Telling the Story in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honor of Evelyn Birge Vitz 1843843919, 9781843843917

Citation preview

TELLING THE STORY IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Gallica of orality and performance, surrounded by a circle of rapt listeners. Evelyn Birge Vitz has challenged a generation of scholars to join the circle, listen as they read, and exchange pen for performance. A tribute to her work, the fifteen essays in this volume attend to the qualities of voice, their registers and dynamics, whether practiced or impromptu, falsified, overlapping, interrupted or whispered. They examine how the book became a performance venue and reshaped the storyteller’s image and authority, and they investigate the mutability of stories that move from book to book, place to place and among competing cultures to stimulate cultural and political change. They show storytelling as far more than entertainment, but central to law, religious ritual and teaching, as well as the primary mode of delivering news. Themes that crisscross the volume include tensions among amateurs and professionals, dominant and minority languages and cultures, women and children’s engagement with storytelling, animality, religion, translation, travel, didacticism and entertainment. STORYTELLER STANDS AT THE CROSSROADS

KATHRYN A. DUYS is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of English and Foreign Languages at the University of St. Francis in Joliet, Illinois. ELIZABETH EMERY is Professor of French and Graduate Coordinator at Montclair State University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Elizabeth Archibald, Maureen Boulton, Cristian Bratu, Simonetta Cochis, Joyce Coleman, Mark Cruse, Kathryn A. Duys, Elizabeth Emery, Marilyn Lawrence, Kathleen Loysen, Laurie Postlewate, Nancy Freeman Regalado, Samuel N. Rosenberg, E. Gordon Whatley, Linda Marie Zaerr. Front cover image: A minstrel entertains; Queste del saint Graal. © The British Library Board. MS Royal 14 E. III, fol. 89r. Reproduced with permission.

an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge IP12 3DF (GB) and 668 Mt Hope Ave, Rochester NY 14620–2731 (US) www.boydellandbrewer.com

ESSAYS IN HONOR OF EVELYN BIRGE VITZ

DUYS, EMERY AND POSTLEWATE (eds)

LAURIE POSTLEWATE is Senior Lecturer in French at Barnard College of Columbia University.

T ELLING THE S TORY IN THE M IDDLE AGES

THE

E DITED BY

KATHRYN A. DUYS, ELIZABETH EMERY AND LAURIE POSTLEWATE

Gallica Volume 36

Telling the Story in the Middle Ages

Gallica ISSN 1749–091X

General Editor: Sarah Kay

Gallica aims to provide a forum for the best current work in medieval and Renaissance French studies. Literary studies are particularly welcome and preference is given to works written in English, although publication in French is not excluded. Proposals or queries should be sent in the first instance to the editor, or to the publisher, at the addresses given below; all submissions receive prompt and informed consideration. Professor Sarah Kay, Department of French, New York University, 13–19 University Place, 6th floor, New York, NY 10003, USA The Editorial Director, Gallica, Boydell & Brewer Ltd., PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK

Previously published volumes in this series are listed at the end of this book.

Evelyn ‘Timmie’ Birge Vitz

Telling the Story in the Middle Ages Essays in Honor of Evelyn Birge Vitz

Edited by Kathryn A. Duys Elizabeth Emery Laurie Postlewate

D. S. BREWER

©  Contributors 2015 All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner First published 2015 D. S. Brewer, Cambridge ISBN 978–1–84384–391–7 D. S. Brewer is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620–2731, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate This publication is printed on acid-free paper

Contents List of Illustrations

ix

List of Contributors

xi

Evelyn ‘Timmie’ Birge Vitz, Bibliography

xiii

Introduction 1 Kathryn A. Duys, Elizabeth Emery, Laurie Postlewate Part I: Speaking of Stories ‘Of Aunters They Began to Tell’: Informal Story in Medieval England and Modern America Linda Marie Zaerr

13

The Storyteller’s Verbal jonglerie in ‘Renart jongleur’ Marilyn Lawrence

31

Plusurs en ai oïz conter: Performance and the Dramatic Poetics of Voice 47 in the lais of Marie de France Simonetta Cochis Who Tells the Stories of Poetry? Villon and his Readers Nancy Freeman Regalado

61

Part II: Inscribing Stories The Audience in the Story: Novices Respond to History in Gautier de Coinci’s Chasteé as nonains Kathryn A. Duys

77

Effet de parlé and effet d’écrit: The Authorial Strategies of Medieval French Historians Cristian Bratu

93

Or, entendez! Jacques Tahureau and the Staging of the Storytelling Scene in Early Modern France Kathleen Loysen

111

Telling the Story of the Christ Child: Text and Image in Two Fourteenth-Century Manuscripts Maureen Boulton Authorizing the Story: Guillaume de Machaut as Doctor of Love Joyce Coleman

123 141

Part III: Moving Stories Retelling the Story: Intertextuality, Sacred and Profane, in the Late Roman Legend of St Eugenia E. Gordon Whatley

157

Ruodlieb and Romance in Latin: Audience and Authorship Elizabeth Archibald

171

Turner a pru: Conversion and Translation in the Vie de seint Clement 187 Laurie Postlewate Stories for the King: Narration and Authority in the ‘Crusade Compilation’ of Philippe VI of France (London, British Library, MS Royal 19.D.i) Mark Cruse

205

Le Berceau de la littérature française: Medieval Literature as Storytelling in Nineteenth-Century France Elizabeth Emery

219

Storytelling Tribute: An Ode to Friendship Retelling the Old Story Samuel N. Rosenberg

239

Index 245 Tabula Gratulatoria

261

Illustrations Frontispiece Evelyn ‘Timmie’ Birge Vitz. Photograph by Alexander Herron. Telling the Story of the Christ Child: Text and Image in Two FourteenthCentury Manuscripts Fig. 1. Oxford, MS Selden Supra 38, fol. 8v. The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford. Reproduced with permission.

130

Fig. 2. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. 25415, fols 44v–45r. Reproduced with permission. Photomontage of manuscript opening by E. Emery.

136

Fig. 3. Oxford, MS Selden Supra 38, fol. 4v. The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford. Reproduced with permission.

138

Authorizing the Story: Guillaume de Machaut as Doctor of Love Fig. 1. © The British Library Board. London, British Library, MS Royal 14 E. III, fol. 89r. Reproduced with permission.

142

Fig. 2. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. 783, fol. 32v. Reproduced with permission.

144

Fig. 3. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. 1569, fol. 1r. Reproduced with permission.

145

Fig. 4. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. 22545, fol. 75v. 146 Reproduced with permission. Fig. 5. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. 216, fol. 104r. Reproduced with permission.

152

Stories for the King: Narration and Authority in the ‘Crusade Compilation’ of Philippe VI of France (London, British Library, Royal 19.D.i) Fig. 1. © The British Library Board. London, British Library, MS Royal 19.D.i, fol. 83r. Reproduced with permission.

212

x ILLUSTRATIONS

Fig. 2. © The British Library Board. London, British Library, MS Royal 19.D.i, fol. 136r. Reproduced with permission. Fig. 3. © The British Library Board. London, British Library, MS Royal 19.D.i, fol. 1r. Reproduced with permission.

215 217

The editors, contributors and publishers are grateful to all the institutions and persons listed for permission to reproduce the materials in which they hold copyright. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders; apologies are offered for any omission, and the publishers will be pleased to add any necessary acknowledgement in subsequent editions.

Contributors Elizabeth Archibald, Durham University Maureen Boulton, University of Notre Dame Cristian Bratu, Baylor University Simonetta Cochis, Transylvania University Joyce Coleman, University of Oklahoma Mark Cruse, Arizona State University Kathryn A. Duys, University of St. Francis Elizabeth Emery, Montclair State University Marilyn Lawrence, New York University Kathleen Loysen, Montclair State University Laurie Postlewate, Barnard College Nancy Freeman Regalado, New York University Samuel N. Rosenberg, Indiana University E. Gordon Whatley, Queens College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York Linda Marie Zaerr, Boise State University

Evelyn ‘Timmie’ Birge Vitz Bibliography BOOKS Medieval and Early Modern Performance in the Eastern Mediterranean, ed. Arzu Öztürkmen and Evelyn Birge Vitz (Turnhout, 2014). Performing Medieval Narrative, ed. Evelyn Birge Vitz, Nancy Freeman Regalado and Marilyn Lawrence (Cambridge, 2005). Orality and Performance in Early French Romance (Cambridge, 1999). Medieval Narrative and Modern Narratology: Subjects and Objects of Desire (New York, 1989). A Continual Feast (New York, 1985). The Crossroad of Intentions: A Study of Symbolic Expression in the Poetry of François Villon (The Hague, 1974). DIGITAL PROJECTS ‘Performing Medieval Narrative Today: A Video Showcase’, mednar.org. Dir. Marilyn Lawrence and Evelyn Birge Vitz, New York University Digital Studio, February 2015. ‘Arthurian Legend in Performance: Clips of Scenes from Arthurian Literature’, http://vimeo.com/ArthurPerform. Dirs. Marilyn Lawrence and Evelyn Birge Vitz, Winter 2015. ARTICLES ‘Medieval Storytelling and Analogous Oral Traditions Today: Two Digital Databases’, with Marilyn Lawrence, Oral Tradition, 28.2 (2014), with e-companion http://journal.oraltradition.org/issues/28ii/vitz_lawrence. ‘Animal and Human Appetites in Early Branches of Le Roman de Renart’, in L’Humain et l’animal dans la France médiévale (XII e–XV e s.): Human and Animal in Medieval France (12th–15th c.), ed. Anna Russakov and Irène Fabry-Tehranchi (Amsterdam, 2014), 101–14. ‘“The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus”: Can We Reawaken Performance of this Hagiographical Folktale?’, in Medieval and Early Modern Performance in the Eastern Mediterranean, ed. Arzu Öztürkmen and Evelyn Birge Vitz (Turnout, 2014), 89–121.

xiv EVELYN

BIRGE VITZ: BIBLIOGRAPHY

‘Theatricality and its Limits: Dialogue and the Art of the Storyteller in the Romances of Chrétien de Troyes’, in Le Dialogue au Moyen Age, ed. Corinne Denoyelle (Orléans, 2013), 27–44. ‘Le Roman de la Rose, Performed in Court’, in Shaping Courtliness in Medieval France: Essays in Honor of Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner, ed. Daniel E. O’Sullivan and Laurie Shepard (Cambridge, 2013), 151–61. ‘Twentieth Century Catholic Authors and the Secular World’, in Scittori del Novecento e Mistero Cristiano, ed. John Wauck and Enrique Fuster (Rome, 2012), 117–37. ‘Bringing the Middle Ages to Life in the Classroom: Teaching Through Performance’, with Marilyn Lawrence in ‘The Once and Future Classroom: Resources for Teaching the Middle Ages in Grades K-12’, eds. Evelyn B. Vitz and Marilyn Lawrence, The Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages (TEAMS), 10.2 (Fall 2012), http://www.teamsmedieval.org/ofc/Fall2012/ Fall2012Bringing.html ‘Bringing Medieval Stories to Life Digitally: Two Performance Websites’, with Marilyn Lawrence in ‘The Digital World of Art History’, ed. Colum Hourihane, July 2012, Princeton University, The Index of Christian Art, http://ica.princeton.edu/digitalbooks.php. ‘Vernacular Verse Paraphrases of the Bible’, in New Cambridge History of the Bible: The Middle Ages, ed. Richard Marsden (Cambridge, 2012), 835–59. ‘Women, Abortion, and the Brain’, with Paul C. Vitz, The Human Life Review 36:4 (2010), 96–100; shorter online version, The Public Discourse: Ethics, Law and the Common Good (20 September 2010), http://www.thepublicdiscourse. com/2010/09/1657. ‘Performing Saintly Lives and Emotions in Medieval French Narrative’, in The Church and Vernacular Literature in Medieval France, ed. Dorothea Kullman (Toronto, 2009), 201–13. ‘La Performabilité de la voix et du déguisement dans le récit et au théâtre: Wistasse le moine’, Pris-Ma XXII :43–44 (2006), 3–17. ‘Tales with Guts: A “Rasic” Esthetic in French Medieval Storytelling’, TDR 52:4 (2008), 145–73. ‘Performing Aucassin et Nicolette’, in Cultural Performances in Medieval France: Essays in Honor of Nancy Freeman Regalado, ed. Eglal DossQuinby, E. Jane Burns and Roberta Krueger (Cambridge, 2007), 239–49. ‘Experimenting with the Performance of Medieval Narrative’, with Linda Marie Zaerr, in Performance and Ritual in the Middle Ages and Renaissance: Acts and Texts, ed. Laurie Postlewate (Amsterdam, 2007), 303–15. ‘Biblical vs. Liturgical Citation in Medieval Literature and Culture’, in Tributes to Jonathan J. G. Alexander: The Making and Meaning of Illuminated Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts, Art & Architecture, ed. Gerry Guest and Susan L’Engle (Turnhout, 2006), 443–9. ‘Teaching Arthurian Literature through Performance’, Arthuriana 15:4 (2005), 31–6.

EVELYN BIRGE VITZ: BIBLIOGRAPHY

xv

‘Floriant et Florete’, in The Splendor of the Word: Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts at the New York Public Library, ed. Jonathan J. G. Alexander, James Marrow and Lucy Freeman Sandler (New York, 2005), 389–91. ‘The Liturgy and Vernacular Literature’, in The Liturgy of the Medieval Church, ed. Thomas Heffernan and Ann Matter, rev. edn (Kalamazoo, MI, 2005), 503–63. ‘Erotic Reading in the Middle Ages: Performance and Re-performance of Romance’, in Performing Medieval Narrative, ed. E. B. Vitz, Nancy Freeman Regalado and Marilyn Lawrence (Cambridge, 2005), 73–88. ‘Performance in, and of, Flamenca’, in De sens rassis: Essays in Honor of Rupert T. Pickens, ed. Keith Busby, Bernard Guidot and Logan E. Whalen (Amsterdam, 2005), 683–98. ‘Liturgy as Education in the Middle Ages’, in Medieval Education, ed. Ronald B. Begley and Joseph W. Koterski, S. J. (New York, 2005), 20–34. ‘La lecture érotique au Moyen Age et la performance du roman’, Poétique 137 (February 2004), 35–51. ‘On the Discovery of a Lost Manuscript of Chrétien de Troyes: Toward an Appreciation of its Vast Importance for the Study of Medieval Literature and Culture’ [parody], in The Proceedings of the Pseudo Society: First Series (Kalamazoo, MI, 2003), 224–38. ‘Minstrel Meets Clerk in Early French Literature: Medieval Romance as the Meeting-Place between Two Traditions of Verbal Eloquence and Performance Practice’, in Cultures in Contact, ed. Richard Gyug (New York, 2002), 169– 88. ‘Liturgical Citation in French Medieval Epic and Romance’, in Philologies Old and New: Essays in Honor of Peter Florian Dembowski, ed. Joan T. Grimbert and Carol J. Chase (Princeton, NJ, 2002), 191–209. ‘The Liturgy and Vernacular Literature’, in The Liturgy of the Medieval Church, ed. Thomas Heffernan and Ann Matter (Kalamazoo, MI, 2001), 551–618. ‘La liturgie dans les mystères de la Passion—et les mystères en tant que liturgie’, in Le Moyen Français 46–47: La Recherche: Bilan et perspectives: Actes du Colloque international Université McGill, Montréal, 5–6–7 octobre 1998, ed. Giuseppe Di Stephano and Rose M. Bidler, II (Montreal, 2000), 596–608. ‘Gender and Martyrdom’, Medievalia et Humanistica, New Series, 26 (1999), 70–99. ‘La liturgie, Le Roman de Renart, et le problème du blasphème dans la vie littéraire au Moyen Age, ou: Les bêtes peuvent-elles blasphémer?’, Reinardus 12 (1999), 205–25. ‘The Oral and the Written, the Biblical and the Apocryphal in Medieval Legends of the Christ’s Childhood: The Old French Évangile de l’Enfance’, in Satura: Essays on Medieval Satire and Religion, ed. Ruth Sternglanz and Nancy Reale (Donington, 2001), 129–55.

xvi EVELYN

BIRGE VITZ: BIBLIOGRAPHY

‘Bourde jus mise? François Villon, the Liturgy, and Prayer’, in Villon at Oxford: The Drama of the Text, ed. Michael Freeman and Jane H. M. Taylor (Amsterdam, 1999), 170–94. ‘Paul Zumthor and Medieval Romance’, Dalhousie French Studies 44 (Fall 1998), 1–11. ‘French Medieval Oral Traditions’, in Teaching Oral Traditions, ed. John Miles Foley (New York, 1998), 373–81. ‘Rereading Rape in Medieval Literature: Literary, Historical, and Theoretical Reflections’, Romanic Review 88 (1997), 1–26. ‘Rereading Rape in Medieval Literature’, Partisan Review (April 1996), 263–74. ‘Romans Dir et Contar: Réflexions sur la performance des romans médiévaux’, Cahiers de littérature orale 36 (1995), 35–63. ‘Sigrid Undset and the Legends of the Saints’, in Sigrid Undset on Saints and Sinners, ed. Deal Hudson (San Francisco, 1994), 44–63. ‘On the Role of a Renewed Philology in the Study of a Manuscript- and an Oral-Culture’, in Toward a Synthesis: Essays on the New Philology, ed. Keith Busby (Amsterdam, 1993), 71–80. ‘From the Oral to the Written in Medieval and Renaissance Saints’ Lives’, in Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe, ed. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Timea Szell (Ithaca, NY, 1991), 97–114. ‘Chrétien de Troyes: clerc ou ménestrel? Problèmes des traditions orale et littéraire dans les Cours de France au XIIe siècle’, Poétique 81 (February 1990), 21–42. ‘1215 November: The Fourth Lateran Council Prescribes that Adult Christians Confess at Least Once a Year’, in A New History of French Literature, ed. Denis Hollier (Cambridge, MA, 1989), 82–8. French translation, 1993. ‘Vie, légende, littérature: traditions orales et écrites dans les histoires des saints’, Poétique 72 (November 1987), 387–402. ‘Orality, Literacy and the Early Tristan Material: Béroul, Thomas, Marie de France’, Romanic Review 78 (1987), 299–310. ‘Rethinking Old French Literature: The Orality of the Octosyllabic Couplet’, Romanic Review 77 (1986), 307–21. ‘The Lais of Marie de France: Narrative Grammar and the Medieval Text’, Romanic Review 74 (1983), 383–404. Articles in the Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. Joseph R. Strayer: ‘Biography, French’, II (New York, 1983), 235–7; ‘Vie de Saint Alexis’, XII (New York, 1989), 412–13; ‘Vie des Anciens Pères’, XII (New York, 1989), 415. ‘The Christian Tradition in Food’, New Oxford Review, Part I, XLVII, 8 (October 1980), 9–12; Part II, XLVII, 9 (November 1980), 12–14; Part III, XLVII, 10 (December 1980), 19–21; Part IV: XLVIII, 1 (January–February 1981), 11–15. ‘Desire and Causality in Medieval Narrative’, Romanic Review 71 (1980), 213– 43. ‘Inside/Outside: First Person Narrative in Guillaume de Lorris’ Roman de la Rose’, Yale French Studies 58 (1979), 148–64.

EVELYN BIRGE VITZ: BIBLIOGRAPHY

xvii

‘La Vie de Saint Alexis: Narrative Analysis and the Quest for the Sacred Subject’, Publications of the Modern Language Association 93.3 (May 1978), 396–408. ‘Narrative Analysis of Medieval Texts: La Fille du Comte de Ponthieu’, Modern Language Notes 92:4 (1977), 645–75. ‘Ronsard’s Sonnets pour Hélène: Narrative Structures and Poetic Language’, Romanic Review 67 (1976), 249–67. ‘Type et individu dans l’autobiographie médiévale’, Poétique 24 (1975), 426– 45. ‘The “I” of the Roman de la Rose’, Genre VI:1 (1973), 45–75. ‘Symbolic “Contamination” in the Testament of François Villon’, Modern Language Notes 86.4 (1973), 456–95. REVIEWS Symes, Carol, A Common Stage: Theatre and Public Life in Medieval Arras (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007), Speculum 84 (July 2009), 782– 4. Fein, David A., François Villon (New York: Twayne, 1997), Romance Philology 54 (Spring 2001), 425–32. Pinto-Mathieu, Élisabeth, Marie-Madeleine dans la littérature du Moyen Age (Paris: Beauchesne, 1997), Speculum 77 (April 2002), 624–5. Hunt, Tony, Villon’s Last Will: Language and Authority in the Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), Speculum 77 (October 1999), 1072–4. Thomas, Jacques T. E., Lecture du Testament Villon: Huitains I à XLV et LXXVII à LXXXIV (Geneva: Droz, 1992), Speculum 69 (July 1994), 903. Kelly, Douglas, The Art of Medieval French Romance (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1992), French Forum 19 (January 1994), 117–19. Duffy, Eamon, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400–1580 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), Theological Studies 54 (December 1993), 739–41. Sargent-Baur, Barbara Nelson, Brothers of Dragons: “Job Dolens” and François Villon (New York: Garland, 1990), Speculum 67 (April 1992), 474–7. Garnier, Annette, Mutation temporelles et cheminement spirituel: analyse et commentaire du Miracle de l’Empeeris de Gautier de Coinci (Paris: Champion, 1988), Speculum 65 (October 1990), 988–9. Poirion, Daniel, Résurgences: Mythes et littérature à l’âge du symbole (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1986), Speculum 64 (April 1989), 483–7. Zumthor, Paul, La lettre et la voix: de la littérature médiévale (Paris: Seuil, 1987), Envoi 1 (Spring/Summer 1988), 185–91. Boulton, Maureen, ‘The Old French Évangile de l’Enfance’: An Edition with Introduction and Notes (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1984), Romance Philology 54 (May 1988), 471–3. Muscatine, Charles, The Old French Fabliaux (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), Speculum 63 (January 1988), 199–202.

xviii EVELYN

BIRGE VITZ: BIBLIOGRAPHY

Fleming, John V., Reason and the Lover (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), Modern Language Quarterly 46 (June 1985), 202–8. Chilton, Paul A., The Poetry of Jean de la Ceppède: A Study in Text and Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), Renaissance Quarterly 32 (Summer 1979), 233–5. Ferrante, Joan M., Woman as Image in Medieval Literature: From the TwelfthCentury to Dante (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), Romanic Review 68 (1977), 144–8. Danos, Joseph R., A Concordance to the Roman de la Rose of Guillaume de Lorris (Chapel Hill, NC: North Carolina Studies in Romance Languages and Literatures, 1975), Modern Language Notes 92 (May 1977), 837–40.

Introduction Kathryn A. Duys, Elizabeth Emery, Laurie Postlewate The storyteller on the cover of this book stands on the margin, both inside and outside the story.1 Will he momentarily step into the hall to begin his entertainment at the feast going on inside? Or will he turn his eyes our way instead and launch into the Arthurian romance that has already begun within the frame to his right? Either way, his vielle is raised to play an overture whose melodies have grown so faint that we can now only imagine them. His eyes are trained on the courtly revelry beside him, as are the eyes of the kneeling page and the bishop peering up from below. For this brief moment and forever, these figures all ignore the readers – kings and ladies, monks and nuns, historians, scholars and critics – who watch and listen for the story to begin. Reading the words on a manuscript page like this one is like watching a performance unfold. The elegant script twines across the page, carrying voices and backstories as dramatic as the message Tristan inscribed on the hazel branch for Iseut. The page is framed by vines among whose colorful leaves animals carry out their impertinent ruses. The reader warms to the drama by the light reflected in the miniatures’ burnished gold, just as the child Marcel warmed to his mother’s voice as she read bedtime stories in Proust’s exploration of memories both personal and medieval. There is no denying the enchantment. Before the Gutenberg era, storytelling met critical and dynamic social needs related to governance and war, communication and education, faith and artistic creation, as well as a thousand gradations of entertainment to elicit everything from awe to raucous laughter among people of every age and station. Many feared that storytelling had died when it entered print, but Boccaccio is proof that it thrived in the new medium. As we pass into a world beyond Gutenberg, stories are told in tweets of 140 silent characters, and they stream on the internet, traveling great distances to vast audiences of solitary individuals, their responses illuminated by smartphones and tablets. Humanistic investigation into storytelling has likewise taken a web-based turn, as manuscript libraries the world over make their holdings available in high-quality digitizations, free and open to all on the internet. Online sites indiscriminately collect amateur 1 London, British Library, MS Royal 14 E. III, fol. 89r, La Queste del Saint Graal. A digital version of the entire manuscript may be consulted at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/ Viewer.aspx?ref=royal_ms_14_e_iii_fs001r (accessed 31 May 2014). We thank Joyce Coleman for bringing this image to our attention.

2

KATHRYN A. DUYS, ELIZABETH EMERY, LAURIE POSTLEWATE

and professional performances alike, creating a storytelling cyberspace whose accessibility is akin to the open-air markets and festivals of medieval times. We dedicate this volume on medieval storytelling to Evelyn ‘Timmie’ Vitz, a scholar and teacher whose work keeps the Middle Ages dynamic for the public and the academy. Over the years she has assembled a great circle of students and colleagues, philosophers, musicologists, scientists and performers, and urged us not just to read medieval stories, but to listen, watch and try performing them as well. Her focus on performance both engaged and confounded the strict distinction between oral and written that giants of the field – such as Parry and Lord, Goody, Ong, Finnegan and Havelock – handed down to us.2 She encouraged us to look for storytellers and listen to their voices in genres outside the minstrel’s typical repertory, both within and beyond the temporal limits of the Middle Ages. She frequently reminded us that in socio-historical context, the book was read aloud, making it a porte parole that put authors, narrators, characters and audience into storytelling circles. Stories are ‘amphibian’: they thrive in ‘a variety of composition and performance habitats’, she said, as happy in performance as they are in writing.3 Timmie Vitz has played a prominent role in breaking medieval storytelling out of strict confines, but she has not been alone; the shoulders of giants are crowded. Modern scholars inherited the classification of storytelling as oral narrative – inferior through its association with women and illiterates (peasants and children) – from nineteenth-century critics involved in shaping social and educational policy.4 Sprung from this environment,5 Parry and Lord’s ethnographic work on Serbian epics led them to propose that the great Homeric epics were orally composed, fixed in writing only after centuries of oral transmission – whence the storybook entered the discussion alongside performance. Parry and Lord focused on composition, however, which brought about the reconceptualization of the author: thus the illustrious, blind epic poet of antiquity became an illiterate storyteller. In the last thirty years, scholars have continued to investigate the voice, the book and the figure of the storyteller, while also inquiring into the life of performed narrative. With performance came the audience, and with the audience have come questions about the social function of storytelling. The current critical activity around storytelling springs from the roles that 2 Milman Parry, L’épithète traditionnelle dans Homère (Paris, 1928); Albert Lord, The Singer of Tales (Cambridge, MA, 1960); Jack Goody, ed., Literacy in Traditional Societies (Cambridge, 1968) and The Logic of Writing and the Organisation of Society (Cambridge, 1986); Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy (London, 1982); Ruth Finnegan, Oral Poetry (Cambridge, 1977); Eric A. Havelock, Literate Revolution in Greece and its Cultural Consequences (Princeton, NJ, 1982). 3 Evelyn Birge Vitz, Orality and Performance in Early French Romance (Cambridge, 1999), 20. 4 See the essay by Elizabeth Emery in this volume. 5 Milman Parry credited his own professor, the Sorbonne linguist and philologist Antoine Meillet, with first recognizing the formulaic nature of Homeric epic, and published his 1928 dissertation, ‘L’Épithète traditionnelle dans Homère’ in French.

INTRODUCTION 3

have been identified, examined and questioned by scholars: author, storyteller, performer and audience. It is commonplace to say that a story begins with an author, but who do we mean when we say that? Since the heady days of deconstructionist thought and the ‘death of the author’, scholars such as Michel Zink, Howard Bloch and Sarah Kay, among others, have reframed and nuanced the concept of authorship from different perspectives that show the necessity to remain open, especially in the pre-print era, to a range of situations of textual creation and recreation.6 From the author, we move to the storyteller; the two may be one and the same, or they may be distinct figures, one a creator and the other an interpreter. Of late, critical interest has focused on the identity and stance of the storyteller, not only as a social construct, but as a literary construct as well – artifice embodied.7 However, the storyteller may also be a performer, which shifts the question from the creation of the story to its enactment.8 It also splits the question about reception in two: what is the difference between a reader and an audience, how do they overlap? Studies of medieval performance have adopted methodologies from theater, anthropology and reader-response theory, all of which provide useful inroads into understanding the core dynamic between performer and audience. This line of inquiry incorporates reading aloud, recitation, acting, mime and, of course, singing and the playing of music.9 Voice is central to all of the roles of the storyteller and to those who gather

6 Michel Zink, La Subjectivité littéraire autour du siècle de Saint Louis (Paris, 1985); R. Howard Bloch, The Anonymous Marie de France (Chicago, 2003); Sarah Kay, The Place of Thought: The Complexity of One in Medieval French Didactic Poetry (Philadelphia, 2007); Zrinka Stahuljak, Virginie Greene, Sarah Kay, Sharon Kinoshita and Peggy McCracken, Thinking Through Chrétien de Troyes (Cambridge, 2011); Simon Gaunt, Marco Polo’s Le Devisement du Monde: Narrative Voice, Language and Diversity (Cambridge, 2013). 7 Examples include Deborah McGrady, Controlling Readers: Guillaume de Machaut and His Late Medieval Audience (Toronto, 2006); Visualizing Medieval Performance. Perspectives, Histories, Contexts, ed. Elina Gertsman (Aldershot, 2008); Mark Chinca and Christopher Young, Orality and Literacy in the Middle Ages: Essays on a Conjunction and its Consequences in Honour of D. H. Green (Turnhout, 2005). 8 Among the most notable of these are The Entertainer in Medieval and Traditional Culture: A Symposium, ed. Flemming Andersen,Thomas Pettitt and Rheinhold Schröder (Odense, 1997); Evelyn Birge Vitz, Orality and Performance in Early French Romance (Cambridge, 1999); Performing Medieval Narrative, ed. Evelyn Birge Vitz, Nancy Freeman Regalado and Marilyn Lawrence (Cambridge, 2005); Cultural Performances in Medieval France, ed. Eglal Doss-Quinby, Roberta L. Krueger and E. Jane Burns (Cambridge, 2007); Linda Marie Zaerr, Performance and the Middle English Romance (Cambridge, 2012). 9 Benjamin Bagby, Anne Azéma and Christoper Page have been leaders in discussing strategies for performances of medieval stories and song. See Bagby’s DVD of Beowulf and accompanying critical material: an interview and conversations with Beowulf scholars, as well as its companion website, http://www.bagbybeowulf.com/dvd/index.html (accessed 30 May 2014). Azéma, the director of the Boston Camerata, has produced many recordings as well as articles reflecting on her choices. See ‘“Dunc chante haut et cler”: remarques sur l’interprétation de la musique médiévale’, in Cultural Performances in Medieval France, ed. Eglal Doss-Quinby, Roberta L. Krueger and E. Jane Burns (Cambridge, 2007), 289–99. Christopher Page has also provided rich insights into medieval practices by examining

4

KATHRYN A. DUYS, ELIZABETH EMERY, LAURIE POSTLEWATE

around. The work of Paul Zumthor redirected the orality focus of Parry and Lord and forged a new path, taken in different directions by scholars including Suzanne Fleischmann, Simon Gaunt and Sophie Marnette.10 The roles that the storyteller plays in creation and performance are not complete without considering the material reality of storytelling in the only form actually left to us from the Middle Ages: the manuscript book as literary artifact of storytelling. Over the past three decades numerous approaches have arisen from the disciplines of philology, paleography and codicology to produce editions that sharpen insight into the functions that the production and transmission of writing played within the storytelling ethos of the Middle Ages.11 The discussion, which once focused on whether extant ‘texts’ were composed orally or in writing, and whether they were directed at listeners or readers, has now turned to the interaction of multiple variants, scribal intervention, mise en page and codex organization and use. Stories often come with pictures, which become part of the experience of storytelling, as the essays in this volume by Maureen Boulton, Joyce Coleman and Mark Cruse demonstrate. Scholarship on manuscript illustration and decoration has shown how powerful the intersections of textual studies and art history can be. Voice literally entered the picture when art historians such as Michael Camille and Jonathan Alexander showed us the visual language of sound: storytellers’ speech made visible in scrolls and speaking gestures, and the subtle dynamics of performance depicted in the gazes exchanged among performers, readers and their audiences within illuminations.12 And, just as performance can be challenged by digressions and

evidence through the lens of performance. See, for example, Voices and Instruments of the Middle Ages: Instrumental Practice and Songs in France, 1100–1300 (London, 1987). 10 Paul Zumthor, La lettre et la voix de la «littérature» médiévale (Paris, 1984) and La poésie et la voix dans la civilisation médiévale (Paris, 1987); Suzanne Fleischmann, Tense and Narrativity: From Medieval Performance to Modern Fiction (Austin, TX, 1990); Simon Gaunt, Retelling the Tale: An Introduction to Medieval French Literature (London, 2001); Sophie Marnette, Speech and Thought Presentation in French (Amsterdam and Philadelphia, 2005); Nancy Bradbury, Writing Aloud: Storytelling in Fourteenth-Century England (Champaign-Urbana, 1998). 11 See, for example, Sylvia Huot, From Song to Book: The Poetics of Writing in Old French Lyric and Lyrical Narrative Poetry (Ithaca, NY, 1982); Brian Stock, The Implications of Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Princeton, NJ, 1983); Bernard Cerquiglini, Éloge de la variante (Paris, 1989); Joyce Coleman, Public Reading and the Reading Public in Late Medieval England and France (Cambridge, 1996); Paul Henry Saenger, Space Between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading (Stanford, CA, 1997); Mary Carruthers, The Craft of Thought: Rhetoric, Meditation, and the Making of Images, 400–1200 (Cambridge, 1998); Rosemond McKitterick, History and its Audiences (Cambridge, 2000); Keith Busby, Codex and Context: Reading Old French Verse Narrative in Manuscript (Amsterdam and New York, 2002). 12 Michael Camille, Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art (London, 1992) and Mirror in Parchment: The Luttrell Psalter and the Making of Medieval England (Chicago, 1998); Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and their Methods of Work (New Haven, CT, 1992).

INTRODUCTION 5

distractions, so the medieval page has its marginalia that graft extra stories on to the text. Finally, from performances and the texts that transmitted them, we turn to the world that stories reflect and move through, examined by critical studies of the social function of storytelling. This includes work deeply informed by interdisciplinary collaboration such as that of Clifford Geertz, combining the methods of anthropology and ethnography with literary and performance studies, and cultural history.13 Here, the conversation moves toward the dynamic of relationships, political and personal, among authors and performers, their subjects, audience and community, artifact and ritual, the townscape and culture at large. The ground-breaking micro-histories of Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie and Robert Darnton, among others, along with the work of ethnographers Steven Feld and Susan Slyomovics, and medievalists Elizabeth A. R. Brown and Carol Symes, have all put literary material in new frames of reference, reinvigorating the investigation of stories and the poetics of their telling.14 The essays in this volume take inspiration from these approaches to pay tribute to the scholarship of Timmie Vitz, who practiced cultural studies before it came into fashion. From her graduate work on literary semiotics with Paul Zumthor, which produced The Crossroads of Intention: A Study of Symbolic Expression in the Poetry of François Villon (1974), Timmie has worked to investigate the intersections of literary form and meaning, and their transmission to a reading, listening and watching audience. Her explorations resulted in a volume of original essays applying theories of narratology to medieval texts in Medieval Narrative and Modern Narratologies: Sujects and Objects of Desire (1989). These interests in critical theory expanded in the late 1980s to move the discussion of the performance of medieval literature beyond the limits of the orality/literacy paradigm to consider the role and quality of voice in the creation and dissemination of medieval literature. Timmie’s work in this area was enriched by the interdisciplinary Colloquium on Orality, Writing and Culture at New York University that she and Nancy Regalado founded in 1988, a forum that fosters collaboration across disciplines among scholars, performers and students. It led to the publication of her seminal study, Orality and Performance in Early French Romance (1999), and to a collection of essays compiled with Nancy Regalado and Marilyn Lawrence, Performing Medieval Narrative (2005). A most modern medievalist dedicated to making medieval storytelling

Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York, 1973). Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, La Sorcière de Jasmin (Paris, 1983), for example, and Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (New York, 1984); Steven Feld, Sound and Sentiment (Philadelphia, 1983); Susan Slyomovics, The Object of Memory (Philadelphia, 1998); Elizabeth A. R. Brown, The Monarchy of Capetian France and Royal Ceremonial (Aldershot, 1978); Carol Symes, A Common Stage: Theater and Public Life in Medieval Arras (Ithaca, NY, 2007); Sharon Kinoshita, Medieval Boundaries: Rethinking Difference in Old French Literature (Philadelphia, 2006). 13 14

6

KATHRYN A. DUYS, ELIZABETH EMERY, LAURIE POSTLEWATE

accessible, Timme took to the internet with the pioneering website Performing Medieval Narrative Today: A Video Showcase, elaborated and maintained with Marilyn Lawrence.15 Timmie’s interests are varied and reach across geographical boundaries, cultural limits and time zones. In recent years she has begun to study and participate in ballad traditions from a range of periods and places, including Eastern Europe and South Africa. The passion for storytelling that inspired this volume has led Timmie to teach in Abu Dhabi and to take students to witness professional storytellers in action in India. As the work of Timmie Vitz demonstrates, the ground of storytelling studies is rich, constantly bringing forth new perspectives and approaches just as old stories develop new branches. This is the fruit of our labor, gathered to honor our friend and colleague, with whom we have long toiled in this vineyard. The present volume is divided into three branches that are at once distinct and conjoined: ‘Speaking of Stories’, ‘Inscribing Stories’ and ‘Moving Stories’. All the essays investigate the effects of voice and writing, images and retellings; they also explore the motivation, movement and mutability of stories. Moreover, within each branch, the theoretical concerns of one essay inform the others. In the first section, ‘Speaking of Stories’, voices resound. Linda Marie Zaerr, a literary scholar and performer, examines modes of storytelling that have been largely overlooked: the informal, improvised, impromptu and intimate. Using experimental archaeology, she examines references to informal amateur performance in English romances, and, as in a mirror, reflects back and forth on the qualities of voice, the interweaving of song, and audience rejoinder in her own experiences and those of romance characters. In her essay on ‘Renart jongleur’, Marilyn Lawrence explores a distinctive brand of informal storytelling in which the trickster fox, a jongleur extraordinaire, fakes bad French to pose as an inept minstrel. Allegedly at loose ends without a vielle, he begs off and allows others to take over his story, but at the climax he draws his sword-like tongue, and slices back and forth with double entendres. The drama of doubled and overlapping voices in a less swashbuckling, more courtly context is the subject of Simonetta Cochis’ analysis of her own performances of two lais by Marie de France. Reflecting on the responses of her scholarly audiences, she analyzes medieval storytelling’s capacity to illuminate what performed non-Aristotelian narrative can be: the expressive recounting of stories not driven by the heroic actions of a tragically flawed character, but by the play of vocal inflections, tone, texture and dynamics of one performer with little else on hand. In the final essay of this section, Nancy Freeman Regalado wonders at the power of the narrator’s voice in Villon’s Testament, a slim, enigmatic poetic confection that compels readers to spin their own yarns: the adventures of the legendary rogue, François Villon. Working back through accumulated stories, Regalado reveals an extravagant narrative edifice, stories built

15

http://mednar.org/ (accessed 1 June 2014).

INTRODUCTION 7

upon stories that have forgotten their fragile base, a lyric poem that is, by its very nature, fundamentally disinclined to story. The second branch of our volume, ‘Inscribing Stories’, focuses on the manuscript book, whose contents, characters, listeners and readers are frequently organized by the figure of a storyteller. The authors, scribes and illuminators who crafted these central figures cleverly shaped voices, gestures and images to promote themselves, seduce an audience or elevate their authority – sometimes with grave sincerity, and other times with a wink and nod. Kathryn Duys examines how Gautier de Coinci fused historical allusion and poetics at the center of the Miracles de Nostre Dame to represent the playful yet serious response of his audience of young novices before a mise en scène of a royal marital crisis and its moral implications. Within a sermon and its interpolated song, Gautier combined story and history, commentary and response in an orchestration of voices that borders on the operatic in its manipulation of perspective and tone. Cristian Bratu demonstrates that writers of medieval histories and chronicles – texts that recount actual events in chronological order – also incorporated such special effects to fashion the presence of the author as a sometimes-storyteller, sometimes-clerk within complex textual communities. The effects of the voice (effet de parlé) and of the pen (effet d’écrit) combine authenticity and authority to invest accounts of lived experiences, such as those on crusade, with a compelling effet de présence, a powerful marketing tool designed to appeal to a wide variety of audiences. Kathleen Loysen examines Jacques Tahureau’s Dialogues, a sixteenth-century humanist philosophical discussion that sets stories into a conversational frame that evokes the celebrated storytelling circles of the Renaissance. The work’s dialogic structure naturally blends storytelling and philosophy in a syncretic humanist experience for the reader, whose expectations of discursive and narrative stances are both met and challenged. In her study of two accounts of Christ’s infancy miracles, the Anglo-Norman Enfaunces Jesu Crist and the Occitan Infancy, Maureen Boulton demonstrates that ‘narrative theology’ delivered weighty teachings to lay audiences through stories enhanced by attributes that are both distinctly performative and bookbound. When the Christ child pertly demands the deeper meaning of the alphabet, and when the subtle movement of characters and their shifting gestures in a narrative sequence of miniatures ‘stage’ the story of the Flight into Egypt, Christ’s sermo humilis assumes the feel of live storytelling while also modeling appropriate responses to Christ’s maximum authority. Visualizing authority is the subject of Joyce Coleman’s essay on two images that introduce Machaut’s Remede de Fortune and Dit de l’alerion in which the illuminator Perrin Remiet reflected the status of story as prelection by conferring academic honors on the great storyteller-poet Machaut. Coleman’s detailed analysis of the clothing, furniture, locale, background, gaze and stances of the narrator and his audience renders the images a kind of metatextual inscription on Machaut’s identity as a ‘doctor of love’. Paul Zumthor’s conception of mouvance has profoundly influenced medieval studies since he coined the term in 1972 to refer to the ‘mobility’ of medieval

8

KATHRYN A. DUYS, ELIZABETH EMERY, LAURIE POSTLEWATE

texts and their many reworkings through a complex cultural dynamic involving storytellers, writers, scribes and editors.16 Zumthor is particularly important for this volume because of his emphasis on the oral transmission of stories; he included singers, performers, prelectors and copyists among the medieval ‘authors’ he identified17 and would later insist on the importance of intervocalité among the network of storytellers, writers and audiences responsible for the dissemination of medieval texts.18 The essays in the third section of our book, ‘Moving Stories’, all demonstrate to varying degrees the scope of Zumthor’s concept of mouvance, and how it has come to define movement, not just in the largely French oral context he described, but also across cultures, languages, geography and time, from storytellers to audiences and writers, and back again. Stories move from place to place, but while fixed in one place they can also move among competing cultures, as in the case of the life of St Eugenia discussed by E. Gordon Whatley. Two versions of the saint’s life, one from the late fifth century and the other from the early sixth, demonstrate cultural mouvance within late antiquity. In an episode that rings with echoes from Hellenistic romance and Menippean novels, the pagan veneration of idols is challenged by an idol who, in the great Christian tradition, ‘becomes flesh’ to assert the authority of Christ to audiences within and without the story. Elizabeth Archibald’s essay likewise examines storytelling by clerics, focusing on the tantalizing fragments of the Ruodlieb, an eleventhcentury Latin verse narrative that combines elements from romance, epic, lyric and didactic traditions, presented with wit and flair. Archibald compares it to the popular Apollonius of Tyre and later Arthurian Latin romances, and speculates about the hybrid nature of romance in Latin, the motives of its authors, and the nature of its target audience, which may well have included women. In Laurie Postlewate’s essay on the thirteenth-century Anglo-Norman life of St Clement, mouvance takes the form of religious conversion: as Clement’s family is pulled apart, not to be reunited until each member has turned toward God, the author of the Anglo-Norman life effects a similar move by translating or ‘turning’ the Latin text toward vernacular storytelling to better inspire his audience to turn toward God. Thus conversion within the story is mirrored in the act of translation and reading: it is the slow, never-ending journey toward understanding the meaning of reunion with God. In Mark Cruse’s essay on the crusade manuscript of Philippe VI – London BL MS Royal 19.D.i – stories move from one language to another and across continents with a sense of urgency; translatio was critical to kingship. Messengers and translators thus become political actors with crucial roles in constructing ideologies, and the manuscript, a mirror of kings, allows Philippe VI to see himself alongside the likes of Alexander the Great, Kublai Kahn and St Louis as a protagonist in the story of a changing world. 16 17 18

Paul Zumthor, Essai de poétique médiévale (Paris, 1972), 71–3. Zumthor, Essai, 73. Paul Zumthor, ‘Intervocalité et mouvance’, in La lettre et la voix, 160–8.

INTRODUCTION 9

In a final essay, Elizabeth Emery crosses centuries to question the nineteenthcentury marginalization of oral storytelling – and medieval literature by association – as literary critics and educators classed medieval poetry as the ‘cradle’ of French literature, best fit for children. They established hierarchies that privileged modern language over medieval, written texts over oral storytelling, urban centers over rural and colonial lands – an order that continues to be prevalent and is now frequently challenged in modern scholarship. In closing, we return to the liminal figure of the storyteller on the cover of this volume, both inside and outside of the story, forever active in engaging others in the dynamic process of sharing stories. Samuel Rosenberg’s ‘Retelling the Old Story’ does just this, explaining his own process of translating the friendship of Lancelot and Galehaut in a modern edition composed for a friend, Timmie Vitz. Just as new branches sprout on a firmly grounded tree in a dense forest, stories come into being and flower. Leafy vines grow around the branches, following their length, twisting and overlapping, and connecting them to other branches, above and below. The lines of critical inquiry that we have traced in this volume are like those vines that extend and join stories to each other in infinite and complex ways. Many other themes flourish and interconnect these branches like vines, enriching the substance and beauty of the tree. One of these vines grows from the roots of gendered power dynamics, from the forceful misogyny and sexual politics in Renart the Fox’s storytelling that Marilyn Lawrence discusses, to the nuanced view of a woman’s thought process revealed by Simonetta Cochis’ performance of Marie de France’s Le Chaitivel. The abused, slandered, but tenacious empress and queen at the center of Kathryn Duys’ essay on Gautier de Coinci’s Chasteé as nonains provide powerful exempla and counter-exempla for novices – the inscribed audience of the book – while perhaps offering other stories for the external audiences. The powerful female characters at the heart of Elizabeth Archibald’s and Gordon Whatley’s essays call into question cultural stereotypes about medieval women, while Elizabeth Emery’s essay reveals the insidious misogyny at play in marginalizing medieval stories by associating them with mothers and nursemaids recounting bedtime stories. Two more vines, tightly intertwined, are related to Horace’s concept of pleasure and profit. Often, as in the case of the texts discussed by Cochis, Duys, Bratu, Boulton, Coleman, Loysen, Archibald, Postlewate and Emery, instruction and entertainment are as interdependent as the honeysuckle and the hazel tree. If we branch into genre, we find that almost all of the contributors discuss generic conventions – including those of romance, lai, fabliau, lyric song, novel, history, chronicle, memoir, saint’s life and beast epic, to name but some – and show how texts both exploit and break with their standards. Our index reflects these and other critical interconnections among the stories and essays in this volume. Many people have been instrumental in the composition of this volume. The idea for this book first arose in conversations between Laurie Postlewate and Kathryn Talarico, a dear friend and colleague with whom Timmie Vitz co-­ directed the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program for many years. We

10

KATHRYN A. DUYS, ELIZABETH EMERY, LAURIE POSTLEWATE

extend deep thanks to Nancy Regalado who, in addition to her essay in the volume, gave generously of her time and attention to many details of the execution of the book. Our initial project for the volume was met with enthusiasm by Caroline Palmer, and she has been unflagging in her support, encouragement and editorial direction throughout the process. Finally, our gratitude goes to the contributors for their generous scholarly offerings and many delightful exchanges. Just as storytelling circles moved into writing, so ours has now become a book to honor Timmie Vitz.

­

PART I Speaking of Stories

‘Of Aunters They Began to Tell’: Informal Story in Medieval England and Modern America Linda Marie Zaerr Evelyn Birge Vitz has suggested that ‘if we can see and hear the medieval romances performed, we will understand many new things about their dramatic and interactive capacities: their performance quality’.1 As one of the performers she has inspired and encouraged, I have performed medieval English and French romances in many ways, with and without music, on a quest to understand how they might have been embodied by minstrels. I would like to extend her injunction in a new direction, turning to informal contexts, and considering a mode of storytelling that moves beyond the gestour in the feast hall and into impromptu and intimate storytelling. The fourteenth- and fifteenth-century English ­romances contain hints of amateur narrative entertainments that mimic what minstrel performance may have been. These scenes, in which characters informally entertain each other in the modes employed by minstrels, are intimately bound up with the genre of romance. My own experience with storytelling bears some striking parallels with this evidence from medieval England. Just as modern performance can illuminate medieval conceptions of romance, so modern informal storytelling may provide access to a broader world of medieval narrative entertainment, characterizing it in terms of overlapping continuums (such as public–intimate, professional– amateur, competitive–genial, feasting–working, etc.), and demonstrating how story may be intimately engaged with music, and how impromptu elements may be introduced at any level of formality. In this study, I will follow a methodology similar to Randall Rosenfeld’s application of experimental archaeology to medieval music improvisation, exploring ‘the range of supportable interpretations through performing them’.2 Only recently have the performance dimensions of the Middle English romance genre been acknowledged by scholars such as Ad Putter:

1 Evelyn Birge Vitz, Orality and Performance in Early French Romance (Cambridge, 1999), 284. 2 Randall Rosenfeld, ‘Performance Practice, Experimental Archaeology, and the Problem of the Respectability of Results’, in Improvisation in the Arts of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. Timothy McGee (Kalamazoo, MI, 2003), 85.

14 LINDA MARIE

ZAERR

Throughout the medieval and early modern period, romances were transmitted orally and indeed musically. Although we encounter them today frozen in writing, many of them […] would not have made it into written form if they had not previously been carried in the living memories of storytellers.3

Until now, scholars who considered performance have focused on the evidence – largely accounting documents and textual evidence from romances – for formal minstrel performance of this genre.4 They prepared the ground for looking at storytelling in medieval England in a broader context. A similar process has already occurred in the field of musicology. In an overview of medieval music, John Haines observes: Focusing on […] written-out and often sophisticated works leaves out music of a more plain nature. In particular, a great deal of medieval song lies somewhere between singing a canticum and reading a prosa, as Boethius put it. Much of this music occurs in the unspectacular, quotidian contexts …5

Awareness of these ordinary, everyday contexts and acceptance of a kind of music that hovers between speech and song may be salutary in extending our notion of the Middle English romance as entertainment. Indeed, upon closer scrutiny, one finds medieval story and song so intertwined in the Middle Ages as to be indivisible. Most of the documents of medieval entertainment consist of records of payment to minstrels. Sometimes names are specified and sometimes instruments, but rarely do they mention the content of performance. Given the paucity and financial nature of the evidence for professional performance, it is hardly surprising that no formal record survives of amateur performance, since people are rarely paid for telling a story to family or friends. The evidence within the romances themselves, however, suggests a complex continuum of performance experiences, and this internal evidence is plausible as a reflection of contemporary practice. Although the Middle English romances often present fabulous events, such as fights with dragons or griffins, these are set in a realistic contemporaneous entertainment context validated, where it can be, by extant payment

3 Ad Putter, ‘Middle English Romances and the Oral Tradition’, in Medieval Oral Literature, ed. Karl Reichl (Berlin, 2012), 335–51 (349). 4 See, for example, Michael Chesnutt, ‘Minstrel Poetry in an English Manuscript of the Sixteenth Century: Richard Sheale and MS. Ashmole 48’, in The Entertainer in Medieval and Traditional Culture: A Symposium, ed. Flemming G. Andersen, Thomas Pettitt and Reinhold Schröder (Odense, 1997), 73–100; Nancy Mason Bradbury, Writing Aloud: Storytelling in Late Medieval England (Chicago, 1998); Karl Reichl, ‘Comparative Notes on the Performance of Middle English Popular Romance’, Western Folklore 62.1 (2003), 63–82; and Linda Marie Zaerr, Performance and the Middle English Romance (Cambridge, 2012). 5 John Haines, ‘Performance before c. 1430: An Overview’, in The Cambridge History of Musical Performance, ed. Colin Lawson and Robin Stowell (Cambridge, 2012), 231–47 (233).

INFORMAL STORY IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND AND MODERN AMERICA

15

records.6 In these romances, the continuum of storytelling extends from the very public gestours telling ‘gestes / at mangeres and at grete festes’ (The Laud Troy-Book, ll. 23–4) to three companions riding through the forest telling how knights fought for ladies (Lybeaus Desconus) to a king and queen lying in bed telling ‘aunters’ (stanzaic Le Morte Arthur).7 The more intimate end of this spectrum has been largely ignored, but experimental archaeology may provide a reasonable method for approaching it. Alan Outram suggests that experimental archaeology can investigate activities that might have happened in the past using the methods and materials that would actually have been available. This is not to say that all materials and methods need to be authentic in experimental archaeology, but certainly those pertinent to the hypothesis.8

This approach can be applied to medieval narrative performance. For example, in the investigation of how a minstrel might use a vielle to accompany Sir Orfeo, a modern performer might apply a contemporaneous melody to the text and experiment with three different vielles, each tuned to one of the tunings described by Jerome of Moravia.9 A variety of historically plausible approaches to accompaniment could be attempted on each vielle, and the results could be documented.10 One of the strengths of the approach is that it ‘allows investigation of the counterintuitive and for the possibility of deductive leaps’.11 Randall Rosenfeld applies experimental archaeology to medieval music improvisation, observing that it provides a way of dealing with ‘incomplete or confusing’ information, and noting that ‘variability of one sort or another, is a characteristic – indeed an authentic characteristic – of musical improvisation’.12 By extension, experimental archaeology might be applied to informal medieval narrative. David 6 See Zaerr, Performance. The reflection of quotidian reality in fabulous tales is also evident in the stories of nineteenth-century Breton women, where ‘Fairies were a common subject, but if we ignore the more obvious references to their other-worldliness […] their activities would have been similar to those of the Câtin women themselves – baking, laundry, beachcombing, pasturing animals.’ David Hopkin, Voices of the People in Nineteenth-Century France (Cambridge, 2012), 51. 7 The Laud Troy Book: A Romance of about 1400 A.D., ed. J. Ernst Wülfing, Parts 1 and 2 (London, 1902, 1903); Lybeaus Desconus, ed. Maldwyn Mills (London, 1969); Le Morte Arthur: A Critical Edition, ed. P. F. Hissiger (The Hague, 1975). 8 Alan K. Outram, ‘Introduction to Experimental Archaeology’, World Archaeology 40.1 (2008), 1–6 (2). 9 For a translation and commentary on the relevant passage, see Christopher Page, ‘Jerome of Moravia on the Rubeba and Viella’, Galpin Society Journal 32 (1979), 77–98. 10 It should be noted that live performance and commercial recordings are not always well suited to this purpose because the reiterations with one variable would not serve the purpose of entertainment. 11 Outram, ‘Experimental Archaeology’, 1. 12 Rosenfeld, ‘Performance Practice’, 83–4.

16 LINDA MARIE

ZAERR

Hopkin notes that ‘oral literature is no longer thought of as a collective inheritance, but rather as a skill, possessed by few’, and he further observes that ‘the mouvance or variance between texts … is meaningful when related to the specific social contexts in which they were performed’.13 From early childhood I have cultivated the skill of storytelling, and orality and textuality have blended for me in the flexible configurations and socially motivated variations that are found in medieval romance manuscripts.14 As a result of this background, I have noticed patterns in medieval narrative artifacts that might otherwise be invisible, and I have found possible explanations for elements that might otherwise never be considered. The romance texts do not provide a complete understanding of the modes of informal entertainment; rather, they provide evidence of some common characteristics and dimensions that can be perceived and described more readily in the light of modern experience. It should be noted that results of experimental archaeology cannot be and do not claim to be definitive. What the approach offers is a range of possibilities as a preferable alternative to unscrutinized assumptions. Applying the principle of experimental archaeology allows us to acknowledge that most ‘materials and methods’ of informal medieval narrative performance are not accessible to us, but that a narrative performer who has participated in a range of informal storytelling situations may possess experience that is ‘pertinent’ in developing an evidence-based interpretation of indeterminate romance references, recognizing patterns among them. Parallels between my own experience as a performer and Middle English romance references suggest that storytelling can be characterized in terms of a series of continuums that can all intersect one another at any point. For example, performers who fall anywhere within the professional–amateur continuum may present works that are anywhere along the competitive–collaborative spectrum in performances that range from public to intimate, and so on and so forth. Generally speaking, these aspects of performance may be described on a scale of formality, where ‘formal’ narrative is more regulated or official, and ‘informal’ is less planned and more likely to be initiated on the spur of the moment. Nevertheless, informal storytelling is no more likely than formal storytelling to be amateur rather than professional, unskilled rather than skilled, genial rather than competitive, spoken rather than sung, or participatory rather than non-participatory. Furthermore, at every level of formality, the amplitude of variation appears to cover the same range and exhibit similar patterns; a text may be stable (read or memorized), or it may be created impromptu at any level. Not surprisingly, these characteristics all respond to the situation that prompts the storytelling. There is, however, one consistent characteristic of both formal and informal performance, and everything in between: the intermingling of Hopkin, Voices of the People, 25–6. See especially Vox intexta: Orality and Textuality in the Middle Ages, ed. Alger Nicolaus Doane and Carol Braun Pasternack (Madison, WI, 1991). 13 14

INFORMAL STORY IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND AND MODERN AMERICA

17

story and music. Because literary scholars study text and musicologists music, they tend to be oblivious of one another, but the union of story and music is supported by historical, textual and manuscript evidence, and, as I will show in this essay, by experimental archaeology applied across the full spectrum of medieval entertainments. The following examination of storytelling first establishes that some members of the nobility were trained in music and storytelling and shows the range of their involvement in both formal and informal entertainment. From there we will move to contexts for informal storytelling and some possible implications. Then we will take up two aspects of informal entertainment: impromptu elements and patterns of variation. In the course of this discussion, we will find a nuanced range of performance modes, entertainers and listeners, venues and accompanying activities.

Participation of Nobility in Entertainment In the romances, feasting is the best-documented occasion for formal entertainment, often a mingling of singing, storytelling, instrumental music and sometimes impromptu pageants. This entertainment is sometimes unequivocally professional, that is, provided by minstrels; but a number of references suggest engagement by the nobility. Dancing pervades a large number of the references to festivity, and it is a mode of active involvement with music. Often the identity of the participants is not specified; countless processions swirl through the streets with minstrelsy and dancing. Sometimes, however, courtiers are explicitly involved, as in Sir Gowther, where knights and ladies dance to pipes and trumpets while the exhausted Gowther lies in his chamber. Impromptu dancing occasionally extends beyond the hall. In Sir Launfal, some knights wander out to a lawn and Launfal leads a dance. The queen descends with sixty-five ladies, who mingle among the knights. The queen places herself between Launfal and Gawain, and they dance, apparently in a long line alternating lady then knight. Numerous fiddlers, citolers and trumpeters provide the music, and the dance only winds down at nightfall. Many such romance references assume participation in dancing as a part of court entertainment, and the act of dancing is significant in moving the courtiers from the role of audience to that of participant in musical entertainment. But there is evidence of even more active participation. Descriptions of feast entertainment sometimes assemble activities that clearly involve the nobility with other activities that we have assumed were the domain of minstrels. In Apollonius of Tyre, ‘they songe, daunsede and were blythe’ (They sang, danced, and were happy).15 The dancing, at the very least, is carried 15 Die alt- und mittelenglischen Apollonius-Bruchstücke 3, ed. Joseph Raith (Munich, 1956), 78–84, l. 93. For an exploration of the Latin Apollonius, see Elizabeth Archibald’s essay in this volume.

18 LINDA MARIE

ZAERR

out by amateurs, and probably also the singing. When Havelok becomes king, sports, instrumental music, gambling and romances mingle as celebratory activities, some attributed to minstrels, but not all: Hwan he was king, ther mouthe men se The moste joye that mouhte be – Buttinge with sharpe speres, Skirming with talevaces that men beres, Wrastling with laddes, putting of ston, Harping and piping, ful god won, Leyk of mine, of hasard ok, Romanz reding on the bok. Ther mouthe men here the gestes singe, The glewmen on the tabour dinge. Ther moutthe men se the boles beyte, And the bores, with hundes teyte. Tho mouhte men se everil glew;16 (When he became king, on that occasion people could see the greatest joy that could be: thrusting with sharp spears, skirmishing with shields, wrestling with lads, shot-putting, a great deal of harping and piping, games of backgammon and also dice, romance reading from a book. People could hear tales sung and minstrels beating on the tabor. They could see bulls baited and boars riled up by hounds. There people could see every kind of entertainment.)

The Lyfe of Alisaunder presents a similar list of wedding feast activities with undifferentiated participants: At the fest was harpyng, And pipyng and tabournyng, And sitollyng and trumpyng, Knijf-pleyeyng and syngyng, Carolyng and turneieyng, And wrestlyng and skirmyng.17 (At the feast there was harping and piping and taboring and citoling and trumpeting; knife playing and singing; caroling and tourneying and wrestling and skirmishing.)

In these catalogs, storytelling mingles with a wide variety of entertainment, some participatory and some not, but romances clearly represent a significant component. The romances also apparently place a high value on effective storytelling. In 16 Havelok, ed. G. V. Smithers (Oxford, 1987), ll. 2320–32. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are mine. 17 Kyng Alisaunder, 2 vols, ed. G. V. Smithers (London, 1952, 1957), B, ll. 1039–44.

INFORMAL STORY IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND AND MODERN AMERICA

19

Sir Ysumbras, the queen offers to retain Ysumbras (disguised as a poor pilgrim) for telling: Off manye aventures that he has sene In dyverse landes there he has bene Be manye a wylde way18 (of many adventures that he has seen in various lands where he has been, traveling by many wild paths)

He tells the queen ‘off hys lay’, a term often applied to the shorter romances, and his narratives are ‘goode tales’.19 The romance assumes that travelers have tales to tell from their experience, that these stories are framed in the same way as the romances, and that when these stories are told well they are worth recompense. In other romances, too, we see nobles’ desire to surround themselves with engaging companions. In The Earl of Toulous, the two scurrilous knights are apparently in the habit of entertaining Beaulebonne. At supper, they joke to delight the lady, and in fact they appear to be in charge of amusing the lady until she goes to bed: To soper they can them dyght, The Emperes and they all; The two knyghtys grete yapys made, For to make the lady glade, That was bothe gentyll and small; When the sopertyme was done, To the chaumbyr they went soone, Knyghtys cladde in palle They daunsed and revelyd, os they noght dredde, To brynge the lady to hur bedde20 (The Empress and all of them got ready for supper. The two knights made great jokes to delight the lady, who was both genteel and delicate. When suppertime was over, they went to the chamber. Richly dressed knights danced and reveled without inhibition as they ­escorted the lady to bed.)

These two knights persuade a young man to hide behind her curtain in his underwear, explaining, ‘Then schalt thou see a joly play!’ (Then you will see delightful entertainment).21 They use this to discredit Beaulebonne, but the passage 18 Sir Ysumbras: Eine englische Romanze des 14. Jahrhunderts, ed. Gustav Schleich (Berlin, 1901), ll. 574–6. 19 Sir Ysumbras, ll. 579 and 580. 20 The Erle of Tolous: Eine Paralleledition mit Einleitung und Glossar, ed. Friedrich Hülsmann (Essen, 1987), ll. 695–704. 21 The Earl of Tolous, l. 728.

20 LINDA MARIE

ZAERR

is revealing in its assumptions about what might constitute entertainment. We see here the miscibility of joking, dancing and impromptu theater; and an expectation that courtiers are responsible for carrying all this out. In many romances, skill in storytelling is linked with singing and playing instruments. Intriguingly, while courtiers might entertain each other with tales and lays, romaunce reden is the term consistently associated with musical training. As a result of his education, Horn in Horn Childe can harp and read romance correctly.22 The daughter of Argus in Reinbrun understands minstrelsy to such an extent that she can play the harp, fiddle and psaltery, and read romances.23 Clearly this skill is not simply a matter of literacy, of being able to read: Ysonde in Sir Tristrem can already read romances correctly (l. 1258), yet Tristrem teaches her further techniques, and later he claims to have taught her to play and sing.24 The association of romaunce reden with musical accomplishments and the assumption that there are various ways of approaching it implies that it might involve singing. In fact, singing is mentioned in most lists of musical skills when romance reading is not, almost as if the terms were interchangeable. The Middle English verb reden is not limited to speaking or even reading from a book; a sung performance of narrative may be implied by the close association of romaunce reden with instrumental skill, by the apparent interchangeability of romance reading and singing in lists of accomplishments, and by the nature of the training described. This evidence corroborates Ad Putter’s observation that in Middle English reden romance sometimes ‘simply means “to tell a story”’.25 The romances move beyond the blend of orality and textuality we recognize to a lack of interest in whether or not books are involved; story and music are melded. In the romances, skill in storytelling and music is appropriate to both genders, and one of the hallmarks of a worthy knight or lady is education in performance skills. In eighty-three verse romances, training in music is explicitly mentioned or demonstrated for twenty characters who are courtiers rather than minstrels. Of these, eight are men and twelve are women, a reasonably even division along gender lines.26 It is difficult to verify how capable courtiers were of providing their own entertainment because there is no record of payment involved, but a few documents sketch an outline. In the twelfth century, the knight Luc de la Barre

Horn Childe and Maiden Rimnild, ed. Maldwyn Mills (Heidelberg, 1988), ll. 286–8. The Romance of Guy of Warwick, ed. Julius Zupitza (London, 1883–91; repr. as one volume 1966), 631–74, ll. 142–4. 24 Lancelot of the Laik and Sir Tristrem, ed. Alan Lupack (Kalamazoo, MI, 1994), 143–277, available online at http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/lupack-lancelot-of-the-laikand-sir-tristrem-sir-tristrem-introduction (accessed 3 April 2014). He teaches her ‘what alle pointes were’ (l. 1261), and later claims, ‘Y lerde the play and song’ (I taught you to play and sing, l. 1608). 25 Putter, ‘Oral Tradition’, 343. 26 Zaerr, Performance, 72–3. 22 23

INFORMAL STORY IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND AND MODERN AMERICA

21

was punished for singing derisive songs,27 and this record may imply that he provided regular entertainment. King Henry V and Queen Katherine played the harp, and Edward IV’s men learned ‘to harping, to pype, sing, daunce’; in 1474 the ‘sonnes of nobles, lords and gentlemen’ were taught music.28 To the extent we can verify it, the assumption in the romances that noblemen and ladies possessed the skills to entertain themselves seems accurate. The English romances and what scant documentary evidence survives corroborate for England the growing continental evidence that the nobility were often highly trained in music. The Italian novelle describe entertainments similar to what is suggested in the English romances. The Decameron is the best known of these, and in it amateurs initiate and sustain singing, storytelling, instrumental music and dance. The level of musical competence of the participating characters is high; they are able to sing many styles of music, sometimes from memory and sometimes improvising.29 In the English romances, too, skill in narrative and music is valued among the nobility, but anyone can tell stories, whether or not they are skilled. In Generides, the narrator advises that when people are bored, whether they are educated or not, they can tell stories to entertain themselves. A man that hath litel to doone, Werk he may make him soone; Ne thar him nat be idel long That any werk wil underfong, – Neither lewd man ne clerk, – That he ne may find him werk, Forto sing, or forto rede, Or for to speke of sum old dede30 (If a man has little to do, he can readily find an occupation. He does not have to be idle for long if he wants to undertake any work. Whether he is uneducated or educated, he can find work singing or reading or speaking of some old deed …)

This concept of romance delivery is much broader than we generally imagine, and it carries associations we may not expect. Minstrels are not required, lit27 Andrew Taylor, ‘Songs of Praise and Blame and the Repertoire of the Gestour’, in The Entertainer in Medieval and Traditional Culture: A Symposium, ed. Flemming Andersen,Thomas Pettitt and Rheinhold Schröder (Odense, 1997), 47–72 (65, 68). 28 John Stevens, Music and Poetry in the Early Tudor Court (Cambridge, 1961), 277–8 (273). 29 See Cathy Ann Elias, ‘Music on the Run in the Italian Novelle: Plagues, Devotional Movements, and Intimate Gatherings Away from Home’, in Music, Dance, and Society: Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Memory of Ingrid Brainard, ed. Ann Buckley and Cynthia J. Cyrus (Kalamazoo, MI, 2011), and Timothy J. McGee, ed., Improvisation in the Arts of the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Kalamazoo, MI, 2003), 161–72. 30 A Royal Historie of the Excellent Knight Generides, ed. Frederick J. Furnivall (Roxburghe Club, 1865; repr. New York, 1971), ll. 1–8.

22 LINDA MARIE

ZAERR

eracy is not required, but storytelling takes effort, and a story can be told in a variety of ways.

Storytelling in Informal Contexts There is, of course, no clear dividing line between formal and informal entertainment, but some contexts invite a less formal approach. The social contexts in which stories were told in the Middle Ages have modern counterparts. The campfire is probably the most common modern singing and storytelling context, and it bears kinship to evening entertainment on medieval military campaigns in the romances. In The Laud Troy-Book, for example, when the siege has been set, there is music all night in the Greeks’ camp: The Fires yeven a gret lyght, As of hit hadde ben day-lyght. Mynstralles her pipes hente And alle other of instrumente, Thei nakered, piped, and blew, Unto that the cokkes crew.31 (The fires gave off a great light, as if it had been daylight. Minstrels seized their pipes and all other instruments. They drummed and piped and blew until the cocks crowed.)

Bedtime has also long been associated with stories. My sister and I have always told tales in our tent on trips, and I tell stories to my daughter at her bedtime. The most famous medieval bedtime storyteller is, of course, Shahrazad, but in England, too, the romances take for granted a bedtime story tradition. In the stanzaic Le Morte Arthur, the king and queen tell romances in bed: Til on a time that it befell The king in bed lay by the queen; Of aunters they began to tell, Many that in that land had been32 (until it happened one time that the king lay by the queen in bed, and they began to tell of many adventures that had befallen in that land)

The Seven Sages of Rome is built around opposition between the sages’ daytime tales and the queen’s stories at bedtime.33 A campfire and bedtime provide the important component of a small group The Laud Troy-Book, ll. 4695–700. Le Morte Arthur, ll. 17–20. 33 The Seven Sages of Rome, ed. K. Brunner, Early English Text Society, Original Series 191 (London, 1933; repr. 1988). 31 32

INFORMAL STORY IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND AND MODERN AMERICA

23

of people at leisure, but leisure is not essential for informal amusement. The tedium of household chores is alleviated by singing memorized ballads and other narrative songs, though there invention is limited by the need for some focus on the required activity. It is easy to see how the narrative chansons de toile, the weaving songs, and other related work genres developed.34 In my experience, travel provides the most satisfying context for storytelling, but only certain modes of travel. I have engaged in storytelling when traveling by car, but not in a noisy and public bus; hiking on a trail in the forest, but not walking in a complicated city; plodding on horseback on a mountain trail, but not zipping along on bicycles. The key requirements are freedom from distraction, regular motion, acoustic connection and a perception of isolation. In the romances, we find a similar engagement in storytelling while traveling. In Amoryus and Cleopes, to give just one example, the young knights shorten the time of their journey ‘wyth myry songys and talys day be day’ (with merry songs and tales every day).35 The informal situations where I find myself telling stories thus parallel the glimpses that the romances afford us of informal narrative. The same is true of my own role as musician and storyteller. Recent scholarship has indicated that romances were often read aloud by amateurs,36 and that the line between amateurs and professionals was hazy.37 My own status is similarly indistinct, shifting seamlessly from formal stage performance to informal entertainment with friends, family or colleagues. Sometimes amateurs participate with me in a professional performance, and sometimes professional family or colleagues participate with me in mutual informal entertainment. At every level of formality and with people of varying status, written music or story may be present or may not. I find it difficult to separate music from my own storytelling, a melding also reflected in the romances. Although the romances present marvels and grand adventure beyond the reach of mortals, they are grounded in a realistic portrayal of all ranks of court culture. Stable grooms in Bevis of Hampton ‘synge and make fable’ (sing and tell stories), and, as we have seen, the young knights in Amoryus and Cleopes pass the time ‘wyth myry songys and talys day be day’ 34 For a discussion of the chansons de toile as narrative, see Stevens, Music and Poetry, 230–1. 35 John Metham, Amoryus and Cleopes, ed. Stephen F. Page (Kalamazoo, MI, 1999), available online at http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/page-metham-amoryus-and-cleopes (accessed 3 April 2014)), l. 405. 36 See especially Joyce Coleman, Public Reading and the Reading Public in Late Medieval England and France (Cambridge, 1996). 37 See George Shuffelton, ‘Is There a Minstrel in the House? Domestic Entertainment in Late Medieval England’, Philological Quarterly 87.1–2 (2008), 51–76; Richard Rastall, ‘Minstrelsy, Church and Clergy in Medieval England’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 97 (1970–71), 83–98; and Helen Marsh Jeffries, ‘Job Descriptions, Nepotism, and Part-Time Work: The Minstrels and Trumpeters of the Court of Edward IV of England (1461–83)’, Plainsong and Medieval Music 12.2 (2003), 165–77.

24 LINDA MARIE

ZAERR

(with merry songs and stories every day). Passages such as these suggest that story and song converge more fully than has been imagined.

Impromptu Creation It is in the context of improvisation that I experience the clearest distinction between levels of intimacy, and the ease that comes with intimacy may be suggested in the romances as well. Impromptu elements – embellishment, substantive transformation of a set text or creation from idiomatic building blocks – can occur in any mode of storytelling. But with close companions, it is not met with judgment. In contrast, improvisation is almost by definition competitive. Gary Peters notes: At its best free-improvisation is not driven by a concern for the other improvisors but by a concern or care for the work itself. At its best it is by no means participatory but exclusive and excluding – collective, yes, communal, no. At its best free-improvisation is profoundly competitive […]38

Judgment and comparison are essential components. Improvisation appears to have included this notion of competition in the Middle Ages, too. For example, Timothy McGee cites a 1441 contest ‘all ‘improvviso’ in which ‘a number of literary figures sang their poetry over a period of several days in front of a distinguished audience’, and he sets this in a context of international improvisation with an expectation of high quality in both poetry and music.39 We see this reflected in the education of the nobility in the Middle English romances, where emphasis is placed on performers’ skill in storytelling and instrumental music and the extent to which they ‘wane the pryse’40 (won the prize) in comparison to others. When I tell stories with groups of friends or colleagues or students, there is a competitive edge, though the context is informal and the entertainment mutual. This competitive element is not unpleasant and it elicits a certain energy. With my sister or my daughter, however, the goal of success dissolves. Laughter is often associated with amateur entertainment in the romances, and my own experience suggests the laughter may not always stem from intrinsic humor in the stories, but rather from the delight that arises from unexpected felicity or sudden awkwardness. There is no stake in success, and unexpected elements of any kind give rise to mutual delight and humor. This genial perspective on impromptu creation can occur in a formal context. For example, my sister, a musician friend and I held a ‘trimeron’ modeled after The Decameron, each reigning as queen for a day and assigning themes, and 38 39 40

Gary Peters, The Philosophy of Improvisation (Chicago, 2009), 58. McGee, Improvisation, 32. The Romance of Sir Degrevant, ed. L. F. Casson (London, 1949; repr. 1970), l. 40.

INFORMAL STORY IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND AND MODERN AMERICA

25

each telling a story at a set time every day. The event had the ring of grand formality to it, but it was also intimate, and the competition that comes with improvisation was not an element. Lybeaus Desconus offers a medieval model for impromptu storytelling, describing a series of storytelling situations with varying levels of intimacy. In this romance, we see the mingling of professional and skilled amateur storytelling, and a hint of how a noble education in music and storytelling might have been applied. As Ellen the messenger damsel, Theodolyne the minstrel dwarf and the knight Lybeaus Desconus travel through the forest on their quest, they pass the time by telling stories very like the romance they inhabit: They ryden forth all yn saght And tolde how knyghtes faght For ladyes bryght and schene41 (They rode forth peacefully and told how knights fought for bright and lovely ladies.)

Here a professional minstrel noted for his ability to play music and to tell tales participates, but he is not the only storyteller. Lybeaus and Ellen appear to engage in storytelling, and that storytelling could easily involve singing. Later in the text, Ellen and Theodolyne together narrate the deeds Lybeaus has achieved so far, essentially the content of the romance to this point: Sche and the dwerk y-mene Tolde seuen dedes kene That he dede dydyr-ward, And how that Syr Lybeauus Faught wyth fele schrewys And for no deth ne spared.42 (She and the dwarf together told seven valiant deeds that he had done on the way there, and how Sir Lybeaus had fought with many scoundrels and not held back for any threat of death.)

The damsel and the dwarf could, of course, be taking turns telling the story, but the text states that they work together, an amateur and a professional entertainer. It is possible that the lady possesses skills analogous to the professional that would allow her to participate with him. She might, for instance, sing while he plays an instrument, or vice versa. Similarly, in the next stanza the ‘gle and game’ at supper consists of storytelling by Lybeaus together with their host Lambard:

41 42

Lybeaus Desconus, ll. 1030–2 (from MS Cotton Caligula A.ii.). Lybeaus Desconus, ll. 1663–71 (from MS Cotton Caligula A.ii).

26 LINDA MARIE

ZAERR

Lambard and Lybeauus yn fere Of aventurus that ther wer Talkede bothe yn same.43 (Lambard and Lybeaus in companionship, both together, told of ­adventures that had befallen.)

How can two people tell a story so emphatically together? The phrasing implies that they are somehow collaborating simultaneously. My sister and I developed a type of narration that offers a supportable interpretation of the passage. In our ‘improvisational opera’, nothing is planned in advance. We sing a story together, making up the plot, characters and melody as we go. At times we take turns singing something like recitative; at other times we sing aria-like songs with harmony and repetition. It is challenging and stimulating, and we get better at it with practice. It requires two people. If a practice something like this were actively cultivated in medieval England, it could explain references like those in Lybeaus Desconus, and it could explain why notated music would not survive. In the same way that today people emulate the entertainment they enjoy, reciting long passages from Monty Python and the Holy Grail or making music videos like the ones they admire, so in medieval England people with enough leisure might easily have imitated the minstrels so continually present. It seems clear that an elite education included training in instrumental music, singing and romaunce reden. What would be more likely than that some people with such an education would develop skills similar to those of the minstrels? John Haines has shown that music, both participatory and non-participatory, formed a significant part of people’s lives ‘literally from the cradle to the grave’.44 It seems very likely that story, also, was as important an element in people’s lives as television and the internet are today. The romances indicate that story and song meld into one another. My own experience, pertinent within the methodology of experimental archaeology, reflects a similar connection. Although some stories are purely told and others sung, I do not always notice movement from one mode to another; sometimes without conscious thought, I find I am singing antiphonally with someone. It has been customary for literary scholars to look at narrative, and for musicologists to look at song, but many songs are narrative, and romances were at least sometimes sung. Medieval terms for speaking and singing are ambiguous throughout Europe, demonstrating the fluidity of these concepts.45

Lybeaus Desconus, MS Cotton Caligula A.ii, ll. 1677–80. Emphasis is mine. Haines, ‘Performance before c. 1430’, 246. 45 See especially Timothy J. McGee, The Ceremonial Musicians of Late Medieval Florence (Bloomington, IN, 2009), 79; and Stevens, Words and Music, 200. 43

44

INFORMAL STORY IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND AND MODERN AMERICA

27

Patterns of Variation As a way of beginning a more comprehensive consideration of fusions of story and song, it may be helpful to consider patterns of variation I have experienced with impromptu entertainment when I am not concerned with matters of historical accuracy. Some forces that operate in that context would arguably have exerted power in the Middle Ages as well, and the manuscripts that survive in some cases reflect similar patterns. When I sing to my daughter at bedtime, narrative songs that I have memorized stay fairly stable, but they sometimes shift at the end by omission or addition. ‘The Lady of the North Country’, with its elaborate structure of riddles, remains remarkably constant, although it would be easy to improvise verses and although it reflects a cultural perspective I do not share. Dialogues, on the other hand, invite extensions, and these extensions reflect perspectives that may vary from the original. One night ‘Scarborough Fair’ turned into a dialogue in which the woman who is the object of the song sends the messenger back with a reply that she will neither sew nor seek after earth, and that her lover has missed his daughter’s birth. Since then, an elaborate dialogue ensues when I sing that song, with varying plots. Similarly, in ‘Greensleeves’ the lady now answers the lamenting lover, objecting that he has given her gold but no love. She prefers her neighbor Robert, so the original speaker shifts his love to Pink Sleeves, who loves his heart of gold. These transformations maintain the original song, but attach a conclusion that adapts the story to the cultural perspective of the singer.46 There is sometimes a tendency toward whimsy or burlesque, which we find in romances such as The Tournament of Tottenham. Manuscript evidence from medieval England exhibits evidence of similar extension or abridgment of the conclusion of a narrative song. ‘Als I lay on Yoolis night’ is a serviceable lullaby. It is a narrative dialogue in which the speaker describes falling asleep on Christmas Eve and dreaming of a conversation between Mary and her baby.47 The child asks her to sing him a lullaby, and eventually she acquiesces, singing to him the circumstances of his birth. I learned the song from the Dobson and Harrison edition, which adapts the text of National Library of Scotland MS Advocates 18.7.21, ff. 3–4, to the music of Cambridge University Library MS Additional 5943, f. 169.48 I sing only the first five verses and the last one, and the manuscripts of this song reflect the sort of terminal variation my memorized songs exhibit. The Advocates manuscript, the earliest version, was written in 1372 by the Franciscan friar John of Grimestone. The text contains thirty-seven stanzas. Dobson and Harrison include only the first fifteen and the last, and they argue 46 Elias, ‘Music on the Run’, 166, cites an instance from one of the Italian novelle in which an extant song is extended as a kind of dialogue. 47 For another exploration of storytelling about the Christ Child in his infancy miracles, see Maureen Boulton’s essay in this volume. 48 Medieval English Songs, ed. E. J. Dobson, and F. Ll. Harrison (London, 1979).

28 LINDA MARIE

ZAERR

that the meter from stanza 16 onward is more markedly trochaic and that this section represents an expansion.49 The topic of the first fifteen stanzas concerns the nativity as it relates to Mary. After that point, Jesus responds with a summary of his entire life. It seems possible, then, that the bulk of the song is an extension of a shorter song (fifteen stanzas) with a subtle shift in emphasis and more initiative attributed to the child. If this is true, then, as in my experience, a different perspective is thus expressed in the longer added portion. The other three manuscripts, all from the fifteenth century, are remarkably close to the Advocates version, but they cut the text off at different points. Cambridge, St John’s College MS S. 54, f. 4, contains the first nine stanzas; Harley 2330 includes the first five stanzas; and CUL MS Addit. 5943, the only manuscript with notated music, presents only the first stanza as a text setting for the melody. All four manuscripts contain the burden, but this text is so wildly divergent that it is difficult to imagine all versions being sung to the same melody:50 MS Advocates 18.7.21 Lullay, lullay, la, lullay, Mi dere moder, lullay. St John’s College MS. S. 54 lullay lay lay lay, Mi dere moder, lullay. MS Harley 2330 lay lay lulay lay Mi dere moder, lullay. CUL MS Addit. 5943 lolay lolay

The one manuscript that includes notated music, CUL MS Addit. 5943, provides far more music for the burden than the brief text would seem to warrant. While it is possible to repeat these two syllables through the entire burden, the text from Advocates seems the best fit for the melody. The existence of other similar lullabies51 suggests that this genre may have been adapted and reapplied to suit a wide range of purposes, some of which may have included informal songs remembered from mothers who sang without reference to notation. Variation tied to endings might well be expected in songs learned from the beginning and best known by their beginnings. But for me, more fundamental and thoroughgoing cultural transformation of a base text is more likely to occur Dobson and Harrison, Medieval English Songs, 201. The text for Additional 5943 is transcribed from a facsimile of the manuscript; Advocates 18.7.21 is from The Early English Carols, 2nd edn, ed. Richard Leighton Greene (Oxford, 1977); St John’s MS. S. 54 and MS Harley 2330 are derived from Greene’s textual notes. 51 See Greene, Early English Carols. 49 50

INFORMAL STORY IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND AND MODERN AMERICA

29

when the original is not learned word for word or when I have come into contact with multiple versions. The most striking illustration of this principle has been my transformations of standard fairy tales. To encourage my daughter to keep hiking, I would hold her hand and tell her long, expanded versions of these stories. Cinderella took five hours and seven miles. The heroine enjoyed doing chores and turned them into games. She loved the smell of sheets dried in the sun, and the color of clean wet bricks. She and the prince got to know each other before the ball, and in the end they washed sheets and made soup for people who needed it. Cultural and situational transformations such as this are notorious in many of the translations of romances from French to English. The sympathetic Fairy of the thirteenth-century French Li Biaus Descouneüs52 stands in marked contrast to La Dame Amour of the fourteenth-century English version. Adapted for a later audience with different predilections, the Fairy of the English Lybeaus Desconus is reduced to a mere delay, a seductive enchantress who uses her arts to try to retain the hero.

Conclusion The transformations that have survived in manuscripts are, of course, literary artifacts, but they point the way to a broader realm of narrative entertainment. Sometimes I sing long stories, entirely made up on the spur of the moment and never written down. They follow some conventions, but they are never included among the examples of any genre. Sometimes the ending is sung to a sleeping child, and I am the only conscious audience, and I never remember more than the barest outline. If no lasting evidence of this modern narration survives, we can hardly be surprised not to find it in medieval England. Given the evidence of impromptu creation that we do find, however, it seems likely it would have existed. By applying the established methodology of experimental archaeology in a direction that is novel in medieval studies, this essay has defined and delineated a range of performance modes that have previously gone unnoticed. Recognition that medieval performance extends beyond formal feast entertainment provides a more fully nuanced understanding of medieval literary texts. We cannot expect a detailed map of informal storytelling in medieval England, but we can recognize its existence and explore some implications. Modern experience with informal storytelling can provide direction for observing and characterizing the medieval continuum between competitive and genial improvisation, the varying engagement and expected skill of amateurs, and the typical modes and amplitude of impromptu transformation. Our reading of the romances can 52 Renaut de Bâge, Le Bel Inconnu (Li Biaus Descouneüs; The Fair Unknown), ed. Karen Fresco, trans. Colleen P. Donagher, music ed. Margaret P. Hasselman (New York, 1992).

30 LINDA MARIE

ZAERR

only be enriched by recognizing that members of the nobility may have been highly trained in music and storytelling, that narrative and song were frequently intertwined, and that neither books nor minstrels were necessary for the telling of aventurus.

The Storyteller’s Verbal jonglerie in ‘Renart jongleur’ Marilyn Lawrence Representations of storytellers and their performance within medieval narratives provide rich material for study. Particularly revealing in this regard is a subset of medieval narratives in which characters temporarily assume the identity of a professional storyteller. In such key moments, readers or listeners witness the process by which an actual, extradiegetic storyteller constructs the fictional figure of an intradiegetic storyteller. The tale of ‘Renart jongleur’ – branch Ib of the Roman de Renart – is one such narrative. This story, wherein Renart disguises himself as an inept Breton minstrel, shows us how the author constructs Renart’s identity as a storyteller.1 In ‘Renart jongleur’ (also sometimes referred to as ‘Renart teinturier’), Renart the fox paradoxically conceals his verbal prowess behind the mask of an incompetent minstrel whose unmasking reveals and affirms Renart’s essential identity as a master narrator. The author structures the branch using a complex verbal game in which the power and authority of verbal expression continually passes from one character to another (from Noble to Isengrin, from Isengrin to Tibert, from Tibert to Poncet and so on) until the dénouement when Renart assumes the place of primary storyteller and asserts his verbal domination through exclusive possession of the power and pleasure that language confers. In telling his story, the medieval author of ‘Renart jongleur’ self-reflectively uses his own narrative to assert the ultimate power of storytelling and storytellers. 1 For scholarship and bibliographies on the medieval storyteller, and on minstrel disguise in particular, see Silvère Menegaldo, Le Jongleur dans la littérature narrative des XIIe et XIIIe siècles: du personnage au masque (Paris: 2005), especially chapter 8, ‘Se déguiser en jongleur’, 487–542; and Marilyn Lawrence, ‘Minstrel Disguise in Medieval French Narrative: Identity, Performance, Authorship’, PhD dissertation, New York University, 2001. I wrote this latter work under the guidance of Evelyn Birge Vitz, who first inspired me to become a medievalist. In September 1993, I walked into my first medieval literature class with Professor Vitz at New York University, where she sparked my fascination with the world of medieval storytelling. Since then I have had the honor and pleasure of working closely with her, practically uninterrupted for two decades now, on numerous rewarding projects: from graduate-school term papers, to my doctoral dissertation, to our websites, to articles we have co-authored, to the book we co-edited with Nancy Freeman Regalado. Her support, encouragement and wisdom have been invaluable over the years. The curiosity, sensitivity and sincere sense of fun she brings to learning and scholarship have been a source of inspiration and motivation. I am deeply grateful for all she has so generously shared with me in her multifaceted roles of teacher, mentor, colleague and friend.

32

MARILYN LAWRENCE

In the pages that follow, we first establish the essentially linguistic nature of the fox’s disguise. We analyze how Renart conceals his powerful mastery of speech under the mask of an innocuous and inept minstrel. We then study the ironic inversion that propels the narrative, a reversal by which Renart, disguised as a professional storyteller, cedes verbal expression to others to become the auditor of stories of his own adventures. Renart yields the pleasure of storytelling and the power to direct the plot to other characters until he captures them in his verbal trap and reduces them to silence. The branch reaches its culmination when Renart is reborn as the narrator of his own story and regains mastery of both the narrative and the laughter that the narrative elicits.2 Because disguise is by definition a form of dissimulation that enables further deceit, authors of trickster narratives like the Roman de Renart frequently structure stories of deception around disguise. The trickster’s need to keep his identity secret in order to pursue objectives that political, religious or social statutes forbid often leads him to rely on disguise. However, the character of Renart, trickster par excellence, rarely disguises himself in the Roman de Renart. A talented actor, the fox assumes many roles over the course of the Roman, playing by turns the part of pilgrim, monk, doctor and so on. At the same time, however, he openly maintains his primary identity while embodying these various personae in numerous branches. A converted Renart takes up the cross and prepares to travel overseas; a tonsured ‘frère Renart’ retires to a monastery; a learned Renart studies the art of medicine and brings aid to Noble the lion. The fox always overtly remains Renart, concealing his intent, not his identity. Whether he is a pilgrim or physician, his fellow characters all knowingly deal directly with the fox. On the whole, then, the Roman lacks the constant construction, deconstruction and reconstruction of identity that make other trickster narratives meaty material for the study of identity codes and signifiers. We find a rare exception to this rule in branch Ib where Renart dissimulates his distinctive traits (including his infamous red coat), exchanges his true name for a pseudonym and camouflages his original identity behind the mask of ‘Galopin’, a Breton jongleur (l. 2380).3 Renart’s disguise as a professional but

2 I have explored the issue of rebirth through narrative in Marilyn Lawrence, ‘Parole, pouvoir, plaisir et déguisement du goupil dans “Renart jongleur”’, Reinardus: Yearbook of the International Reynard Society 14 (2001), 173–88. 3 Unless otherwise stated, all citations from the Roman de Renart are taken from volume I, branch Ib, of Le Roman de Renart, ed. Ernest Martin, 3 vols (Strasbourg, 1882–87). Any italics within citations are mine. I would like to thank Roger Bellon for pointing out that Renart does not adopt a pseudonym in all the variants of branch Ib. See Bellon’s edition of ‘Renart teinturier, Renart jongleur’, branch Ic, from manuscript H (Paris, Arsenal 3334) in Le Roman de Renart, ed. Armand Strubel, Roger Bellon, Dominique Boutet and Sylvie Lefèvre (Paris, 1998), 61–86. However, whether Renart presents himself as ‘Galopin’ or as an anonymous minstrel, he nonetheless disguises himself, that is, he hides his true identity under a false one.

VERBAL JONGLERIE IN ‘RENART JONGLEUR’

33

inept storyteller will culminate in his unmasking to affirm the fox’s true identity as a master storyteller whose verbal mastery is his defining attribute.4 Renart’s rise to linguistic domination structures the narrative. Branch Ib opens with the verbal power that another character claims and directs against Renart. From the first verses of the branch, King Noble the lion possesses verbal authority and uses it to proclaim publicly the fox’s death sentence (ll. 2205– 10).5 To defend himself against this dangerous declaration, Renart resorts to his verbal gifts. The fox prays, asking God to deprive others of speech (l. 2220) and to provide him with a disguise to prevent others from saying who he is: Et si m’atorne en itel guisse, En tel maniere me devise Qu’il ne soit beste qui me voie, Qui sache a dire que je soie. (ll. 2227–30) (And so arrange for me by providing me with such a disguise that no beast who sees me may be able to tell who I am. [38])6

Although the king’s pronouncement rules on earth, the fox’s prayer succeeds in reaching divine ears. God listens and grants his prayer: immediately after praying, Renart wanders into a peasant’s house where he tumbles into a tub of dye. The fox saves himself from the fists of the furious peasant to discover himself dyed completely yellow, a physical transformation that masks his characteristic red coat. Defying the king’s declaration, Renart takes advantage of this modified appearance to circulate incognito among the other animals. When he accidentally runs into his sworn enemy, Isengrin, the fox spontaneously invents a new identity: knowing the wolf will recognize him the moment he speaks, he alters his language and presents himself as the Breton minstrel ‘Galopin’ (ll. 2334–6). ‘Renart jongleur’ is not the only branch in the Roman where Renart employs such verbal ingenuity to deceive others. The fox uses his characteristic glibness to lure Isengrin the wolf into the well and to persuade Tiécelin the crow to sing until he drops his cheese. Renart likewise saves his hide when arrested and 4 According to Léopold Sudre, branch Ib inspired branch XIII, ‘Renart teint en noir’ (see Les Sources du Roman de Renart [Geneva, 1974], 258–9). In both branches Renart dyes his coat and conceals himself behind a pseudonym. See also Jean Dufournet, Le Roman de Renart: entre réécriture et innovation (Orléans, 2007), especially his chapter on ‘“Renart le noir”: réécriture et quête de l’identité’ (115–36). However, only in branch Ib does Renart disguise himself as a minstrel. This disguise as a professional performer makes branch Ib particularly promising for examination of the author’s construction of the figure of the storyteller. 5 Considered a continuation of branches I and Ia, branch Ib begins at verse 2205. 6 All translations are taken from The Romance of Reynard the Fox, trans. D. D. R. Owen (Oxford, 1994), by permission of Oxford University Press. While the translations give a general sense of meaning, reference to the Old French text is necessary to appreciate fully the author’s artful play with language.

34

MARILYN LAWRENCE

defends himself during judicial proceedings. Verbal mastery, Renart’s primary attribute, is indispensable to his ruses. Indeed, all the animals at Noble’s court view the fox as a redoubtable orator. When Renart, a skilled speaker, decides to disguise himself as a minstrel, he chooses to assume the identity of a figure who is also allegedly gifted in the art of storytelling. However, in a paradoxical reversal, Renart adopts the mask of a bad minstrel. ‘Galopin’ presents himself as a foreign minstrel who mutilates the French language and possesses only a limited, confused and erroneous repertory. He thus presents his mediocre wares to Isengrin: Je fout savoir bon lai breton et de Mellin et de Notun, dou roi Lartu et de Tritan, de Charpel et de saint Brandan. – Et sez tu le lai dam Isset? – Iai, iai, dist il, godistonnet; je les savrai mout bien trestouz. (ll. 2435–41)7 (‘Me savvy good Bretony lays about Merlin and Noton, King Arthur and Tristan, the honeysickle and Saint Brendan.’ – ‘And do you know the lay of the Lady Iseult?’ – ‘Ya, ya, Godwot! I savvy them all,’ said he. [40])

As Élisabeth Schulze-Busacker notes, Galopin’s repertory is restricted to three genres – the Breton lai, hagiographic legend and epic; he refers to no more than four works: Chevrefueil, Tydorel, Le Voyage de Saint Brendan and La Chanson de Roland.8 Despite the jongleur’s alleged education in Besançon (ll. 2800–2), his repertory is limited to works of Anglo-Norman provenance. 7 These verses are taken from Le Roman de Renart. Première branche. Jugement de Renart, Siège de Maupertuis, Renart teinturier. Éditée d’après le manuscrit de Cangé, ed. Mario Roques (Paris, 1978), where the manner in which Galopin deforms the French language and the minstrel repertory is more exaggerated than in Martin’s edition (ll. 2389–95). On Galopin’s repertory, see also in Martin’s edition ll. 2374–5, 2460–5, 2800–6, 2853–5. 8 See Élisabeth Schulze-Busacker, ‘Renart, le jongleur étranger. Analyse thématique et linguistique à partir de la branche Ib du Roman de Renart (ll. 2403–580 and 2857–3034)’, in Third International Beast Epic, Fable, and Fabliau Colloquium. Münster 1979. Proceedings, ed. Jan Goossens and Timothy Sodmann (Cologne, 1981), 380–91, especially 382–3. On the relation of the Roman de Renart to medieval epic, see Dominique Boutet, ‘Le Roman de Renart est-il une épopée?’ Romania 126.3–4 (2008), 463–79, and Jacques E. Merceron, ‘Sombre Guillaume et rutilant Renart: jeux d’échos et d’inversions entre la branche Ib du Roman de Renart et La Prise d’Orange’, Reinardus 32 (2010–11), 137–62. We will not discuss in detail here the language nor the repertory of the foreign minstrel, nor the medieval French custom of mocking Anglo-Normans. Schulze-Busacker and other critics have treated these subjects from a linguistic, literary or socio-historical perspective. See Schulze-Busacker’s bibliography, as well as William Calin, ‘Obscene Anglo-Norman in a Central French Mouth; or, How Renart the Fox Tricks Isengrin the Wolf, and Why It Is Important’, Florilegium 18.1 (2001), 7–19. For another example of representation within the Roman of the linguistic alterity of a stranger, see the study Anthony Lodge consecrates to the franco-latino-italian

VERBAL JONGLERIE IN ‘RENART JONGLEUR’

35

Moreover, ‘Galopin’ purposely deforms the best-known names of the medieval literary canon in order to emphasize his foreign accent and imperfect knowledge of French, as well as his ignorance of traditional minstrel material. He confuses Roland and Olivier, whom he calls Rollier and Olivant (l. 2854), and claims to know the stories of Mellin (Merlin), Notun (Loth?), Lartu (Arthur) and Tritan (Tristan).9 Galopin therefore affirms his linguistic ineptitude at the same time as he boasts of his qualities as jongleur. Not only does Galopin mark his speech with multiple phonological and morpho-syntactic errors, but he also absurdly and rudely repeats the verb ‘foutre’, which he substitutes regularly for the verbs ‘être’, ‘avoir’ and ‘pouvoir’: ‘Fot moi diser bon rotruel’ (l. 2374) (me do for you good ditty [40]). Renart hides his true identity behind the appearance of a storyteller who not only does not know how to tell stories, but also seems to insult his listeners unwittingly: a double disguise with double entendre. A linguistic – rather than physical – transformation thus renders Renart’s mask impenetrable. The yellow dye that coats the fox’s red fur is what first frustrates Isengrin’s recognition of Renart,10 but the color change merely serves as a visual mask beneath which the fox can conceal his appearance from the gaze of others (ll. 2313–16). Yet in branch Ib, speech, not physical appearance – his verbal mastery, not his red coat – is Renart’s identifying attribute. Renart thus modifies his language to construct a completely secure disguise (ll. 2339–40). He dissimulates his linguistic prowess with confused jargon that is full of ridiculous mistakes, foreign words and punctuated by the verb ‘foutre’. He advances toward Isengrin and addresses the wolf: ‘Godehelpe’ fait il, ‘bel sire! Non saver point ton reson dire.’ (ll. 2351–2) (‘Godhelp, good sir,’ says he. ‘Me no speak your lingo.’ [40])

Renart’s verbal ruse is a success: the fox, a criminal condemned to death, successfully and safely converses with his sworn enemy. Renart thus masks his linguistic prowess, but not his native language, for Galopin speaks French – a poor French strewn with errors and foreign expressions, of course, but French nevertheless. Although Galopin purportedly speaks ‘englois’ (ll. 2482, 2898), none of his speeches is ever delivered in English. Although the jongleur contends that he speaks French poorly and insists that he wants to perfect the language in Paris (ll. 2367–8), he knows French and speaks it throughout the branch. The identities of Galopin and Renart are distinguished jargon of the camel Musart, papal legate, in ‘A Comic Papal Legate and his Language’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 96 (1995), 211–21. 9 Ll. 2436–7, cited above, from the edition by Roques. 10 Among the publications that discuss the fox’s color, see especially Roger Bellon, ‘Renart li rous: remarques sur un point d’onomastique renardienne’, and Elina SuomelaHärmä, ‘Des roux et des couleurs …’, both in Les couleurs au Moyen Age, Senefiance 24 (Aix-en-Provence, 1988), 15–28 and 401–21, respectively.

36

MARILYN LAWRENCE

therefore not by a dissimilarity in language so much as by the apparent difference in their mastery of the same language. In spite of the fundamentally linguistic quality of Renart’s disguise as a jongleur, Galopin never recites a single story. The author briefly notes in two verses that Renart sings (ll. 2888, 2895), yet he never describes or names the songs. Moreover, unlike Jacquemart Gielée who includes some sixty-six interpolations in Renart le nouvel,11 the author of ‘Renart jongleur’ does not include a single lyric insertion in his branch. In fact, he never interpolates any minstrel songs, and he represents all stories as narrated by other characters. The author constructs an ironic displacement: Renart adopts the identity of a professional storyteller in order to become an auditor who listens to others narrate his own adventures. Renart/Galopin pretends to be ignorant of the widespread and universally known stories of Renart the fox. Isengrin must therefore inform the minstrel who does not even know the name of this infamous character, and who confusedly deforms the name – ‘Rallart’ (l. 2527) – once he learns it.12 Isengrin thus narrates at length to Galopin the story of the crimes Renart has committed against the king and queen (ll. 2405–12). In addition, Isengrin later recounts to Galopin his own experience of the humiliations that the fox inflicted on him (ll. 2479–80). In turn, Tibert the cat also becomes a narrator of the Renart material. He describes in detail the death of the fox whom he claims to have seen hanged, his paws tied together behind his back (ll. 2767–74). The stories that Tibert invents circulate at court (l. 2766) until Poncet directly relates them to Galopin himself. In a long passage, Poncet narrates to the jongleur the supposed hanging of Renart, the reaction of the fox’s sons to their father’s alleged death and Poncet’s own plan to marry Hermeline who now believes herself widowed (ll. 2811–40). As soon as Renart surrenders verbal expression to the other animals, he also appears to confer control and power upon them. Indeed, those who tell the stories believe that they direct and determine the action. Immediately after he narrates the story of Renart to Galopin, Poncet, the fiancé of Renart’s supposed widow, hires the jongleur to sing at his wedding (ll. 2847–9). Consequently, Poncet grants Renart access to the wedding ceremony and celebration that Poncet himself organizes. Moreover by employing Galopin, Poncet enables the jongleur to stay at the castle the night that the marriage is to be consummated (ll. 2903–4). Although Poncet appears to possess the power to usurp the ‘late’ Renart’s place in his family, he unknowingly gives the fox the ability to penetrate into the nuptial bedroom to take revenge on the newlywed couple. Likewise, Isengrin, rather than the minstrel, seems to call the shots during

11 See Maureen B. M. Boulton, The Song in the Story: Lyric Insertions in French Narrative Fiction, 1200–1400 (Philadelphia, PA, 1993), 105–9. 12 See ll. 2420–8. Concerning verse 2527, see the variant that Martin notes, as well as this same verse in Le Roman de Renart, ed. Jean Dufournet and Andrée Méline, 2 vols (Paris, 1985), I: 172, l. 2527.

VERBAL JONGLERIE IN ‘RENART JONGLEUR’

37

the infamous theft of the fiddle.13 Galopin portrays himself to Isengrin as a defenseless minstrel who is unable to tell or sing stories because he lacks the requisite instrument. The minstrel claims to have been abandoned by his companions (ll. 2358–60) and to be the victim of assailants who have stolen his fiddle (ll. 2371–2). Renart thus tricks Isengrin into stealing a vielle in order that he, a poor jongleur, might exercise his craft. Telling stories of the fox along the way, the narrating wolf confidently leads Galopin to a peasant-musician’s house. There he orders the jongleur to remain calmly seated while the wolf carries out his project (ll. 2529–32). Pretending to be passive and petrified, Galopin persuades Isengrin to protect him, comically and ironically, against Renart himself (ll. 2511–18, 2519–21). The feigned fear of the supposedly vulnerable minstrel touches Isengrin. Duped, the wolf smiles as he reassures Galopin in a protective tone; Galopin waits safely in the wings while the wolf alone undertakes the risky role of robber. Isengrin bravely enters the house, seizes the instrument and hands it through a window to Galopin who sits outside. However, Renart, playing the role of victim, sets a trap for his enemy. Indeed Renart cedes verbal power to Isengrin only to tear it away from him, reduce the wolf to silence and evict him from the narrative. As soon as he possesses the fiddle, the fox plans a trick (ll. 2543–4). He decides to tilt the stick that props open the window and thereby trap the wolf inside the house. In a rapid reversal, Renart transfers the terror that had supposedly seized him, the meek minstrel, to the unwary wolf who ‘Lors a grant poür de sa gole’ (l. 2552) (He then really fears for his neck! [43]). Isengrin’s fear for his ‘gole’, a term that indicates the neck or the mouth, suggests metonymically that he does not tremble uniquely for his skin,14 but also for his ability to speak. The wolf is right to be afraid: the minstrel’s maneuver provokes a chain reaction during which Isengrin will in fact lose verbal power.15 Each stage of the process that will deprive the wolf of speech is punctuated by an exclamation from the vocal peasant-musician.16 When the window slams shut, Isengrin starts in surprise. The noise arouses the sleeping peasant who cries out to his family: ‘Or sus! il a larons caienz’ (l. 2558) (Get up, there are thieves in the house! [43]). When the man jumps up, Isengrin immediately bites his 13 Ll. 2463–542. On this scene, see Kenneth Varty, ‘The Passage of the Fox from One Fictitious World to Another in the Roman de Renart’, in Grant risee? The Medieval Comic Presence: Essays in Memory of Brian J. Levy, ed. Adrian P. Tudor and Alan Hindley (Turnhout, 2006), 281–9, especially 283–4. 14 Dufournet and Méline translate the expression as ‘il tremble alors pour sa peau’ (I: 173, l. 2552). 15 On the wolf’s emasculation, see Claude Reichler, La Diabolie: la séduction, la renardie, l’écriture (Paris, 1979), especially 144–8. See also his study of branch Ib (134–49). 16 On cries and exclamations in medieval literature, including the Roman de Renart, see Christopher Lucken, ‘Éclats de la voix, langage des affects et séductions du chant. Cris et interjections à travers la philosophie, la grammaire et la littérature médiévales’, in Haro! Noël! Oyé! Pratiques du cri au Moyen Age, ed. Didier Lett and Nicolas Offenstadt (Paris, 2003), 179–201, especially 199.

38

MARILYN LAWRENCE

backside. The peasant then lets out a second scream that causes the guard dog to attack Isengrin. The watchdog seizes the wolf’s testicles and tears at them violently until he eventually rips them off (ll. 2567–9). Isengrin experiences extreme pain, then finds himself brutally emasculated (ll. 2573–6). Finally the peasant gives a third shout, a cry for help that sends the wolf fleeing. Unable to defend himself, Isengrin heads for the woods and hides from the screaming people who pursue him (ll. 2591–2). The peasants’ strong shouts contrast with the verbal weakening of the wolf. Ashamed, Isengrin does not have the courage to speak of his emasculation. He loses the ability to tell his own story, as well as the pleasure that such storytelling brings: Molt est dolenz, molt se demente Por che qu’il a perdu la chose, Mes a nului parler n’en ose (ll. 2602–4). (Grief-stricken, he is full of anguish for the loss of you know what; but he does not dare speak to anyone. [43])

Isengrin no longer masters verbal expression. Rather than express himself calmly and coherently, he moans and groans uncontrollably: ‘Ulle et garmente en son langage’ (l. 2611) (weeping and wailing in his own tongue [43]). Isengrin desperately tries to avoid bedtime when his wife will discover his sexual impotence. The wolf delays with endless conversation, but his verbal efforts fail: Quant ont mangie a grant loisir, Si parolent d’aler jesir: Et lors i ot molt, ce sachez, Parle ainz que il fust coche. Molt grant piece s’i arestut. Mes neporoc cocher l’estut. (ll. 2625–30) (Having had an excellent meal, they speak of going to bed. Then you may be sure there was a good deal of talking before he went there: he lingered for a very long time. However, to bed he had to go. [44])

Once in bed, Isengrin’s wife, Hersent, desires sexual intercourse. Unable to perform, Isengrin orders her to be silent – a desperate and determined effort emphasized by the repetition of the verb ‘taire’ in verses 2646, 2647 and 2651 – or at least to turn her discourse toward prayer: ‘Ge n’en sui mie ore aiesiez, Mes desormes vos en tesiez.’ Fet Hersent ‘je ne m’en puis tere, Ainz vos covient la cose fere.’ ‘Que ferai, va?’ ‘Que te covient,

VERBAL JONGLERIE IN ‘RENART JONGLEUR’

39

Ce qu’a totes femes avient.’ ‘Taisiez’ fait il: ‘n’en ferai mie. Or doüssiez estre endormie Et avoir dit vo patrenostre.’ (ll. 2645–53) (‘I’m not really up to it now, so say no more about it.’ Says Hersent: ‘I can’t keep quiet: you just have to do it.’ – ‘Do what?’ – ‘What you should: what happens to all women.’ – ‘Keep quiet!’ he says. ‘I won’t do it. Now you ought to be fast asleep and have said your paternoster.’ [44])

Isengrin lacks verbal authority, however. Hersent does not stop talking and ultimately discovers his impotence. Unable to tell her his true story, Isengrin resorts to a lie: he claims to have lent his testicles to a veiled nun. In order that Isengrin recover his sexual powers, Hersent demands a solution by speech: Alez tost, ne finez de corre, Et si dites a la nonein … Que plus n’i demort n’i atende, Mes tost vostre coille vos rende. (ll. 2676–7, 2679–80) (Hurry off, and run all the way to tell that nun … not to wait a moment longer but to give you your balls back at once. [44])

When his false stories fail, the wolf finds himself cornered. Indeed in branch Ib Renart is the only character who lies successfully. The fictions that all other characters invent, including those of Isengrin, are destined to fail. If their lies seem to succeed – such as that of the secret liaison between Hermeline and Poncet (ll. 2787–8) or the rumors of Renart’s death – the success is fleeting. In branch Ib Renart is the sole master of fiction making. Henceforth, Isengrin controls neither his verbal expression nor his wife. Now Hersent possesses verbal authority and uses it against her husband, threatening to voice her complaint directly to the king (l. 2690). Isengrin tries a last time to prevent his wife from speaking (ll. 2693–5), but his final attempt fails. Isengrin, not Hersent, is left silent: Ne set li lox un mot respondre, Ne contre lui n’en ose groindre (ll. 2733–4) (The wolf has no answer to this, and does not dare to have it out with her [45])

Renart thus puts his enemy in a position where he loses his sexual power, which in turn reduces the wolf to silence and eliminates Isengrin from the narrative. The fox causes the wolf to be expelled from both his family and the court (l. 2884). Although some five hundred verses out of the thousand-verse branch remain, the wolf will not again appear in the narrative. The minstrel-fox exchanges his enemy for a fiddle and can now sing stories out loud:

40

MARILYN LAWRENCE

Ysengrin a lessie en gage. Por la viele qu’il enporte Molt s’esbaudist, molt se conforte. Va s’ent a tote sa viele, D’Ysengrin n’oï puis novele. (ll. 2746–50) (having left Isengrin behind as a pledge for the fiddle he is carrying off to his great satisfaction and delight. On he goes with the fiddle, but without hearing any further news of Isengrin. [45])

However, Renart does not settle for silencing his enemy and erasing him from the narrative. The fox also aims to recover his verbal power and the pleasure of telling his own story. Renart regains his capacity for speech and then for storytelling in the course of a double-staged unmasking. First, Renart resumes his usual language, through which he divulges his true identity. Second, he becomes a narrator and uses storytelling to expose his ruse. The fox’s unmasking is both a verbal victory over Isengrin and a sexual triumph. Cuckolded, Renart reaffirms his sexual domination by usurping speech. Renart reclaims his verbal authority on the wedding night of Poncet and Hermeline. After the celebration, Hersent helps Poncet prepare the nuptial bed where he plans to consummate his marriage with Renart’s wife (ll. 2907–8). At the appointed hour of carnal union (l. 2929), Renart advises the groom to visit the tomb of the martyr Coupée (herself a victim of Renart) before he makes love to his bride. According to Galopin, Poncet’s visit to the site, a place of miracles (but also a snare), will enable him to conceive a son (l. 2942). With the promise of enhanced sexual powers, Renart therefore lures the groom to the tomb, where he falls into the fox’s trap.17 After he rids himself of his rival in love, Renart returns to the lair. There he finds Hermeline in bed, stretched out on her back awaiting her new husband (ll. 2991–2). Furious, Renart unmasks himself and cries: ‘“Or sus” fet il, “pute provee!”’ (l. 2998) (‘Up you get, proven whore’ [49]). In his attacks, he takes up the anaphoric exclamation ‘Or sus!’ that the peasant-musician used to trigger Isengrin’s sexual (and verbal) emasculation (ll. 2558, 2998, 2999, 3007, 3021). To punish Hermeline’s adultery, Renart attacks her verbally. He declares that he will never again sleep with her (ll. 3023–4), decries her infidelity and pelts her with insults. He begins to beat her brutally (ll. 3015–17), but soon his physical aggression becomes a purely verbal thrashing (ll. 3025–30). Renart assails her, shouting:

17 On questions pertinent to this scene, see Evelyn Birge Vitz, ‘La Liturgie, Le Roman de Renart, et le problème du blasphème dans la vie littéraire au Moyen Age, ou: les bêtes peuvent-elles blasphémer?’, Reinardus 12 (1999), 205–25, as well as Vitz, Medieval Narrative and Modern Narratology: Subjects and Objects of Desire (New York, 1989), especially ‘Conclusions—and Questions’ (213–23).

VERBAL JONGLERIE IN ‘RENART JONGLEUR’

41

Ainz vos trencerai ceu baulievre, Et cel grant nes sor cele levre, Et vos enfonderai ceu ventre, Et la boele qu’est soentre Vos saudra fors par le poitron Malgre vostre novel baron. (ll. 3025–30) (No, I’ll slice off your two lips and that big nose over them; and I’ll stick you through the belly so that the guts there will spurt out of your backside; and your new gentleman won’t be able to do anything about it. [49])

Hermeline begs for mercy (ll. 3018–20), but Renart’s brutal speech stifles her cry for clemency. Faced with Renart’s verbal violence, Hermeline and Hersent, who is still in the room, tremble with fright. Unmoved by their fear, Renart announces with sadistic pleasure: ‘Qu’ore est venue vostre fins’ (l. 3038) (now your end has come [49]). Renart thus recovers his own capacity for verbal expression, which enables him to reestablish his true identity. The fox need only announce out loud that he is Renart – ‘Ains sui Renars’ (l. 3003) (this is me, Reynard [49])18 – and express himself correctly in his own language, that is, in his own manner of speaking, so that Hermeline will recognize him: Quant la dame ot ceste parole, A pou que de dol ne s’afole. ‘Lasse!’ fet ele belement, ‘Ce est mesires vraiement.’ (ll. 3011–14) (When the lady heard what he said, she almost went out of her mind for grief. ‘Alas,’ she said quietly, ‘this is indeed my husband.’ [49])

In keeping with the essentially linguistic nature of his disguise, Renart’s unmasking is verbal rather than physical. The fox’s speech, his primary identity signifier, convinces Hermeline and Hersent that the foreign minstrel is in reality Renart: Bien sorent qu’engignies furent Quant au parler le reconnurent. (ll. 3041–2)19

18 In his translation, Owen choses an alternative spelling for the name of the fox: ‘Reynard’. 19 On the rapport between voice, disguise and recognition in the Folie Tristan d’Oxford, a narrative contemporary with ‘Renart jongleur’, see Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner, Shaping Romance: Interpretation, Truth, and Closure in Twelfth-Century French Fictions (Philadelphia, PA, 1993), particularly chapter 1 on ‘Truth in Disguise: The Voice of Renarration in the Folie Tristan d’Oxford’, 12–36. On the use of recognition as a thematic and structuring device in other medieval stories, as well as other narrative genres, see Philip F. Kennedy and

42

MARILYN LAWRENCE

(Recognizing him by his voice, they realized they had been tricked. [50])

Paradoxically, Renart becomes the narrator of his own story only after he abandons the mask of a professional storyteller. Renart exposes his essential identity in the first step of his unmasking, to reveal his ruse in the second. After Renart chastises and banishes Hermeline, she eventually returns to the lair to beg forgiveness. The couple are reconciled – not just as husband and wife, but also as narrator and auditor. Renart’s and Hermeline’s marriage, like that of Isengrin and Hersent, is a relationship of power in which sexual domination and erotic pleasure are tied to linguistic mastery. To affirm his sexual and verbal domination, Renart assumes the role of narrator of his own story and relegates Hermeline to the role of auditor. The fox tells his wife about his fall into the tub of yellow dye and his unexpected encounter with the peasant-dyer. He relates how he caused Isengrin’s castration. In short, he narrates to her in detail the successive events of branch Ib: Trestot li dist et tot li conte: Conment il dut recevoir honte, Qant en la cuve fu sailliz: Con il dut estre malbailliz, Et escharni le teinturier, Dist qu’il estoit de son mestier: Conment il fist la coille perdre A Ysengrin qui ne puet serdre. Trestot li conte et tot li dit: Cele ne fet mes que s’en rit. (ll. 3199–208) (He told her the whole story of how he almost came to grief by jumping into the tub, how he just escaped being trounced then turned the tables on the dyer by saying he followed the same trade, how he made Isengrin lose his testicles and the ability to make love. All this he tells and describes to her, and she just laughs at it. [52])

The author’s anaphoric insistence on the pronoun ‘il’ stresses Renart’s role as principal player in his own, extensive narrative. In contrast Hermeline, dispossessed of her right to talk, can only listen to and laugh at the self-referential stories her husband tells. Renart’s stories reunite the couple and dictate the conditions of their relationship. Whereas the vengeance sought during the first step of unmasking required rupture in order to succeed, the storytelling of the second scene demands the union of the narrator and his audience. Unlike characters such as Nicolette in Aucassin et Nicolette who unmasks in private, hidden from the eyes and ears Marilyn Lawrence, eds, Recognition: The Poetics of Narrative. Interdisciplinary Studies on Anagnorisis (New York, 2009).

VERBAL JONGLERIE IN ‘RENART JONGLEUR’

43

of her lover,20 Renart needs and desires an audience to accomplish the goals of both stages of his unmasking. Exiled in his den for an undetermined period of time, the outlaw Renart depends on his wife as an auditor. The author of branch Ib thus constructs the link between narrator and auditor as a conjugal, erotic bond. Indeed, Renart’s audience is exclusively female. Renart reveals himself uniquely to females – to Hermeline and Hersent – and never to Isengrin, Poncet, nor to any other male. Renart’s revelation of his ruse through storytelling completes his unmasking. Hermeline and Hersent recognize Renart in the first stage of his unmasking, but they fail to comprehend completely the nature of his disguise and do not entirely grasp what happens to them during the scene. Scared and stupefied, they ascribe the mysterious and incomprehensible event to enchantment and believe they have been bewitched (ll. 3043–8).21 Rapid, shocking and troublesome, the first stage of unmasking provides the ladies with only fragmentary information. However, the second step in Renart’s unmasking consists of a meticulous report that explains each and every detail of the disguise story, the telling of which stretches over ‘molt grant seson’ (l. 3198), ‘Molt lonc tens’ (l. 3209) (a very long period; For a long time [52]). In the second stage Renart fills in the lacunae left after the first scene in order that Hermeline may perfectly understand his ruse and fully appreciate his triumph. Narration therefore concludes Renart’s unmasking, as well as the branch. The first scene leads to rupture and evokes great fear and trepidation (ll. 3044, 3053); the second step ends in reunion and produces laughter. In the second stage, rather than shower his frightened wife with insults, the fox uses his verbal abilities to instruct and entertain Hermeline. Her fearful reaction to Renart’s revelation of his identity gives way to the amusement and laughter that Renart’s stories generate.22 As narrator, Renart thus achieves the likely goal of the branch’s author himself: to make an audience laugh. The authors of the Roman and the protagonist of branch Ib share the same goal. Renart seeks to evoke laughter – a laughter that he authorizes and that results from his storytelling abilities. The author of branch Ib constructs the character of Renart as a talented storyteller who entertains a double audience, namely the characters within the branch and the auditors of the branch. As a bad Breton jongleur, Renart’s linguistic ignorance and incompetence amuse his fellow characters as well as the branch’s audience. Moreover, the fox exploits his double identity as Renart/Galopin to

20

1982).

Aucassin et Nicolette: chantefable du XIII e siècle, ed. Mario Roques, 2nd edn (Paris,

21 On enchantment in another branch of the Roman de Renart, see Roger Bellon, ‘Quand Renart se fait magicien’, Magie et illusion au Moyen Age, Senefiance 42 (Aix-en-Provence, 1999), 37–49. 22 On laughter in the Roman de Renart, see Armelle Leclercq, ‘Renart ou le rire rebelle’, Études littéraires 38.2–3 (2007), 87–100, especially 91.

44

MARILYN LAWRENCE

divert the branch’s auditors with word games, verbal ironies and asides.23 At the end of the branch these two audiences converge when Hermeline, a character in the narrative, herself becomes auditor of ‘Renart jongleur’.24 The laughter that the fox purposefully provokes is the only laughter he permits. The link between this laughter, language and sexual domination is manifest from the beginning of his disguise in Renart/Galopin’s repetitive use of the verb ‘foutre’ before Hermeline, his unfaithful wife; Poncet, his wife’s lover; and Isengrin, whom Renart cuckolds in other branches.25 In the war for verbal power that Renart wages in branch Ib, he temporarily allows his fellow characters to laugh at him. To arrive at his objectives, Renart lets Isengrin mock his absurd jargon and risible remarks (ll. 2423, 2517). Similarly, at the end of the branch, the fox authorizes Hermeline to amuse herself with his story: Trestot li conte et tot li dit: Cele ne fet mes que s’en rit. (ll. 3207–8) (All this he tells and describes to her, and she just laughs at it. [52])

Isengrin and Hermeline laugh at Renart’s discourse. When Renart disguises himself, it is his language, not his physical appearance, that elicits laughter. Renart allows only himself the right to be amused by his modified appearance. When the fox discovers himself dyed yellow: Molt se regarde, molt se mire, De joie conmenca a rire. (ll. 2323–4) (He looks himself carefully up and down and bursts into happy laughter. [39])

In contrast, Renart does not tolerate others’ laughing at his expense or without his permission. When Renart learns of his wife’s engagement to Poncet and sees his own home castle destroyed, he is enraged and vows to punish the mockers: ‘Tex en plorra qui or en rit’ (l. 2868) (some will weep who are laughing now [47]). Renart’s mastery of speech therefore extends its control over laughter, that is, over the pleasure that verbal expression produces. Renart grants other characters verbal expression and the enjoyment that ensues from it only in order to trap and deprive them definitively of speech and its pleasure. In branch Ib Renart allows narrators to multiply: Isengrin, Tibert and Poncet all repeatedly tell the fox’s story. Yet ultimately Renart reduces these storytellers to silence and reclaims his own story to tell it anew, from beginning See the asides at ll. 2783–6, 2841–4, 2857–8. On the character of Hermeline and her relationship to Renart, see Alison Williams, ‘Courtly Lady, Starving Spouse, and Partner in Crime: The Shifting Roles of Hermeline in the Roman de Renart’, Nottingham French Studies 46.1 (2007), 1–16. 25 On the sexual humor that Galopin’s language evokes, see Beate Schmolke-Hasselmann, ‘L’Art du comique dans Le Roman de Renart: “Renart teinturier et jongleur”’, in À la Recherche du Roman de Renart, ed. Kenneth Varty (New Alyth, Perthshire, 1988–91), I: 224. 23 24

VERBAL JONGLERIE IN ‘RENART JONGLEUR’

45

to end. He derives pleasure from relating his ruses; he seeks an audience that will recognize his victories. Whence the need in branch Ib for the second stage of unmasking: the revelation of the fox’s strategy, which confirms his domination and concludes ‘Renart jongleur’. Renart’s desire manifests itself elsewhere in the Roman and is mixed with a retrospective pleasure during his private confessions and public defenses.26 In the end, the anonymous, self-effacing author of the branch speaks with the fox’s voice, thus disguising himself behind his protagonist whom he ultimately defines as a master storyteller.27 The author of ‘Renart jongleur’ represents Renart’s conquest as both the narrator’s victory and the fox’s triumph over his fellow characters. As a master of verbal expression, Renart qua Renart dies when he adopts the identity of the unskilled, foreign minstrel. As Galopin, Renart bequeaths speech to others to become the passive auditor of his own adventures. Renart’s assent to verbal domination carries him through all levels of the narrative: from auditor, to editor, character and finally to narrator. His rise to narrator is a metaphorical rebirth by which he emerges phoenix-like from a disguise that requires him to hide his verbal existence and to stage an absence – a silence – comparable to death. On a dramatic level, the false news of his hanging renders the moment of this unmasking a veritable resurrection in the eyes of Hermeline and Hersent. When Renart discards his minstrel mask and reveals himself to his wife, he in fact announces to her that he is no longer dead, but on the contrary quite alive: Ge ne sui mie encore morz, Ains sui Renars, ce m’est avis, Seins et haities et trestoz vis. (ll. 3002–4)28 (‘I’m not dead yet. No, this is me, Reynard I reckon, hale and hearty and very much alive.’ [49]) 26 Branch Ib is not the only branch to conclude when Renart reclaims the story of the branch itself and relates it to his wife; see also ‘Les Vêpres de Tibert’ (branch XII; vol. II, 41–2, ll. 1468, 1473–7). 27 The style of the self-concealing author of branch Ib contrasts with the affective intervention of the narrator of branch IV that Jean Rychner examines in ‘Renart et ses conteurs ou le “style de la sympathie”’, Travaux de linguistique et de literature 9 (1971), 309–22. On the oral performance of Renart stories, see Kenneth Varty, ‘Reading, Reciting, and Performing the Renart’, in Performing Medieval Narrative, ed. Evelyn Birge Vitz, Nancy Freeman Regalado and Marilyn Lawrence (Cambridge, 2005), 155–66. For video clips of performances of Renart stories, see the digital database Performing Medieval Narrative Today: A Video Showcase, dir. Evelyn Birge Vitz and Marilyn Lawrence, New York University, http://www.nyu.edu/pmnt (accessed 14 February 2014). On performance of and in medieval romance, see Evelyn Birge Vitz, Orality and Performance in Early French Romance (Cambridge, 1999), especially chapter 6 on ‘Modalities of Performance: Romance as Recited, Sung, and Played; Romance as Read’ (164–227) and chapter 7: ‘On the “Memory-Friendliness” of Verse Romance’ (228–66). For related scholarship, see Arzu Öztürkmen and Evelyn Birge Vitz, eds, Medieval and Early Modern Performance in the Eastern Mediterranean (Turnhout, 2014). 28 See also ll. 3033–6.

46

MARILYN LAWRENCE

A leitmotif found throughout the Roman, the resurrection of the fox occurs in branch Ib through the power of verbal expression. Although branch Ib opens with the imperious pronouncement of King Noble, it closes under the verbal authority of the fox. Renart successfully defies Noble’s death warrant to be reborn as the triumphant narrator. He exploits his minstrel disguise to stage a complex verbal plot by which he retaliates against the royal threat, recovers verbal authority and reaffirms his powerful status as the indisputable master of speech. The true king of verbal jonglerie, Renart the storyteller demonstrates definitively that the fox, and not the lion, is the ruler of language in the realm of the Roman.

Plusurs en ai oïz conter: Performance and the Dramatic Poetics of Voice in the lais of Marie de France Simonetta Cochis The human voice resonates in Marie de France’s narrative lais. She says in her prologue that ‘plusurs en ai oïz conter / nes vueil laissier ne obliër’ (I heard many of them told / I do not want to let them go or forget them [ll. 39–40]).1 Today we still discuss her crafting of a collection of stories to join the succession of poets and performers who retransmitted aventures and made them memorable.2 Modern readers and scholars of Marie’s lais connect to this continuum of reception and transmission, bringing individual approaches and knowledge to their analyses, as Marie suggests: ‘gloser la letre / e de lur sen le surplus metre’ (to interpret the text / and bring to bear on it their own wisdom [ll. 15–16]). One such approach is through storytelling performance,3 which uses theatrical elements – voice, tone, action, gesture, movement, staging, costumes and props – to bring out the voices in the text. I define ‘voices’ quite literally, as does Evelyn Birge Vitz: ‘the voices of the characters – voices that performers conjured up, impersonated and made listeners physically hear’.4 By giving sensory form to Marie’s narrative voice and to the voices of her characters, performance elicits

1 All references to Marie de France’s lais are from Lais de Marie de France, ed. Karl Warnke, trans. Laurence Harf-Lancner (Paris, 1990). Translations into English are mine. 2 ‘Des lais pensai qu’oïz aveie. / Ne dutai pas, bien le saveie, / que pur remembrance les firent / des aventures qu’il oïrent / cil ki primes les comencierent / e ki avant les enveierent’ (I thought of the lais I had heard. / I had no doubt, I knew it well, / that those who first started them / from the adventures they had heard, / and who brought them forward, / made them to be remembered [ll. 33–8]). 3 My use of the term performance derives from Evelyn Birge Vitz: ‘any fashion in which verbal/literary material is actualized; thus, any and all modes by which works are brought to life and drawn to the attention of an audience can be called performance’. Evelyn Birge Vitz, ‘Erotic Reading in the Middle Ages: Performance and Re-performance of Romance’, in Performing Medieval Narrative, ed. Evelyn Birge Vitz, Nancy Freeman Regalado and Marilyn Lawrence (Cambridge, 2005), p. 73. Richard Schechner specifies that ‘any action that is framed, presented, highlighted, or displayed is a performance’. Richard Schechner, Performance Studies: An Introduction, 2nd edn (New York, 2006), 2. 4 Evelyn Birge Vitz, Orality and Performance in Early French Romance (Cambridge, 1999), 142.

48

SIMONETTA COCHIS

audience reaction and discussion in ways that solitary reading and traditional analysis do not. Performance leads to communal engagement and often to new textual analysis, as I have discovered through my own experience performing medieval farces and narratives over the past two decades.5 The question of voice, so important for the lais of Marie de France, lies at the core of this analysis. Contemporary storytelling performances such as mine do not purport to replicate the oral telling of stories which occurred at Marie’s time, with harp or rote in hand.6 Rather, they use modern acting techniques and gestures to frame, highlight and actualize Marie’s lais so that contemporary audiences may share in a critical understanding of these texts that complements traditional literary analysis. In my performances, I use medieval costumes and settings, but forego strict adherence to realism in favor of presenting a broader range of interpretations. Michael Dixon suggests that ‘ending a reliance on conventions of realism that limit theatrical means and narrative imagination’ engenders ‘the exploration of form [that] can provide opportunities to discover or develop one’s unique voice within a context that resonates in the new millennium rather than echoing cultural priorities of the past’.7 My storytelling performances connect the medieval with the modern in order to engage the audience to construct meaning by discussing and interpreting the perspectives brought out by the voicing of the lais. One way that storytelling performances encourage interpretation is by reviving the kind of experience that was prevalent in Marie’s time, namely the dynamic visual and aural narrating and discussing of tales in a communal setting. The experience of performance makes the lais events rather than texts on a page read in silence; it gives them presence by placing them in the moment, and makes them memorable topics of discussion as Marie herself intended.8 My storytelling performances bring to light the orality of the lais in ways that 5 I have been using performance to revive and analyze medieval texts since 1995, with the troupe French Farce in Action. I have co-directed La Compagnie Gaillarde with Yvonne LeBlanc since 2002, when we also began to include narratives in our repertory. I have done solo performances of Marie de France’s lais: Chievrefueil, Fresne, Chaitivel, and I performed Bisclavret with Tamara Bentley-Caudill. My thanks go to Evelyn Birge Vitz, Nancy Regalado and Rupert Pickens for setting me on this path. I also wish to thank Matilda Bruckner for her support, and Yvonne LeBlanc for her careful reading of this essay, enlightening suggestions and steadfast encouragement. 6 Musical performances are also immensely valuable in reviving for modern audiences the performance modes of the Middle Ages. For example, see the insightful analyses by Benjamin Bagby, Linda Marie Zaerr and Anne Azéma in Vitz et al., Performing Medieval Narrative, 181–222. 7 Michael Bigelow Dixon, Breaking from Realism (Hanover, NH, 2013), 18. 8 Marie suggests that ‘Quan uns granz biens est mult oïz, / dunc a primes est il fluriz, / e quant loëz est de plusurs, / dunc a espandues ses flurs’ (when a great tale is heard many times, / it begins to blossom, / and when many praise it, / it flourishes fully [ll. 5–8]). For Marie, commentary is inherent to the reception and interpretation of her lais. Talking about romance narratives, Vitz suggests that in Marie’s time people ‘were in the habit of analyzing



PERFORMANCE AND DRAMATIC POETICS OF VOICE IN THE LAIS

49

may be challenging to achieve in traditional literary analysis, which generally relies on silent reading. Indeed, Vitz asserts that ‘early verse narratives […] tend to use voice, speaking characters and dramatic dialogue in ways very close to those which characterize the theatre’.9 Audiences are eager to participate in interpreting the performance, and through the performance, the lai itself. The shared experience generates not just individual but also collective, integrative interpretations.10 Storytelling performances thus provide a mediation, similar to the mediation that occurred for medieval audiences, who, as Vitz indicates, ‘cannot help but have been affected by the performers’ interpretation’ of a narrative text.11 Indeed, Paul Zumthor in ‘Body and Performance’ states that we can perceive medieval narratives authentically only through performance: ‘only sound and physical presence, only the play of the voice and mimicry, can realize what was once written’.12 The performer’s voice and interpretation, an integral part of the way in which medieval audiences ‘read’ romances, reconstitutes a link missing in traditional scholarly analyses. Further, the different modes of performance prevalent in the Middle Ages – such as formal or informal, public or private – come to light in contemporary performance. Linda Marie Zaerr points out that ‘evidence of some common characteristics and dimensions [of performance modes] can be perceived and described more readily in the light of modern experience’.13 Questions about how to perform medieval texts and how and discussing the substance of what was presented to them’. Vitz, Orality and Performance, 45. 9 Vitz, Orality and Performance, 142. 10 By dramatizing the lais, storytelling performances establish a rapport with the audience analogous to the one that occurs in theatrical performances. Keir Elam speaks about the role of audiences as central to the theatrical experience. First, the audience participates in creating a ‘theatrical frame’ (84) that delineates a performance, and actively interprets ‘presentational conventions’ (81) that differentiate theatrical speech and action from their everyday counterparts. This requires audiences to ‘draw upon any number of cultural, topical and popular references assuming various kinds of extra-theatrical competence’ which come into play cognitively for the audience. Further, ‘audience reaction … exerts a double influence, on the performance itself and on its reception’ (86). Audiences stimulate one another (for example, when one laughs others join in), reinforce one another’s responses and integrate individual responses within the responses of the group (87). Keir Elam, The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama, 2nd edn (London, 2002). 11 Vitz, Orality and Performance, 269. Any given performance will bring out certain features or emphasize certain actions in the narrative text and not others. In this sense, a narrative text functions like the text of a play. David Saltz, who discusses plays, argues that a performance brings out ‘not a single set of the actions that the text requires, but a range of potential actions that the text might suggest, allow, or provoke’. David Z. Saltz, ‘Texts in Action/Action in Texts: A Case Study in Critical Method’, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 6 (1991), 29–44 (39). Performance choices thus constitute an interpretation. 12 Paul Zumthor, ‘Body and Performance’, in Materialities of Communication, ed. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht and K. Ludwig Pfeiffer (Stanford, CA, 1994), 217–26 (222). He distinguishes a ‘text’ or ‘poem’ from a ‘work’. A work is ‘poetically communicated (text, sounds, rhythms, optical elements)’ (219), and has a certain wholeness, it ‘originates in the link between textual and socio-corporeal conditions’ (221). 13 See Linda Marie Zaerr’s essay in the present volume.

50

SIMONETTA COCHIS

audiences react to the performances invite us to reconsider the texts themselves, our understanding of their reception and our traditional scholarly interpretations of them. In this essay, I analyze my own performances of two of Marie de France’s lais – Chievrefueil and Chaitivel – from the performer’s and the audience’s perspectives. I investigate the ways in which the theatrical elements that comprise the performance of a lai – especially voice – reveal how characters are articulated, how the texts are constructed and how their syntax may reveal oral qualities and performance possibilities. Using theatrical means, my storytelling performances bring out the many voices that Marie incorporates in her lais. These voices conjoin to shape the lais’ narrative core, revealing a distinctive poetics that binds together these non-Aristotelian narratives in order to infuse them with powerful, memorable appeal. Matilda Bruckner remarks ‘how successfully [Marie] has fused her voice with that of her characters, how successfully she has taken on the character – in her writing – of the kind of storyteller who speaks to us directly, the mimic whose changing tones and inflections make different personalities come alive before us’.14 Taking the written voices – of the narrator and of the characters – and transposing them to an oral mode of transmission underscores just how Marie’s text suggests a ‘fluid boundary between speakers’,15 which makes her lais both dynamic and personally engaging. Marie elegantly shifts between different forms of discourse, integrating indirect discourse, free indirect discourse, direct discourse and free direct discourse within the frame of her narration.16 In performance, Marie’s narrative tour de force becomes a one-woman show in which the narrator shines her attention on to her characters, brings out their voices, impersonates them and weaves the tale in complicity with them and with the audience. The reactions of audiences in Marie’s time may be inferred from her narratives when she uses direct address to provide extradiegetic commentary. Though only implied, these indicators of possible medieval audience reactions provide a model for the dynamic that occurs with today’s audiences, whose 14 Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner, Shaping Romance: Interpretation, Truth, and Closure in Twelfth-Century French Fictions (Philadelphia, PA, 1993), 184. 15 Bruckner, Shaping Romance, 185. 16 Sophie Marnette defines these as follows: ‘Direct Discourse (DD): the reporting speaker evokes the original speech/thought situation and conveys, or rather claims to convey, the exact words [ideas] of the original locutor; […] Indirect Discourse (ID): the reporting speaker transposes the original utterance in his/her own words. The reported discourse is subordinated to a reporting verb and is introduced by a subordinating conjunction […] Free Indirect Discourse (FID) is characterized by the presence of features of Direct Discourse (direct questions, exclamations, deictics, colloquialisms, etc.) reported in the fashion of Indirect Discourse, i.e. with shifted pronouns and tenses but without being syntactically dependent on a reporting clause…’ ‘Free Direct Discourse (FDD)’, the structure that best describes the fusion of Marie’s narrative voice with Tristan’s, is when ‘there are two locutors […], two enunciators and two different situations of enunciation’, and when the ‘verbum dicendi (sentiendi) does not have to be expressed’. Sophie Marnette, Speech and Thought Presentation in French (Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA, 2005), 23–4.

PERFORMANCE AND DRAMATIC POETICS OF VOICE IN THE LAIS



51

reactions validate, question and problematize different aspects of the lais. Whether derived from real or intended audience reactions, or evidence of an ‘oral effect’, as Cristian Bratu calls textual pointers to orality, the many voices in the narratives generate more voices, connecting the creation of the lais with their transmission and interpretation.17 The emphasis on voice, character and audience in the lais makes them perfect for a solo storyteller like me, and informed my choice of texts. In Chievrefueil, an emotional and psychological drama, Marie fuses her narrative voice with that of one of her characters, as Matilda Bruckner notes. The brevity and intensity of this lai allows for the voices and perspectives articulated in the story to coalesce in order to encapsulate a memorable, multi-layered emotional love scene. In Chaitivel, the narration is different. Marie entwines her narrative voice with that of her character by evoking the lady’s perspective through description, and by giving voice to the lady and the surviving knight in the final debate scene. The fusion of perspectives and the indeterminate name of the lai reveal the dangers of relying on an external entity (in this case a tournament) when choosing whom to love. Performances of these two lais display how Marie’s many voices engender action and agency, shape characters and make them memorable for audiences through time. My performance of Chievrefueil at the Kentucky Foreign Language conference in 2005 served as an opportunity to study Marie’s fusion of narrative voices and connection with an audience. In performing Chievrefueil I experienced the merging of Marie’s voice18 with Tristan’s as a carefully graduated event anchored to the structure of the lai, and developing with the tempo of the narration. My primary concern in preparing the performance was how to shift among the different voices: from impersonating Marie, the strongly present narrator who identifies herself in verses 1–10, to Tristan, the queen, the lovers and then Marie again. Identifying these areas of narrative focus within the written text was easy, but pinpointing and physically enacting transitions seemed daunting at first.19 It was only by reading the text out loud and then by adding movement and expression that the transitions became organic. In my performance, props, expression and posture signaled the transition from my person to the narrator Marie at the beginning of her lai. I had to take on Marie’s voice as storyteller-actor.20 I sat at a table with inkwell, pen and See Cristian Bratu’s essay in the present volume. I often refer to Marie’s narrator or Marie’s narrative voice simply as ‘Marie’ for the sake of brevity and because, in performance, Marie’s narrator/narrative voice takes on the contours of a separate entity from the characters she creates in this lai. 19 Had this been a play with multiple actors rather than a narrative the issue would have been moot. Narrative, however, brings a variety of voices into a single medium. The solo storyteller’s challenge is to shift personae with the shifts in the text, all the while maintaining the cohesiveness of the story. 20 I use the term ‘storyteller-actor’ to denote the complementary roles of the performer in embodying the different aspects of the tale: the text and the oral voices it contains. The storyteller relays the text, the actor performs its voices. 17 18

52

SIMONETTA COCHIS

parchment in front of me, and my writer’s posture and pensive facial expressions suggested an image of Marie as the writer at work. When Marie relates her discovery of the story, ‘plusur le m’unt cunté e dit / e jeo l’ai trové en escrit’ (many have recited and told it to me / and I have discovered it in writing [ll. 5–6]), she establishes immediate narrative authority by pointing to her sources. These verses resonated especially well with an audience composed of medieval scholars. I identified myself as Marie, a transmitter of a well-known tale, thus initiating my complicity with the audience. Alternating between making eye contact with the audience and attracting attention to my props further emphasized the connections between me and Marie, and between me (as Marie) and the audience. With the storyteller presence initiated, Marie’s terse summary of the Tristan story makes sense: ‘de Tristram e de la reïne, / de lur amur ki tant fu fine, / dunt il ourent meinte dolur; / puis en mururent en un jur’ (about Tristan and the queen, / of their love that was so perfect, / for which they knew much pain; / then, they died of it on the same day [ll. 7–10]). By encapsulating the entire saga into one sentence, Marie draws from it her narrative agency. Further, she intimates that reaching the story’s ultimate outcome is not the point, since the death of the mythic lovers was already well known in her time. Rather, she positions herself to lead her audience into the presence of the characters and into a moment that encapsulates their emotional plight. Once Marie’s identity as the master crafter of the story is established, the narration gradually intensifies its focus on Tristan and his experiences. To mark this transition between the narrator’s presence and the diegesis proper, I stood up and left the static and thoughtful stance of the writer in favor of the more active stance of a storyteller moving to reach her audience. After ten verses which give context to Tristan’s predicament, exiled because of his love for the queen, Marie weaves her extradiegetic voice back into the narrative with a comment: ‘ne vus en merveilliez niënt: / kar cil ki eime leialment / mult est dolenz e trespensez, / quant il nen a ses volentez’ (do not be amazed at this: / for he who loves loyally / is greatly pained and afflicted / when he is does not have what he desires [ll. 21–4]). I used this comment as a response by Marie to a potential audience reaction. In performance, I spoke these words while moving very close to the audience and making pointed eye contact, giving them my full attention. My gestures and tone suggested complicity: Marie’s extradiegetic commentary invites the audience to interpret the story as she does, and to accompany her into the universe of Tristan’s despair. In my performance I noticed how audience members leaned forward in their chairs, possibly a sign that my call was heeded. Marie’s direct address to the audience also functions as a pivot or a transition marker. Up to this point, the lai told about what happened to Tristan, not as the agent of actions but as the recipient of Marc’s anger. His return to his own country and his recklessness are reactive rather than proactive. After Marie’s comment, though, Tristan becomes proactive as he seeks to alleviate his despondency. It is as if Marie’s commentary gave agency to Tristan, motivating him to take action. Therefore, at this point in my performance, I picked up a black cape (symbolic of Tristan’s gloom) and draped it over my shoulders.



PERFORMANCE AND DRAMATIC POETICS OF VOICE IN THE LAIS

53

Gradually, I made my movements and gestures different from those I had used when impersonating Marie, more purposeful and less fluid, to convey Tristan’s intentionality. I gathered a small bag containing the props for this segment of the lai: a wooden stick with obscure engravings on it, a sharp knife and a small chisel. The series of Tristan’s actions recounted in verses 25–50 – traveling to Cornwall, entering the forest, lodging with peasants, finding out about the queen’s trip to Tintagel – gave me enough time to establish my persona as Tristan. I used deliberate actions and a deeper, more melancholy voice and I focused on the hazel stick and chisel to anchor the audience’s attention on Tristan’s presence. This transition was particularly crucial because the voice narrating the core of the lai – the simile of the hazel tree and the honeysuckle as representative of the love between Tristan and the queen – is convincingly Tristan’s: D’els dous fu il tut altresi So it was with the two of them cume del chievrefueil esteit As with the honeysuckle ki a la coldre se perneit: When it attaches to the hazel branch: quant il s’i est laciez e pris When it binds to it and winds itself e tut entur le fust s’est mis, All around the branch, ensemble poeent bien durer ; Together they can endure; mes ki puis les vuelt desevrer, But then should you want to separate them, la coldre muert hastivement the hazel branch dies quickly e li chievrefueilz ensement. And the honeysuckle will do likewise. ‘Bele amie, si est de nus : ‘My beautiful beloved, so it is with us: ne vus senz mei ne jeo senz vus !’ Not you without me, not me without you.’ (ll. 68–78)

In these verses we find an incidence of free direct discourse, when ‘Bele amie, si est de nus: / ne vus senz mei ne jeo senz vus’ [ll. 77–8]) – words that Tristan would speak – are embedded in the narrative with no indication of who speaks them. Marie focuses her narrative attention on Tristan to the point of melding her voice with his. My own performance highlighted and amplified Marie’s preparation of her audience for the transformative power of this utterance by gradually shining her narrative attention more thoroughly and more deeply on Tristan. Indeed, Tristan’s enunciation comparing the hazel and the honeysuckle with his love for the queen redirects the course of the narrative. It is another pivot point, a transition marker similar to the earlier extradiegetic commentary that triggered Tristan’s move to action. His haunting words seem to conjure up the queen. In my performance, I allowed a moment of silence to underscore the significance of the words. I let the black cape slip from my shoulders, and wrapped myself in a white shawl as I said ‘la reïne vint chevalchant. / Ele esguarda un poi avant, / le bastun vit, bien l’aparceut, / tutes les letres i conut’ (the queen came by on horseback; / she looked ahead of her, / saw the branch, and recognized it well, / she understood all the letters [ll. 79–82]). As the queen in the story recognizes the writing on the stick, my audience remarked the physical shift

54

SIMONETTA COCHIS

from Tristan to the queen persona. The actions of the queen are quick and decisive and bring about the encounter between the lovers. The writing on the stick confers agency on her, and her appearance in the story completes the metaphor. As I narrated the lovers’ embrace and conversation, I removed the white shawl and held it in my arms alongside the black cape. When Marie’s story draws to a close and the lovers weep upon separating, the narration returns gradually to a ‘summary mode’ similar to the one Marie used at the beginning of the lai. In two verses the encounter between the lovers is over: Tristan returns to Wales to wait until his uncle sends for him. Marie’s own voice returns when she names the lai in French and English, and explains that this lai (or another inspired by the encounter) was composed by Tristan. Marie returns as storyteller and the tale comes full circle. In the discussion following this performance, the audience’s familiarity with the story and with the characters had been recast by the physicality of the storytelling. Comments focused on the gradual transitioning of personae in the narrative, and the fusion of Marie’s voice with that of her characters. Audience members also recognized the conjoining of two complementary yet subtle movements that make up the lai: how the story moves from the margins to the center and back (or, more specifically, from the outer world of society and of writing to the inner world of the lovers, their intimate discussion, and back), and how it moves from the summary of the entire Tristan saga to the magnification of a single pivotal moment when the lovers are reunited, and then to summary mode again. Action, as in the action that constitutes a plot (an initial stable situation broken by a perturbing action and followed by a resolution), is absent in Chievrefueil. The audience comments echoed what Evelyn Birge Vitz (who was in the audience that day) calls the ‘resistance of the [medieval] text to being summarized, synopsized’.21 The dearth of action would make a synopsis of Chievrefueil seem trite. Given the absence of a plot matrix, the performance highlighted what holds the lai together: the convergence of Marie’s voice with Tristan’s and the poetic resonance it generates. The fused voice articulating the union of the hazel branch with the honeysuckle brings about the memorable encounter of the lovers: ‘entre els meinent joie mult grant’ (together they share great joy [l. 94]). The scene is unforgettable in part also because it encapsulates the lovers in an ‘eternal’ present tense, as they share a moment of bliss.22 The image of the hazelnut tree entwined with the honeysuckle, narrated with verbs such as ‘poeent’, ‘vuelt’ and ‘muert’, reinforces the intensity of the scene. In this pivotal 21 Evelyn Birge Vitz, Medieval Narrative and Modern Narratology: Subjects and Objects of Desire (New York, 1989), 151 (Vitz’s italics). 22 Vitz notes that verb tense usage in Old French ‘appears to have been dictated less by an emphasis on strict chronology or by any clean distinction between stasis and action than by what we might call dramatic and stylistic considerations: how intensely or vividly the scene is to be felt or perceived; whether the narrator wishes to change the pace of his narration, and so on’. Vitz, Medieval Narrative, 152.



PERFORMANCE AND DRAMATIC POETICS OF VOICE IN THE LAIS

55

moment in Chievrefueil, the use of the present tense actualizes the moment of the utterance and underscores its transformative quality, creating a here and now that triggers the union of the lovers and eventually the return of Tristan to the court – even though in this lai resolution is neither reached nor mentioned. In performance, the ‘present-ness’ of the scene becomes visible. The storytelleractor embodies Tristan’s crucial utterance and the lovers’ encounter in the forest as moments that are ever-present, made possible by the transformative power of the voiced simile that identifies them. Performance magnifies the emotional and psychological intensity and gives life to the characters in their predicament. In Chaitivel, Marie brings her characters into focus as well, but using voice very differently. Marie’s narrative voice is more elusive here, not as clearly delineated as in Chievrefueil; she enacts a different kind of fusion with her main character. There is no well-known story frame from which to draw narrative authority, and no named characters; indeed, the name of the lai itself is indeterminate.23 Like Chievrefueil, it lacks a cogent plot and resolution. Instead, Chaitivel presents a core problem for audience interpretation and discussion. Marie relates the problem from the lady’s point of view, subtly taking on the role of the lady as the storyteller, since the end of the lai reveals that it is the lady who composed it: ‘de vus quatre ferai un lai / e Quatre Doels le numerai’ (I will make a lai about the four of you / and I will call it Four Sorrows [ll. 203–4]). Marie as narrator keeps close to her character’s perspective, which results in a delicate, indirect melding of the narrator with the main character. Marie uses what Sophie Marnette identifies as ‘external focalisation from within’, in which ‘narrators can often present their character’s thoughts and attitudes as if these were directly accessible to them’, while maintaining an external focalization that presents events in ‘panoramic and panchronic ways’.24 Marie uses verbs of will and volition such as ‘pot’ and ‘volt’ to reveal the lady’s attitudes and thoughts so that when the lady finally speaks in verse 147, her persona is already well defined. Further, Marie describes the tournament events (the vespers combats, ll. 83–106, and the tournament proper, ll. 111–39) as if she shared the lady’s vantage point, watching from a tower: ‘la dame fu sur une tur, / bien choisi les suens e les lur’ (the lady was on a tower, and clearly distinguished those on her side and the adversaries [ll. 107–8]). By putting forth the lady’s attitudes and describing the tournament scenes from her position, Marie gives her audience privileged insight into the issues that arise when tournaments adjudicate in matters of the heart. My performance of Chaitivel at the 45th International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 2009 used voice intonation, expression, 23 While for Chievrefueil Marie names the lai at the beginning and then repeats the name in both English and French at the end, in Chaitivel there are two names given at the beginning and again at the end – Chaitivel (the unhappy one) and Les Quatre Doels (the four sorrows) – both of them in French. The indeterminacy of the name establishes a dichotomy, two points of view, from the very beginning of the lai. 24 Marnette, Speech and Thought Presentation, 54 and 81, note 18

56

SIMONETTA COCHIS

gesture, costume, staging and props to actualize Marie’s fusion with the lady’s perspective. I wore a crimson-colored dress (symbolic of the blood shed for love) with a black veil (for death and mourning); my costume immediately identified me with the lady of the story. On a small table draped in black I placed a chess set, suggestive of the tournament, a visual metaphor for love and war. In order to establish my presence as the storyteller-actor, I gazed into the distance before slowly zeroing-in on the audience as I spoke the first lines: ‘talenz me prist de remembrer / un lai dunt jo oï parler’ (I was moved to remember / a lai which I had heard people talk about [ll. 1–2]). Marie’s framing in the first person is brief, taken up mostly by the two different names of the lai. By the ninth verse, the diegesis proper begins with a description of the lady.25 The proximity of Marie’s narrative voice with the description of the lady makes the connection between Marie and the unnamed lady of Chaitivel organic in performance, so I evoked her characteristics from the start. Marie exposes the lady’s predicament immediately and succinctly: she is so beautiful and worthy, ‘une dame ki mult valeit / de bealté e d’enseignement’ (a lady of great standing, / of beauty and learning [ll. 10–11]) that she cannot help but have multiple suitors.26 I spoke these verses with the air of a coquette who revels in her success at attracting men. In this context, the verses that follow provide troubling insight into the lady’s attitude: ‘El nes pot mie tuz amer / ne el nes volt mie tuër’ (She could not love all of them, / yet she did not want to kill them [ll. 17–18]). The effect of this line – which I said with a coy yet apologetic demeanor – was electric. The laughter that broke out in the audience revealed just how effectively this line defines the character of the lady, primes the audience for what is to come in the lai, while pointing to the laughable incongruity of the word ‘tuër’ in the context of love.27 This first foray into the lady’s attitudes firmly established me as a subtle blend of Marie the storyteller-actor and the lady, the protagonist and enunciator of the story. The decision to perform the lady as a coquette came from my observation that while the lady possesses all the external characteristics of courtliness, she has very little of its substance. Marie suggests early in the lai that the lady has 25 Chaitivel is the only one of the twelve lais to begin with a description of a woman, further supporting Marie’s connection with the lady. 26 Marie says that her beauty inspires love at first sight: ‘pur ceo qu’une feiz la veïst, / que ne l’amast e requeïst’ (for [whoever] saw her only once, /could not help but love and woo her [ll. 15–16]). 27 See Elizabeth Wilson Poe, ‘The Problem of the Tournament in Chaitivel’, in In Quest of Marie de France, a Twelfth-Century Poet, ed. Chantal A. Maréchal (Lewiston, NY, 1992). She points out that there is a ‘radical incongruity between loving and killing’ (177) in these verses. This insight into the lady’s motivations grants us an early glimpse of the connections between love and chivalry that Marie problematizes in the lai, and which manifest, as Poe remarks, in the discontinuities of the text: ‘we now understand that Marie’s failure to make logical connections throughout this lai is a deliberate means of emphasizing her point that tournaments and courtship do not belong together, despite the growing tendency in her day to think of one in terms of the other’ (188).



PERFORMANCE AND DRAMATIC POETICS OF VOICE IN THE LAIS

57

‘enseignement’ (v. 11), but her thoughts and actions show that knowledge and learning did not bring maturity or wisdom. Uproarious laughter again punctuated verses that revealed incongruity with courtly qualities: ‘la dame, dunt jo vueil cunter, / ki tant fu requise d’amer, pur sa bealté, pur sa valur, / s’en entremist e nuit e jur’ (the lady I wish to tell you about, / who was so sought after for her beauty and merit, / kept herself busy at this night and day [ll. 29–32]); these lines, said flirtatiously, revealed a single-minded coquette dedicated to multiple romantic dalliances. Marie subtly reveals the lady’s immaturity and lack of common sense by displaying her incongruous logic: La dame fu de mult grant sens. The lady had great wisdom. En respit mist e en purpens She took the time to think and consider, pur saveir e pur demander In order to find out and to ask li quels sereit mielz a amer. Which one it would be best to love. Tant furent tuit de grant valur, They were all so worthy, ne pot eslire le meillur. That she could not choose which one was best. Ne volt les treis perdre pur l’un: She did not want to lose three to have just one: bel semblant faiseit a chescun So she strung each one along  (ll. 49–56)

The lady’s ‘sens’ is certainly tongue-in-cheek here, since she approaches her decision on whom to love by asking others rather than by considering her own feelings. The line ‘ne volt les treis perdre pur l’un’ generated more laughter in the performance, while also offering insight into the thought patterns and wishes of the lady. Here, the narrator becomes almost entirely effaced. By letting her audience hear the lady’s thoughts, Marie invites it to draw conclusions. The lady is not evil or conniving, she is simply rather unaware of the consequences of her ‘more is better’ approach, and the actions it might trigger. The laughter during this segment prompted audience members to reflect and then suggest, in the ensuing discussion, that the lady’s problem is not just that she cannot choose, but that she is glaringly deficient in the one component essential to courtly love: the emotion of love itself. She is never in love with any of them. Presenting the lady as a likeable but rather naive coquette revealed that this lady is form with little substance; the real problem in the lai is not her inability to choose, but her inability to love. When the lady finally speaks in direct discourse, post-tournament, when three knights are dead and one is wounded, her words confirm what Marie had suggested earlier: Il m’amoënt sur tute rien. They loved me above everything else. Pur lur bealté, pur lur pruësce, For their beauty, for their prowess, pur lur valur, pur lur largesce For their valor, for their largesse, les fis d’amer a mei entendre; I gave them hope to keep them loving me;

58

SIMONETTA COCHIS

nes voil tuz perdre pur l’un prendre. I did not want to lose them all to have just one. Ne sai le quel jeo dei plus pleindre I do not know which one I should mourn the most  (ll. 152–7)

Unable to distinguish among the four knights when they were alive, she is also unable to distinguish among them when they are dead or maimed. The lady’s thought process in her own voice is no longer funny. The contrast between the similar lines, ‘ne volt les treis perdre pur l’un’ (spoken by Marie earlier at l. 55) and ‘nes voil tuz perdre pur l’un prendre’ (spoken by the lady here in direct address at l. 156) is stark, brought about by the violent death of the three knights. The two similar verses, given in two different circumstances, point to the consequences of the lady’s attitudes and thought processes. Performance highlights them by enacting a frame for the different contexts. The highly detailed account of the tournament with its tragic ending takes the lighthearted playfulness out of the lady’s game. Her way of thinking is no laughing matter. The fact that the deaths were useless, and that they did not help the lady choose her knight, makes them doubly tragic. While the lady is certainly sorrowful, she is unrepentant. Even in sorrow she retains her superficiality; it reaches its apotheosis in the final debate scene, when the remaining knight and the lady argue as to who has suffered the most. Here, the lady’s frivolous views contrast strikingly with those of the remaining knight: Ja mes dame de mun parage Never a lady of my standing tant nen iert bele, pruz ne sage, Whether beautiful, noble, and wise tels quatre ensemble n’amera Has ever loved four knights such as you ne en un jur si les perdra […] And lost them all in one day […] Pur ceo que tant vus ai amez, Since I loved you all so much, Vueil que mis doels seit remembrez I want my sorrows to be remembered (ll. 195–8, 201–2)

My performance embodied her sorrow at losing the game. I played up her smugness, ‘dame de mun parage’, and emphasized her selfishness, ‘mis doels’. Although she speaks about loving the knights, her words make it clear that love for her is connected to position and admiration, qualities extraneous to true love such as that of Tristan and the queen in Chievrefueil. When the knight’s voice is finally heard, his complaint highlights the underlying problem: the nonexistent love relationship. He sees his lady every day, but says that ‘si n’en puis nule joie aveir / ne de baisier ne d’acoler / ne d’altre bien fors de parler’ (yet I can derive no joy from it, / neither in kissing nor embracing, / and no pleasure other than talking [ll. 220–2]). In performance, I made the knight’s voice plaintive and sincere, in order to accentuate the contrast between the characters. The knight speaks of the sentiments and actions of lovers, mentioning ‘joie’, ‘baisier’ and ‘acoler’. He contrasts these with the paltry consolation of ‘parler’, which drew uproarious laughter from the audience. Indeed, he sums up the problem: love isn’t just talk, it needs substance.

PERFORMANCE AND DRAMATIC POETICS OF VOICE IN THE LAIS



59

When the knight argues that the lai should be named Chaitivel rather than Quatre Doels, the lady does not even provide a counter-argument. Rather, her reaction, ‘“Par fei”, fet ele, “ceo m’est bel. / Or l’apelum ‘Le Chaitivel”’ (‘“On my faith,” she said, “that is fine with me / Let us call it Le Chaitivel.”’ [ll. 229–30]), is in keeping with her overall persona. During my performance, this line drew widespread laughter, as the coquette from the beginning of the lai reappears here. The fact that she does not react to the knight’s plea but rather acquiesces without acknowledging his pain or countering his argument demonstrates that the lady is still glaringly unaware of the consequences of her superficiality. In the discussion following the performance, audience members noted that my interpretation of the lai had humanized the lady and made her more likeable than their silent reading had. Hearing Marie the narrator speaking (with my voice as Marie) through the perspective of the lady makes her real. We are able to ‘get into her head’, to see from her vantage point in a way that is only insinuated in the text and may be easily missed. The spoken voice connected to gesture and expression makes her understandable, and her unlikely situation becomes believable. In fact, many in the audience expressed discomfort at liking the lady, because my embodiment of her differed so much from the image they had formed in silent reading. However, such comments brought group discussion back to the text, which represents the lady as neither malicious nor immoral, but rather as naive and immature, characteristics amplified by my performance. Afterward, I realized that what we were doing, weighing the moral qualities of the lady, was interpreting the work as medieval audiences may have done. As Vitz suggests, medieval romances were not intended as ‘hermeneutical puzzles’ or ‘“literary” challenges’. Instead, ‘interpretation was strongly ethical and practical, with implications within the work itself, rather than being, as it generally is today, a game for readers, without real consequences’.28 Our discussion suggested that Marie’s narrator carefully laid the frame for debate by recalling the two alternate names of the lai at the end of her tale. This indeterminacy encourages audiences to choose a name, to take sides, as audiences of Marie’s time likely did. As Vitz points out, ‘we know that medieval court audiences were fond of debates […] the issue is not what something “means” but rather which character is in the right, or which of several characters suffered (or loved) the most, or some such question’.29 Marie, however, tips the scales and divulges her preference by stating that Le Chaitivel is the name more commonly used. By stopping short of judging at the end, she makes it clear that it is up to her audiences to resolve not just the matter of the name, but the ‘goodness’ or ‘rightness’ of the characters as well. However, mirroring the end of the lai itself, the lively discussion after my performance generated no clear resolution.

28 29

Vitz, Orality and Performance, 280. Vitz, Orality and Performance, 281 (Vitz’s italics).

60

SIMONETTA COCHIS

Closure without complete resolution30 seems to be Marie’s preferred way of ending her stories, a technique that, for an audience, encourages group discussion and further reflection or analysis. Given the popularity of Marie’s lais in aristocratic circles of her day,31 we can surmise that this may have been intentional. Irresolute endings may very well have been attributes of the oral, performed delivery of the lais, functioning as clever narrative ploys that a talented performer could use to rally the crowd, to create the ‘intense, interpersonal, heavily-mediated and strongly interactive situation’32 that characterized the performance of romances in Marie’s time. They leave the audience wanting more: a continuation in the form of discussion. Like Marie’s twelfth-century audiences, today’s audiences take sides, question and debate the poetic works and the mastery of the performers delivering them. The performed voices elicit audience voices to complete the cycle of meaning. Indeed, the conjoining of the narrative text with the performer’s spoken voice and interpretation generates a kind of dramatic poetics of voice which completes the lais by involving the audience to derive meaning. In Chievrefueil, Marie’s voice melding with Tristan’s leads the audience into the presence of two lovers united in an eternally present, memorable embrace. In Chaitivel, Marie voices the thoughts and wishes of the lady to present a subtle cautionary tale of the treacherous nature of the surface trappings of courtly love. The transference of the written text to a voiced text amplifies these core characteristics of the lais, brings them forth into the present, and opens them up to further discussion and interpretation. In a communal setting, which echoes the experience of the storytelling events of the past, the storyteller-actor gives voice and shape to details or aspects of the text that may lie dormant on the written page. Now, like then, the embodiment of the text and the immediacy of the human voice in performance offer layers of meaning and possibilities for new interpretations. The ‘sen’ that Marie suggests we use to interpret her tales is, after all, inscribed in voices waiting to be spoken aloud in her lais.

30 Vitz argues that Marie de France’s lais have satisfactory endings, although they do not fully conclude the narratives (Vitz, Medieval Narrative, 164–73). Bruckner situates Marie’s closure at the intersection of the written and the oral traditions of her time (Bruckner, Shaping Romance, 199–206). 31 Denis Piramus, a contemporary of Marie, indicated that her lais were ‘much appreciated by counts and barons and knights who love to have her writings read out again and again’, and he wrote that ladies ‘listen to them joyfully and willingly, for they are just what they desire’. The Lais of Marie de France, trans. Glyn S. Burgess and Keith Busby, 2nd edn (London, 1999), 11. 32 Vitz, Orality and Performance, 275.

Who Tells the Stories of Poetry? Villon and his Readers1 Nancy Freeman Regalado It has been my extraordinary good fortune to have been Timmie Vitz’s partner in medieval studies throughout our entire career at New York University, starting in 1968. It was my privilege to follow her leadership in our many shared enterprises including the NYU College of Arts and Science Medieval and ­ ­Renaissance Studies Program (where I served as Director after she stepped down in 1992), our ongoing Colloquium in Orality, Writing, and Culture (started in 1987), and our two-year series of workshops on Storytelling in Performance in history, law, literature, music and medicine (2004–06). Together, we worked with remarkable students, including the three editors of this volume, Kathryn Duys, Elizabeth Emery and Laurie Postlewate. Villon and storytelling have been constants in the wonderful collegiality we have shared. Timmie led the way with her landmark book, The Crossroad of Intentions; my last course was the exciting Villon seminar we co-taught in 2009.2 I offer Timmie one more round of Villon and storytelling with deep affection and appreciation. Voice is central to poetry:3 it establishes tone, style, theme and often genre through a poetic speaker, who may not necessarily have a particular social identity and who may tell stories but not necessarily have a story. Story, in contrast, requires characterization and action. Story clothes speakers in a social garb and

1 This essay was first presented at a colloquium organized by Daisy Delogu in honor of Michel Zink, ‘(Ce que) la poésie raconte (What) Poetry Tells’, 11 April 2009, University of Chicago; then at the Romance Studies Colloquium on Storytelling, Montclair State University, 1–3 October 2009, Jersey City, organized by Elizabeth Emery (see Elizabeth Emery, ‘Preface, Storytelling I’, Romance Studies 28 (July 2010), 143, and ‘Preface, Storytelling II’, Romance Studies 29 (November 2010), 221–2); and again as a lecture at the University of Pittsburgh, 29 October 2009, in the context of Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski’s course, ‘Literature and Politics in Late Medieval France’. I am grateful for the opportunity each occasion offered to discuss issues of lyric and storytelling. 2 Evelyn Birge Vitz, The Crossroad of Intentions: A Study of Symbolic Expression in the Poetry of François Villon (The Hague, 1974). 3 See Paul Zumthor, La Lettre et la voix: de la «littérature» médiévale (Paris, 1987).

62 NANCY

FREEMAN REGALADO

engages them in encounters and conflicts. In story, features of a speaker’s voice become an attribute of character.4 Medieval authors and readers were fascinated by the relation between poetry and stories. From the thirteenth century on, lyrics were often compiled in narrative settings: songs were inserted into romances;5 short biographical fictions were invented to account for troubadour songs;6 Dante, Froissart and Machaut wrote first-person stories to frame out their own lyrics. Villon, however, did not create a narrative setting for the nineteen ballades and rondeaux he set into his Testament, a discursive poem or dit of 186 huitains (eight-line stanzas) dated to 1461. Moreover, unlike Dante’s Vita Nuova or Machaut’s Livre du Voir Dit, Villon’s framing poem makes no attempt to account for the composition or form of the inserted lyric pieces. They are simply ‘there’ as lines that continue the speaker’s thoughts or as objects that he ‘gives’ in this mock will, such as Villon’s ballades for his mother (ll. 873–909), for his cruel lady love (ll. 942–69), or for Grosse Margot in her whorehouse (ll. 1591–627). Despite its insistently autobiographical effect, then, Villon’s Testament is not a narrative, but a poem that has given rise to two kinds of storytelling: largescale stories featuring the character ‘Villon’ created by the poem, and a swarm of little narratives that are founded on research into historical documents and that use the massive real-world data of names and places in Villon’s Testament to invent stories that account for the form and meaning of the Testament. Villon’s Double ballade will serve to show how the Testament creates a narrative impulse in its readers, making us tell stories. The text and translation of the Double ballade below, and the other citations from Villon, are taken, with great teacherly pride, from the recent edition and translation by David Georgi, who studied Villon with Timmie Vitz and me.7 4 See Philippe Hamon, ‘Pour un statut sémiologique du personnage’, Littérature 6 (May 1972), 86–110; Nancy Freeman Regalado, ‘Speaking in Script: The Construction of Voice, Presence, and Perspective in Villon’s Testament’, in Oral Tradition in the Middle Ages, ed. W. F. H. Nicolaisen (Binghamton, NY, 1995), 209–23. 5 See Maureen B. M. Boulton, The Song in the Story: Lyric Insertions in French Narrative Fiction, 1200–1400 (Philadelphia, PA, 1993). 6 See Michel Zink, ‘Les Razos et l’idée de la poésie’, in Poetry, Knowledge and Community in Late Medieval France, ed. Rebecca Dixon and Finn E. Sinclair (Cambridge, 2008), 85–97, and ‘Le Récit de la poésie. Vidas et razos des troubadours occitans’, Grandes Signatures 5 (November–December 2008), 22–37. See also Michel Zink’s courses at the Collège de France (Cours et travaux du Collège de France. Résumés 2006–2007, Annuaire 107e année [Paris, 2008], 775–91 and Résumés 2007–2008. Annuaire 108e année, 705–21) and, most recently, his Les Troubadours.Une histoire poétique (Paris, 2013). 7 François Villon, Poems, ed. and trans. David Georgi (Evanston, IL, 2013), cited by kind permission of Northwestern University Press. All rights reserved. Georgi’s edition is based on Paris BnF MS fr. 20041; he draws on the editions and translations of Jean Rychner and Albert Henry, Le Testament Villon, 2 vols (Geneva, 1977), Barbara Sargent-Bauer, François Villon: Complete Poems (Toronto, 1994) and Jean-Claude Mühlethaler, François Villon: Lais, Testament, Poésies diverses (Paris, 2004). Unless otherwise stated, translations of other texts are mine.



VILLON AND HIS READERS

Double ballade

63

Double ballade

i Pour ce, aymez tant que vouldrez, Chase after love as much as you like, Suivez assemblees et festes, frequent parties, feasts, and dance halls, En la fin ja mieulx n’en vauldrez but nothing good will come of it: Et n’y romperez que voz testes, 628 you’ll lose your heart and break your balls. Folles amours font les gens bestes: Love’s folly turns men into beasts: Salmon en ydolatria, Solomon turned idolater, Sanson en perdit ses lunectes. and Samson lost his spectacles. Bien eureux est qui rien n’y a! 632 He’s a happy man who just steers clear. ii Orpheüs, le doulx menestrier Orpheus, that fine musician, Jouant de fluctes et musectes, playing his flutes or shepherd’s pipes, En fut en danger du murtrier risked his neck with Cerberus, Chien Cerberuz a quatre testes, 636 a murderous four-headed mutt, Et Narcisus, ly beaulx honnestes, and Narcissus, handsome and fine, En ung parfont puis se noya drowned himself in a well one day, Pour l’amour de ses amourectes. as he yearned for his little lover. Bien eureux est qui rien n’y a! 640 He’s a happy man who just steers clear. iii Sardana le preux chevallier, Sardana, the valiant knight Qui conquist le resne de Crestes, who conquered the kingdom of Crete, En voulut devenir moullier wanted to become a woman Et filler entre pucellectes. 644 and spin all day with the girls. David ly roys, saiges prophetes, David, king and learned prophet, Crainte de Dieu en oublia, forgot about God the second his eyes Voyant laver cuisses bien fetes. lit on a young girl washing her thighs. Bien eureux est qui rien n’y a! 648 He’s a happy man who just steers clear. iv Amon en voult deshonnorer, Feigning a craving for homemade tarts, Faignant de menger tartelectes, Amnon helped himself to his sister; Sa seur Thamar, et defflorer, he shamed Tamar and deflowered her – Qui fut chose moult deshonnestes; 652 a very nasty thing to do. Herodes (pas ne sont sornectes) Herod – and this is no trifle – Saint Jehan Baptiste en decola had John the Baptist’s head struck off Pour dances, saulx, et chansonnectes. for some dancing and a snatch of song. Bien eureux est qui rien n’y a! 656 He’s a happy man who just steers clear. v De moy, povre, je vueil parler: And I have my own sad tale as well, J’en fuz batu comme a ru telles, stripped nude – why try to hide it? – Tout nu, ja ne le quiers celler. and thrashed like laundry at a stream. Qui me fist macher ces groselles, 660 Who made me chew those berries? Fors Katherine de Vauselles? Who but Katherine de Vauselles! Noël le tiers ot, qui fut la, And Noël, the third of our threesome, Mitaines a ces nopces telles. got his at that same little party. Bien eureux est qui riens n’y a! 664 He’s a happy man who just steers clear. vi Mais que ce jeune bachelier But would a young bachelor ever Laissast ces jeunes bachelectes? Leave the bachelorettes alone? Non! et le deust on vif bruler, No! You’d have to burn him alive Comme ung chevaucheur d’escouvetes. 668 like a common broomstick-jockey! Plus doulces lui sont que cyvetes They’re sweeter to him than civet, Mais toutesfoiz fol s’i fya; but only a fool would trust them. Soient blanches, soient brunectes, Blonde or brunette, it matters not, Bien eureux est qui riens n’y a! 672 he’s a happy man who just steers clear!

64 NANCY

FREEMAN REGALADO

The Double ballade, composed of twice the usual number of three stanzas (six eight-line huitains with a repeating refrain), is a lyric outbreak within a passage of meditation about woman’s treacherous nature and the consequences of loving the ladies, as the poet says at the end of huitain 64, just before the Double ballade: ‘Pour une joye cent doulours’ (for every joy, a hundred pains [l. 624]). The ballade itself begins with the words ‘Pour ce’ (so, therefore), a rhetorical move that is argumentative rather than narrative: it offers a moral conclusion to the meditation, a feature noted in the title Clément Marot inserted in his 1533 edition of Villon’s works: ‘Double ballade continuant le premier propos’ (Double ballade on the same subject). Villon uses this syntactic strategy to keep several of his inserted lyrics tightly tied to the poetic frame of his Testament by attaching them to a line of talk that characterizes the thought processes of the speaker, the poetic I.8 It is Stanza 5 of the Double ballade that presses the reader in four ways toward storytelling: first, by setting the poetic speaker of the Testament forcefully into a relation of analogy with characters in well-known stories; second, by highlighting promising story ingredients such as past tenses, proper names, images that suggest interesting sexual encounters and physical violence; third, by a characteristically fragmentary syntax combined with a jeering style that impels the reader to make sense of the lines in Stanza 5 by telling a story about the speaker; and fourth, by assimilating the poetic I to the character types of the trickster rogue and the unhappy lover. In contrast with the other lyric pieces inserted in Villon’s Testament, the Double ballade is a lyric that is crammed with stories, eight of them jammed into the first four huitains of this six-stanza ballade. These stories are, of course, exempla, narrative examples cited as proof of the thesis stated in the refrain: ‘Bien eureux est qui rien n’y a!’ (He’s a happy man who just steers clear [l. 632]). As exempla, these stories have a narrative impact out of all proportion to their densely compact form, as in the tense rhythm of the first two exempla told in single lines in Stanza 1: ‘Salmon en ydolatria, / Sanson en perdit ses lunectes’ (Solomon turned idolater, and Samson lost his spectacles [ll. 630–1]). Stanzas 2–4 offer a pattern of comparatively expanded stories, two exempla per huitain in an alternating rhythm of four and three lines per story, the second cut short to accommodate the refrain. These two exempla and those in Stanzas 3 and 4 about Sardanapalus and David, Amnon and Herod, do not tell the full story, but offer the reader suggestive images from familiar tales of worlds well

8 Thus, the second and third ballades of yesteryear are grammatically linked by ‘Qui plus, ou est le tiers Calixte’ ([What’s more] and where is that third Calixtus [l. 357]) and ‘Car ou soit ly sains apostolles / d’aubes vestuz’ (lit. For despite the Holy Apostle being / dressed in an alb [l. 385]), ironically echoed later in the Testament in the poem Marot called the Ballade de bonne doctrine a ceulx de mauvaise vie (Ballade: A Good Lesson for Bad Men): ‘Car ou soies porteur de bulles / Pipeur ou hazardeur de dez’ (lit. For despite your being a peddler of fake indulgences, or a cheat at dice [ll. 1692–3]).



VILLON AND HIS READERS

65

lost for love. What is most striking about these stories is their allusive but fragmentary nature and their jeering style. Villon gives us only one or two images: it is the reader who is required to recall, to retell mentally the full story: Solomon idolatrizes; Samson loses his ‘spectacles’; Orpheus, playing his flutes and pipes, confronts a strangely four-headed Cerberus;9 beautiful Narcissus drowns in a well. In Stanza 3, Sardanapalus spins among the girls and David leers at beautiful thighs being washed. In Stanza 4, Amnon pretends to eat little cakes brought by his half-sister Tamar in order to rape her (2 Sam. 13:1–22) and Herod whacks off the head of Saint John the Baptist ‘Pour dances, saulx, et chansonnectes’ (for some dancing and a snatch of song) – all for ‘Love’s folly’: ‘Bien eureux est qui rien n’y a!’ (He’s a happy man who just steers clear). These exempla engage the reader in storytelling in two ways; first, they are proof texts in demonstration of the perils of love. Second, they engage the reader especially because they are incomplete. As the rhetorician Geoffroy of Vinsauf tells us in his early thirteenth-century Poetria nova, the exemplum gives only part of its meaning to the eye, and part to the mind which must recall the whole to get the point.10 But these exempla also require the reader to imagine the psychology of the speaker in order to account for their mocking style, so different in tone from similar lists of unhappy lovers in contemporary works such as the melancholy one of René d’Anjou’s Livre du Cueur d’Amour espris (Book of the Heart that Fell in Love), where the allegorical figure Bel Accueil (Fair Welcome) takes the personified Heart on a tour of the museum of relics of unhappy lovers in the Castle of Pleasure, that includes Delilah’s scissors as well as a hank of Samson’s hair, and the spindle and distaff used by Sardanapalus among the women.11 The array of irreverent and ironic diminutives in the b rhyme of the Double ballade – Samson’s ‘lunectes’, Narcissus’ ‘amourectes’, David’s ‘cuisses bien fetes’, Amnon’s ‘tartelectes’ – activate the reader’s sense of the character of the speaker in the Double ballade. Who is it that speaks with such impertinence about these grave characters from classical and biblical antiquity – ‘pas ne sont sornectes’ (and this is no trifle [l. 653]) – no fooling or lots of fooling? Stories generated from Villon’s poetry, as well as many pseudo-biographical readings, arise from the forceful characterization of the poetic speaker’s voice.

9 On the significance of Villon’s ‘misquotations’, see Nancy Freeman Regalado, ‘Villon’s Legacy from Le Testament de Jean de Meun: Misquotation, Memory, and the Wisdom of Fools’, in Villon at Oxford: The Drama of the Text, ed. Michael Freeman and Jane H. M. Taylor (Amsterdam, 1999), 282–311. 10 ‘Rem voluit assimilari / Exemplo. Prudenter enim partem dedit auri, / Partem servavit animo’ (ll. 1576–8), Les Arts poétiques du XII e et du XIII e siècle, ed. Edmond Faral (Paris, 1924), 245. On exempla, see Nancy Freeman Regalado, ‘Des contraires choses: La fonction poétique de la citation et des exempla dans le Roman de la Rose de Jean de Meun’, Intertextualités Médiévales, Littérature 41 (1981), 62–81. 11 René d’Anjou, Le Livre du Coeur d’amour épris [1457], ed. and trans. Florence Bouchet (Paris, 2003), cxxxii and 404–19 (ll. 1863–2008).

66 NANCY

FREEMAN REGALADO

In the first line of Stanza 5, the speaker himself bursts into view: ‘De moy, povre, je vueil parler’ (And I have my own sad tale as well [l. 657]). The position of this statement within the Double ballade, after the eight exempla, leads the reader to understand that the speaker too has a story to tell, an exemplary story to add to this list, while the shift in the b rhyme in Stanza 5, from –ectes to –elles – ‘telles, groselles, Vauselles, telles’ – sets this stanza off from the rest. Villon speaks of his own adventures as a lover as if he had only to recall them briefly in order for the reader to remember all the rest. David [Kuhn] Mus, one of the great Villon readers, admires the force of this move where the speaker who had, up to this point, presented the lyric pieces from outside, suddenly appears within this one. Kuhn says it is as if Charlie Chaplin had emerged from the prompter’s box and come on stage to sing in the opera, Tannhäuser, a clown among the grave heroes and white beards. The poet ‘transforme des faits en dits mythologiques, ils deviennent langage’.12 The key word povre (poor) sets off a rich train of associations as the reader recollects some of the many lines in Villon’s poetry where the epithet povre characterizes the speaker, a dozen in the Testament alone, as in: Povre de sens et de savoir  (l. 178) (poor in learning and in wit) Povre je suis de ma jeunesse  (l. 273) (I’m poor and have been since my youth) Povreté tous nous suit et trace  (l. 277) (Poverty seems to adore us [lit. follows and tracks us all])

Povre is the word that identifies the poetic I who speaks in all of Villon’s poems, that leads readers to characterize the speaker and thrusts him into narrative. Characterization and story in turn draw the poems together to make the works of a single poet whom we call Villon.13 In the Double ballade, the word povre performs this crucial function once again: the reader recognizes the poor man; he is the central character in the story that the Testament asks us to tell. Everything happens to him. A similar move from exemplum to the speaker’s own story is made in huitain 65, that follows the Double ballade, and that begins ‘Se celle que jadiz servoye / De si bon coeur’ (If the woman whom I used to serve / so loyally, with willing heart [ll. 673–4]), and again in huitain 42, which follows Villon’s famous trio of yesteryear: ‘Puis que pappes, roys, filz de roys / […] / Sont enseveliz mors et froys, / […] / Moy, povre marcerot de regnes, / Morrai ge pas? Oy, se Dieu

12 David [Kuhn] Mus, La Poétique de François Villon (Paris, 1967 [rpt. Seyssel, 1992]), 317–18. 13 See Nancy Freeman Regalado, ‘Gathering the Works: The Œuvres de Villon and the Intergeneric Passage of the Medieval French Lyric into Single-Author Collections’, in Intergenres, ed. Donald Maddox, L’Esprit Créateur 33 (Winter 1993), 87–100.



VILLON AND HIS READERS

67

plaist.’ (Since popes and kings and sons of kings / […] / all end in tombs, dead and cold / […] / what of me, poor peddler of words? / Will I not die? Oh, yes, as God pleases [ll. 413–18]). Such consistency builds Villon’s fictional persona, enabling the reader to bring every allusion, all the real-world references in the Testament, back to this speaker. In addition to the insistent first-person speaker, we find, in Stanza 5 of the Double ballade, many features typical of the Testament – past tenses, incoherent but suggestive images and proper names – that readers can use (and have used) to make a story, just as readers use those from Stanzas 1–4 to recall the eight other stories, those of Solomon, Samson, Orpheus and so forth. There is, however, a great difference between recalling and making. In the act of recalling, every reader will use the fragments (whatever they be) to get back to the same story: Villon’s lunectes and René d’Anjou’s shears and hank of hair will both lead to Samson. Such storytelling recalls the common schoolboy exercises of the Middle Ages described in Paul Gehl’s A Moral Art: Grammar and Society in Trecento Florence, exercises that required the pupil to reconstitute familiar stories from tightly condensed or emblematic versions, as in the twelfth-century Aesop’s Fables by Walter the Englishman or John of Garland’s Integumenta, his version of Ovid’s Metamorphoses dated around 1234.14 However, unlike the allusions in Stanzas 1–4 of Villon’s Double ballade, the fragments in the fifth stanza can never take Villon’s readers to a single story because there is no preexisting single tale, but just the sense that what we are told corresponds to persons and events that could be narrated. Considering this issue, I revisited some of the writings of Wolfgang Iser, a prominent reader-response theorist, who proposes the notion of gaps and places of indeterminacy which the reader fills by constitutive mental activity.15 But Iser is not formulating questions about narrative reading of lyric, but rather considering narrative fiction where the story is already there, as it were, and the reader’s impulse is to carry it out. The story potential of Stanza 5, lines 660–3 has engaged readers’ imaginations very differently while it inspired many Villon stories about the supposed love affair of Villon and Katherine de Vaucelles.16 Qui me fist macher ces groselles Fors Katherine de Vauselles?

14 Paul Gehl, A Moral Art: Grammar, Society, and Culture in Trecento Florence (Ithaca, NY, 1993). 15 See Wolfgang Iser, ‘Indeterminacy and the Reader’s Response in Prose Fiction’, in Prospecting From Reader Response to Literary Anthropology (Baltimore, MD, 1989), 3–30, and Iser’s foundational chapter, ‘The Reading Process. A Phenomenological Approach’, in The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett (Baltimore, MD, 1974), 274–94. 16 See the citations in Jelle Koopmans, ‘Groseilles et Vaucelles’, in Villon at Oxford: The Drama of the Text, 129.

68 NANCY

FREEMAN REGALADO

Noël le tiers ot, qui fut la Mitaines a ces nopces telles.  (ll. 660–3) (Who made me chew those berries? / Who but Katherine de ­Vauselles! / And Noël, the third of our threesome, / got his at that same little party.)

Characteristically, Villon readers have used such proper names and the suggestive images that accompany them to make up stories in the many modern novels, plays and films about Villon.17 Literary historians too have concocted mini-narratives to explain obscure passages such as these. Often such explanatory stories end up in circular reasoning that turns what is conjectured into a fact to support further conjecture, as can be seen in the notes and index to the invaluable 2004 edition of Villon by Jean-Claude Mühlethaler. In Mühlethaler’s Index des noms propres, we read for the name Vaucelles: Vaucelles, (Katherine de), T 661: nom d’une prostituée non identifiée, qui aurait transmis à Villon et à Noel une maladie vénérienne. Entre Vaucelles, nom de famille attesté, permettant un facile calembour érotique (‘petites vallées’) et la tournure ‘mâcher des groseilles’ (cf. la note au v. T660), l’accusation se précise.18

Inspired by the name Katherine, which carries, according to Mühlethaler, a ‘forte charge érotique’,19 he cites Koopmans’ article ‘Groseilles and Vaucelles’ in his own note to ‘macher ces groselles’ (l. 660): Les groseilles … désignent la lèpre ou les maladies vénériennes. Rien d’étonnant que Villon ait reçu (ne serait-ce que pour les besoins de ses propos) un tel cadeau de Catherine (cf. Index): n’est-ce pas un nom courant pour une prostituée?20

Well, there are other medieval Katherines, including the princess Katherine of France, who married Henry V, but that’s another story. Indeed, a trollop named ‘Katherine la bourciere’ (Katherine from the purse shop [l. 551]) does show up in Villon’s ballade spoken by the Belle Heaulmiere (the old helmet seller) to the whores of Paris (ll. 533–60). But a kind of circular thinking leads Mühlethaler to develop a story line about leprosy as a gift from Katherine the whore, which continues in his note to lines 662–3, ‘Noël le tiers ot, qui fut la / Mitaines a

17 See Robert D. Peckham, ‘Works Inspired by Villon’, in François Villon: A Bibliography (New York, 1990), 429–44, and the exhaustive online listings compiled by Peckham in ‘La Reception de Villon et de ses oeuvres’, Société François Villon, Bulletin, ed. Robert D. Peckham http://www.utm.edu/staff/globeg/villon.shtml (accessed 26 July 2013). 18 Mühlethaler, François Villon, 465. 19 Mühlethaler, François Villon, 452. 20 Mühlethaler, François Villon, 229.



VILLON AND HIS READERS

69

ces nopces telles (And Noël, the third of our threesome, / got his at that same little party), which Mühlethaler glosses as ‘Noël a contracté la même maladie honteuse’. But the trouble with this story is that it leaves out the key word macher (to chew), which doesn’t fit with leprosy (one doesn’t chew leprosy sores) and also leaves out one of the more common meanings of ‘macher ces groseilles’,21 which means to be beaten with thorny branches of currant bushes, a sense which fits better with the overall theme of Stanza 5 and with the violent image of beating in line 658, ‘J’en fuz batu comme a ru telles’ (and thrashed like laundry at a stream), as well as with the legacy left to a ‘Noel Jolis’ in huitain 152 in the Testament, a beating with ‘plain poing d’oziers frez cueilliz’ (a fistful of freshly picked willow switches [l. 638]). Such meanings do not exclude erotic overtones, always lurking in Villon.22 Koopmans notes that an obscene poem from the fifteenth century uses the expression ‘croquer la groselle’ as a euphemism to depict an act of fellatio.23 Be that as it may, within the Testament ‘macher ces groseilles’ is an image that suggests that the very essence of Villon’s image of love is a battered mouth forced to chew on harsh substances, just as the grating language of the Testament catches on our tongue. Instead of narrative conjecture as a reading strategy, we are better off matching up these lines with others in Villon’s ‘love’ poems – or what passes for love poems in the Testament – such as the Ballade de Villon a s’amye (signed ‘Francois’ and ‘Marthe’ in acrostics), a bitter piece addressed to a lady friend, where the key word macher collects other images of love and pain: ‘Amour dure plus que fer a macher’ (A love harder than chewing an iron bar [l. 944]), followed by a harsh carpe diem in the following stanza: Ung temps viendra qui fera dessechier, Jaunyr, flectrir vostre espanÿe fleur, Je m’en reisse, se tant peusse macher Lors. Mais nennil:  (ll. 958–61) (A season will finally come to wither, / parch, and yellow your fullblown flower, / and I would laugh if it were in my power! [lit. if I could still chew so much] / But no.)

The key word macher offers readers deep links to the general theme of the speaker’s suffering in prison as well as in love, as in the penultimate ballade in the Testament, where he curses the jailors who made him gnaw crusts – the ‘traitres chiens matins / Qui m’ont fait ronger dures crostes, / Macher mains soirs et mains matins’ (those backbiting dogs / who set me up to gnaw hard crusts / for many nights and many days [ll. 1984–6]). In his Louenge que feist Villon See the examples cited by Koopmans, ‘Groseilles et Vaucelles’, 129–30. Vitz’s concept of contamination, found throughout The Crossroad of Intentions, is fundamental to reading Villon’s Testament. 23 Koopmans, ‘Groseilles et Vaucelles’, 135–6. 21 22

70 NANCY

FREEMAN REGALADO

a la Court, the speaker celebrates the lifting of his death sentence and calls on all his five senses and an assortment of body parts, tongue and heart, but also liver, lungs and spleen, even asking his teeth to forget about chewing and give shouts of praise to the Court. Et vous, mes dens, chascune si s’esloche; Saillez avant, rendez toutes mercy Plus haultement qu’orgue, trompe, ne cloche, Et de mascher n’ayés ores soucy.  (ll. 21–4) (And you, my teeth, bestir yourselves; each / leap forward and sing your gratitude / louder than any organ, trumpet, or bell / and, just for once, give no thought to chewing.)

Lines such as these illustrate but do not explain the obscurely vindictive tone of the speaker in Villon’s Testament, the sense of incomplete references, the pattern of recurring proper names and the reiteration of repulsively painful images. These are all powerful ingredients that press the reader toward storytelling. Our task as readers, however, is not to recall or reject the stories that readers and critics have invented, but to let ourselves feel the narrative urge – to make stories if we want (why not!) – but then to return to the Testament in order to see it as a text full of the kinds of narrative components that lead us to make stories. We should read not with the conviction that our stories make sense of the difficulties in the poem but to reconsider how the elements of narrative in the Testament – proper names, past tenses, discontinuous narrative effects, sex and violence and the apparent criss-cross of references to real persons and places – how all these have made us undertake storytelling about Villon. Assimilation to character types provides additional encouragement to narrative invention. In his excellent article on Villon as a character, Koopmans lays out a typology of character projections that have emerged from the Testament: trickster, romantic poète maudit, political rebel (in Berthold Brecht) and Lover Boy.24 The trickster or rogue-farceur is the character type who springs to life in the earliest written narratives to be invented out of the Testament. This is the ‘bon follastre’ or merry jokester, as the speaker in the poem wishes himself to be remembered: ‘Au moins sera de moi memoire, / Telle qu’elle est, d’un bon follastre’ (With this, I’ll live on in memory / – at least as a harmless jackass [ll. 1882–3]). ‘Master François Villon’ is the protagonist in a collection of trickster stories, the Repues franches, composed around 1480.25 These were eventually printed with Villon’s works until Clément Marot swept them aside – along with 24 Jelle Koopmans, ‘François Villon: Character Within or Without His Own Poetry’, in The Author As Character: Representing Historical Writers in Western Literature, ed. Paul Franssen and A. J. Hoenselaars (Cranbury, NJ, 1999), 68–79. 25 Le Recueil des repues franches de maistre François Villon et de ses compagnons, ed. Jelle Koopmans and Paul Verhuyck (Geneva, 1995).



VILLON AND HIS READERS

71

other accretions (‘Bastardz’ he called them), including the monologue of the Franc Archer de Bagnolet and the jargon ballades – in his carefully revised humanist edition of 1533.26 These earliest stories about le povre Villon (poor Villon) use the poet’s name, the key notion of poverty and a few verbal reminiscences from the Lais and Testament to tell stories of a trickster rogue getting fish, tripe and wine without paying. ‘Qui n’a or ny argent ne gaige Comment peut il faire grant chiere? Il fault qu’il vive d’avantaige La façon [en] est coustumiere. Saurion nous trouver maniere De tromper quelq’ung pour repaistre Qui le fera [sera] son maistre!’ Ainsi parloient les compagnons Du bon maistre Françoys Villon Qui n’avoient vaillant dex oignons, Tente, tapis ne pavillon.  (ll. 247–58) (‘How without money or wages / can one really eat well? / He’ll have to live by his wits. / That’s the usual way. / Will we find some means / of fooling someone to get a meal? / Whoever does so will be a master trickster!’ / Thus spoke the companions of good Master François Villon / who didn’t have two onions worth / of tents or rugs)

The rhyme ‘oignon–Villon’ in lines 256–7 recalls the more than two dozen virtuoso rhymes the poet makes with the name, especially in the fourteen that chime in the final ballade of the Testament (ll. 1996–2023): Villon, carillon, vermeillon, coullon, soullon, Roussillon, brossillon, cotillon, haillon, esguillon, ranguillon, esmerveillon, esmerillon, morillon. Readers familiar with Villon will also recognize the allusion to the end of his Lais – ‘Il n’a tente ne pavillon / Qu’il n’ait lessié à ses amis’ (He has no tent or pavilion / that he hasn’t left to his friends [ll. 317–18]). Moreover, the scenes of the hungry lowlifes of Parisian taverns in the Repues franches are those of Villon’s poetry; these tales are written in the poetic spirit of le bon follastre, the ironic fooling that permeates Villon’s poems. Il leur dist: ‘Ne nous soucion, Car aujourd’uy sans nul deffaut Pain, vin, viande grant foison Aurez avec du rost tout chault’.  (ll. 259–62) ([Villon] said to them: ‘Not to worry, / for today there will be no shortage / of bread, wine, you’ll have lots to eat / and a nice hot roast’) 26 Les Œuvres de Francois Villon, ed. Clément Marot (Paris, 1533), cited in Regalado, ‘Gathering the Works’, 98.

72 NANCY

FREEMAN REGALADO

Decades later, in chapters 12–14 of his Quart Livre written in 1552, François Rabelais draws on an episode from the Repues franches and on the obscure verse from Stanza 5 of the Double ballade ‘Mitaines a ces nopces telles’ (literally, mittens at this wedding; l. 664) to tell two comically savage tales of revenge, one about mitaines and one about the character ‘Villon’.27 Mitaines alludes to the playful slaps formerly exchanged by guests at a wedding to make the event memorable (like the spanking we still give children on their birthdays), blows that echo the images of violent beating in that same Stanza 5 of the Double ballade (‘j’en fuz batu’; ‘macher ces groselles’) The first story, told in chapters 12–14 by Panurge to Pantagruel as they sail past the island of Procuration, tells how the Seigneur de Basché recounts the revenge he took on a pesky process-server – Chiquanous, wonderfully called ‘Shysteroo’ in Donald Frame’s translation – by staging a fake wedding. When the festive moment came for all the company to follow the custom of giving each other little slaps to fix the event into memory, Chiquanous was beaten to a pulp with steel-lined gauntlets distributed by the Seigneur de Basché to his men. Panurge recounts the story:   Chiquanous rioit par compagnie. […] Coups de poing commencèrent trotter. Chiquanous en donna nombre à Oudart. Oudart, soubs son supellis, avoit son guantelet caché: il s’en chausse comme d’une mitaine. Et de daubber Chiquanous, et de drapper Chiquanous, et coups des jeunes guanteletz de tous coustez pleuvoir sus Chiquanous.   ‘Des nopces, disoient ilz, des nopces, des nopces, vous en soubvieine!’  Il fut si bien acoustré que le sang luy sortoit par la bouche, par le nez, par les oreilles, par les oeilz. (Shysteroo was laughing sociably. […] Fisticuffs begin to fly. Shysteroo hit [the priest] Oudart several times. Oudart had his gauntlet hidden under his surplice; he puts it on like a mitten. Then to drubbing Shysteroo, and blows from all sides with young gauntlets raining on Shysteroo.   ‘A wedding! they kept saying! A wedding. A wedding. Remember it!’  He was so well attended that blood was coming out of his mouth, his nose, his ears, his eyes, crushed and bruised, head, neck, back, chest, arms everywhere.)

Rabelais links this anecdote explicitly to Villon in chapter 13 in a complicated game of embedded storytelling. Taking a little refreshment in his garden between episodes of beating up Chiquanous, the Seigneur de Basché tells his household a story about Villon: how the poet retired in his old age to SaintMaixent in Poitou, where he undertook to stage a Passion play to amuse the locals. The setting could well be inspired by Testament, l. 1060, ‘Se je parle ung poy poictevin / Ice m’ont deux dames apris’ (If I sound a little Poitevin, / I’ve two ladies to thank for that). The Seigneur de Basché recounts what happens 27 François Rabelais, Œuvres complètes, ed. Guy Demerson (Paris, 1973), 613–22; trans. Donald Frame, The Complete Works of Rabelais (Berkeley, CA, 1991), 465–7.



VILLON AND HIS READERS

73

when a Franciscan neighbor, Frère Étienne Tappecoue, refuses to lend a cope and stole from the sacristy of his convent to costume the old peasant who is to play God: Villon takes revenge in a terrible trick. He gathers all the devils from his Passion play, armed with their cowbells, noise-makers and fireworks, hiding them beside the road where Frère Tappecoue is to return to his convent. As he passes, the ‘devils’ leap out with their fiery noisemakers. The Seigneur de Basché says: Tappecoue arrivé au lieu, tous sortirent ou chemin au davant de luy, en grant effroy, jectans feu de tous coustez sus luy et sa poultre, sonnans de leurs cymbales, et hurlans en diable: ‘Hho, hho, hho, hho, brrrrourrrourrrs, rrrourrrs, rrrourrs’. (When Tappecoue reached the place, they all came out on the road in front of him, with a frightful racket, throwing fire from all sides on to him and his filly, banging their cymbals, and howling like devils: ‘hoo, hoo, hoo, growrowrow, roo, roo, roo, roor! Hoo, hoo, hoo. Ho, ho, ho!’)

The horse drags Frère Tappecoue, scattering his body parts along the hedges and ditches so that there is finally nothing left of him but his right foot twisted in the stirrup with his shoe. Villon cries out to his players: ‘Vous jourrez bien, messieus les Diables, vous jourrez bien, je vous affie!’ (You’ll play well, Sir Devils, you’ll play well, I promise you). And in like manner, the Seigneur de Basché says, his household will play their ‘tragic farce’ (‘ceste tragicque farce’) on Chiquanous. In these stories Rabelais combines elements from Stanza 5 of Villon’s Double ballade – the beating and the image of ‘mitaines a ces noces telles’ – with a motif found in the last tale in the Repues franches (one where Villon does not appear as a character) in which some famished students dress up as devils and scare off lovers picnicking at the foot of the Montfaucon gallows of Paris in order to grab their food.28 The stories in the Repues franches and Rabelais demonstrate the magnetic narrative force of Villon’s character and the images of his poetry, which surge out of the poems and roll on, gathering other stories on the way. Stories of Villon as a poet-rogue and lover have poured forth since the nineteenth century both in notes of critical commentary on the poetry and in short stories, novels, plays and films about Villon. The narrative allure of the character ‘Villon’ is fully displayed in swashbuckler movies such as The Beloved Rogue (1927), where Villon is played by John Barrymore, and If I Were King (1938), where he is played by Ronald Coleman, with Basil Rathbone as Louis XI of France and Frances Dee playing Katherine de Vaucelles as a seductive court lady. The name of Katherine de Vaucelles takes us right back to Stanza 5 of the Double ballade, whose images and language of sexuality and violence,

28

Les Repues franches, ed. Koopmans and Verhuyck, 130–5.

74 NANCY

FREEMAN REGALADO

combined with proper names and narrative discontinuity, have inspired much Villon storytelling since the nineteenth century. Although Cynthia Brown has shown how the repeated woodcut depicting a female figure sharpens the focus on women in Pierre Levet’s 1489 edition of Villon,29 medieval readers seem to have had no interest in producing narratives depicting Villon as an unhappy lover, although this is one of the central organizing themes of his Lais and Testament: ‘je suys amant martir’ (a martyr for the sake of love [Lais, l. 47]). Perhaps the poet’s ironic tone restrained the storytelling urge inspired by the conventionally passionate sincerity of the troubadour lyrics which engendered vidas, such as that of Jaufré Rudel, and that of the twelfth-century trouvère who is the hero of Jakemés’ Roman du Chastelain de Couci (late thirteenth century). But this is just the kind of story that modern readers love, and it is remarkable to review the stream of romantic readings that bubble up from Villon’s poetry: the implications of a love (or at least a sexual) relationship with Katherine de Vaucelles, together with Rose, Marthe, Jehanneton, Grosse Margot and even the mysterious ‘celle’ of Huitain 65, ‘celle que jadiz servoye’ (the woman whom I used to serve [l. 673]). In his consideration of Villon as the Lover Boy type, Koopmans summarizes all the conjectures made by the most eminent Villon scholars about the poet’s love life, citing Gaston Paris, Marcel Schwob, Auguste Longnon, Pierre Champion, Jean Dufournet, Jean Favier, among many others.30 Thus we see how the shape of Villon’s poems and the strength of characterization of his speaker have inspired fiction, storytelling. Villon is a rare figure, a medieval author who becomes a character in many stories over the centuries. Poets such as Machaut, Deschamps, Christine de Pizan and Alain Chartier are known to us as persons in history, as political poets, but they have no afterlife as characters in stories. A good reading of Villon’s Testament, therefore, goes back to the poem to study how the text constructs our reading, to understand how and where we readers are led into making stories. In order to do so, we must suspend our own story-making as we read Villon’s poetry, so that we can see it as a text full of narrative components – names, past tenses, references to the historical world, intermittent and discontinuous narrative effects, sex and violence – that lead readers to produce stories. We cannot say that our stories are there in the poem, but we can see that it is the poem that has made us tell stories. That way we can claim and enjoy the stories the poet makes us tell with the understanding that they are ours, not his.

29 Cynthia J. Brown, ‘Author, Editor and the Use of Illustrations in the Early Imprints of Villon’s Works: “Ung chascun n’est maistre du scien”’, in Chaucer’s French Contemporaries: The Poetry/ Poetics of Self and Tradition, ed. R. Barton Palmer (New York, 1999), 315–49. 30 Koopmans, ‘François Villon: Character Within’, 73–7.

PART II Inscribing Stories

The Audience in the Story: Novices Respond to History in Gautier de Coinci’s Chasteé as nonains1 Kathryn A. Duys Gautier de Coinci shaped his great Marian collection, the Miracles de Nostre Dame, as one long storytelling session, and like all good storytellers he incorporated personally meaningful allusions to engage his audience and stimulate a lively response.2 His listeners and readers were many – highborn men and women, lay and clerical, all friends – but foremost among them were his neighbors, the nuns of Notre Dame de Soissons.3 He dedicated his work to them at the heart of his collection within two monumental poems, the ‘Miracle of the Chaste Empress’ and its commentary, Gautier’s sermon on chastity, La Chasteé as nonains,4 which he composed not long after the resolution of the scandalous marital struggles of the king and queen of France, Philip II Augustus and Ingeborg of Denmark.5 Since the nuns had harbored Ingeborg in their monastery when the royal marriage crisis was most acute, Gautier evoked the two chaste, 1 It is a special pleasure to offer this essay to Evelyn B. Vitz, who introduced me to the oral traditions, lyric poetry and monastic spirituality of the French Middle Ages, and who saw to the blessing of my own marriage! 2 On Gautier’s storyteller persona, see my ‘Medieval Literary Performance: Gautier de Coinci’s Guide for the Perplexed’, in Acts and Texts: Performance and Ritual in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. Laurie Postlewate and Wim Husken (Amsterdam, 2007), 183–216, and ‘Minstrel’s Mantle and Monk’s Hood: The Authorial Persona of Gautier de Coinci in Poetry and Illuminations’, in Gautier de Coinci: Miracles, Music, and Manuscripts, ed. Kathy M. Krause and Alison Stones (Turnhout, 2007), 37–63. 3 Gautier offered his book to friends, but also expected it to circulate widely; see Gautier de Coinci, Les Miracles de Nostre Dame, ed. V. Frederic Koenig, I (Geneva, 1966), Introduction, xviii–xxx. Gautier’s dedication in the Chasteé also mentions the abbess of Fontevraut, but the novices whose response he staged at the end of the Chasteé were from Notre Dame de Soissons, hence my focus on that monastery in this essay. 4 The ‘Miracle of the Chaste Empress’ (II Mir 9) and La Chasteé as nonains (II Chast 10) are the first two pieces in the second book of the Miracles de Nostre Dame (following the prologue and introductory songs). See Koenig’s standard edition: Gautier de Coinci, Miracles, III, 303–459 and 460–505, respectively. The novices’ song, La Fontenele i sort clere, occupies lines 1117–68 of the 1178-line sermon on chastity, pp. 503–5. Unless otherwise stated, all translations are mine. 5 The royal reconciliation took place in 1213 and Gautier composed his Miracles between 1214 and 1233 while he was prior of Vic-sur-Aisne, which is about five kilometers from Soissons.

78

KATHRYN A. DUYS

repudiated queens – the Empress of Rome and Ingeborg – as exemplar and counter-example, and staged the nuns’ response to their stories in a song that he inserted at the end of his sermon. It celebrates sacred vows, marital and monastic, and passes judgment on he who disdained them: Philip Augustus.6 The sequence of story and commentary, with its interpolated nuns’ song, together form a skilled storyteller’s book-bound performance complete with simulated audience response. The nuns’ song, La Fontenele i sort clere, is lively and lopsided, and has puzzled scholars for nearly a century because its extensive formal irregularities are so uncharacteristic of a master lyricist like Gautier.7 Gérard Gros, however, sees the irregularities as purposefully designed to represent the novices’ amateur lyrical response to Gautier’s sermon-commentary on the empress miracle: ‘Le lecteur a sous les yeux une chanson non pas disloquée, mais peu à peu s’articulant autour de la défense et illustration du mariage mystique. Anticipant sa mise en œuvre alors qu’il rime son sermon, l’auteur feint l’improvisation.’8 The present essay examines how the song’s eccentricities – its formal irregularities and patchwork of themes – not only lend it a playful and impromptu air, but also make Gautier’s historical commentary appear to flow naturally from the mouths of the young nuns.9 The song is at once a playful answer to the mal mariée that recalls the repudiated queens’ dismal marriages, a disjoint parody of the satirical chanson de nonne and a wedding celebration for novices. But just before its lofty conclusion, the piece’s formal irregularities peak and its tone darkens to pass judgment on the royal French divorce. With deliberately feigned 6 Michel Germain, Histoire de l’Abbaye royale de Notre-Dame de Soissons (Paris, 1675), 163. 7 All editors of the novices’ song had to choose to present it as song or dit. Poquet, Langfors and Nurmela privileged its lyricism over its irregularities, but Chailley and Koenig decided that its irregularities, mise-en-page and lack of musical notation overwhelm its lyricism. See note 31 in this essay for their editions, as well as Gautier de Coinci, Les Chansons de la Sainte Vierge, ed. Jacques Chailley (Paris, 1959), 37, and V. Frederic Koenig, ‘Sur une prétendue reverdie de Gautier de Coinci’, Romania 99 (1978), 255–63. Although recent scholarship has privileged the judgments of Chailley and Koenig, all five scholars are in fact correct. Current studies of lyric insertions recognize the lyric status of songs and lyric citations inserted in dits even though they often lack music and their mise-en-page does not distinguish them from the dit itself. See, for example, Sylvia Huot, From Song to Book: The Poetics of Writing in Old French Lyric and Lyrical Poetry (Ithaca, NY, 1987), and Ardis Butterfield, Poetry and Music in Medieval France: From Jean Renart to Guillaume de Machaut (Cambridge, 2002). 8 Gérard Gros, ‘Prière et poésie chez Gautier de Coinci’, in La Spiritualité des écrivains, ed. Oliver Millet, Travaux de Littérature, XXI (Geneva, 2008), 17–34 (32–3). Gros’ proposal that Gautier feigns amateur improvisation in the novices’ song also explains the lack of musical notation, for who would stop to notate an improvised melody of a spontaneous, informal response? Notating music is a formal gesture. See Zaerr’s essay in this volume. 9 The overlay of voices here – the poet-narrator representing a storyteller, who represents his audience’s response – requires virtuoso skills to perform successfully, as Simonetta Cochis shows in her analysis of performing voices in Marie de France’s Chievrefueil in her essay in this volume.

NOVICES RESPOND TO HISTORY IN CHASTEÉ AS NONAINS

79

artlessness, Gautier brought the blithe novices to life within their own historical moment. These youthful, liminal creatures, poised between two worlds, offer Gautier a dual perspective on marriages worldly and heavenly and a disarming voice with which to condemn and praise. Before plunging into history, story, commentary and song, let us set the scene. Notre Dame de Soissons was a royal Benedictine house founded in the Merovingian period along with Gautier’s own abbey, St Médard de Soissons, possibly as a double monastery.10 However, Notre Dame was also one of the most famous and active shrines of the Virgin in France, for in 1128, within the monastery’s church, the Blessed Virgin healed crowds of people suffering from a devastating epidemic of ergotism, le mal des ardens. Subsequently, the city teemed with pilgrims drawn to the shrine, and the nuns’ abbey attracted so many postulants that it had to found dependent houses to accommodate all its novices.11 The venerable abbey, its youthful novices and the city of Soissons witnessed many events of historical consequence, including several that revolved around the royal divorce case of Philip Augustus and Ingeborg of Denmark, which was by far the most important and scandalous of its time, and would remain so until Henry VIII’s.12

Ingeborg’s History When Ingeborg of Denmark was with the nuns of Notre Dame de Soissons, her struggles with Philip were at a low point.13 He had not only repudiated her – his legitimate wife and queen – but he had kept her imprisoned for six years, ignored the pope’s objections, and then remarried. The pope had responded by placing France under interdict: sacred rites and sacraments were barred, churches and cemeteries locked, and bells silenced over the land until the king would agree to a trial to resolve his marital irregularities. The marital problems of the royal couple had begun the day after their marriage and wedding night, when, immediately following Ingeborg’s corona10 Anne L. Clark, ‘The Guardians of the Sacred: The Nuns of Soissons and the Slipper of the Virgin Mary’, Church History 76.4 (2007), 724–49 (732, n. 7). 11 Germain, Notre-Dame de Soissons, 28 and 122. 12 I thank historians Constance Rousseau and Nanna Damsholt for their advice, but especially Frederik Pedersen for his generous help and support with the particulars of Ingeborg’s marital history; all errors that persist are exclusively mine. For a summary of details of the marriage of Ingeborg and Philip, see Jean Gaudemet, ‘Le dossier canonique du mariage de Philippe Auguste et d’Ingeburge de Danemark (1193–1213)’, Revue historique de droit français et étranger 67 (1984), 15–26, and John W. Baldwin, The Government of Philip Augustus: Foundations of French Royal Power in the Middle Ages (Berkeley, CA, 1986). 13 Ingeborg’s stay at Notre Dame de Soissons was probably brief, no more than a few weeks. Diplomatarium danicum: Udgivet af det Danske Sprog-og Litteraturselskab Med Understøttelse Af Carlsbergfondet. 1 Række 1200–1210, ed. Niels Skyum-Nielsen, IV (Copenhagen, 1958), items 12, 14, 17, 19, 31; Germain, Notre-Dame de Soissons, 162–3.

80

KATHRYN A. DUYS

tion, Philip suddenly developed a powerful yet unexplained aversion to her and demanded an annulment.14 He locked her away in a monastery and, less than three months after the marriage, procured a divortium from his bishops on the grounds of consanguinity. But Ingeborg appealed to Rome and the pope overturned the annulment.15 Notwithstanding, Philip entered into a bigamous marriage in 1198, a scandal that Ingeborg blamed on ‘diabolic instigation and the persuasion of certain malicious princes’.16 The papacy would not tolerate Philip’s flagrant disregard of canon law, so in January 1200 Innocent III placed all of France under interdict, an ecclesiastical censure which was a variety of local excommunication that Innocent had renamed ‘interdict’ and used to enforce canon law.17 Furious, Philip threatened clergy and diverted their income, penalizing the bishops of Paris and Soissons most severely, but after eight months he agreed to a trial and took Ingeborg back as queen (but not as wife) in a brief reconciliation ceremony. His charade convinced the papal legate to lift the interdict, which angered Innocent because Ingeborg was again immediately locked away.18 The trial took place in Soissons at Ingeborg’s request.19 Philip had hoped for a quick resolution, but once the case was underway, appeals and delays caused it to drag on. Realizing that the trial was not going his way, Philip abruptly halted the proceedings, took Ingeborg back and, according to his chroniclers,

14 John Baldwin, ‘La vie sexuelle de Philippe Auguste’, trans. Elborg Forster, in Mariage et sexualité au moyen âge: Accord ou crise? Colloque international de Conques, ed. Michel Rouche (Paris, 2000), 217–19. 15 On Ingeborg’s letters, see Nanna Damsholt, ‘Medieval Women’s Identity in a Postmodern Light: The Example of Queen Ingeborg’, in The Birth of Identities: Denmark and Europe in the Middle Ages, ed. Brian Patrick McGuire (Copenhagen, 1996), 225–41. 16 ‘vero instigatione diabolica et quorumdam malitiosorum principum’. ‘Ingeburgis reginae Francorum ad Coelestinum – Quod ipsa neglecta, filiae ducis de Merania rex adhaeserit’, Patrologiae cursus completus, Series latina, ed. Migne, CCIV (Paris, 1853), cols. 1277–8; ‘A Letter from Ingeborg of Denmark, Queen of France (1196)’, in Epistolae: Medieval Women’s Letters, trans. Joan Ferrante, Columbia University Center for New Media Teaching & Learning (New York, n.d.) http://epistolae.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/letter/431.html (accessed 12 April 2014). 17 Auguste Boudinhon, ‘Interdict’, The Catholic Encyclopedia, VIII (New York, 1910) http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08073a.htm (accessed 13 March 2014). For the extent of the restrictions imposed by the interdict, see Hercule Géraud, ‘Ingeburge de Danemark, Reine de France, 1193–1236 [Première partie]’, Bibliothèque de l’école des chartes VI (1845), 3–27 (24–5). 18 Hercule Géraud, ‘Ingeburge de Danemark, Reine de France, 1193–1236 [Deuxième partie]’, Bibliothèque de l’école des chartes VI (1845), 93–118 (99). 19 Ingeborg chose Soissons to ensure safe travel for her Danish supporters. There is disagreement about the date when the meeting of Philip and Ingeborg occurred in Soissons; some say it took place in September or October of 1200 while others say it occurred in March or April 1201. See the Diplomatarium danicum 1200–1210; Géraud, ‘Ingeburge [Deuxième partie]’, 98.

NOVICES RESPOND TO HISTORY IN CHASTEÉ AS NONAINS

81

rode into the abbey of Notre Dame de Soissons, swung her up behind him on his horse and rode off.20 His dramatic departure from the abbey was not a concession, however, for he preferred no judgment to a bad one. At the Council of Soissons, he had learned that his father Louis VII, the English king John and Frederick Barbarossa had all been granted divorces easily because, unlike Ingeborg, their queens had accepted the bishops’ judgments and did not appeal to Rome. Following the aborted trial in Soissons, Philip imprisoned Ingeborg in the tower of his castle at Estampes under even harsher conditions, hoping to break her spirit.21 In letters to the pope she complained that her movement was restricted, letters withheld and visitors forbidden; though she heard mass occasionally, she could never confess or attend holy office, nor was she permitted medical attention or baths, and her food and clothing were scanty.22 Although she never agreed to divorce throughout her twelve years in Estampes, she did eventually agree to take vows. Believing that he could remarry if she were to enter holy orders, Philip had pressed her to profess, but the pope barred her entry into holy orders, for vows taken under pressure were invalid. Moreover, Ingeborg’s entry into a monastery would not have freed Philip to remarry.23 The combination of Ingeborg’s steadfast refusal to accept divorce, her appeal to Rome and the pope’s resolve to assert his spiritual authority in matrimonial matters proved insuperable. Over the years Philip kept trying for annulment and divorce, but broke off negotiations with the pope several times. His argument evolved from consanguinity to non-consummation by reason of sorcery, and when he finally admitted that the marriage had been consummated, he claimed that there had been no insemination.24 He tried forcing Ingeborg to take the veil, and in 1210 Philip even offered marriage to a German princess if her father would resolve his marital impediment, but that went nowhere. What finally ended the struggle was politics. King John of England had been engaged in a long-standing feud with the pope over the 1206 election of the archbishop of Canterbury, refusing to recognize the pope’s choice. In 1207 the Géraud, ‘Ingeburge [Deuxième partie]’, 103. The castle at Estampes is depicted on the calendar page for August in Jean de Berry’s Très riches heures. 22 A letter from Ingeborg, Queen of France (1203), Epistolae, http://epistolae.ccnmtl. columbia.edu/letter/24140.html (accessed 12 April 2014). 23 In the case of a prior vow of marriage that was made without impediment and consummated, a spouse could only enter holy orders if both spouses freely agreed to a spiritual marriage, which required parallel vows of chastity. Vows not taken freely were invalid and spiritual marriage did not dissolve prior vows of marriage, and therefore did not allow remarriage. Géraud, ‘Ingeburge [Deuxième partie]’, 111; Penelope D. Johnson, Equal in Monastic Profession (Chicago, 1991), 32. 24 On Philip’s legal strategies, see Constance Rousseau, ‘Neither Bewitched or Beguiled: Philip Augustus’ Alleged Impotence and Innocent III’s Response’, Speculum 89.2 (2014), 410–36; George Conklin, ‘Ingeborg of Denmark, Queen of France, 1193–1223’, in Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe: Proceedings of a Conference Held at King’s College London, April 1995, ed. Anne Duggan (Woodbridge, 1997), 39–52 (45–6). 20 21

82

KATHRYN A. DUYS

pope placed England under an interdict that would last five years, in 1209 he personally excommunicated John, and in 1212 he called for the English king to be deposed. Meanwhile, John had gathered a coalition against Philip to regain continental lands previously lost to him, so the French king wanted to attack John preemptively. Philip summoned his barons to Soissons on 8 April 1213 to plan the attack (which would result in the decisive victory of the Battle of Bouvines), and before adjourning he announced his reconciliation with Ingeborg. The coincidence of Philip’s surprise reconciliation with his queen and the meeting in Soissons suggests that Innocent’s support for his attack on John broke the marital impasse and finally brought about the French king’s submission to the pope. Ingeborg was henceforth free and all France rejoiced, but she never returned to Philip’s bed. After twenty years of abuse, she finally reigned, but as a chaste queen.

Gautier’s Story: The ‘Miracle of the Chaste Empress’ That Gautier should relate Ingeborg to the Empress of Rome seems awkward, for at first glance the two queens had little in common. The marriage of the actual queen of France was unhappy from the start, and then she was locked up, isolated and hindered from taking action. In the end, however, she was restored as a chaste queen. The legendary empress, on the other hand, was happily married until her husband went on pilgrimage and left her with his brother whose unfortunate ardor forced her into a life of exile and misadventure.25 In the end, the empress refused throne and husband to become a nun. Gautier must have thought the play of contrasts interesting and potentially meaningful to the novices, for he connected the two queens and dedicated his work to the nuns within one poem. After all, the nuns had known Ingeborg personally at a low point in her marital crisis, and both the actual queen of France and the legendary empress were sympathetic figures who held vows sacred. However, the two 25 The Emperor of Rome went on pilgrimage, leaving the empress and his brother together. When his brother became enamored of the empress and she could not discourage him, she locked him in the castle tower. Upon her husband’s return, she released him and he rode out to meet the emperor to accuse her of adultery. The emperor ordered her killed, but the servants charged with her execution tried to rape her. She was saved by a prince who made her his son’s governess, but his cousin made advances toward her and was rebuffed. In retaliation, he murdered the child and blamed her. She was exiled and sent to sea, where she fought off sailors who tried to rape her, only to be abandoned on a reef in the ocean. There she prayed and had a vision of the Virgin who promised that upon awaking, she would find a magic herb that would cure leprosy. When she returned to land, she became a healer and was approached by her two accusers, both of whom were leprous. After they confessed, she cured them. When the emperor learned of her innocence, he wanted to restore her as wife and queen, but she refused, imploring the emperor and pope for permission to enter a monastery. In the end she became a nun. The twelfth-century Latin source of the ‘Miracle of the Chaste Empress’, translated into the vernacular for the first time by Gautier, has much in common with the Apollonius romance that Elizabeth Archibald discusses in her essay in this volume.

NOVICES RESPOND TO HISTORY IN CHASTEÉ AS NONAINS

83

queens sought different solutions to their troubles – the empress entered holy orders and Ingeborg did not – which made one an exemplar and the other a counter-example for young novices on the verge of profession. Parallels and differences bind the two queens in many other ways as well. The stories of both queens divide into two parts: Ingeborg was imprisoned for seven years before the Council of Soissons and for twelve years afterward, and the empress was falsely accused twice. Both stories involve unusual imprisonment in towers: Ingeborg was locked in the tower at Estampes for years on end. When the empress, a model of female ingenuity, was unable to discourage her amorous brother-in-law, she lured him to the tower with the promise of a rendezvous and then locked him in for the duration of her husband’s pilgrimage. The crux of both stories is sex: Philip claimed that he and Ingeborg had not really consummated their marriage on their wedding night, while the empress was falsely accused of being adulterous. In both cases the pope was called upon to resolve the couples’ differences. Philip compelled Ingeborg to profess, but the pope would not accept forced vows, while the empress argued forcefully before the pope to be permitted to enter a monastery. Ingeborg appealed to the pope to save her marriage, but in the miracle story it is the emperor who wants to save his marriage. Interestingly, however, both the French queen and the Empress of Rome engaged the pope in arguments against separation and divorce. As we have seen, nothing could make Ingeborg agree to undo her bond with Philip, and the pope was determined to assert the inviolability of marriage. The empress’s situation was different, but equally fraught. At her lowest point, abandoned on a reef in the ocean, she vowed to offer her life to Christ. When the emperor learned of her innocence, he wanted her back as queen and wife and offered her more power and privilege than ever before, yet she preferred holy orders. She argued that returning to him would force her to violate her vow to Christ and separate from him – a divorce of a different sort, not worldly, but heavenly. The indignant emperor forbade the pope from dissolving the marriage and threatened violence: ‘Se sa fame de lui desoivre, / Noier nel face enmi le Toyvre’ (If his wife were severed from him, he would have his enemy drowned in the Tiber [ll. 3587–8]). In response, the pope offered to absolve the empress of breaking her vow to Christ and to take her sin upon himself. She said she would rather burn alive than break her vow to Christ and return to a man’s bed. At that, the emperor yielded.26 And so the empress took the veil, or as Gautier says, insisting on the theme of separation: ‘Ensi se depart dou terrestre’ (And so

26 The pope urged the emperor not to bow to pressure, so he confirmed his free consent. This does not mean that the pope sided with the emperor, because the issue was not really separation, but spiritual marriage, which makes Gautier’s focus on separation all the more striking. Because the empress had made a valid prior vow of marriage and consummated it, and the emperor was still alive, she could not enter holy orders without his consent. See note 23.

84

KATHRYN A. DUYS

she separated from the world [l. 3636]).27 The miracle thus comes full circle, for the empress’s story began with scriptural teachings on marriage and commentary on its inviolability: ‘Qui tient mariage a eschar / Et qui le desront et devise / Dieu escharnist et Sainte Eglyse (He who disdains marriage, who breaks and breaches it, disdains God and the Holy Church [ll. 86–8]). 28 At the end, those biblical teachings became the rationale for protecting the empress’s heavenly marriage to Christ, allowing her to separate from the world and her husband.

Gautier’s Commentary Gautier’s sermon-commentary, La Chasteé as nonains, divides into two parts, his call and the novices’ response. The first part of his sermon is a teaching on the empress miracle and a reflection on chastity. He praises continence and purity and encourages the novices to learn from the empress’s argument before the emperor and pope: the love of even the best men is inconstant and their earthly gifts poor by the standards of heaven. Gautier evokes the veiled young women as so many flowers in a meadow, their pure souls clothed in brilliant, heavenly garb, and he urges them to gaze in mirrors of chastity to contemplate the Blessed Virgin and Mary Magdalene. Woven in and out of these pretty passages are brief, dark admonitions to remain steadfast because the devil will try to trip them up. In one such interlude, Gautier warns that the devil ‘Bien seit se de lui et de vous / Faire pooit divorcïon’ (knows how and would be able to cause a divorce between Him and you [ll. 241–2]). Even in the context of the devil’s machinations, the word divorcïon stands out as a startling way to reflect on chastity. The term is very rare; Gautier was the first to use it in Old French and subsequent usages are in legal documents.29 It is derived from the Latin divortium, which appears in legal codes and chronicles. In the Chasteé, it concerns breaking a vow that a pious woman has made to Christ, so it alludes back to the empress’s argument

27 Nancy B. Black argues that the glossing in the Soissons Manuscript reveals an ethical reading practice based on the lectio divina. The present essay, which focuses on how the sermon treats the miracle story as an exemplum and alludes to a historical event as a counterexample, should complement the moral readings that Black has studied. See her ‘Images of the Virgin Mary in the Soissons Manuscript (Paris, BnF, nouv. acq. fr. 24541)’, in Gautier de Coinci: Miracles Music, and Manuscripts, ed. Kathy M. Krause and Alison Stones (Turnhout, 2006), 253–77, and ‘An Analysis and Transcription of the Latin Glosses Accompanying Gautier de Coinci’s Miracle of “The Empress of Rome”’, Text 14 (2002), 91–108. 28 Lines 82–105 refer to Eph. 5:22–4, 28 and 31, Col. 3:18–19, 1 Cor. 11:3 as well as Matt. 19:6 and Mark 10:7. 29 ‘Divorcïon’, Olivier Collet, Glossaire et index critiques des œuvres d’attribution certaine de Gautier de Coinci: La Vie Ste. Christine et les Miracles de Nostre Dame (Geneva, 2000), 170; Frédéric E. Godfroy, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX e au XV e siècle, II (Paris, 1881), col. 732 a-b. Gautier also uses the term in the ‘Miracle of the Woman from Arras’ (II Mir 27), Gautier de Coinci, Miracles, IV, 302, l. 197.

NOVICES RESPOND TO HISTORY IN CHASTEÉ AS NONAINS

85

before the pope, but the term divorcïon does not appear in the miracle story. It is legal terminology that points to the real world, where it is found most often in contemporaneous accounts of the marital struggles of Philip and Ingeborg.30 Philip and his advisors had struggled to justify divorce – first arguing consanguinity, then non-consummation, then non-insemination and trying to force Ingeborg to take the veil – all without success. Gautier’s devil, on the other hand, knows how to make a divorce happen. A second surprising term, escommenie (excommunicate), appears later in the sermon and forms a pair with divorcïon to recall the time that Ingeborg spent in Soissons with the nuns when Innocent had put France under interdict to force the king to trial. Gautier inserted the words into his sermon as part of the call and response that brings his audience to life. In the first part of the sermon, Gautier’s teaching on the empress miracle, one term accuses: divorcïon. In the second part, the nuns’ sing-song response to his teaching, the other term condemns: escommenie! Gautier takes on both roles in this little satirical drama, revealing his ventriloquism with his elegant poetic signature, an annominatio figure, at the end of the novices’ otherwise amateurish song.

The Novices’ Response The novices’ lyric response, La Fontenele i sort clere, is presented here in context, embedded in the last 100 lines of Gautier’s sermon.31 The excerpt reproduced here opens with two refrains that Gautier cites in his own voice: the first from a chanson de mal mariée that serves as a counter-example for the novices and recalls the unhappily married queens, and the second which also appears in numerous secular pieces including a chanson de toile, whose sentiment he parodies and renders religious. These refrains characterize the novices as playful and festive, and prepare us for the irregular, shifting refrains within their own song that make their singing seem impromptu.

30 Michel-Jean-Jospeh Brial, Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France, Tome dix-septième, Contenant la première livraison des monumens des règnes de Philippe-Auguste et Louis VIII, depuis l’an MCLXXX jusqu’en CCXXVI (Paris, 1818), passim. 31 The version presented here draws on all previous editions: Gautier de Coinci, Les Miracles de la Sainte Vierge traduits et mis en vers par Gautier de Coinci, ed. l’Abbé Poquet (1857; Geneva, 1974), cols. 731–4; Arthur Langfors, ‘Melanges de poésie lyrique francaise III’, Romania LVI (1930), 33–45; Gautier de Coinci, Le Sermon en vers de la chasteé as nonains de Gautier de Coinci, ed. Tauno Nurmela, Annales academiae scientiarum fennicae Ser. B, 38 (Helsinki, 1937), 189; and Gautier de Coinci, Miracles, ed. Koenig III, 503–5. I have modified punctuation, formatted the novices’ poem in strophes and numbered them, and have marked cited and repeated refrains with italics, underlining and boldface. I have also incorporated the glossing that survives in one source, the early fourteenth-century Soissons Manuscript (BnF MS n. ac. fr. 24541). See Koenig’s edition for manuscript variants.

86

KATHRYN A. DUYS

Bon giu a s’ame jouera She plays well who bets her soul Cele qui despira tout homme 1085 (And) turns away all men Pour Jhesu Crist, qui est la somme For Jesus Christ, who is the summit De toutes joiez, de toz biens. Of all joy, of all goodness. Certes, certes, sur toutes riens Surely, surely, above all things Joianz et lies deves estre You should be joyful and happy Quant vos avez le roy celestre 1090 When you have the heavenly king Et a baron et a espoz. As your lord and spouse. Mout doit grant joie avoir en vos You should have great joy within Quant si haut estes marïees. When you are married so grandly. Au siecle sont mesmarïees In the world there are mal mariées Vos parentes teles i a. 1095 There are surely some in your families. ‘Mai ait cil qui me maria!’32 ‘Curses to him who married me!’ Ce dïent en lor chançonnetes, So they say in their songs, Mais entre giux et gabeletes But between games and jokes Les plusieurs a certes le dïent, Some surely do say Comment qu’entr’eles se marïent. 1100 Among themselves how they have married. Hautement estes marïees: How grandly you are married: Gardez ne soiez varïees, Be careful not to be capricious Car Jhesu Cris, voz biax espous, Because Jesus Christ, your fine spouse, Set bien sanz vos taster le pous Knows well, without taking your pulse, Se vostre amour est vraie et nette. 1105 If your love is true and bright. Le commant de la chançonnete Let whoever is a true lover Face qui est bien vraie amie: Carry out the song’s command: ‘Pour Dieu, ne vos repentez mie, ‘By God, never repent, Ce dist, de loiaument amer.’33 So says the song, of loving loyally.’ En vostre ami n’a point d’amer, 1110 In your lover there is no bitterness. Ainz est tres sades et tres douz, Rather, He is very charming and sweet, Vrais, bons et biaus et hauz seur touz. True, good and fine, and above all grand. Bien vos poez d’amors vanter You can surely boast of love Et lïement devez chanter, And merrily you should sing, Vous cloistrieres, vos damoyseles, 1115 You cloistered maidens, you young ladies, As vois qu’avez plaisanz et beles: In your pleasant and pretty voices:

Gautier begins the novices’ song by parodying secular lyric and rendering its topoi devotional. In this case, commonplaces of the chanson de nonne – the satirical complaint of a frivolous young woman who calls on her beloved to rescue her from the monastery where her parents have forced her to take vows – become the novices’ joyful song as they anticipate their marriage to Christ.34 32 VDB 1276 (hereafter all references to Nico Van den Boogaard, Rondeaux et refrains du XIIe siècle au début du XIVe [Paris, 1969] are designated VDB). This refrain is a typical cry of the mal mariée: Butterfield, Poetry and Music, 113; Anne Ibos-Augé, Chanter et lire dans le récit médiéval: La Fonction des insertions lyriques dans les œuvres narratives et didactiques d’oïl dans le XIIIe et XIVe siècles (Bern, 2010), 274, 611. 33 VDB, rondeau 11, 1375; Butterfield, Poetry and Music, 113; Ibos-Augé, Chanter et lire, 274, 622–3. This refrain was very popular and appears in six other pieces. 34 The genre is described by Joseph Élie Louis Garreau, ‘Monjada suy a mon dan: Another Female Voice in Mediterranean Literature’, Mediterranean Studies 14 (2005), 1–16, and by Graciela S. Daichman in her Wayward Nuns in Medieval Literature (Syracuse, NY, 1986), 66–7.

NOVICES RESPOND TO HISTORY IN CHASTEÉ AS NONAINS

87

The chanson de nonne is not always recognized as a free-standing genre. It is often considered part of other genres, such as the pastourelle, the ballete, the rotrouenge or the chanson de mal mariée – all refrain songs in women’s voices set in a popular register.35 It survives in Old French in just one complete song, Quant ce vient en mai,36 and in two later poems by Eustache Deschamps,37 but from the thirteenth century on, the Old French motet tradition preserves several more,38 and many other examples survive in other European languages – in Latin and many vernaculars – and the figure of the wayward nun is satirized in ribald tales through the end of the Middle Ages and beyond.39 While religious parody of secular poetry is a hallmark of Gautier’s style, formal irregularity is not.40 Most of the novices’ song is unisonans, has a regular rhyme scheme (aabb) and seven-syllable lines. However, the first strophe has eight-syllable lines and employs a different a rhyme from the rest of the song, and in the final two strophes the rhyme scheme deviates to aaab. Repeated refrains define the strophic structure of the novices’ song, as was typical of women’s songs, but the refrains are not consistent throughout the piece, nor do they consistently appear at the beginnings and ends of the strophes. More troubling yet is the awkward enjambment between strophes 10 and 11 that breaks the strophic structure, such as it is. Thematically, the song meanders from a parodic chanson de nonne to a nun’s wedding song, and then it gets strangely dark before ending with the brilliant image of the nuns’ souls floating to heaven as billowy white blossoms. The voices of the novices dominate the song, but Gautier breaks into the middle of the piece to urge them on. If only one or two of these features were irregular, it might be human error, an immature attempt at pious contrafacture, or simply unfinished, as some have suggested;41 but because its irregularities are so regular, since they concern every poetic attribute of the piece, and because Gautier shows himself to be an expert lyricist in the rest of his highly polished oeuvre, we do well to suspect that its eccentricities are deliberate. 35 See Alfred Jeanroy, Les Origines de la poésie lyrique en France au moyen âge (Paris, 1904), 189; Eglal Doss-Quinby, Joan Tasker Grimbert, Wendy Pfeffer and Elizabeth Aubrey, eds, Songs of the Women Trouvères (New Haven, CT, 2001), 151; Samuel N. Rosenberg, Margaret Switten and Gérard le Vot, eds, Songs of the Troubadours and Trouvères: An Anthology of Poems and Melodies (New York, 1998), 206. 36 This song is found in Bern Stadtbibliothek MS Cod. 389 and BnF MS fr. 20050, fol. 161v: trouvère manuscripts C and U respectively, both limousin. See Garreau, ‘Monjada suy’, 6–7. 37 Eustache Deschamps, Œuvres complètes, ed. Marquis de Queux de Saint Hilaire, IV (Paris, 1834), 233–6, nos. 751, 752. 38 Lisa Colton, ‘The Articulation of Virginity in the Medieval Chanson de nonne’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association 133.2 (2008), 159–88. 39 Daichman, Wayward Nun, 65–114. 40 The most extensive examinations of the song’s irregularities are Koenig, ‘Sur une prétendue reverdie’, and Butterfield, Poetry and Music, 112–15. 41 See Gros, who cites Chailley in his ‘Prière et poésie’, 33; and Koenig, ‘Sur une prétendue reverdie’, 261.

88

KATHRYN A. DUYS

In fact, closer scrutiny reveals order in the disorder. The irregularities in rhyme and syllable-count are symmetrical and appear to function as framing devices that set off the beginning and end of the song. Together the rhyme scheme and refrains define easily recognizable quatrains despite their irregularity. The shifts from one refrain to the next correspond to shifts in the song’s focus, and the awkward enjambment accentuates the section where Gautier’s divorce judgment – escommenie! – appears. The refrains not only define form but also set the tone of the piece as festive, informal and impromptu.42 The opening citation, ‘La fontenele i sort clere’, is a popular dance refrain from the carole tradition that is also found multiple times in Jean Renart’s Roman de la rose. It repeats several times, but defies lyric logic by varying in the most unlikely spot: its rhyme word.43 The second refrain, ‘Dire peut bien tele i a’, is also typical of women’s songs, but does not appear to be a quotation.44 Before taking over the work of defining quatrains in strophe 7, a third refrain (underlined here) appears in bits and pieces in strophes 3, 5 and 6, which lends the song an amateur air. It seems like the singers are making it up as they go. 1. ‘La fontenele i sort clere.45 Bonne aventure ait ma mere, Qui si bien me maria! Dire puet bien tele i a.46 1120

‘The little spring pours forth clear waters. May my mother have good fortune, who has married me off so well! So some can certainly say.

2. La fontaine i sourt serie. Jhesu Criz, li fiux Marie, Tout entier ce cuer ci a, Dire puet bien tele i a.

The spring pours forth serenely. Jesus Christ, the son of Mary, has this whole heart (of mine), So some can certainly say.

3. La fontaine i sourt serie. 1125 The spring pours forth serenely. Diex! Diex! Diex! men cuer n’ai mie: God! God! God! my heart, I have it not: Li douz Diex, li douz Diex l’a! the sweet Lord, the sweet Lord has it! Dire puet bien tele i a. So some can certainly say. 4. Mere Dieu, virge Marie, Mother of God, Virgin Mary, Mes cors a toi se marie, 1130 I marry my body to you, Et tes fix tout men ceur a, And your son has all my heart, Dire puet bien tele i a. So some can certainly say. 5. Li cuers d’amors me fremie. My heart trembles with love. Cielz l’a tout, je ne l’ai mie, Heaven has all my heart, I have it not 42 For a discussion and typology of informal performance modes, see Linda Marie Zaerr’s essay in this volume; and, because Gautier represents imperfect lyricism in the novices’ response, Marilyn Lawrence’s essay in this volume on the faked inept minstrelsy of Renart the fox is also of interest. 43 Both variants are typical of caroles. 44 Koenig’s edition places this refrain in Gautier’s voice. 45 Although used here as a refrain, this verse is typically found in the strophic sections of rondeaux and rondets de carole on the theme of ‘Bele Aelis’; see VDB, rondeaux 1, 4, 6, 11, 17, 43, 47, 162, 164, 180; Butterfield, Poetry and Music, 114. 46 Not listed in VDB; see Butterfield, Poetry and Music, 114.

NOVICES RESPOND TO HISTORY IN CHASTEÉ AS NONAINS

89

Qu’en la croys prendre voy la, 1135 For I go that way to take the cross, Die cele qui voile a. May she who is veiled say. 6. La fonatine i sort serie. Diex! mon cuer, je n’en ai mie:47 Jhesu Cris, mes amis, l’a.’ ‘De chanter ne finez ja!’ 1140

The spring pours forth serenely. God! my heart, I have it not: Jesus Christ, my beloved, has it.’ ‘Don’t stop singing yet!’

At the end of strophe 6 (line 1140), where one expects a refrain to repeat, Gautier interjects with his own voice to urge the novices on, giving the impression that they are about to falter. The poem then shifts from a dance song to a wedding song with the introduction of concrete images – the gold wedding ring and crown – that are uncommon in women’s lyric and appear to replace the typical love gifts that wayward nuns sometimes remember wistfully in chansons de nonne. In fact, these images are a reference to St Agnes, which the glossing opposite line 1142–4 in one manuscript makes explicit: ‘Sancta Agnes dicit: Annulo suo subarravit me Dominus meus Jesus Christus et tanquam sponsam decoravit me corona’ (St Agnes said: With His ring my Lord Jesus Christ, has betrothed me and, like a spouse, He has adorned me with a crown).48 Anulo suo is the antiphon from the liturgy of St Agnes that a Benedictine nun sang during the consecration of virgins, her profession ceremony, as she was crowned (with a wreath) and received her ring.49 Thus a ritual antiphon glosses a recreational song to mark the shift from a merry dance tune to the solemn wedding ceremony that both novices and empress celebrate. 7. ‘Diex, mon cuer je n’en ai mie. ‘God, my heart, I have it not. Cielz l’a, sanz parçonnerie,50 Heaven has it all, part and parcel, Qui d’anel d’or m’espousa. (and) has married me with a gold ring. Mes chiez pour Dieu se tousa. My hair was shorn for God. 8. Mon cuer a, je n’en ai mie, 1145 He has my heart, I have it not, Et ara toute ma vie. And will have my whole life. Ja pour nului nel laira. I will not leave Him for anyone. S’amors me plaist et plaira.51 His love pleases me and always will. 47 VDB 505; also appears in one other song. See Butterfield, Poetry and Music, 114; Ibos-Augé, Chanter et lire, 527. 48 BnF MS n. a. fr. 24541, fol. 149v. This manuscript may be consulted digitally on Gallica: Bibliothèque numérique of the Bibliothèque nationale de France: http://gallica.bnf. fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6000451c/f310.item.r=na%20fr%2024541.langFR (accessed 12 March 2014). The glossing of the Chasteé is included in Poquet’s edition, Les Miracles de la Sainte Vierge, cols. 731–4, and in Nurmela’s, Le Sermon en vers de la chasteé as nonains, 38. 49 Nancy Bradley Warren, Spiritual Economies: Female Monasticism in Later Medieval England (Philadelphia, PA, 2001), 27. The text of Gautier’s sermon makes reference to St Agnes (especially ll. 918–31), as do many glosses. 50 This quatrain is glossed with the reference to Annulo suo discussed above. 51 Glossing in the Soissons Manuscript (BnF MS n. a. fr. 24541, fol. 149v): ‘Versificator dicit: / Hic michi sponsus / erit qui non corrum/pere querit.’ (The Versifier says: This will be my bridegroom, who will not seek to corrupt.) This appears to be a citation from the anonymous life of St Aldegundis (BHL no. 0248).

90

KATHRYN A. DUYS

9. Mon cuer a, je n’en ai mie. He has my heart, I have it not. M’ame ou ciel comme s’amie 1150 As His beloved, my soul will marry A grant joie espousera. in heaven with great joy. Ja mes cuers nou faussera. Never will (my) heart be faithless. 10. Mon cuer a, je n’en ai mie. He has my heart, I have it not. Pour ma crine, qu’ai guerpie,52 For having cast away my fear, Corone d’or me donra. 1155 He will give me a golden crown. Qui de mal me sermonra He who might urge me on to evil 11. Ne de nule vilonnie Or any sort of wickedness – Diex le cors escommenie! May God excommunicate that person! L’ame dampne et dampnera. He condemns his soul, and always will. M’ame ou ciel marïera.53 1160 My soul will marry in heaven.

At the end of the tenth strophe there is a jarring transition. An enjambment has broken the poem’s quatrain structure and the tone briefly turns dark. There is nothing in the women’s lyric tradition or in the consecration of virgins that prepares us for this darkening, but the devilish interludes in Gautier’s otherwise pretty sermon do. And because at this point the song calls for the excommunication of all those with wicked words and advice, it forms a pair with Gautier’s warnings about divorcïon and recalls Ingeborg’s accusation that Philip had been inspired by the devil and advised by malicious princes. As noted above, when Philip’s marital irregularities were at their height, the pope placed France under interdict, a form of local excommunication imposed not as punishment but as censure to pressure Philip to comply with canon law. However, the papal legate lifted the interdict prematurely, so Ingeborg’s troubles were not resolved for another twelve years. Gautier is adamant in his judgment: the novices’ song calls for personal excommunication as punishment – or, as Gautier puts it, damnation – which is considerably more severe than Innocent’s judgment of Philip and more akin to his treatment of King John of England. Beginning in strophe 11, an explicitly religious refrain (here in boldface) that appeared as a fragment in strophe 9 takes the place of the repeating incipit in

52 Glossing in the Soissons Manuscript (BnF MS n. a. fr. 24541, fol. 149v): Apostolus dicit: / Si quis templum / Dei violaverit, disper / det illum Deus. (The Apostle says: If anyone destroys God’s temple, then God will destroy him; 1 Cor. 3:17). 53 This refrain is original to Gautier; this may be a pious parody of the first refrain quoted in the Chasteé at l. 1096, bringing the song full circle. Not listed in VDB; see Butterfield, Poetry and Music, 114. I include line 1160, as does Koenig, even though it is present in only one of twenty manuscripts, BnF MS fr. 22928 (MS L, which is associated with Gautier’s monastery, St Médard de Soissons, which is where he died); Koenig, ‘Sur une prétendue reverdie’, 262–3. Without this line, the formal problems in this part of the poem change, but do not disappear. Strophe 10 would have three rather than four lines, and strophe 11 would not end with an enjambment. However, the rhyme scheme of strophe 11 would then be baab, rather than repeating the aabb pattern of the ten preceding strophes, or the aaab scheme of the succeeding two strophes that end the song. In either case, the formal irregularity of the song at strophe 11 marks its dark interlude, which contains the call for excommunication.

NOVICES RESPOND TO HISTORY IN CHASTEÉ AS NONAINS

91

the previous section. The song transitions back to delight as Gautier transforms two more typical complaints of the chanson de nonne – the rough black habit and the isolating enclosure – into a vision of the soul as a white blossom rising to heaven: more softness, light and freedom than can be had in this world. 12. Se dou siecle sui banie If, for my rough black habit, Pour ma noyre sousquanie, I am banished from the world, Comme flourete espanie Like a flower in bloom M’ame ou ciel blanche en ira. My white soul will rise to heaven. 13. Ne sui mate n’esmarie: 1165 I am neither sad nor grieving: Mes maris, li fiex Marie, My husband, the son of Mary, Qui les sienz ou ciel marie, Who marries his own in heaven, M’ame ou ciel marïera.’ Will marry my soul in heaven.’

In the song’s final strophe, Gautier has explicitly revealed himself with his poetic signature, an annominatio figure, which repeats various forms of a root word, here (five times) marie. The virtuoso poet has reasserted himself and then returns to his sermon to conclude with a plea for the nuns’ prayers, inserting Latin phrases rather than witty women’s refrains. He also returns to the octosyllabic lines of his sermon, but instead of rhymed couplets, he extends the rich rhyme in the last two strophes of the novices’ song, making it just a bit richer: aaaab aaaab. Ceste page est ci fenie. This work (page) ends here. Dames qui l’avez oïe, 1170 Ladies who have heard it, Li povres prïeus vos prie This poor prior prays Que vos ne l’oublïez mie. That you never forget him. Immo mente sedula Indeed, seriously, Prïés la virge Marie Pray that the Virgin Mary Que par sa grant cortoysie 1175 By her great courtesy Vos et lui doinst bonne vie Grant you and him a good life Et sa douce compaingnie And her sweet company Per aeterna secula. Amen. For ever and ever. Amen.

To conclude his sermon, Gautier reminds us that the novices’ performance was simulated and that their song was enacted on the page. He had begun his sermon with a dedication, sending the nuns a gift, his book, whose pages, he says, would speak to them with more courtly charm than a page boy: ‘Par cest biau livre et par ces pages, Qui parleront plus bel qu’uns pages’ (with this beautiful book and with its pages, that will speak more prettily than a page [ll. 11–12]). Gautier’s book spoke and the novices responded, but their bright young faces, youthful judgment and hopeful tone, their eager and messy singing, appear only on the page. And yet the nuns of Notre Dame de Soissons were not fictions. In reading the book that Gautier offered them, they would have seen themselves and heard the clever voice that Gautier crafted for them. Generation after generation of nuns probably heard it, for the finest copy of the Miracles de Nostre Dame, the Soissons Manuscript, belonged to Armande-Henriette de

92

KATHRYN A. DUYS

Lorraine d’Harcourt, abbess of Notre Dame de Soissons in 1635.54 It is a royal manuscript, most likely made for the king and queen of France, Philip VI of Valois and Joan of Burgundy. Philip VI was the great-great-great-grandson of Philip II Augustus and came to power after a succession crisis in which three young queens were accused, two of whom were imprisoned and repudiated,55 so the magnificent sequence of poems at the heart of the Miracles de Nostre Dame would have been personally meaningful to them all.56 The nuns of Notre Dame de Soissons, to whom Gautier dedicated his Miracles, were hardly shadow figures moving silently behind the massive walls of their abbey-shrine. They were witty, clever and pious women whom Gautier characterized through refrain citations from women’s secular lyric, artfully shaping their song as a spontaneous response to a great miracle story, the longest in Gautier’s book, and to the history behind it. With two words – divorcïon and escommenie – Gautier allows Ingeborg’s history to bleed into the story of the chaste empress, and in his parodic chanson de nonne he adopts the novices’ voices to pronounce a sentence on the king that is harsher than Rome’s. The novices’ innocence masks Gautier’s criticism, and he skillfully brings them to life with innovative lyrico-narrative poetics that here feign artless song.

54 The Soissons Manuscript (BnF MS n. a. fr. 24541). This is the same manuscript that contains glossing of the novices’ song noted above. 55 The three were daughters-in-law of Philip IV the Fair: Margaret and Blanche of Burgundy were accused of adultery and imprisoned; Joan of Burgundy was accused and then rehabilitated. See my ‘Reading Royal Allegories in Gautier de Coinci’s Miracles de Nostre Dame: The Soissons Manuscript (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, n. acq. fr. 24541)’, in Collections in Context: The Organization of Knowledge and Community in Europe, ed. Karen Fresco and Anne D. Hedeman (Columbus, OH, 2011), 208–36. 56 More personalized readings may have arisen in Fontevraut, another celebrated monastery where many royal women retired in this period, for Gautier dedicated his book to the abbess of that abbey as well; see note 3.

Effet de parlé and effet d’écrit: The Authorial Strategies of Medieval French Historians Cristian Bratu Milman Parry’s seminal work on Homeric verse introduced the idea that voice and performance may have played a part in the creation and reception of medieval histories and chronicles, thus opening a new field of scholarly exploration. Known by different names – orality, vocality, performance – this was an area where the written word was surrounded by allegedly uneducated, illiterate or semi-literate voices, and did not have absolute authority.1 Evelyn Birge Vitz has been among the most avid listeners and interpreters of these voices, and has also actively helped younger colleagues to hear and examine them. After reading her Orality and Performance in Early French Romance, I began to pay closer attention to oral aspects of medieval historical texts and noted that in historical writings, references to orality appear to be both distinct from and related to writing.2 Until recently, scholars have asked primarily whether represented speech in written historical texts is ‘true’ or ‘false’, but by focusing instead on the effects produced by these references within the texts, it becomes apparent that medieval authors self-consciously used them to strategically position themselves within textual communities vis-à-vis their work and patrons, their different audiences 1 A few essential studies in this field include Milman Parry, ‘Studies in the Epic Technique of Oral Verse-making. I: Homer and Homeric Style’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 41 (1930), 73–143, and ‘Studies in the Epic Technique of Oral Verse-making. II: The Homeric Language as the Language of an Oral Poetry’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 43 (1932), 1–50; Albert Lord, The Singer of Tales (Cambridge, MA, 1960); Jan Vansina, De la tradition orale: essai de méthode historique (Tervuren, 1961); Jack Goody, Literacy in Traditional Societies (Cambridge, 1968); Ruth Finnegan, Oral Poetry: Its Nature, Significance, and Social Context (Cambridge, 1977); Eric Havelock, The Literate Revolution in Greece and Its Cultural Consequences (Princeton, NJ, 1981); Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (New York, 1991 [1982]). 2 Evelyn Birge Vitz, Orality and Performance in Early French Romance (Cambridge, 1999). This essay is, in a sense, a deepening of the reflection on the oral nature of French medieval historical narratives that I started in earlier articles. See my ‘Readers and Listeners’, in Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle II, ed. Graeme Dunphy (Leiden, 2010), 1260–4; ‘Or vous dirai: La vocalité des récits historiques français du Moyen Âge (XIIe–XVe siècles)’, Neophilologus 96.3 (2012), 333–47; and ‘Clerc, Chevalier, Aucteur: The Authorial Personae of French Medieval Historians from the 12th to the 15th Centuries’, in Authority and Gender in Medieval and Renaissance Chronicles, ed. Juliana Dresvina and Nicholas Sparks (Cambridge, 2012), 231–59.

94

CRISTIAN BRATU

and fellow authors. Far from being just nostalgic, fictional or a locus of literary play as they are in some literary works, references to the voice and writing in medieval historical works expose the complex structure of different textual communities, their diverse workings and dynamic constructs of authority.3 To examine the effects of references to the voice and writing in medieval chronicles and histories – which I call effets de parlé and effets d’écrit – I focus on the works of four writers who represent two authorial qualities, that of the clerkly and non-clerkly writer, within two periods: the central Middle Ages (the twelfth and thirteenth centuries) and the late Middle Ages (the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries). Geffrei Gaimar and Geoffrey of Villehardouin wrote in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, respectively, while Jean Froissart and Christine de Pizan wrote in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Gaimar and Froissart were clerks, while Villehardouin and Pizan were not (though this does not mean that they were uneducated). For the purposes of this essay, the works of these four authors represent the ways oral and written effects were used by French writers of vernacular histories during the Middle Ages.4 Although I use the term ‘historian’ to describe these writers, the chronicles and histories discussed may not conform to modern standards of historical accuracy. Nonetheless, the efforts of these authors to narrate events in a (mostly) chronological manner sets their historical writings apart from other genres that treat historical themes, such as chansons de geste and romances.5 Nevertheless, these writers were not professional historians; they composed in both verse and prose, and many authored non-historical materials as well.

Effets de parlé and effets d’écrit in Medieval Histories Histories and chronicles, like many other medieval texts, have been shown to contain traces of orality, which, defined in the broadest possible sense, means that the human voice was involved in one or more steps of the text’s creation,

3 Indeed, Simon Gaunt notes that in some cases we are dealing with ‘fictions of orality’. See ‘Fictions of Orality in Troubadour poetry’, in Orality and Writing in Medieval Culture, ed. Mark Chinca and Christopher Young (Turnhout, 2005), 117–38, as well as Gaunt, ‘Fictions of Orality in Marie de France’s Lais’, in Retelling the Tale: An Introduction to Medieval French Literature (London, 2001), 49–70. 4 Although this essay focuses mainly on four historians, I will occasionally refer to other writers as well. 5 Chronicles are historical texts ‘largely or primarily concerned with chronology’; Graeme Dunphy, ‘Chronicles (Terminology)’, in Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle, ed. Graeme Dunphy, I (Leiden, 2010), 274–82 (276). In general, chronicles tended to be shorter than histories; the latter usually had more elaborate prologues and epilogues, and focused somewhat less on chronology. In practice, however, the border between the two genres was extremely porous. Froissart, for instance, uses the verbs ‘historier’ and ‘cronisier’ as synonyms, and many other late medieval historians use both terms, ‘histoire’ and ‘chronique’, to refer to their writings.



THE AUTHORIAL STRATEGIES OF MEDIEVAL FRENCH HISTORIANS

95

transmission or reception.6 Yet the oral effects in these historical texts do not simply echo the pervasive mixing of orality and writing in the Middle Ages as emphasized by Vitz. Their use was part of a literary strategy that enabled historians to convey certain images of themselves, position themselves within a community that had gathered around a book, negotiate their authority, address patrons, contend with other writers of histories, address specific audiences or multiple audiences, and instruct them on how to receive their writing. This study of effet de parlé and effet d’écrit in medieval French historical writings is inspired by Barthes’ notion of effet de réel.7 Like his effets, these were reception signals for the audience and positional signals through which the author claimed a certain place within a textual community, real and virtual, social and literary.8 In the first part of this essay, I examine the social context that may have prompted clerks and non-clerks alike to adopt oral effects, before turning to the medieval histories themselves and the textual communities that they portray. All literate cultures mix orality and writing, though the mix is different among different peoples, in different places and times, and with respect to different sorts of texts. In medieval textual communities, written works were usually composed by dictation and read aloud (prelection), which indicates that a text’s writers and readers might not be functionally literate, but could nevertheless play integral roles in producing a book, gathering a community around it and participating in its interpretation.9 Moreover, as narratives, historical 6 For studies that deal specifically with medieval orality, see Manfred G. Scholz, Hören und Lesen: Studien zur primären Rezeption der Literatur im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden, 1980); Brian Stock, The Implications of Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Princeton, NJ, 1983); Paul Zumthor, La Lettre et la voix de la «littérature» médiévale (Paris, 1984) and La Poésie et la voix dans la civilisation médiévale (Paris, 1987); Dennis H. Green, Medieval Listening and Reading: The Primary Reception of German Literature, 800–1300 (Cambridge, 1994); Michael Richter, The Oral Tradition in the Early Middle Ages (Turnhout, 1994); Wilhelm F. H. Nicolaisen, Oral Tradition in the Middle Ages (Binghamton, NY, 1995); Joyce Coleman, Public Reading and the Reading Public in Late Medieval England and France (Cambridge, 1996); Vitz, Orality and Performance; Mark Chinca and Christopher Young, eds, Orality and Literacy in the Middle Ages: Essays on a Conjunction and its Consequences in Honour of D. H. Green (Turnhout, 2005). The secondary literature on issues of orality and literacy in medieval historical texts is slim, with the exception of articles such as Penny Eley, ‘Speech and Writing in the Roman de Rou and Jordan Fantosme’s Chronicle’, in Maistre Wace: A Celebration. Proceedings of the International Colloquium Held in Jersey, 10–12 September 2004, ed. Glyn S. Burgess and Judith Weiss (St Hélier, 2006), 121–37; Sophia Menache, ‘Written and Oral Testimonies in Medieval Chronicles: Matthew Paris and Giovanni Villani’, Medieval Chronicle VI (Amsterdam, 2009), 1–30; and Menache, ‘Orality in Chronicles: Texts and Historical Contexts’, in Homo legens. Styles et pratiques de lecture: Analyses comparées des traditions orales et écrites au Moyen Age, ed. Svetlana Loutchitsky and Marie-Christine Varol (Turnhout, 2010), 163–95. 7 Roland Barthes, ‘L’Effet de réel’, Communications 11 (1968), 84–9. 8 Stock, The Implications of Literacy, 90–2 and passim. 9 Dictation explains why some medieval historical narratives seem to have a voice embedded in the writing, a vox intexta. See A. N. Doane and Carol Pasternack, Vox Intexta: Orality and Textuality in the Middle Ages (Madison, WI, 1991).

96

CRISTIAN BRATU

writings were particularly well suited to the skills of experts in oral delivery, storytellers. By evoking storytelling with oral effects, medieval historians could better capture their public’s attention and attract the widest possible audience. One might even say that the way these historians framed themselves as storytellers was an early marketing technique.10 Considering that many historians wrote at the request of powerful, illiterate patrons,11 they would have been eager to entertain and educate, delivering specialized types of historical, geographical or political knowledge in an engaging form.12 Framing such material as an orally performed story permitted an author to inform without seeming excessively superior; those who had the text read to them might have felt flattered to be presented with an authoritative, written text even if they did not wish to or were not able to read it themselves. Thus, the mode of storytelling could make for effortless education or informative entertainment, and turn historians into figures able to inform and entertain, educate and ‘spin a good story’, addressing both clerkly and courtly audiences at once. Furthermore, while writers often read their own texts aloud, others did so too, so that identifying a writer by name and writing in the first person could create the illusion that the author was there, actively addressing and engaging the audience through the performer or reader. Such an effet de présence (to paraphrase Barthes again), which created the impression that the writer was appearing in praesentia to tell a story before an audience, could also vividly connect the author to distant audiences. Before taking a closer look at how specific historians used oral and written effects to associate themselves with storytellers, it is useful to consider the period in which they worked and their status as clerkly or non-clerkly, because both often informed their professed relationship to orality and writing. The twelfth-century clerk Geffrei Gaimar was, alongside his contemporaries Wace and Benoît de Sainte-Maure, the first to produce what we call clerkly histories. Unlike romances and chansons de gestes, which might have originated with minstrels or clerks, historical texts from the twelfth century were almost exclusively une affaire de clercs, composed by formally educated, professional writers.13 Clerkly histories such as Gaimar’s Estoire des Engleis and, later on, Froissart’s Chroniques emphasize the writer’s authority by referring to tradition. These historians accented their clerkly status or education and knowledge, composed elaborate prologues or epilogues, referred to other written sources 10 The use of such ‘(self-)marketing strategies’ is comparable to the use of prose by thirteenth-century writers who wanted to appear as serious historians, in contrast to the rimeurs’ ‘fables’: Gabrielle Spiegel, Romancing the Past: The Rise of Vernacular Prose Historiography in Thirteenth-Century France (Berkeley, CA, 1993). For Machaut’s selfadvertisement as a poet, see Kevin Brownlee, Poetic Identity in Guillaume de Machaut (Madison, WI, 1984). 11 Coleman, Public Reading and the Reading Public. 12 See also Mark Cruse’s essay in this volume. 13 For an excellent definition and analysis of the notions of clerc and clergie, see Vitz, Orality and Performance, 49–52.



THE AUTHORIAL STRATEGIES OF MEDIEVAL FRENCH HISTORIANS

97

and authors (auctoritates), and in some cases represented the author as part of a reputable tradition or chain of historians who had written the history of a region or dynasty. In most cases, the authors of such texts were not direct participants in the events they narrated.14 By contrast, early non-clerkly histories such as Geoffrey of Villehardouin’s La Conquête de Constantinople tend to mention other sources infrequently, if at all, and rely on the memory of the author, who was usually an eyewitness and a participant in the events narrated.15 In the first two centuries of historywriting in French, there was thus a clear contrast between clerkly and nonclerkly historical texts. Beginning in the fourteenth century, however, a number of non-clerkly historians produced highly elaborate histories, similar in tone and sophistication to the texts written by their clerkly counterparts. A prime example of this type of historian was Christine de Pizan, the daughter of a physician and educated (but in a non-clerkly manner) at the court of Charles V, whose Livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V I will analyze later. Indeed, the last three centuries of the Middle Ages saw the steady rise of an educated bourgeoisie and nobility, for many aristocrats and burghers needed a certain degree of literacy to conduct their business and therefore sought tutoring from clerks, which resulted in schooling that, while not actually a clerkly education, was comparable.16 Differences between clerkly and non-clerkly historians might not have disappeared altogether during the autumn of the Middle Ages, but they do become less marked than in earlier historical periods. Although much scholarship has focused on the orality of romance and chanson de geste, references to the human voice abound in medieval histories, as authors address audiences, reminding them about an episode recounted earlier (‘comme je vous ai dit’) or announcing what they will narrate next (‘or parlerons de’). One of the questions that has haunted orality studies is whether such expressions and references were truly oral or written, or whether they were simply literary conventions.17 In other words, when medieval historians 14 These histories are essentially the medieval precursors to modern histories written by academics and professional historians. 15 This type of historical text is, in fact, the precursor of early modern and modern ‘memoirs’. The lesser emphasis on the author’s learning is also noticeable in the works of other non-clerkly historians such as Robert de Clari and, to a slightly lesser extent, of later writers such as Jean de Joinville and Philippe de Commynes. 16 Examples include Froissart’s continuators, Enguerrand de Monstrelet (collector of church money in Cambrai in 1436, later prévôt of Cambrai in 1444 and bailli of Walincourt the following year) and Mathieu d’Escouchy (échevin and prévôt of Péronne in the late 1440s), and the Burgundian indiciaires, starting with their first hystoriographe, Georges Chastelain (member of a prominent Flemish family and later knighted by the duke Charles the Bold). 17 In a previous article (Bratu, ‘Or vous dirai’), I proposed that in the case of historical narratives, especially prose chronicles, we speak of vocality instead of orality. The term vocality is the attribute of a written text which, on the one hand, still contains references to the voice of its creator (who speaks to the audience or to the scribe or both) and, on

98

CRISTIAN BRATU

addressed those who would ‘read their books’, did they write only with readers in mind? When they used expressions such as ‘as I said earlier’ or ‘I will now tell you the story of’, had they really (or had they always) spoken to a scribe or an audience? When Robert de Clari, a contemporary of Villehardouin, says that he ‘will tell the story of…’, the fact that he mentions dictation to a scribe helps explain the oral nature of those sentences at least in part: ‘ROBERS DE CLARI, li chevaliers, […] a fait metre en escrit le verité’ (Robert de Clari, the knight, … has had this truthful story put down in writing).18 In many other cases, however, it is difficult to establish whether or not the author actually dictated the text to a scribe. For instance, Villehardouin uses an ambiguous verb, ‘dicta’, when he describes the composition of his Conquête de Constantinople: ‘Et ce tesmoigne bien Josfroiz le mareschaus de Champaigne, qui ceste oevre dicta’ (And to this bears witness Geoffrey, the marshal of Champagne, who composed this work).19 Originally, this verb meant ‘to dictate’, but it later became synonymous with ‘to compose’ or ‘to write’.20 Did Villehardouin really dictate his text? He may have had a scribe, considering his position as marshal of Champagne and Romania, but we cannot be certain.21 Thus, although references to the voice and orality may sometimes convey the presence of an actual voice, there is not always a direct ontological correlation between oral phrases and speech, and correspondingly between written terms and actual writing. Such expressions were sometimes conventional and meant rather to create what we could call an oral effect (effet de parlé). The same applies to expressions emphasizing the writing process, which created a written effect (effet d’écrit). Whether or not such expressions were actually uttered or written by the authors themselves or by someone else, they produced the effect of speaking or writing.22 Conceiving of ‘oral’ and ‘written’ in terms of literary the other, can be re-oralized through performance. See Zumthor, La Lettre et la voix, and Ursula Schaefer, Vokalität: Altenglische Dichtung zwischen Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit (Tübingen, 1992). I doubt that performers, even professionals, would have been able to memorize entire chronicles since they are not what Vitz calls ‘memory-friendly texts’ (Orality and Performance, 228–66). 18 Robert de Clari, in La Conquête de Constantinople, ed. Jean Dufournet (Paris, 2004), §CXX. Unless otherwise indicated, all English translations and italics are mine. 19 Geoffroy de Villehardouin, La Conquête de Constantinople, ed. Jean Dufournet (Paris, 2004), §120. 20 ‘Ditier’ with the meaning of ‘écrire, rédiger, composer’; Frédéric Godefroy, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française du IXe siècle au XVe siècle, 10 vols (Paris, 1881–1902), II: 729. 21 See Green, Medieval Listening and Reading. 22 Moreover, we find many ‘oral’ expressions in the writings of authors such as Jean Froissart and Philippe de Commynes who were able to write (and did write parts of their texts) on their own. In other cases, authors such as Clari or Joinville mention their ‘writings’ or ‘books’ although such writings were the result of oral dictation. D. H. Green points out that in many cases there is no oral/written duality, as medieval writers often use these terms interchangeably. Naturally, this ambiguity of ‘oral’ expressions is noticeable in the writings of many other medieval writers, not just historians.



THE AUTHORIAL STRATEGIES OF MEDIEVAL FRENCH HISTORIANS

99

effects eliminates the endless questions of whether or not expressions such as ‘as I said earlier’ and ‘I will now write about…’ are truly (ontologically) oral or written. Furthermore, examining literary effects within specific texts frees us to examine their nature, function and value, to ask about their narrative functions, how the audience received the text, and how medieval writers may have used them self-consciously to position themselves within their textual communities. Indeed, while both effects appear in clerkly and non-clerkly histories, they play slightly different roles in each. Clerkly historians were eager to be seen as both scholars and storytellers, and in their histories the effet de parlé is key to the creation of their storyteller persona. In non-clerkly histories, the effet de parlé is intimately related to an effet de présence that stresses the narrator’s reliability as a recorder of historical events. Unlike clerks, most non-clerkly historians did not rely on the authority of other books; it was their status as eyewitness or participant in the events they described that conferred authority on their texts. In most cases, the authors of non-clerkly histories insist a great deal on their physical presence at the events they narrate, and the effet de présence with which they try to infuse their personae as narrators is meant to enhance this sense of physical presence. Thus, the effet de parlé helps create the impression that the writer was both physically there (as an eyewitness or soldier) and is also here (as a narrator) before the audience, explaining how events unfolded. This is true for many non-clerkly historians even though their situation changed toward the end of the Middle Ages. The effet d’écrit was part of a different strategy. Like modern-day academics, writers were part of a world in which their works would be judged by their peers, which explains the numerous references to written sources such as texts from which they had drawn inspiration and prestigious authors who had provided them with useful information, and their use of ‘written’ vocabulary. Through the effet d’écrit, such writers paid homage to the patrons who commissioned the work and placed themselves in the society of other writers, living or dead. In doing so, they differentiated themselves from creators like ménestrels and jongleurs, who were supposedly less knowledgeable (though this was not always the case).23 While it is true that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries written effects appear primarily in the works of clerkly historians, from the late thirteenth century we find them also used by non-clerks, such as Joinville, Philippe de Commynes, Olivier de la Marche, Christine de Pizan and others. Although many medieval historians believed that the effet d’écrit was required in order to earn literary lettres de noblesse, they did not look down upon the effet de parlé. One did not have to choose between oral and written strategies; each had different yet complementary purposes. The use of both oral and written strategies allowed historians to cater to several potential audiences 23 Vitz, Orality and Performance, 47–135. In some cases, the historians’ self-presentation is fairly similar to what we encounter in literary texts, such as Marie de France’s and Chrétien de Troyes’ prologues. In other cases, however, historians emphasize elements that set them apart from other writers (first-person testimony and historical erudition, to name just two).

100

CRISTIAN BRATU

(popular or courtly on the one hand, and learned on the other), to portray themselves in different postures (as an in praesentia storyteller and a scholar) and to allow their work to be disseminated in writing and orally. Their writings were, to use one of Evelyn Vitz’s phrases, ‘amphibian’ texts that were equally well suited to performance and reading.24 In fact, they depended on both modes to fully realize the aspirations of their writers to be janus bifrons, both entertainers and scholars.

Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Historians: Geffrei Gaimar and Geoffrey of Villehardouin In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, writers of histories (whether clerks or not) used effets de parlé and effets d’écrit to establish an authoritative presence within their textual communities. Their authority was a social construct determined by rank and personal interaction, which the voice and the book supported but did not supplant. The most important historical narratives of the twelfth century were composed in verse and written in the last two-thirds of the century, most of them by AngloNorman clerks such as Wace, Benoît de Sainte-Maure and Geffrei Gaimar. In his Estoire des Engleis, probably the first historical text written in vernacular French (c. 1136–37), Gaimar does everything in his power to suggest that he was a clerk and that he deserved to be called maistre, without explicitly claiming the scholarly title.25 In fact, the fourteenth-century manuscript R of the Estoire (London, British Library, MS Royal 13.A.xxi, olim 1146) begins with a rubric that reads ‘[C]i commence l’estoire des Engleis solum la translacion Maistre Geffrei Gaimar’ (Here begins the history of the English in the French adaptation of Master Geffrei Gaimar [fol. 113r]). Gaimar reinforced his clerkly status with repeated references to the scholarly labor that the composition of the Estoire had required: ‘Gaimar i mist marz e avril / e [après] tuz les douze mai’ (Gaimar

Vitz, Orality and Performance, 20. The Old French word comes from the Latin magister, which meant that the person had a university education and was allowed to teach. The term maistre could also designate a learned person in general. Alfred Tobler and Erhard Lommatzsch, eds, Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch: Adolf Toblers nachgelassene Materialien, 7 vols (Berlin, 1915–52), V: 909. See also Alexander Bell, ‘Maistre Geffrei Gaimar’, Medium Aevum 7 (1938), 184–98. In contrast to Gaimar, Wace explicitly claims the title of clerk in the section of the Roman de Rou known as the ‘Chronique ascendante’: ‘un clerc de Caen, qui out non Mestre Vace’; Wace, Le Roman de Rou, 3 vols, ed. Anthony J. Holden (Paris, 1970–73) , l. 3. Later, he describes how he became a clerk: he received his education in Caen (‘A Caem fu petiz portez / Iluec fu à leitres mis’ [ll. 10448–9]), moved to ‘France’ (modern-day Ile-de-France), and eventually returned to Caen, where he started his prolific career as a writer (‘Mult en escris e mult en fis’ [l. 10454]). 24 25



THE AUTHORIAL STRATEGIES OF MEDIEVAL FRENCH HISTORIANS

101

took March and April and a whole twelve months before finishing this adaptation [ll. 6438–9]).26 Gaimar also narrates in detail the process of composing the book, which was commissioned by Constance FitzGilbert, the wife of Ralph FitzGilbert. He admits that his work is a translation but emphasizes that, in order to write it, he had to consult many manuscripts in English and grammar books in French and Latin: ‘Il purchaça maint esamplaire, / livres engleis, e par gramaire / e en romanz e en latin’ (ll. 6441–3). Gaimar notes that he also consulted Walter Espec’s book (‘le livre Gautier Espac’ [l. 6448]), which Robert of Gloucester had had translated ‘in accordance with the books belonging to the Welsh’ (‘solum les livres as Waleis’ [l. 6451]). Walter Espec lent this book to Ralph FitzGilbert, who lent it to his wife, who then passed it on to Gaimar. The author writes that he also consulted the ‘good’ book of Oxford belonging to archdeacon Walter (‘le bon livre dë Oxeford’ [l. 6464]) and the ‘Winchester History’ (‘l’estorie de Wincestre’ [l. 6467]). This entire passage puts the seriousness of Gaimar’s research and the solidity of his bookish knowledge on display, while placing him in very distinguished company.27 In fact, if one were to consider these references as a verbal author image or presentation portrait, they would depict a striking scene of a textual community in action. Friends, patrons (husband and wife), translator, archdeacon and author pass books to one another. All the books bear titles and everyone is identified; they stand on an equal footing to share the texts, the patrons presenting volumes to the author as he presents his to them. People anchor the scene and are connected to one another by books. Gaimar’s Estoire des Engleis, together with the works of his contemporaries Wace and Benoît de Sainte-Maure, are fundamental for French historiography because they defined the formal conventions of vernacular historical narratives for centuries to come, particularly by concentrating bookish references – the effet d’écrit – in the prologue and epilogue, the loci auctoris. Most of Gaimar’s references to books, reading and writing are indeed concentrated in the epilogue (ll. 6436–532), but that is not to say that the rest of the text is devoid of effets d’écrit; they are scattered across the text (e.g. ll. 3233–8). Gaimar used erudite references to establish himself as a serious scholar, yet he also appealed to another audience through the effet de parlé. Ralph and Constance FitzGilbert had helped Gaimar acquire the books he needed, but the 26 Geffrei Gaimar, Estoire des Engleis: History of the English, ed. and trans. Ian Short (Oxford, 2009), 348–50. 27 Wace, a contemporary of Gaimar’s, was equally aware of the merits of the written word and claimed that without writing (‘si scripture ne fust feite’), many past events would have been forgotten (‘mult fussent choses ublïees / ki de viez tens sunt trespasses’); Wace, Le Roman de Rou, III, ll. 7–10. He later describes the merits of literacy with increased poetic pathos, saying that all things and all creatures will eventually perish; and their fame would be short if, after their demise, their memory or history did not survive in books written by clerks (‘Bien entend e cunuis e sai / que tuit murrunt e clerc e lai, / e que mult ad curte duree / enprés la mort lur renumee, / si par clerc nen est mis en livre; / ne poet par el durer ne vivre’ [III, ll. 137–42]).

102

CRISTIAN BRATU

intended audience of the Estoire was probably the FitzGilberts’ acquaintances and friends28 who may not have necessarily appreciated the many bookish references. He concentrated the written effect in the epilogue, which is easily skipped by a public reader,29 but the diegetic central section is in a quintessentially oral style, full of expressions such as ‘I am saying’, ‘I said’ or ‘I will tell’, ‘Now says Gaimar’, and so on.30 Such expressions acknowledge the realities of textual dissemination, where the voice played the leading role. In that sense, Gaimar is not fundamentally different from contemporaries such as Wace, who mentions this potential audience at the very beginning of the prologue to the third part of the Roman de Rou, where he says that histories need to be read out loud during feasts or social events (‘deit l’um les livres et les gestes / e les estoires lire a festes’ [III, ll. 5–6]).31 Indeed, even the loci auctoris – the prologues and epilogues – in these verse histories are not devoid of oral effects. For instance, the very first line in Benoît de Sainte-Maure’s Roman de Troie says that Solomon ‘teaches and tells us’ (‘Salemons nos enseigne e dit’) and he ends the prologue by announcing that he will ‘tell’ a story (‘fait e dit’).32 Medieval historical texts thus contain written and oral effects in both the authorial loci and the main body of the text, but usually in inverse proportion. These oral effects, reinforced by the works’ octosyllabic form,33 are largely predominant in the narrative part – perhaps to appeal to courtly audiences – while written effects appear in a higher percentage in the prologue and the epilogue, clerkly loci par excellence.34 The early thirteenth century saw the emergence of prose historical narratives written in the vernacular; as we might expect there is a concomitant shift in the use of effet d’écrit and effet de parlé.35 The first French historians in prose were two knights from the north of France: Robert de Clari and Geoffrey of VilleGaimar, Estoire des Engleis, xi. On medieval prologues, see James A. Schultz, ‘Classical Rhetoric, Medieval Poetics, and the Medieval Vernacular Prologue’, Speculum 59.1 (1984), 1–15. 30 Ll. 1639, 1642, 1906, 2143, 2289, 2511, 2960, 3003, 3352, 3937, 3988, 6481, 6484, 6508. 31 That also explains why Wace, like Gaimar, addresses this virtual audience on so many occasions: ‘oez’ (‘hear’ or ‘listen’ [III, ll. 2355, 4679, 5464]). In her ‘Speech and Writing in the Roman de Rou’, Eley argues that Wace also presents his Rou as a form of song (‘chant’ [II, ll. 4420–5]), which suggests that the author would have not been adverse to his text being sung before a courtly audience. 32 Benoît de Sainte-Maure, Chronique des ducs de Normandie, ed. Francisque Michel, 3 vols (Paris, 1836–38), I, ll. 1 and 131 respectively. Oral effects can be found elsewhere in the Chronique des ducs de Normandie as well: ‘m’estut de ceo parler’ and ‘Que jeo vus ai conté e dit’ (‘I must speak of this’ and ‘what I told you’ [ll. 208 and 7167]). 33 Evelyn B. Vitz, ‘Rethinking Old French Literature: The Orality of the Octosyllabic Couplet’, Romanic Review 77 (1986), 307–21, and her chapter ‘The Orality of the Octosyllabic Couplet’, Orality and Performance, 4–25. 34 This oral/written divide between prologue/epilogue and the rest of the text can be noticed in other medieval genres as well (i.e. romances). 35 Jeffrey Kittay and Wlad Godzich, The Emergence of Prose: An Essay in Prosaics (Minneapolis, MN, 1987). 28

29



THE AUTHORIAL STRATEGIES OF MEDIEVAL FRENCH HISTORIANS

103

hardouin. Clari was a lowly knight from Picardy, whereas Villehardouin was a high-ranking aristocrat, marshal of Champagne from 1185, and the friend of other great barons involved in the Fourth Crusade. In his Conquête de Constantinople, Villehardouin made no effort whatsoever to appear learned or pretend that his book was anything more than an eyewitness account of the Fourth Crusade.36 For this high-ranking aristocrat, his titre de noblesse was probably more valuable than any authorial prestige, which may explain why his introductory sentences are so discreet with regard to the authorship of the book. Overall, Villehardouin’s persona qua author is much more modest than the elaborate authorial figures of twelfth-century clerks like Gaimar. That is not to say that Villehardouin is absent from the text. Jeanette Beer has pointed out that his self-referencing occurs in five different modes: Villehardouin the marshal (very much present in the text); Villehardouin the author; the ‘I’ of the narrator; ‘we’ as a representative of the high barons; and a ‘book’ that Villehardouin mentions on a few occasions.37 Whereas Gaimar mentioned a large number of books to emphasize his vast knowledge, Villehardouin refers to just this one ‘book’ (‘li livres’). Mostly Villehardouin refers to it in formulaic expressions such as ‘tesmoingne li livres veraiment’ (the book bears witness truthfully).38 But what exactly is this book? I agree with Faral that ‘li livres’ refers to the Conquête de Constantinople itself: ‘le livre même qu’il composait’.39 There is absolutely nothing in the text that indicates another book as a possible referent. Moreover, the formulaic expression ‘the book bears witness’ (§120) is very similar to another phrase dear to the author, ‘thus bears witness Geoffrey the marshal of Champagne’ (§ 218). It is therefore safe to conclude that ‘li livres’ refers to Villehardouin’s own Conquête de Constantinople, which ‘speaks’ just

36 However, I should point out that clerks, who were familiar with the prose of the Bible, adapted quickly to the new genre as well. Henri de Valenciennes, author of the Histoire de l’empereur Henri de Constantinople, was probably a clerk working under the aegis of Baldwin IX of Flanders, who later became the first Latin emperor of Constantinople. Like Clari and Villehardouin, he participated in the Fourth Crusade. The prologue of Valenciennes’ Histoire begins with the well-known topos of the duty that wise and eloquent men have to ‘say’ what they know. This is a clerkly nod, but it is also ‘oral’, since most of the words used in this passage convey an effet de parlé, ‘Henris de Valenchienes dist ke, puis ke li hom s’entremet de biel dire et de traitier…’ (Henri de Valenciennes says that when one endeavors to tell a good story…), Henri de Valenciennes, La Conquête de Constantinople, avec la continuation de Henri de Valenciennes, ed. Natalis de Wailly (Paris, 1882), I: 304. The rest of the text (written for the emperor and the elite of the Latin East) presents itself almost entirely as a ‘speech’ regularly punctuated by Valenciennes’ favorite formula, the brevitas topos ‘Que vous diroie-jou?’ (to make a long story short). 37 Jeanette Beer, In Their Own Words: Practices of Quotation in Early Medieval HistoryWriting (Toronto, 2014), 40. 38 Villehardouin, La Conquête de Constantinople, ed. Dufournet, §§ 231, 236. All quotations from Villehardouin’s crusade history are drawn from this edition. 39 Geoffrey of Villehardouin, La Conquête de Constantinople, ed. Edmond Faral (Paris, 1938), 9.

104

CRISTIAN BRATU

as the narrator does, and ‘bears witness’ as Villehardouin did as marshal of Champagne and leader of the high barons. As a proxy for the narrator, ‘li livres’ creates a very meager effet d’écrit that stands in stark contrast to the much more powerful effets de parlé in the Conquête de Constantinople.40 In fact, Villehardouin begins his story of the Fourth Crusade by directly addressing his readers, as if they were an audience assembled before him: Seigneur, sachiez que mil anz et cent et quatre vinz et .XVII. anz aprés l’incarnacion Jhesucrist, […] ot .I. saint home qui ot a non Forques de Nueilli. (§1) (Be it known to you, my lords, that eleven hundred and ninety-seven years after the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, … there was in France a holy man named Fulk of Neuilly.)

The author’s voice resounds through the entire first paragraph and it can be ‘heard’ throughout the text. The effet de parlé resonates here with Villehardouin’s persona, eager to present his version of the events as if he were talking before an assembly of barons, as he had done so many times as ambassador of Thibaut de Champagne and later Boniface of Montferrat in both Venice and Constantinople. In fact, the first part of Villehardouin’s book is dominated by various prises de parole, most of them in connection with the Venetians’ desire to divert the Fourth Crusade to Zara. At this point, Villehardouin the ambassador was in charge of delivering messages between the French and the Venetians, and Villehardouin the narrator is indeed a thorough recorder of the dialogue between the two sides. Moreover, Villehardouin the narrator takes great delight in narrating how Villehardouin the ambassador made an impassioned speech in Venice, begging the local barons to join their forces with the French in order to save Jerusalem from the Muslims. According to Villehardouin the narrator, the Venetians were so moved by his speech that they all cried ‘We accept it’ (‘Nous l’otroions’, §28), ‘and,’ he continues, ‘there was such a great and joyous noise in the room that the earth was shaking’ (‘Ilec ot si grant noise que il sambla que terre tramblast’). Literary embellishment aside, this sentence is emblematic of the world of noble crusaders in which Villehardouin lived. It is no surprise, then, that most of the verbs relating to narration are imbued with an effet de parlé. In most cases, Villehardouin ‘speaks’41 and addresses the audience with phrases such as ‘sachiez’ (‘be it known to you’) and ‘oez’ (‘listen’).42 By comparison with the textual community portrayed in Gaimar’s Estoire, Villehardouin’s Conquête presents a very different scenario, one of high barons where the spoken word is 40 Which also suggests that the pervasiveness of effets d’écrit in clerkly writing is, in fact, a strategy for reinforcing their social legitimacy and reliability as narrators. 41 E.g. ‘Or vous lerons de ceuls, et vous dirons…’ (We will now leave this matter and tell you about, §51). 42 §§ 2, 70, 104, 128, 165, 173, 175, 182, 192, 202



THE AUTHORIAL STRATEGIES OF MEDIEVAL FRENCH HISTORIANS

105

king. ‘Li livres’ might sometimes function as a stand-in for the author, but as a porte-parole it is decidedly lesser than the voice of the leader which draws an earth-shaking response. Thus clerkly and non-clerkly historians of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries used oral and written effects in very different ways, but for both, authority was a social construct expressed through words, written or spoken. The loci auctoris – prologues and epilogues – became a standard feature in historical writings where the author stands at the center of a textual community. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, by contrast, books move to center-stage.

Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-Century Historians: Jean Froissart and Christine de Pizan By the fourteenth century, literacy had come to occupy a secure if not generalized place in textual communities, and French histories and chronicles had become established and mature genres. The use of oral and written effects in historical writings of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries evolved correspondingly. Whereas historians ‘speak’ to their audiences in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, their authority anchored in their persons, late medieval historians identify themselves more through their writings. For instance, a non-clerk like Joinville (seneschal of Champagne) notes proudly in his Vie de Saint Louis that he had put some of Louis IX’s ‘good words and fine teachings’ into writing (‘avons ci ariere escriptes partie de bones paroles et de bos enseignemes nostre saint roy Looÿs’).43 Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet is indeed right to describe the fourteenth century as a period smitten with books, both as written texts and artifacts.44 While many authors still address listeners,45 we nevertheless find many more authors who also address a readership. In fact, in the late Middle Ages, authors often direct their writings to a double audience, which is obvious from the frequent formula ‘ceux qui liront ou orront ce livre’ (‘those who will read or hear this book read’). In the Fourth Book of his Chroniques, Froissart addresses ‘vous qui le lisiez ou le lirez ou avez leu ou orrez lire’ (‘those of you who read, will read or have read it, or will hear it read’).46 Other times, historians may address only ‘those who will read’ (‘ceulx qui le liront’) their books, as Commynes (a non-clerkly

Jean de Joinville, La Vie de Saint Louis, ed. Jacques Monfrin (Paris, 1994), §68. Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet, La Couleur de la mélancolie: la fréquentation des livres au XIVe siècle, 1300–1415 (Paris, 1993), 58; Cerquiglini-Toulet, ‘L’Imaginaire du livre à la fin du Moyen Âge: pratiques de lecture, théorie de l’écriture’, Modern Language Notes 4 (1993), 680–95 (681). 45 Like Joinville himself in the sentence following the quote above, where he claims that his ‘writings’ will be useful to ‘cil qui les orront’ (those who will hear them). 46 Jean Froissart, Chroniques: Livre III, Du voyage en Béarn à la campagne de Gascogne. Livre IV, années 1389–1400, ed. Peter Ainsworth (Paris, 2004), Livre IV, §1, 344. 43 44

106

CRISTIAN BRATU

historian) does in the prologue to his Mémoires.47 By the late Middle Ages, a large number of people, including aristocrats and burghers (i.e. non-clerks), had acquired a certain familiarity with the world of the written word. The significant increase in the number of manuscripts stored in princely and royal libraries also bears witness to this growing bibliophilia.48 In tune with the times, Jean Froissart writes that the preservation of knowledge in general would be impossible without writing: ‘Car vous savez que toutte la cognoissance de ce monde retournent par l’escripture’.49 And yet in his Chroniques, he reveals his clerkly identity, his relationship to books, only at the end of a subtle crescendo that first establishes his place in society. In the prologue to Book I, he writes that the world is divided into three categories of people. First are the valiant knights (‘li vaillant homme’) who fight to gain more prestige (‘acroistre leur honneur’), second are the common folk who are bound to remember and extol the prowess of valiant knights, and third are the clerks who write up and record (‘escrisent et registrent’) these high deeds.50 Froissart suggests that he is one of these clerks, but not an authority in his own right. He is just the continuator of Jean le Bel, canon of Saint Lambert in Liège, whose history he reworked, incorporated into his own and continued by adding his own original material.51 The full confirmation of his status comes much later, in the prologue to Book IV. That prologue contains a short autobiography of Froissart, in which the author writes that God granted him the privilege to be in the company of so many kings, ‘especially of King Edward and of his noble wife, Philippa of Hainaut, queen of England, mistress of Ireland and Aquitaine’ (‘par especial du roy Edouart et de la noble roynne d’Angleterre, dame d’Irlande et d’Acquittainne’).52 Froissart adds that he was Philippa of Hainaut’s clerk and that, in that capacity, he composed many poems and treatises about love for her (‘à laquelle en ma jonesse je fuy clerc et la servoie de beaux dittiés et traittiés amoureux’). We cannot help but notice the effet d’écrit of this passage in which a proud clerk presents himself as a writer gifted in both history-writing and 47 Philippe de Commynes, Mémoires, ed. Joël Blanchard (Paris, 2001), 96. We find a similar expression in Froissart, (‘regardent et lisent en ce livre’) ; Jean Froissart, Chroniques: Livre I, première partie, 1325–1350. Livre II, années 1379–1385, ed. Peter F. Ainsworth and George T. Diller (Paris, 2001), Prologue, 72. 48 Bratu, ‘Or vous dirai’. 49 Jean Froissart, Chroniques de Jean Froissart, ed. Albert Mirot, XIV (Paris, 1966), Livre III, §179, 9. 50 Froissart, Chroniques, Livre I, Prologue, 75. 51 Froissart, Chroniques, Livre I, Prologue, 71. In fact, Froissart’s work will be continued later by Enguerrand de Monstrelet, who presents himself as the proud continuator of the ‘prudent and most renowned historian, Master Jean Froissart’ (‘ce prudent et très renommé historien, maistre Jehan Froissart’), an author whose fame, he says, will last for a long time thanks to Froissart’s ‘noble writings’ (‘duquel, par ses nobles œuvres, la renommée durra par long temps’), Enguerrand de Monstrelet, La Chronique d’Enguerran de Monstrelet, ed. Louis Douët-D’Arcq, 6 vols (Paris, 1857–62), I: 5. Later, Monstrelet’s own work would be continued by Mathieu d’Escouchy. 52 Froissart, Chroniques, Livre IV, §1, 344.



THE AUTHORIAL STRATEGIES OF MEDIEVAL FRENCH HISTORIANS

107

poetry. Indeed, we are now in the presence of a confident, consecrated, authoritative writer, an image that stands in contrast to the tentative authorial persona of Book I, in which Froissart saw himself as second to Jean le Bel. Although late medieval historical texts contain an increasing number of references to reading, listening continues to be the dominant mode of reception and the reason why late medieval historians continued to use oral effects.53 Just as in the works of the twelfth- and thirteenth-century historians, in Froissart’s Chroniques the effet d’écrit is mostly limited to prologues, and the effet de parlé dominates within the actual narrative. The prologues are not without oral effects, however, as in the prologue of Book I, where Froissart claims that he wants to ‘tell and talk’ about marvelous chivalric exploits (‘je voel parler et trettier de grans mervelles’).54 In his third book, Froissart paints a well-known verbal portrait of prelection: Gaston Phébus, count of Foix-Béarn, enjoyed listening to the author himself read from his own book every evening after supper (‘toutes les nuis aprés sou soupper je lui en lisoie’). Phébus was allegedly so enthralled by Froissart’s reading that ‘no one dared say a word’ because he wanted to be sure that the writer ‘could be heard and understood and because he took such pleasure in listening’ (‘Mais en lisant, nul n’osoit parler ne mot dire, car il vouloit que je feusse bien entendu, et aussi il prenoit grant solas au bien entendre’).55 Public performances of histories continued through the end of the Middle Ages (and beyond) and, as a result, the effet de parlé remained an important component of late medieval histories, even as the importance of the effet d’écrit became more salient. We encounter more evidence for public readings in Christine de Pizan’s Livre des fais et bonnes moeurs du sage roi Charles V, where she tells us that the French king greatly appreciated his valet, Gilles Malet, who often served as his prelector (public reader) because he read very artfully (‘souverainement bien lisoit et bel pontoit’).56 Indeed, Christine’s historical work begins with an oral effect in the form of an invocation to God, whom she asks to ‘open her lips’ (‘euvre mes levres’) so that she may speak.57 Oftentimes, her chapters begin with effets de parlé such as ‘or regardons’ (‘now let us consider’) ‘or nous convient parler’ (‘we should now discuss’) ‘or me plait 53 Coleman, Public Reading and the Reading Public. Silent reading was virtually unknown in Europe until the late Middle Ages. See Paul Saenger, Space Between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading (Stanford, CA, 1997). 54 Froissart, Chroniques, Livre I, Prologue, 72. 55 Froissart, Chroniques, Livre III, §13, 174. 56 Christine de Pizan, Le Livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V, ed. Suzanne Solente, 2 vols (Paris, 1936), II, §XXI. For a discussion of the rhetorical term ‘poynter’ referring to dramatic reading practices, see Yolanda Plumley, ‘The Marriage of Words and Music: Musique naturele and musique artificiele in Machaut’s “Sans cuer dolens” (Rondeau 4)’, in Machaut’s Music: New Interpretations, ed. Elizabeth Eva Leach (Woodbridge, 2003), 231–48 (238–41). 57 Pizan, Le Livre des fais, I, §I. Although, in truth, one could argue that the incipit also creates a subtle effet d’écrit because it is a reference to Ps. 51:15.

108

CRISTIAN BRATU

deviser’ (‘now I would like to talk about’), which allow her to present her text as speech. The presence of oral expressions in Christine’s Livre des fais corresponds with our earlier discussion of the strong effet de parlé in the works of non-clerkly historians. It is important to remember, however, that although Christine was not of clerkly status herself, she was the daughter of Tommaso di Benvenuto da Pizzano (physician and astrologer to Charles V and a highly educated man) and received the sort of solid education that was usually reserved for aristocratic women. As Kevin Brownlee points out, Christine’s father wanted her to be taught ‘in the vernacular, i.e., the mother language, while withholding a full clerkly formation in Latin, i.e., the father language’.58 Christine de Pizan is representative of an educated but non-clerkly group of writers who were becoming more and more assertive toward the end of the Middle Ages. The effets d’écrit in her Livre des fais are extremely powerful, even by comparison with the writings of a clerk like Froissart. It should be noted that where most clerkly historians concentrated their scholarly references in the prologue and the epilogue, Christine’s erudition informs her entire historical text. Christine de Pizan strives in many of her texts to show that her knowledge was comparable if not vastly superior to that of contemporary clerks; this is particularly evident in her historical writing where the effet d’écrit is an important element in the way she appropriates clerkly discourse. Like the clerks Wace and Froissart before her, Christine used and adapted the idea of the immortality of the written text to present her work and to shape her presence as a writer. In her Livre des fais, she quotes Ovid, who wrote in his Metamorphoses that he had created a book that could never be destroyed.59 But whereas Ovid based his hope for immortality on the quality of his works, Christine adds a personal touch rooted in scribal practice. Books are now copied into so many exemplars, she says, that the content of the book could never be destroyed because of the multitude of its physical copies (‘livres qui tost sont ventillés en plusieurs pars par diverses copies n’en puist estre destruitte la matiere’ [II, §49]). Christine not only appropriates a clerkly authorial persona for herself but she also subverts the traditional, chronological model of French histories to foreground her learning. While she employs a chronological model in the first nine chapters of the first part of her Livre des fais, she then transitions to a thematic, encyclopedic structure in the later sections. Thus, after the first nine chapters that focus on Charles V’s birth, childhood and coronation, the subsequent chapters discuss the king’s virtues and qualities in such a way that the author can put the full extent of her knowledge on display. When mentioning the king’s valor, for instance, Christine compares him to Trajan, Scipio, Alexander the Great and Clovis, which allows her to bring up learned references taken from ancient auctoritates, such as Aristotle, Virgil, Ovid and Valerius Maximus, and 58 Kevin Brownlee, ‘Literary Genealogy and the Problem of the Father: Christine de Pizan and Dante’, Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 23 (1993), 365–87. 59 Pizan, Le Livre des fais, II, §49.



THE AUTHORIAL STRATEGIES OF MEDIEVAL FRENCH HISTORIANS

109

medieval writers such as Giles of Rome and Bernard Gui. All these references to book learning enhance Christine’s authority as a historian and put her on par with clerkly historians at a time when history-writing was perceived as a male prerogative. Christine’s time was a far cry from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the effet de parlé dominated in the works of clerkly historians. By the end of the Middle Ages, we notice a stronger effet d’écrit in the writings of all historians, both clerkly and non-clerkly. But again, these two effects were not part of a zero-sum game. During the last two centuries of the Middle Ages, historians continued to use both the voice and writing – written effects that allowed them to establish themselves as worthy scholarly figures and oral effects that helped them deliver their works in deeply meaningful performances.

Conclusion Whether it was nobler to speak or write is a modern critical dilemma, not a medieval one. The question of whether references to speech in written historical texts are ‘true’ or not, and whether one must choose to believe one or the other, may well be a distraction. Our analysis of the use of oral and written effects in French vernacular historical writings of the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries confirms Evelyn Birge Vitz’s assertion that the blend of oral and written cultures was a constant until the end of the medieval period and beyond, for many texts were ‘amphibian’, shifting from one medium to the other and relying on both.60 Those writers of history who wanted to stand out as scholars – many of them clerks – incorporated effets d’écrit to reinforce their authority, but their texts were nevertheless designed for oral dissemination. Indeed, they are imbued with effets de parlé, perhaps because no matter how desirable and noble erudition may have seemed to clerks, most of these histories were destined for semiliterate patrons and publics who, in many cases, preferred to hear them with all the inflections of a storyteller’s voice. Effets de parlé and effets d’écrit in medieval historical writings therefore function somewhat differently from what Simon Gaunt has found in literary texts, such as the lais of Marie de France and the songs of Marcabru.61 He has argued that the references to writing in literary texts reflect the poet’s literate life, and references to the voice reflect a nostalgia for oral traditions that creates a legendary aura for their poetry, the sense that it belongs to a literary history that stretches to times before writing. While historical writings from this period were not devoid of such fictions, writers of histories more often used references to books and the voice to create complementary effects that helped them position themselves within their actual textual communities. In many cases they depict Vitz, Orality and Performance, 20. Gaunt, ‘Fictions of Orality in Troubadour Poetry’, and ‘Fictions of Orality in Marie de France’s Lais’ in his Retelling the Tale. 60 61

110

CRISTIAN BRATU

a community in action, exposing the dynamics of translating, the borrowing and lending of books, the politics (sometimes gendered) of sparring authors, reading aloud and the arts of listening. The responses ring clear, whether they are the quiet solas of Gaston Phébus or the cries of barons that made the earth shake. Skilled historians mined all the workings of their textual communities to construct an authority that was, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, anchored in their persons, and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in books that had become proxies for their authors. But the voice of the storyteller echoes throughout the histories of all these medieval centuries, for authority – clerkly or not – ultimately relied on the power of speech.

Or, entendez! Jacques Tahureau and the Staging of the Storytelling Scene in Early Modern France Kathleen Loysen Well into the early modern period and beyond, French authors such as Martial d’Auvergne and Marguerite de Navarre remained devoted to the literary representation of oral storytellers. Indeed, far from producing texts with writerly, externalized narrators attached to them, they created images of storytelling circles, scenes that remind readers of how medieval storytelling was thought to have taken place: groups of people, gathered together, orally exchanging stories either with or without the physical presence of a book. Such works provide a fascinating blend of text and represented voice: printed pages which appear to speak, on which nearly all the words are representations of oral discourse, whether the transmission of stories or the exchange of conversation in response to those stories. Elsewhere I have discussed the depiction of the storytelling scene in such texts as the Cent nouvelles nouvelles, the Évangiles des quenouilles, the Heptaméron, the Caquets de l’Accouchée, Martial d’Auvergne’s Arrêts d’Amour and Noël Du Fail’s Propos rustiques.1 However, even a text such as Jacques Tahureau’s Dialogues (published 1565),2 traditionally classified as belonging to the genre of the humanist dialogue,3 and which does not therefore immediately appear to fit into an analogous pattern, is mediated by an overarching and highly oralized narrative presence on the page. I will show here, therefore, that beyond merely demonstrating the enduring influence of the medieval storytelling circle in the French early modern period, such a text revises our understanding of that 1 See ‘Chattering Women: From the Évangiles des quenouilles to the Caquets de l’accouchée’, Seventeenth-Century French Studies 28 (2006), 21–32; Conversation and Storytelling in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century French Nouvelles (New York, 2004); and ‘Late Medieval Representations of Storytelling and Story-Performance’, in Cultural Performances in Medieval France, ed. Eglal Doss-Quinby, E. Jane Burns and Roberta L. Krueger (Cambridge, 2007), 251–7. 2 Jacques Tahureau, Les Dialogues non moins profitables que facetieux, ed. Max Gauna (Geneva, 1981). All translations are based on this edition and are entirely my own. 3 See Donald Gilman, ‘The Dialogue as Artful Argumentation’, in The Dialogue in Early Modern France, 1547–1630: Art and Argument, ed. Colette H. Winn (Washington, DC, 1993), 69–76; and Nicole Cazauran, ‘Un nouveau “genre” d’écrire: Les débuts du dialogue mondain’, in Marguerite de Navarre 1492–1992: Actes du Colloque international de Pau, ed. Nicole Cazauran and James Dauphiné (Mont-de-Marsan, 1995), 537–91.

112

KATHLEEN LOYSEN

influence, dissolving generic boundaries in unexpected ways. It expands our notion of storytelling and participates in many of the paradigms and techniques of storytelling with which we are familiar from the Middle Ages, a world first illuminated for me through the close and enriching work I embarked upon under the guidance of Timmie Vitz. Openly competing with Boccaccio to create the French Decameron, the ­anonymous author of the Cent nouvelles nouvelles (1462), Philippe de ­Vigneulles (author of another early sixteenth-century Cent nouvelles nouvelles) and Marguerite de Navarre (Heptaméron, 1540s), among others, sought to inscribe the storyteller’s voice on the page, a technique also seen in late medieval texts as diverse as the anonymous Évangiles des quenouilles (1466–74) or Martial d’Auvergne’s Arrêts d’Amour (1460s). However, this technique is not one that disappeared from use with the passage from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, and further into the early modern period. Indeed, while it may at first blush appear counterintuitive for it to be so, the storyteller’s voice remained as audible as ever, even as the texts themselves were disseminated more and more often through the printed page. This is particularly the case of the French late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, as if authors wished to create in the minds of their farflung readers a scene in which texts were originally transmitted orally, via the richly detailed depiction of inscribed storytellers, story recipients and multiple effets de réel.4 The purpose of these scenes of storytelling seems to be a restoration of the social context of literature and a reconstitution of the archetypal chain of story transmission in an era when the storyteller/story-recipient bond was no longer as intimate as in prior generations. Indeed, even when authors no longer exerted the same control over the transmission and reception of their works as when storytelling took place more predominantly in social contexts, the depicted scene of oral storytelling remained a major literary motif. In texts as varied as Hélisenne de Crenne’s Angoisses douloureuses (1538), Jacques Tahureau’s Dialogues (1565), Étienne Tabourot des Accords’ Bigarrures (1572–85) and Les Escraignes dijonnaises (1614), Guillaume Bouchet’s Serées (1584–87), Noël Du Fail’s Propos rustiques (1547) and Contes et discours d’Eutrapel (1585), Nicolas de Cholières’ Les Neuf matinées (1585) and Les Après dinées (1587), Béroalde de Verville’s Le Moyen de parvenir (1593), the anonymous Caquets de l’Accouchée (1622) and even Mme de Lafayette’s La Princesse de Clèves (1678),5 we can discern the same game: multiple layers of narrative voices, the depiction of a storytelling and storyhearing circuit, and the dramatization of the reader-response process. Despite, 4 See Roland Barthes, ‘L’Effet de réel’, Communications 11 (1968), 84–9. Such effects, which call attention to the processes that make a text appear ‘real’ and ‘truthful’, include the detailed description of the setting, the presence of a scribal character, the contextualization of the represented speech via the structural device of the frame and the deliberate oralizing of the written page. 5 See Leanna Bridge Rezvani, ‘Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptaméron: The Inspiration behind La Princesse de Clèves’, Dalhousie French Studies 92 (Fall 2010), 3–9.



JACQUES TAHUREAU AND THE STAGING OF THE STORYTELLING SCENE

113

or, indeed, perhaps because of, the fact that actual oral storytelling may have been fading as a dominant social practice, that original scene remains in the forefront of the authors’, narrators’ and characters’ minds as we read of them telling stories interpolated within other stories. Khedija El-Ajroud has posited that the Dialogues are ‘à cheval’ between dialogue and narrative,6 and Donald Gilman has discussed the work as a prototypical example of the humanist dialogue, based on classical models. Further, despite including the work in her seminal study of the framed short story collection, Donner la parole, which would seem an attempt to foreground the work’s narrative characteristics over its dialogic ones, Madeleine Jeay claims that the Dialogues’ two interlocutors remain conversationalists and do not tell stories: ‘les Dialogues de Jacques Tahureau laissent toute la place aux considerations des interlocuteurs, sans que soient développées les anecdotes servant d’exemple’. She continues, however, that ‘Les deux philosophes, Démocrite et Cosmophile, y sont pourtant des personnages d’histoire-cadre, dans l’attitude traditionnelle du conteur’,7 and it is this aspect that I will examine closely here. Most other studies of the work’s genre and structure have only examined whether it conforms to the generic conventions of the humanist dialogue,8 and there is no systematic study of the work’s narrative mechanisms. If we were to look at the work through the lens of the framed narrative collection, we would see that it shares many of the characteristics – although not all – of this type of literary work: a frame context, if not a fully fledged frame narrative; multiple storytelling and conversational voices represented on the page; contextualization of the conversational and storytelling scene; and discernible alternation between purely conversational passages and those that tend toward the narrative. The presence of such mechanisms allows us to link the work more closely with a medieval mode of literary representation of oral storytelling, while we also see how Tahureau has innovated upon that inherited tradition: it inscribes both a storyteller and an audience member, actively interacting with one another and with the verbal material depicted as being orally exchanged. We can see, therefore, that Tahureau is concerned with preserving a voiced presence on the page, offering his readers a unique blend of humanist dialogue and embodied storytelling, playing with all the traditional elements to enhance the effect of transporting the reader into a scene of oral origin of the written word. Earlier collections, such as the anonymous Cent nouvelles nouvelles (1460s),9 evoke ‘live’ storytelling figures only by allusion, and there is no discussion around 6 Khedija El-Ajroud, ‘Oralité et écriture dans Les Dialogues de Jacques Tahureau du Mans’, in Langue et littérature orales dans l’Ouest de la France, ed. Michel Bonneau and Georges Cesbron (Angers, 1983), 320–9 (328). 7 Madeleine Jeay, Donner la parole: L’histoire-cadre dans les recueils de nouvelles des XVe–XVIe siècles (Montreal, 1992), 85. 8 See, for example, Gilman, ‘Dialogue as Artful Argumentation’, and Trevor Peach, Nature et raison: Étude critique des Dialogues de Jacques Tahureau (Geneva, 1986). 9 Loysen, ‘Late Medieval Representations’, 253–4.

114

KATHLEEN LOYSEN

or about the tales; later, a work such as Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptaméron (1540s) brings the role of the storytelling circle front and center (each member of the circle tells and listens to stories and participates in the process of interpreting those stories via conversational exchange), while maintaining a strict equilibrium between the exemplary narratives and the conversations which both generate and contextualize them.10 At first, the structural pendulum appears to have swung entirely in the other direction in a work such as Tahureau’s, emphasizing the conversational mode over storytelling. The work is indeed noteworthy for the emphasis placed on, as the title suggests, the dialogic rather than the narrative mode. However, I will question whether the conversational impulse has in fact entirely overtaken the narrative one for Tahureau. Indeed, I will show that the Dialogues participate in the same sort of literary experimentation with the oral talking and telling scene that we see re-enacted elsewhere in medieval and early modern France, blending the various elements in a unique configuration, thereby expanding our understanding of the resonances that a storytelling circle may have had for authors of the period, and suggesting the sorts of texts that may have been called upon to participate in such literary experimentation. I will briefly describe, by way of comparison, two other better-known texts which offer us a more canonical picture of the staged storytelling scene: the Cent nouvelles nouvelles and the Heptaméron. On one end of the continuum lies the anonymous Cent nouvelles nouvelles, offered as a gift to Philippe le Bon, duke of Burgundy, in 1462. This text is as different from the paradigmatic Heptaméron as are the Dialogues – although in the opposite direction: like the Dialogues, it has no frame narrative, no division into days, no narratorial scribe figure and, indeed, the cercle conteur is merely evoked in the reader’s mind by the mention of the name of a storyteller for each nouvelle. This also means that the text does not depict any conversations in reaction to the narratives themselves. And yet these references to storytellers, these effets de réel, however slight, nonetheless serve a very important function. They help shape the work to appear as if it were a transcription of a real storytelling event. This illusion also calls to mind for the reader issues of textual interpretation: live storytellers have live audiences who talk back, react, interpret. It suggests that a text’s message is not transmitted in a unidirectional pathway, from the author to a 10 Discussed in Mary J. Baker, ‘Metadiegetic Narrative in the Heptaméron’, Studies in the Literary Imagination 25.1 (1992), 97–101; Nicole Cazauran, ‘Les Devisants de l’Heptaméron et leurs “nouvelles”’, Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France 96.5 (1996), 879–93; Josephine Donovan, Women and the Rise of the Novel, 1405–1726 (New York, 1999); Michel Jeanneret, ‘Modular Narrative and the Crisis of Interpretation’, in Critical Tales: New Studies of the Heptaméron and Early Modern Culture, ed. John D. Lyons and Mary McKinley (Philadelphia, PA, 1993), 85–103; Jeay, Donner la parole; Philippe de Lajarte, ‘Modes du discours et formes d’altérité dans les «Nouvelles» de Marguerite de Navarre’, Littérature 55 (1984), 64–73; Deborah N. Losse, ‘The Representation of Discourse in the Renaissance Nouvelle’, Poetics Today 5.3 (1984), 585–95; Gisèle Mathieu-Castellani, La Conversation conteuse: Les Nouvelles de Marguerite de Navarre (Paris, 1992).



JACQUES TAHUREAU AND THE STAGING OF THE STORYTELLING SCENE

115

passive, unthinking and non-responding audience. In point of fact, all we have before us are the stories themselves, linked together by a whispered hint of oral performance, audience participation, active interpretation. These suggestive hints reach their full structural potential in a text such as the Heptaméron, which fully contextualizes the scene of both story- and conversation-exchange, and merges these two verbal modes to illustrate the mechanisms of the interpretive process. Both story and conversation are essential to this process: the conversations depict an active interpretive/reader-response process taking place in reaction to the stories and they also generate each successive story. No stories are propagated without the preceding conversations, and there is, in turn, no conversation without the preceding stories, each mutually reinforcing the other in a potentially endlessly reiterative loop. The Heptaméron’s highly structured interplay of conversation and storytelling, along with the multiplicity of exemplary tales and possible responses to them, demonstrates the nature of the narrative-interpretive transaction as it is envisioned by Marguerite de Navarre. The communicative function of the conversation and the storytelling in the Heptaméron is to embark upon a quest for truth, a quest enacted through the engagement of one’s co-participants in debates on the meaning to be extracted from any particular tale. This quest remains ambiguous at the close of the work, not only because it is unfinished (only seventy-two out of the planned hundred stories were ever gathered together), but also because the circle of participants reaches no consensus regarding the meaning of the tales or their moral applicability. Jacques Tahureau seems, at first, to do something quite different. What lies on the page is apparently pure dialogue, with no storytelling at all: it is a ‘conversation faite livre’.11 According to standard interpretations of a ‘dialogic text’, such as those posited by Bakhtin, our expectation would be that its message would be relativized, provisional, ‘varied and heteroglot’.12 And yet we are dealing with a text that, as Cathy Yandell has shown,13 is paradoxically far less ambiguous, far less multivalent and far more singular in meaning than its conversational, dialogic trappings might suggest. There is but one version of the truth communicated here, and it is the one belonging to the main speaker depicted, Le Democritic. This univocal message is conveyed via the work’s structure, which depicts two dialogues, one after the other, each with only two interlocutors: Le Democritic and his conversation partner/student, Le Cosmophile. This aspect on its own evinces the first two of three similarities with other more typical framed narrative collections, which distinguish it from belonging purely to the humanist 11 12

27.

Jeay, Donner la parole, 178. Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, ed. Michael Holquist (Austin, TX, 1981),

13 Cathy Yandell, ‘The Dialogic Delusion: Jacques Tahureau’s Dialogues and the Rhetoric of Closure’, in The Dialogue in Early Modern France, 1547–1630: Art and Argument, ed. Colette H. Winn (Washington, DC, 1993), 158–89.

116

KATHLEEN LOYSEN

dialogue tradition: the reiteration of multiple speaking sessions, the representation of multiple speaking voices and the contextualization of a frame context. While other collections divide storytelling sessions into discrete phases through the imposition of a succession of days onto the narrative structure (six days in the Évangiles des quenouilles and ten in the Heptaméron, for example),14 Tahureau divides the storytelling and conversational scene into two distinct phases. In and of itself, this suggests an affinity with the Boccaccian tradition, a tradition which is a constitutive element of the effet de réel of any text that purports to be a literary representation of an actual conversational or storytelling event – realistic trappings such as the suggestion of cyclical daily routine (in the Évangiles or the Heptaméron), or, as here, where the depicted and apparently transcribed conversation is said to end when the two interlocutors decide whether to dine together and move to a different venue, where the second phase will resume. The second characteristic this work has in common structurally with other more typical story collections is its representation of multiple speakers. While Yandell has shown that Le Democritic’s viewpoints represent those of Tahureau himself, Tahureau nonetheless expressly chose not to write a single-voiced philosophical treatise. Donald Gilman has shown that French humanists made use of the dialogue form, inherited from the Ancients, precisely to present persuasive arguments in more pleasurable form: an ‘artful argumentation’,15 a spoonful of sugar with the medicine. The presence of more than one interlocutor is a feature that Tahureau shares with the framed narrative collection: these are the beginnings of what resembles a cercle conteur, a storytelling circle. Despite the unequivocal nature of Le Democritic’s voice, the text nonetheless makes use of diffracted voices, a va-et-vient between two different speakers who do engage in debate. Despite the fact that one of those voices is set up to win consistently, Le Democritic’s arguments are nonetheless developed via an interactive process of engagement with another speaker. The third feature in common with framed story collections is the frame context (if not a frame narrative). Tahureau does evoke a fully rendered scene in which his speakers are represented as conversing with one another. Like many of his medieval predecessors and sixteenth-century counterparts, his work contextualizes the scene of enunciation and depicts the oral exchange between his characters within its apparently lived context. In order to do this, Le Democritic and Le Cosmophile speak directly to each other as a ‘je’ (I) addressing a ‘tu’ (you) – never as bookish narrators addressing external readers. They do not break the frame of the diegesis to point outward, but rather remain within the depicted scene. There are also many markers of orality such as ‘bref’ (anyway), ‘je croy’ (I believe), and ‘je ne sçai’ (I don’t know), exclamations such as ‘Ha!’ and ‘j’en jure’ (I swear). Readers are privy to other such realistic

14 Anon., Les Évangiles des quenouilles, ed. Madeleine Jeay (Montreal, 1985); Marguerite de Navarre, L’Heptaméron, ed. Michel François (Paris, 1967). 15 Gilman, ‘Dialogue as Artful Argumentation’, 76.



JACQUES TAHUREAU AND THE STAGING OF THE STORYTELLING SCENE

117

details as the description of the scene when Le Cosmophile happens upon Le Democritic and approaches him: Il me semble avoir entendu quelcun en ce bocage […] Ha! Je le voy, où il se pourmene tenant je ne sçay quel livre en sa main; je m’en vai l’aborder […] Hau compagnon, qu’à la bonne heure te puissé-je avoir rencontré! (16) (It seems to me I heard someone in this grove […] Oh! I see him, walking with some book in his hand; I am going to approach him […] Hey, mate, if only I’d met you earlier!)

Later, the two men continue their exchange on the lawn in a classical locus amoenus setting: ‘je t’en diray, après nous estre assis sus cette herbe verte’ (I’ll tell you about it, after we are seated on this green grass [39]). Then they bring the first dialogue to a close by deciding to dine together in Le Democritic’s home, pointed out with a ‘Or tu vois une maison qui est mienne …’ (So you see there my house [139]). Such deictic markers16 serve as effets de réel in order to draw the reader more effectively into the created scene. By fashioning an image of the real, by creating multiple voices, by placing those voices in contact with one another, Tahureau, like others who utilized similar techniques, creates an effect of immediacy and presence. And yet these represented voices are placed in contact with the materiality of the written word, as if to ground the written word more firmly in a verisimilar context of its own origination, showing the imagined oral origin of the literary word. There are therefore at least three ways that Tahureau participates in the use of techniques that could be associated with framed narrative collections: the reiteration of multiple speaking sessions, the representation of multiple speaking voices and the contextualization of a frame context. Tahureau establishes his two main characters in the traditional stance of devisants, who alternate between talking and telling, between conversing and storytelling, creating certain horizons d’attente in his readers’ minds.17 After setting up the text in these ways to awaken memories of the framed tale collection, however, the traditional analysis of Tahureau suggests that he does not depict his characters telling the expected stories, claiming that he instead favors the conversational element over the narrative. In the reading I propose, on the other hand, Le Democritic consistently declares his goal of determining, expounding upon and disseminating ‘la vérité’

16 See Susan R. Suleiman, ‘Introduction: Varieties of Audience-Oriented Criticism’, in The Reader in the Text: Essays on Audience and Interpretation, ed. Susan R. Suleiman and Inge Crosman (Princeton, NJ, 1980), 3–45 (13–15). 17 Roger Chartier has discussed how a community of readers’ horizons d’attente, or horizons of expectations, enter into relationship with a text to participate in the creation of meaning. See Culture écrite et société: L’Ordre des livres (XIVe–XVIIIe siècle) (Paris, 1996).

118

KATHLEEN LOYSEN

(the truth) – another goal he shares with the storytellers of the Heptaméron.18 Like them, he makes use of what the linguist Alan Ryave has called ‘significance statements’, statements which direct readers’ interpretation toward a storyteller’s intended meaning, pithy declarations of his projected message.19 And then, in the methods of exemplary proof he uses to demonstrate the very truth value of these significance statements, he likewise resembles his cousins in the Heptaméron and his medieval forebears by veering into the narrative mode.20 He relies upon storytelling techniques to illustrate the rightness of his opinions, a term he uses repeatedly, ranging from brief allusions to other texts, to digressions consisting of exemplary anecdotes, to examples borrowed from history, literature, mythology and even the Bible, to extended illustrative stories that he tells about himself or people in his own acquaintance – these can be considered nouvelles. All of the exemplary tales he proffers take on a narrative character.21 For instance, near the beginning of Dialogue 1, Le Democritic declares: ‘Premierement regarde si la femme sçauroit gouverner et entretenir une Republique, rendant ce qui appartient à un chacun comme fait l’homme’ (First of all, let us see if women would know how to govern and maintain a Republic, rendering to each his own, as men do [24]). To explore this proposition, to prove his contention that women cannot in fact govern as well as men, he inserts an extended illustrative story – for Le Cosmophile has objected that, of course, it is possible for women to govern as well as men: we have, he protests, the ‘exemple’ of the Amazons: ‘lesquelles ont tant bien gouverné leur republique, mené guerres et vaincu leurs ennemis, et le feroient aussi bien aujourd’huy comme elles l’ont fait, n’estoit le peu de liberté qu’elles ont de nous autres hommes’ (they governed their republic so well, and waged wars and vanquished their enemies, and would do so just as well today as they once did, were it not for the precious little liberty we men give them [24]). Le Democritic fires back with an additional extended story about the Amazons, in which he turns the traditionally accepted interpretation of their story – the one just submitted by Le Cosmophile – completely upside-down: ‘Quant est des Amazones, elles ne peuvent estre à bon droit louees du gouvernement de leur païs’ (As for the Amazons, they cannot rightly be praised for the government of their country [24]). He continues along these lines, illustrating this new position, then moves 18 The storytellers make a pact ‘de n’escripre nulle nouvelle qui ne soit veritable histoire’ (not to write any story which is not based on a true story). Marguerite de Navarre, L’Heptaméron, ed. François, 9. 19 For a more detailed explanation, see Alan Ryave, ‘On the Achievement of a Series of Stories’, in Studies in the Organization of Conversational Interaction, ed. Jim Schenkein (New York, 1978), 124–7. 20 See John D. Lyons, Exemplum: The Rhetoric of Example in Early Modern France and Italy (Princeton, NJ, 1989). 21 A similar and even more regular pattern of alternation between declared opinion and illustrative exemple exists in the Heptaméron as well. See Lajarte, ‘Modes du discours’, 71; Loysen, Conversation and Storytelling, chapter 3.



JACQUES TAHUREAU AND THE STAGING OF THE STORYTELLING SCENE

119

into the narrative mode by means of third-person subjects and past-tense verbs. Yet he remains a fully oralized and present teller within his story through his use of first- and second-person pronouns, in order to maintain the visceral connection between himself and his present hearer: ‘envers nous autres’ (between us), ‘je ne dirai pas’ (I will not tell you about), ‘Or regarde je te pry’ (Look here, I pray) and ‘si tu veux dire’ (if you want to say). He concludes this particular story with a ‘significance statement’ that corresponds to the one with which he opened the narrative interlude: ‘si elles avoient tous les deux ensemble, c’est à dire la cautele accompagnee de jugement rassis et force de corps, il s’en ensuivroit mille inconveniens dommageables à la conservation de notre sexe’ (if they had both at the same time, that is, cunning accompanied by mature judgment and bodily strength, it would result in a thousand disadvantages prejudicial to the conservation of our sex [25–6]). A little further along in this first dialogue, Le Democritic wishes to prove another point about women’s vice. In this instance, instead of referring back to well-known mythological examples whose meaning he subverts, he instead calls upon a literary type closer to home: the femme trompeuse familiar from the Quinze joyes de mariage or the medieval fabliau. Here, he uses a generalized plural ‘elles’ to refer to all women, in combination with present and future verb tenses, as a way of saying what women ‘do’ or ‘will do’ in given circumstances. But it is as if he is recounting an actual fabliau: he even uses the verb ‘raconter’ (to tell, usually a story) to refer to the act in which he is engaged: ‘Je ne te raconte point combien elle jecte de feintes larmes, s’eclatant en haults sanglots et soupirs continuels, lors qu’elle a entrepris de tromper ou son amoureux, ou son mary’ (I will not tell you about how much she sheds false tears, bursting into loud sobs and continuous sighs, whenever she has undertaken to trick either her lover or her husband [32]). Here again, his storytelling remains oralized through the use of such narratorial interventions as ‘bref’ (anyway), ‘si tu pensois que’ (if you thought that), ‘vous diriez’ (you would say) and ‘je ne di pas’ (I am not saying [32–3]). He even becomes the conduit for reporting the speech of the characters within his inserted story. Over the course of the thirteen or so printed pages of this extended narrative turn, Le Democritic reports the imagined speech of his characters in direct discourse five times, often for dozens of lines of print at a time. And this is reported speech within an entire passage of what is itself already meant to be understood as reported speech – but in which the speaker has moved from a discursive stance into a narrative one and back again. This pattern repeats itself throughout the remainder of the Dialogues. We can therefore discern a general, overall movement between one discursive mode and the other, the conversational and the narrative: not in any set configuration, not at any regular interval, as in other texts, but nonetheless, Le Democritic does systematically make use of narrative supports in order to illustrate the precepts he is trying to convey to Le Cosmophile. In comparison to other examples of the framed narrative collection, the conversational element has been relatively expanded and the narrative element relatively confined, but an alternating pattern does exist within the overall conversational flow.

120

KATHLEEN LOYSEN

In turn, Le Cosmophile attempts to offer counterexamples drawn from similar realms and sources (27), but Le Democritic always has another exemple or anecdote at hand with which to beat him at his own game. For in the end, this is not the Heptaméron; the devisants here are not equal participants in the storytelling game.22 Instead, Le Democritic is in the center, with Le Cosmophile revolving around him, like a planet around the sun. The goal here, as elsewhere, is still the determination of truth, always a challenging proposition in a text that dramatizes the lively interpretive process by figuring both the tellers and listeners of stories on the same page.23 But Tahureau is perhaps more optimistic than others: he believes, or presents his primary interlocutor as believing, in the rightness of one particular path. And yet he has chosen to present this singular truth via two voices participating in a conversation. If Le Democritic represents Tahureau himself, Le Cosmophile represents his ideal reader; one who will in fact accept the guidance and wisdom of the author. Instead of the empowerment and liberation of the reader, highlighted by the Heptaméron and its failure to achieve consensus, we see in Tahureau’s Dialogues the promotion of the notion of authorial authority, laying out for his reader an idealized path to truth. What the Dialogues show is how storytelling happens naturally within the overarching conversational flow, how it belongs to and is born of the rhythms of conversation.24 And so, instead of Tahureau’s text fitting neatly into either the category of the humanist dialogue or of the framed narrative collection, his work overlaps boundaries, borrowing some characteristics from one tradition and some from another. This is typical of Renaissance France: literature marked by its multiplicity, hybridity, open-endedness. Even if, as Cathy Yandell has proven, the thematics of this work do not participate in multivalence and instead work toward expressing a singular point of view, we may say that formally, generically, we are dealing with a work that transcends easy classification. Jacques Tahureau is but one of the authors in the French early modern period who deployed literary techniques that call to mind the medieval oral storytelling circle while expanding our understanding of it. The enduring influence of this paradigm demonstrates the extent to which sixteenth-century authors wished to maintain a link between the printed page and the oral voice, perhaps as a way to pay homage to bygone reading practices (aloud, in groups, with or without a book, as opposed to silently and alone),25 or perhaps to mitigate the anxiety 22 The devisants (storytellers) of the Heptaméron declare that ‘au jeu nous sommes tous esgaulx’ (in this game we are all equal [10]). 23 See Chartier, Culture écrite et société, 50–1; Elisabeth Horodowich, ‘Introduction: Speech and Oral Culture in Early Modern Europe and Beyond’, Journal of Early Modern History 16 (2012), 301–13 (304–5); Jacques Leenhardt, ‘Toward a Sociology of Reading’, in The Reader in the Text: Essays on Audience and Interpretation, ed. Susan R. Suleiman and Inge Crosman (Princeton, NJ, 1980), 205–24 (210); and Suleiman, ‘Introduction’, 20–1. 24 Another text illustrative of this point is Noël Du Fail’s Propos rustiques, ed. GabrielAndré Pérouse and Roger Dubuis (Geneva, 1994). 25 Chartier, Culture écrite et société, 140, 149.



JACQUES TAHUREAU AND THE STAGING OF THE STORYTELLING SCENE

121

produced by the absence of a present speaker and listener.26 The technique of filling this absence with an oralized presence via the representation of voiced storytelling practices, while simultaneously making use of the potentialities of writing and print, reflects precisely the interconnectedness and cross-infusion of these three verbal modes (the oral, the written and the printed) in medieval and early modern France. Tahureau’s text comes down to us with both a teller and an audience inscribed on the page – they represent ‘embodied speech’,27 and this is an inheritance of the medieval mode of transmission, a mode in which authors and readers, tellers and hearers, participated in the process of making meaning out of text and partaking in the search for truth. Jacques Tahureau’s Dialogues illustrate complex literary games of narration and are a study in how stories get told, how they make meaning, and how they examine the notion of truth and truth-telling.

26 Simon Gaunt, Retelling the Tale: An Introduction to Medieval French Literature (London, 2001), 20; Leenhardt, ‘Toward a Sociology of Reading’, 207. 27 Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet, A New History of French Literature, trans. Sara Preisig (Baltimore, MD, 2011), 12.

Telling the Story of the Christ Child: Text and Image in Two Fourteenth-Century Manuscripts Maureen Boulton Medieval narrative, as Evelyn Birge Vitz has demonstrated repeatedly, is eminently performable. It could be recited by minstrels and jongleurs before groups large or small, or read aloud in intimate settings. Characters in romances sometimes enact the stories they read within it, and modern students can learn about medieval narrative through their own performances.1 Performance can also provide a fruitful perspective for thinking about religious narratives: in addition to being recited or read aloud, religious texts were designed by their authors to influence behavior and they often admonished the audience, which might comprise an individual reader. Thus the listener or reader might enact parts of the narrative or its lessons in response to the performance (or reading) of the text. Stories of the childhood of Jesus, which circulated in both prose and verse in Old and Middle French, Occitan and Anglo-Norman between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, are a special category of religious narrative. Sometimes these stories constitute independent narratives, but they are more often incorporated into longer narratives relating the whole of Christ’s life or the early life of Mary and the childhood of Jesus. Although they derive ultimately from apocryphal gospels in Greek, Armenian, Arabic and Latin,2 the vernacular versions seem very far removed from learned sources. Such texts raise acute questions about orality and performance in written contexts. To study storytelling in these narratives I employ a broad definition of performance, one that permeates all aspects of storytelling, oral and written. It involves a display – visual or auditory, by characters within the story, images that represent them, a minstrel performing 1 To list only her most important studies: Evelyn Birge Vitz, Orality and Performance in Early French Romance (Cambridge, 1999); ‘La lecture érotique au moyen âge et la performance du roman’, Poétique 137 (2004), 35–51; with Nancy Freeman Regalado and Marilyn Lawrence, Performing Medieval Narrative (Cambridge, 2005); with Linda Marie Zaerr, ‘Experimenting with the Performance of Medieval Narrative’, in Acts and Texts: Performance and Ritual in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. Laurie Postlewate (Amsterdam, 2007), 303–15; http://www.nyu.edu/projects/mednar/about.html. 2 The Latin source, usually referred to as the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew but also known as the Liber de nativitate Mariae et Infantia Salvators, is a compilation based on the Protevangelium Jacobi and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas; see James K. Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford, rev. edn, 2005), 84–99; Constantin von Tischendorf, ed., Evangelia Apocrypha (Leipzig, 1876; repr. Hildesheim, 1966), 51–112.

124

MAUREEN BOULTON

the story or a text read aloud or silently – before an audience, who may be within or outside the story. In the special case of the Christ child narratives, these forms of performance seek to move the audience so that they will bring the moral of the story to bear on their own lives. Although the vernacular versions of infancy narratives that survive are written, they were probably read aloud to small audiences, itself a kind of performance. Embedded within the stories are a variety of performances: Jesus performs miracles that the inscribed audiences react to, and the narrators address their listeners or readers to elicit a particular response. An artist’s realization of manuscript illustrations can be considered yet another kind of performance.3 Finally, religious narratives in particular invite an external performance, since they were intended to evoke particular reactions or behaviors from their original audiences and readers. Given these multiple performances, contemporary performance theory – which facilitates the examination of the varied relationships between author, text, audience and manuscript – provides a useful tool for analyzing the intersection of the different modes of performance in medieval religious texts.4 In this chapter, inspired by Evelyn Vitz’s work on infancy narratives,5 I will examine aspects of inscribed orality and performance in two illustrated fourteenth-century accounts of the childhood miracles of Jesus, the Anglo-Norman Enfaunces Jesu Crist and a fragmentary Occitan Infancy poem recounting some of the same incidents. I focus on these two texts because each is accompanied by an extensive cycle of illustrations.6 In discussing each text I will examine its treatment in an illustrated manuscript, and analyze how the performative elements of the text are reinforced by the images on the page. As Evelyn Vitz has observed, the doctrinal content of these stories (in contrast to biblical narratives) is slight:

3 Keith Busby, Codex and Context: Reading Old French Verse Narrative in Manuscript (Amsterdam, 2002), I: 330–1; cf. Pamela Sheingorn, ‘Performing the Illustrated Manuscript: Great Reckonings in Little Books’, in Visualizing Medieval Performance. Perspectives, Histories, Contexts, ed. Elina Gertsman (Aldershot, 2008), 57–81. 4 See Richard Schechner, Performance Theory (New York, rev. and expanded edn, 1988) and Performance Studies: An Introduction (New York, 2006). 5 See her review of my edition ‘The Old French Évangile de l’Enfance. An Edition with Introduction and Notes’, Romance Philology 41 (1967–68), 471–3; and ‘The Apocryphal and the Biblical, the Oral and the Written, in Medieval Legends of Christ’s Childhood: The Old French Évangile de l’Enfance’, in Satura: Studies in Medieval Literature in Honor of Robert R. Raymo, ed. Nancy M. Reale and Ruth E. Sternglanz (Donington, 2001), 124–49. 6 Such cycles are relatively uncommon. There are three in fifteenth-century prose texts: the Vie de Marie et de Jesu (Paris, Arsenal, 3987; Oxford, Bodl. Libr., Douce 237) and the Vie nostre benoist Sauveur (Paris, BnF, fr. 990), ed. Millard Meiss and Elizabeth H. Beatson, La Vie de Nostre Benoit Sauveur Ihesucrist and La vie de Nostre Dame (New York, 1977). Several pages of the fourteenth-century Anglo-Norman Holkham Bible are devoted to Christ’s childhood and the infancy miracles (London, Brit. Libr., Add. 47682, fols. 12v-16r, 17v-18r), but the text is reduced to captions to the images.



TELLING THE STORY OF THE CHRIST CHILD

125

Whereas in the Gospels Jesus is shown teaching and preaching, in the EE [Évangile de l’Enfance] … he does virtually nothing but perform miracles and marvels. Moreover, there is almost a complete evacuation of the theological dimension of Christ’s life: this is story-telling work, interested only in having Jesus act – do dramatic and amazing things – and he begins early: as a babe in arms.7

This observation is undeniably true, but the stories of the infancy miracles nevertheless illustrate two basic Christian doctrines: the first of these is the dual nature of Jesus Christ as both human and divine; the second is his mother Mary’s role as intercessor. A subsidiary lesson (rather than a doctrine) teaches hostility toward Jews for their failure to believe in Christ. In other contexts, scholars have coined the terms ‘vernacular theology’ and ‘imaginative theology’ to refer to vernacular works that treat serious theological issues, often mysticism, outside the bounds of official ecclesiastical and theological circles.8 The infancy gospels are so much less sophisticated than the mystical works of Meister Eckhart, Marguerite Porete and Julian of Norwich that they might belong to another genre. Nevertheless, they do imagine what happens when divine power inhabits a childish humanity. Because these episodes explore basic doctrines by means of narrative, they are examples of what I call ‘narrative theology’.9 Rather than expounding a doctrine in abstract theological terms, the authors of these texts offer narrative examples of God’s power, of Mary’s intercession for sinners and of Jewish unbelief. In what follows, I will trace the presentation of these themes in the various performances of two texts. The older of the two texts under discussion, the Enfaunces Jesu Crist, was composed in England in the first quarter of the fourteenth century and survives in one complete and one partial copy as well as a fragment.10 This poem of some two thousand verses is a reworking in Anglo-Norman quatrains of a continental French text (the Évangile de l’Enfance) in couplets.11 In both continental and insular versions the text is copied with various other texts, usually religious in character. The Enfaunces recounts the childhood of Jesus from his birth to the Vitz, ‘The Apocryphal and the Biblical’, 126. Bernard McGinn, ‘Meister Eckhart and the Beguines in the Context of Vernacular Theology’, in Meister Eckhart and the Beguine Mystics: Hadewijch of Brabant, Mechthild of Magdeburg, and Marguerite Porete, ed. Bernard McGinn (New York, 1994), 1–14; McGinn, The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Women in the New Mysticism, 1200–1350 (New York, 1998), 19–24; Barbara Newman, God and the Goddesses. Vision, Poetry, and Belief in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, PA, 2003), 292, 294–304. See also Nicholas Watson, ‘Visions of Inclusion: Universal Salvation and Vernacular Theology in Pre-Reformation England’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 27 (1997), 145–87. 9 The term ‘narrative theology’ is modeled on Newman’s ‘imaginative theology’. I explore it at greater length in my Sacred Fictions of Medieval France: Narrative Theology in the Lives of Christ and the Virgin, 1150–1500 (forthcoming). 10 Maureen Boulton, Les Enfaunces de Jesu Crist (London, 1986). 11 Maureen B. M. Boulton, The Old French Évangile de l’Enfance: An Edition with Introduction and Notes (Toronto, 1984). 7 8

126

MAUREEN BOULTON

age of about twelve, but transposes into his youth the biblical miracle at the marriage of Cana. The poem, perhaps in an attempt to lay claim to biblical authority, opens with brief accounts of the nativity, presentation, the three kings, the massacre of the innocents and the flight to Egypt (ll. 1–173).12 It ends with Jesus in the Temple (at the age of twelve) and the marriage at Cana, here transposed to Jesus’ childhood, (ll. 1785–940).13 In between are twenty-six episodes recounting the miracles supposedly performed by Jesus before he embarked on his public career. These incidents fall into three major categories. Some – sitting on a sunbeam (ll. 1491–580), jumping from one hill-top to another (ll. 641–92), or dyeing cloth three different colors in a single vat (ll. 1233–364) – are childish manifestations of divine power and classic examples of narrative exploration of the doctrine of Christ’s dual nature. These exploits, however, often have dire consequences when the children who try to imitate Jesus are killed in the attempt. In a second category of incident the narrative imagines a supernatural response to bullying, where Jesus responds by killing the bully (ll. 481–500, 501–64). Each time a child dies, his relatives complain to Mary and Joseph about their son’s behavior, and in almost every instance Jesus restores the dead children to life, usually at Mary’s explicit request. Here again, the narrative demonstrates the efficacy of Mary’s intercession on behalf of those subject to divine wrath. Events that anticipate Christ’s public life – either miraculous cures (ll. 957–72) or encounters with teachers (ll. 565–640, 783–956, 1537–92, 1593– 652) – constitute a third category. Jesus’ usually hostile confrontations with Jewish masters reinforce the third ‘lesson’ of the text, animosity toward Jews. The second text, the fragmentary Occitan Infancy poem in Paris, BnF, fr. 25415 (‘Enans que ayso si fezes’; incipit), is preserved in a single late fourteenth-century copy.14 Like the Anglo-Norman poem, it begins with a biblical incident (the later part of the Flight to Egypt) and includes seven childhood miracles before breaking off when Jesus is seven years old. Its episodes thus correspond to those of the first third of the Enfaunces, and its lessons are similar. All of the childhood miracles correspond (analogously) to what Richard Schechner defines as ‘crease phenomena’: Creases are not marginal, on the edge, but liminal, in between. They run through the actual and conceptual centers of society, like faults in the Earth’s crust. Creases are places to hide, but more importantly they signal areas of instability, disturbance, and potentially radical changes in the social topography.15

Luke 2:1–40; Matt. 2:1–18. Luke 2:42–50; John 2:1–11. 14 Giovanni Caravaggi, Vangeli provenzali dell’infanzia (Modena, 1963). See also Paul Meyer, ‘Notice du manuscrit de la Bibliothèque nationale, fonds fr. 25415, contenant divers ouvrages en provençal’, Bulletin de la Société des anciens textes français 1 (1875), 50–82. 15 Schechner, Performance Theory, 161, where he describes experimental ‘environmental theaters’ and their effect on social topography. 12

13



TELLING THE STORY OF THE CHRIST CHILD

127

These childhood miracles meet this definition of crease phenomena. They dramatize the disruption provoked by Jesus’ incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection, and attest to the poem’s completely Christian worldview. The various accounts of Jesus at school anticipate the confrontations with the Pharisees in the gospels.16 These encounters, in which an obnoxiously all-knowing child confronts teachers who are gratuitously unreasonable, obstinate and violent, dramatize the hostility between Jesus and his Jewish neighbors. In the fourteenth-century milieu of their composition, they reflect (and foster) continuing hostility toward Jews in both England and France.17 The illustrations in each manuscript underline the hostility that Jesus provokes, and thus reinforce the ‘crease’ between medieval Christians and Jews. The only complete copy of the Enfaunces (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Selden Supra 38 – often called the Selden manuscript) is found in a medium-sized book (131 parchment leaves, 197 x 157 mm) produced c. 1325 that also contains an Apocalypse in French prose with a prose commentary.18 Both texts are lavishly illustrated, probably by the same artist, with sixty miniatures in the Enfaunces and sixty-two in the Apocalypse.19 The two texts were designed to be bound together and the cycles of miniatures are similar in style but differ in their background treatment. The artist divided the oblong panels in the Enfaunces miniatures into roughly equal sections of flat blue and red. The miniatures in the Apocalypse are generally somewhat larger and the backgrounds are more elaborate, often diapered and sometimes partially covered with gold leaf. This difference in treatment may reflect greater reverence for the biblical text, or it may result from the extensive illustrative tradition of the Apocalypse.20

16 E.g. Enfaunces, ll. 565–640, 853–956, 1537–92, 1593–652; Occitan Infancy, ll. 42–513, 514–617; Matt. 9:11–13, 15:1–3, 19:3–9; Mark 7:1–4, 10:2–12, 12:13–25; Luke 5:17–21, 14:3–6. 17 See, for example, Céline Balasse, 1306. L’Expulsion des juifs du royaume de France (Brussels, 2008); Gilbert Dahan, ed., L’Expulsion des Juifs de France 1394 (Paris, 2004); Gavin Langmuir, ‘The Jews and Archives of Angevin England: Reflections on Medieval Anti-Semitism’, Traditio 19 (1963), 183–244; and R. Mundill, England’s Jewish Solution: Experiment and Expulsion, 1262–1290 (Cambridge, 1998). 18 For the date (on the basis of style), see Otto Pächt and J. J. G. Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, III (Oxford, 1973), 582–98. In judging the size of a book, I follow the suggestions of Geneviève Hasenohr, ‘Les romans en vers’, in Mise en page et mise en texte du livre manuscrit, ed. H.-J. Martin and Jean Vézin (Paris, 1990), 246, 258, 259, 262. 19 For a description with a list of illustrations in the first text, see Boulton, Enfaunces, 2–7; on the artist, see Renana Bartal, ‘The Illuminator of Bodleian Library ms. Selden Supra 38 and his Working Methods’, Pecia: ressources en médiévistique 13 (2010), 387–404. The miniatures may be seen online at http://www.odl.ox.ac.uk/digitalimagelibrary/medieval_ home.html: search under shelfmark. 20 See, for example, Richard K. Emmerson and Suzanne Lewis, ‘Census and Bibliography of Medieval Manuscripts Containing Apocalypse Illustrations c. 800–1500: II’, Traditio 41 (1985), 370–409; Richard K. Emmerson and Bernard McGinn, eds, The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY, 1992).

128

MAUREEN BOULTON

The Selden manuscript is the only copy of the Enfaunces or the related Évangile de l’Enfance to include an illustration program. Although the artist certainly had models, particularly for the biblical episodes,21 it is nevertheless possible to think of the sequence of illustrations as a particular kind of ‘performance’ – one that re-creates the text and highlights its message. As the large number of miniatures in the relatively brief text of the Enfaunces suggests, the artist frequently devoted more than one image to an episode. The images in the Enfaunces occur close to the point in the text where the scene is described, rather than marking the beginning of an incident. Although there are some discrepancies between text and images, the miniatures generally summarize the action of the episode, sometimes in a single image, but often with a separate image for each stage of the incident. Individual miniatures often convey a sense of movement or passage of time by representing two scenes within a single illustration. The miniature on the lower part of fol. 21v, for example, accompanies a brief description of the miraculous barley harvest (ll. 1089–100), and portrays Jesus sowing at left, while villagers load sheaves of barley into a wagon at right. The episode of the boy in the tower, in contrast, is punctuated with three miniatures. The first (fol. 16r) shows a boy inside a fortress looking down at his father who, according to the text, tells him that he will remain there to keep him away from Jesus, while the miniature on fol. 16v shows Jesus pulling the boy through an arrow-slit in one of the towers. In the final image (fol. 17r) the boy’s father is shown inside the fortress wringing his hands at his son’s disappearance. Although the poem discourages presumptuous imitations of Jesus (children who try die in the attempt), there are minor characters who model appropriate behavior for its audience (either listeners or readers). Two such incidents frame the episodes relating Jesus’ encounters with Jews. As we shall see, the secondary characters in these frame-incidents exemplify proper modes of behavior toward the Christ child, and their responses highlight the inappropriate reactions of the Jews in the intervening episodes. Near the beginning of the poem, when the holy family flees to escape Herod’s attempt to kill Jesus in the massacre of the innocents, the poet describes their entry into Egypt after their journey was miraculously abbreviated. Idol worship in Egypt is described as widespread, but when Jesus enters the country, the idols fall from their pedestals (ll. 337–52). This scene is frequently represented in books of hours as background to the flight into Egypt.22 Instead of the usual iconography of idols falling over, however, the artist picks up on the part of the text that refers to devil worship (l. 341) and portrays Jesus and his parents (fol. 8r) standing at the entrance to a temple (which looks remarkably like a Gothic church), with a pair of winged demons flying out of a window. The next illustration (fol. 8v) shows Jesus standing on a small mound and gesturing toward a 21 See Maureen Boulton, ‘The Évangile de l’Enfance: Text and Illustration in Oxford, Bodleian Library MS. Selden Supra 38’, Scriptorium 37 (1983), 54–65. 22 E.g. London, Brit. Libr., MS Add. 18850 (the Bedford Hours), f. 83; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Belles Heures, f. 63.



TELLING THE STORY OF THE CHRIST CHILD

129

king and three of his followers. The artist has portrayed all four members of this inscribed audience kneeling before the Christ child, with hands folded, as if in supplication or prayer. The passage (ll. 361–96) that precedes this image notes the Egyptian ruler’s distress at the loss of his gods, but states that he interprets the destruction as a demonstration of Jesus’ power. In contrast to the Pharaoh’s pride in the Old Testament (ll. 368–72), this ruler (Frondise) is rightly frightened, and comes before Jesus begging mercy for his own sins and those of his people. Jesus Christ, described as a sweet child, pardons them all (ll. 383–92). His gesture, then, is a blessing rather than an admonition. As presented in the text, the destruction of idols is miraculous and is also an example of a crease phenomenon: the false gods of the Egyptians simply cannot remain in place in the presence of the true God, even in his childish form. Frondise recognizes Jesus’ divine power and responds correctly, not simply kneeling before him but asking mercy and pardon for sinful deeds. The narrator explicitly points to this behavior as exemplary: Jesu Crist est si pituz, Si amiable e si treduz K’il pardoune sun coruz As trespassanz veir trestuz. Mut est bon de li servir E de fere tut sun pleisir, Kar sa joie vout descoverir A ceus ke la voilent venir. (ll. 389–96) (And in truth, Jesus Christ was so merciful to his people, so loving and so very sweet, that he truly gave up his anger towards all sinners. It is very good to serve him and to do his pleasure for he is ready to reveal his joy to those who wish to come to him.)23

The narrator does not comment on the miracle itself, because the story merely reminds Christians of what they already know, unlike the pagan Egyptians, who needed the miracle to understand Jesus’ divine nature. For the Christian audience, the lesson of the incident – highlighted by the artist in the posture of the kneeling Egyptians (Fig. 1) – is the correct response to that divinity, while the text adds the reminder that Jesus is loving and ready to forgive the sins of those who ask. This miracle is Jesus’ first public action. The fact that it is the pagan Egyptians who acknowledge Jesus underscores the refusal of the Jews to recognize the repeated signs of his divinity in most of the following incidents. The poem includes four ‘school scenes’, three of which portray Jesus’ hostile encounters with the masters when he is sent to school. These incidents, which anticipate the conflict between the Jewish leaders and the adult Christ, are also ‘crease phenomena’: they highlight the fissures that Jesus caused in Jewish 23 Translations from Maureen B. M. Boulton, Piety and Persecution in the French Texts of England, French of England in Translation 6 (Tempe, AZ, 2013), 97–123 (102).

130

MAUREEN BOULTON

Fig. 1. Oxford, MS Selden Supra 38, fol. 8v

society in his own time. When Zachary tries to instruct him, Jesus confounds him by claiming acquaintanceship with the patriarch Abraham and stating that the masters are blind to the meaning of their own scriptures (ll. 565–636). The level of hostility increases in the next two encounters. In the first, Jesus refuses to speak to Levi, who strikes him; he responds defiantly and the masters declare that he should be crucified (ll. 946–7). In the next scene (ll. 1579–92), Jesus antagonizes an unnamed master by challenging him to expound the meaning of the alphabet.24 The master strikes him and falls dead. The increasing violence is not one-sided. While the anger of the Jewish teachers foreshadows the crucifixion, Jesus himself gives way to anger, initially in speech but ultimately by killing the master who struck him. In this way, the text offers an unbiblical lesson to its audience, one that reflects the creases and fissures of their own society. The text portrays Jesus taking vengeance on his opponents and thus seems to justify the continued anti-Jewish violence that erupted periodically in both England and France in the Middle Ages. The last of the school scenes (ll. 1593–652), which contrasts markedly with the earlier ones, introduces a series of episodes in which Jesus is recognized. In contrast to the previous attempts to teach Jesus, which ended with the death of the master who struck him, the reaction this time is very different:

24 Jesus’ insistence on the meaning of the letters of the alphabet probably reflects Christian critiques of Jewish exegesis, which refuses a typological reading of the Bible.



TELLING THE STORY OF THE CHRIST CHILD

131

Un livre dunc Jesu avoit Ke il en sa mein tenoit. Asez desure regardoit, Mes unkes un mot ne disoit De la scïence k’il trova En sun livre; mut i a. Mes autre chose dunc tocha, Del Seint Espirit dunc precha. Kant l’un mestre l’entendi, A pez Jesu tant tost chaï Si dist a Jesu en haut cri: “Eiez vus, Deu, de mei merci!” Kant cel mestre en verité A Jesu fu humilïé, Tuz les autres de bon gré Merci a li unt demandé, Kar ben trestuz entendoient, E asez le demostroient, Pur ço ke ben le savoient Ke verité oï avoient, K’il fu Deu de pussance Par sa verraie demostrance K’il mostra en sa enfance E en dit e en fesance.  (ll. 1597–620) (Jesus held a book in his hand. He looked it over well, but did not say a word about the knowledge that he found in his book; there was much learning in it, but he spoke of something else. He preached about the Holy Spirit. When one teacher heard him, he fell at Jesus’ feet and cried out: ‘Have mercy on me, O God!’ When that teacher prostrated himself sincerely before Jesus, all the others asked Jesus’ mercy of their own accord, for they had all reached understanding and showed it clearly: they knew that they had heard the truth, that he was the powerful God, by the veritable signs he had given in his childhood in both word and deed. [118])

Jesus does not wait to be questioned, but preaches (anachronistically) about the Holy Spirit, and does so with an authority that impresses the teachers, even though he breaks with Jewish belief and expounds what will become Christian doctrine. Jesus’ learned audience is said to kneel in amazement at his wisdom, acknowledging him as God. The accompanying miniature (fol. 30r) is only a half-column wide and inserted next to the four opening verses of the episode, which are written one per line (elsewhere there are two). Despite its small size, the image is divided into two panels, showing Jesus speaking to three men. One of these holds up his hands and turns his head away, but the other two kneel with raised hands; on the right, one of the men reports to Joseph. Although the artist has not represented the book mentioned in the text, Jesus stands lecturing in a pose which

132

MAUREEN BOULTON

emphasizes his teaching; facing him are the three masters, and the position of their hands suggests acceptance of his message.25 There is no marvel in this episode; the only miracle is the belief of his listeners. Once again, as in Fig. 1, the audience within the text and its illustration model the correct response for the narrator’s listeners or readers: They kneel before Jesus and ask his mercy. This episode ushers in a series of incidents in which the audience inscribed in the text responds positively to a marvel: Jesus delegates Joseph to raise a dead man to life (ll. 1652–716), heals a boy bitten by a serpent (ll. 1717–60), attends a banquet and changes water into wine (ll. 1813–940). On each occasion, the secondary characters respond with wonder, fear, joy and gratitude. The narrator sums up these appropriate, if somewhat contradictory reactions: Trestuz grant joie firent, Mes les uns si s’en fuïrent Pur la clarté ke tant virent, U ke Jesu vout aler, Asez feseit a doter, Kar ne purent regarder Sa clarté ne son pouer.  (ll. 1902–8) (All were very joyful. But some fled because of the bright light that they saw wherever Jesus went; it made them very fearful because they could not look at his brightness or his power. [122])

Most of these expressions of belief, occurring in relatively intimate circumstances amidst family and friends, reinforce a sense of community among an audience of believers who would recognize the reverent behavior of these characters and are silently encouraged to imitate their performance. The history of the book encourages speculation about the reception of the texts. A later owner of the book wrote his own name over an earlier inscription, which has been deciphered as ‘Johanna de Bichopusdun’, possibly the wife of Sir Thomas de Bishopsdon (†1339).26 If the identification is correct, the Selden manuscript belonged to a wealthy noblewoman, who might well have used it as a source for pious readings, perhaps aloud, for herself and the women of her household.27 The later owner, one John Raynsford, identified as ‘Jehan Raynsford de Tew Magna’ (1474–1551), could have used the book for the same

25 François Garnier, Le Langage de l’image au moyen âge. Signification et symbolique (Paris, 1982), 174–7. 26 Renana Bartal, ‘A Note on Bodleian Library MS. Selden Supria 38, Jehan Raynsford and Joanna de Bishopsdon’, Bodleian Library Record 19 (2006), 239–43 (240–2). 27 The Ordinances of the fifteenth-century Duchess of York describe this sort of reading among small groups of women: ‘Orders and Rules of the House of the Princess Cecill, Mother of King Edward IV’, in A Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the Government of the Household (London, 1790), 37–9.



TELLING THE STORY OF THE CHRIST CHILD

133

purpose but might have read it privately.28 The wear inflicted on some of the miniatures, particularly in the second half of the volume, suggests a reader who pored over the pictures while reading.29 Thus the history of the book tends to suggest two kinds of audience (and two kinds of reading): in the first instance, the illustrations might have provided cues for a somewhat dramatic reading (in fact, a performance) or else the book might have been held up for a small audience to see the pictures. Alternatively, after a reading, individuals might have ‘read’ the pictures on their own. At the end of the Middle Ages, when private reading was more common, its owner (Jehan Raynsford) might have used the book in his own chamber. In either case, however, both the text and the illustrations model correct and incorrect responses to Jesus’ actions, thus fostering another kind of ‘performance’ by the audience (or reader). In addition to illustrating the divine power of the human Christ child, the Enfaunces explicitly expresses hostility toward Jews. As I suggested above, this hostility corresponds to what Schechner describes as a ‘crease phenomenon’. The various encounters between Jesus and his neighbors or the elders give narrative form to the disruption of Judaism by Christianity. This disruption echoes through the millennium to the time of the text’s composition, in the form of religious conflict and intolerance in medieval Europe. As we have seen, episodes at the beginning and end of the text show both Gentiles and Jews who recognize Jesus, but the intervening incidents depict Jesus as the victim of violence by Jews, both children and adults. A child strikes him, another jumps on to him, yet another breaks his water jar. Jesus’ teachers strike him in response to what they interpret as impertinence or blasphemy. Since belief expressed through humility in the presence of the divine Jesus Christ is the defining virtue in the Enfaunces (as it is in many lives of Christ), the Jews of the Enfaunces, who believe in God but not in Jesus Christ, fail this test for virtue.30 In an additional epilogue found only in the Selden manuscript, they are explicitly reviled by the narrator, who highlights his anti-Jewish sentiments as one of the central lessons of the text: De male gent vus voil conter E en dit me veil pener – Ke lur doint mal encumbrer A tuz jurs sant determiner – 28 Bartal, ‘A Note’, 240–2. On private (silent) reading, see Paul Saenger, ‘Silent Reading: Its Impact on Late Medieval Script and Society’, Viator 13 (1982), 366–414 (391–400). 29 Bartal, ‘A Note’, 391; and Lucy F. Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, 1285–1385, 2 vols (London and New York, 1986), II: 62–3, no. 54. 30 See Maureen Boulton, ‘Anti-Jewish Attitudes in Anglo-Norman Religious Texts Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries’, in Christian Attitudes toward the Jews in the Middle Ages: A Casebook, ed. Michael Frassetto (New York, 2006), 151–65; and ‘Anti-Jewish Attitudes in Twelfth-Century French Literature’, in In the Shadow of the Millennium: Jews and Christians in 12th-Century Europe, ed. Michael Signer and John Van Engen (Notre Dame, IN, 2000), 228–48.

134

MAUREEN BOULTON

Dé Giuz ke aveint grant envie Vers Jesum le fiz Marie.  (ll. 1985–90) (I wish to tell you, and will take pains in the telling, about some wicked people and – may God give them sore affliction all their days without end – about the Jews who were most envious of Jesus, the son of Mary. [123])

As this passage makes clear, the narrator’s hostility is not confined to the Jews of the time of Christ, for he wishes them ill for ‘all their days without end’, and encourages punishment of medieval Jews as a way of punishing the actions of their ancestors. The illustrations in the manuscript underscore the text’s lessons. Since all the adult Jews wear characteristic Jewish hats and are portrayed with large noses, they draw attention to the Jewishness of those who resist the Christ child.31 An audience of listeners would understand the lesson of Jesus’ hostile encounters with his Jewish neighbors, as would any reader who had the opportunity to examine the images. Paris BnF MS fr. 25415 preserves the only comparable infancy cycle produced in France in the fourteenth century. Its text, the Occitan Infancy poem beginning ‘Enans que ayso si fizes’, is one of three Occitan poems on Christ’s childhood, but is the only illustrated version.32 It is worth discussing here because it makes an interesting point of comparison with the Enfaunces in the Selden manuscript. The manuscript, made in or around Béziers in 1373, contains an anthology of religious narratives in prose and verse. The book is of medium size (265 x 185 mm) with the text arranged in two columns, and is illustrated throughout with drawings.33 It has suffered damage (lost leaves, a torn page, spotting) throughout. However, the final gathering (fols 44–50, with one missing after fol. 45), which includes the infancy poem, was not originally part of the manuscript, although it resembles the rest of the book in both script and layout. Unlike the earlier part of the book, the drawings in the last gathering are colored. A corrector, in a hand contemporary with the script of the book,

Boulton, Piety and Persecution, 15. A second version, edited by Karl Bartsch, Denkmäler der provenzalischen Literatur (Stuttgart, 1856; repr. Amsterdam, 1966), 270–305 survives in two copies (Paris, BnF, fr. 1745 and Florence, Bibl. Laur., Ashburnham 103); a third account of Christ’s childhood is prefaced by the story of Mary’s birth and childhood in an Occitan translation of the Latin Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, edited by Joseph Huber, ‘L’Évangile de l’Enfance en Provençal (MS. B.N. NAF 10543)’, Romanische Forschungen 22 (1908), 883–989. For a review of the older scholarship, see Giovanni Caravaggi, ‘Remarques sur la tradition des Évangiles de l’Enfance en provençal et sur la version inédite du ms. Paris, B.N. fr. 25415’, in Mélanges de linguistique romane et de philologie médiévale offerts à M. Maurice Delbouille, 2 vols (Gembloux, 1964), II: 71–90. 33 For a description of the manuscript, see Paul Meyer, ‘Notice du manuscrit de la Bibliothèque Nationale fonds fr. 25415 contenant divers ouvrages en provençal’, Bulletin de la Société des anciens textes français 1 (1875), 50–82; a microfilm of the manuscript is available on the Gallica site: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b9063957s.r=25415. 31 32



TELLING THE STORY OF THE CHRIST CHILD

135

has added words and lines in the various texts of the manuscript, particularly in the Infancy. As preserved in the manuscript, the Occitan Infancy is a fragment of 649 lines.34 It opens with the flight to Egypt, and ends when Jesus travels to Jericho at the age of eight, but there is also a gap after v.173 due to the loss of a leaf. Although the miracles recounted in the fragment are similar to those in the Anglo-Norman poem, the treatment is markedly different. Some incidents are expanded and others abridged. Particularly striking is the expansion of dialogue in the Occitan poem, which tends to heighten the dramatic effect of the account. These verbal exchanges intensify the oral quality of the text, which (as we shall see below) is further underscored by the accompanying miniatures. The doctrines taught in the text are essentially those of the Anglo-Norman poem: the divine power of the (only-too human) Christ child, the intercessory power of his mother. The Occitan poem also explicitly fosters anti-Jewish sentiment. In addition to negative portrayals of Jews like those in the Anglo-Norman poem, the narrator adds references to the Jews even when they are not present in the scene. For example, the narrator concludes his account of the entry into Egypt and the fall of the idols with an address to the Jews: Aras, iuzieus, es complit D’aco qu[e .ls pro]fetas an dig, que can (Dieus) en Egipte intraria, totz los dieus [fag] abayscharia.  (ll. 246–9) (Now, Jews, what the prophets said has been accomplished, that when God entered Egypt he would cast down all the gods.)

With this gratuitous invocation of the Jews (none of whom is present in this episode), the poet reminds his contemporaries that each of Jesus’ actions fulfills Old Testament prophecies, and that their Jewish neighbors nevertheless refuse to accept him. The Occitan Infancy, fragmentary as it is, is illustrated with thirty drawings, all fairly crude, but highlighted with colored washes (see Fig. 2). Although all the miniatures were meant to have captions placed in the space above them, only those for the two drawings on the first page were completed. The corrector has occasionally used the space to insert additional lines, which are duly incorporated into the edition. The miniatures are generally confined to the column, though they often spill over its limits, and some of the drawings break out of the border that outlines them. They punctuate the text dramatically: there is an average of two miniatures per page, but several (fols 44v, 45r, 49r, 50r) have

34 Caravaggi’s edition, which includes lines written in the margins and numbers lines omitted, runs to 661 verses.

Fig. 2.  Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. 25415, fols 44v–45r



TELLING THE STORY OF THE CHRIST CHILD

137

three miniatures. Thus, openings usually have three or four miniatures, but may have as many as five or six.35 The treatment of the encounter with the animals during the flight into Egypt (ll. 17–118) highlights the differences of style and approach between the two poems. Where the Anglo-Norman poem recounts this episode in twenty verses in the third person, the Occitan poet expands the scene to 102 verses. He describes the fleeing family as accompanied by a group of companions, who cry out in fear at the approach of a group of lions (ll. 29–32) even as the beasts kneel down before Jesus (ll. 39–41). Jesus tries to reassure Mary, reminding her not to think of him as a child, and noting that the beasts bow before him (ll. 52–6). Nonetheless, the entire group is frightened by the approach of a dragon (ll. 63–76). When Mary asks that the animals be turned away (ll. 77–80), Jesus reassures her again and the animals depart peacefully (ll. 81–90). In this account the animals are seen from two perspectives: as in the Anglo-Norman poem, they are a sign of nature recognizing God on earth. At the same time, however, the Occitan poet sees them through the human eyes of Mary, Joseph and their companions, who are all terrified by the crowd of wild beasts. The episode unfolds in a series of stages, which are clearly marked by the miniatures that interrupt the text in the manuscript (see Fig. 2). This episode also exemplifies the relationship between text and image in the Occitan manuscript. In contrast to the Anglo-Norman artist who marked the end of the incident with a single miniature (fol. 4v,36 showing the eager approach of a pair of lions, a sheep and a wolf; see Fig. 3), the Occitan artist inserted seven miniatures in the passage.37 Since the incident is rarely represented, there is no standard iconography for these scenes.38 The succession of images in the Occitan manuscript marks the different stages of the unfolding episode, and especially underscores movements and moments of speech. By the representation of gestures indicative of speech, the drawings record the spoken exchanges among the different characters – Joseph’s fear, the exchange between Jesus and Mary, the dismissal of the animals. In the first miniature (fol. 44ra), the family and their companions are resting beneath a tree, but with hands raised in fear at the sight of a group of animals at right, although the latter are kneeling and smiling rather benignly. Most of the remaining miniatures also show a ferocious dragon whose tail curls into the outer margins of the pages (see Fig. 2). As the scenes progress, the artist creates the impression of movement by reversing the position of the animals and the human figures. In the second miniature 35 There are only two miniatures on the opening fols 45v–46r, but the intervening leaf, which might have had more, is missing. 36 The miniature occurs after v. 196, and separates this incident from the next. 37 Fols 44r–45v, after ll. 16, 42, 50, 60, 68, 90 and 112. 38 The scene is found in a miniature in a fifteenth-century Italian manuscript (Paris, BnF, lat. 2688, fol. 6r) in a Latin copy of the Pseudo-Matthew; the fifteenth-century French Vie nostre benoit Sauveur (Paris, BnF, fr. 992) has two miniatures (fols 31v, 32r): in the second, the animals accompany the family; there is a microfilm of the latter on the Gallica website.

138

MAUREEN BOULTON

Fig. 3. Oxford, MS Selden Supra 38, fol. 4v

(fol. 44rb), all the other figures cluster behind Jesus who gestures toward the group of lions and the dragon on the right. The rubric inserted above the image explains that Jesus tells the animals to harm no one. Rubric and image are inserted between ll. 42 and 43, just before the paraphrase of Ps. 148:7 which urges dragons and creatures of the deep to praise the Lord. The third image (fol. 44va, top, see Fig. 2), inserted before Jesus’ speech to his mother, reverses the position of the animals and people. Here, Jesus turns away from the animals to gesture toward his parents, clearly indicating speech.39 The dragon does not appear in the next image (fol. 44va, bottom), but Joseph has raised his hands in fright while Jesus turns toward Mary. The miniature follows the lines describing how the animals bow before Jesus. In the fifth miniature (fol. 44vb) Jesus and his parents are between the lions (at left) and the ferocious dragon, a disposition that reflects the text (ll.  69–70). Mary turns toward Jesus with her arms spread, and her son makes a gesture indicative of speech, thus anticipating the dialog in ll. 77–82. In the sixth image, the dragon has subsided into the huddle of lions at left, while Jesus speaks again to his parents and points to the right. The text specifies that he calmed Mary’s fear and Joseph’s distress, and that the beasts submitted to his will. The final miniature of the sequence (fol. 45rb, top) shows the animals at right, somewhat pulled away from the human figures, while Jesus clearly addresses them. The image introduces the passage in which Jesus dismisses the animal and sends them back to their lairs. The miniatures of the Occitan manuscript reinforce the movement of the incident and record the oral quality of the poem very precisely. Despite the rather crude quality of the drawing, the succession of images conveys a sense

39

Garnier, Le Langage de l’image, 210–12.



TELLING THE STORY OF THE CHRIST CHILD

139

of dynamic change over time within the episode, as though staging it. As we have seen, the illustrations are faithful to the suggestions in the text, and their placement within it is carefully planned to occur just before or just after the relevant lines of the poem. Since the images resemble each other, however, their meaning only becomes clear in conjunction with the accompanying text which explains the gestures represented within them. Unfortunately, the manuscript in its current state gives no clue as to its author or intended reader, nor is there any indication of ownership. Given its rather messy state, with corrections and insertions added in the margins, it would have been difficult but certainly not impossible to use for reading aloud. The images, crowded with figures and diverging from any standard iconography, would have required some study to decipher. It seems likely, therefore, that the book (at least the part containing the Infancy) was used by an individual reader who would have been able to examine its illustrations with care. These two manuscripts resemble each other in the number and placement of their illustrations, but are otherwise quite dissimilar. The choice of scenes elaborated is rather different: the Occitan artist’s seven miniatures draw out the encounter with the animals. In contrast, the Anglo-Norman artist has reduced that incident to a single rather static image of animals worshiping the Christ child, but used two images for the fall of the idols in Egypt, the second portraying the foreigners’ reverent attention (Fig. 1). The Occitan artist used a single image (fol. 46ra) to illustrate the entry to Jerusalem (ll. 174–249). Characteristically, it does not represent the fall of the idols, but rather speech acts. The image is divided into two scenes: on the left, the catastrophe is reported to the king, and on the right, a group of elders confronts Mary, who holds Jesus in her arms. In conclusion, these poems are both examples of narrative theology, in that they present religious doctrines and other lessons in narrative terms: the divine power of Jesus, the merciful intercession of Mary and a vehement antipathy toward Jews (both ancient and medieval) are all expounded through narrative action. Jesus performs miracles, some of which he undoes at Mary’s request; and the Jews in both poems act with aggressive hostility. The texts also exhibit a performative quality which emphasizes different aspects of performance. The Anglo-Norman poem stresses Jesus’ actions, particularly the performance of miracles, which (like crease phenomena) cause disruptions in the society portrayed in the text. In addition, simple Christian doctrines are exemplified in narrative terms, and the reactions of spectators described (and illustrated) within the text offer positive or negative models of behavior to the audience. The artist of the Selden manuscript underlined behavior in his miniatures – both negative (for example, the Jewish teachers who strike Jesus) and positive (the Egyptians who kneel before him). The emphasis of the Occitan Infancy, whose incidents mostly coincide with those of the Anglo-Norman poem, differs in stressing the oral dimension of the text. Not only is there more dialogue, but the artist underscores those speeches in the miniatures, portraying changes of speaker throughout a scene. The Occitan artist seems to visualize Jesus’ performances through words, rather than in the effect of those words.

140

MAUREEN BOULTON

In both books, the images interrupt the blocks of text on the page and draw the eye of a reader (medieval or modern). The miniatures are detailed enough to invite the close attention and study of an individual reader. On the other hand, they could have cued someone reading aloud to a group of listeners, suggesting gestures to enliven his (or her) own performance with dramatic actions and gestures. Thus, these two books record different kinds of performance within the text and enable the performative re-creation of the text, either before a listening audience or in the mind of an individual reader.

Authorizing the Story: Guillaume de Machaut as Doctor of Love Joyce Coleman I first met Timmie Vitz in 1992, when as a graduate student I gave a paper on ‘Aural History’ in a Modern Language Association session that she and Nancy Freeman Regalado had organized.1 Timmie and Nancy swept me up into their joint passion for the study of medieval narrative performance, and I have benefited immeasurably, both professionally and personally, ever since. Timmie has been an endlessly kind and encouraging mentor and friend, her scholarship an inspiration, her pedagogical and website innovations a marvel. I have been very lucky to know Timmie and to have been her friend and admirer all these years. Timmie’s work has established the importance of ‘orality and performance’ in medieval romance. The fiddling, singing jongleurs she has evoked from the recorded texts of the twelfth through early fourteenth centuries find their corresponding visual texts in the performers depicted in many medieval manuscripts. In the first quarter of the fourteenth century, for example, a minstrel was shown standing outside a hall in which King Arthur feasts with his court (see Fig. 1). The liminal position of this figure seems deliberately to suggest both the storyteller who could have entertained the feasters in the tale, and his counterpart in real life, who would recite the story of Arthur’s feast to a hall full of listeners. By the time this picture was painted, performance had already begun to broaden out from the professional minstrel to include the literate household member who would prelect a written text to an audience (that is, read it aloud). The earliest visual metatexts associated with such material could have simply switched the performing minstrel for a clerk, servitor or family member reading to a group. But that didn’t happen. Instead, the presence of the book seems to have directed illuminators to an entirely different iconographic tradition, that of academic lecturers prelecting to students. This essay concerns a particularly striking example of that hybridized imagery, one that imbues authorship with the auctoritas of the university master while empowering the lay audience with the freedom of vernacular patronage. In doing so, it elides didacticism with entertainment and lecture with story.

1 I am indebted to Domenic Leo and to Yolanda Plumley for the generous help they extended to a Machauvian neophyte. Of course, any errors in this essay remain my own.

142

JOYCE COLEMAN

Fig. 1.  A minstrel entertains, Queste del saint Graal. London, British Library, MS Royal 14 E.III, fol. 89r.



Guillaume de Machaut as Doctor of Love

143

This imagery occurs in two nearly identical illuminations that show Guillaume de Machaut ‘lecturing’ to a group of listeners. My analysis derives from ongoing research into the ‘iconography of the book’, that is, the social understandings of literature embedded in representations of manuscripts commissioned, written, presented and read. From a basic set of images found in copies of Latin texts, this iconography expanded with the development of vernacular literature into a complex visual repertoire. Variations on this repertoire could communicate subtle messages about many aspects of the text or context. From this perspective, and writing as a literary scholar, I am concerned with the artist as a creative interpreter of cultural meaning. The creator of the Machaut images, Perrin Remiet,2 has never won praise for his artistry; François Avril famously defined his style as ‘sans grande originalité et plutôt retardataire’.3 However, Julia Drobinsky has documented his close attention to the texts he illustrated.4 I argue further, here, that the images on which I am focusing in this essay – images that could seem nothing more than pieces of medieval ‘clip art’ – in fact represent an innovative response to the content and tone of the two Machaut dits they introduce. To understand Remiet’s innovation we need to review the history of a particular subset of book iconography: pictures of teaching. Medieval illuminators frequently began Latin encyclopedias or university set texts with a historiated initial or other incipit image showing a magister sitting in a large, roofed chair, with a lectern before him holding the book from which he reads to rows of 2 This is not the artist identified as Perrin Remiet by Michael Camille, Master of Death: The Lifeless Art of Pierre Remiet, Illuminator (New Haven, CT, 1996). It has been convincingly demonstrated that a different, anonymous illuminator produced the images that Camille attributed to Remiet; see François Avril, ‘Trois manuscrits napolitains des collections de Charles V et de Jean de Berry’, Bibliothèque de l’École des chartes 127 (1969), 291–328, esp. 307–8; Richard H. Rouse and Mary A. Rouse, Manuscripts and Their Makers: Commercial Book Producers in Medieval Paris 1200–1500 (Turnhout, 2000), I: 293–5 and II: 115, 216. For a detailed history of the issue, see Julia Drobinsky, ‘“Peindre, pourtraire, escrire”, le rapport entre le texte et l’image dans les manuscrits enluminés de Guillaume de Machaut (XIV e–XV e siècles)’, Ph.D. dissertation, Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne (2004), 937–44. BnF MS fr. 22545–22546’s illuminations are ascribed to Remiet by François Avril, ‘Les manuscrits enluminés de Guillaume de Machaut: essai de chronologie’, in Guillaume de Machaut: poète et compositeur: colloque-table ronde organisé par l’Université de Reims (19–22 avril 1978), Actes et Colloques 23 (Paris, 1982), 117–33, esp. 129. 3 Avril, ‘Les manuscrits enluminés’, 129. 4 Drobinsky, ‘“Peindre, pourtraire, escrire”’, 355–72. I am obliged to Dr. Drobinsky for giving me a CD copy of her impressive dissertation at the 2004 International Medieval Conference in Kalamazoo. Some of her observations on BnF MS fr. 22545–22546 have since appeared in Drobinsky, ‘Recyclage et création dans l’iconographie de Guillaume de Machaut (quatorzième-quinzième siècles)’, in Manuscripts in Transition: Recycling Manuscripts, Texts, and Images, ed. Brigitte Dekeyzer and Jan Van der Stock, Corpus of Illuminated Manuscripts 15, Low Countries Series 10 (Paris, 2005), 217–24; and Drobinsky, ‘Procédures de remaniement dans un programme iconographique posthume des œuvres de Guillaume de Machaut (Paris, BnF, MS fr. 22545–22546)’, Pecia: ressources en médiévistique 13 (2010), 405–37.

144

JOYCE COLEMAN

Fig. 2.  Benoît de Sainte-Maure prelects his Roman de Troie to an audience. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. 783, fol. 32v

students below him. Such images clued the viewer to imagine himself (or herself) as a member of the class, about to benefit from the content of the text beneath the opening miniature. In late thirteenth-century France, when this academic Latin material began to be translated into the vernacular, teaching imagery crossed over with it. The miniatures carried the prestige of the original text and context while also cluing less formally educated audiences to this new form of serious reading.5 As the vernacular audience broadened and the ‘learned’ content became rather less intellectual, however, the imagery changed to suit. Purveyors of romanticized classical history such as Benoît de Sainte-Maure retained some of the accoutrements of a magister,6 but instead of tonsured clerks sitting in regimented rows below their lectern, they sometimes faced well-dressed lay audiences standing freely before them (see Fig. 2). At this point, teaching was beginning to transmute into storytelling. As early as the turn of the fourteenth century, this imagery had crossed over into ‘born vernacular’ literary texts such 5 For more on this iconographic translatio, see Joyce Coleman, ‘Reading the Evidence, in Text and Image: How History Was Read in Late Medieval France’, in Imagining the Past in France: History in Manuscript Painting 1250–1500, ed. Anne Hedeman and Elizabeth Morrison (Los Angeles, 2010), 53–67; Coleman, ‘Memory and the Illuminated Pedagogy of the Propriétés des choses’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 56 (2013), 121–42. 6 For a discussion of the ways in which Benoît de Sainte-Maure used references to the oral and written in his textual self-representation, see Cristian Bratu’s essay in this volume.



Guillaume de Machaut as Doctor of Love

145

Fig. 3. Guillaume de Lorris (or Jean de Meun?) prelects the Roman de la Rose to an audience (at left) as the sleeping Amant of his reading is evoked (at right). Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. 1569, fol. 1r

as the Roman de la Rose (see Fig. 3) and the Roman de Fauvel (Paris, BnF, MS fr. 146, fols 10 and 11).7 The miniatures on which this essay focuses date from the end of the fourteenth century. Their illuminator took up the same crossover iconography of the magister before a well-dressed lay audience, but in a different, more complex mode that consorts with the complexities of the author whose works he was representing. The two scenes introduce Machaut’s Remede de Fortune and Dit de l’alerion in BnF MS fr. 22545 (fols 40r and 75v),8 the first of a two-volume collection of Machaut’s works assembled in the 1390s, after the poet’s death.9 In both miniatures Remiet depicted a man presumably representing Machaut seated with all the grandeur of a magister, in a large chair with a lectern holding his book. In folio 75v (see Fig. 4), he is wearing a red robe, trimmed in white with white lappets; on his head is a clerical pileus. His right hand is raised toward the book, the index finger pointing over it to his audience. The ‘speaking gesture’ indicates that he is reading his text aloud, as a master would in a university 7 The Fauvel images may be viewed at http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8454675g/ f31.image.r=francais%20146.langEN and the following page (accessed 27 May 2014). 8 Machaut images mentioned but not reproduced in this essay can be viewed via the very convenient collection of links at www.stanford.edu/group/dmstech/cgi-bin/drupal/node/73 (accessed February 2014). 9 BnF MS fr. 22545–22546 (sigla F-G); see Avril, ‘Les manuscrits enluminés’, 128–9; Lawrence Earp, Guillaume de Machaut: A Guide to Research (New York, 1995), 90–2. Many scholarly discussions of Machaut refer to his manuscripts with sigla alone. Because this essay is being written for a more general audience, I use the manuscript shelfmarks.

146

JOYCE COLEMAN

Fig. 4. Guillaume de Machaut ‘teaches’ his Dit de l’alerion to an audience, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. 22545, fol. 75v

classroom.10 Here we have academic imagery attached not to classical history such as the Roman de Troie or to political satire such as Fauvel, but to outright stories of aristocratic behavior and courtly love. The Roman de la Rose example from BnF MS fr. 1569 (Fig. 3) is more comparable to the Machaut image; indeed, the two pictures are so alike that one might suppose Remiet had seen the earlier miniature, although there is no way to know if he had. The images even use a similar checkerboard pattern in the background. The differences, however, are instructive. The Remiet scene, as perhaps appropriate to the evolution of academic costume and furniture over the intervening decades, replaces the fr. 1569 prelector’s monastic robe with a master’s one, and his bench with a chair. More significantly, the audience in fr. 1569 wear monastic robes and sit on benches like students (one can glimpse the end of the front bench at the bottom right of the image). By contrast, Machaut’s audience sits on a grassy knoll, in lay clothing. 10 The ‘ordinary’ medieval lecture consisted of the prelection of a section of a text, followed by analysis and explication of its elements, while ‘cursory’ lecturers merely read the text aloud with little or no commentary; see Anthony Kenny and Jan Pinborg, ‘Medieval Philosophical Literature’, in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy, ed. Norman Kretzmann et al. (Cambridge, 1982), 11–42, esp. 19–20.



Guillaume de Machaut as Doctor of Love

147

Interpretation of the Rose miniature in BnF MS fr. 1569 is complicated by uncertainty over who the prelector / teacher is meant to represent. One might assume it is the poem’s continuator, Jean de Meun, the master of theology who introduced much encyclopedic information into his portion of the Rose. Academic imagery would certainly seem appropriate to such a crossover figure. However, in the image one can see that the book from which the man is reading contains the opening words of the Rose itself: ‘Maintes gens dient’ (Many people say). Is the prelector therefore the author of those words, Guillaume de Lorris? Not much is known about Guillaume, but certainly his part of the poem does not reflect an academic inclination. Sylvia Huot has noted that fr. 1569’s prelection image is placed over the opening column of the Rose, which contains the prologue about dream theory, while an attached, second image on the right, showing ‘l’Amant’ (the Lover) dreaming, starts off the dream vision itself. The academic figure on the left, Huot concludes, is simply ‘l’Aucteur’ (the Author), juxtaposed with ‘l’Amant’ ‘as complementary personae and as complementary textual voices’.11 BnF MS fr. 1569, therefore, pioneers the iconographical conjunction of academic imagery with literary content, pivoted off of the Rose’s short but academically inflected prologue about the interpretation of dreams. Later copies of the work, however, seem to have abandoned the academic motif; as far as I know, fr. 1569 is the only Rose manuscript that opens with a lecture image.12 All other Roses with an incipit miniature show some variation on the scene of the Lover dreaming. It is not until the end of the fourteenth century, with the two magisterial incipits in the Machaut manuscript, BnF MS fr. 22545, that we again see an academic lecture introducing a work of what we would today call literature. Remiet, moreover, goes beyond all previous Machaut manuscripts in employing this imagery. BnF MS fr. 1584 (fol. 49v; 1370–77) comes closest, opening the Remede with a picture of a man seated on a bench, addressing a boy. The man’s left hand holds a birch rod, indicating that he is acting as schoolmaster or tutor. Scholars have seen the boy as representing the young Machaut, perhaps even being tutored by his own older self.13 Whether this is so or not (the artist has one standard mode of portraying younger and older men, with costume varying as appropriate to their status), the main point for our purposes is that the scene involves an early level of education. This concept is also suggested by the Remede incipit in Cambridge Corpus Christi College, MS Ferrell 1 (on deposit, fol. 90r; early 1370s), where 11 Sylvia Huot, From Song to Book: The Poetics of Writing in Old French Lyric and Lyrical Narrative Poetry (Ithaca, NY, 1987), 102. 12 For discussion of BnF MS fr. 1569’s incipit image and some other Rose manuscripts that have internal illuminations showing prelection, see Lori Walters, ‘Reading the Rose: Literacy and the Presentation of the Roman de la Rose in Medieval Manuscripts’, Romanic Review 85 (1994), 1–26, esp. 6. 13 Huot, From Song to Book, 279; Kate Maxwell, ‘“Quant j’eus tout recordé par ordre”: Memory and Performance on Display in the Manuscripts of Guillaume de Machaut’s Voir dit and Remede de Fortune’, in Memory and Commemoration in Medieval Culture, ed. Elma Brenner, Meredith Cohen and Mary Franklin-Brown (Farnham, 2013), 181–93, esp. 185.

148

JOYCE COLEMAN

we see a woman holding a boy by the wrist, possibly bringing him for instruction to the man who is addressing them. Ferrell 1 seems to recapitulate its Remede incipit with a similar opening illustration for the Alerion: a tonsured clerk, holding a young boy by the hand, addressing a layman (fol. 139r). Most of Machaut’s collected-works manuscripts, however, launch the two texts with thoroughly courtly scenes. For the Remede, we see the lover watching his lady leave her château, the lady giving the lover a ring, and the lover wandering in a garden.14 The Alerion begins with courtly images involving, appropriately, birds (the alerion, according to Machaut, is a smallish, high-flying, noble and beautiful bird with sharp wing-feathers; ll. 2528–58). BnF MS fr. 1586 (fol. 59r; 1350–56) shows a boy and three other, progressively older, young males in a garden with butterflies and birds. The scene presumably represents the poet’s narrator, whose story recounts the sequence of relationships he had over the course of his youth with four different birds. BnF MS fr. 1584 (fol. 96v) depicts a mounted hunter holding a bird on his wrist, and BnF MS fr. 9221 (fol. 69r; c. 1390) shows a man in a garden with birds. Why is BnF MS fr. 22545’s imagery so different? As is usual in such cases, we cannot know exactly whom to credit for decisions about the manuscript’s illumination program or about individual illuminations. An instruction for a Voir dit miniature survives on folio 173r, which could have been written by a supervisor or by Remiet himself.15 It seems unlikely that the collection’s patron would have requested academic iconography, since, as Yolanda Plumley and Uri Smilansky have recently discovered, he was neither an ecclesiast nor an academic himself. Rather, he was apparently a ‘lesser noble of the Auvergne’ with a busy diplomatic career.16 For the sake of simplicity, and pending any further discoveries, I will credit decisions about the illustrations in BnF MS fr. 22545–22546 to Remiet himself. As Drobinsky has suggested, what inspired Remiet to academic heights, in the case of the Remede and the Alerion, may have been the texts themselves.17 The Remede begins on a pedagogical note, advising, ‘Cilz qui veult aucun art apprendre / A .xii. choses doit entendre’ (He who wishes to learn any skill must take heed of twelve things [ll. 1–2]).18 High on the list of twelve things 14 Respectively: BnF MS fr. 1586, fol. 23r; Bern MS Burgerbibliothek 218 (c. 1390), fol. 27r and Paris Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal MS 5203 (1371), fol. 47r; BnF MS fr. 9221, fol. 22r. 15 The instruction reads: ‘Ung roy assis et Machaut a genoulx devant li’ (a king seated and Machaut kneeling before him); see Earp, Guillaume de Machaut, 131 n. 6. The description matches the illumination on the page. There is another, indecipherable instruction on fol. 173v. 16 Yolanda Plumley, The Art of Grafted Song: Citation and Allusion in the Age of Machaut (Oxford, 2013), 417. See also Plumley and Smilansky, ‘A Courtier’s Quest for Cultural Capital: New Light on the Original Owner of Machaut MS F-G’ (forthcoming). 17 Drobinsky, ‘“Peindre, pourtraire, escrire”’, 74–5, 215. For discussions of the ‘auteur en chaire’ (seated author) iconography in Machaut manuscripts, which includes reading, writing and teaching pictures, see ibid., 73–6, 103–5, 496–8. 18 The text and translation of the Remede is quoted from Guillaume de Machaut, Remede



149

Guillaume de Machaut as Doctor of Love

is that one must ‘[a]imme son maistre et son mestier’ (love his master and his profession [l. 9]). However, as one quickly learns, the mestier the poet chose to pursue was the art of love; his maistre was not a university master but Amours, who ‘m’ensaigna et aprist’ (taught and instructed me [l. 163]) how to please his lady. The Alerion opens with a similarly sententious if not as overtly academic tone, advising that En tout le monde entierement, Everywhere, throughout the earth, Pour vivre seculerement, to enjoy this earthly life, N’a seulement que .iiii. poins there are four basic points to heed; ……………………………… …………………………………… Bien penser, bien dire, bien faire To think good thoughts, speak and do good – and to eschew the contrary.20 Et eschuer tout le contraire19 (ll. 1–3, 13–14)

As Ernest Hoepffner notes, Machaut uses a mock-academic tone as he alternates between lessons on falconry and courtly love. Having asserted that Love sometimes ‘fait tele chose avoir / Qu’on n’averoit pour nul avoir’ (allows one to possess / what one can’t buy at any price [ll. 2085–6]), for example, Machaut declares: A ce cop ci l’esprouveray This time I’ll put it to the test Et par raison le proveray and through pure reason prove it so D’un moult gracieus exemplaire with a well-chosen case in point.

(ll. 2087–9)

‘Jamais l’influence des études savantes de Machaut ne s’était fait sentir ni ne se fera sentir plus nettement que dans le Dit de l’Alerion,’ Hoepffner remarks. ‘Les réflexions philosophiques y abondent, et les développements scolastiques, les discussions, subtiles et minutieuses, y sont prolongées indéfiniment.’21 In attempting this balance between courtly jouissance and academic gravitas, Machaut was likely drawing, as he did so often, on the model of the Roman de la Rose.22 de Fortune, in ‘Le jugement du roy de Behaigne’ and ‘Remede de Fortune’, ed. and trans. James I. Wimsatt and William W. Kibler (Athens, GA, 1988), 167–409. 19 The text of the Alerion is quoted from Guillaume de Machaut, Le dit de l’alerion, Oeuvres, ed. Ernest Hoepffner, SATF, II (Paris, 1911), 239–403. 20 Translations of the Alerion are quoted from Guillaume de Machaut, The Tale of the Alerion, trans. Minnette Gaudet and Constance B. Hieatt (Toronto, 1994). 21 Ernest Hoepffner, ‘Introduction’, Guillaume de Machaut, Oeuvres, ed. Hoepffner, i– lxx, esp. lxvi–lxvii. 22 On Machaut’s multiple indebtedness to the Rose, see, for example, Kevin Brownlee, ‘The Poetic Oeuvre of Guillaume de Machaut: The Identity of Discourse and the Discourse of Identity’, in Machaut’s World: Science and Art in the Fourteenth Century, ed. Madeleine Pelner Cosman and Bruce Chandler, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 314 (New York, 1978), 219–33.

150

JOYCE COLEMAN

Scholars generally accept that BnF MS fr. 1584 and Ferrell 1 were produced under Machaut’s own supervision.23 The scenes suggesting instruction that introduce the former’s Remede and the latter’s Remede and Alerion, therefore, possibly reflect the author’s desire to foreground his pedagogical pretensions. It is clear, however, that the magisterial illuminations in BnF MS fr. 22545 considerably amplify the academic impact. In crafting these images, I argue, the supposedly unoriginal Remiet was creatively responding not only to the author’s didacticism and the earlier illuminators’ pictorial models but also to Machaut’s hybridization of lesson and story. To negotiate this multiple intersection, Remiet devised a visual conception that signals a new phase in the status of vernacular literature, first by upgrading the author’s auctoritas on the left side of the scene and, second, by switching out the personnel on the right side. Three factors support an argument that these divergences from the illustrative norm were neither random nor meaningless: the history of the manuscript, that of the artist’s earlier work, and a ‘close reading’ of the miniatures and their context. BnF MS fr. 22545–22546 was produced after Machaut’s death but, as Lawrence Earp remarks, the general content and placement of the illuminations are ‘almost identical’ with those in BnF MS fr. 1584. So, too, are the layout and the readings of the texts that the two compilations have in common, suggesting that both collections were ‘probably copied from the same authoritative exemplar material’.24 In an extensive comparison of the Remiet Machaut to BnF MS fr. 1584, Drobinsky has identified complex patterns in smaller or larger re-imaginings of the model illuminations. Assuming that Remiet worked directly from BnF MS fr. 1584, supplemented by consultation of Ferrell 1, Drobinsky discovered that Remiet’s changes consistently add to the narrative logic and visual impact of the program. For example, to illustrate Alcyone’s dream in the Fonteinne amoureuse, where her husband appears to tell her he has been drowned, BnF MS fr. 1584 merely shows Ceyx standing by his wife’s bed (fol. 158v). Remiet, by contrast, makes it clear that Ceyx is dead by juxtaposing Alcyone’s sleeping figure with that of her husband at sea in a foundering ship (BnF MS fr. 22545, fol. 123v). Remiet also heightens the drama by surrealistically showing the sea pouring at an acute angle into Alcyone’s room, with Ceyx poised as if about to fall into her bed.25 Inspired by her research ‘à réhabiliter Perrin Remiet, sinon sur le plan purement artistique, du moins sur celui de l’attention qu’il a portée au texte’,26 Drobinsky concludes, ‘C’est essentiellement à sa connaissance fine et 23 See, for example, Sarah Jane Williams, ‘An Author’s Role in Fourteenth Century Book Production: Guillaume de Machaut’s “livre ou je met toutes mes choses”’, Romania 90 (1968), 432–54; Avril, ‘Les manuscrits enluminés’, 131–2; Lawrence Earp, ‘Machaut’s Role in the Production of Manuscripts of His Work’, Journal of the American Musicological Society 42 (1989), 461–503, esp. 480. 24 Earp, ‘Machaut’s Role’, 489; see also Earp, Guillaume de Machaut, 91. In his stemma of Machaut manuscripts, Ernest Hoepffner derived both BnF MS fr. 1584 and BnF MS fr. 22545–22546 from a lost exemplar he labeled a; Hoepffner, ‘Introduction’, xlviii. 25 Drobinsky, ‘“Peindre, pourtraire, escrire”’, 231–2. 26 Drobinsky, ‘“Peindre, pourtraire, escrire”’, 356.



Guillaume de Machaut as Doctor of Love

151

approfondie des textes de Machaut qu’il doit sa capacité à produire des images originales, là où A [BnF MS fr. 1584] ne lui fournit aucun modèle, et là où il s’en détourne parce que ses sources ne lui semblent pas convenir’.27 The careful, detailed rethinking that Drobinsky identifies in Remiet’s narrative adaptations in BnF MS fr. 22545 may be assumed to apply as well to the incipit miniatures he painted for its Remede and Alerion, which diverge significantly from the models. Further underlining the uniqueness of Remiet’s response is the fact that a fifteenth-century copy of BnF MS fr. 1584, New York Pierpont Morgan Library MS M.396, reverts to the standard iconography. It opens the Remede with a picture of a birch-wielding instructor addressing a youth (fol. 47v), while the Alerion begins with a mounted hunter holding a bird on his wrist (fol. 183v). As it seems increasingly unlikely that Remiet’s pictures are mere filler or hackwork, we must seek further for an explanation of the unexpected conjunction of academic imagery with love stories. This brings us to the second significant factor mentioned above, which involves Remiet’s past. In 1368 the artist, or a relative of the same name, was listed among the illuminators and scribes whom Charles V was exempting ‘du guet comme serviteurs de l’Université de Paris’ (from the night-watch as servants of the University of Paris).28 Beyond this occupational association, we can be sure that Remiet was familiar with the classic iconography of the university lecture, since he had reproduced it faithfully in earlier work. In fact, the Machaut images can be matched up almost exactly with several illuminations created by Remiet to illustrate Jean Corbechon’s translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus’ De proprietatibus rerum. The artist worked on three copies of the Propriétés des choses in the late fourteenth century, using lecture scenes as incipit images for several of the work’s nineteen books.29 The dating is not 27 Drobinsky, ‘“Peindre, pourtraire, escrire”’, 371 ; see more generally 355–72. Deborah McGrady gives a more theory-inflected comparison of the images in BnF MS fr. 1584 and 22545, with specific reference to the Voir dit; see her Controlling Readers: Guillaume de Machaut and His Late Medieval Audience (Toronto, 2006), 106–26. 28 Sharon Off Dunlap Smith, ‘Illustrations of Raoul de Praelles’ Translation of St. Augustine’s City of God between 1375 and 1420’, Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1974, 74. For Remiet’s career, see Rouse and Rouse, Manuscripts and Their Makers, II: 115. Parisian illuminators were not required to link themselves with the university. Those who did so presumably wished to enjoy the associated privileges as well as a closer relationship with the libraires, stationnaires and écrivains (book-handlers, stationers and scribes) whose enrollment was mandated; see Patrick M. de Winter, ‘Copistes, éditeurs et enlumineurs de la fin du XIV e siècle: la production à Paris de manuscrits à miniatures’, in Archéologie urbaine: actes du 100e Congrès national des sociétés savantes, Paris 1975, Section d’archéologie et d’histoire de l’art (Paris, 1978), 173–98, esp. 180. 29 Remiet painted the frontispiece of Paris Bibliothèque Ste Geneviève MS 1028 as well as all the illuminations in BnF MS fr. 216 and in the exemplar known, from its most recent auction sale, as the Arcana manuscript; see Avril, ‘Les manuscrits enluminés’, 129 n. 38; Christie’s Sale 7911, Lot 31, 7 July 2010; Coleman, ‘Memory’, 127 n. 24. For comments on Remiet’s role in the Propriétés des choses illuminations, see Coleman, ‘Memory’. To see images from these manuscripts, go to liberfloridus.cines.fr (Ste Geneviève 1028), images.bnf.fr (BnF, MS fr. 216), and www.christies.com (the Arcana manuscript: search on

152

JOYCE COLEMAN

Fig. 5.  Bartholomaeus Anglicus lecturing to students, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. 216, fol. 104r

exact, but it is probable that Remiet illuminated the Bartholomaeus manuscripts before the Machaut ones, since the group to which the former belong represents the first generation of copies produced after the translation’s presentation to Charles V in 1372.30 In the BnF MS fr. 216 copy of the Propriétés, for example, the master in the incipit image to Book 7 (see Fig. 5) looks very like the man in the Machaut illuminations; the few details that do not match in Figures 4 and 5 appear in other images.31 ‘Bartholomaeus Anglicus’, click on ‘Past Lots’, and click the item that sold for £1,105,250) (accessed September 2014). 30 Coleman, ‘Memory’. 31 For example, the curved roof of the chair in Figure 5 occurs in BnF MS fr. 22545’s



Guillaume de Machaut as Doctor of Love

153

Finally, we come to the close reading of Remiet’s Machauvian magister and his audience. Most scholars emphasize the academic atmosphere of BnF MS fr. 22545’s Remede and Alerion incipits. Earp, for example, labels both miniatures: ‘Guillaume sits at a rostrum, reading from a book to a group of students.’32 What such commentary fails to register, however, is how much and how importantly these ‘students’ differ from standard depictions of a university lecture. The difference becomes vividly apparent when one juxtaposes the same artist’s two versions of the iconography. In Remiet’s Bartholomaeus manuscript (Fig. 5), the robed students sit tightly packed in rows behind their desks. The line of their tonsured heads recedes into the right-hand margin as if an anonymous crowd of men were filling up a large room behind them. The listeners in Remiet’s Machaut manuscript (Fig. 4) look nothing like those cowed figures. Rather, Machaut is addressing a small cluster of variously dressed laymen, the foremost of whom sports a courtly doublet and particolored hose. As tightly packed on to their little mound as they are, they seem to sit comfortably, their closeness emphasizing not uniform submission to an authoritative voice but the bonding effect of sharing an enjoyable performance together. The man closest to Machaut holds the palm of his right hand out, in a gesture indicating listening. Machaut’s auditors seem more engaged, less subdued, than Bartholomaeus’, and are further individualized by being presented in either three-quarter or profile view instead of the uniform three-quarter-face of fr. 216’s first two rows. Their presence recalls the audiences in the transitional images shown in Figures 2 and 3. But Remiet’s listeners, unlike BnF MS fr. 1569’s students, have escaped the scholars’ bench. And unlike Benoît de Sainte-Maure’s standing crowd, they seem to have settled in, to have achieved a level of comfort and familiarity that evokes the actual practice of household storytelling. Scholars have debated for years about Machaut’s je, the degree to which he portrays himself as clerk or courtier, poet or lover, writer or singer.33 In this discussion, the clothing in which illuminators have painted Machaut or his persona has been one means of accessing medieval views on the subject. Huot has seen the magisterially robed Machaut of BnF MS fr. 22545–22546 as ‘provid[ing] a visual counterpart to Deschamps’ designation of Machaut as “poete”’.34 So configured, Remiet’s pictures seem to pay homage to Machaut as the great and edifying author he liked to think he was, an impression reinforced by three other images in BnF MS fr. 22545–22546 that depict him in a very similar robe and chair, reading privately or writing.35 To this extent, Remiet has Alerion image (fol. 40r) and in a similar picture, minus audience, that opens BnF MS fr. 22546’s Louange des dames (fol. 45r). The lappet front on Machaut’s robe in BnF MS fr. 22545, fol. 75v, also occurs in BnF MS fr. 216, fol. 43r. 32 Earp, Guillaume de Machaut, 152, 163. 33 For a discussion of the je in Machaut, see Helen J. Swift, ‘The Poetic I’, in A Companion to Guillaume de Machaut, ed. Deborah McGrady and Jennifer Bain (Leiden, 2012), 15–32, which reviews earlier scholarly arguments. 34 Huot, From Song to Book, 301. 35 BnF MS fr. 22545, fol. 2r; BnF MS fr. 22546, fols 45r, 74r.

154

JOYCE COLEMAN

recapitulated the strategy of BnF MS fr. 1569’s Rose incipit (Fig. 3), investing the Aucteur with the highest auctoritas. But if the je in Remiet’s images has settled on one academic-clerical identity, the autrui – the other people engaged by Machaut – have settled on another, more ludic one. Rather than offset the ‘story’ element of Machaut’s dits to a companion image – as the artist of BnF MS fr. 1569 did with his scene of a sleeping Amant – Remiet has brought the story into the picture by providing the lecturing master with an autonomous audience of happy listeners. The hybridized imagery of BnF MS fr. 22545 thus defines the occasion as one of entertainment, of storytelling, while at the same time the academic paraphernalia of the love-poet seems to elevate storytelling to a high art. In ramping up Machaut’s academic credentials so energetically, beyond the portrayals in BnF MS fr. 1584 and Ferrell 1, Remiet may have been responding to Machaut’s own constant play of identities and modes. Indeed, to the list of oxymoronic positions with which Machaut dazzled his audiences, one might well add self-seriousness and self-mockery. By loading courtly flirtation down with scholastic pontification in texts such as the Remede and the Alerion, Machaut seems not only to have been trying to elevate his own image but, simply, to make fun of both modes. Arguably, his latter-day illuminator responded in kind. Possibly inspired by the instructional overtones of his models and Machaut’s texts, Perrin Remiet reconfigured the academic imagery he had employed earlier in a different form of crossover work, creating a complexly intervisual and deliberately ironic metatext. Through an iconographic transposition that engages with the author’s own play with genres, Remiet thus gives us Guillaume de Machaut, doctor of love.

PART III Moving Stories

Retelling the Story: Intertextuality, Sacred and Profane, in the Late Roman Legend of St Eugenia E. Gordon Whatley Modern scholars of medieval hagiography have recognized for some time that the phenomenon of mouvance, or variation and adaptation in the retelling and recopying of the stories of the saints, can offer important insights into the shifting values, agendas and anxieties, as well as the language and literary tastes, of medieval writers, readers and devotional communities. Timmie Vitz, to whom it is a pleasure and a privilege to dedicate this essay, has contributed significantly to the impressive body of scholarly work on the oral and written adaptation of Latin legends into the European vernaculars during the High and Late Middle Ages.1 Variation in the transmission of the Latin hagiographies has also attracted scholarly attention. For example, Monique Goullet and other literary scholars have studied the art of revision (réécriture) among named Latin authors, Carolingian and later, who produced hypertexts (revisions) of the hypotexts (original versions) of saints’ lives.2 Retelling the stories of the saints was not a Carolingian innovation, however. It was widely practiced in late antiquity during the formative stages of the great corpus of mainly anonymous early Christian Latin hagiographies that would bulk so large in monastic legendaries and popular devotion throughout the medieval period. In this essay, my representative specimen of such anonymous literature is the legend – part vita, part passio – of the ‘transvestite’ saint and martyr, Eugenia of Rome, which circulated widely in medieval Europe (as well as further east). It survives in two main versions, 1 For example, Evelyn B. Vitz, ‘Vie, légende, littérature: traditions orales et écrites dans les histoires des saints’, Poétique 72 (1987), 387–402; ‘From the Oral to the Written in Medieval and Renaissance Saints’ Lives’, in Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe, ed. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Timea Szell (Ithaca, NY, 1989), 97–114. See also, in the present volume, Laurie Postlewate’s study of the Old French Vie de seint Clement. 2 As Goullet points out, modern historians have customarily neglected the hypertexts, on account of their ‘caractère inauthentique’, in favor of the hypotexts, because the latter were presumed to be closer in time and therefore more likely to preserve authentic traditions. See Monique Goullet, Martin Heinzelmann and Christiane Veyrard-Cosme, eds, L’hagiographie mérovingienne à travers ses réécritures (Ostfildern, 2010), 11–25 (11). See also Goullet’s ground-breaking monograph, Écriture et réécriture hagiographiques: Essai sur les réécritures de Vies de saints dans l’Occident latin médiéval (VIIIe–XIIIe s.) (Turnhout, 2005); see 91–9 on the ‘typologie’ of narrative theorist Gérard Genette, including such terms as hypotext, hypertext and paratext.

158 E.

GORDON WHATLEY

one of which, the original, was composed anonymously in the late fifth century, while the other is an early sixth-century retelling of the first. These two are classified by the Bollandists as, respectively, BHL 2667 and 2666.3 For the sake of simplicity and economy, in what follows I will designate the original version, the hypotext (BHL 2667), as M, and the revised version, the hypertext (BHL 2666), as R, after their earliest editors, the humanist scholars Mombritius and Rosweyde.4 Known medieval authors, such as those studied by Goullet, invariably make clear when they are rewriting earlier works, and usually discuss their sources and motives in elaborate paratexts such as dedicatory epistles and prologues.5 The R version of Eugenia’s legend, however, lacks any such ‘front matter’, gives no hint it is based on M, and amplifies the story in various ways without comment or apology, adding new characters, episodes and speeches, while cutting or substantially rewriting others. All told, R is about 40% longer than M; if the reviser had reworked the entire legend as thoroughly as he did the first half, the difference in length would have been even greater.6 In practicing the classical rhetorical art of embellishment (amplificatio), the reviser aimed to enrich his hypotext stylistically while improving its narrative credibility, clarity, coherence, artistry and doctrinal orthodoxy.7 A thorough analysis of R’s 3 Bibliotheca hagiographica latina antiquae et mediae aetatis, 2 vols (Brussels, 1898– 1901; repr. 1949; henceforth, BHL), I: 401. See the valuable survey of late Roman hagiography by Cécile Lanéry, ‘Hagiographie d’Italie (300–550), I: Les passions latines composées en Italie’, in Hagiographies: histoire internationale de la littérature hagiographique latine et vernaculaire en Occident des origines à 1550, ed. Guy Philippart (Turnhout, 1994–), vol. 5 (2010), 15–369 (126–38). 4 Boninus Mombritius, Sanctuarium seu vitae sanctorum (Milan, c. 1477; repr., 2 vols, Hildesheim, 1978), II: 391–7; Héribert Rosweyde, Vitae patrum (Antwerp, 1615; repr. Patrologiae cursus completus, Series latina, ed. Migne, LXXIII (Paris, 1849), cols. 605–24); hereafter the Patrologia latina is referred to as PL. Quotations below from M (BHL 2067) and R (BHL 2666) are from these editions respectively, both occasionally corrected silently from the manuscripts, and the text of M repunctuated; translations are mine. I am preparing a critical edition of both versions of the Eugenia legend. The designations M and R used here and in my previous publications on Eugenia (cited below) were coined by Hippolyte Delehaye, Étude sur le légendier romain: les saints de novembre et de décembre (Brussels, 1936; repr. 1968), 171–86. With few exceptions, the growing body of modern gendered scholarship on Eugenia and her legend has been based on R rather than M. 5 See, for example, Goullet, Écriture et réécriture, 53–4, discussing Hildebert of Lavardin’s introduction to his revision (BHL 4010) of earlier lives of St Hugh of Cluny (BHL 4007–8), explaining how he has added new material from reliable witnesses, as well as cutting and altering other material in his source. The Venerable Bede (d. c. 735), in the prologue to his prose Life of Cuthbert (BHL 2021), also invokes the authority of credible witnesses, but does not admit he is rewriting the earlier Anonymous Life (BHL 2019); see Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert, ed. and trans. B. Colgrave (Cambridge, 1940; repr. 1985), 13–16 and 142–5. 6 In the best manuscripts, BHL 2667 has approximately 4,570 words (owing to lacunae, accidental and otherwise, Mombritius’ edition is 300 words shorter), compared to R’s 6,480. 7 See Lanéry, ‘Hagiographie d’Italie’, 130–2; also E. Gordon Whatley, ‘Eugenia before Ælfric: A Preliminary Report on the Transmission of an Early Medieval Legend’, in (Inter)

INTERTEXTUALITY IN THE LATE ROMAN LEGEND OF ST EUGENIA

159

complex retelling of M would require a much longer treatment than the present essay. To illustrate the creative process of rewriting a saint’s legend in late antiquity, therefore, I will focus primarily, if not exclusively, on a single episode unique to R. Deceptively brief, this episode in R relates an allegorical dream vision experienced by a saintly bishop, in which the statue of a pagan goddess metamorphoses at the dreamer’s command into a living Christian. In this new episode, R achieves the artistic and thematic enrichment of amplificatio less through stylistic adornment (although elsewhere in the text there is plenty of that) than by narrative invention and skillful intertextual allusion.8 The reviser adapts conventions, motifs and language from Hellenistic Greco-Roman literature as well as from early Christian literary traditions to effect a playful but instructive intratextual dialogue with a parallel episode common to both R and M. Before further detailing my argument or analyzing the passage per se, for the benefit of readers unfamiliar with the Eugenia legend and to help throw into relief the work of the reviser to be discussed below, I will (briefly) retell the story according to the M version.9 Eugenia is the beautiful, highly educated teenage daughter of Philip, Roman prefect of Egypt under the emperor Commodus and his successors. Even while still a pagan she is disinclined to marry, and after reading by chance about St Thecla and Paul, Eugenia dedicates herself to virginity. In order to learn more about Christianity, she contrives to leave her home in Alexandria with her two eunuch slaves and fellow students, Protus and Hyacinthus. While traveling with them by litter, and rereading Thecla’s ‘Acta’, she voices her disillusionment with pagan idol worship, philosophy and poetry. After encountering a procession of Christians chanting ‘All the gods of the heathen are demons’ (Ps. 95:5), Eugenia decides to repudiate the fallacious old religion completely: she has her hair cut short, dons male clothing, covertly flees the litter and their attendants with her eunuch ‘brothers’ and, in quest of further knowledge of the new religion, obtains an audience with the local bishop, the miracle-working Saint Helenus. Through an ordeal by fire, he has recently discredited and expelled a heretic magus; he has also been warned by God, in a dream, of Eugenia’s imminent arrival and real identity. Helenus approves her manly courage, instructs her and her companions in the faith, then baptizes them and inducts them into his monastery. Eugenia’s grieving parents and siblings, however, remain ignorant of her whereabouts; her father, the prefect Philip, believing his soothsayers’

texts: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Culture Presented to Paul E. Szarmach, ed. Virginia Blanton and Helene Scheck (Tempe, AZ/Turnhout, 2008), 349–67 (353). On amplificatio, and on rhetoric and style in hagiographic rewriting in general, see Goullet, Écriture et réécriture, 59–89. 8 On ‘hagiographie et intertextualité’, see Goullet, Écriture et réécriture, 207–31. 9 The summary is adapted from that in E. Gordon Whatley, ‘Textual Hybrids in the Transmission of the “Passio S. Eugeniae” (BHL 2666, 2667)’, Hagiographica 18 (2011), 31–66, at 35–7.

160 E.

GORDON WHATLEY

conclusion that his lost daughter has been taken up by the gods, memorializes and deifies her with a golden statue. Meanwhile ‘Eugenius’ (her true gender and identity known only to her eunuchs and Bishop Helenus) soon surpasses everyone at the monastery in piety and Christian learning, and after three years reluctantly accepts election as abbot. In this role, Eugenia also wins local fame as a healer, but one of her patients, a patrician widow Melantia, tries to seduce the handsome young abbot, at first verbally, then with wanton caresses. Angrily repulsed and rebuked by the chaste Eugenia, Melantia, spitefully has her arrested on a charge of attempted rape, still unaware that the abbot is really a young woman.10 At her trial before the prefect Philip in Alexandria, Eugenia feels compelled to prove her innocence. Uncovering her head and dramatically tearing her robe to reveal her lovely female face and breast, she identifies herself as the prefect’s daughter. As a result, her whole family converts and Philip, while still prefect, becomes bishop of Alexandria. However, his promotion of Christianity and neglect of the cults of the Roman gods arouse hostility among some of the patrician class and he is eventually assassinated by imperial agents. After his entombment, Eugenia and her family return to Rome, where she and her mother secretly convert numerous matrons and maidens, including one Basilla, virgin niece of the emperor Gallienus. Amidst a new wave of anti-Christian persecution, Eugenia and Basilla prepare themselves and their followers for the suffering to come, and deliver farewell discourses in praise of virginity and Christ. This spurs Basilla’s jilted fiancé, Pompeius, to complain to the emperor that Eugenia is undermining Roman religion and marriage, and jeopardizing the state. Basilla, Protus and Hyacinthus are executed in quick succession, and Eugenia is arrested by the Roman prefect, who fails to persuade her to sacrifice to the goddess Diana (she destroys the goddess’s statue with a prayer); she survives attempts to drown her in the Tiber and roast her in the furnace of the Severian baths. Consigned to a dungeon without food, drink or light for twenty days, she is fed by Christ himself, who informs her that he will welcome her in heaven on his birthday. After Eugenia’s execution in the prison (by the sword) and her burial by the faithful on the Via Latina, her mother, Claudia, is consoled by a vision of her daughter in heaven and then dies shortly afterwards in peace, while Eugenia’s two brothers live on to convert many more Romans from idolatry to Christianity. Historically speaking, someone named Eugenia may well have been martyred in ancient Rome, but her legend is entirely a literary construction,11 part of an ongoing effort by hagiographers, beginning in late Roman Italy around 400, to reimagine the age of martyrs whose cults ‘brought the heroic past back into a 10 As has been widely recognized, this episode reprises the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife in Genesis 39. 11 E. Gordon Whatley, ‘More than a Female Joseph: The Sources of the Late FifthCentury Passio Sanctae Eugeniae’, in Saints and Scholars: New Perspectives on Anglo-Saxon Literature and Culture in Honour of Hugh Magennis, ed. Stuart McWilliams (Cambridge, 2012), 87–111.

INTERTEXTUALITY IN THE LATE ROMAN LEGEND OF ST EUGENIA

161

very different present’ and enabled the newly empowered Christian Church to ‘experience itself as continuous with the persecuted church of the first three centuries’.12 More than simply memorializing or celebrating this heroic past, the new martyr legends of the fifth and sixth centuries are now recognized as contributing significantly to the construction of late Roman Christian identity by dramatizing issues and conflicts and supporting or undermining various agendas current from the fourth to sixth centuries.13 During this period, a vociferous minority of Roman Christians subscribed to the ascetic, monastic values promoted in the writings of Jerome and other Church Fathers, and in saints’ legends such as Eugenia’s.14 At the same time, however, even if some modern historians’ claims of pagan revivals or a ‘pagan last stand’ have been overstated, the pre-Christian literary classics still held sway in late Roman schools, and vestiges of ‘un paganisme encore puissant’ remained an accepted part of secular upper-class art, culture and civic life.15 As late as 494 Pope Gelasius I expressed outrage that some senators still supported the fertility rites associated with the festival of the Lupercalia.16 In both versions of the Eugenia legend, but more elaborately in the hypertext R, the heroine’s conversion to Christianity involves not only her rejection of patrician marriage in favor of Christian virginity, but also her realization that her traditional education in classical literature and philosophy has taught her nothing ‘about the true God’ (de deo uero) or ‘divine wisdom’ (sapientia divina).17 Eugenia’s legend is, in part, ‘about’ the confrontation of Christian and non-Christian values and traditions that continued to coexist and conflict in the late antique Roman world, long after Christianity became its dominant religion. R’s new dream episode of the metamorphosis of the pagan idol, to which we may now turn, foregrounds, dramatizes and, in a sense, enacts and resolves such cultural conflict through the interplay and inversion of pagan and Christian literary conventions and allusions. The dream vision in R is inserted into a larger episode, early on in the narrative, that is common to both versions; in it St Helenus, bishop of Heliopolis, welcomes Eugenia and her eunuch companions into his monastic community.18 They have arrived at the monastery during the night, simultaneously with the 12 Robert A. Markus, ‘Social and Historical Setting’, in The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature, ed. Frances Young et al. (Cambridge, 2004), 397–413 (403). 13 See, for example, Johan Leemans, ed., More Than a Memory: The Discourse of Martyrdom and the Construction of Christian Identity in the History of Christianity (Leuven, 2005); also Elizabeth A. Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making (New York, 2004). 14 On asceticism, see Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York, 1988). 15 The term is Lanéry’s (‘Hagiographie d’Italie’, 26). Regarding the persistence of ‘paganism … defined as Roman tradition’ among ‘cultivated Christians’, see Alan Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome (Oxford, 2011), 801. 16 Peter Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350–550 AD (Princeton, NJ, 2012), 458. 17 Mombritius, 392, l. 5; PL 73: 607. 18 Chs. VI–VII in Rosweyde’s edition, PL 73: 609–10.

162 E.

GORDON WHATLEY

bishop and his entourage, and have presented themselves to a monk (Eutropius) as would-be converts from pagan idolatry, anxious to meet the bishop. Eutropius says he will request an audience for them later that morning after Helenus’ customary nap following matins. Both M and R relate that, while resting (requiescens), Helenus has a dream, but M does not actually tell the dream in story form, merely remarking that the bishop ‘learned in a dream (agnoscit per uisum) everything that had happened’ (that is, regarding the newcomers’ arrival, their petition, Eugenia’s real identity, etc.). When Eutropius announces the new arrivals, Helenus exclaims, ‘Good Jesus, I give thanks to you for granting me the grace of your revelation and showing me more clearly beforehand what I am hearing about now.’19 In retelling this episode, R abbreviates Helenus’ prayer of thanksgiving,20 but interpolates just before it a remarkable account of the dream itself. This striking and unusual piece of hagiographic invention merits quoting here in full: Requiescens autem episcopus, somnium vidit, in quo ad simulacrum feminæ ducebatur, ut illi sacrificaret. ‘Tunc dixi,’ inquit,21 ‘in somnio his qui me tenebant, “Permittite me, ut loquar cum dea vestra.” Et cum me permisissent loqui, dixi ei, “Cognosce te creaturam Dei esse; et descende, et noli te permittere adorari.” At illa, his auditis, descendit, et secuta est me, dicens, “Non te deseram, quousque me creatori meo restituas et conditori.”’22 (While he was taking his rest, the bishop had a dream in which he was brought before the effigy of a woman, to offer sacrifice to it. ‘Then I said in my dream,’ he said, ‘to those who were holding me, “Permit me to speak with your goddess.” And when they permitted me to speak, I said to her, “Understand that you are God’s creation, and come down, and do not permit yourself to be worshipped.” And when she heard this, she came down and followed me, saying, “I will not leave you, until you restore me to my creator and maker.”’)

My analysis of this episode will discuss, first, the various possible meanings of the dream as fulfilled in the R narrative proper; second, the dream story’s dialogic relationship with another episode common to both R and M (modeled on one in the biblical book of Wisdom), in which Eugenia is literally ‘idolized’ by her own father; third, the dream’s deployment of various narrative topoi (involving divine epiphanies and encounters with speaking idols) from the 19 Interea dum ista narrantur requiescens senior, omnia quæ gerebantur per uisum agnouit […] ‘Gratias tibi Iesu bone refero, qui me præuenire fecisti reuelationis tuæ gratiam, ut euidentius mihi ista quæ nunc audio demonstrentur […]’; Mombritius, 392, ll. 58–393, ll. 1 and 5–7. 20 ‘Gratias tibi, Jesu bone, refero, qui me prævenire fecisti hujus rei notitiam’ (‘Good Jesus, I give you thanks, for granting me prior knowledge of this matter’; PL 73: 610). 21 Helenus has no interlocutor at this juncture, so the switch to oratio recta, as indicated by ‘inquit’, is disconcerting, but is attested in the oldest manuscripts as well as in Rosweyde’s edition. 22 PL 73: 609–10 (punctuation mine).

INTERTEXTUALITY IN THE LATE ROMAN LEGEND OF ST EUGENIA

163

Greco-Roman novel; finally, the dream’s verbal echo of, and parodic relation to, an episode in the Satyricon of Petronius. The dream is cryptic and seems intended to be read on several levels.23 Since Helenus himself says later that he has learned about Eugenia in a dream, we must be meant to read the dream as being about Eugenia’s conversion to Christianity from the paganism figured in the idolatrous rite that opens the dream. More specifically, one phrase in the goddess’s promise – ‘I will not leave you until (non te deseram quousque) […]’ – seems to point literally to the sentence that concludes the chapter in R, when Helenus baptizes Eugenia and her companions: ‘They did not leave him until (non eum deseruerunt quousque) they were fortified with the sacrament of baptism, and inducted into the monastery to which they had hastened in the first place.’24 Compared to the account of Eugenia’s catechumenate in M, this last sentence in R is drastically abbreviated, throwing into sharper relief its verbal echo of the dream goddess’s promise (non te deseram quousque).25 The implication is, then, that Helenus restores the erstwhile pagan goddess to her ‘creator and maker’ when he baptizes Eugenia. Baptism, especially of an adult, could certainly be read as restoring the soul, hitherto forfeit to the devil by original sin, to God, its creator. Moreover, Eugenia really does ‘leave’ Helenus after she enters the monastery, when he drops out of the story completely. At the same time, the humanized idol’s prediction is also fulfilled when Eugenia is reunited with her fleshly father and mother, her earthly creators, at the climax of her trial in the amphitheater. Again, restoration to the creator could also signify the time when Christ visits Eugenia’s prison cell in person, feeds her shining white bread and promises to ‘take her back’ (te recipiam, that is, in heaven) on the day he himself ‘came down to earth’ (descendi ad terram).26 While each of these interpretations, or all of them, may be plausible with reference to Eugenia’s story, the dream refers to her also in a way that, ultimately, transcends such narrative specifics. Eugenia herself is, after all, neither a goddess nor a pagan idol, and anyone reading R for the first time might not see the dream’s relevance to her at once. But as indicated above in our plot summary, after Eugenia’s baptism and induction into the monastery, the next 23 Doubtless to encourage readers to actively interpret Helenus’ dream, R replaces M’s uisum with somnium, Macrobius’ term for an allegorical dream of the sort that Augustine recognized as conveying its truth figuratively (figuratis locutionibus) rather than literally (aperte dicta). See Steven F. Kruger, Dreaming in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1992), 22–3, 38–9. 24 Et non eum deseruerunt, quousque baptismatis sanctificatione instructi, monasterio ad quod festinaverunt sociarentur (PL 73: 610). 25 As if to keep the verb desero in view before the second passage quoted above, R uses it also in an intervening passage, without equivalent in M, in which Helenus prophesies that Eugenia will ‘suffer much’ in preserving her virginity for Christ, but ‘he to whom you have wholly given yourself, will not leave you’ (Scito autem, te pro castitate multa passuram, sed non te deseret ille cui te ex integro tradidisti; PL 73: 610, italics mine). 26 PL 73: 620.

164 E.

GORDON WHATLEY

episode is a ‘flashback’. Redeamus (Let us go back) says the narrator (in both M and R), to learn what has happened when Eugenia’s ox-drawn litter returned home to Alexandria empty, the upshot of which is that her pagan father Philip, misled by his feckless soothsayers into believing his daughter is now with the gods, has deified his daughter in the form of a golden statue. Readers of M, of course, knowing already at this point what has really happened to the lost Eugenia, are meant to smile at or simply scorn this display of pagan fraud and ignorance. But readers of R have more to ponder: Helenus’ dream vision, in which he abolishes the cult of a pagan goddess and her idol, reverses and subverts in advance Philip’s attempt to initiate the cult of a pagan goddess/idol. This symmetrically opposing pair of idol episodes invites reflection on idolatry itself. To understand them more clearly we need to explore further the historical and literary context. At the beginning of Helenus’ dream in R, he is being led to engage in the time-honored ritual of sacrificing to an image of a deity, a ritual that early Christians often refused to perform. In the opinion of many Romans and their rulers, such refusals provoked the gods to inflict upon Rome the military reverses and political and economic crises of the third and later centuries, including the sack of Rome in 410.27 Christian apologists like Lactantius and Augustine countered such accusations by invoking the idea espoused by not a few pagan writers, and originating with Euhemerus of Messene, that the gods were not divine beings at all but originally historical people and rulers memorialized as statues and eventually culted as gods.28 This explanation of idolatry’s origins was available not only in pagan Roman writings, but in Judeo-Christian scripture itself, notably in the Book of Wisdom: For a father, consumed with grief over his child suddenly taken from him, made an image of him, and now began to worship as a god what had been merely a dead human being, and instituted rites and sacrifices among his dependants. Then this wicked folly, grown strong with the passage of time, was kept as a law, and at the command of monarchs carved images were worshipped. (Wis. 14:15–16)29 See, for example, Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle, 136–8. Messene was a Greek writer, active c. 300 BC. In Divinae Institutiones I, 11 and 13–14 (ed. PL 6: 174 and 188–90), Lactantius cites Ennius’ Latin version of Euhemerus’ original Greek. Augustine also endorsed euhemerism in his De civitate dei contra paganos IV, 27; VI, 7; VII, 27 (ed. PL 41: 133–4, 184, 217). Among many treatments of euhemerism in Christian thought, see Jean Seznec, The Survival of the Pagan Gods, trans. Barbara Sessions (1953; repr. Princeton, NJ, 1972), 11–36. 29 Acerbo enim luctu dolens pater / cito sibi filii rapti faciens imaginem / illum qui tunc homo mortuus fuerat / nunc tamquam deum colere coepit / et constituit inter servos suos sacra et sacrificia / deinde interveniente tempore / convalescente iniqua consuetudine / hic error tamquam lex custodita est / et tyrannorum imperio colebantur figmenta. Liber Sapientiae 14: 15–16, Biblia sacra iuxta vulgatam versionem, ed. Robert Weber, 4th edn (Stuttgart, 1994), 1020. My translation is adapted from The New Oxford Annotated Bible, ed. Michael D. Coogan, 3rd edn (Oxford, 2001), ‘Apocrypha’, 90. 27

28

INTERTEXTUALITY IN THE LATE ROMAN LEGEND OF ST EUGENIA

165

The broad similarities between this vignette and Philip’s deification of his lost Eugenia in M are close enough to suggest that the biblical passage itself is M’s source; in fact, R lightly retouches the episode with a smattering of verbal echoes from the Wisdom passage itself, as if to render the intertextual connection more obvious than it is in M.30 R’s reworking of M’s euhemeristic episode of Eugenia’s ‘deification’ suggests that the latter might have prompted him to introduce Helenus’ dream narrative into the preceding chapter of the legend; but regardless of how the rewriting process unfolded here, the result in R is a pair of episodes that reflect on one another and on the phenomenon of idolatry. The ‘descent’ of the goddess’ simulacrum in Helenus’ dream and her simultaneous metamorphosis, at his bidding, into a human creatura can be read in effect as a fable, reversing and abnegating the euhemeristic process. In its studied allegorical vagueness, the dream universalizes Eugenia’s conversion as the end of polytheistic idol worship and the submission of pagan classical culture to the Christian truth represented and voiced in the dream by Bishop Helenus: ‘Understand that you are God’s creation: come down and do not permit yourself to be worshipped.’ The chiasmic symmetry between the two episodes in question here is also reflected in their contrasting intertextualities. We have seen how Philip’s deification of his lost daughter in M, and even more so in R, is modeled on the Judeo-Christian Book of Wisdom’s story about the beginning of pagan idolatry. Remarkably, however, and in my view ingeniously, in constructing a dream episode signifying the end of idolatry, R draws mostly, if not wholly, on nonChristian literary tradition, specifically on some topoi from Hellenistic secular romance involving epiphanic encounters between mortals and immortals.31 An obviously striking narrative effect in Helenus’ dream is the understated, laconic metamorphosis of a thing, the ‘effigy of a woman’ (simulacrum feminae), into a submissive and expressive human being, ‘God’s creature’ (creaturam Dei), when addressed directly by the saint. The basic elements of the dream and dream-like metamorphosis, and in particular the surprisingly peaceable rapprochement of pagan idol and Christian saint, are unparalleled in hagiography, as far as I can discover. Encounters between Christian heroes and pagan idols are invariably one-sided and end abruptly and violently, as is true later in the Eugenia legend itself when, prior to her actual martyrdom, Eugenia is taken to sacrifice to the goddess Diana in Rome and shatters the idol with a prayer.32

30 Compare Lib. Sap. 14: 15: pater […] sibi filii rapti faciens imaginem, illum […] tamquam deum colere coepit with R: omnes dicebant, quod eam dii […] rapuissent […]; pater […] eius fecit fusile simulacrum […] quod […] coepit excoli (PL 73: 611, italics mine). 31 On religious elements pervading the ostensibly secular Hellenistic romances, see Froma Zeitlin, ‘Religion’, in The Cambridge Companion to the Greek and Roman Novel, ed. Tim Whitmarsh (Cambridge, 2008), 91–108. 32 Mombritius, 397, ll. 26–9. In R (ch. XXVIII) this episode is longer and more sensational: the whole temple of Diana, including her statue, is reduced to rubble. In an earlier scene (ch. XXVI) a prayer from Protus and Hyacinthus destroys a statue of Jove (PL 73: 619–20).

166 E.

GORDON WHATLEY

Saints approaching martyrdom like this are often led by their pagan persecutors to sacrifice to pagan idols, but not usually in their dreams or with agreeable outcomes like that of Helenus: in hagiography, idols are invariably pulverized or otherwise summarily disposed of, usually without dialogue between saint and statue.33 Helenus’ dream of the simulacrum that metamorphoses into a mortal woman is clearly not indebted to the hagiographical topos of saint versus idol. In classical and Hellenistic tales, however, statues regularly appear to mortals, and beautiful heroines are often mistaken for goddesses because of their, literally, statuesque beauty. Robert Cioffi, in a study of epiphanies in the Greek novel, draws attention to instances in which cult statues and living beings are confused. For example, in An Ethiopian Story, Egyptian pirates assume their lovely captive Charikleia is a temple priestess or ‘living, breathing statue […] plundered from a temple’.34 In Chaereas and Callirhoe, the heroine Callirhoe’s second husband, Dionysius, installs in Aphrodite’s temple a golden cult statue of his new wife. Her statue is so lifelike that her first husband, Chaereas, in search of his lost bride, almost faints on seeing it.35 Goddesses themselves regularly appear to mortals in dreams in Hellenistic romance, sometimes described as if they are statues complete with cultic paraphernalia. One such epiphanic encounter occurs in a moonlit dream of Lucius, the hapless youth transformed, in Apuleius’ famous tale, into an ass. The goddess Isis appears to him simultaneously as both a beautiful living being and an effigy or apparition (simulacrum) rising from the sea. Fantastically adorned like an idol, she addresses him with comforting words about his imminent re-metamorphosis into human form, and bids him serve her chastely for the rest of his life.36 Usually, as in both these well-known examples, it is the deity who speaks directly in response to the devotee’s prayer, addressing his or her immediate 33 One exception is an early version of the St George legend (BHL 3379) in which an idol of Apollo (or, presumably, the demon inhabiting it), when accosted by the saint, publicly confesses to ‘leading everyone astray through idol-worship’, prompting George to angrily stamp his foot, making the ground open and swallow the statue. See John E. Matzke, ‘Contribution to the History of the Legend of Saint George, with Special Reference to the Sources of the French, German and Anglo-Saxon Metrical Versions’, PMLA 17 (1902), 464–535 (527). 34 Robert L. Cioffi, ‘Seeing Gods: Epiphany and Narrative in the Greek Novel’, Ancient Narrative 11 (2014), 1–42; http://www.ancientnarrative.com/pdf/anvol11_02cioffi.pdf (accessed 28 January 2015), 11 note 38, quoting Heliodorus, Aethiopica 1, 7, 2. A similar epiphany occurs in the early Latin romance of Apollonius of Tyre, discussed by Elizabeth Archibald in the present volume in connection with the Old French Ruodlieb. 35 Cioffi, ‘Seeing Gods’, 12, citing Chariton, Chæreas and Callirhoe 3, 9. 36 ‘paulatim toto corpore perlucidum simulacrum excusso pelago ante me constitisse visum est’, Metamorphoses XI, 3, ed. J. Arthur Hanson, Apuleius. Metamorphoses, 2 vols (Cambridge, MA, 1989), II: 294. See also the epiphanies of Isis in Ovid’s story of the transvestite Iphis (Metamorphoses IX 666–797), once as living goddess in a dream and later as statue in her temple: Ovid. Metamorphoses, ed. Frank Justus Miller, 2 vols (Cambridge, MA, 1976), II: 50–61.

INTERTEXTUALITY IN THE LATE ROMAN LEGEND OF ST EUGENIA

167

concerns with instructions and promises that shape the developing action of the romance. In other instances, the import of the dream with its divine instructions is more oblique or ambiguous. Part riddle and part prophecy, for example, is a dream in An Ethiopian Story in which the bandit chieftain Thyamis, overcome with desire for his beautiful captive Charikleia, finds himself in the crowded temple of Isis in his home city of Memphis, where the goddess herself brings Charikleia to him and makes various cryptic statements about the relationship he desires with her.37 This dream is a narrative device for building suspense and curiosity in the reader, but, as soon becomes clear, it is also the goddess’s device for fooling Thyamis (who misreads the dream) in order to protect her favorite, the maiden Charikleia. Helenus’ dream, on the other hand, is closer to pure allegory than riddle, and in this it resembles more closely one of the divine dreams in another romance, Leucippe and Clitophon. Here, Clitophon dreams he goes to Aphrodite’s temple to pray to her idol, but the doors slam shut denying him entrance and the goddess herself materializes outside, informing him that the sanctuary is forbidden him for the time being, but that eventually he will not only be allowed inside but will be ‘high priest of the goddess of love’.38 The dream signifies allegorically that Clitophon must control his lust for his beloved Leucippe, whose virgin body is symbolized by the shuttered temple, but the goddess’s veiled promise confirms their future marriage and the blissful erotic fulfillment of his desire. Leucippe herself meanwhile has had similar but more literal instructions from the goddess in a recent dream of her own. I do not claim that Clitophon’s dream is the source of Helenus’ in the Eugenia legend, but in addition to their shared allegorical form, there are enough structural analogies between the two dreams to suggest that the R composer is adapting the same narrative formula.39 While R is thus evidently indebted to the romance tradition for several key features of Helenus’ dream story, an obvious major difference between all the preceding examples and that in R is the role of the goddess figure. In the romances, and indeed in most literary dreams in antiquity (including that in Ovid’s tale of Ceyx and Alcyone),40 the divinity is the dominant voice, issuing instructions and/or making predictions, while the dreamer is a passive, silent recipient, responding only on awakening from the dream. R inverts this aspect of the dream formula: Helenus, the dreamer, takes the initiative to instruct and control the goddess-idol, redefining her as a mortal ‘creature’, and in the process 37 Heliodorus, Aethiopica 1, 18; trans. J. R. Morgan in Collected Ancient Greek Novels, ed. B. P. Reardon (Berkeley, CA, 1989), 369. 38 Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Clitophon, 4, 1, trans. John J. Winkler in Reardon, ed., Collected Ancient Greek Novels, 222. 39 Common features include a male dreamer possessing, or promised, the priesthood; a visit to a goddess’s temple, for a cultic purpose, which is thwarted when the idol comes to life; intimations of future fulfillment. 40 Metamorphoses XI: 410–748, especially 583–677; on manuscript illustrations of the version by Guillaume de Machaut in Fonteinne amoureuse, see Joyce Coleman’s chapter in the present volume.

168 E.

GORDON WHATLEY

undermines the image of Roman religion with which the dream begins, as the erstwhile goddess obeys the Christian saint’s call to end her pagan cult and commit herself to the worship of her creator. The dream episode in R is, in effect, a succinct parody of the melodramatic epiphanic topoi of Hellenistic romances in which powerful fertility goddesses prophesy, instruct and guide the protagonists toward their destined earthly happiness. Some of the language of Helenus’ dream – in particular his first instruction to the idol, to ‘Understand that you are God’s creation’ (Cognosce te creaturam Dei esse) and the goddess’s humble response, ‘I will not leave you until you restore me to my creator and maker’ (Non te deseram, quousque me creatori meo restituas et conditori) – is rich in early Christian associations, too rich to discuss here.41 But his second and final instruction to her – ‘do not permit yourself to be worshipped’ (noli te permittere adorari) – intensifies and complicates the element of parody we have already noted, in that it appears to be a deliberate verbal echo from an episode in the Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter, a Menippean satirical ‘novel’ from the time of Nero. In the episode in question, young Encolpius, the principal narrator of the Satyricon, is importuned by Circe, a beautiful young married woman (matrona) who is as wealthy as she is promiscuous. In Encolpius’ initial description of her she is ‘more perfect than any statue’, with, among other charms, a mouth like that of the goddess Diana as sculpted by Praxiteles (although, as her name implies, the lady’s conduct is scarcely Diana-like). In the course of their flirtatious dialogue Encolpius continues to address Circe as a divinity, offers himself to her as one of her ‘worshippers’, and in the process provides R with the key phrase of Helenus’ dream: ‘Do not disdain,’ says Encolpius, ‘to receive a foreigner among your worshippers; if you will permit yourself to be worshipped (si te adorari permiseris), you will find him truly devout.’42 The verbal similarity between what Encolpius and Helenus say to their respective ‘goddesses’ – ‘if you permit yourself to be worshipped’ (Encolpius) and ‘do not permit yourself to be worshipped’ (Helenus) – can hardly be accidental, given that both are suppliants (as they think) addressing a goddess. That the echo is deliberate in R is also suggested by the use of the verb permittere twice in the immediately preceding lines, as if to prime the reader in advance to catch the intertextual echo in Helenus’ command.43 And there are further ironic 41 Creaturam dei occurs frequently in Augustine, for example, his commentary on Psalm 62, contrasting the monotheism of King David with his contemporaries’ idolatry: ‘Ceteræ autem gentes, aut idola colebant quæ manibus suis fecerant, aut creaturam Dei, non ipsum Creatorem’ (The other nations, however, either worshipped idols made with their own hands or a creature of God rather than the creator himself). Enarrationes in psalmos, LXII, 1, ed. PL 36: 748, italics mine. 42 ‘ne fastidias hominem peregrinum inter cultores admittere; invenies religiosum, si te adorari permiseris.’ Satyricon 127, ed. Michael Heseltine, Petronius (New York, 1930), 282 (translation and italics mine). 43 ‘Permitte me, ut loquar cum dea vestra. Et cum me permisissent loqui, dixi ei …’ (Permit me to speak to your goddess. And when they permitted me to speak, I said to her

INTERTEXTUALITY IN THE LATE ROMAN LEGEND OF ST EUGENIA

169

connections between Eugenia’s legend and this episode from the Satyricon. Late antique readers who recognized, behind Helenus’ pagan idol, the shadow of Encolpius’ Circe and Praxitiles’ Diana would appreciate all the more the way Eugenia herself begins her martyr’s agon later in the legend by destroying a statue and temple of Diana.44 They would also relish the parallelism between Circe (a promiscuous, wealthy matrona seducing the iuvenis [youth], Encolpius) and another character in Eugenia’s legend, Melantia (another promiscuous, wealthy matrona trying to seduce the iuvenis ‘Eugenius’), each of whom is furiously disappointed in her lust, although for humorously different reasons.45 The playfully dissonant allusion to the Encolpius–Circe episode in the midst of Helenus’ dream is not merely entertaining; it also complicates and enhances R’s manipulation of the Hellenistic narrative topoi discussed above, given that the Satyricon episode, especially Encolpius’ outrageously hyperbolic and disingenuous idealization of the wanton Circe, is regarded by modern scholars as itself a parody or burlesque of, inter alia, episodes in Greek romances such as those discussed above, ‘in which the sudden appearance of the beautiful heroine makes the bystanders think that they have experienced an epiphany’ in the presence of a goddess.46 All this helps enrich the complex allegorical significance of the bishop’s dream as a Christian inversion and reversal of the values implicit in the Hellenistic literary tradition that the dream both mimics and transcends. Helenus’ command – ‘Do not permit yourself to be worshipped’ – repudiates not only the carnal appetite and transitory fleshly beauty embodied in Encolpius’ lustful Circe (and later in Eugenia’s Melantia) but also the ancient world’s mystique of the feminine principle embodied in the fertility goddesses and beautiful earthly heroines of Greek romance, with whom Encolpius disingenuously identifies Circe. Thus R’s new addition to the Eugenia legend, the allegorical dream of Helenus, simultaneously recalls, parodies, ridicules and inverts the sentimental, erotic, this-worldly fictions of pagan Hellenism and their idolization and idealization of the fleshly, marriageable woman. The dream also …). Repeating a word in various grammatical forms, as here, was a recognized ornament of style in classical and medieval rhetoric, termed annominatio: see Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. Willard R. Trask (Princeton, NJ, 1953; repr. 1973), 278–80. 44 Attesting to the continued currency of both Petronius and Apuleius in late antiquity is the contemptuous reference in Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio 1.2.8–9 (cited by Richard Hunter, ‘Ancient Readers’, in Whitmarsh, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Greek and Roman Novel, 263, note 9). That R could expect at least some of his sixth-century readers to have read Petronius and Apuleius is affirmed by P. G. Walsh, Petronius: The Satyricon (Oxford, 1996), xxxv and 149–55; also Konrad Mueller, Petronii Arbitri Satyricon Reliquiae, 4th edn (Stuttgart, 1995), xxx–xxxvi. 45 Encolpius becomes impotent while attempting to satisfy Circe, much to her frustration and resentment. 46 Edward Courtney, A Companion to Petronius (Oxford, 2001), 192, and P. G. Walsh, The Roman Novel: The ‘Satyricon’ of Petronius and the ‘Metamorphoses’ of Apuleius (Cambridge, 1970), 106, who labels the Circe–Encolpius encounter as ‘at once the most extensively scabrous and the most literary episode in the Satyricon’.

170 E.

GORDON WHATLEY

‘performs’ the wished-for abandonment of Greco-Roman pagan culture through the metamorphosis of the female divinity/statue into a human ‘creature’ and humble devotee of Christ. The dream vignette’s appropriation and inversion of pagan Hellenistic topoi is a striking but by no means unique example of literary and artistic syncretism in late antiquity. It typifies the fondness for verbal play and cultural inversion noted by Walter Berschin in the language of other early Christian martyrdom narratives.47 It parallels the creative merging of Christian and pagan motifs and imagery that Thomas Mathews has analyzed in early Christian art and that attests, in his view, to ‘the special pleasure that Christians took in believing that Christ had led them into a kind of looking-glass world in which all traditional values were turned inside-out and upside-down’.48 But the author of the R version of the Eugenia legend did not need to look any further than his hypotext, M, to find ample precedent for the simultaneously playful and earnest adaptation and inversion of pre-Christian topoi analyzed in this essay. The dramatic gesture of disrobing, original to the M version of the legend, that climaxes Eugenia’s trial before her father is itself a narrative fusion of two pre-Christian stories, the one concerning a notoriously beautiful Greek courtesan (herself the model for one of Praxiteles’ divine statues), the other concerning an Athenian female physician. Moreover, one of the key lines of this scene is a verbatim quotation (in hexameter verse) from an earlier work of Christian-classical literary synthesis, the late fourth-century Virgilian Cento of Faltonia Betitia Proba.49 Thus in the transmission of the Eugenia legend, the hypertext R emulates its hypotext M in rewriting, parodying and inverting topoi and language from Greco-Roman pagan as well as Judeo-Christian stories, simultaneously exploiting and repudiating, but also in the process perpetuating, classical and Hellenistic literary culture in the last century of late antiquity.

47 Walter Berschin, Biographie und Epochenstil im lateinischen Mittelalter, 5 vols in 6 (Stuttgart, 1986–2004), I: 41–6. 48 Thomas F. Mathews, The Clash of Gods: A Reinterpretation of Early Christian Art (Princeton, NJ, 1993; repr. 1999), 48. 49 On M’s appropriation of the stories of the courtesan and female physician, and on the Proba allusion, see Whatley, ‘More Than a Female Joseph’, 102–9. Proba’s Cento is a précis of the Bible made up entirely of verses from the works of Virgil.

Ruodlieb and Romance in Latin: Audience and Authorship Elizabeth Archibald What did it mean in the Middle Ages to write the sort of narrative that we now call a romance in Latin, or to read one? We have much evidence of the Church’s disapproval of romance, yet romances in Latin exist: they must have been written mostly by clerics, and aimed at a largely ecclesiastical audience (of course many vernacular romances were also written by clerics). Stephen Jaeger and others have argued that the rapid development of the romance genre in the twelfth century was an attempt by clerics to try to establish civilized standards among the knightly class, but relatively few knights would have read Latin.1 Does this mean that romances in Latin were significantly different in tone and content from those in the vernacular, since they were aimed at a largely clerical audience rather than thuggish knights? Were the earliest Latin romances the ancestors of vernacular ones? On the other hand, some Latin Arthurian romances show clear evidence of vernacular influence in both motifs and style.2 We are accustomed to thinking of the twelfth century as the age of the rise of vernacular romance; but when we discuss Latin romance, we have to adjust such preconceptions, asking who constituted the target audience for such clerical storytelling and what their ‘horizon of expectations’ might have been.3 Rosalind Field has recently asked ‘Why are we so dismissive of clerical culture?’ She is discussing the thirteenth century, but her response is also helpful to an understanding of earlier texts in Latin: by comparison with the interest lavished on audiences, patrons and women, the clerical writers as a group seem to suffer from the Victorian disapproval of ‘monkish writers’ […] We should give more credit to the activities of the

1 C. Stephen Jaeger, The Origins of Courtliness: Civilising Trends and the Formation of Courtly Ideals 939–1210 (Philadelphia, PA, 1985); The Envy of Angels: Cathedral Schools and Social Ideals in Medieval Europe, 950–1200 (Philadelphia, PA, 1994); Scholars and Courtiers: Intellectuals and Society in the Medieval West (Aldershot, 2002). See also Richard Kaeuper, Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe (Oxford, 1999). 2 See Siân Echard, Arthurian Narrative in the Latin Tradition (Cambridge, 1998), and Elizabeth Archibald, ‘Arthurian Latin Romance’, in The Arthur of Medieval Latin Literature, ed. Siân Echard (Cardiff, 2011), 132–45. 3 This widely used term is derived from Hans Robert Jauss’ work on reception theory.

172 ELIZABETH ARCHIBALD clerical author with secular interests … It may be that we should have a third category – always recognizing the porous boundaries between them – beside courtly and popular, that of clerical. Such a grouping does not mean ecclesiastical or pious. It does mean literate, confident of its audience and inter-textual. The authors may never be known or named but they have an authorial presence and a consciousness of the power of fiction.4

There is no reason to think that clerical and lay reading would not have overlapped; indeed there is every reason to expect shared interests, whether serious or entertaining – as Siân Echard has remarked, ‘It may seem unnecessary to insist that Latin writers sometimes are simply having fun.’5 The editors of Walter Map’s De nugis curialium, which contains some texts bordering on romance, comment that the unfinished work ‘was suspended between the serious and frivolous; it never makes up its mind which way to jump’.6 Ad Putter has discussed ‘the merging of clerical and lay mentalities’ through fiction in a study of Chrétien de Troyes and the court of Champagne, arguing that ‘it is in fiction that this merger finds its clearest expression’.7 Such merging seems to have been happening considerably earlier than Chrétien’s time (the late twelfth century). Although the chivalric ideals and conventions foregrounded in vernacular romance were not formally developed in literary narratives before Chrétien, he was preceded by other clerical storytellers with a strong interest in lay culture and mores. We do not know their names, but we can tell from their writings that they could appreciate and enjoy secular adventures as well as seeing and stressing moral value in them. These writings include the Ruodlieb, the main subject of this essay, probably composed in Tegernsee in the last quarter of the eleventh century, and the evergreen Apollonius of Tyre (Historia Apollonii), which dates back to the end of the Roman empire and circulated quite widely even before its renewed popularity in the twelfth century.8 Romance as a medieval genre is notoriously hard to define; the definition seems to lie in the eye of the reader, or the ear of the listener, and our own generic parameters may well be very different from those of medieval readers 4 Rosalind Field, ‘“Pur les francs homes amender”: Clerical Authors and the ThirteenthCentury Context of Historical Romance’, in Medieval Romance, Medieval Contexts, ed. Rhiannon Purdie and Michael Cichon (Cambridge, 2011), 175–88 (187–8). 5 Echard, Arthurian Narrative, 237. 6 C. L. Brooke and R. A. B. Mynors, Introduction to their revised edition of Map, De nugis curialium (Oxford, 1983), xliii. 7 Ad Putter, ‘Knights and Clerics at the Court of Champagne: Chrétien de Troyes’ Romances in Context’, in Medieval Knighthood V, ed. Stephen Church and Ruth Harvey (Woodbridge, 1995), 243–66 (245). 8 Elizabeth Archibald, Apollonius of Tyre: Medieval and Renaissance Themes and Variations (Cambridge, 1991), includes the Latin text with facing page translation. I cite the Ruodlieb from C. W. Grocock’s edition with facing page translation (Warminster, 1985); I have checked the Latin against the more recent edition of B. Vollmann in Frühe Deutsche und Lateinische Literatur in Deutschland, 800–1150, ed. W. Haug (Frankfurt-am-Main, 1991), 388–551.



Ruodlieb and Romance in Latin

173

and audiences. Field quotes Derek Pearsall’s definition, ‘the principal secular literature of entertainment of the Middle Ages’, and adds her own view that ‘The lure of romance is primarily the lure of the story and secondarily of the exotic setting or enviable achievement it describes’; thus ‘a successful romance is one that gives pleasure, whether or not accompanied by information or instruction’.9 Love, adventure and travel are very frequent, if not indispensable, ingredients; the protagonists are always noble and often rulers. If we are looking for narratives of love and adventure which begin with some form of exile or catalyst for departure from home for the hero, foreground certain standards of behaviour and idealize good kingship, Apollonius and the Ruodlieb are certainly pretwelfth-century candidates which suggest that such stories were written and read in monasteries as well as at courts before the rise of vernacular romance. The German origins of the Ruodlieb also suggest that we should not see twelfthcentury France as the fons et origo of romance, but rather should acknowledge what Green calls a ‘“long century” that stretches beyond its opening and closing dates’, and beyond Francophone frontiers. As he points out, what begins or is discovered in the twelfth century is not narrative fiction itself, but the application of fictionality, previously recognized and practised in medieval Latin, to vernacular literature. This by no means weakens Chrétien’s importance, but underlines his clerical status … in enriching vernacular literature from what was available in Latin … [If] we see fictionality more essentially in terms of a contract between author and audience, this opens up different aspects of the problem of fiction and grants a place to the Latin examples which came before Chrétien.10

Remarkable though Chrétien’s work is, it seems implausible that this was an entirely new form of storytelling with no written or oral antecedents. He himself refers to written sources, whether or not they really existed, without specifying their language; his courtly audience (male and female) must already have known stories of Arthurian adventure, even if much less sophisticated ones. Apollonius can be seen as an older relation of the later vernacular romances, as is shown by its lasting popularity and potential for adaptation and expansion, but the Ruodlieb, which is less well known, brings us much closer to Chrétien in many respects. In this essay I shall discuss its strikingly multi-generic structure and its representation of women, and what we can deduce about its audience and author. I shall also suggest some thematic links with the better-known Apollonius which suggest a long tradition of clerical storytelling with parallels in what later became important aspects of romance. The terse Latin prose Apollonius may be based on a lost Greek original. It was popular before the development of the chivalric quest motif in vernacular 9 Rosalind Field, ‘Romance in England, 1066–1400’, in The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature, ed. David Wallace (Cambridge, 1999), 152–76 (152–3). 10 D. H. Green, The Beginnings of Medieval Romance: Fact and Fiction, 1150–1220 (Cambridge, 2002), 24.

174 ELIZABETH ARCHIBALD

romance, and continued to circulate almost unchanged in plot throughout the later Middle Ages, both in Latin and in various vernaculars, though it was also frequently adapted, expanded and translated. Apollonius of Tyre solves the riddle put to all the suitors of King Antiochus’ daughter, which reveals her incest with her father. Apollonius flees and is shipwrecked near Cyrene, where King Arcestrates befriends the destitute stranger and invites him to dinner. Apollonius plays the lyre wonderfully; the king’s daughter falls in love with him. They marry and on news of Antiochus’ death sail back to Tyre, but en route the princess apparently dies in childbirth; her coffin is put overboard. The comatose princess is revived at Ephesus and serves in the temple of Diana. Apollonius, grief-stricken, leaves his baby daughter Tarsia with foster parents at Tarsus and wanders for fifteen years. Tarsia grows up, attracts the jealousy of her foster mother and escapes an assassination attempt when she is carried off by pirates who sell her to a brothel in Mitylene. She evades defloration through her learning and is protected by the prince, Athenagoras. When the melancholic Apollonius arrives at Mitylene, Athenagoras sends Tarsia to cheer him up. They discover their relationship, and a second recognition scene at Ephesus completes the family reunion; Tarsia marries Athenagoras.

There are very few Christian references and the social context is classical. The writer/adapter could have been clerical or lay; who were the readers? The text was well enough known to be cited in a sixth- or seventh-century grammatical treatise on the gender of nouns (A3: the word is gymnasium);11 at least six pre-twelfth-century texts survive. Apollonius appears in numerous monastery library catalogues, but also in the will of an eighth-century Italian marquis as a bequest to his eldest daughter together with numerous theological works (A5). Allusions make it clear that by the later twelfth century the story was well known to both Latin and vernacular writers. Sometimes it is presented as containing valuable moral wisdom, but by the 1170s Apollonius was equated with Tristan as an expert on happiness in love in the Philoména attributed to Chrétien de Troyes (A12). No doubt this is why by the end of the century the story was criticized as ‘made of vanity’, for instance in the Poème Moral (A19). Some critics see Apollonius as a proto-romance, involving as it does exile, a separated family, illicit sex, pirates, ordeals for a heroine, and eventual recognition and reunion. These are certainly motifs that recur in many later medieval romances (and are also present in classical literature). On the other hand, there is no fighting and nothing approaching the idealistic code of chivalry. Love appears in many forms – familial, romantic, incestuous – but the presentation of romantic passion falls considerably short of what we would expect from a vernacular romance (and indeed is significantly expanded in some later vernac-

11 No. 3 in the list of allusions in Appendix II of Archibald, Apollonius; they are cited here parenthetically by the same numbers.



Ruodlieb and Romance in Latin

175

ular versions). The adventures of the learned Tarsia, especially her stay in the brothel, have analogues in Hellenistic novels, but not in later medieval romance. The story can also be read as a didactic text (and often was). There are three pairs of royal fathers and daughters: the fathers exemplify good and bad kingship – domestic and political rule are clearly paralleled. There is no explicit moral about incest at the end, but advice on behaviour for kings and others is offered both explicitly and implicitly; loyalty is rewarded and villainy punished. There is considerable emphasis on learning, both in relation to characters and style. Apollonius consults his library about the riddle, and his wife and daughter are both notably well educated. There are echoes of Virgil and other classical writers, not least in the cento describing the shipwreck (ch. 11), but overall the style is fairly plain. For instance, the unnamed princess who marries Apollonius is referred to as puella (girl) throughout. We get no physical description of the main characters, nor of clothes or feasts or other details of courtly life; there is very little colour or decoration, and speeches tend to be short. The story moves along quite briskly; many things are left unexplained and there is little or no attempt at psychology in relation to the major characters. We cannot know how close the extant text is to the presumed classical source, but the prose has an economy and directness which might have been attractive to Christian audiences in the early Middle Ages, both male and female; on the other hand, many later adapters and translators felt the need to add names, descriptions and chivalric activities, in keeping with the evocations of aristocratic life in other romances. Some of the themes of Apollonius are also present in the Ruodlieb; too little critical attention has been paid to the parallels between the two texts, different though they are in style. The Ruodlieb is an elaborate verse composition in leonine hexameters which survives in eighteen tantalizing fragments found in the bindings of books from the monastery at Tegernsee; they appear to constitute the author’s original copy, with some material written in margins and sideways on.12 Though the dating is disputed, the parameters of 1040 to 1070 are generally accepted. One section, fragment XI, also survives in a separate double leaf, in a different hand and written a little later. The fragments are disjointed and often hard to follow, but the text is clearly by a German-speaking author of considerable sophistication. It combines elements of epic, romance, fabliau and exemplum, moving from one to another without evident signposting – the effect is somewhat reminiscent of the Canterbury Tales, generic variation without links between fragments. The plot is complex: I–V: A young nobleman leaves home and his mother because he is being mistreated by his local lords. He meets a huntsman who introduces him to 12 See Walter Haug, Ruodlieb: Faksimile-Ausgabe des Codex Latinus Monacensis 19486 der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek München und der Fragmente von St. Florian, Vol. 1 (Wiesbaden, 1974). Some pages are illustrated online in the Bibliotheca Augustana edition: http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/Chronologia/Lspost11/Ruodlieb/ruo_frag.html (accessed 29 May 2014).

176 ELIZABETH ARCHIBALD Rex Maior; the king is impressed by the young man’s prowess at fishing with a magical herb, bugloss. A war begins with the neighbouring Rex Minor; the young man is given a command, brings prisoners home to Rex Maior, and acts as his emissary in the peace negotiations. Rex Maior is generous to the conquered. There is an elaborate explanation of how to make a jewel from lynx urine. V–VIII: The young nobleman (now named Ruodlieb) goes home in response to a message from his mother. Rex Maior gives him loaves containing hidden gold and jewels, and advice in twelve precepts, warning him against redheaded companions, lodging with a January/May couple, marrying an inferior or servant, passing a church without praying, and digging ditches in cultivated fields near public roads. Ruodlieb meets a redhead on the road and they lodge in a village. Ruodlieb’s host is a young man married to his older former employer, but the redhead chooses a couple where the wife is young and pretty. He seduces her, kills her husband and is condemned to death. IX–XIV: Ruodlieb meets his nephew who is besotted with a prostitute mistress. The two arrive at a noblewoman’s castle and are welcomed. Ruodlieb does his fishing with bugloss trick again, and plays the harp while his nephew dances with the lady’s daughter: they fall in love and a wedding is arranged. Ruodlieb and his nephew return home, and the jewel-filled loaves are opened. At the nephew’s wedding the bride proves independent and feisty, demanding equality with her husband. XV–XVII: Ruodlieb’s mother advises him to marry, and his barons suggest a suitable candidate. However, she turns out to have a clerical lover; the nephew delivers a present of her mislaid garters, showing that Ruodlieb knows of her affair, so she refuses his proposal. XVII–XVIII: Ruodlieb’s mother dreams of his future glory. He meets a dwarf who guards a cave of treasure belonging to two kings. The dwarf declares that with his help Ruodlieb can defeat them and win the local princess. He offers his dwarf wife as a hostage; she begs Ruodlieb to accept and release her husband. [Here the poem breaks off]

As in Apollonius, there are inconsistencies and abrupt transitions, exacerbated by the fragmentary state of the text. The focus remains throughout on Ruodlieb; though there are a number of female characters, none have central roles comparable to the mother and daughter in Apollonius. But there are some significant motifs reminiscent of the earlier narrative: an unjustly exiled hero; kingship and good behaviour; the search for an appropriate bride; various examples of love and marriage, good and bad; punishment for debauchery; forthright and independent-minded young women; and learned and technical passages. Ruodlieb gives a master-class in harping (XI.25–47), as Apollonius does with the lyre at Pentapolis (ch. 16). It is a striking coincidence that the Gesta Apollonii, an erudite tenth-century verse version of the first scenes of Apollonius, may also have been written at Tegernsee.13 13 On the Gesta, see Peter Godman, ‘The Ruodlieb and Verse Romance in the Latin Middle Ages’, in Der antike Roman und seine mittelalterliche Rezeption, ed. Michelangelo Picone



Ruodlieb and Romance in Latin

177

Ruodlieb is noble, not royal, and is described as miles, unlike Apollonius who never fights; but like the Tyrian prince, Ruodlieb in exile is helped by a wise and benevolent ruler, known only as Rex Maior, before returning to his home. As in Apollonius, the poet offers a number of examples of different kinds of love. In Apollonius the main emphasis is on the relationships of royal fathers and daughters, though there is also the contrast between the unsuitable and oppressed bride, Antiochus’ sought-after but incestuous daughter, and the suitable one, the unnamed princess of Cyrene who insists on choosing her own husband even though he is shipwrecked and poor. In the Ruodlieb the theme of appearance and reality occurs in the form of the ‘suitable’ bride suggested by the hero’s friends and relations who turns out to have a secret lover; when she realizes that Ruodlieb knows of this, she says she would not marry him if he were the only man left in the world, a tacit admission of guilt (XVI–XVIII). The outspoken princess who insists on marrying the shipwrecked Apollonius can be compared with the feisty bride of Ruodlieb’s nephew, referred to as dominella (little mistress). When asked if she will take the young man as her lord, she replies that her new husband will be dearer to her the more he serves her, amusing all present. Then she questions the need to swear fidelity to him in very frank terms, demanding equality between spouses and rejecting patriarchal double standards: ‘iudicium parile decet ut patiatur uterque: cur seruare fidem tibi debeo, dic, meliorem quam mihi tu debes? dic si defendere possis si licuisset Ade mecham superaddat ut Eue unam cum costam faceret Deus in mulierem. quam de se sumptam cum proclamauerat Adam dic ubi concessus binas sibi legeris Evas? cum meretricares esse scortum tibi uelles?’  (XIV.71–8) (‘It is fitting for both to suffer the same judgement. Why must I keep better faith towards you than you towards me? Tell me, if you can defend this – was Adam allowed to have a mistress as well as Eve, since God made one of his ribs into a woman; when Adam shouted out that she was taken out from himself, tell me, where do you read that he was permitted two Eves? When you went off wenching, would you have liked me to be a whore for you?’)

She threatens that she can find plenty of other men to marry; her bridegroom quickly promises all that she asks. Who was expected to enjoy this feisty young woman: monks at Tergernsee, their male pupils, male and female courtiers – or all of them? The dominella is a surprise, for nothing in the poem so far has inand Bernhard Zimmerman (Basel, 1997), 245–71, expanded as ‘Unbuttoned Dwarves’, ch. 2 of The Silent Masters: Latin Literature and Its Censors in the High Middle Ages (Princeton, NJ, 2000), 32–60 (on the Gesta, see pp. 37–41).

178 ELIZABETH ARCHIBALD

dicated such sympathy for female viewpoints or autonomy. She goes far beyond what is needed to counterbalance the prostitute whom the nephew had previously loved. Although she does not make the first move in the relationship, she is reminiscent of the forthright ‘wooing women’ described by Judith Weiss, who feature in the early Anglo-Norman tradition but then soon disappear.14 Eve appears in this passage in an unusually positive form. An appeal to her example in an earlier fragment represents a very different attitude. The young wife who flirts with the redhead is extremely contrite after her husband’s death, vigorously rebutting the redhead’s claim that she seduced him: ‘O nimis infide cur sic mentire super me? exemplaris Adam qui culpam vertit in Evam. non post te misi, non te prius impie uidi. … ut caream vita si uultis mersa cloaca, sum nimis inmunda, tali dignissima pena, incidero prompte quia tali gaudeo fine …’ (VIII.35–7 and 59–61) (‘O you foul traitor, why do you lie about me like this? You are from the same mould as Adam, who put the blame on Eve. I made no advances to you, you villain, I had not seen you before! … If you wish me to lose my life drowned in a sewer, for I am filthy through and through, and deserve such a punishment, I will jump in straightaway, because I would be happy at such an end …’)

This is a more predictable misogynist attitude (though there is some sympathy for Eve), as is the later revelation of the ‘suitable’ bride’s secret affair (XVII: the shameful liaison with a cleric is a striking detail in a work presumably written by another ecclesiastic). An example of loyal and happy marriage is offered by Ruodlieb’s hosts in the village where the redhead gets into trouble; following Rex Maior’s advice, Ruodlieb lodges with a young man married to his much older former employer, whose relationship is a great success (VII). The final fragment offers yet another positive angle on love and marriage in the form of the charming and loyal dwarf wife who appeals to Ruodlieb to take her hostage in her husband’s place: parua nimis pulchra set et auro uesteque compta, que ruit ante pedes Ruodlieb fundendo querelas, ‘optime cunctorum uinclis mihi solue maritum meque tene pro se donec persoluerit omne.’ (XVIII.29–32) (She was small and yet very beautiful, and was dressed in gold and fine clothes. She fell down at Ruodlieb’s feet and poured out her grief 14 Judith Weiss, ‘The Wooing Woman in Anglo-Norman Romance’, in Romance in Medieval England, ed. Maldwyn Mills, Jennifer Fellows and Carol Meale (Cambridge, 1991), 149–61.



Ruodlieb and Romance in Latin

179

to him, crying ‘Best of all men, release my husband from his chains and take me in his place, until he has finished all this business!’)

If the poem originally ended with Ruodlieb winning the princess, as seems likely, this episode might herald his imminent success after the reversals of earlier sections. As with the contrast of royal fathers and daughters in Apollonius, we are introduced in the Ruodlieb to a range of amorous behaviours and women, loyal and unfaithful, independent and submissive, marriageable and unmarriageable. It recalls the much debated De amore of Andreas Capellanus, where diametrically opposed attitudes to love are presented: the third and final book is a vitriolic diatribe against women and secular passion, but it is not clear that this should be taken as the moral of the whole work, which seems to present two extreme positions in ironic fashion, and according to some critics is intended to be humorous.15 Might the Ruodlieb similarly be a monastic joke, though less polarized in its arguments? Zissos, who thinks the whole poem heavily didactic, argues that there is a series of three marriages which all start well, but turn out increasingly badly; he reads this as a warning against carnality and selfishness.16 It is striking that the harshest condemnation of women in the poem is given to a female speaker, the flirtatious wife in the fabliau-like episode with the redhead. Yet while a married woman’s inappropriate lust in this episode is clearly condemned, in another section the poet seems to approve of the mutual desire of Ruodlieb’s nephew and his young bride, of whom we are told that, once betrothed, ‘mater si sineret uel in ipsa nocte coirent’ (if her mother had allowed it they would have slept together that very night; XII.30). Kratz argues that ‘The Ruodlieb … addresses humanness in a way that gives equal attention to the male and the female.’17 Certainly women are prominent in much of the poem for good reasons; Jaeger comments that ‘This view of women as a positive moral force is to my knowledge new in the Middle Ages.’18 Might the poet have been a woman? Were there women in the target audience? Increasing evidence is appearing for female literacy in the Middle Ages. We know that one Italian aristocrat left a Latin Apollonius to his daughter; it would be pleasing to

15 See Andreas Capellanus on Love, ed. and trans. P. G. Walsh (London, 1982). For a survey of interpretations, see the ‘Introduction’ in Kathleen Andersen-Wyman, Andreas Capellanus on Love? (Basingstoke, 2007), 18–25. 16 Andrew Zissos, ‘Marriage in the Ruodlieb, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 32.2 (1997), 53–78. 17 Dennis M. Kratz, ‘Waltharius and Ruodlieb: A New Perspective’, in Gli Umanesimi Medievali, ed. C. Leonardi (Florence, 1998), 307–15 (307). 18 C. Stephen Jaeger, Ennobling Love: In Search of a Lost Sensibility (Philadelphia, PA, 1999), 90. See also Kratz, ‘Waltharius and Ruodlieb’, 307: ‘Few works of medieval Latin literature can match the number, range and vividness of the women that we encounter in this work […] While all are not equal as exemplars of moral goodness, all do share the quality of forcefulness […] they are, for me, the poem’s most arresting characters.’

180 ELIZABETH ARCHIBALD

think that young women were offered positive images of their potential in the dominella and dwarf wife of the Ruodlieb. The poet’s sympathy for women in the scenes with the dominella is indisputable. The Apollonius author gives very little detail about appearance or clothes, and makes little use of elaborate rhetoric, but when the dominella first appears, the Ruodlieb poet waxes lyrical: que dum procedit ceu lucida luna reluxit. quam sollers esset nemo discernere posset, an uolet an naret an se quocumque moueret … (X.55–7) (When she went out, she shone like the radiant moon. She was so graceful that no one could tell whether she flew, or swam, or moved herself in any way at all […])

There is nothing like this in Apollonius, nor in the Latin Arthurian romances to be discussed below. Dronke calls it ‘the first medieval “portrait in motion” that I know’.19 Does it imply a courtly lay audience, male or mixed? The poet was certainly acquainted with vernacular German love lyric, though none survives from that period. When Ruodlieb’s messenger takes presents to his potential bride, her oath of love includes some German words: ‘quid respondere Ruotlieb nunc uis, hera, per m[e?’ dixit ‘dic illi nunc de me corde fideli tantundem liebes, ueniat quantum modo loub[es, et uolucrum uuunna quot sint, tot dic sibi m[inna, graminis et florum quantum sit, dic et honor[um.’ (XVII.10–14; my italics) (‘Now, what reply do you wish to make through me to Ruodlieb, my lady?’ She said, ‘Tell him that I send him now with a faithful heart as much love as the leaves which have just come, and as much passion as there are delights in birds, and as many honours as there are grasses and flowers.’)

This may be a cynical comment on the insubstantiality of love promises, intended to amuse fellow monks – but it shows familiarity with lay vernacular traditions and the expectation that the audience/readers will know and appreciate them too. This is surely an example of the blending of oral and written culture to which Evelyn Birge Vitz has drawn attention in her work.20 The poet also alludes to vernacular traditions in the final fragment with the dwarves. The situation is not entirely clear, but the dwarf husband offers to help 19 Peter Dronke, ‘Ruodlieb: The Emergence of Romance’, in Poetic Individuality in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1970), 33–65 (52–3). 20 Evelyn Birge Vitz, Orality and Performance in Early French Romance (Cambridge, 1999), 20.

Ruodlieb and Romance in Latin



181

Ruodlieb obtain the treasure of two kings, Immunch and Hartunch, and also the hand of the heiress Princess Heriburg; this suggests a link with Germanic legend such as the Niebelungenlied (though Godman disagrees).21 Nothing earlier in the surviving fragments has prepared the reader for this episode. Helena Gamer, who notes that there is a King Ruotlieb in one version of the thirteenth-century Eckelied, discusses the wide range of sources in the Ruodlieb: classical, biblical and Germanic.22 The poet also mixes what we now think of as distinct genres in a complicated and original way: epic, romance, fabliau and exemplum. Dronke calls the poem ‘the first medieval romance’, arguing that it is ‘a poetic experiment’ and ‘a new kind of poem’; he describes the dominella as ‘wryly poking fun at the clichés of amour courtois’ – but this assumes that such clichés were already well known in the later eleventh century, though there is no sign in the story of the ‘ennobling love’ so characteristic of later vernacular romance.23 Haijo Westra also thinks the Ruodlieb is an experiment, an ‘intermediary phase’ in the gradual development of the vernacular romance for which ‘a significant non-Latinate audience with other expectations’ was required; he describes the poem as ‘a trial effort that may have confounded and perplexed its own author, producing originality by anomaly’.24 Grocock too thinks the poet may have changed direction: an initial didactic aim ‘does seem to have been overtaken by his sheer delight in writing the poem itself, that is to say, the narrative element has swamped the didactic element’.25 The opening lines do suggest an ethical lesson – ‘quidam prosapia uir progenitus generosa / moribus ingenitam decorabat nobilitatem’ (There once was a man, born of a noble family, who enhanced his innate nobility with his good behaviour [I.1–2]) – but we have no idea how the poem might have ended. Dennis Kratz considers it ‘a didactic work, a mirror of knighthood’; he edited it together with the Waltharius, and argues that ‘[B]oth works extend the capabilities of Latin epic by making it a suitable vehicle for the expression of Christian values.’26 Who might have been the target audience for the Ruodlieb? For some critics it must have been the imperial court. According to Jaeger, ‘Ruodlieb is anything but an anomaly. It is a highly original work which mirrors the high stage of moral, ethical and social sophistication attained at the imperial court, probably that of Henry III.’27 He calls it ‘unique in the eleventh century in revealing through a fictional narrative the contemporary conceptions of a civilized court’, See Godman, Silent Masters, 33ff. Helena Gamer, ‘The Ruodlieb and Tradition’, ARV: Journal of Scandinavian Folklore 11 (1955), 65–103 (84). 23 Dronke, ‘Ruodlieb’, 34 and 56. 24 Haijo Westra, ‘Individuality, Originality and the Literary Criticism of Medieval Latin Texts’, in Poetry and Philosophy in the Middle Ages: A Festschrift for Peter Dronke, ed. J. Marenbon (Leiden, 2001), 281–92 (290–1). 25 Grocock, Introduction to The Ruodlieb, 11. 26 Dennis M. Kratz, Introduction to Waltharius and Ruodlieb, ed. and trans. Kratz (London, 1984), xxix and xxxiii. 27 Jaeger, Origins of Courtliness, 269. 21 22

182 ELIZABETH ARCHIBALD

where the ‘dominant […] is love and friendship’.28 But Peter Godman disagrees vehemently, arguing that ‘Nothing is less plausible’ than a court origin for the poem, which lacks the encomium style characteristic of the period.29 F. J. E. Raby deems the Ruodlieb poet’s Latin ‘below the average of his time’, and finds it ‘clear that he thought in German and not in Latin’, but still assumes that he is writing for a learned audience.30 It is striking that the poet includes several erudite and technical passages, particularly in connection with the magic herb buglossa which when scattered in water brings masses of fish to the surface (II and X). The source of this trick is Pliny, who also supplied the account of how to make a precious jewel from lynx urine (V.99–129). Erudite technical explanations are a notable feature of some other Latin romances, including two anonymous Arthurian narratives probably produced in England or northern France, De ortu Waluuanii nepotis Arturi (The Rise of Gawain Nephew of Arthur) and Historia Meriadoci regis Cambriae (The Story of Meriadoc King of Wales). De ortu gives an elaborate description of how to make Greek fire (an incendiary weapon), involving the blood of a redheaded man and a dragon as well as poisonous toads, asps and other animals; the standard formula is given in Vegetius and other authors, but is expanded here by fantastic ingredients perhaps borrowed, according to Day, from Medea’s cauldron in the Metamorphoses or Pliny’s accounts of strange animals. The De ortu may be by the same author as the Historia Meriadoci, which also includes a technical passage, an account of cooking in the forest involving pits of water containing drains and valves.31 One may compare the elaborate medical description of the revival of the comatose queen in Apollonius (chs. 26–7). It seems that some rather erudite showing-off may be a feature of these Latin narratives. Does this help us with the question of audience? Monastic audiences clearly read and enjoyed secular narratives, as can be seen from the presence of Latin and vernacular narratives in monastic library catalogues. Godman argues that the Ruodlieb poet was writing for an audience ‘that included, among its monks and pupils, a number of nobiles’, and sees him as ‘the beneficiary of a local literary heritage which he chose to transform’.32 Neil Cartlidge has drawn attention to the centrality of the household or domus in the poem, and suggests that ‘Ruodlieb’s life might be seen as a psychological journey illustrating a young man’s passage from one household to another – Jaeger, Ennobling Love, 58. Godman, ‘The Ruodlieb’, 249. See also his Silent Masters, 42 and 47. 30 F. J. E. Raby, A History of Secular Latin Poetry in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1957), 398–9. 31 Both are edited with facing page translations in Mildred Leake Day, Latin Arthurian Literature, Arthurian Archives 11 (Cambridge, 2005): De ortu, 56–120; Historia Meriadoci, 122–206. Their dates are much disputed: suggestions range from mid-twelfth century to fourteenth century. For the Greek fire passage in De ortu, see 90–6, and Introduction, 14–15; for the cooking system in Historia Meriadoci, see 137–8. See also Philippe Walter, ed., Arthur, Gauvain et Mériadoc. Récits arthuriens latins du XIIIe siècle (Grenoble, 2007). 32 Godman, ‘The Ruodlieb’, 249 and 248. 28 29



Ruodlieb and Romance in Latin

183

from his parents’ to his own.’33 The poem might thus be read as a handbook for young noblemen, a rather unusual ‘mirror for princes’ which pays particular attention to what Kratz calls ‘visions of mutual respect and harmony between the sexes’.34 Jaeger notes that the poem describes ‘refined court manners and courtship customs involving deference to ladies’.35 That these are described in Latin should not surprise us unduly; not all young men who learned Latin became ecclesiastics. This monastic mixture of clerical and courtly milieu is likely also to have produced Latin Arthurian prose narratives such as the De ortu and the Historia Meriadoci: they are also Bildungsromane, though only the Historia ends with a wedding, and the love story leading up to it is rather perfunctory. They are not as intricate and witty as the Ruodlieb, but they do combine elements of romance with elements of epic; though both narratives are linked to the Arthurian world and assume considerable familiarity with it, most of the adventures occur away from Arthur’s court, and indeed away from England.36 Gawain is raised in Rome as a ‘Fair Unknown’, not knowing his parentage; he has many adventures on his way to England, and as an acclaimed knight he finally learns his name and is reunited with his parents at Arthur’s court. Meriadoc and his sister are abducted as children by Arthurian knights, Kay and Urien. Early in his career Meriadoc fights duels on behalf of Arthur, but then leaves to be a mercenary on the continent, where he finds a bride and a kingdom; he never returns to England. There has been much debate about the dating of these two narratives. If they were written in the mid-twelfth century, they offer very early examples of romance motifs (perhaps reflecting a lively oral tradition), and indicate that Arthurian stories of some complexity were already circulating. If they are later, they can be read as commentaries (perhaps somewhat critical) on an already existing genre. Both are rather dismissive of Arthur: it is assumed that readers know all about him and his court, but he is not presented as a particularly dignified or idealized figure. This might link them to a clerical milieu rather than an aristocratic one. But in either case, they demonstrate an appetite among readers of Latin for stories of heroic adventure connected to Arthur. This is hardly surprising given the astounding success of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae, which established Arthur as the great British king par excellence, and the evident lessons about kingship to be found in his ‘history’. There must also have been quite elaborate stories about Arthur circulating in Welsh and also Breton, some elements of which are reflected in the Latin romances.37 33 Neil Cartlidge, Medieval Marriage: Literary Approaches, 1100–1300 (Cambridge, 1997), 33. 34 Kratz, ‘Waltharius and Ruodlieb’, 313. 35 Jaeger, Origins of Courtliness, 122. 36 For discussion, see Echard, Arthurian Narrative, 131–892, and Archibald, ‘Arthurian Latin Romance’, 141–3. 37 On irreverent attitudes to Arthur in Welsh literature, see Oliver Padel, Arthur in Medieval Welsh Literature (Cardiff, 2000), 125–9.

184 ELIZABETH ARCHIBALD

Welsh motifs and stylistic characteristics are particularly evident in the enigmatic Narratio de Arthuro rege Britanniae et rege Gorlagon lycanthropo (The Story of King Arthur of Britain and King Gorlagon the Werewolf), along with clerical misogyny: this unusual text combines the quest to discover what women want, best known in Chaucer’s ‘Wife of Bath’s Tale’, with the plot of the werewolf betrayed by his wife.38 The writer has drawn heavily on Celtic sources; Echard comments that ‘it hardly matters if the author was a Welshman, when it is so clear that he knew Welsh forms and methods’.39 Among the characteristic Welsh elements is the repetition of phrases word for word, for instance each time that Arthur arrives at a castle and is offered food, but refuses to eat. For Echard this is definitely a playful parody, though she thinks it impossible to decide whether the Latin is parodying Welsh storytelling conventions or whether ‘the original Welsh text was a parody along the line of Culwch or Rhonabwy’.40 P. J. C. Field calls it ‘a very Welsh tale, among other things a parody or pastiche of Welsh story-telling that would only have been fully appreciated by an audience familiar with traditional Welsh tales’.41 This could of course include clerics as well as laymen. The narrative style may be parodic, but the author’s attitude to the content is quite savage, and not unusual in Latin writings. Though Arthur embarks on his quest after a rebuff from the queen, who tells him that he understands nothing about women, the ending does not seem to fit easily with this opening. The king telling him the story turns out to be the werewolf, and his treacherous wife is also present, with her lover’s bloody skull. Arthur rides home, but there is no more comment on his quest or the resolution, and no final scene between him and Guenevere. One might deduce from knowledge of the Arthurian legend that Arthur has learned that women want lovers and are faithless, a poignant conclusion in view of his own story – but this is never made explicit. Even without this, it is hardly a typical romance, and could be construed as a powerful example of clerical misogyny attached to a familiar hero with a famously faithless wife. Medieval romances in Latin do seem rather different from many vernacular examples of the genre, though they are so various that it is hard to generalize about them. They do not draw on the high medieval themes of idealized chivalric behaviour: when there is fighting, it is not usually inspired by love, and the account of a knight winning his spurs and his bride is not usually the main plot. They tend not to describe the material side of courtly life in detail (Ruodlieb is unusual), though they often include a lot of speeches. They are not always overtly didactic, but there are certainly some lessons about manners and values. Siân Echard has argued in the case of Walter Map (with particular reference to Ed. and trans. Day in Latin Arthurian Literature, 208–34. Echard, Arthurian Narrative, 205. 40 Echard, Arthurian Narrative, 214. 41 P. J. C. Field, ‘What Women Really Want: The Genesis of Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Tale’, Arthurian Literature 27 (2010), 59–83 (75). 38 39



Ruodlieb and Romance in Latin

185

his ‘Sadius and Galo’) that he is writing metafiction which requires the reader to work hard in order to decide ‘whether the frame story offers courtly romance or satire of romance (and women’s place in it) […] in every case, the result is to throw the hermeneutic dilemma squarely on the reader, while stripping the reader of the assurance which the agreed-upon genre usually provides’.42 It seems particularly ironic that Map was named as the author of parts of the French Vulgate Cycle, an early thirteenth-century compilation that tells the story of the Arthurian world in a way that does not suggest parody or the need for deep interpretation. No modern critic accepts this attribution, which recurs at the end of the Queste del Saint Graal and the beginning and end of the Mort Artu.43 At the end of the Queste we are told that King Henry commissioned Map to write the story of the Grail Quest based on Bors’ dictated narrative, and that the king had the account translated from Latin to French. It is not absolutely clear whether Map was supposed to have written in Latin or French. Latin would have given a certain authority to the narrative, as Echard notes in relation to other Latin Arthurian texts, but she also comments that some of the Latin writers were probably writing vernacular romances as well. Latin, she suggests, ‘immediately gives them access to a kind of authority that is not necessarily a truth-claim, but that is a demand for attention’.44 In this context, it is perhaps surprising that no Latin accounts of the Grail Quest survive. Was it too controversial, in theological terms, to be described with the authority of Latin, or was it so obviously aimed at laymen that there was no need for a Latin version? Sometimes vernacular texts were deemed sufficiently valuable to be translated into Latin: for instance Arnold of Lübeck was commissioned by William of Lüneberg to translate the German Gregorius of Harmann von Aue, which evidently was not known in a Latin version.45 Latin narratives can also morph into romances, as in the case of Ami et Amile, which first appears in Latin as an exemplum of friendship among other exempla (though it may have been circulating already as an oral folktale), and then is soon expanded both as a romance and as hagiography.46 Latin is a crucial component of the beginnings of romance. The early vernacular romance writers such as Chrétien were for the most part clerics, steeped in classical and Christian written culture but also alert to local folktales, Germanic or Celtic. Green singles out the poet of the Ruodlieb as comparable to Chrétien in drawing on a range of very different genres, learned and popular, written and 42 Siân Echard, ‘Map’s Metafiction: Author, Narrator and Reader in De nugis curialium’, Exemplaria 8.2 (1996), 287–314. 43 See Jane Burns’ comments in the Introduction to Lancelot-Grail: The Old French Arthurian Vulgate and Post-Vulgate in Translation, gen. ed. Norris J. Lacy, 5 vols (London, 1993–6), I: xxi–xxii. 44 Siân Echard, ‘“Hic est Artur”: Reading Latin and Reading Arthur’, in New Directions in Arthurian Studies, ed. Alan Lupack (Cambridge, 2002), 49–67 (64). 45 Arnold of Lübeck, Gesta Gregorii Peccatoris, ed. Johannes Schilling, Palaestra 280 (Göttingen, 1986). 46 See Amis and Amiloun, ed. Eugen Kölbing (Heilbronn, 1884).

186 ELIZABETH ARCHIBALD

oral: ‘More important from our point of view than any suggestion that it could be described as a predecessor of the twelfth-century romance is the conclusion that the Latin author, like his vernacular colleagues a century later, made use of fictionality to experiment with new forms of literary structure.’47 Apollonius can be seen as an older relation of the later vernacular romances, as is shown by its evergreen popularity and potential for adaptation and expansion in both Latin and vernaculars; but the Ruodlieb brings us much closer to Chrétien in its sophistication and wit, and its interest in women and in reciprocal love. The editors of Gervase of Tilbury’s thirteenth-century tale collection Otia imperialia quote G. T. Shepherd’s claim that ‘“collections of stories and indeed individual self-subsistent stories scarcely exist […] in written form during the first millennium in the West”’; they add that ‘in the course of the twelfth century storytelling gradually gained literary status’.48 The existence of Apollonius and the Ruodlieb, as well as other early Latin narratives, is powerful evidence against this claim. Latin romances and romance-like narratives should not be seen as an alternative to vernacular texts, but rather as organically linked to them, and in some cases as ancestors. As Green has argued, ‘This by no means weakens Chrétien’s importance, but underlines his clerical status […] in enriching vernacular literature from what was available in Latin […]’.49 Just as some Latin writers wrote vernacular romances too, so some readers in monasteries, cathedrals and courts clearly enjoyed both forms of narrative, and this continued to be true well after the rise of romance in the twelfth century. Latin romance could be both didactic and playful; one narrative could celebrate women and love and marriage and yet also warn against them, fulfilling the classical and medieval ideal of combining sentence and solas. It is hard to imagine that the Ruodlieb was not written in part for young noblemen, whether already at court or in a monastery which they would leave to take their place in the world and marry. Field’s comment on later clerical storytellers fits the Ruodlieb poet and the writers of other Latin romances: ‘The authors may never be known or named but they have an authorial presence and a consciousness of the power of fiction.’50 These narratives are well worth reading for their own sake, but they also make an important contribution to our understanding of the links between Latin and vernacular literature, and clerical interest in storytelling and the rise of romance.51

Green, Beginnings, 19–20. Introduction to Otia Imperialia: Recreation for an Emperor, ed. and trans. S. E. Banks and J. W. Binns (Oxford, 2002), lv–lvi. 49 Green, Beginnings, 24. 50 Field, ‘“Pur les francs homes amender”’, 188. 51 An earlier version of this essay was presented at the Fordham conference ‘Rethinking Romance’ in 2012; Timmie Vitz was in the audience and discussed the paper with me, so I am delighted that the revised version is included in a volume honouring her enormous contribution to the study of medieval narrative, and her generous support of younger scholars. 47

48

Turner a pru: Conversion and Translation in the Vie de seint Clement1 Laurie Postlewate The turning of the human soul to God in conversion and the textual turning, or translation to the vernacular, are parallel and complementary transformations in the anonymous thirteenth-century Vie de seint Clement.2 The narrative of the conversion of Clement I, a former pagan who under the tutelage of the apostle Peter became the bishop of Rome, was translated and adapted from composite Latin sources; its reworking into some 15,000 lines of Anglo-Norman octosyllabic couplets exemplifies how hagiographic texts reflect the ideological concerns and textual practices of their time.3 Of course, both conversion and translation are common motifs in hagiography. The vitae of holy men and women, both in Latin and the vernaculars, often include, or are constructed around, a moment of reckoning, a revelation of truth generated by the example of a previous convert who becomes the auctoritas ad salutem, a model of salvation.4 These stories serve, in turn, as the catalyst for conversion in the reading or listening public, fusing the story of the narrative with the lives of those who read or hear it. Conversion stories are also discrete moments in the universal story of salvation, the ‘bringing together’ of the people of God, separated since the Fall and reunited in the hope of eternal life. Almost all vernacular saints’ lives derive in some way from a Latin source text and it is not uncommon to find that the translators/authors refer in their prologues and throughout to the act of 1 It is with deep respect and affection that I dedicate this essay on conversion to Timmie Vitz who for over thirty years has been a dear teacher, mentor, colleague, role model and friend. I am particularly grateful for the way Timmie inspires all those around her to work with rigor and precision, but always in a spirit of play, experimentation and innovation. She truly knows how to turner a pru intellectual and spiritual pursuits, and it is an honor to have participated in the preparation of this volume for her. 2 La Vie de seint Clement I–III, ed. Daron Burrows (London, 2007–09). 3 The ability of hagiography, in Latin and in the vernaculars, to bear its message in different places and eras, reflecting the concerns of a wide range of authors and publics is also addressed in this volume by E. Gordon Whatley in his essay on the Latin life of St Eugenia. 4 Ryan Szpiech, Conversion and Narrative: Reading and Religious Authority in Medieval Polemic (Philadelphia, PA, 2013), 60. The best-known model of the conversion inspiring conversion is, of course, that of Saint Augustine who was ‘fired’ to follow the example of Marius Victorinus; The Confessions, ed. David Vincent Meconi, S. J. (San Francisco, 2012), VIII: 5.

188 LAURIE

POSTLEWATE

translation. The Vie de seint Clement is exceptional for making particularly clear the symbiotic relationship between the experiences in the text of conversion and that of translating it; it is a unique example of how medieval hagiography integrates audience response to stories into its very ethos. The present essay examines how the Vie de seint Clement presents both religious conversion and textual translation as acts that bring about pru – benefit or good – to those who, in different but connected ways, are the recipients of them. We will discuss first how the narrative of the Vie represents the conversion of individuals and of communities through both reason and story. Conversion is depicted in Clement’s life as the slow process of reisun, a term the author uses with remarkable frequency in the Vie to indicate both how one character persuades another and how characters arrive at understanding.5 The experience of conversion through reason contrasts with that of the sudden, affective conversion that strikes like a thunderbolt the witnesses of miracles and martyrdoms in other saints’ lives. The working out of connected elements in reisun is by extension applied in the Vie to understanding a story, even when that story seems at first incoherent and confusing. We observe throughout that spiritual conversion in the individual comes from rendering clear what had been obscure through reason and story, and the process effected in the translated narrative is also related to the practice of translation. Our reading of the Vie as a reflection on translation and a message on conversion is authorized by its prologue, where the author implies that the audience benefits from translation in the same way that converts benefit from turning to God. While vernacular hagiography often includes references to its motivation and method, as well as appeals to the attention and goodwill of the audience, the Vie’s prologue elaborates these with exceptional specificity and in a direction that foreshadows a contesting of the kind of auctoritas deployed in the works of ‘learned’ writers: Li clerc d’escole ki apris unt Tant que aukes entendant sunt Mult se peinent de livres faire E de sentences en lung traire, Que pur mustrer lur saveir, Que pur los del siecle aveir. Livres funt tut de nuvel, Sis adubbent asez bel;

4

8

5 For discussion of the term ‘reason’ in a different narrative context but with similar connotations, see David F. Hult, ‘Thomas’s Raisun: Désir, Vouloir, Pouvoir’, in Shaping Courtliness in Medieval France, ed. Daniel E. O’Sullivan and Laurie Shepard (Cambridge, 2013), 107–21. Hult’s definition of raisun in the Tristan context as a term that is ‘not anchored in one particular context but rather as a faculty that directs the logical analysis of a particular situation according to any number of possible contexts, implicitly moving from such analysis to action’ is especially useful in understanding my discussion of the polyvalence of reisun in the Vie de seint Clement.



CONVERSION AND TRANSLATION IN THE VIE DE SEINT CLEMENT

Bel escrivent et bel les ditent, Mes li lai poi i profitent E clerc i sunt poi amendé Ki en letrrure ne sunt fundé.

189

12

(Those schoolmen, educated to be scholars, who strive to write long books with lofty sayings, do so only to show off their learning and receive praise from the world. The fancy volumes they make these days are indeed well written and beautifully composed, but neither the laity, nor the less-educated clerics, get much of anything from them.)6

From the first line, the author explains his project by what it is not – the scholarly work of a clerc d’escole. These clercs, says the author, apply their saveir only to get praise and not to benefit the lay folk and also clercs of lesser learning. As he advances his argument, the author expresses the desire that those unlettered folks might turn to amendement – correction – through the language tresturné – translation – of his version (ll. 33–4 and 46). The verb turner and the noun pru serve as signposts throughout the story of Clement’s conversion, describing respectively the means and the goal of both conversion and translation. The author reinforces this in the prologue when he interrupts the excursus to call on the public to hear the story of how Clement and his family ‘turned’ to Saint Peter in their time of trouble. The prologue continues with a detailed commentary on the author’s method: he will not include the lungs sermuns and lungs deputeisuns of the Latin sources because that would waste parchment, and for someone like him, translating the beauty of Latin is simply too difficult (ll. 73–96). Moreover, a literal trans­ lation would be long and tedious, and his purpose is not to bore his reading and listening public (‘Cil qui lirrunt et qui l’orrunt’, l. 102), but to delight them (‘Que turner purrad a delit’, l. 98). Pleasure, in its various linguistic forms (delit, deliter, pleisir) is coupled with amendement in the prologue to evoke the benefit the audience should draw from the story. The Vie was no doubt composed with a fairly broad public in mind, for secular and lower rank churchmen, and for oral and written transmission. Both the adaptation of doctrine and the author’s direct references to the audience as lai and clerc who will hear and read the text demonstrate that we should be wary of making hard and fast distinctions about the mode of transmission and the social composition of the public of (at least some) medieval works like the Vie.7 The preoccupation expressed with reception is found in many vernacular saints’ lives; hagiography is, after all, quintessentially oriented toward audience response in that it seeks to move and convert. Still, the classic topos of brevitas is considerably more developed in the Vie than what we find in those lives that 6 All citations are from the Burrows edition of the Vie de seint Clement; the spelling and punctuation in that edition have been retained. All translations are my own. 7 See Burrows, Vie de seint Clement, III: 64–5.

190 LAURIE

POSTLEWATE

refer in passing to the fact that the version is shorter than in its source. Moreover, it is followed by periodic interruptions that explain at some length why the author abbreviated his source: he considers the material outside the range of his linguistic competence, and many parts are either too boring or of questionable orthodoxy for the lay audience. The metatextual comments throughout the Vie have two important effects. First, they draw our attention in a very pointed way to the text qua text; the purpose of the activities of translating and writing are kept front and center, reinforcing the paradigm of conversion of soul and text. They also create an authorial persona who actively participates in the story, and who is of the same community as his audience. He may be lettered enough to take on the translation of this long and complex work, but he is no clerc d’escole whose goal is flattery. He aims to benefit his public, and the audience’s response guides him as he translates and adapts the Latin.8 Paradoxically, the prominence of his Latin sources would seem to contradict the author’s misgivings for lettrure. He not only discusses at length what he is doing with the sources, but he also cites two different Latin titles for one of the works he uses, and repeatedly refers to his own treatment of the sources.9 In his superb edition of the Vie de seint Clement for the Anglo-Norman Text Society, Daron Burrows discusses the likely Latin exemplars and compares them carefully to the Vie.10 While it remains unclear whether the author worked from several different extant sources or a single composite model that is lost today, Burrows demonstrates convincingly that the vernacular version is in some respects quite faithful to the exemplar(s), especially in the chronology of events, making the omissions and amplifications of certain passages all the more meaningful. The product of this translation/adaptation is a dramatic and engaging (and much less theologically driven) story that would certainly have appealed to the lay audience. Our interest lies less in the literary qualities of the translation than in how the author represents, through remaniement, the events and discourses that lead to conversion, and how the reworking corresponds to his ideas on translation. Nevertheless, the visibility of the Latin sources is 8 Cristian Bratu, in his essay on historiography for the present volume, addresses how similar tensions between the scholarly and less-learned orientation of both author and audience are inscribed in the texts. 9 Uns livres est, meis poi usez, Ki Livre Clement est apelez, E si ad un autre num – Petri Itinerarium 60 (There is a little-used book, called the Book of Clement, and it has another title, the Wanderings of Peter.) 10 As Burrows demonstrates, lines 57–60 of the Vie appear to refer to the source known as the Recognitiones which is itself a translation from the Greek into Latin by Rufinus of Aquilaeia (c. 340–410). See Burrows, Vie de seint Clement, III: 40–59. Burrows also provides in the third volume of his edition documentation on the single manuscript transmitting the Vie, Cambridge, Trinity College, MS R.3.46, and a thorough discussion of the linguistic features of the work.

CONVERSION AND TRANSLATION IN THE VIE DE SEINT CLEMENT



191

important because they establish, and through translation contest, a traditional kind of auctoritas, a concept we will return to in the conclusion to this essay. Even the briefest summary of the Vie reveals how challenging it must have been for our author to rework the complex network of Latin narratives and philosophical digressions to make a clear and engaging vernacular story. Clement was born in Rome, one of three sons of a wealthy but good pagan named Faustinien and his wife, Mathidia. The family’s troubles begin when Mathidia, terrified by the sexual advances of her husband’s brother, flees Rome with her twin sons Faustus and Faustin, leaving her third son, Clement, with her husband. Stranded and separated from the boys after a storm destroys their ship, Mathidia is destitute and begs for a living with a paralyzed widow companion. Meanwhile, the twins are retrieved by pirates, mistreated and sold to a kind pagan woman who sends them to school; here they encounter both evil and good in the persons of the young sorcerer Simon Magus, and Zacheus, a companion to Saint Peter who draws them away from the wicked Simon. Hearing Peter preach and seeing his miracles, the twins convert and travel with him to the island of Andarad.11 Back in Rome, Faustinien leaves Clement in the care of others and sets out alone in search of his wife and twins. With Faustinien’s departure, the family is completely separated. The author hopes for its reunification, saying that only God can ‘reassemble’ the father, mother and sons: Ore sunt trestuz departiz Pere e mere e lur fiz. En Deu des ore est de l’aider Ke se peussent reasembler!

686

(So, father and mother and sons are completely separated; from this point on only God can help them find one another!)

From this point, Clement undergoes a period of metaphysical uncertainty and physical wandering until he encounters Saint Peter in Caesarea Stratton. Clement’s brothers are in Peter’s entourage, but they have changed their names to Niceta and Aquila, so the three brothers, surprisingly perhaps, do not recognize one another. Clement accompanies Peter when he takes on the sorcerer Simon Magus in a theological debate lasting three days, and then follows Peter to Tripoli, Antioch and Andaradum.12 At this moment in the Vie, Clement’s family members are actually in close physical proximity; however, due to each one’s inability to understand the situation of the others, they remain separated, always searching for one another. The family is eventually brought together through their individual associations with Peter; first Clement and Mathidia find each other, then the twins meet their brother and mother, and finally, with the reappearance of Faustinien, they are completely reunited. The narrative of the sepa69.

11

For discussion of this enigmatic place name, see Burrows, Vie de seint Clement, III:

12

This name refers to the port colony of Antaradus.

192 LAURIE

POSTLEWATE

ration and ‘reassembling’ of the family is attended by many conversions; the brothers, Mathidia and Faustinien each convert, prompting more conversions among the crowds around them. Every step toward the reunion of Clement’s family is an occasion for Peter to convert the pagans by telling Clement’s story as proof of the power of human agency and of faith in God.

Conversion and Reason Two preliminary observations regarding the nature of what we call conversion are necessary here. First, as Karl Morrison has pointed out in his work on conversion in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the term is generally used not to describe the experience of conversion itself, but rather as the representation or expression of that experience; ‘Augustine’s conversion’, therefore, refers not to Augustine’s actual experience, but to his own literary figuration of it in the Confessions.13 Second, the representation of conversion is inherently narrative, chronological and causal; it implies an initial condition, a transformation and a new state of being. Identifying the starting point and the catalyst that sets change in motion is essential to understanding individual representations, or stories, of conversion. The story of the Vie begins at a pivotal moment in the formation of the first Christian communities, when Jesus was still known only in Judea; the narrative then flashes forward to the heady days of the apostles’ work after the crucifixion. Pagans are portrayed not as a menace to the Christians, but as throngs of wary subjects, living in a state of misguided uncertainty: Tut le mund fus en errur, De verité n’iert nuls seur, E li petit e li grant Tuz esteient mescreant.

736

(Everyone was living in error, uncertain of the truth, and both the humble and the great were heathen.)

In this period of radical change, weak pagan authority and the unsettled social climate are important elements because they set the scene for the destabilization of the self that comes with conversion.14 The challenge for Peter and his followers is how to convert the pagans; how to persuade non-believers, like Clement, to convert for the right reasons. To ensure the orthodoxy of their beliefs, Peter must also articulate the basic beliefs of their faith so that the pagan audience can understand them. The first conversions in the Vie are those of Clement’s brothers, Faustus and Faustin, for whom the experience is represented as swift and definitive. Having

13 14

Karl Morrison, Understanding Conversion (Charlottesville, VA, 1992), xii–xiii. Massimo Leone, Religious Conversion and Identity (London, 2004), 1.



CONVERSION AND TRANSLATION IN THE VIE DE SEINT CLEMENT

193

narrowly averted the influence of Simon Magus, they hear Peter preach, see his miracles and ‘se cunvertirent a Jesu Crist’. They are quickly baptized and integrated into the community of Peter’s followers. The brothers’ conversion is fast, but nevertheless clearly the result of their own reasoning based on Peter’s words and deeds, which contrasts with their intriguing but disconcerting experience with the nigromancien Simon. By grounding the conversion of Faustus and Faustinien in logical causation and by highlighting their agency in the process, the author sets up a pattern to be followed for the conversions to come. Clement’s own conversion occupies two-thirds of the Vie; events that seem secondary in fact prepare and contextualize the formation of the future Clement I. Within the narrative, his turning to God calls to mind the Augustinian model of conversion; an operative moment of attraction to the faith, followed by a slow, thoughtful process that leads to full understanding. For Clement, however, conversion does not proceed from a position of potential error, as with his brothers, nor is it a retreat from the kind of sin described by Augustine, or from hostility to the Christians, as in the Pauline model. In fact, like the rest of his pagan family, Clement is portrayed in a positive light even before he encounters the Christians, for he is inclined to learning, chaste living and virtue. At the point of his conversion, Clement is metaphysically unsettled, perplexed, esguarré and like the pagan population in general, uncertain. Clement exemplifies the Augustinian ‘restless heart’ who is destined to search until he finds peace in the Christian God. The origin of his confusion is made clear in the Vie through an amplification of the Latin passage that describes the dissolution of the family as the cause of Clement’s suffering. In his quest to reunite with his parents and brothers, he finds no help from philosophers and their desputeisuns, and he even momentarily turns to magic for answers before a friend uses bele reisun to redirect him. The juxtaposition of Clement’s situation with that of his brothers, who also had to be led away from Simon Magus, is clear, with the important addition of a term that the vernacular author will use frequently from this moment on: reisun, the means by which a character turns away from error and toward truth. The first characteristic of reisun is transparency, as is shown in Clement’s first encounter with the Christians. When he meets Barnabas and hears him speak of Jesus simplement, Clement understands, says the author, because the message is so different from the gabbur, jarguns and foles questions of the philosophers: ‘Par sa parole entendi bien / Que il n’iert pas dielecticien’ (By his speech it was obvious he was no dialectician [ll. 969–70]). When Barnabas is mocked by those same philosophers, Clement comes to his defense: Sa reisun vus ad mustree Nient par parole planiee, Ne par art de gramaire Mustré vus ad que devez faire, Meis dit vus ad sun message Oiant tuz en tel language

1086

1090

194 LAURIE

POSTLEWATE

Que tuz le poent bien entendre, E li greinnur et li mendre E lettreiz e nunlettrez Tuz le poent entendre asez.

1094

(He has demonstrated reason, not through polished speech or the art of grammar. Rather, he has shown you in his message what you must do and he has done so through language that all people, the great and the meek, the learned and the un-lettered, can understand clearly.)

Clement continues in this vein in a long passage denouncing so-called philosophers: they ignore the spiritual needs of simple gent who search for truth, seeking instead to satisfy their own vanity with speech that is close and requires glose – interpretation.15 Here the rhetoric of the narrative intersects with that of the text. Speaking in Barnabas’ defense, Clement adopts the very argument the author presented in the prologue: the truth must be expressed clearly for the audience to benefit from it. Clement’s contact with Christianity through Barnabas is a prelude to a much longer meeting with Peter, an event that sets Clement on the path he will follow through the rest of the Vie. The author fashions Saint Peter as a teacher who engages in dialogue with Clement, asking why he doubts and for what he is searching. Like Barnabas, Peter is persuasive, but he also develops a substantive and clear exposition of the Christian creed: the soul is immortal, the exercise of free will and human agency are necessary for salvation and belief must be grounded in both faith and reason. The Vie, while adhering to the basic points of the doctrine in the Latin sources, presents a radically simplified version of Peter’s message, omitting a series of complex theological questions and digressions and enhancing instead the affective response of the characters to Peter’s preaching. After he hears the reisun of the apostle, Clement responds with pleasure and relief; as the veil of doubt is lifted from his mind, he naturally longs to know more: A Clement plout mult la mateire De ceo que parlé out seint Pierre:

15

1558

Partant estes asez pruvez Ki philosophes vuz numez Que vus ne amez verité, Meis partut querez vanité 1116 Quant en tels diz la tenez close Ki grant mestiers unt de glose, E mil paroles pur nient parlez Ki a un bon mot ne sunt preisez. 1120 (It has been proven that you who call yourselves philosophers do not love the truth; rather you search constantly to satisfy your vanity by saying that which is so obscure that it requires interpretation, and you hold in little regard speech of value, and yet you use a thousand words to say nothing.)



CONVERSION AND TRANSLATION IN THE VIE DE SEINT CLEMENT

195

La reisun out bien entendue E od grant joie retenue; (Clement was pleased by what Peter told him; after he understood Peter’s line of reasoning, he felt great joy.)

Clement, we are reminded, is still a pagan at this point, but he is eager to join the Christians. A keen sense of anticipation is created, both for Clement and for the audience of the Vie, when Peter explains that Clement must understand what has happened to him personally before he can receive baptism, share meals with Peter and the others, and be fully integrated with the Christian community. The author develops the Latin source to emphasize, through Peter’s voice, the danger of hasty change and the need for mesure in the slow and careful changing of his ways: Kar grief chose est a hume De tost changier sa custume! Primes par poi e puis par plus Poet hume mieuz changier sun us, E partant ne iert nuls grevez Quant lung tens se iert usez.

3236

3240

(For it is difficult for a man to change his habits quickly; a little at first and then more later is the best way to go; by growing accustomed to the change over time, he will in no way feel harmed by it.)

Clement’s waiting period before baptism is indeed long, almost 3,500 lines, during which we hear a brief discussion between Peter and his followers and a protracted and heated debate pitting Peter against Simon Magus.16 The debate scene suspends the action of Clement’s story and fills those moments with an agonistic contest between good and evil. The two opponents enter the ring and engage in rapid verbal sparring that alternates with cynical rambling and threatening rants by Simon, who claims that because the soul dies with the body, we should all do as we like in this life. Simon calls himself the son of God and boasts of his own treachery, adultery, black magic and murder. In this section of the Vie, the author again radically transforms his source texts: long passages of philosophical and theological explanation are simplified to dramatize Simon’s position as an incoherent and desperate mélange of apostasies. Peter, meanwhile, gives measured responses, standing his ground on the immortality of the 16 The Eugenia legend, discussed by E. Gordon Whatley in this volume, also incorporates a contest between saint and heretic, that of Bishop Helenus and an unnamed magus. The confrontation in the Eugenia legend leads to a different outcome than what we find in Clement’s story, with Helenus realizing that he cannot outdo the magus and resorting to an ordeal by fire. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that both of these struggles between orthodoxy and heresy find their direct source in the translations of Rufinus; for the Eugenia legend in the Historia monachorum and for Clement in the Recognitiones.

196 LAURIE

POSTLEWATE

soul and preaching the necessity of good works in this life. Peter’s purpose is simple: amendement of the people. Simon, on the other hand, cares only for power and glory. The author of the Vie, both by reducing the source texts and amplifying dialogue and character development, crafts a sharp contrast between Simon, the self-absorbed wizard of words, and Peter the apostle who is focused on what will benefit the community. When juxtaposed, the style and intentions of Simon and Peter take us back to the prologue of the Vie where the method and motivations of the clerc d’escole, whose obscure style signals his egotistical aims, are compared with those of the author whose simple clarity benefits the nunlettrez. Just as he used Clement as porte-parole for his argument against the rhetoric of philosophers, the author of the Vie channels his own methodology into Peter’s preaching. For example, the apostle contends that his debate with Simon is not a philosophical disputation, but a way for the audience to access truth: Entende a mei, ki ceo dit! Demande ne est pas cuntredit, Tut en face le semblant Cil ki veit mult enquerant. Ki demande sa dutance E prendre ne en poet entendance, Suvent le estoet demander E pur aprendre opposer.

3352

3356

(Hear what I say! To ask is not to contradict; he who probes deeply sees all the more clearly. The one who struggles to understand that which he doubts, learns by inquiry and objection.)

Peter’s explanation of how to arrive at understanding – entendance – allows for questioning and counterexample, and the use of reisun, logical argument to arrive at the truth. This passage, like many others, integrates the narrative and its commentary, a fusion heightened by the representation of audience, both within and outside of the text. Although we know that Clement is present during the debate, he disappears totally from the narrative for some 3,000 lines, creating a long interval when his perspective overlaps with that of the audience in the story and the audience of the Vie. As readers and listeners of the narrative, we witness the lively and dramatic discussion between Peter and Simon just as Clement and the general public within the story experience the confrontation between good and evil. And this is an audience empowered to action. When Simon refuses to relent in the debate, he is expelled from the city by the crowd which judges his arguments to be false (ll. 3901–8 and ll. 3921–2). Peter has won the debate, but it is the people, empowered by the reisun that they heard and the truth that they learned, who have turned Simon away. Peter’s clear and simple reasoning has brought Clement and the larger public to the first step of conversion: the recognition of error and acceptance of the basic tenets of the Christian faith. But as Peter explained earlier, discerning what



CONVERSION AND TRANSLATION IN THE VIE DE SEINT CLEMENT

197

is false and true is only the first step to Christian action, which Jesus himself first actively modeled: E que il primers fist saveir Que fud faus et que fud veir; E que il meismes en oevre mist Le bien que de sa buche dist.

1590

(He was the first to show us truth from falsehood and he also put into action the good of which he spoke.) Kar sun dit e sun feit Tut a une corde treit. Bien parlat et fist bien, Partant ne descordat rien.

1602

(For his speech and his acts were in accord. He both spoke well and did good, thus nothing was discordant in him.)

The above reference to Jesus foregrounds the intersection of word and deed that is central to the Vie; language and reasoning are only as effective as the action they lead to, as the chiasm ‘Bien parlat et fist bien’ demonstrates. As the Vie progresses, stories of lived examples that exercise reason and demonstrate truth lead, as in the case of Clement’s family, to reunion and transformation of identity.

Conversion and Story The first act of storytelling in the Vie comes shortly after Clement meets Peter and hears him preach for the first time; as the group waits a week for Simon Magus to appear for the debate, Peter tells Clement a highly abridged version of the Creation story, followed by that of Jesus Christ and then the story of how he, Peter, was led to apostleship. The author interpolates Clement’s response into the Vie: ‘De cest saver avez enquis Par le respit qui est pris. Car set jurs del respit duné A grant pru vus sunt turné!’ Quant Clement aveit tut oi, De grant maniere se esjoi E a seint Pierre grant joie fist Que de entendre se entremist.

1824

1828

(‘You have benefited from these seven days of waiting by what you have learned.’ When Clement heard all that Peter said, he rejoiced and expressed to Peter his delight because he had begun to understand.)

198 LAURIE

POSTLEWATE

After the long debate with Simon, stories become a catalyst for conversion. The debate scene is followed directly by a story told by Simon’s sole remaining follower. That man returns to Peter and recounts how Simon had ordered him to be Simon’s companion in Rome where they would continue their wicked ways to achieve los e pris grant – great praise and wealth – but the man refused when he realized it would mean abandoning his family. It is the threat of alienation from his community that tips the balance for this fellow whom Peter decides to use as an example for the people, as he tells them the story he has just heard (ll. 4405–10). The content and the timing of the passage are critical: one man’s story of how he narrowly averted a fall into permanent evil and disunity, and instead turned to God’s law: ‘Kar turner vuil a vostre lei!’ (l. 4266). Peter follows it with his sermon recounting the story of the Fall, man’s alienation from his original state of harmony with God, which resulted from his ‘turning’ toward evil from the good that God had given him: ‘Ad mal fud turné tut le bien’ (l. 5193). In both cases, the stories allow Peter to demonstrate to the public – and therefore to Clement – that one must use judgment and free will to discern good from evil and regain unity with God. That sense of unity is found, at least on earth, within the family and the community of believers, a principle restated at numerous points in the Vie when Peter directs his audience to support and protect one another during the challenges to come. From this turning moment, a third of the way into the full narrative of the Vie, stories are increasingly presented, along with reisun, as a powerful means of bringing about the conversion of individuals and the transformation of the pagan crowds into a Christian community. Clement’s family represents a miseen-abyme of the collective state of the pagans and, as the author himself noted in the beginning of the text, they must be ‘reassembled’ as a social unit for a true sense of right order to be achieved. Not surprisingly, it is the apostle Peter himself, the master of reason, who initiates a chain of life stories that, once told and heard, lead to the reunion of the family. This begins when Peter asks first Clement and then Mathidia to tell him what happened to them. In both cases, their accounts are referred to as aventures which are cuntés to Peter; the similarity of certain parts of the stories leads Peter to use logical reasoning and cunjecture to figure out their connections: Saint Pierre estut mult esbai Quant de la femme out tant oi; Mult pensat de l’aventure E mult en fud en cunjecture.

6106

(Saint Peter was very surprised when he heard what the woman told; he thought long about her adventure and began to reason out what had happened.)

Peter explains the coincidence of the mateire of these stories to Mathidia: Pur ceo respundi: ‘Femme, allas! Mult ai esté en grant penser

6144



CONVERSION AND TRANSLATION IN THE VIE DE SEINT CLEMENT

Que deussum ui grant joie aver, Kar jeo ai oi de nuvel Un cunte pur poi tut autel De une femme de tel maniere Dunt mult acorde la mateire, E mult quidai que cele fussez Partant que cunté me avez.’

199

6148

6152

(Alas, my dear woman! I was reflecting that we should rejoice today, for I just heard recently a somewhat similar story of a woman whose situation was the same as yours. And I thought therefore that it might be the same one that you told me.)

As she listens to Peter recount the story he heard from Clement, Mathidia falls in a faint. Brought back to reisun, she is able to identify the storyteller as her son Clement with whom she is reunited in a touching scene: ‘Tant plus lui vint la remenbrance / De l’anciene cunuissance’ (So she began to remember that she had known him before [ll. 6269–70]). The first part of the ‘reassembling’ of this family, which the narrator had hoped for in a much earlier passage, has now occurred. It is a happy event that leads to a boisterous response among the crowd, and when people come running to hear the story of Clement and Mathidia’s reunion, Peter seizes the opportunity to preach on faith and obedience to God’s will: Asez genz i acururent Ki de la cuntree furent, Kar la nuvele iert tost seue Cument la femme iert recunue Ki fud povre mendiante E out esté la demurante, Cument sun fiz truvé la aveit Ki prudhume tenu esteit.

6272

6276

(Many people from the region rushed to them, because the news quickly spread of how the beggar-woman had been found and recognized, in the place where she was living, by her son, himself a worthy man.)

The following day, while Mathidia sleeps, Peter recounts to Niceta and Aquila the story of how she lost her boys Faustus and Faustinus. After a brief and stunned silence, the two brothers shout their real names revealing that they are indeed those sons: ‘Cil dous, Faustus e Faustinus, Dunt vus parlez, ceo sumes nus! Mult vus avum escuté E en purpens avum esté Par escuter vostre reisun Si ceo turnast vers nus u nun.’

6472

200 LAURIE

POSTLEWATE

(The two of whom you speak, Faustus and Faustinus, we are those men! We were deep in thought as we listened to you, and when we heard the story you told, we wondered if it might actually be about us.)

When she awakes, Mathidia hears the story of her twin sons, first from Peter and then from Faustus; she converts and is reunited with her sons, and the crowd reacts with joy. By again condensing the Latin sources in his own retelling of the story, the Vie’s author establishes an exhilarating pace that heightens the dramatic irony felt by the audience of the text; the readers and listeners of the Vie understand the connections the characters within the story have gradually made for themselves, reversing the painful experience of alienation. The dramatic tension of the Vie reaches climactic intensity in a final episode of storytelling and reunion. There remains one party absent from the celebration of family and community – Faustinien, the father. Shortly after they are reunited with Mathidia, the brothers and Peter, in search of a secluded spot in which to pray, are approached by a destitute old man. He announces to the Christians his belief that destiny determines man’s every action as well as his fate, and that service to God is a charade. Clement seems to recognize the man, although he is not sure; but the author leaves the audience in little doubt that he is none other than Clement’s father: Clement avisat cel hum mult, Kar de sun semblant mult cunut, E asez avis lui fu Que aillurs le deust aver veu. 7120 De ceo dist un clers jadis De letrrure bien apris: ‘Quant un de autre ad pris neissance, Tut i eit puis desevrance 7124 E que si departi seient Que lung tens ne se entreveient, La nature nepurquant Del lignage se met avant 7128 Ki ne met pas en ubliance La anciene cunuissance.’ (Clement looked carefully at the old man for he seemed to recognize him, and he felt keenly that he had seen him elsewhere. It’s just as the learned scholar used to say: ‘If a man is separated from the one who is his father, and if they do not see each other for a long time, still their lineage appears naturally, and the man does not forget the one he knew long before.’)

The old man’s skeptical fatalism (understandable given all he has lived through since he lost his family) is sorely tested in an extended debate with Peter and the brothers; he is stubborn, describing his own state of mind as



CONVERSION AND TRANSLATION IN THE VIE DE SEINT CLEMENT

201

that of a porte close. Yet he is also a sympathetic character who expresses the desire to learn – if only someone could give him a way to reisun entendre. Another extended debate between the old man and Clement (who is still unrecognized) does nothing to convince him that this man can exercise his will to avoid sin and control his own fate. It is important that Clement, and not Peter, is now the spokesperson for Christian reisun; he has come one step further in his journey to becoming Saint Clement and finally to reuniting his family. In the end, exhausted from discussion, the old man offers up the story of how he lost his own sons and wife as proof that man is helpless against destiny. Of course, this is the very story that proves he is wrong; it is the ‘counterexample’ that reveals the truth of Christian faith in God. When Clement reveals to Peter his suspicions that the old man is his father, the apostle holds Clement off long enough to exploit the irony of the situation and deliver the reisun that the old man had previously demanded. Peter proposes a deal; if Peter can deliver to the man his wife and sons, he must admit his error. That is exactly what happens as Peter retells the story and is heard by the crowd gathered round. There is general rejoicing when the stories are finally connected and all present celebrate. With the discovery of Faustinien’s identity and the final reconstitution of the family, the author has delivered on the promise that he had made so many lines earlier in the prologue, in the jongleur-like appeal to the audience with which he began: Ki veut oir de seint Clement Dunt il fud nez e de quel gent, De sun pere e de sa mere E de ses freres en quel maniere Li uns des autres departi furent E cument puis se recunurent, A seint Pierre cument turnerent Par ki tuz se entretruverent? Ki tut cest saver vuldra Par cest rumanz bien le aprendra.

48

52

56

(Who would like to hear about Saint Clement, how he was born, who his people were; and how he, his father and mother, and his brothers were all separated from each other, and how they found each other and were reunited because they turned to Saint Peter? Whoever wishes to know about all of this, will learn it from this story.)

And yet the Vie de seint Clement does not end there. Following the Latin sources beyond the conversions of Clement, his family and much of the pagan population around them, there are additional adventures, debates and sermons. The remaining 3,500 lines of the Vie in its single extant manuscript are full of captivating (and sometimes downright humorous) moments and many more conversions. The devilish Simon Magus reappears, wreaking havoc everywhere, and even changing Faustinien momentarily into the semblance of Simon himself. Clement is ordained bishop of Rome and seated in his chair by Peter,

202 LAURIE

POSTLEWATE

and Saint Paul and Saint Peter are reunited as well. The Vie does not in fact ‘end’; it is simply and mysteriously suspended, in the middle of yet another tirade by Simon, complaining that Saint Peter hassles him wherever he goes. But it is really with the conversion of Clement and his family, their reunion and the transformation of their identity from pagan to Christian that the author of the Vie has achieved his stated purpose. Reason and story have converted the public within the story and the translation of Latin sources in the Vie benefits the audience of the story as well.

Conversion and Translation To what extent does the representation of ‘turning to God’ in the Vie and the parallel ‘turning’ of the text’s audience reflect the contemporaneous medieval understanding of both conversion as spiritual experience and translation as a textual practice? It has been observed that from the eleventh century, the notion of textual authority – auctoritas – was broadened to include not only sacred Scripture, but also rational argument and non-biblical sources, such as personal testimony.17 With respect to conversion, this meant that reason and narrative were now instruments for expressing and bringing about the ‘turn’ to God that had previously been represented as the result of sudden revelation. As Ryan Szpiech has clearly demonstrated, the Pauline model of conversion as a ‘sudden paroxysm of physical blindness and moment of insight’ was replaced by the slow Augustinian process of conversion, the gradual transition from doubt to truth, the incremental replacement of former belief by Christian faith.18 Such is the experience of Clement’s conversion, and that of his family and the other pagans in the Vie, whose conversions come about through persistent exposure to reisun in Peter’s preaching and the complementary piecing together of their story. The shift to incorporate rational argument and narrative with some of the power of auctoritas had important consequences for the laity for whom conversion was now more accessible, understood not as a single, defining epiphany, but as a life-long experience, a transformation of self that implied faith and the ‘work’ of reason. This understanding of conversion is entirely consonant with the catechetical objectives of the post-Lateran IV era that emphasized the need for self-examination, confession and a constant ‘turning’ of the soul to God.19 It is perhaps fitting that the single extant version of the Vie de seint Clement is incomplete; the text itself mirrors, in its open-endedness, the forever unfin17 For a discussion of reason and authority that both summarizes and moves beyond the concept of intractable conflict, see Jan M. Ziolkowski, ‘Cultures of Authority in the Long Twelfth Century’, Journal of English and Germanic Philology 108 (2009), 421–48. 18 Szpiech, Conversion and Narrative, 10. 19 The story of the conversion of Clement, his family and his entire community demonstrates the power of ‘narrative theology’ that Maureen Boulton has discussed in this volume with respect to the stories of Christ’s childhood.



CONVERSION AND TRANSLATION IN THE VIE DE SEINT CLEMENT

203

ished business of conversion. The shift in the topos of conversion toward what Szpiech calls a ‘protracted’ and ‘dilatory’ experience facilitated representation of the individual conversion on one level, that of the family and the community on the second and third levels, and finally the place of these in the history of man’s struggle to regain that which was lost in the Fall, a motif that Peter employs more than once in his preaching to convert. The expansion of authority that led to a revision in the topos of conversion was also a destabilization, a contestation, perhaps not of the sacred and therefore superior status of scriptural auctoritas, but of its imperium over other modes of expression in the transmission of meaning.20 The privilege of auctoritas, transferred to those who by virtue of training were its primary users, could be turned to self-centered purposes instead of being used to provide benefit to others, as the author of the Vie unequivocally states in the prologue. It could allow, for example, the clerc d’escole the means by which to remain inscrutable and inaccessible to simple gent. We propose that it is very much in the spirit of contesting the misuse of auctoritas that our author uses stories of personal testimony that take on their own kind of authority by leading directly to conversion, both within and outside of the text of the Vie, a work that is authorized by its Latin origins and also instructive and pleasurable for its audience. It is not surprising that the author of the Vie, having adopted for himself the persona of the humble less-lettered clerc, undertakes a similar contestation of authority through translation, and that he plays up the political edginess of his project, even while acknowledging the authority of that which he seeks to displace. The Vie de seint Clement demonstrates particularly well the extent to which, in its medieval sense, translation is a practice of creation, of working with the potential for transforming, rather than simply transferring, meaning.21 Such was the ‘conversion’ of translation that is fundamental to both medieval writers and, mutatis mutandis, twenty-first-century theorists of translation.22 The text translated in the proper spirit – tresturné as our author would say – finds its double in the individual soul in conversion, and vice versa: they are both paradoxically the same, but transformed, part of an ongoing and never-ending story of change, with pru and delit – benefit and delight of the audience – as their end.

20 On the notion of the expansion of authority, the work of Gilbert Dahan is particularly informative: ‘Innovation et tradition dans l’exégèse chrétienne de la Bible en occident (XIIe– XIVe siècle)’, in Auctor et Auctoritas: Invention et conformisme dans l’écriture médiévale, ed. Michael Zimmerman (Paris, 2001), 255–66, and Les Intellectuels chrétiens et les juifs au moyen âge (Paris, 1990), 424, 441. 21 The following essay in this volume, by Mark Cruse, provides another example of translation as transformation, this time for secular works and at the hands of a well-known translator, Jean de Vignay. 22 The parenté of attitudes toward translation in the Middle Ages and contemporary translation theory are explored by Emma Campbell and Robert Mills in their introduction to Rethinking Medieval Translation: Ethics, Politics, Theory, ed. Emma Campbell and Robert Mills (Cambridge, 2012), 1–20.

Stories for the King: Narration and Authority in the ‘Crusade Compilation’ of Philippe VI of France (London, British Library, MS Royal 19.D.i)1 Mark Cruse From the moment he assumed the French throne in 1328, King Philippe VI announced his intention to go on crusade. While his activities over the next eight years yielded little militarily, they did leave a significant documentary trail that provides insight into the late medieval understanding of crusade. One artifact stands out – London, British Library, MS Royal 19.D.i – a manuscript that reveals the extent to which storytelling and communication were crucial to crusade ideology and planning. It is designed to highlight the king’s need to acquire a wide range of knowledge about foreign lands through stories and reports, and to validate the actors who transmit that knowledge. The manuscript’s texts and images portray not just warfare and travel, as is often observed, but they also preserve attitudes toward far-away lands and the first-person voices of figures who travel great distances to inform the French king. Royal 19.D.i is a document about the centrality of communication to kingship, an anthology about the importance of stories as a means of knowing and transforming the world.2 Ironically, Philippe’s unaccomplished crusade is one of the best documented in medieval history. As a result, we know a great deal about the means the king and his councilors employed as they sought to justify and plan this overseas campaign. Central to these preparations was the gathering of reports, stories and treatises to help the king decide where to go, how to get there, whom and how to fight and what to do once he was victorious. Documentation consulted by or addressed to Philippe VI and his council included accounts of Louis IX’s crusade expenses, letters from Marino Sanudo and reports from ambassadors and from prelates living in or recently returned from the eastern Mediterranean, Africa and Asia. Before a single ship could be launched, a great deal of composing, research, reading, copying and discussion had to occur. This was

1 This essay is offered with deepest respect and gratitude to Timmie Vitz, whose work on voice, narration and performance has inspired it and so much other scholarship. 2 On the importance of foreign place and culture in Old French literature, see Sharon Kinoshita, Medieval Boundaries: Rethinking Difference in Old French Literature (Philadelphia, PA, 2006).

206

MARK CRUSE

a crusade grounded in texts, but more to the point, it was a crusade grounded in stories. London, British Library, MS Royal 19.D.i provides a remarkable illustration of this phenomenon. Although it is commonly referred to as a ‘crusade compilation’, Royal 19.D.i contains only one of the many crusade treatises that were available by the 1330s, the Directorium ad faciendum passagium transmarinum, which was written by an anonymous Dominican in 1332, translated into French by Jean de Vignay and addressed directly to Philippe VI.3 Otherwise, the manuscript differs considerably from other royal crusade manuscripts because the eight works contained within it preserve narratives about travel and the East that are not essentially crusade literature.4 Although clearly related to Philippe VI’s crusade preparations, Royal 19.D.i is not for the most part an instrumental discussion of diplomacy, travel or strategy, nor does it contain much in the way of ethnography or historiography on Muslims. While Richard and Mary Rouse are no doubt correct that Royal 19.D.i was ‘an integral part of Philip’s equipment, mental as well as physical, for a crusade that seemed imminent, through the early 1330s’,5 the multiplicity of narrators, genres, settings and subject matters does not point to any single lesson about or justification for holy war. The illuminators, translator, texts and images show that Royal 19.D.i was commissioned for use by the king himself, almost certainly by a highly placed member of Philippe VI’s court, perhaps Queen Jeanne de Bourgogne. Richard 3 Studies of Royal 19.D.i include D. J. A. Ross, ‘Methods of Book-Production in a XIVth-Century French Miscellany (London, B.M., MS Royal 19.D.I.)’, Scriptorium 6 (1952), 63–75; Richard H. Rouse and Mary A. Rouse, Manuscripts and their Makers: Commercial Book Producers in Medieval Paris 1200–1500 (Turnhout, 2000), I: 244–7; Maureen Quigley, ‘Romantic Geography and the Crusades: British Library Royal ms. 19 D. I’, Peregrinations 2.3 (2009), 53–76 (http://peregrinations.kenyon.edu/vol2_3/current/fa3.pdf). 4 Royal 19.D.i contains the following eight works: 1) the Old French Prose Alexander; 2) the Venjance Alixandre by Jean le Nevelon; 3) the Devisement du monde by Marco Polo; 4) the Merveilles de la terre d’outremer, a French translation of Odoric of Pordenone’s Relatio by Jean de Vignay; 5) the abridged version of John of Plano Carpini’s travel account from Vincent de Beauvais’ Speculum historiale, translated into French by Jean de Vignay; 6) the Directorium ad faciendum passagium transmarinum, translated into French by Jean de Vignay; 7) excerpts from the lost Chronique by Primat of Saint-Denis, translated into French by Jean de Vignay; 8) excerpts from the Bible historiale. In contrast, Paris, BnF, MS lat. 7470 and related copies contain Vegetius and treatises on crusading prepared for King Charles IV (r. 1322–28) and his circle; BnF MS lat. 11015, a copy of the Texaurus Regis Francie written for Philippe VI by his queen’s doctor, contains both advice on staying healthy on campaign, and descriptions and drawings of siege engines; and BnF MS fr. 352, has a text on the holy sites of Jerusalem and Guillaume de Tyr’s Historia and its continuation. On BnF MS lat. 7470, see Richard H. Rouse and Mary A. Rouse, ‘Context and Reception: A Crusading Collection for Charles IV of France’, in Bound Fast with Letters: Medieval Writers, Readers, and Texts (Notre Dame, IN, 2013), 215–79; on the Texaurus, see Le macchine del re: Il ‘Texaurus Regis Francie’ di Guido da Vigevano, ed. and trans. Giustina Ostuni (Vigevano, Diakronia, 1993). BnF MS fr. 352 may not have been produced for the king, but it was made in Paris and its sumptuous illustration suggests an elite lay patron. 5 Rouse and Rouse, ‘Context and Reception’, 217.

NARRATION AND AUTHORITY IN THE ‘CRUSADE COMPILATION’

207

and Mary Rouse have shown that the manuscript was illuminated almost entirely by Jeanne de Montbaston, wife of Richard de Montbaston, both of whom were libraires living on the rue Neuve Notre-Dame in Paris from the 1330s to 1350s.6 The Montbastons produced books for the highest echelons of the French nobility during the reign of Philippe VI, and the Rouses argue convincingly based on this patronage that Royal 19.D.i was produced to be read by Philippe himself.7 More evidence for royal patronage comes from the four translations by Jean de Vignay, who worked almost exclusively for Philippe VI, his wife Jeanne de Bourgogne and their son Jean de Normandie (the future King Jean II le Bon).8 Assuming with Christine Knowles that the Primat translation dates to after 1335, and with the Rouses that Royal 19.D.i would have been made before Philippe’s crusade ambitions were dashed in late 1336, the manuscript would date to 1336.9 Royal 19.D.i’s production, from the execution of its translations to the completion of the manuscript itself, coincides with the period during which Philippe VI prepared for military action in the Mediterranean, North Africa and the Holy Land. The great-grandson of Louis IX, nephew of King Philippe IV and son of Charles de Valois, Philippe VI was descended from a long line of crusaders. He took the cross with other members of the royal family and France’s noble elite in the presence of kings Philippe IV, Edward II of England and Louis de Navarre during a famous Pentecost celebration held in Paris in 1313.10 Once crowned, Philippe expressed interest in participating in the ongoing crusade in Spain or in launching a new one overseas. A confluence of factors finally led Philippe to focus on the eastern Mediterranean, not least of which was his need to shore up his legitimacy by imitating Saint Louis and other royal predecessors. Throughout 1332 and into 1333, Philippe made written and public declarations of his intent to go on crusade, eventually sending ambassadors to the pope to swear on Philippe’s behalf that he and his son would set out on 1 August 1336. For four years Philippe raised money, built and outfitted a fleet, pursued 6 See the Rouses’ discussion of the Montbastons in Manuscripts and their Makers, I: 234–60. 7 Rouse and Rouse, Manuscripts and their Makers, I: 247. 8 Christine Knowles, ‘Jean de Vignay. Un traducteur du XIVe siècle’, Romania 75 (1954), 353–83 (353). The Directorium was translated by Jean de Vignay in 1333. As Knowles observes of the Directorium, ‘Il est donc vraisemblable que Jean a fait cette traduction sur la demande du roi: il est peu probable que celui-ci comprît le latin’ (It is thus likely that Jean made this translation at the king’s command: it is unlikely that the king understood Latin), 367. Jean translated Vincent de Beauvais’ Speculum historiale, from which the text of John of Plano Carpini in Royal 19.D.i is taken, and the Chronique of Primat for Queen Jeanne. Unless otherwise indicated all translations are mine. 9 Knowles, ‘Jean de Vignay’, 372; Rouse and Rouse, Manuscripts and their Makers, I: 247. 10 Elizabeth A. R. Brown and Nancy F. Regalado, ‘La grant feste: Philip the Fair’s Celebration of the Knighting of his Sons in Paris at Pentecost of 1313’, in City and Spectacle in Medieval Europe, ed. Barbara A. Hanawalt and Kathryn L. Reyerson (Minneapolis, MN, 1994), 56–86. Philippe also took the cross again in 1326.

208

MARK CRUSE

alliances, sought papal support, enlisted vassals, employed spies and undertook numerous other activities with the goal of respecting his oath. His efforts continued until the end of 1336, at which point the withdrawal of papal approval and conflict with England made the crusade impossible.11 Although the crusade was aborted, Royal 19.D.i reveals just how much this was a venture grounded in stories. Its 164 illuminations spread across 267 folios endow physical form and cultural authority to its narrator-mediators, its storytellers. In fact, Royal 19.D.i is itself an act of storytelling – it is through the manuscript that these voices and their narratives, which evoke lands from China to Normandy, are brought into the king’s presence. In this way, the manuscript embodies the very processes of communication and learning that its contents describe, and provides a material reminder that a king who would intervene abroad must have as accurate a picture of the world as possible. Royal 19.D.i was the culmination of an information-gathering campaign for the king that had begun years earlier. Already in 1331, Philippe and his councilors were consulting numerous narratives of the past as they contemplated strategy, for they perceived the crusades as an age-old and ongoing drama in which the king and his army were preparing to become actors. One of the most striking examples of historiography informing campaign planning appears in the Avis prepared around 1332 in which Philippe’s council weighs the pros and cons of land and sea routes.12 This report is in fact a response to the Directorium, whose recommendation of the land route the council roundly condemns. One of the principal authorities the council cites is the archive of Louis IX’s crusade. Speaking of the need to go by sea, they write: ‘et moult ont considéré tous ceux qui ont advisé à cette besoigne (i.e. the sea route), gens de grande autorité et qui moult scauroient des estats des pays dont on parle, et qui souvent avoient passé la mer avec monsieur Saint Louys’ (and many have examined all those who gave advice in this matter, people of great authority who knew much of the realms and lands of which we speak, and who had crossed the sea several times with my lord Saint Louis).13 Shortly thereafter, the council cites another source on the dangers of the land route, dangers ‘qu’esprouvèrent ceux qui furent au passage du duc Godefroy, dont moult de maux et mortalité de gens s’ensuivirent au grand dommage de l’ost des chrestiens, si comme il apert clairement par les romans qui racontent le fait dudit voyage’ (experienced by those who made the journey with Duke Godefroi, from which dangers many evils and death followed to the great detriment of the Christian army, as is readily apparent in

11 This overview summarizes C. J. Tyerman, ‘Philip VI and the Recovery of the Holy Land’, English Historical Review 394 (1985), 25–52. 12 ‘Avis du conseil du roi sur la route que Philippe VI de Valois devra suivre pour la croisade projetée’, in Joseph Delaville Le Roulx, La France en Orient au XIVe siècle, 2 vols (Paris, 1886; repr. 2006), II: 7–11. 13 Delaville Le Roulx, La France en Orient, II: 8.

NARRATION AND AUTHORITY IN THE ‘CRUSADE COMPILATION’

209

the romance texts that recount the story of the said journey).14 In both cases, the council drew on textual sources about royal figures – one of whom was a leader of the First Crusade, the other of whom was a saint and Philippe’s great-grandfather – to help prepare the king’s crusade.15 While it is not surprising to see the council framing Philippe’s campaign as a continuation of earlier crusades, it is striking that these men of experience would treat these stories as if they were still current and applicable to their own era. The Avis shows the authority that stories could possess if they were from a worthy source and were believed to be relevant to crusade preparations, even if their information was over two hundred years old. Although smaller in scale, the Avis prefigures the contents and preparation of Royal 19.D.i. in the manner in which it was compiled and composed. Both the Avis and the manuscript arose from a process in which numerous texts were being assembled and analyzed so as to form a coherent plan of, and justification for, diplomatic and military action. These were essentially working documents, which explains why Royal 19.D.i, although a royal commission, is not a particularly fine manuscript in spite of its 164 illuminations. Furthermore, its compilation is puzzling. The texts are striking in their diversity, but are arranged neither chronologically, nor according to subject matter, nor by genre or author, nor according to any overarching argument justifying crusade. One may discern a logic in that the first three texts focus on the ‘secular’ figures Alexander the Great and Marco Polo (the Old French Prose Alexander, the Venjance Alixandre and the Devisement du monde by Marco Polo). This is followed by three texts that form a ‘mendicant’ section (a French translation of Odoric of Pordenone’s Relatio, the abridged version of John of Plano Carpini’s travel account from Vincent de Beauvais’ Speculum historiale and the Directorium – all translated by Jean de Vignay). Finally, this is followed by a ‘holy kings’ section of two texts (excerpts from the lost Chronique by Primat of Saint-Denis, also translated into French by Jean de Vignay, and excerpts from the Bible historiale). Alternatively, one could read the organization of the texts as progressing from pagan antiquity to the near-present and back to biblical antiquity. No other manuscript compiles these texts, and Royal 19.D.i is the only copy of the French translations of the Directorium and Chronique. The verse Venjance Alixandre is out of place, since it was written as a sequel to the verse Roman d’Alexandre and not to the prose romance that precedes it here. Such arrangement suggests ad hoc and rapid compilation. Evidence of slapdash production is apparent in the quickly executed copying (words are missing, scribal errors – when caught – are not erased but simply underscored or scratched out, not all ‘i’s are dotted), in the fact that one artist executed almost all of the miniatures

14 Delaville Le Roulx, La France en Orient, II: 9. The ‘romans’ in question are likely vernacular crusade chronicles and, possibly, the Old French Crusade Cycle. 15 Given that Louis IX died in 1270 in Tunis, it is unlikely that the council had any direct oral testimony from survivors of the king’s last campaign. Godefroi de Bouillon died in 1100.

210

MARK CRUSE

and employed a significant number of repeated moduli, and in the numerous translation errors committed by Jean de Vignay.16 Far from detracting from Royal 19.D.i’s value and historical interest, this ad hoc arrangement and speedy preparation provide a remarkable window into the importance ascribed to stories in the context of Philippe’s crusade preparations. It seems clear that Royal 19.D.i was produced under time constraints, which most likely means that whoever commissioned it considered its content to be important to the deliberations of the king and his council. Royal 19.D.i is the manuscript equivalent of an urgent message. Yet this message is far from unified, and it is not, for the most part, about how to conquer the Holy Land. Rather, it declares the need for good counsel and extensive information, for news from abroad and knowledge of potential allies and adversaries. It is also a message about the formidable impediments to acquiring this knowledge – impediments such as custom, deceit, distance and language – and about those who are able to overcome these obstacles. Some features of Royal 19.D.i seem to affirm Philippe’s crusade ambitions, while others seem to warn against or even criticize them. It is this polyphony and polyvalence that make Royal 19.D.i such a fascinating window onto the king’s crusade preparations and, more broadly, onto the ways in which he or those near him perceived and interpreted the world beyond their borders. A principal indication of this manuscript’s urgency and authority is the extensive use of first-person narration. Marco Polo, Odoric of Pordenone, John of Plano Carpini, the anonymous author of the Directorium and the translator Jean de Vignay all speak in the first person. First-person narration also appears in the many letters inserted into the Old French Prose Alexander, and at several points an anonymous first-person narrator intervenes in the body of the romance.17 Royal 19.D.i’s texts, and particularly those narrated in the first person, appear to have been chosen and illuminated with the purpose of making the king feel personally invested in and connected to the contents. These works are designed to appeal to him in both senses of the word – to please him, and to address him directly. On a broad cultural level, this collection is significant as an indication of the development of literary subjectivity in the thirteenth and fourteenth centu-

16 One could enumerate other scribal lapses, notably the often wildly varied rendering of proper names, which likely stems from rapid scanning of the original. As Knowles observes of the Directorium translation, ‘On peut aussi deviner que la traduction a été demandée pour une date fixe, car, plus que toutes les autres oeuvres de Jean, elle marque de la hâte, et même de la négligence’ (It can also be deduced that the translation was required by a fixed date, since, more than any other work by Jean, it shows signs of haste and even of negligence), ‘Jean de Vignay’, 367. One can note, too, that folios 28–9 are bound in reverse order, although when this occurred is not known. 17 For example, on 3v: ‘En ce temporel temps que li rois phelippes estoit en ceste terre que ie vous di’ (During the period that King Philip was in this land about which I am telling you).

NARRATION AND AUTHORITY IN THE ‘CRUSADE COMPILATION’

211

ries.18 But it has a particular importance in the context of Philippe’s crusade preparations. Most of the crusade treatises addressed to kings and popes in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century, whether in the vernacular or in Latin, were composed in the first person. This narration embodied the status and authority of the speaker, who was often a noble or ecclesiastic, and at the same time presented the information as the product of observation and lived experience.19 For stories and descriptions of the foreign to be deemed reliable, and for diplomatic and military suggestions to seem credible, they had to be related by a trustworthy narrator. The ‘core’ of Royal 19.D.i – the accounts of Marco Polo, Odoric of Pordenone, John of Plano Carpini and the Directorium – is notable for these texts’ emphasis on personal experience. These four works balance the other four in the compilation, which are impersonally narrated, though authoritative, histories. The four ‘personal’ works in Royal 19.D.i echo the Avis and its insistence on using sources who had ‘crossed the sea’. As the prologue to Marco Polo’s travel account states, the book contains things that ‘me sires Marc Pol, saies et nobles sitoiens de Venice, raconte pour ce que il les vit. Mais auques il y a choses qu’il ne vit pas mais il entendi d’ommes certains par vérité. Et pour ce metrons nous les choses veues pour veues et l’entendue pour entendue a ce que notre livre soit vrais et véritables.’ (my lord Marco Polo, wise and noble citizen of Venice, recounts [things] because he saw them. But there are also things that he did not see, but heard from truthful men. Therefore we will state things seen as seen, and heard as heard, so that our book may be true and trustworthy.)20 The narration in Polo’s text alternates between first and third person, likely a product of its having been dictated by Polo.21 The prologue seeks to reassure the reader by introducing Polo as a nobleman from a city-state renowned for international trade and diplomacy. The prologue also emphasizes the personal, experiential and sensory manner by which the text’s information was acquired, and notes that Polo was abroad for twenty-six years. One finds a similar statement in the prologue of the Directorium: ‘ie ne raconte pas tant seulement les choses oyes par la relacion d’autres comme celes veues par .xxiiii. ans et plus esquiex ie fui demourant es terres de mescroians pour cause de la foy estre preschiee’ (I recount not only things related by others but those seen during twenty-four years and more, during which I lived in the lands of the infidels for the sake of preaching the faith).22 In effect, these narrators are presented in Royal 19.D.i as eyes and ears for the king – their senses and experiences become an extension of his royal self, and enable him to venture into the world via these texts. Michel Zink, La Subjectivité littéraire. Autour du siècle de saint Louis (Paris, 1985). On these treatises, see Antony Leopold, How to Recover the Holy Land: The Crusade Proposals of the Late Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries (Aldershot, 2000). 20 Folio 58r. 21 On the complex narrative voice in the Polo text, see Simon Gaunt, Marco Polo’s Le devisement du monde: Narrative Voice, Language and Diversity (Cambridge, 2013), 41–77. 22 Folio 166r. 18 19

212

MARK CRUSE

Fig. 1. London, British Library, MS Royal 19.D.i, fol. 83r

The inclusion of Marco Polo’s travel account and the Directorium suggests the extent to which Royal 19.D.i’s patron wished to establish a personal connection between the monarch and the book – to construct Royal 19.D.i as an intimate address to the king. Philippe VI would have felt a particular attachment to the Polo text, for in 1307 Thibaut de Chepoy, a councilor of Philippe’s father Charles de Valois, obtained a copy in Venice from Polo himself. Thibaut’s son, Jean, inherited this book and had a copy made for Charles de Valois. Jean was moreover one of Philippe’s highest-ranking captains, and as commander of the anti-Turkish fleet fought skirmishes in the Mediterranean in preparation for Philippe’s crusade.23 Royal 19.D.i is the oldest surviving copy of Polo’s work in Old French and only a generation younger than the oldest Polo manuscript extant. It may be that the Polo text in Royal 19.D.i was copied from the Chepoy copy, and is therefore a direct link to Polo himself. Although Polo does not speak of crusade specifically, he does touch on many themes common in crusade 23

Delaville Le Roulx, La France en Orient, I: 100–1.

NARRATION AND AUTHORITY IN THE ‘CRUSADE COMPILATION’

213

sermons and literature: idolatry, Christian communities in the East and their persecution by Muslims and others, Christian shrines and Prester John, to name a few. More than a travel account, the Polo text in Royal 19.D.i was a memorial of Philippe’s father, a token of feudal homage from a leading noble family, and a reference for the king’s crusade preparations. The miniatures in Royal 19.D.i emphasize the connection between Polo’s account and the king’s crusade plans by employing a visual language often applied to crusade-related works. To represent peoples of central and eastern Asia, the illuminator complements the recurring use of the word ‘Sarrazin’ (Saracen) by depicting figures with dark skin and turbans knotted on the side. For passages referring to ‘ydles’ (idols) the artist renders golden standing figures. For battle scenes, enemies of the Khan are sometimes shown with crescents on their shields. Such imagery was intimately associated with the crusades, whether it appeared in chronicles, romances or travel accounts.24 Visually, Polo’s tale is told here as if it were part of this larger crusade corpus. Yet this text also possesses unexpected iconography, the most striking example being the depiction of Kublai Khan. In some images, he, too, is shown in ‘Saracen’ fashion, with dark skin and a turban under his crown. However, in other miniatures by the same artist, he is depicted in ‘western’ fashion, with a white tint, a crown and no turban. This divergent representation reflects the Khan’s complex status within the narrative, where he is both an infidel and a mighty and worthy king. Most surprising, on folios 83r (Fig. 1) and 103r, he is accoutered like a western knight, with a helm and a shield bearing the royal arms of France. Whether intentionally or not, on 83r and 103r the illuminator figures the Khan as a mirror of the king of France, thereby capturing both the Khan’s stature in the text and the western hope for an alliance between him and Christendom against the Muslims. These illustrations figure a resemblance between the Khan and the French king that arises from their opposition to a common enemy. As a result, they also tell the Khan’s story as if it were of particular relevance to Philippe VI – as if the Khan’s situation were an extension or reflection of royal French crusade history. As with Polo’s account, Philippe VI would also have felt connected to the Directorium, which exhorts him to lead a new crusade that would take Byzantium before attacking Jerusalem. The Directorium’s narrator, who presents himself as the work’s author, makes a very personal appeal, citing the need for Philippe VI to imitate his crusading ancestors, to avenge the blood of the French who were killed by the Greeks, and to restore the kingdom of Constantinople to his nephews, whom he argues are its rightful rulers. Throughout, the narrator addresses Philippe VI in the second person and repeatedly implicates the king personally in the crusade project. One of the most significant aspects of the Directorium is how its narrator frames the work as a proxy for his presence. In 24 On this iconography, see Ruth Mellinkoff, Outcasts: Signs of Otherness in Northern European Art of the Late Middle Ages (Berkeley, CA, 1993).

214

MARK CRUSE

the prologue, the narrator states ‘Ja soit ce adonques que votre poissance ait mout de esdreceurs et ce soit impossible que les enformeurs n’acourent de chascune partie a la beneurte de si tres grant apparente … [C]e que ie descri par lettres ie demontrasse au doy’ (Although it is the case these days that your majesty has many assistants and that it is impossible that informants from different places not go to you … what I describe with words I would demonstrate with my finger) (fol. 166r).25 As this excerpt shows, the narrator counts himself among the king’s ‘esdreceurs’ (assistants; directores in the Latin) and ‘enformeurs’ (informants; informatores in the Latin) even though he is absent, roles he insists upon by declaring that he would demonstrate his argument ‘with my finger’ were he there. That is, he would punctuate and enumerate his argument with hand gestures just as he has subdivided and numbered it in the text, a text that fuses the learned voice and highly articulated structure of scholastic composition with the entreaties and emotional appeals of the sermon.26 The narrator of the Directorium is a remarkably protean presence, variously assuming the voice of a chronicler, a preacher, a supplicant and a strategist to persuade the king that crusade is necessary. One of the most important first-person mediators in Royal 19.D.i is Jean de Vignay, four of whose translations are preserved here. Whereas figures such as Polo and the Directorium author allow the king to venture to far-off places through the relation of their own experiences, Jean de Vignay provides access to the past and the foreign by transferring texts from Latin to French. More than a translator, in Royal 19.D.i Jean de Vignay is a storyteller, and his role in textual transmission is emphasized both verbally and visually. Jean is named in the rubric on 136r that opens his translation of Odoric of Pordenone’s Relatio, in the rubric on 165v that opens his translation of the Directorium, and in rubrics on 229v and 251v, and he names himself at the end of his translation of the Chronique where he thanks Queen Jeanne de Bourgogne for her patronage and prays for the royal family. Jean is also depicted three times in miniatures, twice on 136r and once on 165v. Moreover, Jean intervenes briefly as a narrator in the Chronique, where he interpolates on folios 229v and 230r the story of a miracle of Saint Louis that he witnessed in Normandy. And it is Jean’s labor that partially explains the structure of Royal 19.D.i. As he states at the end of the Chronique, he translated it to bridge the chronological gap between the end of his translation of Vincent de Beauvais’ Speculum historiale and the present. 25 In the Latin edition, the corresponding text reads ‘Licet igitur vestra potentia multos habeat directores, et sit impossibile quod ad beatitudinem tantae praeeminentiae informatores non confluant undequaque […] ut sicut haec describo literis, digito demonstrem’, Directorium ad faciendum passagium transmarinum, ed. C. Raymond Beazley, American Historical Review 12.4 (July 1907), 810–57 (814). The second half of the Directorium was published by Beazley in American Historical Review 13.1 (October 1907), 66–115. Assuming that this edition represents the text that Jean de Vignay used, his translation of ‘ad beatitudinem tantae praeeminentiae informatores’ is garbled. 26 On the relationship between pedagogy and hand gestures, see Cornelius O’Boyle, ‘Gesturing in the Early Universities’, Dynamis 20 (2000), 249–81.

NARRATION AND AUTHORITY IN THE ‘CRUSADE COMPILATION’

215

Fig. 2. London, British Library, MS Royal 19.D.i, fol. 136r

He wanted to complete the story of recent history, but as he observes, history never ends and this ‘mirouer’ (mirror) to which he has contributed will last for all time. All of which suggests that Jean saw himself as more than a translator – that for him, translating and storytelling were two sides of the same coin. Jean’s crucial role in Royal 19.D.i is further highlighted in the miniature on 136r that opens his translation of Odoric of Pordenone’s Relatio (Fig. 2). The miniature is divided into four sequential compartments: the pope orders Odoric to Asia (upper left), Odoric travels with his companions (bottom right), Jean de Vignay translates Odoric’s account (bottom left) and Jean de Vignay presents his translation to Philippe VI (top right). As simply executed as it is, this image is a remarkable summary of the narrative project of Royal 19.D.i. On one level, this miniature is an augmented presentation scene that tells the larger story of how Odoric’s account came to appear in this manuscript. On another level, this image figures Odoric’s text as a material link between the foreign places and peoples it describes and the king of France. Odoric transcribes his experiences into Latin text, this text is transferred to Jean de Vignay, Jean translates it into French and this copy is transferred to the king. This image thus figures Royal 19.D.i as the culmination and physical manifestation of a series of ‘translations’ effected across vast distances and different languages. It is a mise en abyme of the communication that is embodied by the book itself. Significant, too, is how this miniature emphasizes that these translations are executed by monks, who endow the translatio process and its textual result with particular authority. Odoric was a Franciscan, but the upper left and bottom

216

MARK CRUSE

right miniatures portray Dominicans and Franciscans together. This may simply reflect a desire for visual variety on the part of the illuminator, but in the context of Royal 19.D.i these monks recall that mendicants authored several works on the East and crusade treatises in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.27 Complementing and completing Odoric’s efforts is Jean de Vignay, whose two portraits on 136r highlight what makes Jean a particularly efficacious translator, storyteller and intermediary for the king. The lower left scene, which shows him writing at his desk, emphasizes Jean’s learning and Latinity. The upper right scene stresses his proximity to the king and thus his ability to move between the worlds of the monastery and the court. In both scenes, Jean is depicted with a white tau symbol on his black cloak, which marks him as a member of the Hospitaler order. Like the mendicants, the Hospitalers were closely associated with travel, crusade and the Holy Land. The tau shows that Jean, as a member of a renowned international order, is equal to the task of translating Odoric’s text. This symbol also identifies him as a member of an international monastic network whose reports and stories about foreign lands and peoples were constantly being transmitted to western leaders. The miniature on 136r portrays Jean as another crucial mediator between the king and the world, implying that his role is just as essential as that of the other characters and narrators whose voices and exploits are preserved in Royal 19.D.i. A final example of how Royal 19.D.i appeals directly to the king is through the excerpt of the Chronique of Primat of Saint-Denis, which was translated by Jean de Vignay at the behest of Queen Jeanne. Although the narration is in the third person, the narratorial presence is overt, as when the text renders judgments on characters’ actions or comments on events. The Chronique comes immediately after the Directorium and, unlike every other work in Royal 19.D.i, is not preceded by a miniature, so that page layout suggests a close connection between these two texts. They form a diptych, with the Directorium inciting Philippe to action in the present while the Chronique employs the mirror of the past, implicating the king in crusade history by telling the story of his own family. The Chronique passages run from just before the death of Blanche de Castille in 1252 to the death of King Philippe III in 1285, with an antepenultimate chapter about the dubbing of Prince Philippe, who would become King Philippe IV and was Philippe VI’s uncle. The eighty chapters excerpted here focus on Charles d’Anjou’s subjugation and subsequent loss of Sicily; Louis IX’s second crusade, death and post-mortem miracles; and Philippe III’s interventions in Spain. As a speculum principis, this text offers many stories and many potential lessons to Philippe VI, but its main function in Royal 19.D.i seems to be to remind the king that he has now become the main character in

27 Famous examples include John of Plano Carpini (journeyed 1245–47, a Franciscan sent by the pope), Simon de Saint-Quentin (1245, a Dominican sent by the pope), William of Rubruck (1253–55, a Franciscan sent by Louis IX) and Riccoldo da Monte di Croce (1288–1300, a Dominican sent by the pope).

NARRATION AND AUTHORITY IN THE ‘CRUSADE COMPILATION’

217

Fig. 3. London, British Library, MS Royal 19.D.i, fol. 1r

the ongoing chronicle of the crusades.28 The depiction of the French royal arms in the Chronique illustrations underscores the dynastic continuity between the narrative protagonists and Philippe VI, while the text is a constant reminder that the French monarchy has long projected its force outremer. More than any other text in the manuscript, the Chronique addresses Philippe at all levels of his social existence: as nephew, son, king, knight, Christian and individual acting in history. It relates his past and charts his destiny, as the prayer for the French royal family appended at the end by Jean de Vignay makes clear. The Chronique is a prologue, as it were, to the story that Philippe himself should write through his actions as a crusader king. Thus far we have examined those narrative and narratorial features that construct Royal 19.D.i as a direct address to the king. We conclude with those equally salient features that anticipate or exhort the manuscript’s use – how its stories should be performed and interpreted. Royal.19.D.i’s compilation was likely intended as a documentary aid for and extension of the king’s council. 28

The royal arms of France appear in miniatures on folios 202r, 216r, 227r and 233r.

218

MARK CRUSE

The narrators preserved on its folios were meant to complement the sapientes – the wise men of the king’s council – by offering a broad range of information for the king to consider in his foreign policy deliberations. The half-page miniature opening the manuscript on 1r (Fig. 3) suggests as much. It depicts a seated king in discussion with six men, and includes a curious detail that may have invited Philippe VI to see himself as this book’s audience. Although the heraldic shields on this page seem to represent the arms of the Holy Roman Empire (Or, an eagle displayed sable), floating on the gold ground to the right of the seated king’s head is a fleur-de-lys, and on the inside fold of the king’s mantle that lies across his lap is a white cross. It may be that the illuminator wished to indicate that this figure had a dual role as both Neptanabus, king of Egypt and father of Alexander the Great (an emperor, hence the imperial arms), and as the king of France. As we have seen with the image of Kublai Khan, such dual representation was not rare, especially in crusade-related art in which ancient and Old Testament figures could be identified with medieval counterparts.29 It is possible, in other words, that this image is a framing device exhorting Philippe VI to view the book as a collection of storytellers bearing worthwhile advice – a proxy council that complements his advisors and offers unique knowledge useful for a crusader king.

29 Mark Cruse, ‘Costuming the Past: Heraldry in Illustrations of the Roman d’Alexandre (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 264)’, Gesta 45 (2006), 43–59; Daniel Weiss, Art and Crusade in the Age of Saint Louis (Cambridge, 1998).

Le Berceau de la littérature française: Medieval Literature as Storytelling in Nineteenth-Century France Elizabeth Emery Predominantly literate societies have tended to trivialize oral storytelling, dismissing it as a genre belonging to children and the underprivileged, those without the political or intellectual means to record their narratives for posterity. Such attitudes have often resulted in the infantilization of populations that rely largely on oral traditions, despite the complexity and sophistication of their narrative structures and mnemonic systems. This was as evident in British explorers’ disdain for the orally transmitted stories of India and Africa as it was in Caribbean plantation owners’ condescension toward slaves and their ‘childish’ storytelling circles.1 Within France, such prejudices extended to ‘primitive’ peasants whose stories were thought to stem from an oral tradition unbroken since the Middle Ages, their voices chronicled in nineteenth-century texts such as George Sand’s romans champêtres, considered the perfect material to read out loud to French children, along with works from the popular Bibliothèque bleue series which specialized in textual retellings of medieval stories. While much scholarship has been devoted to the marginalization of nonliterate cultures during the colonial period (both inside and outside of France),2 less attention has been paid to the ways in which the same biases were at play in nineteenth-century characterizations of the European Middle Ages. This essay explores the double standard applied to medieval texts in the nineteenth century, just as scholars were establishing what would become the canonical works of French literature. Orally recounting the content of medieval texts in modern French was deemed enriching for children and the illiterate, yet the same stories presented textually to adults (in Old French or in modern translation) disquali1 Carolyn Hamilton, ‘“Living by Fluidity”: Oral Histories, Material Custodies and the Politics of Archiving’, in Refiguring the Archive, ed. Carolyn Hamilton (Cape Town, 2002), 209–28; Ruth Finnegan, ‘Literacy versus Non-Literacy: The Great Divide’, in Modes of Thought, ed. Robin Horton and Ruth Finnegan (London, 1973), 112–44. 2 Jonathan A. Draper, ed., Orality, Literacy, and Colonialism in Southern Africa (Amsterdam, 2004); Ruth Finnegan, The Oral and Beyond. Doing Things with Words in Africa (Chicago, 2007); Carolyn Hamilton, ed., Refiguring the Archive (Cape Town, 2002). Eugen Weber has shown the parallels between French colonialism abroad and Parisian attitudes toward the rural populations of nineteenth-century France in Peasants into Frenchmen (Stanford, CA, 1976), 4, 9, 97, 485–90.

220 ELIZABETH

EMERY

fied them as ‘literature’ because of the alleged stylistic deficiencies of Old and Middle French, characterized as childish bégaiements or balbutiements (stuttering or stammering). Such bias for style over substance and for text over orality is clear in works such as Désiré Nisard’s 1844 Histoire de la littérature française, or Gaston Paris and Ernest Langlois’ 1895 Chrestomathie du moyen âge, the book which first introduced secondary school children to excerpts of works from the Middle Ages (in Old French, Middle French and modern translation). Here, medieval texts are systematically praised for the historical or imaginative content of the stories they tell or for their importance as ‘first’ representative of an accepted genre: they are described as the ‘cradle of French literature’, important for their historical value rather than their literary significance (the quality of their composition, style or authorial vision). This priority is evident from the title of Langlois’ text: a chrestomathie is less literary than linguistic, ‘useful’, as its Greek root suggests, for language learning (the history of the French language). In order to understand the tensions at play in this nineteenth-century infantilization of what came to be known as ‘medieval literature’, we must first examine the attitudes of nineteenth-century writers, scholars, politicians and educational policymakers toward storytelling, whose complex relationships to orality and writing, language, gender, education and nationalist sentiment played a large role in the nineteenth-century French reception of medieval texts. In Peasants into Frenchmen, Eugen Weber shows how post-Revolutionary governments embraced a politics of linguistic, cultural and pedagogical assimilation, seeking to unify the French nation by replacing regional cultures and languages with centralized national traditions. Among the phenomena he studies is the veillée d’hiver, the longstanding peasant tradition by which groups of villagers would work late into the night around the fire, telling stories, singing songs and otherwise socializing in the fall and winter while their hands were occupied with spinning, cracking nuts or twisting hemp.3 Romantic-era writers and ethnographers were fascinated by the veillée as a remnant of ‘primitive’ traditions that persisted in modern France and claimed that the stories told around the fire were

3 Martyn Lyons discusses the agrarian context of the veillée and its associations with the oral transmission of stories in chapter 7 of Reading Culture and Writing Practices in Nineteenth-Century France (Toronto, 2008), 139–50. Given the fascination with veillées, many publications took the word as their title, including journals entitled Veillées. Tim Farrant notes that ‘The title Veillée was a signal to sit comfortably and pay attention as to a real live narrator, or a sign that the publication was intended to be read out loud in company, as in the numerous periodicals which, from mid-century, included Veillée in their title’; ‘Definition, Repression, and the Oral–Literary Interface in the French Literary conte from the ‘folie du conte’ to the Second Empire’, in The Conte. Oral and Written Dynamics, ed. Janice Carruthers and Maeve McCusker (Oxford, 2010), 73–91 (88, note 54). The nineteenthcentury veillées also corroborate the arguments about informal modern storytelling made by Linda Marie Zaerr in her contribution to the present volume.



MEDIEVAL LITERATURE AS STORYTELLING

221

medieval in origin, transmitted from generation to generation; they sought to chronicle these practices before they disappeared.4 George Sand’s romans champêtres (rustic country novels) do just that: they provide a written record of stories overheard in the countryside.5 In the introductory section of her 1847 François le Champi, for example, she characterizes the novel as an attempt by a ‘civilized’ Parisian frame narrator to capture in writing the oral tenor of one such ‘primitive’ storytelling session. The challenge, as Sand’s narrator notes in reporting his conversation with a friend, is to remain faithful to the peasants’ enthusiastic yet naive language (‘qui est plus expressif, plus énergique et plus logique cent fois que notre langue littéraire’) while translating their words into the ‘literary language’ Parisian readers have come to expect.6 He insists that it is an impossible feat because the two languages – the ‘clear’ Parisian and the ‘naive’ peasant – are absolutely incompatible. This discussion has the effect of underlining crucial differences in the transmission of stories (Parisian French vs. Berrichon dialect; written vs. spoken; reading vs. performance) while rationalizing the narrative framework and hybrid oralwritten language to follow. This introduction also allows Sand to present to Parisian readers the ethnographic context of the ‘rustic’ storytelling circle depicted in François le Champi. Indeed, the entire novel is characterized as an attempt to evoke – through ‘civilized’ ‘literary language’ – a late-night storytelling session witnessed by a pair of friends at a local farm over two days. After the frame narrator’s initial protests about the impossibility of translating the peasants’ story, he does so nonetheless, through a third-person narrative punctuated by intercalated first-person dialogue. With the exception of these brief snippets of dialogue, the peasant-participants are thus made to speak the ‘literary language’ expected by Parisian readers.7 Monique, the curé’s elderly servant, tells the first part of the story about François, a good-hearted foundling who triumphs over adversity, before asking the chanvreur (hemp-raker) to take over when she tires: ‘Je n’ai plus le poumon comme à quinze ans.’8 Sand cleverly structures the novel so that such direct exchanges among those gathered around the fire are few and far between. Nevertheless, they occur often enough 4 David Hopkin provides an overview of the ethnographic tradition and an astute criticism of its many unfounded assumptions and inaccuracies in Voices of the People in Nineteenth-Century France (Cambridge, 2012). 5 These include La Mare au diable (1846), La Petite Fadette (1849), François le Champi (1850) and Les Maîtres sonneurs (1853). For the importance of the veillée for the work of Sand, see Isabelle Naginski, ‘Les Veillées de Sand’, in George Sand: Voix, image, texte, ed. Nigel Harkness and Jacinta Wright (Amsterdam, 2010), 1–32. Walter Benjamin echoes this nostalgia for a disappearing social tradition in ‘The Storyteller: Reflections on the Works of Nikolai Leskov’, in Illuminations, trans. Harry Zohn, ed. Hannah Arendt (New York, 1969 [1936]), 83–109. 6 George Sand, François le Champi (Paris, 1983), 25, 28, 30. 7 On the use of ‘rustic’ language in these novels, see Marie Louise Vincent, La Langue et le style rustiques de George Sand dans les romans champêtres (Paris, 1916), and Noëlle Dauphin and Francis Démier, eds, George Sand, terroir et histoire (Rennes, 2006). 8 Sand, François le Champi, 77.

222 ELIZABETH

EMERY

and at critical enough junctures in the plot that the Parisian reader gets a sense of the give and take in the storytelling process and a taste for the materiality of its accompanying speech, such as the penchant for referring to body parts and animals. For example, the chanvreur teases Monique about not wanting to tell the unpleasant parts of the story: ‘Vous avez un coeur de poulet, comme toutes les dévotes, aux histoires d’amour.’9 At two in the morning everyone goes home, committed to resuming the next day. At the end of the second evening a young woman asks whether the story is entirely truthful, a trope common to fifteenthand sixteenth-century written depictions of storytelling circles: ‘Si elle ne l’est pas, elle le pourrait être, répondit le chanvreur, et si vous ne me croyez, allez y voir.’10 These are the last words of the book. By ending with the storyteller’s directly quoted words Sand reinforces the oral effect of her text and closes the storytelling circle established within her novel.11 Such scenes of exchange, debate and questioning allow Sand to suggest the ways in which audience participation shapes the telling of a story over time, while giving Parisian readers insight into ‘picturesque’ country traditions and language seemingly inherited from the medieval past. Indeed, this was a prevailing belief about storytelling circles: instead of seeing each performer as capable of improvisation depending on the circumstances (each of Sand’s characters tells the story differently), many contemporaries understood rural storytelling as an unbroken link between the Middle Ages and the nineteenth century.12 Peasant storytelling was thus closely associated with medieval storytelling and both were considered ideal for bourgeois children. In fact, nineteenthcentury educators such as Gustave Lanson, author of a hugely influential literary anthology, Histoire de la littérature française (1894), felt that children’s ‘foreign’ nature – so different from adults – made them the best consumers of

Sand, François le Champi, 78. Sand, François le Champi, 187. Those familiar with the storytelling circles represented in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century texts such as Martial d’Auvergne’s Les Arrêts d’amour will recognize this questioning of the truth as characteristic of the late medieval storytelling genre. See, for example, Kathleen Loysen’s Conversation and Storytelling in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century French Nouvelles (New York, 2004), 67–8, and her essay in this volume. 11 Such an ‘effet de parlé’, as Cristian Bratu calls it in his essay for the present volume, reinforces Sand’s written text as a faithful ethnographic transcription of an oral storytelling session. 12 See Hopkin, Voices, 256. Ruth B. Bottigheimer convincingly exposes the oral transmission of fairy tales from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century as a fiction. It was, in fact, stories composed by writers such as Perrault and Aulnoy which influenced the peasant storytellers. Bottigheimer, ‘A New History for Fairy Tales’, in The Conte. Oral and Written Dynamics, ed. Janice Carruthers and Maeve McCusker (Oxford, 2010), 53–70. Jack Zipes also debunks this myth of the unbroken transmission of stories in The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre (Princeton, NJ, 2012). Linda Marie Zaerr’s contribution to the present volume provides excellent examples of the kind of circumstances that can influence the way a story is told. 9

10



MEDIEVAL LITERATURE AS STORYTELLING

223

such texts.13 Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu depicts this late nineteenth-century tendency to conflate peasant and medieval stories and to present them as perfect children’s fare in ‘Combray’, where the protagonist’s grandmother gives him a copy of François le Champi. In her eyes, unproductive books for children are as bad as sweets, so she offers him well-written books for adults (among them Musset’s poetry and Sand’s Indiana).14 Chastized by Marcel’s father for offering such inappropriate reading material to a child, she exchanges these sensual books for Sand’s more ‘acceptable’ romans champêtres, among them François le Champi. This becomes Marcel’s first novel, read aloud to him in bed by his mother, who censors the love scenes.15 La Recherche thus amplifies the orality already embedded in Sand’s novel: the peasant voices expressed through ‘literary language’ are not just read aloud by a Parisian; they are also appropriated and re-oriented as Marcel’s mother edits the scenes of pseudo-incestuous love between François and his adopted mother. For Marcel, the book’s content is infused with the emotion of his mother’s presence at his bedside, the beauty of her voice as she performs the story, and the mystery created by unfamiliar vocabulary and complicated plot.16 He daydreams for pages and pages of the reading, allowing the musicality of his mother’s voice to wash over him. It is the strangeness of the vocabulary that most strikes the young listener, especially the softness of the mysterious peasant word champi.17 This question of language is precisely why the grandmother chose Sand’s romans champêtres for Marcel after her initial selection was vetoed. Forty years or so after the publication of François le Champi, she understands Sand’s attempts to represent peasant storytelling through ‘literary language’ as an ethnographic and historical enterprise that opens an imaginative door to an otherwise lost past: [ces livres étaient] pleins ainsi qu’un mobilier ancien, d’expressions tombées en désuétude et redevenues imagées, comme on n’en trouve plus qu’à la campagne. Et ma grand-mère les avait achetés de préférence à d’autres comme 13 See Mortimer Guiney, Teaching the Cult of Literature in the French Third Republic (New York, 2004), 124–5. Reinhold R. Grimm has discussed the bourgeois public’s reception of Sand’s country novels in ‘Les Romans champêtres de George Sand: l’échec du renouvellement d’un genre littéraire’, Romantisme 7.16 (1977), 64–70. 14 Marcel Proust, À la recherche du temps perdu, 4 vols (Paris, 1987), I: 39. 15 Proust, À la recherche du temps perdu, I: 41. 16 The scene has been discussed in great detail by Proustians because of its importance for many of the book’s themes, from the relationship between mother and son, to sexuality, memory and musicality. The latter theme is notably important in terms of Roland Barthes’ concept of le grain de la voix, the special resonance of the human voice as a supplement to more traditional modes of understanding. Le Grain de la Voix: Entretiens, 1962–1980 (Paris, 1981). Two rich readings of this scene can be found in Elisabeth Ladenson, Proust’s Lesbianism (New York, 1999), and Malcolm Bowie, Proust among the Stars (New York, 2000). 17 Proust, À la recherche du temps perdu, I: 41–2. The word itself means ‘foundling’ (literally: child of the fields) in Berrichon dialect.

224

ELIZABETH EMERY

elle eût loué plus volontiers une propriété où il y aurait eu un pigeonnier gothique ou quelqu’une de ces vieilles choses qui exercent sur l’esprit une heureuse influence en lui donnant la nostalgie d’impossibles voyages dans le temps.18

The imagery evoked here is distinctly medieval: Sand’s books, like Gothic dovecotes, preserve within them the soft cooing of medieval voices. (Parisians like Marcel’s grandmother regularly associated ‘primitive’ French peasants and their picturesque speech with a disappearing heritage seen as largely unchanged since the Middle Ages.) Indeed, it was for these qualities that critics such as SainteBeuve and Taine praised Sand’s romans champêtres as her masterpieces.19 This passage of La Recherche further associates nineteenth-century French peasants with the Middle Ages through another bedtime story, the medieval legend of Geneviève de Brabant, falsely accused of adultery, persecuted and redeemed. This story is projected on the walls of Marcel’s bedroom by a ‘magic lantern’.20 Much has been written about the maternal reading of François le Champi and of the magic lantern, yet the telling of Geneviève de Brabant’s story, which immediately precedes the reading of Sand’s novel, has been mostly overlooked. In this companion piece, another woman – this time Marcel’s greataunt – reads le boniment (the script) accompanying the magic lantern. The medieval characters projected on Marcel’s bedroom wall appear to listen to her, acting out the words they hear: Golo s’arrêtait un instant pour écouter avec tristesse le boniment lu à haute voix par ma grand-tante et qu’il avait l’air de comprendre parfaitement, conformant son attitude avec une docilité qui n’excluait pas une certaine majesté, aux indications du texte; puis il s’éloignait du même pas saccadé.21

In both scenes it is a female relative who reads folktales in an informal setting to a Parisian child whose imagination is piqued by the mysterious names and characters and who understands the links between book, story, reading and listening in terms of performance. The legend of Geneviève de Brabant and Golo, her antagonist, was, like François le Champi, associated with nineteenth-century French peasants. Adapted from the Légende dorée and the Acta Sanctorum, it was made famous in the seventeenth century by the Oudot family, which passed it on through the nineteenth century in the Bibliothèque bleue series that they established. These blue-covered books were renowned for popularizing medieval legends, particu18 Proust, À la recherche du temps perdu, I: 41. This is also the conclusion of an anonymous 1849 book review, which characterizes the book as ‘cette heureuse étude du langage et des mœurs du paysan’, Revue des Deux Mondes (1849), 766. Unless otherwise indicated all translations from the French are mine. 19 See Naginski, ‘Les Veillées de Sand’, 18–19. 20 Proust, À la recherche du temps perdu, I: 9–10. 21 Proust, À la recherche du temps perdu, I: 10.



MEDIEVAL LITERATURE AS STORYTELLING

225

larly medieval epics and romances such Ogier le Danois, Renaut de Montaubon ou Les Quatre Fils Aymon and Valentine et Orson. The editors abridged and retold sixteenth-century prose variants of these medieval stories, publishing tens of thousands of them on cheap paper; they were sold by peddlers in the countryside (it is estimated that 10,000 copies of a 527-page version of Les Quatre Fils Aymon were sold in Lower Brittany alone between 1818 and 1850).22 In the nineteenth century, Geneviève’s story was so well known that it inspired Jacques Offenbach’s eponymous opera (1859) as well as a veritable industry of images, such as those that figured on the magic lantern of Proust’s narrator.23 The Bibliothèque bleue series was crucial for furthering the association between peasant culture, medieval stories and the reading habits of Parisian children.24 Nostalgia for peasant storytelling that manifested itself in books such as those selected by Marcel’s grandmother was not simply historical and linguistic. It was also conditioned by cultural associations linked to class and gender, which made informal storytelling – like those literary genres associated with it (le conte, la féerie, le roman) – inferior to the more formal ‘literary language’ adopted by Sand’s narrator.25 After all, despite his nostalgia for the veillées and his admiration for the superior ‘energy and expressiveness’ of peasant storytelling, Sand’s narrator draws a clear distinction between the ‘primitive’ nature of the peasant traditions and the ‘civilized’ nature of written literature (the word ‘primitive’ would become a code word for ‘medieval’ in the 1880s; it is repeated over and over in Sand’s ‘Avant-Propos’).26 Although peasant stories and medieval legends from the Bibliothèque bleue books were considered inferior because of their associations with archaic traditions and informal social contexts, they were also praised for stimulating children’s imaginations.27 When Marcel is read the boniment to Geneviève de Brabant, for example, he improvises his own stories, interpreting the historical past based on the images he sees. The projected figures galloping around his room excite his imagination and trouble him as they make the familiar unfa22 See Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen, 461. The series also included recipe books, almanacs and religious volumes. For a good overview of the content of the Bibliothèque bleue series, see Robert Mandrou, De la culture populaire aux 17e et 18e siècles: La Bibliothèque bleue de Troyes (Paris, 1964). The University of Chicago’s ARTFL project has teamed with the Médiathèque du Grand Troyes and the CIFNAL to digitize many of the thousands of extant Bibliothèque bleue texts. http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/efts/ARTFL/projects/BibBl/ 23 Marie-Dominique Leclerc, ‘Geneviève de Brabant dans l’imagerie populaire’, Romantisme 22.78 (1992), 91–101. Images from a similar lantern can be seen in an online exhibit at the Bibliothèque nationale http://expositions.bnf.fr/proust/grand/7–5.htm (accessed 20 July 2013) 24 Francis Marcoin, Librairie de jeunesse et littérature industrielle au XIX e siècle (Paris, 2006). 25 The distinctions Linda Marie Zaerr draws between ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ storytelling in her contribution to the present volume also apply in this context. 26 See Laura Morowitz, ‘Primitive’, in Medievalism: Key Critical Terms, ed. Elizabeth Emery and Richard Utz (Cambridge, 2014), 189–98. 27 Marcoin, Librairie de jeunesse, 29–30.

226 ELIZABETH

EMERY

miliar; he is then calmed by his mother, as she reads him François le Champi. Proust clearly shows that nineteenth-century storytelling, whether featuring medieval characters (Geneviève de Brabant) or modern (François le Champi), was idealized, but only in the context of children, peasants and female performance. This double standard toward storytelling – ethnographically interesting for children, but inferior to written literature – had already been made clear at the beginning of the nineteenth century in Chateaubriand’s 1836 Essai sur la littérature anglaise, which characterizes storytelling as the realm of nourrices (the peasant wet nurses to whom most wealthy children were entrusted for the first years of their lives): ‘Au lieu d’avancer, on a rétrogradé; on ne s’est pas aperçu que l’on retournait au balbutiement de la langue, aux contes des nourrices, à l’enfance de l’art.’28 Storytelling would consistently be equated with childish ‘stammering’ because of its association with women and the alleged simplicity of peasants and medieval ancestors. Chateaubriand’s critique further underscores the extent to which storytelling was seen as a gendered practice. Whether positively or negatively characterized, those who told stories were almost always described by writers as female: mothers and nursemaids. ‘Je me rappelle avec ravissement les chants et les récits qui ont bercé mon enfance,’ wrote Nerval’s narrator in the 1854 Chansons et Légendes du Valois. ‘La maison de mon oncle était toute pleine de voix mélodieuses, et celles des servantes qui nous avaient suivis à Paris chantaient tout le jour les ballades joyeuses de leur jeunesse.’29 Telling stories was cast as a simple, uncomplicated and pleasurable process – grown men like Nerval’s narrator (and Proust’s) looked back with nostalgia at the joyful ambient sounds that they had heard in the ‘cradle’ and which they had left upon learning to walk. For them, the informal pleasures of orality were supplanted by the formal rigors of literacy. The associations among childhood, peasants, women and storytelling discussed in the first section of this essay would negatively impact the reputation of medieval texts in the nineteenth century, the very moment that scholars began to publish anthologies of French literature and French literary criticism.30 I turn to that tradition now because it is precisely in terms of cradles and first steps that Antoine de Charbonnières described medieval French writing in his 1818 Éléments de l’histoire de la littérature française, jusqu’au milieu du XVIIe 28 François-René de Chateaubriand, Essai sur la littérature anglaise et considérations sur le génie des hommes, des temps et des révolutions (Paris, 1836). 29 Gérard de Nerval, ‘Chansons et légendes du Valois’, in Œuvres complètes, 3 vols (Paris, 1993), III: 569–76 (569). 30 In Devoirs d’écriture: Modèles d’histoires pour filles et littérature féminine au XIXe siècle (Lyon, 2006), Bénédicte Monicat reveals the extent to which such bias against storytelling extended to texts written by women for children in the nineteenth century. These texts were marginalized by the literary establishment because of their utilitarian (educational) function and their writers’ gender. My thanks to her for comments on an early draft of this essay.



MEDIEVAL LITERATURE AS STORYTELLING

227

siècle: ‘Ce fut enfin dans le treizième siècle que la poésie sortit de son berceau; mais ce ne fut qu’au quatorizième, sous le règne de Charles V, qu’elle commença à marcher.’31 More pernicious, however, than depicting the Middle Ages as the ‘cradle’ of modern France were the numerous depictions of medieval French writing as bégaiements or balbutiements, oral stammering or stuttering, rather than as the carefully composed written texts they often were.32 Guillaume de Machaut’s poetry is a case in point: well into the twentieth century his work was interpreted in biographical terms as the product of the ‘inept, blundering lover’ persona that he created in the Voir dit.33 Medieval romances were one of the major sources for the perceived nineteenth-century link between women and storytelling. Stories adapted from medieval romance had circulated throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, most often as a way of questioning social practices, and often by or for a female audience. Romance was, as Alicia Montoya has recently shown, critical for the development of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century ‘womanly’ genres such as the fairy tale and opera. In the celebrated seventeenth- and eighteenth-century ‘quarrels’ over the value of literature, medieval romance was thus generally associated with the contested ‘Moderns’ rather than the ‘Ancients’.34 The ‘Moderns’ of the next generation, writers such as Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Charles Nodier, Prosper Mérimée and Sand, sought inspiration in medieval stories, local color, archaic dialogue and in the voices of children and peasants. They saw this as a way of renewing a literature constrained by neoclassical subjects and regulations. Their appeal to popular audiences coincided with a post-Revolutionary concern with nationalism and public literacy, facilitated by the 1833 Loi Guizot establishing primary schools throughout France. This law also encouraged the commercial production and distribution of works for children.35 Romantic-era authors targeted popular audiences and their predilection for written texts featuring dialect (as in François le Champi), folktales and legends, thus affiliating themselves with beloved storytellers, much maligned by a growing cadre of literary critics. In 1833, for example, Désiré Nisard savaged nineteenth-century tales (contes) and romances as ‘littérature facile’, a term much debated in the 1830s because of its application to storytelling, fantasy 31 Antoine de Charbonnières, Éléments de l’histoire de la littérature française, jusqu’au milieu du XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1818), 13. 32 Janine Dakyns notes the prevalence of these terms to refer to medieval literature throughout the century: The Middle Ages in French Literature, 1851–1900 (Oxford, 1973), 99–100. 33 See William Calin, A Poet at the Fountain. Essays on the Narrative Verse of Guillaume de Machaut (Lexington, KY, 1974). This is a very different depiction of Machaut than the medieval reference for the poet on display in Joyce Coleman’s contribution to the present volume. 34 Alicia Montoya, Medievalism Enlightenment from Charles Perrault to Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Cambridge, 2013). 35 Marcoin, Librairie de jeunesse, 122–5.

228 ELIZABETH

EMERY

and women.36 This term was later championed by Alexandre Dumas and Sand, who, by the 1880s, was known as ‘la bonne dame de Nohant’, a kind of Mother Goose figure.37 Tim Farrant has interpreted Nisard’s attack on the conte in terms of nineteenth-century cultural politics: Behind these responses lies a struggle for cultural dominance, expressed by a debate about what authentic expression is: whether it is written or oral, whether it takes the form of conte or novel. By placing the conte outside the generic system, Nisard denies institutional status, but at the same time, if unwittingly, attests to its vivacity, authenticity and vigour.38

Medieval literature suffered a similar fate in the ‘histories of French literature’ compiled at the time. Critics such as Nisard, Ferdinand Brunetière and then Gustave Lanson (all of whom acknowledged a bias toward neo-classical literature, and all of whom occupied influential positions in the French education system) excluded genres associated with oral traditions, thus denying them institutional standing.39 In 1833 Nisard had targeted the nineteenth-century conte as inferior because of its links to storytelling and fantasy. In his 1844 Histoire de la littérature française he dismissed medieval lyric poetry and romance on similar grounds. For Nisard, French literature (texts written with ‘art’ and with a ‘personal’ voice) did not begin until the seventeenth century. He mentions prose chronicles40 and then the Roman de la Rose, which he identifies as the first good work of French verse, having quickly dismissed the earlier troubadours and romance writers 36 ‘Manifeste contre la littérature facile’, a December 1833 article for La Revue de Paris reprinted in Études de critique littéraire (Paris, 1858). Nisard would go on to become a member of the Académie française (1850), Inspecteur général de l’enseignement supérieur (1852), director of the École normale supérieure, secretary of the Conseil de l’instruction publique, and a teacher of French and Latin at the Collège de France. 37 Dumas embraces the writing of ‘easy literature’ in his Mémoires (Paris, 1989), 695. On George Sand as ‘bonne dame de Nohant’, see Michael Garval, ‘A Dream of Stone’: Fame, Vision, and Monumentality in Nineteenth-Century French Literary Culture (Newark, DE, 2004), 132–42. 38 Farrant, ‘Definition, Repression, and the Oral-Literary Interface’, 85. 39 Brunetière came to cultural prominence as editor-in-chief of the Revue des Deux Mondes in 1893, the same year he was elected to the Académie française. He taught French language and literature at the École normale supérieure. Lanson, who was profoundly influenced by Brunetière, became known as the founder of literary history through his blend of literature and sociology. He, too, was an influential figure in the French education system as a professor at the Faculté des Lettres de Paris and director of the École normale supérieure (1919–27). For more about these men and the development of the literary canon at the end of the nineteenth century, see Antoine Compagnon, La Troisième République des lettres (Paris, 1983). 40 He mentions the chronicles of Villehardouin, Joinville and Froissart, summarizes the writings of Christine de Pizan (grudgingly because of her sex), George Chastelain, Olivier de la Marche and Philippe de Commynes, all of them in the context of the Burgundian court.



MEDIEVAL LITERATURE AS STORYTELLING

229

as producing only a ‘sort of’ poetic language, and their imagination as derivative and uninteresting.41 While he includes the sermons of Jean Gerson, Nisard also states unequivocally that everything written between the fall of the Roman Empire and the sixteenth century is stammering (bégayements), embarrassing proof of slow French development. Of particular concern for Nisard is the language of medieval French texts (notably their spelling and syntax), which make it seem as if French intelligence were moving backward. It was only in the sixteenth century, with the systematic use of language recognizable to him, that he feels French literature is worthy of study (even if still marked by ‘naïveté’).42 In constructing what is an essentially arbitrary generic system of his own design, Nisard is careful to define his terms, distinguishing between ‘literary history’ (a history comprising everything ever written in French and concerned with the social content of the texts) and a ‘history of literature’ (a more exclusive aesthetic history that was author-based and concerned with the forms and genres that would influence modern literature).43 Nisard thus popularized a longstanding distinction between all that had ever been written in French (that is, useful for history and anthropology) and what was signed by an author and considered well-written (that is, composed in modern French). In one fell swoop, this distinction permitted Nisard to exclude such popular forms as romance and to dismiss Romantic literature out of hand. The emphasis he placed on individual style and vision, informed by the nineteenth-century cult of the grand écrivain,44 further marginalized the often anonymous or collectively authored works of the Middle Ages (and of the Bibliothèque bleue series). The struggle for ‘cultural dominance’, as Farrant puts it, would resolve, toward the end of the century, in a marked preference for ‘la littérature difficile’, carefully crafted poetry and prose written for literate adults by single authors.45 Nisard’s criteria for what should be included in a history of French literature would be adopted and refined throughout the century by other classicists, such as Brunetière, who similarly dismissed medieval texts as childish babbling because of their fantastical subject matter and lack of attention to style:

Désiré Nisard, Histoire de la littérature française, 3 vols (Paris, 1954), I: 104, 110. Nisard, Histoire, 2, 5, 8. 43 Nisard, Histoire, 2–4. 44 See Compagnon, La Troisième République des lettres, 95–102. 45 A commercially driven ‘children’s literature’ inspired by oral storytelling would develop mid-century, thus dividing what was once known as ‘literature’ into a superior category of ‘adult literature’ and an inferior category (‘facile’) of ‘children’s literature’, which carried such a bias (as did writing popular stage treatments) that Jules Verne’s editor warned him of the difficulties he would face if he sought election to the Académie française. Letter 184 (27 November 1873), in Correspondance inédite de Jules Verne et de Pierre-Jules Hetzel (1863–1886), I, ed. Olivier Dumas, Piero Gondolo della Riva and Voker Dehs (Geneva, 1999). 41 42

230 ELIZABETH

EMERY

Toutes les qualités qui sont celles de l’enfance, [la littérature du Moyen-âge] les a eues; et, pour cette raison, nous pouvons encore aujourd’hui nous complaire à y rafraîchir comme on ferait à une source plus pure, nos imaginations échauffées. Mais des qualités de l’enfance elle est passée tout aussitôt aux infirmités de la décrépitude, et rien ou presque rien n’a rempli l’entre-deux.46

Brunetière may have praised medieval literature’s ability to stimulate the imagination, but this could not make up for its ‘infirmities’. Of particular note was its lack of specific authorial style. Not only did he find medieval texts childlike in their plot-heavy and codified content, but he lamented their authors’ inability to impose a unique style or vision: Etant uniforme, [la littérature médiévale] est de plus impersonnelle. Entendez par là qu’en aucun temps l’écrivain n’a moins mis de sa personne dans son œuvre. À cet égard, presque toutes nos Chansons pourraient être du même poète, et tous nos Fabliaux du même conteur […] Tous les hommes pour lui se ressemblent, un peu comme à nos yeux tous les nègres ou tous les Chinois […] leur littérature est donc très générale, dépourvue de signification individuelle comme de signification locale, et c’est ce que l’on veut dire quand en note le caractère d’impersonnalité.47

Brunetière’s juxtaposition of medieval literature and colonial subjects in this passage is telling. Like so many of the French colonists of his day, he admits that he is unable to tell one African or Chinese person from another. Similarly he is unable to tell one medieval author from another. He imposes his own standards on the works he reads, judging them infantile, impersonal and homogeneous without examining them closely (of all extant medieval texts he focuses only on chansons and fabliaux). Because these works do not meet his preconceived standards of excellence (written classical and neo-classical literature), he dismisses them as infantile, much as his contemporaries saw African stories as childish.48 Brunetière’s bias is not surprising given his clear preference for classical literature, but what is surprising is the extent to which his praise and condemnation of medieval literature – in terms of its imaginative content and allegedly inadequate style – were, as we will see, echoed by some of the nineteenth century’s greatest medievalists. Gaston Paris, who made his career as a specialist in medieval literature (and who attributed his love of it to the stories he heard as a child), eagerly defended

Ferdinand Brunetière, Manuel de l’histoire de la littérature française (Paris, 1898), 36. Brunetière, Manuel de l’histoire de la littérature française, 8–9. 48 Ruth Finnegan has noted this longstanding colonial bias toward oral poetry, which perfectly reflects what we have said about medieval literature in the French context: ‘For a long time oral poetry was considered inferior, partly because of the Western emphasis on writing, partly through the various stereotypes that linked orality with “primitive” stages of development or, alternatively, glamorized it by romantic associations with nature or the “folk”’; Oral Poetry (Cambridge, 1977), 120. 46 47



MEDIEVAL LITERATURE AS STORYTELLING

231

its subject matter as crucial for understanding ‘national genius’, but he damned its style with faint praise.49 Ostensibly celebrating a volume that finally gives medieval literature its deserved place (Louis Petit de Julleville’s 1896 Histoire de la langue et de la littérature française, des origines à 1900), the rhetorical strategy Paris adopts to challenge contemporary critics (such as Nisard and Brunetière) is to agree with them about medieval literature’s ‘impersonality’ and lack of style. Adopting the vocabulary of those who judge literary works by their written composition, their ‘literary language’ as George Sand’s narrator put it, Paris places emphasis on the texts’ content, agreeing that medieval writers fail as artists because they are, at heart, storytellers enslaved to their childlike material (‘esclaves de la “matière”’): Ils voient bien et savent dire avec netteté ce qu’ils ont vu; leur parole les amuse et nous amuse avec eux. Beaucoup d’entre eux sont d’aimables causeurs, un peu babillards, qui se laissent d’autant plus volontiers aller à leur verbe qu’ils voient que leurs auditeurs y prennent plaisir; d’autres sont d’excellents raisonneurs, qui cherchent sérieusement à convaincre ou à intéresser leur public, et qui y réussissent par la simplicité et la précision de leur exposition…50

Paris, perhaps without even realizing it, reinforces the stereotype of medieval French writing as ‘facile’ by attributing its alleged stylistic and compositional shortcomings to the practices associated with storytelling. As Sand’s narrator pointed out, ‘civilized’ Parisians, who expect ‘literary language’, cannot appreciate the vibrant, energetic and entertaining ‘primitive’ techniques of peasant or colonial storytellers. The same could be said about Parisians’ appreciation of medieval literature. It can be praised or vilified for its content and praised for its vitality (as Sand’s narrator did in evoking the superiority of the peasant storyteller’s expression, energy and logic, and as Paris does in the citation above), but its form will always be inferior. As a result of this bias, Paris does not advocate for medieval literature as such; rather, he rationalizes its inclusion in anthologies for historical and patriotic reasons. He shifts emphasis from style to content by focusing on the epic, which allows him to praise medieval people’s courage in using the French language under trying circumstances. In the last pages of his introduction to Petit de Julleville’s Histoire de la langue et de la littérature française, Paris presents these brave medieval people as the defenders of the French language, a clever strategy during a period of marked nation-building.51 This rhetorical See, for example, his preface to Poèmes et légendes du Moyen Âge (Paris, 1900). ‘Préface’, in Louis Petit de Julleville, Histoire de la langue et de la littérature française, des origines à 1900 (Paris, 1876), I: a-v, q and s. 51 For more on the links between the popularity of the Middle Ages and nation-building at the end of the nineteenth century in France, see Christian Amalvi, De l’art et de la manière d’accommoder les héros de l’histoire de France: essais de mythologie nationale (Paris, 1988), and Elizabeth Emery and Laura Morowitz, Consuming the Past: The Medieval Revival in Fin-de-siècle France (Aldershot, 2003). 49 50

232 ELIZABETH

EMERY

move allowed a Third Republic establishment obsessed with form and uneasy about calling medieval texts ‘literature’ to excuse stylistic shortcomings in the name of patriotism. (Lanson insists that if someone could just make medieval texts’ spelling and grammar conform to modern French, the best medieval texts might meet ‘commonly accepted’ criteria for literature.)52 One could include medieval literature in books for students on the grounds that it was important for understanding the patriotic or creative ‘French spirit’ inherent in texts such as La Chanson de Roland or Tristan et Iseut. The inclusion of these ‘childish’ medieval texts became even easier to rationalize as concepts of genealogy and evolution gained popularity in post-Revolutionary France, thus formalizing the characterization of the Middle Ages and its texts as the ‘cradle’ of a modern French civilization based less on the king than the people.53 Accordingly, Gustave Lanson’s Histoire de la littérature française (1894), which would set the canon of French literature into the twentieth century and beyond, portrayed French writing as an anthropological process from which the ‘simple’ or ‘primitive’ interests of medieval ancestors (stories about heroism, love and the supernatural), expressed in the childlike written French of the tenth through twelfth centuries, evolved into the serious, well-structured and stylistically superior compositions of the nineteenth century.54 Lanson borrows heavily from evolutionary models: tenth-century poetry is an ‘embryo’, twelfth-century poetry is a stammering child and seventeenth-century poetry is the perfected expression of a mature adult. Though he specifically acknowledges the value of medieval literature and announces that he is dedicating much more space to it than had any previous literary critic,55 his choice of adjectives – ‘humble’, ‘naive’, ‘simple’ – and his depiction of medieval audiences as unintelligent, illiterate consumers of stories smudged the literary veneer he outwardly sought to apply: ‘Ces bonnes gens, vrais enfants, qui ne savaient rien et ne pensaient guère, n’aimaient rien tant que de se faire conter des histoires.’56 Such associations persist today through the influence of texts such as Benjamin’s ‘The Storyteller’ in which the ‘simplicity’ or ‘naive’ thinking embedded in orally transmitted stories is juxtaposed to the complexity and intellectual sophistication of written texts.57 ‘Orality is displaced, as if excluded from writing,’ writes Michel de Certeau. ‘It is isolated, lost, and found again in a “voice”

Gustave Lanson, Histoire illustrée de la littérature française (Paris, 1923), xii. Lionel Gossman has shown that eighteenth-century scholars’ identification of the Middle Ages as ‘primitive’ was crucial for such a secular construction of French history: Medievalism and the Ideologies of the Enlightenment (Baltimore, MD, 1968), 334–46. 54 The tenth-century Vie de Saint Alexis is even more than childlike; it is described as an ‘embryo’. Lanson, Histoire illustrée de la littérature française, 4. 55 Lanson, Histoire illustrée de la littérature française, xi. 56 Lanson, Histoire illustrée de la littérature française, 46. 57 Benjamin, ‘The Storyteller’, 363–3, 365, 370, 373–4. This is the foundational belief of the 1960s ‘literacy hypothesis’ put forward by thinkers such as Jack Goody, Ian Watt, Eric Havelock and Marshall McLuhan. 52 53



MEDIEVAL LITERATURE AS STORYTELLING

233

which is that of nature, of the woman, of childhood, of the people.’58 Such practices explain why the grandmother in La Recherche offered François le Champi to Marcel – it was not just an interesting story but a monument to the French people, a Gothic dovecote preserving the soothing ‘coos’ of the babbling historical language emanating from it. In the 1880s and 1890s medieval texts were given an increasingly large place in the secondary school and university curriculum because of new interest in exploring national origins. Instead of choosing selected authors and works as was done for other time periods, the national curriculum committee commissioned a Chrestomathie du moyen âge, an anthology that would provide students with a ‘concrete and lively’ sense of early French language.59 In the last decades of the nineteenth century, when French leadership conspired to place greater emphasis on children, childbirth and education,60 the debate had definitively shifted from aesthetics to historical value, with the patriotic and pedagogical imperatives of Third Republic France valorizing the social function of women, peasants, children and storytelling. The ‘childishness’ of medieval texts was celebrated to demonstrate the progress made by French literature over the ages. Today’s editors of literary anthologies continue to emphasize the content of medieval texts (stories of knights and dragons) and to infantilize them as the first babblings of the French language (the content of such anthologies has barely changed since Lanson’s 1894 Histoire de la littérature française).61 There is still a tendency to describe medieval literature written in old or Middle French as ‘foreign’ and ‘exotic’ and to translate it into modern French and package it in heavily illustrated editions (modern Bibliothèque bleue) that proliferate for consumption by children.62 Indeed, in France, stories from romance and epic are introduced largely in elementary school, and specifically through visual media (like Marcel’s magic Michel de Certeau, The Writing of History, trans. Tom Conley (New York, 1988), 183. Gaston Paris and Ernest Langlois. ‘Avertissement’ to the Chrestomathie du Moyen-Age: extraits publiés avec des traductions, des notes, une introduction grammaticale et des notices littéraires, 6th edn (Paris, 1908), v. 60 See, for example, Sylvia Schafer, Children in Moral Danger and the Problem of Government in Third Republic France (Princeton, NJ, 1997) and Guiney, Teaching the Cult of Literature. 61 Antoine Compagnon, ‘La «Recherche du temps perdu» de Marcel Proust’, in Les Lieux de mémoire, ed. Pierre Nora, 3 vols (Paris, 1997), III: 3835–69, 3840. 62 See, for example, Marie-Thérèse Chemla’s interesting study of the many forms medieval books for children take today – far surpassing medieval editions for adults. ‘Littérature du Moyen Age et imaginaire médiéval dans l’édition pour la jeunesse’, Le Français dans tous ses états 36 (Le Moyen Age), http://www.crdp-montpellier.fr/ressources/frdtse/frdtse36j.html (accessed September 2013). On the rich linguistic heritage of medieval France, see Roger Wright, ed., Latin and the Romance Languages in the Middle Ages (University Park, PA, 2010), in which a number of essays critique received ideas about the evolution of the French language. For the presentation of these texts, see Elizabeth Emery, ‘Medievalism in the Margins: Paratexts and the Packaging of Medieval French Literature’, Studies in Medievalism 24 (2015): 1–9. 58 59

234 ELIZABETH

EMERY

lantern) – illustrations, films or websites – or accompanied by trips to castles or medieval fairs. Such practices privilege content over style and contribute to the widespread popularity of epic and romance, so conducive to secular storytelling. Anthologies continue to echo the nineteenth-century nationalistic vision of a literary evolution that begins in the ‘cradle’ of the French Middle Ages and to propose ‘primitive’ medieval literature as particularly suitable for children. In the public imaginary, then, these genres flourish, while others, such as sermons, morality plays and chronicles – which introduce issues of linguistic, cultural or religious alterity – have fallen to the wayside; as in the nineteenth century, they languish outside the generic system established by Nisard and his successors. They are pushed even further back (as less approachable) because of a widespread popular belief that medieval literature is synonymous with ‘children’s literature’. Such examples reveal just how much popular prejudice against medieval literature persists as a result of the hierarchical links drawn at the end of the nineteenth century. In 1936 Walter Benjamin predicted the imminent death of the storyteller, a victim of the rise of the novel and the individuality it bred.63 Like Sand and Proust, he idealized the storyteller as a vessel that had preserved the orally recounted experiences of agrarian peoples until they could be put into words, and characterized the ‘first true storyteller’ as a teacher of children.64 Benjamin, writing after the shattering experiences of the First World War, was understandably pessimistic in associating private reading with social alienation, but in predicting the storyteller’s death he did not foresee the technological revolution of the twenty-first century, whose abundance of collaborative non-written modes of storytelling (television, movies, video games, songwriting) is now seen as a threat to literacy itself. The stories preserved in medieval epic and romance – and especially the lessons they teach audiences about ‘meet[ing] the forces of the mythical world with cunning and with high spirits’, as Benjamin put it – have ensured their continued relevance in a world no longer dominated by a literary aesthetic.65 Today, it seems archaic to speak of the death of the storyteller when French stories, like those from Africa, the Americas, or Polynesia, inspire rich and covalent international performances that are recorded and shared around the world. Medieval texts may still be marginalized by literary anthologies, but other media, particularly those involving performance,66 have

Benjamin, ‘The Storyteller’, 364. Benjamin, ‘The Storyteller’, 362–3, 367, 373, 374. 65 Benjamin, ‘The Storyteller’, 374. 66 Performing Medieval Narrative Today: A Video Showcase, dir. Evelyn Birge Vitz and Marilyn Lawrence, New York University: http://www.nyu.edu/pmnt. It was a pleasure to work with the inspirational Timmie Vitz in the NYU Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program and to participate in some of the very first performances now archived in this remarkable database. Her legacy continues in the works of former students such as Simonetta Cochis, whose contribution to this volume shows just how much storytelling performance can enrich our understanding of otherwise silently read texts. 63 64



MEDIEVAL LITERATURE AS STORYTELLING

235

replaced a single-minded equation between oral traditions, childhood and the Middle Ages with a more nuanced appreciation of their sophistication. Telling stories – in the Middle Ages or today, in France or elsewhere – has always involved complex negotiations among author, performer and public.

Storytelling Tribute An Ode to Friendship

Retelling the Old Story Samuel N. Rosenberg A good story is hard to forget. It doesn’t let you tell it only once and then shelve it forever. Nor does it suffer immutability. It wants to be told repeatedly, and each new telling is somehow, deliberately or not, different from those that have gone before. A good story evolves over time, changing language and medium, shifting audience, altering focus, recasting its purpose and motivation. Surely, no tale in Western literature has undergone so many tellings, retellings, adaptations, reshapings, revisions and translations as the many-faceted tale of King Arthur and his knights. This creative and recreative work began in the High Middle Ages and has never stopped, so alluring is the myth of that incandescent court. Whatever its origin, the Arthurian matter came to full bloom in thirteenth-­ century France. Across the Channel in what, after all, was its legendary homeland, it eventually underwent what is arguably its most memorable transmutation at the hands of the fifteenth-century English writer Sir Thomas Malory. To the hundreds of Arthurian titles already published – in tongues as varied as Dutch and Russian, Italian and Yiddish, Catalan and German, and Hebrew, Welsh and Armenian – the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have added countless more, spurred on by one another but in part, too, by the remarkable success of Joseph Bédier’s recreation of the story of Tristan and Iseut (1900).1 Such proliferation has included a more extensive set of genres than ever before: not only novels, poems and operas, but films and games, plays and musical shows… To take only prose retellings in French, a choice further narrowed to the story of Sir Lancelot alone, at least three narratives appeared in the last two decades of the twentieth century: Florence Trystram’s Lancelot in 1987 and, in 1993, both Jean Markale’s Lancelot du Lac and Jacques Boulenger’s Les Amours de Lancelot.2 Still, that was hardly the final word on even so limited an Arthurian subject, and a significant Old French source made it clear that there was room for further reworking of the Lancelot story. Why, indeed, would a contemporary writer wish to recount such a tale, were there not something new to say, some new facet to explore? Trystram offers no explanation for her effort, letting her prose provide its own raison d’être. Boulenger proceeds similarly, taking Joseph Bédier, Le Roman de Tristan et Iseut (Paris, 1900). Jean Markale, Lancelot du Lac, Le Cycle du Graal, III (Paris, 1993); Florence Trystram, Lancelot (Paris, 1987); Jacques Boulenger, Les Amours de Lancelot; Le Roman de Galehaut, La Légende du roi Artur, II (Rennes, 1993). 1 2

240

SAMUEL N. ROSENBERG

for granted that the story is too compelling not to warrant transmission to a new readership. Jean Markale, on the other hand, publishes an ‘avertissement’ that alludes to multiple, varied medieval writings from which he has drawn a linear presentation of single episodes set within the larger context of the whole Arthurian legend. None of the three writers, whatever the motivation of their undertakings, whatever the value of their published results, grapples with the one part of the Lancelot story that most clearly calls for a second look and that would make a contemporary retelling more than an exercise in adaptive translation and would ground the effort in a program of restoration. This would be retelling with a focus, a distinct purpose. The dark corner of the Lancelot tale, as related in the magisterial thirteenthcentury Arthurian Vulgate,3 is the intense friendship of the eponymous hero and his fellow-knight Galehaut, Lord of the Distant Isles. Although a major actor in that primary source, Galehaut received underplayed recognition from medieval adapters and rewriters just as he does from their modern counterparts. His significance in the life of Lancelot is obscured as the stage is cleared for Queen Guenevere and her oft-recounted liaison with Lancelot. This is true of the various later-medieval French rewritings of the Vulgate from the Roman du Graal forward, but perhaps most tellingly in the case of Michel Gonnot’s fifteenth-century Arthuriad, where the bond that ties Galehaut to Lancelot is loosened to accommodate a reportedly deep love for the previously incidental Dame de Malehaut.4 The balance expressed in the thirteenth-century source material is upset. In Malory, across the Channel, the obscuration of the character is notorious, as it is again in Peter Ackroyd’s recent retelling of Le Morte, where Galehaut is no more than mentioned in passing, effectively erased from the story.5 This is not out of keeping with the role of mere go-between to which Dante reduced him in Canto V of the Inferno.6 But who is the Vulgate’s Galehaut that more should be made of him? He is a proud and noble warrior, successful in battle and now, still young, ambitious to subjugate King Arthur and rule in his place. In combat one day, he is so stunned by the valor of Arthur’s chief defender, Lancelot, that, to win the companionship of the brilliant young fighter, he cedes his certain victory, humbling himself before Arthur and even petitioning to join the Round Table. He and Lancelot become fast friends. He speaks of love for Lancelot. His unalterable devotion is sorely tested when he becomes aware of the young man’s desire for Arthur’s wife, Queen Guenevere. Galehaut responds to this unwelcome challenge with 3 Norris J. Lacy, general ed., et al., Lancelot-Grail: The Old French Arthurian Vulgate and Post-Vulgate in English Translation, 5 vols (New York and London, 1993–96). 4 For Gonnot, see chap. IX, The Arthur of the French, ed. Glyn S. Burgess and Karen Pratt (Cardiff, 2006), 370–82. 5 Peter Ackroyd, The Death of King Arthur, Thomas Malory’s ‘Le Morte d’Arthur’, A Retelling (New York, 2011). 6 See Samuel N. Rosenberg, ‘Galeotto Before the Fall’, in ‘Accessus ad Auctores’: Studies in Honor of Christopher Kleinhenz, ed. Fabian Alfie and Andrea Dini (Tempe, AZ, 2011), 51–9.



RETELLING THE OLD STORY

241

magnanimity, effecting a clandestine encounter of the would-be adulterers despite his premonition that their union will ultimately lead to his own undoing. Indeed, he will, still youthful, die broken-hearted. Ever faithful to Lancelot, as Lancelot, in his own way, is to him, he will be buried in the same tomb that will eventually receive his companion. Narrated in detail in the Arthurian Vulgate as well as a few other French sources of the same period, the story makes clear that the well-known love triangle of Lancelot, Guenevere and Arthur should more properly be viewed as two triangles with the same hypotenuse. This is the great story – the self-sacrificing, consequence-burdened love of Galehaut – that in the years following the thirteenth century came to be pushed to the margins of the Lancelot legend or simply eradicated from its numerous retellings. Boulenger, to take the foremost modern French example, offers a portrayal of Galehaut stripped of any suggestion of a more than brotherly concern for Lancelot. He gives more attention than warranted to the Vulgate’s stand-in for a female love-interest, the Dame de Malehaut.7 When Galehaut consults a seer in an anguished effort to understand his troubling dreams, the seer’s diagnosis of love-sickness in the heart, laid out clearly in the source, is barely hinted at in Boulenger.8 Nor does the modern author look ahead to report that one day the same tomb will enclose the bodies of both Galehaut and Lancelot.9 Those were the thoughts that led me, in collaboration with the late Patricia Terry, to retell the story of Lancelot and Galehaut as originally narrated in the section of the Arthurian Vulgate often called the ‘Book of Galehaut’.10 The tale of their comradeship – one man tightly bound to the other, and one sacrificing life itself for love of the other – provided too moving a glimpse of chivalric experience to be allowed to slip into permanent oblivion. We took up the task of restoring an exceptionally meaningful work of imaginary history. From the start, our intention was, in recounting the career of Lancelot, to highlight the impact of Galehaut – indeed, to trace the course of Galehaut’s brief life as a demonstration of his utter devotion to Lancelot. We were not simply retelling a good story, but retouching it with a modern reader in mind, with a purposive voice that would have resonance for our contemporaries. We wanted to explore the terrain of chivalric bonds, the meaning of an emotion called, between knights, by the same name used to denote the equivalent intensity of sentiment between a knight and his lady. We wanted to catch the interplay, subtle or not, between the love of a knight deeply committed to his comrade in arms, but also yearning for the embrace of his mistress, and that of a knight whose love knows no 7 Compare the opening of chap. XXII of Boulenger’s Les Amours de Lancelot, 120, with the equivalent in the source (translated into English), Lacy et al., Lancelot-Grail, II: 241. 8 Compare Boulenger, Les Amours de Lancelot, 131, with Lacy et al., Lancelot-Grail, II: 250. 9 Lacy et al., Lancelot-Grail, II: 310. 10 Patricia Terry and Samuel N. Rosenberg, Lancelot and the Lord of the Distant Isles, or ‘The Book of Galehaut’ Retold (Boston, 2006). The ‘Book’ in question is the same as Lacy et al., Lancelot-Grail, II.

242

SAMUEL N. ROSENBERG

doubling, no alternative, no limit. We wanted, not to recast the source narrative, since it differed in no essential way from our program, but only to show how this medieval tale could still move a reader today through a confluence of feelings tending to erode – though never erase – historical differences. It was clear that we had no warrant to present the bond between Lancelot and Galehaut as homosexual, however much we were struck by the suggestiveness of lexical choices and even physical proximity. Even to speak more vaguely of homoeroticism seemed too far a step for a bygone society that, whatever the reality of its intimacies, had no lexical recognition of a distinct category of affective experience. Love was the word in our source, and it was ours. It is easy to imagine such a retelling as an opportunity to alter the structure of the original or to translate third-person narrative into first-person or to recast dialogue as reported speech or do the opposite. We took a cautious approach to all such possibilities of stylistic remodeling and in some respects adopted procedures characteristic of the source. Most notably perhaps, we made occasional use of original speech (in translation, of course) and several times employed the Vulgate’s device of emergent discourse, in which speech simply rises out of the third-person narrative with no mark of the shift. Rewriting a story is an often irresistible temptation, especially when the tale implies a message that has contemporary relevance. It may be instructive about the past or useful in the present; it may offer comfort or reassurance; it may serve to broaden the faculties of creative imagination. The restoration of the ‘Book of Galehaut’ was meant as a tribute to a nameless man whose writerly skill and depth of feeling allowed him to compose one of the great love stories of the Middle Ages.

Addendum Retelling a prose narrative may be achieved in countless differing ways. What follows, in verse, is a summary adaptation of the ‘Book of Galehaut’ that I composed, derived from a passage in Lancelot and the Lord of the Distant Isles. Galehaut speaks to Lancelot Returning home to Sorelois, accompanied by Lancelot, Galehaut finds his lands devastated and his main castle in ruins. Lancelot attempts to comfort him. Then, Galehaut smiled ruefully. ‘Do you think it’s for my castles that I grieve? For land or wealth I may have lost? The proud designs of conquest I’d conceived before I saw what love that goal would cost? No, my friend, possession was never what I sought; nor did power, nor did lordship guide my heart.



RETELLING THE OLD STORY

Glory it was, renown, for which I fought. Each victory was just another start in one long drive to test myself and move beyond what I had done, to see what else, what further might there was that I could prove. Triumphs left me needing to surpass myself, and even the defeat that once had seemed the very summit of my youth’s ambition would soon have given way to further dreams, defeating Arthur but a momentary mission. But then, my friend, I saw you on the field, and everything was changed. What happened then and matters still I barely need reveal. I stood in awe, stock still before my men, and knew that day no kingdom in the world could claim my interest anymore. No foe could make me want to hurl my spear or slash with steel and sword through his defenders’ mail. No, that day you won my trust and my devotion, and if it meant that Arthur stood to gain unchallenged ’mid the clashes and commotion, what matter? I knew thenceforth my heart was fixed elsewhere. Still, this ruin that we see confirms a real foreboding: it is the start, the very sign, of fate’s inconstancy. Two men alone have ever brought me fear: myself for one; the other, my friend, is you. Whether this month, tomorrow, next year, if either met misfortune, there’d be one truth, a calm, unhesitating consequence. The result for me would be the same. I’d pray and beg the Lord’s benevolence to let me stay alive no single day beyond the doleful hour of your death. Love, I fear no pain except your loss! But any parting would leave me too bereft. Dare I evoke the Queen and say what cross she’s given me to bear? Were she alive to generosity, as I have been, she would remember me and recognize how I contrived to satisfy her sin. But it was for you, of course, your joy no less than hers – which made it mine as well. Above all, though, it was a gift unspoiled by second thoughts, ungrudging, uncompelled.

243

244

SAMUEL N. ROSENBERG

The Queen herself once said it’s not a gift unless you feel prepared to give it up. I’ve learned, heartsick, how true that is. But in the end, my friend, there’s only this: If ever I should lose your trust, your company, your life, the world, my friend, will soon lose mine.’

Index

Ackroyd, Peter  240 Acta Sanctorum 224 Alexander the Great  8, 108, 209–10, 218 Alexander, Jonathan  4 allegory  65, 159, 165, 167, 169 ‘Als I Lay on Yoolis night’  27 alterity  9, 125–39, 205–18, 229–30, 233, 234, see also colonialism, idol, Jews, muslims, pagan, Saracen ambassadors  104, 205–18 Ami et Amile 185 Amoryus and Cleopes 23 ‘amphibian’ texts  2, 100, 109 amplificatio  158, 159 An Ethiopian Story  166, 167 Andreas Capellanus De amore 179 Anglo-Norman  34, 178 clerks 100 language  123, 124, 125 poetry  7, 8, 125, 126, 135, 137, 139, 187 animals  1, 33, 34, 36, 132, 137–9, 182, 222 birds  148, 151 dogs  38, 69 dragons  14, 137–8, 182, 233 foxes  6, 9, 31–46 lions  32–3, 46, 137–8 lynxes  176, 182 wolves  33–9, 137, 184 annominatio  85, 91, 168–9 anonymous author as woman  179 antiquity  2, 167, 209 biblical  65, 209 late  8, 157, 159, 170 Anulo suo 89

Apocalypse (French prose)  127 apocryphal gospels  124 Apollonius of Tyre  8, 17, 172, 174 Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton 81 Aristotle  6, 50, 108 Arnold of Lübeck  185 Arthur, King  142, 183–4, 239, 240–1 Arthurian Vulgate 240–2 Aucassin et Nicolette 42 auctoritas  141, 150, 154, 187–8, 191, 202, 203 auctoritates  97, 108 audience  2–9, 24, 29, 51, 77, 93, 95, 96–9, 101–2, 104–5, 113, 114, 121, 123–4, 128–34, 139, 140–1, 144, 146, 153–4, 172–3, 180, 182, 184, 188, 189, 190, 195, 200–3, 218, 234, 239 children  2, 9, 22, 24, 27, 29, 126, 128, 133, 219–34 Christian  77–92, 123–140, 157–70, 171–86, 187–203 clerical and monastic  1, 77–92, 157–70, 171–86, 187–203 clerks  61–76, 93–110 as community  5, 48, 77–92, 93–110, 111–22, 132, 161, 187–203, 219–35 courtly  1, 57–60, 96, 102, 141–56, 172–3, 180, 239–44 friends and family as  14, 23, 24, 77, 102, 132, 221 lay  7, 77, 141, 144, 145, 172, 174, 180, 189, 190, 219–35 modern  227 13–30, 47–60, 61–76, 111–22, 219–35, 239–44 participation  17, 48, 49–60, 67,

246 INDEX 115, 124, 222, 224–5, 229–30, 242 representation of  1, 43–4, 130, 136, 142–7, 152–4, 193, 194 n. 15, 198, 215, 231–2 response  78, 188, 190 women  77–92, 177–9 see also gender dynamics, performance, reading Augustine 164 Confessions 192–3 author, death of  3 authority  7, 8, 93–6, 99, 100, 105, 109–10, 131, 185, 203, 208–11, 215, 131 biblical 126 eyewitness  97, 99, 103 Latin 185 narrative  52, 55 textual 202 verbal  33, 39–40, 46 see also auctoritas and auctoritatis Avis du conseil du roi sur la route que Philippe VI devra suivre 208–9, 211, see also Directorium ad faciendum passagium transmarinum Avril, François  143 Bakhtin, Mikhail  115 baptism  163, 195 Barthes, Roland  95, 96 Bartholomaeus Anglicus De proprietatibus rerum 151–3 Basilla 160 Bédier, Joseph  239 Beer, Jeanette  103 The Beloved Rogue 73 Benjamin, Walter  232, 234–5 Benoît de Sainte-Maure  96, 100, 101, 102, 144, 153 Roman de Troie  102, 146 Bernard Gui  109 Béroalde de Verville, Le Moyen de parvenir 112 Berschin, Walter  170 Bevis of Hampton 23 Bible historiale  209 Bibliothèque bleue  219, 224–5, 229, 233

Bichopusdun, Johanna de (wife of Thomas de Bishopsdon)  132 Bildungsroman 183 Blanche de Castille  216 blessing 129 Bloch, Howard  3 Boccaccio, Decameron  1, 21, 24, 112 Bollandists 158 Boniface of Montferrat  104 Book of Wisdom  162, 164, 165 books  2, 20, 30, 92, 95, 98, 99, 100, 101, 103–10, 116, 120, 132–3, 139, 140, 179, 183, 211, 215, 220, 222–5, 232 circulation 219–35 production 227 see also manuscript books, reading ‘Book of Galehaut’  241–2 Bouchet, Guillaume Serées 112 Boulenger, Jacques Les Amours de Lancelot  239–40, 241 Bouvines, Battle of  82 Brown, Cynthia  74 Brown, Elizabeth A. R.  5 Brownlee, Kevin  108 Bruckner, Matilda  50–1 Brunetière, Ferdinand  228–31 Burrows, Daron  190 Byzantium 213 Camille, Michael  4 Caquets de l’Accouchée  111, 112 Cartlidge, Neil  182 Cent nouvelles nouvelles  111, 112, 113, 114 Cerquiglini-Toulet, Jacqueline  105 Certeau, Michel de  232–3 Chaereas and Callirhoe 166 Champion, Pierre  74 Chanson de Roland  34, 232 Chaplin, Charlie  66 Charbonnières, Antoine Éléments de l’histoire de la littérature française, jusqu’au milieu du XVIIe siècle  226–7 Charles V, King of France  97, 107, 108, 151, 152, 227

INDEX 247

Charles d’Anjou, King of France  216 Charles de Valois, Count  207, 212 Chartier, Alain  74 chastity  77, 82, 84, 92, see also Gautier de Coinci, virginity Chateaubriand, Francois-René de Essai sur la littérature anglaise 226 Chaucer, Geoffrey Canterbury Tales  175, 184 children  1, 2, 9, 20, 27, 28, 29, 72, 123–40, 183, 218–34, see also infancy narratives, Jesus Christ, massacre of the innocents China 208–9 Chivalry see knights Chrétien de Troyes  99 n.23, 172–4, 185–6 Philomena  174 Christ child  7, 123–40 Christine de Pizan  74, 94, 97, 99, 107–9 Livre des fais et bonnes moeurs du sage roy Charles V  97, 107–9 chroniclers  80, 214, see also genre Cinderella  29 Cioffi, Robert  166 Circe 168–9 Claudia, mother of St Eugenia  161 Clement I  8, 187–203 Clovis, King of France  108 collaboration  5, 13, 16, 18, 23, 25–6, 78, 101, 234, 241 colonialism  219, 230–1, see also alterity Commodus, emperor  159 communities, religious see textual communities Consecration of virgins, liturgy of  89, 90 Constantinople  97–104, 213 conversion  8, 161, 163, 165, 187–203 Corbechon, Jean  151 courtly love  57, 60, 146, 149 crease phenomena  126–7, 129, 133, 139 crusaders  104, 207, 217–18 crusades  7, 8, 205–18 First 209

Fourth  103, 104 Hospitalers 216 cultural studies  5 Culwch  184 Dante Alghieri Inferno  240 Vita Nuova  62 Darnton, Robert  5 De ortu Waluuanii nepotis Arturi (The Rise of Gawain Nephew of Arthur) 182–3 Deschamps, Eustache  73, 87, 153 devils and demons  80, 84–5, 90, 128, 159, 163 dialogic  7, 113–5, 162 Diana, goddess  160, 165, 168, 169, 174 digital era, influence of   1–2, 6 discourse see narratology Dionysius 166 Directorium ad faciendum passagium transmarinum  106, 209–16, see also Avis du conseil du roi disguise  19, 31, 32–6, 41, 43–6, 159, see also performance, storytellers Dixon, Michael  48 dream(s)  27, 147, 150, 159–70, 176, 241, 243 about women  162, 165, 166 dream theory  147 Drobinsky, Julia  143, 148, 150–1 Dronke, Peter  180–1 Dufournet, Jean  74 Dumas, Alexandre  227–8 The Earl of Toulous  19 Earp, Lawrence  150 Echard, Siân  172, 184–5 Eckelied  181 education  130–1, 147, 227–8 bourgeois 97 clerkly  96, 97, 171–86 didacticism  141, 150 France, nineteenth-century  228–33 Loi Guizot  227 magister, representation of  100 n.25, 143–5, 147, 150, 153 noble 24–6

248 INDEX through storytelling  1, 9, 96, 141, 220 see also effet d’écrit, literacy, women Edward II, King of England  207 Edward IV, King of England  21 effet d’écrit  7, 94, 95, 98–103, 104, 106–9, see also literacy, education effet de parlé  7, 94, 95, 98–102, 104, 107–9, see also orality, voice effet de présence  7, 96, 99 effet de réel  95, 112, 114, 116, 117 Egypt  126, 128, 135, 137, 139, 157, 218 El-Ajroud, Khedija  113 Empress of Rome  78, 82, 83, see also Gautier de Coinci Encolpius 168–9 Enfaunces Jesu Crist  7, 124–34, 139–40 England  13–4, 21, 22, 26, 27, 29, 82, 125, 127, 130, 182, 183, 208 entertainment see performance Espec, Walter  101 Estampes  81, 83 Euhemerus of Messene  164 excommunication  80, 85, 88, 90, 92 exemplum(a)  9, 64–6, 174, 181, 185 Évangile de l’Enfance  125, 128 Évangiles des quenouilles  111, 112, 116 family  36, 37, 39, 132, 181, 193, 207, 224 and conversion  160, 189, 191, 198, 201–3 holy  128, 137, 141 noble  181, 213 royal  207, 214, 216, 217 separation and reuniting of  8, 174, 190–1, 193, 197–203 and storytelling  14, 23, 141 Faltonia Betitia Proba  170 Faral, Edmond  103 Farrant, Tim  228–9 Favier, Jean  74 feasts, medieval  1, 17–18, 102, 141, 175 Feld, Steven  5

Field, P. J. C.  184 Field, Rosalind  171, 173, 186 Finnegan, Ruth  2 FitzGilbert, Constance and Ralph 101–2 Fleischmann, Suzanne  4 Frame, Donald  72 France  79, 80, 82, 85, 90, 102, 114, 120, 121, 127, 130, 134, 144, 173, 182, 207, 213, 215, 218, 219–21, 227, 232, 233, 235, 239 Frederick Barbarossa, Holy Roman Emperor 81 French language  34, 220, 231, 233 Middle French  124, 220, 233 Old French  84, 87, 212, 219, 220, 239 see also Anglo-Norman and Occitan friends and friendship  9, 101, 103, 174, 177, 182, 185, 193, 221, 240–4 as audience  14, 23, 24, 77, 102, 132, 221 Froissart, Jean  62 Chroniques  94, 96, 105–8, 228 n.40 Gaimar Estoire des Engleis  94, 96, 100–4 Gallienus, emperor  160 Gamer, Helena  181 Gaunt, Simon  4, 109 Gautier de Coinci Miracles de Nostre Dame  77–92 La Chastee as nonains (sermon)  77–8, 84–5, 90–1 La Fontenele i sort clere  78, 85–6, 88–9 ‘Miracle of the Chaste Empress’ 77, 82–4 Geertz, Clifford  5 Gehl, Paul A Moral Art: Grammar and Society in Trecento Florence  67 gender dynamics  9, 110, 160, 220, 225, 226 homosexuality 242 impotence 38–9 in language  73, 154, 174

INDEX 249

sexual humor  19, 42–4, 64–5, 74 men who want to be women  63 misogyny  2, 9, 41, 119, 179, 184–5 sexual transgressions adultery  40, 82 n.25, 92 n.55, 195 attempted rape  82 n.25, 160 debauchery 176 emasculation 37–9, 40 lechery  19–20, 64–5, 191 rape 65 passion, lust  29, 82 n. 25, 160, 169, 176–9 power struggles  9, 56, 83, 92 sexual prowess  38–46 storytelling skills as a reflection of 20, 25, 220, 225, 226 transvestite 157 women who want to be men 158–60 see also women genealogy  207, 212, 232 Generides  21 Geneviève de Brabant  224–5 Geoffrey of Monmouth Historia regum Brittaniae  183 Geoffrey of Villehardouin La Conquête de Constantinople  94, 97–8, 102–4 Geffroy of Vinsauf Poetria nova  65 genre dialogue  27, 49, 104, 135, humanist  1, 7, 111–21, 158 lyric genres or songs  6–9, 14, 21, 23, 26, 28, 36, 62, 64–7, 74,180, 220, 228, see also music ballad 6, 23 ballade  62–73 ballete 87 caroles  88 chanson de geste  94, 97 chanson de mal mariée  78, 85, 87 chanson de nonne  78, 86–7, 89, 91–2 chanson de toile  23, 85

interpolated with narrative  7, 14, 23–30, 62, 78 lai  6, 9, 34, 47–60, 109, 189 lullaby  27–8, 226 motet 87 pastourelle  87 refrain  64, 69, 78, 85–8, 90 rotrouenge  87 insertion  36, 62, 64, 85–91 narrative genres Arthurian literature  171, 173, 180, 182–5, 239, 240, 241 aunter  15, 22 chanson de geste  94, 96 chronicle  7, 9, 93–4, 105, 213, 218, 228, 234 conversion  187–8, 193, 197–202 dit  62, 77–92, 141–54, 227 epic  2, 8, 9, 34, 175, 181, 183, 225, 231, 233, 234 fabliau  9, 119, 175, 179, 181, 230 fairy tale  29, 227 folktale  185, 224, 227 hagiography or saints’ life  8, 9, 34, 157–70, 185, 187–203 Latin 157–70 vernacular 187–203 historical writing  93–110 infancy narrative  7, 27, 124–40, see also children lai or lay  9, 19, 20, 34, 49–60, 189 miracle story  7, 77–92, 123–140 mirror for kings and princes  8, 183, 213, 215, 216 of chastity  84 of conversion  8, 202 of knighthood  181 novel  68, 73, 239 Greco-Roman  8, 163, 166, 168, 175 nineteenth-century 221–3, 228, 234 nouvelle (novella)  21, 111–12, 114, 118

250 INDEX romance, medieval  6, 8, 9, 13–30, 49, 59, 60, 94, 96, 97, 123, 141, 171–86, 209, 210, 213, 225, 227–9, 233–4 Arthurian  1, 8, 171, 180, 182–5 French  13, 29 Hellinistic  8, 165–9 Latin  8, 171, 174–86 Middle English  6, 13–30 opera  26, 66, 225, 227 sermon  7, 77–8, 84–5, 89–91, 198, 201, 213, 214, 229, 235 see also individual authors and titles, performance, translation Georgi, David  62 Gerson, Jean  229 Gervase of Tilbury, Otia imperialia 186 Gielée, Jacquemart, Renart le nouvel 36 Giles of Rome  109 Gilman, Donald  113, 116 Godman, Peter  182 Gonnot, Michel, Arthuriad  240 Goody, Jack  2 Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew  123 n.2, 134 n.32, 137 n.38 Goullet, Monique  157, 158 Grail Quest  185 Greek  123, 166–9 Green, D. H.  173, 185–6 ‘Greensleeves’ 27 Grocock, C. W.  181 Gros, Gérard  78 Gui, Bernard  109 Guillaume de Lorris Roman de la Rose  147 Guillaume de Machaut  7, 62, 74, 141–54, 227 Dit de l’alerion  7, 145, 146, 148–54 Fonteinne amoureuse  150 Livre du Voir Dit  62, 148, 227 Remede de Fortune  7, 145–54 Haines, John  14, 26 Harmann von Aue Gregorius  185

Havelok  18 Hélisenne de Crenne Angoisses douloureuses  112 Henry II, King of England  185 Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor  181 Henry V, King of England  21, 68 Henry VIII, King of England  79 Historia Meriadoci regis Cambriae (The Story of Meriadoc King of Wales) 182–3 historians  1, 4, 68, 93–110, 161 clerkly vs. non-clerkly  94–7, 99, 100, 102, 105–10 Hoepffner, Ernest  149 Hopkin, David  15–16, 221 n.4, 222 n.12 Horace 9 Horn Childe  20 Hugo, Victor  227 humor  1, 19, 24, 27, 32, 37, 42–4, 56–9, 70, 72, 169, 179, 201, see also parody, satire Huot, Sylvia  147, 153 Hyacinthus  159, 160 hypertext  157–8, 161, 170 hypotext  157–8, 170 idol destruction of  128–9, 135, 139, 165–66 idolatry  63–5, 160–9, 213 pagan  8, 159, 161, 163, 164–9 Saracen 213 worship  8, 128, 159, 165, 167 see also pagan If I were King  73 Infancy (Occitan)  7, 124–6, 134–40 Ingeborg of Denmark, Queen of France 77–83, 85, 90, 92 interdict  79–82, 85, 90 Iser, Wolfgang  67 Isis 166–7 Jaeger, Stephen  171, 179, 181, 183 Jakemés, Roman du Chastelain de Couci  74 Jaufré Rudel  74 Jean II le Bon, King of France  207

INDEX 251

Jean de Joinville  97 n.15, 98 n.22, 99, 105, 228 n.40 Vie de Saint Louis  105 Jean de Meun, Roman de la Rose  145, 147 Jean de Vignay  206–10, 214–17 Jean le Bel  106–7 Jean Renart, Roman de la rose (ou de Guillaume de Dole)  88 Jeanne de Bourgogne, Queen of France 92, 206, 207, 214, 216 Jeay, Madeleine, Donner la parole 113 Jerome of Moravia  15 Jerusalem  104, 139, 206 n.4, 213, see also crusades Jesus Christ  7–8, 28, 86, 89, 104, 123–40, 129, 133, 162, 192–3, 197 Jews  127–31, 134–6 hostility to  125–6, 133–6, 139 see also alterity John (Lackland), King of England  81, 82, 90 John of Garland, Integumenta  67 John of Grimestone  27 John of Plano Carpini  206 n.4, 209–11 Katherine de Vaucelles  67–9, 73–4 Katherine of Valois, Queen of England 21, 68 knights  15, 19, 51, 57, 58, 59, 102, 103, 106, 174, 177, 181, 183, 184, 213, 217, 233, 239–41 dancing  17, 19 as readers  171–2 as storytellers  20, 23, 25, 98, 102–3 Koopmans, Jelle  68–70, 74 Kratz, Dennis  179, 181, 183 Kublai Khan  213, 218 Lactantius 164 ‘The Lady of the North Country’  27 Langlois, Ernest, Chrestomathie du moyen âge  220, 233 Langton, Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury 81 Lanson, Gustave, Histoire de la

littérature française  222, 228, 232–3 The Laud Troy-Book  15, 22 Lafayette, Madame de, La Princesse de Clèves  112 Latin  8, 84, 87, 91, 101, 108, 123, 143–4, 158, 172–86, 188–9, 190–1, 193–5, 201–3, 211, 214, 216 Légende dorée  224 Leucippe and Clitophon  167 Levet, Pierre  74 Li Biaus Descouneüs  29, see also Lybeaus Desconus literacy  5, 20, 93, 95–7, 105–6, 109, 141, 172, 194, 196, 219, 226–7, 234 women’s  77, 91–2, 108, 161, 179, 224, 226–7, 229, 232 see also education, effet d’écrit and effet de parlé, and orality loci auctoris  101–2, 105 locus amoenus  117, 148 Lord, Albert  2, 4 Lorraine d’Harcourt, ArmandeHenriette de, abbess of Notre Dame de Soissons  92 Louis VII, King of France  81 Louis IX, King of France  105, 205, 207, 208, 214, see also St Louis Louis XI, King of France  73 Louis X de Navarre, King of France 207 Lucius 166 Lupercalia, festival of  161 Lybeaus Desconus  15, 25–6, 29, see also Li Biaus Desconneüs The Lyfe of Alisaunder  18 Malory, Sir Thomas  239–40 manuscript books  4, 7, 127, 134 books of hours  128 circulation  91–2, 101, 109–10, 124, 132–3, 139 compilation(s)  150, 185, 205–6, 209, 211, 217 evidence of song in  27, 78 n.2 iconography  128, 131, 137–41, 143–7, 151, 153, 214 of audience  1, 43–4, 130, 136, 142–7, 152–4, 215

252 INDEX of gesture  4, 7, 129, 138, 145, 153, 214–15 of performance  1, 7, 131, 137–41,151, 153, 214 of speech 4, 130, 134, 139, 158 miniatures  1, 4, 7, 123–40, 133, 135, 137–40, 141–54, 205–18 ownership  91–2, 101, 106, 110, 132–3, 139, 217 production  2, 95, 101, 106, 108, 124, 147–8, 206–7, 209, 212 dictation 95, 98 illuminator(s)  7, 141–3, 145, 150–1, 153, 154, 206, 213, 216, 218 scribal practices  4, 7, 8, 98, 108, 151, 209–10 reception  3, 47, 50, 107, 132, 199, 218 chronicles  9, 93–110, 216–17 text and image relationship  123–40, 141–52, 205–218 transmission  4, 47, 95, 121, 158, 170, 189, 214, see also oral transmission Manuscripts Arcana MS, the  151 n. 29 Bern, Burgerbibliothek MS 218 148 n.14 Bern, Stadtbibliothek MS Cod. 389 87 n.36 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS Ferrell 1 (on deposit)  147–8, 150, 154 Cambridge, St. John’s College MS S. 54  28 Cambridge, University Library MS Additional 5943  27–8 Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland MS Advocates 18.7.21 27–8 London, BL MS Additional 18850 128 n.22 London, BL MS Harley 2330  28 London, BL MS Royal 13.A.xxi 100 London, BL MS Royal 14 E. III  1, 142

London, BL MS Royal 19.D.i  8, 205–17 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library M.396 151 Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Selden Supra 38  127–34, 138, 139 Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal MS 5203  148 n.14 Paris, BnF, MS fr. 146  145 Paris, BnF, MS fr. 216  151 n.29, 152–3 Paris, BnF, MS fr. 352  206 n.4 Paris, BnF, MS fr. 783  144 Paris, BnF, MS fr. 1569  145–7, 153–4 Paris, BnF, MS fr. 1584  147–8, 150–1, 154 Paris, BnF, MS fr. 1586  148 Paris, BnF, MS fr. 7470  206 n.4 Paris, BnF, MS fr. 9221  148 Paris, BnF, MS fr. 20041  62 n.7 Paris, BnF, MS fr. 20050  87 n.36 Paris, BnF, MS fr. 22545–22546 143 n.2, b.4, 145–54 Paris, BnF, MS fr. 22928  90 n.53 Paris, BnF, MS fr. 25415  126, 134, 136 Paris, BnF, MS lat. 7470  206 n.4 Paris, BnF, MS lat. 11015  206 n.4 Paris, BnF, MS n. a. fr. 10543  134 n.32 Paris, BnF, MS n. a. fr. 24541  84 n.27, 85 n.31, 89 n.48, n.51, 90 n.52, 91, 92 n.54, n.55 Paris, Bibliothèque Ste Geneviève MS 1028  151 n. 29 Map, Walter De nugis curialium  172 ‘Sadius and Galo’  184–5 Marcabru 109 Marco Polo, Devisement du monde 209 Marguerite de Navarre, Heptaméron 111–12, 114–16, 118, 120 Marguerite Porete  125 Marie de France  6, 9, 47–60, 99 n.23, 109 Chaitivel  9, 50–1, 55–60

INDEX 253

Chievrefueil  51–5, 58–60 Markale, Jean, Lancelot du Lac 239–40 Marnette, Sophie  4, 50 n.16, 55 Marot, Clément  64, 70–1 marriage  78–84, 40, 160–1, 167, 176, 178–9, 186 at Cana  126 to Christ  84, 86 royal 77–85 divorce and annulment  78–1, 83–5, 88, 90, 92 consummation  83, 85 Roman de Renart  36, 40, 42 spiritual  81 n.23, 83 n.26 Martial d’Auvergne, Arrêts d’Amour  111, 112, 220 n.10 martyrdom  157, 160, 165–6, 169, 170, 188 animal 40 for love  74 legends 161 see also hagiography Mary, Blessed Virgin  27, 28, 79, 82 n. 25, 84, 88–91, 123, 125–6, 137–9, see also miracles Mary Magdalene  84 massacre of the innocents  126, 128 Mathew, Thomas  170 McGee, Timothy  24 memory  72, 97–8, 101 n.27 cultural, through stories  223–5, 231–2 in storytelling  21, 70, 72 Mérimée, Prosper  227 metatext  7, 141, 154, 190 miracles  7, 84, 159, 188, 191, 193, 214, 216, see also Jesus Christ and Mary, Blessed Virgin mise en abyme  215 misogyny, see gender dynamics Mombritius 158 Montbaston 207, see also book production Montoya, Alicia  227 Monty Python and the Holy Grail  26 Morrison, Karl  192 Mort Artu  185 Le Morte Arthur  15, 22

Mother Goose  228 mouvance  7–9, 16, 157 Mühlethaler, Jean-Claude  68–9 Mus, David Kuhn  66 Muslim(s)  104, 206, 213, see also Saracens and alterity music  3, 13–15, 17, 18, 21, 22, 26, 239 improvisation 21 musical instruments, 15, 17, 20, 48 citole 17 fiddle  17, 20, 37, 39, 40, 141–2 harp  18, 20, 21, 48, 176 pipes  17, 22,63, 65 rote 48 trumpet  17, 70 vielle  1, 6, 15, 37 training  17, 20–1 of nobility  17, 21, 25, 30 musicologists   2, 17, 26 musicology  14, 17, 26–8 in storytelling  13, 17, 20–1, 23–4, 78 n.7 see also performance mythology  52, 66, 118–19, 234, 239 Narratio de Arthuro rege Britanniae et rege Gorlagon lycanthropo (The Story of King Arthur of Britain and King Gorlagon the Werewolf)  184 narrative theology  7, 125, 139 narrative 5 discourse direct  50, 53, 57, 111, 119, 221–2 indirect 50 extradiegetic commentary  50–2, 53 storyteller 31 frame  7, 19, 48, 50, 55, 58, 59, 62, 64, 113–20, 128, 185, 213, 221–2 first-person  56, 62, 67, 205, 210–11, 214, 221, 242 with interpolated lyric  62, 66–7, 77–92 intradiegetic 31 third-person  119, 137, 211, 217, 221, 242 nationalism  220, 227, 231, 233–4 Neptanabus 218

254 INDEX Nerval, Gérard de, Chansons et Légendes du Valois  226 Nicolas de Cholières, Les Après dinées and Les Neuf matinées  112 Niebelungenlied  181 Nisard, Desiré, Histoire de la littérature française  220, 227, 228–9, 231, 234 Nodier, Charles  227 Noël Du Fail, Contes et discours d’Eutrapel  112 Odoric of Pordenone Relatio  209, 210, 211, 214–16 Occitan  7, 123, 124, 126, 134–9 Offenbach, Jacques  225 Ogier le Danois  225 Old French Prose Alexander  209, 210 Olivier de la Marche  99 Ong, Walter  2 orality  4, 5, 16, 20, 48, 51, 93–8, 106, 116, 123–4, 141, 220, 223, 226, 232, see also education, effet d’écrit and effet de parlé, literacy, voice oral transmission  2, 5, 8, 47, 50, 51, 111, 112, 121, 121, 240 Oudot family  219, 224 Outram, Alan  15 Ovid, Metamorphoses  67, 108, 167, 182 pagan culture  129, 159, 161–70, 187 idols  8, 159, 161–6, 169 portrayal of  191–3, 195, 198, 201–2 see also alterity paratext 158 Paris, France  35, 68, 71, 73, 80, 207, 221–2, 224–6, 231 Parisian readers  221–5, 231 Paris, Gaston  74, 220, 230–1 parody  78, 86–7, 90 n.53, 168, 169, 170, 184–5, see also humor, satire Parry, Milman  2, 4, 93 patronage  93, 95–6, 99, 101, 106, 109, 141, 148, 171, 206–7, 212, 214 Pearsall, Derek  173

Performance dancing  17, 20, 65 as entertainment  1, 18, 20, 26, 29, 96, 154, 173, 233–5 modern performances of medieval literature  6, 9, 13, 15–16, 22–6, 48–60 modes of  29, 124–55, 128, 140 amateur  6, 13, 14, 23–5, 78, 88 competitive  13, 16, 24, 25, 29 court  7, 17, 21–2, 23–4, 34, 36, 59, 141, 181–2, 216 feigned 31–46, 85, 88 91, 126, 221–4 formal  16, 17, 22–4, 29, 225 impromptu  6, 13–30, 78, 85, 88 improvised  6, 13–30, 78, 222 inept  31–4, 37, 43, 88 n.42 informal  6, 13, 15–17, 22–4, 29, 49, 88, 220 n.3, 224–6 intimate  6, 13, 15, 16, 24, 25, 112, 123, 132, 212 professional  2, 6, 13, 16, 17, 23, 25, 31–3, 36, 42, 141 public  13, 15, 16, 23, 45, 49, 102, 107, 126, 129, 187, 189, 190, 196, 207 during travel  23, 25, 29 musical  13, 15, 17, 21, 24, see also music pageants 17 payment for  14, 20 prelection  7, 8, 95, 107, 141, 144, 145–7, see also reading aloud represented in books  1, 7, 78, 91, 98, 114, 116, 141–54, 208, 215, 219–35, see also manuscripts storytelling 1–10, see also audience, genre, music, narratology, performer, storytellers, voice bedtime  1, 9, 19, 22, 27, 38, 40, 222–3, 224 campfire  22, 220, 225 circle(s)  2, 111, 114, 116, 120, 219, 221–2 gendered practices in  226–7, 233, see also gender dynamics

INDEX 255

gesture  47–8, 51–4, 56, 59 and music  17, 23, 24, 25, 30 nineteenth-century French attitudes to  219–34 and politics  22, 205–18, 227, 233 retelling of stories  6, 157–70, 187–203, 219, 239–44, see also réécriture, rewriting stories, oral transmission riddles  27, 167, 174–5 staging of  5–6, 13–30, 47–60, 111–21, 139, 234 and testimony  98, 103–4, 202–3, 209 through electronic media  1, 6, 26, 233–5 and truth  98, 103, 115, 118, 120, 121, 187, 193–4, 196–7, 201–2, 211, 222 veillée d’hiver  220, 225 theories of  3, 5, 47, 123–7, 206, 226, 229, 232 experimental archaeology  6, 13, 15–17, 26, 29 see also audience, music, performers, storytellers performer(s)  2, 3, 6, 8, 13–30, 31–46, 47–60, 96, 222, 235 disguise 31–7, 40–1, 45–6 ‘inept minstrel’ 31–4, 37, 43, 88 n.42 jongleurs  6, 31–46, 99, 123,141–2, 201 masking and unmasking  31–46 ministrels  2, 6, 13–15, 17–18, 20–3, 25–6, 30–46, 96, 99, 123, 141–2 modern  3, 5, 6, 13–30, 47–60, 123–4, 234–5 training and skills  16, 20, 21, 24–6, 29 of nobility  17, 20–1, 24–6, 30 troubadours  62, 74, 109 see also animals, Christ child, devils and demons, family, knights, saints, storytellers, women Peters, Gary  24

Petit de Julleville, Louis Histoire de la langue et de la littérature française, des origines à 1900 231–2 Petronius Arbiter Satyricon  163, 168 Phébus, Gaston  107, 110 Philip, bishop of Alexandria  160 Philip, Roman prefect of Egypt  159, 164–5 Philip II Augustus, King of France 77–83, 90, 92 Philippa of Hainaut, Queen of England 106 Philippe III, King of France  216 Philippe IV, King of France  92 n.55, 207, 216 Philippe VI, King of France  8, 92, 205–18 Philippe de Commynes, Mémoires  99, 105–6 Philippe de Vigneulles  112 Philippe le Bon, Duke of Burgundy 114 pilgrim and pilgrimage  9, 19, 32, 79, 82, 83 pleasure  9, 19, 40, 41, 45, 65, 91, 129, 149, 170, 187, 189, 203 erotic 42 language  31, 44 of storytelling  24, 32, 38, 40–2, 44–5, 104, 107, 173, 181, 189, 194, 226 see also Horace Pliny 182 Plumley, Yolanda  141 n.1, 148 Poème Moral 174 Pompeius 160 popes  67, 215 conflicts with Philip II Augustus 79–85, 90 Celestine III  79–80 Clement I  187–203 and Crusades  207, 215–6 Gelasius 161 Innocent III  80–5, 90 prayer  33, 38, 82 n.25, 89, 91, 129, 160, 162, 165, 166, 176, 200, 214, 217

256 INDEX Praxiteles  168, 170 preaching  125, 131, 191, 193, 194, 196, 197, 199, 202, 203, 211, 214, see also genre prelection  7–8, 95, 107, 141, 144, 145–7, see also performance and reading aloud Primat of Saint Denis Chronique  207, 209, 216 Propos rustiques 111–12 Propriétés des choses 151–2 Protus  159, 160 Proust, Marcel À la recherche du temps perdu 1, 223–6, 233–4 Putter, Ad  13, 20, 172 Quant ce vient en mai 87 Queste del Saint Graal  1, 142, 185 Quinze joyes de mariage 119 Rabelais, François Quart Livre 72–3 Raby, F. J. E.  182 Raynsford, Jehan  132–3 reader-response theory  3, 67, 112, 115 reading aloud  2, 3, 23, 96, 110, 120, 123, 124, 132, 139, 140, 141, 145, 223–6 habits of children  220, 222–5 silent  1, 5, 20, 48–9, 51, 59, 67, 74, 100, 101, 107, 120, 124, 133, 144, 153, 187, 221, 223, 225, 234 see also prelection réécriture  157, 239–43 Regalado, Nancy Freeman  5, 6, 10, 61–74, 141 Reinbrun 20 Remiet, Perrin  7, 143, 145–9, 150–4 Renaut de Montaubon ou Les Quatre Fils Aymon 225 René d’Anjou Livre du Cueur d’Amour espris 65, 67 Repues franches 70–3 rewriting stories  39–44, 61–74, 93–110, 157–70, 187–203, 239–44,

see also retelling of stories, réécriture Rhonabwy 184 Robert of Clari  98, 102–3 Robert of Gloucester  101 Roman d’Alexandre 209 Roman de Fauvel 145–6 Roman de la Rose  145–6, 147, 149, 154, 228 Roman de Renart 31–46 Roman de Troie  102, 144, 146 Roman du Graal 240 Rome  78, 80–3, 158, 160, 164–5, 183, 187, 191, 198, 202 Rosenfeld, Randall  13, 15 Rosweyde 158 Rouse, Richard and Mary  206–7 Ruodlieb  8, 171–86 Ryave, Alan  118 Sainte-Beuve, Charles Augustin  224 saints Agnes 89 Clement  8, 187–203 Eugenia  8, 157–70 Helenus 159–69 Jerome 161 John the Baptist  63, 65 Louis  8, 205, 207–8, 214, 216 Paul  159, 193, 202 Peter  187, 189, 191–203 Thecla 159 see also martyrdom Sand, George  219, 221–5, 227–8, 231, 234 François le Champi  221–4, 226–7, 233 romans champêtres  219, 221, 223–4 Sanudo, Marino  205 Saracen 213, see also alterity satire  78, 85, 86, 146, 168, 185, see also humor, parody ‘Scarborough Fair’  27 Schechner, Richard  126, 133 Schulze-Busacker, Élisabeth  34 Schwob, Marcel  74 Scipio 108 The Seven Sages of Rome 22

INDEX 257

Shepherd, G. T.  186 Sicily 216 Sir Gowther 17 Sir Launfal 17 Sir Orfeo  15 Sir Tristrem 20 Sir Ysumbras 19 Slyomovics, Susan  5 Smilansky, Uri  148 Soissons, France  79, 80, 81, 82, 85 Council  81, 83 Notre Dame de Soissons  77, 79, 80, 81, 91–2 St Médard de Soissons  79 Solomon  63–5, 67, 102 story, see genre, narrative storytellers clerics  7, 77–92, 93–110, 153–4, 171–2, 186, 187–204, 205–18 extradiegetic and intradeigetic  31, 50–2, 102 disguise as  32–3, 35, 42–3, 45–6 and family  14, 23, 141, 199–202 gestour(s)  13, 15 gestures, see performance and iconography idealized 219–35 knights  20, 23, 25, see also knights monks  77–92, 157–70, 171–86 mothers  1, 9, 22, 24, 27, 28, 29, 223–6, 233 nursemaids  9, 226 peasants  2, 219–35 representation of  1–9, 20, 22, 60, 31, 36, 44, 55, 60, 77–8, 96, 99–100, 109, 111–14, 118, 141, 199, 208, 214, 206, 218 ‘The Storyteller’, see Benjamin, Walter theatrical representations of  51–5, 56–60, 100 troubadours  62, 74, 228–9 university master  100, 141–54 women  16, 20–1, 22–3, 24–6, 27, 29, 107–8, 177, 198–9, 222, 226–8, 233, see also women see also gender dynamics, performance

storytelling, see performance Symes, Carol  5 Szpiech, Ryan  202, 203 Tabourot des Accords, Étienne Bigarrures 112 Les Escraignes dijonnaises 112 Tahureau, Jacques, Dialogues 7, 111–21 Taine, Hippolyte  224 Talarico, Kathryn  9 Tegernsee  172, 175–6 Terry, Patricia  241 textual community  4, 5, 7, 48, 60, 93–100, 115, 132, 188, 190 devotional   157, 171–86, 192–3, 195–6, 198, 200, 203, 213 holy orders  27, 73, 79, 81, 83, 89, 161, 188, 206, 215–16 secular  93–5, 99–100, 105, 109–10 textuality see education, literacy, effet d’écrit, and books Thibaut de Champagne  104 Thibaut de Chepoy  212 Third Republic  232–3 Thyamis 167 The Tournament of Tottenham 27 Trajan 108 translatio  8, 205–18 translation  8, 29, 62, 72, 101, 151, 152, 187–91, 202–3, 206–7, 209, 210, 214, 215, 219, 220, 239, 240, 242 Tristan  1, 35, 51–5, 58, 60, 174 Tristan et Iseut 1, 232, 239 Trystram, Florence Lancelot 239 Tydorel 34 Tyre 174 Valentine et Orson 225 Valerius Maximus  108 variance 16 Venice  104, 211, 212 Venjance Alixandre 209 Vie de seint Clement 187–203 violence  36, 38, 40–2, 56, 58, 64, 69–70, 72–4, 82–3, 126–8, 130,

258 INDEX 133, 165, 176, 213, see also gender dynamics Villon, François  6, 61–74 films based on  73 Lais  71, 74 Testament  62–72, 74 Ballade de Villon a s’ayme 69 Double ballade  62–7, 72, 73 Louenge que feist Villon a la Court 69–70 see also Repues franches Vincent de Beauvais Speculum historiale  209, 214 Virgil  108, 170, 175 virginity  159, 160, 161, see also chastity Vitz, Evelyn Birge  2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 13, 47, 49, 54, 59, 61, 62, 93, 95, 100, 109, 112, 123, 124, 141, 157, 180 The Crossroads of Intention: A Study of Symbolic Expression in the Poetry of François Villon 5, 61 Medieval Narrative and Modern Narratology: Subjects and Objects of Desire 5 Orality and Performance in Early French Romance  5, 93 Performing Medieval Narrative  5 Performing Medieval Narrative Today: A Video Showcase 6 voice  1–2, 3–7, 45, 47–60, 66, 79, 85, 93, 97, 167, 195, 205, 219 conversation  7, 27, 38, 54, 111–21, 166–9, 194, 196, 221, 227 disguised   32–5, 41–2, 45, 214, see also disguise, storytellers in historical writing  93–4, 97–8, 100, 102, 104, 105, 109–10 multiplicity of voices  6, 47–60, 77–92, 111–22 narrative voice  6, 47, 51, 55, 56, 112 of the people  15, 219, 223, 227 overlapping voices  6, 52, 112 poetic voice  47–60, 61–74, 77–92, 109, 232

speech embodied  55, 58, 60, 113, 121, 211 first- and third-person, see narrative iconography of  4, 130, 134, 139, 158 reported  50 n.16, 119, 131, 221, 242 representation of in writing  4, 31–46, 93–22, 208, 216, 219, 223, 232 speeches  175, 184, 193–4, 197, 222 speech  4, 14, 32, 33, 35, 37, 39, 40, 41, 44, 45, 46, 104, 108, 110, 119, 130, 137–9, 158, 175, 184, 194, 222, 224, 242 ventriloquism 85 vocality and intervocality  8, 93, 97 n.17 women’s  13–30, 47–60, 77–92, 223–4, 225–6, see also women see also orality Wace Roman de Rou  96, 100–2, 108 Wales 54 Walter the Englishman Aesop’s Fables 67 Waltharius  181 Weber, Eugen Peasants into Frenchmen 220 Weiss, Judith  178 Westra, Haijo  181 William of Lüneberg  185 women  8, 19, 27, 38–40, 47–60, 65, 72–92, 148, 157–70, 173, 179, 226–7 Amazons 118 beggars 198–9 book ownership  91–2, 101, 132 chaste, see chastity, virginity as daughters of Eve  177–8 education  2, 20, 24–6, 161, 179, 220, 226 n.30 fiesty  176–77, 179 n.18, 180 misogyny, see gender dynamics nursemaids  9, 226

INDEX 259

nuns  1, 39, 77–9, 82–5, 87–92 novices  77, 82, 83, 84 wayward 87, 89 promiscuous  64, 73, 74, 84, 168, 178–9, 184 queens  9, 15, 17, 19, 21–2, 24, 36, 52–4, 58, 78–85, 92, 106, 182, 184, 206, 214, 16, 240, 243–4 repudiated  78, 79, 81, 92 in romance  19–20, 173, 176, 178–80, 184–6 as storytellers  2, 13–30, 47–60, 224, 226–8, 233

see also gender dynamics, idols, pagan, voice Yandell, Cathy  115–16, 120 Zissos, Andrew  179 Zaerr, Linda Marie  6, 13–30, 49, 88 n.42, 220 n.3, 225 n.25 Zink, Michel  3, 61 n.1, 62 n.6, 220 n.3, 225 n.25 Zumthor, Paul  4, 5, 7–8, 49, 98

Tabula Gratulatoria Elizabeth Archibald Antonia Arslan Benjamin Bagby Claudie Bernard Ali and Jim Birge Judy and Jon Birge Marta and Tag Birge Tom Bishop Nancy B. Black Jean Blacker Maureen Boulton Susan Boynton Frank Brandsma Cristian Bratu Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner Keith Busby Kimberlee Campbell Rebecca and Colin Cherico Michael Clanchy Simonetta Cochis Alice M. Colby-Hall Joyce Coleman Paul Creamer Sandra and Jacob Cremers Mark Cruse Maureen Gillespie Dawson Kathryn A. Duys Elizabeth Emery David Georgi Stéphane Gerson Henriette Goldwyn Peter F. Kardon Sarah Kay Douglas Kelly

262

TABULA GRATULATORIA

Alison Kothe Marilyn Lawrence Kathleen Loysen Peggy McCracken Jessica and Jim McGibbon Siobhan Nash-Marshall Jacqueline Nolan Arzu Öztürkmen William D. Paden Rupert T. Pickens Maurice A. Pomerantz Laurie Postlewate Everett and Anna Price Regina Psaki Rhiannon Purdie Ad Putter Nancy Freeman Regalado Samuel N. Rosenberg Mary M. Rowan George William Rutler Kathryn A. Smith Carol Symes Jane H. M. Taylor Mickie Teetor Phillip John Usher Fr. Daniel Vitz Martin Vitz Michael Vitz Paul C. Vitz Ann and Peter Vitz Margaret and Robert Vitz Logan E. Whalen E. Gordon Whatley Jocelyn Wogan-Browne Linda Marie Zaerr Michel Zink Smith College Department of French Studies Grateful former students of the Medieval & Renaissance Studies Program at NYU and Performing Medieval Narrative

Already Published 1.  Postcolonial Fictions in the ‘Roman de Perceforest’: Cultural Identities and Hybridities, Sylvia Huot 2.  A Discourse for the Holy Grail in Old French Romance, Ben Ramm 3.  Fashion in Medieval France, Sarah-Grace Heller 4.  Christine de Pizan’s Changing Opinion: A Quest for Certainty in the Midst of Chaos, Douglas Kelly 5.  Cultural Performances in Medieval France: Essays in Honor of Nancy Freeman Regalado, eds Eglal Doss-Quinby, Roberta L. Krueger, E. Jane Burns 6.  The Medieval Warrior Aristocracy: Gifts, Violence, Performance, and the Sacred, Andrew Cowell 7.  Logic and Humour in the Fabliaux: An Essay in Applied Narratology, Roy J. Pearcy 8.  Miraculous Rhymes: The Writing of Gautier de Coinci, Tony Hunt 9.  Philippe de Vigneulles and the Art of Prose Translation, Catherine M. Jones 10.  Desire by Gender and Genre in Trouvère Song, Helen Dell 11.  Chartier in Europe, eds Emma Cayley, Ashby Kinch 12.  Medieval Saints’ Lives: The Gift, Kinship and Community in Old French Hagiography, Emma Campbell 13.  Poetry, Knowledge and Community in Late Medieval France, eds Rebecca Dixon, Finn E. Sinclair with Adrian Armstrong, Sylvia Huot, Sarah Kay 14.  The Troubadour Tensos and Partimens: A Critical Edition, Ruth Harvey, Linda Paterson 15.  Old French Narrative Cycles: Heroism between Ethics and Morality, Luke Sunderland 16.  The Cultural and Political Legacy of Anne de Bretagne: Negotiating Convention in Books and Documents, ed. Cynthia J. Brown 17.  Lettering the Self in Medieval and Early Modern France, Katherine Kong 18.  The Old French Lays of Ignaure, Oiselet and Amours, eds Glyn S. Burgess, Leslie C. Brook 19.  Thinking Through Chrétien de Troyes, Zrinka Stahuljak, Virginie Greene, Sarah Kay, Sharon Kinoshita, Peggy McCracken 20.  Blindness and Therapy in Late Medieval French and Italian Poetry, Julie Singer 21.  Partonopeus de Blois: Romance in the Making, Penny Eley 22.  Illuminating the Roman d’Alexandre: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 264: The Manuscript as Monument, Mark Cruse 23.  The Conte du Graal Cycle: Chrétien de Troyes’ Perceval, the Continuations, and French Arthurian Romance, Thomas Hinton 24.  Marie de France: A Critical Companion, Sharon Kinoshita, Peggy McCracken 25.  Constantinople and the West in Medieval French Literature: Renewal and Utopia, Rima Devereaux

26.  Authorship and First-Person Allegory in Late Medieval France and England, Stephanie A. Viereck Gibbs Kamath 27.  Virgilian Identities in the French Renaissance, ed. Philip John Usher, Isabelle Fernbach 28.  Shaping Courtliness in Medieval France: Essays in Honor of Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner, eds Daniel E. O’Sullivan, Laurie Shepard 29.  Violence and the Writing of History in the Medieval Francophone World, eds Noah D. Guynn, Zrinka Stahuljak 30.  The Refrain and the Rise of the Vernacular in Medieval French Music and Poetry, Jennifer Saltzstein 31.  Marco Polo’s Le Devisement du Monde: Narrative Voice, Language and Diversity, Simon Gaunt 32.  The Pèlerinage Allegories of Guillaume de Deguileville: Tradition, Authority and Influence, eds Marco Nievergelt, Stephanie A. Viereck Gibbs Kamath 33.  Rewriting Arthurian Romance in Renaissance France: From Manuscript to Printed Book, Jane H. M. Taylor 34.  Unsettling Montaigne: Poetics, Ethics and Affect in the Essais and Other Writings, Elizabeth Guild 35.  Machaut and the Medieval Apprenticeship Tradition: Truth, Fiction and Poetic Craft, Douglas Kelly

TELLING THE STORY IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Gallica of orality and performance, surrounded by a circle of rapt listeners. Evelyn Birge Vitz has challenged a generation of scholars to join the circle, listen as they read, and exchange pen for performance. A tribute to her work, the fifteen essays in this volume attend to the qualities of voice, their registers and dynamics, whether practiced or impromptu, falsified, overlapping, interrupted or whispered. They examine how the book became a performance venue and reshaped the storyteller’s image and authority, and they investigate the mutability of stories that move from book to book, place to place and among competing cultures to stimulate cultural and political change. They show storytelling as far more than entertainment, but central to law, religious ritual and teaching, as well as the primary mode of delivering news. Themes that crisscross the volume include tensions among amateurs and professionals, dominant and minority languages and cultures, women and children’s engagement with storytelling, animality, religion, translation, travel, didacticism and entertainment. STORYTELLER STANDS AT THE CROSSROADS

KATHRYN A. DUYS is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of English and Foreign Languages at the University of St. Francis in Joliet, Illinois. ELIZABETH EMERY is Professor of French and Graduate Coordinator at Montclair State University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Elizabeth Archibald, Maureen Boulton, Cristian Bratu, Simonetta Cochis, Joyce Coleman, Mark Cruse, Kathryn A. Duys, Elizabeth Emery, Marilyn Lawrence, Kathleen Loysen, Laurie Postlewate, Nancy Freeman Regalado, Samuel N. Rosenberg, E. Gordon Whatley, Linda Marie Zaerr. Front cover image: A minstrel entertains; Queste del saint Graal. © The British Library Board. MS Royal 14 E. III, fol. 89r. Reproduced with permission.

an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge IP12 3DF (GB) and 668 Mt Hope Ave, Rochester NY 14620–2731 (US) www.boydellandbrewer.com

ESSAYS IN HONOR OF EVELYN BIRGE VITZ

DUYS, EMERY AND POSTLEWATE (eds)

LAURIE POSTLEWATE is Senior Lecturer in French at Barnard College of Columbia University.

T ELLING THE S TORY IN THE M IDDLE AGES

THE

E DITED BY

KATHRYN A. DUYS, ELIZABETH EMERY AND LAURIE POSTLEWATE