Le Roman de Renart is a mock-epic. It is the underside of the chansons de geste and courtly love. This post excludes courtly literature to concentrate on France’s first and most important chanson de geste, the anonymous Chanson de Roland. Roland, King Charlemagne‘s nephew, and his twelvePaladinswere defeated at the Battle of Roncevaux (778). Roland died.
It has been said that the Chanson de Roland is now forgotten. The Internet tells another story. It is still the subject matter of masterpieces of European literature. As we saw in my last post, Roland is Ludovico Ariosto‘s masterpiece Orlando Furioso. The Chanson de Roland may at times have been put aside, but Orlando Furioso has endured and inspired several authors down to this very day. Wikipedia’s entry on Orlando Furioso is a who’s who chronicling the arabisation of North Africa and the decline of Eastern Christianity rooted in the Fall of Constantinople to the Seljuq Turks on 29 May 1453.
The Millet protected Christians under Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, called the Conqueror, but Anatolia was not a Muslim country before the fall of Constantinople. The Ottoman Empire was defeated during World War I and dissolved under the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres.
Ruggiero rescuing Angelica by Gustave Doré(Wikipedia)
El Cantar de Mio Cid is a celebration of the Reconquista. The Moors were in the Iberian Peninsula from 711 until 1492. In literature, el Cid is also Pierre Corneille’s Le Cid (1936). The play was produced shortly after Richelieu founded the Académie-Française. Le Cid, a very successful play, created the first querelle. It violated the rule of the three unities: time (24 hours), action (minimum) and place (single). Rodrigue, Le Cid, succeeds in pushing back thousands of Moors.
The Crusades are the backdrop to Le Roman de Renart. Crusaders aimed to recover the Holy Land from Islamic Rule. (See Crusades, Wikipedia.) Renart talks himself out of a death sentence by claiming he must go to the Near East and expiate before he is put to death.
According to The New Yorker‘s Robin Wright, Christians are leaving the Near East. The Coptic Church was founded in 42 CE (Christian era).
The Lady and the Unicorn: À mon seul désir(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The six tapestries named The Lady and the Unicornwere commissioned by Jean le Viste, in 1464, and are not to be confused with the seven tapestries comprising TheHunt of the Unicorn, 1) commissioned by Anne of Brittany (25 January 1477 – 9 January 1514), 2), bought by John D. Rockefeller, Jr (29 January 1874 – 11 May 1960), in 1922, and 3) donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1937. Both represent the legendary unicorn and feature the millefleurs [thousand flowers] motif. Moreover, both were made in the Netherlands at approximately the same time. But despite similarities, they are different works of art. (See Google images.)
The Fifteenth Century: The Lady and the Unicorn
The Lady and the Unicorn, or La Dame à la licorne, is a collection of six highly allegorical tapestries, housed, since 1882, in the Cluny Museum in Paris. As noted above, they were commissioned in 1464 by Jean le Viste or Antoine Le Viste (see Antoine le Viste, Wikipedia [FR], a prominent lawyer attached to the court of King Charles VII. In 1475, at the age of 43, Le Viste married Geneviève de Nanterre thereby entering nobility. The six tapestries were made in the Netherlands, of wool and silk, but designed in Paris.
Prosper Mérimée
The Nineteenth Century
The tapestries were found in the castle of Boussac, in 1841, by Prosper Mérimée (28 September 1803 – 23 September 1870), the creator of Carmen (1845), among many other accomplishments. George Sand (1 July 1804 – 8 June 1876), a prolific writer and very colourful figure, attracted the public’s attention to the tapestries. As one can imagine, when Mérimée found the tapestries, they were damaged. They had not been stored properly, but they are now in fine condition and are described in a wealth of details in Rainer Maria Rilke‘s novel The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. (Wikipedia)
The Unicorn: the Dragon, the Griffin and the Phœnix
The Unicorn is one of my four main mostly mythical both also mythological and zoomorphic animals. Zoomorphic animals combine the characteristics of several animals, or the characteristics of a human and an animal and are also anthropomorphic, humans in disguise. The other mostly mythical animals are the Dragon, the Phoenix and the Griffin. However, the Unicorn is perhaps the most famous and beloved among legendary beasts and it has been a source of inspiration to various authors, filmmakers and artists, one being J. K. Rowling of the Harry Potter series of novels and films. Children are particularly fond of the unicorn. But that is another story.
For the time being, all I wish to say about the ubiquitous Unicorn is that, although he is a universal figure, there is a European legend according to which he cannot be caught by anyone other than a virgin. In Europe, the Unicorn symbolizes purity and, at times, Christ. In this respect, the Unicorn straddles paganism and Christianity as do feasts, most of which are seasonal. Christmas is celebrated on the shortest day, and the longest day is June 24th, St John the Baptist’s day.
The Tapestries and the Myth about Birds Mating on February 14th
However, just how the tapestries forming The Lady and the Unicorn series are linked to the myth according to which birds (foules; Fowles) mate on February 14th, St Valentine’s Day, is a bit of a mystery. But we do know, first, that Geoffrey Chaucer (1340 – 1400) told this myth in his Parlement of Foules, (Parliament of Birds, 1382). Second, we also know that Chaucer (from chausseur, shoemaker) had translated into English the French Roman de la Rose (The Romance of the Rose), the most important courtly, yet satirical, novel written in medieval France. Moreover, we cannot exclude an oral tradition that would link the Lady and the Unicorn and the myth about birds mating on St. Valentine’s Day. The oral tradition has its validity.
The Courtly Tradition
But it could be that Chaucer may have situated the legend of the mating of birds on February 14th in the courtly love tradition epitomized by the Roman de la Rose and in which the “Lady and the Unicorn” could be inserted. Given that they share a romantic aspect and that both are products of medieval France, a similar thread, or fil conducteur, runs through LaDame à la licorne tapestries and the myth according to which birds mate on the 14th of February.
The Golden Age of Bestiaries:Richard de Fournival’s Bestiaire d’amour
The Middle Ages were the Golden Age of bestiaries, of which the best known is Richard de Fournival’sBestiaire d’amour. It could be that the medieval Christian bestiary had to include a unicorn or some other animal who could only be caught by the ideal woman: a virgin, and, as written above, symbolize purity, if not Christ.
The Lady and the Unicorn: Touch * (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
* To see better pictures of all six tapestries, please click on The Lady and the Unicorn. Also, click on the above picture to enlarge it.
The Golden Age of Allegorical Works
Be that as it may, The Lady and Unicorn tapestries are allegorical, a common characteristic of medieval works of art and literature. Five of the tapestries represent a sense: touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing. As for the sixth and largest tapestry, called “À mon seul désir” (To my only desire [or wish]), it could represent “understanding.”
A Sixth Sense: Understanding
In a lecture dating back to 1420, famed French scholar Jean Gerson (13 December 1363 – 12 July 1429) offered the hypothesis that there was a sixth sense: the sense of “understanding.” If we accept Gerson’s hypothesis, the Lady and the Unicorn could be about love and “understanding.”
All six tapestries feature a lion, standing on the right side of the Lady, and the mythical/mythological Unicorn, standing to her left, holding pennants or crests. Given this configuration, the tapestries could be otherwise interpreted. For instance, the Lion, the king of animals, and the Unicorn are heraldic animals. Besides, the medieval animal lore includes the animals represented in the twelfth-century Aberdeen Bestiary, perhaps the finest, illuminated bestiaries.
The Crusades
I should point out that the tapestries reflect the influence of the Crusadeson Europeans. Crusaders discovered beautiful rugs often called “Turkish,” regardless of their precise origin. The Crusades helped shape the Western imagination to a degree that may be underestimated and/or understated.
Crusades: the Battle of Ager Sanguinis, 1337 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Motifs: mille-fleurs and Animals
It is quite true that the millefleurs motif is used in both The Lady and theUnicorn and The Hunt of the Unicorn, but “Turkish” rugs also featured animals that were often very small: minuta animala, birds: aves (our majestic Phœnix), and other animals. La Dame à la licornetapestries are ornamented with both the millefleurs motif and depictions of animals.
Conclusion
To conclude, it may suffice to say
that The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries are among the finest examples of 15th-century Franco-Flemish tapestries;
that they are allegorical works, in which they resemble other works produced in the Middle Ages, and
that they belong to a courtly tradition.
La Dame à la licorne (le toucher: touch; le goût: taste; l’odorat: smell; l’ouïe: hearing; and la vue: sight; To my only desire)
piece: Giorgio Mainerio (ca. 1530-1540 – 3 or 4 May 1582) “Il primo Libro di Balli: Gagliarda el tu” (1578)
performers: Musica Antiqua & Christian Mendoze
“It is at the source of Spanish literature: no picaresque novels even no Quixote, without these wise and vigorous, sly and funny tales. They are contemporary: they are eternal… Today, when we need, more than ever, to understand the Muslim world, Ramsay Wood’s fresh recreation of the tales becomes indispensable reading for the West. Indispensable, more than for political, for human, artistic, glad reasons. Wood’s superb stories should be set alongside Italo Calvinos’s recent retelling of the folk tales of Italy. No higher praise is necessary.”
The above is what Carlos Fuentes (b. 1928) has to say about Ramsay Wood’s translation of the The Tales of Kalila and Dimna, the Arabic translation, by Ibn al-Muqaffa, of Vishnu Sharma’s Panchatantra, written in Sanskrit. Indeed, “no higher praise is necessary.”
In order to understand the Muslim world, it is also useful to gather information on the Crusades. It is during the Crusades that the West first entered the Muslim world. There was criticism of the Crusades expressed in a very long Latin-language beast-epic entitled Ysengrimus, written by Nivardus of Ghent in 1148-1149, or a little later. Nivard de Gand’s Ysengrimus is the birthplace of Reynard the Fox, arguably the most famous character in beast literature. Reynard is the protagonist in countless fables.
This is a very short blog. Not that I have run out of words, but that I am tired. I suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, also called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. In 1976, I caught a viral infection from which I never fully recovered. However, do not feel sorry for me. There are so many books to read and so much beautiful music to listen to. Moreover, there are clipboards or portable desks.
In 2002, I sold a house I loved. So, during the last few weeks, I have attempted to draw a little house that would suit me. It was a challenge. The house had to be small: 12,000 sq. feet. How does one fit so many books and a piano in a small space? Besides, I have always enjoyed having a guest room.
I am happy to report that I have finally drawn the floor plan of my little house and did so using a clipboard as desk. I may not move out of this apartment, but I have decided to keep my drawing. Fantasy can be a very cozy refuge.
St. George Church in Tanta, Egypt, after a suicide bombing on April 9th.
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