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Tag Archives: Middle Ages

Another Motif: Playing Dead

20 Saturday Apr 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Beast Literature, Literature

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Bibliothèque nationale de France, Franklin Edgerton, Jill Mann, Laura Gibbs, Middle Ages, Panchatantra, playing-dead motif, Reynard, Roman de Renart

Renart and Tiécelin, the Crow

Renart and Tiécelin the Crow (BnF, Roman de Renart)

  *Photo credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Le Roman de Renart

In branch III of the Roman de Renart, the goupil — foxes used to be called goupils — Renart is hungry and goes in search of food.  When he gets to the road, he sees a cart loaded with fish and quickly lies across the road making believe he has died.  The merchant stops his cart and investigates.  He looks at Renart’s magnificent fur and as a merchant he wonders if there isn’t money to be made from the sale of the fur.  He throws Renart at the back of the cart, which is precisely what Renart wanted him to do.  Our trickster fox therefore feasts on the herrings (les harengs).  Having satisfied his hunger, Renart wraps himself into a coat made of eels and jumps off the cart.  As he runs away, he shouts “bless you” to the merchant, “there I am with plenty of eels to eat, you can keep the rest!”

Renart et les anguilles (eels) is one of the best known of Renart’s tricks, except that this time he doesn’t take advantage of the wolf Ysengrin (French spelling), the chief character in Nivardus of Ghent’s Ysengrimus (c. 1149).  Besides, the fox is not speaking Latin but Roman (le roman).

Renart et les anguilles

Renart et les anguilles (the eels) (BnF, Roman de Renart)

The Theft of Fish

Renart et les anguilles (br. III) is classified as motif 1 in the Aarne Thompson (AT) motif index,[i] where it is listed as The theft of fish. The getting-stuck-in-a-hole is motif 50 in the Aarne-Thompson Classification and is called Curing a sick lion. The bear and the honey is motif 49 except that the Roman de Renart’s Brun (Bruin) the bear gets stuck (coincé) in a log and not in a hole.[ii]

the Fox Who Played Dead: Æsop, Abstemius and Renart the Fox

Dr Laura Gibbs[iii] tells us about a fable entitled The Dog and the Fox who Played Dead by Æsop, but based on Abstemius (149). A fox played dead so he could catch birds. The fox “rolled in the mud and stretched out in a field.” However, a dog comes by and mangles the fox, which puts an end to the otherwise deadly ruse.

In the Roman de Renart, the fox entices Tiécelin, the corbeau (the crow), to sing and thus lose the cheese he has stolen. However, before taking the cheese, the fox makes believe he is wounded and when he tries to eat Tiécelin, all he succeeds in grabbing are a few feathers. Both stories are identical except for the presence of a dog in Æsop and Abstemius.

Comments

So, in Æsop the make-believe is stopped by a dog, but the in the Roman de Renart, the make-believe is not carried out to the point of playing dead. However, Tiécelin has a name which suggests that he is a human in disguise, the chief device of animals in literature. In both fables, the fox says he fully deserves to have lost the bird, and the cheese. In Laura Gibbs’ version of The Dog and the Fox who Played Dead, the fox says “This is just what I deserve: while I was trying to catch the birds using my tricks, someone else has caught me.” The same is true of Renart. One has the impression that the fox knows how clever he is and that he can therefore afford to lose.

In the Medieval Bestiary, we read that

“the fox is a crafty and deceitful animal that never runs in a straight line, but only in circles. When it wants to catch birds to eat, the fox rolls in red mud so that it appears to be covered in blood. It then lies apparently lifeless; birds, deceived by the appearance of blood and thinking the fox to be dead, land on it and are immediately devoured.The most famous fox of the Middle Ages was Reynard, the trickster hero of the Romance of Reynard the Fox.”

In fact,

[t]he fox represents the devil, who pretends to be dead to those who retain their worldly ways, and only reveals himself when he has them in his jaws. To those with perfect faith, the devil is truly dead.

Playing dead (faire le mort) is a common ruse illustrated here using two examples from the Roman de Renart and a closely related example from Æsop. If we were to trace back Renart’s ruses, they would take us to the Pañcatantra. The structure of the Roman de Renart is a frame story, stories within a story, which is also the case with the Sanskrit Pañcatantraand its Arabic rendition, Ibn al Muqaffa’s Kalīlah wa-Dimnah.

However, the Roman de Renart is a fabliau.  The Pañcatantra and Kalīlah wa-Dimnah do not possess the scurrilous and at times scatological aspect of French fabliaux.[iv]  Moreover, if ancient beast epics and fables are used in the education of the prince, it would seem our ancient prince did not live in the albeit comical but ruthless world, the various European countries Reynard the Fox inhabits. We accept his cruel misdeeds because his tricks do not seem to hurt.One is reminded of the comic strips steamroller flattening a cat who always fluffs up again. I am using a comparison taken from Jill Mann[v] in Kenneth Varty,[vi] ed. Introduction, Reynard the Fox: Social Engagement and Cultural Metamorphoses in the Beast Epic from the Middle Ages to the Present (New York & Oxford: Bergham Books, 2000).

Conclusion

The comic text is a “self-redeeming” (the term is mine) by virtue of a powerful convention, the “all’s well that ends well.” But beast epics and fables are also a nītiśāstra. In other words, they are, by vocation and convention, cushioned advice for the “wise” conduct of a prince’s life. According to Franklin Edgerton (1924), “[t]he so-called ‘morals’ of the stories have no bearing on morality; they are unmoral, and often immoral. They glorify shrewdness and practical wisdom, in the affairs of life, and especially of politics, of government.”[vii] As I indicated in an earlier post, Edgerton may be a little severe regarding the morality of the Panchatantra, but, were we to apply his comments to Reynard the Fox, they would not be altogether inappropriate. Renart is a scoundrel.

In closing, I will also point out that the playing-dead motif is particularly important in that playing dead is a real-life option. This particular motif is very much about the “wise” conduct of a prince. For instance, laying low while the country regrouped probably came to the mind of American leaders on 9/11.

Fortunately, when all is said and done, a fox is a fox is a fox.

RELATED ARTICLES

  • Reynard the Fox, the Itinerant (michelinewalker.com)
  • “To Inform or Delight” (michelinewalker.com)
  • A Motif: Getting Stuck in a Hole (michelinewalker.com)
_________________________
[i] Aarne-Thompson Motif-Index
http://scandinavian.wisc.edu/mellor/taleballad/pdf_files/motif_types.pdf
[ii] Also see: Aarne-Thompson Classification System
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aarne%E2%80%93Thompson_classification_system#Animal_tales
and Flokloristics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folkloristics
[iii] Laura Gibbs is the author of Aesop’s Fables, Aesop’s Fables in Latin, Mille Fabulae et Una, Latin Via Proverbs, Vulgate Verses, and Roman Sudoku.
[iv] With respect to fabliaux, you may wish to look at the Geoffrey Chaucer site.
http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/special/litsubs/fabliaux/
Also see: Jill Mann, Feminizing Chaucer, Boydell & Brewer Ltd, 2002.
[v] Jill Mann, The Satiric Fiction of the Ysengrimus, in Varty, p. 1.  Jill Mann has translated into English Nivardus of Ghent’s entire Ysengrimus.
[vi] Kenneth Varty, ed. Introduction, Reynard the Fox: Social Engagement and Cultural Metamorphoses in the Beast Epic from the Middle Ages to the Present (New York & Oxford: Bergham Books, 2000).
[vii] (George Allen and Unwin, London 1965 [1924]) p. 13.  Edgerton’s edition and translation of the Panchatantra is an “Edition for the General Reader.” (Quoted in Wikipedia’s Panchatantra entry.)
Reineke Fuchs

Reineke Fuchs

© Micheline Walker
19 April 2013
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The Golden Legend Revisited

12 Tuesday Feb 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Literature

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Bible, Golden Legend, Gutenberg Bible, illuminated manuscript, Jacobus, Jacobus de Voragine, Middle Ages, Nuremberg Chronicle

Saints Primus and Felician, from a 14th century manuscript of the Golden Legend.
Saints Primus and Felician, from a 14th century manuscript of the Golden Legend.  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Golden Legend

There is no mention of Jacobus de Voragine’s Golden Legend,[i] or Legenda aurea, in my list of other illuminated manuscripts, my last post.  Yet hagiographies and martyrologies, the lives of saints and martyrs, were among illuminated manuscripts and the Golden Legend, compiled around the year 1260, was the bestseller of the Middle Ages.

Jacobus de Voragine (c. 1230 – July 13 or July 16, 1298), also known as Giacomo da Varazze, Jacopo da Varazze and Jacques de Voragine, was an Italian chronicler and, reluctantly, the Archbishop of Genoa.  As a chronicler, he wrote a Chronicle of Genoa. However, he is also the author of Sermones de omnibus evangeliis, discourses on all the Gospels, and several other texts.  In fact, Voragine was a prolific writer and may have translated the Bible.  If he did, that translation has disappeared.  In short,  although it is illuminated, the Golden Legend, or Légende dorée, is first and foremost a text.

(please click on the picture to enlarge it)
English: "Crucifixion" (showing also...
“Crucifixion” (showing also the archbishop Jacobus de Voragine with his book the Golden Legend in his hands), by Ottaviano Nelli, Chapel of the Trinci Palace, Foligno, Italy (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Hagiographies and Martyrologies

However, as a text, the Golden Legend was not just any text.  In the Middle Ages, lives of saints and martyrs were a favourite.  Saints perform miracles and some kill mythical animals.  St George slayed a dragon, which made him a popular saint during the Middle Ages.  Miracles are manifestations of the supernatural and dragons, a mythical creature born of the collective human imagination.  The Golden Legend has an apocryphal St Sylvester who goes down a dungeon, tames a dragon and climbs out carrying the dragon.

The Subject Matter

So, there can be little doubt that the Golden Legend owes its popularity in part to its subject matter.  Hagiographies belong, to a large extent, to that special realm of literature we call the “fantastic” and, in Voragine’s case, a Christian fantastic, or “merveilleux [marvellous] chrétien,” a term used by scholars to describe “fantastic” aspects of French medieval literature.  In short, Voragine wrote legends, golden legends.  Miracles and martyrdom constitute another “reality.”

Fiction: a Legend

Moreover, Voragine wrote extremely well.  He knew the merits of fiction and style, which may be the real key to the success of the Golden Legend.  Other authors wrote hagiographies and martyrologies, but not in a way that truly engaged readers.  As for Jacobus, he “embellished” his texts to the delight of readers.  Voragine is also said to have “borrowed” from other writers such as Jean de Mailly[ii] and Bartholomew of Trent,[iii] but did he “borrow” or retell?

Vincent de Beauvais, the author of the Speculum Maius (The Great Mirror), “the compendium of all of the knowledge of the Middle Ages” also borrowed from Mailly, Bartholomew of Trent and other authors.  (See Speculum Maius, Wikipedia.)   Borrowing need not be plagiarism.  Although a large number of La Fontaine’s Fables are Æsopic in origin, Jean de La Fontaine is one of the finest French authors.

A Calendar

Finally, the Golden Legend was yet another calendar, a liturgical calendar.  Every day of the year, a saint or an event, such as the birth of Christ, is commemorated.  Voragine himself was beatified in 1816 and his feast day is July 16th.  The Golden Legend’s calendar is divided into five seasons.

(please click on the picture to enlarge it)
Jacobus de Voragine
A Golden Legend illumination (Photo credit: Google images)

An Illuminated Manuscript and an Incunable

Yet, The Golden Legend was illuminated, not by Voragine but by several Italian artists.  Moreover, it was copied (calligraphy), again not by Voragine, but by different scribes, probably monks working in a scriptorium.[iv]  So The Golden Legend could have been listed in Other Illuminated Manuscripts as several copies were made between 1260 and 1450, the year Johannes Gutenberg  (c. 1395 – February 3, 1468) invented the printing press.  However, it also constitutes an incunable (sometimes called a “fifteener,” fifteenth century).

Incunables or incunabula (incunabulum, singular: “in the cradle”) are books printed between 1450 and 1501, of which the best known is the Gutenberg Bible (also known as the 42-line Bible, the Mazarin Bible or the B42).  To see the facsimile, click on Gutenberg Bible.  Another famous incunable    is the Hartmann Schedel Weltchronik (a German translation of the Liber Chronicarum (Nuremberg Chronicle).  But The Golden Legend is also, and not negligibly, an incunable.

One characteristic of incunables is that the printer often left room on the printed page  so an artist could illuminate the text.  For instance, incunables often featured rubricated (from red) letters.  Rubricated letters are slightly different than historiated letters, a matter that can be discussed later.

Page from Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta memorabilia, printed in red and black by Peter Schöffer (Mainz, 1471). The page exhibits a rubricated initial letter "U" and decorations, marginalia, and ownership stamps of the "Bibliotheca Gymnasii Altonani" (Hamburg).

Page from Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta memorabilia, printed in red and black by Peter Schöffer (Mainz, 1471). The page exhibits a rubricated initial letter “U” and decorations, marginalia, and ownership stamps of the “Bibliotheca Gymnasii Altonani” (Hamburg).  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Conclusion

I will pause by saying that The Golden Legend tells far more than the lives of saints and martyrs and does so because Voragine embellished his accounts to the point of creating saints and martyrs.  He was a storyteller and that may well be the reason his hagiography has endured.  However, for the record, The Golden Legend is

  • the bestseller of the Middle Ages, 
  • an illuminated manuscript,
  • an incunable and, after 1501,
  • a printed book. 
RELATED ARTICLES
 
  • Other Illuminated Manuscripts
  • Jacques de Voragine: The Golden Legend
______________________________
[i] Online text, The Golden Legend (Fordham University)
[ii] Abbreviato in gestis miraculis sanctorum (Summary of the Deeds and Miracles of the Saints)
[iii] Epilogum in gesta sanctorum (Afterword on the Deeds of the Saints)
[iv] It would appear that the scriptorium was a series of recesses located in a monastery and not a room.
 
composer: Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300 – April 1377)
form: Virelai
piece: Douce Dame Jolie
 
Sermones de Sanctis

Sermones de Sanctis

 
© Micheline Walker
11 February 2013
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Other Illuminated Manuscripts

09 Saturday Feb 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Art

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Book of Hours, Breviary, British Library, France, Gerard Horenbout, illuminated manuscript, Liber Usualis, Middle Ages

Le Psaultier de Robert de Lisle

The Psalter of Robert de Lisle (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Other Illuminated manuscripts

Because of the Très Riches Heures de Jean de France, Duc de Berry, the celebrated Fiztwilliam Book of Hours (see Google images) and the numerous Books of Hours produced in the Middle Ages, we tend to associate illuminated books, or books with enluminures, with Books of Hours (Livres d’heures or Horæ).  However, there are many illuminated manuscripts serving other purposes, yet utilizing the main artistic elements of Books of Hours: illuminations and fine calligraphy.

Many facsimile editions of illuminated manuscripts can be bought online.  I have used some of these facsimile editions.  If a title is followed by an**, that title is a link often leading to a commercial site.  It allows buyers and other individuals to see the product.  Prices vary.  The Folio Society edition of the Fitzwilliam Book of Hours is expensive, but other facsimile editions of illuminated manuscripts are more or less affordable.

Below you will find examples of authentic illuminated manuscripts and reproductions.  As for the Gallery, it does not contain images copied from commercial sites.

  • The Abécédaire: (L’Abécédaire de Claude de France, or the Primer of Claude of France**);
  • The Antiphonary (Wiki): Antiphonaire, f4, Cathedrale San Lorenzo Perrugia, Italy;
  • Apocalypse books (Wiki): The Corpus Apocalypse;** The Corpus Apocalypse;** The Bamberg Apocalypse (Wiki); Google images;
  • The Bestiary (Wiki): The Aberdeen Bestiary (Wiki); The Aberdeen Bestiary; Google images
  • The Breviary (Wiki): The Grimani Breviary**
  • The Gospel Book (Wiki): The Book of Kells (Wiki); The Book of Kells;** Google Images; The Lindisfarne Gospels**
  • The Missal (Wiki): The Missal of Barbara of Brandenburg;**
  • The Psalter (Wiki): Le Psautier doré de Munich, or The Munich Golden Psalter;** The Psalter of Robert de Lisle**
  • Various prayer books: Prayer to the Virgin

Like Books of Hours, the Breviary is an abridged version of the Liber Usualis.  However, it is used by bishops, priests and deacons, not lay Christians.  The Breviary   “contains the canonical prayers, hymns, the Psalms, readings and notations for everyday use.” (“Breviary,” Wikipedia)

A Tiny Gallery

Miniatures depicting the months of December and August, from the Grimani Breviary, illuminated by Gerard Horenbout with Alexander and Simon Bening. The August page (to the right) was illuminated by Alexander and Simon Bening only. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) 
(please click on the images to enlarge them)

Miniature depicting the month December, from the Grimani Breviary, illuminated by Gerard Horenbout with Alexander and Simon Bening449px-Breviarium_Grimani_-_August

The Corpus Apocalypse (Photo credit: Wikipedia)Corpus Christi Apocalypse

The Lindisfarner Gospel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
 
The Lindisfarne Gospels
“The Lindisfarne Gospels is an illuminated Latin manuscript of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the British Library. The manuscript was produced on Lindisfarne in Northumbria in the late 7th century or early 8th century, and is generally regarded as the finest example of the kingdom’s unique style of religious art, a style that combined Anglo-Saxon and Celtic themes, what is now called Hiberno-Saxon art, or Insular art. The manuscript is complete (though lacking its original cover).” (YouTube description)
 
 
piece: O Euchari in Leta Via
performers: Catherine King, Emily Van Evera, Richard Souther & Sister Germaine Fritz

Information

  1. “abecedarius”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
    Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 08 Feb. 2013
    <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1004/abecedarius>.
  2. “breviary”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
    Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 09 Feb. 2013
    <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/79032/breviary>.
  3.  “Claude Of France”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
    Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 08 Feb. 2013
    <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/120451/Claude-Of-France>.
  4. “New Testament”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
    Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 08 Feb. 2013
    <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/412114/New-Testament?overlay=true&assemblyId=73072>.
  5. “missal”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
    Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 09 Feb. 2013
    <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/385386/missal>.
  6. “responsorial singing”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
    Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 08 Feb. 2013
    <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/499643/responsorial-singing>.
The first horseman as depicted in the Bamberg Apocalypse (1000-1020). The first "living creature" (with halo) is seen in the upper right.

The first horseman as depicted in the Bamberg Apocalypse (1000-1020). The first “living creature” (with halo) is seen in the upper right.  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

© Micheline Walker
9 February 2013
WordPress
 
 
 
Related articles
  • Books of Hours, a Rich Legacy (michelinewalker.com)
  • Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, revisited (michelinewalker.com)

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