Studies on the Crusader States and on Venetian Expansion 9780860782490, 9781315204055

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Also in the Collected Studies series: HANS EB ERH A RD M AY ER Kreuzzüge und lateinischer Osten HANS EB ERH A RD M AYER Probleme des lateinischen Königreichs Jerusalem W .H . RUDT DE C O LLEN B ER G Familles de l’Orient latin, Xlle-XIVe siècles ELIYAHU A SH TO R East-West Trade in the Medieval Mediterranean ELIYA HU A SH TO R Studies on the Levantine Trade in the Middle Ages FR ED ER IC C . LA N E Studies in Venetian Social and Economic History ANDRÉ-É. SAYOUS Commerce et finance en M éditerranée au Moyen Age HARRY A. M ISK IM IN Cash, Credit and Crisis in Europe, 1300-1600 M IC H E L BALARD La mer Noire et la Romanie génoise (XIIIe-XVe siècles) ELIZA B ETH A. ZACHA RIAD OU Romania and the Turks ( c.1300-c.1500) G EO RG E T . DENNIS Byzantium and the Franks, 1350-1420 FREDDY T H IR IE T Etudes sur la Romanie gréco-vénitienne (Xe-XVe siècles) BARISA K R EK IC Dubrovnik, Italy and the Balkans in the Late Middle Ages ALAIN D U CELLIER L’Albanie entre Byzance et Venise, Xe-XVe siècles JO H N H . PR Y O R Commerce, Shipping and Naval Warfare in the Medieval Mediterranean DAVID ABULAFIA Italy, Sicily and the Mediterranean, 1100-1400

Studies on the Crusader States and on Venetian Expansion

David Jacoby

Studies on the Crusader States and on Venetian Expansion

First published 1989 by Variorum Reprints Reissued 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon 0X14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright ©1989 by Variorum Reprints

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Publisher’s Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent. Disclaimer The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and welcomes correspondence from those they have been unable to contact. A Library of Congress record exists under LC control number: 90107360 ISBN 13: 978-0-860-78249-0 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978-1-315-20405-5 (ebk)

C O N TE N TS

Preface I

Knightly Values and Class Consciousness in the Crusader States of the Eastern Mediterranean

vii

158-186

Mediterranean Historical Review 1. London 1986

II

La littérature française dans les états latins de la Méditerranée orientale à l’époque des croisades: diffusion et création

617-646

Essor et fortune de la chanson de geste dans l'Europe et l'Orient latin. Actes du IXe Congrès International de la Société Rencesvals pour l'Étude des Épopées Romanes (Padoue- Venise, 1982). Modena: Mucchi Editore, 1984

III

The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Collapse of Hohenstaufen Power in the Levant

83-101

Dumbarton Oaks Papers 40. Washington, D.C. 1986

IV

Pèlerinage médiéval et sanctuaires de Terre Sainte: la perspective vénitienne

27-58

Ateneo veneto, Anno CLXXIII ( = X X IV N.S.), 24. Venice 1986

V

Crusader Acre in the Thirteenth Century: Urban Layout and Topography

1-45

Studi Medievali, 3a serie, XX. Spoleto 1979

VI

Montmusard, Suburb of Crusader Acre: the First Stage of its Development Outremer — Studies in the History o f the Crusading Kingdom o f Jerusalem presented to Joshua Prawer, ed. B.Z. Kedar, H.E. Mayer, R.C. Smail. Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben Zvi, 1982

205-217

vi VII

A Venetian Manual of Commercial Practice from Crusader Acre

403-428

I comuni italiani nel regno1crociato di Gerusalemme, a cura di G. Air aldi e B.Z. Kedar (Collana storica di Fonti e Studi, diretta da G. Pistarino, 48). Genova, 1986

V ili

The Rise of a New Emporium in the Eastern Mediterranean: Famagusta in the Late Thirteenth Century

145-179

Meletai kai hypomnemata, Hidryma archiepiskopou Makariou III, I. Nicosia 1984

IX

Les Vénitiens naturalisés dans l’Empire byzantin: un aspect de l’expansion de Venise en Romanie du XIIIe au milieu du XVe siècle

217-235

Travaux et Mémoires 8 [ = Hommage à M. Paul Lemerle]. Paris 1981

X

Venice and the Venetian Jews in the Eastern Mediterranean Discussione

29-58 59-63

Gli Ebrei e Venezia (secoli XIV-XVIII), a cura di G. Cozzi. Milano: Edizione di Comunità, 1987

XI

Les gens de mer dans la marine de guerre vénitienne de la mer Egée aux XIVe et XVe siècles

169-201

Le genti del Mare Mediterraneo, a cura di R. Ragosta [ = XVII Colloquio Internazionale di Storia Marittima, Napoli, 1980], I. Napoli 1981

Addenda et corrigenda 1-10

Index

T h is v o lu m e c o n ta in s v iii + 3 40 p a g e s.

PREFACE

This volume is a sequel to the two published in the Variorum Reprints series, in 1975 and 1979 respectively, under the following titles: Société et démographie à Byzance et en Romanie latine, and Recherches sur la Méditerranée orientale du X IIe au X V e siècle. Peuples, sociétés, économies. The present collection of studies, like the previous ones, deals with Western expansion in the eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea and with the meeting between the West, Byzantium and the Muslim East that took place in these areas from the eleventh to the fifteenth century. The present volume reflects to some extent a shift in focus toward the Crusader Levant, as implied by its title, and a stronger emphasis on cultural, economic and urban history. I wish to thank the following publishers and institutions for granting permission to reproduce the studies that originally appeared in periodicals or collective volumes: Frank Cass, London; the director of Dumbarton Oaks; the president of the Ateneo Veneto; the editor of Studi medievali; the Ben Zvi Institute, Jerusalem; the director of the Istituto di Medievistica, University of Genoa; the Archbishop Makarios III Foundation, Nicosia; Editions de Boccard, Paris; Arnoldo Mondadori Editore. Some mistakes have been corrected in the text of the studies reproduced below, while additional mistakes are listed in the Addenda et corrigenda preceding the index at the end of this volume. D A V ID JACOBY

Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, D.C. January 1989

PUBLISHER’S NOTE The articles in this volume, as in all others in the Collected Studies Series, have not been given a new, continuous pagination. In order to avoid confusion, and to facilitate their use where these same studies have been referred to elsewhere, the original pagination has been maintained wherever possible. Each article has been given a Roman number in order of appearance, as listed in the Contents. This number is repeated on each page and quoted in the index entries.

I

Knightly Values and Class Consciousness in the Crusader States of the Eastern Mediterranean The period extending from the late eleventh to the early thirteenth century witnessed the conquest of Muslim and Byzantine territories by western armies and the creation of new states on their soil. The First Crusade resulted in the establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Principality of Antioch and the counties of Tripoli and Edessa at the expense of the Muslims; Latin rule in the Levant lasted for about two centuries and eventually collapsed in 1291. Byzantine Cyprus was conquered by King Richard I of England in 1191 and remained in Latin hands until 1571. Finally, after the Fourth Crusade, in the first decade of the thirteenth century, Latins extended their authority over large sections of the Byzantine empire, some of which remained under their sway as late as the seventeenth century; of special interest in our context are the Peloponnesus, where the Frankish Principality o f Morea was created, the adjoining Duchy of Athens, and the islands of the Aegean. The conquest o f the Levant and o f most of the Byzantine lands was carried out by knights who imposed in their newly acquired dominions the feudal regime to which they were accustomed. Although originating from widely scattered areas in the West, the majority of these knights came from Capetian France and some neighbouring territories, while a small group of conquerors of Norman stock hailing from southern Italy and Sicily established itself in the Principality o f Antioch. The ranks of the first settlers and their descendants were later reinforced by immigrant knights, mosdy from the same areas.1 Some differences existed in the specific background of these settlers. They brought with them, however, a social structure and a political organization expressed in institutions and practices that were common to feudal society in their native lands and were only marginally altered by military and social conditions prevailing in the conquered areas. By the late eleventh century - at the time of the First Crusade - nobility in the W est was already considered a matter o f blood-relationships, and

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the ceremony of dubbing to knighthood made access to its ranks most difficult; this ceremony clearly illustrated the development of classconsciousness within the ranks of the feudatories. The stratified sociolegal structure o f the West became increasingly rigid in the course of the twelfth century and generated a growing differentiation between knights and commoners. By 1200 - about the time of the Fourth Crusade - chivalry, delineated as a social group, had become an ‘order’ with its specific rituals, morals, and obligations shaped by custom, as well as by courtly literature. This literature, especially that which developed in northern France since the second half of the twelfth century, became a powerful formative clement shaping norms of social behaviour and class ethos. Wide differences in standing, power, and wealth existed within the nobility, yet the knights belonging to its middle and lower ranks emulated the high nobility in its life-style, shared its attitudes, values, and mentality, and displayed the same sense of social superiority and exclusiveness.2 Western settlement in the lands of the eastern Mediterranean required some measure of adaptation to new conditions, at times markedly different from those to which the knights had previously been accustomed. This was especially the case in the Crusader Levant, where the knightly élite, predominantly o f rural origin, established itself in conquered cities and became urbanized. In spite of regional differences in the pattern and nature of their settlement, however, the knights and their descendants retained and reinforced in various ways the heritage they shared. Social contacts, the use of French as a common language and the circulation of books provided them with an intimate knowledge of social and institutional developments in the West and the eastern Mediterranean. These three factors, which will be examined below, also enabled them to keep abreast of the evolving social ethos and literary taste of their western peers, as mirrored in courtly literature,3 and contributed to the renewal of knightly values in the eastern Mediterranean. It remains to be seen, however, whether these developments in the East were merely contemporaneous or belated reflections of those occurring in the West, or whether they displayed some distinctive features in response to specific challenges. One of these was posed by the encounter of eastern knights with those of the West, which generated not only emulation, but also competition between the two groups; another derived from the cohabitation of knights and commoners in the urban centres o f the Levant; no less important, with respect to their value-system and social behaviour, was the attitude o f the ruling knights towards their Muslim or Christian subjects and neighbours.

I 160 The geographical diffusion of knightly values in the Crusader states of the eastern Mediterranean mainly occurred within the social milieu of royal, princely and baronial courts and entourage, the meeting ground of knights from all ranks.4 Social contacts, maintained in various ways, constituted one of the main factors promoting this phenomenon. Indeed, some knights belonging to the higher and middle ranks of their class retained close links with their own relatives in the West for one or several generations, and occasionally married women from the regions, mostly in France, from which they originated.5 More important was the constant influx, varying in nature and intensity, of settlers, warriors, and visitors into each of the conquered territories, and of pilgrims belonging to the knightly class to the Levant. Philip of Novara, an Italian noble established in Cyprus and active there since around 1218 spent part o f his adult life in the service of the powerful baronial family of the Ibelins. It was mainly in their entourage that he acquired his knowledge of the feudal law prevailing in the kingdoms of Jerusalem and Cyprus and of the knightly value system connected with it: both are duly reflected in his writings.6 In Morca Prince Geoffrey II of Villehardouin, who ruled from circa 1228 to 1246, was famous for the largesse he displayed towards vassals living at his court. He thereby increased his ‘honour’, a fundamental concept of chivalric culture, and attracted ‘knights from France, from Burgundy and, above all, from Champagne, from where he originated’.7 In 1305 a group of knights from France, several of whom may have been ‘youths’, arrived in Corinth under the leadership of Guillaume Bouchart, ‘who was considered one of the best jousters o f the W est’. These men - in quest of adventure, rewards, fame, and honour - invited the knights of Greece to fight them individually in jousts. They were opposed in single combats by Moreot nobles of various ranks: barons, as well as members o f their retinue, namely, knights and presumably also bacheliers, all o f whom shared the same chivalric ethos.8 The Crusades and other military expeditions provided ample opportunity for encounters between western and eastern knights and for the display of courage, military prowess, loyalty, largesse, and courtesy, the foremost knightly virtues. O f particular importance in this respect was the participation of western rulers and Latin lords o f Greece who set an example by their conduct. Both King Richard I of England, during the Third Crusade, and King Louis IX of France in Cyprus, Egypt, and the Holy Land between 1248 and 1254 inspired chroniclers and poets to praise their knightly virtues.9 In addition, knights from one conquered area of the eastern Mediter­ ranean maintained contact with their peers in other areas. Close links existed in the thirteenth century between the nobility of Cyprus and

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that o f the Kingdom o f Jerusalem - from where it had mostly originated: the connections were fostered by family ties, common political interests, as well as by the adoption on the island of the legal system and knightly mores developed on the mainland.10 The attitudes and concepts of the Cypriot knightly class were moulded to a large extent by those that evolved in the Kingdom o f Jerusalem and rested upon a sense of social and historical continuity.11 The Latin lords of the Aegean, several of whom were of Italian origin, submitted since 1248, and the duke of Athens since 1258, to the authority of the Prince of Morea, integrated into the feudal hierarchy and the life of his court and adopted the latter’s values.12 Marco II Sanudo, the scion o f a Venetian family established in the Aegean, received his knightly apprenticeship, no doubt together with other young men, at the court of Prince William II of Morea before becoming lord of the Duchy of Naxos in 1262.13 Bonifacio da Verona, one of the barons of Euboea (or Negroponte as it was then called) dubbed to knighthood the new duke of Athens Guy II de La Roche at a court gathering held in Thebes in 1294.14 An exceptional encounter of western and eastern knights took place in 1249 when Prince William II of Morea arrived with his vassals in Cyprus, where he joined the army assembled by King Louis IX of France and troops from the Latin states of the Levant. The meeting of the knights o f Morea with those of the Levant is reflected in the legal sources o f the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and in the Assizes o f Romania, the legal treatise composed in the Frankish Peloponnesus between 1333 and 1346.15 The prologue of the Assizes o f Romania traces the origin of the legal rules implemented in Morea back to those enacted by King Baldwin I in the Holy Land after the conquest of Jerusalem. Although fictitious,16 this assumed ancestry illustrates a clear sense of a social ethos shared by the Moreot nobility - undoubtedly as early as the thirteenth century - with the knights of other Crusader states of the eastern Mediterranean. It is also likely that the legal practice of the Angevin Kingdom of Sicily exerted some influence on that of the Principality of Morea after the latter came under the rule o f Charles I o f Anjou in 1278.17 Legal rules, which to some extent shaped the pattern of behaviour o f the knightly class, evidently reflect its values, attitudes and mentality, although they offer only a limited insight into its life. The transmission and diffusion of the knightly ethos and the life-style closely connected with it was also fostered by a linguistic factor: French constituted the common language for the nobility of the Crusader states from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. It was spoken and written in various dialects, whose existence in the East was due to the imprint of the areas from which the first western settlers and their rulers

I 162 originated. It is thus obvious, for instance, that the French spoken in Antioch by the knights of Norman stock coming from southern Italy and Sicily differed from that of their peers from Poitou or Burgundy. The French dialects evolved further in the Crusader states, and some of them were infiltrated by foreign words and syntax, as in fourteenthcentury Cyprus and Morea. An influx of Italian immigrants and accrued contacts with Italy explain the numerous Italianisms in the French of these territories, on which Greek also left its imprint.18 The standing of French, however, was never threatened. In Morea this standing was ensured by a continuous flow of French knights and the intermarriage of members o f the local nobility with that of France. Many of the Italians who integrated into the ranks of the Moreot feudatories came from the Angevin Kingdom of Sicily and may have known French, the language of the royal court at Naples.19 Such was the case with Niccolò Acciaiuoli, a Florentine who had become a member of the Angevin court. He spent three years, from 1338 to 1341, with Empress Catherine of Valois in Morea, where he received extensive fiefs.20 According to Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Acciaiuoli wrote in French on the feats o f the knights of the Holy Spirit.21 Italians who did not know French had no choice but to learn it when they became members of the Moreot feudal hierarchy, as did the lords of the Aegean islands in the thirteenth century.22 The social integration of newcomers could not be achieved without cultural assimilation, which, however superficial, required in the first place a knowledge of French. The same phenomenon also occurred in other Crusader states, as illustrated by the case of Philip of Novara whose works were all written in French.23 In spite of some local or regional peculiarities French indeed served, from the twelfth to the fifteenth century, as the common language of the nobility living in the Crusader states.24 Ramon Muntaner, the chronicler o f the so-called Catalan Company, provides in the early fourteenth century an invaluable, although somewhat biased testimony to this effect. The knights of Morea were considered the noblest of the world, he writes, before being defeated by the Catalans in 1311. According to one version of his chronicle, their French was as good as that spoken in Acre, the main harbour of the Crusader Levant, while another records that their French equalled that of Paris.25 Whatever the correct version, there is ample evidence to support M untaner’s basic claim that French served as the language o f the social élite. Although most notaries trained in the West drafted deeds in Latin, French was the language of the treatises of feudal law composed in the thirteenth century in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, one of which was adopted in 1369 as the legal code of the Kingdom of Cyprus. The same holds true o f many legal rules enacted in this island in the thirteenth and fourteenth

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centuries.26 In Morea the letters sent in 1289 by King Charles II o f Naples to the inhabitants of the principality were first read aloud in their original Latin version before an assembly of knights and burgesses; afterwards, their content was conveyed to the audience in the vernacular, ‘so that everyone should understand [them]’.27 According to the Assizes o f Romania, the law treatise of Morea, the parties appearing before the courts were enjoined to plead in the vernacular because ‘most liege vassals are homeni indoli’, namely, do not under­ stand Latin.28 French was also employed in notarial deeds, in the field of legislation, as well as by the author of the original version of the Assizes o f Romania.29 French was thus used in the eastern Mediterranean in legal writings permeated with the values and concepts of the knightly class. In addition, it also served as the literary language of this class; judging by the composition of the eastern nobility, Provençal lyric poetry must have had only a limited audience, even in the twelfth century.30 Before dealing, however, with the role of literature in the diffusion of knightly values, some attention should be paid to another factor of social cohesion. The values and attitudes of the nobility were exhibited in ways similar to those o f the W est in the life-style of its members. Some features of this life-style have already been noted above, others will follow. Young nobles served apprenticeships at the princely and baronial courts of Morea, became squires attendant on the lord’s lady,31 and learned the requisite courtly skills. Philip of Novara relates how John I of Ibclin, lord of Beirut, celebrated the knighting of his two eldest sons in Cyprus in 1223 with ‘much giving and spending and jousting’, as well as some theatre performances. The emphasis of Philip of Novara on the riches of his lord and his great admiration for the latter’s largesse vividly convey the link between ethos and social behaviour.32 Two years later jousts and dances took place in Tyre after the marriage by proxy of Isabelle of Brienne to Emperor Frederick II,33 and this was also the case at a festive gathering of the princely court of Morea in 1258.34 Jousts and theatre performances were also held in Acre in 1286, as we shall sec below. Yet, on the whole, it seems that jousts were infrequent in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The urban setting in which the knights lived may have discouraged this sport, and frequent military ventures anyhow provided ample opportunity for the display of physical ability and courage.35 Hunting and hawking were widely practised by the knightly class in the West. In 1145 Pope Eugenius III wrote to King Louis VII of France that those who take the cross ‘should by no means give attention to costly clothing or personal adornment or dogs or falcons or other things which proclaim luxurious living’, but rather to military equipment and

I 164 training. Yet in 1191 King Philip II of France brought with him a white falcon when he reached the Christian camp near Acre during the Third Crusade.36 Hawking is attested in the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the twelfth century. King Fulk (1131-43) issued a law regarding lost falcons, and offered a trained falcon brought to Acre by a Genoese to an Arab visitor. The chronicler William of Tyre reports that King Amalric (1163-74) liked hawking.37 After 1191 the exiguous territory and the nature of the terrain remaining in the hands of the Latins must have greatly reduced this sport in the kingdom. Jousting, hunting and hawking were no doubt more important in Morea,38 and especially in Cyprus where the members of the nobility, protected by the surrounding sea, could fully indulge in their favourite pastimes. Ludolf o f Sudheim, who visited Cyprus some time before 1350, was particularly impressed by the time and means the great lords and their knights spend on hunting and the frequent jousts and tournaments held in Nicosia. Even the bishop of Limassol, Guy of Ibelin, a Dominican of baronial descent who led a rather austere life, had three falconers in his retinue when he died in 1367, although only one falcon was left in his possession. Some Cypriot knights were expert falconers, and treatises on falconry were composed in Cyprus in the second half o f the fourteenth century and somewhat later.39 Hawking was a distinctive activity of the knightly class, and so were tourneying and jousting. By bringing together the members of this class, their ladies, and those who gave literary expres­ sion to the standards of behaviour and ideals exhibited, these martial encounters strongly promoted the definition and diffusion of chivalric culture.40 Personal contact between the members of the knightly class of the West and the East, stimulated as it was by a common lingua franca - in its twofold meaning - no doubt greatly contributed to the sharing of their ethos. Yet the diffusion of values, attitudes and life-style also resulted, perhaps to no lesser a degree, from the transmission of courtly literature, the imprint o f which can be easily detected. Numerous trouvères and troubadours accompanied the Crusader armies and sang the military prowess of the knights and especially that of their lords, or else criticized them for their unwise or unchivalric behaviour.41 Crusad­ ing lords and knights would occasionally compose chansons that expressed some o f the values shared by the western nobility: Thibaut of Champagne, since 1234 king of Navarre, wrote one in Acre between September 1239 and September 1240 in which he bemoaned his absence from his lady.42 More important than the occasional and temporary presence in the East o f poets or performers was that o f books. It is impossible to assess the degree of literacy of the knightly class in this area or to evaluate the proportion o f those who had direct access to

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books. Whatever the case, it is obvious that the presence in the East of works of courtly literature brought from the West, even if temporary, had a much wider impact. These works were undoubtedly read and circulated, and sometimes copied. Once a text had been reproduced and remained in the East, it was available to more readers and its oral delivery could be repeated for the benefit of the same audience or that of new ones. It is from books available to them, rather than recitation, that Philip of Novara in Cyprus and William II of Villehardouin, Prince of Morea, drew their inspiration when they composed lyric poetry.43 Unfortunately there is only scant information about the import from France or, in the case of Morea, from the Angevin Kingdom of Sicily, of books conveying the values of the western nobility to the knights of the East. Nor is much known about such books privately owned, circulated^ or read - whether silently or aloud - at court gatherings. The available evidence is sufficient, however, to provide us with an insight into the literary taste and expectations of the knightly class in the eastern Mediterranean. Western rulers and members o f the nobility occasionally brought books to the East when on pilgrimage or on Crusade. Eudes, Count o f Nevers, arrived in the Holy Land with a military contingent in 1265 and died in Acre the following year. At his death he had in his possession, among other books, a chansonnier and two works, also in the vernacular, important enough to be mentioned separately.44 One o f these works was a romanz de la terre d’outre mer, a French version of the Latin chronicle o f William of Tyre covering the history of the Latin kingdom from its inception till 1184, or a vernacular chronicle covering the same period and extending into the thirteenth century. In all likelihood it was a European version of this te x t45 We may surmise, therefore, that the second book of distinction left by Eudes, the romanz des Loheranz, perhaps the roman de Garin le Loherain, had also been brought from Europe. Its presence in Acre is o f special significance in our context. This late twelfth-century epic exalts the virtues of the knight, his military prowess, as well as his loyalty to his lineage and his fellow warriors. Like many other twelfth- and thirteenth-century romances it abounds in descriptions of adventures, combat, hunting and lavish feasts. There is no evidence about the fate of Eudes o f Nevers’ copy o f the romanz des Loheranz after 1266. The book may have remained only temporarily in the East, yet even so knightly readers and audiences there m ust have thoroughly enjoyed it. The epic reflected their own life-style, ethical conceptions, standards of behaviour and sense o f social cohesion, dependent, at least in part, on the importance of the lineage in the Levant.46 The latter’s role, illustrated by the chronicle of Philip of Novara dealing with the years

I 166 1218-42, had not diminished and was clearly expressed in a speech made in 1271 by John of Jaffa, a member of the Ibelin house.47 Courtly literature illustrating chivalric values and life-style was also brought to Morea and undoubtedly circulated there. The library of Leonardo da Veroli, chancellor of the principality at the time of Prince William II, provides indirect evidence to this effect. Leonardo, a vassal and the trusted counsellor of the prince, was a native of the Kingdom of Sicily and returned to his homeland some time before 1277, after spending at least 17 years in Morea. He then became a prominent figure in the entourage of King Charles I of Anjou, whose court he had frequently visited before. In 1252 he had married Marguerite of Toucy, sister of the first wife of Prince William, a cousin of Charles I and a descendant of King Louis VII of France.48 His literary taste may thus be considered as representative of the milieu to which he belonged, both in Morea and in the Kingdom of Sicily, although he certainly was more learned than many of his fellow noblemen.49 At Leonardo’s death in 1281 his library contained no less than 14 romances in French, an impressive number indeed for a private library.50 We do not know the titles or content of the romances, yet we may assume that a fervent reader such as Leonardo da Veroli had some of these works, or similar ones, with him when he resided in Morea. We may further assume that these books were privately read by members of the court of Prince William II or read aloud in their presence. The eastern nobility, like its counterpart in the West, was not interested only in the epic content of fictional literature, nor did it view romances solely as entertainment. These were also works of edification faithfully reflecting class values. They also occasionally afforded an opportunity to display collective self-identification and social exclu­ siveness, as illustrated at two festivities, one in Cyprus in 1223 and the other at Acre in 1286. At the knighting in Cyprus of the sons of John I of Ibelin, jousting was followed by a performance of the ‘Adventures of Brittany and of the Round Table’.51 As far as we know, this is the earliest instance, in either East or West, of a performance based on Arthurian literature,52 and it may well be that it set a precedent which inspired knights in the West to emulate their eastern peers. Unfortu­ nately, Philip o f Novara provides details neither about the actors who impersonated the Arthurian characters nor about the precise works, presumably prose romances, on which the performances were based.53 We have more detailed information, however, about the festivities at Acre, held in the auberge of the Hospitallers situated in the suburb of Montmusard in 1286. It is provided by the so-called Templar of Tyre who was extremely well-acquainted - like his predecessor - with the events and institutions o f the Latin Levant as well as with the mores of

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its knightly class. After the coronation of Henry II of Lusignan as King of Jerusalem, knights participated for an entire fortnight in the most beautiful feast known for one hundred years [consisting] of festivities and tournaments, and they imperson­ ated the Round Table as well as the Queen of Femenie, that is knights dressed as women and jousted together. Then they impersonated nuns who were with monks and embraced [?] one another, and they impersonated Lancelot, and Tristan and Palam&de and many other fine, delectable and pleasant plays.54 The literary references in this description are of particular interest. A combination of travesty and mock-fighting is related to the Realm o f Femenie or Realm o f the Amazons, well known to thirteenth-century audiences from fictional literature and chronicles. It is most likely from these literary sources that the knights drew their inspiration, yet rather than faithfully staging the exploits of the Amazons and their queen they presumably presented a satire on feminine martial virtues. The repre­ sentation of monks and nuns must have assumed a farcical and salacious character and was most likely also grounded in some literary work.55 Most important in our context, however, is the specific mention of the Round Table and of Arthurian heroes. It is noteworthy that in the description of the Acre festivities the performance of the Round Table is not directly connected with the plays in which Arthurian characters were impersonated.56 Some thirteenth-century precedents may help us to explain what appears at first glance as negligence on the part of the Templar o f Tyre, who provided us with such invaluable information about these festivities. When referring to a Round Table held in 1252 in England, the chronicler Matthew Paris emphasized the distinction between the event ‘commonly called tournam ent’ and ‘the chivalric game called Round Table’.57 In the latter blunted weapons were used and apparently the jousting was more strictly regulated. In the Round Tables held in the West in the thirteenth century the display of prowess in jousts and tournaments - coupled with music, dances and feasting - was at the centre of the celebrations.58 These assumed, however, a particular character reflecting the spirit of Arthurian literature, yet without any mystical implications connected with the quest for the Holy Grail: the knights taking part in these celebrations bore Arthurian names for the occasion and in some cases played small scenes with the participation of their ladies. More elaborate scenes were enacted at Round Tables held in 1278 at Hem-Monacu in Artois and in 1299 at the second marriage o f King Edward I of England, or possibly somewhat earlier.59 Although rather fanciful, the descriptions of these two festivals enable us to

I 168 understand the nature of the Acre celebration in 1286. At the latter the knights first held a Round Table similar to those of the West.60 In addition they staged dramatic spectacles based on literary works, as implied by the specific references to Lancelot, Tristan and Palamede.61 Three French prose romances, each bearing the name of one of these Arthurian heroes, were obviously known in Acre and must have inspired the author of the dialogues that certainly accompanied the scenes.62 The fact that knights and not professional actors such as minstrels impersonated the heroes enhances this hypothesis, as prose dialogues could be partially improvised and unlike verse did not require memorization or precise recitation.63 The use of prose romances is also borne out by the inclusion of Palamede, a character drawn from the prose Tristan. A work bearing the name of Palamede is first mentioned in 1240 in a letter of Emperor Frederick II, and must have reached Acre at the latest in May 1271, when Prince Edward arrived on crusade in this city.64 Finally, we may assume that travesty was employed, as in the impersonations of the Queen of Fcmenie and the Amazons and in the play about monks and nuns. It is by no means impossible, therefore, that in 1286 Acre witnessed the first elaborate spectacle based on Arthurian romances ever staged. The three prose romances, Lancelot, Tristan, and Palamede have much in common. The prose Lancelot includes a discourse on the origins of knighthood, the symbolic significance of the knight’s weapons and horse, as well as the obligations resting upon him as ‘preudom e’. Adventure as personal fulfilment, tournaments and the mystery of the Holy Grail are the main themes of this work. In the prose Tristan the hero, a knight-errant considered ‘the flower of chivalry’, is received at the court of King Arthur and made a companion of the Round Table. As for Palamede, he is Iseult’s faithful knight whose love for her is never rewarded. The work bearing his name was intended to elaborate on and explain the prose Lancelot and Tristan, but did not carry out this purpose. It describes the exploits of heroes who supposedly were the ancestors and predecessors of the knights of King Arthur’s court and a world devoid o f religious fervour. All three works reflect the ethos of the nobility, with an emphasis on inner values, courtly behaviour and romance. Virtues are proven and preserved by adventure, tests, and ordeals, and love is the central theme and stimulating factor in this setting. Courage, the concept of honour and the loyalty of brothers in arms, as well as mutual respect, refined and graceful manners and the service to women are the values of a courtly world enlivened by fable and magic. The Arthurian knights appear as a community of the chosen displaying virtues, ideals and class ethics with which the knights present at ¿he Acre festivities were familiar.65

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Many courtly romances and chronicles circulating in the Crusader states of the eastern Mediterranean were undoubtedly illustrated and thus provided a visual expression of knightly values explicitly or implicitly stated in literary form.66 Yet the impact of these illustrations was necessarily restricted, as only few privileged readers had access to them. O f greater importance, and somewhat similar in their effect to public readings and dramatic performances at court gatherings were depictions in wall paintings. In all these cases the choice of the subject to be presented was guided by precise intentions and reflected a subtle interplay between patron, performer, or artist, on the one hand, and the audience or public for which the subject was intended, on the other. Whether literary, dramatic, or visual, the presentation was devised for a social group familar with the concepts, symbols and gestures expressed or embodied in the subjects displayed, a group capable of interpreting these elements rationally and responding to them emotively. Nicholas II of Saint-Omer, who married Mary of Antioch, built a mighty castle in Thebes between 1258 and 1280. Frescoes depicting how the Franks conquered Syria adorned the walls of the dwellings within this structure, described as ‘fit for an emperor’.67 It has been suggested that the subject matter of these frescoes may have been inspired by the advent of Mary, who brought with her a large dowry, and that artists were perhaps hired in Antioch to execute the paintings.68 This seems doubtful, however, as the connections between Morea and the Latin Levant were very strong even before 1258. The knights of Morea displayed a lively interest in the history of the Crusades and o f the Latin states of the Levant. They considered the conquest of the Peloponnesus a sequel to the Crusader epic that started with the First Crusade and thought themselves the worthy successors to the partici­ pants of this expedition. This view is clearly illustrated by the Chronicle o f Morea in the French version and, especially, in the Greek version which stresses the edifying character of the tale of the conquest, as the wise men who hear ‘the deeds of good soldiers’ (namely, knights) are inspired by them to aim at improvement; similarly, the Assizes o f Romania link the conquest of Morea with that of Jerusalem.69 The French version o f the Chronicle o f Morea mentions the ‘grant estoire dou reaulme de Jhcrusalem ’, and the Greek version, at the same stage of its narrative, refers to the Book o f Conquest composed in Syria.70 These are obviously references to a French version of the chronicle of William of Tyre or to a French text covering the same period and pursuing the narrative into the thirteenth century. We have seen that these two types o f vernacular chronicle were already available in the early 1230s. They m ust have been known and read in the Peloponnesus many years before the original version of the Chronicle o f Morea was

I 170 composed in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century.71 It would not be surprising, therefore, had the Levantine chronicles inspired Nicholas II of Saint-Omer to commission paintings celebrating the First Crusade and the conquest of the Holy Land.72 This is all the more likely because some of his relatives had settled in the Levant in the wake of the First Crusade, while others, still at Saint-Omer, had presumably access to a continuation of the chronicle of William of Tyre around 1230.73 It is noteworthy that somewhat later the epic of the First Crusade was also depicted in England. In 1250 the Master of the Templars in London was ordered to hand over a book kept at the Temple in order to enable one of the painters of King Henry III to decorate a room at Westminster. This book, ‘written in the French language [and] containing the deeds of Antioch and kings and also others’, was in all likelihood a copy of the French version of William of Tyre’s chronicle with a continuation into the thirteenth century.74 Indeed, one of the extant manuscripts of this version specifically refers to Antioch in its incipit, and this must have also been the case with the copy used in England in 1250-51: ‘Here begins the story of the conquest of the land of Antioch and of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.’75 Unfortunately we do not know whether the painter at W estminster decorating the ‘Antioch chamber’, as it was later called, relied exclusively on the text or whether he drew his inspiration from miniatures adorning it. At any rate, his work was apparently so successful as to induce Henry III to order the painting of two more ‘Antioch chambers’ in 1251, one at Clarendon and the second in the Tower of London. We may assume that the mansions of some lay lords of the Crusader Levant were also adorned with scenes of the Crusades d raw n ‘from books, like those of Thebes and England. The walls of several twelfth- and thirteenth-century French churches similarly display such paintings.76 Another Morcot wall painting illustrating a historical theme is reported in the late fourteenth century. When Niccold da Martoni visited the palace of the archbishop of Patras in 1395, he saw frescoes representing ‘the whole history of the destruction of the city of Troy’ painted on the walls of a large hall 25 steps long.77 We do not know whether this wall painting already existed in the Byzantine period, prior to the Frankish conquest of Patras in 1205; it seems unlikely, however, that a Byzantine prelate should have commissioned such a secular subject for his mansion or that the painting - in Byzantine style, of course - should have been preserved for about three centuries by Latin prelates in their palace.78 We may therefore safely ascribe it to the Frankish period, all the more so as the West displayed such a keen interest in the history and destruction of Troy. In the eleventh and

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twelfth century Latin histories and poems on this subject circulated in ecclesiastical circles, scenes drawn from this theme adorned manu­ scripts and tapestries, and twelfth-century French romances refer to other works of art depicting them. The fascination of the East, stimulated by the Crusades, created a demand for a presentation of Trojan history accessible to lay courtly audiences and attuned to their taste.79 In circa 1160 Benoît of Sainte-Maure was the first author to compose a full-length French rendering in verse o f the epic of Troy.80 In his Roman de Troie, a poem of over 30,000 lines freely adapted from Latin sources, he instilled the ingredients of courtly literature as well as knightly values. Indeed, militia or chivalry, friendship among the warriors and amor, the concept of love as expressed in contemporary lyric poetry, were tightly interwoven into the narrative in four elaborate love stories: those of Jason and Medea, Paris and Helen, Troilus and Briseida and, finally, Achilles and Polyxena. Jason and the Golden Fleece, the fight against Troy and the return of the heroes provided the reader or audience with a good measure of adventure.81 The author lent his Greek and Trojan characters the traits of his twelfth-century contemporaries: they were transformed into knights and barons wear­ ing medieval garbs and armour, who loved their ladies and fought in accordance with the knightly code of honour, held ‘parlements’ to decide about peace and war, and worshipped like Christians.82 Courtly audiences were captivated by the Roman de Troie, in which the portrayal of love and military prowess were fused, yet this work also had an ideological appeal. The myth o f Trojan origin was widespread in the West in the twelfth century and acquired a particular historical and political dimension in the course of the Fourth Crusade. An early thirteenth-century manuscript of Benoit’s work, preserved in Milan, suggests that a copy o f this text was available in Constantinople shortly after the Latin conquest of 1204. It had obviously been brought there by one of the knights who took part in the crusade, and must have been considered of special relevance in a context o f confrontation with the Greeks. In 1204 Pierre of Bracheux, a French knight, justified the Latin conquest of Byzantine territory by asserting that the Trojans who escaped from their city had settled in France and were the ancestors of his companions; ‘and because Troy belonged to our ancestors’, he added, ‘did we come here to conquer the land.’83 The conquest of Morea in 1205 was carried out by a group of knights who hailed from the same areas as their peers in Constantinople and must have been familiar with B enoit’s Roman de Troie, the text o f which may thus have been known in the Peloponnesus in the early thirteenth century. The visual depiction of themes related to the wars of the Greeks and the Trojans must have been widespread in the second half of the twelfth

I 172 century. De claustro anime, a work written by Hugues of Fouilloy around 1153, claims that many bishops adorn their spacious mansions with Trojans clad in purpure and golden garbs instead of attending with their riches to the needs of the poor.84 W hen Vincent of Beauvais used this passage in his Speculum historíale, composed around the middle of the thirteenth century, he did not fail to insist upon its relevance for his own time.85 The painting of these frescoes in circa 1150 was of course not related to the Roman de Troie, written somewhat later, and merely reflected a long standing tradition of illustrations of the Trojan war. Yet by the time Vincent of Beauvais composed his Speculum historíale, Benoît of Sainte-Maure’s work must have been so widespread as to influence contemporary artists to illustrate it in wall paintings, as they did in manuscripts.86The earliest extant copy of Benoit’s work illustrated with a narrative cycle of miniatures is dated 1264. Like the text, these miniatures depict scenes and characters in contemporary visual imagery.87 From France the Roman de Troie and its illustrations spread to Italy, and it is mainly in the Angevin Kingdom and at its royal court in Naples that French literature and art gained a firm foothold. The kingdom may be considered an important link between France and Morea even before the latter came under Angevin rule in 1278. French romances and other works of chivalric literature were widely read in Naples during the reigns of King Robert and his successor Queen Giovanna, which extended from 1309 to 1382. Workshops illustrating such texts were active there between 1290 and 1360.88 The library of King Robert presumably contained some illuminated manuscripts of French romances, and he or Queen Giovanna may have commissioned an illuminated copy of the Roman de Troie." French prose versions of this work were composed in the course of the thirteenth century, and some of their material was incorporated in the first half of the fourteenth century in the second recension o f the Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César, illustrated in Naples in circa 1340; the miniatures related to the story of Troy were inspired by those accompanying Benoît of Saint-M aure’s work.90 In addition, it is noteworthy that a version of Benoit’s work was extensively used by Guido delle Colonne, a judge in Messina, in his Historia destructions Troiae completed in 1287. Although more learned, this Latin text retains much of the contemporary chivalric vein and imagery.91 Its earliest illustrations are primarily based on those of Benoit’s text. G uido’s Latin work was particularly appreciated in Venice, which claimed Trojan ancestry for its founders, and illuminated copies were produced there in the fourteenth century with significant changes in the style and content of the miniatures.92 A cycle of frescoes depicting Trojan battle scenes was painted around 1313 in the Loggia dei Cavalieri in Treviso and the theme was also represented in the

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Visconti palace in M ilan.93 In the second half of the fourteenth century the popularity o f the Trojan theme in East and West is also borne out by the recommendation o f Philippe de Mdzibres, chancellor to the king o f Cyprus from 1359 to 1369 and an ardent advocate o f a crusade, to his royal pupil, the young Charles VI of France. Some time after 1373 he suggested to him that he read ‘es hystoires authentique... de la bataille de Troye’; he may have also been the impresario of a court production of the Fall o f Troy in 1389.94 In addition, the Trojan theme was popular at that time at the court o f the dukes o f Burgundy.95 All these developments during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries should be borne in mind when we consider the painting o f the destruction o f Troy in Patras, especially as we do not know the identity of the archbishop who commissioned it. Was he acquainted with a French version o f this history, whether in verse or in prose, strongly reflecting courtly interest and knightly values, or with a Latin text o f the late thirteenth century in which these elements had been somewhat toned down? Did the illustrations which inspired him or the artist working for him reflect those of Benoit’s Roman de Troie, or not? It is unfortunately impossible to answer these questions. A glance at the list of Latin archbishops who served in Patras since 1205 reveals, as far as evidence is available, that they were either of French or Italian origin; in the fourteenth century several of them were Florentine, others Venetian, among them Pietro Com er who received Niccolb da Martoni at his palace;96 the latter’s reference to the fresco seems to imply that he was acquainted with G uido’s work. Literary interest may have prompted an archbishop o f Patras to commission the depiction of the secular theme of the Trojan war. The testimony of Vincent of Beauvais referring to French bishops in the mid-thirteenth century is undoubtedly of importance in our context.97 In addition, the Greek setting may have kindled the interest in the historical subject, all the more so as French romances and the writings of Dante and Boccaccio created an impres­ sion of historical and social continuity by depicting the ancient Greeks as the Franks’ predecessors, and at the same time as contemporary knights.98 Besides, the myth o f Trojan ancestry, so popular in the West, may have also been influential in this respect, as it was related to the Latin conquest o f Greek lands.99 Finally, one should also take into account the social standing of the patron, his position as one of the mighty barons of M orea, in fact the most powerful one since about 1276,100 and the courtly atmosphere o f his mansion which served as a meeting place for his vassals. It is after all not by chance that the Roman de Troie found its way into the library of the dukes o f Burgundy in the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century, along with the French Chronicle o f M orea}01 Both works, as well as many others in this

I 174 library, reflected the values of the knightly class which the dukes of Burgundy attempted to recreate and preserve in their own court. We may now return to the issue raised at the outset of our investigation: how did the knights of the eastern Mediterranean respond to their encounters with those of the West, with the commoners settling or settled in the East, and with the indigenous populations; finally, what was the specific impact of each of these three challenges on their class culture? The evidence adduced so far clearly illustrates the strong affinity between the members of the knightly class, regardless of their origin and whereabouts, as well as the receptivity displayed by those of the eastern Mediterranean to the evolving chivalric culture of the West. Occasional frictions and tensions developed in the Levant, as a result of conflicting political interests or different tactical approaches to the Muslims, between settled knights and their descendants on the one hand, and newcomers, crusaders or pilgrims of their class, on the other.102 They all basically shared, however, the same social norms, value-system, attitudes and mentality. Competition between indivi­ duals was therefore articulated in a language familiar to all of them, such as ostentatious consumption both at court gatherings and at war, as well as by status identification. When in 1249 John of Ibelin, Count of Jaffa, joined in Egypt the Frankish forces of the eastern Mediterranean led by Louis IX, he arrived on a galley ‘covered both under and above the water with painted escutcheons bearing his arms ... beside each rower was a small shield with the count’s arms upon it, and to each shield was attached a pennon with the same arms worked in gold’.103 As in the field of chivalric behaviour, the knights of the eastern Medi­ terranean looked to the West for literary models and inspiration. When praising Cyprus, where he had found refuge after the catastrophe of 1291, the Templar of Tyre wrote that it is ‘the most comfortable land / known from here till Paris’.104The implication is obvious: Paris, and not the Levant, was the focus to which he referred. There could be no more accurate and concise way of expressing the social and cultural orienta­ tion of the Frankish nobility of the Levant, nor its basic rejection of the East. The same approach with regard to Byzantium was to be found in Frankish Morea. Indeed, the courtly literature produced in the Crusader states was closely akin in its genres, themes and forms to western French litera­ ture.105 With respect to the Muslims, however, they greatly differed. It is no mere accident that only in the West, far removed from everyday contact with Muslims and the realities of the Levant, did authors indulge both in fierce hatred o f the Muslims and fanciful tales about

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them. The Muslim princess or maiden agreeing to baptism for the sake of the Christian knight she loved was a popular literary theme in the West since the early twelfth century.106 Western knights were impressed by Saladin’s personality and sought an explanation for the chivalrous behaviour of this ‘good pagan’ in his dealings with Christians. One writer did so by turning him into the descendant o f a Frankish noblewoman, the countess of Ponthieu, who supposedly was abducted by Muslim pirates, brought to a sultan’s residence and subsequently gave birth there to a daughter; the latter happened to be Saladin’s mother. The story was even woven into a western version of the French continuation of William of Tyre’s chronicle. According to another fictional tale, Saladin baptized himself on his deathbed, while the Ordene de chevalerie, composed in northern France in the first half of the thirteenth century, asserted that Hugh, Count of Tiberias, taken prisoner by Saladin in 1187 at the battle of Hattin, dubbed his captor to knighthood.107 All these figments of imagination were well in line with the adventurous and courtly spirit of French epic romances of the thirteenth century. None of them appears, however, in the literature composed in the Levant. The knights of this area had a more sober and realistic view of their Muslim neighbours. They had grown accustomed to a continuous cycle of warfare alternating with peaceful coexistence, and their attitude towards them was grounded in harsh realities. Courtly literature was not the only literary vehicle for the expression of social attitudes and group identity. These were also conveyed by chronicles written in French in the eastern Mediterranean. These works, composed either by knights or by members of their entourage imbued with their spirit, bear the strong imprint of the literary devices, language, imagery, symbols and value judgments typical of epic and courtly romances.108 A French continuation of William o f T yre’s chronicle that may have been written in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century by Em oul of Gibelet faithfully reflects the selfimage of the knights and their contempt for commoners. The author reports an incident that occurred in 1190 during the Third Crusade, when the Christian forces besieging Acre were beset by hunger and tension developed in their camp. The commoners were eager to go into battle and thereby find relief, while the commanders of the host preferred to wait for reinforcements from the West. The commoners began shouting at the knights and cursing them, becoming ‘so mightily conceited towards the knights that they believed to be worthier’ than them and capable o f waging war against Saladin without their help.109 The author was clearly aghast at the impudence of the commoners: there could indeed hardly be any greater insult to the knights, warriors by vocation, whose military proficiency constituted one of the distinc­

I 176 tive traits o f their social standing. Another episode concerns a rich Pisan who, in return for a large sum, managed to convince Raymond III, lord of Tripoli, to let him marry the heiress to the fief of Botron, although she had previously been promised to Gérard of Ridefort, a knight who later, in 1185, became Master of the Templars. The chronicler docs not mince his words when referring to this case. ‘Those o f France’, he writes, including among them the knights of the Levant, ‘despise those of Italy because, however rich and a man of prowess he is, they consider him a vilain [namely a commoner of lowly standing]. Because most men of Italy are usurers or corsairs or merchants or seamen, and because they [the men of France] are knights, they despise them .’110 The author of the Chronicle o f Morea displays a similar attitude towards commoners. He reports that in 1203, after the first Latin conquest o f Constantinople, the Greeks one day attacked and murdered all the westerners who were staying there. He hastened to add, undoubtedly with a sigh of relief: ‘But, thank God, no nobleman was then in the city, but only poor men of their households and craftsmen.’111 In the Levant, only few commoners, including Italians, and members of the indigenous populations managed to integrate into the knightly class or to intermarry with knightly families. Some measure of upward mobility apparently took place in the Kingdom of Jerusalem during the first decades following the initial conquest, yet by the middle o f the thirteenth century the boundaries between commoners and knights had grown very rigid.112 Judging by their names, there must have been a number o f Greek knights among those o f the Principality of Antioch, which did not enjoy a large western immigration and therefore resorted to the military service o f indigenous men of arms. The constant flow of burgesses from the West, especially strong in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, combined with the considerable wealth amassed by some of them, particularly Italians, was perceived by members of the middle and lower ranks o f the nobility as a permanent threat to their own aspirations to social promotion and to their group exclusiveness. This feeling induced them to intensify their identification with the higher nobility and to insist upon the deep cleavage separating knights from commoners. The Tem plar o f Tyre aptly voiced their attitude in this respect, as noted above. Yet the m ost striking display of group identification was the partici­ pation in specific social events. Public readings or recitation provided manifestations o f distinctive class values and mentality, and so did gestures, rituals and games people played. The appeal o f tournaments, jousts, Round Tables and especially Arthurian performances was therefore obvious. The detailed account of the Acre festivities held in

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1286 offers us a vivid illustration of their significance. The setting in which this lavish entertainment took place, particularly the Arthurian performances, is in itself indicative of the social implications. The knights impersonating Arthurian characters fully identified with them and with the conceptions and ideals they stood for, both as individuals and as representatives o f their class. Their pageantry o f chivalry constituted a projection of the nobility’s self-image. Actors and audience formed a socially homogeneous body, and the festivities were an exclusive affair o f a group asserting its collective identity. As for the Round Table and especially the Arthurian plays, they provided the dramatic flavour of a ritual celebration of social superiority.113 The fantastic Arthurian world o f adventure, love, battle and chivalry may have been particularly appealing to those who attended the Acre festivities. In 1286 there was little room for adventure and fantasy in the Levant, yet courtly romances provided a means o f escape from the bleak political and military conditions in which the knights lived: Muslim pressure and advance steadily reduced the territory o f the Latin states o f the Levant and cast heavy doubts upon their chances o f survival.114 The dual process fostering the diffusion o f knightly culture in the Levant also occurred in former Byzantine territories ruled by feudal élites. Knightly culture spread horizontally from several areas to these territories, and vertically as non-nobles, aspiring to enter the ranks o f the knightly class, adopted its social norms and ethos. While sharing the attitudes o f their peers in the Levant with regard to commoners, the barons o f Morea reacted somewhat differently to the latters’ quest for social ascent. Unlike the Levant, and the Kingdom o f Jerusalem in particular, M orea did not benefit from a constant stream o f personnel and means enhancing its defensive capability. Military as well as administrative considerations explain why its knightly class offered Latin commoners and Greeks a limited degree of social promotion without endangering its own group identity. Since approximately the mid-thirteenth century the Principality of Morea witnessed the integra­ tion o f members o f the Greek élite, mainly archontes, into the ranks o f the feudatories owing simple homage, the lowest stratum of the feudal hierarchy. Only few of these vassals were made knights, dubbing according to Frankish custom, sanctioning their integration into the knightly class. In addition, the Italian lords o f the Aegean as well as other Latins joined the latter’s ranks.115 As already noted above with regard to the use o f French, this process entailed the acculturation of the new knights and feudatories. The connections between courtly literature and chronicles have already been underlined. It is hardly surprising that, in addition, the

1 178 knights o f the eastern Mediterranean should have also appreciated legal treatises similarly written in French in their respective lands. All three types of works extolled the class consciousness and exclusiveness of the nobility and expressed its group identity. The works of Philip of Novara, chronicler, lawyer, and occasionally poet, which are per­ meated with the knightly ethos, fully exhibit the close links between these attitudes.116 In the Crusader states, lands of conquest with fairly mobile Latin societies, the historical dimension of group identity provided by chronicles and law books was of particular importance. The French version o f William of Tyre’s chronicle and its continuations seem to have been popular among the knights of the Levant and Morea, if to judge by thirteenth-century extant manuscripts and references to other copies, and this also appears to have been the case in Greece a century later with the Chronicle o f Morea.111 These chronicles pre­ sented the Latin conquests and the rights deriving from them as frilly legitimate; by recording the history of the Latin states they also implied that the rights generated by conquest were continuously upheld. The same views were stated, explicitly or implicitly, in the legal treatises composed in the Crusader states. The conquests were the source o f the rights acquired by the knightly conquerors, their descendants and, by extension, all the members o f the knightly class to their fiefs. As the latter constituted a basic distinctive factor o f social status, the conquests had laid the foundations o f the knights’ social exclusiveness, both as individuals and as a group. In addition, they had enabled the institution of legal and political systems, devised at the outset, which enhanced their standing. Although fictitious, this static presentation of events expounded around 1265 for the Kingdom of Jerusalem by John of Ibelin, lord of Jaffa, and for Morea by the author of the Assizes o f Morea between 1333 and 1346, appears to have been widely shared in the Crusader states.118 The reliance on the conquests and political acts immediately following them implied, as already noted above, a sense o f social and historical continuity.119 This historical perspective of group identity was undoubtedly a distinctive feature of the knightly class in the eastern Mediterranean. A striking expression o f this perspective has already been mentioned. In the ‘Trojan’ apology for the conquest of Constantinople propounded by Pierre o f Bracheux the knightly group identity acquired a truly historical dimension. Another no less significant example appears in the Greek version o f the Chronicle o f Morea. Its author, presumably a vassal o f Erard III o f Arkadia, one of the barons of Morea, basically relied on the French version o f this epic o f the conquest. He entirely espoused the cause and ideals of the conquerors and considered himself a Frank, as if he were one o f the feudatories of western descent. W hen

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referring to the Latins camping outside Constantinople in 1203, he mentions ‘our people’, which implies full identification not only with the interests, values, and attitudes but also with the past of the Frankish feudatories. The Greek version o f the Chronicle o f Morea, which so potently extols knightly virtues, was undoubtedly intended for Greekspeaking feudatories who, like its author, identified themselves with the Franks.120 When this author begins his account of ‘how the Franks won the land o f M orea’, he briefly refers to his prologue telling the story of the conquests of Syria and Constantinople by the Franks and then goes on to link these feats with a didactic purpose: If you have a desire to hear the deeds of good soldiers, to learn to be instructed, perhaps you will attain your wish. If you know letters, start reading; if, on the other hand, you are illiterate, sit down beside me and listen.121 It thus appears that, in the eastern Mediterranean, the knightly class ethos was closely connected with historical consciousness and the epic of the Crusades.

NOTES 1. On the knights in the Latin states of the Levant, see J. Prawer, The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: European Colonialism in the Middle Ages (London, 1972), pp.6076, 110-58; id., Crusader Institutions (Oxford, 1980), pp.3-45; and his ‘Social Classes in the Latin Kingdom: The Franks’, in A History o f the Crusades, ed. K.M. Setton, 5 (Madison, WI, 1985), pp.117-70; also J. Riley-Smith, The Feudal Nobility of Jerusalem, 1174-1277 (London, 1973); J. Richard, The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, trans. J. Shirley (Amsterdam, 1979), pp.83-96, 255-9, 403-12, and his Le comté de Tripoli sous la dynastie toulousaine (1102-1187) (Paris, 1945), pp.45-57, 71-80; C. Cahen, La Syrie du Nord à T époque des Croisades et la principauté d'Antioche (Paris, 1940), pp.435-71, 527-55. On Cyprus, see nn. 10 and 11 below. On the Latins in the Byzantine area, see D. Jacoby, La féodalité en Grèce médiévale. Les 4Assises de Romanie' : sources, application et diffusion (Paris and The Hague, 1971), pp. 1 7 -9 1 ,1 8 5 -8 ,2 3 7 -8 ,2 7 1 -4 ; also id., ‘The Encounter of Two Societies: Western Conquerors and Byzantines in the Peloponnesus after the Fourth Crusade*, American Historical Review, 78 (1973), 873-5, 883-9; id., ‘Les états latins en Romanie: phénomènes sociaux et économiques (12041350 environ)*, X V Congrès international d études byzantines (Athènes, 1976), Rapports et co-rapports, 1/3 (Athens, 1976), pp.14-18. These two studies have been reprinted in D. Jacoby, Recherches sur la Méditerranée orientale du XII* au XV* siècle (London, 1979), as Nos. II and I respectively. 2. See Jacoby, ‘The Encounter of Two Societies*, 884-5, for a brief description of this phenomenon; also G. Duby, ‘The Transformation of the Aristocracy: France at the Beginning o f the Thirteenth Century*, in his The Chivalrous Society, trans. C. Postan (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1977), pp. 178-85; and in more detail, the recent works by J.-P. Poly and E. Boumazel, La mutation féodale, X*-XII* siècles (Paris, 1980), pp.155-92, 442-63 and M. Keen, Chivalry (New Haven and London, 1984), pp.1-161. 3. Students o f medieval French literature are familiar with the debate about the

I 180 innovative meaning of the writings of Chrétien de Troyes and some o f his contemporaries in the second half of the twelfth century and about the change in outlook illustrated by the prose romances, which became the favourite literature of the nobility in the first half of the thirteenth century. See R.W. Hanning, ‘The Social Significance o f Twelfth-Century Chivalric Romances’, Medievalia et Humanistica, NS, 3 (1972), 3-29, and Keen, Chivalry, pp.102-24. 4. On similar conditions in the West, see G. Duby, ‘The Diffusion of Cultural Patterns in Feudal Society* in The Chivalrous Society, pp. 175-77, and Keen, Chivalry, passim. 5. Intermarriage between families established in the East followed. See Prawer, Crusader Institutions, pp.23-7; Riley-Smith, The Feudal Nobility, pp.21-4; Jacoby, ‘Les états latins en Romanie*, 21-2. 6. Philippe de Novare, Mémoires, 1218-1243, ed. Ch. Kohler (Paris, 1913); on his life, see the introduction, pp. III-XIV; on his works, see Riley-Smith, The Feudal Nobility, pp.126-7, and D. Jacoby, ‘La littérature française dans les états latins de la Méditerranée orientale à Y époque des croisades9, Essor et fortune de la chanson de geste dans T Europe et VOrient latin. Actes du IXe Congrès international de la Société Rencevals pour T étude des épopées romanes (Padoue-Venise, 1982) (Modena, 1984), pp. 617-18, 625-7, 640-43, 645-6. 7. Marino Sanudo Torscllo, Istoria del Regno di Romania, fol. 2r., ed. C. Hopf, Chroniques gréco-romanes inédites ou peu connues (Berlin, 1873), pp. 100-101 (hereafter Sanudo). According to the Greek version of the Chronicle of Morea, Geoffroy II ‘was most devoted and philanthropic toward all and he strove mightily to increase his honour*; The Chronicle of Morea (To chronikon tou More os), ed. J. Schmitt (London, 1904), vv. 2470-71 (hereafter Greek Chronicle). See the English translation in Crusaders as Conquerors: The Chronicle of Morea, trans. H. E. Lurier (New York and London, 1964), p.143. 8. Livre de la conqueste de la princée de VAmorée. Chronique de Morée (1204-1305), ed. J. Longnon (Paris, 1911) (hereafter French Chronicle), pp.396-9, paras. 1014-24, esp. 1016-17: ‘si joustoientcil dedens, [i.e., those o f Greece] cescun en son ranc, a ceaux dehors’; on the bacheliers, see also p. 88, para. 248. On the ‘youths* in the West during an earlier period, see G. Duby, ‘Youth in Aristocratic Society. Northwestern France in the Twelfth Century*, in The Chivalrous Society, pp.l 12—22. On the meaning of bachelier as the equivalent of juvenis, or a knight who had not yet established himself, see ibid., p.113, n. 5. In the early fourteenth-century adventure overseas, outside the increasingly rigid framework o f French aristocratic society, still provided an outlet for ‘youths*. 9. For example, Jean, sire de Joinville, Histoire de Saint-Louis, Credo et lettre à Louis X, 2nd edn., ed. N. de Wailly (Paris, 1874). 10. See Louis de Mas Latrie, Histoire de Vile de Chypre sous le règne de la maison de Lusignan (Paris, 1852-1882, repr. Famagusta, 1970), I, pp. 135-40; Sir George Hill, A History of Cyprus (Cambridge, 1940-52), 2, p p .3 8 -4 4 ,49-54; E. Chapin Furber, ‘The Kingdom of Cyprus, 1191-1291’, in A History of the Crusades, ed. K.M. Setton (Madison, WI, 1969-), 2, pp.618-21. 11. See J. Richard, ‘Pairie d’Orient latin: les quatre baronnies des royaumes de Jérusalem et de Chypre*, Revue historique de droit français et étranger, 28 (1950), 67-88, and id., ‘La révolution de 1369 dans le royaume de Chypre*, Bibliothèque de VEcole des Chartes, 110 (1952), 108-23, both repr. in J. Richard, Orient et Occident au Moyen Age: Contacts et relations (X1F-XV* s.) (London, 1976), as Nos. XV and XVI respectively. 12. See Jacoby, La féodalité, pp.21-7. 13. Sanudo, pp. 102-103. 14. Ramon Muntaner, Crànica, ed. E.B. (Barcelona, 1927-1951), 6, pp.l 15-16, Ch. 244 (hereafter Muntaner). 15. See Jacoby, La féodalité, pp.38-44, especially 40, and for the dating of the text o f the Assizes, ibid., pp.75-82. 16. Les Assises de Romanie. Edition critique avec une introduction et des notes, ed. G.

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181

Recoura (Paris, 1930), pp. 145-8, and Jacoby, La féodalité, pp.51-3. 17. Ibid., pp.45-50. 18. On the French o f Cyprus, see G. Raynaud, ed., Les gestes des Chiprois (Geneva, 1887), Introduction, pp.XI, XXIV (hereafter Gestes); also E. Brayer, ‘Un manuel de confession en ancien français conservé dans un manuscrit de Catane*, Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire de l'Ecole française de Rome, 59 (1947), 155-98; J. Richard, Chypre sous les Lusignans. Documents chypriotes des Archives du Vatican (XIV* et XV* siècles) (Paris, 1962), pp.15-16. Greek influence on the French of Cyprus is mentioned by a fifteenth-century author, Leontios Machairas, Recital Concerning the Sweet Land o f Cyprus, Entitled *Chronicle', ed. and trans. R. M. Dawkins (Oxford, 1932), p. 143, para. 158. On Italians in Morea, see Jacoby, La féodalité, pp.84—5, and ‘The Encounter o f Two Societies’, 901-2. On the Italian impact on the French version of the Chronicle of Morea, see J. Longnon in French Chronicle, Introduction, pp.XLIX, LXXVI-LXXXII, who mistakenly ascribes this phenomenon to an Italian prototype of the Chronicle of Morea. The latter, however, was written in French; see D. Jacoby, ‘Quelques considérations sur les versions de la ‘Chronique de Morée’, Journal des Savants (April-June 1968), 134—47, 181-7, reprinted in D. Jacoby, Société et démographie à Byzance et en Romanie latine (London, 1975), 7. 19. Jacoby, La féodalité, pp.84-6, and ‘Les états latins en Romanie’, 21. On the French cultural setting o f the Neapolitan court, see E. G. Léonard, Les Angevins de Naples (Paris, 1954), pp.43-4, and F. Sabatini, Napoli angioina: Cultura e société (Naples, n.d.), pp.33-9, 54 -5 , 74, 84-5, 87, 101, 131. 20. On Niccolô’s career up to 1341, see J. Longnon, L'Empire latin de Constantinople et la principauté de Morée (Paris, 1949), pp.323-5, and A. Bon, La Morée franque: Recherches historiques, topographiques et archéologiques sur la principauté d'Achate (1205-1430) (Paris, 1969), pp.209-11. 21. Giovanni Boccaccio, Opere in versi. Corbaccio. Tratatello in laude di Dante. Prose latine. Epistole, ed. P.G. Ricci (Milan and Naples, 1965), Ep. VIII, to Francesco Nelli, pp.1288-89. This is not a reference to a history o f the Crusades, as claimed by Longnon, L'empire latin, p.325, but to the Order of the Holy Spirit founded by Louis of Taranto in 1352. 22. On whom see above, p.161. Bartolomeo II Ghisi, scion o f a Venetian family ruling the Aegean islands of Teños and Mykonos since 1207 and established in Morea in the late thirteenth century, was in 1331 or 1332 the owner of the original French version of the Chronicle of Morea; see Jacoby, ‘La Chronique de Morée*, 136-9. 23. See n. 6 above. 24. This was not the case, however, with the non-noble Latin population o f these states. 25. Muntaner, VII, p.42, Ch. 261, in fine, speaks o f Acre, while another version, Chronik des edlen Ramon Muntaner, ed. K. Lanz (Stuttgart, 1844), p. 469, mentions Paris. Lanz has reprinted a text edited in 1558; see his introduction, p. IX. 26. See Recueil des Historiens des Croisades (hereafter RHC), Lots, ed. Beugnot, 2 vols. (Paris, 1841-43), as well as Riley-Smith, The Feudal Nobility, pp.121-44, passim, and n. 11 above. 27. French Chronicle, pp. 238-9, paras. 594-5: ‘si devisèrent la teneur en vulgar, pour ce que cescun l ’entcndist*. 28. Assises de Romanie, p.251, para. 145. See Ducange, Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis (ed. 1883-87), s.v. Idiota, and H. Grundmann, ‘Litteratus Illiteratus. Der Wandel einer Bildungsnorm vom Altertum zum Mittelalter*, Archiv fur Kulturgeschichte, 40 (1958), 1-65; reprinted in Grundmann, Ausgewahlte Aufsatze, Schriften der Monumenta Germaniae Histórica, Vol. 25/3 (Stuttgart, 1978), pp.1-66. 29. See Jacoby, La féodalité, pp.82-4, 87. 30. On the dwindling importance o f southern French knights in the twelfth century Levant, see Richard, Le comté de Tripoli, pp.75-8, 80, 82, 88, 90-91. 31. French Chronicle, p.391, para. 1002. 32. Philippe de Novare, Mémoires, p.7, par. VI: ‘Moût i ot douné et despendu et

I 182 bouhordé, et contrefait les aventures de Bretaigne et de la Table ronde, et moult de manieres de je u s\ On the theatre performances, see below. 33. Ibid., p.13, para. IX: ‘Et dura la feste quinze jours en behordcr et en danses et en semonces, et de changer envissures et doner robes et d’autres festes de plussors manieres*. 34. French Chronicle, pp.87-8, paras. 241-2; see also n. 8 above. 35. Mag. Thietmari Peregrinado, ed. J.C.M. Laurent (Hamburg, 1857), pp. 22-3, mentions military exercises o f Bedouins, but Frankish knights did not take part in them. 36. The papal letter is quoted in Ottonis et Rahewini Gesta Frederici imperatoris, 3rd edn., ed. G. Waitz, Monumenta Germaniae histórica: Scriptores in usum scholarum, 46 (Hanover and Leipzig, 1912), p. 57; trans. Ch. Chr. Mierow, The Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa: Otto of Freising and His Continuator, Rahewin (New York, 1953), pp. 7 2 -3 . The falcon of Philip II is mentioned by Ibn Shaddád, RHC, Historiens Orientaux, 3, pp.212-13. 37. See J. Richard, ‘La Fauconnerie de Jean de Francières et ses sources*, Le Moyen Age, 69 (1963), 901, n. 27, reprinted in J. Richard, Les relations entre VOrient et l'Occident au Moyen Age (London, 1977), XXIII; An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior in the Period o f the Crusades: Memoirs of Usamah ibn-Munquidh (Kitab al-Ptibar), trans. Ph. K. Hitti (New York, 1929), p.226; RHC, Historiens occidentaux, 1/2, p.885. 38. French Chronicle, p.269, paras. 675-6; p.344, para. 870; p.391, para. 1002. 39. Ludolphus de Sudheim, De itinere Terre Sánete, ed. G.A. Neumann, in Archives de l'Orient latin, 2 (1884), Documents, p.336. A Cypriot knight by the name of Gauvain de Chenichi ‘savoit moult d’oizeaus*, and in the winter season the Cypriot knights spent their time on their estates ‘ou il oyseloyent et se desduyoient*: Philippe de Novare, Mémoires, p.lO, para. XII, and p.38, para. LXV. See also Mas Latrie, Histoire, II, p. 132; Richard, ‘La Fauconnerie*, 8 9 8 -9 ,9 0 1 and n. 27, as well as ‘Un évêque d’Orient latin au XIVe siècle: Guy dTbelin, O.P., évêque de Limassol et l ’inventaire de ses biens*, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique, 74 (1950), pp.105, 112, 132, repr. in Richard, Les relations, V. 40. On tournaments and jousts, see Keen, Chivalry, pp.83-101. 41. For example, J. Bédier and P. Aubry, Les chansons de Croisade (Paris, 1909), pp.217-25, 229-34. Joinville, Histoire de Saint Louis, p.368, para. 668, mentions ‘Û menestrier aus riches homes* from the West who stayed in Acre in the years 1250-54; see also Mas Latrie, Histoire, 2, p.132, for fourteenth-century Cyprus, and also the poem criticizing the Crusaders composed in 1239-40, in RHC, Historiens occidentaux, 2, pp.550-51. 42. Les chansons de Thibaut de Champagne, roi de Navarre, ed. A. G. Wallenskôld (Paris, 1925), pp.61-4. 43. Philippe de Novare, Mémoires, Introduction, p.V, n. 1. On William II, see J. Longnon, ‘Le prince de Morée chansonnier*, Romania, 65 (1939), 95-100, and id., L'Empire latin, pp.212-13, whose assumption, however, that other nobles too wrote poetry is not supported by any evidence. 44. A.-M. Chazaud, ‘Inventaire et comptes de la succession d’Eudes, comte de Nevers (Acre, 1266)*, Mémoires de la Société nationale des antiquaires de France, 32 (1870-71), 187-8. 45. See Jacoby, ‘La littérature française*, 620-22. 46. Ibid., 622-3, and A. I. Gittlcman, Le style épique dans Garin le Loherain (Geneva, 1967). 47. See n. 6 above and RHC, Lois, 2, p.434, par. 25. 48. See F. Cerone, ‘La sovranità napoletana sulla Morea e sulle isole vicine’, Archivio storico per le provincie napoletane, 41 (1916), 2 1 -2 ,2 3 1 -2 ,2 4 9 -5 1 , 264—5, and 42 (1917), 5-11; Longnon, L'Empire latin, pp.198, 213, 229,235, 247, 249, 252, 259; and Bon, La Morée franque, pp.127, 156. 49. On the Neapolitan milieu in this period, see Sabatini, Napoli angioina, pp.31, 34-8, and 303, nn. 7 6-80.

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50. Iregistri della cancellaria angioina, ed. R. Filangieri, 24 (Naples, 1976), pp. 176-7, No. 188. See also Sabatini, Napoli angioina, pp.30-31. Romanz has sometimes the meaning of ‘chronicle* as illustrated by the title given to the continuation of William o f Tyre cited above, p.165. However, the romanz in the list o f Leonardo’s books were definitely French romances, as a chronicle is separately mentioned. 51. See n. 32 above. 52. See Keen, Chivalry, pp.92-3. 53. It is likely that prose, rather than verse, was used in these performances for reasons mentioned below, p.168. On the early French prose romances, attributed to the period approximately between 1185 and 1215, see J. Frappier, in Le roman jusqu'à la jin du XIIl* siècle: G r undriss der romanischen Literaturen des Mittelalters (hereafter Grundriss), 4/1 (Heidelberg, 1978), pp.503-12, and Fanni Bogdanow, pp. 513-35. See also Jacoby, ‘La littérature française*, 627-8. 54. Gestes, p.220, para. 439: ‘ ... et puis que le roy vint à Acre, il tint feste. xv. jours dedens .j. leuc à Acre, quy se dit à la Herberge de l ’Ospitau de Saint Johan, là où il y avoit .j. moût grant palais, et fu la feste la plus belle que Ton sache .c. ans a d’envissures et de bchors, et contrefirent la table reonde et la raine de Femenie, c*est asaver chevaliers vestus corne dames et josteent ensemble; puis firent nounains quy estoient avé moines et bendoient les uns as autres; et contrefirent Lanselot et Tristan et Pilamedes et moût d ’autres jeus biaus et delitables et plaissans*. The version printed in RHC, Documents arméniens, 2, p.793, reads ‘ ... beordoient les uns as autres*, which means ‘jousting with boards* according to R. Grousset, Histoire des Croisades et du royaume franc de Jérusalem (Paris, 1936), 3, p.731; this interpretation seems rather unlikely. 55. See Jacoby, ‘La littérature française*, 631-3. 56. See n. 54 above. 57. Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. H.R. Luard (London, 1872-83), 5, pp.31819: ‘ ... non in hastiludio quod vulgariter tomeamentum dicitur, sed potius in illo ludo militari qui mensa rotunda dicitur vires suas attemptarent*. See also R.H. Cline, ‘The Influence of Romances on Tournaments o f the Middle A ges’, Speculum, 20 (1945), 204-11. 58. See previous note and R.S. Loomis, ‘Chivalric and Dramatic Imitations of Arthurian Romance*, in Medieval Studies in Memory of A. Kingsley Porter, ed. W.R.W. Koehler (Cambridge, 1939), 1, pp.81, 83-7; also id., ‘Edward I, “ Arthurian Enthusiast***, Speculum, 28 (1953), 114—27; id., ‘Arthurian Influence on Sport and Spectacle*, in Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages: A Collaborative History, ed. R.S. Loomis (Oxford, 1959), p.554. Later evidence might be mis­ leading, as the celebrations o f the Round Table seem to have become more elaborate. 59. See Loomis, ‘Chivalric and Dramatic Imitations’, pp.91-5, and his ‘Arthurian Influence*, p.558; J. Vale, Edward III and Chivalry: Chivalric Society and its Context, 1270-1350 (Woodbridge, 1982), pp.4-24. 60. The auberge of the Hospitallers in which the festivities took place was a large building with a courtyard: Gestes, p.253, para. 502. One wonders, however, if the courtyard was large enough to accommodate jousts fought on horseback, as hinted in Gestes, p.220, para. 439, or whether these games were staged outside the city walls. 61. See n. 54. above. 62. See Jacoby, ‘La littérature française*, 627-30. The prose Lancelot was composed between 1215 and 1230, and the prose Tristan somewhat before 1235: see Frappier in Grundriss, 4/1, pp.536-54, and Lathuillcre, pp.601-9, for the dating and content of these works. On Palamède, see n. 64 below. 63. It is not impossible, however, that the text was read aloud or recited while the knights mimicked their respective parts, although this would have considerably slowed down the pace o f the performances. 64. See Jacoby, ‘La littérature française’, 6 23-4, and for the content of this work, see Lathuillère, in Grundriss, 4/1, pp.610-14.

I 184 65. On the character of the Arthurian romances, see also Keen, Chivalry, pp. 113-19. 66. The attribution of various manuscripts to Acre by H. Buchthal, Miniature Painting in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Oxford, 1957), and J. Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination at Saint-Jean d'Acre, 1275-1291 (Princeton, 1976), is not always convincing. See, for example, Jacoby, ‘La littérature française*, 631-2 and n. 67. I shall return to this subject elsewhere. 67. Greek Chronicle, vv. 8083-85, and trans. in Lurier, Crusaders, p.298; French Chronicle, paras. 553-4. The frescoes are no more extant. On the remains of this castle, see A. Bon, ‘Forteresses médiévales de la Grèce centrale*, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique, 61 (1937), 188-91. 68. Longnon, U Empire latin, p.216. 69. French Chronicle, pp.1-3, paras. 2 -5 . This text serves as an introduction to the chronicle which is entitled Livre de la conqueste de Constantinople et de Vempire de Romanie et dou pays de la princée de la Morée; Greek Chronicle, vv. 1339-55, and trans. in Lurier, Crusaders, pp. 106-107; see p.161 and n. 16 above. 70. French Chronicle, p .l, para. 2, and Greek Chronicle, vv. 91-2, trans. in Lurier, Crusaders, pp.69-70. 71. On the dating of this version, see Jacoby, ‘Quelques considérations*, 181-4. The use of the original Latin version o f William of Tyre’s chronicle is most unlikely for two reasons: firstly because most Moreot knights did not know Latin (see above, p.163); secondly, even if the Moreot chronicler had a knowledge of Latin, he would have preferred a French version while composing his own chronicle in the vernacular. 72. The influence of miniatures is unlikely, as the earliest illuminated manuscripts of William of Tyre’s continuations were produced, it seems, in the late 1270s. Buchthal, Miniature Painting, pp.87-93, 99, and Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, pp. 29-38. 73. See Jacoby, ‘La littérature française*, 637-9. 74. On scenes of the crusades painted in the mansions of Henry III, see E.W. Tristram, English Medieval Wall Painting: The Thirteenth Century, with a catalogue by E.W. Tristram, compiled in collaboration with M. Bardswell (Oxford, 1950), pp. 184-5, 528-9, 575, 578. 75. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, ms. fr. 9086, copied at Acre in the second half of the thirteenth century: *Ci comence lestoire dou conquest de la terre dantyoche et dou reiaume de ierlm*. 76. P. Deschamps, ‘Combats de cavalerie et épisodes des Croisades dans les peintures murales du XIIe et du XIIIe siècle*, Orientalia Christiana periodica, 13 (1947), 459-61, 464-72. 77. L. Legrand, ‘Relation du pèlerinage à Jérusalem de Nicolas de Martoni, notaire italien*, Revue de l'Orient latin, 3 (1895), 661. 78. Assuming, o f course, that they resided in the palace of their Byzantine predeces­ sors, which we do not know; see Bon, La Morée franque, pp.452, 597. 79. See B. Guenée, Histoire et culture historique dans l'Occident médiéval (Paris, 1980), p.275; Keen, Chivalry, pp. 107-109; Otto Sôhring, ‘Werke bildender Kunst in altfranzôsischen Epcn*, Romanische Forschungen, 12 (1900), 555, 625; G.L. Hamilton, ‘L ’Histoire de Troie dans l’art du Moyen Age avant le Roman de Troie', Romania, 42 (1913), 584-5. 80. See G. Raynaud de Lage in Grundriss, 4/1, pp. 178-80, as well as J. Frappier and R. de Lage, pp. 145-8; also Guenée, Histoire et culture, pp.275-7. 81. See R.M. Lumiansky, ‘Structural Unity in Benoit’s Roman de Troie', Romania, 79 (1958), 410-24; A. Adler, ‘Militia et amor in the Roman de Troie', Romanische Forschungen, 72 (1960), 14-29, and id., in Grundriss, 4/1, pp.l 12-13. 82. On the ‘updating* of ancient history in this period, see G. Raynaud de Lage, ‘Les romans antiques et la représentation de la réalité’, Le Moyen Age, 68 (1961), 247-91, reprinted in id., Les premiers romans français et autres études littéraires et linguistiques (Geneva, 1976), pp. 127-59; J. Frappier, ‘Remarques sur la peinture de la vie et des héros antiques dans la littérature française du XIIe et du XIIIe

I KNIGHTLY VALUES AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS

83.

84.

85.

86. 87. 88.

89. 90. 91.

92.

93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98.

185

siècle*, in L*Humanisme médiéval dans les littératures romanes du XII* au XIV* siècle, Colloque de Strasbourg, 1962, ed. A. Fourrier (Paris, 1964), pp.13-51, especially 38-42 on the Roman de Troie; RJ. Cormier, ‘The Present State of Studies on the Roman ctEnéas', Cultura neolatina, 31 (1971), 7 -3 9 , and id., ‘The Problem of Anachronism: Recent Scholarship on the French Medieval Romances of Antiquity*, Philological Quarterly, 53 (1974), 145-57. Robert de Clari, La conquête de Constantinople, ed. P. Lauer (Paris, 1956), p.102, para. 106: ‘et pour ehe que [Troie] fu a nos anchisieurs, sommes nous chi venu conquerre tere*. On Pierre de Bracheux, see J. Longnon, Les compagnons de Villehardouin: Recherches sur les croisés de la quatrième croisade (Geneva, 1978), pp.91-8. Patrologia latina, Vol. 176, col. 1019, and a better version in A. Thomas, ‘Le De claustro anime et le Roman de Troie*, Romania, 42 (1913), 84. This Latin text, formerly ascribed to Hugues of Saint-Victor, is now considered the work of Hugues of Fouilloy: on this author, see I. Gobry in Dictionnaire de spiritualité, 1 (1969), cols. 880-86, and C. Dereine in Dictionnaire d*histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, 17 (1971), cols. 1271-78. On this work and its dating, see Henri Peltier in Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, 15 (1946), cols. 3026-33. The relevant phrase reads: ‘Episcopi nostri hodie domos ... construunt*; the two crucial words are Vincent’s addition, for which see Thomas, ‘Le De claustro anime*, 85. This is reflected in thirteenth-century French literature: see Söhring, ‘Werke*, 621, for a dress embroidered with scenes o f the war and destruction o f Troy, and ibid., 602-4, for wall paintings inspired by Benoit’s Roman. See H. Buchthal, Historia Troiana: Studies in the History of Medieval Secular Illustration (London and Leiden, 1971), pp.9-13. For an early thirteenth-century copy with illuminated initials, see Jacoby, ‘La littérature française’, 633-5. See Sabatini, Napoli, pp.74, 84-5; also B. Degenhart and A. Schmitt, ‘Marino Sanudo und Paolino Veneto, Zwei Literaten des 14. Jahrhunderts in ihrer Wirkung auf Buchillustrierung und Kartographie in Venedig, Avignon und Neapel*, Römisches Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte, 14 (1973), 96-121, and especially 108, 110-11, 120-21, and by the same authors ‘Frühe angiovinische Buchkunst in Neapel. Die Illustrierung französischer Unterhaltungsprosa in neapolitanischen Scriptorien zwischen 1290 und 1320*, Festschrift Wolfgang Braunfels (Tübingen, 1977), pp.71-92; also their Corpus der italienischen Zeich­ nungen, 1300-1450, 2, 2 (Berlin, 1980), pp.187-241, 297-307, and A. Perricioli Saggese, I romanzi cavallereschi miniati a Napoli (Napoli, 1979). Buchthal, Historia Troiana, pp.16-19. See Raynaud de Lage in Grundriss, 4/1, pp.181-2; Buchthal, Historia Troiana, pp.5, 16, 33; and Degenhart and Schmitt, ‘Marino Sanudo und Paolino Veneto*, 108, 111, for the dating to circa 1340. On the version used by Guido, see K. Chesney, ‘A Neglected Prose Version o f the Roman de Troie*, Medium Aevum, 11 (1942), 46-67. See also Buchthal, Historia Troiana, pp.5-8. Ibid., pp.20-52, and for its appreciation in Venice, pp.58-67. On the Trojan myth in Venetian historiography, see also A. Carile, *Le origini di Venezia nella tradizione storiografica*, in Storia della cultura veneta. Le origini. 1-Dalle origini al trecento (Vicenza, 1976), pp.147-52, 158-60. See Buchthal, Historia Troiana, p.60. See D.A. Bullough, ‘Games People Played: Drama and Ritual as Propaganda in Medieval Europe*, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th Ser., 24 (1974), 119-20, and also 9 7 -8 . See A. Bayot, La légende de Troie à la cour de Bourgogne: Etudes d histoire littéraire et de bibliographie (Bruges, 1908), and n. 101 below. See G. Fedalto, La chiesa latina in Oriente, 1, 2nd edn. (Verona, 1981), pp.325-68. See p.172 above. Longnon, L*Empire latin, p.214, is certainly right in stressing this point, yet his

I 186 sweeping statement about the Frankish barons considering themselves as the successors of Agamemnon and Theseus goes a bit too far. 99. See p.171 above. 100. See Bon, La Morée franque, pp.242-3 and especially 450-51. 101. On the Roman de Troie, see M J. Hughes, ‘The Library o f Philip the Bold and Margaret of Flanders, First Valois Duke and Duchess of Burgundy*, Journal of Medieval History, 3 (1978), 186; on the French Chronicle, see Jacoby, ‘Quelques considérations*, 149-50, and n. 95 above. 102. For example, in 1186 after Guy of Lusignan came to power, one o f his followers derided the native knights who had opposed him and other newcomers to the Kingdom of Jerusalem in a poem, of which only two verses have survived: La continuation de Guillaume de Tyr (1184-1197), ed. R.M. Morgan (Documents relatifs à l’histoire des Croisades publiés par l’Académie des Inscriptions et BellesLettres, 14), (Paris, 1982), p.53, para. 4L 103. Joinville, Histoire de Saint Louis, p.88, para. 158; trans. M.R.B. Shaw, Joinville and Villehardouin: Chronicles of the Crusades (Harmondsworth, 1963), p.203. 104. Gestes, p.271, para. 530. 105. See Jacoby, *La littérature française*, 639-42. 106. See B. Z. Kedar, Crusade and Mission: European Approaches toward the Muslims (Princeton, 1984), pp.69-70; P. Bancourt, Les Musulmans dans les chansons de geste du cycle du roi (Aix-en-Provence, 1982), 2, pp.691-712. 107. See M. R. Morgan, The Chronicle o f Ernoul and the Continuations of William of Tyre (Oxford, 1973), pp.13-15, 157-8; Récits d ’un ménestrel de Reims, ed. N. de Wailly (Paris, 1876), pp. 111-12, para. 212; Keen, Chivalry, pp.6-8. J. Richard, ‘Huon de Tabarié. La naissance d ’une figure épique* in La chanson de geste et le mythe carolingien: Mélanges René Louis (Saint-Père-sous-Vézelay, 1982), II, pp. 1073-78, reprinted in his Croisés, missionaires et voyageurs: Les perspectives orientales du monde latin (London, 1983), IV. Contrary to this author, however, I believe that the Saladin myth emerged in the West and not in the Levant. See also Bancourt, Les Musulmans, 1, pp.278-341, and 2, pp.863-70, for the theme o f Muslim chivalric behaviour in French romances. 108. See Jacoby, ‘La littérature française*, 644-6. 109. La continuation de Guillaume de Tyr, pp. 104—105, para. 103. On Emoul, see Morgan, The Chronicle o f Ernoul, pp.41-6, 98-137, 163-8. 110. Morgan, ed., La continuation de Guillaume de Tyr, p.46, para. 33. 111. French Chronicle, para. 47; Greek Chronicle, vv. 615-28, trans. Lurier, Crusaders, pp.85-6. 112. See Prawer, ‘Social Classes’, 131, 159—60, and his Crusader Institutions, pp.149, 227; Riley-Smith, The Feudal Nobility, pp. 10-11, 121, 124; and the case of the Pisan mentioned above. The knights bearing the surname Arrabit may have been o f Muslim origin, yet it should be noted that this surname also appears in southern Italy in the twelfth century, see Kedar, Crusade and Mission, pp.75-6, n. 95. 113. Women o f the nobility evidently attended, as in the W est 114. Two years later the poet Jean o f Joumy wrote a prayer for the survival o f the Latin states, see Jacoby, ‘La littérature française*, 641-2. 115. See Jacoby, ‘The Encounter o f Two Societies’, 889-903. 116. See n. 6 above. 117. See Jacoby, ‘La littérature française*, 621-2, 637-9, 64 2 -4 , and n. 66 above. 118. See Prawer, Crusader Institutions, pp.3-19; Riley-Smith, The Feudal Nobility, pp.136-40; Jacoby, La féodalité, pp.51-3, and above, p.171, for the ‘Trojan’ justification of the conquest o f Byzantium. 119. See above, pp.161, 169, 173. 120. See Jacoby, ‘The Encounter’, 897-8. 121. Greek Chronicle, vv. 1339-52, trans. in Lurier, Crusades, p.106.

II

La littérature française dans les états latins de la Méditerranée orientale à l’époque des croisades: diffusion et création La cinquièm e croisade, partie d’Acre en mai 1218, avait pour objectif la conquête de l’Egypte. Les armées chrétiennes m irent le siège devant la ville de Damiette, située dans le delta du Nil. Philippe de Novare, un jeune noble italien établi en Chypre, parti­ cipa à ce siège qui dura plus de quatorze m ois, d’août 1218 à novembre 1219. Or, un jour, Pierre Chappe, le noble chypriote au service duquel Philippe était, invita Raoul de Tabarie ou de Tibériade, un noble de Terre Sainte, à manger avec lui. Après le repas, ra­ conte Philippe de Novare, messire Piere me fist lire devant lui en un romans: messire Rau dist que je lisoie moult bien. Après fu messire Rau malade, et messire Piere Chape, à la requeste de messire Rau, me manda lirre devant lui. Issi avint que trois mois et plus y fu; et moult me desplaisoit ce que moult me deust pleire: messire Rau dormet poi et malvaisement; et quant je avoie leu tant com il voleit, il meismes me conteit moult de chozes dou roy­ aume de Jérusalem et des us et des assises, et disoit que je les retenisse. Et je, qui moult doutai sa maniéré, otreai tout *.

Ce texte est d’un intérêt considérable à beaucoup d’égards. Philippe de Novare rapporte qu’il a lu à haute voix en un roman, et com m e cette lecture a continué pen­ dant plus de trois mois, sans doute plusieurs romans: il s’agit manifestement d’oeuvres en vers ou en prose écrites en français. Il-s’avère donc qu’en 1218, quand Pierre Chappe partit de Chypre pour l’expédition militaire qui le mena en Egypte, il emporta avec lui un ou plusieurs romans: fait surprenant, à première vue, mais pas aussi exceptionnel qu’il ne paraît, ainsi qu’on le verra bientôt. Mais il y a plus: le récit de Philippe de N o­ vare m et en scène des personnages qui tous trois appartiennent à la classe des nobles.

1

L i v r e d e P h il ip p e d e N a v a r r e [sic], dans R e c u e il d e s H i s t o r i e n s d e s C r o is a d e s (ci-après: R H C ) , L o i s , éd.

B eugnot , I, p. 525, ch. XLIX.

II 618

L’un est de Chypre, l’autre de Terre-Sainte, Philippe, enfin, venu d’Italie, est installé depuis peu d’années en Chypre. Malgré leur origine différente, malgré l’écart social en­ tre eux, puisqu’ils se situent à des niveaux différents de la hiérarchie féodale, ces trois personnages partagent le même intérêt et le même goût littéraire. Bien que les oeuvres lues devant Damiette ne puissent pas être identifiées, il est évident qu’elles reflétaient une éthique chevaleresque, une conscience sociale, enfin, des attitudes mentales com ­ munes à ces nobles et à l’ensem ble des membres de leur classe. Le rapport étroit entre cadre social et littérature est encore plus évident quand on tient compte des raisons qui poussèrent Philippe de Novare à raconter qu’il.lisait en un roman à Raoul de Tibériade: souligner ses rapports étroits avec cet ém inent juriste, de la bouche duquel il recueillit les élém ents du droit féodal en vigueur dans le royaume latin de Jérusalem 2. Il n’est donc guère surprenant que les références à Raoul, ainsi qu’à d’autres juristes de renom figurent dans le traité de droit féodal composé plus tard par Philippe de Novare 3. La parenté entre la littérature chevaleresque et le droit féodal est manifeste. Ils procèdent du même milieu, s’adressent au même public, et leur diffusion s’opère par des voies identiques. C’est bien ce que prouve la transmission de la littérature française vers les états latins de la Méditerranée orientale à l’époque des croisades. Examinons tout d’abord le cadre géographique et chronologique dans lequel ce phénomène se manifeste 4. Les états latins du Levant furent établis vers la fin du XIe siècle, à l’époque de la première croisade, et Chypre fut occupée en 1191, près d’un siè­ cle plus tard. Des chevaliers originaires d ’Occident, en particulier de la France capétien­ ne et de régions voisines, im posèrent leur domination sur les territoires conquis. A la suite de la quatrième croisade, qui prit fin en 1204, il en fut de même dans l’Empire la­ tin de Constantinople, le Péloponnèse, où la principauté de Morée fut créée, ainsi que dans la région d’Athènes. Les chevaliers venus d’Occident instituèrent dans les pays de conquête une structure sociale et un régime politique plus ou m oins conformes à ceux des régions dont ils étaient issus. En Occident, à l’époque de la première croisade, soit vers 1100, la noblesse était déjà héréditaire et l’adoubement, qui illustrait le développement d’une véritable conscience de classe, en rendait l’accès fort difficile. A l’époque de la quatrième croisade, les chevaliers constituaient un “ordre”, dont le rituel, les obliga­ tions, le système de valeurs et la mentalité avaient été forgés aussi bien par la coutum e que par la littérature, ses images et ses symboles. Il existait en effet une corrélation étroite entre la littérature lyrique, épique et courtoise, qui constituait le langage de la

2 Cf. J. R iley -S mith , T h e F e u d a l N o b i l i t y a n d th e K i n g d o m o f J e r u s a le m , 1 1 7 4 - 1 2 7 7 , London, 1973, pp. 122-4, 156-9. 3 Cf. s u p r a , note 1. 4 Pour ce qui suit, cf. plus en detail D. JACOBY, T h e D if f u s io n o f K n i g h t l y V a lu e s in th e C r u s a d e r S ta te s o f th e E a s te r n M e d ite r r a n e a n , dans T h e M e e tin g o f T w o W o rld s: C u ltu r a l E x c h a n g e b e tw e e n E a s t a n d W e s t d u r i n g th e P e r io d o f th e C r u s a d e s ( S y m p o s iu m K a la m a z o o - A n n A r b o r , 1 9 8 1 ) , Ann Arbor (Michigan), 1983,

sous presse.

II La littérature française dans les états latins des croisades

619

noblesse, et l’évolution de celle-ci, son com portem ent, son mode de vie et son éthique. Cette littérature chevaleresque contribua à affermir la conscience d’un groupe social qui, en dépit de sa dispersion géographique de l’Occident au Levant, ne connaissait pas de frontières et se considérait comme une com m unauté partageant les mêm es attitudes et la même éthique. C’est sur ce fonds que se greffent les facteurs concrets de transmission. Les con­ tacts des pays de conquête avec l’Occident ont été alimentés par l’arrivée outremer de nom­ breux pèlerins, combattants et immigrants appartenant à la classe des chevaliers, par les liens matrimoniaux de nobles avec des lignages d’Occident, ainsi que par les croisades et autres expéditions militaires. Celles-ci ont égalem ent donné lieu à la m ani­ festation des vertus chevaleresques, courage, vaillance, loyauté, largesse et courtoisie, il­ lustrées par la littérature de la classe noble. Les rencontres entre chevaliers d’Occident et ceux d’Orient se multiplient: ainsi, au siège d’Acre lors de la troisièm e croisade, de­ vant Damiette en 1218 et 1219, et m ieux encore lors de la première croisade de Louis IX, qui voit en 1249 la rencontre des chevaliers d’Occident, du Levant, de Chypre et de la Morée franque. Ces rencontres ont été égalem ent stim ulées par les rapports étroits, sur le plan familial, juridique, culturel, enfin dans le domaine de la mentalité, entre la noblesse du royaume de Jérusalem et celle du royaume de Chypre, ainsi que par les liens diplom atiques, puis politiques qui unirent la principauté de Morée à la cour de Naples à partir du règne de Charles 1er d’Anjou. Il y a lieu de noter, à ce propos, que la Morée passa sous la domination angevine en 1278. Les contacts entre Occident et Orient, ainsi qu’entre les pays de conquête de la Méditerranée orientale, ont été grandement facilités par un facteur linguistique. La par­ ticipation de chevaliers originaires de régions de langue d’oc aux expéditions militaires et à la colonisation du Levant est restée som me toute marginale, et le français consti­ tua, dès le XIIe siècle, la langue com m une de la noblesse du Levant, puis, au siècle sui­ vant, celle de la noblesse de Chypre, de Morée et du duché d’Athènes. Ceci, en dépit des écarts entre les dialectes français d’Occident et de l’évolution propre du français dans les divers pays de colonisation de la Méditerranée orientale; ainsi en Morée le français subit-il au XIVe siècle l’influence des parlers italiens. N ’em pêche que selon le chroni­ queur catalan Ramon Muntaner, qui écrivait vers 1325, la plus noble chevalerie était celle de Morée et les chevaliers y parlaient aussi bon français qu’à Acre; selon une autre version du mêm e texte, leur français était aussi bon qu’à Paris. Il ne faut évidem m ent pas prendre Muntaner à la lettre; il tém oigne cependant que le français était bien la langue de la classe noble en Méditerranée orientale. C’est d’ailleurs ce que confirment les traités de droit féodal rédigés au XIIIe siècle dans le royaume de Jérusalem et celui de Chypre, ainsi que les Assises de Rom anie, dont la rédaction en Morée s’acheva dans la première moitié du XIVe siècle. L’intégration sociale au sein de la noblesse de la Médi­ terranée orientale ne pouvait avoir lieu sans une assim ilation culturelle, et celle-ci exigeait en premier lieu la connaissance du français. Le cas de Philippe de Novare est significatif à cet égard. Même s’il avait eu quelques connaissances de français avant

II

620 d’arriver en Chypre, il est évident qu’en peu de temps il y apprit à manier correctement cette langue. En tém oignent sa lecture du roman à Damiette, en 1218 ou 1219, ainsi que ses oeuvres juridiques et littéraires écrites ultérieurement. Il en a été de mêm e des seigneurs italiens et de leurs descendants installés dans les îles de la mer Egée à la suite de la quatrième croisade. Devenus vassaux du prince de Morée dans la première m oitié du XIIIe siècle, ils participèrent à la vie de la cour princière sur tous les plans, et il n ’est donc pas surprenant de trouver en 1331 ou 1332 aux mains de Bartolomeo Ghisi, baron d’origine vénitienne, une copie de la Chronique de Morée rédigée en français 5. Les contacts et rencontres entre chevaliers de divers pays ont donné lieu à des échanges, qui se manifestent dans les domaines du droit, de l’éthique chevaleresque ali­ m entée par la littérature de la classe noble, enfin, dans le mode de vie des chevaliers, puissant facteur de cohésion sociale. On retrouve en Méditerranée orientale l’apprentis­ sage des jeunes chevaliers aux cours royales et princières ou celles des barons, la pas­ sion de la chasse, surtout à Pépervier, apanage de la classe noble, ainsi que les joutes et les fêtes où la bravoure et la vaillance des chevaliers s’allient à la largesse des seigneurs et au faste de l’habillement. Philippe de Novare en témoigne brièvement, mais de m a­ nière éloquente, quand il rapporte les réjouissances qui eurent lieu en Chypre en 1223, à l’occasion de l’adoubement des fils de Jean 1er d’Ibelin, seigneur de Beyrouth, et à Tyr deux ans plus tard, à l’occasion du mariage par procuration d’Isabelle de Brienne et de l’empereur Frédéric II 6. Il n’est donc guère surprenant de retrouver également, dans le même cadre, la littérature chevaleresque d’Occident. Les trouvères, troubadours, jon­ gleurs et ménestrels accompagnant les armées occidentales ont contribué à sa diffusion en Méditerranée orientale. Dans certains cas, cette diffusion s’est opérée par voie orale, grâce à la récitation ou la lecture à haute voix. C’est toutefois la transmission matérielle qui a joué le rôle le plus important. La présence de livres, même temporaire, a permis au public chevaleresque de prendre connaissance d’oeuvres rédigées en Occident; elle en a égalem ent favorisé la copie et la diffusion. Deux exem ples permettront d’illustrer ce phénomène. Le comte Eudes de Nevers débarqua à Acre le 20 octobre 1265, en compagnie d’u­ ne cinquantaine de chevaliers. Il y mourut en août 1266, âgé à peine de 35 ans 7. Quel­ ques mois plus tard, Rutebeuf composa la Com plainte du comte Eudes de Nevers, dans laquelle il exhorta Louis IX, divers seigneurs de France et les chevaliers qui couraient les tournois à suivre l’exem ple du comte et à partir en Terre Sainte 8. Mais, ce qui nous intéresse par-dessus tout dans ce contexte, c’est qu’à sa mort à Acre Eudes avait en sa

5 Elle sera examinée en détail plus loin.

6 P hilippe de N ovare, M é m o ire s, 1 2 1 8 - 1 2 4 3 , éd. Ch. Köhler, Paris, 1913, p. 7, § VI (112), et p. 3, § IX (89). 7 Sur ce personnage, cf. O e u v r e s c o m p lè te s d e R u te b e u f, éd. E. F àRAL et J. B àSTIN, Paris, 1959, I, pp. 451-2. * Texte ib id ., I, pp. 455-60, et pour la datation, pp. 453-4.

Il La littérature française dans les états latins des croisades

621

possession trois livres rédigés en français: le «romanz des Loheranz », le «romanz de la terre d ’outre mer» et un chansonnier 9. Le «romanz de la terre d ’outre mer» était sans nul doute une version française de la chronique de Guillaume de Tyr, à laquelle on avait adjoint une ou plusieurs continuations. En effet, la.chronique latine de cet auteur, qui couvre l’histoire du royaume de Jérusalem jusqu’en 1184, a été traduite en France en langue vulgaire entre 1220 et 1223. Diverses continuations, les unes rédigées en Orient, les autres en Occident poursuivent le récit des événem ents jusqu’en 1232, 1261 ou au delà 101. L’usage du terme outremer pour désigner le Levant ne prouve pas nécessaire­ ment que le livre appartenant à Eudes ait été rédigé en Occident n : on ne peut guère sa­ voir si le notaire qui dressa l’inventaire des biens du comte a trouvé la mention «romanz

de la terre d ’outre mer» sur la couverture ou la feuille de garde du manuscrit, ou enco­ re en tête du texte. Dans le premier et le second cas, cette m ention aurait été le fait d’Eudes de Nevers ou d’un propriétaire antérieur du volume; dans le troisième cas, elle serait due au copiste, et l’origine occidentale de l’exemplaire d’Eudes sem blerait confir­ mée 12. Il ne faudrait toutefois pas exclure une autre hypothèse: le notaire, originaire d’Occident, n ’a trouvé aucune indication concernant le livre et, de sa propre initiative, l’a intitulé «romanz de la terre d ’outre mer» après en avoir exam iné le contenu. En défi­ nitive, il n’est guère possible d’établir, sur la foi de cette mention, si Eudes de Nevers avait amené sa copie d’Occident ou s’il l’avait acquise à Acre 12a. Il y a cependant de fortes présom ptions en faveur de l’origine occidentale du volu­ me. On a vu qu’à son départ pour l’expédition d’Egypte, Pierre Chappe avait emporté de Chypre un ou plusieurs romans, lus par Philippe de Novare près de Damiette. De mêm e, il en sera bientôt question, le prince Edouard d’Angleterre em porta-t-il un ro­

9 A.-M. CHAZAUD, I n v e n ta ir e s e t c o m p te s d e la su c c e s s io n d ’E u d e s , c o m te d e N e v e r s (A cre, 7 2 6 6 ) , «Mémoi­ res (le la Société nationale des antiquaires de France», XXXII, 1870-1, p. 188. 10 Cf. M. R. Morgan, T h e C h r o n ic le o f E r n o u l a n d th e C o n tin u a tio n s o f W ill ia m o f T y r e , Oxford, 1973, en particulier pp. 41-58, 117-48, 171-5, et pour la traduction française de Guillaume de Tyr, pp. 119 et 172;

Id ., T h e R o th e lin C o n tin u a tio n o f W ill ia m o f T y r e , dans O u tre m e r . S tu d ie s in th e H i s t o r y o f th e C r u s a d i n g K i n g d o m o f J e r u s a le m p r e s e n te d to J o s h u a P r a w e r , ed. B. Z. K edar, H. E. Mayer, R. C. S mail, Jerusalem, 1982,

pp. 244-57; en outre, L a c o n tin u a tio n d e G u illa u m e d e T y r ( 1 1 8 4 - 7 7 9 7 ) , éd. R. M. MORGAN, («Documents rela­ tifs à Phistoire des Croisades publiés par l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres», 14), Paris, 1982, pp. 7-14, 16. Une liste incomplète des manuscrits de la version française et des continuations est fournie par J.

F olda, M a n u s c r ip ts o f th e H i s t o r y o f O u tr e m e r b y W ill ia m o f T y r e : a H a n d li s t , «Scriptorium», XXVII, 1973, pp. 90-5. 11 Pour l’usage de ce terme dans le texte même, cf. MORGAN, T h e C h ro n ic le , pp. 98-100. 12 A moins qu’un copiste travaillant en Terre Sainte ait servilement reproduit le titre ou Y i n c i p i t C ’est le cas dans Paris,

B.N., ms.

fr.

2628 (FOLDA, n° 73), copié

en Orient, qui débute ainsi: «Si comencent toz les fez

qui ont esté fez en la terre d’Outre mer»; dans le ms. fr.

22495 (FOLDA, n* 61), du XIVe siècle,

on trouve: «Ci

commence li rommans qui ont este outremer». 12d Une copie de la traduction de Guillaume de Tyr existait au Levant en 1244, mais on ne peut savoir si elle était suivie d’une continuation: cf. D. JACOBY, L a tr a d u c tio n e t le s c o n tin u a tio n s d e G u illa u m e d e T y r : n o te s s u r q u e lq u e s m a n u s c r its , «Scriptorium», sous presse.

II

622 man quand il partit en Terre Sainte. L’intérêt d’un grand seigneur tel qu’Eudes de Nevers pour l’histoire des croisades et du royaume latin de Jérusalem ne doit guère sur­ prendre. Fait significatif, précisément à la même époque deux auteurs tém oignent de l’importance des oeuvres historiques ou légendaires dans la formation de la conscience du croisé. Humbert de Romans, maître général de l’Ordre des Frères Prêcheurs, recom­ mande l’exploitation des récits édifiants qu’on peut en tirer. Dans son manuel à l’usage des prédicateurs de la croisade, rédigé entre avril 1266 et mars 1267 13, il mentionne à ce propos les chroniques latines du Pseudo-Turpin, de Foucher de Chartres et de Guil­ laume de Tyr, ainsi que la Historia transmarina de Jacques de Vitry 14. Dans sa Com­ plainte d ’Outremer, composée en 1266, Rutebeuf se réfère aux exploits de personnages historiques, Godefroy, Tancrède et Baudouin, qu’il a trouvés dans des oeuvres rédigées en français, peut-être la Chanson d'Antioche ou la version française de la chronique de Guillaume de Tyr 15. Nul n’a la vaillance et la bravoure de ces héros, écrit-il, d’où le tris­ te état de la Terre Sainte. Le poème de Rutebeuf est une exhortation à la croisade. Dans cette perspective, la lecture du «romanz de la terre d'outre mer» par Eudes de Nevers, avant son départ d’Occident, s’explique aisément; il n’est d’ailleurs pas exclu que cette lecture ait contribué à le convaincre de partir, avec des chevaliers à sa solde, au se­ cours de la Terre Sainte. On peut donc supposer à bon droit qu’il en possédait une co­ pie et emporta celle-ci en Terre Sainte. Il en fut sans doute de même des deux autres livres trouvés dans ses bagages, le chansonnier et le «romanz des Loheranz ». Faute d’indications, il est im possible de dé­ terminer le contenu du chansonnier. En revanche, l’identité du «romanz des Loheranz » peut être plus ou moins établie: il s’agit sans nul doute d’une oeuvre de la geste des

13 Sur ce manuel et sa datation, cf. A. L ecoy de la M arche, L a p r é d ic a tio n d e la c r o is a d e a u X I I F s iè c le , «Revue des questions historiques», XLVIII, 1890, pp. 5-28, en particulier pp. 9-18. 14 T r a c ta tu s v e n e r a b ilis f r a t r i s H u m b e r t i q u o n d a m m a g i s t r i g e n e r a li s o r d in is p r e d ic a to r u m d e p r e d ic a tio n e c ru c is: Paris, Bibl. Mazarme, Incunable n° 263 (autrefois 12360, puis 259), X V e siècle, fol. lr -49v. Les

oeuvres historiques qui nous concernent sont mentionnées aux fol. 6v, 11 r, 18r, 29v, 30r, 37r-v, 41r, 42v et 44r. Un texte s’appuyant sur le Pseudo-Turpin figure aux fol. 41r-43v: cf. H i s t o r i a K a r o l i M a g n i e t R o th o la n d i o u C h ro n iq u e d u P s e u d o -T u r p in , éd. C. M eredith -J ones, Paris, 1936, pp. 92-5, 98-9, 202-17, 228-31, ch. II-

III, X X V-XXVII, X X IX -X X X , XXXII; pour la H i s t o r i a  n th io c e n a de Foucher de Chartres, identifiée au fol. 18r et condensée aux fol. 44r-45r, cf. F u lc h e r i C a r n o te n s is H i s t o r i a H ie r o s o l y m i ta n a , (1095-1127), éd. H. H a GENMEYER, Heidelberg, 1913, pp. 222-6, 230-6, 242-7, 255-7, 495-8. Le chapitre basé sur la H i s t o r i a tr a n s m a ­ r in a de Jacques de Vitry, au fol. 45r, condense le ch. XVI de la H i s t o r i a o r ie n ta lis : I a c o b i d e V itr ia c o [...] l i b r i d u o, éd., F. M oschus, Duaci, 1597, p. 46. Mon identification des oeuvres historiques s’écarte de celle proposée

par A. L ècoy

de la

M arche (cf. note précédente).

15 Texte dans F aral et B astin , op. c i t , I, pp. 444-50, en particulier w . 149-67; pour la date et la référen­ ce à la C h a n so n d ’A n tio c h e , cf. pp. 440-1, 443-4. Pour le rapprochement entre la C o m p la in te et le traité d’Humbert de Romans, cf. p. 443. Notons toutefois que la chronique de Guillaume de Tyr continuée couvre l’ensemble des épisodes rapportant les hauts faits de ces personnages; cf. aussi V in c ip it d’une de ses copies qui mentionne la conquête d’Antioche: in fr a , n. 105.

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Lorrains, peut-être le roman de Garin le Loherain. Cette chanson de la fin du XIIe siè­ cle exalte les vertus chevaleresques et la fidélité au lignage; elle abonde en descriptions d’aventures, de combats, d’expéditions de chasse et de fêtes som ptueuses. En outre, elle m et l’accent sur l’aspect religieux de la croisade contre les Sarrasins, raison suffisante, sem ble-t-il, pour exciter l’intérêt d’Eudes de Nevers. Voilà qui rejoint à nouveau les conseils d’Humbert de Romans sur la contribution des récits historiques et légendaires à la prédication de la croisade 16. Il n’est guère possible de savoir si le cycle des Lorrains était arrivé au Levant avant 1265. Toujours est-il qu’il a dû connaître un grand succès à Acre, puisqu’il reflétait le mode de vie et le comportement, ainsi que l’éthique et le sens de cohésion sociale des lecteurs et du public chevaleresque de cette ville. Il y a lieu de noter que chacun des trois volum es d’Eudes de Nevers représentait un genre littéraire différent. Le comte appréciait ces livres, puisqu’il les amena vrai­ sem blablem ent à Acre. Il n’en était pas de même, sem ble-t-il, du notaire qui établit l’inventaire des biens du comte. Les trois volum es furent évalués à 31 besants, soit un peu plus du tiers du prix d’un m ulet d’Eudes vendu à Acre à la même époque 17. Après la mort du comte, ses volum es passèrent aux mains d’Erard de Valeri, un chevalier champenois qui était arrivé à Acre avec Eudes et fut l’un de ses exécuteurs testam entai­ res. Erard quitta la Terre Sainte entre juin 1267 et juillet 1268; le mois suivant, il se trouvait aux côtés de Charles 1er d’Anjou à la bataille de Tagliacozzo 18. En septembre 1271 il arriva à nouveau à Acre, cette fois avec le futur roi Edouard 1er d’Angleterre 19. Erard de Valeri avait-il laissé à Acre les trois volum es ayant appartenu à Eudes quand il quitta la ville quelques années plus tôt, ou les avait-il emportés avec lui? On ne peut le savoir. Toujours est-il que ces livres sont restés à coup sûr à Acre d’octobre 1265 à juin 1267, soit vingt mois au m inim um 20, période suffisante pour en permettre la copie. Quelques années plus tard, un roman en prose arriva à Acre. Rustichello da Pisa, connu par sa version quelque peu romancée des voyages de Marco Polo en Extrême-

16 Cf. J. H. G risward , I n d i v id u a li s m e e t “E s p r i t d e f a m i l l e ” d a n s G a r in le L o h e r a in , dans F a m i lle e t p a ­ r e n té d a n s l'O c c id e n t m é d ié v a l, éd. G. D uby et J. L e Goff («Collection de l’Ecole française de Rome», 30),

Rome, 1977, pp. 385-96, et Id ., E s s a i s u r * G a rin le L o h e r a in ». S tr u c tu r e e t se n s d u P r o lo g u e , «Romania», LXXXVIII, 1967, pp. 289-322, en particulier pp. 302-4. 17 Cf. C hazaud , loc. c i t , respectivement pp. 188 et 202, § IV. 18

Cf. F aral et B astin , op. c i t , I, pp. 452-3, mais pour l’arrivée d’Erard à Acre, c i. R. GROUSSET, H i s t o ir e

d e s c r o is a d e s e t d u r o y a u m e f r a n c d e J é r u s a le m , Paris, 1934-6, III, p. 626.

19 C h ro n iq u e a ttr ib u é e à B a u d o u in d 'A v e sn e s, dans R e c u e il d e s H is t o r i e n s d e s G a u le s e t d e la F r a n c e , XXI, p. 178, et cf. F. M. PowiCKE, K i n g H e n r y I I I a n d th e L o r d E d w a r d . T h e C o m m u n i ty o f th e R e a l m in th e T h ir te e n th C e n tu r y , Oxford, 1947, II, p. 607, n. 2.

20 Depuis l’arrivée d’Eudes de Nevers jusqu’au départ d’Erard de Valeri; pour les dates, cf. s u p r a .

II

624 O rien t21, affirme qu’il a rédigé son propre roman arthurien en s’appuyant sur un livre qui était en la possession du prince Edouard, le futur Edouard 1er d’Angleterre, alors que celui-ci était en route vers la Terre Sainte 22. Il faut croire que Rustichello consulta ce livre en Sicile, où le prince passa l’hiver de 1270-1271 23. Compte tenu des sources de la Compilation de Rustichello, le livre d’Edouard devait contenir un Tristan en prose et un Palamède, ou du moins une copie de ce dernier roman. Palamède, égalem ent connu sous le nom de Guiron le courtois, a été composé vers 1235, après la rédaction du Lan­

celot et du Tristan en prose 2425. Il est attesté pour la première fois en 1240, quand l’empe­ reur Frédéric II remercia un de ses officiers, le secretus de Messine, de l’envoi du livre de

Palamède 25. Rien ne permet de supposer que le prince anglais laissa son livre en Sicile. Il n’est guère possible de savoir si Palamède était connu au Levant avant l’arrivée d’E­ douard à Acre en mai 1271. Il y est toutefois dûment attesté quinze années plus tard, ainsi qu’on le verra plus loin. Il n ’est donc pas exclu que Palamède ait été copié à Acre pendant le séjour d’Edouard, qui dura près de seize mois et prit fin en septembre 1272 26. Des oeuvres de littérature courtoise parvinrent également dans la principauté de Morée, soit directement de France, soit du royaume angevin de Sicile. Dès le règne de

21 Sur les sources et la nature de cette version, cf. F. BORLANDI, A lle o r i g i n i d e l L ib r o d i M a rc o P o lo , dans S t u d i in o n o re d i A m in to r e F a n fa n i, Milano, 1962, I, pp. 107-47, en particulier pp. 107-10, 130-6; sur la ver­

sion correcte de son nom, cf. L. F. B enedetto , N o n , m a *R u stich ello> , dans Id ., U o m in i e te m p i, Milano, 1953, pp. 63-70. 22 E. L ôSETH, L e r o m a n en p r o s e d e T r is ta n , le r o m a n d e P a la m è d e e t la c o m p ila tio n d e R u s tic ie n d e P ise . A n a ly s e c r itiq u e d 'a p r è s le s m a n u s c r its d e P a r is , Paris, 1891, pp. 422-3 (préambule du roman) et p. 472 (épilo­

gue du ms. 340). Le premier texte mentionne «que cist livres fut translatez du livre monseigneur Edouart, le roi d’Engleterre, en cellui temps que il passa oultre la mer ou service nostre seigneur Dame Dieu pour conquester le saint sépulcre, et maistre Rusticiens de Pise, le quel est ymaginez yci dessus, compila ce rommant [...] Et pour ce que le maistre les trouva escrips ou livre d’Engleterre, si métra une grant aventure». Le second rap­ porte que «cest li.re n’est mie proprement d’une seule personne fait, ne il n’est tout de Lancelot du lac, ne il n’est tout de Tristan ne tout du roy Meliadus, ains est de plusieurs hystoires et de plusieurs croniques dont je les ay estraites et conpilees a la requeste du roy Edouart d’Engleterre, sicomme il est contenu au commence­ ment de mon livre». L ’affirmation selon laquelle l’oeuvre a été rédigée «à la requête» du prince Edouard peut fort bien avoir été introduite par Rustichello pour conférer plus de lustre à son livre. En revanche, il n’y a pas lieu de mettre en doute le fait qu’Edouard avait un roman arthurien en sa possession. Sur la complexité des sources de Rustichello, cf. R L athuillÈRE, L a c o m p ila tio n de R u stic ie n d e P ise, dans J. F rappier, L e r o m a n j u s ­ qu 'à la f i n d u X I I F s iè c le , dans G r a n d r is s d e r r o m a n is c h e n L ite r a tu r e n d e s M itt e la l te r s , ed. H. R. J ai SS und E.

KÖHLER, IV/1, Heidelberg, 1978, pp. 623-5 (ci-après: G r u n d r is s ). 23 Cf. P owicke, op. e it,, II, pp. 599-600. 24 Cf. R. L athuill ÈRE, G u iro n le C o u rto is , E tu d e d e la tr a d it io n m a n u s c r ite e t a n a ly s e c r itiq u e , Genève, 1966, et Id ., G u ir o n le C o u rto is , dans G r u n d r is s , IV/1, pp. 610-4. 25 H i s t o r i a d ip l o m a ti c a F r e d e r ic i s e c u n d i, éd. J. L. A. de H üiLLARD-BrÉHOLLES, Paris, 1852-61, V/2, pp. 721-2. 26 Pour l’arrivée et le départ d’Edouard, cf. PowiCKE, op. ciL II, pp. 599, 603.

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Charles 1er, la cour de Naples servit en quelque sorte de relais culturel entre l’Occident et la Grèce franque. Leonardo da Veroli, né dans le royaume de Sicile, épousa la soeur du prince Guillaume II de Morée, vécut dans l’entourage de ce dernier, puis dans celui du roi Charles 1er. A sa mort, survenue en Italie en 1281, il avait en sa possession non moins de quatorze romans et une chronique, peut-être égalem ent rédigée en français. Ses fréquents voyages entre la cour de Naples et celle de Morée permettent de supposer qu’il contribua au transfert de textes littéraires de l’une à l’autre et que, pendant son long séjour dans la principauté, il avait plusieurs romans dans sa bibliothèque. Il est malheureusement im possible de préciser où il les avait acquis 27. Deux livres rédigés par Philippe de 'Novare, une chronique et un traité moral, cons­ tituent une mine précieuse de renseignements sur la diffusion de la littérature françai­ se dans les royaumes de Jérusalem et de Chypre pendant près d’une cinquantaine d’an­ nées au cours du XIIIe siècle. Philippe, arrivé très jeune au Levant, en tout cas avant 1218, y passa le reste de sa vie et y mourut vers 1270 28. C’est par conséquent dans cet­ te région qu’il acquit ses connaissances et son goût littéraires. Plus cultivé que la plu­ part des nobles de l’Orient latin, ce chypriote d’origine italienne n’en était pas moins représentatif de sa classe. Ses références directes ou indirectes à diverses oeuvres, ainsi que les passages qu’il en tire permettent de reconstituer, du moins partiellement, un panorama de la littérature française d’importation dans l’Orient latin. La chronique de Philippe de Novare, qui traite de la guerre des Ibelin contre l’empereur Frédéric II et ses partisans, couvre la période qui s’étend de 1218 à 1243. Elle était peut-être achevée en 1247, mais comprend néanmoins la mention de faits postérieurs, dont le dernier date de 1258 29. La connaissance de certaines oeuvres littéraires peut toutefois être déterm i­ née de manière plus précise quand elles sont m entionnées en rapport avec des événe­ ments datables. De tels points de repère font entièrement défaut dans le traité moral de Philippe de Novare, intitulé Des .1111. tenz cTaage d ’o me ou “Des quatre âges de l’hom ­ m e”. L’oeuvre fut composée alors que son auteur avait dépassé soixante-dix ans, soit peu après 1265 30. Cette date constitue par conséquent un term inus a d quem approxi­ m atif pour les références qui y figurent. La chronique de Philippe de Novare comprend plusieurs poésies dont il est l’au­ teur. Dans celle qu’il rédigea en 1229, alors qu’il était assiégé dans la forteresse des Hos­ pitaliers à Nicosie, Philippe représenta les adversaires des Ibelin respectivem ent sous les traits de Renart, Grimbert et Cointereau le singe. La connaissance du Rom an de Ren art n’était toutefois pas limitée à l’auteur, puisque sa pièce «fut receüe a Acre a m oût

27

Sur Leonardo et sa b ib lioth èq u e, cf. J acoby, T h e D if f u s io n o f K n i g h t l y V a lu es, avec renvois au x sou r­

ces et aux étu d es précédentes. 28 Cf. G. P aris, L e s M é m o ir e s d e P h il ip p e d e N o v a r e , «Revue de l’Orient latin», IX, 1902, pp. 166-7, 174-5. 29 I b id ., pp. 190-2, et, pour son texte, cf. l’édition mentionnée s u p r a , note 6. 30 Cf. s u p r a , note 28, et in fr a , note 36, pour ce texte.

II

626 grant joie» par les chevaliers auxquels elle était adressée 31: les allusions avaient donc été comprises et la satire fort appréciée. Philippe éprouvait une affection particulière pour le Roman de Renart, ainsi qu’en tém oignent deux autres pièces qu’il composa en 1230: dans l’une il fait m ention de Renart; l’autre est une véritable «branche de Renart», à propos de laquelle Philippe souligne que tous les animaux qu’il met en scène figurent «au romans de Renart»32. Ailleurs, il rapporte qu’en 1233 Jean 1er d’Ibelin, seigneur de Reyrouth, s’appuya à Acre sur «j. conte et une essample, qui est escrite au livre des fableaux de Renart»33. On peut en conclure que, dans le milieu chevaleresque du Levant, l’épopée animale était tout aussi populaire qu’en Occident. La chronique de Philippe de Novare comprend également des références à d’autres oeuvres. Une des pièces qui y est insérée, datée de 1229 ou 1230, compare Renart à «Guenelon, dont France fu traie», une référence à la Chanson de Roland ou à une version française de la chronique du PseudoTurpin 34. En 1231, quand il s’adresse au jeune roi Henri 1er de Chypre, Jean 1er d’Ibelin mentionne un épisode de Foucon de Candie dans lequel Guillaume d Orange secourt ses neveux assiégés à Candie 35. Les allusions littéraires sont plus abondantes dans le traité moral de Philippe de Novare. L’auteur connaît des romans antiques. Il transcrit quelques vers du Roman de

Troie de Renoît de Sainte-Maure, tirés du discours d’Agamennon au siège de Troie, mais en modifie quelques-uns et en change l’ordre 36. Il insère une parabole, celle du Roi an­ nuel, empruntée à un Barlaam et Josaphat en vers ou en prose 37. Philippe rapporte un débat entre Alexandre le Grand et son père Philippe, où le premier manifeste des quali­ tés chevaleresques, en particulier la largesse à l’égard de ses compagnons d’arme; le ré­ cit qu’il en fait est m anifestement inspiré d’un Roman d'Alexandre 38. En outre, Philip­

31 Philippe de Novare, M é m o ire s, §§ LIV-LVI (142-4). 32 Ib id ., § LXVII (150), et §§ LXXII-LXXIII (153). 33 I b id ., §§ C L -C L V (207). 34 I b id ., § LXVII (150). Il faut toutefois remarquer que Ganelon apparaît aussi dans de nombreuses au­ tres chansons de geste et quelques romans. Cf. G a n e lo n dans E. LANGLOIS, T a b le d e s n o m s p r o p r e s d e to u te n a ­ tu r e c o m p r is d a n s le s c h a n s o n s d e g e s te im p r im é e s , Paris, 1904, pp. 252-3; L.-F. F lutre, T a b le d e s n o m s p r o ­ p r e s a v e c to u te s le u r s v a r ia n te s f i g u r a n t d a n s le s r o m a n s d u m o y e n â g e é c r its en f r a n ç a i s o u en p r o v e n ç a l e t a c tu e lle m e n t p u b lié s ou a n a ly s é s , Poitiers, 1962, p. 85.

35 Philippe de Novare, M é m o ire s, § LXXXII (160); cf. F o lq u e d e C a n d ie von H e r b e r t le D u c d e D a m m a r tin , n a c h d e n f e s tl ä n d i s c h e n H a n d s c h r i f te n z u m e r s te n M a le v o l ls tä n d ig h g g ., éd. O. SCHULTZ-GORA, Dresden-

Jena («Gesellschaft für romanische Literatur», 21, 27, 49), 1909-36, I, pp. 287-380, w . 6409-8439. 36 L e s q u a tr e â g e s d e T h o m m e , t r a i t é m o r a l d e P h il ip p e d e N a v a r r e [sic], éd. M. de FRÉVILLE, Paris, 1888, pp. 96-7, §§ 176-7; cf. L e R o m a n d e T ro ie , p a r B e n o ît d e S a in te - M a u r e , p u b l i é d 'a p r è s to u s le s m a n u s c r its c o n ­ n u s, éd. L. C onstans , Paris, 1904-12, I, dans l’ordre suivant: w . 6077-80, 6085-6, 6099-6102, deux vers non

identifiés, 6135-8, 6091-2. 37 F réville, op. cit. pp. 53-4, § 98, et cf. pp. 54-6, §§ 99-101; cf. P. M eyer, L e b e s tia ir e d e G e r v a is e , «Ro­ mania», I, 1872, p. 425. Sur Barlaam et Josaphat, cf. A. MlCHA, dans G r u n d r is s , IV/1, pp. 482-4. 38 F réville , op. cit., pp. 39-41, §§ 67-70; ci. P. M eyer , A le x a n d r e le G r a n d d a n s la li tté r a t u r e f r a n ç a is e d u m o y e n â g e , Paris, 1886, I, pp. 361-3. Sur le R o m a n d 'A le x a n d r e et ses continuations, cf. respectivement

J. F rappier dans G r u n d r is s , IV/1, pp. 149-66, et J.-Ch. P ayen , ib id ., pp. 167, 484-7.

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pe s ’appuie sur des historiettes répandues dans la littérature de son temps: ainsi, celle de l’enfant qui faisait de petits larcins, finit par être condamné à mort pour vol et qui, pour punir son père de l’avoir mal élevé, lui arracha le nez avec ses dents 39; ou encore, celle de la dame aux petits couteaux, qu’elle avait reçus des homm es qui la convoitaient dans sa jeunesse et que, devenue âgée, elle remit aux homm es qui lui plaisaient pour payer leurs faveurs 40. La gamme des genres littéraires représentés dans le traité moral de Philippe de Novare, qu’on pourrait peut-être étendre par une analyse plus serrée du texte 41, com ­ prend également le roman arthurien 42. En Occident, l’engouem ent pour la matière de Bretagne était quasi général. César de Heisterbach en fournit un témoignage amusant dans son D ialogus miraculorum, rédigé vers 1223. Il y rapporte l’histoire d’un abbé qui, quelques années plus tôt, attira l’attention de ses moines som nolents en introduisant dans son sermon les paroles suivantes: «Ecoutez, frères, écoutez, je vous raconte une chose nouvelle et importante! Il y avait autrefois un roi, qui s’appelait Arthur». L’atten­ tion des moines fut aussitôt éveillée, et l’abbé leur fit alors des reproches amers: «Voyez, frères, la grande misère! Quand j’ai parlé de Dieu, vous dormiez; aussitôt que j’ai introduit des propos frivoles, vous avez comm encé tous, éveillés et les oreilles dressées, à écouter» 43. C’est toutefois la classe chevaleresque, plus que toute autre, qui retrouvait son image et ses rêves dans la matière de Bretagne. Il en était ainsi égalem ent dans l’O­ rient latin. La matière de Bretagne y est attestée pour la première fois précisém ent à l’époque où César de Heisterbach achevait son D ialogus miraculorum. En 1223, quand Jean 1er d’Ibelin, sire de Beyrouth, adouba ses deux fils aînés en Chypre, il organisa une fête somptueuse dans le cadre de laquelle on représenta les aventures de Bretagne et de la Table Bonde 44. Compte tenu de la date à laquelle cette fête eut lieu, les chevaliers de Chypre devaient déjà avoir connaissance de romans arthuriens en prose, puisque les pre­ mières oeuvres de ce genre furent rédigées entre 1185 et 1215 45. Ce sont probablement

39 F réville , op. cit., pp. 7-8, §§ 9-10; cf. P. M eyer , L 'e n f a n t g â t é d e v e n u c r im in e l , «Romania», XIV, 1885, pp. 581-3. 40 F réville , op. cit., pp. 88-91, §§ 161-4; cf. P. M eyer , L e c o n te d e s p e t i t s c o u te a u x , «Romania», XIII, 1884, pp. 595-7, et Id ., L e c o n te d e s p e t i t s c o u te a u x d 'a p r è s J a c q u e s d e V itri, «Romania», XXI, 1892, pp. 81-3. 41 Au delà de ce qu’a fait Ch.-V. L anglois , L a v ie en F ra n c e a u m o y e n â g e d e la f i n d u X II* a u m ilie u d u X IV * s iè c le d 'a p r è s le s m o r a li s t e s d u te m p s , nouv. éd. revue, Paris, 1926, pp. 209-40. 42

F réville , op. cit., p. 23, § 37. A ce sujet, avec plus de détails, cf. in fr a .

43 C a e s a r ii H e is te r b a c e n s is m o n a c h i [ . . . ] D ia lo g u s m ir a c u lo r u m , éd. J. STRANGE, Köln, 1851, I, p. 205, IV, ch. XXXVI. 44 Philippe de Novare, M é m o ire s, § VI (112): «Moût i ot douné et despendu et bouhordé, et contrefait les aventures de Bretaigne et de la Table ronde, et moult de maniérés de jeus». 45 Cf. J. F rappier, dans G r u n d r is s , IV/1, pp. 503-12, et F. B ogdanow , ib id ., pp. 513-5. Il est peu probable que le L a n c e lo t en prose ait déjà été connu en Chypre en 1223, puisque sa rédaction se situe vraisemblable­ ment entre 1215 et 1230; cf. J. F rappier, dans G r u n d r is s , IV/1, pp. 536-40.

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de telles oeuvres, et non des versions en vers, qui ont inspiré le spectacle des aventures de Bretagne en Chypre. Elles présentaient l’avantage de permettre une interprétation plus ou moins libre de divers épisodes et n’exigeaient pas une mémorisation du texte, difficile pour les acteurs non professionnels qui, sem ble-t-il, y représentèrent les aven­ tures des héros arthuriens 46. Un Lancelot en prose était connu de Philippe de Novare. Dans un passage de son traité moral, l’auteur chypriote s’appuie sur ce qui «est escrit ou livre de Lancelot, ou il i a moût de biaus diz et de soutis». A propos des jeunes qui méprisent les hom m es d’âge moyen et les vieux, il rapporte un épisode où Lambègue, neveu de Pharien, s’attire une semonce de son oncle pour avoir parlé hardiment avant les anciens et les sages 47. Bien qu’il ait rédigé son traité moral peu après 1265 48, il est évident que Philippe a connu le Lancelot en prose bien avant. Ce roman, achevé entre 1215 et 1230 49, est donc parvenu en Orient entre cette dernière date et 1265 environ. C’est dans la seconde m oitié du XIIIe siècle qu’on doit situer l’arrivée au Levant ou l’exécution dans cette région d’un Tristan en prose, oeuvre rédigée entre 1230 et 1235 50. Deux feuillets de ce roman, détachés d’un manuscrit copié dans la minuscule gothique dite parisienne du m ilieu du XIIIe siècle, sont conservés à présent à la B iblio­ thèque Nationale et Universitaire de Jérusalem 51. Ils ont été extraits de la reliure d’un livre hébraïque imprimé au XVIe siècle, dont le titre et l’origine n’ont m alheureusem ent pas été enregistrés 52. Il est toutefois évident que ces feuillets proviennent d’un territoi­ re remplissant trois conditions: au XIIIe siècle on y avait lu et apprécié le T ristan en prose; on n’y éprouvait aucun intérêt pour ce texte au XVIe siècle, puisqu’on détacha alors les deux feuillets du sexternio auquel ils appartenaient à l’époque pour rembour­ rer la reliure où ils ont été retrouvés 53; enfin, il faut supposer l’existence, dans ce même territoire, de communautés juives consommatrices de livres hébraïques im primés au XVIe siècle soit en Italie, soit à Ista n b u l54. Seules la France, l’Italie et les régions de

46 Pour les acteurs, cf. s u p r a , p. 625. 47 F réville, op. ciL , pp. 23-4, §§ 37-8, et cf. L a n c e lo t D o L a c . T h e N o n - C y c li c O ld F re n c h P r o s e R o m a n ­ ce, éd. E. K ennedy , Oxford, 1980,1, p. 84,1. 14 - p. 86,1. 3.

48 Cf. in fr a , pp. 630-1. 49 Cf. s u p r a , note 45. 50 Cf. R. L athuill ÈRE, dans G r u n d r is s , IV/1, 601-9. 51 Sur ces feuillets et leur texte, cf. H. PERI, E p is o d e s in é d its d u R o m a n d e T r is ta n (m a n u s c r it d e J é r u s a ­ le m ) a ve c d e u x n o u v ea u x