déguisements.” Masques et déguisement dans la littérature médiévale. Ed. Marie-Louise Ollier. Montreal: Presses de I’U de Montréal, 1988. 43-53. “Continuation ou restauration? La littérature francaise au bas Moyen Age: le cas de Galien.” Actes du XVIIle Congrés International de Linguistique et Philologie Romanes. Tiibingen: Max Niemeyer, 1988. 437-45. “Literature as Foreign Language — Teaching Approach.” Language Learning and Liberal Education: Proceedings of a Conference, The University of Chicago 1517 April 1988. New Haven: The Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning, 1988. 70-85.

“Quelques considérations sur les titres littéraires en France au Moyen Age.” Miscellenea di studi romanzi offerta a Giuliano Gasca Oueirazza... Ed. Anna Carnagliotti et al. Piacenza: Edizioni dell’Orso, 1988. 251-69.

“Two Old French Recastings-Translations of Andreas Capellanus, De Amore.” Medieval Translators and Their Craft. Ed. Jeanette Beer. Studies in Medieval Culture, 25. Kalamazoo: Western Michigan U, 1989. 185-212.

“Philippe Mousket and his Chronique rimée, Seven and a half Centuries Ago.” Contemporary Readings ofMedieval Literature. Ed. Guy R. Mermier. Michigan

xxI

Romance Studies 8. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1989. 93-113. France.” Continua“Martin Le Franc, Fortune, Virtue, and Fifteenth-Century

of John L. tions. Essays on Medieval French Language and Literature in Honor AL: gham, Birmin . -Roblin Torrini Gloria and Grigsby. Ed. Norris J. Lacy 261-76. Summa Publications, 1989. An“Les Personnages féminins dans Jourdain de Blaye.” Romance Languages nual 2 (1990) 86-92. “Bernard Weinberg.” Remembering the University of Chticago. Teachers, Scientists, and Scholars. Chicago: Chicago UP, 1991. 548-57.

“De nouveau: Erec et Enide, Chrétien et Guiot.” “Et c’est la fin pour quot sommes ensemble.” Hommage a Jean Dufournet... Littérature, histoire et langue du Moyen Age. Paris: Champion, 1993. I: 409-17.

“The ‘French’ Tradition of Textual Philology and its Relevance to the Editing of Medieval Texts.” Modern Philology 90 (1993) 512-32. “L’Estrif de Fortune et Vertu de Martin Le Franc et le De Casibus virorum illustrium de Boccace.” Narrations bréves, Mélanges de littérature ancienne offerts a Krystyna Kasprzyk. Warsaw: Publications de l'Institut de Philologie Romane, U de Varsovie, 1993. 125-35.

“Reflets chevaleresques du Nord-Est dans I’ceuvre de Jean Froissart.” Annales de Lettres et Sciences Humaines (Lublin) (Hommtages Jerzy Kloczowski) 34 (1986, appeared in 1992) 137-43. “Critique textuelle, critique littéraire et l’art narratif en ancien francais.” Actes du XXe Congrés International de Linguistique et Philologie Romanes. Tiibingen and Basel: Francke Verlag, 1993. V: 227-49. “Textual and Other Problems of the Epilogue of Erec et Enide.” Conjunctures. Medieval Studies in Honor ofDouglas Kelly. Ed. Keith Busby and Norris J. Lacy. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994. 113-27. “Is There a New Textual Philology in Old French? Perennial Problems, Provisional Solutions.” The Future of the Middle Ages: Medieval Literature in the 1990's. Ed. William D. Paden. Gainesville: UP of Florida, 1994. 87-112.

“Critique textuelle, manuscrits du XVe siécle et l'Estrif de Fortune et Vertu de Xxil

Martin Le Franc.” Actas do XIX Con greso Internacional de Lingiiistica et Filoloxia

romanicas. Coruna: Pedro de la Maza, 1994. V: 97-112.

“Meliador de Jean Froissart, son importance littéraire.” Etudes Frangaises 32 (1990) 7-19,

“Scientific Translation and Translator’s Glossing in Four Medieval French Translations.” Translation Theory and Practice in the Middle A ges. Ed. Jeanette Beer. Studies in Medieval Culture 38. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute

Publications, 1997. 113-34.

“Les Débats américains sur la philologie textuelle de l’ancien francais.” Miscellanea Mediaevalia. Mélanges offerts a Philippe Ménard. Paris: Champion, 1998. I: 395-405. “Les Sources anciennes et autres chez un moraliste du XVe siécle.” Ksiega Jubileuszowa J. Kloczowskiego. Lublin: Instytut Europy Srodkowo-Wschodniej, 1998. 17-22.

“Etude linguistique de la prose de Martin Le Franc.” Atti de XXI Congresso Internazionale di Linguistica e Filologia Romanza. Tiibingen: Niemeyer, 1998. VI: 113-24, “The Philological Legacy of Erich Auerbach” (rev. art.). Romance Philology 52 (1999). “Yakov Malkiel: Teacher and Man.” Romance Philology 52 (1999) 4-6. “Jehan de Le Mote et ses Regrets Guillaume, comte de Hainaut.” In Convergences

médiévales. Epopée, lyrique, roman: Mélan ges offerts a Madelaine Tyssens. Eds. H. Henrad, P. Moreno, M. Thiry-Stassin. Brussels: De Broeck U, 2001. 139-47.

“Karl David Uitti.” Translatio Studii. Essays by His Students in Honor ofKarl D. Uitti for his Sixty-Fifth Birthday. Ed. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Kevin Brownlee, Mary B. Speer, and LoriJ. Walters. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1999, 2326.

ARTICLES IN DICTIONARIES AND ENCYCLOPEDIAS Articles in: Strayer, J.,ed., Dictionary of the Middle Ages. New York: Scribner's Sons: “Ami et Amile” (1982), I: 234; “Assonance” (1982), I: 600-01; “ Biogra-

XXiil

raphy, phy, Secular” (1983), II: 239-240, “Froissart” (1985) V: 302-04; “Hagiog “Lai, 238; French” (1985), VI: 59-60; “Historia regum francorum” (1985), VI: (1987). France” Lay” (1986), VII: 316-17; “Laisse” (1986), VII: 319; “Marie de ry” VIII: 135-37; “Philippe Mousket” (1987). IX: 559; “St. Patrick’s Purgato (1987), X: 620. An Articles in William W. Kibler and Grovera A. Zinn. eds. Medieval France:

Encyclopedia. New York and London: Garland, 1995: “Ami et Amile,” 29-30;

, Les,” “Biography,” 129-30; “Calais, Jean de,” 162; “Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles Lives.” 185-86; “Froissart,” 374-76; “Harenc, Baudet,” 445-46; “The Saints’

855-56; “ Vigneulles, Philippe de,” 955.

WORKS FORTHCOMING

“Edition du Charlemagne de Girart d’Amiens.” Actes, XXIIle Congres de Linguistique et Philologie romanes. With Yakov Malkiel. “Nord Amerika, 1. Allgemeines 2. Bibliotheken in den USA und Kanada.” Lexikon der romanistischen Linguistik I. Tiibingen: Niemeyer.

WORKS IN PROGRESS Critical edition of Jehan de Le Mote, Li Regret Guillaume.

MAJOR REVIEWS Schon, P. M. Studien zum Stil der friihen franzdsischen Prosa: Robert de Clari, Geoffroy de Villehardouin, Henri de Valenciennes. Frankfurt am Main. 1960. Romance Philology 16 (1962) 241-43.

Zumthor, P. Langue et techniques poétiques a l’époque romane: XIe-XIlle siécles. Paris, 1963. Romance Philology, 18 (1964) 226-31.

Kurylowicz, J. Esquisses linguistiques. Wroclaw and Krakow, 1960. Canadian Journal of Linguistics 8 (1963) 115-19. Kukenheim, L. and Roussel, H. Guide de la littérature frangaise au moyen age, 3e éd. Leiden, 1963. Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale 7 (1965) 73-74.

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Rychner, J., ed. Les Quinze joies de mariage. Geneva, 1963. Romanic Review 56 (1965) 128-29. Heinimann, S. Das Abstractum in der franzésischen Literatursprache des Mittelalters. Bern, 1963. Romance Philology 19 (1965) 89-91. Lerond, A., ed. Chansons attribuées au Chastelain de Couct, fin du XIle-début du Xllle siécle. Paris, 1964. Romance Philology 19 (1966) 505-09. Rohlfs, G., ed. Sankt Alexius, altfranzdsische Legendendichtung des 11.

Jahrhunderts, 4th ed. Tuibingen, 1963. Romance Philology 19 (1966) 627-29.

Rohlfs, G. Vom Vulgdrlatein zum Altfranzésischen. Einftihrung in das Studium des altfranzdsischen Sprache. Tiibingen, 1960; and Raynaud de Lage, G. Manuel pratique d’ancien frangais. Paris, 1964. Romance Philology 20 (1967) 350-54. Dufournet. J. La Destruction des mythes dans les “Mémoires” de Ph. de Commynes. Geneva: Droz, 1966. Speculum 43 (1968) 141-44. Godi[nik na Sofijskija Universitet, Filolog:ceski Fakulet 57: 2 (Sofia, 1964) 59: 1 (1965). Romance Philology 20 (1968) 564-67. Referofska], E. A. Razvitie predlo/nyx konstrukcij v latinskom jazike pozdnogo perioda. Moscow, 1964. Romance Philology 22 (1967) 181-86. With Adelin Fiorato. Studi in onore di Italo Siciliano. Ed. A. Cavaliere. Firenze, 1966. Modern Philology 66 (1968) 181-88.

Meier, H. Die Metapher: Versuch einer zusammenfassenden Betrachtung ihrer linguistischen Merkmale. Wintertur, 1963. Romance Philology 22 (1968) 70-72.

Hatzfeld. H. Saggi di stilistica romanza. Bari, 1967. Cahiers de Civilisation Mediévale 12 (1969) 423-26. Lorian, A. L’Ordre des propositions dans la phrase frangaise contemporaine: la cause. Paris, 1966. Romance Philology 24 (1970) 208-10. L6fsted. L. Les Expressions du commandement et de la défense et leur survie dans les langues romanes. Helsinki, 1966. Romance Philology 24 (1970) 337-40.

Actes du Quatriéme Congres des Romanistes Scandinaves. Copenhagen, 1967. Romance Philology 25 (1972) 336-40.

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Romance Smirnov, A. Iz Istorii zapadno-evropejskoj literatury. Moscow, 1965. Philology 25 (1972): 422-47. , en Carlsson, L. Le Type “C’est le meilleur livre qu’il ait jamats écrit” en espagnol 140-42. (1972) 26 y Philolog Romance 1969. , italien et en francais. Uppsala es Grisay. A., et al. La Dénomination de la femme dans les anciens textes littérair 701-05. (1973) 26 y Philolog Romance francais. Gembloux, 1969. Ménard.

Ph. Manuel

d’ancien francais. Bordeaux,

1968; Kukenheim.

L.

Grammaire historique de la langue frangaise: Syntagmes. Leiden, 1968; and Hollyman, K. J. A Short Descriptive Grammar of Old French (with Texts). Auckland, 1968. Romance Philology 27 (1973) 86-92.

Eickoff. W., ed. La Délivrance du peuple d’Israél. Miinchen, 1970. Romance Philology 28 (1974) 251-53. Aspland,C. W. A Syntactical Study of Epic Formulas and Formulaic Expressions Containing -ant. St. Lucia, Queensland, 1970. Romance Philology 28 (1975) 665-68. Rychner, J. Formes et structures de la prose médiévale. L’Articulation des phrases narratives dans la “Mort Artu.” Geneva, 1970. Romance Philology 28 (1975) 339-402. Godi[nik na Sofijskija Universitet. Fakulktet po Zapadni Filolglit, 62: 1 (Sofia, 1968); 64:1 (1970); 64:2 (1970); 65:1 (1971); 65:2 (1971); 66:1 (1972). Romance Philology 30 (1977) 540-42. Livingston, C. H., ed. Philippe de Vigneulles, Les Cent nouvelles nouvelles. Geneva, 1972; and Fay, P. B. and Grigsby, J. L., eds. Joufroi de Poitiers, roman d’aventures du XIIle siecle. Geneva, 1976. Romance Philology 31 (1978) 574-77. Tobin, P. M. O'H., ed. Les Lais bretons anonymes des XIle et XIIle siécles. Edition

critique de quelques lais bretons. Geneva, 1976. Speculunt 53 (1978) 634-37. Duggan, J.J. The Song ofRoland. Formulaic Style and Poetic Craft. Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1973. Romance Philology 31 (1978) 663-69. Bloch, H. Medieval French Literature and Law. Berkeley, 1977. Speculum 54 (1979) 112-15. Xxvi

Hartman, R. La Quéte et la croisade: Villehardouin et le Lancelot en prose. Brooklyn, NY, 1977. Speculum 54 (1979) 144-46. Frappier, J. Autour du Graal. Geneva, 1977. Speculum 54 (1979) 371-75.

Gieber, R. L., ed. La Vie saint Jehan-Baptiste. A Critical Edition of an Old French Poem of the Early Fourteenth Century... Tiibingen, 1978. Speculum 55 (1980)

572-75.

Hanning, R. and Ferrante, J. The “Lais” of Marie de France. Translated with

Introduction and Notes... New York, 1978; and Ménard, Ph. Les “Lais” de Marie

de France. Paris, 1979. Romance Philology 34 (1981) 279-83.

Merrilees, B.S., ed. La Vie des Set Dormanz by Chardri. London, 1977. Romance

Philology 34 (1981) 350-53.

Cazelles, B. La Faiblesse chez Gautier de Coinci. Saratoga, CA, 1978. Romance Philology 34 (1981) 361-63.

Jackson, W. T. H., ed. The Interpretation of Medieval Love Poetry. New York, 1980. Speculum 57 (1982) 383-86.

Walpole, R. N., ed. An Anonymous Old French Translation of the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle... Cambridge, MA, 1979. Romance Philology 36 (1982) 327-29.

Godi[nik na Sofijskija Universitet. Fakultet po Zapadni Filologi, 68:1 (Sofia, 1974); 70:1 (Sofia); 71:4 (1976); 72:1 (1977); 72:3 (1977) 72:4 (1978). Romance Philology 36 (1983) 459-61. Schiavone de Cruz Saenz, M., ed. The Life of Saint Mary of Egypt. An Edition and Study of the Medieval French and Spanish Verse Redactions. Barcelona, 1979. Romance Philology 36 (1983) 478-81. Lodge, R. A., ed. Etienne de Fougéres, Le Livre des Maniéres. Geneva, 1979. Romance Philology 36 (1983) 624-25. Marazza, C., ed. Ysembert de Saint-Léger, Le Mirroir des Dames... Lecce, 1978.

Romance Philology 36 (1983) 625-27. Gumbrecht, H. U., ed. Literatur in der Gesellschaft des Spatmittelalters. Heidel-

berg, 1980.

Speculum 58 (1983) 184-86.

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, 73:1 Godi[nik na Sofijskija Universitet. Fakultet po Klasi;eski i Novi Filologit 363-65. (1985) 38 y Philolog e (Sofia, 1981); 73:3 (1981); 73:4 (1982). Romanc ham. Amsterdam, Dougherty, D. M. and Barnes, E. B., eds. Le “Galien” de Chelten

1981. Romance Philology 38 (1985) 537-42.

New Richards, E. J., trans. Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies. 125-28. York, 1982. Romance Philology 39 (1985) 1983. Calin, W., A Muse for Heroes. Nine Centuries of the Epic in France. Toronto,

Olifant 9 (1982) 151-59 (published in 1986).

Kelly, D., ed. The Romances of Chrétien de Troyes. Lexington, KY, 1985. Modern Philology 84 (1987) 18 -23.

Beltran. E., ed. Jacques Legrand, Archiloge Soplie — Livre de bonnes meurs. Paris, 1986. Bibliotheque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 50 (1988) 239-42. Nelson, J. A., ed. Le Chevalier au Cygne and La Fin d’Elias. University, AL, 1985. Speculum 63 (1988) 702-04. Picherit. J.-L. G., ed. and trans. The Journey of Charlemagne to Jerusalem and Constantinople. Birmingham, AL, 1984. Olifant 14 (1989) 61-72.

Huot.S. The Poetics ofWriting in Old French Lyrics and Lyrical Narrative. Ithaca, NY and London, 1987. French Forum 14 (1989) 85-88.

McBain. W., ed. De sainte Katerine. An Anonymous Version of the Life of St. Catherine d’Alexandria. Fairfax, VA, 1987. Speculum 65 (1990) 186-88. Moreau, S. and Hicks, E., trans. Christine de Pizan, La Cité des Dames. Paris,

1986. Romance Philology 44 (1991) 353-58.

Elliott, A. G. Roads to Paradise: Readings in the Lives of Early Saints. Hanover, NH and London, 1987. Comparative Literature 44 (1991) 294-97. Campbell. K. A. Protean Text ... Doon and Olive. New York and London, 1988;

and Scheidegger, J. A. Le Roman de Renart ou le texte de la dérision. Geneva, 1988. Modern Philology 89 (1991) 251-56. van den Boogaard, Nico H. J. Autour de 1300. Etudes de philologie et de littérature médiévales. Amsterdam, 1985. Romance Philology 45 (1992) 423-29. Xxvill

Staines, D., trans. Chrétien de Troyes, The Complete Romances... Bloomington, IN, 1990; and Kibler, W., trans. Chrétien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances. London, 1991. Chaucer Yearbook 1 (1992) 218-23. Ernst, Ursula. Studien zur altfranzésischen Verslegenden (10.-13. Jahrhundert).

Die Legende im Spannungsfeld von Chanson de geste und Roman. Frankfu rt a.M., 1989. Romance Philology 47 (1993) 240-42.

Russel, Dalbert W., ed. Légendier apostolique anglo-normand. Montrea l and

Paris, 1989; and Sandqvist, Olle, ed. La Vie saint Georges. Lund, 1989. Specu-

lum 68 (1993) 561-63.

Archibald, Elisabeth. Apollonius of Tyre, Medieval and Renaissance Theme and Variation: Including the Text of the Historia Apollonii Regis Tyri with an English Translation. Cambridge, 1991. Medievalia et Humanistica ns 20 (1994) 299-303. Cazelles, Brigitte. The Lady as Saint. A Collection of French Hagiographic Romances of the Thirteenth Century. Philadelphia, 1991. Romance Philology 47 (1994) 354-62. Perrot, Jean-Pierre. Le Passionnaire francais au moyen age. Geneva, 1992. Speculum 69 (1994) 1245-48,

Mickel, Emanuel J. Ganelon, Treason and the Chanson de Roland. University Park, PA and London, 1989. Zeitschrift fiir Romanische Philologie 110 (1994) 240-43. Melkerson, Anders. L’Itération lexicale. Etude sur l'usage d’une figure stylistique dans onze romans francais des XIle et XIIle siécles. Géteborg, 1992. Romance Philology 48 (1994) 30-35. Busby, Keith, ed. Towards a Synthesis: Essays on the New Philology. Amsterdam and Atlanta, 1995. Romance Philology 49 (1996) 301-06.

Figg, Kristen M. The Short Lyric Poems of Jean Froissart. Fixed Forms and the Expression of the Courtly Ideal. New York and London, 1994. Speculum 70 (1995) 905-06. Robertson, Duncan. The Medieval Saints’ Lives: Spiritual Renewal and Old French Literature. Lexington, KY, 1995. Romance Philology 49 (1996) 466-70. Iker-Gittleman, Anne, ed. Garin de Lohrenc, 3 vols. Paris, 1996-1997. Speculum

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74(1998) 190-91. t across the Genres. Maddox, Donald and Sara Sturm-Maddox, eds. Froissar

Gainesville, FL, 1999. Studies in the Age of Chaucer, 22 (2000) 515-18.

XXX

Part I

Saints

& Sinners

Old and New Philologies

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Caaineetin TE 770) i

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KARL D. UITTI

Princeton University

The Spanish Santiago and Latin Europe

During our graduate school days together at Berkeley, over forty years ago, Peter Florian Dembowski and I spent a great deal of time together. In fact, some Telegraph Avenue businessmen took us for brothers, and they weren't entirely wrong. We constantly talked about what was on

our minds--the Iron Curtain, the Ph.D. Reading Lists in French, Italian and Spanish, God (both Roman Catholic and Lutheran)...

Rather, then, than trying to compose a securely learned paper in

Dembowski’s honor, I should like to share with him, and with the eventual

readers of this volume, some thoughts that have been occurring to me lately as I have reflected on the various meanings accruing over time to St. James the Greater as this holy Christian figure came to incarnate certain values in Spain and from there within the entirety of Latin Europe. Nothing I write here is cast in concrete; whatever I shall say is, like Peter’s and my infor-

mal conversations of almost a half-century ago, subject to revision and approfondissement. Let me hasten to add that to my knowledge Peter has never confessed to a particular devotion to St. James. But since before his Ph.D. dissertation (on Robert de Clari), I have marveled at his great interest in ver-

nacular history and in historiography, that is, in the kinds of writing that articulate the past while expressing the sense of their authors’ (and his public’s) fascination for their present--what, for our own time, as Peter

once called in my presence, has been foundational for us today in the medieval experience. Consequently, I venture to hope that he will find these remarks on “Santiago” to be of interest. *

Browsing recently through the initial section of the first of the series of novels making up Marcel Proust's A la Recherche du temps perdu, ie., that part of Du Coté de chez Swann known as Combray, I was struck by the many allusions it makes to the Middle Ages--especially to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the period during which the great and massive pilgrimages to Compostela, in Spanish Galicia, where the apostle generally known as St. James the Greater is entombed.' It became clear to me that

The Spanish Santiago... great these allusions were programmatic within the economy of Proust's story the of use tic novel, and that they reflected a fundamental and systema is what during ed (and meaning) of “Santiago” as this story was develop o Santiag fact, In . often called the Christian Reconquista of Spain and Portugal is a given of Proust's masterpiece. It is well known that as a child Marcel Proust used to spend summer vacations with his family in Illiers—the “Combray” of his novel--and that this small town is located not far from Chartres along the old St. James pilgrimage route leading from Paris to the Spanish camino francés which began at Roncevaux in the Pyrenees. Moreover, the parish church of Illiers (now called “Illiers-Combray” in Proust’s honor) was dedicated to “Saint Jacques.” This church was built at the close of the eleventh century, namely, at the start of the above-mentioned massive Santiago pilgrimages. Meanwhile, the long street leading from Tante Léonie’s house to the parish church

is is renamed in Combray the rue Saint-Jacques, whereas the church ‘itself

rebaptized Eglise saint Hilaire--an inversion, then, of the “reality” of Proust's childhood vacation site. There can be no doubt that Proust was steeped in the story of St. James and the medieval pilgrimage to Compostela. A la Recherche du temps perdu narrates the vital trajectory of its protagonist, who is simply named “ Marcel,” from his Combray and Paris childhood to the onset of his old age when he decides to... write his novel. The work takes place on two narrative temporal registers. The first of these might be called the “autobiographical,” or “chronological,” and it pertains to “Marcel.” It is on this level that we learn the various events concerning the life of a lettered bourgeois--elegant, a bit snobbish and suffering from chronic ill health, but endowed with literary capacities and ambitions--who is given over to various amorous experiences and who is endowed with a delicate and, at times, acute and even sickly sensibility. However, apart from the “coincidences” we have observed, what

does this fictional masterpiece of the twentieth century have in common, or to do, with the “Santiago” of the medieval Spanish Reconquista and the Pilgrimage to Compostela as practiced by so much of Latin Europe during the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries? Some

of the details of

Combray require rehearsing here. Sad and depressed, Marcel expresses his distress in a series of pages in which he dreams of, and laments, his lost childhood. Death appears to

surround him. (Although this fact goes unmentioned in Combray, the horror of the First World War will shortly put an end to the world in which he was brought up and lived out his life.) All of a sudden he recalls the moment when his mother served him a cup of tea and

34

K.D. Uitti ..un de ces gateaux courts et dodus appelés Petites Madeleines qui semblent avoir été moulés dans la valve rainurée d’une coquill e de

Saint-Jacques. Et bientdét, machinalement, accablé par la morne

journée et la perspective d’un triste lendemain, je portai a mes lévres une cuillerée du thé ow j/avais laissé s’amollir un morceau de madeleine. Mais a I’instant méme ot la gorgée mélée des miettes du gateau toucha mon palais, je tressaillis, attentif a ce qui se passait d’extraordinaire en moi. Un plaisir délicieux m’avait envahi, isolé,

sans la notion de sa cause. II m‘avait aussitot rendu les vicissitudes

de la vie indifférentes, ses désastres inoffensifs, sa briéveté illusoir e,

de la méme facon qu’opére l'amour, en me remplissant d’une essence précieuse: ou plutdt cette essence n ‘était pas en moi, elle était

moi. J’avais cessé de me sentir médiocre, contingent, mortel. D’ot

avait pu me venir cette puissante joie?”

Both a kind of grace and a conversion are at issue here; these, in my judgment, may be linked to hope, in the traditionally Christian sense of the

word, that is, to the second of the triad of “theological virtues” (Faith, Hope

and Charity). In its simplest terms hope consists in a faith-based knowledge that it is not madness to believe that one might achieve what one desires, despite the difficulties and obstacles obstructing one, provided one is prepared to do the necessary work involved. According to Christian doctrine, God endowed us with the capacity to hope, but it is incumbent upon us to use this gift and fulfill the promise it holds. We are thus constrained to do, and this doing is our work (or, in Proustian terms, our

@uvre).’

As Marcel's reflections bring him to the act of recalling, they perforce lead him back to the Combray of his childhood and adolescence: Et tout d’un coup le souvenir mest apparu. Ce goat, c’était celui du petit morceau de madeleine que le dimanche matin a Combray (parce que ce jour-la je ne sortais pas avant la messe), quand j’allais lui dire bonjour dans sa chambre, ma tante Léonie m’offrait apres

l’avoir trempé dans son infusion de thé ou de tilleul. La vue de la petite madeleine ne m’avait rien rappelé avant que je n’y eusse goute; peut-étre parce que...de ces souvenirs abandonnés si longtemps hors de la mémoire, rien ne survivait, tout s’était désagrégé; les formes-et celle aussi du petit coquillage de patisserie, si grassement sensuel sous son plissage sévére et dévot-s’ étaient abolies, ou, ensommeillées, avaient perdu la force d’expansion qui leur efit permis de rejoindre la conscience. Mais, quand d’un passé ancien rien ne subsiste, aprés la mort des étres, aprés la destruction

35

The Spanish Santiago... des choses, seules, plus fréles mais plus vivaces, plus immatérielles, plus persistantes, plus fidéles, lodeur et la saveur restent encore longtemps, comme des ames, ase rappeler, a attendre, a espérer, sur la ruine de tout le reste, a porter sans fléchir, sur leur gouttelette presque impalpable, I’édifice immense du souvenir. (46-47) “Remembering” implies for Proust a dialogue between the two temporal dimensions mentioned above, i.e., between “chronological-autobiographical” time and “constructive-restorative” Time. The novelists effort will be located precisely at the center of this dialogue, and this effort takes the shape of complex and meaning-laden analogies. I think that these analogies were intentional, indeed necessary, including, as we shall soon see, the analogy that Proust establishes betwen his wuvre and the story of Santiago. Let’s take a brief look at some of its manifestations. The street on which Marcel’s aunt’s house was located and where his family stayed on their summer vacations is called, we remember, the rue Saint-Jacques, though it was, in the “real” Illiers of Proust’s childhood, the rue Saint-Hilaire, located to the rear of Proust's aunt's home.’ The portico of the parish church, called Saint-Hilaire in Combray after a church de-

stroyed during the French Revolution, and in “real” Illiers-Combray named Saint-Jacques—the church “qui résumait la ville” —is decorated, as the modern visitor to Illiers-Combray can observe, with scallop shells; it was located, of course, on the medieval pilgrim route (from Paris via Chartres)

to Compostela. (The Saint-Jacques church contains a window in which, with others, St. James the Greater is depicted as accompanying Christ.) Though the edifice was built at the end of the eleventh century, it was rebuilt in the fifteenth, and most of the interior dates from the nineteenth century. Nev-

ertheless, its history coincides with the most fervent period of the Compostela pilgrimage. Proust's very language is redolent of almost mystic ardor: “...il me semble que pouvoir encore traverser la rue SaintHilaire...serait une entrée en contact avec I’Au-dela plus merveilleusement surnaturelle que de faire la connaissance de Golo et de causer avec Geneviéve de Brabant” (48-49). The protagonist's stroll through Combray itself constitutes a miniature pilgrimage. Following the St. Jacques road, or, quite literally, the chemin de saint Jacques, its end is the church building of Saint-Hilaire, and it is made up of interludes each one of which terminates with a stopover. The same structure obtains throughout Combray. It is given Dantesque overtones, as it too finishes, toward the novel's close, with the narrator's glimpsing, then staring fixedly at, the Duchesse of Guermantes, seated in the rus-

tic church of Saint-André-des-Champs (“in reality,” a St. James chapel dedi-

36

K.D. Uitti cated to the Virgin), whom he had seen only once previo usly in a magazine photograph dressed as the “Princesse de Léon’! Mme de Guermantes is Marcel’s Madonna, his Beatrice: Et mes regards s’arrétant a ses cheveux blonds, a ses yeux bleus, a l'attache de son cou et omettant les traits qui eussent pu me rappele r d’autres visages, je m’écriais devant ce croquis volontaireme nt incomplet: «Quelle est belle! Quelle noblesse! Comme c’est bien une fiére Guermantes, la descendante de Genevieve de Brabant, que j'ai devant moi!»... Je revois encore, au-dessus de sa cravate mauve, soyeuse et gonflée, le doux étonnement de ses yeux auxquels elle avait ajouté, sans oser le destiner a personne, mais pour que tous pussent en prendre leur part, un sourire un peu timide de suzeraine qui a I’air de s’excuser aupres de ses vassaux et de les aimer. (177) The experience leads Marcel to regret pitiably his lack of literary talent and disposition. Yet, shortly later, after an excursion to the neighboring town of Martinville where he observes the two towers of the local church, he is given the grace to write several paragraphs! He has saved this first example of his own prose, the very prototype of the Novel--his euvre--which he decides to compose at the close of Le Temps retrouvé: “Seuls, s’élevant du niveau de la plaine et comme perdus en rase campagne, montaient les deux clochers de Martinville...” Marcel’s movement--a movement conjoining Faith, Hope and Love, and leading toward Salvation — has been set in motion.

Some words of St. Augustine are appropriate at this juncture:

De spe quoque ait Apostolus [St. Paul]: Spes quae videtur, non est spes: quod enim videt quis, quid sperat? Si autem quod non videmus speramus, per patientiam exspectamus (Rom. viii, 24, 25): Cum ergo bona nobis futura esse credentur, nihil aliud quam sperantur.

Jam de amore quid dicam, sine quo fides nihil prodest? Spes vero esse sine amore non potest. Denique, ut ait Apostolus Jacobus, Et daemones credunt et contremiscunt (Jacobi, i, 19): nec

tamen sperant vel amant; sed potius quod speramus et amamus credendo venturam esse formidant. Propter quod apostolus Paulus fidem quae per dilectionem operatur, approbat atque commendat (Galat. v, 6), quae utique sine spe non potest esse. Proinde nec amor sine spe est, nec sine amore spes, nec utrumque sine fide.®

37

The Spanish Santiago... (Concerning hope, again, the apostle says: “Hope that is seen is not hope hope; for whata man seeth, why does he yet hope for? But if we When, it.” for wait e patienc with we do for that we see not, then

else but then, we believe that good is about to come, there is nothing

to hope for it. Now what shall I say of love? Without it, faith profits nothing; and in its absence, hope cannot exist. The Apostle James says: “The devils also believe and tremble.” — that is, they, having neither hope nor love, but believing that what we love and hope for is about to come, are in terror. And so the Apostle Paul approves and commends the “faith that worketh by love”; and this certainly cannot exist without hope. Wherefore there is no love, no hope without love, and neither love nor hope without faith. (Trans. J.F. Shaw [Derry], in The Catholic Encyclopedia, sv.“ Hope.”) *

Founded on Hope and, I believe, Love, as well as the concept of

Work, Proust's poetic enterprise combines in a very twentieth-century manner the personal and the historical with certain archetypes present in the European mentalité. His novel is a kind of confession, or work of wit-

ness, welling up from the depths of his soul, in a “privileged moment” of total probity: the taste of tea and madeleine allows for no embellishment or prevarication. Although St. James, or, more exactly, the Spanish Santiago associated with the Galician Compostela and with, as we shall see, a complex narrative tradition, pervades both the structure and sense of Proust's

Combray, as far as I can determine neither the historical personage of the saint nor his legend is mentioned by Proust. “Impressionistic” allusions and analogies seem to dominate his account, giving one grounds for thinking that Proust is in the process of estheticizing history. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yet, perhaps strangely, Spain itself goes unmentioned; it is as though Spain’s presence in the novelist’s story, as well as the Reconquista with which Santiago was so closely identified, were simply taken for granted in Combray. Santiago offers Proust images and values se a target. —almost that signify a goal —-an object of hope, an ideal purpo Love is to be identified in Combray within the emphasis placed there on the Duchess of Guermantes — an emphasis one would not necessarily identify with the core iconography of Santiago, by which I mean, the beautiful, and inaccessible, Lady we link traditionally to the erotic conven-

tion founded by medieval troubadours: the Lady as worthy object of the poet's ideal, even worshipful love. It is clearly within this context that, as we recall, our narrator speaks of having seen a photo of the Duchess in a magazine where she is dressed up as “la princesse de Léon.” This constitutes, I believe, the one suggestion of a possible link between the matter of

38

K.D. Uitti his narrative and a Spanish “historical reality.” And even at that it is a highly exotic allusion. *

The situation is quite different in the Divine Comedy (ca. 1307-21) . Dante, of course, belonged as fully as any medieval poet to the traditions

of the Old Provencal canso. As is well known, the protagonist of the Divine

Comedy is, like Proust's Marcel, a pilgrim; and his pilgrim age takes him,

with the help of a series of guides (Virgil, Statius, and his beloved Beatrice ), through the cosmic world of the Christian Great Beyond: Hell, Purgato ry, and Paradise. Dante’s work refers with such frequency and complex ity to St. James that the issues involved clearly merit closer, even monographic, study in their own right. In my judgment, Dante’s fascination with the Santiago story (like that of Proust) caused the saint to play an extraordinarily important réle in the poetic-religious thought of the great Italian master.° Now then, as has been noted above, the New Testament St. James —

certainly “the Greater” and the son of Zebedee—was combined in Spain (especially after the Muslim invasion of 711) with the St. James, author of the canonical Epistle attributed to him by St. Augustine and many others, who came to be identified with the second theological virtue of Hope. (The remaining two virtues—Faith and Love—were associated, respectively, with St. Peter and with St. John.) Dante’s Paradiso rehearses these associations and combinations. Cantos 24, 25, and 26 of Paradiso are dedicated to the three theological virtues. Guided by Beatrice, the Pilgrim meets St. Peter in Canto 24.

He responds to the saint's questions concerning his own knowledge of Faith. In the next canto he is confronted by a second nuestro who —quite typically —arrives in a kind of lightning thunderclap but is not immediately identified by name. Beatrice “explains” who the maestro is by saying: “Mira, mira: ecco il barone/ per cui la git si vicita Galizia” (vv. 17-18: Look! look! Behold the Baron for whose sake, down below, folk visit Galicia.).” This means, for Dante as well as for his contemporaries that this maestro is a

fighter and a combattant —a vigorous champion ever ready to sacrifice his life against the enemies of the true faith.’ Even after death he acts to convince his companions to maintain their own faith and hope. There is nothing deliberately “intellectual” or wavering about him. Many are the Spanish epics and chronicles that mention the arrival, mounted ona white battle steed, of “Santiago Moorslayer” in the very moment when matters on the battlefield are going badly for the Christian side. His arrival brings about an about-face in the Christians’ fortunes, converting their sure defeat into a

victory.

Nothing in Dante’s poem contradicts what has just been said; in

39

The Spanish Santiago... Confact Dante incorporates this story and this identity into his own poem. James St. of ion concept sequently — and this is of the highest interest — Dante’s with the (as refracted through the Spanish Santiago) does not entirely jibe Thus, Beatrice, New Testament depiction of the life of James, son of Zebedee.

ious whose great smile reflects her pleasure, speaks to the saint as “illustr “make to him asking life, by whom the bounty of our Court was chronicled,” hope resound in this height; you...who did figure it all those times when la Jesus showed most favor to the three” (vv. 29-33: Inclita vita per cui questa in speme la larghezza/de la nostra basilica si scrisse, /fa risonar altezza:/tu sai, che tante fiate la figuri,/quante lest ai tre fé pit' carezza). These words have little to do with the St. James the Greater of the Gospels or of the Acts of the Apostles. Rather, Beatrice presents us here with another saintly martyr, St. James the Less, son of Alpheus and bishop of Jerusalem — the author to whom is attributed the New Testament Epistle of St. James.” A bit later in the canto, the Pilgrim defines Hope as “é uno attender certo /dela gloria futura, il qual produce/ grazia divina e precedente merto” (vv. 67-69: [Hope] is a sure expectation of future glory, which divine grace produces, and preceding merit), and he declares that “Da molte stelle mi vien questa luce” (v. 70: From many stars this light comes to me). Finally, the Pilgrim notes how the holy maestro had taught him: “Tu mi stillasti, con lo stillar suo,/ne la pistola poi” (vv. 76-77,emphasis mine: “You afterwards in your Epistle did instill it into me, together with His instilling”). No further doubt is possible. The St. James of the Divina Conimedia is indeed founded on the conflation of the son of Zebedee and the son of Alpheus. The first exemplifies military prowess, the man of action; the second, as bishop of Jerusalem and man of learning, a gentle and somewhat delicate person. They coexist here as a kind of palimpsest, one affixed to the other, accomplishing two distinct (but complementary) functions. To conclude that all we have here is a “confusion” owed to the endemic ignorance characterizing a supposed medieval naiveté would be the height of foolishness, however. It would cause us to miss out on the vision offered to us by Proust's magnificent novel and by the poetic reflection of the greatest poet of the Western Christian tradition, that is to say, a vision reflecting a fundamental constituent of the Catholic-European view of the world."° The use to which was put the name “Santiago” by those early Christian combatants of Iberia who, after the invasion of 711, fought against the Muslims (because, as Américo Castro once put it, they realized that they were not themselves Muslims and had no desire to become Muslims) helps explain why the fusion of the two St. James occurred on Spanish soil. The Muslim battle cry was, of course, Mahoma! —the Prophet who took down Allah's dictation and who was an effective fighter. Who else but a “St. James” who integrated military prowess and clerkly learnedness might better fit the

40

K.D. Uitti bill? Besides, St. James’s tomb was to be found close at hand to the sole

territory of Hispania unconquered by the “infidels.” Finally , was it not St. James who originally brought Christianity to Spain? An authen tic apostle of Christ, but also a God-given local holy man, the militant son of Zebedee, when fused with the learned son of Alpheus, was unbeatable when it most counted: the powerful Santiago! would perform admirably in effecti ve response to Mahoma! This very Santiago—a figure almost invariably identified with the son of Zebede — furnish ees the bedrock supporting such constructs as the Old French saint Jacque and Beatrice’s “barone per cui la git si visita Galizia, ” and, it must be emphasized, this was from its point of origin a specific ally Hispanic Christian invention. It was dressed in this Spanish garb that the figure of St. James the Greater came to signify what it eventually meant during the European High Middle Ages. The story of Santiago was what

was handed down, via Dante and many others, to Proust and our own age,

as a constitutive part of the European imagination."

Let us now attempt to describe some of the reasons underlying the

emergence and triumph of Santiago, as well as, to a degree at least, the

purposes then and now still served by the saint and the traditions linked to his memory. Our remarks will be brief, and so we risk doing an injustice to the matters involved, but the effort, I believe, is worth making, even re-

warding. The miraculous arrival of St. James the Greater to Gallacia took place presumably in the mid-first century AD, some time after his martyrdom in the year 44 AD. No document from those ancient times exists at present mentioning this event. Nor do we have documents concerning St. James’s supposed missionary activity in Roman Hispania. Toward the end of the Visigothic kingdom in Hispania — during the seventh century —some references to St. James begin to be inserted into various writings here and there, however no particularly coherent or detailed account—no story —as yet appears. Having been converted to Arian Christianity, the Visigoths, then ruling Iberia, were odd men out within the Trinitarian frame of Latin Christianity. Their relationship to Rome was at best very tenuous. The destruction of the Visigothic kingdom after the Muslim invasion of 711 and the subsequent Muslim conquest of virtually all of Iberia left merely small pockets of unsubdued Christians here and there. These were concentrated in the far Northwest part of the peninsula — parts of the Cantabrian mountains, Asturias and, to a degree, Galicia. There emerged from Asturias an increasingly self-conscious Christian resistance to Muslim hegemony. The Christian chieftain, Pelayo, even won several victories over Islamic armies, most importantly the (legendary?) victory at

4]

The Spanish Santiago... r any new Covadonga on 28 May 722 without which it is doubtful whethe

lasted, in Hispania. Christian political order could have been built, let alone

Pyrenees to However, it must also be recalled that, having passed over the notably in Franks, the against France, the Muslims met defeat in battles grandfas magne’ Charle of hands 732, between Poitiers and Tours, at the it became clear that ther, Charles the Hammer. Both in France and in Spain

d, but the Moors were not invincible, and that they not only could be stoppe Hope, a became s analysi This Africa. that they just might be thrust back into as defined ine) August St. and Paul namely on what the Church (since St. — on salvati — desired one what that “a faith strong enough to cause belief rk.” footwo al essenti the did one ed could reasonably be counted on, provid We have noted that the Biblical Epistle of St. James the Less, though ze not ostensibly addressed to the theological virtue of hope, does emphasi based when y, naturall works, and n; works in God’s plan of human salvatio on faith become the tangible sign of hope. Hope thus informs the entire Epistle. This logic sustains St. James's being identified with the second of the three theological virtues. When linked to the fiery and combative St. James the Greater who, if anyone did, possessed the courage of his convictions, and certainly did the work—the St. James said to be buried at Compostela—the merging of the historical St. James the Greater and St. James the Less took ona very special relevance. But how was this linkage effected? Who saw to it that the Spanish Christian situation of post-Islamic invasion times could, indeed should,

engender a Santiago? An invention so foundational as this one could surely not have been owed to sheer accident. Ina major essay on precisely this question, the Seattle-based historian, Alberto Ferreiro, reminds us that the fourth through the sixth centu-

ries were a time of “growing up” in terms of “ecclesiastical culture” for the Western provinces of the erstwhile Roman Empire.’ This period at its beginning was the time of St. Augustine and St. Jerome (as well as the age of frequent political and economic turbulence provoked by many Germanic invasions, including those of the Franks and the Visigoths), and, during

the fifth and sixth centuries, it saw the rise of certain important Christian establishments, chief among which in Gaul was that founded by St. Martin at Tours, a celebrated place of Christian learning, spirituality, and pilgrimage for many centuries. Ferreiro has also called to our attention the fact that relations between Merovingian Gaul, or emerging France, and the old Roman province of Gallzcia were intense and existed on a variety of levels. Before its incorporation into the Visigothic kingdom (ca. 585), Gallaecia had been a kingdom in its own right—a kingdom founded by the Suevi (or Swabians), and, although until the mid-sixth century the rulers of this kingdom wavered in their allegiance to Trinitarian Roman Christianity and to

42

K.D. Uitti Visigothic Arianism, by around 560 AD the kingdom was definitively and strongly within the Catholic fold. This important step was taken through

the influence of St. Martin of Braga, a fervent devote e of his namesake, St.

Martin of Tours, who founded the abbey of St. Martin of Tours in the archdiocesan city of Braga. The influence of St. Martin of Braga was such that Gallaecia was in highly significant ways shifted into the orbit of the

great Gallo-Roman, or proto-French, establishmen t at Tours. Not a great deal is known about St. Martin of Braga; what we do

know depends largely on French source —Gregory s of Tours, especially. Like St. Martin of Tours, the Galician Martin was born in the provinc e of Pannonia (present-day Hungary); he traveled to Constantinople as a young

man, and he came West as a missionary. St. Isidore of Seville credits him

with the conversion to Catholicism of the Swabian King Theodemir. Gregory of Tours relates the story of Martin’s arrival in Gallacia with relics of St. Martin of Tours. He also tells of the intervention of St. Martin of Tours with regard to a plague of leprosy in Gallacia, as well as the curing by him (via his relics) of the incurably ill son of the local king. These interventions were, of course, supervised by St. Martin of Braga. It consequently did not take long for St. Martin of Tours to become the beatus patronus of Galleecia. Given the extraordinary popularity and diffusion of Gregory’s work in both France and Spain, St. Martin of Tours shortly acquired a very high level of prestige in Northwestern Iberia-a prestige that redounded particularly on Gallecia. Iberian shrines to St. Martin of Tours were not limited to Galicia,

however. They spread beyond the Northwest to the neighboring Visigothic kingdom. The following story is recycled by Ferreiro from Gregory of Tours’ Liber in gloria confessorum (ch. xii). In the time of the Visigothic Arian King Leovigild (569-86) ...

ashrine of Martin of Tours (was) located...somewhere between

Sagunto and Cartagena. Leovigild’s army...was in the habit of destroying the holy places of the Catholics. When Leovigild’s men approached the monastery the resident monks fled in terror. The elderly abbot who was known for his holiness stood his ground and refused to leave. When one of Leovigild’s men raised his sword to slay him, the soldier fell over backwards and died on the spot. Upon seeing such a display of God’s power, the Arian Visigoths fled horrified and in disarray...Leovigild ordered his men to restore the stolen goods to the monastery... (10) The story deals with the pre-Muslim Spanish effort to bring Hispanic Christianity into line with Roman practices and beliefs; it recounts

43

The Spanish Santiago... Braga was an episode in that struggle. The Galleecia/ Galicia of St. Martin of Visigothic of heresy the spearhead of this effort to discredit and destroy the as the viewed be could Arianism. Also, by extension, St. Martin of Tours against es struggl g special protector of the Swabian kingdom in its on-goin . It their powerful Visigothic rivals in the Peninsula of the seventh century would kings n Galicia takes little imagination to see that the now-Catholic gh call upon their beatus patronus as they did battle with these rivals. Althou hic Visigot ve definiti the the Swabian kingdom politically came to anend with victory in 585, the Council of Toledo (589) set the stage for the later, equally definitive, conversion of Spain to the Catholic faith. Let me mention briefly one further aspect of St. Martin of Tours’ réle in pre-Islamic Spain. St. Martin, we know, had been a major opponent of the heretic Priscillian (executed at Trier in 385, on orders from Emperor Maximian) whose neo-Gnostic doctrines survived vestigially in Gallaecia where their initial popularity had been significant. Along with St. Ambrose of Milan, St. Martin’s position against Priscillian was consequently of import in Gallacian ecclesiastical circles. A Gallzecian opponent of Priscillian, Hydatius, bishop of Iria Flavia (390-470), composed his Chronicon which lauds St. Martin, praising above all his Christian authority, his piety, and his influence. Thus, almost two centuries before St. Martin of Braga, the

Galician ground was prepared for the extension there of St. Martin of Tours’ presence and authority. Part of that presence and authority lay in St. Martin of Tours’ intercession on behalf of the condemned Priscillian that he not be executed by the civil authorities dependent on the emperor. He did not succeed in staying the killing of Priscillian, but he emphatically made the point that although the Church and the State in Latin Europe could not in all instances harmonize their actions, the Church must remain true to its vocation and defend principles even if these were politically inconvenient. To my knowledge there exists no general study of the pan-European influence of St. Martin of Tours. When such a study appears, it surely will regard among St. Martin’s most significant and durable gifts to medieval Europe what, through the agency of the monastery he founded and thanks to the efforts of the Galician bishop, St. Martin of Braga, he gave to Spain and, back from Spain, to Europe and the Christian world: the conditions — the example — through which the personage of Santiago de Compostela was destined to acquire the prestige he eventually enjoyed. Even before there was a “France,” one might say, Gaul-Francia

contributed to the making of the Spanish Santiago. At this very early, preMuslim stage, when St. James had not yet very much been heard from, the Galician reception of St. Martin of Tours, which, as we saw, spread to other areas of Iberia and would last effectively until the eighth- and ninth-cen-

44

K.D. Uitti tury Norman depredations of establishments bearin g his name, opening

the way for the advent of St. James of Compostela who, as it were, inher-

ited the memory of St. Martin of Braga’s work. The terrible eighth and ninth centuries were the crucible in which the Spanish meanings imparted to St. James’s presence in Galicia were melted into a new and cogent form. Christian victories here and there, but numerous disasters too, yet a growing hope that with God’s help the Christians might prevail over their enemies —all these led to what would turn out to be a more or less permanent state of war which would last for centuries in Iberia. With time, new Christian political organizations came into being — the kingdom of Asturias-Le6n (which included Galicia), and, later, the kingdoms of Navarre, Aragon, and, of course, Castile and Portugal,

both of which were outgrowths of Leon. (Catalonia was a special case, becoming for various reasons, including its feudal character, closely involve d with the Frankish empire of the Carolingians — the “Spanish March.”) The first more or less coherent efforts against the Moors began with King Alfonso the Catholic, of Asturias, around the mid-eighth century; he “libera ted”

the city of Leén, as well as Astorga. By the time of his death more or less

secure Christian domains

included:

Northern

Portugal, Galicia, Leon,

Asturias, Cantabrian Castile, and certain Basque provinces, including the western parts of Navarre. Spanish affairs began somewhat later to take on major importance outside Spain proper, especially at the Frankish court and in papal Rome. (Carolingian incursions in the Peninsula at both ends of the Pyrenees were frequent.) The converse was also true: thus, already in the early eleventh century, starting with Alfonso III the Great, the kings of Leon attributed to themselves the very Carolingian title of mperator, or Emperor, and this title was recognized as valid by such as Sancho the Great, king of Navarre, in 1029, in a diploma acknowledging the advent of Vermudo of Leon. Within the Spanish context of the Reconquest the title of Emperor, signifying ‘king of kings,’ recognized the strategic fact that no single Peninsular monarch could alone prevail against the Muslims, that mutual aid and some coordination were necessary. Also, ever more pressingly, the bishops of the land claiming the tomb of St. James adopted a counter-prerogative to that of the bishop of Rome. The latter’s assumption of supremacy was based on the succession to the Apostle Peter. The Apostle James would authorize the Galician bishops also to use the papal title Pontifex Maximus. This was the framework within which Santiago came into his own: from his Galician tomb the Apostle of Christ was proudly identified as the pan-Christian holy champion, Santiago Matamoros, or “Moorslayer.” He could be, and was, appealed to by any Spanish Christian lord or soldier engaged in combat with the Muslim invader, whether Aragonese or

45

The Spanish Santiago... Alfonso VI was Castilian, Leonese or Navarrese. Indeed, in 1072, King

power the moved to remark that Santiago was “the apostle upon whose r, it was Howeve .” founded land and the government of all Spain were sor Al-Man general Muslim probably during the frightening times of the na, Barcelo Leon, sacked who during the closing years of the tenth century ities, burning and numerous other Christian cities and religious commun

ty Santiago de Compostela itself in both 983 and 987, that the sheer necessi de fin The felt. acutely most of Santiago’s unifying protection and help was for dismal was nium millen siécle immediately preceding the first Christian Spanish Christians. The Reconquista, as it progressed during the eleventh century, was aided and abetted by Catholics outside of Spain. As Spanish Christians began once again to regain hope in prevailing against their enemy, thousands of Frenchmen came into the country. Especially important were the ecclesiastics affiliated with the great Abbey of Cluny whose close ties with the ducal House of Burgundy and with the Papacy enhanced their own great prestige. The Cluniacs arrived in order to bring Spanish Catholicism into line with liturgical practices and beliefs current in Latin Christendom. Along with the pilgrims who by mid-century were ever more numerous in wending their way to Compostela, they witnessed at first hand the nature of the devotion rendered by Spanish Christians to St. James and enthusiastically embraced its purposes. It was surely no coincidence that the Cluniac French pope, Urban II, proclaimed at Clermont in 1095 the First Crusade;

the inspiration for his proclamation surely reflected his clear consciousness of what was going on in Spain. *

The Golden Age of Santiago coincides with the brilliant historical period running from the later eleventh century to the early fourteenth century, that is, from the time of St. Anselm, the Song of Roland, and the First

Crusade to the Holy Land down to the time of Dante. This is the period of the greatest Gothic architecture-Chartres, Rheims, Burgos-and of a burgeoning vernacular literature in France, Spain, and Italy; Catholic Europe gained a foothold in the Muslim and Byzantine East at this time; schools and the university flourished in France and in Italy. In Spain at the end of this period, King Alfonso X the Learned, of Castile supervised the truly wondrous emergence of Castilian prose works of history, law, and rulership. These can be added to the Spanish verse corpus of epic, sacred and profane narrative, and lyric (composed especially in Galician) that saw the light of day in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In many respects by 1300 nationhood and state were well on the way to being successfully integrated in both England and Capetian France. Indeed, it would truly be difficult to

overestimate the achievements in all fields of human endeavor — hopeful 46

K.D. Uitti work —at this time. In Spain itself one can properly emphasize the steady progre ss of a Christian cause ever more integrated into West Europe an Catholicism. Militarily, the key Christian victory took place at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, with Aragon and Navarre collaborating with the Castili an king, Alfonso VIII: this battle broke the power of the fearsome Almoha des, but this triumph was preceded by numerous earlier victories. The great Muslim cities of Al-Andalus were “reconquered”--Cérdoba and Seville fell to Ferdinand III of Castile—San Fernando — in 1236 and 1248, respectively. The indispensable part played by Santiago in these dramas was fully acknowledged in the literature of the time. As the prospects of the Christian cause improved during the later

eleventh and throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the sover-

eigns of the Spanish kingdoms lavished gifts and privileges on the saint’s shrine in Compostela. In return the extraordinary influx of pilgrims over the famous camino francés and other roads during the period under discussion brought fabulous wealth to it also--wealth used frequently to support papal Rome and the military expenses of the Reconquista. The pilgrims’ fervor reached extraordinary heights of intensity: knifings and other murderous aggressions often took place in the cathedral, with pilgrims fighting for closer proximity to sacred images and altars. Meanwhile, local ecclesiastics struggled with Rome for greater recognition of the unique veneration they claimed for Santiago. The French presence in all these events deserves special mention. Cluniacs and (later) Cistercians occupied vital ecclesiastical positions in late eleventh- and twelfth-century Northern Spain. The Cluniac Bernard de Sédirac eventually was invested by Alfonso VI as the first archbishop of reconquered Toledo and, as such, was Primate of Spain, in 1085. He was

also named papal legate in Spain. In the secular sphere a great many intermarriages involved Spanish royalty and nobility and their French —especially Burgundian—counterparts. The first king of Portugal was of the ducal House of Burgundy; four wives of Alfonso VI were French. French chivalry fought the Moors alongside their Spanish co-religionists in Castile, the Basque country, and, with special success, in Aragon. Fighting in Spain came to be recognized by the Papacy as equivalent to—even the model for — combating in the Holy Land. Jér6me de Périgord, the historical bishop of Valencia (invited to the post by none other than Ruy Diaz de Vivar, “El Cid”), who was immortalized in the Poema de mio Cid, was, like archbishop

Turpin of Rheims, a Santiago-inspired fighting bishop who combined chivalric and clerkly attributes. The nature of Santiago’s presence in late-eleventh-, as well as in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Spain and Western Europe underwent a

47

The Spanish Santiago... work and number of interesting transformations. These were due to the hard and at Rome. intense collaboration of churchmen based in Spain, in France,

Diego The most significant of these was the inspired bishop of Compostela, to trips s arduou made z de Gelmirez. In 1100 and then again in 1102 Gelmire pallium the pope the from Rome (stopping at Cluny on the way): (1) to obtain simple which would indicate that Compostela would rank higher than a archdio the of ty authori bishopric; and (2) to secure its exemption from the resurthe ing indicat , cese of Braga. Both requests were eventually granted of gence of papal good will toward the claims made increasingly on behalf to legate papal Santiago. The erstwhile archbishop of Vienne and onetime in II) s Calixtu name Spain, Guy de Bourgogne, was elected pope (taking the Questure Investi 1119. Despite Calixtus’s preoccupations with the German tion, he devoted close attention to Spanish affairs. Not only was he the uncle of Emperor Alfonso VII of Leén-Castile, but the authorship of the first major work concerning St. James of Compostela, the authoritatively Latin Liber Sancti Jacobi (often known by the title given to the manuscript preserved at Compostela, i.e., as the Codex Calixtinus), was (falsely) ascribed to him. Toa significant extent composed in France, and/or often by French, or French-influenced, ecclesiastics resident in Spain, The Book of St. James,

very arrestingly, relates Santiago to the restored history of Emperor Charlemagne. Among other things, it is a summa-like bringing together of the Spanish Santiago and a revised history of Charlemagne that contextualizes the emperor's great historical narrative within the crusading élan of late eleventh- and twelfth-century Latin Europe. The Spanish story had become essential to the truth of Charlemagne, while the narrative of Charles and his Twelve Peers confirmed the European relevance of Santiago. The Liber Sancti Jacobi accords preeminence to the revered Apostle, yet it also underscores the historical centrality of the Carolingian ruler. Or, to put the matter in another way, the Liber articulates the visionary devotion to Santiago of the great Galician prelate Gelmirez and its integration into the consciousness of Latin Christendom — with consequences not yet over today. The impressive number of Spanish-American cities and towns that bear the name of the saint, as well as the celebrations on his feast day, 25 July, still testify to this consciousness. Let us take a brief look at the work’s organization. Its final form reveals a very carefully construed structure, I believe. Book L is entirely devoted to Santiago, containing hymns and liturgical texts of use in celebrating him; Book II offers narratives of twenty-two miracles attributed to the holy Apostle, and it is typically hagiological; Book III gives an account of the saint's miraculous “translation” from Jerusalem to Gallzecia — his “history,” as it were. Book V of this work contains a fascinating Pilgrim’s Guide to the saint’s shrine, and includes, like a modern

48

K.D. Vitti guidebook, information on points of interest located on the trip, in France as well as Spain. Book IV focuses on Charlemagne’s Spanis h forays, and is attributed to archbishop Turpin (the see of whom was Vienne ) who, it states, composed the work while recovering from the wound s he suffered at Rencesvals. This book, commonly referred to as the Pseudo -Turpin Chronicle, is a compendium of materials drawn from many sou rce — Einhars d’s Life of Charlemagne, various chansons de geste, and the like. It powerf ully articulates a Charles who is spiritually dependent upon Santiago and who responds to the saint’s summons. Here is a brief section of the Pseudo-Turpin devoted to the circumstances of this summons as related in the French prose of Primat’s Grandes Chroniques de France, a work undertaken at the prob-

able command of Louis IX of France, in 1271, ie., a centur y and a half after

the Codex Calixtinus and barely a half-century before Dante’s Commed ia. The Old French words are extraordinarily beautiful:

Une nuit esgarda vers le ciel et vit un chemin d’estoiles

qui commencoit, si com il li sembla, a la mer de Frise, et se drecoit entre Alemagne et Lombardie, entre France et Aquitaine, entre

Bascle et Gascoigne et entre Espagne et Navarre, tout droict en

Galice, 1a ot li cors monseigneur Saint Jaques reposoit sanz non et

sanz memoire. En tele maniere vit ce signe par plusor nuiz; lors commenca forment a penser en son cuer que ce pooit senefier. Tandis com il estoit une nuit en cele pensée, uns hons plains de plus grant biauté que nus ne porroit deviser s‘aparut a li et li dist

ensi: «Biaus fiuz, que fais-tu?» Et Karlemaines li respondi: «Sire,

qui es-tu?» «Je sui,» dist-il, «Jaques li apostres, deciples Jhesu Crist, fiuz Zebedée, freres Jehan I’evangeliste, que Nostre Sires eslut par sa grace sor la mer de Galilée pour preechier sa foi au pople, et sui cil que li rois Herodes martyria par glaive. Moult me poise de ce que mes cors est en Galice sanz nule memoire, laidement traitiez

entre mains de Sarrazins; dont je m’enmerveil moult pourquoi tu n’as delivrée des mescreanz la terre oul mes cors repose, qui tantes citez et tantes regions as conquises en ton tens. Pour laquele chose je te faz asavoir que autresi come Nostre Sires t’a fait puissant sor touz autres rois terriens, ausi t’a-il esleu a delivrer ma terre des mains des Sarrazins et a faire la voie aus pelerins, la ot mes cors repose, pour ce que il te doinst corone de victoire en la joie de

paradis. Et cil chemins d’estoiles que tu as veu ou ciel senefie que tu iras a granz oz en ces parties pour destruire la paiene gent et pour delivrer ma terre et ma sepouture des mains des Sarrazins, et que tuit li pople qui habitent de I’une mer jusques 4 I’autre et en autres diverses regions iront apres toi en pelerinage pour empetrer 49

The Spanish Santiago... de ta vie vers Nostre Seigneur pardon de lor pechiez; et puis, le tens es miracl les et vertuz les jusques a la fin de cest siecle, raconteront muef et s donque le-toi que Nostre Sires a faiz pour ses amis. Apareil si au plus tost que tu porras, car je serai en t’aide par touz periuz; Nostre vers errai empetr si et sera tes nons touz jors mais en loenge e Seigneur a toi corone perdurable en la joie de paradis.» En tel manier Primat, (In aine. Karlem a s’aparut mesires saint Jacques par Ill foiz Société de Les Grandes Chroniques de France, tl, Jules Viard, ed. ) 203-04. 1923] ion, I’Histoire de France [Paris: Edouard Champ

y of (One night Charlemagne looked up at the heavens and saw a roadwa

arching over stars which began, so he thought, at the seacoast of Frisia,

counbetween Germany and Lombardy, France and Aquitaine, the Basque Galicia, to directly leading , try and Gascony, and over Spain and Navarre where the body of St. James lay, unnamed and unremembered. He saw this sign for several nights and wondered what it might mean. One night, plunged in these thoughts, he saw a man full of an indescribable beauty who appeared before him and said to him, “Fair son, what are you doing?”

said, Charlemagne answered him thus: “Lord, who are you?” “Iam,” he to brother , Zebedee of son the “James the Apostle, disciple of Jesus Christ,

John the Evangelist, whom Our Lord chose through His grace on the Sea of Galilee to preach His faith to the people, and I am he whom King Herod martyred with a sword. I am distressed that my body lies unremembered in Galicia, subject to ugly treatment at the hand of the Saracens; and I marvel that you have not seen fit to deliver from these miscreants the land in which I lie buried, although you have conquered so many cities and countries in your time. For this reason I inform you that just as Our Lord has made you powerful over all other earthly kings so He has designated you to free my land from the hands of the Saracens and to open up the road for pilgrims to reach where my body rests, and for this He will give you the crown of victory in the joy of Paradise. And this starry roadway which you have seen in the sky signifies that you will depart with a great army to free my land and my tomb from the hands of the Saracens, and that all the peoples inhabiting from one sea to the other and in other diverse regions will follow you on pilgrimages in order to implore Our Lord’s pardon for their sins; and then, as long as this world lasts, they will tell of the virtues and the miracles that Our Lord has made for those who love Him. Prepare, then, and start out as soon as you can, for I will help you in all peril; and your name will forever more be praised, and I will intercede for you with

Our Lord so that you may be eternally crowned in the joy of Paradise.” In sucha manner did St. James appear three times to Charlemagne. )

50

K.D. Uitti Charles does as he is told: this will be his work. After many battles and victories he arrives in Galicia where he visits Santia go’s tomb. He then goes out to the stone slab where the saint’s boat had struck land. He hurls his lance into the sea, and when he sees that it could not go further over it, “he gives thanks to God and to St. James through whose help and consent he had come here.” *

The integration of Gelmirez’ vision into the mentalité of Capeti an France was abetted by the close Spanish relations that the saintly King Louis IX (1214-71) maintained, through his Castilian mother, with the royal paladins of the Golden Age of the Reconquista. Ferdinand III, the sainted king of

Castile and “restorer” of Christian Cordoba and Seville, was his first cousin. (Indeed, one wonders whether the canonization of Louis IX would have

occurred had it not been for the example of the sainting of this Spanis h cousin."*) Louis’s maternal grandfather was Alfonso VIII of Castile, founder of the knightly Orders of Calatrava and of Santiago, and the victor at Las

Navas de Tolosa (1212). Meanwhile, Louis VIIL, Saint Louis’s father, was

the son of Philip-Augustus and Isabelle de Hainaut, a woman of Carolingian descent. Thus, as Primat notes further along in his chronicle, Saint Louis united in his veins the two historic strains (so far) of the French royal houses: the Capetian and the Carolingian. For Louis IX, his very Charlemagne-like crusading, including his holy death (due to the plague) while besieging Muslim Tunis, must have been his faithful work on behalf of a summons

perceived by him as quite analogous to that experienced by his ancestor, Charles. To summarize, then, the Spanish Santiago’s integration into a unitary European history began with the establishment and diffusion of his connection with Charlemagne as articulated by the Pseudo-Turpin chronicle and the Codex Calixtinus; and this integration was perfected by the special devotion maintained by King Louis IX of France toward the Hispanized St. James “construct” we have described. Evidence provided by Joinville authenticates what we have just said. Louis IX’s biographer and companion (and also witness at his canonization trial), Jehan de Joinville, seneschal of Champagne, accompanied Louis IX to Egypt and the Holy Land on the Seventh Crusade (1248-54). Saint James, or, rather, Iwould put it, Santiago, is mentioned four times in

Joinville’s Histoire [or, Vie] de saint Louis (ca. 1310). The first instance recounts Louis’s pious death: “...en ses darrenieres paroles reclamoit il Dieu et ses sains, et especialment mon seigneur saint Jaque et ma dame sainte Genevieve”™ (in his last words he called upon my lord St. James and my

lady St. Genevieve). The second mention of the saint occurs in the aftermath of the terrible battle of Mansourah when, along with the king, Joinville was taken prisoner by the Turks: “Biau sire saint Jaque, que j'ai requis,

51

The Spanish Santiago... to whom I aidiés moi et secourez a ce besoign!” (§225) (Fair lord St. James, of need!”). time have made this supplication, help me and comfort me in this of all: ting interes The third reference to St. James is probably the most

Ceste parole que le roy dit de sa demouree,...ce fu entour la Saint Jehan. Or avint ainsi que le jour de la Saint Jaque, quel pelerin je sa estoie et qui maint biens m’avoit fait, le roy fu revenu en avec eé demour chambre de la messe et appela son consoil qui estoit li. (§ 438; emphasis mine)

ed (This decision taken by the king to remain [in the Holy Land]...was announc James, St. of on or about St. John’s day. It happened then that on the Feast whose pilgrim I was and who had showed me many favors, the king had returned to his chambers from Mass and he called a council of those who had remained with him.) Despite--in all likelihood— never having stepped on Spanish soil, Joinville labels himself a pilgrim of St. James.” How might one account for this apparent anomaly? Given that the crusader left home on foot, dressed usually as a pilgrim (of the type that walked to Compostela), with his purse and his stick--and, in the Histoire de saint Louis, one finds a touching self-portrait describing Joinville in precisely these terms as he sadly left his home and very young sons for the Seventh Crusade--he felt completely authorized to represent himself as a St. James-style pilgrim, and all the more authorized in that he maintained a particularly strong devotion to the saint. Joinville demonstrates, then, that for a Frenchman of the high no—an intimate of the very King of France —to combat against the enbility emies of the Faith in Egypt formed part and parcel of what was, no more, no less, the great Spanish enterprise of crusading / Reconquista plus pilgrimage-to-Santiago de Compostela. Or, in other words, the Spanish Reconquista had acquired a pan-European meaning in his mind—the mind of a midthirteenth-century French knight. The significance of St. James, as it had originated in Spain, is now inextricably integrated into the Latin imagination and historical truth system.'° The fourth allusion to St. James confirms our conclusion, I believe. It repeats and expands upon the first. Joinville quotes the eye-witness testimony of the Count of Alencon, Louis IX’s son, who was at his dying father’s bedside. The king said: “Biau cher fil, je te donne toutes les beneissons que bon pere peut donner a un fil; et la beneoite Trinité et tuit li saint te gardent et

52

K.D. Uitti deffendent de touz maulz”...Et oy conter mon seigneur le conte d’Alencon, son filz, que quant il aprochoit de la mort, il appela les

sains pour li aidier et secourre, et meisement mon seigneur saint

Jaque, en disant s’oroison, qui commence: Esto DominE, c'est a dire: ‘Dieu soit saintefieur et garde de vostre peuple.’ Mon seigne ur saint Denis (saint patron) de France appela lors en s’aide en disant s’oroison qui vaut autant a dire: ‘Sire Dieu, donne nous que nous

puissions despire la prosperité de ce monde, si que nous ne doutie ns nulle adversité.’ 757 Et oy dire lors a mon seigneur d’Alencon, que Dieu absoulle, que son pere reclamoit ma dame sainte Genevi eve. (88754, 756-57) (“Dear and fair son, I give you all the blessings that a proper father can give to a son; and may the Blessed Trinity and all the saints guard and protect you against all evil...” And I heard the Count of Alencon, his son, say that

when death was about to befall him, he called upon the saints to aid and

comfort him, and especially St. James, saying the prayer that begins thus: Esto Domine, that is to say, “May God sanctify and be the guardian of your people. He then called upon Saint Denis of France [the patron saint of France] so that he might aid him, saying his prayer that goes as follows: “Lord God, give us [the strength] to despise the riches of the world and [the power] to fear no adversity.” Then I heard my lord the Count of Alengon— may God absolve him! — say that his father called out to my lady, St. Genevieve. Note the precedence accorded St. James in both of Joinville’s enu-

merations. In the list of saints to whom the King of France directs himself on his deathbed, the Apostle interred in Galicia occupies the first place; he precedes the patron saint of France as well as the patron of Paris. This sequence is not fortuitous, in my opinion. It would appear that in the mind of Louis IX, St. James as Santiago incarnates a Latin Christian--a Western Roman Catholic--significance which extends well beyond the borders of a single country. In other words, we are confronted here with a Spanish creation

which at once includes and surpasses the exclusively Hispanic, as it surpasses as well the purely French St. Denis. St. Louis of France, his companion and revering friend Jehan de Joinville, and Dante Alighieri all testify eloquently to the fact that Bishop Gelmirez’ understanding of St. James/ Santiago de Compostela had become firmly lodged in the West European Roman Catholic way of being in the world. Meanwhile, the example of Proust's Combray demonstrates the continuing efficacy of the Santiago construct virtually right down to our own time.” *

An understanding similar to that of Louis IX was shared by his 2)

The Spanish Santiago... I believe, ina document cousin, Alfonso X The Learned. This is confirmed,

that is, about a redacted by the Castilian king a few years before his death, o X proAlfons ent Testam this In dozen years after the death of Louis IX. ic interintrins its of e Becaus . poses the political union of Spain and France of the ean Europ ively reflect most est and because it was composed by the candihis ed declar even usly medieval Spanish monarchs--he had previo quotation here: dacy for the Imperial crown of Rome-this Testament merits

, E las razones que en este fecho entendemos por qué lo facemos

de Dios queremos que lo sepan todos: Primeramente, que tenemos

set no puede ser tan bien servido en ninguna manera como pata todo por Francia de e ente ayuntado amor de Espafia firmem et tiempo. Ca segund los espafioles son esforzados et ardides s grande de et uados asoseg et guerreros, e los franceses son ricos o seyend otrosi e da, ordena fechos, et de buena barrunte e de vida acordadas estas dos gentes en uno, con el poder e con el haber que habran no solamente ganaran a Espajia, mas todas las otras tierras que son de los enemigos de la fee contra la iglesia de Roma... e procomunal sera no tan solamente de nuestro sefiorio mas de todo cristianismo... Et por que estas cosas sean mas estables e firmes e valederas establescemos et ordenamos aun mas: Que si los fijos de don Fernando [de la Cerda] muriesen sin fijos que debien heredar,

que tome este nuestro sefiorio el rey de Francia, porque viene derechamente de linea derecha onde nos venimos, del Emperador de Espajfia, e es bisnieto del rey don Alfonso [VIII] de Castilla, bien

como nos, ca es nieto de su fija."* (And as for the reasons for which we propose what we do here, we wish that all understand them: In the first place, God could not be better served in any way than by a yoking of love for Spain firmly with love for France, for all time. For given that Spaniards are determined, ardent and war-like, and that

Frenchmen are powerful and calm, and [a nation] of great deeds, and of good thinkers, as well as given to well-ordered living, it follows that were they to be brought harmoniously together as one nation, with its power and with its resources, not only would [the two peoples] win Spain, but all other lands in the hands of the enemies of the faith and of the Church of Rome... and held in common would not only be our own domain but all Christendom... and so that these matters may be more stable and firm and valid, we establish and

order still more: That if the sons of don Ferdinand [de la Cerda] were to die without male issue, the king of France should assume our lordship, because he comes in direct line from whence we come--from the Emperor of Spain, and he is the great-grandson of King Alfonso [VIII] of Castile, just as we

54

K.D. Uitti ourselves, for he is the grandson of [Alfonso’s] daughter.) (My emphasis) The pan-European Catholic Christianity underlying the last words of Saint Louis and Joinville’s allusions to St. James takes ona specific reality here which, but for such successors of Alfonso as his son Sancho el Bravo, might well have become a policy. Alfonso’s far-sig hted hope for a new Spanish unity within the fusion of France and a feudally fragmented Spain are translated into this visionary testimonial work. *

In 1492 the last Islamic kingdom in Spain fell to the Catholic Sov-

ereigns, Ferdinand and Isabela; the same year witnessed Columbus’s ar-

rival in America. If we interpret Primat's tale of Charlemagne’s hurling his lance out to sea at the spot of St. James’s landing near Compostela as confirming that the Frankish king/emperor has fully assimilated the Apostle ’s message of Hope and works within the context of the very Spanish motto

Plus Ultra, his gesture takes on a new

relevance with what followed

Columbus's “discovery.” Some seventeen towns in Spanish America bear Santiago’s name; the saint's Feast is widely celebrated in the New World. I confess to finding the Americanization of Santiago ever more intriguing. In some ways the early colonizing impulse of the Spaniards corresponds to the ideology of the “Reconquest.” However, it is the manner in which Santiago is venerated in many American countries that truly fascinates. Thus, for example, his Feast is largely a native people's affair in countries like Guatemala and Mexico. Another case in point is that of the entirely formerly Black slave seaside community of Loiza Aldea located somewhat to the south of San Juan de Puerto Rico. Many-colored costumes, a plethora of gigantes y cabezudos, dancing, music, songs, parades —a seemingly endless series of carnival activities take place on 25 July. The Fiesta Patronal de Loiza Aldea is a magnificent spectacle, no doubt the most spectacular of the whole island of Puerto Rico. It is highly traditional: a white person (that is, a Black person made up as a White) plays the réle of Santiago Matamoros whose sword wreaks havoc on colored “Moors.” The irony and multilayered meanings of the Fiesta merit a study in themselves, with regard, naturally, to Santiago’s “history.” The case of the Cuban archbishopric

Santiago de Cuba, an old colonial city, with its blending of the Santiago story with that of the Virgen del Cobre, the Cuban patron saint, also merits attention. In all these cases the Spanish Santiago de Compostela was extended to an entire continent where it received a new life and a set of renewed meanings quite different from those adopted by European Catholicity. In brief, then, we are confronted with a question of memory. Ina

certain sense, we are back with Proust, but also with something more (and other): a dynamically creative cultural memory closely linked to the divine.

35

The Spanish Santiago... the Spanish After doing much to shape European memory and identity, took peralso it Santiago, transformed, came from Europe to America where manent root. These matters deserve further study.

NOTES that the !Without complicating matters too much at this stage, and for reasons Greater)” (the James “St. employ shall I apparent, make y eventuall will present paper the shores of to refer to the martyred disciple of Christ whose body was washed up on saint was put Galicia, and I refer to “Santiago” when dealing with the uses to which this invasion within the specific context of Iberian Christendom subsequent to the Muslim and conquest. A. Ferré. 2Proust, Marcel. A la Recherche du temps perdu, 1, ed. P. Clarac and

Bibliotheque de la Pléiade (Paris: Gallimard, 1954) 45. Subsequent Proust quotations are taken from this edition (with page numbers included in parentheses).

’The Roman Catholic position on the relationship of faith and grace with “works” just thus differs fundamentally from that of the sixteenth-century Reformers. However, notion hope-based the view, Proust's in so, Salvation, in réle crucial a play as “works” of wuvre is crucial to the “salvation” providing the subject-matter of his Temps retrouve. It is no exaggeration to view his poetic thought as informed by a Roman Catholic mentalité, or “way-of-being-in-the world.” Thus, fundamental to the Christian situation, is hope in one’s salvation, and, quoting St. James, St. Augustine relates hope (spes) to the third theological virtue, love (amor): In this view, consequently, it would seem that the work, or wuvre, is a kind of testimony to faith, hope, and love (see below).

‘Facing the house’s front entrance was the rue du Saint-Esprit, now called the rue du D’ A. Proust. 5Enchiridion, u, 8, in CEuvres de saint Augustin, 1% série, ed. J. Riviere. Bibliotheque

Augustinienne (Paris: Desclée, De Brouwer et Cie, 1947) 11.

6As Dante himself informs us in the Vita nuova, his intimate friend, Guido Cavalcanti, spent two years on a pious trip to the saint's shrine at Compostela; it is inconceivable that the two of them did not spend time conversing about this experience. 7The Dantean texts cited here (both Italian and English) are taken, very slightly modified, from: Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy: Paradiso (1: Italian Text and Translation), ed. and tr. Ch. Singleton. Bollingen Series Lxxx (Princeton UP, 1975). ®Thus, James the Greater was known as a rather hot-tempered man--an unre-

mitting defender of the Jewish faith, as was his brother John. (Mark the Evangelist

bestows upon the pair of them the Greek label Boanerges ‘Sons of Thunder’ (i1!, 17).) His mother (Salome) has been usually identified as the sister of the Blessed Virgin and was one of the women who afterward followed Christ and “ministered to Him of their substance”

(Mt., xxv, 55, sq.; Mk, xv, 40, xvi, 1; Lk, vi, 2 sq.; XXII, 55-xxIVv, 1). On the

occasion of the Passover of AD 44, King Herod Agrippa, grandson of Herod the Great, anxious to placate those who clung to traditional Jewish laws and customs by perse-

56

K.D. Uitti cuting Christians in his kingdom, “killed James, the brother of John, with the sword” (Acts, xu, 1-2).

(This story is further corroborated in other early texts like the Latin Passio Jacobi Maioris and the Ethiopic Acts of James.) Accord ing to legendary traditions, the corpse of the son of Zebedee was placed in a boat by his companions and fellow believers. The vessel took sail, negotiated the Straits of Gilbraltar and following the Iberian coastline, finally discharged its cargo at Iria Flavia, in Galicia. Only after a series of trials and tribulations inflicted on those who believe d in James—many apparently saw him as the holy man who earlier had converted pagan Hispania in Roman times— by a pagan named Lupa (perhaps a queen?) and a miracul ous escape from a fire, etc. could the saint’s remains be transferred to a hill then called Liberum Donum (Libredon), about eight kilometers inland, and then buried in a marble sepulcher. Starting in the ninth century, St. James’s resting place came to be identified with the Milky Way, and so was renamed Campus Stelle (Spanish Compostela), the myriad stars of which provided a guide to those faithful who wished to travel there on pilgrim ages of penance, and the saint’s fame grew exponentially in significance throughout medieva l Europe. Debates as to the authenticity of the Compostela relics were not to be resolve d, even for the faithful, before Pope Leo II’s promulgating the Bull Omnipotens Deus on 1 November 1884. *The qualifier “The Less” is said not to imply a secondary status. It merely reflects the saint’s short stature (presumably as contrasted with the vigor and greater physical strength of James the Greater). The son of Alpheus (Aramaic: Helphai), also

known as Clopas, and of Mary of Clopas, sometimes considere d to be the sister of the Mother of Christ, or even Mary herself (Jude 1, 1), James the Less was cousin or (less

probably) brother to Jesus. (As used in Scripture, the term “brother” may have meant what it means today, but it also applies to very near male kin, like cousins.) As bishop of Jerusalem, James the Less publicly proclaimed that Christians were not subject to

the ceremonial observance of Mosaic Law, however in private he remained an observer of it, as a venerable and ancient custom. The Epistle of St. James “reveals a grave, meek,

and calm mind, nourished with the Scriptures of the Old Testament, given to prayer, devoted to the poor, resigned to persecution, the (very) type of a just and apostolic man” (The Catholic Encyclopedia, sv.). He took no strong drink, was a vegetarian, and neither shaved nor bathed. His many qualities are quite opposite to those we ascribe to the son of Zebedee. But he too was put to death by the Jews. Incidentally, St. James’s Epistle attracted the wrath of Reformers (like Luther, for whom it was an “abomination”), because of its affirmation of the importance of works (conjoined with faith) in

human

salvation (“Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone,” 11, 17).

“The Dizionario della Divina Commedia, by M. Messina (Florence: L. Olschki, 1954), provides an all too typical example of this kind of commentary: “... ma Dante fa confusione fra i due Purg. XXXII, 76, Par. XXV, 13 segg.” "This situation of fusion did not prevent medieval folk from distinguishing the son of Zebedee and the son of Alpheus when it suited them to do so. A bust labeled (in Latin) St. James son of Alpheus may be found in the Compostela cathedral dedicated to Santiago. Many paintings of “St. James” emphasize traits particular to one or the other of the two saints. In the medieval imagination of Catholic Europe the saints were both one saint and two saints.

"See his “The Cult of the Saints and Divine Patronage in Gallacia before Santiago,” in The Pilgrimage to Compostela in the Middle Ages: A Book of Essays, ed. M. Dunn and L.K. Davidson (New York and London: Garland, 1996). “Louis IX was canonized by Boniface VIII in 1297. “Quotations are taken from Joinville, Jean de, Vie de saint Louis, ed. and trans.

57

The Spanish Santiago... tJ. Monfrin.

Classiques Garnier

(Paris: Bordas, 1995) §70; paragraph numbers

and

English versions follow, in parentheses. ’s having made 5In point of fact there is no evidence either supporting Joinville youth in relative his given , However so. done having not or ge the Compostela pilgrima young very a at d inherite had that fact the given 20s), the Holy Land (he was in his early of Champagne, and, finally, age the lordship of Joinville as well as the post of seneschal virtually impossible that the fact he was both married and the father of sons, it appears He certainly never Galicia. to gone actually life his in another or he had at one point cited also seems passage the of (estoie) ve indicati t mentions it. Meanwhile, the imperfec Seventh Crusade. to imply that he was St. James’s pilgrim while serving on the during the first '’The writing of Joinville’s Vie de saint Louis took place essentially roughly with s coincide it Thus 1304-09. ca. i..e., decade of the fourteenth century, recounted in it occurred Dante’s undertaking the Divina Commedia. However, the events during the mid-thirteenth century, over fifty years earlier.

obsession "The Santiago story may arguably be cited as the overriding locus of explicitly in in the cinematographic euvre of Luis Buftuel, bubbling to the surface most superstition the highly ironic La Voie lactée. Fascinated by what he regards as irrational of and over to examples and the crimes committed in its name, and yet attracted over

y to it, Bufuel returns incessantly to the Santiago Pilgimage, which he appears frequentl regard with awe.

Ed, Antonio G. Solalinde (Madrid: Jiménez-Fraud, 1920) 170-71 (my emphaof Paul sis)). Also, according to don Américo Castro (who adopts here the analysis sense Aebischer), Alfonso X was the first writer to use the term espafioles in an ethnic word is (see Instila, n° 252 [1967] 1 and 12). The structure of the sentence in which this used in the above-cited paragraph seems to imply a use in contradistinction to franceses. In their rich divergence the Christian peoples of Iberia would be unified in a manner similar to the (equally divergent?) Gallo-Romance peoples.

58

DUNCAN ROBERTSON

Augusta State University

What is a Legendary?

Peter Dembowski knows very well whata legendary is. Simply put, it is a collection of saints’ “legends” (i. e., lives and passions; legend < legenda ‘things to be read’). In the course of preparing his edition of the Old and Middle French versions of the life of St. Mary the Egyptian,’ he surveye d the transformation of this legend through a number of legendaries dating from the thirteenth through the fifteenth centuries. Generalizing then from his observations, he traced the development of the hagiographical genre in the French vernacular through this period. In an oft-quoted article? and ina paper given at a special session which I organized at Kalamazoo;? he describes — with a remarkable mixture of melancholy and philological brio — the progressive “ weakening” or “withering away” of saints’ lives as a vital form of literature. He demonstrates that in hastening this devolution, the phenomenon of the legendary played an important role. He points, first, to the thirteenth-century movement from verse to

prose—from Dichtung to Wahrheit, as he puts it—as associated with a conservative reaction against the lyric inventiveness of earlier verse lives (e. g., par excellence, the T version of St. Mary the Egyptian). Another factor he cites is the necessarily fixed character of hagiographic myths: in contrast to chansons de geste or courtly romances, “hagiography could not invent new adventures by citing new sources. Its materia mythica was static. And a static myth kills literature” (Dembowski, “Lessons” 16). The role of the legendary, of the anthologizing operation itself, emerges clearly in this connection:

In the second half of the thirteenth century...saints’ lives ceased to be considered as independent works and began to be reworked as items in the collections. Such collections, or legendaries, had a most

natural tendency to abridge each life (abreviatio was one of the common composition devices taught), particularly since most of them were known to everybody... In the Legenda aurea, translated several times in Old and Middle French, the Life of Saint Mary the Egyp-

What is a Legendary? tian is reduced to about three pages of print! To appreciate the beauty

and. He of this legend in Jacobus’s version, one must know it beforeh

he does not really narrate the story, he does not move his reader, alwe that story the plate offers a resumé, he calls on us to contem ready know” (Dembowski, “Literary Problems” 128).

e In recent years Dembowski has moved toward a more positiv from judge may one as view of legendaries, and of the art of compilation, book his review of Le Passionnaire francais, by Jean-Pierre Perrot.’ Perrot’s raphy hagiog French of is indeed “an important contribution to the study 1245). in prose and its readership,” as Dembowski acknowledges (review the of n functio and It raises interesting questions concerning the nature folthe In . filiation French legendaries, and in particular concerning their lowing pages I propose to reflect upon this publication, taking Dembowski’s review as a point of departure, and concluding not far —I believe—from study. where Dembowski concludes, with a recommendation for future

First, acomment on medieval French prose style. As Perrot’s study exemplifies, we are lately learning to read prose with a perhaps improved understanding of the esthetics involved. Upon careful comparison of the French versions to their Latin originals, Perrot shows that the translations

often greatly improved the readability of the legends: prolix theological discourses were cut, along with distracting secondary events and person-

ages, in order to craft a more unified narrative, better suited to the pre-

sumed audience. The translators did not hesitate also to amplify the sometimes elliptical indications of the original, adding needed circumstantial detail, fleshing out characterizations, and heightening drama. Perrot finds a high quality of writing in many of the French passions, especially in the later translations. Dembowski declares himself on the whole “persuaded by his demonstrations” (review 1247), even though he objects to Perrot’s modern-sounding judgments (e. g.:“...un récit caractérisé par une densité, une concision, une nervosité...” [Perrot 95]).°

Approaching the question of medieval legendaries per se, we recall that these collections follow either a calendar order, as does the Golden

Legend of Jacobus de Voragine, or a hierarchical order (“l’ordre méthodique” is Perrot’s term) beginning with narratives concerning Christ and the Virgin Mary, and descending through lives of evangelists, apostles, martyrs, confessors, saintly women, and penitents. Where the majority of the lives end in martyrdom, one may well call the collection a “passionnary,” as does Perrot. That is not a problem. Suffice it to say that the thirteenth century was the great age of compilation and translation of Latin legendaries or passionnaries into Old French. It is in the extant thirteenth-century collections that we now find most Old French saints’ lives, including some of

60

D. Robertson the most ancient (Alexis, Catherine, Lawrence); the older, verse, lives were

originally composed independently and added to collec tions, often in re-

translated or prosified form, at a later date. By the end of the thirteenth

century, Latin hagiography shifts from eclectic compilations to legendaries entirely rewritten by a single hand. The Golden Legend is the most well-

known of these legendz nove, as they are called. After 1300, French transla-

tors will likewise cease to compile legendaries from a variet y of sources, in favor of translating one legendary in its entirety, as does Jehan de Vignay for the Golden Legend, c. 1333.° A given manuscript collection of saints’ lives may be called a legendary, as long as it does not contain extraneous material in a large proportion. But the term, legendary, can also designate a “fond(s) commun,” a core collection found wholly or partially reproduced, with or withou t other material, in many different manuscripts. It becomes possible to speak of “the” legendary: thus Hippolyte Delehaye reconstructed Le Légendi er romain,’ i. e., “ensemble des légendes romaines qui sont le fonds commu n des grands passionnaires latins” (cited by Perrot 15, n1). Already in 1906, Paul Meyer's survey of Old French saints’ lives had posited a similar con-

cept:

On verra qu’un premier recueil, limité aux saints de l’époque apostolique, s’est accru peu a peu par des additions successives et indépendantes, de telle sorte que, vingt ou vingt-cing ans avant la fin du XIII€ siécle, il s’était formé plusieurs légendiers distincts par une partie de leurs éléments, mais fondés sur une base commune?

Perrot has reclassified the forty-odd manuscripts studied by Meyer, and reestablished Meyer's “base commune,” now called Le Passionnaire francais. This ur-legendary, the Passionnaire, is freely admitted to be an abstraction: “[un] livre, qu’un bibliothécaire aurait été embarrassé de trouver sur ses rayons mais qui, d’une certaine facon, était dans toutes les mains.”

It is a nucleus, a “fond[s] commun” found in many different manuscripts,

or a “personnalité” common to them all (Perrot 14-15). It is a compilation drawn from many sources, around 1250. It may be conceived as a “work,” an “ensemble” having pretentions to coherence and integrity. It is constituted, at the basis, by twenty-two prose passions, found in (more or less) the same order in nine different manuscripts, with or without other, inter-

calated items and/or lacunae. A second and third series, wholly or partially complete, are joined to the first, in some manuscripts, to form a shadowy unity which Perrot calls the first “édition” of the Passionnaire . This collection can be found, almost complete, in just one manuscript (Paris, B.N.F., nouv. acq. fr. 23686). Toward the end of the thirteenth century a

61

What is a Legendary? which is found process of revision and addition created a second édition,

and present complete, again in just one manuscript (Paris, B.N.F., fr. 23112), an and the -Norm in part in eight others. Two more passionnaires, one Anglo study.’ s Perrot’ other Lorrain, are surveyed “en marge” to complete itDembowski finds the term édition infelicitous. I find the thing seems It e. describ to self, the Passionnaire, remarkably elusive and confusing is found present an old-fashioned construct, a kind of Platonic form which

existonly fragmentarily in any one manuscript, but which does assert its s in legend same the ence when we find (some of) the same versions of exists It ripts. manusc (approximately) the same order, in several different s which today asa manuscript tradition, evidence of a“canon’” of the passion on. was in the thirteenth century in the process of formati Perrot asserts that the Passionnaire francais followed ideally the hierarchical (or “ methodical”) order, beginning with evangelists and apostles, and proceeding through the lesser categories. What we find in the manuscripts, however, is that this plan must compete with other ordering principles. Perrot points out (162-67) that the Latin legendaries, on which the

that French translations were based, were in fact of the calendar type, and

certain sequences of a half dozen or more passions in the French manuscripts maintain that calendar order within a given hierarchical category. The manuscripts also usually maintain sequences of passions traditionally presented together: the Invention of the Holy Cross is normally followed by the passion of Cyriacus; Sixtus, Lawrence, and Hippolytus make up a similar group. Perrot (73-75) discerns yet another ordering principle in the tendency to group together a series of seven legends which were faithfully or literally translated, set apart from the freer adaptations which are the norm in the rest of a given collection. Perrot makes great use of tables to compare the members of various groups, but—and this is a serious deficiency in his study — he does not list the actual contents of individual manuscripts, referring the reader to the standard Notices in his bibliography. In order to gauge the extent of the problem, I will focus here on one such manuscript, an important witness to Perrot’s second édition: Paris, B.N.F., fr. 23112. As it happens, this manuscript, dating from the late thirteenth century, carefully copied by a picardisant scribe, has been important also to Peter Dembowski, for it contains the text of the verse St. Mary the Egyptian (version T), which serves as the base for his critical edition. The manuscript contains a mixture of verse and prose items, and among the latter are found all the passions which make up the second édition of Perrot’s Passionnaire. Here follows, in the

left-hand column, a complete list of the items contained in this manuscript, in the order in which they appear; they are prose passions or lives of the saints named, unless otherwise noted. On the right, I reproduce Perrot’s

62

D. Robertson listing (22) of the Passionnaire as he finds it in this same manuscript.

Names are Englished for consistency: Clement

Chrysanthus and Daria Dispute of Peter and Paul Peter Paul Thomas

John the Evangelist Sylvester Sebastian Philip James the Lesser Agnes Vincent Agatha Juliana Perpetua and Felicitas Gregory Mark Alexander Gordian Domitilla Pancratius Victor Petronilla Peter and Marcellinus Primus and Felicianus

Ignatius Thais (verse)!° Martial Livre de la Mort (verse)"! George Bartholomew Matthew Simon and Jude James the Greater

APOSTLES

Dispute of Peter and Paul Peter Paul Thomas

John the Evangelist Philip James the Lesser Mark Bartholomew Matthew Simon and Jude James the Greater Andrew MARTYRS Clement

Chrysanthus and Daria Sebastian Vincent Alexander Gordian Pancratius Victor Peter and Marcellinus Primus and Felicianus

Ignatius George Lawrence

Adrian Denis VIRGINS

Agnes Agatha Juliana Perpetua and Felicitas Domitilla

63

What is a Legendary? Petronilla Lawrence y Anthon Julian “Baltelt” Ernoul Paul the Hermit Adrian Andrew Denis Seven Brothers and their Mother Christina Cecilia Sixtus

Hippolytus Blaise Martin Brice

Lambert of Liége Giles Nicholas Translation of Nicholas

Hilary Honorius Felix and Cucufat

L’Aventure au chevalier (verse)' Le Miracle du clerc de Rome (verse) Catherine (verse)'* Mary the Egyptian (verse)'° Final prayer (verse)'®

Perrot’s tabulation is a useful abstraction but one which scarcely resembles the manuscript on which it is based. His list does respect the order of each category as given in MS fr. 23112, but he separates out the categories which are in fact mingled together. He does not list the other passions and other sorts of compositions which the manuscript contains but which are not included in this “édition” of the Passionnaire. His purpose is to compare this manuscript with eight others. In the rest of his table (not reproduced here) he lists the passions which the manuscripts hold in common, and he notes the order in which they occur. A sequence of five apostles — John, Philip, James the Lesser, Mark, and Bartholomew — is found in MS fr. 23122 and seven other manuscripts, in nearly the same order; MS fr. 23112 also holds nine martyrs and six virgins in common with one other 64

D. Robertson manuscript, Oxford, Queen’s College, 305; and there are five martyrs which

are common to MS fr. 23112 and to MS Alencon, Bibl. municipale, 27. The order in these manuscripts is the same as that of MS fr. 23112, but I must assume that each manuscript contains other material which Perrot does not take into account and of which he gives no indica tion. The Latin source(s) of MS fr. 23112 undoubtedly follow ed calendar order, as Perrot explains (1 64-65), noting that this order is reproduced in several different sequences of passions in the French collection. Actually, the calendar is even more dominant here than he implies . Indeed, the whole first half of the collection is in calendar order, give or take a few gaps and perturbations. This fact explains the mingling of categories: for example, the women martyrs Perpetua and Felicitas (March 7) preced e Pope Gregory (March 12), who precedes Mark the evangelist (April 25), just as the calendar prescribes. The second half of the collection is less orderly , but even there the calendar principle persists in the preponderance of saints with feast days in late summer and fall. MS fr. 23112 is a legendary. It is not really a “passionary,” since it contains lives of confessors and penitents as well as passions or martyrs, and I would argue that its particular identity is not subsumed in that of “the” Passionnaire frangais defined by Perrot. As we see, MS fr. 23112 contains twenty-odd prose items not included in the Passionnaire but which do “belong” to the legendary as hagiographical pieces visibly cast in the same mold as all the others. But how do we account for the works in verse? Why were the life of Thais and Helinand’s Vers de la mort inserted into what is otherwise a prose collection? With regard to the final sequence of verse items, evidently “added on” to the volume, we may at least perceive a linkage. The Aventure au chevalier and the Miracle du clerc de Rome are Marian miracles, both concerned with the renunciation of sexuality. Clemence of Barking’s life of St. Catherine, oriented toward the cult of the Virgin, denounces courtly love and earthly conjugality; the life of St. Mary the Egyptian, also oriented toward the Virgin, highlights the same erotic and penitential theme; and the scribe’s final prayer, addressed to Mary Magdalen, implicitly responds: En se jovente me resambla Marie;

El peril sui, mais ma Dame est garfie]. Por ce vuel faire de li avouerie, Qu’ele me soit vers Damedieu a[mie]. Ma douce Dama Marie Mag[dalene],

Qui trestote estes de le grace Die[u plene], (?) Me doce Dame, se veir te p[orroie],

Amdeus mes mains deseur tes piés metroie;

65

What is a Legendary? D sain (?) et de boce sovent les baiseroie, Por mes peciés plorant les laveroie. Par ta priere me delivre de painne,

Et en le gloire de paradis me mainne. Aiue moi por amor Diu le voir,

De mes peciés me fai pardon avoir, Ke en enfer ne m’en voise ardoir. (vv. 40-54)

discern an Was the scribe (or the scribe’s supervisor) a woman? Do we ing concern pieces verse with ry intent to supplement the prose legenda for obtain also s perhap would women’s religious vocations? That concept mort? la de Vers the to the life of Thais, but how could it apply Here one must desist. A manuscript will often offer a fortuitous assemblage of objects; MS fr. 23112 is perhaps more “unified” than most, but it does not present a perfectly coherent design. In this case as in many others, the attempt to find an intentionality in the whole becomes an exercise in speculation. A contrary approach to codicology has been proposed by post-structuralists who would deny the presence of “original” intentionality or totality or unity and affirm unreconciled differences (“aporias”) and diversity as the norm in a body of writing. This issue will continue to spark discussion among medievalists and among literary critics generally. We may at least consider this manuscript as a book, one which

medieval readers actually held in their hands. It is not a fragment, nor an

assemblage of fragments, but a whole volume copied in the same hand and dialect, which existed in its present form (if not in its present binding) as early as the late thirteenth century. The pieces are numbered sequentially with roman numerals at the top of each page. The last folio contains a prayer in rough verse, which I take to be the work of the scribe, followed

by the notation: Explicit iste liber. Anno Domini M° CC® (that date is judged

too early for the handwriting). These protocols confirm our sense of the book as a whole entity, conceived and executed and extant as such. In the last sentence of Dembowski’s review of Perrot’s book, he declares that “a critical edition in toto of one of these passionaries is certainly a desideratum” (1248). Iwould propose MS fr. 23112 as an interesting example. The examination of individual manuscripts such as this one is needed to complement the genetic study of manuscript traditions, as performed by Perrot, and routinely by all editors of any one, given “work.” Another kind of complement to Perrot’s study has already been provided most satisfyingly by Dembowski himself, in the form of a chronologicallyarrayed collection of versions of just one legend, that of St. Mary the Egyptian.

66

D. Robertson

The given text of a literary work lives within several different, intersecting contexts. The MS fr. 23112 text of St. Mary the Egyptian is “related,” as we say, to other texts of the same poem found in five other manuscripts; it is likewise related to the other versions of the same legend, in poetry and prose, presented in Dembowski’s anthology; and it is related to other pieces found in close proximity to it in MS fr. 23112. This last, codicological dimension is intriguing to contem plate.

There are literary or thematic connections, as I have noted, which concern

the last five pieces in the collection. The St. Mary the Egyptia n and the St. Catherine poems are especially close, not only literarily, but also philologically and text-critically. In both texts, we perceive a similar, systematic ef-

fort on the part of the Picardisant scribe to normalize the irregular, Anglo-

Norman versification found in his or her model.” might ventur e to guess that that model, possibly an Anglo-Norman legendary (cf. MS Paris, B.N.F.,

fr. 19525), contained both saints’ lives and the two Marian miracles as well.

At any rate, this case illustrates a general matter of method: when we analyze a scribe’s rendition of any one work, we should not neglect to examin e the other works copied by the same scribe. A general acquaintance with his or her practice throughout the volume will tend to confirm or refute the hypotheses we might form concerning any one text within it. The ways in which a body of traditional material evolves, finds its center of authenticity, and eventually settles into a definitive form, without benefit of an overseeing author, are highly mysterious and interesting to study. Perrot’s genetic study offers surely a valid approach to this “protéiforme” field, but it needs to be complemented by other analytic techniques available, notably by the study of individual manuscript volumes in their entirety, as called for by Dembowski. Each manuscript of this sort is to be considered “a” legendary in its own right. A legendary is a literary community in microcosm. Usually it will present some evidence of an overarching design, and a certain proportion of “disorder,” in the form of lacunae or unaccountable inclusions. We find

a mixture of compositions in prose and verse, including passions, saints’

lives, miracles, sermons, and other items, all brought together in the one

volume and ipso facto in the mind of the medieval reader who held it in his or her hands. Such a collection concretely documents the medieval experience of literary genre, which was doubtless more flexible than our modern

categorizations allow. From the study only the manuscript tradition in which aggregate of thirteenth-century French French legendary, in the broadest sense

of “a” legendary, we glimpse not it participates but also the whole religious narrative writing: “the” of the definite article.

*

Peter Dembowski has investigated many different literary genres,

67

What is a Legendary? ical commentary on periods, and authors; he has also sustained a theoret

n of the meditext criticism which effectively spans them all. In the domai

familiar, he is indeed the eval French saints’ lives, with which I am most

reviews, and Dean of studies. His contributions have been made in essays,

ent of students and colcritical editions, and in his constant encouragem

own publications, leagues, who have acknowledged his guidance in their one attends. and in formal or informal communications at every conference twenty years. He I have constantly turned to him for advice over the last ion and a depth has unfailingly responded, drawing on reserves of erudit Even more rare of intelligence which few scholars in the field can match. with points of g perhaps is the intellectual generosity he shows, in dealin It gives me view that do not always match his own strongly-held views. sion of expres great pleasure to offer him here, in these too few words, the my thanks and esteem.

NOTES en ancien ‘Peter F. Dembowski, ed., La Vie de sainte Marie l’Egyptienne: Versions et en moyen frangais, Publications

Romanes

et Francaises, 144 (Geneva:

Droz, 1977).

Peter F. Dembowski, “Literary Problems of Hagiography in Old French,”

Medievalia et Humanistica, ns 7 (1976) 117-30.

’Peter F. Dembowski, “Lessons to be Drawn from the Old French Versions of the Mary of Egypt,” paper given at the International Congress on Medieval Saint of Life Studies at Western Michigan U (Kalamazoo, MI, May 1979). ‘Jean-Pierre Perrot, Le Passionnaire francais au moyen age. Publications Romanes 69 (1994) et Francaises, 200 (Geneva: Droz, 1992). Reviewed by Dembowski, Speculum Russell, W. Delbert of 561-63, (1993) 68 Speculum review, ’s Dembowski 1245-48. See also ed., Légendier apostolique anglo-normand. Etudes Médiévales (Montreal: Presses de I'U de Poéme Montréal, and Paris: J. Vrin, 1989); and Olle Sandqvist, ed., La Vie saint Gregore:

normand du XIVe siécle. Etudes Romanes de Lund, 43 (Lund: Lund U P, 1989).

5Rightly, I think, Dembowski finds such comments “a little disconcerting...and even patronizing” (review 1247). Perrot does patronize the presumed original auditors of these prose saints’ lives—Cistercian lay brothers (conversi), nuns, béguines—whom he collectively labels “le modeste lecteur (38), “le simple chrétien” (100), “I’humble lecteur” (passim), etc. Perrot believes perhaps too uncritically in the existence of this mild-mannered medieval reader, a creature of modern scholarly folklore who has sometimes prevented us from perceiving that twelfth- and thirteenth-century vernacularizations often ha the level of discourse in the saints’ lives, intellectually, spiritually, and literarily as well. ‘Concerning Latin legendaries, see Guy Philippart, Les Légendiers latins et autres manuscrits hagiographiques. Typologies des sources du moyen age occidental, fasc. 24-25

68

D. Robertson (Turnhout: Brepols, 1977); and the Mise a jour, fasc. 24-25 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1985). Cited by Russell 10. ’Hippolyte Delehaye, Etude sur le légendier romain: Les saints de novembre et décembre. Subsidia hagiographica 23 (Brussels, 1936).

‘Paul Meyer, “Légendes hagiographiques en francais,” Histoire Littéraire de la

France 33 (1906) 328-458.

*For a study and critical edition of the Anglo-Norman passionnary, see Russell, Légendier apostolique. The

life of Thais is found in A. Bayot, ed., Le Poéime moral: Traité

de la vie chrétienne écrit dans la région wallone vers lan 1200 (Brussels and Liége: Vaillant Carmane, 1929) NFr, Wulff and E. Walberg, eds., Les Vers de la mort, par Hélinant,

moine de

Froidmont, publiés d’aprés tous les manuscrits connus. Société des Anciens Textes Francais (Paris: Didot, 1905).

This is a version of the miracle, De un chevalier, in V. Frederic Koenig, ed., Les

Miracles de Nostre Dame par Gautier de Coincy (Geneva: Droz, 1966-70) vol. 3: 150-64; cf. also Pierre Kunstmann,

ed., Treize Miracles de Notre-Dame,

tirés du Ms. B.N.F. fr. 2094.

Publications Médiévales de I'U d’Ottawa (Ottawa: Editions de I’U d’Ottawa, 1981), miracle IV.

“This is a variant of the Clerk of Pisa story found in many collections: cf. Pierre

Kunstmann, ed., Adgar: Le Gracial (Ottawa: Editions de IU d’Ottawa, 1982), miracle

XXXVI; and D’un Clerc, in Koenig, Gautier de Coincy,

vol. 4: 340-77.

“William MacBain, ed., The Life of St. Catherine of Alexandria by Clemence of

Barking, Anglo-Norman

Text Society, 18 (London: Blackwell, 1968).

*Dembowski, ed., La Vie de sainte Marie l’Egyptienne 25-111. '° For the complete text of this prayer, see Duncan Robertson, The Medieval Saints’ Lives: Spiritual Renewal and Old French Literature. The Edward C. Armstrong Monographs on Medieval Literature, 8 (Lexington, KY: French Forum, 1995) 262-67.

“For discussion of the text of St. Mary the Egyptian in relation to that of St. Catherine, see Duncan Robertson, “The Anglo-Norman Verse Life of St. Mary the Egyptian,” Romance Philology 52 (1998) 27-28.

69

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Tlie Complete Works, ed. George C. Macaulay, 4 vols. (Oxford:

*See, e.g., Patricia Eberle in The Riverside Chaucer (above, n22) 857. See

Robert A. Pratt, “The Order of the Canterbury Tales,” Publications of the

Modern Language Association 66 (1951) 1141-67 (passim); Eberle 862.

*See, e.g., Actes du Colloque international Philippe de Beaumanoir et les “Coutumes de Beauvaisis” (1283-1983), ed., Philippe Bonnet-Laborderie (Beauvais: Groupe d’Etude des Monuments et Euvres du Moyen Age, 1983), passim; and Barbara N. Sargent-Baur, “Dating” passim, and “The Author” in the edition. *Bourgain in Actes 111-15. “Eberle 857.

107

Peregrinatio... 1255, ten years before his ‘The elder Philippe did become Sire de Beaumanoir in ed; and of course his identifi yet not works poetical other ed compos death. He may have well. as verse some son Philippe may have written “Philippe de Beaumanoir,

Les Coutunes de Beauvaisis, ed. Amédée

Salmon,

2

in addition to the surviving vols. (Paris: Picard, 1899-1900, rpt. 1970), observes that respectable de mss., et cette nombre d’un traces copies “nous pouvons retrouver des donné que ces mss. sont tous anciens, constatation est utile a faire, car elle montre, étant la période qui a précédé le Yautorité dont jouissait I’ceuvre de Beaumanoir pendant toute able avant méme les remarqu n diffusio la et siecle, XVe au e Coutum renouvellement de la siécles.” XVIle et XVle des sultes études méthodiques des grands juriscon

von Orlens But see Victor Zeidler, Die Quellen von Rudolfs von Ems Wilhelm Jehan

Bernard Gicquel, “Le (Berlin: Telber, 1894), defended (on questionable grounds) by von Orlens,” Romania et Blonde de Philippe de Remi peut-il étre une source du Willehalm de Remi,” in Actes 102 (1981): 306-23; and id., “Rudolf von Ems, adaptateur de Philippe 117-28. by G. Paris in Revue “For H.-L. Bordier, see above, n6; the edition was reviewed

Suchier’s edition, see Critique d'Histoire et de Littérature (31 octobre 1874) 280f; for H. above, nd.

See, inter alia, John S. P. Tatlock, The Development and Chronology of Chaucer's

172-88; and Eberle 856Works (Chaucer Society, 2nd Series, 37; London: 1907; rpt. 1963)

ae *See Bourgain in Actes 111 (n29 above); and Roger Middleton, “The History of B.N.E. fr. 1588,” in Le Roman de la Manekine (see n5 above) 54-55. Chaucer's travels to and in France in the very late 1360s took him with John of Gaunt to Artois and to Picardy. The Remi family had been centered in the Clermont region of southern Picardy; Philippe pére had legal responsibilities in Arras, capital of Artois, where the extant copy of La Manekine was made. Philippe fils was active in the Beauvaisis region of Picardy. Chaucer was presumably in northern France again in 1370; see Martin M. Crow and Virginia E. Leland, The Riverside Chaucer xix; and Derek Pearsall, The Life of Chaucer: A Critical Biography (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992) 54-55. Pearsall rejects, though, the traditional view of Chaucer's having been a law student in the Inner Temple; see 29-30. *

I thank Professors Dean and Correale for reading a draft of this essay. Full responsibility for its speculations and conclusions rests with me.

108

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BERNARD GUIDOT

Université de Nancy 2

“Des bacons comme s'il en pleuvait...”: Le pathétique dans un extrait des Quatre Fils Aymon a la fin du dix-neuviéme siécle

Les mises en prose des épopées, et plus encore les versions populaires de la Bibliothéque Bleue,’ ont profondément modifié I’état d’esprit des chansons de geste primitives. Bien souvent I’action, autrefois prodigieusement rapide et violente, laisse place 4 des moments ow la narration ralentit son rythme: le récit s’attarde a la peinture d’une atmosphére beaucoup plus qu’a l’enchainement prévisible des événements. L’évocation du si¢ge de Montauban est concue dans cet esprit par l’auteur anonyme d’une version populaire des Quatre Fils Aymon, dans le dernier quart du dix-neuviéme siécle. Dans la belle édition de 1883, illustrée dans le style Art Nouveau,’ nous souhaitons nous pencher sur le chapitre consacré a l’épisode. Relativement court (159-73) et intitulé “Comme Charlemagne, dépité du tour de Maugis, qui l’avoit si bien fait dormir, ne put oublier cette injure, au point qu étant mis en liberté par Regnaut, il réduisit bientét a la famine le Chateau de Montauban,” il est fortement imprégné d’un pathétique qui caractérise a la fois les thémes, la stylistique narrative et la vision du monde. Les protagonistes agissent peu, l’esprit perturbé et le coeur bouleversé par le spectacle du droit bafoué, la domination d’une injustice toute puissante, par le constant recul d’ une paix qui se cherche devant la volonté d’une guerre effrénée, ainsi que par la lancinante question du sacrifice du cheval Bayard. Ce qui domine c’est le renoncement, la pitoyable adaptation a des circonstances tragiques. De maniere significative, l’esprit de décision des héros épiques du Moyen Age ne subsiste que dans un acte dérisoire et quelque peu parodique, le vieil Aymon faisant lancer de la nourriture a ses fils plongés dans une noire détresse.?

1. La place du pathétique dans le chapitre L’étymologie du mot “pathétique” nous oriente au départ vers la souffrance du corps, la maladie, mais suggére aussi d’envisager toute affection quiconcerne I’ame.‘ Le pathétique nait de tout ce qui est émouvant

Le Pathétique... ou touchant, de ce qui est lié a la douleur, a la pitié, a la tristesse, de ce qui

provoque V’horreur ou la terreur. La charge émotive, toujours forte, s’accompagne fréquemment d’un sentiment d’échec, difficile a surmonter, et aboutit a l’expression d’une affectivité trouble, inquiéte et tourmenteée, souvent violente et désordonnée. L’impression d’insatisfaction douloureuse suscite patience et résignation, ce qui ne correspond guére a la mentalité des héros épiques du Moyen Age. Au début du chapitre, Charlemagne est aux mains des fils Aymon, Maugis I’ayant livré endormi dans Montauban, grace a l'un de ses tours. Des divergences, quant a I’attitude a adopter, apparaissent entre les fréres: Richard souhaite la mort de I’empereur, Allard est plus modéré et Regnaut hésite, comme il le fera d’ailleurs tout au long de I’épisode. Il est vrai que si le souverain, muré dans ses intentions de vengeance, est farouchement obstiné dans sa soif d’en découdre, le plus célébre des fils Aymon, en vassal assagi,

est constamment habité par le désir de paix. La tension dramatique est directement liée au conflit et a la haine accumulée et elle explique les dissensions passagéres qui surgissent dans le groupe d’habitude trés soudé.’ Exaspéré par la libération de Charlemagne, Richard refuse d’abord le sacrifice de son cheval, en exprimant sa rancoeur et son amertume: “Et si vous avez besoin, vous le méritez bien; par votre orgueil, nous sommes en cet état, parce que vous avez laissé aller Charlemagne; et si vous m/eussiez cru, nous

ne serions pas en cette misére” (168). Qu’on n’ait pas voulu I’écouter le met en fureur. Selon lui, pour obtenir la paix, il fallait faire pression sur le

prisonnier qui eft été bien content ” de l’accorder pour sauver sa vie” (166). Richard ne saurait étre ému ni par le désespoir de Regnaut devant l’'acharnement du roi,’ ni par son ardente priére:’ Regnaut “se mit a genoux et, élevant les deux mains vers le Ciel, il dit:

O mon Dieu, qui souffrites en

croix la mort et la Passion, je vous supplie de permettre que nous ayons paix avec le Roi” (165-66). L’esprit vindicatif et la cruauté* de Charlemagne mettent sans arrét en échec les exigences du droit. A cet égard, le récit ne manque pas de souligner la situation pathétique du vieil Aymon, resté fidéle a l’empereur par devoir, mais qui est bouleversé a cause de I’affection qu'il conserve a ses fils: “Ilen fut courroucé’ car il savoit bien que si ses enfans mouroient, il n’auroit jamais joie” (167). Dialoguant avec Charlemagne pour I’inciter a agir selon les régles, il reprend la parole a deux reprises,’° insistant sur la morale, la droiture, la justice et les liens du sang, ce qui a le don de mettre son interlocuteur dans une rage folle. Aprés l’'envoi des bacons grace aux machines de siége,'' aux reproches véhéments de Charlemagne, le vieux vassal oppose ses protestations contre I’injustice et prononce une vibrante défense de la qualité morale de ses fils: “Sire, mes enfans ne sont ni larrons, ni traitres, ni meurtriers, mais ce sont les meilleurs et les plus vaillans cheva180

B. Guidot liers du monde et vous les voulez détruire de cette facon!” (172). La pathétique tension s’apaise a la suite de la noble intervention du duc Naimes: Aymon quitte le camp des assiégeants et Charlemagne fait retirer ses engins, qu'il considére maintenant comme responsables de son échec (173). En face de Charlemagne, qui ne se préoccupe guére de principes, Regnaut parle inlassablement de droit avec une ténacité pathétique. N’avaitil pas déja dit, en parlant des barons: “IIs connaissent bien que nous avons le droit...” (159). Plus tard, s’adressant a eux et notamment a Roland, il leur demande d’exercer une bonne influence sur leur maitre, sinon, ajoute-

t-il, “Je vous prie de ne pas me blamer dorénavant si je demande mon droit...” (162). La lancinante question du sacrifice de Bayard" suscite, tout au long du chapitre, hésitations, atermoiements, revirements et décisions rapidement remises en cause. Elle est, de ce fait, une des sources essentielles

du pathétique, a cause de sa relation avec un contraste profondément humain et de caractére émotionnel: la mort de Bayard est étroitement liée a la vie du groupe. Les relations entre les fréres ne sont pas sans en subir quelques turbulences, qui s’apaiseront a la longue. Lorsque la disette devient dramatique et que I’ultime solution mise en avant est d’abattre les destriers des quatre héros, Allard est le premier a dire qu’il faut épargner Bayard: “Frére, dit Allard, faites tuer celui que vous voudrez, excepté Bayard; car celui-ci ne mourra point, et ce seroit grand dommage; je vous jure que j’‘aimerois mieux mourir que Bayard fat détruit’(169). Tous finissent par tomber d’accord et on sacrifie le cheval de Richard. Un peu plus tard, Regnaut se laisse fléchir, mais le merveilleux Bayard bouleverse le groupe par son comportement quasi humain: “Quand ils furent tous d’accord de tuer Bayard, ils vinrent a I’écurie et le trouvérent

quijetoit un grand soupir” (170). Le héros décide a nouveau de surseoir au sacrifice et, revenu auprés des siens, doit affronter un chceur de plaintes et

lamentations qui ajoute a son désarroi. Fuyant une décision immédiate, il annonce qu'il va chercher a rencontrer le vieil Aymon pour obtenir son aide (170). C’est alors que le duc fait projeter des vivres par les engins de guerre: les assiégés sont provisoirement soustraits a leur funeste destin. Trés vite, la famine redevient menacante et, les supplications de la famille

se faisant de plus en plus pressantes, le sort de Bayard est 4 nouveau suspendu a la décision de Regnaut, qui est sensible aux plaintes vehémentes d’Yonnet: “Sire, qu’attendez-vous a tuer Bayard? J’enrage de faim et, si je n’ai quelque chose a manger, vous me verrez bient6t mourir avec mon frére et ma mére, car nous ne pouvons résister” (173), et qui n’oublie pas non plus le pitoyable état de son frére Allard ne manquant pas de souligner la situation alarmante: “Comme Regnaut se plaignoit en lui-méme, il vit venir Allard qui étoit si foible, qu’a peine il pouvoit se soutenir. II dit a

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Le Pathétique... Regnaut: ‘ Seigneur, il faut tuer Bayard, car nous ne pouvons plus résister au besoin’” (173). Mais Regnaut renonce, parce que I’animal fait preuve d’une prodigieuse sensibilité: “Quand Bayard le vit, il commenga a témoigner de la joie” (173). C’est une solution intermédiaire qui est choisie: tirer du sang de la célébre monture, pour le manger aprés cuisson. A la fin du chapitre, la disette n’a fait que croitre et Bayard a été épargné, malgré les pleurs de la duchesse a qui Regnaut répond: “Je ne le puis faire...car il nous a toujours sauvé la vie” (173). Toutefois, avant de refuser définitivement

le sacrifice, dans un douloureux

cheminement

intérieur, le héros a pris conscience de son erreur — Charlemagne I’a trompeé — et il ne peut que regretter amérement de ne pas avoir cru Richard: “Je sais que je ne dois m’en prendre a personne, car c’est moi qui ai fourni des armes contre moi; mon repentir est trop tardif” (169). La violente émotion et le chagrin lui enlévent ses repéres moraux et son équilibre, l'aménent a tenir des propos déments aux accents primitifs: “Mangeons non seulement mon cheval Bayard, mais mes propres enfans, pour résister plus longtemps...” (169). Il ne tarde pas a changer d’avis et, dans un sursaut pathétique, associe son propre destin a celui de I’animal: “Quand vous m’aurez tué, vous pourrez tuer Bayard; et si vous ne le faites pas, je vous défendrai autant que vous maimez; ne le touchez pas, car qui mal lui fera, me le fera” (169). De ce fait, il confirme la justesse de la notion de “héros pluriel.” Elle survit, de maniere émouvante, aux traverses les plus pénibles. Le pathétique est alors au coeur de l’épopée. 2. L’expression du pathétique Dans la tradition, imposer sa volonté aux événements et savoir agir sont des qualités primordiales du héros épique. Or l’initiative du vieil Aymon, taraudé par le remords— faire parvenir quelque nourriture a ses enfants affamés'® — est entachée par la crainte de déplaire et un sens de la dissimulation presque comique: c’est un acte en pointillé. Dans notre réécriture du dix-neuvieme siécle, l’intérét narratif s’est déplacé™ et ce qui reste en mémoire, c’est notamment le style pathétique des monologues et dialogues. Cette présence de plus en plus prégnante du pathétique a également été analysée par Ph. Ménard" dans la réécriture de Delvau des Quatre Fils Aymon. Pour sa part, H. E. Keller note, chez Bagnyon, une singuliére association entre prolixité et pathétique.’® ‘L’expression de ce dernier est essentiellement fondée sur la construction des interventions,

l’élaboration affective de la phrase (choix des mots, organisation syntaxique, ligne mélodique) ou sur la gestuelle des personnages. Le plaidoyer de Naimes en faveur de Regnaut, de tonalité morale et pathétique, est trés structuré et argumenté. Respectueux de la hiérarchie

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et des habitudes courtoises, il ne néglige pas les procédés rhétoriques qui ont fait leurs preuves et n’est pas dénué d’habileté politique. En dix-huit lignes, il part de l’affirmation de Charlemagne (qui veut continuer le siége de Montauban) pour la mettre en cause. Puis, déférent et modéré,”” il développe dans son ensemble une argumentation fondée sur la bonne volonté de Regnaut,'*sur sa générosité et sur son influence louable sur la

fratrie, lorsque l’empereur était prisonnier.!? Naimes met finalement en garde son souverain: avant d’obtenir la vengeance qu'il envisage, il aura subi de lourdes pertes. Dans sa péroraison, le duc souhaite que les forces

vives des chrétiens soient plut6t mobilisées contre les Sarrasins,”° et il

s'appuie aussi sur deux arguments, trés rarement utilisés au Moyen Age, puisqu’ils relevent d’une idéologie bourgeoise: les batailles ravagent les champs”! et le roi dépense inutilement son argent.” La relative solitude de Richard au sein du groupe est liée a l'expression quelque peu théatrale du pathétique, qui est déja sensible dans la technique de I’adresse a un absent. Trés ému par le départ de Maugis, le frére de Regnaut exprime ses regrets avec une passion dont I’éloquence emotive est peu compatible avec I’esprit épique primitif: “Ah! Cousin, que ferons-nous désormais, puisque nous vous avons perdu? Nous pouvons dire que nous sommes vaincus, car vous étiez notre espérance” (160). Le désespoir qui se donne libre cours s’associe étroitement au rappel de l'aide qui lui a été apportée dans le passé par Maugis: “Il n’y a pas longtemps que je serois mort sice n’efit été vous””’ (160). La conclusion de la scéne se caractérise par lI’excés (le texte dit que Richard grince des dents) et une certaine affectation des gestes: l’illustration de la page 160 représente Richard, l’épée brandie en direction de Charlemagne endormi, et le reste de la

fratrie soulevée d’un méme élan pour empécher Iirréparable. Pendant la période de famine, tout est source de pathétique dans la plainte théatrale de Richard’: le vocabulaire employé (du regret, de la tristesse et de la plainte), le ton mineur,”’ I’allure des phrases (en majorité de construction exclamative) et jusqu’a un certain sens inné du spectacle (tour a tour il s’adresse a Regnaut, a Maugis absent,”* mais aussi a lui-méme, prenant a témoin ses compagnons d’infortune). Au sein de notre chapitre, dans deux confrontations dialoguées,

Regnaut développe une argumentation passionnée, d’un pathétique haletant. En premier lieu, il prend la défense de Maugis, vis-a-vis de l’empereur, obstiné, qui s’abandonne a de violentes imprécations contre le magicien, ainsi: “Ah! dit le roi, que Dieu le maudisse!” (162). Le discours

du héros, modéré et soumis, animé de nobles préoccupations,” s’appuie sur l’emploi d’un vocabulaire moral et sur des phrases exclamatives, chargées d’affectivité et commengant souvent avec des formules de regret nostalgique. Mais, spontanément, Regnaut use aussi de phrases longues, 183

Le Pathétique... d’un pathétique maitrisé: “ Ainsi, sire, je vous dis que si vous aviez mes fréres dans vos prisons et que vous les voulussiez faire pendre, quand je tiendrois Maugis et qu'il seroit en mon pouvoir, je ne vous le donnerois pas pour racheter mes fréres, et je vous jure que je ne sais ot il est allé” (162). Plus tard, Regnaut cherche a obtenir I’aide matérielle de son pére. Mettant en avant une peinture de la mort dans toute son horreur, son intervention, fondée sur

la tendresse des liens familiaux et sur la logique raisonnable,* est un vibrant et pathétique appel a la pitié.” Les propos, fortement argumentes, opposent le tort et le droit,’ l’honneur et le déshonneur,”’ confrontent influence respective de la société et des régles de vie humaines.” Les scénes sensibles et leur atmosphére fortement imprégnée de pathétique sont une aubaine dont profitent certaines compositions en

couleurs d’Eugéne Grasset.

Manifestement,

l’artiste n’a pas oublié la

sensibilité du dix-huitiéme siécle: si lillustration de la page 160, par son mouvementet ses lignes générales, rappelait les vues de Diderot défendant une esthétique émotionnelle, celle de la page 170 n’est pas sans évoquer le gout d’un pathétique moralisateur et I’emphase gestuelle de Greuze:” Regnaut, l’air accablé et téte basse, revient de I’écurie, sans avoir sacrifié

Bayard, et se trouve en présence d’ une pathétique scéne d’évanouissements, ceux de la duchesse et des enfants du héros. Abandon et souffrance caractérisent leurs poses, tandis que Richard et Allard accablent leur frére dun regard lourd de reproches. La réécriture de la Bibliothéque Bleue et l'art graphique de I’édition de 1883 sont sur ces points beaucoup plus influencés par l’atmosphére des proses modernes que par le Moyen Age. 3. Pathétique et vision du monde Le pathétique, dans notre version tardive des Quatre Fils Aymon, est constamment associé a certaines valeurs morales, comme la droiture, la

dignité, la générosité et la sagesse. Le choeur des barons de Charlemagne a été sensiblement idéalisé dans le texte. Il ne reste plus de trace de l’esprit courtisan, souvent fustigé dans la tradition épique médiévale, du Couronnement de Louis a la Vulgate de Renaut de Montauban, en passant par Girart de Vienne et Garin le Loherenc.* Oger et Naimes ne manquent pas de chapitrer Richard qui n’hésiterait pas a exécuter le roi, si on le laissait agir.* Au moment de plus forte tension entre les insurgés et le pouvoir royal, leurs intentions pacifiques surprennent: “Et d’autre part, s’il plait 4aDieu, avant que nous partions d’ici, nous mettrons tout a bonne paix” (160). Naimes, en mentor équilibré, apparait toujours comme le plus raisonnable et le plus sage, tout en usant de phrases doctes et contournées, peu en harmonie avec le style de personnage qu'il représentait au Moyen Age: “Seigneurs, nous avons grant tort de nous chagriner, car toute notre tristesse

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B. Guidot ne peut nous apporter aucun bénéfice et je vous prie en conséquence, que

vous vouliez vous apaiser et que nous commencions a parler de votre paix qu'il faudra faire avec Charlemagne, afin que I’on mette fin a cette guerre qui a duré si longtemps” (161). Tout au long du chapitre, Regnaut, quant a lui, tient un discours d’apaisement vis-a-vis de Charlemagne® et réussit a calmer le groupe, avant d’implorer le pardon de son suzerain: ”Qu’il vous plaise faire la paix avec nous, ets’il ne vous plait me pardonner, je vous prie en grace de pardonner a mes fréres” (161). Cette générosité et cette dignité touchent au sublime, lorsque le héros préte Bayard au souverain pour quitter Montauban, faisant passer le respect de la légitimité avant le souci de la paix®’: “Sire, vous pouvez partir quand bon vous semblera, car je vous promets de ne vous faire aucun mal, parce que vous étes mon souverain seigneur; quand il plaira a Dieu, nous aurons la paix avec vous” (162). En l’occurrence, ce qui aurait pu étre une naiveté politique, n’est suivi d’aucune conséquence préjudiciable, puisque Charlemagne “ fit ramener Bayard a Regnaut” (164). D’un autre cété, les remontrances réservées a Richard* tournent au discours moralisant: “Tais-toi, mauvais garcon, que Dieu te punisse! Car il s’en ira malgré vous, et la paix que vous désirez ne sera faite que quand il plaira a Dieu” (163). On sait qu’au Moyen Age les enfants ne retiennent pas I’attention pour eux-mémes et que, dans le monde épique, ils sont a la fois rares et sans aucune influence. Sur ce point, les conceptions ne sont plus tout a fait comparables dans la Bibliotheque Bleue. L’édition de 1883 utilise I’étonnante sagesse du petit Aymon comme élément de pathétique. Les propos de l'enfant, d’une curieuse maturité, provoquent la pitié de Richard qui refusait de sacrifier sa monture.* Ils dénotent une grande capacité de recul et une philosophie de la vie qui s’écartent nettement du monde habituel de l’enfance: sans s’appesantir sur le passé, chacun doit s’adapter aux réalités du moment.” Notre réécriture des Quatre Fils Aymon, par souci de dramatisation, a tendance a lier le pathétique a la fatalité et 4 un profond pessimisme. Lorsque Regnaut, dans un acte désespéré qu'il n’envisageait pas au début du chapitre, sort de Montauban pour rencontrer son pére, il le trouve, a la suite d’un heureux signe du destin, “seul, hors de sa tente, qui étoit en attente pour savoir s’il auroit des nouvelles du chateau de Montauban” (170). Harmonie des ames due a I’affection? Peut-étre, mais tout se passe comme si

le dialogue pathétique qui va suivre était prévu, voire imposé, par une puissance supérieure. Un extréme pessimisme submerge le passage ot Dame Claire, mére

de Regnaut, invite ses fils 4 tuer leurs montures: l’apparente détermination du début, les encouragements, font rapidement place aux lamentations et 185

Le Pathétique... au désespoir. Elle s’évanouit, pleure, ponctue ses phrases d’exclamations, invoque la Vierge et finit par de pathétiques regrets sur le sort qui attend ses fils: “Mes chers enfans, je n’aurois jamais pensé que vous seriez morts de faim!” (168). C’est la méme tonalité qui imprégne l’émouvante présentation d’une situation pitoyable, celle de la famine a Montauban. Le paragraphe qui lui est consacré—environ six lignes encadrées par deux phrases au passé’ — grace a l‘imparfait de tableau, marque un effet de recul. Le désespoir et la présence obsédante de la mort” ayant envahi tout l’arriéreplan du récit, le narrateur fait appel a I’émotion du lecteur du dix-neuvieme siécle, en usant du grossissement épique, en procédant a des effets de généralisation® et en racontant des actes moralement répréhensibles nés d’une extréme nécessité.” L’esprit de conquéte et la volonté de dépassement sont remplacés par une affectivité populaire, une stylistique de l’émotion. La version moderne des Quatre Fils Aymon contenue dans I’édition Launette ne manque pas précisément d’originalité, méme si la qualité littéraire de notre chapitre et le soin de l’écriture ne sont pas toujours sars. Le vocabulaire médiéval a été parfois conservé sans que la finesse des nuances ait été saisie. Beaucoup de principes chevaleresques ont disparu, la mentalité épique a été gatée par des considérations bourgeoises venues de l'aube moderne et le quotidien anecdotique a pu supplanter la vigueur et l’élan créateur des laisses. Mais c’est surtout la sensibilité qui a gagne en importance: si des scénes pathétiques ne sont pas absentes des chansons de geste — les héros pleurent aussi facilement qu’ils se montrent courageux — elles passent souvent au premier plan dans les versions tardives et populaires, le public et les lecteurs ayant beaucoup évolué dans leurs attentes. L’horizon social du Moyen Age n’est plus qu’un souvenir et dans certains cas la légende conservée sert de prétexte a l’exposé de vues résolument modernes. Dans la Bibliotheque Bleue, pour ce qui est du pathétique, la sensibilité du dix-huitiéme siécle a laissé une empreinte indélébile: la vie des Ames et des cceurs, les tableaux chargés d’ une émotion théatrale, retiennent désormais I’attention, beaucoup plus que les récits de

batailles et la mise en scéne des valeurs épiques. Nous n‘avons plus affaire ala méme littérature, mais ces humbles réécritures qui ont survécu dans les campagnes et le long des routes ne doivent pas pour autant étre lues avec une réserve méprisante. Elles ont le mérite d’avoir conservé au moins quelques bribes d’un Moyen Age que la science philologique, dans le dernier quart du dix-neuviéme siécle, commenga a exhumer dans sa pureté originelle.

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B. Guidot NOTES "Une assez bonne idée de la diversité des domaines que celle-ci a abordés est fournie par la consultation de Morin Alfred, Catalogue descriptif de la Bibliotheque Bleue de Troyes (Geneve: Droz, 1974). Elle fut pendant longtemps injustement méprisée, mais depuis quelques années, de trés nombreux

travaux lui ont été consacrés, comme

nous

l’avons constaté en élaborant notre synthése, ”Formes tardives de l’épopée médiévale: mises en prose, imprimés, livres populaires,” conférence pléniére préparée dans le cadre du XIVéme Congres de la Société Internationale Rencesvals de Naples, en juillet 1997. Elle paraitra, courant 2000, dans les Actes du Congrés (Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, Napoli). Les travaux qui suivent donneront une idée des recherches menées a bien: A. Assier, La Bibliotheque Bleue depuis Jean Oudot ler jusqu’a M. Baudot (1600-1863) (Nimes: C. Lacour Editeur, 1991); R. Mandrou, De la Culture populaire aux 17e et 18e siécles. La Bibliotheque Bleue de Troyes. 2eme édit. revue et corrigée (Paris: Stock, 1975) et 3eme édit., préface de Philippe Joutard (Paris: Editions Imago, 1985); Ch. Nisard, Histoire des livres populaires ou de la littérature de colportage (Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 1968); L. Andriés, La Bibliotheque Bleue au dix-huitiéme siécle: une tradition éditoriale (Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation at the Taylor Institution, 1989); G. Bolleme, La Bible bleue. Anthologie d’une littérature “populaire” (Paris: Flammarion,

1975); G. Bolléme, L. Andriés, Les Contes Bleus, textes présentés par

G, B. et L. A. (Paris: Montalba, 1983); L. Andriés, “Tradition médiévale et littérature de

colportage: l’élaboration d’un mythe,” in Europe 654 (Le Moyen Age Maintenant [octobre 1983]): 102-10; M. D. Leclerc, “L’Histoire des Quatre Fils Aymon. Essai d’analyse iconographique,” in La Vie en Champagne, nouvelle série, n° 4 (octobre-décembre 1995): 336, nombreuses illustrations.

*Histoire des Quatre Fils Aymon, trés nobles, et trés vaillans chevaliers (Paris: Launette 1883), illustrée de compositions en couleurs par Eugéne Grasset, gravure et impression par Charles Gillot, 224 p. + table non paginée. Originale par ses illustrations modernes qui lui apportent une note étrange, cette version, pour le texte, est totalement conforme a celui de l’édition de la Bibliotheque Bleue parue chez Pierre Garnier en 1726, a Troyes, rue du Temple. En se reportant a la version de la Vulgate médiévale—voir J. Thomas, Renaut de Montauban (Genéve: Droz, 1989)—on appréciera la sensible modification de tonalité. *C’est avec le plus vif plaisir que je participe au recueil Philologies Old and New: Essays in Honor of Peter Florian Dembowski. Je n’aurais garde d’avoir oublié mon séjour a Chicago, en mai 1988. Yolande et Peter Dembowski me recurent alors, avec de constantes marques d’amitié, dans leur belle maison, associée dans ma mémoire a la chaleur familiale.

4A Vadjectif “pathétique,” le Nouveau Petit Robert donne comme définition: “qui émeut vivement, excite une émotion intense, souvent pénible.”

°Au point que l’on a pu parler de “héros pluriel.” Voir Fr. Suard, La Chanson de geste (Paris: PUF, 1993) qui écrit (48): “Le principe de complémentarité entre les deux personnages peut donner naissance a des figures plus complexes, comme dans Renaut de Montauban, ot \’unité de base devient la fratrie (les quatre fils Aymon)...” *Les paroles de Regnaut, bréves mais denses (exclamations, interrogations, vif

regret de l’absence de Maugis) incitent Dame Claire a lui conseiller de ne pas plier devant les exigences d’un suzerain injuste. 7A ce moment, l’assaut a repris contre Montauban, mais les fréres et la garnison

ont résisté. Charlemagne fait mettre deux cents chevaliers devant chaque porte, pour empécher toute sortie et quelque ravitaillement que ce soit. ’Apprenant que la famine régne a Montauban, il continue a exiger que Regnaut

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Le Pathétique... soit pendu (et ses fréres aussi) et que Richard soit “trainé par un roussin’” (167).

°*Le narrateur de la version populaire a maladroitement conservé |’adjectif “courroucé” dont l’acception moderne ne présente aucun sens dans |’extrait. Il convient de lui donner le sens qu'il avait au Moyen Age, c’est-a-dire “bouleversé.” Sire, je vous prie d’agir avec mes enfans selon la droiture car je les aimerai toujours, ce sont mes chers enfans”; et aussi “Sire, vous savez que ce sont mes enfans et non des coquins; ce sont de vaillans chevaliers, et je vous promets que si je les voyais périr, jen mourrois aussi de douleur” (167). Aymon ne nie pas l'aide qu’il a apportée; il dit, au contraire, qu'il recommencerait, méme si Charlemagne menacait de le faire exécuter. Pour le destin final de la célebre monture, voir R. Lejeune, “Variations sur la fin

épique du cheval Bayard,” in Mélanges d'études romanes du Moyen Age offerts a Monsieur J. Rychner, publiés par A. Gendre, Ch. Th. Gossen et G. Straka (Strasbourg: Klincksieck, 1978) 323-33.

11] faudra que vous mettiez dans les engins du pain, de la viande salée et de la fraiche au lieu de pierres” (172). Certains chevaliers, croyant qu’il s‘agit de pierres, blament le vieil Aymon (172). M4Le procédé de survol narratif montre que l’intérét pour les événements passe au second plan: dans |’édition de J. Thomas, l’épisode du siége de Montauban s’étend des laisses 97 a 315, mais ce qui est évoqué dans notre chapitre se limite aux laisses 226-315 et, par ailleurs, nombre de détails ont disparu. L’évolution n’est pas seulement sensible dans les livres de colportage proprement dits: une vingtaine de chapitres dans les incunables et les éditions du XVIéme siécle et réduction aux chapitres 6-19 dans la réécriture de Delvau. Dans sa communication du Colloque de Reims de 1995, “La Réception des Quatre Fils Aymon au milieu du XIXéme siécle.” Nous remercions vivement le Professeur Ph. Ménard de nous avoir fourni le texte de son intervention qui n’est pas encore publiée. Dans Jehan Bagnyon, L’Histoire de Charlemagne (parfois dite Roman de Fierabras). Textes Littéraires Francais, 413 (Genéve: Droz, 1992). “Sire, je vous supplie de vous en rapporter a mon avis, s‘il est bon” (164).

*’Pensez a la grande humilité dont il s’est toujours servi; a la confiance qu'il eut en vous quand il vous donna son cheval qui n’a pas de pareil au monde. Si vous réfléchissez bien a tout, vous verrez que jamais homme ne vous fit tant de courtoisie que lui” (164). Faites d’abord attention a la politesse que Regnaut vous a faite, car si ce n’efit été lui, personne au monde n’aurait pu empécher que Richard, son frére, ne vous efit tranché la téte” (164). “Tl serait mieux que vous I’employassiez [l’argent] a faire la guerre contre les Sarrasins que de I’employer contre les quatre fils Aymon, car les Sarrasins sont maintenant en repos et en grande joie a l'occasion de cette guerre, car si la guerre leur manque, nous l’aurons a soutenir, et elle est si cruelle et si terrible qu’il y est mort plusieurs nobles et vaillans chevaliers” (164). “De plus, vous devez considérer que nous ravageons les champs et que vous

188

B. Guidot dépensez votre argent” (164). Le respect des cultures n’est pas le souci primordial de la classe chevaleresque dans I’épopée médiévale. Les paysans sont rares dans les chansons de geste et leur apparition prend parfois un caractére parodique, comme dans |’épisode du champ de féves dans Aliscans. A cet égard, voir B. Guidot, “La Fantaisie souriante

dans le Cycle d’Aymeri,” in Medioevo Romanzo, La Chanson de geste et il Ciclo di Guglielmo d’Orange. Atti del Convegno di Bologna (7-9 ottobre 1996), a cura di A. Fasso (Roma:

Salerno Editrice, 1997) 241-75.

“On retrouve une tonalité comparable a celle du plaidoyer de Naimes dans le choeur des plaintes que doit affronter Regnaut, quand sa famille le pousse a sacrifier Bayard: tour a tour interviennent la Duchesse (femme de Regnaut), les enfants du couple (Aymon et Yon) et les fréres du héros (avec Richard comme porte parole). Ils réussissent a obtenir que Regnaut accepte le sacrifice (169-70). Il reviendra sur cette décision. Les themes a partir desquels ils argumentent sont la mort, la famine et la tristesse. *Il convient d’interpréter cette phrase comme une allusion au moment ot il était sur le point d’étre pendu. “L’arriére-plan du propos consiste en un constat désespéré sur la cruauté du roi, sur sa haine et son absence de pitié.

*“Heélas! Je devrois me plaindre moi-méme plutét que de plaindre les autres,” “Hélas! Il faut que nous mourions de faim, car le roi nous déteste plus que les paiens et Sarrasins” (166). “Mon trés cher cousin Maugis, qu’étes-vous devenu? Vous nous manquez au besoin et, si vous étiez ici, nous ne craindrions pas le roi ni la mort. Je sais bien que vous

trouveriez encore assez de viande pour nous nourrir” (166). “Ye me laisserois plut6t pendre que de consentir 4 la mort de mon cousin Maugis: il ne nous a jamais desservi [sic], au contraire; il mérite plutot d’étre notre maitre” (162). Vous

étes notre pére, ainsi vous devez nous soulager.”

*Le mot revient en leitmotiv tout au long de la page 171: “Sire, ayez pitié de nous...,” “Si vous ne voulez avoir pitié de nous, ayez pitié de mes enfans,” “Au nom de Dieu, mon pére, ayez pitié de nous,” “Aymon eut pitié du chagrin de Regnaut.” *»“Mon pére, dit Regnaut, vous avez tort, ne vous en déplaise,” “Vous savez aussi que Charlemagne a bien grand tort de nous persécuter ainsi.” Te sais bien que si le roi nous tient, il nous fera pendre, et ce ne seroit pas un

honneur pour vous.” 2”V7ous ne devez pas nous laisser, c’est la loi naturelle.” %Méme si les circonstances sont différentes, on peut songer aux deux esquisses, conservées au Louvre et commentées par Diderot: Le Fils ingrat ou la malédiction paternelle et Le Mauvais fils puni, datant de 1765.

4Cette remarque doit étre assortie d’une légére réserve: libérés par Regnaut de toute obligation vis-a-vis de lui, Roland, Oger et leurs compagnons manquent quelque peu de hauteur quand ils viennent implorer la pitié de Charlemagne, lui réaffirmant leur fidélité. Le souverain accorde son pardon, a condition que I’attaque de Montauban ne

189

Le Pathétique... cesse d’aucune maniére (164).

”Q Richard, ce seroit bien mal agir que de tuer un homme qui dort” (160).

*Alors que l’empereur s’est montré coléreux et que Richard, furieux, a menacé son souverain de lui trancher la téte. 7Le départ est rapporté avec une belle sobriété narrative: “Il monta sur Bayard et sortit de Montauban pour retourner auprés de ses gens. Regnaut le conduisit jusqu’a la porte de la ville” (163).

*Celui-ci s’indignait qu’on envisage de laisser partir Charlemagne, alors qu’il est a la merci de la fratrie; Regnaut le reprend avec irritation.

*1] déclare: “Faites tuer mon cheval quand il vous plaira; donnez-en a manger a Madame votre épouse et a mes petits neveux, car mon neveu Aymon que voici mérite bien A manger pour le bon conseil qu'il m’a donné” (169). “Mion oncle, tout ce qu’on ne peut faire, on doit le passer du mieux que l'on peut; il ne faut jamais répéter le passé, mais faites ce que mon pere vous commande: s’il a manqué a son attente, il la paie sarement cher” (168). On notera la présence des verbes pouvoir, devoir, falloir qui tous mettent en relation la réalité et les préceptes de conduite. 4’Charlemagne tint pendant si longtemps Montauban assiégé...” et “Regnaut fut contraint de faire construire un charnier pour enterrer les morts” (166).

““Celui qui pouvoit avoir un peu de pain étoit contraint de le cacher, parce qu’on ren pouvoit avoir ni pour or ni pour argent” (166). *“Tls mouroient de faim dans les rues” (166). 4”Et l'un cachoit la viande [c’est-a-dire “la nourriture”] a l’autre, le pére a l'enfant et le fils 4 la mére” (166).

190

EVELYN BIRGE VITZ

New York University

Liturgical Citation in French Medieval Epic and Romance

The purpose of these pages is to examine and to compare the fundamental uses of the liturgy — what one might call “liturgical citation”! —in two genres of French medieval literature.” By liturgy, I refer primarily to the religious services of medieval Western Christendom: to prayer in its formal, official, corporate forms. This means above all the Mass; the offices, from

matins through to Vespers and Compline; and services for the dead. But, as some important traditional prayers were private and unofficial, and existed in the vernacular rather than in Latin, it is at least sometimes useful to think

of liturgy simply — generally —as “the church at prayer.” It is useful, as well, to think in terms of “degrees of ecclesiality” within the liturgy: a range going from highly official and formal liturgical manifestations to relatively more private, unofficial, unmonitored practices.’ It is perhaps appropriate to begin by asking the question: Why look specifically at liturgical citation? That is, why distinguish between this particular motif and other religious themes and motifs in medieval literature? Why pluck out this particular thread from the complex weave which surrounds it? My answer is twofold. Firstly, because, in my view,

we too often find “religious issues” treated all together in one large, undifferentiated amalgam,’ in which the specificity of each issue is lost. Yet this specificity is very much worth noting: “religious” matters are frequently not treated identically —homogeneously —in medieval (or other) works. Attitudes towards church politics and churchmen may (for example) be handled very differently from issues of faith or religious practice. Ina word, it is worth our while to attempt to differentiate, although teasing related issues loose from each other is, of course, not always easy, and the liturgy is strongly related to certain other themes such as the sacraments and prayer in general. Moreover, for medieval Western Christians (and to a lesser degree,

perhaps, today), the liturgy was, more than most other religious issues, at the heart of their involvement with their religious faith. Attendance at religious services and the more-or-less public recitation of traditional prayers

Liturgical Citation... were what defined men and women as Christians; the liturgy thus held a privileged position in terms of its significance. We also need to ask why it is useful to examine genres separately, one by one. In my view, references to the liturgy vary substantially from genre to genre, for reasons that are linked both to the fundamental poetics

of the different genres —their literary nature —and to their social and cultural functions. Thus, the patterns of liturgical citation and echo are generally markedly different in hagiography, epic, romance, lyric, and drama— and this is true across linguistic and national boundaries. For example, medieval religious drama throughout Europe makes very similar use of —and a use different from that which is made of liturgy in the the liturgy e throughout the Catholic world. epic and romanc —again, If this variability in the use of the liturgy is in part the result of differences among genres, it also flows from the richness and complex character of the liturgy itself, which is (for example) at once communal (in that it provides a shared experience: individuals rarely attend services alone, but with others), and private: it can foster individual piety. It is oral/aural, in that it is experienced through hearing and non-literate people can (and did) “know” and appreciate it, yet it is also text-based and the result of the learning and theological reflection of generations of “Fathers.” The liturgy is strongly physical and sensorial: the importance of the senses of sight, hearing, smell, and taste is central to liturgical experience, as is that of gestures and other bodily behaviors; but the liturgy is also, at least for some, deeply related to the life of the mind and the soul: it is psychological, intellectual, spiritual. We should not, then, be surprised if different genres (and individual works) have exploited diverse aspects of the liturgy, and to highly variable effect. My focus here is on the French and Occitan chanson de geste and

romance narrative of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. I will explore the nature of liturgical citation in these two genres. Rather than focus on a small handful of particular texts, taken as somehow “exemplary,” I will be painting here with a broad brush. I should perhaps add that in my discussion I shall base myself on the fundamental poetics of these two genres. There are, of course, romances that show the influence of epic, or (more frequently) vice versa, as well as works that operate complicated generic combinations and crossovers. But I am interested here primarily in the large picture, the great, or “typical,” models of the two genres. I am not, then, looking at, or for, unusual cases and exceptions, but rather at what one

might term the generic “center of gravity” of these two important genres. Medieval French chansons de geste and romances> have much in common -—each is a narrative genre, with marked heroic concerns; each has combat and male honor as central themes. Both genres have an in192

BSB PVitz volvement in history, or at least historical “pretentions.” But there are, of course, major differences as well. The chanson de geste is, and must be, not just a story about great deeds, but a “song”: it is composed in verse and intended to be sung. By contrast, romances begin their literary career in verse, but without any necessary relationship to song; and, from the early thirteenth century on, romances are frequently couched in prose. Consequently, important formal contrasts prevail between the genres. In their handling of fundamental themes, these genres are also— typical — markedly ly different, in a number of important respects involving the relationship of the hero to community, the role of the individual, the importance of the theme of “Christendom,” and others. Thus, the epic

commonly focuses on the hero in his social and religious setting, his familial and dynastic group, his “cohort,” and emphasizes the bonds that bind him to other men, substantially more than to women. The chanson de geste frequently thematizes the struggle between good vs. evil—Good often being represented by Christendom, Evil by the world of the “infidels.” There are, to be sure, other ways of conceptualizing good and evil: these are not all “crusade epics”! But in any event great ethical issues —justice vs. injustice, loyalty vs. disloyalty, etc. — generally loom large in the chanson de geste. The struggle between good and evil often presents, as one of its consequences

in the medieval epic, the death of heroes. By contrast, ro-

mance —and this from a very early period —is concerned with the destiny of an individual hero. Romance is typically concerned with worldly success and with love—not with male bonding. While combat invariably plays an important role, the sequence of adventures is often paramount as a plot structure, rather than the story of a great battle or a war. Tristan excepted, romance heroes do not die premature deaths, and tragic themes are thus generally absent from romance. Finally, if epic is a highly traditional— even a traditionalist or “conservative” — genre,° romance is considerably

more open to novelty and to experimentation, to issues of psychology and personal transformation; it is receptive to questions of “meaning.” Both genres are at least fictionally, so to speak, rooted in history:

the chanson de geste draws on the Carolingian (or pseudo-Carolingian) past — a past identified as strongly Christian, and commonly “updated” from eighth- or ninth-century realities to include a contemporary crusade mentality. By contrast, romance may be anchored historically — fictionally — in the classical period (thus a pre-Christian culture), as in the romans antiques; or it may be drawn from the more or less Celtic world of King Arthur, where heaven and hell are conceptually (so to speak) cheek-by-jowl with the Isle of Avalon. In romance, religious miracles —so common in the epic — generally play second fiddle to the marvelous. In short, the Christian iden13

Liturgical Citation... tity of heroes and the exploitation of Christian themes are far more fundamental to the chanson de geste than to romance, and vastly more conspicuous in the former than the latter. The next question is: How do these large resemblances and differences get played out in works from the two genres, with regard to the handling of specifically liturgical themes? We can certainly say that these two genres do a number of similar things with the liturgy: in particular, both certainly use it to demonstrate the “virtuous Christian” status of their heroic figures, and to accord to works some moral “warranty” or “legitimacy.” Let me add, however, that what neither of these genres does, at

least in my view, is to use the liturgy to “authorize” a text in the sense of giving it a written, clerical, learned authority. I do not think that liturgical citation generally had the same function as quotations from the Bible or from the Fathers (or from the Classics, for that matter). To quote from or refer to the liturgy was not (at least not commonly) intended to demonstrate something about the degree of learning or the clerical status of the poet or his audience: it did not turn a “story” or “song” into an authoritative “text.” Rather, to provide an echo from the liturgy was to evoke a

shared religious experience, and to draw from a cultural, emotional storehouse which was open both to literate and to non-literate Christians. The liturgical echo spoke of our faith — not of my learning. But whatever the resemblance between the genres in their handling of liturgical citation, the differences between them are substantially more striking. First, the epic emphasizes communal worship and public religion, whereas romance is typically concerned with the private relationship of individuals to religious services and to prayer in general. Moreover, far fewer romances than epics contain important references to the liturgy: romance is, quite simply, not on the whole a deeply religious or pious genre. The liturgical references that it contains are apt to be of a rather superficial and undeveloped character. Yet, paradoxically, precisely because romance prioritizes the individual, his psychology, and his adventures—and because it values novelty and loves marvels—a certain subset of romances accords central importance to liturgical themes. I. Epic.

Prayer of a more or less strongly liturgical character opens or closes (or both) a fair number of chansons de geste. A few examples, from many. La Chanson de la croisade Albigeoise begins with a clearly liturgical formula: “El nom del Payre e del Filh e del Saint Esperit/Comensa la cansos que maestre Guilhelms fit...“” A good many chansons de geste begin with references to the God of majesty, to the God of glory, to blessings from God, and similar 194

EB evitz motifs. We see here the language of praise and supplication — foundational liturgical concepts — even if the phrases are not direct or strict citations. For example: the twelfth-century Ami et Amile begins: “Or entendez, seignor genti baron, / Que Deus de gloire voz face vrai pardon...”® Such references can be said to establish — to “authorize,” in that sense of the word, to legitimize— the work as a pious “song.” Similarly, the twelfth-century Charroi de Nimes begins with the words: “Oiez, seignor, Deus vos croisse bonté,/Li glorieux, li rois de

majesté.”” Moreover— despite the fact that this is often a very funny chanson —many laisses begin with variations on that initial opening: this is at once a comic and a pious song. Indeed, the same may be said of many poems from the Guillaume d’Orange Cycle, of which this song is part. In this context, it is also worth noting that some songs of this cycle are both quite decidedly anti-clerical’® and yet unfailingly respectful and pious with regard to the liturgy — an example, surely, of the usefulness of distinguishing among different “religious themes.” Some other songs from this cycle—for example, Le Couronnenment de Louis and La Prise d’Orange—begin in a similar fashion. So do songs from other cycles and independent songs. The early thirteenth-century Jourdain de Blaye begins in the same way as the Prise: “Oiez, seignor, que Dex voz beneie,/Li Glorioz, li fiz sainte Marie...”"' (Further examples of this sort of opening include Doon de Maience, Doon de la Roche, L’Entrée d’Espagne, and Huon de Bordeaux.) We have in all this a blend of medieval oral-style opening formula—”Listen, my lords” —and a prayer of a markedly liturgical character. We now turn briefly to liturgical closure—and to the interesting issues that it raises with regard to the epic as liturgical (or quasi-liturgical) song. A small number of epics end with official liturgical formulas. For example, the Franco-Venitian Entrée d’Espagne, whose pious beginning I could have quoted earlier, has two endings (one apparently original, the other perhaps added later),’* both marked by liturgical piety. In lines shortly before the original ending, a thousand people in Rome are singing “Cantate Domino canticum novum” (15638, “Sing a new song to the Lord,” from Psalm 95). In the other ending, in the final laisse the assembled multitude

is singing “Venite exsultemus” (117; “Come let us sing to the Lord,” from Psalm 94). Both of these formulas were part of the service of Matins, and

Psalm 94 was, indeed, the most important “Invitatory” (introductory) Psalm of Matins: that is, it was always sung at the beginning of that office.’ In other words, both of these endings are clearly liturgical, and in the second, the song is presented as a preface to Matins. Another work that, in its closing moments, appears to be connected with Matins is the Occitan Chanson de Girart de Roussillon, a strongly reli-

195

Liturgical Citation... gious song which ends with the words “Tu autem Domine” (But you, Lord)" — the start of a closing formula of Matins; thus, these words seem to

lead into the end of a Matins service.'> In this context especially, we do well to remember that the chansons de geste are, truly, songs, and that their melodic character was influenced by Gregorian chant.'® It would not be difficult for a French epic to segue, as it were, into a Gregorian melodic phrase. Thus, some chansons de geste appear to have been related to the office of Matins. While this connection may sometimes have been nostalgic, or even imaginary, there is evidence that chansons de geste were on occasion performed in conjunction with the vigils held in church before dubbing ceremonies, and in proximity to pilgrimage sites. And Matins was an office which many medieval laymen and women apparently attended with some measure of frequency; quotations from it can be understood as familiar— ble to piety; they are not, in my view, to be easily recogniza —invitations understood as demonstrations of clerical learning. These opening and closing formulas may be related to the hagiographic character of a number of important chansons de geste: their heroes are not just great Christians; some are official or unofficial saints: Guillaume, Roland, Charlemagne, and others. They had shrines that pilgrims visited. (Berthe in Girart de Roussillon and Florence of Rome are also described as saintly women.) But references to the liturgy in epics are by no means restricted to opening and closing formulas. Quite a number of epics contain references to the singing of Mass and to attendance thereto by an army or other assembled multitude. Early in La Prise de Cordres et de Sebille, for example, the Archbishop Turpin sings a Mass, amidst a great general feeling of joy. Toward the end of La Prise d’Orange, just after Orable has been baptised “en I’enor Damedé,” and just before her marriage to Guillaume, “Messe lor chante li evesque Guimer./ Aprés la messe sont del mostier torné...”"”7 (One could multiply such examples.) Other services are referred to, as well: for example, in Florence de Rome — which also contains, toward the end, the celebration of a Mass by the pope— we are told that the heroine “ Nonne fut devenue, son chief estoit velez;/ A servir Damedeu iert

trestoz ses pensez./Ja n’i eiist matines ne servise chantez/Que ne fust par bon cuer de Florence escoutez.”'® Thus, the Mass and offices may present a sort of ecclesiastical— auditory — backdrop to the action (visual details from the liturgy are few). Moreover, the epic hero himself may have a particular, and honored, status with respect to the liturgy. In Le Couronnement

de Louis, the hero,

Guillaume d’Orange, is clearly not only the champion of Christendom, he is even—as we see in a striking passage —the safeguard of the Roman liturgy. While Guillaume is fighting a pagan giant near Rome, the pope addresses two prayers —cum threats! — to St. Peter. First he declares: “Sainz 196

BEBSvitz Pere, sire, secor ton champion,/Se il i muert, male iert la retracon;/En ton

mostier, por tant que nos vivons,/N’avra mais dite ne messe ne lecon.’”"” A bit later, disturbed by the course of the combat, the pope repeats his prayerful warning: “Dist l’apostoiles: ‘Que fais tu or, sainz Pere?/Se il i muert, c’iert mal destinee;/En ton mostier n’iert mais messe chantee,/Tant com je vive ne que jaie duree’” (1086-89). Guillaume is victorio—us and

the liturgy in Rome will go on. In Aliscans, at one point the giant Rainoart, a convert to Christianity, meets a Saracen champion, his cousin Haucebier, and challenges him to combat. When Haucebier insults him for his ragged clothing, Rainoart answers that one should never despise a man for his outward appearance. He goes on: Si je suis povre, diex m’en dorra assés, Por lui cuit estre encore coronés

De tote Espaigne et rois et avoés. Mahon ferai desbrisier les costés,

Si ferai faire eglises et autés Dou grant avoir qui i est amasés. La iert Jhesus esauciés et levés Et li suens cors benois et sacrés Molt n’ert haucie sainte chrestiéntes.”°

We see here another expression of the idea that the Christian epic hero is a champion of the liturgy. This is especially true, no doubt, of the Guillaume cycle, of which this song is part. We may also see in such a passage the understanding that the liturgy —here, specifically the Eucharist—is the defining element of Christianity. The warrior’s status as “Christian hero” is frequently expressed in another liturgically-grounded way, as well. In the epic, the hero may pronounce a public proclamation of faith, either just before battle or before dying. These prayers are, in fact, very common in the chanson de geste, and some works contain more than one of them. These prayers —sometimes referred to by scholars as “epic credos” or as “priéres du plus grand péril’*! —are always given in the vernacular, rather than in Latin. While they are not clearly textually derived from any standard Christian Creed, they are formal and public, albeit variable, professions of faith, amplified by short summaries of biblical salvation miracles. For example, one of two creeds in Le Couronnement de Louis begins with God’s creation of Adam and Eve; it goes on to mention Christ's Incarnation through the Virgin, his Nativity, his Crucifixion and Resurrection, and the Harrowing of Hell —all

of which is of course close to the substance of the liturgical creeds. But this 197

Liturgical Citation... long prayer also mentions Cain’s killing of Abel; Noah and the ark; St. Anastasia (a midwife present at the Nativity); the visit of the three kings; the death of the Innocents; some scenes from Christ's life; Simon the leper and Mary Magdalene; Longinus; Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea—

all this before closing with a prayer for God’s protection (695-788; see also 976-1029). How are we to interpret such prayers, such “credos”? In one sense, we can certainly say that they are there to identify, and to honor, the hero

(or occasionally the heroine) as a “great Christian” —a person of a public and courageous faith. But since such prayers are, precisely, one of the fundamental conventions of the genre, they are presumably part of a general — —strategy to legitimize the work: to demonstrate its reliindeed a generic gious character. (This large strategy can, of course, operate even in works

that are not, in fact, deeply religious, such as the songs of the Lorrain cycle.) It is worth remembering that one effect of such a “pedigree” might well have been to protect the poet/entertainer from the ecclesiastical censure that so often, apparently, fell onto jongleurs and other “oral” performers. Epic credos are, as noted, pronounced by characters before fight-

ing or before dying—and many epic heroes do, indeed, die. One thinks immediately of course of Roland, Olivier and the twelve peers, but there

are numerous other examples. This is a genre which is surely distinguished by the number of death scenes, often of important characters. (By contrast,

romance heroes are literarily “immortal.”) And epic warriors, as they prepare to die, frequently carry out liturgical/sacramental gestures and actions.” Aside from being absolved and taking communion before the battle, dying knights commonly strike their breast; the “mea culpa” gesture had been for many centuries part of the Mass. A few epics, such as Garin le Lorrain and Raoul de Cambrai, show

the dying hero taking communion on three blades of grass.” This act— this gesture — reflects the desire to die in God’s friendship, so marked among epic heroes, as well as the belief that, in extremis, and in the absence of a

priest, it was appropriate for a Christian to make this sort of spiritual communion. These preparations for death have much in common with that of the glorification of the hero as champion of the liturgy and with the epic credos: the warrior is shown to be a devout man, perhaps even a saint. But there is another issue worth considering here. One of the important social functions of the medieval epic may well have been to provide religious consolation to the families and friends of knights who had died on crusade and in battle: to give them a sense of the meaningfulness of these deaths, and to reinforce their belief that the men they had loved were safe with God. And what consoled them was the thought— the imaginary “sight” — 198

E. Be Vitz

of these men performing liturgical and sacramental gestures as they died: what mattered was not something as vague as correct belief but, rather, the “doing” of the right things — carrying out the appropriate actions and gestures as they succumbed. These warriors were seen to have died, as they had lived, as “doers” of their faith. (It is worth adding here that it may also be that such images were presented as normative: as showing “Christian knights” how they should die.) Medieval French epics, then, make quite varied and extensive use

of liturgical citation, and contain numerous echoes of religious services. Heroes, in their defense of the Church, may specifically defend the liturgy. They pray in public using liturgically-inspired credos and prayers, and they prepare to die with words and gestures drawn from the sacramental liturgies. Liturgical citation thus serves to reinforce, in the heroes of the chanson de geste, what one scholar has called that “solidarité, au nom d’un

méme destin et d’une méme ferveur religieuse.”*4 II. Romance.

The world of romance presents us with a very different picture. Many romances — certainly more romances than chansons de geste — contain no liturgical elements whatsoever; many romances are entirely worldly in their central preoccupations, and thus devoid of liturgical and other major religious themes. The “entertainment” function is unquestionably more marked in romance than in epic. But it is important to recognize that romances make not only a less extensive and less reliable, but also quite a different use of liturgy than epics, and a more curiously varied one— precisely because of the openness of romance to psychological development and to adventures and quests of a spiritual nature. We begin with the more superficial liturgical elements. Romances may anchor the narrative in the Christian year. We find reference to Pentecost, for example, at the start of Chrétien’s Yvain, La Mule sans frein, and L’Atre perilleux; Jean Renart’s Galeran de Bretagne begins at Ascension. Such

references generally receive little thematic development, and it is quite possible that they were initially related to issues of performance: that is, to the season of the year at which great feasts were held and at which the works were actually performed. But while such references can be seen as quite trivial, they do nonetheless mark events as occurring in “Christian time”; they provide at least a religious “patina.” Opening prayers are relatively rare in romance. (Substantially more common are the “wisdom topos” and references to the art of love or a loveobject, or to a patron or patroness.) We are not generally leading into works with any particular religious or hagiographical pretentions. There are, how199

Liturgical Citation... ever, a few exceptions to this generally “worldly” opening pattern, and they are worth examining briefly. The romance of Blandin de Cornouaille begins “in God’s name,” and includes a fair number of references to God and to

divine will. A romance which gets off the ground in a rather curious way is Richard le beau. After a fairly standard, and fully secular, opening, sud-

denly, in |. 48, the poet announces that he will make an invocation to the

Virgin —to “cheli qui, fille et mere,/enfanta son fil et son pere” (49-50). This invocation, which begins, “Dame des chieus, du mont Royne,/en toi portas

la char devine” (51-52), continues through I. 60; it appears in fact, quite unrelated to the substance of the story, which concludes in a worldly fashion; there is no retour @ la priére at the end. Gautier d’ Arras’s Ille et Galeron begins with the words: “ Aie, Dius, Sains Esperis!””* — but the prayer he is uttering is only a hope that the lady (the Empress Beatrix de Bourgogne, wife of Frederick Barbarossa) will soon be his patroness. What we are seeing in these romances is initial prayer of some sort, but which is different from any sort of public, traditionally liturgical

prayer. It is true that the invocation to the Virgin is (by this period) firmly liturgical —but it is used here in a very idiosyncratic and nontraditional manner. In short, if prayer in the chanson de geste almost invariably exists in a more or less liturgical mode—as part of official, communal Christianity — prayer in romances is more apt to be private, idiosyncratic, individualistic: at one end of the “degrees of ecclesiality” spectum which I evoked earlier. In romance, as in the epic, the hero may attend Mass — but he goes

alone, not as part, or representative, of a group. (This occurs with some frequency, for example, in Chrétien's romances: there are in Yvain two ref-

erences to the hero’s being present at Mass at the start of day.” )Nor does attendance at Mass lead into any explicitly Christian behavior on the part of the hero.*®

Unlike the epic, where

the hero is the champion

of

Christendom, in most romances, church attendance is thus not emphasized or thematized; we have certainly no sense of the liturgy as a permanent thematic and even melodic backdrop. References to prayer and church attendance on the part of the hero are, it seems, primarily a guarantee of his Christian — ergo, ethical, admirable — status.

In romance, characters may pray privately for the outcome of the battle, but these works do not contain (semi)liturgical “creeds” such as we saw in the epic. Sometimes spectators, especially those with a stake in the outcome, pray as a single combat between two knights begins. (Again, Chrétien’s romances provide examples of both of these phenomena.) But while what may hang on the outcome of the battle, in an epic, is the very

future of Christendom—and

indeed of the liturgy itself, as in the

Couronnement de Louis —such is never the case in romance, where the stakes

200

BSB Vitz are far smaller and more personal: what is at issue is often merely the life and success of the individual hero; this is, truly, private prayer. With regard to the nature and the patterns of references to religious and liturgical themes in early romance, it is perhaps useful to draw attention to a recent critical/ hermeneutical development— and controversy. A number of modern scholars (such as Jacques Ribard”’) are persuaded that romances are full of subtle but deeply symbolic Christian meaning. On the whole, Iam unpersuaded by this sort of “ reading” of— this herme-

neutical approach to — early romances (and epics as well), but it is important to recognize that it is, precisely, the presence of ambiguous and unexplicated religious elements that can be said to invite it. It is also useful to note that these symbolic approaches generally concern large theological conceptual ensembles (fall and redemption, relations between God and human beings, the concept of divine love, etc.) rather than liturgical echoes — precisely because the latter are, generally, more visible (or audible) right at the surface of the text. There are a few romances in which one sees what may be a somewhat tongue-in-cheek use of liturgical references. A case that springs to mind is Jean Renart’s Roman de la Rose ou de Guillaume de Dole.’ This is a

very worldly and sophisticated romance, with a strongly if subtly ironic character. At the end—when

the heroine, Liénor, has been vindicated

(against a false sexual accusation), and her marriage with the emperor is set to take place— we are told that: “Ce fut Te Deum laudamus” (5116). This seems to be a somewhat casual way of referring to “generalized rejoicing,” rather than a genuine, liturgical expression of thanks to God. At the end, the archbishop has this remarkable story written down; we are assured that it will be sung “tant com li siecles durera” (5651), which sounds like a humorous — slightly parodic? —revision of the liturgical “in secula seculorum.” This sort of gently-mocking use of the liturgy is, I think, almost unthinkable in the epic, which is invariably respectful toward religious services (if not toward churchmen, often shown to be cowardly and even treacherous). A still more striking case: another work which makes extensive and complex, and—one must assume — deeply ironic use of the liturgy is the early thirteenth-century Occitan romance Flamenca.” In this work, an

adulterous affair between the eponymous heroine and her lover, Guillaume, is initiated and in its early stages promoted largely through contacts in church: Guillaume is a knight, but he arranges to become the cantor at Mass, and there are multiple and extensive references to liturgical chants,

readings, and gestures like the kiss of peace. The development of the love affair thus plays itself out largely through parallels between earthly and divine love, the latter as expressed in liturgical formulas and gestures which 201

Liturgical Citation... were unquestionably familiar to the audience. Interestingly enough, prayerful closure is not uncommon in romance. For example, at the end of Le Conte de Floire et de Blancheflor, after group baptisms and a final return to Christian themes, we are told that the hero:

A Damledieu grasses en rent Et sel marcie doucement. Chi fenist li contes de Floire Diex nos mece tos en sa gloire!*’ Similarly, in Amadas et Ydoine, toward the end we are told that the

loving married couple lived virtuously together. In the closing lines, the poet says:

Signeur, pour verité vous di Qu’a grant hounour tinrent la terre Toute leur vie en pais, sans guerre. De leur amor faut ci l’estore,

Leurs ames mete Dix en glore, Par sa douceur, par sa merchi, Et de tous peceeurs ausi. Amen.* Gerbert de Montreuil’s thirteenth-century Roman de la Violette ends as follows:

Et Dex, qui tous les biens nous preste, Le sien paradys nous apreste A la fin, quant nous finerons, Qu’en cest siecle poi de mourrons. Chi defenist Gerars son livre, Qui assés biement s’en delivre.*

What are we to make of the rather liturgical closure of these romances — especially in light of the rarity of liturgical openings? (These endings are liturgical in the sense that all the lines cited speak in terms of a common Christian public — no(u)s — and address the audience in traditional

formula for the salvation of all: e.g., “Diex nos mece tos en sa gloire,” etc.) What we are seeing in these passages, and others like them, is, I believe, the idea that literary works, like human lives, should at least end piously — indeed, liturgically —however secular their preoccupations up to that point. Thus, even primarily worldly romances can end on an eschatological 202

EBV itz note, and ona

call to common prayer.

In short: there is, on the whole, a modest and relatively inconspicu-

ous amount of fairly private prayer and religious behavior in many romances; such prayers are commonly unconnected (at least explicitly) to the larger themes of the work in question: love, adventure, worldly honor. Some

romances handle liturgical references in complex and apparently ironic

ways.

However, as many scholars have noted, from the late twelfth century on, there are a number of romances that accord to liturgical themes a central role. Such a development is no doubt in large part the result of factors that flow from the romance genre itself: romance interest in individual psychology and in psychological/ spiritual growth and transformation; the importance of quests and adventures; the romance fondness for

marvels and “amazing” things; and the openness of this genre to innovation, and especially to matters of “meaning.” But in the late twelfth century there are probably a number of cultural, religious, and political factors at work as well, including the growth of the cult of Joseph of Arimathea— and of the ambitions of Glastonbury Abbey, which itself embodies the as-

pirations to religious “seniority” by the English Church; the rise of interest in relics, many of which flowed west during the Crusades; and high interest throughout the century in the meaning of the Mass, which culminated in the promulgation of the dogma of Transubstantiation at the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215. Chrétien’s Perceval*’ offers a new kind of adventure: spiritual adventure. Perceval not only makes knightly progress, and progress toward manhood, we also see him advancing spiritually (though the romance is of course unfinished). We find in this romance a new fascination with the liturgy and the sacraments: with the drama of their mysterious gestures and actions, the meaning behind them, and their power to transform indi-

viduals. In this work, and those which can perhaps be said to have followed in its wake, there are no “ordinary” Masses, such as we saw in the

epic; there are only “marvelous” liturgies. For example, Chrétien’s Perceval has a remarkable experience at the Grail Castle where he sees a mysterious procession, whose Christian character is quite questionable (it contains women carrying candelabra and a strange bleeding lance —odd elements, surely, for a traditional Christian service; 3191ff).% But there is, undoubt-

edly, a eucharistic miracle here: as we learn subsequently, the wounded Fisher King is sustained exclusively by the host (6422-24). In this work, we certainly have a sense — and powerful narrative exploitation — of the “marvelous” power of the liturgy. This romance emphasizes spiritual change and growth: in the course of his adventures, Perceval, who is “lost” and has “forgotten God” (6219), is 203

Liturgical Citation... “found” by some good Christians on Good Friday (6260). He attends Mass (presumably alone), confesses his sins to a holy hermit, with whom he remains, receiving advice and counsel, and learning a special prayer. This prayer consists of the secret, powerful names of Jesus. The hermit teaches them to Perceval by repeating the words over and over into his ear. Et li hermites li conseille Une oroison dedens I’ oreille,

Si li ferma tant qu’il le sot. Et en cele oroison si ot Assez des nons nostre Seignor,

Car il i furent li greignor Que nomer ne doit bouche d’ome, Se por paor de mort nes nome. Quant l’oroison li ot aprise,

Desfendi lui qu’en nule guise Ne les nomast sans grant peril. (6481-91) Thus, in this romance we have the prayer of a solitary hero, rather than the

public, openly articulated, credo-type prayer such as we find in the epic. This may well be a traditional prayer, but it is deeply private, and we, the audience, never actually hear —”learn” — the words.

The Queste del Saint Graal (c. 1220) is surely the work in which the romance involvement with liturgical themes and motifs reaches its apogée: here we find all the characteristic elements of romance handling of liturgy displayed. There are no “regular” Masses. The Grail first appears in a sort of private showing during a dinner at the Round Table: each one present is suddenly “enluminé de la grace dou Saint Esperit.”*? Then the Grail, covered with a white cloth, and borne by no human hand, passes through the hall, bringing with it sweet smells. Each is filled with his favorite food: “de tel viande come chascuns desirroit” (15). Thus, every man experiences the Eucharist individually — indeed individualistically. There are Masses here— but what the hero (always alone!) sees in them is what is “truly” happening in the Eucharistic liturgy. (Only individuals who are pure in heart can see these things; others are blind to, and even sleep through, the miracle.) At one point, Lancelot enters a chamber which is flooded with light; he looks around the room and sees the “Holy Vessel” standing on a silver table.

Si resgarde dedenz la chambre et voit sur une table d’argent le Saint Vessel covert d’un vermeil samit. Si voit tout entor angres qui amenistroient le Saint Vessel, en tel maniere que li uns tenoient 204

Erbe Vitz encensiers d'argent et cierges ardanz, et li autre tenoient croiz et aornementz

d’autel, et n’en i avoit nus qui ne servist d’aucun

mestier. Et devant le Saint Vessel seoit un vielx hons vestuz come prestres, et sembloit que il fust ou sacrement de la messe. Et quant il dut lever corpus domini, il fut avis a Lancelot que desus les mains

au preudome en haut avoit trois homes, dont li dui metoient le plus juene entre les mains au provoire; et il le elevoit en haut, si fesoit semblant qu’il le mostrast au peuple. (255)

This is, then, a “marvelous” Mass—a Mass where the “everyday” but invisible miracle of Transubstantiation (defined at Lateran IV) is rendered visible in an altogether remarkable way. There is, to be sure, great interest in the liturgy here: in its majesty and its esthetic beauty, even in recent liturgical developments: on the meaning and importance of liturgical gestures (such as the elevation). Yet, with the exception of the altar, censers and candles, none of the liturgical ele-

ments described here is truly “traditional”: part of a “regular” Mass. For example, rather than use actual liturgical vessels and call them by their proper names, the focus here and elsewhere is on the “Saint Vessel” which is eventually explicitly identified, by a voice from heaven, as “I’escuele ou Jhesucriz menja I’aignel le jor de Pasques 0 ses deciples” (270). So while we have here a far more detailed interest in the inner workings and meaning of the liturgy than we ever saw in the epic, these are fantasy liturgies: romance liturgies; these are liturgical marvels, however orthodox the eucharistic doctrine behind them. And these are Masses which, after the close of this romance, will never recur: at the end, the Grail returns to heaven and

will never be seen again on earth. These amazing liturgical visions, accorded to the special heroic individuals, are over."!

But let us return briefly to these heroes — and specifically to Lancelot, the knight to whom vision of the Grail Masses is most often denied and/or vouchsafed. One of the key themes of this romance is, precisely, the power of the liturgy (as well as of the sacrament of confession and of penance) to transform individuals; this is largely a romance about Lancelot’s spiritual and psychological growth. (Perceval and Bohort, to a lesser degree — they carry less of a burden of sin— follow a similar trajectory.) Lancelot advances, mostly alone, through a series of tailor-made knightly, sacramental and liturgical adventures which are full of hidden, then revealed, meanings,

toward greater moral perfection. It is useful to note that the Queste was among the first prose romances. Prose was said to “tell the truth” (unlike verse which “lied”); thus, its appeal to “serious” writers. This form, and this work, certainly claim “authority” — indeed, virtually biblical authority: many passages in this 205

Liturgical Citation... work (and related works) are presented as a continuation of the Bible narrative; they provide the “sacred history” of the Grail. I said earlier that the liturgy was not used to authorize a text by giving it written, clerical, au—but the authority of prose biblical-style narrative could certainly thority be used to give added (pseudo-)historical weight and symbolic meaning to the liturgy. We must close our inquiry here. But even after this rapid overview of the handling of liturgy in these two genres, we can, I think, say the following. Epic certainly makes the more extensive, traditional, communal use of liturgical citation and reference; liturgy is shown to be that which binds Christians, and the Christian world, together, against a world of evil

and unbelief. Romance is far less likely than epic to have recourse to liturgical citation, and it is more unpredictable in the uses that it does make of

liturgy. Moreover, its handling of such themes and motifs is often virtually the opposite effect from that of the epic: to be complex, ironic, idiosyncratic, private, fantasy-oriented, and concerned with issues of individual

growth and transformation.

NOTES 'This study is part of a larger project bearing on the influence of the liturgy on French medieval literature as a whole. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Medieval Academy at Stanford University in March 1998. I would like to thank my colleagues Kimberlee Campbell, Nancy Regalado, and Jindrich Zezula for their valuable comments on this paper. I also thank the editors of this volume for their useful suggestions, Related articles are: “La Liturgie, Le Roman de Renart, et le probléme du blasphéme dans la vie littéraire au Moyen Age, ou: Les bétes peuvent-elles blaspémer?” Reinardus 12 (1999) 204-25; “’Bourde jus mise’?: Francois Villon, the Liturgy, and Prayer,” in Villon at Oxford: The Drama of the Text, eds. Michael Freeman and Jane H.M. Taylor (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1999) 170-94; “La Liturgie et le théatre a la fin du Moyen Age,” Le Moyen Francais (forthcoming, 2000); “Liturgy and Literature,” The Medieval Liturgy, eds. Thomas Heffernan and E. Ann Matter (Kalamazoo: TEAMS/U of Western Michigan P, forthcoming, 2001)

*The editions and scholarly studies of Peter F. Dembowski have contributed considerably to our understanding of these, and other, genres. *See The Church at Prayer: Introduction to the Liturgy, ed. A.J. Martimort, trans. Matthew J. O'Connell, rev. ed., 4 vols. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical P, 1987). See, specifically, P.M. Gy, “History of the Liturgy in the West to the Council of Trent,” in The Church at Prayer I, 45-61; 46.

‘This amalgam may include such issues as attitudes towards churchmen (the

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E. B: Vitz hierarchy, clerks, monks, etc.), the role/importance of the sacraments, the cult of the saints, the cult of the Virgin, relics, pilgrimage, theological themes of all kinds, etc. *In my definitions, I base myself on many years of reading works from these two genres and the scholarship devoted to them. Primary texts are listed below, but space constraints prohibit any attempt to catalogue secondary works. *For example, in “La Priére a la Vierge dans I’épopée,” Micheline de Combarieu has shown that the epic is conservative with regard to the new developments in Marian piety. She states: “L’épopée apparait donc comme trés en retrait par rapport au développement contemporain de la mariologie et de la piété mariale. Conservatrice sur ce point comme sur d’autres, elle n’évolue pas, au moins pendant le XIIle siécle.” La Priére au Moyen Age 91-120; 113. ’La Chanson de la croisade albigeoise, ed./trans. Henri Gougaud. Lettres Gothiques (Paris: Livre de Poche, 1989) 1-2. Only works that are actually quoted or discussed in detail will be referenced here. _ *Ami et Amile, chanson de geste, ed. Peter F. Dembowski. Classiques Francais du Moyen Age (Paris: Champion, 1969) 1-2. *Le Charroi de Nimes, chanson de geste du XIle siecle, ed. J.-L. Perrier. Classiques Francais du Moyen Age (Paris: Champion, 1968) 1-2. “For example, in Le Couronnement de Louis, monks are at several points shown

to be cowardly and disloyal; see also my discussion below of the representation of the Pope himself. In Le Moniage Guillaume, the monks whom the aged and repentant Guillaume attempts to join in their monastery are terrified of him—his size, his strength—and they are appalled at how much he eats; they treacherously attempt to have him killed by brigands in the forest. "Jourdain de Blaye, chanson de geste, ed. Peter F. Dembowski (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1969) 1-2.

VL’Entrée d’Espagne, ed. Antoine Thomas. 2 vols. Société des Anciens Textes Fran¢ais (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1913). The second ending is printed as an “ Appendice” and titled the “Suite de l’Entrée d’Espagne, par Nicolas de Vérone” (II, 287-92). Willi Appel, Gregorian Chant (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1990) 88. 47a Chanson de Girart de Roussillon, ed. and trans. Micheline de Combarieu

du

Grés and Gérard Gouiran. Lettres Gothiques (Paris: Poche, 1993) 10,001.

See Andrew Hughes, Medieval Manuscripts for Mass and Office: A Guide to Their Organization and Terminology (Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1982) xxxiv, 60. ‘It is inappropriate to make hard-and-fast distinctions between liturgical and non-liturgical music in this period. Epic songs, like songs devoted to the saints (and other sorts of material), were apparently often “farsed” into the Latin lessons of the offices. See, for example, John Stevens, “Medieval Song,” The New Oxford History of Music, Il: The Early Middle Ages to 1300, ed. Richard Crocker and David Hiley (Oxford and New York:

Oxford UP, 1990) 409-10. VLa Prise d’Orange, ed. Claude Regnier (Paris: Klincksieck, 1968) 1868, 1876-77. 18Florence de Rome, chanson d’aventure, ed. A. Wallenskéld. Société des Anciens

207

Liturgical Citation... Textes Francais (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1907) II, 263; ll. 5646-49. Repeated references to Vespers occur in La Chancun de Willame, ed. Nancy V. Iseley (Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1966). The words “Lunsdi al vespre” are repeated many times over the course of the work, e.g. Il. 10, 87, 148, etc. “Vespre” could, of course, refer to the time of day, but

in this period the hour of the day was clearly associated with the office of prayers.

Te Couronnement de Louis, chanson de geste du XIle siecle, ed. Ernest Langlois,

2eme éd. revue. Classiques Francais du Moyen Age (Paris: Champion, 1984) 1062-65.

*Aliscans, ed. Erich Wienbeck, Wilhelm Hartnacke, Paul Rasch (Geneva: Slatkine

Reprints, 1974; orig. Halle: 1903) 351, Il. 95-102. (The recent edition of this work by Claude Regnier is based on different mss. and does not contain this passage.) “These prayers have been extensively studied by recent scholars. For bibliography on this issue, see for example Elisabeth Schulze-Busacker, “L’Expression de la foi dans les chansons de geste,” in Charlemagne in the North 103-24; esp. 123-24 n27 and 36. I iturgy can be defined as the worship of God: praise, adoration, petition. The seven sacraments —baptism, confession, confirmation, eucharist, marriage, holy orders, extreme unction—are defined as signs and channels of divine grace. Liturgy and sacrament come together in such services as the Mass, where Christians both worship God and

partake of the sacrament of the Eucharist. Our concern here is with the liturgical manifestations of the sacraments. On the theme of repentance in French literature, see JeanCharles Payen’s fundamental study, Le Motif du repentir dans la littérature francaise médiévale (des origines a 1230) (Geneva: Droz, 1967).

*This number is clearly in honor of the Trinity. Sometimes a single blade of grass is divided in three. The “three” probably refers to the breaking of the Host into three parts in the Mass. On this curious symbolic viaticum, see Bélanger, Damedieus: The Religious Context of the French Epic. The Loherain Cycle Viewed against Other Early French Cycles (Geneva: Droz, 1975); J.D.M. Ford, “To Bite the Dust’ and Symbolical Lay Communion,” PMLA 20 (1905) 197-230; George Hamilton, “The Sources of the Symbolical Lay Communion,” Romanic Review 4 (1913) 221-42. Examples of this practice occur throughout the medieval period, and similar examples are found in German and Italian literature; in some cases, what is taken as communion

is earth, rather than grass.

4Schulze-Busacker, “L’Expression de la foi” 122.

*Richars li biaux, roman du XIlle siécle, ed. Anthony J. Holden. Classiques Francais du Moyen Age (Paris: Champion, 1983). R **Gautier d’ Arras, Ille et Galeron, ed. Yves Lefévre. Classiques Francais du Moyen Age (Paris: Champion, 1988) 1.

“Chrétien de Troyes, Le Chevalier au Lion (Yvain), ed. Mario Roques, Classiques Francais du Moyen Age (Paris: Champion, 1971) 4025 and 5449-50. *Yvain, to be sure, does many good deeds in the second half of the romance devoted to him—but he is never said to be motivated by Christian charity or service of God; he behaves more like a boy-scout than a Christian warrior *See, for example, Jacques Ribard, Le Moyen Age: Littérature et symbolisme (Geneva: Slatkine, 1984); “Pour une interprétation théologique du Tristan de Béroul,” Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale 28 (1985) 235-42; Du Philtre au graal: Pour une interprétation théologique du Roman de Tristan et du Conte du Graal (Paris: Champion, 1989); Ribard has published many articles and several books with a similar thrust. (His position is close to

208

Bo BoVitz that of the Robertsonians in the U.S.) For a recent interesting discussion of this and related developments, see Gérard J. Brault, “La Religion dans les chansons de geste a la lumiére de quelques études récentes sur les romans arthuriens,” Charlemagne in the North 135-45. “TI remain unconvinced primarily for two reasons: (a) I do not believe that most of the poets who composed these works were clerics (Ribard’s argument is predicated largely on clerical authorship; on this issue, see my Orality and Performance in Early French Romance [Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1989]); and (b) these religious interpretations sometimes seem rather forced and arbitrary and may on occasion even seem strikingly in Opposition to the evident surface meaning of the text. ‘Jean Renart, Le Roman de la Rose ou de Guillaume de Dole, ed. Félix Lecoy. Classiques Francais du Moyen Age (Paris: Champion, 1962).

“Flamenca [The Romance of Flamenca], ed. and trans. E.D. Blodgett (New York and London: Garland, 1995). he Conte de Floire et de Blancheflor, ed. Jean-Luc Leclanche. Classiques Francais

du Moyen Age (Paris: Champion, 1980) 3339-42 “Amadas et Ydoine, roman du XIlIle siécle, ed. John R. Reinhard. Classiques Francais

du Moyen Age (Paris: Champion, 1926) 7906-13. *Gerbert de Montreuil,

Le Roman

de la Violette, ed. Douglas Labaree Buffum

(Paris: Champion, 1928). *This is indeed a common pattern in medieval narrative, one of the most famous and striking cases being the ending of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

”Chrétien de Troyes, Le Roman de Perceval ou le conte du graal, ed. William Roach. Textes Littéraires Francais (Geneva: Droz; Paris: Minard,

1959).

*The Bleeding Lance will, of course, become assimilated to the lance of Longinus;

but that a lance that bleeds of itself is to be identified with the lance that pierced Christ's side is hardly self-evident; nor would such an object have any obvious place in the liturgy.

*La Queste del saint Graal, ed. Albert Pauphilet. Classiques Francais du Moyen Age (Paris: Champion, 1965); e.g. 15. I regret that I cannot examine other works bearing on the Grail in this discussion. There is certainly much room for further study of the handling of the liturgy in such works as the continuations of Chrétien’s Perceval, Robert de Boron’s Roman

de l’estoire dou Graal, and Perlesvaus.

“On the impact of the Fourth Lateran Council on French and Anglo-Norman literature, see Vitz, “1215: November:

The Fourth Lateran Council Prescribes that Adult

Christians Confess at Least Once a Year,” A New History of French Literature, ed. Denis Hollier (Cambridge UP) 82-88 “On this work and its implications, see Nancy F. Regalado, “La Chevalerie celestiel: Spiritual Transformations

of Secular Romance

in La Queste del Saint Graal,” in

Romance: Transformations from Chrétien de Troyes to Cervantes, ed. Kevin Brownlee and Marina Scordilis (Hanover, NH: UP of New England, 1985) 91-113.

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Part III

Tristan

& Perceval

SUNHEE KIM GERTZ

Clark University

Wrapping Memory around the Metaphor in Marie de France’s Chievrefoil

Containing only 118 lines, Le Chievrefoil is Marie de France’s shortest lai.' In its fifty-nine octosyllabic couplets, the poet conveys the essence of one of the more intriguing love stories of the Middle Ages, by focusing on the exiled Tristan’s arrangement of a clandestine meeting with his beloved Iseut. The narrative’s first ten lines succinctly foreshadow the lovers’ tragic deaths before reporting of Tristan’s estrangement from his uncle, King Mark (5-14). This very brief exposition suggests that Marie expects her audiences will know the lovers’ story. Indeed, without further contextualizing, her narrator

shifts to the hero’s agony in banishment while in South Wales (15-26). His longing for Iseut leads him to return to Cornwall. Soon, he learns that Mark

and Iseut will be travelling to Tintagel at Pentecost, and he sets off with the hope of seeing his beloved once again (27-47). At this point, the lai focuses, with about one-quarter of its entire length, on Tristan’s preparations for the meeting. On the road that the royal retinue must take, Tristan positions himself, squares and inscribes a hazel branch, and awaits Iseut’s arrival (48-78). The lai then moves swiftly to its conclusion. Riding by, the Queen sees the bastun and comprehends its message completely (79-82). Iseut arranges for the two to meet, they speak with each other, she advises her lover on how to reconcile himself with Mark, they depart in sadness, and Tristan returns to

Wales to await his uncle’s summons (83-106). Understandably, many scholars who have written on the lai focus on the message conveyed by the inscribed hazel.” In a way, our preoccupation with these lines responds to, and echoes, Socrates’ identification of the

dilemma posed by writing. Plato has Socrates explain: ..Phaedrus, [written speeches have] a strange character... You

might expect them to speak like intelligent beings, but if you question them with the intention of learning something about what they’re saying, they always just continue saying the same thing.’

Wrapping Memory... As Charles L. Griswold, Jr. notes, however, scholars generally agree that in contrast to other Platonic dialogues, the form and literary attributes of the Phaedrus are as important as its content.’ Indeed, Plato ironically conveys Socrates’ dissatisfaction with scripted speeches in playfully provocative written language.° Just so, Marie too has fashioned a Iai that requires attention and critical conversation, a lai that draws specific attention to writing and, in the process, textures perceptions of the medium.® The Hazel as Metaphor and Its Readers

Importantly, critical attention to this particular passage of Chievrefoil is invited by Marie herself. In the thirty-one lines describing Tristan’s preparation for the meeting, Marie self-reflexively assigns a good portion of these to the message. Thus, as Tristan is preparing the hazel, the narrator writes that the hero carved his name on it (53-54). Then, the following lines project what would happen if Iseut should see the hazel, and in doing so, convey words that could continue the message carved on the bastun or its implied significance. The lines in question number twenty-four (55-78), and they begin in the hypothetical mode, with, “Se la reine s’aparceit...”

(55; ‘If the

queen...spotted it’). Although the passage is first positioned in terms of hope, it moves in the direction of confidence, confidence in understanding

and in figuration, as suggested by the use of the future: “De sun ami bien conustra/ Le bastun, quant el le verra” (59-60; ‘she will recognize her beloved’s stick, when she sees it’). Then, however, the lai continues:

... ne poeit vivre sanz li. D’euls deus fu il tut autresi Cume del chievrefoil esteit Ki a la codre se perneit: Quant il s’i est laciez e pris

71

E tut entur le fust s’est mis,

Ensemble poént bien durer, Mes ki puis les voelt desevrer, Li codres muert hastivement E li chievrefoilz ensement. “Bele amie, si est de nus:

77

Ne vus sanz mei, ne jeo sanz vus.” (67-78; he could not... live without her. The two of them resembled the honey-

suckle which clings to the hazel branch: when it has wound itself round and attached itself to the hazel, the two can survive together: but if anyone should

214

SunHee Gertz then attempt to separate them, the hazel quickly dies, as does the honeysuckle. “Sweet love, so it is with us: without me you cannot survive, nor I without you.”) The passage seems to progress linearly from hope to confidence, in tune with the seriatim movement of its verses, especially since, right after these lines, it is obvious that Iseut has indeed immediately understood all (79-82). Yet, the seeming necessity and causality that impel these lines forward blur the non-linear, interdependent relations between hope and confidence, for hope is not separate from confidence, but implied in it. In other words, confidence is not an endpoint; it is one end of a tension, informing while feeding from hope. So, too, interdependent relations link the coupled activities of understanding and figuration. Although the passage seems to proffer, essentially, a simple instance of communication whereby Tristan (or the narrator) creates a simile (69-70) for his (or her) readers to understand, its author does not leave the figure of speech unglossed.” Thus, the linearly developed, figurative comparison (68-76) explicitly states that the hazel cannot live without the honeysuckle, and the closing couplet of this passage allegorically applies the resulting, linearly disseminated comparison to the two lovers. In effect, a metaphor is created, if we define “metaphor” more generally than ordinarily used today, as the author of the Ad Herennium does: “Translatio est cum verbum in quandam rem transferetur ex alia re, quod propter similitudinem recte videbitur posse transferri” (IV. xxxiv. 45; ‘Metaphor occurs when a word applying to one thing is transferred to another, because the similarity seems to justify this transference’). As a result of this transferral of qualities, the metaphor shifts perspectives, or in Paul Ricceur’s words, “metaphor is the rhetorical process by which discourse unleashes the power that certain fictions have to redescribe reality.”° Yet, as soon as this /ai’s central, powerful, perspective-shifting metaphor is created, it is analytically disassembled through the gloss (71-78), eliciting the question, why create a metaphor if it is to be explained (right) away? Whatever may be made of these lines, clearly, the poet's creative function is modified by his (or her) addressing of the readerly impulse to understand, to interpret, an impulse indeed suggested by the gloss but also elicited by the metaphor itself, with its potentially enigmatic effect. Concomitantly, as the gloss implies, Tristan’s confidence in Iseut’s ability to understand is nestled in hope. Marie complicates this interlacing structure further still in articulating Tristan’s (or the narrator’s) gloss not in exegetical or expository style, but in the persuasive, rhetorically charged lan-

215

Wrapping Memory... guage of lyric poetry. That is, the explanatory lines convey Tristan’s longing not in the manner of a scholarly gloss, but in the supplicating mode of love's lyrics, particularly with the passage’s closing couplet, which addresses the beloved, implicitly pleads for a meeting, and with a sweeping gesture, links the beloved’s absence to death. Through hope, belief, figuration, comprehension,

and lyric lan-

guage, these lines intertwine readerly and writerly functions. And while we ordinarily think of these functions as assigned to individuals who relate to each other seriatim —the poet writes before the reader can fulfill her or his part— Marie seems to insist on intermingling them by means of the metaphor. In doing so, she anticipates Wolf Paprotté and René Dirven’s analysis: “[M]etaphor is now considered an instrument of thought, and a transaction between the constructive effects of context, imagistic and con-

ceptual representation, and general encyclopaedic knowledge.”'° A meeting place for readers and writers, the metaphor in this Jai blurs distinctions that would keep functions separate. Like hope and confidence or like understanding and figuration, readerly and writerly functions intertwine. After all, Tristan “writes” the metaphor, as the narrator emphasizes through the hero’s preparation of the bastun, but he also reads its significance, as emphasized through the explicating lines rendered in his consciousness (whether these are his “actual” words or not). As I hope to show, Tristan’s readerly writing of the metaphor in this passage is complemented later in the Iai by Iseut’s writerly reading. But first, it is important to underscore that the lovers’ intermingling of these functions echoes how Marie wraps memory about the metaphor. The Metaphor, the Lai’s Worlds, and Memory

In part, Marie is able to link memory and the metaphor through her delineation of different worlds in the lai." Tristan is exiled from Mark's courtly world, and for the greater portion of the lai, he resides in the world of the woods. But again reflecting the /ai’s proclivity for interdependency, these two worlds also commingle. Tellingly, with materials appropriated from this natural setting, Tristan creates his metaphor, but in a manner

that allows its being read by one member of the court, the Queen, who, however, has already shared the woods with her lover.'? The interweaving occurs on a deeper level as well. While taken from the woods, the vehicle becomes an artificed, inscribed bastun, one that is, moreover, returned to its natural state—the world of the lovers’ woods — by poetically, figuratively wrapping the honeysuckle around another vehicle, an imaginary, untouched hazel.

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SunHee Gertz

For the lovers as well as their readers, the honeysuckle and hazel’s dependency becomes something like an imaged tenor to the bastun, not dissimilar, in effect, to Charles S. Peirce’s neoplatonic notion of the sign’s interpretant (roughly equivalent to a metaphor’s tenor), which he characterizes as being capable of infinite regression. According to Peirce: A sign, or representamen, is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity. It addresses somebody, that is, creates in the mind of that person an equivalent sign, or perhaps a more developed sign. That sign which it creates I call the interpretant of the first sign. The sign stands for something, its object. It stands for that object, not in all respects, but in reference to a sort of idea, which I have sometimes

representamen.

called the ground of the

(II. 2. 228, p. 135)!%

On the narrative level, the bastun becomes, as Douglas Kelly and others have argued, a metaphor for the lovers’ meeting.’ On the metaliterary level, it becomes a sign, in Peircian terms, whose representamen (roughly equivalent to the vehicle) is an inscribed text (the bastun) and whose interpretant is not so much a secretive meeting, but rather an image taken from nature, which implies the power of poetry, itself dependent upon the metaphor, which unleashes, in Ricceur’s formulation, the power to redescribe reality. After all, Marie pointedly reminds readers in these lines that the flowerwrapped hazel is a figurative image of, and is inspired by, the stripped, scripted stick. In other words, on the metaliterary level, the bastun becomes a metaphor for the art of poetry. Indeed, the figurative dominates this lai. Thus, whatever is inscribed onto the bastun, its lines do not literally ask for

a meeting; that meaning is implied. Likewise, the lovers are separated for most of the lai and do not die without the other, as literally expressed in the bastun passage.’ By making writing itself a representamen and a figured representation of poetry into its interpretant, Marie has found one solution to Socratic writing’s imperturbable silence in the face of a reader’s perplexity. She makes writing itself a rich locus of questions and ambiguities that invites readers to abandon the map provided by narrative, not unlike how Socrates and Phaedrus leave Athens to talk, likewise, of love, writing, and knowl-

edge in nature. Uncannily echoing Plato ina related aspect, Marie binds all this together through the role of memory and its complex relation to writing. In the Phaedrus, Socrates presents the problem by recounting how Thamus, the King of Egypt, responds to the gift of writing offered by the god Theuth: “...[i]f people learn [the letters], it will make their souls forgetful through lack of exercising their memory. They’Il put their trust in the ZY

Wrapping Memory... external marks of writing instead of using their own internal capacity for remembering on their own” (274e-275a). In contrast, Marie directs her readers to understand memory as that which lends writing multiple layers, as suggested by her marking of Tristan’s metaphor. Tristan’s metaphor, that is, is glossed even though its meaning is straightforward. It is as if Marie’s narrator fears that some of her readers dwell in Mark’s literal world. Yet, for Iseut, as well as for sympathetic readers, the distractions of surrounding brush and other flora are absent from view. As emphasized through Iseut’s immediate understanding, the reader’s creative act implicitly shares the focus of this explicitly writercentric passage. Indeed, Kathryn Gravdal posits that Marie creates a dialectic in the lai, which depends on the audience’s imagination as well as on the activity of the poet, while Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner argues that the way Marie weaves symbolism and linear organization in all her Iais does make the reader’s role prominent.'® Critically, Iseut sees no other vegetation because of her intense

search for the sign, while we see only the glossed image. In other words, the Queen sees figuratively, because she watches for the sign which she translates into a meeting, and we see “literally” (or perhaps “metaliterarily”), because we see the figure of speech as such.” Iseut can read figuratively because the metaphor is based on conventions that have assumed the quality of literal signification over time, “Autre feiz li fu avenu,/ Que si l’aveit aperceii” (57-58; ‘on an earlier occasion she had suc-

cessfully observed it in this way’). For those of Marie’s readers who know the lovers’ story, the metaphor functions in a similarly conventional manner;’® it will certainly not cause us to wonder whether the two will meet,

nor whether Iseut can perceive well enough for that meeting to happen. In spite of the potentially enigmatic significance conveyed by the metaphor, what allows the passage to be straightforward is the memory of the lovers’ tale. And it is precisely this memory that allows Marie to entice us from the well-known map tracking the lovers’ illicit meetings to consider the vehicles for communication — Marie wraps memory about the metaphor. Metaliterary Memory and the Lovers Absent readers, absent Iseut— memory fills empty spaces, just as surely as a metaphor can create from a stripped stick a vision of a blossomenhanced hazel. Importantly, on the /ai’s literal level, absences dominate

the lovers’ world.” Thus, the lai does not refer to the potion that brought the lovers together, although the mention of Brenguein (89-90) could have easily afforded such an aside. Likewise, although each of the four main

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SunHee Gertz

characters of the story is mentioned in the lai, only Iseut remains unnamed — she is referred to consistently as la reine.” In addition, there are no passionate love scenes, not even when the two lovers meet. Marie records their meeting as one where words, not embraces, are exchanged. Indeed, if we were to read here literally, and without memory, we would be positioned like Mark

in the well-known orchard scene, perched in a tree and witnessing only pledges of loyalty and concern that a reconciliation be effected." Yet, this literal world’s reconciliation proffers a vision too painful for the lovers; it offers nothing to hope for, to have confidence in, to understand. Faced with this barren world of exile, absences, and chaste but loyal

meetings, Tristan succumbs to his impassioned memory to contrive another meeting. The locus ameenus of the past has been translated not only into a hope for its replication but also into a locus memorize.” In other words, not only are their encounters memorable, they are sites of memory, sites which Tristan as lyric poet attempts to recapture for those who wish to dwell in the world of the lovers. Absence stimulates loci memoriae for such members of the literary system, readers who must also remember the lovers’ focus on art, artifice, and manipulation. As we critics ourselves have demonstrated, this remembrance of the lovers’ story in Marie’s lai allows

for her audience members to become writerly readers. Rather than putting “trust in the external marks of writing,” such readers must use “their own

internal capacity for remembering on their own,” as Socrates commends. From this perspective, it is instructive to remember that in Marie’s literary system, Tristan is a great musician and poet, as underscored in the

lai’s closing lines, which draw attention to the Iai’s title as well as to the maker's art. Such attention is not unusual for Marie’s Iais; all of them close with some reference to the composition or the hearing of a lai, while all except three close by linking the names of either the /ai or its main character or characters to some expressly metaliterary content.” However, in this particular case, the closing verses are striking. The poem’s closing lines echo the l/ai’s prologue, again not in itself unusual, except that in this lai, the ending amplifies rather than abbreviates the prologue.” Pur la joie qu’il ot eiie De s’amie qu’il ot veiie E pur ceo k’il aveit escrit Si cum la reine I’ot dit,

Pur les paroles remembrer, Tristan, ki bien saveit harper,

En aveit fet un nuvel lai;

219

Wrapping Memory... Asez briefment le numerai: Gotelef lapelent Engleis, Chievrefoil le nument Franceis. Dit vus en ai la verité Del lai que jai ici cunté. (107-18; On account of the joy he had experienced from the sight of his beloved and because of what he had written, Tristram, a skilful harpist, in

order to record [the] words (as the queen had said he should), used them to create a new lay. I shall very briefly name it: the English call it Gotelef and

the French Chevrefoil. [have told you the truth of the lay I have related here.) In the entire collection, there are three other prefatory and two other closing instances that express the importance of memory. All of these, however, either refer to the storytelling Bretons in general or to the narrator’s wish to remember; only Chievrefoil’s reference links the act of commemoration to an individual other than the narrator.” In this lai, then, memory is

presented as Tristan’s task. Reading more closely, however, Tristan wishes to remember words,

“Pur les paroles remembrer,” words that I interpret as belonging to Iseut, words that will allow their tale to continue to its passionate and tragic endpoint. The narrative irony echoes metaliterary ones. Tristan, as mirror of the poet, commemorates Iseut’s words, making Iseut— whom Tristan “literally” positions as the reader in the bastun passage —authorial, even authoritative. Indeed, Emmanuele Baumgartner observes that both Tristan and Iseut display the talents of the troubadour, while Roger Dubuis believes that Tristan writes what Iseut tells him to do, and Frederike

Wiesmann-Wiedmann argues that Tristan writes down the words of the lai that Iseut composed.* For as soon as she sees Tristan’s sign, the lai’s central metaphor, Iseut instantaneously comprehends all, as one would hope from an ideal reader, but moreover, she also sets things, authorita-

tively, into motion.

Le bastun vit, bien l’aparceut, Tutes les lettres i conut. Les chevaliers ki la menoent E ki ensemble od li erroent Cumanda tuz a arester: Descendre voet e resposer. Cil unt fait sun commandement. (81-87; She...saw the piece of wood and realized what it was. She recognized all the letters and commanded all those who were escorting her and travel-

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SunHee Gertz

ling along with her to stop. She wished to alight and take a rest. They did as she bade...) Thus, Iseut allows for their narrative, and this episode, to occur—she is a

writerly reader.”

Here, at the end of the lai, joy and the words of another author, in this case, Iseut, are preserved for future remembrance. The problem is that

the lovers’ joy is not only limited to a brief space in time, it is also intended

for a limited audience. This is not, it seems, the granz bien that the General

Prologue advises should be disseminated, especially obvious if readers remember the lovers’ hardships and deaths, which Marie admonishes us to do early on, “De lur amur ki tant fu fine,/ Dunt il eurent meinte dolur,/ Puis en mururent en un jur” (8-10; ‘their love was so pure that it caused them to suffer great distress and later brought about their death on [one]

day’). Essentially what Marie presents is a pair of poets who are neither evil nor seriously flawed, but who are myopic. For all their creative activity, Tristan and Iseut cannot see beyond the hope for and confidence in an eternal present fueled by past longings, in more than one sense an imaginary world, but one that makes Mark’s literal world liveable. In other words,

they do not keep readerly and writerly functions separate — if they did their story would die. But they also do not render their creations communicable to other audiences, nor do they attempt other kinds of narratives.

For Marie, memory is not simply a receptacle or place holder, nor is its relation to poetry an approximate synonym for the literary canon. Marie’s poetics of memory, of course, include such memorializing.*' More than this, memory is a touchstone for exploring the dynamics of poetry. Again, a glance at the Phaedrus proves useful. Having established the inability of writing to respond, Socrates goes on to say, [The speech writer] will sow his gardens of letters for amusement,

it seems, and will write...to store up reminders for himself, and for all who follow the same track, against the forgetfulness that may come with old age, and he'll enjoy watching their tender shoots grow... but far more noble, I think, is the serious treatment of these sub-

jects when someone uses the dialectical art and, selecting an appropriate soul, plants and sows in it speeches that are accompanied by knowledge, speeches that can defend both themselves and the one who planted them and that are not barren but contain a seed from which others grow up in other abodes, so that this process is rendered eternal and immortal. (276d-277a, my italics)”

|

Wrapping Memory... Like Socrates’ speech writer, the two lovers in Le Chievrefoil are partners in the coding and decoding of a message invisible to others, “stor[ing] up reminders” for themselves. Tristan and Iseut share a private metaphor, which they “enjoy watching [until] tender shoots grow.” More noble still is the perspective that emerges when comparing the lai with the General Prologue. Indeed, Marie envisions books flourishing as transforming and transformative speech: Quant uns granz biens est mult oiz,

Dunc a primes est il fluriz,

E quant loéz est de plusurs, Dunc ad espandues ses flurs. Custume fu as anciens, Ceo testimoine Preciens, Es livres ke jadis feseint,

Assez oscurement diseient Pur ceus kia venir esteient... (General Prologue 5-13, my italics; When a truly beneficial thing is heard by many people it then enjoys its first blossom, but if it is widely praised its flowers are in full bloom. It was customary for the ancients, in the books which they wrote (Priscian testifies to this), to (speak) very obscurely (for) those in later generations...) Although not an example of dialectical art, Marie’s lai shares with

Plato’s dialogue the aesthetic shaping of narrative in a manner that subverts linearity and empty reading. Moreover, like Plato, Marie seems to suggest that the attempt to engage in discourse from multiple perspectives, from different worlds, is what is eternal. In Marie’s world, such an

attempt is metaphorical as well as memorializing; “accompanied by knowledge” her poetry “contain[s] a seed from which others grow up in other abodes.”

NOTES "Les Lais de Marie de France, ed. Jean Rychner. Classiques Francais du Moyen Age (Paris: Champion, 1973). Unless otherwise indicated, translations are from Glyn S. Burgess and Keith Busby, The “Lais” of Marie de France (London: Penguin, 1986).

*Scholarship on the subject can be divided into three categories. Some argue that only one of the lovers’ names appears on the hazel, as does Leo Spitzer, “La ‘Lettre sur la

baguette de coudrier’ dans le lai du Chievrefueil,” Romania 69 (1946) 80-90; and Glyn S.

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SunHee Gertz Burgess, The Lais of Marie de France: Text and Context (Athens: U of Georgia P, 1987) 6570. Others find that argument problematic and offer other solutions, such as the full message being inscribed on the stick, the use of ogamic writing, an Irish tradition, a prior message, or a redaction, as seen in, respectively, Grace Frank, “Marie de France and the

Tristram Legend,” PMLA 63 (1948) 405-11; Maurice Cagnon, “Chievrefueil and the Ogamic Tradition,” Romania 91 (1970) 238-255; Gertrude Schoepperle, “Cluevrefoil,” Romania 38 (1909) 196-218; Maurice Delbouille, “Ceo fu la summe de I’escrit,” in Mélanges de langue et de littérature du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance offerts a Jean Frappier, Publications Romanes

et Francaises, 112 (Geneva: Droz, 1970) I, 207-16; and Pierre Le Gentil, “A

Propos du lai du chévrefeuille et de l’interprétation des textes médiévaux,” in Mélanges d'histoire littéraire de la Renaissance offerts @ Henri Chamard (Paris: Nizet, 1951) 17-27. Finally, and of most relevance here, some see the passage as symbolic, poetic, or metaliterary, notably, Keith Busby, “’Ceo fu la summe de I’escrit’ (Chievrefoil, line 61) Again,” Philological Quarterly 74 (1995) 1-15; Douglas Kelly, “Estrange Amor: Description et analogie dans la tradition courtoise de la légende de Tristan et Iseut,” in Hommage a Jean-Charles Payen — farai chansoneta novele: Essais sur la liberté créatrice au Moyen Age (Caen: U de Caen, 1989) 223-29; and Thomas L. Reed, Jr., “Glossing the Hazel: Authority, Intention, and Interpre-

tation in Marie de France’s Tristan, ‘Chievrefoil’,” Exemplaria 7 (1995) 95-142. SUNY

*The Symposium and the Phaedrus: Plato's Erotic Dialogues, trans. William S. Cobb. Series in Ancient Greek Philosophy (Albany: SUNY P, 1993) 273d.

‘Self-Knowledge in Plato’s Phaedrus (New Haven: Yale UP, 1986) 2. *See Griswold 7-11, 239-41, and G.RF. Ferrari, Listening to the Cicadas: A Study of Plato’s “Phaedrus” (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1987) 212-24, on Plato’s ironic use of Socrates’ words. *Dolores Warwick

Frese, “The Marriage of Woman

and Werewolf:

Poetics of

Estrangement in Marie de France’s ‘Bisclavret’,” in Vox Intexta: Orality and Textuality in the Middle Ages, ed. A.N. Doane and Carol Braun Pasternack (Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1991) 183-202, argues that Marie’s Bisclavret gives evidence of the traumatic transition from orality to textuality. However,

Matilda Tomaryn

Bruckner, “Conteur oral/recueil

écrit: Marie de France et la cloture des Lais,” Op. cit. 5 (1995) 5-13, argues that Marie uses the qualities of orality and writing in order to play with the ambiguity created by posing her narrator as a female cleric.

7Brewster E. Fitz, “Desire and Interpretation: Marie de France’s Clievrefoil,” Yale French Studies 58 (1979) 182-85, reads the lai as a gloss on poetry and reading; R.N. Illingworth, “Structural Interlace in the Lai of Chevrefoil,” Medium Aevum 54 (1988) 24858, sees the Iai’s structure as consisting of interlaced sections of narrative and gloss, a

structure that is in Marie’s poetry unique to this lai; while Reed 129-37, examines the honeysuckle, which represents Iseut as gloss, the whole forming a touchstone for Marie’s examination of intended and received meaning, authorial intention, and communication.

’Pseudo-Cicero, Rhetorica ad Herennium, ed. and trans. Harry Caplan (Cambridge: Harvard

UP, 1977).

°Paul Ricceur, The Rule of Metaphor: Multi-disciplinary Studies of the Creation of Meaning in Language, trans. Robert Czerny with Kathleen McLaughlin and John Costello. University of Toronto Romance Series, 37 (Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1977) 7. “Wolf Paprotté and René Dirven, eds., The Ubiquity of Metaphor: Metaphor in Language and Thought. Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science, 29 (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1985) ix.

223

Wrapping Memory... ‘Typical of Marie, the worlds do not exist in polar opposition, but overlap so that they cannot harden into a simple dichotomy. Thus, Iseut lives in Mark’s world physically, but is spiritually attuned to Tristan’s world. The dwarf does so as well, but without sympathy for the lovers. Mark himself oscillates between the two worlds, because he seems to accept the literal level of whatever tale he is being told and is unable to integrate the two. Monique Santucci, “Derechef, le ‘Lai du Chévrefeuille’: reve merveilleux et parole d’espoir,” L’Information Littéraire 31 (1979) 55-60, argues that the structure reveals two worlds—the superior world of dream and poetry that belongs to Tristan and the feudal world of the queen, king, and the banished Tristan. 2Roger Dubuis, “Plaidoyer pour une lecture globale du lai du Chévrefeuille,” Le Moyen Age 87 (1987) 356, argues that Tristan adjusts to the forest, developing psychologically as evidenced by the sign he creates, which functions as his double. Alison Adams and T. D. Hemming, ““Chevrefeuille’ and the Evolution of the Tristan Legend,” Bulletin Bibliographique de la Société Internationale Arthurienne 28 (1976) 207-09, and Josph P. Williman, “The Sources and Composition of Marie’s Tristan Episode,” in Studies in Honor of Tatiana Fotitch, ed. Josep M. Sola-Solé, Alessandro S. Crisafulli, and Siegfried A. Schulz (Washington, D.C.: Catholic U of America P) 118; both place this episode in the second half of the lovers’ legend after they had been in the woods together. Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, ed. Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (Cambridge MA: Belknap P of Harvard UP, 1960). Earlier, he explains “ground” with reference to the example of blackness: “...a pure abstraction, reference to which constitutes a guality or general attribute, may be termed a ground” (I. 1. 551, p. 292). Umberto Eco suggests that Peirce’s “infinite regression” does not mean that any interpretation or interpretant may be applied, since limits are projected by each text (The Limits of Interpretation. Advances in Semiotics [Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1994] 28).

“In The Art of Medieval French Romance (Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1992) 177,

Kelly argues that the Iai itself is a synecdoche for the whole of the lovers’ legend. More specifically, in “Estrange Amor,” 228, Kelly posits that the lovers’ message functions as a metaphor, as defined by Geoffrey of Vinsauf. Further, Pierre Kunstmann, “Symbole et interprétation: Le Message de Tristan dans le Chévrefeuille,” Tristania 13 (1988) 36-38, interprets the symbol to function semiotically as a metaphor with three levels; and Spitzer 85-86, argues that the /ai, celebrating the miracle of Iseut’s comprehension, examines how the sign moves from functioning as a simple instance of communication to an essentially poetic symbol with a life of its own. Compare Spitzer with Winfried Néth’s observations on the metaphor (see below, n17). Santucci 59-60, argues that the poetic art itself is part of the lai. Fitz 185-87, suggests that looking at the natural script and relating the lovers to critics results in a proliferation of interpretations and episodes. That readers can understand such figuration is due to our engagement in what Maria Corti calls a literary system. See Maria Corti, An Introduction to Literary Semiotics, trans. Margherita Bogat and Allen Mandelbaum. Advances in Semiotics (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1978). Corti argues that we can read a text against a greater literary context because of literature’s viability as a communication system, dependent on shared conventions.

Kathryn Gravdal, “Fragmentation and Imagination in the Old French Tristan: Marie de France’s Lai du Chievrefoil,” Tristania 12 (1987) 71; and Bruckner 9. Also see Anna Granville

Hatcher,

“Lai du Chievrefueil, 61-78; 107-13,”

Romania

71 (1950) 335, who

points to how Marie self-consciously depicts poetic ambiguity in the bastun passage. "Winfried

Noth, “Semiotic Aspects of Metaphor,”

in Paprotté/Dirven

1-16,

relates the metaphor to its context, convention, and meaning: “the metaphoric sign departs from semiotic structure of the language system in its conventionality... [P]oetic or...creative metaphors are unique. They are semantically innovative in appearing for the

224

SunHee Gertz first time...[However, t]hrough multiple recurrence metaphors can themselves finally become conventionalized...” (4-6, his italics). “Delbouille 214-16; Reed 113; and Williman 118, among others, agree that to understand these lines, Marie expects her audience to know the lovers’ story. “Evelyn Birge Vitz, “Orality, Literacy and the Early Tristan Material: Béroul, Thomas, Marie de France,” Romanic Review 78 (1987) 307, argues that the absence of the

honeysuckle means the devaluation of the letter. But see Busby 9-10, on the importance of writing based on texts in which “ceo fu la summe de I’escrit” appears and its connection to written commemoration. Paul Verhuyck, “Marie de France, le chévrefeuille et le coudrier,”

in Mélanges de linguistique, de littérature et de philologie médiévales, offerts a J.R. Smeets (Leiden: 1982) 322, reads the absence at its most dense in the heart of the Iai. *Not including pronouns or circumlocutions, Tristan is named seven times (7, 12, 25, 44, 48, 105, 112); Mark is named once (11), although he is referred to as li reis four

times (36, 40, 47, 98) and once as Tristan’s uncle (106) for a total of six times; Brenguein is mentioned once (90); and la reine, like Tristan, is mentioned seven times (7, 14, 28, 43,

55679

prey.

e110),

Reed 111, argues that without self-generated intentions, Mark becomes easy “On the arts of memory, see Frances A. Yates, The Art of Memory (Chicago: U of

Chicago P, 1966); Janet Coleman, Ancient and Medieval Memories: Studies in the Reconstriuc-

tion of the Past (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1992); and Mary J. Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993). *The three that do not link names to expressly metaliterary content are Lanval, Milun, and Eliduc. The pertinent lines are: Guigemar 884-86, Equitan 312-14, Fresne 517-18, Bisclavret 317-18, Lanval 641-46, Deus Amanz 251-54, Yonec 553-58, Latistic 157-60, Milun

531-34, Chaitivel 231-40, and Eliduc 1181-84.

*Dubuis 345-46, argues that the opening lines are unusual because they do not mention the Breton source, and circular as well. Indeed, he continues, the closing lines

respond to the opening question (349).

*Only Chaitivel’s ending is about as long as Chievrefoil’s (shorter by a line). In the Penguin translation, Burgess and Busby translate: “in order to record his words.” “For example, note the following passages: Equitan 1-11, Bisclavret 1-2, Chaitivel 1-2, and Eliduc 1181-84. *Emmanuéle Baumgartner, “Lyrisme et roman: du Lai de Guirun au Lai du Chévrefeuille,” in Mélanges de langue et de littérature occitanes en hommage a Pierre Bec (Poitiers: C.E.S.C.M., 1991) 77-83; Dubuis 350; Frederike Wiesmann-Wiedmann,

“Glose

to the Sen of Marie’s de France Chievrefoil,” Fifteenth Century Studies, ed. Guy R. Mermier and Edelgard E. DuBruck. I. Stuttgarter Arbeiten zur Germanistik (Stuttgart: Akademischer Verlag Stuttgart, 1978) 287-313.

Also see Kunstmann

40, who argues

that Iseut inter-

preted the message he wrote. »Dubuis 368 observes that Iseut responds to Tristan’s initiative with her own attempt to arrange a meeting. Indeed, in spite of Tristan’s fame as a harpist—he is the one

225

Wrapping Memory... “ki bien saveit harper” —it is Iseut who rescues them with her inventiveness, inventio also

evident throughout their entire story, as the tryst and the tree as well as the false oath episodes exemplify. One might argue that of the five faculties required of an orator/ writer as recorded in the Ad Herennium, Iseut represents the qualities of inventio and dispositio, while Tristan represents prontntiatio. They share elocutio and transform the memoria needed to capture a speech into remembering and commemorating.

“Burgess and Busby translate: “on the same day.” "Busby 3-4, in treating the role of commemoration

in the Iai, explicates the

creative acts, enumerating five: Tristan’s writing, Tristan’s composing a Iai, the oral Iai Marie has been told, her written source, and the poem as she composed it. “Griswold 77, comments on the third type of madness, “The poet teaches future

generations by conveying to them edified (kosmousa) stories about the ancients.”

‘Burgess and Busby translate: “to express themselves very obscurely so that those in later generations...”

226

GERARD J. BRAULT

The Pennsylvania State University

The Birth of the Hero in Thomas’ Tristan

Three major twelfth-century poems, by Eilhart, Béroul, and Thomas,

give an extended account of Tristan’s life, but only the third of these develops the story of the hero’s father and mother, Rivalen and Blancheflor. Eilhart dispatches Tristan’s parentage, birth, naming, childhood, and youthful adventures ina few lines, and it is generally assumed that the lost beginning of Béroul’s romance, the remaining part of which has much in common with

the German version, was similarly concise in this respect. Relatively little has been written about the first part of Thomas’ Tristan because our only knowledge of it comes from learned reconstructions, notably by Bédier.! However, even conservative scholars agree that the broad outline and many important details, as opposed to what one might term psychological and rhetorical matter, are known thanks to the convergence in many places of early translations and adaptations of the work, in particular the Old Norse Saga of Brother Robert and the German adaptation by Gottfried von Straburg. The first of these two versions has survived intact and is fairly reliable, but it often condenses the French original.? Gottfried’s poem, on the other hand, although a vastly superior esthetic achievement, is incomplete and often departs from Thomas’ text. No one would ever attempta stylistic analysis of the reconstructed passages of Thomas, but it is clear that considerable material relating to restored parts of his romance can usefully be studied for its general content or from other points of view.’ The recent discovery of a new fragment of the Anglo-Norman text supports this contention. While this manuscript corrects one or two points in Bédier’s analysis of the heretofore lost scene of

Tristan and Isolt’s first declaration of mutual love, it confirms the bulk of

the French scholar’s findings in this regard.‘ It also clinches an argument first made by Gaston Paris that Chrétien borrowed the play on words l’amer, l‘amer, and la mer in Cligés from Thomas.®

This article, then, will examine certain passages at the beginning of Thomas’ romance in order to show how the poet introduces the subject of love and death that will be his major theme and to shed new light on the

Birth of the Hero... birth of the hero. Thomas begins his story with a lengthy exposition of how Rivalen, a knight of Brittany, came to King Mark’s court where he met and fell in love with Blancheflor, the King’s sister. Grievously wounded in a tournament, Rivalen was visited by Blancheflor, they made love, and she became

pregnant. Later, having regained his health, Rivalen learned that his archenemy Duke Morgan had invaded his land. He hastened home with Blancheflor and, after marrying her, went off to war where he met his death. The news of his passing brought great distress to Blancheflor, who died three days later while giving birth to their child. It has become a critical commonplace to state that doubling is one of Thomas’ favorite devices. Susan (Dannenbaum) Crane, W. Ann Trindade, and Matilda T. Bruckner, among others, have cited numerous instances in this poem of symmetrical repetition or opposition of words or situations for effect. However, Merritt R. Blakeslee was the first to underscore that

the narrative of Rivalen and Blancheflor is mirrored in the love affair between Tristan and Isolt: The story of Tristan’s parents is an example of Thomas’ extensive use of doubling. Each double is a projection of aspects of the character or the life of one of his protagonists. As Iseut is doubled by the two women who share her name, her mother and Tristan’s

wife, by her compatriot and confidante Brengvein, and by her statue in the Salle aux images, so is she by Blancheflor, who, like her, dies

of sorrow at the death of her beloved. As Tristan is doubled by the second Tristan, by his friend and confidant Kaherdin, and by that other slayer of giants, Arthur, so is he by his father Rivalen, whose heroic qualities and tragic destiny are mirrored in his son.’

In the Saga, two soliloquies by Blancheflor ring so true and are so similar in manner and technique to the better known interior monologues in Thomas’ Tristan that they no doubt accurately reflect the original. The first passage, an unspoken reflection, details Blancheflor’s troubled state of mind as she gazes for the first time at Kanelangres (Rivalen) who is jousting with other knights during a royal festival organized by Mark in his youthful friend’s honor. It has two parts, a section describing the acute distress that suddenly affects and perplexes her, and the explanation that she comes up with of this condition (Bédier 1: 13 [Schach 9]; Bédier 1: 13-14

[Schach 10]). Like other passages of this sort in Thomas, Béroul, and Chrétien

de Troyes (especially in Cligés), these soliloquies were probably influenced by Ovid’s description of love as a sickness and of love as sorcery and were 228

G. J. Brault perhaps filtered through Enéas.° However, one of Blancheflor’s reflections deserves special note here, as it contains a singularly prescient characterization of her feelings for Rivalen and the first intimation of impending doom: “Oh, God, be Thou the shield and protection of my dreadful love, for terrible troubles will come from this knight” (Schach 10). Blancheflor’s second monologue (Bédier 1: 19-20 [Schach 16]) concerns us even more directly as her death is once again alluded to, but this time without ambiguity (“I shall surely die... 1am lost and undone”). This soliloquy differs from the preceding ones in that it is not an internalized discourse but a long speech that Blancheflor addresses to Rivalen immediately after he informs her that he must return home to defend his land. They have become lovers but, unbeknownst to him, she is now pregnant with his child. Blancheflor’s meandering lament is built upon the kind of opposition that Thomas delights in making (she must choose between two sorrows, dying because Rivalen is leaving her forever or being the occasion of his death by insisting that he stay and suffer the consequences of Mark’s wrath). With regard to the child she carries, Blancheflor’s sole fear

is that it will be fatherless, hence deprived of honor and distinction. '° As it happens, disaster is averted for the time being when the lovers flee together. However, not long afterward, Rivalen is slain in battle, and this catastrophic development is one of the two causes of Blancheflor’s death: As she thus vented her grief, refusing all consolation, she fell

unconscious onto her bed, and the birth pangs began to torture her. Now she suffered both grief and torment, and she endured

these pains until the third day. And during the night following the third day she gave birth to a beautiful boy with great pain and weariness, and died, after the child was born, because of the great

grief and torment she had endured and the fervent love she bore her husband. (Schach 18) In Eilhart, “Blankeflur” simply dies from the throes of childbirth

and “Rivalin” lives on obscurely until very near the end of the story," but, as we have seen, Thomas dwells on Blancheflor’s broken heart as a major

factor in her death. Without necessarily ruling out the role that grief may play in such circumstances, if Blancheflor were a real person, one would assume that

the medical reason for her death was either toxemia or post-partum hemorrhage. Toxemia is a disease of the last trimester of pregnancy and can lead to convulsions. Death may result from damage to the kidneys or the liver, or from cerebral hemorrhage. Post-partum hemorrhaging occurs when 229

Birth of the Hero...

the uterus is prevented from contracting fully or strongly. ’? Thomas does not provide a medical explanation for Blancheflor’s death because her passing is intended to foreshadow and resemble as closely as possible that of Isolt. The conscious patterning of the one death upon the other even seemingly leads the author to play down Blancheflor’s pregnancy in her final lament, which is devoid of any thought about her baby except at the very end and mainly concerns her deceased husband and herself. Indeed, her comment about her child is quite negative (it is an impediment to her joining her lover in death):

“Tam more wretched than all other women. How shall I live after the death of such a magnificent hero? I was his life and solace and he was my dearest and my life. I was his delight, and he was my joy. How shall I live now that he is dead? How shall I be comforted, when my joy is buried? It is fitting that both of us should die. Since he cannot come to me, I must pass through death, for his death beats upon my heart. How shall I live here longer? My life must follow his life. If Iwere free of this child, Iwould follow him

in death.” (Schach 18)

As soon as Blancheflor has passed away, her attendants make it clear that dying while giving birth is an extremely sad occurrence. The baby is included in their lament (“All wept who saw the boy so young fatherless and motherless” [Schach 19]), and a priest and Rivalen’s marshal agree to give him a name that alludes to the unhappy circumstances of his birth: Now when the marshal learned of the fate of his beautiful lady,

he said that the child should be christened so that he might not die unchristened. Then the priest brought the chrism and administered it to the child and asked what its name should be. He said, “It seems

advisable to me that in view of the grief and affliction, the care and the torments, the anxiety and unrest, the sore and many sorrows,

and the distressing event which has befallen us through his birth that the boy should be named Tristram.” For in this tongue trist means sorrow and lium means man. And the reason his name was changed is that Tristram sounds nicer than Tristlum. “The reason he shall be named thus,” said the marshal, is that

he was born to us in grief. He has lost joy and gladness —his father, our lord, and his mother, our lady — and therefore it beseems us to grieve that he was born in sorrow and distress.” (Schach 19) 230

G. J. Brault

However, the poet himself provides the most inclusive, retrospective/ prospective, and significant commentary, emphasizing that

Blancheflor’s death also adversely affects the child’s entire life: He was then christened and given the name Tristram, and he received this name distress, and born with sadness. He awake, sad when

because he was conceived in sorrow, in the afflictions of grief. All his life well deserved his name, for he was he slept, and sad when he died, as

carried in was filled sad when those will

learn who continue to listen to his story. (Schach 19) This observation relative to the twin misfortune of Tristan’s birth,

referring back but at the same time looking forward, echoes a remark made by the poet at the moment of the child’s conception: “In such great torments of distress, she because of sorrow and he because of his wounds,

they conceived that child who later lived to be a source of grief to all his friends and the origin of this story” (Schach 15). How common were these two attitudes (maternal mortality is sad, it results in misfortune for the child) in the Middle Ages? So far as the tragic aspect of dying in childbirth is concerned, medieval English and Scottish ballads attest that this motif was widespread. It occurs, for example, in “Leesome Brand,” “Sheath and Knife,” “Fair Janet,” and “Fair Mary of

Wallington.” The second idea is more difficult to pinpoint. Perhaps it derives from the notion, expressed in Genesis 3:16, that “you shall give birth to your children in pain,” suffering and even death in childbirth being viewed

as a punishment for sin." There is, however, another possible interpretation of this passage that strikes a more responsive chord in the modern reader. Writing in 1115, Abbot Guibert of Nogent relates that his mother had a difficult labor and almost died when he was born. His father passed away eight months later and his mother withdrew from the world when he was only twelve.’? John F, Benton suggests that Guibert carried this knowledge all his life, that it probably explains his terrifying dreams, while a teen-ager, of “dead men,

chiefly those whom I had seen or heard of as slain by swords or some such death,” and that it contributed greatly to making him feel guilty and unworthy.’° In other words, Tristan’s later behavior, say his troubled relations with Mark or with his wife, Isolt of the White Hands, might be due, at least in part, to the circumstances surrounding his birth.

I offer the preceding suggestion with the following caveat. Depri-

231

Birth of the Hero... vation of maternal love is known to cause severe emotional, physical, and intellectual disturbances in some children, but these ill effects are more likely

to occur when the mother is lost after the child is six months or older and when no suitable caretaker comes into the picture. When a stable and sympathetic surrogate steps in, malfunctions are generally averted.” In the case of Tristan, the marshal (Roald le Foitenant) amply serves this purpose.'® Therefore, an interpretation of Tristan’s later problems based on the fact that his mother died in childbirth must be approached with great caution. The dire consequences of Blancheflor’s death predicted for Tristan in Thomas’ poem are based on superstition, perhaps influenced by the familiar topos of marvels accompanying the birth of the hero.” Also, in literary tradition, pity tinged with awe at times surrounds an orphan, especially one whose mother dies giving birth.” There is continuity, too, in the belief that a child born under such calamitous circumstances may, paradoxically, be destined for greatness. In folklore, Snow White and Dick Whittington are perhaps the most celebrated characters whose mothers die in childbirth.”' Be that as it may, the most meaningful parallel of all may be the Biblical story of Rachel (Genesis 35:16-18): They left Bethel, and while they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel began to be in labour, and her pains were severe. But in her difficult delivery the midwife said to her, “Do not be

afraid; you have another son here.” At the moment when she breathed her last, for she was dying, she named him Ben-oni. His father however named him Benjamin.” The main points of contact with Scripture are: (1) the love between

the mother and father is deep and affecting (Genesis 29:18); (2) the mother dies in the throes of childbirth; (3) the child’s name refers to the sorrow attendant upon his birth but also reflects his destiny. Additionally, in an earlier part of the Bible story: (4) two women, Rachel and Leah (cf. Isolt and Isolt of the White Hands), are rivals for the affection of the same man (Genesis 29:15-30); and (5) a bride is substituted through deceit (Genesis 29:23-26; cf. Brangien). All five of these elements appear in Bédier’s reconstruction of the poeme primitif, the lost French work that he believed to be the source of the poems by Eilhart, Béroul, and Thomas, and the Prose Tristan. At first blush, then, it would appear that any major effect the story of Rachel may have had on the development of the Tristan story preceded Thomas, who probably composed his romance in the third quarter of the twelfth century, that 232

G. J. Brault is, several years after the presumed date of the poéme primitif. However, it should be noted, pace Bédier 2: 195, that the naming of

Tristan to reflect the sadness of his birth (item 3 above) is an important concept first attested in Thomas and, consequently, was not necessarily found in the archetype.* Also, even if the Biblical story helped shape the poeme primitif, it could well have resonated with Thomas, too, who may have added and exploited this particular idea in his romance. Throughout the Middle Ages, Rachel was revered by Jews as one of the four matriarchs.”* Christian exegetes saw in her a prefiguration of Mary, sister of Martha and friend of Jesus (Luke 10:38-42).”” But the memory of her sorrowful death in childbirth was also kept alive by her tomb, located, according to a venerable tradition, on the outskirts of Bethlehem.” Mentioned by many early Christian writers and pilgrims, the burial place was later sheltered by a domed building erected by the Crusaders in the twelfth century.” Restored by Sir Moses Montefiore in 1841, Rachel’s tomb is still visited today by people of all faiths, especially by women praying for a child or a safe delivery.” The tragic deaths of Rivalen and Blancheflor in the first part of Thomas’ romance, which foreshadow the passing of Tristan and Isolt in the second, are probably the most effective and elegant instances of doubling by the poet. As for the birth of the heroes, it has often been suggested that certain courtly themes and motifs in this poem, notably Tristan’s veneration of his beloved’s statue in the Salle aux Images episode and the wearing of a hair shirt by Isolt, are patterned upon religious imagery. This, then, is an added reason why the Biblical story of Benjamin’s wondrous birth deserves to be considered as the possible model for that of Thomas’ hero.

NOTES ‘oseph Bédier, ed., Le Roman de Tristan par Thomas. 1 (Paris: Firmin Didot,

1902). See Merritt R. Blakeslee, “The Pattern(s) of the Heroic Biography: Structure and Sense in the Tristan of Thomas of Britain,” Michigan Academician 9 (1978-79). All references to the Saga are to The Saga of Tristram and Isénd, trans., Paul Schach (Lincoln: U of Nebraska

P, 1973).

’See, for example, my paper entitled “Le Rituel de la chasse dans le Tristan de Thomas,” Actes du 14e Congrés International Arthurien. 1 (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes 2, 1984) 112-19.

Pisco)

Birth of the Hero... ‘Michael Benskin, Tony Hunt, and Ian Short, “Un Nouveau

fragment du Tristan de Tho-

mas,” Romania 113 (1992-95) 289-319. See Gérard J. Brault, “L’Amer, l’amer, la mer: la scéne des aveux dans le Tristan de Thomas a la lumiére du Fragment de Carlisle,” Miscellanea Mediaevalia: Mélanges offerts @ Philippe Ménard, 1 (Paris: Champion, 1998) 215-26. 5Gaston Paris, “Christian von Troyes. Cligés,” Journal des Savants (1902) 355-56; Bédier 1: 146.

‘Susan Dannenbaum, “Doubling and Fine Amor in Thomas’ Tristan,” Tristania 5 (1979) 3-14; W. Ann Trindade, “Time, Space, and Narrative Focus in the Fragments of Thomas’s Tristan,” Romance Philology 32 (1978-79) 387-96; Matilda T. Bruckner, “The

Representation of the Lovers’ Death: Thomas’ Tristan as Open Text,” Tristania 9 (1983-84) 49-61.

7Merritt R. Blakeslee, Love’s Masks: Identity, Intertextuality and Meaning in the Old French Tristan Poems (Cambridge: Brewer, 1989) 17. ‘In a series of marginal notes, Bédier 1: 13 shows

that the essence

of these

monologues is corroborated by Gottfried. Jean Frappier, Clirétien de Troyes, l'homme et l’euvre, 2nd ed. (Paris: Hatier, 1957) 113; Pierre Jonin, Les Personnages féminins dans les romans francais de Tristan au XIle siécle: Etude des influences contemporaines (Aix-en-Provence: Ophrys, 1958) 179, 201; Raymond J. Cormier, One Heart One Mind: The Rebirth of Virgil’s Hero in Medieval French Romance (University of Mississippi Romance Monographs, 1973) 39 n15.

"For the meaning of honor here, which designates not only respect and high rank but also the tenure of land, see George F. Jones, Thie Ethos of the Song of Roland (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins P, 1963) 46-48. "Rivalin names his new-born son and promptly turns him over to a wet-nurse. Later, he confides him to a squire, Kurneval (Governal), who becomes his tutor. When the youth’s education is complete, Rivalin grants him permission to travel abroad. Rivalin is not heard from again until we learn that he has passed away (Eilhart von Oberge, Tristrant, trans. J. W. Thomas [Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1978] 140). See Irvine Loudon, Death in Childbirth: An International Study of Maternal Care and Maternal Mortality 1800-1950 (Oxford: Clarendon P, 1992) 85, 97-102. In the modern

period, a large number of women died in childbirth as a result of puerperal fever, an infection of the uterus during or after delivery. The nature of this disease was only understood beginning in the 1880's, the turning point coming with the introduction of sulfa drugs in the 1930's and, especially, of penicillin in the 1940's (Loudon 44-57, 255).

"Natascha Wiirzbach and Simone M. Salz, Motif-Index of the Child Corpus: The English and Scottish Popular Ballad, trans. Gayna Walls (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1995), nos. 15, 16, 64, and 91.

“Margaret L. Hammer, Giving Birth: Reclaiming Biblical Metaphor for Pastoral Practice (Louisville: John Knox P, 1994) 132, citing Martin Luther.

Self and Society in Medieval France: The Memoirs of Abbot Guibert of Nogent (1064?-c. 1125), ed. John F. Benton (New York and Evanston: Harper & Row, 1970) 12, 16. ‘Benton 12, 18, 25. For analogous modern

examples, see Eileen Simpson, Or-

phans Real and Imaginary (New York: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1987). For psychoanalyti-

cal considerations, see Carolyn Dever, Death and the Mother From Dickens to Freud: Victo-

234

G. J. Brault rian Fiction and the Anxiety of Origins (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998). Lawrence

Casler, Maternal Deprivation: A Critical Review of Literature, Mono-

graphs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 26:2 (1961); American Handbook of Psychiatry, ed. Silvano Arieti (New York: Basic Books, 1966) 3: 23.

‘See my article entitled “Le Personnage de Roald le Foitenant dans le Tristan de Thomas,” Plaist vos oir bone cancon vaillant? Mélanges de langue et de littérature médiévales offerts a Frangois Suard, eds. Dominique Boutet et al. 1. Collection UL3 Travaux et Recherches (Villeneuve d’Ascq [Nord]: Université Charles de Gaulle-Lille 3, SRED, 1999) 1: 125-31.

Bédier believed that two details found in Eilhart probably corresponded to the lost original but were altered independently by Thomas and the author of the Prose Tristan: (1) Blancheflor gives birth while on a voyage at sea; (2) she dies before Tristan is actually born, forcing her attendants to cut the baby from her womb. According to Bédier, the first change was made for narrative economy. As for the second, “un trait de fatalisme populaire, destiné a marquer Tristan dés sa naissance d’un signe de malheur” (2 [1905]:197), the French authors were either ignorant of folk beliefs or they considered a violent surgical operation to be unsuitable in a courtly romance (2: 196-97). See Nicole Loraux, Tragic Ways of Killing a Woman, trans. Anthony Forster (Cambridge:

Harvard

UP, 1987). Idem, “Le Lit, la guerre,”

L’Homme:

Revue Francaise

d’Anthropologie 21 (1981) 37-67, notes that the Greeks equated parturition to combat, a womar’s pains in bringing forth a child to a warrior’s suffering, and dying in childbirth to the male hero’s self-sacrifice.

2This notion is satirized by Rabelais who relates that the giant Pantagruel’s mother Badebec “mourut du mal d’enfant” (Rabelais, Evvres, ed. Abel Lefranc [Paris:

Champion, 1912-31] 3: 30, citing a parallel in Folengo). 2Ben-oni ‘son of my sorrow,’ Benjamin ‘son of the right hand (= son of happy omen).’ See The Jerusalem Bible (Garden City: Doubleday, 1966) 57, n. f. Samuel H. Dresner, Rachel (Minneapolis: Fortress P, 1994) 101-02: “According to medical authorities, a careful study of the text suggests that the birth was in an impacted breech position in which the lower trunk of the infant appears first, with the straightened legs drawn up against the stomach. This possibility would explain how the midwife knew the baby’s gender during the birth and why the process was so prolonged and so painful (first she was dying [meytah], then she died [vatamot]). It would also suggest a plausible cause of death, fatal hemorrhage due presumably to the midwife’s tearing of the uterus.”

“Now Laban had two daughters, the elder named Leah, and the younger Rachel. There was no sparkle in Leah’s eyes, but Rachel was shapely and beautiful, and Jacob had fallen in love with Rachel. So his answer was, ‘I will work for you seven years to win your younger daughter Rachel’” (Genesis 29:16-18). 4Bédier 2: 168-87, 194-319.

See also Gertrude Schoepperle Loomis, Tristan and Isolt: A Study of the Sources of the Romance, 2nd ed. (New York: Burt Franklin, 1970) 100: “The explanation that Tristan was thus named on account of the tragic circumstances of his birth is not given in Eilhart. It is a natural omission, since German hearers could not be expected to appreciate the French etymology.” Encyclopedia Judaica. 13 (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1971) 1490. 7Louis Réau, Iconographie de l'art chrétien. 1 (Paris: PUF, 1956) 148; Lexicon der

235

Birth of the Hero... christlichen Ikonographie, eds. Engelbert Kirschbaum et al. 3 (Rome, Freiburg, Basel, Vienna: 1971) 491-92.

*The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, ed. Isaac Landman. 9 (New York: The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, Inc., 1943) 64; Encyclopedia Judaica 13: 1486-91; Rivka Gonen, Biblical Holy Places: An Illustrative Guide (New York: Macmillan, 1987) 68-69. The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, ed. Marcus N. Allen (London: Oxford UP, 1907) 25 and nl; Encyclopedia Judaica 13:1490 (Eusebius); Egeria’s Travels to the Holy Land, trans. John Wilkinson, rev. ed. (Jerusalem: Ariel Publishing House, and Warminster, En-

gland: Aris, 1981) 162 and n1 (The Pilgrim of Bordeaux); E.D. Hunt, Holy Land Pilgrimage in the Later Roman Empire AD 312-460 (Oxford: Clarendon P, 1982) 93 (Origen), 149, n107 (Eusebius). *Gonen 69,

236

JOAN TASKER GRIMBERT

The Catholic University of America

Chrétien, the Troubadours, and the Tristan Legend: The Rhetoric of Passionate Love in D’Amors quim’a tolua mot

It has long been a critical commonplace that Chrétien de Troyes was profoundly hostile to the Tristan legend, that it both fascinated and repelled him.’ This view is likely to be perpetuated for many years to come, as it is reflected in the constellation of editions and books that have been published recently in France as part of the Champenois poet's “canonization.”’ Philippe Walter’s characterization of Chrétien's work in his contribution to the popular Que sais-je? collection is fairly typical: he depicts Chrétien as working relentlessly throughout his career to discover “un mythe exemplaire accessible aux hommes de son temps qu’ilveut arracher a la séduction trouble de la légende tristanienne.”* It is, of course, Jean Frappier to whom we owe the most influential

presentation of this view. In a seminal article published in 1959, “Vues sur les Conceptions courtoises dans les littératures d’oc et d’oil au XII° siécle,”* Frappier claimed that, whereas the troubadours had used the legend as little more than a rhetorical figure, seeing no conflict between “Tristan-love” and fine amor,’ Chrétien had recognized the paradox and succeeded in making a lucid distinction between the fated and fatal passion of Tristan and Iseut and the essence of fine amor founded on the choice of a beloved involving reason and free will (“un amour d’élection ot ne s’annihilent pas raison et volonté” [146]).’ Frappier found support for this claim in the allusion to the Tristan legend contained in one of the two chansons attributed to Chrétien, D’Amors qui m’a tolu a moi. His reading, which has been routinely adopted by nearly every scholar who has studied this song since, is that Chrétien was setting up an opposition between a passion imposed from without (by a love potion) and one dictated from within (by one’s heart and will). According to Frappier, D’Amors contains the concise expression of Chrétien’s most cherished notion about passionate love, which is then expanded in his romances,

particularly in Cligés, where Fenice is careful to define her conduct in opposition to that of Iseut. But a closer look at the process of enamorment described both in D’Amors and in Cligés reveals that free will and reason do not

The Rhetoric...

actually preside at the moment at which each protagonist’s heart becomes inflamed with love, however much the lover may reflect on the process set off by the initial impetus. As I have shown ina study devoted specifically to this question in Cligés, the onset of love in the case of all four lover-protagonists (Soredamors, Alixandre, Fenice, and Cligés) is as sudden and irreversible as it is in the Tristan legend where the love philter merely substitutes for the Ovidian topos of Love’s arrow. I propose in this essay to re-examine Chrétien’s “love doctrine” as set out in D’Amors in order to demonstrate that the type of love that the Champenois poet seems to favor is in fact not so radically different from the passionate love to which Tristan and Iseut are subjected by virtue of their having consumed the love philter. The two songs attributed unreservedly to Chrétien are Amors tengon et bataille and D’Amors qui m’a tolu a moi.” Although Frappier cites only the second piece, it is instructive to examine it alongside the first one, since they constitute Chrétien's entire “known” lyric euvre. According to Anne Berthelot, both chansons are variations on the motif of love service, on the concept that

the poet-lover,"’ totally subjugated by Love, is willing to serve it without expectation of the slightest reward (1452). The first lyric begins with an expression of the poet-lover’s awareness that he is sorely mistreated by Amors, the very suzerain he serves, despite the fact that all his efforts are deployed in the defense of her domain or franchise (stanza I)."' In stanza II he asserts that he is prepared to defend Love forever without expecting recompense, that he would never do battle with Love itself, because he would never want to be

free of its dominion. An important theme is introduced in stanza III where the poet-lover states that one must be “cortois et sages” (17) to know anything of Love, but that Love will exact a toll from anyone who wishes to enter her domain: “Raison li covient despandre/Et mettre mesure en gages” (2324). Clearly, the loss of raison and mesure is a price he himself is willing to pay, and he reiterates in stanza IV that indeed he is prepared to serve Love gratuitously; it pleases him “senz raison rendre” (31) to suffer for Love's benefit. Stanza V contains the clearest formulation of the poet-lover’s belief (stated in the two preceding stanzas) that one must forfeit reason in order to be worthy of Love: Molt m’a chier Amors vendue S’onor et sa seignorie, K’a l’entree ai despendue Mesure et raison guerpte. Lors consalz ne lor aiue Ne me soit jamais rendue: Je lor fail de compaignie, N’i aient nule atendue. (33-40) 238

J. Grimbert Not only does the poet-lover renounce mesure and raison as the price for being under Love's sway, he claims that he never again wants to enjoy their counsel or aid. Moreover, he announces that he is quitting their company for good and that they should have no expectation of his return. In the remaining two stanzas he reiterates his desire to remain always under Love's sovereignty,

even if merciz and pitiez do not come to his aid. Marie-Claire Zai translates the first verse of stanza V as “Amour m‘a vendu trop chérement” (485 — my emphasis), but this rendering does not convey accurately the poet-lover’s attitude. He has already described in stanza III the toll that Love will exact from any would-be fin amant, but he makes it

plain throughout this song — and nowhere more than in stanza V — that he does not consider the price too steep. As Zai herself states in her commentary on this song: “Dans toute la piéce, Chrétien réaffirme son choix de ‘la soumission totale du poéte-amant 4 la loi du seigneur Amour, si injuste soitil” (463). Why then transform “molt” into “trop” in this verse? It is presumably because she agrees with Frappier’s contention that in the second song attributed to Chrétien, D’Amors qui m’a tolu a mot, the poet emphasizes the role of reason and free will in the choice of one’s beloved. It is time now to turn our attention to this chanson. In the initial stanza of D’Amors qui m’a tolu a moi, the poet-lover claims that Amors has “taken him out of himself,” even though she does not

wish to retain him for herself. He alternates between lamenting his mistreatment and reiterating his total submission to her. Recognizing that she may do as she wishes, he cannot help complaining that people who deceive her manage to attain joie, whereas he, who is her faithful disciple, does not. In stanza II, he reasons that if Love wishes to convert her enemies, she should

not fail her own disciples; as for him, he cannot separate himself from the one he serves.’? He underscores this helplessness by making statements that demonstrate the very futility even of redoubling his efforts to serve her: he cannot send her his heart, since it is already hers, nor does he feel he is really serving her if he is only giving her what he owes her! In stanza III he explores further the irony of his situation, asking his lady if she is grateful that he is hers: “Nenil,” he concludes, stating that from what he knows of her, she

actually regrets that he serves her. He adds: “Et puis que vos ne me volez,/ Dont sui vostre par ennui” (23-24). He ends the stanza with a plea that if she were to have pity on someone, it should be on him, because he can serve no

other. In these first three stanzas, then, we see that Chrétien’s poet-lover has no control over his passion. Love, in taking him out of himself, has

deprived him of all personal initiative, of all action independent of Love’s will. Since the concepts of measure and reason are inoperable in this situation, choice does not even come into play. Similarly, in the last two stanzas,

hae

The Rhetoric...

he will tell his heart to remain with his lady, despite her refusal to compen-

sate him (stanza V). He asserts that he has never tired of beseeching her and concludes that he begs her again and again in vain, like one who cannot serve Love falsely or flatter her: “Proi et reproi sanz esploitier,/Conme cil qui ne set a gas/ Amors servir ne losengier” (52-54). Thus, the “love doctrine” expounded in stanzas I-III and V-VI of D’Amiors qui m’a tolu a moi is remarkably similar to that found in Amors tencon et bataille. Does the content of stanza IV of D’Amors with its notorious allusion to Tristan really reverse this situation? Since the love doctrine we have examined does not differ from that found in most troubadour poetry, before proceeding to an analysis of stanza IV of D’Amors it might be useful to compare the attitude of Chrétien’s poetlover to that expressed by Bernart de Ventadorn in his most famous song, Can vei la lauzeta mover. The loss of identity and of self depicted in stanza II of this song is similar to that described in the first few verses of Chrétien's D’Amors: Tout m’a mo core tout ma me Ese mezeis e tot lo mon; Ecanse.m tolc, no.m laisset re

Mas dezirer e cor volon. (13-16) (She has stolen my heart, and stolen my self/ And herself and all the world;/

And when she took herself away, she left me nothing/ Except desire and a longing heart.’ ) The poet-lover goes on to explain the source of this loss of self-control in a way that may help us understand the Tristan reference in Chrétien's song: Anc non agui de me poder Nino fui meus de I’or’en sai Que.m liasset en sos olhs vezer

En un miralh que mout me plai. Miralhs, pus me mirei en te, M’an mort li sospir de preon, C’aissi.m perdei com perdet se Lo bels Narcisus en la fon. (17-24) (Never have I had power over myself/Or belonged to myself from the very hour/That she let me see into her eyes/Into a mirror that pleases me greatly./ Mirror, since I gazed deeply at you,/ Deep sighs have slain me;/I have destroyed myself just as the beautiful Narcissus destroyed himself in the fountain.)

240

J. Grimbert The catalyst that caused Bernart’s poet-lover to fall in love was his lady’s eyes. Like many a protagonist in medieval lyric and romance, he has been subjugated by the beauty of his lady, which has pierced his heart like an arrow and transformed him utterly. Sarah Kay reads these verses in the light of the twelfth-century Lai de Narcisse, which emphasizes the tragedy of nonreciprocity: the metaphor of the mirror “is simply the eternal complaint of the troubadour that his lady is unresponsive and unkind, that his suffer-

ings are as intense as they are unmerited, and that if she has any conscience at all she will show him some favour while there is still time.” According to Ruth H. Cline, Bernart was the first known poet in the West to use the eye as a love catalyst, and one of the most elaborate descriptions of the process is found in Chrétien's Cligés.'> Cline observes that Foster Guyer, seeking Chrétien’s source for this metaphor in Ovid,'* traced it to Narcissus, but contrary to common belief, the source is not the Latin poet

(where love does not enter the heart through the eye) but rather Greek literature, where love does invade the soul through the eye, and Arabic erotic literature (e.g. The Dove's Neck Ring and The Arabian Nights), which alone

includes “the motif of the eye as an active agent in the affairs of love and its attendant metaphor, the eye that sends a dart into the heart of another through the eyes” (289). In Plato’s Phaedrus, as later in Arabic literature and in Chrétien, “the eye conceived of as the gateway to the soul is represented by a mirror. It reflects the feelings of the heart outward, and reflects outward forms inward” (280). Comparing the imagery of Bernart’s song with that found in Chrétien's we note that although Bernart’s poet-lover, unlike Chrétien’s, will eventually express his determination to renounce love by ceasing to sing,” his description of the state to which Love subjects the fin amant is typical, and it is clearly this very state to which Chrétien’s poet-narrator refers in Amors tencon et bataille and in stanzas I-III and V-VI of D’Amors. Yet in the oft-quoted stanza IV of D’Amors, Frappier and nearly all critics who have followed him, including Berthelot and Zai, claim to discover an important distinction by which Chrétien sets himself apart from his peers. The troubadours were pleased to identify with Tristan, who had a great capacity for suffering, which he owed to his love ardor. But in stanza IV of D’Amors, according to Frappier and his disciples, Chrétien’s poet-lover makes a distinction between Tristan and himself: Tristan was compelled to love Iseut, whereas the poet-lover has chosen of his own free will to love his lady. Now, if he has indeed exercised free will in this matter, it would be a complete reversal of the

“doctrine” that we have seen expounded everywhere else in Chrétien’s two songs. It is time at last to examine this famous stanza to see if the oft-cited distinction is valid:

241

The Rhetoric...

Onques du buvrage ne bui Dont Tristan fu enpoisonnez;

Mes plus me fet amer que lui Fins cuers et bone volentez. Bien en doit estre miens li grez, Qu’ainz de riens efforciez n’en fui,

Fors que tant que mes euz en crui, Par cui sui en la voie entrez

Donc ja n’istrai n’ainc n’en recrui. (28-36)

Since translation involves a good deal of interpretation, it is instructive to compare Zai’s and Frappier’s renderings of this stanza in modern French: ° Zai: “Jamais je n'ai bu du breuvage/ dont Tristan fut empoisonné,/ mais mon cceur fidéle et ma volonté sincére/ me font aimer encore plus que lui./ On doit bien men savoir gré,/ puisque jamais je n’ai été contraint a cet amour,/ Sauf que j'ai eu confiance en mes yeux:/c’est par eux que je me suis engage dans cette voie/ que je ne quitterai, et n’ai jamais cessé de suivre” (461). ¢ Frappier: “Je n’ai jamais bu du breuvage/ dont Tristan fut empoisonné,/ mais ce qui me fait aimer mieux que lui,/c’est tendresse profonde du coeur et volonté droite./Je dois consentir a cet amour de mon plein gré,/car jamais il ne me prit de force,/sauf dans la mesure ou je me suis fié A mes yeux/ qui mont guidé vers le chemin/ dont je ne sortirai jamais et que toujours j’ai voulu suivre” (153— my emphasis). Zai’s translation is fairly literal, unlike Frappier’s, which appears to have been unduly influenced by the critic’s determination to highlight as much as possible the role of the poet-lover’s (supposed) initiative and will. This desire even led Frappier to misread the fifth verse: causing the poetlover to say that he must consent to this love willingly, whereas he actually says that his lady should be grateful (that he loves with “fins cuer et bone volentez”). The exact meaning of the key phrase “fins cuers et bone volentez” is unfortunately not clear, but Frappier’s translation, “tendresse profonde du coeur et volonté droite,” does less to illuminate it than do the verses that follow. The poet first states that he was not constrained or forced in any way to love his lady, an assertion that seems to reinforce the distinction highlighted by Frappier. But then he adds an important caveat: he was not constrained in any way except in that he believed his eyes. Clearly, the catalyst for the poet's love is, as in Bernart’s famous canso, the sight of the lady, and since it is the lady’s beauty that traditionally inflames the heart of the troubadour, the manner in which Chrétien’s poet-lover describes the birth of his

love constitutes a hyperbolic compliment: my love is greater than Tristan’s 242

J. Grimbert

because I was not constrained by anything . .. except by your great beauty. Indeed, as Peter Haidu demonstrated in a detailed semiotic analysis

of this lyric published some twenty years ago, the “bone volentez” to which the poet-lover alludes in stanza IV is only his will or willingness to submit to Love’s commands; the process by which the poet is seduced by the evidence of his eyes — his lady’s beauty — in fact involves no less of a constraint than does the imbibing of a love philter. Haidu recognized how important it was to interpret the poet’s language correctly, for as he pointed out it was on Frappier’s misinterpretation that was based the whole concept of free will as an essential element of fine amor: Largely on the basis of this text, freedom of will in selecting and serving the love object has been given as a crucial element in the doctrine of fin’amors. Implicit in this doctrine is the presupposed notion of the Subject as an independent, free-moving entity, set over and against an external world radically differentiated from that Subject and his consciousness (21)." Although Haidu’s article appeared in 1981, it seems to have had little effect. Unfortunately, it appeared too late to influence the authors of two books describing Chrétien's ideas on love: Leslie T. Topsfield’s Chrétien de Troyes: A Study of the Arthurian Romances (1981) and Peter S. Noble’s Love and Marriage in Chrétien de Troyes (1982).'° Zai’s 1974 edition of Chrétien’s lyrics appeared well before Haidu’s article, but it is puzzling that she apparently did not consult his article for the critical edition of Amors tencon et bataille and

D’Amors qui m'a tolu a moi that she produced to accompany Charles Meéla’s and Olivier Collet’s 1994 edition of Cligés. Haidu’s article is not even cited in Zai’s 1994 bibliography, and her commentary on D’Amors in the later edition reveals that she still adheres steadfastly to Frappier’s interpretation: La strophe IV semble I’écho d’une polémique: a la passion aveugle de l’amant d’Iseut suscitée par la vertu occulte d’un philtre magique, le trouvére champenois oppose un amour souverain et volontaire. Face a la légende celtique, Chrétien de Troyes, dans Cliges et dans la strophe IV D’Amors, qui m’a tolu a moi, adresse d'une maniere agressive, tout a la fois comme une réponse au Tristan, au confrére

concurrent Thomas—évidente polémique ou inquiétude de moraliste — et comme I’affirmation d’ une conception de la fin’amors, amour d’élection ot la volonté des amants garde sa part face a la fatalité de la passion que symbolise le ‘buvrage”” (464-65).

Considering how little known is Haidu’s stunning revisionist inter243

The Rhetoric... pretation of D’Amors, it is hardly surprising that most critics persist in following Frappier and Zai and, secure in their belief that Chrétien was hostile to the Tristan legend, insist on the distinction between Tristan-love and the interpretation of fine amor to which the romanciers d’oil supposedly subscribed.”! Berthelot’s commentary on stanza IV of D’Amors published just a few years ago testifies (as does Zai’s) to the tenacity of this belief. She states that the poet's love is superior to Tristan’s because it is not caused by artificial means, “c’est-a-dire par le philtre, mais par la beauté de la dame, passée au filtre des yeux de son amant” (1453). She goes on to note what seems like a strange paradox: whereas in the rest of the two songs (i.e., everywhere but in stanza IV of D’Amors) the poet insists that Love is incompatible with reason and measure: ...il suggére ici que l’amour qu'il éprouve pour sa dame vient d’un raisonnement parfaitement justifiable: selon le code de l'amour que l’on dit courtois, on aime la plus belle, la plus sage, la plus digne d’amour; bref, on aime parce qu’il est raisonnable d’aimer. C’est

cette théorie de l'amour juste et légitime que défend la seconde chanson, contre l’amour-passion fatale qui unit Tristan et Yseut (145354). Notwithstanding Berthelot’s prudent use of the verb suggérer, we detect in this commentary a considerable amount of special pleading or extrapolation that the text of this chanson simply does not support, especially the contention that the love the poet feels comes from a “ perfectly justifiable reasoning” and that one loves because it is reasonable to love. Moreover, her use of word-

play to distinguish between the force of the love pliilter and that of the lady’s beauty passed through the filter of her lover's eyes detracts from this distinction, since it actually reminds us that according to the imagery used by Chrétien in Cligés, the lady’s eyes send out arrows that pass into the lover's heart to inflame him with love. Berthelot herself in a note to v. 34 of this song (where the poet alludes to his lady’s eyes) asserts that reference is made here to the traditional process of enamorment, according to which the lover’s

eyes are the means of access toward his heart for the arrows launched by the lady’s eyes (1457). Again, we are reminded of the loss of self in Bernart’s poem caused when the poet sets eyes on his lady. Now, by the time Chrétien was writing, the love philter had passed from the status of an actual agent in the onset of love (in the Béroul tradition of the legend) to that of a synbol for enamorment (in the Thomas tradition). This shift is considered to be one of the main components that distinguishes these two traditions.” Chrétien undoubtedly knew Thomas’s version of the legend, and in the prologue to Cligés he claims to have written a version 244

J. Grimbert himself. Under these conditions, we must ask ourselves if Chrétien really believed that the love philter was a love catalyst any more artificial than Love’s arrows? It is instructive in this context to consult Gottfried’s description of the effects of the love potion on Tristan and Isolde, where the narrator insists on the fact that Love has “limed” their eyes such that their love increases as they gaze upon one another.” Although Gottfried’s romance is later than Chrétien’s, it is likely that his commentary is based on Thomas’s.™ The reference in Gottfried to the gaze that the lovers fix on each other reminds us that one of the hallmarks of Tristan’s and Iseut’s passion is its perfect reciprocity, and it is this characteristic of Tristan-love, more than any other, that sets it apart from the love described in the songs of the troubadours. Given the emphasis in both of Chrétien’s lyrics that the poetlover puts on the lady’s failure to reciprocate, the allusion to the celebrated legend may actually be designed to highlight discreetly the poet-lover’s determination to persevere despite his lady’s cruelty. This is the only sense in which his love might be considered “superior” to Tristan’s. But if Chrétien was using the Tristan allusion for such a purpose, it would hardly indicate hostility on his part. Indeed, the shift toward reciprocity represents the most dramatic change in the situation of the lover as we move from Chrétien’s lyric euvre to his romances. For if the lover-protagonists in his romances generally suffer pangs at the thought that their nascent love is not reciprocated, they quickly learn that the object of their affection shares their passion. Chrétien's clever juxtaposition of the two love catalysts in stanza IV of D’Amors qui m’a tolu a moi, with its circular reasoning and adversative structure, is wholly in keeping with the ironic style that characterizes the discourse of the protagonists in his romances. Berthelot makes a similar assertion,” but with a particular caveat, since she specifies that in the romances “les monologues ou dialogues de casuistique courtoise sont en général marqués par une certaine ironie de la part du narrateur, alors que les conditions d’énonciation de la chanson ne permettent évidemment pas cet effet de distanciation” (1453). This distinction appears eminently sensible, but is it valid? We must use considerable caution when examining the poetic voice in Chrétien’s lyrics, for if irony is omnipresent in the discourse of Chrétien’s romance narrators, it is likely to be present in that of his lyric narrator. And whereas the composer of a lyric poem may find it difficult to distance himself from his narrator-lover, precisely because the persona he constructs is also a poet, he can still indulge in irony; indeed, Chrétien does so throughout D’Amors, not only in stanza IV, but also and especially in stanzas II and III, as we have seen.” Another technique typical of Chrétien is his use of the figure of hyperbolic comparison by which he appears to be claiming that he loves even more intensely than Tristan because the love 245

The Rhetoric...

philter was not the source of his passion:” since we have shown that the lady’s eyes are no less compelling a catalyst than the potion, even the use of this figure is ironic — and supremely so. Chrétien’s pervasive irony and the intertextual web he weaves throughout his @uvre may well make it impossible to know how he really felt about the Tristan legend, as Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner has suggested.* Her attitude is echoed by a student of hers, Daniel O’Sullivan, who has concluded from a musico-poetic analysis of D’Amors qui m’a tolu a moi that the strong presence of melodic and syntactic ambiguity in this song sets up numerous unresolved tensions which we are invited to relish.” The comparison between the poet-lover and Tristan in stanza IV falls squarely into this category. There are multiple allusions to the Tristan legend in Chrétien's euvre, but their mere presence does not mean that the Champenois poet was haunted or obsessed by the legend —only that the Cornish lovers were a convenient point of reference, for they evoked certain qualities, such as beauty, cleverness, and especially ardor (which included their capacity for great suffering, as well as for great joy). Two important conclusions emerge from the foregoing analysis.*! First, itis always beneficial to re-examine critical commonplaces with which

we have lived — uncritically — for a long time; case in point: Chrétien’s presumed hostility to the Tristan legend. Second, it is risky to attempt to reconstruct an author's personal beliefs from lines cited out of context. In this particular instance, it is perilous to extrapolate Chrétien's ideas about love on the basis of a few isolated lines alluding to the Tristan legend that are contained in his lyrics and his romances. We must consider how these allusions work within the context of the lyric or romance in question (indeed, within the Champenois poet-romancer’s entire euvre), and, given Chrétien's tendency to ironize, we must also gauge the suitability of a given character, whether it be his narrator or a Fenice, to act as the poet-romancer’s spokesperson. Even if we narrow the scope of our investigation, as I have done here, to Chrétien's work as a trouvére, we should avoid the temptation to quote verses out of context, not only because Chrétien indulges in frequent wordplay but also because he is clearly composing within an established tradition. In order to understand Chrétien’s attitude toward the Tristan legend as expressed in stanza IV of D’Amors, it is very misleading to cite that stanza only, and even more so to cite only the first four verses of it (see n. 21 above). We must study the entire song and consider as well how it relates to the other song attributed to Chrétien. Does the poet-narrator appear to be celebrating a love characterized by reason, based ona choice arrived at through the exercise of free will? In order to enter Love’s domain, he has found it necessary to surrender raison and mesure. To be sure, he does not seem averse to his situa-

tion, but what is the origin of this passion? — not the love philter but rather 246

J. Grimbert the sight of his lady. For the constraint of the philter Chrétien has simply substituted that of his lady’s piercing beauty, Love's arrow. But constraint there is?..still’

NOTES 'This study builds on a paper, entitled “Chrétien,

the Troubadours,

and the

Tristan Legend: The Rhetoric of Passionate Love in D’Amors qui m’a tol a moi and Cligés,” presented at the 18th International Congress of the International Arthurian Society in Garda, Italy on July 22, 1996.

°A particularly zealous exposition of this theory can be found in Pierre Gallais, Genése du roman occidental. Essais sur Tristan et Iseut et son modéle persan (Paris: Téte de Feuilles et Editions Sirac, 1974). 4See the various introductions to Chrétien’s work in Chrétien de Troyes, CEuvres complétes, ed. and trans. Daniel Poirion, et al. Bibliotheque de la Pléiade, 408 (Paris:

Gallimard, 1994) 1114-30; and the general introduction to Chrétien by Jean-Marie Fritz in Chrétien de Troyes, Romans, ed. and trans. Michel Zink, et al. Classiques Modernes (Paris: Livre de Poche, 1994) 9-42.

On Chrétien's “canonization,”

see Keith Busby’s review of

these editions in Speculum 71 (1996), esp. 405-06.

‘Chrétien de Troyes, Coll. Que sais-je? (Paris: PUF, 1997) 122.

He goes on:

“Avant le Graal, la succession des ceuvres de Chrétien dénotait a la fois une constance et

une progression dans un supréme défi a Tristan. Ce mythe tristanien qui détermina la carriére du romancier champenois sera lentement et lucidement éliminé au profit d’un autre témoignage de l’optimisme raisonné d’un clerc confiant dans le destin divin de Vhomme” (122-23). See my review of this book in Speculum 74 (1999) 531-32. >Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale 2 (1959) 135-56.

6"T] est clair notamment que Bernard de Ventadour et Raimbaut d’Orange n’apercoivent pas la possibilité d’un conflit entre la conception de l'amour fatal et cet élément de volonté et de libre arbitre que cherche a préserver la fine amor. Seuls des romanciers courtois d’oil ont pris conscience de cette contradiction” (153). ™Si la conception de l'amour irrésistible et tout-puissant se trouve en affinité avec la doctrine de la fine amor—Bernard de Ventadour voit en Tristan l'amador un exemple pour les amants voués aux souffrances d’amour,—une antinomie oppose l’amour-passion et ‘amour fatal de Tristan et d’Iseut a l’idée courtoise d’un amour d’élection ou ne s’annihilent pas raison et volonté” (146).

’“On Fenice’s Vain Attempts to Revise a Romantic Archetype and on Chrétien de Troyes’s Fabled Hostility to the Tristan Legend,” in Reassessing the Heroine in Medieval French Literature, ed. Kathy Krause (Gainesville: UP of Florida, 2001).

As Anne Berthelot explains in her commentary on these two songs, which she has edited for the Pléiade edition (cited in n3), although a half-dozen lyric pieces are attributed to Chrétien in manuscripts, currently only these two are considered to have

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The Rhetoric... been authored by him. These are the same two that Marie-Claire Zai singled out in her 1974 edition, Les Chansons courtoises de Chrétien de Troyes (Bern: Herbert Lang; Frankfurt/ M.: Peter Lang). Zai re-edited these two songs to accompany the recent edition of Cligés by Charles Méla and Olivier Collet. Lettres Gothiques (Paris: Librairie Générale Francaise, 1994). All citations and line references to the songs are from Zai’s later edition.

| distinguish between the trouvére Chrétien and his narrator, to whom I refer routinely as the “poet-lover,” for such is the narrator’s persona. “Luciano Rossi sees in the image of Love combatting her faithful champion a paraphrase of the exordium of the 9th Elegy of Ovid’s Amores. The poet-lover’s acceptance of his role as champion for Amors alludes to a feudal relation, which would lend a

technical sense to the word franchise; see “Chrétien de Troyes e i trovatori: Tristan, Linhaura, Carestia,” Vox Romanica 46 (1987) 26-62; here 58-59. In his tenso, Amics Bernartz de Ventadorn, with Peire (presumably Peire d’Alvernhe), Bernart will take the opposite tack, while Peire upholds the view described in Chrétien's lyric as the only position possible for the fin amant. Songs of the Troubadours and Trouvéres, ed. Samuel N. Rosenberg, Margaret Switten, Gérard Le Vot (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998) 68. The translation of this song is Switten’s, though I have replaced her “I mirrored myself in you” by “I gazed deeply at you.” ™"Love in a Mirror: An Aspect of the Imagery of Bernart de Ventadorn,” Medium AEvum 52 (1983) 282.

"Heart and Eyes,” Romance Philology 25 (1971) 289, 263-66.

*"The Influence of Ovid on Chrestien de Troyes,” Romanic Review 12 (1921) 222ff.

“Bernart’s canso has long been seen as an important influence on Chrétien's conception of love as depicted in his songs. Aurelio Roncaglio, in “Carestia,” Cultura Neolatina 18 (1958) 121-37, claimed that Chrétien’s D’Amors was a response to Bernart’s Lauzeta, an intertextual dialogue that he believed included Raimbaut d’Aurenga’s Non chant per auzel ni per flor, whose Carestia senlial supposedly designated Chrétien. The last point has been contested by Costanzo Di Girolamo, “Tristano, Carestia e Chrétien de Troyes,” Medioevo Romanzo 9 (1984) 17-26, who argues that the senhal was addressed to Bernart. Rossi, “Chrétien de Troyes e i trovatori” (cited in n11 above), who supports Roncaglia, does a masterful job of sorting out the web of allusions connecting these three songs. See also Don Alfred Monson, “Bernart de Ventadorn et Tristan,” in Mélanges de langue et de littérature occitanes en hommage a Pierre Bec (Poitiers: U de Poitiers C.E.S.C.M., 1991) 385-400.

®"Text and History: The Semiosis of Twelfth-Century Lyric as Sociohistorical Phenomenon (Chrétien de Troyes: ‘D’Amors qui m/a tolu,’),” Semiotica 33 (1981) 1-62,

esp. 22-25.

“L. T. Topsfield, Chrétien de Troyes: A Study of the Arthurian Romances (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1981); P. S. Noble, Love and Marriage in Chrétien de Troyes (Cardiff: U of Wales Press, 1982).

It is interesting to note that in her commentary on Amors tencon et bataille in the

1994 edition, Zai does not repeat the statement found in her 1974 edition where she resorts

to a metaphor that is particularly ill-chosen (given her conviction) in order to “explain” the

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J. Grimbert poet-lover’s total submission to Love: “dés qu'il a gofité a ce breuvage empoisonné et pourtant délectable, il n’aura plus le choix et se soumettra a l’Amour” (Marie-Claire Zai, ed., Les Chansons courtoises de Chrétien de Troyes 73). Although there is no reference in this first song to any poisonous “buvrage,” Zai had used this metaphor to convey the sheer force of the passion that Chrétien’s poet-lover feels! In his introduction to Chrétien’s works (see n3), Fritz shows how self-evident

he believes Frappier’s interpretation is. After claiming that “le trouvére y refuse sans nee le modéle tristanien” (37), he goes on to cite only vv. 1-4 of this crucial stanza 38). *According

to Daniel Poirion, this transition actually occurred in the second

part of Béroul’s poem and was a fait accompli in Thomas’s poem: “Tristan: du mythe antique au symbole médiéval,” in his Résurgences: Mythe et littérature a l’age du symbole (XIle siécle) (Paris: PUF, 1986) 79-97.

"When from time to time they tried to observe each other through eyes which Love had limed, their flesh assumed

the hue of their hearts and souls”; Gottfried von

Straburg, Tristan, intro. and trans. by A.T. Hatto, rev. ed. (London: Penguin, 1967) 198. Unfortunately, the recently discovered fragment of Thomas’s poem, which includes a portion of the scene where Tristan and Iseut react to the effects of the love potion, begins just after the place in the poem where this description would have occurred; see Michael Benskin, Tony Hunt, and Ian Short, “Un Nouveau fragment du Tristan de Thomas,” Romania 113 (1992-95) 289-319. 5"T ’habileté avec laquelle le poéte déméle l’écheveau des rapports contradictoires entre I’amant-martyr et la déesse d’ Amour rappelle la virtuosité rhétorique dont Chrétien romancier fait preuve lorsqu’il s’agit d’analyser les sentiments de ses personnages” (1453). Irony is likely to be present as well, of course, in the love discourse of his romance protagonists. In fact, the manner in which the four lover-protagonists in Cligés juggle the concepts of constraint and (the illusion of) free will is very similar to the way the poet-lover plays with them in D’Amors—and with the same result. 27Ernst Robert Curtius,

European

Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans.

Willard R. Trask. Bollingen Series (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1953) 162-65. Don A. Monson, “La ‘Surenchére’ chez Chrétien de Troyes,” Poétique 70 (1987) 231-46.

Rev. P. S. Noble, Love and Marriage in Chrétien de Troyes, Romance Philology 39 (1986) 511. »Daniel O'Sullivan, “Chrétien’s ‘D’Amors qui m’a tolu a moi’: motz et sons,”

paper presented at the 33rd International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 10, 1998. I am grateful to the author for the chance to read his paper and for the fruitful e-mail discussion that ensued. As a graduate student at Chicago, the quality of Chrétien’s style that I found most characteristic was his unresolved ambiguity. My dissertation, written under Peter Dembowski’s guidance, was entitled “La Poétique de l’ambiguité: Etude sur le Chevalier au Lion de Chrétien de Troyes”; when it was accepted for publication, I changed the title to underscore the positive effect of this ambiguity, its propensity to provoke reflection, both in the protagonist and the reader: “Yvain” dans le miroir: une poétique de la réflexion dans le “Chevalier au Lion” de Chrétien de Troyes. Purdue U Monographs in Romance Languages, 25 (Philadelphia and Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1988).

Gee Joan Tasker Grimbert, “Tristan and Iseut Embedded in Twelfth-Century Lyric,” paper presented at the 53rd Annual Kentucky Foreign Language Conference, Lexington, Kentucky, April 28, 2000.

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The Rhetoric... ‘They are the fruit of lessons learned from Peter Dembowski in graduate school: critical reading and respect for the original text. The same constraint can be seen in the process of enamorment described not only in Cligés but also in Chrétien’s other romances. It is particularly true of the male protagonists of Erec and Enide and Yvain, both of whom fall in love at first sight, seduced

by the beauty of the women who will become their wives. Of all of Chrétien’s loverprotagonists, only Laudine seems to undergo a process of reasoning as she considers Lunete’s arguments and wills herself to accept as her husband a man she knows only by reputation. We are not informed as to the origin of Lancelot’s love for Gueniévre in Le Chevalier de la Charrette, since the moment of love’s onset is not recounted.

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JEFF RIDER

Wesleyan University

“Wild Oats”: The Parable of the Sower in the Prologue to Chrétien de Troyes’ Conte du Graal

The Conte du Graal is an enigmatic poem, right from the start. It begins with a citation, which had evidently become proverbial,’ from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians—”he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully” (2 Cor. 9.6) —which is followed immediately by an allusion to the parable of the sower, in which we are told that when a sower sowed his seeds one day,

some fell on the path and were eaten by birds, some fell on rocky ground and germinated but then withered away, some fell among thorns and were choked out, and some “’fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty’” (Mt. 13.3-8; cf. Mk. 4.3-8; Lk. 8.5-8).

The combination of these passages in the first six lines of Chrétien’s

poem — Ki petit semme petit quelt, Et qui auques requeillir velt, En tel liu sa semence espande Que fruit a .c. doubles rande;

Car en terre qui riens ne valt Bone semence seche et faut? —

seems logical —if you want a good harvest you must sow a lot of seeds in good ground — but the two biblical passages actually address rather different concerns and are not so congruous as their common figure might at first suggest. In the first instance, Paul is urging the Corinthians to contribute

generously to a fund for poor Christians in Jerusalem. He reminds them, on the one hand, that it is God “who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food” — that their resources and wealth are not theirs, in other words, but are

entrusted to them by God “who is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, [both] so that you may always have enough of everything and [so that you] may provide in abundance for every good work.” On the other

"Wild Oats..." hand, he assures them that they “will be enriched in every way for [their] great generosity,” although the riches he mentions are primarily spiritual: God, he tells them, “ will supply and multiply your resources [lit. your seed (semen vestrum)] and increase the harvest of your righteousness” ; their generosity will “ produce thanksgiving to God,” “will glorify God”; and the recipients of their largesse will “long for you and pray for you” (2 Cor. 9.8-14). The passage thus aims at encouraging the giving of alms—the sowing of material seeds — in return for which the giver will reap a spiritual harvest.’ The parable of the sower, on the other hand, is about communication and education. In it, Jesus tells his disciples, the seed is to be understood

as “the word of the kingdom” or “the word of God” which grows differently in the different hearts in which it is sown. In some hearts, the devil will

snatch it away before it sprouts; it will sprout in others, only to be withered by worldly tribulation or choked out by worldly cares or a delight in worldly riches; only in the hearts of those who “‘understand,’” “accept it,” or ““hold it fast’” will this word bear fruit, albeit not equally even in every “‘honest and good heart’” (Mt. 13.18-23; Mk. 4.14-20; Lk. 8.11-15). The emphasis here is less on the sowing than on the ground which receives the seed and conditions its growth.’ In order to reap bountifully, the parable tells us, it is not sufficient to sow bountifully; one must also sow on good soil, and the better

the soil, the better the harvest. This parable suggests that the fruits of understanding are not a product of the seed alone, but of a coming together of seed and good soil. These two passages share the common figure of sowing and acommon idea that what is sown is supplied by God, but their subjects (generosity, the importance of a fertile receptiveness in understanding what one hears) and the people or ideas figured by the sower (the Corinthians, Jesus), the seed (money, the word of God), the soil (the poor Christians of Jerusalem, those who hear the word of God), and the harvest (gratitude and spiritual

and material rewards; spiritual fruits) are quite different. Chrétien’s combination of these passages thus suggests, at least at first, a rather superficial reading of them. He seems, that is, to have brought them together solely on

account of their common figure, without regard for the different arguments the figure serves in the two passages. The impression that Chrétien has simply skimmed this figure off the surface of these two passages is further enhanced by the rather curious use he makes of it in the following lines of the prologue: Crestiens semme et fait semence

D’un romans que il encomence, Et si le seme en si bon leu Qu’il ne puet [estre] sanz grant preu, 22

J. Rider Qu’il le fait por le plus preudome Qui soit en l’empire de Rome. C’est liquens Phelipes de Flandres, Qui valt mix ne fist Alexandres,

Cil que l’en dist qui tant fu buens. (7-15) Chrétien here becomes the sower (the Corinthians, Jesus!), his romance be-

comes the seed (alms, the word of God!), Philippe becomes the soil (the poor Christians of Jerusalem, those who hear the word of God!), and the promised

harvest (gratitude and spiritual and material rewards; spiritual fruits) is understood in the most concrete and material terms possible: the payment he expects from Philippe in return for writing the romance. The only specie mentioned in the biblical passages, the “seed” the Corinthians are asked to sow among the poor Christians of Jerusalem, here becomes the harvest Chrétien hopes to reap. He also reverses the traditional relation between the poet and his patron— suggesting that he somehow owns Philippe, or at least has the usufruct of him, and casting Philippe in the passive role of field and himself in the active one of sower — and suggests an eyebrow-raising analogy between himself and Jesus as sowers, his romance and God’s word as seeds. When Chrétien wrongly attributes a passage from the first letter of John to one of Paul’s letters a few lines later,> it seems to confirm that neither his interest in, nor his knowledge of, the Bible is profound— it is simply a great place to pilfer pithy mots — and that the sole purpose of the prologue is to flatter (and amuse?) Philippe. Chrétien cites Matthew’s Gospel again a few lines later in the course of his “proof” of Philippe’s superiority to Alexander, noting that Philippe, unlike Alexander, “...done selonc I’Evangille,/Sanz ypocrisie et sanz gille,/ Qu’el dist: «Ne sache ta senestre/Le bien quant le fera ta destre»” (29-32). But this citation of Mt. 6.3, and the more general reminiscence of Mt. 6.1-6 in

vv. 28-46 of the prologue, appear, at least initially, to be nothing more thana

biblical hook on which to hang whatis, as Hunt and Luttrell have shown, an

essentially ethical distinction between interested and disinterested liberality inspired principally by the humanistic, scholarly, neo-classical strain of twelfth-century thought.® Once again, that is, Chrétien seems to have raided

the Bible for a catchy way of illustrating a point. Biblical citation and allusion appear here again to be a rhetorical device. And yet, in ripping the figure of the sower from an earlier context and applying it to the present situation in which it is “fulfilled,” Chrétien is — the practice of figural interpretation of perhaps caricaturing — ing imitat Testament passages from their context Old ripped which the Old Testament, in which they were fulfilled.’ situations y contemporar to them and applied biblical passages to which the in this do , interestingly Both Paul and Jesus, 253

"Wild Oats..." Chrétien alludes in the first six lines of the prologue. Paul (2 Cor. 9.9) cites Psalm 112.9—”’He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor; his righteousness endures forever’” — suggesting, it would seem, that if the Corinthians give

generously to the poor like “the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments” of Psalm 112,% their righteousness, like his, will endure forever, while Jesus, in Matthew’s version of the parable of the

sower, says that the people who hear him and do not understand fulfill “the prophecy of Isaiah.” This prophecy (Is. 6.9-10), which Jesus cites (Mt. 13.14-15), relates the curse God tells Isaiah to lay on the people of Judah and Jerusalem when God calls him to prophesy “in the year that King Uzziah died.” In the verses immediately following the cited curse, Isaiah asks how long it will last and God replies: “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without men, and the land is utterly desolate, and the Lord removes men far away,

and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land’” (Is. 6.11-12). Is it only coincidence that some sixty lines later in the Conte we are introduced to “uli fix a la veve dame/De la gaste forest soutaine” (74-75) whose parents fled to their isolated forest manor when: Apovriet deshireté Et escillié furent a tort Li gentil home aprés la mort Utherpandragon qui rois fu Et peres le bon roi Artu. Les terres furent escillies Et les povres gens avillies, Sis’en fui qui fuir pot . (442-49)

and that this passage from Isaiah should be whispered in the background of the prologue to a poem in which the desolation of kingdoms is so central a theme?? Itis also curious and interesting that the parable of the sower, which provokes a noteworthy discussion concerning the use of figures to communicate knowledge, is alluded to here at the beginning of Chrétien’s most enigmatic romance. When Jesus has told the parable, his disciples ask him: ““Why do you speak to them in parables?” In his response, Jesus distinguishes between those to whom “‘it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven’” (Mt. 13.11) and those to whom it has not been so given, and says that he speaks to the latter, who are “outside,” in parables “so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand’” (Mk. 4.11-12): in order, in sum, to keep the secrets of the kingdom from them (Mt. 13.10-17; Mk. 4.10-13; Lk. 8.9-10).!° A parable is thus an 254

J. Rider

enigma, a means of restricting the accessibility of knowledge to a select group: those who have been given the grace of knowing the secrets of the kingdom of heaven will understand the meaning of the parable, which will be hidden from others. The verses of Matthew to which Chrétien draws our attention in his proof of Philippe’s superiority are likewise found ina part of the Sermon on the Mount preoccupied with secrecy and spiritual rewards. If you practice your piety publicly, says Jesus, “then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven... [W]hen you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you (et Pater tuus qui videt in abscondito reddet tibi).... [W]hen you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.... when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Mt. 6.1, 3-4, 6, 17-18) The emphasis on rewards fits in well with Chrétien’s pecuniary interests,

but it is also intriguing that Jesus here outlines a secret economy in which hidden actions reap hidden spiritual rewards. There is the suggestion, as in the discussion of parables, of a circle of adepts who know the secrets of the kingdom, understand the secret meanings of the enigmas, and perform secret rites which are secretly rewarded —not altogether unlike the Conte’s suggestion of a similar circle of adepts who understand the economies governing the grail, lance and sword Perceval encounters at the Fisher King’s castle, or that governing life at the Roche de Canguin.” Chrétien’s use of biblical citations and allusions in the prologue is thus confusing. He seems, on the one hand, to use them without any appre— without ciation of, or concern for, their significance within their context

even knowing, in one case, the citation’s true context—simply as readymade parts he can incorporate into the rhetorical machine he is building to extract money from Philippe. And yet, on the other hand, the passages from which these citations are drawn or to which he alludes resonate in interesting ways with one another and with the rest of the poem. The notion that the parable of the sower, in particular, was evoked in the prologue —consciously or unconsciously the medieval clerical mind was ure it resonates elusively with the themes of the —because awash in Script poem becomes stronger when one encounters its material, literal basis in the first lines of the story, which begins when Perceval leaves his house one

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"Wild Oats..."

verdissent,” morning “...au tans qu’arbre florissent/ Foillent boschage, pre avaines li ses Qui intending “...que veoir iroit/ Herceors que sa mere avoit/ tions it associa the hercoient” (69-70, 81-83), and when one looks at some of most The ’ wrote. had acquired in medieval culture at the time Chrétien deand tion obvious, most material associations were with human concep writy anatom ian velopment. The Anatomia Cophonis, for example, a Salern ten c. 1080-90, describes the uterus (matrix) as

in which, nature’s field, which is cultivated that it may bear fruit;

when seed is sown, it remains as on good ground and through the cooperative action of natural warmth, and the mediation of vital spirits, it becomes implanted like a germinating seed, and sends out twigs through certain roots or mouths by which it is attached to the uterus.’

The parable is thus associated not only with conception but with the notion of lineage and development, especially the mother’s lineage since her uterus is the soil that conditions the germinating “seed’”’s growth and her blood

medical that nourishes, first, the foetus and then, (according to medieval ideas) transformed into milk, the infant." It is above all the mother’s body, that is, that will determine whether the “seed” will wither and die or yield

thirty, sixty or a hundredfold.

As Matilda Bruckner has pointed out, Chrétien himself uses the

metaphor of sowing in connection with conception and development in Cligés,'> and it is noteworthy that when Perceval’s mother gives him a summary outline of his lineage just before he leaves for Arthur's court, she emphasizes that her lineage is every bit as good as—in fact she seems to suggest that it may be better than—his father’s. The thinking that applied the parable of the sower to human conception and development is thus likewise behind the prophecy in the Conte that Perceval will —at least in part because of his genetic heritage — become the finest knight in the world (1034-66) and the implication of their mothers and maternal relatives in both Perceval’s and Gauvain’s ultimate fate. Jesus, as we have seen, uses the parable of the sower to explain the

importance of receptiveness in understanding and learning, and this figure was likewise applied in educational contexts in the twelfth century. In his De Amore (c. 1185), for example, Andreas Capellanus has Eleanor of Aquitaine declare that it is not always possible for a woman to improve a young man’s moral character through love “for ‘the mere casting of seed does not always harvest breed,’”"® while Aelred of Rievaulx concludes his De Institutione inclusarum (c. 1160-62), composed for his sister, by writing: “I have, sister, devoted myself to sowing these seeds of spiritual meditation for you...in the

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hope that the fruits of divine love may arise and grow from them yet more abundantly.”"” The importance of readiness and receptivity in education is of course also illustrated in the marvelous rapidity of Perceval’s education in the use of arms (1376-1536). If Gornemant de Gohort’s instruction almost instantaneously brings forth chivalric fruit a hundredfold, it is because Perceval is so fertile a field and his “...cuers,” like that of those who “ under-

stand,” “accept,” or “hold fast” the word of God, “del tot ientent” (1482). The parable of the sower received its most intriguing medieval ex-

tension in its application to sexuality, although its application here was rather counter-intuitive. Katrien Heene writes: In order to reconcile the idea that detachment from the body and particularly total sexual control is a principal virtue with the belief in the goodness of the divine creator and with the positive biblical conception of marriage, the Fathers set up a scale of values. Thus the parable of the sower (Mark 4, 3-20; Matt. 13, 3-9) is fully linked to the experience or otherwise [?] of sexuality: all seeds that fall into good earth produce good crop, but it is the virgines who have a hundredfold harvest, the vidue a sixtyfold and the coniugati(ae) a thirtyfold one.’8 This application of the parable is concretely represented by illustrations in two twelfth-century manuscripts of the Speculum virginum discussed by Matthaus Bernards, who likewise prints copies of them. In one, the page is divided into three horizontal panels each containing an image of women harvesting grain. In the top one, four virgins are represented in various stages of harvesting at least six sheafs of grain; in the middle one, four widows have harvested four sheafs and are sowing; in the bottom one, two wives and their

husbands are harvesting two sheafs and are likewise sowing.” The second illustration shows a tree growing from Adam and Eve, divided into three sections, with four branches (two on each side) curling to form circles in each section, with portraits in the circles. The portraits in the lower section, labeled “the thirtyfold fruit of the married,” each contain a man’s and a woman’s head and are flanked on each side by three stalks of grain. The portraits of the middle section, “the sixtyfold fruit of widows,” are of individual women and are flanked by five stalks of grain to the left and right. The two upper portraits of the top section, “the hundredfold fruit of virgins,” each contain a single woman’s head, while the two lower portraits contain two heads, one of which may be that of a beardless man. These portraits are flanked on each side by seven stalks of grain. The tree ends at the top of the page ina flower containing a portrait of Christ.” The allusions to the parable in the prologue and the first lines of the aay |

"Wild Oats..." , a theme of sexual restraint story thus also introduce a sexual theme or, rather

at least. Perceval’s that is echoed at other points in the first part of the story,

ning of the Conte, a chaste mother was, of course, a wife and is, at the begin . It is true that he has virgin a widow, while Perceval himself seems to be

encounters with the kissed his mother’s chambermaids (725-27), but his are not those ofa 2074) (1930maiden in the tent (635-780) and Blancheflor sier’” if a maiden ...lais / ... s roué, and his mother’s admonition to “’Le sorplu have enjoyed it. yet not may allows him to kiss her (547-49) suggests that he onplace of acomm is nt restrai Perceval’s mother’s counsel of sexual , for Manual her In son.” her the medieval genre of “a mother’s advice to “flee to m Willia son her ed example, the Carolingian Dhuoda likewise enjoin of tion tempta the and es fornication,” to “escape the thrill of such embrac of the flesh,” to “keep such turmoil,” to “crush beneath [his]...heels the desire

and your body in virginity...or inthe chastity of the union of marriage,””' by ted motiva y, nobilit other medieval mothers, especially those of the higher human to sower the of e the kind of moral thinking that applied the parabl or.” sexuality, show a similar concern with their sons’ sexual behavi , not only however ted, Perceval’s mother’s advice might be interpre admonias an expression of her concern for her son’s moral status but as an — amor)” (purus love “pure tion to practice what Andreas Capellanus terms and arms, the with ng which “goes as far as kissing on the mouth, embraci chaste contact with the unclothed lover, but the final consolation is avoided, for this practice is not permitted for those who wish to love purely” — rather than “mixed love (mixtus amor)’ — which ends “in the final act of love.” Pure

ed in love, according to Andreas, is the most refined sort of love (it is mention

the dialogue between a man and woman of the highest nobility) and

is the love which anyone whose way of life is loving ought to embrace with all his strength... This love is recognised as having such virtue that the source of all moral worth derives from it, and no injustice springs from it. God sees in it only a minor offence. Neither an undefiled maiden nor a widow or married woman can experience any injury from such love, or sustain the loss of her reputation.” It is thus possible to see Perceval’s encounter with the maiden in the tent and the night he spends with Blancheflor as grotesque and sophisticated attempts, respectively, to practice the pure love his widowed mother recommends, to love and yet remain a virgin so that he might reap the hundredfold reward. The application of the parable of the sower to human sexuality also associated it with medieval ideas about angels, to whom virgins, or, more

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J. Rider generally, those who lived chastely, were often compared.” In his De Virginibus, for example, Ambrose (c. 340-397) wrote that

they who marry not nor are given in marriage are as the angels in heaven [cf. Mt. 22:30]. Let us not, then, be surprised if they are compared to the angels who are joined to the Lord of angels. Who, then, can deny that this mode of life has its source in heaven, which we

don’t easily find on earth, except since God came down into the members of an earthly body?... And for you, holy virgins, there is a special guardianship, for you who with unspotted chastity keep the couch of the Lord holy. And no wonder if the angels fight for you who war with the mode of life of angels... For chastity has made even angels. He who has preserved it is an angel; he who has lost it a

devil.* while according to Alcuin (c. 735-804), “chastity is the angelic way of life...the chaste modesty of youths is beautiful and welcome to God and prepares the way for every good thing... Whoever lives chastely has converse with angels while still in this world. Chastity unites human beings with heaven and makes them the fellow citizens of the angels.” The virgins are thus associated through their common comparison to angels with the knights whom Perceval encounters in the forest at the beginning of the poem. When he first hears the knights riding through the forest, of course, Perceval thinks they are unchaste devils, but then he sees

..les haubers fremians Et les elmes clers et luisans, [Et les lances et les escus Que onques mais n’avoit veiis, Et vit le ver et le vermeil Reluire contre le soleil,

Et por l’or et l’azur et l’argent, Si li fu molt bel et molt gent, Et dist: «Ha! Sire Diex, merchi!

Ce sont angle que je voi chi. Ne me dist pas ma mere fable, Qui me dist que li angle estoient Les plus beles choses qui soient Fors Diex qui est plus biax que tuit.» (129-45) And he eventually decides that” li maistres des chevaliers,” who is ten times

259

"Wild Oats..." ). more beautiful than the others, must be God himself (146-74 is not altogether it but comic, Perceval’s misperception is, to be sure,

and as Perceval’s unmotivated since “angels,” as Guibert of Nogent writes of shining nances counte ted mother has taught him, “have always presen d light colore ntly brillia of kind beauty when they appear to men,”” and the of church s Suger’ of choir rebuilt that surrounds the knights — and filled the the with ated associ was ere,* s I have pointed out elsewh Saint-Deni—as supramundane world in the twelfth-century imagination. was, The expression “the Lord of the angels (dominus angelorum)” assump l’s Perceva so God,” moreover, acommon medieval appelation for his of on extensi logical a tion that the lord of these knights is God is simply to angels perception of these knights as angels. This comparison of knights tells him and l Perceva dubs ant is perhaps also evoked again when Gornem ..que donee lia Le plus haute ordre avec I'espee Que Diex ait faite et commandee: C’est l’ordre de chevalerie,

Qui doit estre sanz vilonnie. (1634-38) The order of chivalry, like the order of virgins, “has its source in heaven’ ; the members of the angelic and virginal orders, as Ambrose reminds us in the preabove-cited passage, are, like knights, warriors; and a knight “who has

served [his chastity] is,” by Ambrose’s reckoning, “an angel, [while] he who has lost it a devil.” A faint halo thus glimmers over the head of this virgin knight in red armor as he leaves Gornemant's castle. The sowing of seed evokes the story of Onan as well, of course, who, ordered by his father to impregnate Tamar, the widow of his dead older brother, “went in to his brother's wife [but] ...spilled the semen on the ground

(semen fundebat in terram), lest he should give offspring to his brother” (Gen. 38.8-10). Jacquart and Thomasset have suggested that coitus interruptus — was frequently practiced in aristocratic another form of sexual restrai—nt himself in this way was particucontrol circles and that a man who could of this story in the twelfth interest larly valued asa lover,” but the principal relation between Onan the of nature the century would perhaps have been and his sister-in-law, Tamar, which was, by the standards of the time, inces-

tuous.”’ Both Shahar and Legros have suggested that the northern European aristocracy of the late twelfth century was, in Shahar’s words, “highly con-

cerned, if not obsessed, with the problem of incest,”*? and it was an impor-

tant subcurrent of the complicated relation between Mary and Jesus which rose to prominence in the twelfth century in connection with the singular development of the cult of the Virgin.”

260

J. Rider The possibility of an incestuous relation between Gauvain and his sister Clarissant is clearly evoked at the end of the Conte,“ and there is perhaps something vaguely incestuous in Perceval’s relation with Blancheflor insofar as Gornemant is his spiritual father and her uncle.® This pseudoincestuous relation between pseudo-cousins is not yet consummated when Perceval leaves Blancheflor in search of his mother, and the virgin knight's encounter with a real cousin a short time later can be read as a gruesome warning against consummating it. For this cousin was raised with Perceval in his mother’s house and is thus a pseudo-sister, and when he meets her just outside the Fisher King’s castle, she is holding in her lap the decapitated (and thus pseudo-castrated) body of her knightly lover, killed by the lover of the maiden in the tent, who believes that the maiden was violated by Perceval

and is seeking to avenge the dishonor he (!) thus suffered by killing the knights he meets as he searches for Perceval.** Perceval’s pseudo-sister’s lover has thus been pseudo-castrated in Perceval’s place, suggesting that he may face a similar fate if he consummates his relation with his pseudocousin, Blancheflor. Poirion also suggested that the enigma surrounding the grail is “le signal occulte” of Perceval’s mother’s involvement in an incestuous relation—”un ‘pechié la mere’ [corresponding to the “ pechié de leur pere,” i.e. of Oedipus, in the Roman de Thebes (9812)] dont la redoutable veérité pourrait apparaitre au héros s'il retournait aux Isles d’ow la famille avait fui. Il s’agirait d’un inceste entre frére et soeur . . .” — while Lévi-Strauss has suggested that the Conte is structured by Oedipal tensions.” I do not think that the Conte du Graal is an allegorical text, and 1am not, a fortiori, proposing that its prologue or the parable of the sower are the keys with which one may unlock its allegories or discover any hidden meanings. Chrétien’s allusions to the Bible in the prologue do at first seem to imitate the hermeneutical dynamics of parables as they are set forth by Jesus — at first, that is, these allusions seem superficial and even inaccurate, buta

knowledge, or study, of their contexts reveals intriguing commonalities and resonances linking these passages around the themes of secrets, sowing and rewards: for those who have ears to hear, the seemingly superficial allusions hint at a secret meaning — and thus invite us to see secrets in the Conte and to seek to understand them® — and these allusions, especially those to the parable of the sower, do indeed bring with them certain associations, create

certain echoes that enrich the poem’s semiotic potential and fertilize our imagination. Unlike a parable, however, the Conte has no secret meaning.

The biblical allusions of the prologue, that is, make the poem more meaningful and encourage us to seek secret meanings without pointing to any particular meaning or meanings. It is an excellent example of the way in which Chrétien made his romances enigmatic rather than allegorical, full of signifiers with deliberately and perpetually mysterious signifieds, questions 261

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with eternally deferred answers.

NOTES del Graal,” Romania 92 See Tony Hunt, “The Prologue to Chrestien’s Li Contes ng articles provide a followi and ned mentio aboveThe (1971) 359-79, especially 362-63. s: Tony Hunt, “The romance ’s Chrétien of es good introduction to the study of the prologu n and the Old French VernacuTraditio e. Prologu an Arthuri the to und Backgro al Rhetoric 1-23; idem, “Tradition and lar Prologues,” Forum for Modern Language Studies 6 (1970) Modern Language Studies 8 for Forum ” Troyes, de en Chresti Originality in the Prologues of graal (Paris: C.D.U. and (1972) 320-44; Jean Frappier, Chrétien de Troyes et le mythe du e of Crestien’s Li Contes del SEDES, 1979) 38-40, 47-58; Claude Luttrell, “The Prologu “Classical Rhetoric, Medieval Schultz, A. James 1-25; (1983) 3 e Literatur n graal,” Arthuria Tony

(1984) 1-15; and Poetics, and the Medieval Vernacular Prologue,” Speculum 59 l Studies in Honor of Hunt, “Chrétien’s Prologues Reconsidered,” in Conjunctures: Medieva Rodopi, 1994) 153-68. Douglas Kelly, ed. Keith Busby and Norris J. Lacy (Amsterdam: Keith Busby 2Chrétien de Troyes, Le Roman de Perceval ou Le Conte du Graal, ed.

in the text to the (Tiibingen: Max Niemeyer, 1993) 1-6. All further references will be made

to come, not from lines of this edition. As Luttrell points out, the bone semence of v. 6 seems of the field or weeds the of parable the of beginning the from but sower, the of the parable parable of the after ely immediat tells Jesus which n24) below, harvest (Mt. 13.24-30, cited the sower (1). sHunt observes that the allusion to 2 Cor. 9.6 with which the poem begins also man sows, that recalls Galatians 6.8 (6.7 in the Revised Standard Version): “ for whatever a spiritual he will also reap” (‘Prologue” 362, n2). Both passages are concerned with future rewards for current actions.

‘A point also made by Hunt, “Prologue” (363). 5"Diex est caritez, et qui vit/En carité selonc l’escrit,/ —Sainz Pols le dist et je le Hunt Jui—/Il maint en Dieu et Diex en lui” (47-50). This is actually a citation of 1 Jn. 4.16.

suggests that Chrétien may have been “working at second hand (from a source like ...[John of Salisbury’s] Policraticus?)” and, based on this miscitation and one Chrétien places in Fenice’s mouth in Cligés, “that Chrestien was none too familiar with the writings of Paul” (‘Prologue” 369, 374-75, n2); Luttrell suggests, rather, that Chrétien attributes this passage to Paul in order to draw “upon the fame of his pronouncements on caritas, which place it at the summit of the Christian life” (4). ‘Hunt, “Prologue” (364-79); idem, “Tradition” 332-37; Luttrell (5-10). 7On figural interpretation, see Erich Auerbach, “Figura,” trans. Ralph Manheim,

in Scenes from the Drama of European Literature (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1984) 1176.

®8The next verse of Psalm 112, interestingly, continues: “potens in terra erit semen ejus [i.e., of this God-fearing man who gives alms]” which the Revised Standard Version translates, perhaps not altogether felicitously, as ‘His descendants will be mighty in the

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J. Rider land.’

*See Sara Sturm-Maddox, “’Tenir sa terre en pais’: Social Order in the Brut and the Conte du Graal,” Studies in Philology 81 (1984) 28-41. "Calogrenant’s dissertation in the Chevalier au Lion on the need for the heart to understand what the ears hear (Chrétien de Troyes, The Knight with the Lion, or Yvain [Le

Chevalier au Lion], ed. and trans. William W. Kibler [New York: Garland, 1985] 150-52, 157-62) —is perhaps also inspired by this discussion (cf. Hunt, “Rhetorical Background” 23, n76).

"Luttrell observes that the paraphrase of Matthew’s et Pater tuus qui videt in abscondito (Mt. 6.4, 6, 18) in vv. 34-36—”Et

Diex, qui toz les secrez voit,/Et set totes les

repostailles/Qui sont es cuers et es entrailles” —has been influenced by Psalm 44.21 — ”For he knows the secrets of the heart (ipse enim novit abscondita cordis)” —and by various biblical passages situating the emotions, especially charity, in the entrails (2-3). PLuttrell finds a number of other significant “verbal correspondences [and oppositions] between the prologue and the narrative” (15-25). Cited

in Danielle Jacquart and Claude Thomasset,

Sexuality and Medecine in

the Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1988) 27; cf. 71. 4On medieval ideas about the origin of milk and its influence on a child’s character, see Daniéle Alexandre-Bidon and Monique Closson, L’Enfant a l’ombre des cathédrales (Lyons: PU de Lyon, 1985) 113; Clarissa W. Atkinson, The Oldest Vocation: Christian Motherhood in the Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1991) 58-61; Michael Goodich,

“Bartholomaeus Anglicus on Child-rearing,” History of Childhood Quarterly 3 (1975-76) 75-84, at 77; Jacquart and Thomasset

12, 34, 52, 72; and Shulamith Shahar, Childhood in

the Middle Ages (London: Routledge, 1990) 164.

Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner, “Rewriting Chrétien’s Conte du graal—Mothers and Sons: Questions, Contradictions, and Connections,” in Douglas Kelly, ed., The Medieval Opus. Imitation, Rewriting, and Transmission in the French Tradition (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996) 213-44, at 221. See Chrétien de Troyes, Cligés, ed. Stewart Gregory and Claude Luttrell (Cambridge: D.S. Bewer, 1993) 2356-61. l’Andreas Capellanus, Duckworth, 1982) 256-57. 17Aelred of Rievaulx,

On Love, 2.7.6, ed. and trans. P. G. Walsh

(London:

La Vie de recluse, 3.3.33, ed. and French trans. Charles

Dumont (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1961) 164. On the use of the parable in educational

contexts, see also Berkvam, Enfance 84, and idem, “Nature and Norreture: A Notion of Medieval Childhood and Education,” Mediaevalia 9 (1983) 165-80, especially 175.

'’Katrien Heene, The Legacy of Paradise: Marriage, Motherhood and Woman in Carolingian Edifying Literature (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1997) 64. See also René Metz, ire Statut de la femme en droit canonique médiéval,” in idem, La Femme et l'enfant dans le droit canonique médiéval (London: Variorum, 1985) IV.95; and Matthadus Bernards, Speculum virginum, Geistigeit und Seelenleben der Frau im Hochmittelalter (Cologne-Graz: Bohlau, 1955) 40-44.

This illustration is printed in color in Bernards 112. The printed in color by Albert Boeckler, Deutsche Buchmalerei vorgotischer Taunus: Karl Robert Langewiesche, 1953), plate 51; and in black and Shahar, The Fourth Estate. A History of Women in the Middle Ages,

same illustration is Zeit (KOnigstein im white by Shulamith trans. Chaya Galai

263

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(London: Methuen,

1983), illustration 15.

Bernards

176.

4Dhuoda,

ed. Pierre Riché, Manuel pour mon fils, 4.6.14, 39-34, 41-42, 60-62,

rt, 2 ed. (Paris: Editions du Cerf, French trans. Bernard de Vregille and Claude Mondése A Carolingian Woman's Counsel for 1991) 224-28; trans. Carol Neel, Handbook for William, 51-53. 1991) P, ka Nebras of U : Her Son (Lincoln Castile (1180-1246) and her 2On the largely successful efforts of Berenguela of 4) s of Eleanor of Aquitaine, daughaughter 125 — grand-d sister Blanche of Castile (1188of Champagne-—to control their ters of King Alphonso VIII, and nieces of Countess Marie Castile’s Political Motherhood: of uela “Bereng Shadis, Miriam royal sons’ sexual life, see in John Carmi Parsons and ion,” Success and e, The Management of Sexuality, Marriag , 1996) 335-58. The mediBonnie Wheeler, eds., Medieval Mothering (New York: Garland points out, in “several Baneke Joost as , evident also is censor as n functio s eval mother’ have been thoroughly to seems go super-e whose Nogent, of t instructive stories [Guiber of his De vita sua, book first the of end the at haunted by his tightly-wound mother, offers not listen to the warnings of 1.20-26]...in which atrocious things happen to those who did out of their minds’ (“Transthe mother, in particular the warning ‘to keep worldly lusts ” in Henk a of Guibert de Nogent, ference Figures in Medieval Literature. The Madonn in Literature [Amsterdam: Rodopi, Hillenaar and Walter Schénau, eds., Fathers and Mothers .

kind of advice, however 1994] 89-101, especially 98). It is not only mothers who give this are unable to remain who men young urged Navarre de e Philipp , century th In the thirteen is a good and just e marriag loyal a “for , possible as quickly as virgins or chaste to marry the soul—and and body the both to ous danger thing, while fornication is an ugly sin and [1888; rpt. New adultery is worse” (Les Quatre Ages de l'homme, ed. Marcel de Fréville York: Johnson Reprint, 1968] 45).

and mixed Andreas Capellanus 1.6.470-77, ed. 180-3; trans. mod.; on pure

and idem, Traité de l'amour love, see also ibid., ed. 20-22, 23; and 2.6.38-39, ed. 248-51; 238-40, n96. 1974) ck, Klincksie (Paris: Buridant Claude trans. French courtois,

of *The parable of the sower is also associated with angels through the parable

Jesus tells immediately the weeds of the field or harvest which, as was mentioned above,

when he after the parable of the sower and which Chrétien evidently also had in mind Jesus 13.24-30), (Mt. weeds the of parable the In sower. the of alluded to the parable there. recounts that after a man had sowed good seed in a field his enemy sowed weeds The owner let both grow together until harvest time; when they were separated, the weeds burned and the wheat collected in the barn. “He who sows the good seed (bonim semen,” Jesus explains, “is the Son of man; the field is the world, and the good seed means the sons of the kingdom; the weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are angels” (Mt. 13.37-39). %De Virginibus 1.3.11, 1.8.51-52, Patrologia Latina 16, 202, 213-14; “Concerning

Virgins,” in Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, eds., A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene

EL Fathers of the Christian Church, 2 ser., vol. 10: St. Ambrose. Select Works and Letters, trans. de Romestin, E. de Romestin, and H. T. F. Duckworth (1896; rpt. Grand Rapids, MI:

Eerdmans,

1969) 365, 371.

% Liber de virtutibus et vitiis 18, Patrologia Latina 101, 626, 627. On the equation of virgins with angels, see also Bernards 44-45.

71.2, ed. 12, trans. 39. One should also bear in mind the “glory of the Lord [that] shone around” the shepherds when the angel announced Jesus's birth to them (Lk. 2.9). As Paul reminds us, however, “even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light (angelum

264

J. Rider Iucis)” (2 Cor. 11.14).

*Jeff Rider, “The Perpetual Enigma of Chrétien’s Grail Episode,” Arthuriana 8 (1998) 6-21, at 9-11, 17. *See, e.g., Ambrose [.3.11, ed. 202, trans. 365; and Aelred of Rievaulx, “Sermo II: In natali domini,” Sermones de tempore et de sanctis, Patrologia Latina 195, 227.

*Jacquart and Thomasset 96-110. "See David Herlihy, Medieval Households (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1985) 57-62; and idem, “Making Sense of Incest: Women and Marriage Rules of the Early Middle Ages,” in Bernard S. Bachrach and David Nicholas, eds., Law, Custom, and the Social Fabric

in Medieval Europe. Essays in Honor of Bryce Lyon (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan U, 1990) 1-16; rpt. in idem, Women, Family and Society in Medieval rene Historical Essays, 1978-91, ed. A. Molho (Providence: Berghahn Books, 1995) 96Shahar, Childhood 255-58; Huguette Legros, “Parenté naturelle, alliance, parenté

spirituelle: De l’inceste a la sainteté,” Senefiance 26 (1989), Les Relations de parenté dans le monde médiéval 509-48; cf. Berkvam, Enfance 140-41.

*Atkinson 131; Berkvam, Enfance 139; Susanna Greer Fein, “Maternity in Aelred of Rievaulx’s Letter to his Sister,” in Parsons and Wheeler 139-56, especially 150; John R. Secor, “The Planctus Mariae in Provengal Literature:

A Subtle Blend of Courtly and Reli-

gious Traditions,” in Glyn S. Burgess and Robert A. Taylor, eds., The Spirit of the Court (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1985) 321-26, at 323-25. *Jean-Guy Gouttebroze, “Un Phénomeéne d’intertextualité biblique dans le Corte

du graal: ‘Qu’il soient une char andui’ (éd. W. Roach, v. 9064),” in Friedrich Wolfzettel, ed., Arthurian

Romance

and Gender.

Masculin/Féminin

dans le roman

arthurien

médiéval.

Geschlechterrollen im mittelalterlichen Artusroman (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1995) 165-75; cf.

Daniel Poirion, “L’Ombre mythique de Perceval dans le Conte du Graal,” Cahiers de Civilisation Meédiévale 16 (1973) 191-98, especially 195-96. James A. Schultz notes that in medieval German literature, at least, childhood affiliations with mentors, nurses, and so on are “in every case...likened to the ties that bind

a child to his biological parents” (The Knowledge of Childhood in the German Middle Ages, 1100-1350 [Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1995] 137), and Gornemant is clearly a father-figure for Perceval. The maiden’s lover states specifically that he is seeking to behead the man who, as he supposes, violated her (he says he wants to see his “teste trenchie” [3898]), and decapitation would have been an appropriate punishment for rape from a legal point of view —and an appropriate punishment for incest from a psychological one. “In the thirteenth century,” observes Giles Constable, “Bracton wrote that, ‘In past times, the defilers

of virginity and chastity suffered capital punishment... But in modern times the practice is otherwise and for the defilement of a virgin they lose their members.”” One may thus suppose that both death and castration might have come to mind—and been associated in the mind—as punishments for rape at the time Chrétien was writing, and the two come together symbolically in decapitation. Constable also cites cases in which judicial castration was doubled symbolically by blinding (Aelred of Rievalux and the nun of Watton,” in Derek Baker, ed., Medieval Women (Oxford: Ecclesiastical History Society, 1978] 20526, at 215-16). This association between sexual crime, decapitation, castration and blind-

ing is also found in the Roman de Thebes (c. 1150), where Laios does not order the infant Oedipus to be exposed, but to be taken to the forest and decapitated, and Oedipus later

265

"Wild Oats..." Oedipus blinds himself in punishkills Laios by decapitating him. Eventually, of course, d de Lage, 2 vols. [Paris, 1966-67] ment for his crimes (Le Roman de Thebes, ed. G. Raynau reappears at the end of Chrétien’s 81-86, 235-44, 529-40). This same set of elements to let him take Lancelot’s place inthe t Lancelo asks n Gauvai Chevalier de la Charrette. When Guinevere, like Lancelot’s, has an possess to judicial duel with Meleagant— whose desire

andeus, de la teste — Lancelot replies “ qu il se leiroit ainz l'uel,/Voire incestuous shadow out several of

Lancelot knocks traire/Einz qu’a ce le poist atraire.” At the end of the duel, then “la teste li tranche” (Le ion—and castrat of ntation Meleagant’s teeth— another represe 1992] 6900-2, 7079-80, de Poche, Chevalier de la Charrette, ed. Charles Méla [Paris: Livre

7086-87).

l,” Senefiance 9 (1980), “Daniel Poirion, “Edyppus et I’énigme du roman médiéva and idem, “L’Ombre 295; at 285-97, tion) Civilisa L’Enfant au Moyen Age (Littérature et II, trans. Monique Layton mythique” 196; Claude Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology, in America and Addendum (New York: Basic Books, 1976) 21-24; idem, “The Grail

(1973-

(Oxford: Blackwell, 4),” in Anthropology and Myth. Lectures 1951-82, trans. Roy Willis de Thébes and the Roman the of cence reminis a 1987) 102-10. Keith Busby similarly finds of Perceval’s two older fate of Oedipus and his two sons in the death on the same day to v. 477), while Bruckner brothers (one of whose eyes are plucked out by birds) (ed. 429, n. to and about him (espetalks she when uses mother ’s Perceval e notes that the languag the mother’s life and into sed transpo lover, the cially vv. 484-88) recalls “the joys of e in the prologue is idiom’ (225). Chrétien’s choice of Alexander as a foil for Philipp by Alexander's repued motivat —and Philip named was father er's us Alexand — oro hum er on the subject of Alexand to Philip from letter a by , perhaps and, tation for generosity y moral thinkers (see -centur twelfth by up taken liberality that was cited by Cicero and that is picked up Hunt, “Prologue” 366), but it also sounds a note of father-son tension e. narrativ the of es overton Oedipal the by later Bruckner observes in the same vein that “the example of exegesis Chrétien tion on himself offers in the Prologue invites readers to pursue meaning through interpreta different levels” (219, n9).

266

Part IV

Romance

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Gernemant of Northumber to agrees lan Castel the wants this young lady as his wife. At first, Out66).'° (KTS it rejects Gernemant's proposal, but the daughter flatly . During a raged at the rebuff, the enemy devastates the Castellan’s domain interests, s family’ the defend year’s truce, many knights have sought to to have ns threate mant but all have been defeated and killed. Now Gerne a stalfind can she unless his vilest stable boys sleep with the young lady, in love, wart (KTS 66). Gawain steps forth, not just because he has fallen

to but because defending the young womans family is the proper thing lan Castel the s restore and do. As expected, he slays the brutal Gernemant to his rightful status. The Castellan’s wife, who knows a good match when she sees one, then offers Gawain her daughter. Not troubling herself with thoughts of marriage, the mother urges Gawain to take the maiden’s virginity right away (KTS 72). However, the sexual act is blocked at the psychological level. This young lady had long since fallen in love with Gawain’s reputation, but she is not convinced that her defender is that man. Fearing an imposter, she rejects his advances. Gawain’s reward will therefore be de-

ferred until his identity is more perfectly established in his sweetheart’s mind, and the gift of her person more fully justified.'” The pair consummate their love at the romance’s close, after an exchange of vows in King Arthur's presence, but before their wedding.

Obviously, men of Gawain’s caliber are entitled to take liberties, with the king’s full knowledge and consent. Unlike the initial encounter, when the

young lady struggled valiantly to defend her honor, this time she offers no resistance (KTS 178). Her joyful acceptance of Gawain is an endorsement

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of the quality our poet finds most attractive in men: their power cial good. If sexuality was not always contained within the bonds mony, as the Church preferred it, our poet justifies it in typical fashion, by the power of love. It is worth noting that, with many

to do soof matriromance romance

Gawains, love and erotic tension lead directly to sexual fulfilment, and the

question of marriage never arises. Perhaps, in KTS, Gawain’s marriage might be interpreted as a polite nod in the Church’s direction. In our view, it simply extends the interlaced narrative structures: Since The Knight and The Lady are wed in great pomp and circumstance, it would strike a rudely discordant note if Gawain and his lady were not. So that the audience may fully appreciate our two protagonists, the poet usually arranges for powerful but lesser men to lose their battles with them. Some of these are rehabilitated for society’s benefit; the unredeemable are beheaded without ceremony.'® To maintain his audience’s interest, the poet develops still more complex episodes that bring Gawain into conflict with The Knight. First, however, he establishes that the leg-

endary warrior is vulnerable. In the next adventure, we meet one Brien des lles, the son of a penniless vavasor. Inspired by his love for the Queen of the Isles who — like her sister the Queen of Iceland—rules without the assistance of any man, Brien confesses his burning desire to serve her, despite

his low social standing. Although she has rejected all comers, regardless of their rank or accomplishments, Brien considers this woman to be the richest, noblest, and most beautiful creature in all the world. Miffed by his

presumptuousness, the queen threatens to cut off Brien’s head. As she sets her marriage standards high, this lady will have none but the finest man in the world, and one who is her social equal. Despite Brien’s ambition and talent, that man is Gawain. Doubtless expecting that the paragon will deal appropriately with her suitor, the Queen proposes a seemingly impossible task: If only Brien will bring her Gawain’s head, she will make him lord of all her land, and of her person (KTS 43). Brien therefore seeks out Arthur’s nephew and, finding him poorly armed on a fine spring morning, attacks him on the spot (KTS ch. viii). Before long, he drives his sword through Gawain’s belly and leaves him for dead. Fearing that Gawain’s friends may seek revenge, Brien decides not to sever his head, so Gawain lives to recover from his near fatal wound. Now the audience can identify with Gawain as flesh and blood: Unless a man faces real dangers, he can hardly demonstrate real worth. Brien’s unprovoked attack on Gawain violates the chivalric code of fair play; however, there is no justice in simple revenge. Therefore, when he later encounters Brien, boasting at his wedding of how he killed his adversary, Gawain

humiliates the pretender before an assembled crowd of thousands (KTS 83-84). Defeated this time in a fair contest, Brien begs for mercy. Gawain 329

Power and Worth...

hment will be greater if decides to spare his life, knowing that Brien’s punis iation. He sends his he is forced to live out his days in fear of public humil he assumes an alias, and finhumbled adversary back to the court, where

ishes his days in protective custody (KTS ch. xi). squire arrives, Next it is The Knight's turn to meet a challenge. A and that the killer is announcing that The Knight's father has been slain, friends into enemies, raisGawain (KTS 91). This stunning news transforms n have no family of ing the level of dramatic tension. Not only does Gawai The Knight's next-ofhis own to defend, but he has unwittingly assaulted , he must now avenge kin. Though the young man has never met his family d. What will happen his father’s murder or be known forever as a cowar ph, or will the when these formidable adversaries meet? Will youth trium vulnerability, his ed Grant ent? oppon his y more experienced knight destro time companthere is a good chance that Gawain may be killed by his long ion. hip, Delaying his battle with Gawain out of respect for their friends of s remain what finds he where s Jumele as The Knight travels to the Lac her izes recogn ately immedi mother ng grievi his family (KTS ch. xii). His explains to son by his resemblance to her late husband Bleheri. Then she yet another Brien— him, ina detailed recapitulation of earlier events, how s trust, abducted father’ the ed betray had — ne the cunning Brien de la Gasti

Brien The Knight's sister, and pillaged the family’s lands (KTS 100). This he then g; biddin every his do n Gawai that had required of King Arthur fa's Knight The with joust and f himsel se disgui arranged for Gawain to ther, expecting to acquire what remained of the man’s estate. Since Bleheri had no fear of Brien, and did not know that Gawain was to fight in his stead, he failed to arm himself adequately. This act of treachery pits Arthur's nephew against one of the king’s loyal friends. Not surprisingly, Gawain makes short work of The Knight's father. But recognizing Gawain as a worthy opponent, the dying Bleheri declares Brien the true murderer. Realizing that he has been tricked into committing an injustice, Gawain refuses to take any further orders from Brien. While the poet may be emphasizing the dangers of uncritical submission to the king’s will, it is also quite clear that he is calling Gawain’s judgment into question. In fact, Gawain has just suffered a serious blow to his character. Now the audience knows that The Knight and Gawain will not have to do battle. So the poet neatly skirts the question of which one is the better man, and evades a situation obliging Arthur's finest knights to fight each other to the death. In any case, it is already clear that both are outstanding warriors, so superiority will have to be demonstrated in some other way. Can The Knight prove his worth in a more socially responsible manner, let’s say, as a defender of women and family? Before long, the

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young man comes upon a group of young ladies, one of them his sister (KTS ch. xiv). Brien has murdered their husbands and is now holding them

captive. With the reluctant consent of her parents, The Knight's sister was to marry this evil creature (KTS 99). That is because their only son had become alienated from the paternal line. Had this estrangement continued, the family’s wealth, power and authority would have passed via the female line into Brien’s undeserving hands. But now that The Knight has recovered his identity, he understands his duty to restore the family’s honor (KTS 99). He quickly trounces the ladies’ armed guard of six, then confronts

their tormentor. After a violent battle, the defeated Brien declines to beg for mercy, preferring an honorable death to a lifetime of humiliation. For his disgraceful treatment of Gawain and his criminal actions toward Bleheri,

there is only one suitable punishment: The Knight lops off the villain’s head and sends it back to his mother, who receives the gift with great joy. Accompanying the young ladies to Chastel Paorous, The Knight finds it still under the control of Brien’s henchmen. These brutes are roundly beaten, then executed without benefit of trial. So does The Knight avenge his father’s murder, rescue his sister from shame and degradation, and restore his mother to full possession of her fortified castles and manor houses. Unlike Brien de la Gastine, The Knight takes pride in his role as a protector of women. Having rescued the young ladies, The Knight now escorts them to the protection of Arthur’s court (KTS ch. xv). On the way, he encounters Girflet and proudly identifies himself as The Knight of the Ladies. Never having heard of such a man, Girflet replies: “Knights of your kind are worthless; they have the hearts and souls of women” (KTS 127). Girflet’s contempt reveals his failure to grasp the importance of restoring women to their rightful places in the feudal hierarchy; his failure to understand simply underscores the merit of men who do. Were The Knight satisfied with easy rewards, he would now remain at the court. But if he did,

other Girflets would surely come forth to mock and belittle him. So once again he turns his back on a life of ease and comfort: A worthy man never rests from defending Arthur’s most vulnerable subjects. As the narrative progresses, the poet devotes increasing attention to women, for they are the Achilles’ heel of hereditary families. If descent by the male line required only that the son be equal to the father, descent by the female line presented both an opportunity and a challenge: the opportunity to acquire a fresh infusion of power and worth, and the challenge of avoiding humiliation. Descent by the male line meant that land and entitlements, power and authority remained within the family, while descent by the female line meant that they passed into the exogamous hands of others. With female succession, what matters is whether suitors are re331

Power and Worth... er they are undesirmarkable men like Gawain and The Knight, or wheth ables and felons. s of social inMoreover, unless women are portrayed as the victim finest knights the ed, Grant ers. defend justice, knights cannot be cast as their let us not lose touch with are motivated by their concern for others, but

from misfortune, reality: Victims are indebted to those who rescue them y knights to worth The . efforts their for and must reward them generously sion — succes and age marri of those ally whom ladies grant rewards — especi ul” “lawf the ntee guara They class: perform functions vital to the upperfrom power of on missi trans ful” “right possession of land and ensure the chivalry is justione generation to the next. The author does not argue that ion of women minat deter the is it , Rather . fied by women’s helplessness the episodes to ng meani gives that s” and families to defend their “right is less conpoet our then, ably stand that constitute our romance. Under

and more with decerned with sentimental relations between the sexes,'?

sts through scribing how noble families may protect their vested intere armed force and marital alliances. It could not have been easy for women to see their family mem-

ered in battle. bers — fathers, uncles, husbands and sons — maimed or slaught

poet So as not to stir up anguish over the vocation of warrior-knight, our love women, of love love: by ed motivat are emphasizes that the finest men in ence promin assume women When of family, and love of King Arthur. l politica or l persona some to n attentio KTS, it is usually to draw a man’s of Lady The of true is That . families their of misfortune, or to the plight Cardigan, the Castellan’s daughter, and The Knight's mother. Perhaps it is apt no accident that, when a lady is in no obvious distress, her champion is

to be a man of lesser worth. Remarkable men like Gawain and The Knight may restore women and their families to their rightful places in society, but King Ris and Brien des fles lend their assistance to ladies who already enjoy substantial status and power. As for Gernemant and Brien de la Gastine, creatures driven by greed and rapacity, they have no respect at all for women. Though there are undercurrents of anti-feminism in KTS, they do not amount to misogyny. Rather, they reflect the poet’s malaise with the idea of women exercising power on their own. Assertive ladies like the Queen of Iceland and the Queen of the Isles act in ways that create social havoc. The author never makes it clear whether these imperious queens plan to relinquish power once their champions have done their jobs, or whether they are just using men to increase their already considerable autonomy. Whatever the case, by deferring to a worthy male, The Lady of Cardigan demonstrates the “right” way fora woman to act. Whether women are strong or weak misses the point. The problem lies in the nature of feu-

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N. Corbett dal society: Aristocratic families without male heads invariably attract the attention of aggressive men. Some of these pursue their private interests

without heed for the public good. Others, like Gawain and The Knight,

assist the weaker and more deserving members of Arthurian society. In

the one case where Gawain does harm to good people, it is only because he has been tricked into serving the interests of an unworthy knight. In KTS, men have the power to fight and kill, while women enjoy the power to influence men’s conduct. In our poet’s view, a good woman always solicits the protection of a powerful man, preferably a member of her own family. Failing this, she must ward off undesirables like Gernemant or Brien de la Gastine. hereditary families: At marry beautiful young women, the poet once

By contrast, good men are regularly integrated into the conclusion of KTS, both Gawain and The Knight women and join their esteemed households. As for again offers pragmatic solutions: If a young lady

does not wish to end up destitute and defiled, if she wants to protect her

family’s honor, her choice is clear: Either she ensures her own defense, as does The Lady of Cardigan, or else she finds a man to do the job, like the Castellan’s daughter. On balance, our poet is more pro-masculine than anti-feminine. If there is no cult-like adoration of women here, neither does the author be-

little the gender. Rather, he believes that— motivated by family or dynastic interests — women regularly incite men to act on their behalf. Modern readers may find that the ladies who play this stimulative role are not always cast in a flattering light: Gawain’s sweetheart advances the narrative simply by being young, beautiful, and needy. The Lady of Cardigan does so by proving thousands of men inadequate, then by badgering King Arthur for her reward. The Knight's mother provokes her son to kill Brien de la Gastine by evoking the shame he has visited on her daughter and herself. The haughty Queen of the Isles encourages her eager suitor to kill Arthur’s nephew, while the cold-hearted Queen of Iceland inspires King Ris to launch an assault on Arthur's peaceful kingdom. In KTS, the finest knights are motivated by love of women and family. If men’s worth reflects their ability to defend the weak and disadvantaged, women’s worth lies in their power to enlist men’s support. The alternative, early rejected by our poet, is for women to act more like men. Instead, a young lady’s success is measured by her power to acquire a fine husband, produce heirs worthy of his name, and keep her entitlements intact. Were there any doubt of this, one need only consider the poet's closing remarks, which integrate The Knight, The Lady, and their offspring into the secure world of Arthur’s extended family:

King Meriadeuc always remained part of King Arthur's court and 333

Power and Worth... he went back to his a member of his household, and sometimes two of them lived long wife’s court. She bore him children, and the lives, and the Lady’s name was Lore. (184)

NOTES of Vernacular Prose HistoriogIGabrielle M. Spiegel, Romancing the Past: The Rise U of California P, 1993) 11: Angeles Los and ey (Berkel France Century thraphy in Thirteen Text in the Middle Ages,” the of Logic Social the and cism, 54, See also her “History, Histori Speculum 65 (1990) 59-86.

e..., the more necessary °Spiegel puts it this way: “The greater the social challeng adoption of a distinctive the through itself ish distingu to it became for the nobility visually tal that contemporary acciden hardly is It mode of dress, comportment, and manners. details of aristocratic accouterments the on concern e exquisit such lavish s romance French in aristocratic literature is that and appearance or that the royal virtue most often extolled rapidly becoming a form of was gance extrava whom for of largesse to a warrior class social definition.” (Romancing the Past 21-22) edited by Nancy “Those interested in gender relations should consult the volume issue of Spectspecial a ,” Feminism Gender, Sex, Women: F. Partner: “Studying Medieval parameters of sexuality at lum (68 [1993] 305-472). For analysis of the marital and social Language of Sex: Five Voices the dawn of the thirteenth century, see John W. Baldwin, The P, 1994) 49-77. For Chicago of U London: and (Chicago 1200 around France from Northern y and Gender in Sexualit Desire: on es Discours “Five an overview, see also Baldwin, 797-819. (1991) 66 Northern France around 1200,” Speculum

ies, e.g., In KTS, gender relations are depicted as the barter of abstract commodit family. noble a join to chance the for service armed beauty, and mer’s attention for youth will get you The poet is clear about the payoff for a successful knight: Power and worth also gain advanlove and marriage, wealth, and public admiration. To be sure, women g benefits conferrin for second , femininity of ideals the ng incarnati for first men, from tages women e guarante man right the to given rewards words, other on their protectors. In security of person, family, and social status. ‘For a compelling analysis of why the thirteenth-century French aristocracy endorsed prose history during a time of social and political upheaval, see Spiegel, Romanca form ing the Past 215-16 and 219. She argues that the patronage of prose chronicles was feudal of political action, an aristocratic attempt to dominate the historical memory of romance, Arthurian of patronage the to applies comment similar a Doubtless society. with one obvious difference: The thirteenth-century shift from poetic fantasy to “factual” prose reveals a will to reinforce the credibility of the past, and a determination to strengthen the aristocracy’s claim to hereditary power. It also corresponds to the transition from theologically-oriented to secular literature, the latter marked by increased concern for truth and historical accuracy. Epic and romance treat the actions of individual knights as exemplary tales selected from a vast corpus of narratives that, had they ever been pieced together, would constitute the history of the noble class. By contrast, prose chronicles

substitute for the tales of valiant individuals broader accounts of aristocratic endeavors, these typically integrated into a matrix of royal dynastic history.

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*Raphael Levy, Chronologie approximative de la littérature francaise du moyen age

(Tiibingen: Niemeyer, 1957) 20. James Douglas Bruce, The Evolution of Arthurian Romance,

2 (Géttingen: Vanderhoeck and Ruprecht, 1923) 229,

“Wendelin Foerster, ed. Li Chevaliers as deus espees: Altfranzdsischer Abenteurroman (Halle: Niemeyer, 1877 [rpt. Rodopi, 1966]). Robert Toombs Ivey, ed. “Li Chevaliers as deus espees: A Critical Edition,” Diss. U of North Carolina, 1973. ; “In this article, primary references are made to The Knight of the Two Swords: A Thirteenth-Century Arthurian Romance, translated, with Notes and Commentary, by Ross G. Arthur and Noel L. Corbett (Gainesville: UP of Florida, 1996). *For a succinct introduction to our romance, see KTS chaps. vii-xvii. For extended critical analysis, see Ivey i-xl, who examines the manuscript and editions, authorship and date, and offers a literary evaluation, a discussion of sources, and a summary of the plot. ‘Judging from the manuscript’s errors and omissions, KTS was copied at least once (Foerster lxiii); the language is Francian with some Picardisms. The poet draws on

themes familiar to readers of Chrétien, especially his Perceval (1181) and its thirteenthcentury continuations, ostensibly on Perlesvats (ca. 1203-1212), Wace’s Brut (1155), Raoul de Houdenc’s La Vengeance Raguidel (1215?), Le Bel Inconnu (1190), the Pseudo-Robert Prose Merlin continuation (1235), and Durmart le Gallois (1240). Critics with whom

KTS has found favor include Wendelin

Foerster, Gustav

Gréber, James Douglas Bruce and Robert Toombs Ivey. Less enthusiastic were Gaston Paris, Robert Thedens and Alexandre Micha, who judged our romance prosaic or clumsy. For details, see Ivey v-x, who judges KTS coherent and well constructed. That our poet draws on earlier sources is hardly surprising, nor does it make the romance inferior by definition. Modern concepts of originality should not force us to conclude that an author lacked imagination simply because he made use of familiar themes and motifs. Nor do we assume that medieval audiences disliked familiar themes and well-known Arthurian characters. On balance, it is reasonable to suppose that medieval authors consciously sought to integrate their works into an established literary tradition, simultaneously drawing strength from it and reinvigorating it. "Who could have authored KTS? So many writers were active at the midpoint of the thirteenth century that it would seem unrealistic to ascribe authorship to any of them. Meanwhile,

romance

plots and motifs are so conventional

that thematic, stylistic, or

literary analysis is in the end likely to prove the obvious: membership in a common genre. His mother informs him that he will only learn his name when he fulfils his obligations to the family: “Dear son, you do not yet know what your name is: you are Lord of Vaus de Blanquemore and Lord of the Lac as Jumeles. You have many ladies and maidens, and many noble and accomplished knights who hold rich, powerful, and magnificent fiefs from you. Your father’s name was Bleheri, but you cannot yet know what your name ought to be, nor do I myself know what it should be. Before he departed this life, your father implored me not to give you any name until Brien de la Gastine had been slain, he who now holds in his vile hands your sister and ten other maidens, all beautiful

and noble women of great worth who were once your sister’s companions. Now they all belong to him, and he is sly and deceitful, a wicked, thieving traitor; for he was supposed to take her as his wife...” (KTS 99)

BAs a rule, the ladies of the court—including Arthur’s nameless queen—are pushed further into the background in KTS than, let’s say, in the works of Chrétien de

335

Power and Worth... decor, in which case they speak little and Troyes. Often, our poet treats women as stylistic initiate action less. in history and literature from For a comment on the importance of genealogy 78-80. For analysis of the cism’” Histori y, “Histor , Spiegel see , the eleventh century forward tury vernacular historinth-cen thirtee of nce emerge social functions of genealogy and the ography, see Spiegel, Romancing the Past xiii. daughter, who was incredbHere is a translation of the relevant passage: “Their of her parents. She was front in sitting was her, ibly beautiful, just as Nature had created modest—and she was and ng, charmi no more than seventeen years old—tall, innocent, dress and a fine white linen e delicat a g wearin was She Troy. of e romanc reading from a brought all her arts to had Nature if as r, togethe put ively shift, and she was very attract , her hips slim and shapely were thighs her the task. She was tiny and elegant at the waist, to see those little breasts delight a was It out. filled nicely breasts her and ive, attract her dress; her throat and her jutting out, so firm and pointy as they pressed up against or a blemish on her long, wrinkle a wasn’t There snow. len body were whiter than new-fal purest gold with which the that color its was slender neck. She had long, curly hair, so fine She was wearing a most becomison. compar by pale seem would gilded are goblets silver forehead was full and broad, ing garland of flowers which kept her hair in place. Her and bright and attractive wide were eyes ray blue-g ng without a single line. Her laughi straight, turned-up nose long, a had She . enough to please even the most discriminating her lips dark red and full, and she was that was very attractive, her mouth was small, beauty. Her

enhanced her absolutely stunning when she smiled a little, for her lips greatly ison. Her white teeth compar by d suffere lily and rose both complexion was so fresh that d.” (KTS 64) intende had Nature as just were like polished ivory, and evenly spaced, between a man and 16As5 Baldwin observes, the Church held mutual consent 73). Sex of Language (The marriage of on foundati woman to be the primary

s expec“It is likely that Gawain’s self-restraint went well beyond the audience' he respects her will. instead force; by t sweethear his taken have easily could He tations. s when the two Any notion that the author finds Gawain’s courtesy common evaporate “I didn’t think declares, damsel the God,” me help appear in bed for the second time. “So from him that Sir Gawain would ever be so weak or unworthy that a woman could escape as you control, complete his under had he one especially , protesting or crying by simply a voicing be may daughter ’s Castellan the Though 179). (KTS had me on that occasion” her selfstereotype dear to the hearts of “real men,” who always get what they want, worth and determination is admirable: She will not be bedded by any man until his identity are fully authenticated. '8In KTS, the many portraits of competing warriors exemplify gradations in men’s worth. The fact that King Ris, Gernemant, Brien des Iles, and Brien de la Gastine are justice more concerned with personal gain than with advancing the causes of right and These lands. their and ladies, their battles, their win to fail they end, the explains why, in are men of lesser worth. But only the truly worthless are put to death: Brien de la Gastine is executed for his criminal offenses against The Knight's family, and Gernemant is dispatched by Gawain for his shameful assaults on the Castellan du Port. By contrast, Brien des {les is simply young and misguided, the victim of desire to serve his lady. Since his motivation is perfectly legitimate, and his attack on Gawain causes no lasting harm, this young man is allowed to live, under King Arthur's watchful eye. As for King Ris, his defeat and rehabilitation actually serve to strengthen Arthur's kingdom. "The analysis of emotions holds little interest for our poet, who uses displays of joy, sorrow, and distress as the markers of deeper concerns, whose meanings would have been obvious to his audience. In KTS, women are frequently depicted as reacting emotion-

336

ally to situations, while men are shown reacting to the emotions of women. This behavioral difference is consistent with the age-old stereotype that “real men” suppress their feelings and confront danger with bravado, while “real women” recognize the gravity of situations, voice their emotions, urge men to act, and hold out the promise of reward.

337

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PAOLO CHERCHI

University of Chicago

L’Orloge amoureus di Jean Froissart

L’Orloge amoureus di Jean Froissart—ora accessibile nell’edizione curata da Peter Dembowski—é un dit narratif che su un’invenzione nuova descrive cose antiche, perché combina il tema del tempo, studiato attraverso la macchina che lo misura, con quello dell’amore cortese, analizzato attraverso

le passionie le virtt che lo rendono diverso da altre forme di amore. Secondo Dembowski L’Orloge amoureus sarebbe stato composto tra il 1368 e il 1370, anno in cui Heinric von Wiek (Henri de Vic) a Parigi completo “I’horloge du Palais” da lui inventato. L’invenzione,

pur non essendo assolutamente

nuova, doveva suscitare grande meraviglia per lasua complessita meccanica, e per il fatto che misurasse il tempo in modo preciso, 0 almeno pit preciso di quanto non avessero fatto le clessidre o di quanto non fosse possibile farlo osservando il corso del sole. Nessuno, certo, sirendeva conto che l’orologio doveva modificare profondamente la civilta creando un tempo uguale per tutti; ma la risonanza che sicuramente ebbe non trov6 eco fra i poeti, forse

riluttanti ad includere nella loro topica un tema affatto nuovo. Froissart fu l’unico ad ispirarsi alla nuova invenzione, e gia basterebbe questo a meritargli il titolo di originale. Ma Froissart ando ben oltre la “ poesia d’occasione”: egli intui il legame che poteva esistere fra la “durata costante” del tempo e la “costanza del sentimento amoroso,” e per illustrarlo ci diede insieme una

descrizione minuta dell’ orologio e un’interpretazione del tempo dell’amore cortese.

Il dit é una sostenuta similitudine fra il poeta amante e l’orologio; e i termini di paragone si impostano fin dalla prima strofa: Je me puis bien comparer a I’orloge, Car quant Amours, quien mon coer se loge, M’i fait penser et mettre y mon estude, G’i apercoi une similitude. Dont moult me doi resjoir et parer, Car I’orloge est, au vrai considerer,

Un instrument tres bel et tres notable

"L'Orloge amoureus"... Et s’est aussi plaisant et pourfitable,

Car nuit et jour les heures nous aprent Par la subtilleté qu'elle comprent, En I’absense meisme dou soleil. Dont on doit mieuls prisier son appareil, Ce que les aultres instrumens ne font pas, Tant soient fait par art et par compas. Dont celi tienc pour vaillant et pour sage Quien trouva premierement l'usage, Quant par son sens il commenga et fit Chose si noble et de si grant proufit.' Definito cosi I’argomento, si tratta di svilupparlo. E per oltre un migliaio di versi Froissart dimostra la similitudine fra l’amante e l’orologio. In primo luogo il poeta dichiara di aver nel petto la cassa dell’orologio, per cui la similitudine si precisa avvicinando I ordigno meccanico al cuore, centro del movimento e sede del sentimeno amoroso, 0, sempre entro il gioco

metaforico, il cuore che contiene “tutti imovimenti dell’amore.” Prima di

elencarli e di analizzarli minutamente, il poeta li raggruppa sotto le due grandi categorie che si dividono il campo dell’amore: esse sono la gioia e il dolore, perché se I’amore causa dolore é anche vero che venendo da Bonne Amour, ossia dalla donna amata, causa gioia. In tal modo si profila la linea

su cui si sviluppa il discorso e la tesi che si dimostra: ‘amore é un mondo sentimentale di perfetto equilibrio e armonia. La prima ruota, 0 la“ mere roe,” @ quella che da inizio al movimento: quasi l’energia prima senza la quale non si da vita e non si da amore. Precisando ulteriormente, e sempre in termini che potrebbero essere aristotelici, il poeta dice che questa prima ruota é il “vero desiderio,” che é attirato o mosso da Beauté e Plaisance. Il movimento originario viene controllato da una seconda ruota, senza la quale il moto avrebbe luogo senza regolarita,

con fretta e senza misura (hastiewment et sans mesure [207]). Si tratta, dunque, della ruota della Attemprance, aiutata nelle sue funzioni da Peur che previene

Vamore dal cadere nelle insidie di Male Bouche (maldicenza) e Jalousie. Si passa quindi ad un altro ingranaggio chiamato dyal, 0 roe journal, diviso in ventiquattro brochettes, che compie un giro completo nel tempo di una giornata, da leggere come il Doux Penser. La sua funzione primaria é quella di attivare un raccordo chiamato

destante (corrispettivo, nei termini dell’analogia

orologio/amante, alla Esperance), al quale s’attacca una cordicella (corrispondente alla Pourvoyance) che collega il dyal ad un‘altra ruota chiamata roe chantore, cioé la suoneria. I ventiquattro intagli si dividono in

due sezioni: la prima comprendente le virtt dell’amante— Loyauté, Ferme Patience, Perseverance, Diligence, Honneur, Courtotsie, Largesse, Secret, Beau 340

P. Cherchi Maintient, Prouesse, Renom e Los; la seconda dell’amata — Doux Semblant, Doux Regard, Jeunesse,

comprendente le virtu Humilité, Bel Accueil, Liesse,

Delice, Setirté, Amour e Venus, Franchise e Piété. La suoneria occupa la terza parte dell’opera, con la dettagliata descrizione dei ventiquattro intagli che producono un suono ad ogni ora. La similitudine si sposta ora sui termini amore/canto cortese, canto che nasce quando Doul¢ Parler si allea con Hardement e Secret 0 Discretion permette che il poeta rivolga uno dei suoi modi di canto (egli ne possiede sessanta) all’amata. Perché I’orologio funzioni ci deve essere un orologiaio che gli dia la carica; e questi non pud essere che Souvenire, il ricordo dell’amata che regola e da un ritmo all’amore rendendo il passato sempre presente, in una tensione amorosa: Dont Souvenir li donne ramembrance,

Car lors cognoist ses fes de branche en branche, Et liremet par usage au devant Ce qui li est plaisant et avenant. Et se li fait aussi ramentevoir Que en amer le pot premiers mouvoir. Lors la beauté de sa dame figure,

Son sens, son bien et sa douce figure. En ce desir amoureus persevere

Et nuit et jour liement considere De sa vie l’estat trestout entir. Neis se d’amer se voloit repentir, Se ne poet il, car Souvenirs le point,

Qui li remet sa besongne en bon point, Desir premiers, Beauté et puis Plaisance,

Secondement Paour et Attemprance Et aussi Pourveance sans moiien Et Doulg Penser, qui li fait moult de bien,

Et les vertus qui ci dessus sont dittes Par Souvenir sont ens ou coer escriptes, Ne il n’ia chose, tant soit petite,

Qui grandementa

I’amant ne proufite. (963-84)

Conclusa la descrizione dell’orologio e della corrispondente psicologia dell’amante, il dit si avvia alla chiusura con l’augurio che il poeta possa esser annoverato fra gli amanti celebri ricordati dalla storia; e fra questi egli singolarizza Tibullo, autore su cui certamente ha letto—come osserva Dembowski-— la celebre elegia che Ovidio gli dedica nel terzo libro degli Amores. Infine il poeta si congeda dal proprio lavoro, ribadendo la cogenza del paragone fra se stesso e l’orologio, perché nessuno dei due 34]

"L'Orloge amoureus"... proprio desiderio di non riposa mai né notte né giorno; e cid s’accorda col é felice di offrire il suo quale alla smettere mai di cantare della sua amata componimento. are il dit, coni Il riassunto che ne abbiamo dato potrebbe far sembr

oltreché noioso. Sarebbe meglio, suoi circa 1200 versi, alquanto macchinoso ,” che ha il pregio dicombinare gnoso “inge

pero, metterne in rilievo l’'aspetto e di un complicatissimo insieme una specie di arte d’amore con la descrizion dei grands rhétoriqueurs gusto al congegno meccanico. Il lettore non nuovo ale di uno strumento puntu e izion apprezzera il virtuosismo della descr sia per ovvi motivi aria letter zione complesso e del tutto estraneo alla tradi il virtuosismo come anche zzera storici sia per ragioni di poetica. Appre allegorico: le rso disco dal no lonta riesca a mantenere I’esteso paragone e modellate ament —cert se amoro personificazioni dei sentimenti e delle virtt: ruote o dalle icate signif sono non — sull’insegnamento del Roman de la Rose questi; a simili to soltan sono ma o, dai molti congegni meccanici dell’orologi e grand con ” secolo del one venzi in tal modo Froissart poteva descrivere “I’in gna, con altrettanta autonomia, e nello stesso tempo passare in rasse mondo etico-estetico del ica dinam autonomia, le forze che costituiscono la

sse soltanto dell’amore. Tuttavia il paragone risulterebbe gratuito se si ferma itudine piu simil la é perch unto alle corrispondenze indicate nel nostro riass l’orologio fra cioé icati, signif tivi profonda si realizza al livello dei rispet “ vissuto”; tempo del enza cosci come come misura del tempo “reale” e l’'amore . e come vedremo i due tempi coincidono E ineffetti L’Orloge amoureus @ un poema sul tempo, 0 meglio su una nozione del tempo che é peculiare dell’amore cortese, e pitt specificamente durata dell’amore dei trovatori e dei troveri, inteso come un’immutabile

Che anziché come una mutevole e accidentata progressione cronologica. quello anziché trovero del o e trovator Froissart avesse in mente il tempo del del “cavaliere” che cerca I’avventura e di essa vive, lo prova l'importanza centrale che nell’ Orloge amoureus vien conferita alla roe chantoire che lega il tema del tempo e dell’amore a quello del canto. Il tempo che vige nel mondo della fin’amor @ un presente perpetuo, un rito sempre identico di un desiderio che“ persevere” senza subire mutamento alcuno perché questo implicherebbe un’imperfezione. E come Iorologio che non distingue il giorno dalla notte e scandisce con ritmo sempre uguale tutte le ore. II segreto di tale continuita inalterabile consiste nel perfetto equilibrio delle passioni e delle virtu, in quell’ armonia di forze contrapposte che sicompongono nel cuore dell’amato. Come la dinamica dell’ orologio é garantita e controllata da pesi e contrappesi, dal movimento coordinato di tante ruote e ingranaggi diversi, cosi nel cuore

dell’amante il desiderio é contenuto dalla misura, la gelosia dalla lealta, e

cosi via dicendo, con il risultato di un movimento perpetuo senza reale mutamento. E vero che la fin’amor conosce i temi della memoria e della 342

P. Cherchi

speranza, e quindi del passato e del futuro; ma a veder bene essi sono un’estensione del presente, in quanto la memoria riduce al presente il passato e il futuro é una proiezione del presente; e comunque ricordo e speranza sono modi dell’irrealizzato o dell’assente anziché riferimenti a precisi punti temporali: quanto é vicino il momento ricordato o quanto é lontano il momento sperato? L’amore del poeta lirico cortese é continuo e uguale a se stesso come le ore dell’orologio; é& un movimento che é piuttosto una continuita immobile,

una perpetua ripetizione dello stesso, in cui é impossibile distinguere alterazioni a cui sono soggette tutte le cose che vivono e che si muovono, con l'unica eccezione dei cieli e degli astri. Il tempo del poeta lirico cortese si avvicina piu all’eterno, senza un prima e senza un dopo, e quindi senza vera coscienza di uno scorrere del tempo. Le allusioni temporali (stagioni che mutano, giorni che si alternano, ricorrenze di feste, ecc.) che troviamo nella

lirica cortese possono essere considerate notazioni temporali solo se intese come indicazioni cicliche, cioé come un perpetuo ritorno al principio, e quindi, in ultima analisi, incompatibili col tempo lineare in cui il principio e la fine tendono ad allontanarsi indefinitamente o fino a quando esiste movimento. Anche I’alternanza di gioia e dolore che costituisce la ciclotimia dell’amore non marca alcuna sequenza temporale, in quanto gioia e dolore sono in realta consustanziali, perfettamente integrati tanto che I’una non si pud pensare senza I’altro. Lo stesso dicasi di espressioni indicanti miglioramento e perfezionamento perché sono semplicemente indicazioni di una dinamica ideale senza autentico movimento. Insomma, l’‘amore del poeta lirico cortese

é in sincronia perfetta con il tempo, se questo s’intende come durata, quel tempo che Newton? avrebbe chiamato “assoluto” perché fluisce uniformemente, senza relazione alcuna a qualcosa di esterno: questo é il tempo che I’orologio misura meccanicamente, segnando un’ora uguale ad ur’ altra, indipendentemente dal fatto che sia giorno 0 notte, estate o autunno.

Froissart intui in modo geniale questo legame e compose L’Orloge amoureus, che non é una canzone lirica ma é Il’interpretazione o la ricostruzione del modello dell’amore cortese lirico. I] tutto si pud capire ricordando che la lirica cortese é generalmente priva di eventi, che é fatta di storie senza trama, di situazioni non narrative.

Anche il genere dell’alba, che sembra potenzialmente narrativo, in realta usa il tempo come elemento fondamentale non della narrazione ma dei limiti che esso pone alla beatitudine amorosa. La situazione tipica dell’alba é quella dei due amanti che, dopo aver passato insieme la notte, vengono informati dal grido della guardia che il sole sorge, per cui si devono separare e maledicono il giorno che li sottrae alla beatitudine amorosa, a quella beatitudine che, come insegna San Tommaso, annulla la coscienza del tempo

in quanto “delectatio secundum se quidem non est in tempore: est enim delectatio in bono iam adepto quod est quasi terminus motus” (Sum. Th. 1-2 343

"L'Orloge amoureus"... ; ma questa situazione q. 31, a. 2). Gli amanti passano dall’eterno al tempo in una serie di effati, in ricca di possibilita narrative si risolve semplicemente I’alba fa intravedere via un dialogo farcito di imprecazioni e promesse. Tutta , e che il tempo uguali tutte la possibilita che le ore del quadrante non siano . amore conosca anche una misura “relativa” al piacere dell’ ossia l’attesa Pit promettente in tal senso & la situazione opposta, sa. Mae amoro stasi dell’e della notte, per passare dal tempo al non-tempo one campi co L’uni lirico. una situazione rarissima, almeno nel mondo r, Riquie ut Guira di serena sopravvissuto (e forse I'unico in assoluto) @ la di sorta una da chiuse ultimo dei trovatori. Eun componimento di tre strofe ritornello. Vediamo la prima strofa: Ad un fin aman fon datz per si dons respiegz d’amor, el sazos el luec mandatz eljorn quel ser dec l’onor penre, anava pessius e dezia sospiran: -jorn ben creyssetz a mon dan, elsers aucim e sos loncx espers. ° ma L’appuntamento di cui si parla potrebbe avviare un racconto; neare sottoli a ferma manca ogni sviluppo narrativo perché la storia rimane langoscia dell’attesa che allunga spasmodicamente il giorno.’

la serena Tuttavia, nonostante la mancanza di racconto, sia l’alba che

il ci fanno intuire che I'orologio sia un potenziale nemico dell'amore, e che o congegn dal scandito tempo degli amanti non scorra in sincronia con quello meccanico. I due temi ebbero fortuna diversa: il pit: fortunato fu quello dell’alba, che non solo poteva vantare antecedenti classici (basti pensare ad Ovidio, Amores I, 13, oppure Heroides XVIII, 111-14) ma trovare anche un genere che lo esprimesse, e per questo ebbe una notevole diffusione nelle letterature medieval; tuttavia il tema dell’ansiosa attesa della notte, che pur non aveva antecedenti classici (ad eccezione di uno spunto in un verso di Ovidio nella storia di Piramo e Tisbe [Metam., lV, 91-92] in cui si legge “lux,

tarde discedere visa,/Praecipitatur aquis”), ebbe una vita pitt lunga e pit varia forse perché non avendo un genere proprio consentiva un numero maggiore di variazioni in contesti diversi; per giunta il tema dell’attesa offre un potenziale narrativo e drammatico maggiore di quanto non lo sia quello della separazione; e, infatti, avra fortuna in contesti non tipicamente lirici. Vale la pena riportare alcuni di questi luoghi per valutare meglio la singolarita de L’Orloge amoureus con la sua perfetta sincronia di tempo e

344

P. Cherchi

amore. L’attesa amorosa—da non confondere con la speranza di tipo trobadorico — si misuré contro il moto del sole o della luna prima che lorologio venisse inventato, prima che il computo delle ore fosse meccanicamente preciso. E un tema che appare nel XII secolo nei vari rifacimenti pseudoovidiani della favola di Piramo e Tisbe, come per esempio nel seguente: Tempora cum noctis sint pacta, queruntur amantes, sol quod ad occasum non properanter eat. “Heu, nox tarda venit, que nos coniungere debet! Et querimur tardum sideris esse iubar. Devotis precibus te nos, o Phoebe, rogamus, ut cito quadrupedes precipitare velis. Phebe, recordare, quod quondam pignus amoris imperio Veneris ferre coactus eras. Phebe, fave nobis nec protrahe tempora noctis, immo tuos cicius merge sub equor equos. Phebe, iube veniat nox exoptata sororque auxilium nobis, si patiare, ferat.”° (135-46)

Il tema é legato anche alla figura di Lancillotto, il Chevalier de la Charrette, che maledice il giorno e la notte mentre attende di visitare Ginevra: Lanceloz ist fors de la chanbre

si liez que il ne li remanbre de nul de trestoz ses enuiz. Mes trop lidemore la nuiz,

et lijorz lia plus duré, ace qu’'iliaenduré, que cent autre ou c’uns anz entiers.°

Il tema ebbe un lancio poderoso con Boccaccio, il quale cred in Fiammetta il primo personaggio che veramente misuri il tempo nel cielo a spanna a spanna e ne riporti i risultati sul sistema incompatibile del cuore. Fiammetta apre la serie dei personaggi moderni nati da quell’irriducibile antagonismo di tempo e amore non pit! drammatizzato sulla falsariga di una convenzione poetica, ma vissuto in una psicologia tormentata. E il tormento di Fiammetta é cosi singolare che anche il sole e la luna diventano prosopopee del suo delirio d’attesa. La sua vicenda d’amore s’incentra infatti sul tema dell’ attesa che viene annunciato con una situazione da alba, quando

Panfilo le fa il seguente giuramento: Donna, io ti giuro per lo luminoso Appollo, il quale ora surgente 345

"L'Orloge amoureus"... di pit tostana partita oltre a’ nostri disii con velocissimo passo, guida; e per quello, per do dando cagione, e li cui raggi io atten che ora da te mi pieta a quell per e indissolubile amore ch’io ti porto,

concedendolo Idio, tu mi divide, che il quarto mese non uscira, che,

vedrai qui tornato.” misura oggettiva La scadenza crea l’attesa che puo avere una soltanto nel corso del sole e della luna:

occupato, nuove Poi che’l di, le sue ore finite, era dalla notte

mia puerizia sollecitudini le pit: volte mi s’apprestavano. Io, dalla era divenuta Amore da ta nelle notturne tenebre paurosa, accompagna re, sola riposa n ciascu casa sicura; e sentendo gia quasi nella mia avea veduto, me ne alcuna volta la, onde la mattina il sole montante

i i corpi saliva; e quale Aronta tra’ bianchi marmi de’ monti Lucan e ore issim lungh notte la io, celesti e i loro moti speculava, cotale i essere nemiche, traente, sentendo a’ miei sonni le varie sollecitudin

, meco da quella parte il cielo mirava, ei suoi moti pit ch’ altri veloci a cornut alla attenti occhi gli tardissimi reputava. E alcuna volta, volti

l’una notte luna, non che alla sua ritondita corresse, ma pid aguta che tosto e, ardent disio mio il che I’altra la giudicava, tanto era pit quante Oh suo. corso il le quattro volte si consumassero, che veloce diletto a io i rimira la se, volte, ancora che freddissima luce porges

del lunga fiata, imaginando che cosi in essa fossero allora gli occhi oli mio Panfilo fissi, come i miei! Il quale io ora non dubito che, essend un solo ma e, mirass luna a io gia uscita di mente, egli, non che

pensiero non avendone, forse nel suo letto si riposava. E ricordami

suoni, che io, della lentezza del corso di lei crucciandomi, con varii

seguendo gli antichi errori, aiutai i corsi di lei alla sua ritondita pervenire. Alla quale poi che pervenuta era, quasi contenta dello e, intero suo lume, alle nuove corna non pareva che di tornare si curass

ma pigra nella sua ritondita dimorava, avvegna che io di cid l’avessi quasi in me medesima talvolta per iscusata, pit grazioso reputando lo stare con la sua madre, che negli oscuri regni del suo marito tornare. Ma bene mi ricordo che spesso gia le voci in prieghi per li suoi agevolamenti usate, io le rivolsi in minacce, dicendo: “O Febea,

mala guiderdonatrice de’ ricevuti servigi, io con pietosi prieghi le tue fatiche m’ingegno di menomare; ma tu con pigre dimoranze le mie non ti curi d’acrescere. E perd, se pita’ bisogni del mio aiuto cornuta ritorni, me cosi allora sentirai pigra, come io ora te discerno.

Or non sai tu, che quanto pit tosto quattro volte cornuta, e altrettante

tonda t’avrai mostrata, cotanto pit tosto il mio Panfilo tornerammi?

346

P. Cherchi

Il quale tornato, cosi tarda e veloce come ti piace corri per li tuoi

cerchi. °

Siamo ben lontani, come si vede, dalla semplice imprecazione ad un concetto astratto di giorno o di notte. Intanto non é I’attesa della notte, ma la notte dell’attesa; 0, se si preferisce, é I’attesa della notte per poter meditare sull’attesa amorosa. Quindi é flagrante la sostituzione della luna al sole

come metro del tempo: Selene 0 Diana sono divinita femminilie pertanto pitt vicine alla psicologia di Fiammetta,

anche se questa, da innamorata

e

obbediente, con l’appellativo di “Febea” tradisce il suo ruolo di satellite rispetto al sole che é Panfilo. Ma il passo é soprattutto notevole per quella dimensione materiale—non spaziale! — data al tempo. I corni della luna, il suo crescere, la sua pienezza... Tutto trasforma questa luna in una stupenda clessidra celeste che placidamente scandisce il tempo dell’attesa ma senza registrare il tormento della mancanza e le ansie della speranza. Perci6 la luna é una complice avversa, una divinita mite e fredda che con la sua

implacabile presenza crea un’aura di sortilegio. Il tempo di Fiammetta acquista attributi della sua personalita, della sua esperienza. L’Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta, la prima heroida moderna, ebbe una grande fortuna grazie alla quale il motivo dell’ attesa degli amanti misurata col ritmo degli astri entré a far parte cospicua di uno dei grandi magnalia della tradizione letteraria amorosa. Dal Boccaccio—che anche in altre occasioni uso il motivo dell’attesa (Filostrato II, 44; Filocolo I, 173) — apprese la lezione Chaucer il quale nel Troilus and Criseyde non solo utilizza il tema dell‘alba per illuminare la psicologia dei personaggi (é la celebre alba presente nel terzo libro, vv. 1422-526 e 1695-708), ma anche quello della serena presente nel “canticus Troili” del quinto libro (659-65): The dayes moore, and lenger every nyght, Than they ben wont to be, hym thoughte tho, And that the sonne went his cours unright By lenger weye than it was wont to do; And seyde, “ Ywis, me dredeth evere mo, The sonnes sone, Pheton, be on lyve,

And that his fader carte amys he dryve.’ Il motivo irrompe con drammaticita nell’ opera di Fernando Rojas, la Celestina, il capolavoro castigliano del Quattrocento. E col motivo appare anche I’immagine dell’ orologio, ormai non piu raro: De dia estaré en mi camara, de noche en aquel parayso dulce, en aquel alegre vergel, entrel aquellas suaues plantas e fresca verdura 347

"L'Orloge amoureus"... da! jO luziente Febo, jO noche de mi descanso, si fuesses ya torna

tosas estrellas, date priessa a tu acostumbrado camino! ;O deley aun te vea relox, ioso de la continua orden! ;O espac

apareceos ante asses lo que yo, yo arder en biuo fuego de amor! Que si ti esper tad del maevolun la quando des doze, jams estarias arrendado a

, que agora stro que te compuso. Pues jvosotros, inuernales meses idas noches compl muy estays escondidos!: jviniéssedes con vuestras

vn afio que a trocarlas por estos prolixos dias! Ya me paresce hauer de mis erio refrig toso no he visto aquel suaue descanso, aquel deley sin loco, pido, trabajos. ;Pero qué es lo que demando? ;Qué s curso los den apren sufrimiento? Lo que jamas fué ni puede ser. No a curso, ygual vn naturales a rodearse sin orden, que a todos es a no térmi ado limit todos vn mesmo espacio para muerte y vida, un as, planet los de ial los secretos mouimientos del alto firmamento celest Tode se y norte de los crescimientos e mengua de la menstrua luna. cielo, la: espue rige con vn freno ygual, todo se mueue con igual

echaa mi que dé tierra, mar, fuego, viento, calor, frio. ;Qué me aprou cielo? Pues, por del doze horas el relox de hierro, sino las ha dado el

a, mucho que madrugue, no amanece mas ayna. (Ed. Cejador y Frauc 2 [Espasa Calpe, 1962 (I° ed. 1913)] 127-29

and Si potrebbero ricordare altri passi celebri come quello di Romeo anche ma 2), sc. III, Juliet, dove troviamo un‘insuperata scena da alba (atto a linsuperabile monologo “Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds” di Giuliett passi re ricorda ero che attende la notte per incontrarsi con Romeo. Si potrebb da serena nel Don Quijote (II, 71), in cui I’hidalgo manchego, ultimo grande re un amante cortese, prega Febo che acceleri il suo passo. Potremmo ricorda , Leandro e Ero passo dall’Adone di Marino, che, riscrivendo la favola di ele Cupido di desidera intensamente una sovrapposizione perfetta fra le ali ali di Chronos; ma quella perfetta sincronia di amore e tempo cantata da Froissart rimane un puro desiderio. Si potrebbe riportare un numero alto di documenti simili, ma tutti proverebbero che I’orologio e l’'amore non sono compatibili. Bastera fermarsi su una canzone di Lope de Vega in cui il pastore Menalca si rivolge all’ orologio datogli in regalo da Isabela; e basta leggerne le prime strofe:

A quien las noches y dias pasa por desvelado, justamente le habéis dado la empresa de sus porfias; reloj de las horas mias,

que me muestra cada hora

348

P. Cherchi

que paso sin vos, sefiora, el indice de mis dafios; cuenta despacio los afios de una hora que el alma Ilora. Poco mi tormento impiden tus horas de tiempo llenas,

pues no se miden las penas como las horas se miden; éstas el tiempo dividen, sus partes mostrando al tiempo que el humano pasatiempo pasa el tiempo en esta calma; pero las horas del alma no se miden con el tiempo. Si lo que paso sintieses, reloj, en tan largos dias, mas apriesa pasarias

horas que ausente me vieses; yo aseguro que corrieses tan ligero por mi vida, que al margen de su corrida llegases en un momento; pero la pena que siento, non hay pena con que se mida."”” L’orologio é l’emblema (“empresa”) delle pene dell’amante perché le ore dell’anima non si misurano con il tempo. II contrasto fra i due tempi non poteva trovare una formulazione piti chiara; per altro era ormai cosi ovvio da diventare raro nella poesia barocca che pure conobbe una grandee impareggiata fioritura del tema “orologio”' ma ora legato all’idea dell’inesorabile correre alla morte, all’idea del desengario, al tema del ruit hora o del tempus fugit. Con Lope siamo al polo opposto di Froissart; ed é abbastanza facile capire come vari secoli di poesia petrarcheggiante (legata quindi al concetto di “canzoniere,” cioé all’idea di una ricostruzione psicologica dell’amore

vissuto nel tempo) abbiano lentamente portato a tale mutamento. Rimane piu difficile, invece, capire il caso di Froissart perché, anche in un ambiente ancora immune dalle innovazioni italiane riguardanti il discorso sull’amore, la sua voce sembra nel complesso isolata. Trovatori e troveri non avevano mai dato l’impressione che il loro amore si realizzasse in quella perfetta “compostezza” che si ricava da L’Orloge amoureus, anzi avevano creato l'impressione che il loro tormento si riflettesse su tutto cid che li circondava, 349

"L'Orloge amoureus"... é una poesia d’amore, e dalla natura al tempo. Ma L’Orloge amoureus non o,; 0 meglio, none solo questo. Nel Froissart non é né un trovatore né un trover nali rispetto a quella chee suo dit ci sono elementi lirici ma rimangono margi é piuttosto uno storico della la descrizione dell’amore cortese. Froissart io ricostruisce la “ perfetta cortesia che appoggiandosi al modello dell‘ orolog do in brio, di continuita. Viven cortesia” che é fatta di misura, di equili

mondo che elaboro e quell’autunno del medioevo,” ormai lontano dal tornare ad essa con lo raggiunse I’apogeo della civilta cortese, Froissart pud e cogliere la sostanza: sguardo da storico che riesce a sfrondare gli accidenti era un tempo regolare, e da lontano egli vede che il tempo lirico cortese come il tempo segnato ritualizzato, ciclico, senza reali mutamenti... proprio e della distanza che lo dall orologio. E l’intelligenza del fenomeno cortese ricordato come Tibullo, separa da essa si coglie nella sua aspirazione ad essere cioe

Leandro, ecc.) al quale non come un eroe mitico (Tristano, Piramo,

il cui nome é passato ricorrevano i poeti cortesi, ma come un poeta vero

all’eterno della storia.

NOTES (Geneva: Droz, 1986). 1Fd. Peter Dembowski, Le Paradis d'Amour— L’Orloge amourets .

significato culturale Esiste una notevole letteratura sull’invenzione dell’ orologio e sul suo Collins, 1967).

0 (Londra: Si veda almeno Carlo M. Cipolla, Clocks and Culture 1300-170

del tema, si 2Naturalis philosophiae principia, 1, def. VII; e per una visione storica Rhetoric of the and ies Chronolog nian Pre-Newto Past: Time of Measure The veda D. J. Wilcox, 1987). P, Relative Time (Chicago: U of Chicago III: 1613. Alcuni ’Ed. Martin de Riquer, Los trobadores (Barcellona: Planeta, 1975), il tempo degli e Febo di carro “Il mio nel anche figurano presenti qui temi dei testi e dei (Torino: Simonelli Maria di onore in italiana a letteratur e amanti,” in Studi di filologia Edizioni dell’orso, 1992) 51-61.

libro ‘Di questa serena ho dato un‘analisi secondo le linee qui riassunte, nel mio mia La segg. 62 1994) P, Toronto of U (Toronto: Love Courtly of Andreas and the Ambiguity recensione severissima interpretazione ha destato l’indignazione di Frank Goldin che, in una

ingenuo del mio libro (in realta soltanto di un capitolo del libro), sostiene, come farebbe un di parlare sbagliato pertanto é ed un‘azione, ad porta e dell’amant I’attesa che , studentello recensione la pubblicato ha che rivista la Purtroppo narrativi. mancanza di elementi ancora (Romance Philology 51 [1998] 513-17) non accetta repliche. Lo emeritus Goldin, che un libro si ricorda di scrivere, ha dimenticato del tutto come leggere: egli, infatti, ha letto che io non ho mai scritto. “Pyramus

et Tisbe,” ed. in Paul Lehman,

(Berlino: Teubner, 1927) 36-42.

350

Pseudo-antike Literatur des Mittelalters

P. Cherchi *Ed. Mario Roques. 1963) 4533-40.

Classiques Francais du Moyen Age, 86 (Parigi: Champion,

7Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta, cap. II, 13, ed. Carlo Delcorno, in Boccaccio, Tutte le opere, ed. Vittore Branca, 5 (Milano: Mondadori, 1994) 62.

‘Ivi, cap. III, 10, 72-73. *Ed. F. N. Robinson, The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Student's Cambridge Edition (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1933) 548.

"Il componimento si trova nel terzo libro dell’ Arcadia, ed. Edwin S. Morby. Clasicos Castalia (Madrid: Castalia, 1975) 290. "Un’antologia di questa letteratura @ quella curata da Bonito Vitaniello, Le parole e le ore —Gli orologi barocchi: antologia poetica del Seicento (Palermo: Sellerio, 1996); e dello stesso autore si veda lo studio L’Occhtio del tempo: l’orologio barocco tra letteratura, scienza ed emblematica

(Bologna: CLEB,

11995):

“La posizione tardo-medievale di Froissart nei riguardi del mondo della cortesia @ chiarita da Peter Dembowski nel suo libro fondamentale Jean Froissart and his Meliador.

Context, Craft, and Sense. The Edward C. Armstrong Monographs on Medieval Literature, 2 (Lexington, KY: French Forum, 1983)

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THE EDWARD C. ARMSTRONG MONOGRAPHS ON MEDIEVAL LITERATURE

On Editing Old French Texts. By Alfred Foulet and Mary Blakely Speer. Lawrence, KA: The RegentsPress of Kansas. 1979. Jean Froissart and His Meliador: Content, C raft, and Sense. By Peter F. Dembowski. 1983.

The Romances of Chrétien de Troyes: A Symposium. Edited by Douglas Kelly. 1985. Le Roman des Sept Sages de Rome: A Critical Edition of the Two Verse Redactions of a Twelfth-Century Romance. Prepared by Mary B. Speer. 1989. Pygmalion’s Figure: Reading Old French Romance. By Jean M. Dornbush.

1990. The Broken Pot Restored. Le Jeu de la Feuillée of Adam de la Halle. By Gordon Douglas McGregor. 1991.

What is Literature? France 1100-1600. Edited by Frangois Cornilliat, Ullrich Langer, and Douglas Kelly. 1993. The Medieval Saints’ Lives: Spiritual Renewal and Old French Literature. By Duncan Robertson. 1995. Historical Fabrication, Ethnic Fable and French Romance in TwelfthCentury England. By David Rollo. 1998. Prose, Verse, and Truth-Telling in the Thirteenth-Century. An Essay on

Form and Function in Selected Texts, Accompanied by an Edition of the

one

jusqu’a César. By Molly Prose Thebes as Found in the Histoire ancienne Lynde-Recchia. 2000. es in Troubadour ManuCompilatio: Lyric Texts and Prose Commentari script H (Vat. Lat. 3207). By Elizabeth W. Poe. 2000.

Florian Dembowski. Philologies Old and New: Essays in Honor of Peter 2001. Edited by Joan Tasker Grimbert and Carol J. Chase.

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