"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): |
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):
The servant who was holding his towel
falls after him, but only breaks his leg, perhaps also causing the count's
death:
|
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
‑
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:
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:
‑ 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:
When his son hears about the king's
activities, he goes directly to bed, and dies immediately of rage:
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 là bon
demoureir.
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: |
Richard replies that he can not marry
her, because his own father not only slept with her, but fathered a son upon
her:
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):
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:
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:
The patriarch then goes to Sybil and
instructs her to divorce Guy:
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:
‑ 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:
Their objection, about which Benedict
passes no judgement, is to his lineage:
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:
Obdurate and abusive,
the cardinal refuses to return, threatening to level Milan:
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:
‑
28 ‑ |
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:
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:
Seeing the response of the citizens, the king offers some mitigating remarks, but they quickly depart:
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 ‑ |
The Minstrel, however, unconcerned with feudal ceremonies, selects only the first question, with which the bishop of Senlis stumps the false Baldwin:
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:
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 ‑ |