"Deadly Diatribe in the Récits  d'un ménestrel de Reims," Res Publica Litterarum XIV (1991), pp. 115-126.                        

Probably composed in the early 1260's, by a man known only as the Minstrel of Rheims, the Récits d'un menéstrel de Reims offers, in its only modern edition, 247 pages of vernacular prose devoted to various historical events and characters. Unreliable, entertaining, and difficult to classify, it does not even have a title to which it can incontrovertibly lay claim. To call it a chronicle of Flanders or of Rheims, as some early readers did, leads to problems, since most of the material he presents concerns France and England. Its opening indicates an interest in European adventures in the Near East, but it comes back to events on the continent, in various parts of what today amounts to France, England, Belgium, Spain, Italy, and Germany. A certain amount of specific detail is devoted to activities at Rheims. In addition, to call the Réçits a chronicle is misleading, not merely because the Minstrel shows no interest in dates, or in a strictly chronological structure, but because many of its incidents and all of its direct discourse are fictional. On the other hand, to suggest that the text offers pseudo‑history is also misleading, since history in the middle ages was a branch of grammar and rhetoric -- that is, it was literature(1).

 

Exactly what kind of literature the Minstrel intended to produce is not entirely clear, since any title or . introduction he may have given his work has not survived(2). His editor was troubled by the Minstrel's willingness to do anything to get a laugh, and by the fact that his subject matter clearly resembles what jongleurs tend to offer: marvelous events and catastrophic disasters(3). The cavalier confusion of dates, characters, and places gives his text qualities to be found generally in historical fiction, and in chansons de gestes and romans particularly(4). Details combine, recombine, are invented or suppressed, in order to conform not to the needs of historians with scientific aspirations, but, in typically medieval fashion, to the needs and abilities of a specific author and a specific audience.

 

Some of the Minstrel's deviations from fact (that is, names, dates, chronologies about which no controversy exists) may be attributed to carelessness or incompetence, and some to purposes that remain resolutely mysterious after more than 700 years. In some cases, however, the Minstrel deviates not necessarily from fact, but from other texts. Since we do not know exactly what texts, if any, he had before him as he composed, studying sources and analogues in this instance can only reveal something about the different intentions, sensibilities, and perspectives of the writers who treated the same characters and events. In addition, however, what the Minstrel does with his materials may reveal something about the way writers of popular historical literature in the thirteenth century, and perhaps in the Middle Ages generally, composed their texts.

 

The Minstrel's perspective is compounded out of two major problems: he had to protect himself against royal displeasure, and he had to please a heterogeneous, urban, if not necessarily urbane, audience. In the process, he pursues a not very well‑hidden agenda, consisting of three items: to praise the Capetians, with the bulk of the panegyric bestowed upon Philip‑Augustus; to castigate enemies of the Capetians, both internal and external; and to castigate almost all ecclesiastical figures(5). In pursuing the first item on his agenda, the Minstrel devotes more than half of the Récits to a categorical, uncritical laus Philipi Augusti. In the process, he fabricates victories where there were no battles(6), elides Philip's problems with women and the consequent difficulties in legitimatizing Agnes' children(7), and makes no mention of the negative actions attributed to the king by Rigord, who complained, for example, that in 1198 Philip treated the church badly, and permitted the Jews to return(8). Not only does he supress Rigord's charges, but he fabricates the pious fiction of Philip Augustus making his will on his death‑bed, leaving equal thirds to the poor and to the Holy Land. In addition, the Minstrel lengthens Philip's reign from 43 to 47 years, apparently to magnify the king's glory, and he assigns his coronation to the age of 14 instead of 16, making him even more of a Wunderkind.

Fabricating accomplishments, exaggerating numbers, and supressing unfavorable material, however, are not the Minstrel's primary strategies for producing panegyric. He also composes dramatic scenes for the purpose of encomium (as he does in other instances to fuel his diatribe), drawing upon material with some basis in historical reality. One of the clearest illustrations of this technique is the incident in which Philip's momentary halt on the way to the battle of Bouvines, represented by only three words ­ modici guieti vacaret  in William the Breton's text(9), becomes a major scene in the Récits. Since the battle of Bouvines was Philip's only major military accomplishment, the Minstrel understandably devotes significant attention to the event.

 

   A passage in Rigord's text, apparently inserted into the coronation scene by an interpolator, and a major scene from the Gospel provide most of the material for amplifying William the Breton's three words. The interpolator describes the dream Louis VII had when Philip was born, in which Philip holds in his hand a golden cup, filled with human blood, from which the nobility drink:

     rex Ludovicus, antequam natus esset, talem in  somnis vidit visionem: videbatur ei quod Philippus  filius suus tenebat calicem aureum in manu sua plenum humano sanguine, de quo propinabat omnibus principibus suis, et omnes in eo bibebant(10).

 

This passage may have provoked the Minstrel to recall the Gospels' representation of Christ at the last supper, permitting him to construct a dialogue in which Philip-Augustus and his vassals become divine ikons in the service of the myth of Capetian legitimacy(11).

 

According to the Récits, early on the morning of the battle, Philip appears (pp. 146 -148) in church, fully armed, to celebrate mass. When the mass is over, he invites his men to share soupes with him, in honor of the twelve apostles, advising those with evil in their hearts not to participate:

 

Et tant errerent qu'il vinrent à un poncel qu'on apele le pont à Bovines; et avoit une chapele enqui où li rois se traist pour oïr messe, car il estoit encore matins. Si fist li rois chanteir messe l'evesque de Tournai; et li rois oï messe touz armeiz. Et quant la messe fu dite, si fist li rois aporteir pain et vin; et fist taillier des soupes, et en prist une et la manja; et puis dist à touz ceus qui entour lui estoient: "Je proi à touz mes loiaus amis qui ci sont qu'il manjucent avec moi, en remembrance des douz apostres qui avec Nostre Seigneur Jhesu Christ burent et mangierent; et s'il en i a nul qui pent mauvestié ne tricherie, ne s'i aproche ja."

 

In response to the challenge, his faithful retainers. eagerly and in great numbers, proclaim their loyalty, and eat:

Atant s'avanca mes sires Enjorrans de Couci, et prist la premiere soupe. Et li cuens Gauchiers de Saint Pol grist la seconde, et dist au roi: "Sire, hui ce jour verra on qui vostre traitres sera." Et dist celle parole pour ce qu'il savoit bien que li rois l'avoit en soupeçon par mauvaises laingues. Et li cuens de Sansuere prist la tierce, et tuit li autre baron après; et i of si grant presse que on ne povoit avenir au hanap.

Such a demonstration of loyalty overwhelms Philip, who selflessly and humbly (in no way conforming to the script of the Gospel) offers to give up his crown:

     Et quant li rois vit ce, si en fu mout liez, et  leur dist: "Seigneur, vous iestes tuit mi homme, et je sui vostre sires, queis que je soie; et vous  ai mout ameiz, et portei grant honeur, et donnei dou mien largement; ne ne vous fis onques tort ne desraison, ains vous ai touz jourz menei par droit. Pour Dieu, si vous proi a touz que vous gardez hui mon cors et m'oneur et la vostre. Et se vous veez que la couronne soit mieuz emploïe en un de vous que en moi, je m'i otroi voulentiers, et le vuel de bon cuer et do bonne voulentei.

Weeping, the barons assure him that they want no other ruler, and they ride off to battle with a man in whom all three functions --- warrior, priest, and king – successfully combine(12):

     Quant li baron l'oïrent ainsi parleir, si  commencierent è ploureir de pitié et dirent "Sire, pour Dieu merci, nous ne voulons roi se vous non; et chevauchiez hardiement contre voz  enemis, et nous sounes apareillié de mourir avec  vous." Atant monta li rois sour un destrier fort et seur, et tuit li baron ausi, banniere desploïe,  chascuns en son conroi.

In his prose account of the battle, William the Breton had provided no dramatic scene at this point, waiting until the battle itself to add dramatic qualities, where, significantly, the task of providing sacred resonances for the event are bestowed upon another priest and himself, who stand just a bit behind the king, singing Psalms 142, 67, and 20(13). A cleric himself, William wanted to maintain a distinction among the functions; the minstrel's interests were invested elsewhere(14).

 

Not satisfied merely with having provided a dramatic sacralization of the preparations for the battle of Bouvines, eager to compound the magnitude of the day's royal accomplishments, the Minstrel arranges for King John of England to be defeated by Louis at Roche‑aux‑Moines, on the same day as the battle of Bouvines(15).

    

Philip's other military activities were negligible, and some of his behavior in the field was questionable. To account for Philip's early departure from the Crusade, for example, the Minstrel chooses a conspiratorial scenario, involving an attempt by Richard I, first to poison Philip, then, by suborning count Thibaut V of Blois, count Philip of Flanders, and Henry II of Champagne, to     betray the French king. Thus the panegyric of Philip becomes a function of a dramatic diatribe against three aristocrats. To compose his narrative, the Minstrel combines material he might have found in some chronicles, which report Richard's attempt to poison Philip‑Augustus, with some historically verifiable events, to produce the message that crime against the Capetians does not pay.

 

To accomplish this purpose, the Minstrel fabricates death‑scenes for each of the three conspirators. For Count Philip of Flanders, Dieus, qui n'oublie mie les siens, envoia une maladie au cont Phelipe, dont il mourut (p. 32). The dying man's conscience moves him to confess the plot to king Philip, and to ask that he be dragged by the neck through the streets of Acre as punishment(16). The king does nothing of the sort, but packs up and leaves the Holy Land.

 

When Count Henry II chases the king in a small boat, to ask why he is being abandoned, the king denounces him as a 

traitor, and swears: "ne iamais en Champaiqne n'entrerez, ne vous ne vostre oir." The traitors are thoroughly discouraged by this turn of events, and Thibaut decides to return to France, to ask for the king's merci. On the return journey, during a violent storm at sea, the count, and one quarter of his men try to get to shore in a dinghy lowered from the ship (p. 35). After the dinghy is smashed against the rocks, killing Thibaut and those with him, the storm subsides, and those who remained with the ship sail successfully into the port of Marseilles. Thibaut V, however, died at the siege of Acre, and never had the opportunity to board a vessel to return to France. His shipwreck, however, provides a fiction to suggest that God designed a punishment for those who plotted against Philip‑Augustus.

 

Another conspirator, Henry II of Champagne, was the victim of an accident in 1197; the Minstrel did not contrive the accident, even though the symmetry it helps to concoct seems more appropriate for art than for historical reality. On the other hand, the version of the scene in the Récits, compared to the other surviving representations of the scene, trivializes the figure of the dying Henry. Richard of Hoveden, for example, describes Henry as engaged in a significant military task ‑‑ relieving the siege of Joppa ‑­at the moment of his death. A weak pillar in an upper bedroom is the cause of his mortal fall(17):


Comes autem Henricus Campania, qui per electionem regum Franciae et Angliae, et Templariorum et Hospitalorum, praeerat terrae Jerosolimitanae, exercitum Christianorum paravit ad obsidionem illam solvendam: et dum ipse nixus columnae cujusdam fenestrae in thalamo superiori, loqueretur ad turbas, fracta est columna illa, et ille corruens in terram, fractis cervicibus exspiravit.

 

In the Chronique d'Ernoul et de Bernard le Trésorier, the count is also in the process of relieving the siege of Jaffa; however, he is not engaged in speaking to a crowd at his death. Instead, after ordering his troops to move on to Caiphas, four leagues from Acre, he is in the process of washing his hands before supper(18):  

Dont fist metre les tables pour souper, et demanda de l'eve à laver, et on li aporta. Et il vint en droit une grant fenestre qui estoit en le tour haut où il manoit; si commença à laver ses mains. Si com il lavoit, si se lança par mescheance avant, et ca de le fenestre de dle tour aval, si fu mors. 

The servant who was holding his towel falls after him, but only breaks his leg, perhaps also causing the count's death:

 

Le vallés, qui li tenoit le touelle, se laissa ca/r apriès, pour çou qu'il ne vaut mei c'on

 

 

 

 

 


desist qu'il l'eust bouté. I1 ne fu mie mors, mais il of le quisse brisie. Aucunes gens disent que se cil ne se fust laissiés ca r apriès le conte, il ne fust mie mors (p. 306). 

The scene continues in Ernoul, with a hue and cry in the street, confusing the residents, who finally bring help to carry the count first to church, and then to the cemetery(19).

 

In L'Estoire de Eracles Empereur, Henry is encamped, again on the way to relieve the siege of Jaffa; after discussing provisions with the citizens of Caiphas, he prepares to retire for the evening(20), but is forced to interrupt his preparations by the arrival of the Pisans:

 

Li cuens estoit remes por parler as borgeis et as comunes por avoir aye par mer de genz et de vaisseaus. Quant il of parlè a touz les autres, li Pisan vindrent al anuitier; il estoit apuez a une fenestre ferré; si s'en parti por aler encontre les Pisans.

 

The interruption accounts for the confusion that leads to his death, since, when he returns, he sets himself up at the wrong window:

 

Au retorner s'en repaira en reculant, et cuida retorner a la fenestre dont il estoit partiz; si se oblia et retorna a une autre fenestre, ou il n'avoit point de ferreure; si recula tant que il

 

 

‑ 12

 


cuida trover les barres de fer por soi apuier, si que les talons li faillirent, si chei envers arriere contre val, si se brisa le col. 

 

The Eracles also provides a servant, who differs from Ernoul's servant in two ways: he is a dwarf, and he does not survive the fall: 

 

Un suen nain que il avoit norri, qui moult estoit privez de lui, estoit pres de lui. Quant il s'apercut que li cuenz reversoit, si se lanca por lui tenir, si que il le prist as dras; mais il se fu si lancé avant que il ne se pot tenir, ains chai sur lui et furent andui mort.

 

The Minstrel deprives the falling Henry of an accompanying faithful servant, and of the title of king of Jerusalem(21). Instead, he substitutes a title Henry never held: king of Cyprus. The scene also loses any sense of military and broad historical significance, since the crowds being addressed by Roger's Henry disappear, and Henry, at the moment of his death is engaged not in oratory, but in a commercial transaction whose relevance to relieving the siege of Jaffa has been entirely suppressed:

 

or avint que li rois de Chipre vint en Acre, et vout enprunteir deniers à un bourjois; et le traist d'une part à une fenestre à conseil, qui faisoit huis et fenestre, et ourvroit par dehors et estoit close sans fermeir. Et quant il s'i

 

 

 

‑ 13 ‑

 


apuia li huis ouvri, et li rois chéi et brisa son col (p. 36).

 

Fabricating death-scenes for Philip's enemies seems to have been one of the Minstrel's chief strengths. In some cases, however, distinguishing friends from enemies was a significant problem. Henry of Champagne started out as a supporter of Philip, but, according to Richard of Devizes, transferred his allegiance because Richard-the-Lion-Hearted lent him money on more favorable terms than Philip. Both England and France were filled with trimmers, whose allegiances to friends, relatives, and allies changed rapidly and often. The most prominent examples of this phenomenon were two of Henry II's sons, Richard the Lion‑Hearted, and Henry Courtmantel ("the Young King"), who allied themselves regularly with Philip against their father until the latter died. The Minstrel provides death scenes for Henry Courtmantel and his father which, in a sense, depend upon each other; they also function as part of the diatribe against Henry II, and show the Minstrel's abilities to preserve a certain emotional "truth" while reinventing history.

 

Probably relying upon material supplied by English clerical chroniclers, whose feelings for Becket provoked them to preserve, or to invent negative material about the English king, the Minstrel reduces the antagonism between

 

 

 

 

‑ 14 ‑

 


father and son to a sexual rivalry, entirely eliding the Young King's alliances with Philip. His first rearrangement of facts involves representing Henry Courtmantel as the fiance of Alix of France. According to the minstrel, the Young King was away on business in Scotland when his bride‑to‑be arrived in England, and his father welcomed Alix far too enthusiastically:

 

...et vinrent à Londres, et trouverent le roi Henri qui merveilles fist grant feste de la venue à la pucele. Mais Henriiz ses fiuz au Court Mantel n'estoit mie adonc en Engleterre; ains estoit en Escoe oú il avoit grant besoingne à faire. En ces entrevaus li desloiaus rois Henriz ala tant entour la damoisele que il jut charneument à li (p. 10).

 

When his son hears about the king's activities, he goes directly to bed, and dies immediately of rage:

 

Et quant cil Nenriz au Court Mantel fu revenuz et il sot la veritei de cele avenue, si en fu si durement courrouciez que il en alita au lit de la mort, dont il mourut.

 

Since Alix had been betrothed to Richard, not Henry Courtmantel, the Young King dying of shame when he discovers that his father has exercised droit du seigneur is a blatant fiction. Instead, after marrying another sister of Philip Augustus, Henry Courtmantel died of an illness(22).

 

 

 

 

 

 

‑ 15 ‑

 


For the death of Henry II, the Minstrel arranges a scene in which the old king also dies in a paroxysm of rage, like the son whose fiance he had deflowered; in addition, the responsibility for generating the rage is bestowed on Philip, rather than on the old king's sons. Part of the Minstrel's strategy is to send Henry II on an expedition he never made, to Gerberoi, in the course of which the English king receives a surprise visit by Philip Augustus. In this scene, which has no counterpart in any chronicle, Henry is

lying down when Philip enters:

 

Quant li rois Phelipes le vit, si trait l'espée et li court sus apertement, et le cuide ferir parmi la teste. Et uns chevaliers saut entre deus, et li destourne son coup à faire. Et li rois Henriz saut sus tout esperduz et s'enfuit en une chambre; et fu bien li huis fermeiz (p. 12)

 

Disappointed, Philip leaves, returning to Beauvais, because, il n'avoit pas bon demoureir.

 

 Henry, however, in his fury at Philip, kills himself: 

Quant li rois Henriz sot que ce fu li rois Phelipes qui ocirre le vouloit, si dist: "Fi! or ai he trop vescu quant li garçcons de France, fiuz au mauvais roi, West venuz ocirre." Adonc sali li rois Henriz, et prist un frain; et s'en ala aus chambres courtoises touz desespereiz, et pleins de l'anemi; et si s'estraingla des resnes dou frain (p. 13).

 

 

‑ 16 ‑

 


The Minstrel gives the wrong reason for the rage, although he gets the emotion right, if we are to believe Roger of Hoveden, who portrays Henry at the hour of his death, in spite of the ecclesiastics attempting to mitigate the royal wrath, cursing the day of his birth and cursing his sons:

 

et tactus dolore intrinsecus maledixit diei in qua natus fuit, et maledictionem Dei, et suam, dedit filiis suis, quam nunquam relaxare voluit, licet episcopi et caeteri viri religiosi eum ad relaxationem maledicitonis suae saepius commonuissent. RS 51.2.366.

 

Although he died angry, then, the cause of his death was illness, not the highly unlikely apoplectic rage at Philip's attempt to murder him.

 

Two elements in the Minstrel's version of the deaths of Henry II and his son ‑‑ the charge that Henry II was sexually involved with Alix, and the rage and anger that accompanied the deaths of both the Young King and his father  correspond to what can be found in the chronicles.

 

Roger of Hoveden reports the accusation that Henry II had deflowered Alice, as part of his account of the falling out that took place between Richard and Philip over letters plotting treachery by Philip shown by Tancred to Richard. Philip disowns the letters and demands that Richard marry Alice:

 


"sed credo quod ipse cogitavit haec mala adversum me, ut Alesiam sororem meam dimittat, quam ipse sibi desponsandam juravit; sed pro certo sciat, quod si ille dimiserat eam, et aliam duxerit in uxorem, ero illi et suis inimicus quamdiu vixero."

 

Richard replies that he can not marry her, because his own father not only slept with her, but fathered a son upon her:

 

His auditis rex Angliciae respondit, quod sororem illius sibi in uxorem ducere nulla ratione posset, quia rex Angliae pater suus earn cognoverat, et filium ex ea genuerat, et ad hoc probandum multos produxit testes, qui parati erant modis omnibus hoc probare(23).

 

Richard would have had no compunction about inventing such a story to get out of a marriage he no longer perceived as advantageous; the Minstrel, however, clearly adapted what may have been a rhetorical trick by Richard to his own purposes.

 

The second element with some basis in historical texts is the rage of the dying father, and, to a lesser extent, the rage of the dying son. "Benedict" of Peterborough (1.300‑302) gives a death scene involving a penitent Henry Courtmantel and an intransigeant father, who, mistrusting the report that his son is dying, sends a bishop to find out the truth; when he hears that the report is true, he puts up an excellent show, passing out three times in succession, and uttering horrible groans:

 

‑ 18 ‑

 


...semel et secundo et tertio in extasim cecidit; et cum ululatu magno et horribili fletu planctus funiferos emisit, et plus quam credi potuit modum plangendi excessit.

 

During the subsequent funeral oration, Henry speaks of his son's death as God's vengeance, representing his own position as ambiguous (1.302): 

 

Et ideo potius est de morte illius gaudere, quam dolere. Tamen paternae dilectionis pietas me ab effusione lacrymarum coerci non sinit.

 

Roger of Hoveden, however, provides direct discourse for the penitent son, and speaks in his own voice about the father's grief, making Henry II a more sympathetic character, since the chronicler, not the father, gets to attack the son(24).

 

Gaudent omnes, cuncti laetantur, solus pater langit filium. Quid plangis, gloriose pater? ille tuus non erat filius, qui sic violavit paternos affectus .

 

 

 

Robert of Torigni, the most reticent of the chroniclers of the reign of Henry II, reports the death of Henry Courtmantel with no dramatic details; he retains the motif of the king's anger at the death of his son, but offers as

 


the motivation for his rage not filial impiety, but a mishandling of the details of his burial, resulting in his burial at Le Mans. Henry sees to it that the body is buried at Rouen:

 

Quo audito, pater ejus iratus, non solum pro eo quod corpus filii sui contra voluntatem ejus ibi sepelierant, sed eo multo amplius, quod ab obsidione castri Lemovicensis recesserant sine licentia dejus, ne dicam voluntate, jussit corpus effodi et in ecclesiam Rothomagensem deferri.

 

   Walter Map, however, provides an emotionally more ambiguous death for Henry Courtmantel, reporting his repentance and doubting it at the same time. Map is also the only writer to attribute a rageful death to the king's

eldest son(25):

     quid malleus percussus in Martello penitens

     decessit ut aiunt, sed ad pacem patris nullo

     potuit inflecti monitu, quasi "Si decessero,

     quiescam; si non, impugnabo." Depositam habebat in

     corde guerram, fratremque suum Ricardum, cuius

     intabescat odio, reliquit heredem, et decessit

     iratus; dissimiliter respexit Dominus finem.

 

Since the De Nugis did not circulate widely, the possibility that Map influenced the Minstrel is small(26).

‑ 20

 


The rhetorical reworkings of the deaths of Henry and his son offer indirect support of Philip, but, at one point, another element on the Minstrel's agenda -- his hatred of ecclesiastical authorities -- leads him to support a figure whom the French king had opposed. When he arrived in the Holy Land, Philip‑Augustus supported Conrad, not Guy of Lusignan, who had the support of Richard I, in the complex political transactions that determined who would become king of Jerusalem(27). Clearly, by the second half of the thirteenth century, the fact that Philip had supported Conrad, not Guy, had receded sufficiently to allow other elements in the story to emerge. In this case, the self‑destructive tendencies of the aristocrats would bring a nod of recognition from aristocrats in the Minstrel's audience, and the burghers would also find the material satisfying. Therefore, the Minstrel represents Philip favoring Guy, thereby supporting the holy institution of marriage, and restoring justice overseas as well as at home. In this case, the Minstrel retells the story of Guy and his wife partly to depict, once again, treacherous aristocrats, but also to humiliate an ecclesiastical figure, as a comparison with earlier versions of the scene representing Sybil's solution to her problem demonstrates.

 

In the Minstrel's version of the story, four Western noblemen, convince the patriarch of Jerusalem that Guy should not be king of Jerusalem, claiming that Guy's lineage

 

 

 

‑ 21 ‑

 


is questionable(28). The Minstrel, however, assures his listeners that their motives were entirely selfish:

 

...li marchis de Montferrat, li cuens de Tripe, li sires de Baru et li sires de Saiete, orent grant envie sour le roi Guion; et pourchacierent au patriarche de iherusalem qu'il feroit laisser le roiaume le roi Guion, car il n'estoit mie dignes (ce disoient) d'estre rois. Et ne le faisoient mie en bonne foi, mais pour ce que chascuns vouloit estre rois de iherusalem (p. 15).

 

The patriarch then goes to Sybil and instructs her to divorce Guy:

 

Quant la roine entendi le patriarche, si se merveilla mout et li dist: "Sire, comment avenra ce que je lairai mon seigneur que j'ai loiaument espousei et qui preudons est?"

 

In response to her loyal posture, he replies that otherwise the country will fall into the hands of the Saracens, since the internal disorder that will result will leave the country too weak to fight off Saladin. Her reply is a model of apparent piety:

 

"Par foi," dist la roine, vous avez la cure de m'ame et estes en lieu de l'apostile par deça meir; si m'en loiez tant que je ne mespreingne ne à Dieu ne à mòn seigne?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

‑ 22 ‑

 


The patriarch is pleased, and the barons appoint a time and

a place for the queen to make her new choice. When they meet

in the church of the Holy Cross in Acre, the queen compels

the barons to deliver what will turn out to be a rash boon:

             "Sire patriarche et vous seigneur baron tuit, vous

             avez esgardei que cil en cui chef je meterai la

             couronne que je tieng en ma main soit rois."

They     agree, and the queen goes on to demand an oath:

             "Or vuel je donc que vous tuit le jurez sour le

             cors precieus Nostre Seigneur; et vous, sire

             patriarche, jureiz que ne me contraindrez jamais

             d'autre signeur penre."

Again, they all agree, and the queen proceeds to choose her

own husband, Guy of Lusignan:

             La roine se signa de sa main destre et se commanda  à Dieu, et s'en ala tout droit  où elle vit son  seigneur le roi Guion, et li assist la couronne ou chief, et li dist: "Sire, je no voi ci entour 

            homme plus preudomme et plus loial de vous, ne qui

             mieuz doie estre rois de Jherusalem de vous; et je

             vous otroi et doins la couronne et le roiaume, et

             moi, et m'amour."

Stunned, the barons immediately go off to betray Guy and his

wife      to Saladin. Thus the Minstrel offers a humiliated

ecclesiastic, and a group of treacherous Western aristocrats

to be blamed for the triumph of the pagans. 

‑ 23 ‑

 


   Among the earlier versions of the story, the least

dramatic description of the coronation of Sybil and Guy

occurs in the Chron.icrue d'Ernoul et de Bernard le Trésorier,

where the coronation meets with some resistance, but no one

demands that Sybil divorce Guy. In the course of the

ceremony, the patriarch hands her the crown, directing her

to give it to the man who is able to govern her kingdom:

     Quant la contesse se fu courounée et elle fu

     roine, si vint li patriarces, se li dist: "Dame,

     vous iestes feme, il vous couvient avoir avoé qui

     vo regne gouverne, (qui males soit). Vés là, dist

     il, une couronne, prenés le, et si le donnés à tel

     homme qui vo regne puist gouvrener."(29)

Sybil then calls upon Guy, who comes forward, kneels before

her, and is crowned:

     Ele vint, si apela son signour, qui devant li

     estoit, se li dist: "Sire, venés avant, et si

     recevés ceste couronne, car je ne sai où je le

     puisse miez emploiier que à vows."Cil ala avant,

     et si agenoulla devant li; et elle li mist le

     corone en le tieste. Si fu rois et elle fu roine.

     Ensi furent couronné.

Conrad of Montferrat immediately begins to plot against

them.

 

"Benedict" of Petersborough (RS 49.1, pp. 358‑359) gives the fullest previous version of the story of Guy and

 

 

 

‑ 24

 


Sybil(30). He offers a mock‑divorce, which is apparently a fiction based on Baldwin's efforts to annul his sister's marriage(31) However, it may also represent a recollection and reworking of Conrad's successful machinations in getting the throne of Jerusalem at Sybil's death, by marrying her sister Isabel, who was at the time married to another man, whom, according to L'Estoire de Eracles Empereur (pp. 151‑154), she loved(32). According to Benedict, whole groups, representing every segment of Western society, urged Sibyl to divorce Guy: 

 

Templarii et Hospitalares, et comites, et barones, et clerus et populus elegerunt comitissam de Japhes in reginam, sororem scilicet pradicti Mauri, sub tali conditione, quod ipsa pateretur divortium fieri inter ipsam et Gwidonem maritum

 

Their objection, about which Benedict passes no judgement, is to his lineage:

...dicebant quod non decebat illam, quae fuerat filia regis Baldewini, aliquem habere maritum nisi qui de nobilissima regum prosapia natus fuisset. 

Benedict now gives Sybil's reasoning, which shows her political sense of the situation, and particularly her distrust of "the people", a response to be expected from a clerical chronicler, and not from the Minstrel:

 

 

 

 

 

 

‑ 25 ‑

 


His auditis, praedicta comitissa videns se non aliter ad regni fastigia pervenire, quam petitioni plebis consentire. 

Where the Minstrel's Sybil waits until the coronation‑scene to extort the rash boon, Benedict's Sybil extorts the rash boon immediately:

...respondit se praebere eis consensum, et pati divortium fieri inter se et maritum suum, tali conditione, quod liceret ei eligere quemcunque vellet in maritum. His itaque hinc inde concessis, et fide et sacramento confirmatis... (p. 358) 

The coronation takes place in Templum, where she is crowned by the patriarch Heraclius. The speech in which she chooses her own husband again is more specific, and more elaborately pious than the one composed by the Minstrel. She names him, praises him, and quotes from Mathew xix.6 to support her action:

...praedicta regina, invocata Spiritus Sancti gratia, alta voce clamavit, dicens: "Ego Sibylla eligo mihi in regem et maritum meum Gwidonem de Lezinam, qui maritus meus fuit. Scio enim eum virum probum et omni morum honestate praeditum, et per auxilium Dei populum Suum bene recturum. Scio enim quod eo vivente alium secundum Deum habere non possum, cum dicat Scriptura, 'Quos Deus conjungit, homo non separat. ""

 

 

 

 

‑ 26 ‑

 


Her choice is ratified by everyone present, and the betrayal begins one paragraph later, though not by the conspirators named by the Minstrel.

 

The Minstrel's version, then, offers another set of treacherous Western aristocrats, as well as a humiliated cleric. Elsewhere in the Récits, however, ecclesiastics are given even worse treatment(33). The cleric who receives the worst treatment is, significantly, a delegate of the Pope, in an incident based on no surviving text, in which the Milanese kill a cardinal(34), in an incident that eventually leads to a battle between Frederick II and the Pope over distributing the spoils of the fictional siege of Milan. In keeping with the Minstrel's anti‑clerical position, the emperor emerges with a less tarnished image than the Pope, since he keeps his word, and Christ's apostle does not(35). In addition, the incident is part of a pattern that insists that those who abuse the rights of the bourgeois are punished in some way.

 

The entire Milanese transaction is a satiric fiction, whose purpose is, again, to portray ecclesiastical authorities as arrogant, greedy, and stupid. The kernel of historical truth in the incident is the discord between the Pope and the Emperor. However, no extensive analysis is necessary to imagine how an audience familiar with ecclesiastical abuses might have vicariously enjoyed the

 


violent treatment accorded the obstinate cardinal sent from Rome to deal with the Milanese (p. 116). After he has refused to absolve them unless they capitulate entirely to the will of the Pope, the cardinal sets off for Rome, but is intercepted by a group of angry citizens: 

 

Et eslurent entr'eus cent hommes qui i iroient et s'en alerent hastivement après le chardenal, et l'ateindrent un liue en sus de la vile, et l'arresterent, et li dirent: "Par Dieu, dans chardenaus, revenir vous en couvient arriere en la vile; et nous rassourez, vueilliez ou non." 

 

Obdurate and abusive, the cardinal refuses to return, threatening to level Milan:

 

Quant li chardenaus les of ainsi parleir, si leur dist: "Certes, vilenaille puanz, je ne retournerai pas; ainsois vous ferai touz essillier, et ferai Mielent toute araseir, en teil maniere qu'il n'i demourra pierre sour autre." 

One of the Milanese now becomes so enraged that the seizes the reins of the cardinal's horse, and is killed by a member of the cardinal's entourage: 

 

Atant ez vous un musart qui le prist par le frain, et le vout tourneir arriere; et li chardenaus escrie sa mesnie: "Ore aus vilains!" Et li uns

 

 

 

 

‑ 28

 


des varlez trait l'espeé, et fiert celui qui tenoit le chardenal, et l'abat mort à ses piez. 

 

Furious in turn, the Milanese surround the cardinal, and are about to bring him back to Milan, when a butcher steps forward to kill the cardinal with an axe:

 

Li chardenaus s'en fust voulentiers fuiz, mais il ne pot; car il fu tout maintenant environneiz de toutes parz. Et l'eussent pris et fust ameneiz à Mielent, quant uns macecriers saut avant, et le fiert d'une hache et l'ocit.

 

The Milanese then seize the member of the cardinal's retinue who killed their fellow citizen, tie him to the tail of his horse, and drag him back to Milan, where they led him through the streets of the city. By fabricating this incident, then, the Minstrel provides his audience with a satisfying fantasy permitting them vicariously to enjoy killing a cardinal. He then proceeds to provide them with a scene in which a group of Milanese burgers show appropriate anxiety about the consequences of the day's events.

 

Another example of the way in which the Minstrel bestows historical significance on members of the middle class, thereby supporting Jacques Le Goff's assertion that a shift in social perspective among historians occurred between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries(36), occurs late in the Récits. The empress Marie(37) lost Namur (pp. 227ff.), as

 

 

 

‑ 29 ‑

 


De Wailly points out, when her subjects resisted her taxes. In the Récits, however, her difficulties are part of a sequence of events that begins with depredations committed in taverns by disorderly youth.

 

According to the Minstrel, when the sons of the burghers of Namur began to behave badly (1234‑45?), the empress ordered them to see to it that their son's behavior improved. Their efforts are unavailing, and the situation gets worse; to represent the deterioration, the Minstrel describes violence and class arrogance in the taverns of Namur:

...li bourjois...commanderent à leur enfanz qu'il chastiassent et si laissassent leur folies: il n'en firent nient, ainsois furent pieur que il n'avoient avent estei. Or vous dirons qu'il faisoient. I1 aloient en la taverne, il dis ou il douze; si despendoient vint sous ou trente, ou plus ou meinz, et mandoient à un preudomme de petit parage de la vile, auques riche, qu'il paiast leur despens. Aucun i en avoit qui les paioit par paour, et aucun qui ne les vouloit paier: si le batoient, et faisoient vilonnie(38), et toloient le sien à force. (pp. 227‑228) 

 

When the empress sends her baillif(39), an aristocrat, to restore order, he is killed, and she laments: Voirement sui je sans amis et en estranges contrèes

 

The next day she

 

 

‑ 30

 


calls the people of Namur into her presence, demanding that they turn over the murderers of her baillif, and offer compensation. They refuse compensation, and the empress oppresses them, hanging several of the citizens. A delegation of citizens goes to the king of France, and the Minstrel composes a scene in which he continues his praise of Capetians, while attacking aristocrats who show no concern for burghers. When the delegation of citizens asks for help, an aristocrat named Pierre de Fontaine (unidentified otherwise) offers an arrogant, sarcastic solution:

 

"Certes," dist Pierres de Fontainnes, "je vous dirai queil conseil vous en devez avoir. Vous en irez arriere, et penra chascuns bourjois de Namur une hart en son col; et irez tuit devant l'empereriz, et direz ‑‑ Dame, veez ci voz mourdreurs; faites en ce qu'il vous siet." 

Seeing the response of the citizens, the king offers some mitigating remarks, but they quickly depart: 

Quant li bourjois oïrent ce, si furent tuit esmaié; et li rois les regarda, si les vit touz mueir; si dist: "Mes sires Pierres, vous ne parleiz mie par conseil: li bourjois s'en iront et s'acorderont à leur dame; si feront que sage." "Sire, vous dites bien," dient le bourjois, qui ne desirroient que l'aleir (p. 230).

 31 ‑

 


Eventually, after an extended siege of the town, the Empress loses Namur, and Henry of Luxembourg takes over. As the Minstrel represents the transaction, then, the empress loses Namur because she is a foreigner, because she does not know how to deal with the citizens of the town, and because aristocrats generally are not responsive to the needs of other classes(40).

 

Control of Belgium was also the issue in an earlier incident, in which treacherous aristocrats again are responsible for political disorder. The Minstrel identifies the traitors only as aucun grant seianeur de Flandres, who, acting out of envie envers la contesse Jehanne de Flandres (p. 164), arrange for a masquerade. They find a hermit in the forest of Mormail, and convince him to impersonate Baldwin, the first Latin Emperor of Constantinople(41). In surviving versions of the story, the hermit is initially successful; his dramatic anagnoresis occurs in a scene in which Louis VIII attempts to determine whether the man is Baldwin or an impostor. In the rimed chronicle composed by Philip Mouskes in the first half of the thirteenth century, the impostor fails to answer any of the three questions the king poses: where did he marry his wife; where did king Philip make him a knight; and where he did do homage to the king(42):

 

           se le demanda

U c'iert que sa femme espousa,

 

 

‑ 32

 


Et il ne l'en sot dire voir. Puis li demanda, par savoir, U li rois Felipes fait l'ot Cevalier, et dire n'el sot. Et puis li demanda, sans plait, U il li of homage fait; De ces III riens ne sot‑il une... 

 

The Minstrel, however, unconcerned with feudal ceremonies, selects only the first question, with which the bishop of Senlis stumps the false Baldwin:

 

 "Nous vous demandons," dist freres Garins li evesques de Senlis, à quel vile vous espousates vostre famme?" Quant il oï ce demandeir, si pensa; car de ce n'avoit il mie estei estruiz. Si ne sot respondre; si dist qu'il vouloit aleir dormir(43) (p. 168). 

 

The false Baldwin is eventually exposed, escapes, is captured again, and killed. Thus the plot by the treacherous aristocrats is foiled.

 

An unusual element in the story is the positive role played by Garin; ecclesiastics do not fare well in the Récits. In addition to his constant attack on the Pope and the Curia, the Minstrel represents Archbishop William of Joinville as trying to evade paying the expenses of Louis' coronation. One might also speculate that when the Minstrel tells how (pp. 237‑239) Eudes Rigaud, archbishop of Rouen,

 


consoled Louis IX for the death of his son by telling a story about a peasant and a titmouse, de Wailly's remark ‑­"ce qui choque meme la vraisemblance" ‑‑ p. lxvii) may have been precisely the response the Minstrel intended to provoke. In this case he sets aside his diatribe against clerical greed to concentrate on clerical stupidity.

 

The very last incident recorded in the Récits, which has no formal conclusion, offers yet another tale of ecclesiastical corruption, in which the archbishop of Beaumetz, who pillaged his curacy at Rheims ("but even a donkey can carry only so much"), is corrupted even further by his journey to Rome.

 

However, the Minstrel's angry towards the clergy is most elaborately expressed towards his bête noire, Milo of Beauvais(44).

 

The official historians do not make Milo a central figure in the history of 13th‑century France. The major dramatic event involving Milo recorded by William the Breton was his capture by the Saracens at the siege of Damietta in 1219(45). When William of Nangis rewrites the event, however, he moralizes the incident, so that the capture is punishment earned by Western arrogance(46): 

 

In festo vero Decollationis sancti Johannis Baptisae contra soldanum ad pugnandum superbe et inordinate prodeuntes, cum in fortitudine sua, non

 

 

 

‑ 34 ‑


in Domino, confiderent, cadunt et pereunt multi, non tamen sine damno militia paganorum. Captae fuerunt de nostris viii nobiles Milo de Nantolio electus belvacensis, etc.

 

On the feast of the beheading of Saint John the Baptist, they set out in their inordinate pride to fight against the sultan, putting their trust not in God, but in their own strength, and they did some damage to the pagans. A number of our noblility were captured, including Milo of Beauvais... (Géraud 1.161) The anonymous author of the Gesta Obsidionis Damiatae perceives a dark irony in the fact that the capture took place on Saint John the Baptist's day(47), suggesting that John wanted headless company, including Milo: 

 

Sed Sanctus Iohannes voluit habere multos socios, quia, sicut ille fuit decapitatus propter Deum, ita decapitate sunt sine numero de Christianis, de templariis 1 milites, de Alamannis xxx, de hospitalariis xxii, et camerarius regis Francie et filius eius, episcopus de Belvaio et frater eius, etc(48).

 

Milo, however, did not die at Damietta, but much later, on the way to Rome; the report of his death offered by William of Nangis indicates that the Minstrel and his fellow

 

 

 

 

‑ 35 ‑


Remigians were not alone in their antipathy towards the bishop, who died in the midst of a struggle with the people of Beauvais: 

 

Apud Belvacum facta est dissensio inter burgenses, minoribus insurgentibus contra majores, unde plures ex majoribus occisi sunt, plurimi vero de minoribus capti per diversa regni Franciae loca carceri mancipati sunt. Et quia Ludovicus rex , tanquam superior, manum ultricem apposuerat tamquam superior, Milo, ejusdem civitatis episcopus (et comes), episcopatum supposuit interdicto. Sed dum Romam pro hac re contra regem proficisceretur, in itinere obiit... (Géraud 11.185)

 

These passages amount to all of the surviving written material upon which the Minstrel might have drawn to compose a narrative diatribe against Milo.

 

His first appearance in the Récits occurs in a list of those captured at Damietta (p. 82), in a passage that is merely descriptive, like that of William of Breton. However, a few pages later the Minstrel comments on the capture in language that matches Guillaume's judgemental remarks; in addition, unlike the other chroniclers, the Minstrel concentrates his attention on Milo particularly:

 

‑ 36 ‑


Et en la veritei il estoient pris par leur orgueil, et par orgueil l'esleu de Biauvais, qui plus ot d'orgueil en li que n'ot Nabugodonosr, qui trop en ot. 

When the prisoners are released, they return to France, with Milo as their leader: li esleuz Miles de Biauvais, crui estoit chiés d'eus touz (p. 93), a position he occupies in none of the other texts. On the way to France, they stop at Rome, where Milo is ordained, at least seven years earlier than the records show, as DeWailly indicates (p. liv). At this point the Minstrel offers a somewhat leisurely description and symbolic explanation of the ceremonial garments donned by the elector of Beauvais (pp. 93‑95), establishing a context against which his later actions, which regularly fall short of the ideals ritually described, may be judged.

 

When Milo returns to France, he engages in controversy with cardinal Romanus, and with the queen. To get even with both of them, he spreads the rumor that the queen has become pregnant by cardinal Romanus. She does not protest immediately, but waits patiently until the citizens of Beauvais complain that Milo has unjustly excommunicated them. When she summons the bishop to court, he refuses to come, taking the position that the state has no authority or jurisdiction over the church. To defeat his position, the queen calls the barons and clergy to Saint Quentin (DeWailly

 

 

‑ 37 ‑


points out that this meeting was called in 1233 to deal with resistance to royal, not to ecclesiastical authority), which Milo attends; in a scene to which the Minstrel devotes careful attention to aural and visual detail, she proceeds to perform a strategic strip‑tease:

...elle se despouilla en pure chemise, et s'afubla d'un mantel, et issi de sa chambre ainsi. Et s'en vint en la sale où li prince et li prelat estoient, et fist faire pais par les huissiersl et quant la noise fu abaisie, elle monta sour une table dormant à deux piez, et dist, oiant l'evesque de Biauvais qui estoit presenz: "Seigneur, esfardeiz moi tuit; aucuns dit que je sui enceinte d'enfant." Et lait cheoir son mantel sour la table, et se tourne devant et derriere tant que twit l'orent veue; et bien paroit qu'elle n'avoit enfant en ventre (p. 98) 

 

Embarassed at their queen's nudity, the nobles leap up, cover her with her cloak, and bring her back to her room to be dressed. The stratagem enables the queen simultaneously to clear herself of the slanderous charges made by Milo, and to assert secular over ecclesiastical authority. As the Patriarch of Jerusalem was humiliated by Sybil, so Milo is publically, and far more theatrically, humiliated by the queen. In addition, unlike Pierre Fontaine and the empress Marie, she shows herself responsive to the claims of the bourgeois in the face of ecclesiastical arrogance. ‑ 38 ‑

 


   However, the Minstrel is not through with Milo, who now

sets off for Rome. On the way, he meets the bishop of Turin

literally working in a vineyard. The two bishops agree to

pray for each other, but when the bishop of Turin sees the

eighteen pack horses in Milo's retinue, he runs after the

bishop of Beauvais to release him from his offer:

     Sire, vous m'aviez en couvent que vous prieriez

     pour moi; biaus chiers sire, je vous en relais."

     "Dieu merci," dist li evesques de Biauvais, quel

     entencion i entendez vous?" "En no Dieu, sire,

     dist li evesques de Torins, je le vous dirai. I1

     me semble que vous soiez trop embesoingniez, et

     avez tant à faire de vos besoingnes que vous ne

     porriez entendre à la moie" (pp. 101‑102).

Clearly, only a poor cleric can be virtuous.

 

   One paragraph later, Milo dies in Assisi, with enough

pain to delight the Minstrel's audience, and more than they

could find in any other text:

      LA li prist une granz maladie diverse; qu'uns

      apostumes li leva enmi l'eschine par dedenz le

      cors; et tant li crut que il li fendi l'eschine

      dès le crepon jusqu'aus espaules; et ouvri comme

      se il fust baconneiz (p. 102).

 

 

‑ 39 ‑

 


 

In the process, then, of composing a satiric historical text, the Minstrel praises Capetians, attacks their enemies, both secular and ecclesiastic, and writes a larger part for the bourgeoisie. The portrait of thirteenth‑century Europe that emerges is like a cartoon version of Dante's Inferno: aristocrats are arrogant and self‑destructive; the clergy are arrogant and greedy; the bourgeoisie share the same

tendencies, but are less dangerous because still less powerful than the other two groups.

40 ‑


(1) See Herbert Grundmann, Geschichtsschreibunq im Mittelalters, Göttingen, 1965; Bernard Guenée, Histoire et culture historique dans l'occident médiéval, Paris, 1980; R.G. Collingwood, The Idea of History, Oxford, 1946; John 0. Ward, "Some Principles of Rhetorical Historiography in the Twelfth Century," in Classical Rhetoric and Medieval Historiography, ed. Ernst Breisach, Kalamazoo, 1985, pp. 103‑165.

‑ 41


(2) The lack of a prologue is not the only problem. De Wailly's edition is based on his examination of six manuscripts; K. Nyrop found a seventh; William P. Shepard published an article announcing his discovery of an eighth, but by the time he had finished writing the article he discovered a ninth and tenth. The edition that he promised, based on the ten manuscripts, never appeared. For the latest description of the problems, with a correction of some earlier errors, see Donald M. Tappan, "The MSS of the Récits d'un menestrel de Reims," Symposium 25 (1971), pp. 70‑78. William P. Shepard, "A New Manuscript of the Récits d'un Menéstral de Reims," PMLA XLIII (1928), pp. 895‑930 is still useful for specific details. The most thorough consideration of the problems, for all its shortcomings, is still Natalis de Wailly, "Notice sur six manuscripts contenant l'ouvrage anonyme publié en 1837 par M. Louis Paris, sous le titre de Chronicrue de Rains," Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothècxue Nationale, XXIV, 2e partie (1876), 289‑340. The major difference between the two families of manuscripts involves differing attitudes towards the two sets of children produced by Marguerite of Flanders, most clearly signaled by the absence or presence of the story of the wolf and the goat. Other differences involve the portrayal of Richard Coeur‑de‑Lion, and William of Holland (see Tappan, p. 74).

 

 

‑ 42 ‑

 


(3) See the introduction to Les récits d'un menéstrel de Reims au treizième siècle, ed. Natalis de Wailly; Paris, 1876, pp. i‑xxxix. Although de Wailly (xxxix) offered his work as a basis for literary criticism, only a few vaguely appreciative remarks have resulted thus far.

(4) Major work in this area has been done by Réné Louis, in La Chanson de ea ste et le mythe carolingien: Saint‑Père Vézelay, 1982, 2 vols; in De l'histoire à la légende , Girart Comte de Vienne dans les chansons de eq ste, Auxerre, 1947, 2 vols; and in L'épopée francais, Zaragossa, 1956. For some usefully suggestive remarks about some of the ways in which chronicle and romance feed upon each other, see also Peter Dembowski, "Chivalry, Ideal and Real, in the Narrative Poetry of Jean Froissart," Medievalia et Humanistica, n.s. 14 (1986), pp. 1‑15.

(5) Oddly enough, however, except for a brief anecdote about Eleanor of Aquitaine, the Minstrel refrains from offering any of the mysogynistic routines that almost inevitably formed part of the repertoire of medieval historians with satirical impulses. In fact, several of the women in the Récits behave in an examplary fashion.

(6) In section XIV (pp. 55‑62), for example, the Minstrel provides Philip Augustus with a successful siege of Gisors, which was clearly unnecessary, since the French king had occupied it the year before.

 

 

 

 

‑ 43 ‑

 


(7) His first wife, Isabella of Hainault, mother of Louis viii, died at 19, ten years after marrying Philip. His second marriage, in 1193, was to Ingeborg of Denmark, to whom he seems to have taken an immediate physical dislike, generating 20 years of controversy. When he married Agnes of Meran, in June 1196, the Pope complained strenuously. During complicated negotiations and repudiations, Agnes died in 1200, but the king seems not to have brought about a complete reconciliation with Ingeborg until, preparing to invade England as the Pope's champion, he took her back in 1213. Agnes' 2 children were legitimated by the Pope.

(8) H. Francois Delaborde, Oeuvres de Riqord et de Guillaume le Breton, Paris, 1882, vol. 1, p. 141. John W. Baldwin ( The Government of Philip Augustus, Berkeley, 1986, pp. 379‑380) points out that Rigord, in the second version of his Gesta, no longer applied the epithet rex christianissimus to Philip, and William the Breton substituted magnanimus for christianissimus, even in the extravagantly encomiastic Philippidos.

(9) Delaborde, I, p. 270.

 

(10)

 

Delaborde 1.8.

(11) See George Duby, Le dimanche de Bouvines, Paris, 1973, pp. 206‑213.

 

 

 

 

 

 

‑ 44 ‑

 


(12) For a discussion of the three functions, based on Dumézil's work, see George Duby, The Three Orders: Feudal Society Imagined Chicago, 1980 (original, Paris, 1978). For another "sop"‑scene, closer to the Biblical script because it includes a treacherous betrayal, see Liudprand of Cremona, Antapodosis, ed. by Joseph Becker, Die Werke Liudprands yon Cremona, Hanover, 1915, p. 69.

(13) Delaborde I. 273‑274.

‑ 45 ‑

 


(14) In his poetic version of the battle, however, William provides an appropriately pious Philip before the battle of Bouvines, who, however, engages in no Christ‑like dialogue with his noble retainers. Instead, he deals with the problem of fighting on Sunday, thanking God for delivering him from his enemies, and emphasizing that God is performing these acts, through the French, his ministering blades and hammers Ecce ad nos ultro Domini miseratio ducit, Frangat ut ipse suos per nos simul et semel hostes, Mortibus ille suis nostro mucrone secabit Membra, sibi faciet nos instruments secandi; Ille idem percussor erit, nos malleus ille Totius actor erit belli, nos vero ministri. (Delaborde 1.273 This distinction resembles the posture adopted a century earlier by Guibert of Nogent, when he renamed the story of the First Crusade Gesta Dei per Francos, to emphasize the fact that the Crusaders were agents of God, to whom the credit for any victories belonged (Histoire des Croisades: Historiens Occidentaux IV, p. 121). (15) The battle of Bouvines took place on 27 July, while Philip's son Louis won the battle of Roche‑aux‑Moines on 2 July.

46 ‑

 


(16) Although the Minstrel provides no motivation for the count of Flanders' betrayal of Philip‑Augustus, his loss of Vermandois (for which he received some recompense) to the boy‑king back in 1184 might have been sufficient to establish at least the rumor of an enmity between them.

(17) Chronica magistri Roqeri Hovedene, ed. William Stubbs, London, 1871 (RS 51.4), p. 26.

(18) ed. M.L. De Mas Latrie, Paris, 1871, pp. 306‑307.

(19) For a comparison of variant versions of the story, see M.R. Morgan, The Chronicle of Ernoul and the Continuations of William of Tyre, Oxford, 1973, pp. 86‑88.

(20) Recueil des Historiens des Croisades, Historiens Occidentaux II Paris, 1859, pp.. 219‑220. For a discussion of the complex relationships among the various continuations of William of Tyre, see Morgan, passim.

(21) A title he had earned by becoming one of a series of husbands of Isabel, the sister of Sybil, Guy's wife.

(22) For a discussion of some of the ways in which the story of the Young King circulated throughout Europe, see 0. Moore, "The young King, Henry Plantagenet," Romanic Review 4 (1913), 1‑26; 5 (1914), 45‑54. For the argument that Henry's extravagance caused his estrangement from his father, see Antonia Gransden, Historical Writing in Enqland, Cornell, 1973, I,

 

 

‑ 47 ‑

 


351‑352.

(23)  RS 51.3.99. Benedict of Peterborough also offers the scene (11.160), as does Gerald of Wales (VIII.232).

(24)  RS 51.11.279.

(25)  Walter Map, De Nuqis Curialium, ed. and transl. by M.R. James, revised by C.N.L. Brooke and R.A.B. Mynors, Oxford, 1983, p. 282.

(26)  Perhaps one should consider as well the posibility that Bertrand de Born's poems, the sirventes and the planh particularly, helped to produce a wrathful image for him. However, as Moore points out (47‑49), the Provencal poets had some difficulty in distinguishing Henry from his brothers Geoffrey and Richard.

(27)  See Baldwin, p. 79.

‑ 48 ‑

 


(28) Even William of Tyre, who thought that Guy was one of the on filii Belial (PL 201.856 Book 22, chapter 9), or, in the reading preferred by R.B.C. Huygens, viri Belial, Corpus Christianorum LXIIIA, Turnholt, 1986, vol. 2, p. 1019, described him as satis nobili (PL 201.847). Modern assessment of Guy is very close to the judgement made in the thirteenth‑century by Ambroise, who thought that Guy, crui tanz cops eut sor le hiaume, was certainly brave, but that he lacked one essential quality: Car nus refs n'iert mielz entechiez, Fors d'une teche qu'il aveit, Cele que nul mal ne saveit, Cele que l'em claime simplesce. (L'Estoire de la Guerre Sainte, ed. Gaston Paris, Paris, 1897, 11. 9106, 9112‑15).

(29)

 

ed. M.L. De Mas Latrie, Paris, 1871, p. 134.

(30) Roger of Hoveden (RS 51.2, pp. 315‑316) abbreviates Benedict's version.

(31) Suggested by Jonathan Riley‑Smith, The Feudal Nobility and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1174‑1277, Hamden, London, 1973, p. 278, n. 24.

49 ‑

 


(32) For a reliable assessment of the political situation in which Guy and Isabel found themselves, see Riley‑Smith, pp. 105 ff. For an attempt to sift out elements in the story of the mock‑divorce see Robert Lawrence Nicholson, Joscelyn III and the Fall of the Crusader States, Leiden, 1973, pp. 139‑140, n. 306.

(33) Perhaps a reflection of a condition Henri Pirenne ascribed to the Low Countries, which might be extended, mutatis mutandis, to north‑eastern France: "In the Low Countries the lay princes were on the whole more sympathetic towards the towns than the ecclesiastical princes" (Early Democracies in the Low Countries, New York, 1963, p. 28).

(34) The incident may have been suggested by the death, 6 April 1252, of Peter of Verona, who, while crossing the Seveso, was ambushed and hacked to death by the axes of Milanese heretics (See Gino Franceschini, in Storia de Milano, ed. Giovanni Treccani, Milan, 1954, pp. 281‑284).

(35) For a list of imperial abuses, however, see p. 97 of the Récits.

(36) Pour un autre moyen age, Paris, 1977, pp. 162‑180.

(37) Daughter of Jean de Brienne, wife of Baldwin of Courtenay, emperor of Constantinople (the Minstrel does not use her given name, referring to her only as "the empress").

 

 

 

 

‑ 50 ‑

 


(38) In one manuscript, the vilonnie includes rape, imagined in a step‑by‑step narrative: Et quant Hues ou Wautiers avoit une bele fille, li doi ou li troi le gaitoient tant que ele aloit ou marchiet ou en sa besogne; et dont disoient: "Happe, Diex le me doinst!" Et puis l'emmenoient en un destour, et en faisoient for volontés. Et le tenoient tant comme il for plaisoit, et puis le ramenoient à la maison for peres ou for meres; et so on ne les reprendroit, on estoit battu; et faisoient avoir en couvent as peres et as freres que pour chou pis ne for feroient. Et tex enfances faisoient li boin enfant de Namur, nam! nam! (p. 228, n. 11).

(39) A dangerous job, judging by the statute instituted in 1247 by the town of Douai, establishing a fine of fifty pounds and a year's exile for any citizens or sons of citizens who interfered with bailiffs in the‑course of dealing with foreigners ( Recueil d'Acts des XIIe et XIIIe siècles an langue romane wallone, ed. M. Taillar, Douai, 1849.

(40) Henry of Luxembourg did not hold Namur long; by 1265 other arrangements had been made, excluding both Henry and the Empress.

 

 

 

 

 

 

‑ 51 ‑

 


(41) For the fullest modern treatment of the subject, see Robert Lee Wolf, "Baldwin of Flanders and Hainaut, First Latin Emperor of Constantinople: His Life, Death, and Resurrection, 1172‑1225," Speculum 27 (1952), pp. 294‑301, and his footnotes 122ff. Pirenne (pp. 130‑131) sees the impostor as a catalyst for potential social revolt, an aspect to which the Minstrel devotes little attention.

(42) Chronicrue Rimée de Philippe de Mouskes, edited by Baron Frédéric A.F.T. de Reiffenberg, Brussels, 1836, vol. 2, 11. 24961 ff. Philippe de Mouskes devotes 861 lines of his text to the story of the false Baldwin.

(43) In the Gesta Ludovici octavi Franciae re is (RHG XVII, pp. 307‑309) Louis VIII merely asks the imposter de multis rebus inguireretur; the impostor becomes indignant, and Louis orders him out of the kingdom. In the Chronique latine de Guillaume de Nangis, I. pp. 173‑174, Louis asks where the imposter first paid homage to Louis' father, Philip‑Augustus, and where he was made a knight.

(44) De Wailly speculates that the attack on Milo may be the result of the ill‑will he generated when he took over Rheims during the absence of archbishop Alberic Humbert.

(45) William wrongly reports the date as 1218 (Delaborde 1.317).

 

 

 

 

‑ 52 ‑

 


(46) On the day before this disaster, according to Thomas of

     Celaeno, Frances of Assisi had predicted that the

     Christians would be defeated; see James M. Powell,

     Anatomy of a Crusade, Philadelphia, 1986, p. 158.

(47) The Minstrel likes the irony so much that he transfers

     the battle of Tiberiade (p. 21) during the Third

     Crusade (in 1187) to 11 July, to add profanation to the

     crimes of which certain aristocrats are capable.

(48)

Reinhold Röhricht, uinti Belli Sacri Scriptores Minores,

Osnabrück, 1968 (reprint of 1879 edition), p. 102. For the

one text that attributes any positive accomplishments to the

bishop of Beauvais, see Testimonia Minora de uinto Bello

Sacro, ed. Reinhold Röhricht, Paris, 1882 (reprinted 1968,

Osnabrück), p. 172, where Caesar of Heisterbach testifies

that after Milo was captured at Damietta, he baptized a

pagan boy, thereby effecting a miraculous cure.

‑ 53 ‑